[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 48 (Tuesday, March 20, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1827-S1834]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 ALLOW STATES AND VICTIMS TO FIGHT ONLINE SEX TRAFFICKING ACT OF 2017--
                      MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, last night I came to the floor to talk 
about legislation we are debating in the Senate this week that has to 
do with combating human trafficking, an issue that every Senator in the 
Chamber cares about. Last night, I talked about some of the women and 
children who have been exploited online, their stories--some of the 
heartbreaking stories.
  This opportunity we have before us is to pass legislation that 
addresses that very directly because we are seeing in this country, in 
this century, unbelievably, an increase in trafficking right now. The 
experts all say it is for one primary reason; that is, because the 
trafficking is moved online.
  The ruthless efficiency of the internet, the dark side of the 
internet--Mr. President, you have been involved with this issue in our 
committee. As you know, we spent a couple of years coming to this 
point, an 18-month investigation of what is happening online, why it is 
happening, and then coming up with a legislative solution. The reports 
of human trafficking to one of the major anti-trafficking groups in the 
country, called Polaris, through their hotline and through their text 
line, have increased 842 percent over the past 10 years. This is 
consistent across the board in talking to other experts. There is this 
increase. When they look at it, where they see it is happening is 
online. Victims have told me, have told you and other Members, this has 
now moved from the street to the smartphone, from the street corner to 
the internet.
  According to National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 
nearly 75 percent of the child trafficking reports it receives from the 
public involve one single website; that is, backpage. That is why we 
spend a lot of time looking into backpage, why this was happening, and 
how we could address it.
  According to Shared Hope International--another advocacy group--the 
number is even higher than 75 percent. We researched this through a 
process that many in this body were involved with. Claire McCaskill was 
the ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations. We 
investigated that. I see she is on the floor now. She and I, along with 
our subcommittee, along with you, Mr. President, and other members of 
the full committee, looked into this issue. What we found was even more 
shocking than we expected. We knew people were being trafficked online 
by this website. We knew they had to be complicit with some of this. 
What we didn't know was they were actually taking ads and altering the 
ads, editing the ads to try to hide the fact that people were selling 
underaged girls online. As they put it, they were cleaning the ads for 
illegal transactions and then covering up the evidence of these crimes 
in order to increase their profits.
  Last night, I talked about three brave mothers who shared the tragic 
stories of their daughters who were exploited and sold for sex on 
backpage.com. Their daughters were between the ages of 14 and 16 when 
they were trafficked. Kubiiki Pride was one of the women we talked 
about. She is also part of a documentary called ``I am Jane Doe.'' It 
tells the stories of her family and other families. It is a powerful, 
powerful presentation, and it is powerful in that you can feel their 
frustration, feel their pain. It is not easy to see, but it is 
important to see, and I recommend it. You can go on Netflix and find 
``I am Jane Doe.''
  Unfortunately, for those mothers and countless others, backpage has 
gotten away with this. It is not because people haven't tried to sue 
them, prosecutors haven't tried to go after them; it is because the 
courts have consistently said they are shielded from prosecution, they 
are shielded from these lawsuits. They are shielded by a Federal law, 
one we passed in this Chamber 21 years ago.

[[Page S1828]]

