Eternal lord god, we pause in these revered halls to give thanks and to offer petition. We acknowledge in this place, you have called all humankind to exhibit righteousness and justice. You desire harmony, accord, peace and wholeness. Bless now, the representatives who gather in this place of policy and procedure. We ask oh god that you would impart the gift of now vision and future sights. We pray for your gifts of discernment, sensitivity and perceptiveness. For those assembled, present, give and grant the posture 6 of patience of cooperation. To those in debate, discussion, discourse and duty, allow calm clarity. Allow truth to reign, justice to reside, and mercy to resonate. Keep ever before us the broken, the disappointed, those in despair, and the destitute. Set ears to hear the cries of the poor, the needs of the sick, and the afflicted. Please allow hearts assembled to do that which is best, for all. In advance, for what you will do, we say thank you. We pray in your holy name. Amen. Amen. The president pro tempore please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Reid mr. President . The president pro tempore the majority leader. Mr. Reid i move to proceed to calendar number 384, the hey gan sportsman the hagan sportsman act. The president pro tempore the clerk will report. The clerk s. 2363, a bill to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing and shooting and for other purposes. Mr. Reid mr. President . The president pro tempore the majority leader. Mr. Reid following my remarks and those of the republican leader, the senate will be in a period of morning business until 11 00 this morning with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. At 11 00 a. M. The senate will proceed to executive session and well have five roll call votes which will be to confirm three judges from florida and one from vermont and also a very important nomination rodriguez to be director of the United States citizenship and immigration services, department of homeland security. Mr. President , its unfortunate that we have still scores and scores of good men and women on the executive calendar waiting to be confirmed, but the delay by the republicans is untoward. Its never happened before. And were working through these as quickly as we can. With the judges, they can only take an hour of postcloture time. But on these nominations, they have eight hours. We can yield back four hours, which we do almost every time, but these stalling tactics have not added to our doing nothing here in the senate by hours. Not days, not weeks, but months. And thats so unfortunate. Weve never, i repeat, had a situation like this before. As everyone knows, weve changed the rules as it related to judges. Thank goodness, mr. President , we did that. Justice can move forward in our country. The delay and obstruction thats taken place over the last number of years and Republicans Holding up judges, we through the chairman of the committee, have moved lots of judges. We have now were going to have four Circuit Court judges we have to move toward and we will do that, even though each one of those takes 30 hours. And were nearly caught up with district caught judges, which speaks well of the Judiciary Committee and senators who are forwarding names to the president for submission to the committee here. Mr. President , tomorrow were going to turn to the workforce investment act, a nice, important piece of legislation. And it is a picture of what we should be doing here on legislation generally. The workforce investment act is a very complicated piece of legislation. Were not going to spend a lot of time on it, but that should not in any way take away from the importance of this legislation. It is a, really an important thing that were doing. Its an example of how we should be able to get things done in the senate. Now i commend senators murray, harkin, and alexander for working to get this bill to us. They have spent untoward hours and hours of time to get us here. I dont everyone knows what a peacemaker Lamar Alexander is. I appreciate his work. I was told just a few minutes ago that he came to the floor and said, why dont we go ahead on the Appropriations Bills, on amendments that appear to be controversial have 60 votes on those. I suggested the same thing yesterday, mr. President. We voted here approximately 50 times on ive been forced to have now what we call the mcconnell rule, 60 votes on everything that is the least bit controversial. Lets move through the Appropriations Bills. People on my side of the aisle want to do this, and i dont know why the republicans would prevent us from doing that. But thats where we are now. So, mr. President , i also just want to say im going to talk to the press in more detail at a subsequent time. But i want to congratulate rand paul, the junior senator from kentucky. About 15 years ago, mr. President , i offered an amendment here on the senate floor that said if someone has been convicted of a crime, a felony, and they have completed their sentence if they go to jail, if theyve completed their probation time if they got probation, if they completed their parole time, this is all over with, they should be able to vote. And thats what rand paul said in his offering legislation saying if its a nonviolent crime, they should be able to vote when theyve completed their time. I went a little further than that with mine, but i so appreciate his suggestion, and ill have more to say about that later. And i hope i dont get him in trouble with his Republican