[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 10 (Wednesday, January 17, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S225-S247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RAPID DNA ACT OF 2017--Continued
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I and the Acting President pro tempore
have been on the Select Intelligence Committee for a considerable
period of time--I much longer than he. However, I think we are both
well experienced with the subject, and I would like to make a few
comments on section 702. For 6 years, I was chairman of the committee,
and the ranking member for 2 years. What I came to see is that, in my
view, there was no more significant content collection program than
section 702, and I want to give a couple of examples and explain why I
think it is so important that 702 be reauthorized.
A little more than a year ago, on December 31 of last year,
approximately 500 people gathered in a popular Turkish nightclub on the
banks of the Bosphorus to celebrate New Year's Eve. Tragically, shortly
after midnight, a gunman entered that club and opened fire, killing 39
innocent civilians and wounding 69 others. At least 16 of those killed
were foreign nationals, including an American who was shot in the hip.
Many people inside reportedly jumped into the water in an attempt to
protect themselves from the gunfire. After committing this act, the
gunman changed his clothes and fled the scene.
Almost immediately, Turkish law enforcement and American intelligence
officials began cooperation to identify and locate the shooter. Part of
that effort included intelligence collection under section 702 of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The information derived from the
702 collection ultimately led the police to an apartment in the
Esenyurt district neighborhood of Istanbul. There, law enforcement
arrested an Uzbek national, named Abdulkadir Masharipov, at a friend's
apartment, along with firearms, ammunition, drones, and over $200,000
in cash.
Thanks to the work of Turkish and American law enforcement and
intelligence agencies, just 16 days after this horrific attack, police
had the prime suspect in custody. Mr. Masharipov is currently awaiting
trial in Turkey.
Section 702 of FISA is the most important foreign content collection
program that we have. It allows the government to quickly and
efficiently collect phone call and email content from non-U.S. persons
who are located outside of the United States. Information collected
under section 702 informs nearly every component of our Nation's
national security and foreign policy.
Section 702 was used by the CIA to alert a partner nation to the
presence of an al-Qaida operative who was turning into a cooperating
source. Section 702 was used to intercept al-Qaida communications about
a U.S. person seeking instructions on how to make explosives in the
United States. It was also used to understand proliferation networks
used by adversary nations to evade sanctions, including military
communications equipment.
In 2014 the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, or what we
call PCLOB, reported: ``Over a quarter of the NSA's reports concerning
international terrorism include information based in whole or in part
on section 702 collection, and this percentage has increased every year
since the statute was enacted.''
The law expressly prohibits the targeting of U.S. persons or the
targeting of persons located in the United States. Section 702 is a
foreign content collection program.
I also believe it is equally important that reauthorization include
reforms to ensure that the program continues to operate consistently
with the statute's original intent and our Constitution.
Perhaps the most important among these reforms is the issue of U.S.
person queries. U.S. person queries refer to the process by which the
government searches the 702 database for the content of U.S. persons'
communications.
U.S. persons cannot be targeted under section 702, but they can be
collected incidentally if the individual is communicating with a non-
U.S. person who is located overseas and is targeted under section 702.
If an American's communications are collected incidentally, they are
added to the 702 database. The government can later search, or query,
that database for any American and gain access to the contents of any
phone calls or emails that may have been swept up in the section 702
collection. Each of these queries results in the government's accessing
the contents of a U.S. person's communications without ever going
before a judge or securing a warrant.
The Fourth Amendment requires the government to obtain a warrant
based on probable cause before accessing those communications, and the
Supreme Court has been clear: Americans have a right to privacy in the
content of their phone calls and emails. The same standard should apply
to communications incidentally collected under section 702.
During the Senate Intelligence Committee's markup of section 702, I
offered an amendment with my colleague from California, Senator Harris,
that would require the government to obtain a warrant from the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court prior to accessing the content of any
U.S. person's communications collected under section 702.
Unfortunately, our amendment did not succeed in the committee.
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I have also filed our warrant requirement as a floor amendment to the
bill that is currently under consideration. This amendment has been
cosponsored again by Senator Harris as well as by Senators Leahy and
Lee. I really do believe that a warrant requirement will eventually be
important as people become more concerned with the need to reform some
of these longstanding provisions.
The House-passed bill that is currently before us has a number of
positive reforms. First, it does have limited warrant authority that
would require the FBI to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court prior to accessing the contents of the U.S. person's
communications that are associated with a query that was not related to
foreign intelligence or national security. The warrant provision in
this bill is not as strong as the one I offered in committee, but it
was the result of a bipartisan compromise in the House, and I do
believe it is a step in the right direction.
The House bill also includes other important reforms. It establishes
a required congressional review process before the government is
permitted to restart ``abouts'' collection. It requires the DNI to
declassify minimization procedures. It provides greater flexibility to
the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to meet and hire staff.
It also directs the inspector general to assess the FBI's section 702
practices so that we can continue to provide oversight for that
program.
In conclusion, section 702, by its numbers and by its covering, is
our Nation's most important foreign content collection authority. I
would like to see more reforms to this program, and perhaps that is
something that those of us on the Select Intelligence Committee can
strive for. I believe this is the best we are going to do at this time,
and I look forward to supporting its passage.
I thank the Acting President pro tempore.
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. CORNYN. Mr. 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.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, last week, the House voted to reauthorize
for a period of 6 years section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act--a vital tool in tracking foreign terrorists abroad.
Last night, we had a very important vote in this Chamber, a cloture
vote, which will allow us to proceed to a final vote on this
legislation perhaps as early as tomorrow morning.
Congress enacted section 702 in 2008 in direct response to the
enduring threats to the country being posed by radical Islamic
extremism and the ever-expanding use of the internet and social media
by terrorists and foreign operatives. The law authorizes the Attorney
General of the United States and the Director of National Intelligence
to conduct surveillance on foreigners who are outside of the United
States so that the U.S. Government can effectively acquire that
intelligence information. As the Director of National Intelligence and
many others have stated--former FBI Director James Comey is another
one--section 702 is the crown jewel of our foreign intelligence
collection and a critical weapon in the defense of our Nation.
The law expires this Friday--that is right, just 2 days from now--so
the clock is ticking. I am glad the Senate took the first step last
evening, and I trust my colleagues will soon make sure the law is
reauthorized so that the U.S. Government can continue to collect
information that is vital to the protection of the Nation.
Because the law requires targets of section 702 to be foreign
citizens outside the United States, those targets are not covered by
the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Clearly, people who are
inside the country, American citizens, are all protected by the Fourth
Amendment, but not foreigners, under Supreme Court precedent. Because
of that, the government isn't required to obtain a warrant before
initiating surveillance. That is where the misconceptions and confusion
start to arise, and I want to talk a little bit more about that.
Despite the strong bipartisan vote in support of section 702 in the
House of Representatives last week and the strong bipartisan support
for the provision here in the Senate, some critics want to delay
reauthorization and engage in a never-ending lamentation about the
demise of the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment, of course, is a
guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures. Again, that
applies to American citizens, not to foreigners abroad. But these
critics have mischaracterized the aims of the many Republican and
Democratic proponents of this law, and frankly their concerns are
misplaced. They ignore the enduring value and core protections in
section 702 and the merits of various pro-privacy reforms in the House
bill. As I said, it is truly a bipartisan bill.
Critics have expressed three concerns, and I want to address each in
turn.
The first is that under 702, ``millions of bits of information are
collected on Americans,'' not just foreigners, and that ``[w]e don't
know the exact amount.''
What they are referring to, of course, is what the intelligence
community calls ``incidental collection''--when intelligence officials
monitor the communications of foreign terrorists and the information of
any Americans who are in communication with those terrorists sometimes
gets included in the mix. But, of course, if even an American is
talking to a foreign terrorist, certainly the intelligence community
would want to know that.
There are additional protections for U.S. persons who are
incidentally collected based on a target of a foreign national. All of
this would be a legitimate worry were it not for the fact that there
are safeguards built into the statute that ensure that no more American
communications are collected than are necessary to safely monitor
foreigners with suspected terrorist ties. For example, section 702
already explicitly prohibits the U.S. Government from intentionally
targeting a foreign person ``if the [real] purpose . . . is to target a
particular, known person . . . in the United States.'' That is illegal.
There are also so-called ``minimization'' procedures that limit the
dissemination and use of information acquired and scrupulous practices
at our intelligence agencies--the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI--on how
that information is dealt with in order to protect U.S. persons.
Under the bill, several additional features should be acknowledged.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court must review the FBI's so-
called ``querying'' procedures and certify that they are consistent
with the Fourth Amendment.
I know of no government program that has as much oversight and
protection for the privacy rights of American citizens as the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act. It is actually supervised by all three
branches of government--by the executive branch internally; by the
judicial branch through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and
other courts, which decided that there is no constitutional violation
in any of the procedures laid down in the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act; and, of course, the oversight we conduct here in the
Senate and in the House on the Senate and House Intelligence
Committees.
To make sure all of this is scrupulously adhered to, a record must be
kept of each U.S. person query term used. And far from ignoring
Americans' privacy concerns related to incidental collection, the bill
requires that the intelligence community hire and employ civil
liberties officers--people whose explicit job is to look out for our
privacy rights.
In sum, those who would misleadingly paint the intelligence community
as renegade--as deliberately surveilling millions of Americans with no
checks in place--are simply wrong about the facts of this bill and the
layered protections that have been put in place.
Let me reiterate. The intelligence community is expressly prohibited
from targeting Americans under section 702, directly or incidentally.
In fact, the only Americans who might be worried about their
communications
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being swept up under section 702 are those who are deliberately
communicating with foreign terrorists. But all Americans will benefit
from a host of additional protections under the law.
The critics' second and related concern is that incidental collection
can be used in domestic criminal prosecutions. They are concerned that
the U.S. Government could collect information without ever having to
obtain a warrant and then use it to investigate and punish Americans
for crimes.
Again, this fear is misplaced under this bill. It is mitigated by
analysis done by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board in
2014, who, after a comprehensive review, found no evidence of
intentional abuse. Concerns of the critics are also mitigated by the
FBI, which under this bill has to obtain a court order before it can
access the contents of 702 communications in support of a purely
criminal investigation, as opposed to an intelligence-gathering
activity. It is also mitigated by the fact that section 702
intelligence can be used as evidence against Americans only in
instances of the most serious crimes. Apart from obtaining a court
order, it can only be used if the Attorney General determines that the
criminal proceeding involves national security or other heinous crimes,
such as murder, kidnapping, or crimes against children.
The critics' preferred approach--and they introduced bills to this
effect last year--would prohibit the government from using any 702
collection to investigate these dangerous, violent crimes, and
therefore it would potentially protect dangerous criminals engaged in
some of the most egregious behavior imaginable--something I think we
would not want to do.
That brings us to the skeptics' third problem, which deals with
oversight. They fear that the reauthorization of this legislation could
spell the end of congressional monitoring of the program. They have
chastised this possibility as one that is ``callous in its disregard
for our cherished Bill of Rights.''
They are entirely correct to insist, in light of recent events, that
Congress should continue to engage in rigorous oversight of the
intelligence community and make sure that our surveillance tools aren't
used for political ends. But we already have oversight in spades, and
under this bill, we will have even more.
First of all, the House bill reauthorizes the program for only 6
years--not indefinitely. At the end of 2023, we will revisit section
702. In the meantime, existing and extensive oversight of section 702
will continue. As I mentioned, for example, there is judicial review.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court annually reviews section
702, and other courts have examined the use of section 702 in support
of criminal cases. All agree that section 702 does not violate the
Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Even the Ninth Circuit,
which is frequently out of line with other circuits and the Supreme
Court, agrees that section 702 is constitutional.
Courts, of course, are not the only oversight mechanism; there are
ones within the executive branch, which I alluded to earlier, including
routine reviews by the Department of Justice and the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence. Of course, congressional committees,
such as the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee,
both of which I serve on, also receive regular reporting on the 702
program and hold open and closed hearings on the subject.
Ultimately, the approaches that are preferred by the 702 critics
would force the FBI to rebuild the wall between criminal and national
security investigators that existed before the attacks in New York on
9/11 and would cause the FBI to stovepipe its section 702 collection,
contrary to the recommendations of numerous commissions, including the
9/11 Commission and the Fort Hood Commission. We need to remember that
the FBI protects our national security both as an intelligence agency
and as a law enforcement agency. In other words, it wears two hats. So
we can't wall off the FBI from the content of crucial communications,
and we can't wall off the FBI from intelligence agencies, such as the
National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. That was
the situation the FBI was in leading up to September 11, 2001.
We can't forget the increasingly dangerous world we are living in and
the diverse array of threats that confront us. FBI Director Chris Wray
has summarized our threat landscape. It is one that includes not only
large mass-casualty events like 9/11 in the United States and similar
recent attacks in Europe but also more isolated and diffuse lone-wolf
and homegrown violent extremist threats that give law enforcement and
national security investigators much less time to detect and disrupt.
Imposing additional obstacles to accessing this critical information
could either delay us when time is of the essence or, worse, prevent us
from being able to connect the dots of information that the U.S.
Government has already lawfully collected.
Real-world examples show how devastating this could be. A tip under
702 from the NSA, the National Security Agency, is what helped the FBI
stop an attack on the New York City subway system in 2009. There is
also Hajji Iman, who at one point was the second in command of ISIS.
Section 702 helped us get him and take him off the battlefield. Then
there is ISIS recruiter Shawn Parson--702 revealed his terrorist
propaganda and identified members of his terrorist network. There are
many, many more examples of instances where 702 helped us identify,
disrupt, and prevent attacks against the homeland here in the United
States and innocent civilians.
Whether it is combatting terrorism, detecting and countering cyber
threats, uncovering support to hostile powers, or acquiring
intelligence on foreign adversary militaries, 702 is one of our most
effective tools, and we simply can't afford to blunt the sharpness of
its blade or dull the focus of its lens.
In closing, I want to make one final point clear. I agree that, in
the words of one critic, the Fourth Amendment is not a ``suggestion.''
It is a core constitutional protection of our sacred freedom. But
reauthorizing section 702 would not suddenly relegate the Fourth
Amendment to second-tier status. Every court that has considered the
matter has said so, and frankly, it is obscene to ignore the balanced,
pro-privacy reforms in the House-passed bill that would provide even
greater protections for the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans.
The truth is that section 702 has never been systematically abused.
It has helped stop terrorist attacks both at home and abroad. It has
helped defend our troops on the battlefield. It has been critical to
the Russian collusion probe and other counterintelligence work. As I
said, every court--every single court--that has considered the program
has found it to be lawful and constitutional; in other words,
consistent with the Fourth Amendment in the U.S. Bill of Rights.
So we can all rattle the saber of civil liberties to score political
points, but large, misguided changes to 702 are not the way to go. The
House-passed bill will provide greater transparency and procedural
protections for the Fourth Amendment rights of innocent, law-abiding
Americans, while at the same time allow us to remain vigilant in
protecting the homeland and our troops abroad and our national security
at large by making sure we have the information we need in order to
connect the dots with the threats to our national security.
Mr. 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. THUNE. Mr. 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.
Tax Reform
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, tax reform has been the law of the land for
less than a month, but it is already fostering a new era of economic
optimism, and American workers are seeing the benefits. For years,
American businesses, large and small, were weighed down by high tax
rates and growth-killing provisions of the Tax Code. Plus, our outdated
international tax rules left America's global businesses at a
competitive disadvantage in the global economy.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act changed all that. We lowered tax rates
across
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the board for owners of small- and medium-sized businesses, farms, and
ranches. We expanded business owners' ability to recover investments
they make in their businesses, which will free up cash they can
reinvest in their operations and their workers. We lowered our Nation's
massive corporate tax rate, which up until January 1 was the highest
corporate tax rate in the developed world. We brought the U.S.
international tax system into the 21st century by replacing our
outdated worldwide system with what is called a territorial tax system
so American businesses are not operating at a disadvantage next to
their foreign competitors.
Despite the fact that the new law has been in place for less than a
month, it is already having a noticeable effect. Businesses are seeing
a future defined by growth and success, and they are already passing
some of the expected benefits on to their workers. Business after
business has announced special bonuses, wage hikes, or benefit
increases: AT&T, Bank of America, Comcast, American Airlines,
Southwest, Visa, Nationwide Insurance, Jet Blue, and the list goes on
and on.
In addition to giving out bonuses to eligible employees, Walmart is
raising its starting wage for hourly employees, expanding maternity and
parental leave benefits, and creating a new adoption benefit for
employees. More than 1 million Walmart employees will benefit from the
changes.
Aflac is boosting retirement benefits for its workers by increasing
the size of its 401(k) match from 50 to 100 percent on the first 4
percent of employees' contributions. It has also announced a onetime
$500 contribution to the retirement account of every employee.
PNC is giving a $1,000 bonus to 90 percent of its employees and
adding $1,500 to employees' pension accounts. It is also boosting its
minimum pay.
Similarly, Great Western Bank, which is headquartered in my State of
South Dakota, is raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour and providing
a $500 bonus or wage increase for nearly 70 percent of its workforce.
The bank is also enhancing its employee healthcare program and doubling
its annual contribution to its Making Life Great Grants community
reinvestment program.
I could go on, but the good news is not limited to increased wages,
bonuses, and benefits, as important as that is, particularly to people
who are living paycheck to paycheck, but companies are also acting to
keep jobs and to create new ones.
Fiat Chrysler just announced it will be adding 2,500 jobs at a
Michigan factory to produce pickups it has been making in Mexico. In
October, CVS Health announced it would create 3,000 new jobs if the
corporate tax rate was reduced. In my own backyard, Molded Fiber Glass
is keeping its doors open longer than expected, which is good news for
its employees and the entire community of Aberdeen, SD.
Then there are the utility companies. Utilities from around the
country are benefiting from tax reform, and more than one is looking to
pass on savings to consumers. Bloomberg reports that ``Exelon Corp.,
the biggest U.S. utility owner by sales, is already offering to reduce
bills.'' In Illinois, ComEd is requesting permission to ``pass along
approximately $200 million in tax savings to its customers in 2018.''
In Washington DC, Pepco has announced plans to pass on tax savings to
customers beginning in the first quarter of this year.
