Thom Tillis

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Thursday, July 7; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of the House message to accompany S. 764; finally, that all time during morning business, recess, or adjournment of the Senate count postcloture on the motion to concur.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 540, S. Res. 504.

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 535, S. Con. Res. 38.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2016, at 10:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``NATO: Reviewing the Agenda and Assessing the Potential Outcomes of the Warsaw Summit.''

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2016, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Bank Capital and Liquidity Regulation Part II: Industry Perspectives.''

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2016, at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2016, at 11 a.m., in room SD-562 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Right Care at the Right Time: Ensuring Person-Centered Care for Individuals with Serious Illness.''

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2016, at 10 a.m.

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2016, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Customer Service and Billing Practices in the Cable and Satellite Television Industry.''

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2016, at 10 a.m., in room SR-428A of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Beyond the Bench: Ramifications of the Supreme Court Kingdomware Decision.''

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, before I get started on what I really want to talk about today, which is the real threat facing our Nation, I want to reflect for a few moments on the antics and the theater that are going on in the House of Representatives. The Presiding Officer and I were both Speakers of the House in his great State of Florida and my great State of North Carolina. I don't know about you, but the business of the House is more important than the antics that we see going on there. If it were my Chamber, it would be cleared, and people would be arrested if that is what is necessary to get us back to the task at hand. We have a number of things to work on, including economic security, national security, homeland security. And why people would use the pulpit of the House floor--the House Chamber--to advance their political agenda, to advance their fundraising--go to the political Web sites and see how many of them have sent out an email in the past couple of days and in the past week exploiting a tragic situation in Orlando for their political purposes. I think it is disgusting, and I am disappointed. I think what we need to do is recognize--and I should say before I get started--that there are issues with handguns going into the hands of people who are mentally ill. There is no doubt about it. We should have a discussion to figure out how to fix that. Let's continue to have a debate about how we keep guns out of the hands of terrorists, out of the hands of felons, out of the hands of people with mental illness, and recognize that the real threat to this Nation is terror and terrorism. Make no mistake, in Orlando on June 12, that was an act of terror. The perpetrator was either self-radicalized or maybe even radicalized through some contact with terrorist organizations, but it is a death call that wants to destroy our way of life. It is actually a death call that particularly focuses on the LGBT community. They are murdering thousands of people in the Middle East, many of them simply because they are gay. So we have to recognize--and make no mistake, while this attack occurred in Orlando, it could happen anywhere in the United States. Why is that so? The distinguished Senator from Delaware talked about progress we are making with ISIS. He said we are having fewer foreign fighters. Do we know why? Because ISIS has figured out how to radicalize people in the Nation where they live. We have seen it in San Bernardino, in Orlando, and at Fort Hood. How long do we have to take before we recognize the fundamental threat to this Nation is terror and ISIS spreading its tentacles into our own homeland? The distinguished Senator from Delaware is a good friend of mine, and we have worked together on legislation. For those in the gallery, this is an opportunity to hear two very different perspectives on the situation we are dealing with now. I don't think we are making progress. I think when someone comes before the Senate Armed Services Committee or comes before the Judiciary Committee and tells us that the numbers of threats in the United States are greater than at any time since 9/11, that is not progress. When the FBI Director tells me that they have about 1,000 cases similar to what we saw in Orlando that they have to research every year, that is not progress. When we find out that there are investigations--active investigations--that have the potential threat of what we saw in Orlando in every single State, that is not progress. The reason for this is that his own administration is at odds with what he says publicly. He doesn't want to discuss his own party; he doesn't want to discuss the threat of radical Islamic