[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 124 (Tuesday, July 24, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5240-S5262]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, FINANCIAL SERVICES, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT 
                  APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.


                           Amendment No. 3405

  Mr. HELLER. Mr. President, I rise today in support of my amendment, 
Heller-Brown amendment No. 3405. This bipartisan amendment increases 
funding for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program, better known 
as VITA, by $5 million for the next fiscal year.
  Building upon the success of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it is 
important that we take additional steps to ensure that Nevada families 
are fully able to realize the benefits of the new tax laws and maximize 
their returns. The VITA Program is one way to do that.
  The VITA Program offers free tax help to lower income and middle-
income taxpayers--those who often need it the most--by helping them to 
prepare and file their income tax returns.
  Every year, VITA programs help tens of thousands of Nevadans and 
millions of taxpayers nationwide keep more of their hard-earned money. 
As a statistic, in 2015, VITA sites helped nearly 23,000 Nevadans file 
their returns and processed refunds that exceeded $25 million.
  That is why I urge all of my colleagues to join me and Senator Brown 
in supporting hard-working American taxpayers and voting yes on this 
bipartisan amendment, Heller-Brown amendment No. 3405.

[[Page S5241]]

  I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Ohio.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, this is a big deal for Americans making 
$15,000, $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000 a year. They will get a 
refundable tax credit if they claim it--if they can figure out how to 
claim it, because it is sometimes too complicated. They can get $2,000, 
$3,000 $4,000, or sometimes a little more than that, in the refundable 
tax credit. That is money in their pockets to buy school clothes. It is 
money in their pockets to fix a car that is broken down. It is money in 
their pockets so they can take their kids to a restaurant occasionally.
  Filing taxes is complicated for everyone. It can be particularly 
challenging for those claiming the EITC. Wall Street CEO's and big 
companies have armies of accountants. This is for working-class 
families making $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000 a year.
  I thank Senator Heller. I ask support for the Heller-Brown amendment. 
It will matter to so many working families in Mansfield, Toledo, 
Sandusky, and all over Ohio.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.


                           Amendment No. 3422

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Senator Wicker of Mississippi and I have a 
bipartisan amendment that means a lot to thousands of people who use 
Amtrak. It has been 10 years since we asked the inspector general of 
Amtrak to do a study of on-time performance. On-time performance has a 
direct impact on the number of people who ride on Amtrak trains, how 
frequently they use them, and how much they rely upon them. There is a 
problem. Amtrak owns very few railway tracks in America. They share the 
tracks with freight trains, and the freight trains have been pushing 
ahead of them and making the Amtrak trains wait.
  How long did they wait? Between 2016 and 2017, in 1 year, there was 
17,000 hours of delay on Amtrak trains directly attributable to freight 
trains that didn't yield the way to the Amtrak trains. That is just one 
factor.
  Senator Wicker and I have asked the inspector general to do a report 
on on-time performance that we can consider in making Amtrak more 
efficient, more profitable, and more popular with Americans.
  I hope our colleagues will support our bipartisan amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Durbin and 
Senator Wicker's amendment. It would direct the Amtrak inspector 
general to update a report from 10 years ago that examined Amtrak's on-
time performance. Some Amtrak routes, particularly along Amtrak's 
national network, are experiencing frequent delays, which makes train 
travel a less dependable option and discourages ridership.
  Ten years ago, the IG report found that the delays were the result of 
host railroad dispatching practices, track maintenance, speed 
restrictions, insufficient track capacity, and, often, external factors 
beyond the host railroad's control.
  The information that the Amtrak IG will collect in this report will 
be used to identify ways to improve coordination between Amtrak and the 
freight railroads.
  I commend the authors for their amendment, and I urge my colleagues 
to support it.


                       Vote on Amendment No. 3405

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on agreeing to the 
Heller amendment No. 3405.
  Ms. COLLINS. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 98, nays 1, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 164 Leg.]

                                YEAS--98

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Boozman
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Harris
     Hassan
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--1

       
     Paul
       

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     McCain
       
  The amendment (No. 3405) was agreed to.


                       Vote on Amendment No. 3422

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on agreeing to the 
Durbin amendment No. 3422.
  Mr. WICKER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hoeven). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 99, nays 0, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 165 Leg.]

                                YEAS--99

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Boozman
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Harris
     Hassan
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                             NOT VOTING-- 1

       
     McCain
       
  The amendment (No. 3422) was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                     Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the latest efforts 
to derail the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be Associate 
Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. I would like to focus today on a few 
areas where attacks have come up.
  Judge Kavanaugh's critics, faced with an exceptionally well-
qualified, baseball-loving, carpool-driving nominee, are struggling to 
find anything that might slow or even stop his confirmation. Let me 
focus today on a few areas where their attacks have come up short.
  It seems that some folks can't mention Judge Kavanaugh without 
suggesting in the same breath that his confirmation would somehow be 
the death knell of Special Counsel Mueller's investigation. It can be 
difficult to keep straight critics' dizzying array of claims on these 
separation of powers issues, but it is worth taking a closer look to 
set the record straight.
  It was hard to miss the headline, ``Brett Kavanaugh Once Argued That 
a

[[Page S5242]]

Sitting President Is Above the Law,'' or the article that suggested 
Judge Kavanaugh ``has been an open advocate for precisely the sort of 
imperial presidency that the founders of the American experiment 
feared.''
  Democrats soon piled on, but never in the law review article that 
spurred this hysteria did Judge Kavanaugh suggest that a President 
would be immune from civil or criminal liability. Rather, he suggested 
that, as a policy matter, it might be wise for Congress to enact a law 
that would defer such litigation until the President leaves office, 
and, of course, Congress could accelerate that timeline through 
impeachment.
  Judge Kavanaugh's law review article represents an interesting policy 
proposal--and one, it is worth noting, that he offered while a Democrat 
was in the White House. The critics' attempts to equate his policy 
recommendations with his views on the constitutional limitations on 
prosecutions of sitting Presidents are simply wrong. If anything, Judge 
Kavanaugh's recommendation that Congress enact a law suggests that in 
the absence of any such legislation, a sitting President can be 
investigated and perhaps even prosecuted.
  Then there was the hoopla over Judge Kavanaugh's statement that he 
would ``put the final nail'' in the ruling that upheld the 
constitutionality of independent counsels; never mind the fact that the 
independent counsel statute expired nearly two decades ago and was 
described by Eric Holder as ``too flawed to be renewed.''
  Today, special counsels, such as Robert Mueller, are appointed 
pursuant to Department of Justice regulations. They do not represent 
the same constitutional concerns as the independent counsel statute. By 
conflating independent counsels and special counsels, Judge Kavanaugh's 
critics ignore his own record on the matter.
  In a dissenting opinion he wrote last year, Judge Kavanaugh himself 
observed: ``The independent counsel is, of course, distinct from the 
traditional special counsels who are appointed by the Attorney General 
for particular matters.'' But Democrats just figure that the average 
American will gloss over the distinction between independent counsels 
and special counsels and tune out legal experts who say that Judge 
Kavanaugh's views on the independent counsel law have absolutely 
nothing to do with the Mueller investigation. By the time we are on to 
them, Democrats will have already moved on to a new line of attack.

  The latest was the minority leader's suggestion that Judge Kavanaugh 
``would have let Nixon off the hook'' based on comments Judge Kavanaugh 
once made about the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in the United 
States v. Nixon. They forced President Nixon to turn over the Watergate 
tapes, but those comments--read by some who would suggest that Judge 
Kavanaugh thinks the case was wrongly decided--ignores the context of 
those specific remarks and the mountain of evidence that Judge 
Kavanaugh agrees with the Court's ruling in Nixon.
  There is the law review article in which Judge Kavanaugh wrote that 
there was ``no need to revisit'' Nixon and that the case ``reflects the 
proper balance of the President's need for confidentiality and the 
government's interest in obtaining all relevant evidence for criminal 
proceedings.''
  More recently, he has cited Nixon as one of ``the greatest moments in 
American judicial history . . . when judges stood up to the other 
branches, were not cowed, and enforced the law.''
  Those sure don't sound like the words of a judge who is critical of 
the Court's decision in Nixon, much less a judge who would vote to 
overrule it, but this more fulsome look at Judge Kavanaugh's writings 
on the issue is at odds with the Democrats' campaign to paint Judge 
Kavanaugh as an existential threat to the Mueller investigation. So 
they are content to cherry-pick and mischaracterize Judge Kavanaugh's 
record.
  On the subject of Judge Kavanaugh's record, I would also like to talk 
about the Democrats' fixation on the issue of Judge Kavanaugh's 
documents from his years of service in the executive branch. It has 
only been 2 weeks since President Trump nominated Judge Kavanaugh, and 
yet Democrats seem more interested in using their time talking about 
documents they do not yet have rather than carefully reviewing the 
unprecedented number of documents that are already available to the 
Senate and the American public. Specifically, we aren't hearing much 
from Democrats about the more than 300 opinions Judge Kavanaugh has 
authored during his time on the Circuit Court of Appeals for the 
District of Columbia. In these opinions, Judge Kavanaugh has addressed 
a vast array of hot-button issues Democrats claim to be so interested 
in: separation of powers, administrative law, national security, 
religious liberty, immigration, and so many more.
  Something Judge Kavanaugh told me when I met with him recently really 
stuck with me. He told me, he hoped people would actually read his 
opinions, not just articles about his opinions but actually read the 
opinions themselves. So I would urge my Senate colleagues to indulge 
Judge Kavanaugh on this point. These opinions are gold for any Senator 
making an honest effort to evaluate Judge Kavanaugh's judicial 
philosophy.
  Judge Kavanaugh has spent the past 12 years in public service and as 
a Federal appellate judge. Now, he has been nominated to be--you 
guessed it--a Federal appellate judge. I can think of no better 
evidence of Judge Kavanaugh's judicial philosophy or his qualifications 
to serve on our Nation's highest Court than the thousands of pages and 
opinions he authored during his time on what is arguably our Nation's 
second highest Court. If Democrats actually took the time to follow 
Judge Kavanaugh's advice and read his opinions--not just articles about 
them or summaries prepared by staff--they might be disappointed to 
learn that there is nothing to suggest that people will die if he is 
confirmed, and they might actually learn how Judge Kavanaugh interprets 
the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress. Isn't that what all 
of this commotion is about? It is about documents. Isn't that really 
what it is about?
  I suggest Judge Kavanaugh's opinions should be more than enough to 
assess his qualifications and judicial temperament, not to mention the 
thousands of pages from his time in the executive branch that are 
already publicly available. I understand this represents just a 
fraction of the documents the Senate will ultimately receive--likely to 
be far more than those received for any other Supreme Court nominee in 
history.
  Senator Grassley has pledged that relevant records will be made 
available through a fair and thorough process, but, for some, it is 
never enough. We have heard Democrats claim they are not demanding 
every scrap of paper that crosses Judge Kavanaugh's White House desk, 
but they have also said the standard for determining what is relevant 
and subject to production should be whatever Senators--in other words, 
Democrats--think is relevant. Some have even claimed that all the 
documents are ``extremely relevant.''
  Well, if Democrats think the standard for document production should 
be whatever Senators think is relevant--and they think everything is 
relevant--then it sure sounds like they are asking for every scrap of 
paper.
  Now, it is true that Republicans sought White House documents for 
Justice Kagan's nomination, but these two nominations--Kagan and 
Kavanaugh--are hardly comparable. At the time of her nomination, 
Justice Kagan had no judicial record to speak of whatsoever, having 
never served as a judge at any level. She had no written opinions. 
There was almost nothing we could use to assess her judicial 
philosophy.
  The White House record was among the very limited information we had 
to gauge her fitness to serve, so, of course, we asked to see it. By 
contrast, Judge Kavanaugh has 12 years of experience on the Circuit 
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the second highest Court 
in this country, and that is not even to mention over 300 opinions.
  Again, thousands of pages have been written clearly outlining Judge 
Kavanaugh's views on the Constitution. If Judge Kavanaugh's extensive 
record is not enough to paint a clear picture of judicial philosophy, 
then what is? What more do Democrats need to know that this is a man 
who is eminently qualified to serve on our Nation's highest Court?