It is called the Communications Decency Act. It was a well-intended 
law. In 1996, the focus was, when the internet was in its infancy, 
trying to ensure there could be freedom of the internet.
  Ironically, part of the original intention of the Communications 
Decency Act was to protect children from indecent material on the 
internet by letting websites remove and block some of that explicit 
material. Now that same law is being used as a shield by online sex 
traffickers who promote and engage in this with immunity. This Federal 
law is being used by websites to get away with something that would be 
illegal, criminal if they were to do it on the street corner.
  Congress did not intend this broad immunity, but numerous courts 
across the country have made it clear their hands are tied because of 
the illegal precedents that have been set the way the courts have 
interpreted this law. As the lawmaking branch of the Federal 
Government, it is up to us to fix this injustice. No one else can do 
it.
  One of the Federal courts said this cannot be fixed by litigation; it 
has to be fixed by legislation. That is why America's district 
attorneys, 50 of the State attorneys general in this country, judges 
all over the country, and many others have called on Congress to amend 
the Communications Decency Act and fix this injustice.
  In one of the most direct calls for congressional action yet, in 
August of last year, a Sacramento judge cited the broad Communications 
Decency Act in dismissing pimping charges against backpage.com. The 
court opinion stated: ``If and until Congress sees fit to amend the 
immunity law, the broad reach of Section 230 of the Communications 
Decency Act even applies to those alleged to support the exploitation 
of others by human trafficking.''
  This judge issued an invitation to Congress to act. Others have as 
well. Websites that knowingly sell vulnerable women and children for 
sex are profiting and getting away with sex trafficking because of a 
Federal law. It is up to Congress to do the right thing, to fix this 
loophole. That is why my coauthor, Richard Blumenthal, who is on the 
floor this evening, and I introduced the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers 
Act, or SESTA, alongside a bipartisan group of four other original 
cosponsors: Senator John McCain, Senator Claire McCaskill, Senator John 
Cornyn, and Senator Heidi Heitkamp. Soon, others joined us. In that 
first day, we had 24 cosponsors, bipartisan. Soon, we had a majority of 
Republicans and majority of Democrats cosponsoring this legislation. I 
want to thank those five original cosponsors because they helped us put 
together legislation that was targeted, focused, and actually fixes the 
problem.
  SESTA will provide justice for victims of online sex trafficking and 
hold accountable the websites that knowingly facilitate these crimes by 
making two very narrowly focused changes to Federal law. First, it 
allows victims to get the justice they deserve by removing the 
Communications Decency Act's broad liability protections for a narrow 
set of bad actors, specifically for websites that knowingly facilitate 
sex trafficking crimes. Second, it will allow State prosecutors and 
State attorneys general to prosecute these websites that violate 
Federal trafficking laws.
  SESTA says if you are violating sex trafficking laws and you are 
doing it knowingly, you are facilitating it, then you have to be held 
to account. That is common sense. This bill includes legislation from 
the House side that creates new criminal penalties. It creates a new 
Federal crime for websites that have the intent to promote or 
facilitate illegal prostitution.
  All of these changes will help to hold bad actors accountable while 
doing nothing to impair the free internet. In fact, SESTA will protect 
websites that do not actively and knowingly engage in online sex 
trafficking. We do that by preserving the Communications Decency Act's 
Good Samaritan provision, which protects good actors who proactively 
block, and screen for, offensive material, thus shielding them from 
frivolous lawsuits.
  SESTA's fair, commonsense approach is why this bill has an 
extraordinary coalition of support. National law enforcement 
organizations, including the Fraternal Order of Police, faith-based 
groups, the civil rights community, major businesses, even including a 
number of tech companies, support this legislation. Most importantly, 
anti-trafficking advocates and trafficking survivors are the ones who 
support SESTA. They are the ones we listened to when we drafted this 
legislation. They are the folks back in Ohio, back in Connecticut--back 
in our States--who came to us and talked to us about this issue. They 
are the ones we not just listened to but actually worked with to help 
draft something that would work to close this loophole.
  This bill makes all the sense in the world, and it will do its part 
in helping to close this gap, in helping to deal, in this century, in 
this country with the amazing ability that people have to exploit 
someone online criminally and not be held liable.
  I thank Leader Mitch McConnell for his leadership, for his commitment 
to combat sex trafficking, and for putting this bill on the floor for a 
vote.
  I thank Senator John Thune, who chairs the Commerce, Science, and 
Transportation Committee, and Bill Nelson, who is the ranking member. 
They held a hearing on this bill and marked it up, and it addressed 
some of the concerns that had been expressed by the tech community.
  Here in the Senate, we now have over 60 cosponsors. This has not been 
an issue of politics or partisanship. It has been an issue of the 
heart. It is about preventing exploitation. It is about providing 
justice. There are some in this Chamber who will want to change this 
legislation over the next couple of days as we debate it.
  I have a great deal of respect for my colleague from Oregon, Senator 
Ron Wyden. I talked about him last night on the floor. I talked about 
the work he has done to combat human trafficking. I talked about the 
legislation I did with him to provide better data for sex trafficking, 
which was his legislation. He was also a leader in passing the 
Communications Decency Act, which we are amending through this 
legislation. I understand he is passionate about that bill that passed 
21 years ago.
  We took a very targeted approach here, which is why the Internet 
Association, which represents much of the tech community--not all but 
much of it--actually endorses our efforts. This is the Senate's 
immediate opportunity to help stop online sex trafficking while 
protecting a free and open internet. It is the right balance. It has 
already passed the House of Representatives. The White House has shown 
a commitment to it and is willing to sign the legislation. Now it is 
the Senate's turn to act.
  So let me tell you where I stand. I stand with law enforcement 
officials all around the country and with prosecutors all around the 
country who have asked us to pass this legislation to give them the 
tools they need to stop this exploitation. I stand with Kubiiki Pride, 
whom I talked about earlier, Nacole S., Yvonne Ambrose, and the mothers 
across the country who have had their children exploited at the hands 
of online sex traffickers. I stand with the young women and children I 
have met in Dayton and Columbus and Akron and Toledo and Cincinnati and 
Cleveland--all over Ohio--who are sex trafficking survivors, who are 
victims who want justice.
  I know that, together, we will all stand on the right side of history 
when the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act is voted on, has passed this 
Chamber, and eventually becomes law so as to immediately help provide 
justice for these victims. Justice cannot be seen, but its absence is 
felt. Those who have been trafficked online, who see the websites that 
have knowingly facilitated in this prosper and escape legal 
consequences, are the ones who have experienced real injustice. They 
have felt that injustice. We can right this wrong. Let's pass the Stop 
Enabling Sex Traffickers Act to provide these victims the justice they 
deserve.
  I notice again, as I mentioned earlier, the coauthor of this 
legislation--my colleague--is on the floor. He is a former Federal 
prosecutor. He has dealt with these issues both as a prosecutor and as 
a legislator. We are the cochairs and cofounders of the Caucus to End 
Human Trafficking, which we started 6 or 7 years ago. I thank him for 
his work on this important legislation.
  I yield my time to Senator Blumenthal.

