Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, our country has asked a lot of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines throughout its history and it will continue to do so as long as the world looks to America for leadership in crises. These brave men and women don't join the military looking for public accolades and all they ask in return for their many sacrifices is for the government to honor its commitments to them-- something I have certainly always tried to do. Of course our men and women in uniform and our veterans aren't the only folks who make sacrifices in the name of national security. From child care, to household repairs and bills, to legal issues, our military families are called on to provide support in innumerable ways as their loved ones serve and deploy. While we hope and pray that all those sent abroad return safely to the arms of their loved ones, we know that this isn't always the case. When servicemembers return home wounded or weakened as a result of combat, it is our military families who step up to take care of their son or daughter, husband or wife. When servicesmembers do not return, it is our military families who endure that searing pain that comes with such a terrible loss. It is an understatement to say that government cannot take away that pain; but what government can, and must, do is honor that sacrifice. One way we do that is by extending certain benefits to the families of those who are killed or permanently and totally disabled in action. Today, along with Senator Brown, I am introducing the Gold Star Fathers Act to update one of those benefits. The Office of Personnel Management currently allows unmarried mothers of fallen soldiers to claim a 10-point veterans' preference when applying for Federal jobs. Our legislation would simply extend this preference to unmarried fathers of fallen soldiers. Updating this preference is about fairness and recognizing that fathers, too, share in the sacrifice that their family has made for this country. Updating this preference will also expand opportunities for Gold Star families to bring their dedication and compassion into the federal government, where it can be put to great use. Gold Star Mothers and Gold Star Fathers have incurred a debt that Congress cannot ever hope to repay. All we can hope to do is ensure that these sacrifices are acknowledged and honored. It is my hope that the Senate will pass this legislation swiftly. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

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

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise to highlight a Presidential message that was delivered to the Congress 50 years ago today. But before I go into the importance of Medicare and Medicaid--facts that I think all my colleagues and I can agree to--I would like to take a brief look back at where America has been and recall what life was like for so many of those who were poor, disabled, vulnerable, and uninsured or unlucky before these programs, which today are a lifeline, Medicare and Medicaid, were in place. Those were the days of the ``poor farm'' and the ``almshouse.'' These were the places where the poor and uninsured would go for care, very often on the outskirts of town--out of sight, out of mind. It was not a happy choice, and more often than not for seniors and the poor it was the only choice. These were places that provided care and was often very basic and very often it carried a stigma. The accommodations were sparse at best. In return for health care and housing, residents were expected to work on an adjoining farm or do housework or other chores to offset the costs of their stay. This was the primary option for someone whose extended family could not offer care--or didn't want to offer care. This was not thousands of miles away from the shores of our country, it was right here in the United States. Not very many Americans remember those days. In fact, I think it is fair to say hardly anybody under 50 remembers those days. President Johnson submitted his message to the Congress 50 years ago today, and fewer than half of America's older people even had any health insurance. In that era, it was not uncommon for older people who got an illness to be treated like second-class citizens, and many older people without family to care for them and no health care coverage ended up destitute and would often end up on our streets. It was a time no one wants to revisit. It is a time sociologists described as another America--where 40 to 50 million Americans were poor and lacked adequate medical care and were socially invisible to a majority of the population. I bring this up because I wish to spend a few minutes this evening talking about how far America has come. I want to make sure that we in the Congress--as we look to this anniversary of these critical programs, Medicare and Medicaid, and the vivid difference they made in the daily lives of Americans, we should all spend just a few minutes talking about the health care advances we have seen over the years. Here are a couple of facts: Today with rock-solid essential medical services, 54 million Americans--or virtually every senior and those with disabilities--now has access to what we call--and I remember this from my days as director of the Gray Panthers--the Medicare guarantee. It is a guarantee of secure Medicare benefits for our old people. Medicaid has made a critical difference for 68 million of the Nation's most vulnerable, including more than 32 million kids, 6 million seniors, and 10 million individuals with disabilities. Because Medicare and Medicaid made health care possible for millions of people, they have also been the catalyst for innovation in treatment that benefits people of all ages. I emphasize that fact because it is often not appreciated that Medicare, as the flagship Federal health care program, often is the spark, the catalyst for innovations that get copied in the private sector. For example, in the first 30 