[[Page S5243]]

  I can only think of one reason a Senator would need every scrap of 
paper to evaluate the qualifications of a judicial nominee--any 
nominee, for that matter--that is, if they are going on a never-ending 
fishing expedition, which is clearly what the Democrats have been doing 
since the day Judge Kavanaugh's nomination was announced.
  I urge my colleagues to follow Judge Kavanaugh's advice. Read his 
opinions. You undoubtedly will learn something about how Judge 
Kavanaugh interprets the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress. 
Then, by all means, continue your fishing expedition, but at least you 
will have consulted the record that matters the most.
  All I can say is, this man has an excellent record. There are plenty 
of things to look at. The more you look at them, the more you realize 
this fellow does really belong on the Supreme Court, and he will make a 
difference in the future.


                              Pioneer Day

  Mr. President, on another matter, I wish to speak today in 
celebration of Pioneer Day, a holiday my home State of Utah observes 
each July 24 to commemorate the arrival of the Mormon pioneers to the 
Great Salt Lake Valley. On this special day, Utah and communities in 
other States remember the extraordinary history of the Mormon pioneers 
who endured tremendous hardship in search of religious freedom in this 
great country that is set up for religious freedom, but they were 
mistreated and fought against from day one.
  In honor of Pioneer Day, I submitted a Senate resolution recognizing 
the sacrifices of the Mormon pioneers in their pursuit of religious 
liberty and their invaluable contributions to the settlement of the 
American West. I hope the Senate will join me in commending the 
pioneers for their example of courage, industry, and faith that 
continues to inspire people throughout the world.
  In the years following the establishment of the Church of Jesus 
Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830, the Latter-day Saints--or Mormons 
as they are more commonly known--encountered much religious persecution 
in this freest of all lands. They suffered physical assault, threats of 
violence, death, in some cases, and war, prison, rape, and murder. 
Violent mobs damaged their houses and businesses, stole their property, 
and drove them from their homes. Especially devastating was the 
martyrdom of their leader and beloved prophet, Joseph Smith, who was 
shot and killed with his brother as well, by an armed mob.
  Despite the discrimination and abuse they endured--sometimes at the 
hands of government officials who should have protected them from 
violence and injustice--the Latter-day Saints remained a patriotic 
people who loved and revered the Constitution of the United States. 
Still, they recognized they would need to seek refuge in an unknown 
territory to live in safety and practice their religion free from 
hostility and abuse.
  In search of such a haven, the Mormon pioneers fled Illinois in the 
winter of 1846 and proceeded westward on a journey that would cover 
more than 1,300 miles of wilderness, across arid deserts, jagged 
mountains, and turbulent rivers.
  Along the way, the Mormon pioneers erected bridges, built ferries, 
and cleared trails to assist those who would follow their path. They 
established communities, planted crops, and expanded trade posts that 
provided the crucial supplies necessary to survive expeditions onward. 
They learned how to irrigate and make the desert blossom as a rose, and 
their irrigation principles have been followed all over the world.
  They set up trail markers and charted maps that guided thousands of 
settlers westward. The United States certainly owes a debt of gratitude 
to those pioneers for their contributions to our Nation's settlement of 
the West.
  Their service to our country did not come without significant 
personal cost. Throughout the arduous trek, the pioneers battled harsh 
climates, illness, hunger, and exhaustion. Many lost their children, 
spouses, parents, and friends to exposure, disease, and starvation. Yet 
they confronted crippling sorrow and hardship with incredible grace and 
a steadfast trust in their Heavenly Father. They expressed gratitude 
for the strength to surmount each challenge and gloried in life's daily 
miracles. What could have broken their spirit only fortified their 
convictions and drew them closer to the Divine.
  Upon entering Utah's Great Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, their 
new leader, Brigham Young announced: ``This is the right place.'' This 
prophetic declaration foretold how the valley would become home to many 
Latter-day Saints and their posterity.
  Unfamiliar with the area and with few resources at their disposal, 
the pioneers worked together to plant their crops, irrigate fields, and 
build houses and businesses, thus transforming the barren desert into a 
thriving set of communities.
  Two years later, on July 24, the Latter-day Saints first commemorated 
their arrival to their new home with a procession to Salt Lake City's 
Temple Square for a special devotional followed by a feast of 
thanksgiving. Today, Pioneer Day is one of the largest regional 
celebrations in the United States, where we remember the early settlers 
with parades, flag ceremonies, reenactments, devotionals, sporting 
events, feasts, dances, concerts, festivals, rodeos, and fireworks.
  The rich heritage of the pioneers is shared not only by Utahns and 
those of the Mormon faith but with people throughout the world, 
regardless of religious affiliation. These pioneers demonstrated what 
can be accomplished when industrious and resilient people stand 
together as one to build a brighter future. Their determination and 
ingenuity encourages our own pioneer spirit, calling on us to strive 
toward further progress and innovation. Their example of courage 
empowers us to triumph over adversity and inspires us to press forward 
with unconquerable faith and undaunted hope.
  On Pioneer Day this July 24, I hope we not only remember these 
remarkable pioneers but reflect on what we can do to follow in their 
footsteps and ensure their legacy lives on in us and in future 
generations.
  I am proud to be a descendant of these pioneers. My family was part 
of the pioneers. Yes, I was born in Pittsburgh, but I couldn't wait to 
move to Utah. I love Pittsburgh, but I love Utah more. I have to say, 
part of that is because of my pioneer heritage and my desire to see 
that Utah continually improves itself and continually makes its case on 
how important these pioneers really were and are to us even today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.


                     Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, a lot of praise has flowed in for Judge 
Kavanaugh since his nomination, but I think the tribute that has struck 
me the most is the letter from his law clerks. These individuals have 
worked closely with Judge Kavanaugh and have a special insight into his 
temperament and philosophy. Here is what they have to say:

       It is in his role as a judge on the D.C. Circuit that we 
     know Judge Kavanaugh best. During his time on the D.C. 
     Circuit, Judge Kavanaugh has come to work every day dedicated 
     to engaging in the hard work of judging.
       We never once saw him take a shortcut, treat a case as 
     unimportant, or search for an easy answer. Instead, in each 
     case, large or small, he masters every detail, and rereads 
     every precedent. He listens carefully to the views of his 
     colleagues and clerks, even--indeed, especially--when they 
     differ from his own. He drafts opinions painstakingly, 
     writing and rewriting until he is satisfied each opinion is 
     clear and well-reasoned, and can be understood not only by 
     lawyers but by the parties and the public.
       We saw time and time again that this work ethic flows from 
     a fundamental humility. Judge Kavanaugh never assumes he 
     knows the answers in advance and never takes for granted that 
     his view of the law will prevail.

  Those are the words of 34 of Judge Kavanaugh's law clerks. Every one 
of Judge Kavanaugh's clerks who was not prohibited by his or her job 
signed this letter.
  These clerks represent a diverse group. They wrote:

       Our views on politics, on many of the important legal 
     issues faced by the Supreme Court, and on judicial 
     philosophy, are diverse. Our ranks include Republicans, 
     Democrats, and Independents. But we are united in this: Our 
     admiration and fondness for Judge Kavanaugh run deep. For 
     each of us . . . it was a tremendous stroke of luck to work 
     for and be mentored by a person of his strength of character, 
     generosity of spirit,

[[Page S5244]]

     intellectual capacity, and unwavering care for his family, 
     friends, colleagues, and us, his law clerks.

  This letter is a pretty significant tribute, and it confirms what has 
been clear from the beginning, and that is that Judge Kavanaugh is the 
type of judge who should sit on the Nation's highest Court. His clerks 
describe a judge who takes the weight of his responsibility seriously; 
a judge who is committed to reaching the right decision in every case 
and who does the hard work necessary to get to that decision; a judge 
who approaches each case with an open mind, looking for what the law 
says, not the outcome he wants.
  As Chief Justice John Roberts famously said, ``Judges are like 
umpires.'' Their job is to call the balls and strikes, not rewrite the 
rules of the game. As Justice Roberts said, ``Umpires don't make the 
rules; they apply them.'' It is essential that a judge understand this. 
If you are a judge, your job is to rule based on the law and the 
Constitution and nothing else. Your job is not to make policy. It is 
not to revise the law according to your personal feelings or your 
political principles. Your job is to figure out what the law says and 
to rule accordingly.
  Why is this so important? Well, it is because the rule of law and 
equal justice under the law only exist as long as judges rule based on 
the law. Once judges start ruling based on their political opinions or 
their feelings about what they would like the law to be, then we will 
have replaced the rule of law with the rule of individual judges.
  As the testimony of his clerks and many others makes clear, Judge 
Kavanaugh understands the role of a judge. He understands that his job 
is to interpret the law, not make the law; to rule based on the plain 
text of the statute, not his personal opinions or political beliefs.
  In a 2017 speech at Notre Dame Law School, Judge Kavanaugh said:

       I believe very deeply in those visions of the rule of law 
     as a law of rules, and of the judge as umpire. By that, I 
     mean a neutral, impartial judiciary that decides cases based 
     on settled principles without regard to policy preferences or 
     political allegiances or which party is on which side of a 
     particular case.