[[Page S1829]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, at the very start, I am grateful, and 
I praise my cosponsor, Senator Portman, who has helped to lead in the 
championing of this measure. He has really been steadfast in the face 
of a lot of challenges. It was a difficult bill to draft and then to 
redraft and change again in response to suggestions that we received 
from friends and adversaries, but Senator Portman has been really 
stalwart throughout it.
  I join him in thanking our partners, Senator McCaskill, Senator 
McCain, Senator Heitkamp, Senator Cornyn, and, of course, Senator 
Thune, who is the chairman of the committee, and Ranking Member Nelson.
  This road began for me more than 10 years ago when I was the State 
attorney general in Connecticut, and I wanted to pursue legal remedies 
against the websites. Back then, it was craigslist or MySpace that 
promoted sex trafficking and prostitution as well as pornography. My 
staff informed me that there was a provision of Federal law--section 
230 of the Communications Decency Act--that would stop me in my tracks. 
Indeed, it has stopped others, most recently some of the survivors of 
sex trafficking who were told by a Federal court of appeals, in effect, 
that what happened to you is outrageous, and there should be a remedy 
for you, but section 230 of the Communications Decency Act blocks your 
day in court. It closes the courthouse doors to you in your seeking a 
legal remedy.
  Along the way, there were many who said to Senator Portman and to me 
that we could never pass this legislation because it would hold 
trafficking websites accountable. They said the opponents of this 
change were too powerful, too big, too entrenched. They said the 
victims and survivors were too powerless, too invisible.
  We have met them. We know their stories. They are heartbreaking. They 
are children--some younger than the pages in this Chamber today--who 
have endured torture that is unspeakable and unthinkable for anyone of 
any age, and they deserve their day in court, rights, and remedies--
real remedies that make the rights real.
  So I thank Senator Portman, and I thank, as he has also done, those 
survivors who have come forward and been the faces and voices of our 
cause. Their courage and strength and that of their family members have 
enabled us to reach this point.
  I emphasize that this measure is very carefully and narrowly written 
to address a specific harm, and I want to take a couple of minutes to 
correct any misunderstanding that there may be in this Chamber.
  First, some of the legislation's critics have claimed it will impose 
liability on the so-called Good Samaritan. In reality, this bill 
explicitly preserves subsection 230(c)(2)(A) of the Communications 
Decency Act, commonly called the Good Samaritan provision. This 
provision ensures that websites cannot be held liable on account of 
actions taken in good faith to restrict objectionable material. SESTA 
is crystal clear on this point. A website operator's good deeds cannot 
be used against him.
  This measure is also technology neutral. It imposes no requirement 
that website operators use a particular technology to screen their 
sites for objectionable content. They are free to use whatever 
technology they wish. That is why the Internet Association and its 
member companies support this legislation. They know that if technology 
companies work to prevent human trafficking and not to profit from it, 
they have nothing to fear from this measure.
  I understand that an amendment has been offered to restate SESTA's 
Good Samaritan provision. Even if the amendment only protected Good 
Samaritans, it would be unnecessary and potentially confusing to the 
courts. I emphasize that point. It would obfuscate and confuse the good 
intent of the Good Samaritan provision. It would also derail this 
widely popular legislation by sending it back to the House, where 
special interests will have another chance to kill it. Unfortunately, 
this proposed amendment--perhaps unintentionally--would not simply 
protect Good Samaritans; it would also protect websites that operate in 
bad faith. It would also protect websites that identify sex trafficking 
ads and then leave them up in order to continue profiting from them.
  I will briefly talk about one other amendment that has been offered--
again, while being well-intentioned--that threatens to derail this 
legislation.
  The amendment would provide additional money to Attorney General 
Sessions to investigate and prosecute websites that criminally 
facilitate human trafficking. I believe law enforcement ought to have 
additional resources. I firmly support more funding to investigate and 
prosecute this criminal activity, but this bill is not the means by 
which to do it.
  In fact, law enforcement and the community against human trafficking 
are strongly against these amendments. Let me repeat. These law 
enforcement groups include the Fraternal Order of Police, the 
Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, the FBI Agents 
Association, and I could go down the list. In fact, there is no need 
to.
  I ask unanimous consent that the letters from these groups be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                           National Fraternal Order of Police,

                                    Washigton, DC, March 19, 2017.
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
     Hon. Charles E. Schumer,
     Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senators McConnell and Schumer: I am writing on behalf 
     of the members of the Fraternal Order of Police to advise you 
     of our strong support for H.R 1865, the ``Allow States and 
     Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act,'' which includes 
     language from S. 1693, the ``Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers 
     Act,'' which the FOP also supports.
       This legislation will allow law enforcement to investigate 
     and prosecute individuals and businesses that advertise or 
     facilitate sex trafficking more effectively. The bill will 
     create a new Federal offense prohibiting the use or operation 
     of an instate facility, like a website, that promotes or 
     facilitates illegal prostitution.
       The FOP is opposed to the two pending amendments because 
     they may have the unintended consequence of derailing this 
     important legislation. Amendments to this bill will only 
     continue to deprive the survivors and victims of sex 
     trafficking of getting justice.
       On behalf of the more than 335,000 members of the Fraternal 
     Order of Police, we urge you both to pass this legislation 
     without any amendments on the Senate floor. If we can be of 
     any additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact 
     me or my Senior Advisor, Jim Pasco, in my Washington office.
           Sincerely,
                                                 Chuck Canterbury,
     National President.
                                  ____

                                                   March 19, 2018.
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
     Hon. Chuck Schumer,
     Democratic Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Majority Leader McConnell and Democratic Leader 
     Schumer: We, the undersigned organizations, representing 
     prosecutors, chiefs of police, sheriffs, rank and file 
     officers and chief executives of state investigative agencies 
     at the federal, state, and local level, write to urge a clean 
     vote this week in the Senate on the House-passed FOSTA/SESTA 
     package so that victims and federal and state law enforcement 
     can better seek to hold all responsible parties accountable 
     for the facilitation of sex trafficking. At the same time, we 
     urge you to reject the proposed amendment that would create a 
     shield for companies vaguely attempting to filter content on 
     their websites and the proposed amendment that would provide 
     additional funding through the Department of Justice to 
     investigate and prosecute website operators that criminally 
     facilitate sex trafficking. Simply put, the amendment to 
     create a liability shield is bad public policy and the 
     funding amendment is a poison pill that is dead on arrival if 
     sent back to the House.
       As membership organizations charged with protecting our 
     communities, we can't afford to sacrifice the opportunity to 
     pass good public policy to hold facilitators of sex 
     trafficking accountable. Through extensive discussions over 
     the past couple of years, a delicate balance has been struck 
     among a wide variety of stakeholders to achieve the 
     legislation pending before the Senate. The House passed 
     version, which included language from the Senate SESTA 
     version, was a carefully crafted piece of legislation to help 
     state and local law enforcement bring more of these sex 
     trafficking cases forward and we

[[Page S1830]]

     encourage you to provide us with the tools needed to achieve 
     that goal.
           Sincerely,
       Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies;
       FBI Agents Association;
       Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association;
       International Association of Chiefs of Police;
       Major Cities Chiefs Association;
       Major County Sheriffs of America;
       National Association of Police Organizations;
       National District Attorneys Association;
       National Fusion Center Association;
       National Sheriffs' Association.
                                  ____