years of Medicare alone, the Medicare Program helped to reduce deaths from heart disease by one-third for people over age 65. By providing coverage and access for millions, these programs became catalysts for change in how medicine is practiced and paid for Americans across the age spectrum and helped us to find the root causes of disease and perfecting better therapies to treat. As time has marched on, these programs evolved and improved and the rest of the health care system followed. In 1967, Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment programs, comprehensive services for all Medicaid youngsters under age 21, was created, and that has helped to improve our country's health, starting with our children. In 1981, home and community-based waivers were established so States could provide services in a community setting, allowing individuals to remain in their home for as long as possible. Every State uses this option to facilitate better care and services to the Medicaid population, and I think it is fair to say that every single senior--and this is something I heard again and again and again in the those Gray Panthers days--would say: Why can't we have the option to have good, quality, affordable care at home because it will also save money compared to the alternative, which is institutional care. In 1983, Medicare took one of many big leaps away from fee-for- service with the advent of a new reimbursement system for hospitals. It was called prospective payment--a system that pays hospitals based on a patient's illness and how serious it is and not solely on how much it costs to treat them. This was a radical change at the time. Today it is commonplace and acceptable. In 2003, the prescription drug coverage benefit was added to Medicare, providing access to necessary medications to those most likely to need them. As a result of greater access to prescription drugs, senior health has dramatically improved. In 2010, as a result of health care reform, preventive services became free to patients, prescription drugs became cheaper for beneficiaries who fell into what was known as the doughnut hole, and again Medicare moved further away from fee-for-service, volume-driven care and on to paying for quality and value. Not only was that good for seniors, it was good for taxpayers because it helped to extend the life of the Medicare trust fund. Finally, in 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid began releasing for the public to use actual claims data. Access to this information, in my view, is a key element of the challenge with respect to understanding the costs of care, the variations and the way medicine is practiced across the country. Clearly, access to Medicare claims data is part of the path to improving quality and holding down the costs of health care in our country. These examples are easy to forget--the most recent ones--because now they are commonplace, but that makes them no less remarkable. I will close with one last point that I hope will be part of what guides the work of the Senate in this session. I see the distinguished Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin. He is to be joined by the majority leader, Senator McConnell, shortly. I will just close my remarks with respect to these critical programs by pointing out--and I hope it will be remembered frequently as big issues are tackled in this Congress--Medicare and Medicaid were bipartisan efforts, and the enactment of these programs shows that the Congress can craft bipartisan solutions to complex and politically difficult problems. That is what happened in 1965 when the Senate passed a legislation creating Medicare and Medicaid by a 68-to-32 vote after the House approved it 3 months earlier on a 313-to-115 vote. As this Congress gets underway, and as the leaders come to the floor to discuss a critical aspect of how we move ahead, I hope all of us take a page from that particular playbook. Let us recognize that with Medicare and Medicaid there was an opportunity to come together to tackle a big issue, and my hope is that this Congress will not use partisan tactics when the solutions have to be bipartisan, and that is the lesson. Despite sharp differences and partisanship, the Congress of the days I have been speaking of was able to rise above the culture and those challenges to find agreement and make our country a better place. As this new Congress begins, I hope we can use that 50-year-old spirit to strengthen, protect, and improve Medicare and Medicaid to keep that guarantee strong, ensure health care to those who need it most, and protect a program that has been a lifeline to millions of Americans. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I want to be clear, as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, that I oppose taxpayers subsidizing illegal conduct, and I also oppose setting up a one-size-fits-all Federal mandate that is going to create redtape and confusion for our States to implement. This proposal says that TANF electronic benefits cannot be used in any retail store which sells marijuana. This means that a TANF card cannot be swiped in these locations. The reality is that TANF benefits can be withdrawn for cash, and cash can be spent anywhere. Yet this proposal does not seem to recognize that fact. Of course, we here in the Senate often hear of burdensome Federal rules and regulations that are imposed on our States and our businesses. My view is this sounds like the epitome of needless bureaucracy in its current form and actually achieves nothing except generating a lot of regulatory hassle. For the reasons I have stated, I object.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I want the body to know the Senator from Alaska has written some of the really thoughtful provisions with respect to education tax credits, and I commend him for that.

Mr. WYDEN. I yield the rest of our time to Senator Casey.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, how much time does our side have left?