terror. Over the past week, the Attorney General said that the ultimate solution to terror is compassion, unity, and love. How many people think that ISIS, Al-Nusra, Hamas, Hezbollah, and all the other terror organizations--the Iran terror network--do we honestly believe they will respond to compassion, unity, and love? We need to have compassion, unity, and love in our communities. We need to pour our hearts out to the people who were victims in Orlando; we need to show compassion and love to that community. But ISIS isn't going to respond to that. I want to give some examples of why I think the President isn't listening to the heroes and the experts in his own administration. Starting on January 20, 2015, the President said: ``We are leading a broad coalition to degrade and ultimately destroy this terror group.'' The former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration--a month after the President said that--said: ``To destroy ISIS with the means he has approved so far, I think that's an unattainable objective.'' Whom do we believe, somebody who wakes up every morning and looks at this threat, or the President, who doesn't want to communicate the reality to the American people? Now let's go to the next one from last November. The President bragged that his nonexistent strategy to defeat ISIS was succeeding. He said: ``Our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them''--``them'' being ISIL or ISIS. This American hero, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, within 2 months said: ``We have not contained ISIL.'' Which one do we believe, the one who had the confidence of the Marine Corps to have him be their Commandant, and now Joint Chiefs of Staff, or someone who is apparently not listening? The day after the terrorist attack on American soil, President Obama made another bold statement. He said: ``ISIL is not going to pose an existential threat to us. We have hardened our defenses. Our homeland has never been more protected.'' A week later, another Obama administration official--an extraordinarily talented and bright person, head of the FBI, Director James Comey, poured cold water over that statement. He said: ``Their ability to have a safe haven from which to gather resources, people, and plan and plot increases the risk of their ability to mount a sophisticated attack against the homeland.'' He said ``increases the risk''--from the FBI Director that was put in that administration by President Obama. Now we have one more. With the President's disconnection from his administration, we have to realize the rhetoric and the reality is just not matching. On June 14, 2 days after the Orlando shooting, President Obama again insisted that ISIS is on the run. He stated: ``We are making significant progress. This campaign at this stage is firing on all cylinders. As a result, ISIL is under more pressure than ever before.'' Two days later--I have said to my colleagues over the past week and a half--2 days later, the President's Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, made a dramatically contradictory assessment: ``Despite all of our progress against ISIL in the battlefield and on the ground, our efforts have not reduced the group's terrorism capability and global reach.'' The CIA Director's comments are incredibly straightforward. ISIL still presents a threat to our homeland and to our allies. Every Senator knows this reality in addition to the hearing and public statements. I have gone to the Middle East. I have traveled to Saudi Arabia, to Iraq, to the Kurdish region of Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, and Egypt. To a person, they say the President is in denial. We are not taking the fight to ISIL. What happens when you don't take the fight to your enemy? They bring the fight to you. That is what we are seeing with these self- radicalized or ISIS-inspired radicals in this Nation, and there is a growing number--1,000 active investigations going on every year. Ladies and gentlemen, we have to recognize that ISIS and these terrorist organizations are very sophisticated. They have a platform that in no other time in our history any other foes have ever had-- social media. They have gotten to where they need to disperse into the community. The threat to the homeland is not decreasing, it is increasing. We have to recognize that. We have to have a President who either gets out of denial, when the administration tells him what the real threats are, or stops pretending that we are doing well. We have a threat to this homeland. We have a threat to our men and women in uniform who have sworn to go overseas to defend the freedom of other countries and to defend our freedom. We have an obligation in this body. The President has an obligation to recognize we are not winning. I am not saying this as a Republican trying to build political rhetoric. I am saying this because the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the FBI Director, and key officials in this President's administration are saying this. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that over the course of the next week we can focus on the real problem. God forbid that another Orlando happens in this Nation. I think it is even more important. We need to recognize that this is a very, very unsafe world we live in. We need to recognize that Democrats and Republicans have to solve that problem. We need to continue to look for ways to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists. I should add: Why don't we come up with a policy where if it were implemented, maybe Orlando could have been prevented? But the policy offered by my Democratic colleagues on the other side of the aisle last week wouldn't have done it, and they acknowledge that. Let's focus on policies where they will. Our Nation deserves a leader who listens to his experts. Our Nation deserves a leader who will take the fight to ISIS, and our Nation will be less safe unless our President recognizes that as his No. 1 goal. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Thank you, Mr. President. I am proud to represent North Carolina. North Carolina has nearly 1 million veterans in the State. When you add to that the members of the armed services inactive and in the Reserve and the National Guard, we are over 1.2 million people. They, too, will become veterans someday. We need to fix this so that the problems our veterans are experiencing today are not experienced by the men and women who are fighting for our freedom wherever we ask them to go. Mr. President, I know you know a lot about the lack of accountability in the VA within your great State of Colorado. We have problems. We have to increase the accountability in the VA. In 2014, in the wake of the Phoenix wait list scandal, Congress came together and demanded accountability. That is why they passed the Veterans Choice Act. When the President signed the bill into law, he stated: If you engage in unethical practice, if you cover up a serious problem, you should be fired. Period. It shouldn't be that difficult. Now we are hearing just recently that apparently in consultation with the President, Attorney General Lynch and the Justice Department have decided not to defend the Veterans Choice Act against the constitutional challenge from Sharon Helman, the former director of the Phoenix VA who sat on top of this scandal and was fired for her role denying veterans' access. This same disgraced VA executive also pled guilty to hiding more than $50,000 in gifts from lobbyists. She embodies the very worst of the worst of the small percentage of the VA who need to be held to a higher standard of accountability. Then we add insult to injury. The VA decided not to use its expedited removal authority to hold VA executives accountable. Because of these actions, we are now back to square one, as if the President did not even sign that bill. Now, I should have started at the beginning, though, to thank Senator Isakson for his yeoman's work in support of veterans. He is a fantastic chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. He brings people together. That is why the Veterans First Act was unanimously supported in the committee. It is bipartisan on steroids. Everybody thinks that this bill needs to go into law and that the VA needs to be held accountable. We need to pass the Veterans First Act. There are a number of things in this act that even go beyond accountability, and I note in the colloquy that other elements of this act will be brought up. I will bring up a few of them. One of them has to do with the opioid safety act. What we are trying to do is improve the safety and supervision of treatment plans for veterans who legitimately need some sort of pain medication, possibly an opioid prescription regimen. As to the Whistleblower Protection Act, we need more people with their eyes and ears in the VA who are comfortable saying: Something isn't right here, and I need to be able to report up and know my job is not at risk because I am doing the right thing. That is in the Veterans First Act. The other thing we need to do is to get back to what we tried to accomplish in the 2014 bill--fire people who are not doing their job, fire people who are being unethical, fire people who are not putting veterans at the very top of the list. That is why the VA exists. The VA doesn't exist for their own sake. The VA exists for providing the care that the veterans deserve. They should get it on a timely basis. When there are no reasonable excuses for some of these wait times and we find that it is the people who are causing the problem, those people should be held accountable. The senior members should be held accountable, and they should be able to be terminated without any sort of review subject to the discretion of the Secretary of the VA. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for us to act on the Veterans First Act. It is time for us to get back to fulfilling the promise that this President made just a couple of years ago. It is time to put veterans first. I want to thank all of my colleagues here. I want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who I know share this view. We need to get this bill out of the Senate, to the House, and to the President's desk with the promise this time that the President will stand with us and with the veterans to do what we need to do, and that is to put veterans first. I urge all the Members' support, and I appreciate again Senator Isakson's work to get it to this point, but now we need to get it done.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess under the previous order.