Caucus for congratulating him on this. This is something that is long overdue. As a country, we should allow people who have served their time, who have served their pen nance or whoever you want to state it, they should at least be able to vote. As i said, ill say for the third time, i have a lot more to say about that later today. Would the chair announce the business of the day . The presiding officer under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. Under the previous order, there will be a period of morning business until 11 00 a. M. With senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each, with time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. A senator mr. President . The presiding officer the assistant majority leader. Mr. Durbin mr. President , thank you. For a number of years years i have come to this floor to talk about an issue that i want to bring up again this morning. And the issue is forprofit colleges and universities. Many people, when they hear me describe this, dont understand which schools im talking about. Its not the public universities that you would think of automatically the university of illinois, Northwestern University and others, private universities like northwestern. It is the forprofit world of Higher Education. The leaders in that forprofit world mr. President , i see that the minority leader is on the floor here, senator mcconnell. Ill proceed. The forprofit colleges and universities are led by the apollo group which owns the university of phoenix, the largest; devry university, based out of chicago, kaplan and corinthian and many others. They bring about 10 to 12 of all the High School Graduates into their forprofit colleges. They receive from the federal government 20 of all the federal aid to education because their tuitions that they charge are very high. And these forprofit colleges have another distinction. Their students account for 46 of all College Student loan defaults. 10 of the students, 46 of the student loan defaults. Whats going on here . Whats going on here is that they are charging these students a high tuition for these forprofit schools, and they are not preparing them to go to work, or at least not to work at jobs where they can pay off their Student Loans. So students will drop out before they finish or theyll finish with a diploma thats worthless. They cant find a job. They cant pay back their Student Loans. And now theyre in the worst of all possible worlds, deep in debt with no education to speak of. Forprofit colleges and universities. The reason i wanted to raise that point is theres been several significant developments. Let me talk to you about some of these schools. Education Management Corporation owns a group of schools called the art institutes. Ive run into them in the chicago land area. Argessy is another one of of these forprofit schools. I. T. T. Tech, another one. I mentioned kaplan and apollo. Career Education Corporation has schools like the American Intercontinental University in the Harrington College of design. They sound very appealing. Harrington, i met one of the students. Hannah moore, she is a young woman from chicago. She went two years to community college. Then she transferred into this Harrington College of design in the suburbs of chicago to get a degree in design. And when it was all over, after she received her degree, she couldnt find a job. Not in that field. It turned out that the diploma, degree, was basically worthless. But when she left Harrington College of design she had a college debt of 125,000. 125,000, and she couldnt find a job, and she couldnt make the payments, and she started to move back in with her parents because thats all she could do. And now because she couldnt keep up with the payments, the debt has grown to 150,000, her college loan debt, and her father came out of retirement to try to help her pay it. Think about that. She did what she thought was a good thing in going to college. She went to one of these worthless, forprofit schools, and now her life is literally changed forever because of this mountain of debt. Then theres a group called Corinthian Colleges that i want to focus on here. Corinthian colleges based out of california. The local colleges name you may recognize is everest colleges. We have six of them in illinois. There are about ten in michigan, a dozen of them in california. Theyre across the United States, everest college. It turns out last year evidence surfaced that everest colleges were falsifying the information they were submitting to the federal government. In some cases they hired employers to hire everest graduates for a short period of time so they could report to the government their graduates found job. Then after the report was made, it turns out that the people were let go. They didnt have a job. Everest was asked to send Additional Information to the federal government about this fraudulent practice, and for five months they failed to do it. And then last week the u. S. Department of education said because everest wasnt provide us with the data theyre supposed to under the law, were going to suspend new student loan money to them for 21 days. Everest colleges, corinthian, their parent corporation, announced that because of this, they were going to not have enough money and may not be able to continue their operations. The value of stock in this corporation, corinthian corporation, went down in the range of 28 cents last week. Nobody would loan them money. Well, right now some 75,000 students across america