  I will say it again: That is the kind of Justice we want on the 
Supreme Court. I hope this Senate will take very seriously the 
responsibility we have to give fair consideration to this nominee.
  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. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Flake). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, you couldn't follow this President's 
tweets with a roadmap, a GPS, a flashlight, and a program. It is 
impossible to understand the policy of this administration for this 
country, and when you try to follow his actions instead of his words, 
it is even more confusing.
  Over the past few weeks, President Trump's conduct when it comes to 
foreign policy has been head-spinning, even for him. To recap, he 
insulted our best allies of 70 years and then turned around and lobbied 
for Russia at a recent G7 meeting and again bullied our key allies at a 
summit on NATO. He then met privately with Russian President Putin and 
then held a press conference with him in which President Trump blamed 
America and defended Putin's words over the expertise of his own 
government intelligence agencies. Keep in mind that he also 
inexplicably met privately with President Putin at the G20 summit in 
Hamburg last year--an event which he initially denied.
  Why all these private meetings between President Trump and President 
Putin? Why wouldn't he let his Secretary of State sit in the room? Why 
wouldn't he let his National Security Advisor witness the conversation? 
I don't know the answer to these questions, and neither does America.
  Then the President tried to backpedal from some of his most 
outrageous statements. At the end of the day, after trying that and 
deciding it wasn't worth the effort, he backed around again and decided 
to side with President Putin. It is impossible to keep track of where 
this President has been or is going.
  President Trump then questioned the bedrock NATO alliance, asking why 
the United States should come to the defense of one of its members. 
Incidentally, that is the heart and soul of the NATO alliance--article 
5: We stand together. When the United States was attacked on 9/11, it 
was the NATO alliance that stood with us when we struck back at 
Afghanistan and al-Qaida. They stood by us because of article 5, the 
very basis of the NATO alliance, which this President has questioned.
  He said that no U.S. President has been harder on Russia than 
President Trump. He argued: ``I think President Putin knows that better 
than anybody.'' Then he said he wanted to invite President Putin to the 
United States as his special personal guest. Go figure.
  As President Trump weakens a great military alliance like NATO, 
bullies our allies of seven decades, cozies up to a foreign dictator, 
and talks in circles about his bizarre tweets and actions, what has 
been the priority of the Republican Party on the floor of the Senate 
since the summit--the disastrous summit--at Helsinki? Well, the 
Republican leader, Senator McConnell, has not spoken on the Senate 
floor on this issue since the Helsinki summit, not even one time.
  Why aren't we urgently moving legislation to protect America's 
membership in NATO, ensure the integrity of our upcoming election, and 
fully implement last year's Russian sanctions bill? I can't answer 
that. I don't think the Republican leader can answer it either. Those 
are national security priorities.
  Maybe it isn't surprising because when Senator McConnell was told 
about the Russian intervention in our last 2016 election by the top 
intelligence officials of the U.S. Government and asked to make a 
bipartisan statement condemning it, he declined.
  Why would a congressional leader not want to join in a bipartisan 
effort to warn a foreign power to stop its attack on democracy? Why the 
silence on this floor, on that side of the aisle, since the Helsinki 
summit conference?
  There is not absolute silence. I will commend my ailing but respected 
and often-quoted colleague John McCain in Arizona, who sends messages 
from his home to this Chamber, to the U.S. Senate. What did he call the 
Helsinki summit? ``[O]ne of the most disgraceful performances by an 
American president in memory.'' John McCain has never been one to mince 
words. I have to say that quote hit the nail on the head.
  I want to put another word in here. Every time I hear politicians and 
all the smartest people on Earth on television referring to what 
happened in the 2016 election as the Russians meddling in our 
election--you heard that term, ``meddling'' in our election? If a 
seasoned criminal broke into your home to case it for a later burglary, 
would you say that burglar was just meddling? No. ``Breaking and 
entering'' might be the proper term. That is what happened with the 
Russians in the 2016 U.S. election. They broke and entered our election 
system across the United States.
  The reason I know that, one of the targets happened to be my home 
State of Illinois. They found a way to sneak into the computers of the 
Illinois State Board of Elections and, according to the Special 
Counsel's recent indictment, stole information related to approximately 
one-half million voters in my State of Illinois. The State discovered 
it and sent out warnings to voters whose registration data may have 
been accessed.
  Was that meddling? Not in Illinois. Those were fighting words. That 
was a cyber attack by the Russians on the State of Illinois Board of 
Elections, and they followed up by trying to hit 20 other States as 
well.
  Meddling? Give me a break. This is a cyber act of war by the 
Russians, and our intelligence officials of the Trump administration--
like Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence--have warned us, 
the red lights are blinking again. They are coming back.
  What are we doing about it? Nothing. There will be a chance for my 
Republican colleagues to join the Democrats in a bipartisan effort to 
take this seriously before it is too late. What do we have left, 105 
days until the election? It

[[Page S5245]]

is not much time. The question is whether we will do something to try 
to protect our election system. Every Member of this Chamber will have 
an opportunity to vote to ensure that State and local election 
officials have the resources to stop any other effort by the Russians 
to interfere in our election.
  Earlier this year, we came together and passed a bill--a bipartisan 
bill--that provided $380 million in fiscal year 2018 omnibus spending 
for States to modernize and secure their election systems. Funding gave 
the States flexibility to tackle the most critical priorities: 
replacing outdated voting machines, for example, that have no paper 
trail, updating election computer systems to address cyber 
vulnerabilities. The Election Assistance Commission reports that 55 
different entities, including all the States and territories, have 
requested funding from this grant program. That was an important first 
step. It was bipartisan. It should be done. It was done, but it is not 
enough.
  After the 2000 election, and months of news coverage about hanging 
chads and butterfly ballots, Congress passed a Help America Vote Act to 
address the outdated election infrastructure in America. We authorized 
$3.8 billion to respond to this issue. A few months ago, we authorized 
one-tenth of that to respond to the Russian threat. We need to respond 
to that threat in a much more robust manner.
  I received a memo from our election authorities in Illinois 
specifying how they plan to spend their grant funds and what they need 
to do to be more certain that their election operations and machinery 
are intact, and virtually every State can provide me with a similar 
memo.
  We need to respond to this threat in a meaningful, robust manner. We 
know full well in Illinois what the Russians could have done to us. If 
they had taken 500,000 voter registration records and simply changed 
one number in the street address of each voter, let me tell you what 
would have happened. When I turned up to vote in Springfield, IL, and 
listed my home address, they would have said: No, that address doesn't 
match our records. You can vote a provisional ballot if you wish. We 
will look into it later.
  That could have happened thousands of times. Thank goodness it 
didn't, but that is the extent of our vulnerability. It is a suggestion 
of what we might face again from the Russians, according to our own 
Intelligence agencies.
  Last year, the Department of Homeland Security notified election 
officials in 20 other States that Russians attempted to hack into their 
systems, including Texas, Iowa, and Florida--Mr. President, your home 
State of Arizona--Oklahoma, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Colorado, 
North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Ohio.
  We have to make sure we are prepared for future attacks on our 
democracy. That is why I have joined Senator Leahy--who is on the floor 
with me today--and Senator Klobuchar, preparing an amendment to the 
appropriations legislation we are going to consider, offering an 
additional $250 million in election security grants to our States.
  When a similar amendment was offered at a committee markup last 
month, we heard it was too early to talk about additional funding; we 
need to wait and see how the $380 million earlier appropriated would be 
spent.
  We know the answer. At a recent Senate Rules Committee hearing, Cook 
County Director of Elections Noah Praetz explained that though the $380 
million was greatly appreciated, more resources are desperately needed. 
He said: ``Given the costs of regular technology refreshes and support 
for human resources with cyber capacity, the needed investment is very 
large.''
  Last week, when asked if the $380 million was enough to address the 
problem, the President of the National Association of Secretaries of 
State said: ``[N]o, to put it bluntly . . . Congress needs to come up 
with some kind of a funding mechanism that is sustainable and year-in, 
year-out, not once every 10 years.''
  Just yesterday, a bipartisan group of State attorneys general asked 
Congress for increased funding because many States lack the resources 
and tools they need to protect their polling places.
  I urge the adoption of the Leahy-Klobuchar amendment.
  It is also time for the majority to heed former Senator Bill Frist's 
sage advice when he wrote recently in the Washington Post: 
``[P]atriotism should always take priority over party.''
  I say to the Presiding Officer, I know you know that, personally, and 
you have proven it.
  Senator Frist went on to say that ``staying silent is no longer an 
option.''
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I appreciate what the distinguished senior 
Senator from Illinois just said. I will speak about the same amendment. 
We will be offering this amendment. It does provide $250 million for 
State election security grants. It provides it to protect our upcoming 
elections from attacks by Russia especially but from many other hostile 
foreign powers.
  We don't do this as an exercise. We know the attacks have been there 
in the past, and they are coming in the future. Look at what our 
intelligence community said. They unanimously said that Russia 
interfered in our 2016 election.
  After the intelligence community unanimously said they interfered, 
Congress came together, and we appropriated $380 million for State 
election security grants in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus.
  Since that time, all 55 eligible States and territories have 
requested funding. One hundred percent of these funds have been 
committed to the States. As of yesterday, 90 percent of the funds have 
been disbursed to the States. This is pretty remarkable considering 
that the fiscal year 2018 omnibus was signed into law just 4 months 
ago.
  I have asked what the funding was used for. I am told it has assisted 
States in improving election cyber security. They have replaced 
outdated election equipment. They have undertaken other anti-cyber 
efforts.
  That is an important first step. I know all of us do not want our 
democracy attacked by foreign aggression. More is needed. It is 
certainly needed before the November 2018 elections--I might say even 
afterward.
  States need postelection audit systems. They have to be able to 
verify the accuracy of the final vote tally. They have to be able to 
upgrade election-related computer systems if our Department of Homeland 
Security identifies vulnerabilities. I believe the State and local 
election officials should undergo cyber security training. They should 
start using established cyber security best practices. These efforts 
are all essential to the security of our elections, and my amendment 
would enable them to go forward. In fact, yesterday, 21 State attorneys 
general signed a letter. They urged Congress to appropriate more 
funding for the States to help them meet their security needs.
  Let me quote from their letter. They said:

       Additional funding for voter infrastructure will not only 
     allow states to upgrade the election systems, but will also 
     allow for a comprehensive security risk assessment. 
     Unfortunately, past practice has shown that the existing 
     Election Assistance Commission grants are simply insufficient 
     to provide for the upgraded technology needed. More funding 
     is essential to adequately equip states for the financial 
     resources we need to safeguard our democracy and protect the 
     data of voting members in our states.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, 
at the conclusion of my remarks, a letter, dated July 23, 2018, signed 
by 21 State attorneys general.
  Mr. President, it is clear that Congress--this involves everybody in 
the Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike--must serve as a bulwark 
against Russian aggression. I say this because our President has, time 
and again, proven he is either unable or unwilling to do so. Standing 
on the world stage with Vladimir Putin, with everybody watching, 
President Trump repeatedly refused to condemn Russia's attacks on our 
democracy. He almost groveled to the authoritarian Putin. He praised 
and defended Putin's ``strong denial'' of Russian interference. Then, 
to make it worse, President Trump attacked our own law enforcement 
institutions while standing feet away from the very foe our 
institutions work so hard to protect us from.
  All of our intelligence communities and law enforcement have the 
sworn

[[Page S5246]]

duty to protect all Americans from foes like Russia. The President 
stands next to the President of Russia and attacks the same law 
enforcement institutions that protect us.
  This brought about, not unexpectedly, bipartisan outrage over the 
Helsinki fiasco. The next day, the President tried to walk back his 
comments. But in typical fashion, he tried to have it both ways. He 
repeated the baseless claim that the attack ``could be other people 
also.'' Then, the very next day, when asked whether Russia is still 
targeting the United States, the President inexplicably said, ``No.'' 
That was roughly 48 hours after his own Director of National 
Intelligence issued a statement reaffirming that Russia is engaged in 
``ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy.'' Without 
going into any of the classified material--just go by what our 
intelligence agencies have said publicly. Russia is engaged in 
``ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy.'' And when the 
President is asked whether they are targeting the United States, the 
answer isn't no, it is yes.

