Providing For Congressional Disapproval Of A Rule Submitted By The National Labor Relations Board

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, this morning we were fortunate enough to hear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu address a joint meeting of Congress. I was disappointed the Vice President and a number of Democratic Members of Congress chose not to attend this event. They missed a powerful speech, and they missed an opportunity to demonstrate America's commitment to our strongest ally, Israel.

In his speech before the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke about Israel's alliance with the United States to, as he put it, ``defend our common civilization against common threats.'' He spoke of ``values that unite us ..... values like liberty, equality, justice, tolerance, and compassion.'' These are the values that unite us. They are the values both our Nations are committed to defend. It is an area of the world where respect for liberty and equality is often nonexistent. Israel stands up for these most essential principles. America is proud to be her ally.

The Prime Minister spoke this morning about the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran. I scarcely need to enumerate the reasons why Iran possessing a nuclear weapon is such a dangerous prospect.

First and foremost, Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. That rather bureaucratic phrase obscures the full horror of what it signifies--that Iran's Government helps advance the activities of those who have made violence their mission and have kept millions of ordinary men, women, and children in the Middle East from living in stability and peace.

Iran has fomented hostility toward the State of Israel, and its leaders have publicly stated the desire to wipe the entire Nation of Israel off the map. As Iran spreads violence and oppression abroad, it also uses the same tactics against its people at home. Iran's Government is hostile to freedom of any kind, whether it be freedom of speech or freedom of religion, and thousands of its own citizens have been tortured and imprisoned and executed for daring to stand up for their human rights. Keeping such a regime from developing a nuclear weapon must be a priority.

Unfortunately, since November of 2013, when the Obama administration first reached an interim nuclear agreement with Iran, all we have seen from these negotiations are delays and extensions while Iran has received an easing of sanctions. We hear it repeated that ``no deal is better than a bad deal.'' Yet while Israel has made it clear that an agreement which recognizes Iran's right to enrich uranium is unacceptable, our own administration has yet to clearly state what a good deal would look like.

When the Senate made efforts to set out the parameters for an acceptable final agreement by introducing the bipartisan Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2015, which I cosponsored, the President announced that he would veto such a bill without even waiting to see what it would look like after being fully debated and amended.

Last week two of my colleagues introduced the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, which would give Congress 60 days to approve or disapprove any final agreement. It will be telling if the President threatens to veto this bill as well. It is essential that any final agreement on Iran's nuclear capability be acceptable to the American people, and congressional review is therefore indispensable.

I am eager to work with the White House and my colleagues across the aisle to provide the American people and our allies abroad with the assurance that Iran will not be allowed to arm itself with a nuclear weapon. However, I am concerned that if the President continues his go-it-alone approach, Americans may not like the deal that emerges.

KING V. BURWELL

Mr. President, I wish to pivot to an issue that is being considered over in the Supreme Court this week. Tomorrow the Supreme Court is going to hear oral arguments in the case of King v. Burwell, which challenges the extension of ObamaCare subsidies to States with Federal exchanges.

The President's health care law states that individuals who enroll through ``an exchange established by the State'' are entitled to receive subsidies to help with their premium payments.

ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber made it clear this was intended to give States an incentive to create their own exchanges. At an event in 2012, he told the audience:

[W]hat's important to remember politically about this is if you're a state and you don't set up an exchange, that means your citizens don't get their tax credits--but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill.

That is from ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber back in 2012.

In the wake of the health care law's passage, however, States made it clear they were reluctant to take on the costs and burdens associated with ObamaCare. More than two-thirds of the States declined to set up their own exchanges, and the Obama administration provided the subsidies to those enrolled on Federal exchanges despite there being no authority in the law for it to do so, and despite the concerns expressed by members of the President's own administration who were doubtful about the legality of such a move.

The administration's decision to push forward with the subsidies despite the lack of legal authority could have serious consequences for millions of Americans. If the Supreme Court finds the Obama administration overstepped its authority, 5 million Americans could lose their ObamaCare subsidies.

I recently joined several of my colleagues in sending a letter to the head of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Treasury Secretary to ask what the administration's plan is for dealing with the aftermath of an unfavorable Supreme Court ruling. The administration's answer: Nothing. That is right. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell told us the administration has no administrative plans for what it would do in the event of an unfavorable decision by the Supreme Court.

In fact, the administration declined to even warn Americans enrolling this year of what could happen if the Supreme Court found the administration was illegally providing subsidies.

Clearly the millions of Americans who could lose their health care premium subsidy, thanks to the administration's abuse of its authority, need a solution, and Republicans have been working on solutions. The junior Senator from Nebraska has put forward a plan to use the 1985 COBRA law to extend temporary health care assistance to these Americans for 18 months.

Other Republicans--Senator Hatch from Utah, Senator Alexander from Tennessee, Senator Barrasso from Wyoming--have offered their own plan which would also provide temporary financial assistance to affected Americans while they recover from the loss of the subsidies.

The chairmen of the House Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and the Workforce Committees have released a roadmap for replacing ObamaCare with market-based solutions. Their plan allows States to opt out of many ObamaCare mandates while maintaining protections for Americans. It would also make refundable tax credits available to Americans who lost their subsidies.

All of these plans seek to replace the broken ObamaCare system with real health care reform that would lower costs, expand access to care, and to put patients, not the government, in charge of their health care decisions.

We don't need this court case to demonstrate that ObamaCare has been a massive failure. We already had the unexpected tax bills, the higher premiums, the loss of doctors and hospitals, the health care plans Americans were not allowed to keep, the law's negative effect on employment, and I could go on and on.

This court case underscores what all the other law's problems have demonstrated: ObamaCare is not fixing the health care challenges facing our country. If anything, it is making them worse. ObamaCare has been tried, and it has been found wanting. It is time to repeal this law and to replace it with health care reforms that will actually fix the problems in our health care system and improve affordability and access for all Americans. Five years of ObamaCare is long enough.

I yield the floor.

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