are enrolled in everest colleges with Student Loans, and theres a very good chance that everest colleges, corinthian as we know it, will not survive. My obvious question is whats going to happen to these students . Theyve got the debt to go to this worthless school that appears to be going out of business. Were working with the u. S. Department of education right now. Im concerned about where these students are going to end up. Ive contacted the Community Colleges in my state and said reach out to the everest College Students, see if you can rescue these kids. But put it in perspective. This is only one of many forprofit colleges and universities. Most students dont know this whole brand of Higher Education is out there. They think its just like every other college. It is not. And were not doing a good enough job at the federal level to regulate these forprofit colleges and universities that are exploiting these students. Let me tell you one story that was reported recently that i think is horrible involving Corinthian Colleges. An article written by david ha halpehalperin. A 37yearold man with what happens to be a developmental disability. He was reading at an Elementary School level, 37 years old, was allowed to enroll in everest colleges criminal justice program. According to the librarian who worked with him and subsequently resigned because of the treatment of this man, the man was rarely able to comprehend sentences, was unable to sound out words, and does not have the ability to read documents he was asked to sign. She was worried about his ability to even understand the debt that he was signing on for, the Student Loan Debt at one of these everest colleges. It apparently didnt matter to everest. They were ready to sign him up, as long as as this man was eligible to take out loans, he waeverest was going to get paid. Is that outrageous to think that they would lure someone with a disability into signing up . The list goes on and on. Ashford university, another one of these forprofit colleges and universities. The obvious question we have to ask is this when will our department of education and when will this congress address this travesty . What is existing across the United States with these forprofit colleges and universities is an outrage. And its exploiting students and families. Sadly, a couple weeks ago we trude to pass a bill on we tried to pass a bill on the floor here so that students could renegotiate their Student Loans, bring down the interest rates. Every democrat voted for it. We needed five republicans to join us so that students in states like new jersey and illinois could renegotiate their Student Loans down, makes them more affordable, we got three republicans, senator collins, senator corker, and senator murkowski. We needed two more to start the debate about renegotiating College Loans p. I think weve got to wake up here. Ththis debt that the families ae facing is an outrage. Part of it is started by these forprofit schools. But another part of it just reflects a debt that is out of control, and we ought to be more sensitive to it. Were going to call this again. Elizabeth warren brought the bill to the floor. This time were going to hope that some of our republican friends go home to their states and actually speak to families who are paying College Student loans. If they will, i think theyll understand they should join us in this effort. Give these College Student loans and their families a fighting chance to pay off the loans, reform the Higher Education system to stop the outrageous conduct by these forprofit colleges and universities. Mr. President , i yield the floor. The presiding officer the republican leader. Mr. Mcconnell last summer i said it felt like the white house had hung a gone campaigning sign oud the oval office. President obama didnt seem seriously interested in passing middleclass conclusions. It was all campaigning all the time. On the rarest occasions when he did come to congress, it was for internal Campaign Rallies with his party. Well, its actually only gotten worse. Since last summer, hes barely picked up the phone and his billsigning bill is literally starting to rust. Heres the reason this summer the Democratcontrolled Senate seems to have put out a gone campaigning sign of its own. Thats why the Democratic Senate has become a ver i veritable ge yard of good ideas. Most people assume the purpose of the senate to pass legislation to help the American People. But these days the democrats that run the senate seem to think their role is actually to just bury good legislation. Theyre more interested in pleasing their farleft political patrons, patrons who appear to oppose everything that could actually help the american middle class. Case in point the republicanled house of representatives has already passed hundreds of pieces of legislation this congress, legislation introduced by members of both parties, including dozens of jobs bills that remain stuck here in the senate. That means president obama hasnt had to sign or veto them and the Senate Majority leader has been all too happy to protect him, choosing between helping the farleft fringe and the vast american middle. In other words, Senate Democrats are on a mission this summer to obstruct solutions for the middle class at every turn and to prevent almost any serious legislating from occurring at t all. Over in the house, the Minority Party has been offered more than 160 votes on their amendments since last july. Here in the senate, the democratic leadership has blocked