All these benefits are going to make a real difference in families'
lives this year and, in some cases, well into the future, and the main
benefits of tax reform are still to come. The IRS just released the new
withholding tables for the tax law, and Americans should start seeing
the results in February. Thanks to lower income tax rates, the doubling
of the standard deduction, and the doubling of the child tax credit, 90
percent of American workers--90 percent--should see bigger paychecks
starting next month, and that is just the beginning.
One major goal of tax reform was to provide immediate, direct relief
to hard-working Americans, and that is happening right now, but our
other goal was to create the kind of robust, long-term economic growth
that will provide long-term security for American families. That is
already starting with the wave of bonuses and wage increases, but there
is a lot more to come.
As businesses, large and small, experience the benefits of tax
reform, American workers will see the benefits of tax reform. American
workers will see increased access to the kinds of jobs, wages, and
opportunities that will secure the American dream for the long term.
It is a good day in America, and it is going to get even better.
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. GARDNER. Mr. 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.
Veterans Improved Access and Care Act
Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, when we were kids, we learned a song that
I think Herman's Hermits made very famous around 1965. It was the ``I'm
Henry VIII, I Am'' song, and it went on for a while about Henry VIII,
and then it had a little phrase in there that as kids we would repeat.
We would say: ``Henry VIII, I am. I'm Henry VIII, I am. Second verse,
same as the first,'' and then they would repeat themselves: ``Second
verse, same as the first,'' and they would keep going. Well, today, we
find ourselves kind of stuck in that ``Second verse, same as the
first'' when it comes to the Veterans Affairs Department and how they
have treated veterans in Colorado.
I rise, once again, to address troubling reports coming out of the
Veterans' Administration. It has now been over 3 years since the
Phoenix VA catastrophe--we all remember the Phoenix VA catastrophe,
where secret wait lists led to the deaths of veterans. At that time,
the VA pledged this problem would be fixed, but here we are ``Second
verse, same as the first.'' They said it would never happen again.
Well, it saddens me today that in Denver, CO, that promise has been
broken.
Following the Phoenix disaster, this body passed the Veterans Access,
Choice, and Accountability Act, also known as the VA Choice Act, to
expand access for veterans to community medical providers. No doubt, it
has been successful in different parts of the country, but the Denver
VA system continues to post inexcusable wait times, experience a
shortage of doctors and nurses, and use secret wait lists. This is
simply unacceptable.
The average wait time for a new patient at the Denver VA for a
primary care appointment has topped 42 days. This leads the Nation in
an unfortunate category, and it is twice the national average. Our
veterans deserve better, and to many who have been affected by this
travesty, they demand better.
Last week, NBC Nightly News told the story of one Colorado veteran,
Alison Bush. Alison served in the Army for 7 years and suffers from a
nerve disorder. With such a disorder, she cannot afford delayed
appointments. Yet Alison was forced to wait over 3 months for a primary
care appointment and another 60 days for an MRI. There is absolutely no
excuse for this, particularly given the work we have done and the
promises the VA has made. Alison, like so many others, answered the
call of duty, only to be let down after retiring the uniform.
I recognize that Colorado was witnessing an increase in demand with
more than 11,000 veterans seeking care in the last 2 years, but this is
no excuse. The VA must adapt in the face of adversity. We must change
this repeat after repeat of the same verse, and we must never forget
that this Nation's No. 1 priority is upholding the promises we have
made to our veterans.
Because of stories like Alison's, I recently introduced S. 2168, the
Veterans Improved Access and Care Act of 2017. My legislation would
address three issues: hiring shortages, delayed wait times, and
malpractice reporting.
A large driver of delayed wait times for veterans is the shortage of
doctors and nurses. The current system for hiring these medical
professionals is too long and too burdensome. According to a McKinsey &
Company study in 2015, it took 4 to 8 months to hire VA employees. The
onboarding process alone can take 3 months. According to the
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same study, private medical facilities took less than 2 months to hire
an applicant. Just think about that for a moment. Just like in the VA,
a private applicant has to go through an interview process, a
certification process, credentials process, background check. Yet the
VA's onboarding process is longer than the private sector's entire
hiring process. It makes absolutely no sense.
My legislation would take steps to fix this problem. It would
authorize the VA to establish a pilot program to expedite the hiring of
doctors at facilities where there are shortages of available
specialists, such as nurses or anesthesiologists. Furthermore, it would
require the Secretary of the VA to submit a report to Congress
detailing a strategy to reduce the length of the VA's hiring process by
half.
My bill would also look to expand access to our veterans. The VA
Choice Program, while well-intentioned, still contains arbitrary rules,
such as a 30-day waiting period before a veteran can seek access to
community providers. Well, 29 days is also unacceptable. My legislation
would work to improve the Choice Act by eliminating the 30-day/40-mile
eligibility rule, giving veterans full access to medical care
regardless of his or her situation.
Finally, my legislation will work to ensure that secret wait lists
are forever extinguished. No more ``second verse same as the first.''
Last November, a Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector
General report substantiated the claim that the Eastern Colorado Health
Care System used unofficial wait lists for veterans, estimating that at
least 3,775 veterans were affected. This is extremely disheartening.
There needs to be accountability for this malpractice. My legislation
would do just that. It would codify the VA's policy to expand the
requirements of reporting malpractice to include all medical providers.
Our veterans have served our country. They have missed holidays with
their families to protect our Nation. They have suffered battlefield
injuries. They have laid it all on the line for you and for me. The
Presiding Officer is a veteran of this great country. The least we can
do is ensure that our veterans are treated with the dignity, respect,
and honor they have rightfully earned.
It is my hope that the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee will soon
take up my bill so that we can work to ensure accountability and
greater access to care for all veterans. But whether it is my
legislation or any piece of legislation, one thing is for sure:
Something has to be done--not tomorrow, not next week, but now. The
current system is not working, and it continues to let our veterans
down. Nevertheless, we must remain optimistic and deliver on the
promises we gave our men and women in uniform. I am optimistic that we
can make this right on their behalf. We can't wait. Time is a luxury
our veterans do not have.
I ask that everyone in this body--and especially the VA--always
remember the stories of veterans like Alison Bush. May we never forget
those who set aside their own dreams to make sure they save the dreams
of their fellow Americans. Our veterans honorably served this great
Nation. Now is the time that we step up and honorably serve them.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Colorado for
his remarks. He reminds me of something former Majority Leader Tom
Daschle told us one morning at the Prayer Breakfast. He said that after
World War II, Archibald MacLeish, who was the poet laureate of the
United States, said of the veterans who came back from the war--when
talking to Members of the Senate, he said: They gave us our country.
Now it is up to us to see that we can do something with it.
I think we need to always remember that challenge and opportunity
that we have.
The Jackson Magnolia
Mr. President, some disappointing news arrived last month. The White
House announced that the Andrew Jackson magnolia is sick and dying and
that part of it had to be removed. On December 27, the east leader,
which is a top section of a tree, was removed. The other leader of the
Jackson magnolia is still intact, but it is supported by a cabling
system. The part that was removed will eventually be replaced with a
seedling from the original tree.
When President Trump visited the Hermitage outside Nashville in March
of last year and laid a wreath at Andrew Jackson's tomb, he likely
walked past trees that were also seedlings from the Jackson magnolia.
The news of the Jackson magnolia has special significance for
Tennesseans and for several Tennessee families, including our own.
Shortly after his arrival at the White House in 1829, Jackson, who
was our seventh President, planted a magnolia seedling in honor of his
wife Rachel, who had died only weeks earlier. During the Presidential
campaign, Rachel had been so maligned about the legitimacy of her
marriage to Jackson that she had said: ``I would rather be a doorkeeper
in the House of God than live in that palace at Washington.''
The seedling that Jackson planted came from a magnolia at the
Hermitage, the couple's home outside Nashville. Over the years, it grew
into a magnificent, sprawling specimen, reaching the roof of the White
House at the South Portico.
Take a look at the back of the twenty-dollar bill--the one in your
billfold or wallet or purse, the one with President Jackson on the
front, and you will see the Jackson magnolia, along with another
magnolia planted later to supplement it.
The Washington Post detailed some of the tree's history when the news
was announced. Here is what the Post said:
Long after Jackson left office, his magnolia remained.
Other trees were planted to supplement it, and the tree
became a fixture in White House events. Herbert Hoover
reportedly took breakfast and held Cabinet meetings at a
table beneath its sprawling branches. Franklin Delano
Roosevelt spoke with Winston Churchill in its shade. Richard
Nixon strode past it as he left the White House for the last
time after his resignation. In 1994, a Maryland man piloting
a stolen plane clipped the tree before suffering a deadly
crash against the White House wall.
Some said it might have saved President Bill Clinton's life.
No tree on the White House grounds can reveal so many
secrets of romance and history, longtime White House butler
Alonzo Fields once told the Associated Press.
The Jackson magnolia itself may be dying, but its children and
grandchildren and even its great-grandchildren will live on.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan presented a cutting of the Jackson
magnolia to Howard H. Baker, Jr.--a former majority leader of this
Senate--when Baker retired as Reagan's chief of staff. Baker planted
that cutting at his home in Huntsville, TN.
Six years later, in 1994, Baker was lunching at his home with John
Rice Irwin, founder of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, TN. Irwin
noticed the tree, which by then had grown to a height of 18 feet. Baker
told Norris the story of the Jackson magnolia and, with the help of the
University of Tennessee College of Agriculture, arranged for two
cuttings from Baker's magnolia to be rooted and sent to John Rice
Irwin.
In 1995, Senator Baker presided at a formal ceremony at the Museum of
Appalachia when those two cuttings--the grandchildren of the White
House Jackson magnolia--were presented to the Museum of Appalachia.
They are planted in front of the museum's Hall of Fame.
In 1996, John Rice Irwin gave a cutting from the Museum of Appalachia
magnolia to my wife Honey and me. We planted this great-grandchild of
the White House magnolia in front of our home outside Maryville, TN.
Today, it is 80 feet tall.
In 1998, a tornado destroyed the original magnolia at the Hermitage,
from which the White House Jackson magnolia had been taken. At the
request of Hermitage officials, the Museum of Appalachia provided a
cutting from the museum magnolia to replace the original tree. It was
presented at a ceremony presided over by Lewis Donelson, III, the
descendent of John Donelson, Rachel Jackson's father. Senator Baker and
John Rice Irwin attended.
According to the Museum of Appalachia, five cuttings have been
successfully propagated from the museum magnolia. In 2009, John Rice
Irwin gave my wife and me a second cutting from
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the museum magnolia, which is planted at our home in Blount County. We,
in turn, have given cuttings to Graham and Cindy Hunter in Knoxville
and to Denise and Steve Smith of Franklin. Their trees are growing tall
in the Tennessee soil from which the Jackson magnolia came 180 years
ago.
While we commemorate the long and prominent life of the Jackson
magnolia, we can also look forward to long lives from its grandchildren
and great-grandchildren now planted at the Museum of Appalachia in
Norris, at a city park in Sevier County, and at the Hermitage and other
homes in Tennessee.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the article from the Washington Post dated December 26, describing the
history of the Jackson magnolia.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Dec. 26, 2017]
White House To Cut Back Magnolia Tree Planted by Andrew Jackson
(By Sarah Kaplan)
The White House cut down part of the aging historic
magnolia tree planted by former president Andrew Jackson on
Dec. 27. Here's a bit of the tree's history.
The enormous magnolia tree stood watch by the South Portico
of the White House for nearly two centuries. Its dark green,
glossy leaves shaded politicians and heads of state. Its
ivory flowers bloomed through times of peace and war. It is
the oldest tree on the White House grounds, a witness to
Easter egg rolls and state ceremonies, a resignation, a plane
crash, all the tumult and triumph of 39 presidencies.
But the iconic magnolia is now too old and badly damaged to
remain in place, the White House announced Tuesday. At the
recommendation of specialists from the National Arboretum,
first lady Melania Trump called for a large portion of the
tree to be removed this week.
The decision, first reported by CNN, comes after decades of
attempts to hold the aged tree up with a steel pole and
cables. Arboretum experts said that rigging is now
compromised and that the wood of the magnolia's trunk is too
delicate for further interventions. Any other tree in that
condition would have been cut down years ago.
But this is not any other tree. According to White House
lore, the stately evergreen was brought to Washington as a
seedling by Andrew Jackson. The magnolia was a favorite tree
of his wife, Rachel, who had died just days after he was
elected. Jackson blamed the vicious campaign--during which
his political opponents questioned the legitimacy of his
marriage for his wife's untimely death.
The new planting, which came from the couple's Tennessee
farm, the Hermitage, would serve as a living monument to her
in the place she despised; before her death, Rachel had
reportedly said, ``I would rather be a doorkeeper in the
house of God than live in that palace at Washington.''
Long after Jackson left office, his magnolia remained.
Other trees were planted to supplement it, and the tree
became a fixture in White House events. Herbert Hoover
reportedly took breakfast and held Cabinet meetings at a
table beneath its sprawling branches. Franklin Delano
Roosevelt spoke with Winston Churchill in its shade.
Richard Nixon strode past it as he left the White House for
the last time after his resignation. In 1994, a Maryland man
piloting a stolen plane clipped the tree before suffering a
deadly crash against the White House wall. And for decades,
the magnolia was featured on the back of the $20 bill.
``No tree on the White House grounds can reveal so many
secrets of romance and history,'' longtime White House butler
Alonzo Fields once told the Associated Press.
In 2006, when the National Park Service initiated a
``Witness Tree Protection Program'' to study historically and
biologically important trees in the Washington area, the
Jackson magnolia was at the top of the program's list. By
then, the tree was tall enough to reach the White House's
second-story windows and had already eclipsed the minimum
life expectancy for its species--about 150 years.
According to a report from the NPS program, workers
attempted to repair a gash in the tree in the 1940s. But
within a few decades, much of the interior portion of the
tree had decayed, leaving behind a ``rind'' of brittle wood.
Those surviving portions were held in place by a 30-foot pole
and guy-wires. ``It is doubtful that without this external
support the specimen would long survive,'' the report said.
Ultimately, those measures could not allay safety concerns
about the tree, said White House spokeswoman Stephanie
Grisham. Visitors and members of the press are frequently
standing right in front of the magnolia when the president
departs on Marine One; the high winds from the helicopter
could make a limb collapse more likely.
Keith Pitchford, a D.C.-based certified arborist, is
familiar with the Jackson magnolia but has not professionally
assessed it. He wondered whether the removal may be
premature: ``If you can lower the tree and make it a bit more
squat, it really prolongs the life of these trees we thought
were hazardous,'' he said.
According to Grisham, the first lady requested that wood
from the magnolia be preserved and seedlings be made
available for a possible replanting in the same area.
Already, progeny of the historic tree are thriving in other
spots nationwide. It's said that Lyndon B. Johnson had a
seedling from the magnolia planted outside a friend's home in
Texas so that when Lady Bird stayed there she could look out
the window and imagine the president at work in the White
House. Ronald Reagan gifted a cutting to chief of staff
Howard Baker Jr. for his retirement in 1988. Then first lady
Michelle Obama donated a seedling to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's ``people's garden'' in 2009.
Jackson's original magnolia at the Hermitage was destroyed
along with hundreds of other trees during a devastating
tornado in the late 1990s. It was ultimately replaced by new
trees donated from the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tenn.
According to Michael Grantham, gardens manager for the
Hermitage, staff always said that those trees were clones of
the White House magnolia--but without an identifying label,
no one knew for sure. So Grantham sent tissue samples to a
plant genetics lab at Cornell University.
``It was not an exact match,'' he said. ``What we got was
probably seedlings from underneath the tree.''
Someday, Grantham would like to bring a cutting, or an
exact clone, of the White House magnolia back to the
Hermitage. ``I know there are some out there,'' he said. In
those trees, Jackson's two-century-old tribute lives on.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Tax Reform
Mr. SCOTT. Mr. President, the last 3 weeks have shown us the
beginning of what happens when Congress listens to the American people
and delivers on our promises.
For years, we have been talking about real, lasting tax reform--
helping American families bring more of their hard-earned money back
home in their paychecks and ensuring that the jobs of the future are
created here at home in America.
Last month, we started reaching those goals, and just 3 weeks since
we passed tax reform, more than 2 million Americans have received
bonuses in their paychecks, and hundreds of thousands of employees have
been informed that they will have permanent pay increases or increased
benefits.
Right after Christmas, in my home State of South Carolina, Nephron
Pharmaceuticals announced that 640 employees will receive a minimum of
a 5-percent raise. This is good news. The raise is due to the passage
of tax reform. In other words, 2 million Americans all across the
country--thousands of Americans in South Carolina--are starting to see
the fruit of tax reform.
This is just the beginning. In fact, all across the country, more
than 160 companies have already begun the steps of improving the lives
of their employees by allowing them to share in the benefits of tax
reform. This is counter to what we heard on the floor for days and
weeks and I would dare say for months, when folks railed about how the
corporations and the companies and the employers of America simply
would not share the benefits of lower taxes.
I am thankful that I live in a country and blessed to live in a State
where our corporate family has obviously recognized the benefits and
the wisdom of sharing the profits with their employees. And that number
will rise. As a matter of fact, I think just today the Apple
Corporation--home of the iPhones and all those good gadgets--said that
instead of making the $1.5 billion investment that they had announced,
they would instead make a $300 billion investment here at home in
America, creating 20,000 new American jobs. This is good news.
Earlier this month--last week, I believe it was--the IRS announced
that they had been able to change the withholdings, and they have
predicted--this is an astounding number--that up to 90 percent of
employees will see more take-home pay in their paychecks as early as
February 15.
You see, lower taxes and higher take-home pay translates into maybe a
movie night out for a struggling family, maybe new tennis shoes for a
youngster, and, without any question, more money to do more good for
nonprofits, for churches and other organizations.
Next year, when they file their taxes, our efforts to double the
child tax credit and our efforts to double the standard deduction will
kick in, and more families will see more money from their returns.