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, my colleagues should take heed of what 
these groups are saying because they see through the potentially 
derailing impact of these amendments.
  I close by again thanking my friend and partner, Senator Portman, as 
well as Senator McCaskill, Senator Heitkamp, Senator Cornyn, and 
Senator McCain.
  This measure is truly bipartisan, as it should be. There is nothing 
partisan about sex trafficking. There is nothing excusable or tolerable 
about it. I hope the Senate will do its job tomorrow and send this 
legislation to the President's desk.
  I yield the floor to my partner, Senator Portman, with my thanks.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I know there are other Members who are 
interested in speaking.
  Let me just say, Senator Blumenthal's role as a prosecutor has 
informed him; therefore, the legislation is better for it.
  We just heard what Senator Blumenthal said. He understands this bill 
inside and out and the fact that there are well-meaning amendments that 
are being offered that would derail this legislation, which is 
something we want to avoid. We want to get this to the President's desk 
for his signature and begin to save people.
  I notice my other colleague, Senator McCaskill, whom I mentioned 
earlier a couple of times, is on the floor. She was the ranking 
Democrat on the subcommittee that investigated this issue of looking at 
the websites and that came up with not just how it was happening and 
why it was happening but a legislative response.
  I yield a few minutes to Senator McCaskill.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I thank Senator Portman, Senator 
Blumenthal, Senator Whitehouse, and my other colleagues for allowing me 
to jump in here for a couple of minutes.
  This body--this entire body--is really responsible for where we are 
right now because it was during the investigation package that we 
realized that section 230 was being used as a shield for the bad guys. 
All of the attorneys general around the country and various law 
enforcement agencies and individuals who were trying to sue backpage 
were met every time with a 230 defense. They were not even able to 
penetrate to get the documents from backpage in order to learn about 
what backpage was really up to. It was an investigation by which 
backpage thought it would be able to win again in court and deny us our 
opportunity to look at the documents and to look at the underlying 
evidence that one should always look at in an investigation.
  Frankly, our getting the contempt-of-the-Senate resolution through 
this body almost unanimously--I think it was unanimously, wasn't it, I 
ask Senator Portman?
  Mr. PORTMAN. Yes.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. And then our going all the way to the Supreme Court 
and winning was finally the first time backpage had to turn over the 
dirty evidence of its knowingly facilitating sex trafficking on its 
page. That is why this language is ``knowingly facilitate''--just to 
make sure that in going forward, no bad guys can hide behind section 
230.
  The other part of this bill that, I think, is very important and 
that, I think, a lot of people forget--and with all due respect to my 
friends who are in this Chamber who were U.S. attorneys--is that over 
90 percent of the crime that is prosecuted in this country is 
prosecuted by local prosecutors, State prosecutors, who are called 
prosecutors or district attorneys, depending on the State's term that 
is used. They have been handcuffed in terms of being able to bring 
these kinds of cases. This legislation not only opens up the courthouse 
doors to victims who have been victimized by this but also so that the 
full force of American law enforcement can be brought to bear on this 
problem, not just the limited jurisdiction that was available around 
the problem of sex trafficking.

  This is so important to getting to the bottom of it because many U.S. 
attorneys don't have the time, and, frankly, many attorneys general 
don't have the time or the jurisdiction to get after crime, but the 
local prosecutors don't get to decide which cases to go after. If there 
is a 9-1-1 call, they have it. The Feds can come in later and say: We 
have it, and we are going to take it. But they are the ones who day 
after day are in the trenches of sex crimes, and they are the ones who 
now have the ability to go after these cases in a way that will be very 
meaningful.
  I am proud of the bipartisan nature of this. I am proud of the 
partnership we have, Senator Portman, on the Subcommittee on 
Investigations. I know we will get a big vote on this. I think people 
see through these amendments as ways to slow this bill down or possibly 
kill it, and I hope we will all can join together and take this to the 
finish line tomorrow.
  I thank my colleagues for giving me a few minutes.
  Mr. PORTMAN. I thank Senator McCaskill, Senator Blumenthal, and the 
other Members who came to speak. We will continue this dialogue 
tomorrow on the floor before passage.
  I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Portman and Senator 
Blumenthal for their work on this. Senator Portman and I have spent 
untold hours, and he has been a leader on this. I thank him for his 
leadership, in Toledo and Cincinnati, but especially in Toledo, where 
the sheriff, the community, Celia Williamson, and so many others have 
been so important in combating this terrible affliction in our society. 
I thank them.


                    Wall Street and American Workers

  Mr. President, last week, the House passed another giveaway to Wall 
Street, siding with special interests and rolling back accountability 
on some of the biggest banks at the expense of taxpayers. It comes on 
the heels of last year's tax giveaway that will benefit those same 
megabanks. This Congress bends over backward to help Wall Street while 
working families continue to struggle.
  It is not just that we are helping Wall Street with tax breaks, we 
are helping Wall Street with rolling back regulations. Let me outline 
what exactly all that means.
  In a series over several months, I am laying out the case for how 
Wall Street undermines America's workers and some of the changes we 
need to make in this country to grow our middle class and make work pay 
off.
  Remember, one of the points I made was that American Airlines 
announced that they were going to increase workers' wages, as did 
Chipotle, and Wall Street hit them with a lower stock price as a 
result.
  In each installment of this series, we have talked about these 
issues. I want to talk specifically this time about what Wall Street's 
war on workers does to employment. You can follow each installment on 
my medium page at www.medium.com/@SenatorBrown.
  Last time, I talked about workers' paychecks. Today, I want to talk 
about layoffs.
  Wall Street's singular focus on padding their own pockets is bad 
enough, but worse, it comes at the direct expense of American workers. 
Corporations focus almost exclusively on their quarterly performance on 
the stock market. That is how a CEO's performance is evaluated. They 
are compensated in large part with company shares. They do better when 
their stock price goes up. They do things to make their stock price go 
up, and then they do even better because they are compensated in large 
part with company shares.
  Wall Street analysts like it when corporations minimize their cost to 
boost their short-term profits; hence the stock price goes up even when 
the company is already profitable, and that leads directly to layoffs. 
Corporations lay off workers to show they are serious about cutting 
expenses, and their stock prices often rise as a result. Wall