all but nine republican roll call votes. And i. T its not just republican amendments getting squashed either. The democrats are so afraid of legislating these days that theyre blocking virtually every amendment on both sides. Its gotten to the point where one house democrat, a congresswoman from texas, has now had twice as many roll call votes on amendments since last july 15 as the entire Senate Democratic conference combined. One member of the house in the Minority Party has had more votes than all of the Democratic Senators combined over the last year. Between the 55 Senate Democrats, theyve had seven amendments in a year. In other words, the majority leader is treating his own kfns even worse than conference than even worse than hes treating us. Even Committee Work can no longer escape the democratic majoritys political obsession. The majority shut down the Committee Process on important legislation that could have been and would have been bipartisan, bills about patents and appropriations. This is the kind of stuff that makes americans so very mad at washington. I mean, how do you justify stifling the voices of so many senators and the tens of millions of americans they were sent here to represent . Its indefensible. And i. T. Gotten worse and worse and its gotten worse and worse under current democratic leaders. Of course, every now and then were able to force our democratic friends to allow a few a few bipartisan ideas to go through like the job training and Workforce Development bill we expect to pass tomorrow. But, boy, thats the rare exception around here, a very rare option. A very rare exception. Instead we actually bein accedeo game playing on very important issues. The democrats block every attempt to provide relief to bluecollar families that have been affected by the attack on coal jobs. They wont allow a serious vote on shovelready projects like the Keystone Pipeline pipe either. Senate democrats have blocked just about every effort to move forward on these issues and in so dork the democratic leadership actually embarrasses the handful of Democratic Senators who still call for action on energy and keystone. Even veteran members who chair committees. It just shows what little influence those members actually have under the normal under the current democratic leadership. And it all lays a very simple truth about today tion Democratic Senate if the far left hates it, it aint happening. Thats true with health care, too. The middle class is being plummeted by obamacare. A recent study showed that an average 27yearold kentuckian from taylor county, saw his premiums skyrocket by almost 60 this year. Constituents like him are looking to washington for leadership and for solutions, but Senate Democrats wont even allow sensible Bipartisan Solutions to come to a vote. Instead, we just get more politics. Like the legislation we hear may be coming up later this week, a tactic designed by the Democratic Campaign committee to make americans forget forget that democrats voted to raid medicare voted to raid medicare by 700 billion to fund new obamacare spending. Every democrat in the senate on Christmas Eve 2009, without exception, voted to take 700 billion out of medicare to help fund obamacare. Senate democrats are actually trying to distract from their votes to raid medicare by making it even harder to save and strengthen medicare. But americans wont forget that the sponsors of the proposal were the very same people who voted to raid medicare in the first place through obamacare. And they wont forget what happened last week either. When republicans advance add sears of bills aimed to boost upward mobility. We thought democrats might want to work with us in a bipartisan manner to move these bills forward, but apparently the far left wont let them. Democratic leadership wont even consider legislation i introduced that would help moms and dads work from home while caring for young children. My bill aims to bring tax policy in line with what life is reallyic for working parents and it would help young parents save on child care costs, too. Like i said, Senate Democrats have just gone campaigning. For the democratic leadership, helping the middle class seems to be far from priority one. But the middle class needs help right now, and the only way to offer working moms and struggling College GraduatesReal Solutions is to break through the Senate Democratic logjam. There are two ways to accomplish that either our friends on the other side can get serious about working for the people at that elected them or the people that elected them can make the decision for them. Mr. President , i yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call quorum call the presiding officer the senator from south dakota. Mr. Thune thank you, mr. President. Mr. President , i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Thune mr. President , yesterday the white house held its summit on working families. On the summits web site the white house notes and i quote too many working americans, both men and women, are living paycheck to paycheck struggling to make ends meet and respond to the competing demands of work and family. End quote. Mr. President , that, unfortunately, is the truth. But what the white house doesnt acknowledge is how much its policies have done to create that situation. Working families have not fared well under the obama administration. Household income has fallen by 3,500 on the president s watch. Meanwhile prices for nearly everything have risen. Food prices have