Frankly, my Investing in Opportunity Act that was included in the tax
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reform will present new opportunities for perhaps billions of dollars
to be reinvested in distressed communities, like the one where I grew
up. More than 50 million Americans live in these distressed
communities. And because of the good will of this body, because of the
good will of the House of Representatives, and because of the good will
of the current administration, millions of Americans will have more
reasons to be hopeful in 2018.
This is just the beginning of what a strong, middle-class oriented,
business-friendly tax code will do.
I plan to spend more time on the floor of the Senate over the next
year, talking about the benefits of tax reform and relaying the stories
of employees who are starting to fill my mailbox with amazing stories
of the things they are doing with their extra dollars.
This is a good start to 2018, and my prayer is that this is just the
beginning.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I will take this time to go over with my
colleagues the reasons why I unequivocally oppose the Trump
administration's decision to allow oil and gas drilling along our
Atlantic coast.
There are many reasons why I oppose this policy. One is that the risk
to the environment is too great. The Atlantic coast contains some of
the most pristine coastlines in America. This region is very much aware
of the importance of the Chesapeake Bay and how fragile the Chesapeake
Bay is and what an oilspill off the coast of the Atlantic could do to
the Chesapeake Bay.
There are also reasons to oppose this because, quite frankly, the
amount of suspected reserves are just not great enough to warrant this
risk. We also know that already there are significant lands that have
been devoted and are available for oil exploration that will meet our
needs, but a lot of it has not even been explored yet because of the
current economic realities.
Lastly, when we are talking about an energy policy that makes sense
for our country, exploring for new oil off the coast of the Atlantic
makes no sense whatsoever. In November 2016, the Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management wisely did not include any parcels in the Atlantic Outer
Continental Shelf in the 2017-2022 plan to lease offshore land the
Federal Government controls.
The following month, former President Obama used his authority under
section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953 to
withdraw unleased Outer Continental Shelf lands from future lease
sales. This makes sense.
In June of 2017, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected
that U.S. oil output will hit 10 million barrels per day in 2018,
breaking the alltime 1970 record--all without drilling off the
Chesapeake Bay. The previous record was 9.6 million barrels a day in
1970.
So we are at a record pace on bringing oil out of the ground. Yet we
take a look at the amount of oil that is projected to be available for
exploration off the Atlantic Coast, and it is a relatively small
amount. When we recognize the risk, it is just not worth the risk to
explore for that amount of oil with the potential of causing
devastation to our environment.
Last March, officials from the Spanish oil company Repsol and its
privately held U.S. partner Armstrong Energy announced the discovery of
1.2 billion barrels of oil in Alaska's North Slope, which was
previously viewed as an aging oil basin. That amount exceeds the
projected entire reserves along the Atlantic coast. Production could
begin as soon as 2021 and lead to as much as 120,000 barrels of output
per day. This is the biggest onshore discovery of conventional oil in
the United States in three decades.
In addition to these massive onshore discoveries, as of fiscal year
2016--the last year for which data is available--only 47 percent of the
public lands already held by oil and gas industries are under
production. In other words, half the lands are still yet to be
produced. The industry also has a glut of drilling permits, with more
than 7,900 approved but unused permits on the book. In fiscal year
2016, the Bureau of Land Management issued 2,184 drilling permits, of
which only 847 were used by the industry. So they have a big backlog.
They don't need another area to explore.
As the Wilderness Society reported last month, leasing more lands
than industry could possibly develop or seems interested in developing
allows companies to stockpile land while they wait for a more favorable
market, but stockpiling prevents these lands from being used for
popular pastimes like hunting, fishing, hiking, and conservation, while
leaving them open to the risk of drilling.
There is an Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf site known as lease sale
220. It has been proposed for oil and gas development previously. Lease
sale 220 is located off the shore of Virginia. It is a 2.9 million-
acre, triangle-shaped site. NOAA tells us that 72 percent of the time
the prevailing winds in this region blow toward or along the coast--72
percent of the time. Coupled with the way the Gulf Stream flows and
local currents, if lease sale 220 is developed and there is an
oilspill, the likelihood of oil washing up on the shores of New Jersey,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the Outer Banks is quite high. The
mouth of the Chesapeake Bay is just 50 miles away from this site. It is
hard enough just dealing with the existing pollutants that come into
the bay from agriculture, development, and storm runoff. Add oil into
the mix, and it would set us back decades in order to restart our
oyster crops and help our watermen with blue crabs and to help the rock
fish return and thrive.
We have spent a lot of energy in the U.S. Congress as a Federal
partner with the Chesapeake Bay Program. I remember my days in the
State legislature where Governor Hughes provided the leadership for the
development of the Chesapeake Bay Program. We worked with governments
from six States and the District of Columbia, the Federal Government,
and private sector partners--all so we could preserve and reclaim the
Chesapeake Bay, a national treasure. It has been declared so by many
Presidents. We spent a lot of effort. We asked our farmers to do more.
We asked our developers to do more. We asked our local governments, in
the way they treat their wastewater, to do more. Now, if we allow
drilling off the Atlantic coast, all that effort could be put at risk.
Drilling off the coast of Maryland would interfere with our naval
Atlantic Test Range, preventing our military from developing next-
generation fighter aircraft, sensors, and weapons to keep us safe. We
have a large military presence along the Atlantic coast.
Adding insult to injury--or, perhaps I should say, heaping injury on
top of injury, this move to open up the Atlantic coast to drilling came
just 1 week after President Trump repealed safety regulations President
Obama implemented to prevent another Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Deepwater Horizon was a $600 million state-of-the-art rig, but it
failed, causing the greatest accidental oilspill in history. Eleven
crewmen lost their lives. Up to 4.9 million barrels of oil gushed from
the broken well for more than 3 months, eventually fouling over 570
miles of gulf shoreline and killing thousands of birds and other marine
life.
The long-term effects of the oilspill and the 1.8 million gallons of
dispersants used on it remain unknown, but experts say they could
devastate the gulf coast for many years or even decades. Dolphins
continue to die, fish are showing strange lesions, coral in the gulf
have died, and oil still remains in some marsh areas. The oil could
remain in the food chain for generations to come. An oilspill entering
the Chesapeake Bay would be a similar disaster.
Whatever happened to Interior Secretary Zinke's promise during his
confirmation process to be highly mindful of local input when managing
public lands and waters? Opponents of offshore drilling flooded the
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management with more than a half million
comments. The list of opponents included more than 1,200 local, State,
and Federal officials, including the Governors of Maryland,
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Delaware, Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina,
California, Oregon, and Washington; more than 150 coastal
municipalities; and an alliance of more than 41,000 businesses and
50,000 fishing families. President Trump and Interior Secretary Zinke
cavalierly ignored the widespread public opposition to expanded
offshore drilling and the time and effort the public dedicated to
making their dissenting voices heard.
It is reckless, even wanton, to jeopardize so much--the livelihood of
those who depend on fishing and tourist industries, our fisheries, and
our military readiness--along the Maryland coast and Chesapeake Bay
when there is so much more oil and gas in other parts of the country
where production is already well established and locally supported.
My concerns aren't limited to the Chesapeake Bay or Maryland's
beautiful coastline, even though both are priceless national, not
parochial, natural resources. The international scientific consensus
regarding human contributions to climate change is clear. Greenhouse
gas emissions are a huge problem. Yet the Trump administration is
determined to double down on burning fossil fuels when we need to be
diminishing, not increasing, our reliance on them. Instead of promoting
an energy policy for the 21st century, President Trump is pushing
policies from the early 20th century. This isn't just ill-advised, it
is deadly. We have little time to lose when it comes to cutting fossil
fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. Politico recently reported:
Last year was the third hottest on record in 125 years of
record-keeping, and the U.S. faced record-breaking losses
from weather and climate disasters. . . . A NOAA study found
that hurricanes, wildfires and other events did $306 billion
worth of damage to the U.S. economy, factoring in destroyed
property and lost business activity in affected areas. . . .
The most expensive storm of 2017 was Hurricane Harvey, with
an estimated $125 billion in costs, followed by Hurricane
Maria at $90 billion and Hurricane Irma at $50 billion. As
for wildfires, they burned through more than 9.8 million
acres in the West and caused close to $18 billion in damage,
tripling the previous record. The U.S. in total saw 16
separate events with losses exceeding $1 billion each in
2017, tying a record set in 2011 for most billion-dollar
disasters in a single year.
NOAA scientists also found the five warmest years on record
for the U.S. all have occurred since 2006.
For all these reasons, I urge President Trump and Interior Secretary
Zinke to reverse course on this ill-begotten plan immediately. What we
really need is a permanent moratorium on oil and gas drilling off our
Atlantic coast. The potential rewards of such drilling--problematic as
they are--don't come anywhere close to equaling the risks to the
Chesapeake Bay and Maryland's and our Nation's irreplaceable shorelines
and coastal communities.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Reviewing Last Year's Senate Agenda
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, our Constitution starts out with three
beautiful words: ``We the people.'' This was the whole mission
statement for the development of our form of government--not a
government that would deliver benefits by and for the privileged, not a
government that would deliver decisions for the rich and the powerful,
but for the people of the United States, for the best policy for the
population of the United States, so that its citizens everywhere, of
every stripe and every corner of the Nation, could have a foundation to
thrive. But in 2017, the leadership of this body dedicated itself to a
different mission. They dedicated themselves to the mission of
government of, by, and for the powerful and the privileged.
I think it is worth reviewing some of those items that we have gone
through in the course of this past year. Let's start by looking at the
attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. My colleagues on
the Republican side spent a whole year attacking this organization,
which was set up to make sure that financial transactions are fair--a
fair, square deal for ordinary Americans. We had seen all kinds of
predatory practices in consumer loans. We had seen all kinds of
predatory practices in auto loans. We certainly had seen them in home
mortgages. In fact, the exploding interest rate mortgages and the
triple option mortgages that were designed to deceive and bankrupt
ordinary Americans turned the dream of homeownership into a nightmare.
Fortunately, in 2010 this body said: No more. We are going to set up
an organization that can identify predatory practices as they develop
and prevent them from being implemented.
It makes a lot of sense. It is very similar to an organization we
have in the government that says: That appliance is dangerous and
should never be sold; that toy is dangerous and should never be sold.
In this case, it is this: That loan is predatory, deceptive and should
never be marketed.
This assault on CFPB went on throughout the year, purely
encapsulating government for the powerful, the rich, and the predatory
over ordinary people. This has culminated at the end of the year in
which President Trump has appointed an Acting Director to the CFPB who
hates the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and wants to dismantle
it from the inside. In fact, that Director has called the organization
a ``sick, sad joke.''
Just yesterday, he threw out the payday loan rule. Payday loans have
interest rates of 300, 400, 500 percent interest. People have them,
initially, and borrow $1,000. In a year, they owe $5,000. In another
year, they owe $25,000. In another year, they owe $125,000. It is a
vortex of debt that pulls families into bankruptcy, squeezes them for
as long as it can, and then throws them out bankrupt. Many States have
said this is outrageous. Many religious traditions have said this is
unacceptable. People have seen the carnage it does in a society that
has high-interest loans. These are not just high-interest loans of 25,
35, or 45 percent. No, it is 300 percent, 400 percent, or 500 percent.
Yesterday the Director of the organization set up to protect against
predatory loans restored full power to allow these predatory loans to
occur. That symbolizes the whole year of leadership in this body
supporting the powerful and the privileged instead of the people of the
United States of America.
Just a little while ago we had a vote in the body--a 50-50 vote that
was broken by the Vice President, 51-50--that really does symbolize the
powerful over the people. This is a case where there was a rule adopted
by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that said you have to have
fairness in adjudicating consumer issues. Let's say, for example, a
telephone company puts charges on your bill that you didn't authorize.
Let's say, for example, a cable company proceeds to charge you a higher
price than the contract called for and you want to dispute this, but
currently if you seek to dispute it, you can't do so in a fair setting.
Instead, it is a rigged system set up for the company and against the
people, in which the company chooses the judge, in which the company
pays the judge, and in which the company promises future business to
the judge.
Who here in this Chamber really thinks they can get a fair decision
when one party to a dispute chooses a judge, pays the judge, and
promises the judge future business? That is the fair arbitration rule
that was undone by this body choosing to weigh in during 2017 once
again on the side of the powerful against ordinary people, choosing the
system rigged against middle-class and ordinary Americans.
Let's turn to yet another decision for the powerful in 2017 over the
people--net neutrality. People value the fairness of the internet. You
decide you have an idea, and you want to set up a company. Maybe you
want to offer a website that provides services to people who need home
repairs. You know you are going to be competing against big, powerful
actors who have other websites. But you decide: I have a different
idea, a different innovation, and a different way of doing this would
be better. Right now, until recently, you had the same ability to get
the same speed on your pages, or your website, loading as the big
player did so you could compete. But the Republican majority, team
Trump, says: No, we want
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to weigh in for the powerful over ordinary people. We want to give the
powerful the ability to have those web pages put up on the computer
screen really, really fast and stop the challengers--the little guy,
the ordinary person who wants to compete--from being able to have the
same speed so that the customer can only decide: Well, I better go to
the established big player.
What could more symbolize the powerful over the people than the FCC,
with the support of this administration--this Trump team for the
powerful--choosing to wipe out net neutrality? I think we will have
that issue revisited in 2018 when we have a Congressional Review Act
that already 50 Senators in this body--49 Democrats, 1 Republican--have
said they are ready to sponsor for the overturn of this act against
ordinary people. At least 50 out of 100 are saying that on this issue
they want to stand up for ordinary people against this 2017 reign of
terror by the powerful and privileged over ordinary people. It is at
least 50, but we are going to need 51. Isn't there one more Senator who
will stand up for ordinary people?
Then, we have the Congressional Review Act attack on Planned
Parenthood. This was a case where the administration and this
Republican leadership and this Republican-led body said: We want to
enable jurisdictions to divert funds away from a women's health
organization, Planned Parenthood. They centered their argument around
diminishing the number of abortions. Here is the fact. Family planning
decreases abortions. So it has the contrary impact than what was stated
by those who made that argument.
Here is another fact: 97 percent of the work of those organizations
is about general women's health/reproductive services, not abortion--97
percent. This takes away screenings for all kinds of cancers, for all
kinds of women's healthcare. Here we have the privileged and the
powerful choosing to weigh in against the health of ordinary women
across the United States. The list just goes on and on.
Let's turn to big, powerful mining companies brought to bear against
ordinary people. This is simply the case of a rule which said that when
you create a big mess with mountaintop removal mining, you have to fix
it so that it doesn't contaminate the stream. This was a rule in which
the people weighed in and said they wanted clean streams for the fish,
where the ordinary people of America weighed in and said they wanted
clean streams for fishing, where the ordinary people weighed in and
said they wanted clean streams for their water supplies--but no. This
body saw fit to weigh in for the rich and powerful, taking away those
streams for the fish and the opportunity for fishing, taking away those
clean streams for water in favor of the rich and powerful over the
interests of the people of the United States.
This ``rich and powerful over the people'' has extended abroad, even
beyond our borders. Equatorial Guinea, a country of Sub-Saharan Africa,
has a massive wealth of oil. President Obiang of that country has been
in power since 1979. That country has a per capita income of around--I
believe it is $20,000, but most of the nation lives on less than $2 a
day. Why is that? Why do ordinary people live on so little when the
country has so much wealth? It is because the international oil
companies have made their royalty payments to the leader of the country
rather than to the treasury of the country.
Congress came along and said: Do you know what? We need transparency
of these international transactions so that ordinary people overseas
are not ripped off through these hidden transactions of paying off
leaders who live extraordinary lives of luxury while their people
suffer.
When I talk about suffering, who here can live on $2 a day? Who here
can do that? It is a life-and-death issue, as 20 percent of the
children in Equatorial Guinea--a country with this vast wealth--die
before the age of 5 while the President and his Vice President own
yachts worth $250 million. They have a $200 million mansion in Paris,
and they have a $10 million car collection while people are dying
because in 2017 this Chamber chose to support the powerful over the
ordinary people of the world.
We see this in another environmental issue--the issue of the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. We have protected that decade after decade--a
last great natural treasure, sacred Tribal land that is home to polar
bears and brown bears and lynx and moose and Arctic foxes and seals. In
fact, it is the calving ground where a herd of 160,000 porcupine
caribou go to give birth. Yet we decided that Tribal land was not as
important as the decision for the rich and powerful oil companies to be
able to destroy that pristine area.
Let's turn, really, to what was one of the biggest issues of the
powerful over the people in 2017, one in which this body facilitated
the theft of a Supreme Court seat in order to maintain the Citizens
United ruling that allows billionaires to flood our campaigns with cash
in order to control this body--one of the most evident sources of
corruption in the history of this country.
Finally, we had an opening for the Supreme Court in 2016, an opening
that might have redressed this ``we the powerful'' decision over ``we
the people.'' This body came forward, and the leadership said: We are
not going to allow a debate on President Obama's nominee. We are not
going to allow a vote.
They justified it because it was an election year. Yet, if you look
through history, there is nothing in our history that supports that.
Fifteen times before, we had openings on the Supreme Court during
election years. Fifteen times before, we had debated. Fifteen times
before, we had voted. Then again, it was dressed up as, maybe this is
protecting the Constitution. Of course, the Constitution doesn't
absolve us of our advice and consent responsibilities in the fourth
year of a Presidency or in the eighth year of a Presidency.
The consummation of that theft was completed when this body voted to
confirm the nomination of Neil Gorsuch last April--basically, an
incredible act of irresponsibility, a failure to honor our advice and
consent responsibility, an act which denigrated the legitimacy of the
Supreme Court and certainly diminished the reputation of the Senate in
honoring our pledge to honor the Constitution, including the
constitutional responsibility to provide advice and consent--all in
order to keep billionaires' money in campaigns throughout this country.
If that is not the powerful over the people in 2017, what is?
That is not the end of it. In 2017, the Republican leadership of this
body brought us five different efforts to wipe out healthcare for 20 to
30 million people. Now, I didn't hear the Senators who were supporting
this say they wanted to give up healthcare for themselves--oh, no. They
wanted to keep that, but they were very comfortable in advocating for a
bill to wipe out healthcare for 20 to 30 million Americans. There you
have it--the powerful against the people.