Mr. TILLIS

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

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. As a former State legislator, I very much agree with what my colleague from California has said. In North Carolina, we worked hard to get the regulatory and legislative framework right for this new technology. In fact, we commissioned a legislative research committee to propose legislation and obtained input from stakeholders prior to the bill's passage. You see, not all wisdom resides at the Federal Government. Our system is designed to let States and localities weigh factors that bureaucrats in Washington might not consider, such as potential privacy concerns, law enforcement operations, search and rescue, natural disaster mitigation, infrastructure monitoring--the list goes on. I would add that it was my understanding as well that Chairman Thune and Ranking Member Nelson had graciously agreed to accept this amendment and that it had been cleared as part of a group of noncontroversial amendments. I was disappointed to see that package held up over a disagreement on unrelated matters between other Members. I am encouraged, however, by the chairman's and ranking members' commitment to continue addressing our concerns in conference committee.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Madam President, I am here today to talk about a very important event in American history. Seventy-two years ago today, six American and four British and Canadian divisions began the assault on Adolf Hitler's Fortress Europe, on what German Field Marshal Rommel famously referred to as ``the longest day.'' As the paratroopers moved to their planes and infantrymen embarked on their ships, Dwight Eisenhower reminded them of their cause when he said: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. North Carolina was at Normandy on that day. At 1:51 a.m., Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne Division, under the command of MG Matthew Ridgeway and BG James Gavin, began the fight. The paratroopers of the ``All-American Division'' were scattered by bad weather and German anti-aircraft fire, missing many of their designated drop zones. Within hours, though, through sheer guts and determination, the All-American Division had captured towns and crossroads and ensured that the Panzer counterattack did not reach Normandy beaches, allowing the Allied infantry to push into the heart of German-occupied France. The 82nd Airborne finished the war as the most decorated combat unit in the history of the United States, a distinction that still holds today. The cross-channel invasion fixed Omaha and Utah Beaches for the American assault. ``Bloody Omaha'' was the most difficult of the landing beaches, due to its rough terrain and bluffs fortified by Rommel's infantry division. Omaha was hit by the U.S. First and 29th Infantry Divisions. The 29th, known as ``The Blue and Gray Division,'' was a National Guard unit composed of men from North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. In the first wave, A Company, 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry, from the Virginia National Guard in Bedford, VA, was annihilated as it landed. The catastrophic losses suffered by the small Virginia community led it to being selected for the site of the National D-day Memorial. Losses were so heavy that GEN Omar Bradley seriously considered pulling American forces from Omaha Beach. However, follow-on units from the North Carolina National Guard reached that beach, as immortalized in the opening scenes of the movie ``Saving Private Ryan.'' By nightfall, the division headquarters and 10,000 reinforcements landed and began fighting inland. On Omaha Beach, ``uncommon valor was [quite] common'' that day. By the evening of June 6, over 1,000 men from the 29th had become casualties on Omaha Beach. Added to losses at other beaches and drop zones made the total casualties for Operation Overlord 6,500 Americans and 3,000 British and Canadian soldiers. During World War II, the 29th Infantry Division had such a high casualty rate it was said that its commanding general actually commanded three divisions: one on the field of battle, one in the hospital, and one in the cemetery. The 29th Infantry Division lost 3,720 killed in action, 15,403 wounded in action, 462 missing in action, 526 prisoners of war, and another 8,665 noncombat casualties, for a total of 28,776 casualties during 242 days of combat. Today, thousands of North Carolinian guardsmen continue the brave tradition of this proud unit. The people of North Carolina remember the soldiers of D-day and their comrades from other battlefields of the war. On the Cape Fear River sits the USS North Carolina, the most decorated battleship of World War II. It is not a museum. It is a reminder. It is our memorial. The names of over 10,000 North Carolinians who paid the ultimate price are set on the walls of that great ship. In Franklin Roosevelt's words, ``They fought not for the lust of conquest. They fought to end conquest. They fought to liberate.'' As we observe D-day, I hope we all recognize the ultimate sacrifice so many men and women have paid in uniform, and on the week that we consider the national defense authorization, I hope all of my colleagues will recognize the incredible importance and the debt we owe them to do our job here so that they can continue to defend us abroad. We have to do everything we can to get them safe and prepared and ready to do that mission. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Beau Diers and Lauren Fish, defense legislative fellows in the office of Senator Cotton, be granted the privilege of the floor during consideration of S. 2943, the National Defense Authorization Act.