gone up. Tuition costs are soaring. Airline fares are rising. The cost of Recreational Activities like going to the movies has risen. And Energy Prices are placing a huge burden on American Families. Gas prices have nearly doubled since the president took office. Lowincome families in my state of south dakota pay an average of 24 of their income on energy costs alone. And things are set to get much worse. This month the president s e. P. A. Announced plans to complement a Massive Energy tax on americans. Thanks to this tax Energy Prices could terrorize to crippling could rise to be crippling levels for many families in the next few years, that is not what families need especially when paying huge prices for health care. Obamacare was supposed to make things better for American Families. The president assured his Health Care Law would reduce premiums by 2,500. But not have premiums not fallen, they have risen, gone up by 2,500. Millions of americans were forced off the health plans that they were promised they could keep into Exchange Plans that frequently cost more money and offer less. Too Many American families now have Exchange Plans with massive deductibles, some as high as 12,000 or more. Mr. President , what middleclass family can afford to pay 12,000 a year for medical care . 12,000 on top of their premiums. Thats like having an additional mortgage payment every single month. Its no wonder that 54 of americans dont think the president is able to lead the country and get the job done according to a reece recent wall street journal nbc news poll. So what can you do if youre a working Family Living paycheck to paycheck and struggling with the high cost of everything from health care to gasoline . Mr. President , over the past few years the answer has been not much. Because opportunities are few and far between in the obama economy. Instead of promoting policies to create jobs, too often the president has proposed policies that kill jobs. The Nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has reported that obamacare will cost two and a half million full time workers to leave the workforce. 2. 6 million americans earning less than 30,000 are in danger of having their hours and wages cut thanks to obamacares 30plus hour workweek rule. 63 of those workers are women. The president and his party have also pushed hard for a minimumwage hike the Congressional Budget Office said would destroy up to a million jobs. Lowincome americans would be hit the hardest by that. Then theres the president s National Energy tax. In addition to raising energy bills for all americans, the president s energy tax resulted in the loss of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs. The rule would gut the coal industry, putting tens of thousands of workers out of work there. Its difficult to reconcile the president s ostensible commitment to families with a policy that would put thousands and thousands of parents out of jobs. The keystone x. L. Pipeline would allow the president to put thousands of americans to work. With a stroke of his pen, the president could sign off on this project and the 42,000plus jobs that it would support. Instead hes ignored American Workers and Union Leaders and chosen to pander to the wishes of his extremist environmental base. Mr. President , the American People need jobs. Steady, goodpaying, longterm jobs with opportunities for advancement. Democrats and the president are not giving that to them. Instead of spending time on real jobcreation measures, the majority leader has chosen to waste the senates time on gimmicky politically motivated legislation. If democrats were serious about providing real relief to American Families, they would be working with republicans on the many bills we propose to spur job creation and to support American Workers. Bills like senator collins 40 hours is full time act which would repeal the obamacare 30hour workweek rule which is resulting in lower wages and fewer hours for American Workers. Or senator fischers workplace advancement measure which would equip women with the tools they need to fight discrimination in the workplace. And senator rubios raise act which will amend the National Labor relations act to allow employers to give meritbased pay increases to individual employees even if those increases are not part of a collective bargaining agreement. And senator mcconnells working Parents Home Office act which would fix a flaw in the tax code that prevents men and women from claiming a Home Office Deduction if their home office has a baby crib, so they can care for their child while theyre working. Mr. President , president obama has talked about the important of flex time for parents so they can adjust their work hours for parentteacher conferences or soccer games. Well, senator lee has a bill that would help workers handle the constant challenge of worklife balance by allowing privatesector employers to allow all individuals who work overtime a choice between a monetary compensation and between comptime. Unfortunately, like so many other republican bills, the lee working families flexibility act is buried in the majority leaders senate graveyard. Traditionally thought of as place where bills go to be debated, the United States has instead become the place where bills go to die. But its not just bills that go to die here. Its the solutions to improve the lives of millions of americans. In addition to the Many Senate Republican jobs bills that the majority leader has prevented from seeing the light of day, there are