[[Page S1831]]

Street's war on workers means not only smaller paychecks but also pink 
slips for those workers.
  How did we get to a point where stock prices are more important than 
workers? It didn't happen overnight.
  I was talking with Senator Whitehouse about this, and whether it is 
Cranston, RI, or Mansfield, OH, companies used to consider their 
employees, their customers, and even the people in the town they did 
business in, as stakeholders. They cared about their community, they 
cared about their workers, and they cared about their customers. They 
felt a duty to fulfill obligations to a broader community, not just 
their own corporate board members and their own corporate executives.
  I grew up in Mansfield, OH, a city of about 50,000 in North Central 
Ohio halfway between our State's two largest cities, Cleveland and 
Columbus. I remember that there were so many companies in our town. I 
didn't know those company presidents--they were the big people in town, 
and I was a kid--but I do remember what those companies did. They 
sponsored Little League teams. They were involved in local Kiwanis 
clubs. They cared about workers, and they cared about the community. 
They cared about their customers. They weren't always interested in 
shareholders; they were interested in stakeholders, in all of us as a 
community. All the workers, all the customers, and all of the community 
were stakeholders. But now the focus has narrowed to just shareholders.
  As Wall Street's influence has grown, corporate priorities have 
shifted from shareholders kind of writ large, and the way success is 
measured has changed fundamentally to stockholders. Businesses have 
become beholden to those quarterly earnings reports. They have left 
employees, communities, and customers behind in many ways. They do 
everything possible, including laying off workers, to make sure their 
balance sheets and profit margins look as good as they can--the impact 
on the workers and the long-term health of the company be damned.

  In the 1980s, investors began to pursue hostile takeovers of 
companies that failed to maximize profits. Executives at other 
companies began to fear takeovers if they didn't keep profits and stock 
prices high. The pay packages of top management became greater and 
greater and became more and more closely tied to short-term stock 
performance.
  Wall Street's and Main Street's interests began to diverge. Folks in 
the corporate boardroom were no longer forced to consider what was in 
the long-term interests of their workers and of their small-time 
investors. For top corporate executives, workers became nothing more 
than a line item in the budget, a cost to be minimized.
  By the 1990s, even profitable companies started laying off workers to 
boost profits even further. Look at what happened to Xerox, an iconic 
American company that had never had a major layoff in its history. In 
1993, the company announced plans to cut 10,000 workers despite being 
profitable. The company was doing fine. It wasn't a case of an industry 
moving south, facing an agonizing decision with bad options, but the 
CEO justified the job cuts as necessary ``to compete effectively'' and 
to have a ``lean and flexible organization.'' He also said he expected 
to see higher profits because of the layoffs the following year.
  Xerox wasn't alone. In the first 10 months of 1998, when the economy 
was booming, corporations laid off over half a million U.S. workers--
200,000 more than were laid off the year before. This is the definition 
of profits before people, and things have gotten worse and worse since 
the late 1990s.
  In 2015, Sysco announced a 3-year plan that included reducing its 
workforce--corporate-speak for laying off workers. It might have made 
sense if the company had experienced a year of sluggish sales, but 
guess what--the opposite was true. Their sales had increased. They 
generated $1 billion in cash flow, and they were able to pay $700 
million in dividends to the company shareholders. If the large dividend 
payout the year before wasn't generous enough, the CEO said that one of 
the goals of the 3-year plan and its layoffs was to ``maximize 
shareholder returns''--not stakeholders, not employees, not the 
communities, not the customers, but shareholder returns.
  The next year, 2016, Tyson Foods announced layoffs despite having a 
good quarter in beef sales. The following year, the company's president 
touted ``exceptional financial results.'' What was the reason for those 
results? Cost-cutting. It is always cost-cutting--more corporate-speak 
for laying off workers. Do you know what else he cited as the company's 
good health? Not great sales, not new products or investments in more 
workers, but the ability of the company to buy back billions of dollars 
of its own stock. So an accounting trick that funnels money to 
executives is what the company cited as a measure of its success. 
Buying back means executive compensation goes up. That is the key to 
what it was doing with cost-cutting. The company buys up shares of its 
own stock to drive up the price and increase the value for shareholders 
and the compensation for executives whose pay is tied to stock 
performance. Sounds familiar.
  It is no coincidence that since the biggest corporations reaped their 
tax windfalls in September, they have announced billions of dollars in 
buybacks. It is always about the executives--about the executives' tax 
cuts, about the executives' compensation, about the executives' 
buybacks. Again and again, we see Wall Street consider workers as 
simply a cost to be cut but executive pay as essential to a company.
  Last year, Humana announced that it was eliminating 2,700 jobs 
despite $13 billion in revenue. In the same call that the CEO announced 
the layoffs, he also announced an increase in executive pay. Workers 
lose their jobs to pay for more money for corporate executives. Sound 
familiar again and again and again? And the cherry on top? A month 
later, Humana announced $3 billion in stock buybacks. Again, what is 
that about? Higher executive compensation.
  Of course, cost-cutting measures typically include workers losing 
their jobs. Cost-cutting measures almost never include pay cuts for 
corporate executives. In each of these examples, the company cited cost 
cuts that were so necessary, they had to fire workers, upend thousands 
of employees. I wonder how many of those executives and how many of 
those corporate leaders actually brought some of those workers into 
their offices and looked them in the eye and told them they were laying 
them off. My guess is that they had a much lower paid employee make 
that announcement and face the media and, more importantly, face the 
employees who lost their jobs.
  How many of these executives actually listened to the story of an 
employee who loses her job, loses her house, whose total life is 
upended? How many of them ever listened to the stories of what happened 
to their workers who got fired? The company cited cost cuts that were 
so necessary, they had to fire those workers.
  The shortsighted approach to running a company may work for top 
executives who can squeeze as much value out of the company in the 
short term without considering the business's long-term value. It is 
not just bad for the employees and communities, it is usually bad for 
the long-term health of the company. Making short-term decisions pays 
off if you are already well paid, but it doesn't work for those 
employees. Mainstream investors and workers only make a profit when a 
company's stock value continues to rise over time, but the corporate 
executives are no longer forced to consider what is in the long-term 
interest of workers and small-time investors. As long as Wall Street's 
analysis of one-size-fits-all measure of corporate success continues to 
be cost-cutting, workers are at constant risk of losing their jobs. As 
long as CEOs get paid based on stock prices instead of the company's 
long-term success, workers will keep getting fired from hostile 
companies.
  We need to break this cycle of greed between Wall Street and CEOs. In 
the end, companies can't be profitable without good workers. We need 
policies that restructure our economy so workers share in the profits 
they create and Wall Street doesn't determine when workers keep their 
jobs or how much is in their paycheck.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