  Some have argued that this is an issue for the States to deal with 
entirely on their own, that the Federal Government should not involve 
itself in States' electoral systems. But our States were attacked in 
2016 by a foreign adversary, and their election systems were hacked by 
Russia's foreign military intelligence service.
  If any one of our States was attacked by a foreign government, would 
we stand by and say: Well, that is the State's problem. No. We wouldn't 
say: Well, it is not my State, it is not my problem. You are on your 
own. Of course not. An attack on any one of us is an attack on all of 
us. We are the United States of America. We would come together to 
protect that State. We would provide the Federal resources to help them 
out. That is what we Americans do. The same standard applies here in 
helping States strengthen and protect their election infrastructure.
  We Senators from both parties have a choice: We either heed the fact-
based warnings of our dedicated law enforcement and national security 
professionals or we do as President Trump has done and say: Well, we 
will take Vladimir Putin at his word. I don't. We either choose to act 
as a coequal branch of government to defend our democracy or leave that 
responsibility to a President who doesn't see the threat. In fact, he 
embraces the threat even when it is standing right beside him.
  I say to my fellow Senators, if you believe that Russia is fully 
intent on destabilizing our democracy yet again in November, which is 
something every one of our national security and law enforcement 
officials believes--the people who read all the classified matters 
every single day, the people who know our intelligence backward and 
forward believe Russia is fully intent on destabilizing our democracy--
let's stand up for our country. Let's stand up for our intelligence 
services and have this amendment as a chance to take action--more than 
anything else, to stand up for America, stand up for our democracy.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:
                                              State of New Mexico,


                               Office of the Attorney General,

                                      Santa Fe, NM, July 23, 2018.
     Chairman Michael McCaul,
     House Homeland Security Committee,
     Washington, DC.
     Chairman Roy Blunt,
     Senate Rules and Administration Committee, Washington, DC.
       Dear Honorable Committee Members: The undersigned Attorneys 
     General write to express our grave concern over the threat to 
     the integrity of the American election system. As the latest 
     investigations and indictments make clear, during the 2016 
     election, hackers within Russia's military intelligence 
     service not only targeted state and local election boards, 
     but also successfully invaded a state election website to 
     steal the sensitive information of approximately 500,000 
     American voters and infiltrated a company that supplies 
     voting software across the United States.
       The allegations in these indictments are extremely 
     troubling. They evidence technologically vulnerable election 
     infrastructures and the existence of a malicious foreign 
     actor eager to exploit these vulnerabilities. Moreover, it 
     has never been more important to maintain confidence in our 
     democratic voting process. It is imperative that we protect 
     the integrity of our elections. We must ensure that the 
     upcoming 2018 midterm elections are secure and untainted. 
     Accordingly, we ask for your assistance in shoring up our 
     systems so that we may protect our elections from foreign 
     attacks and interference by:
       Prioritizing and acting on election-security legislation. 
     We understand that the Secure Elections Act (S.2261) is 
     before the Senate at this time and may address some of our 
     concerns.
       Increasing funding for the Election Assistance Commission 
     to support election security improvements at the state level 
     and to protect the personal data of the voters of our states. 
     We are concerned that many states lack the resources and 
     tools they need to protect the polls. Additional funding for 
     voting infrastructure will not only allow states to upgrade 
     election systems, but will also allow for a comprehensive 
     security risk assessment. Unfortunately, past practice has 
     shown that the existing Election Assistance Commission grants 
     are simply insufficient to provide for the upgraded 
     technology needed. More funding is essential to adequately 
     equip states with the financial resources we need to 
     safeguard our democracy and protect the data of voting 
     members in our states.
       Supporting the development of cybersecurity standards for 
     voting systems to prevent potential future foreign attacks. 
     It is critical that there be a combined effort between 
     governments and security experts to protect against the 
     increased cyber threats posed by foreign entities seeking to 
     weaken our institutions.
       These changes are essential in order to strengthen public 
     trust in our electoral system. The integrity of the nation's 
     voting infrastructure is a bipartisan issue, and one that 
     affects not only the national political landscape, but 
     elections at the state, county, municipal, and local levels. 
     It is our hope that you agree, and will take swift action to 
     protect our national legacy of fair and free elections.
           Respectfully,
         Hector Balderas, Attorney General of New Mexico; George 
           Jepsen, Attorney General of Connecticut; Karl Racine, 
           Attorney General for the District of Columbia; Lisa 
           Madigan, Attorney General of Illinois; Janet Mills, 
           Attorney General of Maine; Maura Healy, Attorney 
           General of Massachusetts; Lori Swanson, Attorney 
           General of Minnesota; Gurbir Grewal, Attorney General 
           of New Jersey; Josh Stein, Attorney General of North 
           Carolina; Peter F. Kilmartin, Attorney General of Rhode 
           Island; Bob Ferguson, Attorney General of Washington; 
           Xavier Becerra, Attorney General of California; Matthew 
           P. Denn, Attorney General of Delaware; Russell Suzuki, 
           Attorney General of Hawaii; Thomas J. Miller, Attorney 
           General of Iowa; Brian Frosh, Attorney General of 
           Maryland; Bill Schuette, Attorney General of Michigan; 
           Jim Hood, Attorney General of Mississippi; Barbara D. 
           Underwood, Attorney General of New York; Ellen 
           Rosenblum, Attorney General of Oregon; Mark R. Herring, 
           Attorney General of Virginia.

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I don't know whether there are others 
seeking the floor. I was going to suggest the absence of a quorum, but 
I see the distinguished senior Senator from Minnesota, and I yield to 
her.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Vermont for 
his leadership, and I am pleased that Senator Durbin has brought us 
together. I also see the Senator from Delaware and the Senator from 
Oregon here.
  I appreciate the work we have seen on the other side of the aisle on 
so many of these issues regarding elections and Russia, including the 
Presiding Officer's support for moving forward on a number of these 
things.
  Our next election is right around the corner. In fact, this coming 
Saturday marks 100 days from the 2018 elections. As we prepare for the 
midterm elections, two things are clear: First, we must hold Russia 
accountable for the attacks against our democracy in 2016. This wasn't 
meddling. This wasn't just sending a few little tweets. This was an 
actual cyber attack on our democracy, and we have to call it what it 
was. Secondly, we must do more to deter Russia and safeguard our 
democracy against future attacks.
  As complex as all this is, that is really quite simple. The first 
thing is, we have to figure out what happened and hold the people 
accountable. That is what is happening with the Mueller investigation, 
and that is what is happening with the Intelligence Committee 
investigation and other committees as well. Secondly, we have to 
protect our own democracy in the future from Russia, from other foreign 
entities, from anyone who might try to take away our democracy. That is 
exactly what happened in this last election.

[[Page S5247]]