Mr. WYDEN. I want to yield 3 minutes to Senator Begich and 3 minutes to Senator Casey.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, with this tax bill, the Congress is turning in its tax homework 11\1/2\ months late and expects to earn full credit. Tax incentives will last just 2 weeks before families and businesses are thrown back into the dark with respect to the taxes they owe. The legislation accomplishes nothing for 2015. The debate takes place against the backdrop of positive economic news, showing that unemployment is down and wages are up--just the kind of news the Congress ought to build on by providing certainty and predictability for families and businesses. Instead, the Congress is about to pass a tax bill that doesn't have the shelf life of a carton of eggs. Of course, we have the power to enshrine tax provisions for any length of time we choose. What the Congress can't do is travel back through time. The Congress can pass this $41 billion bill, but it cannot change anything taxpayers did 6, 8 or 10 months ago. Those decisions have been made. The only new effects of this legislation apply to the next 2 weeks. That is not enough time for the key provisions; for example, putting a dent in veterans unemployment, to start a clean energy project, to hire new workers or to help a student who is on the fence about whether to enroll in college next semester. Particularly important is this bill drops the health coverage tax credit, yanking away an economic lifeline that working-class Americans were counting on this April 15. This means that for tens of thousands of our people in States such as Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, who have been kicked down by a fiercely competitive economy, they are going to face a very unpleasant surprise this spring. I am just going to spend a minute talking about how the Senate got here and where our tax policy should go in the future. The truth is the Senate didn't need to be in this spot. Within a few weeks after I became chairman of the Finance Committee, with the help and good counsel of Senator Hatch and many members of the committee, we unanimously passed the EXPIRE Act, a balanced, bipartisan bill that would provide 2 years of certainty and a springboard to comprehensive reform. When the bill came to the floor, a host of Senators said they were eager to move it forward. Democrats and Republicans all wanted to move ahead, but the toxic Senate environment and a battle over amendments caused the EXPIRE Act to stall out. This fall there were discussions with the House about a bipartisan, bicameral agreement. I was encouraged at the outset, especially when the House indicated they would accept the Senate's bipartisan work. We also talked about the possibility of making several provisions permanent. In my view, any agreement on permanent tax policy has to be balanced--balanced between support for business and support for working families. A deal that is skewed in just one direction fails the test of fairness. The Democrats on the Finance Committee felt the same way. The negotiations progressed, more offers were traded, and there was real hope. However, after weeks of hard work, there was a conflicting process and that drove House Republicans to quit the negotiations. Senate negotiators, in effect, were left without a dance partner. Our team kept making new offers. We tried to suggest proposals that had drawn support from Republicans and Democrats in the past, but the House settled on passing this 2-week extender bill that is now before us this evening. However Senators choose to vote on this legislation, I want to recognize that this bill proves, once and for all, how broken America's tax system is. The Congress is about to spend $41 billion on a tax incentive package that when done right ought to lift the cloud of uncertainty and strengthen the important parts of our American economy. Instead, all of the $41 billion in this legislation is going to go for things that happened months and months ago. Virtually all of the $41 billion has absolutely no incentive power whatsoever. Reforming the Tax Code is going to be hard, but it can be done. I sat next to our former colleague Senator Gregg every week for 2 years to produce the first bipartisan Federal income tax reform bill. I am very grateful to our current colleague Senator Coats, who picked up on those efforts. Senator Hatch--and I commend him for it--put out an analysis for tax reform issues, recognizing that getting more perspectives in the debate is going to help advance reform. I know Senator Hatch is going to keep working diligently when he takes the gavel--and I congratulate him for that--in January, and I look forward to working with him. Before we wrap up for the year, I also want to congratulate Senator Casey and Senator Burr, who worked tirelessly in a bipartisan way on behalf of the disabled. I met with these disabled folks in our community, and I commend Senator Casey and Senator Burr for their work. Here is the bottom line for the future: The middle class deserves a tax cut. The tax system in America needs to do more to promote innovation and launch a new wave of job creation. Our country desperately needs a simpler and more competitive corporate tax system that draws investment and jobs to our country. We have to end the cycle of stop-and-go policy that leaves taxpayers in the dark time and time again. I want to yield our remaining time to my colleague Senator Cantwell, from Washington and close by saying, retroactive tax bills, such as the one before the Senate tonight, may satisfy some, but they leave our workers, our families, and businesses wanting. It is the time for real tax reform. For the last word on our side, my colleague and seatmate, Senator Cantwell.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, as I indicated earlier, what is especially troubling to me is that we are talking about $418 billion, in effect, that is supposed to provide incentives. But it cannot change anything taxpayers did 6, 8 or 10 months ago. The decisions have been made. This is a 2-week bill. I would just say, from my own standpoint, having worked with our colleague Senator Coats to present a bipartisan alternative, that the lesson out of this debate is that this cannot happen again. Senator Hatch and I put together a bipartisan bill, the EXPIRE Act. We thought that was the way to go. I continue to believe that had we had the opportunity, without an alternative process coming out in the home stretch, we could have built on that. That is not going to be possible tonight. I hope that Senators will say, however they vote tonight, that the real lesson out of this is when you have an opportunity to provide certainty and predictability for the American economy, take it. Do not walk away from it. Unfortunately, because this bill is only 2 weeks long, that is what we are doing. We are walking away from the chance to provide some certainty and predictability. Instead, our citizens are going to be in the dark come January 1 with respect to taxes. Let's make sure that next time on a bipartisan basis we do better. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I yield back the time on our side.