[[Page S1832]]

  



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, we are more aware than ever of the 
accelerating pace of climate change and of the serious threat that 
rising seas, higher temperatures, and changing weather poses. I suppose 
I don't need to lecture the Presiding Officer from Florida on the 
threat of rising seas.
  The real-time effects of climate change are becoming clearer and 
clearer every year. Here is a telling example unfolding right now in 
the Arctic.
  In this graphic, we see the mean area of Arctic sea ice over the last 
several decades. The maximum yearly extent of the ice, which occurs 
around this time of year, continues to shrink each decade.
  This line tracks the sea ice in the Arctic in millions of square 
kilometers, running from February through to May. This is the track of 
the sea ice extent during the 1980s. If you take all the years in the 
1980s and you average them together and you run through the calendar, 
it is like a clock going this way through these months. You would see 
the sea ice growing and fading away as spring came to the Arctic.
  That is where the ice was when averaging the 1980s. This green line 
is the exact same thing; it is just for the 1990s. So we can see how 
much sea ice has been lost averaged decade over decade.
  The blue line here is for 2000. Once again, we see a loss of sea 
ice--a considerable loss from the levels back as recently as the 1980s.
  The purple line right here is the average of the years in this decade 
so far, from 2010 to 2017--that is the average of those 7 years. This 
dot is the high, the maximum ice extent recorded in 2016. This lower 
dot is the lower high of the ice recorded in 2017. So you can see that 
even though this is the average, the trend remains downward.

  This red line is what we have measured so far in 2018. Here we are 
right now in March of 2018, and it is well below. Decade after decade, 
we see the ice melting away.
  As these facts and so many others relentlessly pile up, it has become 
harder and harder for the fossil fuel industry and the web of front 
groups and the Trump administration officials who do its bidding to 
claim that there is nothing to see here: Folks, move along; it is all 
just a big hoax.
  The University of Alaska is our closest university to the Arctic. The 
University of Alaska actually has a climate science center where they 
are studying and teaching the science of climate change. The University 
of Alaska also actually has the Ocean Acidification Research Center. As 
I have pointed out in these speeches over the years, one of the most 
obvious and pernicious consequences of climate change is that when you 
ramp the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, the oceans, 
which cover 70 percent of the surface of the world, absorb not only 
excess heat, but they actually chemically absorb the carbon dioxide. 
When that happens, they become more acidic. In the wee hours of a 
morning months and months ago, I actually did the experiment right 
here, where I blew the carbon dioxide from my breath through an 
aquarium bubbler into a glass of water that had pH-sensitive dye in it, 
and you could see, in the moment that it took for me to exhale that 
carbon-dioxide-rich breath through the water, how the color changed, 
and you could measure it against the color chart for pH and see how 
just that one breath changed the acidity of the water and made it more 
acid.
  That is happening across the planet, and it affects creatures like 
terrapods, which are a very important species for salmon, which is, in 
turn, a very important industry for Alaska. That is why Alaska has the 
Ocean Acidification Research Center--some hoax.
  For this, my 201st ``Time to Wake Up'' speech, I wish to get into 
some of the reasons why I remain optimistic even in the face of 
relentless attacks on the environment, both from the fossil fuel 
industry and from the Trump administration. There are success stories, 
including bipartisan wins in Congress and major advances outside of 
Congress. We are still making progress on climate and energy policy, 
even under political siege by the fossil fuel industry.
  First, there is an explosion in renewable energy. In 2017, renewables 
provided nearly 20 percent of electricity generation in the United 
States. Wind and solar energy costs fell, and utilities across the 
country, even in red States, invested heavily. The renewable energy 
industry in America hit 3.3 million jobs--more than all fossil fuel 
jobs combined. The private sector is leading renewables purchases. One 
example is AT&T. AT&T recently signed onto the World Wildlife Fund's 
Corporate Renewable Energy Buyers' Principles, a criteria to help 
energy producers meet the needs of large customers like AT&T. As part 
of that commitment with the World Wildlife Fund, AT&T has signed two 
agreements with NextEra Energy for wind power--220 megawatts from an 
Oklahoma wind farm and 300 megawatts from a Texas wind farm. It is one 
of the largest corporate renewable energy purchases in history. I 
congratulate my Texas and Oklahoma colleagues for these new, home-
State, renewable energy jobs, and I congratulate AT&T for its foresight 
and leadership.
  Another business breakthrough came when the massive asset manager 
BlackRock helped break Exxon's and Occidental Petroleum's resistance 
and forced through shareholder resolutions requiring those oil 
producers to report their climate risk to their shareholders, to their 
investors. I, for one, don't think those shareholders are yet getting 
the full story.
  The multinational insurance firm, AXA, announced that it would divest 
from its tar sands holdings and it would stop providing insurance for 
pipelines that transport tar sands oil.
  Credit rating agency Moody's announced that it will consider climate 
risk in rating coastal communities' municipal bonds. So our coastal 
municipalities in Rhode Island, the Presiding Officer's coastal 
communities in Florida, and coastal communities across the country are 
now going to have to take into account the climate risk, what 
infrastructure and what hazards they face from sea level rise and 
increased storm activity, and all of the things we associate with 
climate change. It is going to be part of how the rating agencies value 
their municipal bonds. That is going to change behavior, and it doesn't 
matter whether you are a red State or a blue State.
  Companies like Microsoft and Unilever have baked into their own 
internal accounting their own internal carbon prices to help them 
reduce the carbon intensity of their operations. And, of course, 
virtually every Republican who has thought the climate change problem 
through to a solution has come to a price on carbon as being the 
market-based solution to that problem.