  Over the last 18 months, I have come to the floor time and again to 
make this point: Election security is national security. Efforts to 
interfere in our domestic politics and attack our election 
infrastructure represent a threat to our democracy and our security.
  We know that Russia coordinated an attack against our democracy that 
launched cyber attacks against at least 21 States, including my own. 
The latest indictment from Special Counsel Mueller's investigation 
revealed that the Russians hacked the website of a State board of 
elections and stole the information of roughly 500,000 voters. We not 
only have them potentially trying to influence the vote, we also have 
them actually stealing voters' private information, which, of course, 
is another way to deter voters from wanting to vote. Russia's efforts 
also included sophisticated information warfare designed to divide our 
country and weaken Americans' confidence in our election system.
  Hard-working women and men in our intelligence agencies from both 
Democratic and Republican administrations have confirmed this. The 
heads of all of our major intelligence operations under President Obama 
and under President Trump have said that this happened. In fact, months 
ago, Director Coats said that not only did it happen but that the 
Russians are getting, in his words, bolder.
  Yet, this month in Helsinki, President Trump was asked if he stands 
by the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community or the denials of 
Vladimir Putin. He chose to go with Putin. He stood there in front of 
the world, and he called Putin's words ``extremely strong and 
powerful.'' That is why so many in this Chamber--Republican and 
Democratic Members of the Senate--have come out and called him on it 
and affirmed the U.S. intelligence conclusions and denounced the 
President's actions.
  There is no substitute for Presidential leadership--we know that--but 
in its absence, Congress must act. We need to make strong bipartisan 
commitments to defend our elections and show unwavering support for our 
intelligence agencies.
  Among others things, today Senator Graham and I submitted a 
bipartisan resolution that reaffirmed strong congressional support for 
our intelligence agencies and our diplomats. This is supplemental to 
the work, of course, that Senator Coons and Senator Flake have been 
doing. It declares that an attack on our election system by a foreign 
power is a hostile act that should be met with a swift and forceful 
response.
  Passing this resolution sends a clear message to Russia: We are 
united in our commitment to make sure you pay a heavy price for 
attacking our elections, and we are prepared to exercise our authority 
to impose even stronger sanctions.
  If this administration won't act, Congress must.
  In order to safeguard future elections, State and local officials on 
the frontlines of this fight must have the tools and resources they 
need to prevent cyber attacks.
  We recently voted to provide $380 million in election security 
funding to States. That was an important first step. All the States I 
have talked to say that was just the beginning, that they would need 
more resources, but it was an important first step. I worked on that 
with Senator Lankford, as well as Senator Coons and Senator Leahy.
  I will note that $380 million is just 3 percent of the cost of one 
aircraft carrier. That is what it is--3 percent of the cost of one 
aircraft carrier. We have a foreign government that has been trying to 
attack our elections. We must do more.
  During a recent Rules Committee hearing, State and local officials 
testified that more resources are needed. Last week, Vermont's 
secretary of state and the president of the National Association of 
Secretaries of State, Jim Condos, called on Congress to provide 
additional funds on an ongoing basis, not just when a crisis happens. 
This week, nearly half of our country's State attorneys general sent a 
letter urging Congress to appropriate more funding for election 
security. That is why today Senator Leahy, Senator Coons, and I will be 
offering this amendment to the appropriations legislation that is 
before us this week that would provide additional funding for election 
security.
  I am continuing to work with Senator Lankford on the Secure Elections 
Act, which, along with Senator Graham and Senator Harris, now has 10 
cosponsors, Democrats and Republicans, equally divided. That bill is 
important. Senator Blunt has agreed to a markup in August. That is very 
critical to our moving forward to have legislation that puts some 
parameters in place, puts best practices in place, and requires audits. 
All of that must happen, but for now, we can't wait. We are almost 100 
days away from this election.
  Director of National Intelligence Coats recently reaffirmed the 
threat Russia poses. He said this: ``Today, the digital infrastructure 
that serves this country is literally under attack. . . . It was in the 
months prior to September 2001 when, according to then-CIA director 
George Tenet, the system was blinking red. And here we are nearly two 
decades later, and I'm here to say the warning lights are blinking red 
again.'' That is from our National Intelligence Director under 
President Trump.
  I would close with this--something that happened 95 years ago. In 
1923, Joseph Stalin, then General Secretary of the Soviet Communists, 
was asked about a vote in the Central Committee of the party. Stalin 
was unconcerned about the vote. After all, he explained that who voted 
was ``completely unimportant.'' What was ``extraordinarily important,'' 
he said, ``was who would count the votes and how.''
  Now, nearly 100 years later, we have someone by the name of Vladimir 
Putin trying to control who counts the votes and how in our own 
country. This time, it is now, and it is in our elections. Those are 
the stakes. Election security is national security, and it is time to 
start acting like it
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, as Senator Klobuchar has noted, Democrats 
and Republicans are here to talk about a critically important issue; 
that is, protecting the franchise for our people.
  I want to begin by saying that the ink is barely dry on the 
indictment of the Russian hackers who tried to undermine our democracy, 
and the President of the United States is trying to deny that it 
actually happened. Just put your arms around that one for a moment, 
colleagues. The indictment of the Russian hackers is just days old, the 
President's own intelligence officials are telling him that an attack 
on our democracy is a near certainty, and he has just not been willing 
to step up and prevent it. In fact, he continues to refuse to accept 
the basic facts of the attack the Russians perpetrated in 2016.
  The fact, however, is that Americans are learning more and more about 
what actually happened, and it is becoming increasingly clear that what 
the President calls a witch hunt is turning up a lot of witches. The 
attack on our democracy was plotted and perpetrated by agents of the 
Russian Government. It came from the very top. It wasn't perpetrated by 
some other, unidentified country, and it wasn't some random fellow in 
his mom's basement; it was Russia. Somehow, the President is too 
mesmerized by Vladimir Putin to admit that.
  The public learned from the indictments unsealed in the last several 
days that Russian intelligence officials hacked into the computers of 
the Democratic National Committee, stole data, and planted surveillance 
software. They were basically hoovering up voter data that belonged to 
one-half million Americans. They targeted our election infrastructure 
and searched for vulnerabilities that might have allowed them to affect 
the results. A Russian national with ties to Russian intelligence used 
what was called a ``gun rights organization'' to infiltrate 
conservative circles and sway our political judgment.

  Those are the facts, colleagues, and no matter how the President 
twists himself into a pretzel to try to describe it otherwise, those 
are the realities. Our election system and our digital infrastructure 
are still extraordinarily vulnerable to attack. The President's own 
Director of National Intelligence, our former colleague, has said--not

[[Page S5248]]

months ago but recently--that ``the lights are blinking red.''
  So our colleagues Senator Leahy and Senator Klobuchar are proposing 
an important investment of funding to assist the States. There is no 
question in my mind that when looking at this challenge, this will be a 
challenge that benefits from the additional funds since this is a 
national problem. The Director of Homeland Security said in response to 
my question that paperless voting machines pose a ``national security 
concern.'' You know, we don't ask Delaware or Oregon or small towns if 
they are dealing with an attack on their democracy. We don't say to a 
small town in Delaware or Oregon: Will you figure out how to do it? We 
treat it as something where we come together as Americans to tackle the 
problem. So we are going to need additional funds for attacking this 
extraordinarily important challenge.
  I am going to be heading home for townhall meetings. We have these 
sessions, throw open the doors, and everybody's welcome. Folks are 
going to hear about what we are talking about in election security, and 
folks are going to say: Ron, what are the best ideas out there for 
stopping the Russians from hacking our elections?
  I will say to my colleagues--we are going to talk some more about 
this--cyber security experts are overwhelmingly united on what is best 
for stopping the Russian hackers. Overwhelmingly, this country's cyber 
security experts--people who aren't Democrats or Republicans; they are 
people who are knowledgeable in this field--say the two things you need 
most are paper ballots and risk-limiting audits--those two things, 
paper ballots and risk-limiting audits.
  Tens of millions of Americans today have no choice but to vote on 
unsecured machines that might as well have these words scrolled on them 
in Russian: ``Please hack me, comrade.'' That pretty much is what you 
get with these unsecured voting machines.
  The voting machine industry--I think I talked about this with my 
friend from Delaware--has basically considered themselves to be above 
the law. They have refused to share vital information about their 
operations with me, the Intelligence Committee--even basic questions, 
which are really called issues relating to cyber hygiene. But what we 
know is, some of this voting technology has actually come preinstalled 
with remote monitoring software. The cyber security experts will tell 
you that is a recipe for disaster. The experts also will tell you that 
bar codes, ballot-marking devices, are not the heart of a solution to 
really secure elections.
  When you ask the companies that manufacture these machines, they are 
ducking and weaving when they are asked even the most basic and 
straightforward questions about how they are protecting American 
voters.
  Colleagues, as we move to start this extraordinarily important 
debate, I want to be clear about what I think the most important 
challenge is. Our most important job is to build a new partnership 
between the States and localities and Federal election officials that 
actually protects American elections from getting hacked by the 
Russians. That is what this is all about--actually making sure we 
provide that added measure of assistance and security for American 
voters.
  In the name of supporting that cause, I have proposed legislation 
called the PAVE Act which, in effect, says that we have to build around 
common sense and what the independent cyber security experts say is 
important--paper ballots and postelection audits. That, in my view, is 
the heart of what we ought to be looking for ways to support. If a 
polling place starts election day with a line of people out the door, 
it ought to end the day with a stack of paper ballots that are hack-
proof--a verifiable system that the Russians cannot touch.
  If the United States is going to go along with business as usual--
election security status quo of paperless machines and not very many 
audits, not effective audits--it is nearly as bad as leaving ballot 
boxes on street corners in Red Square. So I am going to close this way. 
When we have a debate this important about election security, what it 
is really about is whether Americans can trust that control of our 
democracy is actually in their hands. The easiest way to destroy what 
has certainly been waning confidence Americans have in our elections is 
to leave election systems vulnerable to attack. That is practically a 
surefire way to limit voter participation, and it certainly is going to 
generate a new firestorm of conspiracy theories in every American 
election from here on.
  So I say to my colleagues and Senator Coons, who really is the gold 
standard for working with colleagues, trying to bring people together: 
Find approaches that make sense for our people. He and I have talked, 
and I think we have agreed that we will take a good idea from anywhere 
in sight. If there is a good idea on this side of the aisle, we are 
interested. If there is a good idea over there, we are interested. The 
good idea here, in terms of protecting the votes of the American people 
who have been threatened by Russian hackers, with the evidence as 
recently as a few days ago with the indictments--the best way, 
according to people who aren't in politics and are knowledgeable in the 
field, is to have paper ballots and risk-limiting audits. As long as I 
have the honor to represent Oregon in the U.S. Senate--we will 
certainly be talking about this at townhall meetings this weekend. I 
look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle 
to advance that kind of approach, which I think is the surest path to 
blocking those Russian hackers from doing again and again what they did 
to us in this past election.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Johnson). The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise to speak about an amendment that I 
look forward to advancing as a member of the relevant Appropriations 
subcommittee--in fact, the ranking Democrat. I was pleased to work in a 
bipartisan way to secure $380 million in the last fiscal year that has 
been distributed to the States to secure our elections.
  As you may have heard, some who opposed this in the Appropriations 
Committee, when we took it up and debated it, asked a few simple 
questions, which I will try to address quickly.
  Aren't elections a State and local responsibility? Why should the 
Federal government be providing funding for States and localities to 
secure their elections? It is true that elections are overwhelmingly 
run at the State and local levels. The cost of securing and modernizing 
our voting machines and voting systems will be overwhelmingly borne at 
the State and local levels.
  Second, this $380 million was just made available, and I don't think 
it has even gone out yet. Have they used it well, and have they used it 
properly?
  Third, why is this something we need to do now? Is there any 
indication that our upcoming elections are actually under threat?
  Let me briefly speak to those three questions.
  This morning, it was publicly reported that the U.S. Department of 
Homeland Security, outside of a classified setting for the first time, 
revealed that not one, not two, not a dozen, but more than 100 American 
power utilities had been successfully hacked by Russian military 
intelligence and that air-gapped control rooms--meaning control rooms 
that are designed so they are not connected to the internet--in power-
generating or distributing utilities around the country had been 
compromised by Russia. There is a level of sophistication in their 
invasion and interference in our physical infrastructure that is 
matched by their sophistication in interfering and intruding in our 
election infrastructure. I think the present danger is very clear and 
very real.
  As my colleagues stated at great length, our Director of National 
Intelligence, Dan Coats, our former colleague, has said repeatedly that 
our election structure is at risk.
  On July 13, Special Counsel Mueller indicted 12 Russian military 
officials for cyber attacks on our 2016 elections, and we know those 
attacks are coming again.
  Michael Chertoff, the former Bush Department of Homeland Security 
Secretary, and Grover Norquist, long known as an advocate for reduced 
Federal spending, jointly wrote an editorial earlier this year--I think 
it was in the Washington Post. They said, and I quote, that ``we can 
replace all paperless voting machines in the country for less than the 
cost of an F-22 fighter jet.''