Then we have the tax heist--the most recent of the powerful over the
people. Add up the provisions for the wealthy. Now, remember, this tax
bill was advertised as a middle-class tax cut for the middle class, but
what did we have? We had the provision to eliminate the dynasty
loophole, which allows the richest Americans to pass on their dynasties
to the next generation without their ever paying capital gains, at a
cost of $83 billion. We had a change in the tax brackets for the
wealthiest Americans in the hundreds of billions of dollars. We had the
eliminating of the alternative minimum tax--$40 billion or so--for the
wealthiest Americans. We had the reducing of corporate taxes, the
benefits of which largely go to the big stockholders--the richest
Americans. We had the sweetheart rate for passthrough corporations that
bolstered the value of that, helping out the richest Americans.
If you add it up, one after another after another of the provisions,
all told, probably about $2 trillion has been given to the richest
Americans by the so-called middle-class tax cuts--not $2 trillion for
the middle class, not $2 trillion for the struggling bottom third of
America's families, not $2 trillion for helping to diminish the size of
our classrooms in K-12 and to improve teacher training, not $2 trillion
dedicated to wiping out the high cost of college, not $2 trillion
dedicated to
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healthcare and our clinics, not $2 trillion dedicated to
infrastructure, creating jobs, and building a better economy for the
future. No. This is $2 trillion to the richest Americans to increase
wealth inequality, to increase income inequality.
How much is $2 trillion? Can you even get your hands around that
number? Divide it by the number of Americans--men, women, and children.
That is $6,000 for every man, woman, and child in America that this
body, under this Republican leadership, decided to give to the
wealthiest Americans rather than to make available for the foundation
for our families--education, healthcare, good jobs, improved
infrastructure.
That kind of wraps up 10 items from throughout 2017. This body
constantly ignored the mission of our Constitution--our ``we the
people'' mission--and chose instead to be the government of, by, and
for the powerful.
How about we have a new year's resolution for 2018 in which we decide
to actually honor the Constitution, the vision of the Constitution, and
address the needs of America and the foundation under which families
may thrive, that of good jobs, education, and healthcare in 2018. Then
we would be doing our job, and then we would be honoring our
Constitution.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Tax Reform
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to speak about what
our tax reform and tax relief legislation actually does.
I want to start by welcoming in advance the President of the United
States to Pennsylvania. The President is going to Pittsburgh, PA, to
talk about the specifics of our tax reform and the effect it is having.
I really wish I could be there with him, but we don't know when we are
going to finish up here, as the President knows very well. We might be
here well into the evening, and I have multiple obligations to which I
have long been committed in addition to juggling that. Unfortunately, I
will not be able to get to Pittsburgh with the President, but I hope to
have another opportunity to celebrate this victory for Pennsylvanians
and Americans because that is what it is.
When we set out to accomplish the biggest tax reform in at least 31
years, we had two big goals.
The first was to make sure we implemented a direct tax cut for
working families, for middle-income families, and for the overwhelming
majority of families and individuals whom we all represent. That was
goal No. 1--to make sure we cut taxes for the people who are working
every day, living paycheck to paycheck, working hard, and making
America what it is. That was item No. 1.
The second thing we wanted to do was to reform what was a completely
archaic, unbelievably complicated, inefficient, and really terrible
business tax code that had become arguably one of the very worst in the
world and one that was systematically discouraging investment in the
United States.
So those were the two goals--direct tax relief for ordinary Americans
and making the business tax code competitive. I am thrilled to be able
to say that I believe we achieved both goals.
First of all, it is a simple, straightforward, factual matter that we
cut taxes on the vast, overwhelming majority of taxpayers--the families
and individuals who pay taxes. That is just a factual matter. That is
easy to confirm. Of course, that has the effect of increasing the take-
home pay for anybody who is working. You can increase your take-home
pay by either getting a raise from your employer or by paying fewer
taxes on what you earn or both, and we knew for sure that we were
cutting taxes and that there was going to be a take-home pay increase.
I predicted at the time that we would also be creating an environment
in which there would be upward pressure on wages, where over time we
would start to see people getting bonuses, pay rate increases, and wage
increases because we would be creating a dynamic in which employers
would be competing more and more for workers so that, in effect, they
would be bidding up the compensation for the workers. That is what I
predicted, and I was confident that would happen within some number of
months or a year or so. So I had to come down to the floor today and
confess that I was wrong--very wrong--about the timing of that. You
see, we didn't have to wait 3 or 6 or 12 months for our constituents--
the people whom we represent--to see the benefits in the form of higher
wages. They started happening immediately--I mean, within days. It has
actually been stunning.
It has been about 1 month since we passed this sweeping tax reform,
and many hundreds of businesses--those cumulatively employing well over
2 million workers--have announced bonuses, wage increases, expanded
benefits, and increased contributions to pension accounts. They have
cited the tax reform as the mechanism that has enabled them to do this
for their workers.
What is so exciting about this is that this is happening even before
the wave of new investments has even been able to begin. This is
happening because companies know that with lower tax rates, they are
going to have more free cash flow. They are going to use some of that
to invest in growing their business, but they have already announced
that they are using some of that to enhance the compensation of their
employees.
Let me give you some examples. These are just Pennsylvania-related
companies, a handful of the ones I am aware of. It is typical of
companies across the country. Comcast, a big employer based in
Philadelphia, announced specifically that as a result of the tax
reform, they would make a $1,000 bonus payment to 100,000 frontline
nonexecutive employees, and they committed to $50 billion of capital
expenditure over the next 5 years. How many tens of thousands of jobs
is all of that capital expenditure going to support? It is a big
number.
That is not all. Out in Pittsburgh, PNC Financial Services, a
substantial large bank in Pittsburgh, announced right after the tax
reform that they would pay $1,000 to 47,500 of their employees, and, in
addition, they would contribute $1,500 to each of their employees for
participating in their pension savings plans. They are also raising
their base wage. Their minimum wage for employees at PNC goes up to $15
an hour. No Federal Government edict is forcing them to do it. This is
what they want to do. It is so that they can attract more and
competitive employees. They have also increased their contribution to
their charitable foundation--$200 million to a charitable foundation
that supports early childhood education. That is PNC.
Navient has 900 or so employees in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and they
announced that they are giving a $1,000 bonus to their non-officer
employees--98 percent of their employees. That is not the top brass,
but everybody else is going to get a $1,000 bonus.
Customers Bank in Wyomissing, Berks County, PA, announced that as a
result of the tax reform and the tax relief they are getting, they are
going to be able to offer people who have a checking account with them
a higher rate on their deposits. In another benefit for consumers, they
are going to increase their charitable giving.
NexTier Bank in Butler County, in Western Pennsylvania, is giving a
$1,000 bonus to all their employees.
As to Walmart, I think we all saw that. There are Walmart employees
in every State of the Union, and there certainly are in Pennsylvania.
There are over 160 Walmart locations in Pennsylvania. They are giving a
bonus of up to $1,000, raising their starting wage, expanding their
paid leave policy, and their adoption assistance program for their
employees, all in response to the tax relief and reform that they know
is going to be good for their business, and they already decided to
make it good for their employees as well.
That is just a small handful of the companies that I know of in
Pennsylvania that have made public announcements about this. How many
more are there across the country? It is a huge number, and it is
growing rapidly, and it is fantastic.
I think it is fantastic. I think it is fantastic when the people I
represent are able to earn more to support their family, get a bigger
bonus and get a bonus they might not otherwise have gotten at all.
I know this view is not universally shared. The House Minority Leader
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Pelosi doesn't think very much of this. In fact, she said: ``In terms
of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that
they are giving to workers to kind of put a schmooze on--it's so
pathetic . . . I think it's insignificant.''
I have to state that I don't think it is pathetic, and I don't think
it is insignificant. I think to a family that is struggling, a family
that is working hard, a family that may be living paycheck-to-paycheck,
as most families do, these are not crumbs. This makes a difference. For
the people who wonder, because they heard so much from our colleagues
on the other side that this is not going to help middle-class families,
any mystery that people may think surrounds this will be resolved very
soon because the IRS has already released new withholding guidelines.
The Treasury has done their evaluation, and they have concluded as the
Joint Tax Committee concluded, that over 90 percent of all individuals
and families filing and paying taxes will see a tax cut. So they are
adjusting the withholding table so that the take-home pay goes up and
so that the money that workers pay to Uncle Sam goes down.
Honestly, I have to state that I am convinced that the best in all of
this is yet to come. The best is yet to come because it is too early
for us to have yet benefitted from the wave of new capital investment.
We have made it more affordable for businesses to invest in their
workers, to invest in their businesses, and to invest here in America
rather than overseas. We have made that more affordable so more is
going to happen, and when it happens, people are going to get the
benefits from the jobs they have to provide those capital goods. Other
people are going to benefits from jobs that are necessary to operate
that capital equipment. Wages will rise because workers will become
more productive. This is what is in store for us, and this is what is
so exciting.
It is not just my theorizing on this. Last week the CEO of PNC, Bill
Demchak, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal. He said:
For all the investment decisions that companies make, the
U.S. just got that much more attractive. . . . It's going to
win more than it won before in terms of where people choose
to do business activity and invest.
I couldn't agree more. This is clearly going to be the result. We are
allowing American businesses to compete and to win in a competitive
global economy. This is going to increase the supply of capital. It is
going to increase the productive capacity of the American economy. It
is going to provide better tools for workers when they have that
capital that they can work with that makes them more productive. That
enables them to earn higher wages, and with all the need for more
workers that this is going to generate, it is going to continue to put
upward pressure on wages, because that is what companies are going to
have to do in order to attract and retain the employees they need.
So I would say that I think we are well on our way to seeing the
fruits of this reform. I think it is going to be extremely
constructive. I am thrilled that our legislation has already begun to
have tangible benefits for the people we represent, and I am convinced
that the best is yet to come.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, it is of the highest importance that we
reauthorize title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,
especially section 702. It is one of the best tools we have for
detecting and preventing terrorist attacks against our country, and it
has a long track record of success.
It is one reason that Najibullah Zazi today is not a household name,
but yet just another bin Laden wannabe sitting behind bars. He was
planning to blow up the New York subway system, but he never got the
chance because our intelligence community and law enforcement
professionals stopped him in his tracks by using information collected
under section 702. That is how vital this program is, and that is why I
will be voting yes on this legislation.
That being said, the bill we are voting on today is not my ideal
legislation. If I had my way, we would be voting on a permanent
reauthorization with no changes. That was the White House's position
when I worked together with the administration and introduced a section
702 extension bill earlier this past summer, and the administration has
said all along that they wanted a clean and permanent reauthorization.
The people who rely on this program and know better than anyone just
how valuable it is believed it was good as is. The way I see it, if the
threats against our country will not sunset in 6 years, why would we
sunset this vital program? But I understand we usually have to
compromise around here. I am glad to see a provision I offered to
increase the maximum penalty for the misuse of classified information
included in this bill. So while I worry this bill might make it harder
for our intelligence community and law enforcement professionals to
protect our country, I am going to vote yes.
As a result, you can imagine my surprise as I listened to the
program's critics. There is a lot of misinformation out there. I want
to take this opportunity to set a few things straight.
First off, there is nothing unconstitutional about this program.
Section 702 targets foreigners on foreign soil--not Americans--and it
is specifically designed to protect Americans against unreasonable
searches. You don't have to take my word for it, though. Every district
court that has looked at this question has found section 702 to be
constitutional.
That includes, by the way, the so-called ``about'' collection. If you
are trying to collect information about a foreign target, and an
American citizen mentions that target in an email, I would suggest that
we would want our intelligence community to know about that. Does that
mean that they incidentally picked up information about American
citizens? Yes. But let's be frank here. The only way to prevent this
kind of incidental collection is to prohibit any collection at all. If
our intelligence community couldn't track an email address or phone
number simply because they theoretically might pick up information
about an American citizen, they simply could not do their jobs.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to tell if many email addresses
belong to a foreigner just by looking at it. For example, is
[email protected] an American email address or not? Who knows? Did the
National Security Agency discontinue its ``about'' collection at one
point recently? Yes, but to me that is evidence that this program
works. Contrary to what its critics believe, the NSA voluntarily ceased
collecting information in the name of protecting privacy. The NSA
respected the minimization standard imposed by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court. The safeguards worked just like they were supposed
to. This bill says that the NSA can continue so-called ``about''
collection only once it gets approval from the FISA Court and from
Congress.
Yes, section 702 has a whole host of safeguards built in to protect
Americans' privacy, and this bill adds more still. If the FBI wants to
review information collected under 702 on a U.S. person for a criminal
investigation that is not related to national security or foreign
intelligence, it has to get a court order based on probable cause, even
though the Constitution does not require it. Or if the FBI wants to
query 702 information, it can do so only under FISA Court-approved
guidelines. Finally, just to make sure the FBI is following the law,
this bill requires the DOJ inspector general to check up on the FBI's
compliance and report back to Congress.
Finally, the critics say the Attorney General can just sneak past all
these safeguards by designating an investigation as a domestic crime
related to national security or a transnational crime. That ignores the
layers upon layers of oversight we have in place to prevent just that
kind of abuse. Not only the DOJ inspector general but the FISA court
and Congress will continue watching the FBI's use of this program,
keeping guard against such misuse.
So I find the critics' arguments to be wholly without foundation.
Section 702 is constitutional and strikes a pretty good balance between
security and privacy. There is no good reason to let this program
expire and no good reason to hold this reauthorization up any longer.
Let's remember, after all, that last year there were two terrorist
attacks against New York City within 6
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weeks, not to mention a Christmas Eve plot against Pier 39 in San
Francisco that was disrupted. Also, Admiral Rogers, the Director of the
National Security Agency, has testified that the intelligence community
would not have been able to put together its intelligence assessment
about Russia's interference in our 2016 Presidential campaign without
this vital program.
We face a lot of threats. Terrorism, spying, and nuclear
proliferation are just a few. They are not going away any time soon,
and neither is the Russian threat of meddling in our politics, either.
It is past time we gave this tool back to our intelligence community so
they can continue the hard work of keeping our country safe.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Tax Reform
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, when we passed tax reform late last year,
we knew it would be a win for American workers and for the American
economy. This win for our workers and families was long overdue after
so many years of sluggish wage growth.
Americans will see tax cuts very soon. They will be reflected in
their paychecks next month. But tax reform is already making a positive
difference. The response from our job creators--both small and large
job creators--has been overwhelming. Some 164 companies so far,
spanning industry sectors and geographical boundaries, have announced
employee bonuses, higher minimum wages, better benefits, new jobs,
charitable deductions, charitable donations, and new investments.
According to Americans for Tax Reform, well more than 2 million
Americans will benefit from these bonuses. The National Federation of
Independent Business says that the tax cuts for our small businesses--
the bread and butter of our economy--will amount to hundreds of
millions of dollars.
I want to take a moment today to highlight how some of these job
creators are giving back to the hard-working citizens of my State. They
include Mississippi's single largest private employer, Walmart, which
has announced that it is raising its starting wage rate for hourly
employees to $11. Walmart is also expanding its maternity and parental
leave benefits, as well as giving employee bonuses, as a result of the
new tax bill. BancorpSouth, headquartered in my hometown of Tupelo, MS,
has announced that it will give back to employees through pay raises or
bonuses. In fact, BancorpSouth says it plans to invest more than $10
million into the employees who work in its 234 locations across
Mississippi and seven other Southern States. Another bank based in
Tupelo, MS, Renasant, has announced that it will invest its tax savings
in its 2,000 employees.
Nationally, AT&T is giving $1,000 bonuses to 200,000 employees. So
are Bank of America, American Airlines, Boeing, and Comcast. And I
could go on and on and on with bonuses benefiting hundreds of thousands
of employees.
Other Americans will get new jobs. Last month, television station
WLOX on the gulf coast of Mississippi reported that the Half Shell
Oyster House plans to use its tax savings to open new restaurants and
hire more employees. Isn't this what we want? Isn't this what we
predicted? And isn't it wonderful to see this come to fruition? Kevin
Fish, a co-owner, told the news station: ``We've passed up on
opportunities in the past that we wouldn't have passed up on had we had
this tax structure.''
Millions of Americans might also see lower energy bills from
investor-owned utilities. Utility companies across the country,
including in Mississippi, are discussing how the law can help them
lower energy costs for our consumers.
The message is clear across my State, across every State, and across
this country: The more money our job creators can save and the more
money they don't have to send to Washington in the first place, the
more they can invest in the future of their businesses and the well-
being of their employees. And this is proving true every day and will
continue. These are the opportunities we do not want our job creators
to pass up. With every bonus, every pay raise, every expanded benefit,
every lower energy bill, American families will have more money in
their budgets to spend on the things they need most.
Thank you to the leadership of the President and the leadership of
the House and Senate for giving this outstanding benefit to the
families, the workers, and the job creators of the United States of
America.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, the Senate will be voting soon on a bill
to reauthorize the FISA Amendments Act. Most Americans likely do not
recognize the name of the bill, but they probably know what this bill
addresses--our government's surveillance of communications.
As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I have learned a
great deal about our post-9/11 surveillance laws and how they have been
implemented, and I have determined that there are reforms that need to
be made to the FISA Amendments Act--specifically section 702--before we
renew this law.
The single biggest flaw in section 702 is how it has been
interpreted. The language of the law--the collection of foreign
intelligence of U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located outside
the United States--anticipates that incidental or accidental collection
of Americans' emails or even phone calls could occur, but under the
FISA Amendments Act as written, there is nothing to prohibit the
intelligence community from searching through a pile of communications
collected under this statute to deliberately search for the phone calls
or the emails of specific Americans. This is not what Congress intended
when the law was written, and now we are being asked to vote on this
law at the last minute with not a single amendment allowed.
Many of us have called this the backdoor search loophole since it
allows the government to search for Americans' communications without a
warrant--let me repeat that--without a warrant. The USA Rights Act, of
which I am a cosponsor, includes a fix to this loophole. It also
includes other key reforms to the statute that I support. But that
commonsense bill is not the one on the floor today. The bill before us
today would actually take us backward. It doesn't require a warrant to
search for Americans' communications. It makes it quite easy to resume
the ``about'' collections on Americans--a practice that the government
has literally abandoned. It grants new authorities to allow section 702
data to be used in domestic criminal prosecutions of American citizens.
