[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 197 (Monday, December 4, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7814-S7816]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Bears Ears National Monument

  Madam President, very briefly, the President of the United States 
went to Utah to announce that he has done something that is going to be 
challenged in court--and should be--but is virtually unprecedented in 
the history of the United States. Presidents have the authority, going 
back to President Theodore Roosevelt, to establish monuments around 
this country--special land that is set aside because we believe it is 
important for future generations to have special access to it.
  President Obama, before he left office, created the Bears Ears 
National Monument. It is in San Juan County in Utah. I know a little 
bit about it. Twenty years ago, I visited this area when it was 
characterized as the Red Rocks Wilderness, and I introduced a bill to 
protect it.
  Over 20 years, little or nothing happened until President Obama 
designated a monument. Now comes President Trump, who has made a 
decision to dramatically eviscerate this monument, to basically 
eliminate 80 or 90 percent of the land that has been set aside.
  It is a beautiful part of America. It is an extraordinary part of 
America. It is something that most of us know little about, but if you 
go to the southeastern corner of Utah, you will find tourists from all 
over the world who come to see the beauty of this region--the Bears 
Ears region, the Red Rock Wilderness region.
  You ask local people: If you didn't set this aside for future 
generations, if you didn't protect it, what would you do with this 
land? The people of Utah are the first to tell me: Well, there is not 
much you can do with it. We don't think there is oil and gas there to 
be drilled. The uranium efforts have petered out; there is very little 
of that that is left. There is not much that can be done with it. But 
if it is preserved, clearly people want to come visit it and be part of 
this unique American experience.
  When I was there just a few weeks ago, there was a group in Moab, UT, 
in a gift shop. I kind of drew near the group--there were about a dozen 
of them--and they were all speaking French. These were French tourists 
who came to this part of Utah not only to spend their money but to see 
something special.
  President Obama said: Let's protect it. Let's make sure that future 
generations can indeed enjoy it and value it.
  President Trump said: No. For 80 or 90 percent of it, let's make it 
go away.
  This is a terrible decision. It is terrible for this section of Utah, 
it is terrible for our country, and it is terrible for our future. If 
we do not protect our natural heritage for our kids, grandkids, and 
their kids and grandkids, then we have walked away from a fundamental 
responsibility, and I believe we have.
  We have a wonderful system across America protecting national parks. 
If you read the history of some of these national parks, you will know 
that it was a battle to stop someone who wanted to create a commercial 
interest there and didn't want it to be protected by the government. In 
this case, there doesn't appear to be any other economic interest that 
can really lay claim to this, but there is an effort by the Trump 
administration to remove the protection anyway. I think that is a 
serious mistake.
  America is not America without its great outdoor spaces--its national 
parks, its historic monuments--that Congress and Presidents in both 
political parties have preserved for the benefit of future generations. 
To diminish our commitment to protecting the natural landscapes and 
historic places in this country from ruin by exploitation or 
environmental degradation would constitute a breach of our 
responsibility both to those who founded this Nation and to those who 
will inherit it. That is why we are deeply troubled by President 
Trump's announcement today, which would undermine the preservation of 
some of the country's most important national monuments and would 
remove protections for more than 2 million acres of public land--the 
largest elimination of protected land in the history of the United 
States of America.
  Utah's most cherished national monuments--Bears Ears, which I 
mentioned, and the Grand Staircase-Escalante--will now be under threat 
from this new Trump order. Many of these are sacred lands to Native 
Americans, and they will now be put at risk for desecration and 
looting. Is that what we want to leave future generations? Is that the 
honor we are going to give to the lands that were part of the heritage 
of Native Americans? I think it is a serious mistake.
  I hope that some will stand up and speak up about preserving this 
heritage for future generations.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                       50th Anniversary of Alvis

  Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, today I am proud to stand here for the