[[Page S5249]]

  As Senator Klobuchar has said repeatedly and correctly: ``Election 
security is national security.''
  Chertoff and Norquist concluded with this thought: It is not 
practical to expect State and local election administrators in rural 
Missouri or small town Maine or in my State of Delaware or in my 
colleague's State of Iowa to go toe-to-toe with the premier government-
backed cyber mercenaries of Russia or China or North Korea. Just as 
Federal agencies prudently provide support for State law enforcement in 
dealing with terrorism, Federal officials should give guidance for 
support of the election cyber security threat.
  My home State of Delaware is one of five with no paper trail for our 
election systems, and our election systems are air-gapped. I just 
received a letter from our State election commissioner, Elaine Manlove, 
who has made clear that with the $380 million already distributed 
through the money made available last year, they will begin to make a 
downpayment on replacing our current, antiquated election machinery 
with those that will have a verifiable paper trail.
  I have many more examples I can cite, but I will be brief because I 
have a colleague who has waited long for his opportunity to speak.
  All States have now requested the funding, and 90 percent of the 
funding has been disbursed. The EAC is working with States to make sure 
that they are addressing cyber security issues and, in particular, 
replacing outdated, antiquated systems.
  I will give you one of many examples. The State of Louisiana last 
purchased voting equipment in 2005. Its 10,000 voting machines are 
antiquated, and their spare parts are dwindling and are no longer being 
manufactured. Louisiana's secretary of state estimated the replacement 
cost would be between $40 million and $60 million. A $3 million 
downpayment of Federal money is just barely enough to get Louisiana 
started, not enough to complete the job.

  Let me close by saying that election security is not a partisan 
issue; it is about protecting who we are as a nation. Free and fair and 
regular elections define us as a democracy. Democrats, Republicans, and 
Independents--all Americans--who want to know that their votes are 
counted and our elections are free and fair should care about a Federal 
role in supporting States and localities as they work to ensure that 
our election systems are protected and our equipment can't be 
compromised.
  This is an issue not just for the November 2018 elections but for the 
2020 elections.
  The amendment we hope to call up later today should not be 
controversial. This is about protecting our democracy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.


                     Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to bring my fellow Senators up to 
date on a subject that was sparked by the remarks made this morning by 
the minority leader. I also want to add some additional context that 
the minority leader left out.
  He spoke on the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. 
Unfortunately, he didn't come to the floor to talk about the judge's 
excellent qualifications, the judge's well-regarded temperament, or the 
judge's judicial philosophy. He didn't come to the floor to announce 
that he would finally extend to the judge the courtesy of a meeting, 
which is customary in this body. He came to speak about what he thinks 
will satisfy leftwing outside groups. He demanded that I sign a letter 
that will put the American taxpayers on the hook for a Democratic 
fishing expedition, and I am not going to do that.
  I agree that we should have a thorough vetting process for the 
nominee--and we will--and that we should review materials that will 
reveal Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking. That is our job. We are not 
going to be a rubberstamp. Fortunately for us, we have immediate access 
to the most valuable documents that are out there that will reveal 
Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking. We have access to the more than 300 
opinions Judge Kavanaugh authored in his 12 years on the DC Circuit, as 
well as to the hundreds more opinions he joined. In these opinions, he 
addressed some of the most significant legal issues of the past decade 
from the second most powerful court in the land.
  This morning, the minority leader brought up a statement that I had 
made in 2010 in connection with Justice Kagan's Supreme Court 
nomination. At that time, this Senator was interested in reviewing 
documents from her time in the Clinton administration.
  What the minority leader neglected to mention was that, unlike Judge 
Kavanaugh, Justice Kagan had not served as a judge before being 
nominated to the Supreme Court. Besides the Federal Government service 
she had had at the time she was nominated, she had been the dean of a 
law school. Other than Kagan's materials that she had submitted as part 
of the Senate Judiciary questionnaire for her nomination, her White 
House Counsel's Office and Domestic Policy Council documents had been 
some of the few categories of documents that could have shed light on 
her legal thinking since she hadn't had any judicial writings, meaning 
as a judge. Justice Kagan had written or joined a grand total of zero 
judicial opinions before her nomination. For those of us on the Senate 
Judiciary Committee to have carried out our constitutional advice and 
consent responsibilities as Senators, we had needed to better 
understand her legal thinking and potential jurisprudence.
  Judge Kavanaugh, by contrast, has authored over 300 judicial opinions 
in his 12 years on the bench. That is over 300. That doesn't include 
the hundreds of other decisions in which he has joined an opinion or 
some sort of order. When you add those to the mix, those are thousands 
of pages of judicial writings that the American people have access to 
at this exact moment. You don't have to wait to get this information 
about Judge Kavanaugh. To the contrary, Justice Kagan, of course, had 
zero pages of judicial opinions. This is in addition to the 6,168 pages 
of records Judge Kavanaugh just included in his response to the Senate 
Judiciary questionnaire, which we put on the website last weekend for 
the whole public to view if it wants to know everything about Judge 
Kavanaugh as a judge and about the things of which he spoke and wrote 
documents about other than just his judicial opinions.
  Despite the fact that Judge Kavanaugh's judicial record is much more 
substantial than Justice Kagan's was, I agree that we should still ask 
the White House for documents pertaining to Judge Kavanaugh's time in 
the White House Counsel's Office. My Democratic colleagues say they 
want the White House's records. I am pleased to let them know that in 
the coming weeks, the Senate will receive what will likely be the 
largest document production in history for a Supreme Court nomination. 
I expect that the Senate could receive up to a million pages of 
documents that will be related to Judge Kavanaugh's time in the White 
House Counsel's Office. We will also see the White House's nomination 
file for Judge Kavanaugh's 2006 nomination to the DC Circuit--where, as 
I have told you, he now sits--along with records from Judge Kavanaugh's 
time in the U.S. Office of the Independent Counsel. By comparison, we 
received fewer than 180,000 pages for Justice Kagan's time in two White 
House offices.
  Let's recap. We have more than 300 of Judge Kavanaugh's actual 
judicial opinions to Justice Kagan's zero. We could have up to five 
times as many pages from his time in the White House as we received 
from Justice Kagan's time, and we will have those documents despite the 
fact that they are less necessary now than they were for Justice Kagan. 
In short, there will be much more transparency in this Supreme Court 
confirmation process than ever before.
  I am ready now to send a letter to the National Archives to request 
relevant White House Counsel documents. I would like to do this with 
the ranking member, but unfortunately she has declined this request. 
This is unfortunate. Both sides agree that the White House Counsel 
documents are relevant. I would like to get them over here as quickly 
as possible so we can begin reviewing them.
  Yet, as I noted, the Democratic leadership has already decided to 
oppose

[[Page S5250]]

Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation. They would like to slow down the 
process as much as possible. I think that explains why the ranking 
member will not sign a letter that requests documents both sides want.
  I have heard that some of my Democratic colleagues would like to 
request all of Judge Kavanaugh's records from his time as White House 
Staff Secretary, but these documents are both the least relevant to 
Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking and the most sensitive to the 
executive branch. The Staff Secretary is the in-box and out-box of the 
Oval Office. Passing through the Staff Secretary's office is a wide 
range of communications that request things like flying the flag at 
half-mast to somehow including daily lunch menus, to draft speeches, to 
sensitive national security papers.
  The Staff Secretary's primary charge is not to provide his own 
substantive work product; the Staff Secretary makes sure that the 
President sees memos and policy papers that have been produced by other 
offices in the White House. It is a very important job. It requires 
someone who is smart, someone who is hard-working, and someone who is 
talented.
  The documents that passed through Judge Kavanaugh's office while he 
was Staff Secretary are not particularly relevant to his legal thinking 
or for the consideration of whether he should be on the Supreme Court. 
It is like saying, in a sense, that the Senate Secretary--someone who 
has a very difficult and demanding job--is responsible for all of the 
positions taken by each of the Senate offices. It is absurd.
  The Senate should focus its efforts on reviewing his tens of 
thousands of pages of judicial opinions and other legal writings. Not 
only would a broad review of Staff Secretary documents be a waste of 
time, but it would also be a waste of taxpayers' money.
  Moreover, Staff Secretary documents contain some of the most 
sensitive information and advice that went directly to President Bush 
from a range of policy advisers.
  Back in 2010, both Democrats and Republicans agreed that Justice 
Kagan, because of the sensitivity of the documents, shouldn't produce 
internal communications while she was Solicitor General.
  If we are going to talk about a Kagan standard, then we need to talk 
about taking sensitive communications off the table. That is what all 
sides had agreed to in 2010 and what I will insist on now.
  I appreciate the minority leader's efforts to ensure some 
transparency and thoroughness, but let's get right down to brass tacks: 
I don't think the minority leader actually wants to read the millions 
of pages that crossed Judge Kavanaugh's desk way back in 2004 and for 
probably the 3 years he held the position of Staff Secretary.
  The minority leader said he will fight this nomination with 
everything he has, which proves what I have been talking about, and his 
request proves that he is willing to do that because this bloated 
document request is part of that fight. This is not about anything 
other than obstruction--to bury us under millions and millions of pages 
of paper so we cannot have a confirmation vote on Judge Kavanaugh this 
year.
  Liberal, dark money outside groups want to drag this confirmation out 
just as far as they can--till the end of time. I will not let them. 
This confirmation process should focus on Judge Kavanaugh's 
qualifications, not become a taxpayer-funded fishing expedition.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.