I strongly believe that the Federal Government needs a way to monitor
foreign communications to ensure that we remain a step ahead of the
terrorists and those who would threaten our national security. The FISA
Amendments Act has been beneficial to the protection of our national
security. I don't question the value of the foreign intelligence that
this law provides. I have seen it with my own eyes. But I also strongly
believe that we need to balance the civil liberties embodied in our
Constitution with our national security imperatives. It is the
responsibility of Congress to find that balance. The bill that is
before us today could come closer to that standard if we improve it
through the adoption of amendments that I and my colleagues would offer
if we had the opportunity. But this bill is being fast-tracked, and we
are left with only the choice of an up-or-down vote.
The American people deserve better than the legislation before us
today. The American people deserve better than warrantless wiretapping.
I urge my colleagues to consider the gravity of the issues at hand
and to oppose reauthorization until we can have a real opportunity for
debate and reform.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
[[Page S237]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I believe the American people should be
deeply concerned about the vote the Senate took yesterday to invoke
cloture; in effect, ending real debate and preventing the Senate from
considering any amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
reauthorization.
This isn't what is called regular order. This isn't how the Senate
ought to operate. In fact, it is not even how the Senate has handled
surveillance bills in the past. Even in the weeks after the horrendous
attacks of 9/11, the Senate considered amendments to the PATRIOT Act.
In 2008, when the Senate first considered section 702, the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, there were, in fact, amendments.
Now debate has been cut off, and no Senator--neither a Democrat nor a
Republican--is going to be allowed to offer an amendment. What the
country is going to be left with is a deeply flawed bill that, in a
number of ways, is actually worse than current law.
I want to talk first about whose rights are at stake. We are talking
primarily, at this part of my address, about Americans who talk to
foreigners overseas--law-abiding Americans whose communications can get
swept up under this law. They could be, for example, American
businesspeople--perhaps somebody working for a tech company in Colorado
or Oregon or perhaps somebody working for a steel company in the
Midwest. These are American businesspeople--law-abiding people--talking
to a foreign contact. They could be swept up under this law or we could
be talking about first-, second-, or third-generation Americans talking
to family and friends still overseas. Maybe they are catching up. Maybe
they are talking about kids and grandkids. Maybe they are just talking
about their hopes and aspirations, but they are still law-abiding
Americans who could get swept up in this bill. We could be talking
about American journalists covering foreign stories. We could be
talking about U.S. servicemembers talking to foreign friends they made
while deployed. Try to get your arms around that one.
I think it is particularly unfortunate because one of the things I am
proudest of is I was able to ensure that Americans overseas--
servicemembers--would have their privacy rights protected. We have a
law passed to do that.
I remember George W. Bush had reservations about that proposal I made
to protect the privacy rights of our law-abiding servicemembers
overseas. He originally said he might veto the bill. In the end, it was
in his press release saying how great it was, and I think it was
because nobody had really talked about the rights of these wonderful
men and women who wear the uniform in the United States.
We did it right back when George W. Bush was President. We protected
the privacy rights of our servicemembers overseas. Now we are talking
about walking back the rights of those U.S. servicemembers if they are
talking to foreign friends they made while deployed, and we could be
talking about American teachers and researchers seeking information
from foreigners.
Now this body isn't going to have a chance to even consider reforms
that might protect the constitutional rights of these Americans--the
businessperson, the servicemember, the first-, second-, or third-
generation American immigrant--because what has happened is the Senate
is being forced to vote on a reauthorization bill without any public
discussion about any kind of alternatives. The one committee
consideration--what is called a markup--occurred entirely in secret.
That is public law being debated in secret.
Yesterday, the Senate discussed whether to cut off debate on a bill
that authorizes vast, unchecked surveillance powers in less time than
it takes to shop for the week's groceries. So now, with no amendments
possible, there is not going to be a single opportunity for the public
to see its representatives explain why they are supporting or why they
are rejecting these key reforms.
You can only conclude from this that opponents of reforms were just
scared. They were frightened. They just didn't want to have them
debated in the open. They must be worried that the more Americans
understand about the program--and the more they hear about commonsense,
bipartisan proposals to fix it--the more the public is going to say we
can do better. We can do better than the status quo because the public,
once they have the benefit of a little transparency and a little open
debate, what I have seen--and I just finished my 865th open-to-all town
meeting at home in Oregon. Once you talk to folks at home about these
issues, they understand that security and liberty aren't mutually
exclusive; that sensible policies get you both and not-so-sensible
policies and failure to look at the issues really get less of both.
My view is the Senate let down the American people yesterday. In my
view, we have a solemn obligation to deliberate, to consider
amendments, and to vote up or down. I think that is really what the
Senate is all about.
One of the worst arguments for jamming this bill through without
amendments was that somehow this law was going away. It just wouldn't
be around. It was expiring.
First, Members who wanted to debate reforms were prepared to go to
this floor many months ago. Nothing stood in the way of a floor debate
last year. Even today, there is no reason to rush all this through.
Absolutely nothing prevents the Congress from extending 702 authorities
for a week or two to allow us to carry out our constitutional
responsibilities. By the way, the Director of National Intelligence has
said publicly and on the record that its authorities continue until
April. I was stunned.
I had Senators on both sides of the aisle whom I like very much--
good, dedicated Senators--saying: Oh, my goodness, we have to act. If
we don't act in the next few days, oh, my goodness, powerful tools we
need to stop the terrorists--and I will not take a backseat to anybody
in terms of stopping the terrorists--they are going to be gone. That is
just not true.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
an article with the statement from the Office of National Intelligence,
where the Director said on the record that its authorities would
continue.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From The New York Times, Dec. 6, 2017]
Warrantless Surveillance Can Continue Even if Law Expires, Officials
Say
(By Charlie Savage)
Washington.--The Trump administration has decided that the
National Security Agency and the F.B.I. can lawfully keep
operating their warrantless surveillance program even if
Congress fails to extend the law authorizing it before an
expiration date of New Year's Eve, according to American
officials.
National security officials have implored Congress for the
past year and a half to extend the legal basis for the
program, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, before it
lapses at the end of the month. They portrayed such a bill as
the ``top legislative priority'' for keeping the country
safe.
But with Congress focused on passing a major tax cut and
divided over what changes, if any, to make to the
surveillance program, lawmakers may miss that deadline.
Hedging against that risk, executive branch lawyers have now
concluded that the government could lawfully continue to spy
under the program through late April without new legislation.
Intelligence officials nonetheless remain intent on getting
lawmakers to pass a durable extension of Section 702 by the
end of the month--warning that even a stopgap short-term
extension of several months, as some lawmakers have proposed,
would risk throwing the program into a crisis in the spring.
``We fully expect Congress to reauthorize this critical
statute by the end of the year,'' said Brian Hale, a
spokesman for the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence. ``Not doing so would be unthinkable in light of
the considerable value Section 702 provides in protecting the
nation.''
The expiring law grew out of the Bush administration's
once-secret Stellarwind warrantless surveillance program
after the Sept. 11 attacks. After it came to light, Congress
enacted the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to legalize a form of
the program.
Under Section 702, the N.S.A. and the F.B.I. may collect
from domestic companies like AT&T and Google the phone calls,
emails, texts and other electronic messages of foreigners
abroad without a warrant--even when they talk with Americans.
The program has expanded to a broad array of foreign
intelligence purposes, not just counterterrorism.
If Congress fails to reauthorize the law this month, Mr.
Hale acknowledged that the government believes it can keep
the program going for months. Its reasoning centers on a
legal complexity in how the program works: Under the law,
about once a year, the secretive Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court
[[Page S238]]
sets rules for the program and authorizes it to operate for
12 months.
The court last issued a one-year certification on April 26.
That matters because a little-noticed section of the FISA
Amendments Act says that orders issued under Section 702
``shall continue in effect until the date of the
expiration.''
Mr. Hale said the provision, which is recorded in federal
statute books as a ``transition procedures'' note
accompanying the main text of the law, makes it ``very
clear'' that ``any existing order will continue in effect for
a short time even if Congress doesn't act to reauthorize the
law in a timely fashion.''
Given that conclusion, the government is making no plans to
immediately turn off the program on New Year's Day, no matter
what happens in Congress, according to a United States
official familiar with the Section 702 program who spoke on
the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
The disclosure has significant ramifications for the debate
over the program.
Congressional leaders have discussed including an extension
of the program in other must-pass legislation, like a
spending bill to keep the government from shutting down. But
lawmakers will face less pressure to jam through such a move,
short-circuiting a full and open debate over reform
proposals, if the alternative is not an immediate termination
of the collecting of intelligence authorized by the law.
Little consensus exists in Congress about what, if any,
changes to make to the law as part of extending it. Lawmakers
have submitted legislation spanning the gamut from making the
law permanent without changes to imposing significant new
limits to safeguard the privacy rights of Americans whose
communications get swept up in the program, as well as a
range of intermediary proposals.
One key disagreement centers on what limits, if any, to
impose on how government officials may search for, gain
access to or use in court information about Americans that
gets swept into the warrantless surveillance program. Some
lawmakers want to impose a broad provision forcing officials
to get a warrant before they may query the repository about
an American. Some want a more limited requirement that
officials get a court's permission to gain access to the
results of such a query if it is for a criminal investigation
but not a national security one. Some want to impose no new
constraints.
Another major issue confronting lawmakers is what to say,
if anything, about the N.S.A.'s old practice of collecting,
from network switches on the internet's backbone,
international emails and other such messages that mention a
foreigner who is a target of surveillance but are neither to
nor from that person. The N.S.A. recently halted that
practice but wants to retain the flexibility to turn it back
on; some bills would codify a ban on it, and some would not.
The question of a Section 702 overhaul, and trade-offs
between national security powers and privacy protections, has
scrambled the usual party lines. Representative Robert W.
Goodlatte of Virginia, the Republican chairman of the
Judiciary Committee, has warned that legislation whose
changes fall short of a compromise bill that he worked out
with Democrats on his committee is unlikely to pass the
House.
In an interview, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat,
declined to comment on the government's theory, but said he
was open to making it possible to have a full and open debate
over the proposed changes to the surveillance law early next
year if time runs out this month.
``We've seen this movie before: wait until the last minute,
and then say, 'crowded congressional calendar, dangerous
world, we've just got to go along with it,'' Mr. Wyden said.
``Anything now that creates an opportunity for several months
of real debate, I'll listen to.''
Either way, the United States official said the executive
branch and the courts would still need a durable new version
of the law well before the late-April deadline. The problem,
the official said, is that it will take a significant amount
of time to develop new procedures based on the new law,
submit them to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,
make changes the court wants and then work with
communications companies to implement the new certifications.
Mr. Hale declined to comment on those specifics, but said
that a gap in the surveillance program's legal authorization
would generate uncertainty.
``So while the orders would be in effect for a short time
after the end of the year, the fact is that we would need to
be planning for the end of the program,'' Mr. Hale said,
``and that cannot be done in a matter of days--to effect that
takes some time, and is not like turning on or off a light
switch.''
Planning to turn off the Section 702 program, the other
official said, would include steps to mitigate that change as
much as possible, including by systematically going through
the list of more than 100,000 foreigners abroad who are being
targeted under the program and triaging which are the most
critical, then developing lengthy packages of information to
submit to the surveillance court to seek individualized
orders to wiretap them.
But because of the resources such an effort would require
and the higher legal standard the government would need to be
able to meet, surveillance would ultimately cease on most of
the Section 702 targets, the official added.
Mr. WYDEN. Thank you, Mr. President.
Despite yesterday's vote, I regret to have to say I am going to have
to oppose this legislation's final passage. My view is, if this bill
does not go forward now, it is possible to get Democrats and
Republicans back to work together to ensure there is a meaningful
debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate and that this is done with ample
time to meet this window that the Office of National Intelligence has
talked about publicly, but if that doesn't happen, the Senate has
denied itself the opportunity to even attempt to fix this badly flawed
bill.
This surveillance authority allows the government to sweep up some
untold amount of law-abiding Americans' communications. The government
says, of course, that its targets are terrorists, and this is about
keeping Americans safe from terrorism. I don't take a backseat to
anybody in terms of fighting terrorist threats.
Having served on the Intelligence Committee for some time now, I can
tell all Members and the public there is no question that the terrorist
threat is real and that there are significant numbers of people who
represent a very real threat to the well-being of our country.
Now, if somebody says, We have to keep Americans safe from terrorism,
I am all in. I would submit that I don't know of a single U.S.
Senator--not 1 out of 100--who is not all in on this fight against
terrorism, but that is not what the law says. The law says that, under
section 702, the government can collect, without a warrant, the
communications of foreigners ``to acquire foreign intelligence
information.''
Here is how the law defines ``foreign intelligence information.'' It
is information that relates to the conduct of the ``foreign affairs of
the United States.'' That is just about any piece of information about
a foreign country.
Who can the government target to get all of this information? Anybody
``expected to possess, receive, and/or is likely to communicate'' that
information. So if you unpack that, you don't have to be a terrorist
suspect or any kind of threat to the United States to be a target under
section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The
government just has to think you know something the government wants to
know.
That is why so many Americans--Democrats, Republicans, and
Independents--are worried about getting their private communications
swept up. They are law-abiding people, as I have been saying--
servicemembers, businesspeople, Americans who, on a regular basis, talk
to friends, families, and contacts overseas. They are worried because,
based on what the law says, which I have just read, those foreigners
could be the targets, and Americans' communications could be collected
by the government.
Now, for years, I and other Members of the Congress--both Houses,
both parties--tried to at least get an estimate of how many law-abiding
Americans' communications have been getting swept up. As recently as
April 2017, the Director of National Intelligence said the public was
going to get some kind of estimate, but in June, the Director suddenly
changed course and told the public and the Congress: You are not
getting anything. What that means is no one knows the size of the
database. Nobody knows how many Americans' private communications are
sitting there, waiting to be searched and possibly used against those
Americans.
Just yesterday, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was
invoked by those opposing reforms, but what that Board had to say about
the sheer volume of Americans' communications being swept up is
actually, in their words, ``too much expansion in the collection of
U.S. persons' communications or the uses to which those communications
are put may push the program over the [constitutional] line.''
So here they were being cited, in effect, as supporters for the
status quo when I just read you their concern about the status quo.
This is why today section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act is an end-run on the Constitution, and it is what the
Presiding Officer and other Members of this body--both Democrats and
Republicans--have wanted to change.
[[Page S239]]
This end-run is not just about the collection. It is that, after all
the communications of our people are swept up, the government can go
searching for individual Americans through all that data. They don't
have to be suspected of anything. The government just has to decide on
its own that your private communications might reveal some intelligence
or some evidence of a crime, and like the collection of the
communications, that search can take place without a warrant--no
warrant on the collection of Americans' communications, no warrant on
searching for individual Americans. This is a case of two wrongs
certainly not making a right.
What the Senate did last night was prevent any debate on this basic
constitutional question. The USA Rights Act, introduced by 15 Senators
of both parties, would have required a warrant for those searches of
Americans.
Our colleagues Senator Leahy and Senator Lee have legislation
requiring a warrant--a Democrat and a Republican. Other Members have
had their own proposals. None of them are going to get heard by the
Senate.
We had a chance to consider amendments. We could have fixed the
underlying bill, which doesn't require any warrants for any searches
for Americans. Let me just repeat that. The underlying bill does not
require any warrants for any searches for Americans--none, not in
intelligence cases, not in criminal cases. Warrantless fishing
expeditions for Americans can just go on and on and on.
The bill's so-called reform only applies to the government's access
to the results of the searches, but it really doesn't even do that. It
only kicks in if the government is already well down the road of
investigating somebody.
This means the bill provides more rights to criminal suspects than to
innocent Americans. Think about what that is going to mean in Texas or
Oregon or North Carolina or anywhere else in the country. As I have
described it, this bill provides more rights to criminal suspects than
to innocent Americans.
It gets worse because the bill is even narrower than that. It imposes
no limitations at all if the government determines the search relates
to national security or to a criminal matter that has anything at all
to do with national security. Why are opponents of reform happy now?
Because their bill does nothing.
I went and read the Director of National Intelligence's statistics
for 2016. The CIA and the National Security Agency conducted over 5,000
warrantless searches for Americans, according to this material. It
doesn't include the FBI, whose searches are supposedly too numerous to
even count. It doesn't include communications records, which number in
the tens of thousands.
How many times does the government encounter a situation in which,
under this bill, there would even be the possibility of needing a
warrant? Exactly one--that is right--one among the thousands and
thousands of warrantless searches for Americans. Even that is an
overstatement because that one instance in 2016 could have occurred
prior to a predicated investigation; in which case, it, too, would be
exempt from warrant requirements.
Basically, this bill we will vote on provides an easy-to-read roadmap
to the government to make sure it never has to get a warrant for
anything. Meanwhile, the thousands of Americans subject to warrantless
backdoor searches each year have no protections at all.
Had there been amendments, I think there would have been the familiar
argument against requiring a warrant for searches of Americans' private
communications. We would have heard that section 702 of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act is necessary to connect the dots between
suspects and terrorists.
Here is why that is misleading. Opponents of reform like to talk
about a tip to the government that somebody is acting strange on a
bridge. They say this is a situation where the government needs to go
directly to reading the private communications of this person. That is
just not how the Constitution works.
Think about it. Would you want the content of your private
communications searched, accessed, and read just because somebody has a
slight suspicion about you?
Here is the misleading part. Opponents of reform say that, unless the
government searches for and reads the emails, it just can't connect the
dots to the terrorists. That is just false. The government already has
the authority to get this information and in a less intrusive way.
Some may remember just a few years ago there was a debate about
ending metadata--the bulk collection of millions of phone records of
law-abiding Americans. What remained at the end of that debate was the
authority of the government to go get the phone and email records of
anyone as long as the records were relevant to an investigation. If it
is an emergency, the government can get those records immediately
without having to go to the court first.
I want to emphasize that because it is something I have felt very
strongly about. I wrote that section, section 102 of the USA Freedom
Act, because I wanted to make sure it was clear in this debate about
finding policies where security and liberty are mutually exclusive,
where we have both, that the strongest possible message was sent; that
if the government believes there is an emergency, the government can
move immediately--immediately--to get the information it needs and then
come back later and settle up with the court.