[[Page S7815]]

recognition of the 50-year anniversary of a great organization in 
Ohio--Alvis. It is in Columbus, OH, and was formerly known as Alvis 
House. It was founded in Columbus, OH, with a broad mission of helping 
people in the community through human service programs to promote 
prosperous lives, with a focus on an individual's potential and not 
their past.
  Over the years, I have had the privilege of working closely with 
Alvis as they have become a model for reentry programs and treatment 
service programs with a focus on meeting individual goals--a customized 
approach--building a successful future, and implementing fundamental 
change for families and for our communities.
  Since its opening in 1967, Alvis has grown from a single 15-bed home 
helping 60 men a year to an organization of 13 locations throughout 
Columbus, Chillicothe, Dayton, Lima, and Toledo. It now serves more 
than 8,000 people annually. This agency has helped provide support and 
hope to thousands of individuals who are returning to their communities 
after having spent time in the criminal justice system, as well as 
offering recovery and developmental disability services that encourage 
health, growth, and independent citizenship.
  Alvis has been the recipient of Federal grants authorized by the 
Second Chance Act for their work in reentry. As the author of the 
Second Chance Act when I was in the House of Representatives, I have 
had the opportunity and the privilege to go to Alvis facilities and to 
see firsthand the good work that is being done using that legislation. 
I am proud to have worked with my friend and the corporate president 
and CEO of Alvis, Denise Robinson, to assist Alvis as it delivers 
services to Ohioans to turn their lives around so that people can 
indeed fulfill their God-given potential in life, and they have had a 
lot of successes.
  Alvis recently opened its 14th location, the Alvis Pages Recovery and 
Treatment Center, in April of this year on the South Side of Columbus 
to help provide access to treatment and recovery. Alvis continues to 
lead in its mission to turn lives around 180 degrees.
  In my work with regard to the opioid crisis in Ohio, we have looked 
to this treatment center and looked to the model that they provide 
other treatment centers to turn those lives around.
  I am confident that Alvis will continue these next 50 years to offer 
these same comprehensive services for overcoming the challenges of 
transitioning out of the correctional system, treating substance abuse, 
mental health, trauma, and promoting dependence and accountability for 
those with developmental disabilities.
  I applaud the outstanding commitment of Alvis, its staff, and all 
those who have been involved in reaching this milestone and making 
these first 50 years such a success in the lives of so many people.
  Madam President, I would also like to speak today about a nomination 
that is before the Senate right now. Today we will have the first vote 
on Kirstjen Nielsen, the administration's nominee to be the next 
Secretary of Homeland Security. I want to talk about why I believe she 
must be confirmed.
  I had the privilege of introducing Kirstjen Nielsen during her 
nomination hearing in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs Committee. In that committee, she received broad bipartisan 
support, and I hope the Senate can now come together in a bipartisan 
fashion to confirm her as Secretary so she can get on with the critical 
work of leading the Department of Homeland Security.
  I am delighted we are having a cloture vote today--I wish it had been 
a few weeks ago--and I am looking for a vote to confirm her later this 
week. I would encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
look carefully at this nomination because we need her there, and it 
would be great if we had a strong bipartisan vote to send her there. I 