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this objection is very unfortunate. The Oregon congressional delegation has teamed up in a bipartisan way to provide, among other things, trust land for the two remaining Native American tribes in our State that have no land base. These tribes have been waiting for over 100 years, and Senator Merkley and I, with the whole Oregon congressional delegation, intend to be back early next year working to pass these bills and stay at it until justice is done.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5701, which is at the desk; that the bill be read three times and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I wish to thank Chair Mikulski for her tireless work in keeping our government open for another year. I understand Chair Mikulski and Ranking Member Shelby have worked hard on this bill. In the big picture, this bill continues to honor our commitment to our veterans by allowing advance funding for Veterans Administration accounts so they are locked in a year in advance, ending uncertainty. This bill also provides desperately needed funds to respond to and prepare for Ebola at its epicenter. This bill keeps faith with the American people who dream of a better life by increasing Pell Grants and making college more affordable. It creates jobs by strengthening our infrastructure, building roads and bridges, to keep the economy moving, and helps develop our economy by investing in research in agriculture, health, and geosciences, among other areas. I am glad that the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program was fully funded at $40 million. The program is one of the successes in collaboration and forest management and deserves strong support. The Land and Water Conservation Fund--LWCF--also received sustained funding at the same level as last year. Although this is only one-third of the total authorized for LWCF, I am pleased that the program received consistent funding and I remain hopeful that we will fully fund this program in the future. I am also glad that the National Park Service received $10 million for the Centennial Challenge. As the National Park Service moves into celebrating its centennial, it is so important that our parks receive the care and attention they need. However, I also have to voice my disappointment over a number of provisions included in H.R. 83, as well as several provisions that were blocked from inclusion in H.R. 83. Keeping the government running is imperative but it should not come at the cost of stripping the rights of voters, further chipping away at what is left of our eroding campaign finance laws, and rolling back Dodd-Frank protections meant to reduce taxpayer risk from ``too-big-to-fail'' entities, just to name a few of the objectionable provisions in this bill. One such provision greatly expands donations to the Republican and Democratic parties by allowing a tenfold increase in the maximum amount that donors may contribute to their political party's various national committees in one election cycle. The donation amounts skyrocket from $32,400 to $324,000 per year and ultimately up to a total contribution of $1.5 million to a party per each 2-year election cycle. At a time when more and more Americans are convinced our political system is rigged toward the rich, this provision only confirms that view. This bill also contains a provision that will put taxpayers back on the hook for big banks by rolling back the regulatory protections that Congress put into place in response to the financial crisis that devastated our economy in 2008. With the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress sought to ensure that high-stakes gambling on Wall Street by reckless risk takers would not threaten the livelihood of the American taxpayer. As part of this effort, Dodd-Frank included a provision known as the ``swaps push out'' which requires Federally insured banks to separate out their riskiest activities into subsidiaries. This way, the risky trading activities that contributed to the meltdown would be separated from the insured banking entity and ensure that banks--not taxpayers-- would be responsible if risky trades fail. Today, this spending bill repeals that provision and once again potentially leaves the taxpayer on the hook for Wall Street gambling gone wrong. I am particularly dismayed that last-minute partisan maneuvering has left America's rural counties in the dust. Two funds that are lifelines for cash-strapped rural counties and school districts struggling to fund basic education, road improvements, law enforcement, and other public services were hurt by this bill. First, House Republican Leadership blocked repeated efforts to include the Secure Rural Schools--SRS--funding program, though it came with offset funding. Instead, they split it from the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program-- PILT--funded PILT, and left SRS behind. This is a problem for two distinct reasons. First, PILT is a laudable program for rural counties around the country who host our public lands. But so is SRS, which funds education, roads and critical services in more than 700 counties across the country, and these counties will now be forced to lay off teachers, close libraries and jails, and lay off sheriffs. Second, PILT's formula is connected with SRS funding levels, in fact, and while this bill includes funding for PILT, in the absence of Secure Rural Schools, the funding level for PILT provided in this bill actually reduces PILT payments as compared to last year. We have seen this movie before and it never ends well--a last-minute scheme worked out largely in private to solve a complex problem without the full and public consideration of Congress--leads to mistakes. This is one of those mistakes that will reverberate across rural America. I am disappointed this mistake was not averted simply by providing SRS funding. Speaking of hampering rural America, there is another provision missing that would help the rural West and one missing that would help the rural West were it included. This package fails to include the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act--a bill I introduced with my colleague Senator Crapo and 17 additional bipartisan cosponsors, and which was also a strong bipartisan measure in the House. This legislation would have solved the problem of paying for the ever-increasing costs of fighting wildland fires without decimating the agencies' core budgets, where they get the money to pay for their essential work--including the forest restoration work that can help us get ahead of these infernos. Our commonsense solution would have paid for these natural disasters like other natural disasters are paid for, instead of cannibalizing the agencies' budgets. In addition, this bill interferes with the work that private landowners are doing for sage grouse restoration. This bill blocks the administration from complying with its Endangered Species Act obligations--and its deadline in a court-approved settlement agreement--by barring any funds from being used in efforts to list the sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act. Now, while I join