When I have the opportunity to be in the Oval Office, which I have
had several times--it is a wonderful honor and privilege given by the
people of Oregon to pursue these issues--I will say what I say to the
President, not what the President says back because I think those are
private communications of the President. At one point in this debate, I
said to President Obama: If you and your staff feel the current
emergency provisions are not adequate, if you think they are not strong
enough, I want to know about it because I will work with you to make
sure they do the job.
That is because when there is an emergency and the security and well-
being of the American people is on the line, the government gets a
chance to move quickly, come back, and settle later with the court. I
have included that in essentially all the legislation that I have
authored. This provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
is what allows the government to connect the dots without going
directly to the content of private communications. That is how our
system is supposed to work. The government gets less intrusive
information on Americans, using a lower standard, first.
But what if the government needs the content of communications
urgently? What if the government sees an immediate threat and believes
it has no choice but to read those communications right away? As I
said, that is why we had the amendment that I have described in USA
Freedom Act, and it is why we said in our amendment to section 702--in
this proposal--that we would also have an emergency exception. Again,
the USA Freedom Act has an emergency exception, and our reform to
section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has an
emergency exception. In this case, under our proposal, in an emergency,
the government can search for and read those communications immediately
and seek a warrant later. Our proposal also includes other exceptions
to the warrant requirement, such as a hostage situation, where a search
might help save someone.
I bring this up only by way of saying that reformers have been very
clear. When the government has an emergency that is defined by the
government--not by somebody else who might conceivably not have all the
information--what we did in the USA Freedom Act is what we are doing in
section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is
protecting the American people in an emergency.
Now, there are other facts about warrantless backdoor searches that
opponents of a warrant requirement omit from public argument. For years
after the original passage of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, the CIA and the National Security Agency didn't have
the authority to conduct these searches. What is more, the Bush
administration never asked the FISA Court, or the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act Court, for those authorities. The Bush administration
didn't think it was a problem
[[Page S240]]
that the CIA and the NSA couldn't conduct warrantless backdoor searches
of Americans. But now people act like the warrantless searches are
somehow inseparable from the broader program. They pretend that we
really can't have an effective foreign intelligence collection program
unless you just make sure you are violating the rights of Americans.
This week should have been an opportunity to discuss the facts of how
this bill could have been improved. It should have been an opportunity
to clarify that Americans don't have to choose between security and
liberty. It should have been the Senate's chance to push back against
scare tactics and fearmongering and to lay out for the public what the
government does and doesn't need to protect us. Instead, we get a bill
that isn't necessary for our security and does nothing to protect our
liberty.
There are other important amendments that are not going to be
considered. One relates to what is known as ``abouts'' collection, a
process in which two innocent Americans could have their communications
swept up if they just write an email referencing a foreign target. We
are talking communications entirely among individuals who themselves
are not targets and are, potentially, all Americans. The whole concept
is just contrary to the Fourth Amendment. As the privacy board
concluded, there was ``nothing comparable'' in the law.
``From a legal standpoint, under the 4th Amendment, the government
may not, without a warrant, open and read letters sent through the mail
in order to acquire those that contain particular information.
Likewise, the government cannot listen to telephone conversations,
without probable cause about one of the callers or about the telephone,
in order to keep recordings of those conversations that contain
particular content.''
That is the quote from the privacy board, and we sure heard on the
floor sponsors of the status quo, in my view, suggest that the privacy
board had a different view of what they were up to.
From a practical standpoint, this form of collection was so
problematic that the government itself was forced to shut it down. Now,
the underlying bill says: Go ahead and start it up, as long as you tell
Congress. Congress has to be told anyway.
Based on the bill before us, if Congress does what it does best--
which is nothing--the government can just go ahead.
Again, I don't think that is what the public thinks the Senate should
be about. If the government ever wants to get back into the business of
this collection, it can come to the Congress and get it authorized.
If their argument wins the day, so be it, but preemptively writing into
black letter law this form of collection, sight unseen, means that this
Senate is surrendering our constitutional responsibilities.
This is one of the examples, the ``abouts'' collection, which I
mentioned, of why this bill actually is a retreat from current law.
Congress has never approved ``abouts'' collection. It wasn't in the
2008 bill creating the law or the first reauthorization of section 702.
It happened because of a secret interpretation of law, and most of
Congress knew nothing about it. But now, for the first time, when the
government itself has suspended it--largely because they know it had
been abused--what we are doing is essentially setting up what amounts
to a fast-track process to write it back into the law. It defines
``abouts'' collection broadly--broader even than the government--and it
invites its resumption.
The Senate also is not going to get to consider an amendment limiting
how information on Americans can be used against Americans. The bill
allows unlimited secret use of section 702 information--all collected
without a warrant--in any investigation or in any administrative or
civil procedures against Americans. Now, Americans understand how the
government can thoroughly disrupt their lives without ever charging
them with a crime, particularly if they are doing it based on secret
information.
But even when it comes to using 702 information as evidence in
criminal proceedings against Americans, the bill provides no real
protections. All the government needs is for the Attorney General to
determine that the criminal proceedings relate to national security or
involve a set of crimes that have nothing at all to do with national
security. There is a catch-all category called ``transnational crime.''
Now, I have tried for some time to get the government to tell me what
this ``transnational crime'' is. I haven't gotten much of a response.
In any case, the underlying bill here specifically says that the
Attorney General's decisions cannot be challenged in court.
So there you are. If the Attorney General decides that the crime you
are being charged with somehow relates to national security or is a
``transnational crime,'' that decision by the Attorney General is
really pretty much sacred. You can go to jail without ever being
allowed to challenge the government's use of section 702 information
against you--information obtained without a warrant and potentially
uncovered as a result of warrantless searches specifically conducted to
find your communications and communications about you.
The ways in which the government could potentially use this
information, collected without a warrant to investigate and prosecute
Americans and those in the United States, are limitless--immigration
status, recreational drugs, back taxes. The list goes on and on. I
don't think Americans think that is how the system is supposed to work.
Is that what a warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance bill is
supposed to do? I don't think so--immigration status, recreational
drugs, back taxes--but this bill allows it.
The bill leaves in place other problems that affect our rights. One
of them is the issue of what is called parallel construction. That is a
lot of fancy legalese that says that, even if information against an
American originally comes from section 702, if the government
subsequently constructs a case from other collection, it never has to
tell that American that it used section 702. My bill, with Senator Paul
and 13 other Senators, would have fixed that.
The bill we are voting on shortly, without any debate on amendments,
also leaves in place a big catch-22 that prevents anybody from ever
challenging section 702 in court. Section 702 collection is secret, so
almost no one can prove definitively that they personally were swept
up. That means it is also almost impossible to get standing to go to
court to challenge section 702. I am sure it pleases opponents of
reform, but it means that section 702 isn't going to be part of any
court review process where both sides of the adversarial system get
heard.
Fixing this problem is not, as so many in the House misleadingly
said, giving rights to terrorists. That was part of the fear-mongering
that went on. This is simply saying that section 702 is not exempt from
constitutional challenges that apply to every single Federal statute--
by the way, the hallmark of our constitutional system.
There are other problems that could have been fixed with amendments.
I am particularly troubled by the fact that the underlying bill doesn't
fix the problem of reverse targeting. This is where the government
targets a foreigner overseas when it is really interested in collecting
the communications of an American without a warrant. Right now, the law
as written allows this collection to continue without a warrant,
unless, in effect, the only purpose of the collection is to obtain the
American's communications. My concern is that, if the government has
even the slightest interest in the foreign target, it is not going to
seek a warrant, regardless of the intensity of the government's
interest in the American on the other end of the phone or the email.
This could mean, again, frequent, ongoing searches of the American's
communications. It could mean the use of the American's communications
in investigations and criminal proceedings. There is a solution to
this, and we proposed it; that is, if a significant purpose for
targeting a foreigner is to get an American's communications, the
government would need a warrant--pretty simple. I note that the
Presiding Officer of the Senate is supportive of reforms and our
bipartisan coalition. I very much appreciate that.
Just think about that. We had a solution to the fact that reverse
targeting had been abused. We simply said, if a significant purpose of
the government for targeting a foreigner is to get an
[[Page S241]]
American's communications, the government would need a warrant--and, of
course, we have an emergency exception in the bill as well.
The bill also doesn't prevent the government from directing service
providers to modify or weaken encryption without any court oversight. I
am telling you that this problem has been underappreciated. As we all
know, there is an ongoing debate about whether the government should be
able to mandate backdoor weaknesses in encryption. I believe this kind
of authority is just a loser all around. I think Americans, if you
weaken strong encryption, will be less safe. Certainly, parents who are
concerned about a youngster don't want to weaken the protection in
their smartphone for the tracker so they can keep tabs on their
kids. If the government is allowed to mandate backdoor weaknesses in
our products, I believe we will be less safe, we will have less
liberty, and it will be a big loser for many of our high-skilled, high-
wage companies.
I have already announced that, if there is any effort to weaken
strong encryption, I will do everything in my power to block that
legislation because it is a loser from a security standpoint, it is a
loser from a liberty standpoint, and it will be bad news for a lot of
our companies that pay good wages for the high skills of Americans, but
even those who argue that the government should be able to mandate
backdoor weaknesses in encryption assure us it is only going to happen
if the court orders it. But under section 702, the government could
direct a service provider to do that without any court awareness at
all. And, of course, Congress might not know either.
Again, we would have liked to have fixed this here on the floor. The
bipartisan legislation I have with Senator Paul requires that the FISA
Court approve the kind of technical assistance the government is
seeking from providers, which would also result in the Congress finding
out. This bill we will be voting on soon doesn't do that. As a result,
the court and the Congress could end up totally in the dark about an
issue that I think is absolutely central to the security and well-being
of our people in the 21st century.
The bill also provides no clarification on the question of whether
section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act can be used to
collect communications the government knows are entirely domestic. Put
your arms around that. This law is called the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, and we can't even get a straight answer from the
government's Director of National Intelligence about whether the law
can be used to collect communications the government knows are entirely
domestic.
When I first asked the head of national intelligence whether 702
provided this authority, he said in a public hearing: No. That would be
against the law.
Then, apparently, he told folks in the news media that he was
answering a different question than the one I asked.
Once again, I asked the Director of National Intelligence to answer
the question I had asked, at which point he then wrote and said that
the whole thing was classified.
This is the essence of what is secret law. I believe it is the kind
of thing that erodes trust in the government and in the intelligence
community specifically.
Had we been able to have a real debate, I would have offered an
amendment that would, in effect, write in the black letter law what the
head of national intelligence told me at first when I asked him ``Could
FISA be used to collect wholly domestic communications?'' before all
this George Orwell stuff. The head of national intelligence said: No,
FISA could not be used to collect wholly personal communications. That
answer would have reassured the American people.
After all of this back-and-forth and the bizarre situation where the
Director of National Intelligence says the whole thing is classified
after he has already given an answer in public, now the public isn't
going to have an opportunity to see its representatives address this
issue or take a position.
Supporters of the bill point to provisions related to oversight of
section 702. Here is how inadequate those are. Yesterday, we again
heard about the privacy board. Right now, the privacy board is
restricted to reviewing counterterrorism programs. Most intelligence
programs aren't neatly categorized that way. They are broader than
that. And, of course, the effect on Americans' privacy has nothing to
do with whether a collection program is about terrorism or anything
else. This bill leaves in place completely arbitrary limits on the
privacy board and their ability to oversee the country's intelligence
programs.
The bill does not meaningfully strengthen the FISA Court in a way
that I think is very basic. There are people with top security
clearances who appear before the court and provide the only alternative
view in what is otherwise basically the government's show. The FISA
Court has often gone years without addressing serious legal and
constitutional questions. Sometimes, the court never gets to them.
Right now, these sort of friends of the court are only heard from when
the court invites them. But imagine if these folks who have top
security clearances were informed about what was going on and could
raise issues with the court whenever they felt it was important. This
would not hinder the FISA Court, but it would greatly improve the
chance that the court would consider serious issues earlier. Once
again, no reform.
There are also basic principles of transparency that are ignored in
the bill. Right now, the CIA and the NSA are obligated to inform the
public how many searches of Americans they conduct. The FBI is not. I
don't see a good argument why Congress shouldn't change that. The
American people deserve to know how often the CIA and the NSA conduct
warrantless searches looking for information on them. They deserve to
know how often the FBI does so, particularly because the FBI conducts
searches for evidence of a crime as well as for intelligence.
I believe I have outlined the faults of the bill. This is not reform.
It is not even business as usual; it is a retreat. It is, in fact,
worse than just extending the program's business as usual because, for
the first time, it writes into black letter law the problematic
practices that I have outlined. There is not real oversight. There is
not transparency. That is what the public demands. That is what I heard
people asking for at the townhall meetings I held last weekend in
Oregon. Americans still have a lot of unanswered questions about the
program.
There are certainly many Members of Congress who share my concerns
who have devoted much of their career to ensuring that Americans have
security and liberty. I want to especially express my appreciation to
Senators Paul and Lee. They have been tireless champions. Chairman
Leahy has led on this critical matter for decades. Senator Heinrich, my
seatmate on the Intelligence Committee, is one of this body's rising
stars because he is willing to dig deeply into the issues. In the
House, 183 Members voted for the most comprehensive section 702 reform
bill, the House version of the USA RIGHTS Act. As we saw last night--
and the President of the Senate and I were involved in a lot of those
deliberations down here in the well of the Senate--this was a very
close vote.
A lot of people say: Well, the reformers are going to say their
piece, and they are going to get 6, 8, 10 votes and the like.
I think, last night, we really brought home what I hear Americans
say, Democrats, Republicans--by the way, many Independents--who have
questions about the way the government works and want to see their
liberties protected in a way that also keeps them safe, and a big group
of Members in the other body. And last night, a big group of Senators
said: What a quaint idea. Let's have the U.S. Senate be the U.S.
Senate. Let's have a few amendments.
It was communicated to the leaders. I want to thank Senator Schumer
for making it clear that he thought that some amendments would make
this a better, fuller, and more complete debate. I think it is very
unfortunate, with the fact that there are so many important issues
here--it is an important bill. I hope people have seen that--having
spent a lot of time on these issues over the years, I think we really
need to have more time spent on this floor getting a chance to debate
these issues, having Senators of both
[[Page S242]]
parties work in good faith, work toward constructive solutions.
I think support for what we sought last night, which is a real debate
and real solutions and actual amendments--I think more and more
Americans are coming around to see that is the way to proceed because
Americans aren't going to buy the idea that, well, we will just say you
have to give up some of your liberty to have security. Ben Franklin
said it very well: Anybody who gives up their liberty to have security
doesn't really deserve either.
What we need are smart policies. That is why I talked about
encryption. Strong encryption makes us safer. It also protects our
liberty. That is why I outlined some of the deep flaws in this bill. I
think this bill puts on fast track going back to ``abouts'' collection,
where somebody is barely mentioned and, all of a sudden, the government
is collecting the communication.
I will oppose final passage of this legislation. Nothing is
preventing the Congress from getting this right. As I mentioned, the
office of national intelligence--the Director of the relevant agency
has said there is plenty of time for us to take this bill, have a few
amendments, a real debate, and come up with a bill that better ensures
that Americans are both safe and free.
With that, I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that
notwithstanding rule XXII, all postcloture time on the House message to
accompany S. 139 expire at 12:15 p.m. on Thursday, January 18.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for
approximately 15 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Climate Change
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, now, for the 193rd time, I will give
my ``Time to Wake Up'' speech, and as I do so, we are coming up on
President Trump's anniversary in office. Unfortunately, this occasion
does not offer the American people much to celebrate. Behind the
persistent tweets and the dog whistles, the Trump Presidency has been a
spectacle of special interests and self-dealing. Billionaire donors
have endless access installing their operatives and pursuing their
special interest goals throughout the executive branch. They are
literally writing the rules in an unambiguous effort to enrich
themselves evermore at the expense of everyone else.
Fossil fuel barons are the new American dark money emperors. Carl
Icahn, early on, got himself installed as a special adviser to the
President on regulatory reform and began pushing for a change to the
renewable fuel standard that would net one of his companies, CVR
Energy, hundreds of millions of dollars. Icahn's insider campaign came
to an end in August of last year right around the time a New Yorker
article outlined the potential legal claims that could arise from his
murky status and self-dealing. Federal investigators have since opened
a probe into Icahn's time at the White House.
Then came Murray Energy Corporation CEO and big Trump donor Bob
Murray with his policy wish list for Trump officials. He called it his
action plan. Murray had donated $300,000 to the President's
inauguration, and he donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to
political action committees affiliated with the EPA Administrator and
fossil fuel operative, Scott Pruitt. In a ``Frontline'' documentary,
Bob Murray bragged about giving the administration this action plan and
that the first page was already done.
Well, I was curious to see the Bob Murray action plan for the Trump
administration, so I joined Senator Carper, our ranking member on the
Environment and Public Works Committee, and asked the White House for a
copy of the Bob Murray action plan. The White House ignored our request
and to this date has never responded.
I guess the White House was busy organizing Trump's nominee for
second in command at the EPA: a lobbyist for, guess who--Bob Murray and
Murray Energy. During the Murray Energy lobbyist's EPA confirmation
hearing, he claimed he did not have the Bob Murray action plan. He
admitted he had seen the Bob Murray action plan at a meeting between
Bob Murray and Energy Secretary Rick Perry last March, but he could not
recall details of what was in the action plan or what was discussed in
the meeting. Lobbyists for energy companies who get one-on-one meetings
with the Secretary of Energy often little note nor long remember what
went on at the meeting.
Anyway, I asked the Department of Energy whether they had a copy of
the elusive Bob Murray action plan. Shortly after my request, and
before we heard anything from the Department of Energy, the magazine In
These Times released photos of that March meeting that the Murray
lobbyist had mentioned between Secretary Perry and Bob Murray.