                    National Flood Insurance Program

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am almost embarrassed to talk about 
what I am going to have to talk about today. Once again, in the U.S. 
Congress, we find ourselves only days away from causing a lapse in the 
National Flood Insurance Program.
  The majority of Members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of 
Representatives understand the importance of extending this program but 
sadly some don't. You can lead some people to water, but you can't make 
them think.
  Without congressional action, ordinary Americans--the people who get 
up every day, go to work, obey the law, pay their taxes, and try to do 
the right things by their kids--are going to suffer. These folks work 
pretty hard to earn money to cover their mortgages, to pay their 
insurance premiums, to put food on the table, and to hopefully have a 
little extra when all is said and done.
  The U.S. Government made a promise to these people, these taxpaying 
Americans, that if they pay their flood insurance premiums, we will 
have their backs when they have a flood. We are about to tell them we 
lied. When you lie to Congress, it is a felony. When Congress lies to 
you, it is just politics, and that is not right.
  Unless we do something, the National Flood Insurance Program, the 
NFIP, is going to expire on July 31. Now, unless you are a rock--only 
dumber--that is in 8 days, including today.
  Every once in a while, Congress seems to just decide that keeping our 
promise to the American taxpayer isn't worth the effort. What planet 
did we parachute in from that we can't even maintain the status quo on 
something that affects the lives of millions of people and helps more 
than 22,000 communities across this great country?
  I am standing here today because the reauthorization of the NFIP has 
never been more urgent. Let me say it again. We have 8 days until 
disaster. If the NFIP is allowed to expire on July 31, Congress is 
going to be sending a clear message to the 5 million hard-working 
Americans who count on this program, and that message is three words: 
We don't care. We don't care. The unfortunate thing is, I think some--
it is a small minority, but some don't.
  Last September, when Texas and parts of Louisiana were still reeling 
from Hurricane Harvey, one Member of the U.S. Congress actually said: 
``The federal government is encouraging and subsidizing people to live 
in harm's way . . . at some point, God is telling you to move.''
  Give me a break. Are you kidding me?
  The fact is, 50 percent of our country's population and 50 percent of 
our country's jobs are along our coasts and waterways. Do you really 
think they ought to just move? Living near water is an economic 
necessity. People have been doing it since the beginning of time. It is 
as true for us now as it was in Biblical times that our economies and 
our livelihoods are tied to water.
  Let's take the Mississippi River that runs through my State. Each 
year, it sustains more than 1.3 million jobs and generates more than 
$405 billion in revenue. How many jobs are tied to the 12,000 miles of 
U.S. coastline? What do you think would be the economic impact if 
everyone who lived near one of the 3.5 million miles of rivers in this 
great country just picked up and moved tomorrow--as if they could 
afford to do so. Give me a break. I hope we never have to find out what 
would happen, but one thing is certain, nobody is going to move before 
July 31, when the NFIP expires, just because some Members of Congress 
erroneously think they ought to.
  I want to make two other points. First, if Congress allows the NFIP 
to expire, it is going to stall thousands and thousands and thousands 
of home closings. That is right. Because the law requires it, many 
lenders require homeowners to carry flood insurance. If there is no 
NFIP, then there is no flood insurance. If there is no flood insurance, 
then there is no home sale.
  The last time Congress chose to do nothing and let the National Flood 
Insurance Program expire, the NFIP lapsed for a total of 53 days. That 
was in 2010. Over those 2 months, each and every day, 1,400 home sales 
were canceled. That is every day. That is not total. That is every day. 
Think about how that is going to impact our economy. Isn't that 
special?
  Just when we finally get the U.S. economy moving again, we are going 
to step on it by letting the National Flood Insurance Program expire. 
No wonder many Americans say--and I hear it all the time--yes, there 
are some good Members of Congress. We just can't figure out what they 
are good for.
  I am also tired of hearing that the NFIP is being abused by rich 
people for their beach homes. I hear it all the time. That is a bunch 
of bovine waste. As a matter of fact, 98.5 percent--almost 99 percent--
of all NFIP policies are in counties with a median household income of 
less than $100,000, and 62

[[Page S5251]]

percent are in counties with a median household income below the 
national average of $54,000.
  You don't have to live near a body of water. If you get 22 inches of 
rain in 2 days, you are going to flood, even if you live on Pikes Peak. 
For those who live in a coastal State like my State or elsewhere on a 
floodplain, the reality is, the NFIP is the only place you can turn to 
protect your property. Floods are the most common and the most costly 
natural disaster. The damage that is done by hail, fire, wind, or a 
fallen tree is covered by a homeowner's insurance but not a flood. If 
you have a flood, it is not covered by your homeowner's policy.
  The Federal Government made a promise. We promised more than 5 
million Americans--half a million in my State alone--that we would have 
their backs. We promised them that if they would pay their hard-earned 
money into the National Flood Insurance Program through premiums, if 
they flooded, we would cover it. It is time we get our act together and 
keep that promise. The NFIP is just too important to be used as a 
political football. For millions of people in this country, in my State 
and elsewhere, this program is the only way they can protect their most 
valuable asset--their home--and, at a minimum, we owe those hard-
working Americans some peace of mind.
  I urge my colleagues to support S. 3128, my bill and the bill of Bill 
Cassidy, the senior Senator from Louisiana. It will extend the National 
Flood Insurance Program for 6 months to get us through hurricane 
season. That is all it does. It just maintains the status quo. It 
doesn't change anything. It just says the National Flood Insurance 
Program we have today is going to be extended for 6 months to get us 
through hurricane season, while we in the Senate and in the House 
continue to work on a reform bill that would rework the NFIP and turn 
it into a program that looks like somebody designed it on purpose. That 
is all my bill and Senator Cassidy's bill does.
  We simply can't afford to let the folks in our at-risk communities 
down, especially those exposed during hurricane season. Truthfully, 
they deserve better from us.


                       Nomination of John Fleming

  Mr. President, I want to speak very briefly about a friend of mine 
who has been nominated by President Trump for a very important position 
in the Federal Government. This friend's name is John Fleming, and he 
has been nominated by the President to be Assistant Secretary for the 
Economic Development Administration at the Department of Commerce.
  Dr. Fleming currently serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of 
Health IT Reform at the Department of Health and Human Services, and he 
has done a wonderful job. He has done such a great job that the 
President has asked him to take on this program at the Department of 
Commerce.
  Dr. Fleming is a public servant's public servant. He is a four-term 
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He is a physician. He went 
to the University of Mississippi, undergraduate and medical school. He 
is an entrepreneur and businessman. Aside from his family medical 
practice, his businesses support about 600 jobs in my State.
  After Dr. Fleming finished at Ole Miss and finished med school, he 
enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He served there in the Medical Corps.
  During his time in the House of Representatives, Dr. Fleming was a 
champion of our economy, a champion for families, and a champion for 
our veterans. He is a skilled physician, he is an experienced 
entrepreneur, and he is a good guy. I know Dr. John Fleming and his 
family well, and I am honored to be able to endorse his nomination.
  Just to show you that he is well-rounded--I forgot this--John also 
has a black belt in karate. I am not sure when he has time, but he is a 
well-rounded guy.
  I have no doubt--none whatsoever--that Dr. Fleming is well qualified 
to be a very fine Assistant Secretary of the Economic Development 
Administration, and I endorse his nomination categorically and 
unconditionally.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.


                               Healthcare

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, we are on the verge of the 1-year mark 
since the U.S. Senate attempted to take away healthcare from 30 million 
Americans and was told no by the American public.
  For virtually the entire time, since the passage of the Affordable 
Care Act, Republicans in the House and in the Senate engaged in an 
exercise that was futile while President Obama was in office but then 
was made possible by the election of Donald Trump--that was the repeal 
of the Affordable Care Act, which extended care to 20 million Americans 
who weren't guaranteed that health insurance would actually cover the 
things they needed and protected people who were sick or people with 
preexisting conditions from discrimination.
  When Republicans finally took over, they realized they had spent a 
whole lot of time criticizing the Affordable Care Act but not a lot of 
time figuring out what would come next, and most of 2017 was spent in 
an embarrassing series of proposals that, according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, would uninsure somewhere in the 
neighborhood of 20 to 30 million people.
  Finally, when a vote was called on the floor of the Senate, just 
enough Republican Senators chose to side with the American people, who 
want to maintain the protections of the Affordable Care Act and work to 
perfect it, that the bill failed by one vote. That 1-year mark will 
occur this weekend on Saturday.
  So a few of us wanted to come to the floor today to talk about what 
has happened since that fateful vote a year ago that was, frankly, 
celebrated all across this country, as folks who were deeply fearful 
that their healthcare was going to be ripped away from them by the 
Congress realized they might be able to rely on it for at least another 
year.
  Let me set the stage, first by reminding people of the promises that 
were made. This is President Trump shortly after his election and just 
before his swearing in. He said:

       We're going to have insurance for everybody. People covered 
     under the law can expect to have great healthcare . . . much 
     less expensive and much better.

  That is a clear promise that the President made: Everybody is going 
to have insurance. It is going to be less expensive, and it is going to 
be better--more insurance, less expensive, better quality.
  The vote that took place a year ago this Saturday would have done 
exactly the opposite. It would have kicked 30 million people off of 
insurance. It would have driven up costs for millions of Americans--
especially those people with preexisting conditions. Coverage would 
have been much worse, not much better, in part because people with 
preexisting conditions wouldn't be able to access care.
  So this promise never came true because of the vote that we took a 
year ago this Saturday.
  But, occasionally, the President does say something that is true. 
This is a picture of the celebration that the House of Representatives 
had at the White House the day they voted on the proposal that would 
rip away healthcare from 30 million Americans, before the vote that 
took place here in the Senate. There are a lot of smiling faces of 
Members of Congress who were so excited that people who had cancer or 
people who had diabetes would be unable to get healthcare insurance.
  This quote is not actually from this press conference. It is from a 
rally that the President held just a few weeks ago. He was talking 
about the fact that John McCain and some others voted against that 
proposal on the Senate floor, which caused it to fail. He said--these 
are the President's words: ``It's all right, because we have 
essentially gutted it''--the Affordable Care Act--``anyway.'' ``It's 
all right, because we have essentially gutted it anyway.''
  So that summarizes what has happened since the failed vote on the 
floor of the Senate a year ago. President Trump and his Republican 
friends in Congress, all smiling behind him, have gutted the Affordable 
Care Act, not because they want better healthcare for people but 
because they are just angry that they couldn't get the votes to do it 
here in Congress. So they are doing it by other means.
  So a few of us are going to be on the floor to talk about what has 
happened in the last year.

[[Page S5252]]