think she is ready to hit the ground running on day one. I say this 
because she knows the Department. She knows what the challenges are, 
and she knows how to address them.
  She will be the first Department of Homeland Security nominee ever to 
have had previous experience at the Department of Homeland Security. 
She was a Policy Director for the Transportation Security 
Administration during the George W. Bush administration--that is TSA. 
She took over that role shortly after the attacks on September 11, 
2001, and later served on President Bush's White House Homeland 
Security Council as the Senior Director for Prevention, Preparedness, 
and Response. I got to see her good work in that capacity. Most 
recently, she served as the Department's Chief of Staff for former 
Secretary John Kelly. She proved herself during the early stages of the 
administration's transition and experienced firsthand the challenges of 
managing this diverse and sprawling agency.
  With her homeland security experience from those transformative years 
in the Department, her industry and homeland security consulting 
experience, and her most recent efforts in this administration, I 
believe Ms. Nielsen will be a capable leader--needed badly in this 
ever-evolving threat environment in which we find ourselves.
  Throughout her career in government and in the private sector, Ms. 
Nielsen has developed extensive experience in homeland security 
strategy, cyber security, transportation security, and emergency 
resilience--all critical areas for the next Secretary to understand. As 
we have seen countless times from terror attacks, cyber attacks, and 
natural disasters, tragedies persist despite our preparation, and we 
need to remain resilient and responsive to overcome new challenges and 
combat these evolving threats. I believe she gets that. She understands 
it. I believe she is well qualified to lead the Department of Homeland 
Security as a result.
  From our conversations we have had both before and during her 
nomination hearing, I can say confidently that Ms. Nielsen is committed 
to addressing the most pressing issues facing our country. She has 
signaled that she has a full commitment to working with the U.S. 
Congress on both sides of the aisle to get this done.
  There are so many issues this Department faces. For a moment, I would 
like to talk about one of those issues that is critically important to 
me and really to every Member in this body that she has made a 
commitment to addressing and will be able, I think, to make a big 
difference; that is, the scourge of deadly forms of synthetic heroin 
that are being shipped into your communities.
  Synthetic heroin--usually fentanyl, sometimes carfentanil--is one of 
the great new threats we face in our communities. It is an example of 
one of the emerging threats that the Department of Homeland Security 
and its agency, Customs and Border Protection, must address.
  Fentanyl is up to 50 times more powerful than heroin. Carfentanil is 
even stronger than that. These drugs are increasingly taking people's 
lives in my home State of Ohio and around the country. Fentanyl is so 
deadly that as little as 3 milligrams can be lethal to an adult male.
  By initial estimates of 2016 statistics, fentanyl deaths in America 
have increased by 540 percent in the past 3 years. In 2016 alone, more 
than 20,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses.
  Tragically, my home State of Ohio is at the center of this national 
epidemic. In 2015, fentanyl was involved in slightly more than 38 
percent of the State's overdose deaths. Last year, that number 
increased to more than 58 percent. Fifty-eight percent of our drug 
overdose deaths in Ohio last year involved fentanyl. In the first 2 
months of this year--2017--fentanyl was involved in approximately 90 
percent of drug overdoses. So this is an emerging threat to all of our 
communities.