my colleagues and others in wanting to see a listing avoided, this kind of blunt force prohibition of compliance with legal obligations--one that sends the message that these obligations can be ignored when they are deemed inconvenient--is very disturbing. In my State, and across the West, numerous parties have come together to try to tackle the threats to this species, which is just an indicator of threats to an entire ecosystem. I commend these great efforts by ranchers, conservationists, Governors and others who have come to the table, signed agreements, and worked hard on the ground to protect the landscape and avoid a sage-grouse listing. Those efforts are the right way to avoid a listing, not through dangerous riders as we see in this bill. It is my hope the administration will continue to work to manage and improve sage-grouse habitat to avoid undermining those efforts. On a global scale, this legislation would reverse a policy that takes a step toward saving our global climate. The United States has made tremendous and continued progress to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions as well as transition our electricity sector to cleaner energy sources. That progress gets undermined if other nations continue to grow their economies based upon high-carbon emitting electricity sources such as coal, without also putting in place the technologies to clean it up, capture, and store the emissions from those powerplants. It only makes sense then that the United States currently has in place a policy that it will not use its funds, through the Export-Import Bank and through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to build power sources overseas that are dirtier than are allowed here at home, and that will continue polluting the atmosphere for many decades. A rider carried by this legislation up-ends that agreement. This bill is flexible in its approaches to environmental degradation--it easily transitions from the global, as discussed above, to the very local: this legislation bans the Department of Energy-- DOE--from implementing or enforcing light bulb efficiency standards. No environmental improvement is too small or too commonsensical to not attract an opponent. This legislation hampers progress by taking aim at particular agencies: it takes aim at environmental protection by going directly after the Environmental Protection Agency. At a time when climate change is already hurting Americans and holding back the United States economy, the omnibus takes aim at the only agency with the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, slashing its budget to levels not seen since 1989. And this bill takes aim at the Internal Revenue Service by cutting their budget by another $400 million. That's the lowest level since 2008. Now, I get it. Some people might think that is a good thing: who wants to fund the tax collector? Except that the IRS is responsible for more than just cashing checks; it also has to make sure that tax fraud is under control, that Americans get their tax refunds in a timely way, and that taxpayers can get their questions about their taxes answered, again, in a timely way. All of that is hobbled by an insufficient budget. In addition, it is hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on the news these days without finding a story about ever more aggressive efforts to dodge taxes. The average American does not cheat on her taxes, but for those who do, the IRS needs the resources to catch them. Otherwise, every honest, hard-working American ends up on the hook for more. By continuing to cut the IRS budget, I am afraid Congress is sending a message that tax enforcement is not so important. It communicates an unfortunate signal that fighting tax cheating is not a priority, and enforcement is not a priority. Ultimately, that is a problem for every American taxpayer. Congress also continues to cut funding to the IRS while adding more duties to the agency, including in this spending bill. Next year is already a busy year for the IRS. In addition to administering the filing season and combating identity theft and fraud, the IRS will also be implementing the late-passed extenders bill, the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act, and the health premium tax credits. But that is not all. Congress is cutting the funding, but telling the IRS to use the funding to improve the 1-800 help line service and allocate resources to improve response time. Why? Because maintaining an acceptable level of service for the American taxpayer has been strained substantially due to previous budget cuts. Congress is asking the IRS to do all these things while cutting funding. Congress is telling the IRS to do more, but with much, much less. I have long been an ardent proponent of tax reform. We have a broken tax code in desperate need of fixing. Why does that matter in this context? I will tell you why. If Congress finally succeeds in meaningfully reforming our antiquated tax code, implementing those changes will require a substantial investment in the IRS. Will Congress have the same attitude toward funding the IRS when it is charged with the implementation of a reformed and modern tax code? I wonder, and I worry. On the defense side, there is no doubt that this omnibus bill includes funding for important national security priorities. However, it also contains billions in wasteful and unnecessary military spending--like nearly $500 million to buy more F-35 Joint Strike Fighters than the Pentagon requested. The bill also contains more than $8 billion for nuclear weapons activities, which is nearly $390 million more than the President requested. During the Reagan years, we spent about $8 billion annually to develop, test, produce and maintain more than 20,000 nuclear warheads. Today we spend that same $8 billion on fewer than 5,000 warheads. What is wrong with this picture? This bill also handicaps efforts to invest in infrastructure and keep our Nation competitive. Buried in the pages of this bill is a $100 million cut to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER, grant program. Since Congress created this program in the 2009 Recovery Act, the competitive grants have played a critical role in funding road, rail, port and transit projects across the country. Cutting this program makes absolutely no sense when Congress is struggling to shore up the Highway Trust Fund and meet infrastructure needs in Oregon and across the country. And I would be remiss if I didn't highlight my disappointment with the multiemployer pension provisions. These reforms were rushed through by a few House Members in private during the final days of the legislative year without consideration by the Senate Finance Committee and other committees of jurisdiction. That flawed process has produced a lopsided solution leaving existing retirees to shoulder a disproportionate share of sacrifice. It also will result in the rolling back of a major tenet enshrined in pension law--never take away money a pensioner has already earned. Under this bill, for the first time, Congress will allow multiemployer plans to cut retirees' earned pension benefits. This is unprecedented and I worry about the impact on retirees and the slippery slope we are about to head down. No matter what one thinks about the underlying policy, legislation this complex and controversial requires thorough review and analysis. That hasn't happened here. In fact, no one in the Senate, including the committees of jurisdiction, had the opportunity to fully review these provisions. Even a single, small, unintentional misstep in the rush to legislate could have serious and negative consequences to retirees and businesses alike. I am working hard to protect retirees' pensions, and jamming these reforms through Congress virtually sight unseen is no way to solve the problems with multiemployer pensions. As a conglomerate, these provisions tip the balance of this fine bill to one that I cannot support and with that I regretfully voted against its final passage.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

