National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017--Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, sometimes I feel like our Democratic colleagues will not take yes for an answer. As the distinguished Senator from Washington knows, we have passed a $1.1 billion appropriation to combat the Zika virus. It is something we all agree on, on a bipartisan basis.
What the Senator from Washington objects to is the fact that it happens to be attached to another appropriations bill, but the process is that now gets reconciled with the bill passed by the House and then sent to the President. The good news is, there is already $580 million in unexpended Ebola funds that can be used as a downpayment to deal with the Zika virus.
The Presiding Officer and I have come from States where the mosquito which carries the Zika virus is present. We all appreciate the seriousness of this, and we are determined to act on a bipartisan basis. The Senator from Washington knows that, but that doesn't stop her and her colleagues from coming to the floor and making demands that we do this instantaneously.
Mr. President, to give you a sense of what is going on, we have been trying to get our Democratic colleagues to allow us to pass the Defense authorization bill all week. What we have been told is, no, they need more time to review it. Every Democrat in the Armed Services Committee voted for the Defense authorization bill. It has been posted online for some time now. Anybody who cares about what is in the bill has had plenty of time to read it. Even though the Senate voted unanimously yesterday to proceed to the legislation--which is not a word you hear often around here, ``unanimous''--the bill has been stopped in its tracks by our Democratic colleagues. It is shameful because this is our primary vehicle to make sure our men and women in the military get the resources and equipment they need in order to defend the country. That is why Congress has been able to pass a defense authorization bill every year for 50 years-plus. Taking care of our national defense is our No. 1 job in the Federal Government, but the Democratic leader and his colleagues, apparently with their complicity, have been doing everything they can to slow down this legislation. They know we are coming up on a weeklong Memorial Day recess, so they have delayed it another week before we can take it up when we return.
This also gives our men and women in uniform a pay raise, but apparently they are being used once again as a political pawn or football. It is shameful, and it is unnecessary. Somebody said: Well, it is just politics. It is one of the reasons the American people look with such disdain at what happens in Washington these days because these sorts of things--politics, partisanship--get put ahead of our duty to protect those who defend the Nation.
We will have a vote later on today to get on the bill. I know Senator McCain, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is eager to get on this bill, to deal with the amendments. The majority leader has said the week we come back, we will not leave until we complete our work on the Defense authorization bill.
I think one of the reasons our friends across the aisle are dragging their feet on this legislation is because they are getting a little worried at the contrast between the productiveness of the 114th Congress compared to the 113th Congress when they were in charge. We know what happened then, after a disastrous election, which many incumbent Democrats lost the election because they didn't have anything to point to as a record of accomplishment because of the failed strategy of the then-majority leader from Nevada. Even Senators in the majority party didn't have records of success they could point to, to commend them to the voters for their own reelection. It was a devastating loss. The majority became the minority, and new management was put in charge.
Senator McConnell, the majority leader, said he thinks it is important for the Senate to return to its regular role, considering and building consensus to pass bipartisan legislation, and that is exactly what we have done. Ironically, many of our Democratic friends, who are now in the minority, have had a greater opportunity to participate in passing legislation as Members of the minority more so than they did when they were in the majority, essentially when Senator Reid shut down the U.S. Senate.
We have seen a productive Senate this year and last, notwithstanding the efforts to shut down the Defense authorization bill. For example, last week the Senate passed three bills. It passed an appropriations bill, it passed the POLICE Act--to make sure our law enforcement officials get the training they need to, to deal with active shooter training--and we passed a bill called the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. They all had strong bipartisan support. That last bill is making sure families who lost loved ones in 9/11 get justice--the justice they deserve, wherever the facts may lead.
The bottom line is, we are doing our dead-level best, despite the dead weight of the other side, on occasion--such as the Defense authorization bill--to stop us from making progress. I think it is pretty clear what is going on, so I will not dwell on that any longer, but my response to them is to simply stop playing politics with our men and women in uniform and drop the stall tactics. It is blatant, it is obvious to everyone with eyes in their head, and it is absolutely shameful. Coast Act
Mr. President, in less than a week, hurricane season will be upon us. The Presiding Officer knows that well, coming from Florida. Residents along the gulf coast will be preparing for all that a major storm might bring, including flooding, storm surges, and high winds. The hundreds of miles of Texas coast and the State's location along the Gulf of Mexico make it particularly vulnerable to hurricanes and storms. That would be Texas. Because the area is so densely populated--Houston, TX, for example, right there in the middle of the Texas gulf coast--and includes one of our Nation's busiest ports and energy hubs, the potential for major damage along the Texas coast could have significant ramifications, not just for the region but for the rest of the country as well.
When Hurricane Ike made landfall in 2008, we got a glimpse of how bad it could be. The storm caused a tremendous amount of damage as it made its way through the Caribbean, from Haiti to the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Storm surges in parts of Texas were estimated to be as high as 20 feet. Ike was the second costliest U.S. hurricane on record, causing billions of dollars' worth of damage. Sadly, it took the lives of dozens across the Caribbean and the United States.