  Fentanyl is a threat to every State represented in this Chamber and 
in every community. While overdose victims are most often the drug 
users themselves, it has also become a great threat to law enforcement 
and to children who have been inadvertently exposed--tragically 
exposed--to this substance.
  An example is Chris Greene, a police officer in East Liverpool, OH. 
He was exposed to fentanyl while performing a routine car search, he 
thought, earlier this year. He pulled a couple of guys over. When he 
pulled them over, he noticed a white powdery substance in the car, and 
being alert to that, he put on

[[Page S7816]]

his gloves, he put on a mask, and he proceeded to determine it was 
fentanyl they had spread around the car to try to hide the fact that 
they were moving drugs.
  When he got back to the police station after the search to book these 
individuals, Officer Green noticed there was something on his shirt, 
and he did what any of us would do; he reached down to brush it off of 
his shirt. Unfortunately, it was fentanyl, and the fentanyl became 
exposed to his fingers. Just that small amount absorbing through his 
skin caused him to have an overdose. This is a big guy, 6 foot 2, 220 
pounds, great shape, and he fell to the ground unconscious.
  Luckily, he was able to get immediate medical assistance at the 
police station, but it took four doses of Narcan to revive Officer 
Green. He said at the time he would have died had he been alone. Think 
if he had gone home to his family and he had hugged one of his kids and 
his kids had been exposed to that fentanyl.
  So this is a great danger, obviously, to our communities generally 
and to individuals but also to our first responders who are, 
unfortunately, finding out that these dangerous poisons are more and 
more of a danger.
  Children are also being exposed. This fall, a 12-year-old Columbus 
boy died as a result of fentanyl exposure. He was at a sleepover for a 
birthday party when he came into contact with the deadly poison someone 
had left lying around. He was unconscious by the time paramedics 
arrived, and he died in the hospital 2 days later.
  These synthetic forms of heroin have created a new challenge for law 
enforcement as they increasingly account for more and more of our 
overdose deaths. Combating this threat requires solutions from across 
the Federal Government, along with local, State, and private sector 
initiatives. We talked earlier about an organization in Ohio that is 
dealing with this threat that is coming into our communities, and the 
private sector and nonprofits have a huge role to play but so does the 
Federal Government, and so does the Department of Homeland Security. 
Again, Kirstjen Nielsen understands that need. The Department of 
Homeland Security plays a critical role in countering the significant 
threat because it comes through the U.S. mail system, and it is Customs 
and Border Protection officers who are meant to screen those packages 
that come in through the mail.
  Unlike heroin, which enters the U.S. over land, typically from 
Mexico, manufacturers, mostly in China, ship fentanyl through the U.S. 
mail directly into our communities. The Federal Government is 
responsible here. We are supposed to combat the spread of illegal drugs 
coming through the mail system, but in the case of fentanyl coming from 
labs in China, the U.S. Postal Service is oftentimes used as a conduit 
without any check. Drugs should not be as easy to send as a postcard, 
and the U.S. mail service should not be able to be exploited as a drug 
trafficking service.
  This is why we have introduced in the Congress legislation called the 
STOP Act. It is bipartisan. It is sensible. If enacted, it would give 
Customs and Border Protection officers, along with their law 
enforcement partners, the tools they need to identify suspicious 
packages by requiring the U.S. Postal Service to provide advanced 
electronic data on all of the packages and mail entering the United 
States. Already information as to what is in the package, where it is 
from, where it is going, the name of the center is required if you send 
it through one of the private carrier systems--UPS, FedEx, DHL, and 
others. Unfortunately, the Postal Service is not required to do that 
and, as a result, traffickers do what one would think they would do, 
they choose our U.S. Postal Service to send this poison into our 
communities, to a post office box, maybe to an abandoned warehouse 
address.
  This fentanyl is being spread throughout our communities. We need to 
hold the Postal Service to that same standard.
  At a recent hearing, Acting Customs and Border Protection 
Commissioner Kevin McAleenen voiced his support for reforms like those 
in the STOP Act and said advanced electronic data would enhance their 
detection and prevention efforts. I have seen this firsthand. I have 
visited the sites in Ohio where Customs and Border Protection is asked 
to screen these packages. When they are with these private carriers, 
they can find packages, take them offline, and carefully--because it 
requires a lot of care, given the poisonous nature of the packages--
deal with it.
  President Trump's opioid commission recently issued its 
recommendations. They endorsed the STOP Act and called for it to be 
enacted and implemented into the Commission's final report just a month 
ago.
  At her confirmation hearing last month, Ms. Nielsen voiced her 
support for the STOP Act. I was pleased to have her commitment to 
getting this bill into law and implemented by CBP--Customs and Border 
Protection--so we can keep more of these deadly poisons off our 
streets.
  There is no one solution to the opioid epidemic, but the STOP Act 
will give law enforcement the tools they need to help stop this 
synthetic form of heroin from entering our communities in the first 
place, while also raising the cost of this synthetic heroin. The end 
result will be saving countless lives.
  So to get back to Ms. Nielsen, again, she is eminently qualified for 
this post and able to address so many of the tough issues we face as a 
country, including the evolving threats like the fentanyl issue and the 
terrorism issues we have talked about today. We need her at the 
Department of Homeland Security. We need her now. She is the leader we 
need for this critical and sprawling Department at a time when our 
homeland security posture has never been more critical, more important.
  I hope my colleagues will come together, on a bipartisan basis, and 
vote Ms. Nielsen out this week as the next Secretary of the Department 
of Homeland Security.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moran). The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I wish to first compliment my colleague 
from Ohio, Senator Portman, on his leadership on so many different 
fronts in the U.S. Senate. His leadership is nowhere more important 
than what he has been doing on the opioid epidemic that is raging 
through Ohio, Alaska, and almost every State in the country. The STOP 
Act he just talked about is legislation I have cosponsored, and he is 
leading on it. It is one of the many things we need to do to really get 
a handle on this.
  This should be a bipartisan issue. The opioid epidemic is ravaging 
through States, families, and communities. There has been no better 
leader in the Senate than Senator Portman on these issues so I just 
want to thank him for that.
  Mr. PORTMAN. I thank the Senator.