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

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, my friend Senator Thune and I are on the floor this afternoon to speak together about the Internet Tax Freedom Act. Before that, I wish to spend a few minutes discussing Senator Rockefeller and his extraordinary accomplishments. I know that Senator Thune, after he and I have spoken about the Internet Tax Freedom Act, will make some additional remarks. I commend the work of Senator Thune on charitable contributions. He and I have led the effort to protect charitable donations. Neither of us consider charity efforts as some kind of tax loophole. We consider them a lifeline for the American people. So I look forward to the remarks of the Senator from South Dakota on several issues.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I support the amendment from the Senators from Colorado and North Carolina and I especially want to thank Senator Bennet for his leadership on this issue. I was proud to help them by including it in the highway legislation mentioned by the Senator from Colorado and I regret that the measure is not included in any of the bills we are considering as we wind down this Congress. I would like to commit to working with my colleagues to find an appropriate vehicle for moving this proposal early next year.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a statement in support of Division M of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I want to take a few minutes today to speak on the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual policy bill for the Department of Defense. Let me start by noting that Senator Carl Levin, who is Chairman of the committee that put this agreement together, will be retiring after this year. This bill carries Senator Levin's name on it in what I think will be a fitting tribute to his legacy here. I have appreciated his wisdom on so many issues over the years, and I know I am in good company when I say to Senator Levin that his leadership will be missed in the United States Senate. Passing a defense authorization bill is one of Congress' most important annual tasks, and it has been for decades. I have supported some of these bills throughout my time here and given the number of security concerns facing this country--the continued presence of ISIL in Iraq and Syria, Russia's ongoing efforts to destabilize Ukraine, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa--I hoped to be able to support this bill as well. Regrettably, however, I am forced to vote against this defense bill. Most Americans may not know this, but the United States is still spending as much on defense as it spent at the height of the Cold War. This bill before us today would authorize nearly $600 billion in total defense spending--including more than $60 billion in war funding. That really ought to raise more questions about how that money is being spent and whether the American people are getting their money's worth for each dollar they spend on defense. But what I find most concerning is that my Senate colleagues and I are being asked to approve this mammoth bill without being given the opportunity to vote on any substantive amendments. I am sure that if Senators were given that chance, we could consider amendments regarding sexual assault in the military or greater transparency within the intelligence community, for example. One issue in particular that would have benefitted from more debate is the Guantanamo Bay detention center. When the Senate Armed Services Committee passed its version of this defense bill in June, it included provisions allowing the Department of Defense to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States ``for detention, trial and incarceration.'' My position on the Guantanamo Bay detention center has long been to shut it down and prosecute as many detainees as possible in the federal court system--where the United States has a strong record of winning convictions. I felt that the earlier Armed Services Committee language would have made progress toward these goals, and I am disappointed that the agreement before us today maintains the prohibition on transferring any detainees to the United States to stand trial. I also want to take a few minutes to express my deep concerns about the lands package included in this defense authorization agreement. This package contains some laudable bills for our Nation's environment like wilderness and new parks supported by many members of Congress. This lands package also includes, however, a number of extraordinarily controversial provisions that will do serious and long-lasting environmental damage. Take the provision that represents an unprecedented giveaway of public lands to benefit a foreign corporation. It will destroy a recreational oasis, disturb a sacred Indian site, and cast aside recreational, environmental, and cultural concerns in favor of big mining and big money. Neither the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee nor the House of Representatives has approved that provision this Congress, yet it is being jammed into this defense bill today without debate. In addition several important pieces of legislation with bipartisan support were simply left out of this lands package. I am disappointed that this package does not include legislation to modernize and increase forest management on the Oregon and California Grant Lands, better known as the O&C Lands, for example. This lands package also does not include legislation that would resolve long-standing issues regarding water resources in the Klamath Basin. Additionally, I am disappointed that the lands package does virtually nothing to help rural counties: it fails to renew the bipartisan Secure Rural Schools program that funds critical services in more than 700 counties in over forty States. The assistance it provides to fund the another significant rural aid program known as Payments in Lieu of Taxes is not enough to fully fund the program in the absence of Secure Rural Schools funding. These programs are lifelines for cash-strapped rural counties that struggle to fund basic law enforcement, infrastructure improvements, and other public services. Finally, I am extremely disappointed that the lands package did not include reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program that opens up our Nation's public lands and wilderness areas for recreation and enjoyment, while providing tremendous economic benefits to rural communities. This lands package is unbalanced. It does not reflect bipartisan compromises reached in the committees of jurisdiction. Lastly, in the crucial days, when decisions were being made about the public lands bills that did not make it into this package, most Senators were kept in the dark about issues of great importance to their constituents. So, I return to the notion that Senators and the people they represent must be heard on legislation this consequential. It is unfortunate that after a full Congress of hard work, a number of good proposals will simply be left on the cutting room floor. I want to repeat that this bill before us today authorizes more than half of the discretionary budget for the U.S. Government, almost $600 billion in defense spending, including more than $60 billion in war funding. Because of that, I regret that I must oppose this defense authorization bill.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I close with just a word about our friend and colleague Senator Mark Udall of Colorado. I have had the pleasure of serving with Senator Udall on the Intelligence Committee and have admired his commitment to American security and core American values. Many in the Senate would not know this because all of those intelligence meetings are behind closed doors, but Mark Udall is not a Senator who is afraid to stand alone. He is not afraid to fight for what he believes in. When the fight to declassify this report got bumpy--and let me tell you it did a lot of times. I think some of you heard this weekend we had an eleventh-hour objection to the report getting out. People asked me what I thought, and I said it was not particularly surprising because there were objections practically every hour on the hour for months and months. Yet when the fight to declassify the report got very difficult, some people said: This is going to get buried forever. That is what happens when you try to get accountability and transparency. Senator Mark Udall made it clear that wasn't going to be allowed to happen on Mark Udall's watch. I am going to wrap up by saying to Senator Udall, I remember when we started this battle together and we got a handful of votes, sometimes like 13 to 2 or whatever. We thought it was going to be a long time before there was reform. We went from those days to eventually getting up to 15 or 20 votes. Colleagues, today, to a great extent because of Senator Udall, in the last vote for real surveillance reform, we were up to 58 votes--58 votes for real surveillance reform. That, to a great extent, is possible because of the extraordinary service of my good friend Senator Mark Udall from Colorado. We westerners always make sure we stay in touch, and you know that is going to be the case with this particular friend from the West, a wonderful Senator, Mr. Mark Udall. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am here to talk about the Intelligence Committee report, but before the Senator leaves the floor, I just want to tell my colleague from Nebraska how much I appreciate his service. I note for the body that in the effort to build a bipartisan coalition for major tax reform, Mike Johanns was the Senator whose counsel we all thought we needed, and I thank him. I will have more to say about his career before the end of this week.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have served on the Senate Intelligence Committee for 14 years and came to the Senate floor in the spring of 2005 to join with Senator Rockefeller in calling for the committee to investigate the CIA's interrogation activities and the possible use of torture. In 2009 I joined my Intelligence Committee colleagues in voting to approve Chair Feinstein's motion to launch an investigation into these activities. I said at the time, I continue to believe it today, that what this debate over torture requires is an infusion of facts. Americans can hear me and other policymakers argue that the CIA's so-called enhanced interrogation techniques constituted torture and did not work, and Americans can also hear various former officials argue that these techniques are not torture and that they produced uniquely valuable information. What is important is that today all Americans finally have access to the facts so they can make up their own minds. Personally, I hope this report closes the door on the possibility of our country ever resorting to torture again. Americans have known since the days of the Salem witch trials that torture is an unreliable means of obtaining truthful information in addition to being morally reprehensible. But following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a small number of CIA officials chose to follow the advice of private, outside contractors who told them the way to quickly get important information from captured terrorist suspects was by using coercive interrogation techniques that had been developed and used by Communist dictatorships during the Cold War. I would note that the CIA officials later paid these same contractors to evaluate the effectiveness of their own work. CIA officials repeatedly represented to the public, to the Congress, to the White House, and to the Justice Department that the techniques were safe, that they were only used against high-level terrorist captives, and that their use provided unique otherwise unavailable intelligence that saved lives. After 5 long years of investigation, our committee found that none of these claims held up. The CIA's so-called enhanced interrogation techniques included a number of techniques that our country has long considered torture. Furthermore, the CIA's own interrogation records make it clear that the use of these techniques in the CIA's secret prisons was far harsher than was described in representations by the CIA. CIA Director Michael Hayden testified that any deviation from approved procedures were reported and corrected, but CIA interrogation logs described a wide variety of harsh techniques that the Justice Department's infamous torture memos did not even consider. Practices such as placing detainees in ice water or threatening a detainee with a power drill were often not appropriately recorded or corrected when they happened. Director Hayden also testified that detainees at a minimum have always had a bucket to dispose of their human waste, but in fact CIA detainees were routinely placed in diapers for extended periods of time, and CIA cables show multiple instances in which interrogators withheld waste buckets from detainees. CIA records indicate that some CIA prisoners may not have been terrorists at all. Some of these individuals were in fact ruthless terrorists with blood already on their hands, but one of the report's most important findings is that this did not seem to be the case in every instance. In one particularly troubling case, the CIA held an intellectually challenged man prisoner and attempted to use tapes of him crying as leverage against another member of the individual's