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Elizabeth Joseph, a Health Policy Fellow in the office of Senator Cochran, be granted the privilege of the floor for the remainder of the 114th Congress.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague, the senior Senator from North Carolina. I welcome Pastor Chris, his lovely wife, and friends of the Steward family who came to visit this great Capitol and to grace us with his presence. I will give you a different story. I have been to Lee Park. I was there for an annual event, and I was invited there to be a pimento cheese judge. Let me warn you never to volunteer to taste 29 different varieties of pimento cheese. Pastor Chris has said that they have refined the event now, but what struck me most about that event is how much the people who were at that event love Pastor Chris and love the Justice family. You have done a great job in Monroe. We thank you for your service to the great citizens of the State. We thank you for your service to this great body today. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, when it comes to projecting America's power, I have said many times that North Carolina is the tip of the American spear. When our country calls, it is a safe bet that the first responders will be U.S. Marines from Camp Lejeune or our paratroopers of the 18th Airborne stationed at Fort Bragg. The 18th Airborne is America's Global Response Force. When called, units of the 18th Airborne can be anywhere in the world within 48 hours. Because of this unique mission--unique to Fort Bragg and the 18th Airborne--Pope Army Airfield is the busiest tactical airfield in the Armed Forces. Unfortunately, Pope is also home of the shortest runway in the Army. If the 18th Airborne is put on alert, C-5 and C-17 aircraft are needed to launch the force, and they cannot depart fully fueled with a full load of paratroopers and equipment off of the airfield. The current Pope Army Airfield runway provides only 8,500 feet for takeoff; however, to take off, the C-17 needs a minimum of 10,500 feet and the C-5 requires 11,500 feet. The Air Force's air refueling fleet is already stressed. The C-17s and C-5s used to carry out the Global Response Force missions have to leave Pope Army Airfield with full equipment and paratroopers but only about 60 percent of their fuel capacity. This requires them to go either to Charleston, SC, or Gander, Newfoundland, to get refueled so they can continue their mission. One refueling stop for an airlift coming out of Pope at Gander, Newfoundland, costs $17,000 per hour. If 53 aircraft--roughly the number required to outload the heaviest brigade combat team--have to refuel at Gander, it costs about $2 million one-way because they can't be fully loaded when they take off from Pope Army Airfield. This refueling stop also adds 2.5 more hours to the time on the mission, and the mission objective is to be anywhere in the world in 48 hours. Prior to the last round of BRAC, extending the Pope runway to accommodate fully loaded C-17 and C-5 aircraft was Air Mobility Command's No. 1 airfield project, and the U.S. Air Force said it was their No. 2 project. However, this has fallen off the Army's priority list, and I am not really sure why. Extending the Pope runway to accommodate the airlift requirements of the Global Response Force and the 18th Airborne Corps is a national strategic priority. Therefore, I will be offering an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act during markup that requires the Army to report to the Senate their plans to extend the runway at Pope and whether it is the top priority for the Army. I think our paratroopers and crews need to know this. I know our taxpayers need to know this. And, more than anything, I want to make sure that when we deploy the proud men and women from the Green Ramp of Pope Army Airfield, we do it loaded and ready to go wherever they need to go in the United States or around the world.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, when it comes to projecting America's power, I have said many times that North Carolina is the tip of the American spear. When our country calls, it is a safe bet that the first responders will be U.S. Marines from Camp Lejeune or our paratroopers of the 18th Airborne stationed at Fort Bragg. The 18th Airborne is America's Global Response Force. When called, units of the 18th Airborne can be anywhere in the world within 48 hours. Because of this unique mission--unique to Fort Bragg and the 18th Airborne--Pope Army Airfield is the busiest tactical airfield in the Armed Forces. Unfortunately, Pope is also home of the shortest runway in the Army. If the 18th Airborne is put on alert, C-5 and C-17 aircraft are needed to launch the force, and they cannot depart fully fueled with a full load of paratroopers and equipment off of the airfield. The current Pope Army Airfield runway provides only 8,500 feet for takeoff; however, to take off, the C-17 needs a minimum of 10,500 feet and the C-5 requires 11,500 feet. The Air Force's air refueling fleet is already stressed. The C-17s and C-5s used to carry out the Global Response Force missions have to leave Pope Army Airfield with full equipment and paratroopers but only about 60 percent of their fuel capacity. This requires them to go either to Charleston, SC, or Gander, Newfoundland, to get refueled so they can continue their mission. One refueling stop for an airlift coming out of Pope at Gander, Newfoundland, costs $17,000 per hour. If 53 aircraft--roughly the number required to outload the heaviest brigade combat team--have to refuel at Gander, it costs about $2 million one-way because they can't be fully loaded when they take off from Pope Army Airfield. This refueling stop also adds 2.5 more hours to the time on the mission, and the mission objective is to be anywhere in the world in 48 hours. Prior to the last round of BRAC, extending the Pope runway to accommodate fully loaded C-17 and C-5 aircraft was Air Mobility Command's No. 1 airfield project, and the U.S. Air Force said it was their No. 2 project. However, this has fallen off the Army's priority list, and I am not really sure why. Extending the Pope runway to accommodate the airlift requirements of the Global Response Force and the 18th Airborne Corps is a national strategic priority. Therefore, I will be offering an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act during markup that requires the Army to report to the Senate their plans to extend the runway at Pope and whether it is the top priority for the Army. I think our paratroopers and crews need to know this. I know our taxpayers need to know this. And, more than anything, I want to make sure that when we deploy the proud men and women from the Green Ramp of Pope Army Airfield, we do it loaded and ready to go wherever they need to go in the United States or around the world.