dozens, literally dozens of housepassed jobs bills, several of them bipartisan that the majority leader refuses to bring up. Mr. President , the senate historically has been a place where the voices of all senators, republican and democrat, majority and minority, have been hurt. But lately the senate seems to have become nothing so much as an arm of the Democrats Campaign committee. Democrats have brought up bills designed to win votes, not to solve problems. The democrat leadership has worked hard to prevent its vulnerable members from having to take challenging votes. They dont want democrats in tough campaigns to have to choose between the American People and democrat partys far left political base. One of congresss most basic duties is to consider appropriations. Yet, over the past two weeks the majority leader has pulled not one, but two Appropriations Bills from Committee Consideration because he didnt want his members to have to take votes on obamacare or on the president s National Energy tax. Mr. President , thats wrong. Were here to take tough votes if you dont want to have to take hard votes dont run for the United States senate. Theres a lot of stuff that amendments get offered on the other side that i dont like to vote on either, but thats what were here for. Were here for debate. Were here to take votes. Were here to offer amendments to, put legislation on the floor. All of us have different ideas. I may not agree with some of the things that are offered up by my colleagues on the other side, but the fact of the matter is they have a right on behalf of the constituents that they represent to bring the issue to the floor that are important to their constituents and for us to debate them and for us to vote on them. In fact, the majority leader has exerted such tight control over the senate that over the past year hes not only blocked almost all republican amendments, hes blocked almost all of his partys amendments as well. Since july of 2013, almost a year ago, the majority leader has allowed votes on just nine republican amendments and just seven democrat amendments out of 1,500 amendments that have been filed here on the floor of the senate. Think about that, mr. President. The worlds greatest deliberative body open to amendment, open to debate, 1,500 amendments get filed. Republicans get nine votes. I mean, i understand the whole idea that if political motivation of the leader is trying to prevent his members from having to take tough votes. But how do you as a majority member, how do democrats go back to their constituents at home and say it is advantageous for us to be in the majority here in washington when youve only had votes on seven amendments. Think about that. How do you with a straight face go back to your constituents and say being in the majority matters in the United States senate when democrats here are only getting, in the last year, seven amendments voted on. Its outrageous. One a month. About one amendment a month is what were voting on here roughly. Mr. President , senators were elected to speak for the people of their state and to make sure that their concerns are represented in the senate. When senators cant add their voices to the process, the American Peoples concerns are not getting heard. The American People have had a tough time getting their voices heard over the past few years. Over and over they have made it clear that they need good jobs and more economic opportunity. Instead theyve gotten five and a half years of higher costs and low job creation. And the jobs that are being created are not the kinds of jobs that were lost. Ed goodpaying jobs that provide opportunities for advancement. Republicans have proposed numerous bills to expand opportunities for American Families and workers. It is time for the senate to vote on these bills. The American People have spent enough time being ignored, mr. President. It is high time for the United States senate to change the way that its conducting its business. Mr. President , i yield the floor. Mr. Leahy mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from vermont. Mr. In the u. S. Defense establishment has been extraordinary. The vast majority of land mine use and production has stopped. New casualties have dropped significantly, and many countries have cleared the mined areas in their territories. Mr. Leahy of the 35 countries that have not yet joined the treaty, including the United States, almost all abide by its provisions. Now, we can be proud that the United States has been the largest contributor to programs to clear mines and to help mine victims. Those programs have saved countless lives. In fact, the war victims fund, the Leahy War Victims Fund was first used in mozambique. But i remember during the negotiations on the treaty how officials in the u. S. Administration at the time urged, even times warned their counterparts in other countries against joining the treaty, including our nato allies, all of whom have joined it. Some in our government said it was a meaningless gesture that would accomplish nothing. And i think they resented other governments, especially canada, and nongovernmental organizations around the world could achieve something outside the nature United Nations negots process that ultimately failed to address the problem. Instead, the treaty has already accomplished more than most people have expected, thanks to the preerd advocacy of the International Campaign to ban land mines and threequarters of the worlds governments, many of whose people have suffered