This photo shows Bob Murray and Secretary Perry. It looks like Bob
Murray received a pretty cozy reception from the Energy Secretary. This
gentleman, I believe, is another lobbyist for Bob Murray and Murray
Energy. After they got through the hugging, they got down to business.
There is the Secretary, there is the CEO Bob Murray, there is his other
lobbyist, and this is the Bob Murray lobbyist who is now teed up to be
the No. 2 at EPA. Right there in the picture is the Bob Murray action
plan. This is a closeup of it, and the Presiding Officer can't see from
there and nobody on the camera can see, but if you look right here, it
talks about power grid reliability in the cover letter signed by Bob
Murray, which may have cooked up, since this was a meeting with
Secretary Perry, Secretary Perry's power grid reliability proposal to
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which included huge subsidies
to coal plants.
So we have a coal company CEO bringing his action plan in to
Secretary Perry on whose cover letter it talks about power grid
reliability, and before you know it, Secretary Perry is proposing a
power grid reliability project to the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission that just happens to give the coal industry enormous
subsidies. What could possibly be wrong with that?
Well, with this photographic evidence in hand, I renewed my request
that the Energy Department produce this Bob Murray action plan. They
were no longer able to pretend they didn't have it because they had a
picture of it, with the Secretary, on his desk. They nevertheless
continued to stonewall me, saying they would provide me the document
after responding to FOIA requests from the public.
So, memo to my Senate colleagues, when in the exercise of your
oversight authority and the oversight authority of Congress and the
Senate you request documents from the Trump administration, you might
want to consider putting in a parallel FOIA request as that may be the
only way you get a response.
Despite the administration's best efforts to stonewall the Bob Murray
action plan, however, my office was able to obtain a copy from an
independent source. This version is addressed to Vice President Pence.
The New York Times has now published the Bob Murray action plan.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the article they wrote, ``How a Coal Baron's Wish List Became President
Trump's To-Do List,'' and the Bob Murray action plan that was the
subject of that story at the conclusion of my remarks.
The article details demands made by Murray that have already been
checked off by the President and the administration, including the
repeal of the Clean Power Plan, withdrawal from the Paris climate
agreement, the installation of mining industry operatives at the Mine
Safety and Health Administration, and even, believe it or not, the
appointment of a fossil fuel-friendly U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
Several more of Bob Murray's action plan requests are underway. At
the
[[Page S243]]
Mine Safety and Health Administration, now led by a former coal mine
executive, Murray Energy and trade associations are working to undo
Obama-era rules to protect miners. The 2010 coal mine dust rule is also
on the chopping block. Over at EPA, Bob Murray's political money
beneficiary, Scott Pruitt, has begun a review of the Agency's 2015
ozone standards.
Let me just drop in, as a Senator from Rhode Island, we have had days
when you drive into work and the skies are clear and the weather is
nice and the radio says: Little children, infants and elderly folks and
people who have a breathing difficulty should stay indoors in the air-
conditioning. They should not go outdoors and enjoy the beautiful day.
Why? Because of ozone which is being bombarded in on Rhode Island
from--guess what--coal plants in the Midwest. We are in the downstream
receiving end of ozone, which is the product of those coal plant
emissions. So, obviously, loosening the ozone standards is good for
coal companies.
On a new topic, EPA continues to cut and to drive away its staff--all
items on Bob Murray's action plan.
Since it appears that Bob Murray has tailored his action plan for
individual agencies, I have sent additional requests last week to the
Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, all
of which are named in the Bob Murray action plan to see what specific
action plans they have from Bob Murray.
The fossil fuel industry may be able to boss Cabinet Secretaries
around and may be able to bring the majority party in Congress smartly
to heel, but, fortunately, there are still some venues where their
demands run smack up against the rule of law. In our courts and in
administrative proceedings, decisions must have substantial support in
the evidence, and lying and misleading can be exposed and even
punished--unlike in Congress, where lying and misleading have been
sickeningly successful fossil fuel tactics for decades.
Last week, the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission--even
one stuffed with Trump appointees--rejected Secretary Perry's proposed
power grid reliability rule to subsidize coal and nuclear plants. The
FERC Commissioners found that the proposal failed to meet ``clear and
fundamental'' legal requirements, like that the result will be ``just
and reasonable'' under the Federal Power Act.
As an aside here, the theory of the coal industry was that their
units provide more reliability than renewables. Well, tell that to
Iowa's electric grid operators, which have baked Iowa's abundant wind
energy not just into their flow but into their reliability modeling.
Tell that to New England's ISO, which has allowed renewables into its
capacity auctions to be paid, for meeting baseload capacity
requirements. And, of course, tell that to anyone who has had to deal
with scheduled and unscheduled outages at coal plants.
When I went on one of my climate visits to, in this case, Tennessee,
I heard about a coal plant that had to be shut down because climate
change had warmed the river and shrunk the flow so that the river used
to cool the plant was no longer adequate to cool the plant, and they
had to go into an unscheduled outage. Wind and solar are very reliable,
and the ISOs have baked the algorithms that quantify their reliability
into their grid reliability planning.
The ``coal is reliable and renewables aren't'' argument may pass
muster on talk shows, but in the real world of grid operators, it is
nonsense. FERC, as a rule-of-law agency, is required to face that fact.
America's courts also stand in the way of the Bob Murray action plan
agenda. Murray, for instance, has demanded that the EPA overturn its
2009 endangerment finding--the administrative finding that greenhouse
gas emissions, like carbon dioxide and methane and so forth, threaten
the public health and welfare of current and future generations. That
is their finding, that those greenhouse gas emissions threaten the
health and welfare of current and future generations. That is why it is
called an endangerment finding, because of the danger to the public.
Well, good luck challenging that determination in a court of law. In
fact, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has already upheld
the endangerment finding back in 2012.
Even the fossil fuel flunky running the EPA now knows better than to
challenge that endangerment finding. If he thought he could, he would
in a heartbeat, but he is clever enough to know that an avalanche of
climate evidence would fall in on his head if he tried. Witnesses from
virtually every leading State university in the industry, from Alaska
to Oklahoma to Georgia to Maine; expert scientists from our National
Laboratories, from Idaho to Tennessee; our national security agencies
and our military; America's government watchdog agencies, like the GAO
and the GSA; and even the Trump administration's own recent climate
report, all, would pile on the conclusive evidence of climate change.
And on the other side would be what? Pathetic Kathleen Hartnett White,
who gave one of the worst performances in Senate history at her
confirmation hearings? The secretly fossil-fuel-funded Willie Soon?
Some coal company lobbyist? Or perhaps the Heartland Institute, with
its proud history of comparing climate scientists to the Unabomber?
It would be a rout. It would be a rout, and even Pruitt knows it. The
reason it would be a rout is because of the rule of law--the rule of
law requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act, the rule of law
specter of judicial review, and the rule of law sanctions that courts
impose for false evidence.
Certainly, Bob Murray and his surrounding crowd of bad-acting fossil
fuel billionaires know how to throw their political weight around. We
see everywhere the phony science denial apparatus they have created. We
see their false and toxic messages even in outlets like the Wall Street
Journal editorial page. We see their lobbying front groups like the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, continuing adamantly to oppose any serious
climate legislation despite the contrary position of companies on their
board of directors. American elections stink with their dark money and
promises and threats. Their flunkies have now been moved into positions
of authority in government, and the Trump's administration eagerness to
carry out industry marching orders is humiliatingly servile.
Ultimately, the polluters' drive to put profit first above the health
and safety of Americans will face strict scrutiny in the truth-based
arena of Federal courts. Ultimately, it will also face the harsh test
of time, as the fact that they knew and the fact that they lied becomes
ever more obvious and ever more odious. Ultimately, the American voter
will have her say about whether this great Republic should be under the
dominion and control of the fossil fuel industry or free to address the
problem of climate change as a rational world leader must.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From The New York Times, Jan. 9, 2018]
How a Coal Baron's Wish List Became President Trump's To-Do List
(By Lisa Friedman)
Washington.--President Trump's first year in office has
been a boon for the coal industry, with the Trump
administration rolling back regulations on coal-fired power
plants and withdrawing the United States from the Paris
climate change agreement.
Environmentalists have expressed alarm at the new
direction, and have complained that Mr. Trump was following a
blueprint from the coal industry. A confidential memo written
by the head of the country's largest coal mining company
suggests they might not be wrong.
The memo was written by Robert E. Murray, a longtime Trump
supporter who donated $300,000 to the president's
inauguration. In it, Mr. Murray, the head of Murray Energy,
presented Mr. Trump with a wish list of environmental
rollbacks just weeks after the inauguration.
Nearly a year later, the White House and federal agencies
have completed or are on track to fulfill most of the 16
detailed requests, even with Monday's decision by federal
regulators to reject a proposal by Energy Secretary Rick
Perry to subsidize struggling coal and nuclear plants.
The March 1 memo, which was obtained by Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse of Rhode Island and shared with The New York
Times, is addressed to Vice President Mike Pence. The
sweeping wish list of regulatory overhauls includes ending
regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and ozone and mine
safety, as well as cutting the staff of the Environmental
Protection Agency ``at least in half''
[[Page S244]]
and overhauling the Labor Department's office of mine safety.
``I give President Trump and his administration credit for
being bold, being passionate and being correct in addressing
a lot of these issues that were on my list here,'' Mr. Murray
said in an interview Tuesday.
Photographs of portions of a different memo, dated March 23
and addressed to Rick Perry, the secretary of the Department
of Energy, were obtained by the magazine In These Times last
year. They were taken during a meeting Mr. Murray held on
March 29 with Mr. Perry and others at the Energy Department,
according to the magazine.
Mr. Murray on Tuesday described the memos as very similar.
The March 1 ``Action Plan for the Administration of
President Donald J. Trump'' is aimed, Mr. Murray wrote in the
memo, at ``getting America's coal miners back to work.'' He
also asks the federal government to cut funding for carbon
capture and sequestration technology--which Mr. Murray called
``a pseudonym for `no coal' ''--and eliminate a 2009 E.P.A.
ruling known as the endangerment finding that was the legal
justification for much of the Obama administration's climate
change policy.
``This list was to remain private, a list of things that
needed to be done for reliable, low-cost electricity in
America. That was my number one goal here, was to give
guidance to the administration in an area that I have
observed over 60 years,'' Mr. Murray said.
Critics say Mr. Murray's list and the apparent ease with
which he was able to get it in front of cabinet officials and
others illustrates the open-door access the Trump
administration has offered energy and other industries as it
moves to redirect and weaken federal regulations.
``The astonishing presumption of this list,'' Mr.
Whitehouse, a Democrat, said. ``It's an extraordinary
arrogance of the fossil fuel industry based on the power they
wield in Washington, D.C.'' He said even though Mr. Murray
had bragged about the action plan on a Frontline documentary
last year, the Energy Department had declined his requests to
immediately release the memo.
``The power of the fossil fuel industry around here is so
great I think the industry feels they can count on simply not
complying with requests,'' Mr. Whitehouse said.
The Energy Department did not respond to a request to
discuss the memos from Mr. Murray.
The Trump administration has had an unusually close
relationship with Mr. Murray. He and 10 of his miners were
invited to watch the president sign an executive order to
rollback President Obama's climate change regulations. He has
met with Mr. Perry to discuss the needs of coal producers.
His longtime attorney, Andrew Wheeler, is awaiting Senate
confirmation to the No. 2 slot at the E.P.A., and David
Zatezalo, the nation's new top mine safety and health
regulator and previously the president of a coal mining
company, told his hometown paper that Mr. Murray had
encouraged him to put his hat in the ring for the job.
Jeffrey Holmstead, a lawyer with the firm Bracewell and a
deputy administrator of the E.P.A. in the George W. Bush
administration, called Mr. Murray's action plan ``an
ambitious list.'' While interest groups always try to
influence policy in a new administration, Mr. Holmstead said
Mr. Murray's status with the administration set him apart.
``I really don't think it's at all unusual that Murray
would have this wish list or a set of recommendations. What
makes it different is that it's pretty clear that he has a
personal relationship with the president,'' Mr. Holmstead
said. ``It seems like given Mr. Murray's relationship with
the president that he had more of an expectation that these
things were going to be accepted or implemented.''
One item not on the list yet important to Mr. Murray was an
order the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected
Monday to subsidize struggling coal and nuclear power plants.
Mr. Murray railed against that decision saying it would lead
to the decommissioning of coal and nuclear power plants.
Environmental groups have accused Mr. Murray of directly
asking Mr. Perry for a proposed rule to reward coal and
nuclear power plants for providing ``grid resiliency.'' The
March 1 memo does not mention the grid, though photographs of
the cover page of the March 23 document to Mr. Perry obtained
by In These Times shows its focus is ``a plan for achieving
reliable and low cost electricity.''
Soon after Mr. Murray's meeting at D.O.E., Mr. Perry
ordered the agency to prepare a study on the country's
electric grid reliability, a precursor to ordering the
federal government to subsidize struggling coal and nuclear
plants.
Mr. Murray and a spokesman, Gary Broadbent, said the
difference between the two memos was that the one provided to
Mr. Perry asked the Energy Department to study the security
of the nation's power grid.
``I suggested that the study be made,'' Mr. Murray said.
``What they did from there, the administration did. I did not
have involvement in it.''
One of the items on the 16-point list was an overhaul of
FERC regulators, and the Trump administration accomplished
that. But those Trump-appointed commissioners voted against
the plan to bail out coal and nuclear.
``Obviously they forgot who appointed them right out of the
box,'' Mr. Murray said.
Correction: January 16, 2018
An earlier version of this article misstated the number of
suggested actions in a memo that Robert E. Murray submitted
to the Trump administration. It had 16 suggestions, not 14.
____
Murray Energy Corporation,
St. Clairsville, OH, March 1, 2017.
Hon. Michael R. Pence,
Vice President of the United States of America,
The White House, Washington, DC.
Dear Vice President Pence: Enclosed is an Action Plan for
the Administration of President Donald J. Trump, which will
help in getting America's coal miners back to work. We have
listed our suggested actions in order of priority.
We are available to assist you and your Administration in
any way that you request.
Sincerely,
Robert E. Murray,
Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer.
____
Action Plan for the Administration of President Donald J. Trump
CLEAN POWER PLAN
The so-called Clean Power Plan must be eliminated. Murray
Energy Corporation obtained a stay of this rule before the
Supreme Court of the United States on February 3, 2016. This
illegal rule will close au additional fifty-six (56) coal-
fired electric generating plants, totaling 53,000 megawatts,
on top of the 101,000 megawatts (411 coal-fired plants) that
President Barack Obama and his Democrat supporters have
already closed.
``ENDANGERMENT FINDING'' FOR GREENHOUSE GASES
With the overturning of the Clean Power Plan, there must be
a withdrawal and suspension of the implementation of the so-
called ``endangerment finding'' for greenhouse gases.
EPA's ``endangerment finding'' under the Clean Air Act
serves as the foundation for the agency's far reaching
regulation of the economy in the form of emission limitations
for greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. The high
degree of uncertainty in the range of data relied upon by EPA
combined with the enormous regulatory costs without
concomitant benefits merit revisiting the ``endangerment
finding''.
According to EPA's finding, the ``root cause'' of recently
observed climate change is ``likely'' the increase in
anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. EPA relied upon
computer-based-climate-model simulations and a ``synthesis''
of major findings from scientific assessment reports with a
significant range of uncertainty related to temperatures over
25 years. The climate model failures are well documented in
their inability to emulate real-world climate behavior.
Models that are unable to simulate known climate behavior
cannot provide reliable projections of future climate
behavior. As for the scientific assessments underlying the
``synthesis'' of findings used by EPA, many were not peer
reviewed, and there are multiple instances where portions of
peer reviewed literature germane to the ``endangerment
finding'' were omitted, ignored or unfairly dismissed.
ELIMINATE THE THIRTY (30) PER CENT PRODUCTION TAX CREDIT FOR WINDMILLS
AND SOLAR PANELS IN ELECTRICITY GENERATION
Electricity generated by windmills and solar panels costs
twenty-six (26) cents per kilowatt hour with a four (4) cent
per kilowatt hour subsidy from the American taxpayers. These
energy sources are unreliable and only available if the wind
blows or the sun shines. Coal-fired electricity costs only
four (4) cents per kilowatt hour. Low cost electricity is a
staple of life, and we must have a level playing field in
electric power generation without the government picking
winners and losers by subsidizing wind and solar power.
WITHDRAW FROM THE ILLEGAL UNITED NATIONS COP 21 PARIS CLIMATE ACCORD
The United Nation's COP 21 Paris Climate Accord, to which
Barack Obama has already committed one (1) billion dollars of
America's money, is an attempt by the rest of the world to
obtain funding from our Country. It is an illegal treaty
never approved by Congress, and it will have no effect on the
environment.
END THE ELECTRIC UTILITY MAXIMUM ACHIEVABLE TECHNOLOGY AND OZONE
REGULATIONS
We have won these issues in the United States Supreme
Court, and these rules must be completely overturned.
FUND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CERTAIN CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGIES
The Federal government, must support the development of
some Clean Coal Technologies, including: ultra super critical
combustion; high efficiency, low emission coal firing;
combined cycle coal combustion; and others. It should not
fund so-called carbon capture and sequestration (``CCS''), as
it does not work, practically or economically. Democrats and
some Republicans use COS as a political cover to insincerely
show that they are proposing something for coal. But, carbon
capture and sequestration is a pseudonym for ``no coal''.
OVERHAUL THE BLOATED AND POLITICALIZED MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH
ADMINISTRATION OF THE U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
This Federal agency, over the past eight (8) years, has not
been focused on the coal
[[Page S245]]
miner safety, but on politics, bureaucracy, waste, and
violation quotas. While coal mine employment has been cut in
half, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration has
continued to hire inspectors every year. But, the government
has nowhere to put them. Murray Energy Corporation received
an average of 532 Federal inspectors per month in 2016. We
must send a Company manager with every one of these
inspectors, taking us away from our employee safety
inspections and safety training.
CUT THE STAFF OF THE U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY IN AT LEAST
HALF
Tens of thousands of government bureaucrats have issued
over 82,000 pages of regulations under Obama, many of them
regarding coal mining and utilization. The Obama EPA, alone,
wrote over 25,000 pages of rules, thirty-eight (38) times the
words in our Holy Bible.