Mr. TILLIS

Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, April is Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. As we remember all those who have lost their lives in the wave of terrorist violence sweeping the world, I call on my Senate colleagues to join the effort to make real the words ``never again'' by cosponsoring S. 2551, the Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act. Islamic extremists are waging religious war so severe that the Pope of the Catholic Church and the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church came together, stating: Whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated. Their churches are being barbarously ravaged and looted, their sacred objects profaned, their monuments destroyed. It is with pain that we call to mind the situation in Syria, Iraq and other countries of the Middle East, and the massive exodus of Christians from the land in which our faith was first disseminated and in which they have lived together with other religious communities since the time of the Apostles. We call upon the international community to act urgently in order to prevent the further expulsion of Christians from the Middle East. In raising our voice in defense of persecuted Christians, we wish to express our compassion for the suffering experienced by the faithful of other religious traditions who have also become victims of civil war, chaos, and terrorist violence. On February 4, a nearly unanimous European Parliament passed a resolution declaring that ISIS ``is committing genocide against Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities.'' Sadly, the United States, in keeping with the President's desire to lead from behind, only recently decided to call it genocide in the face of the religious cleansing taking place in the heart of the Middle East. ISIS vows that they will break our crosses and enslave our women--they are speaking of Christians--and they will place a black flag at the top of St. Peter's Basilica. At the other end of the Middle East, we have Iran. Iran is launching test missiles with the words ``Death to Israel'' on the tips of the ballistic missiles, in Hebrew. We would do well to remember the words of an Israeli Prime Minister who said: ``When someone tells you he wants to kill you, believe him.'' If you think it is a problem that is over there, think again. Terrorism reaches our shores. It has devastated some of the great cities of the world like London, Paris, Brussels, Madrid, and Bali. As a result of conflict, there are now a record 60 million displaced persons--men, women, and children. That is more than at the height of the displacement of World War II. Responding to the dire needs of those fleeing violence has driven a 600-percent increase in global humanitarian aid over the past 10 years, from $3.5 billion in 2004 to $20 billion in 2015. I have actually seen the human cost in refugee camps along the Turkish-Syrian border. I was there a couple of weeks ago, less than 30 miles away from the Syrian border in Turkey. These were Muslims fleeing ISIS and a bloodthirsty dictator who unleashed chemical weapons on his own citizens. In the 1980s, then-Ambassador to the United Nations Jeanne Kirkpatrick took up the cause of preventing genocide. With the memory of Chairman Mao's killing of 100 million still fresh in her mind, her attention was turned to Africa, where she saw the first stirrings of the genocide on the continent, and then to Cambodia, where Pol Pot murdered over one-third of his nation. She urged President Reagan to sign the convention on genocide, and President Reagan did just that. President Reagan said: We gather today to bear witness to the past and learn from its awful example, and to make sure that we're not condemned to relive its crimes. . . . the genocide convention [is a] howl of anguish and an effort to prevent and punish future acts of genocide. I believe Congress has an important leadership role to play here. We can help ensure that America has the tools to combat genocide and atrocities and combat violent conflict. That is why I joined Senator Cardin in introducing the Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act. As does the Senator from North Carolina, I also have a special reason for supporting this legislation that has the potential to fuse diplomacy, intelligence, and foreign aid, and in turn, prioritize government action to prevent future atrocities by working together. It is important to me because my State, as I said earlier today, is at the tip of the sphere. When diplomacy fails, it is the 82nd Airborne and Special Forces from Fort Bragg or the U.S. Marines from Camp Lejeune who are going to go resolve the conflict. We want to avoid those conflicts. We owe it to them to do better by putting partisanship aside and by taking up proactive steps to avoid sending our servicemembers into harm's way to confront a conflict that may be able to be prevented without firing a single shot. Silence is the greatest enemy of freedom. Silence led to the devastation of Jews in Europe. But from the ashes of the Holocaust came the State of Israel and the vow ``never again.'' The first President Bush reminded us: ``The words 'never again' do not refer to the past; they refer to the future. I yield the floor.

Mr. TILLIS. I yield the floor.