  When the President announced that he would withdraw the United States 
from the historic Paris Agreement, leaving us as the pariah nation--the 
only one in the world to reject this global pledge--many American 
companies pledged that, as to that Paris Agreement, they are still in.
  The corruption of the Trump administration by fossil fuel interests 
has not affected many State and local officials. In Colorado, for 
instance, the Colorado State Public Utility Commission is working with 
Xcel Energy to build out a cleaner energy mix and retire older fossil 
fuel units. Specifically, Colorado is looking to retire 660 megawatts 
of coal-fired generation--close it down--and replace it with 
renewables. Their recent request for bids brought a flood of new 
renewable energy proposals at costs that came in beating out existing 
coal and natural gas facilities. New-built renewables on price beat out 
existing fossil fuel. The market is speaking, and it is saying that 
fossil fuel, even with all its scandalous and well-defended subsidies, 
can't compete. Fossil can't compete.
  On the Paris Agreement, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, 
North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia, Washington State and--I am proud to 
say--Rhode Island all declared that they, too, are still in. They will 
meet their goals. Alaska announced that it would meet its Paris 
Agreement goals. What is more, California and Washington State have 
combined with Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico in a plan 
to put a price on carbon that would reach up and down virtually the 
entire Pacific coast of the Americas--from Canada all the way down 
through Chile.
  One problem for the fossil fuel folks' political influence, which is 
so deadly

[[Page S1833]]