family. At another point the CIA official noted in writing that the CIA was holding a number of detainees about whom we know very little, and the CIA on multiple occasions continued to hold people even after CIA officers concluded there was not information to detain them. The review even found email records that described Director Hayden instructing a CIA officer to underreport the total number of CIA detainees. To this day the CIA's official response to this report indicates that senior CIA officials are alarmingly uninterested in determining exactly how many detainees the CIA even held. To be clear, the report doesn't attempt to determine the motivation behind these misrepresentations. The report doesn't reach judgments about whether individuals deliberately lied or unknowingly passed along inaccurate information. It simply compares the representations the CIA made to Congress, the Justice Department, the public, and others to the information found in the CIA's own internal records, and it notes where those comparisons reveal significant contradictions. One of the biggest sets of contradictions revolve around the repeated claim that the use of these techniques produced unique, otherwise unavailable intelligence that saved lives. CIA officials made this claim to the White House, the Justice Department, the Congress, and the public. The claim was repeated over and over and over again. Over the years CIA officials came up with a number of examples to try to support the claim, such as the names of particular terrorists supposedly captured as a result of coercive interrogations or plots that had been supposedly thwarted based on this unique, otherwise unavailable information. The committee took the 20 most prominent or frequently cited examples used by the CIA and our investigators spent years going through them. Twenty examples are going to seem like a lot to anybody who reads the report, but the committee members who were working on the report agreed it was important to be comprehensive and avoid cherry-picking just one or two cases. In every one of these cases the CIA statements about the unique effectiveness of coercive interrogation techniques were contradicted in one way or another by the Agency's own internal records. I am going to repeat that because I think it is a particularly important finding. In every one of these 20 cases, CIA statements about the unique effectiveness of coercive interrogation was contradicted in one way or another by the Agency's own internal records. We are not talking about minor inconsistencies. We are talking about fundamental contradictions. For example, in congressional testimony and documents prepared for White House briefings, the CIA claimed that a detainee had identified Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks after he was detained by the CIA and subjected to the CIA's coercive interrogation techniques, but in fact CIA records clearly show that Abu Zubaydah provided this information during noncoercive interrogations by the FBI prior to the beginning of his coercive CIA interrogations and days before he was even moved to the CIA's secret detention site. I personally expected that there would be at least one or two cases where vague or incomplete records might appear to support the Agency's claims, but in fact in every one of these 20 examples they and the arguments for them crumble under close scrutiny. The report that is being released today includes a number of redactions aimed at protecting our national security. I will say in my view some of these redactions are unnecessary and a few of them even obscure some details that would help Americans understand parts of the report. Overall I am satisfied that the redactions do not make the report unreadable and it would be possible for Americans to read the report to learn not only what happened but how it happened, and learning that is essential to keep it from happening again. One of the reasons this public release is necessary is that the current CIA leadership has been resistant to acknowledging the full scope of the mistakes and misrepresentations that have surrounded this program. Some of this resistance is made clear in the Agency's official response to the committee's report, and I suspect some of it will be echoed by former officials who were involved in the program. Finally, I want to wrap up by reminding people about the documents that have come to be known as the Panetta review. When former CIA Director Panetta came to the Agency in 2009, he made it clear from the outset that he wanted to work to put the Agency's history of torture behind it and that he wanted to cooperate with the Intelligence Committee inquiry. He also sensibly asked CIA personnel to review internal CIA records and get a sense of what this investigation could be expected to find. The review got off to a solid start. It began to identify some of the same mistakes and misrepresentations that are identified in our committee's report. Unfortunately, it does not appear that this review ever made it to the Director's desk. Instead, publicly available documents made it clear this review was quietly terminated by CIA attorneys who thought it was moving too fast. Earlier this year the Agency conducted an unprecedented and secret search of Senate files in an effort to find out whether the committee had obtained copies of the Panetta review. After it was found that committee investigators had in fact obtained the Panetta review, the CIA actually attempted to file unsupported criminal allegations against Senate staff members. After the search was publicly revealed by the press, the CIA's own spokesperson acknowledged in USA Today that the search had taken place and it had been done because the CIA was looking to see if our investigators had found a document the CIA didn't want the Congress to have. Incredibly, that same week CIA Director John Brennan told reporter Andrea Mitchell of NBC that the CIA had not spied on Senate files and that ``nothing could be further from the truth.'' I think this incident and the difference between what was said to Andrea Mitchell and what the Agency's own people said to USA Today reflects once again what I call an alarming culture of misinformation. Instead of acknowledging the serious organizational problems that are laid out in this report, the Agency's leadership seems inclined to try to sweep them under the rug. This means organizational problems aren't going to be fixed unless they are laid out publicly, and there is also a danger that other countries or even future administrations might be tempted to use torture if they don't have all the facts about the CIA's experience. That is why the release today is so important. In concluding, I thank all of the staff who have put in hours and hours and nights and weekends and time away from their families to get this investigation completed. I praise Chair Feinstein and our former Chair Senator Rockefeller, who together were resolute in pushing for this kind of congressional oversight.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Kelly Tribble Spencer, a detailee in my office, be granted privileges of the floor for the remainder of the 113th Congress.