from the scourge of land mines. Thats the good news. The bad news is that the problem is still not solved. Theres still thousands of injuries and deaths from the incident of mine use each year. And, mr. President , theyre not combatants in most cases, theyre innocent civilians. Because even when you have a Peace Agreement between armies fighting each other, they leave, the land mines stay. 20 years ago the speech at the United Nations that inspired people around the world, president clinton 7 called for a ban on antipersonnel land mines, and im proud of president clinton for doing that. But his presidency, his white house, his administration was outmaneuvered by the pentagon and they failed to join the treaty. Then during the eight years of the last bush administration, nothing happened. In fact, during those years, the white house reneged on some of the pledges of the clinton administration. When president obama was elected, i thought wed finally see the u. S. Get on the right side of this issue. After all, we fought two long wars without using antipersonnel mines. All our nato allies, most of our Coalition Partners have banned them. But we havent joined the treaty. Now, we rightly condemn and i do condemn the taliban for using victimactive aid i. E. D. s, which are also banned by the activated i. E. D. s, which are also banned by the treaty. But we also retain our rights to use antipersonnel mines. 18 years, president clinton charged the pentagon to develop alternatives to antipersonnel mines. Instead, the pentagon has fought every attempt to get rid of these indiscriminate weapons, even if they dont use them. They say we have to have them in our arsenal. As i said many times, no one argues that antipersonnel mines have no military utility. Every weapon has a military utility. Poison gas can have a military utility, but we outlawed it a century ago. Are we really incapable of renouncing, as our closest allies have tiny explosives that are the antithesis of precisionguided weapons, weapons we have rightly not used during two long wars, weapons that kill children and innocent civilians and are weapons that should bring condemnation to number that would use them. We talk about the importance of avoiding civilian casualties. We all believe in that. Weve seen how civilian casualties can turn a local population against us. We dont export antipersonnel land mines. We dont use them. We say way cant get rid of them. Mr. President , we can drive a robot on mars by Remote Control but we say we cant solve this problem . It begs credulity. Mr. President , this is not an abstract issue. This girl is who im talking about. Ive met countless people like her. She was lucky. She survived. Even though without hands and legs. Many others like her bleed to death. Ive been to clinics in poor countries where instead of soccer balls, they make artificial limbs like these. And why . Because they need them. I go there with the Leahy War Victims Fund. Im proud that we can give them money but i wish there was absolutely no need for that fund. I visited, as i stated before, a young girl in a hospital after the bosnia war. Parents sent her away so she could be safe. The war ends. The armies withdraw. Peace is signed. She can come back. She runs down the road calling out to her parents and steps on a mine and loses both her legs. Some safety. The wars over. Combatants are not in danger. We recently sent people to that area of the world after flooding. Why . Because the thousands of land mines still on the ground are washed and moved around and schoolchildren now face the danger again. Because even though they had mapped where the land mines were, thats where they were before the floods. Now, as in the past, the white house hides behind the neglect of this area by pointing to north korea. Well, whos not concerned about north korea . But are we so dependent on antipersonnel land mines we cant develop war plans for defending south korea without them . I reject that just as former commanders of our forces in korea rejected it long ago. Last week, after a cursory twominute debate, they inaccurately described the land mines in the d. M. Z. As u. S. Mines, which theyre not, and that inaccurately asserted, based on an erroneous press report, that the white house is about to join the mine ban treaty, which its not. The house defense appropriations subcommittee, egged on by the pentagon, adopted by voice vote a prohibition of the use of funds to implement the treaty. They followed the same idea where we still have poison gas in our arsenal. Were the only country the only civilized country to have that. The amendments sponsor even claimed the one thing, the only thing, stopping a north korean invasion is u. S. Antipersonnel mines. Balderdash. Did the pentagon tell him that . Of course not. I wonder how many, if any, members of that subcommittee have even read the treaty. One would think 61 years after the korean war, the pentagon would not still be arguing the defense of south korea depends on tiny, indiscriminate explosives that would also pose a threat to u. S. Forces if we counterattacked. It really makes you wonder this country has to arm a country that spends more money on its military than any country in the world, we have to rely on these little land mines to protect us . Oh, come on. President obama still has a little bit of time to put the United States on a path to join the treaty but time is running out. It will require some revision of our korea war plans, revision our past commanders have said we 20