effective here in Congress, is that it doesn't do so well in government 
agencies where the rule of law, not politics, prevails. So the Federal 
Energy Regulatory Commission, a Federal administrative agency bound by 
rule of law, more or less blew off a preposterous proposal by fossil 
fuel flunkies at the Department of Energy to subsidize coal even more. 
Instead, FERC recently finalized a rule for energy storage in America's 
electric grids. This will not only expand energy storage, but it will 
also accelerate renewables like wind and solar. A recent study 
predicted that the rule could spur--hold on--50,000 megawatts of 
additional energy storage across the United States, enough to power 
roughly 35 million homes. This estimate could turn out to be 
conservative, if renewables prices keep heading in their current 
trajectories. That FERC rule, by the way, was unanimous and bipartisan.
  FERC oversees the system operators, like ISO-New England, which are 
steadily improving the role of renewables in regional markets, removing 
the obstacles that had kept renewables from competing fairly in 
capacity auctions and dispatch decisions. With wind power being such a 
large part of Iowa's energy mix, for example, its midwestern ISO 
figured out the algorithms to treat wind as reliable, baseload power. 
FERC's storage rule will give these system operators a new avenue for 
further progress on clean, renewable energy.
  Believe it or not, even Congress has acted. Just last month, Congress 
passed a bipartisan budget agreement that included legislation I 
cosponsored with Senators Heitkamp, Capito, and Barrasso to spur 
investment and innovation in next-generation carbon capture, 
utilization, and storage technologies. Our bill attracted what I would 
call an unlikely coalition of energy, industrial, agricultural, and 
technology companies, as well as environment and labor groups.
  This bill puts a positive price on carbon reduction through a tax 
credit for projects that capture and utilize or store carbon dioxide 
emissions. Without that price signal, there was little incentive to 
innovate how to turn carbon pollution from powerplants and industrial 
facilities into something safe or even useful. The bill even incents 
technologies to pull carbon pollution directly from the atmosphere. The 
key is that Congress, for the first time, put a dollar value on 
reducing carbon pollution.
  The Senate also just passed a nuclear innovation bill written by 
Senator Crapo and me to increase collaboration between private 
industry, universities, and national laboratories in advanced nuclear 
technologies. Our bill was also cosponsored by Senators Booker, 
Murkowski, Risch, Hatch, and Durbin. It would put private innovators 
together with our National Labs, with the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, and with the Energy Department--all working together on 
safe, new nuclear technologies.
  My goal here is not only to help bring new carbon-free technologies 
forward, ultimately to a carbon-free power grid, but also to explore 
technologies that just may allow us to turn our present hazardous 
nuclear waste stockpiles to productive use--to generate clean energy, 
to move those waste stockpiles from the liability to the asset column 
on our Nation's books. What an achievement that would be.
  Although Congress may be blockaded still by fossil fuel interests, it 
is nevertheless the law of the land that administrative agencies must 
take into account the social cost of carbon--the cost that fossil fuels 
carbon pollution imposes on society--in making energy-related 
decisions. That test will remain, and lawsuits are slowly closing in on 
the moment of discovery, when lawyers finally get access to the fossil 
fuel industry's files, and decades of lies, denial, and political 
manipulation are exposed for all to see.
  The well-funded climate denial machine, with its front groups and 
trick-pony scientists and political muscle operation, can only keep the 
denial castle propped up for so long. But until that battlement of lies 
collapses--and it will--until it collapses, nevertheless, progress 
still continues all around us.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, we are quickly turning to the Stop Enabling 
Sex Traffickers Act legislation, coupled with the legislation that has 
come over from the House of Representatives, and I hope we will get a 
big bipartisan vote in support of that legislation when it is voted on, 
probably tomorrow.
  Let me just say that for more than two decades, the commercial 
internet has been an undeniable force for good. It has delivered 
economic opportunity to people who would not otherwise have had it. It 
has empowered marginalized citizens around the world to fight back 
against oppressors. It has expanded educational opportunities and made 
news and information more accessible, and more. But like any tool, the 
internet can be used for evil as well as good, and right now, certain 
corners of the internet are being exploited to facilitate sex 
trafficking, including the widespread trafficking of children.
  Each year, thousands of children are sexually trafficked within the 
United States. That is right. Thousands of children are trafficked each 
year in the United States--not in some faraway country but right here 
at home in our communities. More and more every day, this trafficking 
is being facilitated via the internet. Three out of four children who 
have been sexually trafficked in this country have been trafficked 
online.
  The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported an 
846-percent increase in reports of suspected child sex trafficking from 
2010 to 2015. The increase, the national center reports, is ``directly 
correlated to the increased use of the internet to sell children for 
sex.''
  Obviously, dedicated prosecutors and law enforcement around the 
country are working every day to combat the proliferation of sex 
trafficking on the internet, but some of their efforts have been 
stymied by a provision of a 1996 law called the Communications Decency 
Act. The provision in question--section 230--was meant to protect 
websites from being held accountable for material people create and 
post on their sites. It is thanks in part to this provision that such 
popular sites as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have been able to 
flourish. But certain websites have used this provision to defend 
themselves in court cases dealing with criminal activity that they have 
knowingly allowed or participated in--specifically, sex trafficking.
  Needless to say, Congress never intended this provision to be used to 
protect websites that knowingly and deliberately facilitate 
trafficking, but courts have generally held that this provision does 
not permit them to hold websites accountable for knowingly facilitating 
sex trafficking.
  Courts have also made clear that if Congress wants to ensure that 
these trafficking accomplices can be prosecuted, it needs to provide 
some more clarity on this provision. That is what we are here to do 
today.
  Senator Rob Portman of Ohio has been a leading voice in the Senate in 
the fight against human trafficking, and the legislation before us 
today includes his legislation, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, 
which will prevent section 230 from being used as a defense by those 
who are knowingly cooperating with sex traffickers. Under this Stop 
Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, State law enforcement officials will be 
able to prosecute websites that knowingly assist in or facilitate sex 
trafficking, and victims will be allowed to sue websites that violate 
the Federal sex trafficking statute. State attorneys general will now 
also be allowed to file civil suits against websites that knowingly 
facilitate trafficking.
  The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act is an outstanding bill and a 
great credit to Senator Portman and the others he worked with to get it 
considered here on the Senate floor. It addresses a hole in our laws 
that is allowing sex traffickers to exploit the internet to facilitate 
their trafficking, but it ensures that only bad actors are targeted, 
and it maintains the key freedoms that have allowed the internet to 
flourish. Under this legislation, websites can only be prosecuted if 
they knowingly facilitate or support trafficking.
  This bill is strongly supported by Members of both parties. In fact, 
67 out of the 100 U.S. Senators are cosponsors of this bill. This bill 
is supported by

[[Page S1834]]

the White House. It is supported by law enforcement organizations. It 
is supported by organizations that fight sex trafficking. It is 
supported by faith-based organizations. It is also supported by a 
number of major technology companies. I was proud to help facilitate 
conversations with a number of technology companies that resulted in 
solid support for this bill among members of the technology community.
  The process of getting this bill to the Senate floor today has been 
characterized by a wonderful degree of bipartisanship. I am hoping that 
continues as we debate this bill over the next couple of days, and I 
encourage my colleagues to reject any attempts to slow this bill down 
with amendments. We have a remarkable degree of consensus on the Stop 
Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, both within and without Congress, and we 
should not disturb this momentum. We need to get this bill over the 
finish line. Every day that we wait for this bill to be enacted into 
law is another day in which websites in the dark corners of the 
internet can facilitate the heinous practice of sexually exploiting 
vulnerable human beings.
  During the Commerce Committee hearing that I chaired on this bill, we 
heard testimony from Yvonne Ambrose, whose daughter, Desiree Robinson, 
was sexually trafficked repeatedly before being murdered. Desiree was 
just 16, a bright and loving girl who dreamed of becoming a doctor in 
the Air Force. Instead, she was raped and murdered by a man twice her 
age who had sought her for sex after seeing her advertised on an 
internet site.
  Every day across this country, there is another Desiree being 
trafficked. Some of these children are not yet teenagers. They should 
be going to basketball games and birthday parties. Instead, they are 
being taken to homes and hotels and being violated by strangers. Some, 
like Desiree, will die there.
  Fighting trafficking has to be a priority for all of us.
  I am proud to have helped draft two bills that became law earlier 
this year to address human trafficking in commercial vehicles. But 
while we have passed some good legislation over the past few years, 
there is a lot more work that needs to be done. There are many more 
Desirees out there in danger, and we have an obligation to do 
everything we can to protected them.
  The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act will strike an important blow 
against this new wave of traffickers exploiting the internet to sell 
children, and the bill it is now part of, a bill that we are 
considering today--the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex 
Trafficking Act--will further boost SESTA's impact by establishing new 
criminal penalties for facilitating sex trafficking.
  I urge my colleagues to pass this bill and to get it to the President 
as soon as possible. There are a lot of children out there who are 
waiting for our help.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill 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.

                          ____________________