As the hurricane season gets underway, I know many Texans have been reminded of that terrible storm and many worry about the potential damage another big storm coming through our coastline would bring. It is not a question of if, it is a matter of when that is going to happen. We need to make sure we are doing what we can to protect those on the coast and to protect our economy from the next Hurricane Ike.
I have been encouraged to see many efforts underway at the State and local level in Texas on how to develop the best plan to approach the problem. Several groups in the State are currently studying the coastline and determining where Texas is most defenseless against a major storm.
In Congress, I have joined with other members of the Texas delegation to authorize the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to assess the vulnerabilities and to propose how we can best mitigate future damage, but there is room to do more because we know this process is simply too slow. It is not as fast as it needs to be, which is why I introduced something I call the COAST Act, which stands for the Corps' Obligation to Assist in Safeguarding Texas. It is pretty straightforward.
This legislation would require the Corps of Engineers to use the data in other studies that are sound science and already completed for their planning at the State and local level. In that way, the Corps of Engineers is not just duplicating efforts and burning the clock when we can't afford to do that. So we can speed up the process so the Texas coast can get the protection it needs sooner. It would also let the final recommendations of the Corps proceed without going through numerous and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles. In other words, once the Corps determines the best course of action to keep Texans on the coast safe, they will not have to wait for another congressional approval to authorize it. The COAST Act is a lesson in streamlining the Federal Government--something we could use more of--so that folks who may be in harm's way can get what they need faster. I want to particularly express my appreciation to Congressman Randy Weber on the other side of the Capitol, who has introduced a similar bill as well. I hope that as we prepare for the upcoming hurricane season, we can get this legislation passed. Calling for Appointment of a Special Counsel
Mr. President, on one final matter, yesterday the inspector general's office at the State Department released a 70-plus-page report telling us what many people suspected all along. That report criticized then- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private, unsecured email server while she was our Nation's top diplomat and having access to and processing highly classified information--some of our Nation's most confidential and classified secrets. Some people have wondered why recent poll numbers have not been kind to Mrs. Clinton when it comes to her trustworthiness. A Washington Post-ABC News national poll found that just 37 percent of the people who responded to that poll believe Hillary Clinton is honest and trustworthy, while 57 percent said they don't think she is. This is a serious problem, not just for Mrs. Clinton but for the country.
There are those who wonder why people are so upset with Washington. What they see is a culture of corruption that doesn't address some of these fundamental issues. Well, time and again we have heard Secretary Clinton and her allies say that her use of a private email server was wholly consistent with State Department policy. But, of course, the report that was just released by the inspector general yesterday says otherwise and revealed a host of other inconsistencies.
First, the report indicates that Clinton's email use was not in accordance with State Department standards, and, more than that, the former Secretary of State neglected to get the formal approval she needed in order to use her private server.
Second, Secretary Clinton and her supporters, including the President, have maintained that her server was not a security risk, while others, such as former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, said they were confident that our Nation's adversaries--China and Russia, well known for their cyber attacks--were taking full advantage of an unsecured server and using and gaining access to classified information which was now--in the words of Representative Pompeo, who serves on the Intelligence Committee in the House--like putting intelligence on Twitter. In effect, that is what Mrs. Clinton did. But, of course, the report from the inspector general calls all of this into question and asserts that when some of Clinton's staffers raised concerns about a potential breach to the system, the relevant security officials at the State Department were not alerted. They just weren't alerted in accordance with State Department policy. Even though Secretary Clinton has maintained that she has been fully complying with every request related to an investigation of her use of the private server, the inspector general report makes clear that the Secretary and her staff refused to be interviewed. That is not cooperating with the authorities. She can't refuse to talk to the FBI, and a number of her staffers have been, and she said she will make herself available. I bet she will because she really doesn't have any choice. But to say she is cooperating with an investigation by the inspector general at the State Department and then refusing to be interviewed is just--well, let's call it what it is--a lie.
Similarly, the report reveals that Secretary Clinton didn't turn over all of her work-related emails upon leaving office, like she said she did. She only did so almost 2 years after leaving, and the State Department basically had to demand it, even then we know she deleted-- she told us this-- thousands of emails before turning over those she deemed work related. I suspect the forensics experts at the FBI have been able to recover a lot of the emails that she deleted. We all know if you delete emails, they remain on the server in a digital format. The truth will come out sooner or later, but I just have to say the conduct of the former Secretary demonstrates why people just don't trust her. Of course, the recent contradictions are just outrageous and indicate that rather than cooperation, her intention has been to obstruct the public's right to know.
This report underscores why I believe we need an independent investigation into this matter. I called for the appointment of a special counsel because it is clear that the Attorney General, who serves at the pleasure of President Obama, is going to have very little incentive or intention to pursue the appropriate investigation. So I have asked Attorney General Lynch to appoint a special counsel to provide some modest level of independence so the public can know that we have gotten to the bottom of this despite Secretary Clinton's denials and obfuscation and statements of untruth. We need to get to the bottom of it. It is absolutely critical that we do so.
I hope Attorney General Lynch reconsiders my call for a special counsel.
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