OVERTURN THE RECENTLY ENACTED CROSS-STATE AIR POLLUTION RULE
This regulation particularly punishes states in which coal
mining takes place to the benefit of other wealthier east
coast states.
REVISE THE ARBITRARY COAL MINE DUST REGULATION OF THE MINE SAFETY AND
HEALTH ADMINISTRATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
This regulation provides no health benefit to our coal
miners, and threatens the destruction of thousands of coal
mining jobs.
OBTAIN LEGISLATION TO FUND BOTH THE RETIREE MEDICAL CARE AND PENSIONS
FOR ALL OF AMERICA'S UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA (UMWA)--
REPRESENTED, RETIRED COAL MINERS
For four (4) years, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
has refused to address this issue. Some say that this is
because the UMWA wrongly opposed him in his recent election.
This must be taken care of. And the legislation enacted must
address not just those recently orphaned through company
bankruptcies and mine closures, but the medical benefits and
pensions that were promised to all retired miners by the
Federal government itself.
OVERTURN THE NINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF
LABOR, PATTERN OF VIOLATIONS RULE
This rule is a punitive action of the Mine Safety and
Health Administration under its Director for the past eight
(8) years, the former Safety Director of a labor union.
APPOINT JUSTICES TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES WHO WILL
FOLLOW OUR UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION AND OUR LAWS
We must offset the liberal appointees who want to redefine
our Constitution and our laws.
MEMBERS OF THE FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION MUST BE REPLACED
The current Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has a
record of favoring actions of the Obama Administration that
have destroyed the reliability of America's electric power
grid and which have led to skyrocketing electric power costs,
as Mr. Obama, who appointed them, stated would occur in 2008.
MEMBERS OF THE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY BOARD OF DIRECTORS MUST BE
REPLACED
The Board of Directors of this government agency has
followed the mandates of the Obama Administration, rather
than assure reliable, low cost electricity for the Tennessee
Valley Authority's rate payers, whom they are mandated to
serve in this manner.
REPLACE THE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD (``NLRB'')
Eliminate the antiemployer bias of the NLRB by appointing
members and staff, particularly in the General Counsel's
office, who will fairly consider the employer's position and
needs and not automatically accede to the unions or unionized
employees in every matter considered.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Confronting Issues the Right Way
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, a few days ago, our Nation stopped and
remembered Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is entirely appropriate for
us to do so. It is a holiday set aside to be able not only to remember
but to reflect and try to figure out: Where are we now?
This year is especially significant. Fifty years ago this year, Dr.
King was assassinated in April 1968. A lot of things have changed in
that time period. Quite frankly, as a nation, we have learned a lot
about race. We no longer as a nation talk about three-fifths of a man
anymore--rightfully so, and we are appalled by our history in that. We
no longer have separate water fountains set up in restaurants or tell
certain people because of their background, their family, or their skin
color that they can take food to go but they can't come in and sit
down.
We have come a long way in hiring. We have come a long way in just
our communities and our schools. The work is not done. We still have a
long way to go, quite frankly.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was bold enough to be able to challenge
the church first, then the Nation, and then the world that we have an
issue around the issue of race. He was going to challenge us to
confront it--rightfully so. He challenged us on the issue of racial
justice, on poverty, on education, but he also challenged us on the way
that we speak out on issues, and I think we lose track of that as a
culture.
Quite frankly, as a Senate and as a Nation, we are losing track of
one of the things Dr. Martin Luther King challenged us on: There is a
right way to confront issues and a wrong way to confront issues. Dr.
King did something revolutionary. He pushed a community to confront
injustice the right way, and he won.
He made radical statements like this:
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Dr. King said:
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a
burden to bear. Love is the only force capable of
transforming an enemy into a friend.
For whatever reason, we lose track of Dr. King's statements about
``love is a powerful thing.'' We start as a culture responding with
hate to respond to hate. When someone says something hateful, we
respond back with something more hateful back at them. It doesn't
actually solve anything, and we lose the great model that he really set
for us in that.
If we want to make enemies friends, only love can do that, only
relationships can do that, only pressing a friend to do the right thing
can do that. Now, is that happening in our culture? No. It is in spots,
but it is not hard to go on any of our social media sites at any moment
and be able to see the challenge in our social media sites, where it is
not love driving out hate. It is hate attacking hate.
It is remarkable to me. I just glanced at some of the things just of
late as I was preparing for this conversation. I look backward at a few
of the posts that are on my own social media sites--controversial
statements that I made, like, on the 1st when I did a post that just
said ``Happy New Year.'' It was a stinging controversial post that was
responded to by someone saying: Loser. Liar. Traitor. How much money
did you take from Russia, comrade?
That was to my statement of ``Happy New Year.''
I made a statement about how kids who came in under DACA should be
treated differently. These are kids who didn't break the law. These are
kids who are like the 4-year old riding in the backseat of the car when
their parent was speeding. When the parent is pulled over, they don't
give the kid a ticket. I made just a quick post about that, and the
response to that, among many, was this: What is with his hair color?
Dude, get it done professionally. You look terrible.
I just have to say to you: Dude, this is done by a professional. God
gave me this hair color, and so there is no bottle involved in this
one. It is His work, and I would call Him a pro.
There is all of this talk back and forth about where we are going to
go as a culture, and we are losing Dr. King's legacy that hate doesn't
drive out hate, that only love does that.
Now, there is a lot of conversation in this body, as well, saying
things have never been worse in the Senate and in Congress. I would
disagree. Just after Vice President Burr left office, he challenged the
Secretary of the Treasury to a duel where he shot the Secretary of the
Treasury dead in a duel. In 1850, in the Chamber just right down the
hallway here, in what is called the Old Senate Chamber, they were
working on a compromise and Senator Foote and Senator Benton were in an
argument, and so Senator Foote reached into his desk in the middle of
the argument and pulled out his pistol while screaming at Senator
Benton, to which Senator Benton jumped on one of the desks that is in
this room still today. He jumped on the desk and pulled open his coat,
revealing: I don't have a weapon. Shoot me. Shoot me. That was on the
Senate floor, and they wrestled Senator Foote to the floor and took his
gun away from him.
People can say it has never been worse. I can assure you it has been
worse. But what we do have responsibility for is in our time and
setting the tone for difficult debate in this moment.
The arguments that happen on the Senate floor and the violence on
this
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Senator floor, including Senator Sumner being almost beaten to death
with a cane just before the Civil War, set a path into the Civil War
for the Nation. What is the path we are taking the Nation on right now
in our debate?
As a nation, I have a simple reminder that is not mine. It is from a
powerful American leader named Dr. King, who said: ``Hate does not
drive out hate.'' For anyone who is looking at what is happening in our
culture and in politics right now saying ``if only I say something more
hateful than the last guy, this will get better,'' you have missed his
point.
Dr. King was deeply moved by Scripture, and there are multiple
examples of it in his writings and in his speeches. He quoted passages
over and over again, like from 1 John, Chapter 4: ``Dear friends, since
God so loved us, we also ought to love one another''; Psalm 34: ``Taste
and see that the Lord is good.'' Over and over again, he came back to
Scripture as just a simple reminder that things can be different for
us.
He challenged the church at moments, like in his letter from
Birmingham jail, and he challenged culture. In fact, we lose track of
the fact that during the civil rights movement, Dr. King was working
with both parties to establish platforms for both parties that would
respect the dignity of all Americans. It is a good path that has been
set for us. In the middle of our conversation about Dr. King, I would
hope that we would remember it.
Let me make one quick side note, as well. It is kind of a fun note
for those of us from Oklahoma. The story of Dr. King, as many people
may know, almost didn't happen the way that it did. In 1953, just
finishing up seminary and in the middle of his doctoral work, when he
was just Martin Luther King, not Dr. Martin Luther King yet--he was
still doing his doctoral work at Boston University. He came to a small
church in Oklahoma City that was well respected in the civil rights
movement--Calvary Baptist Church. In fact, in 1952, Calvary Baptist
Church hosted the national conference of the NAACP and had Thurgood
Marshall there as a speaker. In 1953, Dr. King was interviewed there to
be one of the pastors at Calvary Baptist Church. The elders in the
church heard him, read about him, met him, and then turned him down.
This is my favorite quote from one of the elders of the church. They
said they didn't think he had enough gravy on him yet. He was too
young, not experienced enough. That was in 1953. Ten years later, he
was standing on the Mall right down the street saying ``I have a
dream,'' leading the entire country.
I say that to say that sometimes we have this assumption that we are
in control. We are not. God is in control. He has a path and a plan.
Sometimes when we hear no and when we hear hard things, we find out He
has a path and plan that may look different from ours.
I would only challenge us as a body to do the right thing the right
way and to see where that takes us. As it says in Psalm 34, ``Taste and
see that the Lord is good.'' Do it the right way, and let's see how
this works out together.
It is a simple reminder and a simple admonition to a body that could
use some words from Dr. King and see if we can put them into practice
together.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Alert System
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, when the Sun rose last Saturday in Hawaii,
nothing seemed out of the ordinary. People on Kauai were getting ready
to participate in the local march to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. Day. Families were sitting around the table eating breakfast.
Others were sleeping in after a long week of work.
At 8:07, everything changed. Mobile phones throughout Hawaii received
an emergency alert in all capital letters informing them of a ballistic
missile threat inbound to Hawaii and that this was not a drill. The
terror and panic were real, and people's reactions reflected that.
Parents passed their children through manhole covers into the sewers,
seeking safety for them. Separated family members took to the highways,
driving as fast as 100 miles per hour to get home. Some had to decide
whether to rush to be with their spouse or their children.
Then 38 minutes later, an emergency alert came through saying that
there was no missile threat--false alarm. The relief was palpable. This
relief gave way to real, visceral anger. Anger that there was a false
alarm. Anger that it took 38 minutes to alert the public. Anger that we
faced a missile threat at all.
This incident has undermined the public's faith in our State
government's ability to provide timely and accurate information about a
potential crisis. At a time when we face heightened tensions around the
world--and particularly with regard to North Korea--it is crucial that
the people of Hawaii have confidence in the government to provide
accurate information. That is why I am calling for a thorough,
transparent investigation into what occurred. We need a full accounting
of the human and system failures that occurred, and we need to identify
and put in place specific steps to make sure nothing like this ever
happens again.
What we do know is that the incident was a result of human error. An
operator mistakenly triggered the alert. Although the error was
discovered quickly, we need to better understand the circumstances that
led up to the incident. We need to understand how the operator was
trained. We need to identify and understand any other potential issues
that resulted in this specific human error.
The State has appointed an investigator to get to the bottom of this,
and the State legislature is scheduled to be briefed on preliminary
findings this Friday. Once the circumstances that precipitated this
error are identified, we, of course, need to correct them as quickly as
possible.
Concurrently, we need to understand the system failures that resulted
both in the false alert and in the 38-minute delay before the Hawaii
Emergency Management Agency, or Hawaii EMA, issued a correction. Why
did Hawaii EMA officials believe they needed approval from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, to issue a correction? The Secretary
of Homeland Security told me at a hearing yesterday that no such
permission was necessary, pointing to a need for clarity regarding
Agency responsibilities.
State governments oversee and operate local emergency management
alert systems, but the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, and the
Department of Homeland Security, through FEMA, have a role to play to
make sure that these systems are operating properly.
During yesterday's hearing in the Judiciary Committee, Secretary of
Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen committed to working with me to
strengthen the Federal-State cooperation on emergency alerts, assess
potential failures, and improve overall readiness in Hawaii and across
our country.
The FCC is also conducting an investigation into what happened.
The entire Nation will benefit if these key Federal agencies work
with States to close gaps in training and communication, institute best
practices, and ensure that our States and local governments have the
appropriate resources to prevent this kind of occurrence from happening
again.
This false alert also clarified the importance of strong coordination
between the State government and our military. Over the weekend, I also
spoke with Admiral Harris of Pacific Command about ways to strengthen
this coordination, particularly during a period of heightened tensions
with North Korea. The fact that the people in Hawaii immediately
assumed that the missile originated from North Korea speaks to the
broad concern about the potential for conflict and the threat that
North Korea poses to our State and the rest of the country.
We need to support and strengthen diplomatic efforts regarding North
Korea because at a time, as I mentioned, of heightened tension between
the United States and North Korea, the potential for miscalculations
increases.
The President, rather than engaging in a tit-for-tat with Kim Jong
Un, should be supporting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's efforts to
engage in meaningful diplomacy and marshal the support of our allies to
diffuse tensions with North Korea.
I spoke earlier with Secretary of Defense James Mattis to emphasize
the urgency of resolving this situation peacefully, knowing that he had
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returned from a multinational meeting with a number of key allies,
including Japan and South Korea. This meeting was to focus on North
Korean provocations. This meeting was cosponsored by the Secretary of
State, Rex Tillerson, in Vancouver. Secretary Mattis was at that
meeting to provide a military perspective. In our conversation, he
reiterated to me the importance of strong diplomatic efforts to resolve
tensions with North Korea.
I call on the President to support these kinds of initiatives and to
give Secretary Tillerson all the resources he needs to succeed in his
diplomatic endeavors.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Tribute to Robert Dole
Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, we had a very special day in the Capitol
this afternoon, and I am grateful that we as a nation were able to
honor Senator Robert Dole by presenting him with the Congressional Gold
Medal. It is the highest civilian honor the United States can bestow.
Senator Dole joins a list of very esteemed Americans going back to
1776, with President George Washington as the first recipient of this
award. The Gold Medal shows our highest expression of national
appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions, and
Senator Dole is such a deserving recipient of this award. It was a real
honor and pleasure for me to be there to see this take place.
Senator Dole is known, obviously, as a former Member of the Senate, a
majority leader, and a Presidential candidate, but I would put at the
top of my list of the attributes that I admire and respect Senator
Dole's service in our military.
Senator Dole joined the Army shortly after the attack on Pearl
Harbor. He was 21 years old and left Russell, KS, and ended up on a
battlefield in the hills and mountains of Italy. He suffered for 9
hours after being hit by a Nazi bullet that did tremendous damage to
his body and to his life. But that wasn't the end, as it could be for
some people--even if people continued to live after these traumatic
injuries. This was a recovery process that began that day for Senator
Dole.
I once heard a story about Bob Dole's commitment to our country, and
it stuck with me. There are lots of Dole stories, particularly in
Kansas. Bob Dole used his injuries to learn about caring--not for
himself but for others. His service in World War II--again, what I
greatly admire and esteem--also resulted in his effort to raise money,
with no taxpayer dollars involved, to build the World War II Memorial
that is now on the National Mall. Senator Dole took that task on and
made certain that happened for his soldiers and fellow colleagues who
served in World War II. He went out and raised money across the
country. He was out in Hollywood, CA, and he was visiting with one of
those people who have lots of money. Senator Dole asked for that
person's support for this project, and he was told by that wealthy
person that he was not interested. ``I have other priorities.'' Senator
Dole responded to that mogul: ``When I was 22, I had other priorities,
too. I went to war.'' That is the Bob Dole who every day since then has
gone to battle on behalf of Americans, other Kansans, and people across
our country.
His service in many ways began with his military service but has
continued every day since his days in the 10th Mountain Division.
During his nearly 36 years on Capitol Hill, Senator Dole became known
as the leader who worked relentlessly to forge alliances and to pass
significant legislation. Today, he serves as a role model for those of
us involved in this legislative process. We ought to be fully engaged
in the kind of public service that Senator Dole represented. Senator
Dole has used his experiences to be a champion every day for those
individuals with disabilities and for veterans.
Coming from Kansas, he had an appreciation for those who were in need
of food. Senator Dole grew up in the Depression and knew tough times,
but it became a goal for him to see that people who were hungry were
fed. It is one of the reasons I continue to chair and work in the
Senate Hunger Caucus. Kansas is a place where we raise a lot of food
but recognize there are a lot of people who are still hungry. We have a
role that we can play, and Senator Dole provided the leadership to
accomplish that.
I now occupy this desk. It is kind of an amazing development, but
this is the desk that Senator Dole had on the Senate floor during his
time here, and this desk allows me to be reminded of the type of public
service that too often we think is a thing of the past. It doesn't have
to be a thing of the past; it could be a thing of the present. And each
of us can use that role model to make certain that in our day, we do
the things necessary to bring people together and to find solutions to
common problems.
There probably is no one living from Kansas more admired and
respected than Senator Bob Dole. For three decades, he was our
Congressman and our Senator.
He grew up just down the road in Russell, KS, just a few miles from
my hometown. I have seen what continues today to be the love and
respect of Kansans--particularly those from small towns and
particularly those from his hometown of Russell--and their regard for
him. We ought to work every day to honor his legacy.
I think there is something about growing up in smalltown America.
There are differences of opinions in small towns. There are Republicans
and Democrats in communities across Kansas, and there are people who go
to this church and that church, but when you are in a small town, you
have no choice but to figure out how to get along and how to solve
problems and how to work together. Bob Dole brought that Kansas common
sense and good will and desire to have achievements instead of a fight
to the U.S. Senate.
I honor Senator Dole for his military service and for his public
service as an elected official of our government. I thank him for his
efforts on behalf of veterans, on behalf of people with disabilities,
and on behalf of people who are hungry.
I ask my colleagues, in honoring Senator Dole by presenting him a
medal today, that that is not all we do; that we honor his work by
doing ours better.
I have been with Senator Dole at the World War II Memorial. When
Honor Flights come to Washington, DC, he is there. He is there almost
every time a Kansas group comes to the World War II Memorial, but he is
there when almost any group of World War II veterans come to visit the
World War II Memorial. I have watched the way they respond to him, and
the mutual respect between him and fellow veterans is inspiring and
unparalleled.
I am a firm believer that we change the world one person at a time
and one soul at a time, and Bob Dole has been making that difference--
changing lives for 94 years.
Thank you, Senator Dole, for your distinguished service to our
country and especially to our home State of Kansas. The world is a
better place because you are in it, and we hope you take great
satisfaction by knowing that your colleagues in Congress today honor
you with the Congressional Gold Medal because it reflects the truth of
what a high-quality person of character you are.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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