  I actually think that most of my colleagues do want better healthcare 
for their constituents, but I don't understand how any of what has 
happened, either through legislative act or through administrative 
action, gets us there--gets us to that promise that President Trump 
made in January of 2017.
  Here is what is going on. First, the President signed an Executive 
order saying that all of his agencies should start to take their own 
actions to unwind the protections of the Affordable Care Act. Then he 
stopped the marketing for the Affordable Care Act so that less people 
would know about the options that were available to them. Then the 
President came to Congress and worked with Republicans to take away one 
of the most important pillars of the Affordable Care Act--the 
requirement that healthy people buy insurance. That action alone will 
result in 13 million people losing insurance and rates going up for 10 
million Americans.
  Most recently the President authorized the sale of junk insurance 
plans all across this country--plans that don't have to cover mental 
health or prescription drugs or maternity care.
  He then cut funding even deeper for the personnel that help you find 
what insurance is right for you, and he instructed the people that 
remain to push Americans onto the junk plans.
  Then the President sent his lawyers to court to argue that Congress 
actually can't protect people with preexisting conditions because it is 
unconstitutional, which would wipe out all of the protections that 
people enjoy today.
  So it is really no mystery as to why, as the 2019 premium increases 
are coming out, they are catastrophic. They are catastrophic. Fourteen 
States have insurance companies that have requested premium increases 
of 10 to 20 percent. Connecticut is one of those. Five States have 
insurance companies that requested premium increases of 30 percent or 
more. Think about that for a second: 30 percent or more. Who can afford 
a 30-percent or a 40-percent increase in premiums? One insurance 
company requested a 94-percent increase in rates.
  In 21 of the States that have rates filed already, the insurers said 
the reason they are doing this--the reason they are passing along 
enormous premium increases--is because of the sabotage campaign that is 
being run by the President and by this Congress, all or most of it 
occurring since the failure of the repeal vote a year ago.
  It is all right, says the President. We didn't need to repeal the 
Affordable Care Act. That vote that we are marking the 1-year 
anniversary of doesn't really matter because we have essentially gutted 
it--the Affordable Care Act, the American healthcare system--anyway.
  So, finally, before I turn this over to the ranking member on the 
HELP Committee, I just want to talk about the next phase of the 
sabotage campaign.
  If Republicans in Congress can't get the American people to support a 
legislative act to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the next hope is for 
the courts to do it. That is why the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh is 
so critical to this continued campaign of trying to undermine the 
Affordable Care Act, because you probably can't get the majority of 
Members of Congress to wipe away protections for people with 
preexisting conditions, but maybe you can get the Supreme Court to do 
it.
  There is a case that I just referenced that the Trump administration 
is supporting, moving its way through the courts, that would 
invalidate--constitutionally invalidate--Congress's protections for 
people with preexisting conditions. These are people with cancer, 
diabetes, heart disease, mental illness, cerebral palsy, Crohn's 
Disease, ALS, addiction, Lupus, epilepsy, Parkinson's, and the list 
goes on.
  President Trump made clear during the campaign that he wasn't going 
to pick a judge in the mold of John Roberts, who would uphold the 
Affordable Care Act. He was going to pick judges that would rule with 
him to strike down the Affordable Care Act. That is also probably why 
he outsourced the decision on whom to pick for this vacant slot to 
political groups like the Heritage Foundation.
  So the expectation is that Brett Kavanaugh will deliver one of those 
five needed votes to strike down the laws on the books, which Congress 
can't find the votes to override, protecting people with preexisting 
conditions. The Supreme Court could take away your healthcare if you 
have a history of any of these diseases, and, if that happens, the 
results are lethal. If you have metastatic cancer and you don't have 
the protection in the law that says insurance companies can't charge 
you more because you are sick, a recent study shows that you will be 
charged a rate of $142,000 higher than what you pay today. If you are 
an individual with diabetes, your increase could be 137 percent on top 
of what you are paying now.
  So these are the stakes. These are the stakes as we prepare to vote 
on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, and it is all in service of this very 
intentional, very deliberate, very planful campaign of sabotage.
  A year ago this Saturday the American people got their way, and this 
body decided not to repeal the Affordable Care Act because people like 
the fact that 20 million people have insurance. People like the fact 
that people with preexisting conditions are protected. That night, the 
American people got their way, but since then, the President and this 
Congress have been working to undermine it, and the next step in that 
plan is the elevation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. It is 
important for us to come to the floor and explain what the stakes are.
  I yield is floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from 
Connecticut. I, too, join him in being very proud, as we were a year 
ago, to see Congress stand with families across the country who did not 
want to see their healthcare rolled back.
  A year ago, as Senator Murphy said, President Trump tried to make 
good on his campaign promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to 
jeopardize healthcare for millions of people. A year ago, the President 
tried to jam TrumpCare through Congress. It was a harmful, mean-
spirited bill that would have spiked premiums and gutted Medicaid and 
scrapped protections for people with preexisting conditions, which 
would put families back at the mercy of big insurance companies.
  But people across the country stood up, they spoke out, and they made 
it absolutely clear that they did not want President Trump to take away 
their healthcare or give power back to those insurance companies.
  During that debate, I heard personal stories from patients and 
families all over my State of Washington who were concerned about 
TrumpCare because it would make it harder to get the care they needed.
  I heard stories like Julie's. Julie has a genetic condition. As a 
result of that, she has had four--four--different types of cancer. She 
has had four different organs removed during treatment. She has had her 
diet severely restricted, and her life has dramatically changed. But 
she is a fighter. She had excellent care, and she ultimately won each 
of those four battles with cancer.
  However, without protections for people with preexisting conditions, 
her healthcare costs could skyrocket. If President Trump had his way, 
Julie could not get the care she needed, and, by the way, she is not 
the only one.
  I also heard from families like the family of a woman named Vanessa. 
When Vanessa was pregnant, she learned that her daughter would be born 
with significant health challenges. In fact, her daughter Cheyenne had 
her first surgery when she was just 20 days old, and she would have two 
more before her very first birthday. Even though Cheyenne was born with 
preexisting conditions that would be costly to treat for years to come, 
Vanessa, her mom, was able to get insurance through our State exchange 
and get her daughter the care she needed. But if President Trump had 
his way, that might not be possible.
  Last year, in the midst of the TrumpCare debate, I shared Vanessa's 
story, Julie's story, and many stories from families in Washington 
State, and I heard even more that I would love to share. People from 
other States across the country were also reaching out and letting 
their Senators know how damaging TrumpCare would be for their

[[Page S5253]]

family and urging them to vote against it. It worked.
  Last year we came together and gave President Trump's healthcare 
repeal scheme a big thumbs down. Unfortunately, that has not stopped 
President Trump from doing everything he can to sabotage families' 
healthcare from the Oval Office.
  When he couldn't jam through TrumpCare, instead he jammed through a 
partisan tax bill that gave cuts to big insurance companies and drug 
companies and paid for them with steps that even his former Health and 
Human Services Secretary confessed would drive up families' premiums.
  He slashed investments that help people understand their healthcare 
options and get coverage.
  He handed power back to the insurance companies by expanding 
loopholes for junk plans and making it easier to ignore patient 
protections, including protections, by the way, for women, for seniors, 
and for people with preexisting conditions.
  The Trump administration is even refusing to defend preexisting 
protections in court, both abandoning its duty to defend the law and 
ignoring the will of the people across the country who want them to 
fight for these protections.
  While President Trump has broken a lot of promises, it is clear that 
he has never wavered in his promise to undermine healthcare for our 
families, and he has never failed to put insurance companies ahead of 
patients.
  That is why his decision to nominate Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme 
Court is such an alarming omen for families' healthcare.
  As a candidate, President Trump left no question that he would 
nominate far-right Supreme Court Justices who would strike down the 
Affordable Care Act and jeopardize care for millions of families. To be 
sure that candidates met that extreme ideological standard, he had them 
vetted by extreme, ideological conservative groups.
  We know that President Trump chose Judge Kavanaugh because he has no 
doubt that Kavanaugh will support his efforts to sabotage family 
healthcare and make it harder for people to get the care they need.
  We know that preexisting condition protections are on the line.
  We know that stopping Kavanaugh's confirmation isn't a matter of 
partisan politics. For many families in our country, it is a matter of 
life and death.
  We know we can stop it if people across this country do exactly what 
they did to beat TrumpCare--stand up, speak out, and make clear that 
families who didn't want their healthcare stripped away last year don't 
want it stripped away this year either. I have heard from many families 
concerned about this, and I know others are sharing their stories as 
well.

  So I hope that our Republican colleagues are listening even more 
closely than they were last year and that more of them will join us on 
the side of patients and families, not the President on the side of 
insurance companies.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues from Washington and 
Connecticut for being here, for speaking out, and for being so 
remarkable in their persistence in defending America's concerns about 
healthcare. I want to add my voice for just a few moments, if I might.
  Let me look back 8 years to when I first joined the Senate in 2010. 
At that point, the Affordable Care Act was barely a year old. Since 
then, in the early years of the Affordable Care Act, we saw some very 
positive patterns: More Americans gained access to health insurance; 
the growth of healthcare costs slowed; insurance markets put in place 
under the ACA proved to be resilient, despite repeated challenges. As a 
result of the ACA, 20 million more Americans, including 38,000 
Delawareans, gained access to high-quality, comprehensive healthcare 
coverage.
  It is through the ACA exchange that my own family and I get our 
healthcare, and so many others in Delaware have a chance to get access 
to healthcare. The 190,000 people, in my little State of 900,000 
people, who have preexisting conditions no longer had to worry about 
being denied coverage, and lifetime caps were a thing of the past. This 
matters; it has saved lives.
  Just listen briefly to the story of Nicole from my little hometown of 
Hockessin, DE, a small farming town of just a few thousand people. 
Nicole's 3-year-old daughter was born with cystic fibrosis, a horrible 
disease that robs children and people of the ability to breathe. 
Nicole's 3-year-old daughter with cystic fibrosis spent at least an 
hour a day getting breathing treatments from her mother. At $5,000 a 
month for her medications--not cheap--Nicole was confident that without 
the ACA she would have exceeded her annual caps and her medical 
expenses well before the end of the year.
  Nicole, in reaching out to me, made it clear that without the 
consumer protections of the Affordable Care Act, she would have had one 
of three choices: hope she would qualify for Medicaid--unlikely, due to 
her income; go into debt to pay for her daughter's treatments; or stop 
giving her daughter some of the medication she depends on to save her 
life. All of that assumed that her daughter's cystic fibrosis wasn't 
considered a preexisting condition that would prevent her from getting 
any insurance at all. Because of that circumstance, Nicole's story 
exemplifies the life-changing gains and positive trends that the ACA 
provided.
  Unfortunately, there were some other challenges as well, which I will 
summarize quickly, that have developed over time.
  Let me transition to where we are today. Today we are in a place 
where, just a year ago, consistent, repeated efforts after the 2016 
election by Republicans in Congress to repeal without a plan to replace 
the ACA resulted in a situation where, as my colleague from Connecticut 
has laid out, the Trump administration has done its best to roll back 
ways in which progress was made to extend quality, affordable 
healthcare to more Americans.
  After a number of efforts to repeal the law failed last year, thanks 
to the American people who stood up and had their voices heard, the 
administration has decided to take a different approach--a slow and 
steady unraveling and undermining of the protections that made the ACA 
work.
  It started with a decision to stop cost-sharing reduction payments, 
which help working families afford their premiums and access care. It 
continued when they changed the rules and encouraged people to sign up 
for plans that didn't have all the benefits and consumer protections of 
the ACA--really, junk plans--which made it possible to bring back 
discrimination against women and those with preexisting conditions. It 
culminated last month with something that was done in a fly-by-night 
way and may not have been visible at all to my constituents and 
viewers: a decision to no longer defend the core components of the ACA 
in court, including protections for those with preexisting conditions, 
in a lawsuit brought by 20 attorneys general from States that 
overwhelmingly opposed the ACA. This decision was so shocking that 
three career Justice Department attorneys withdrew from the case, and 
one with over 20 years' experience resigned from his job. Make no 
mistake, this was the administration sabotaging the ACA and our 
healthcare system. President Trump even admitted at a campaign event, 
just cited by my colleague from Connecticut, that he had gutted the 
ACA.

  This may resonate with the President's base. It may resonate with 
people he hopes will vote him back into office in the future election. 
But for millions of families across the country and in my home State, 
losing protections against preexisting condition discrimination is a 
death sentence.
  It would be devastating for Nicole and her daughter, whom I described 
before. It would be devastating for Kim from my hometown of residence, 
Wilmington, a thyroid cancer survivor who is now able to get insurance. 
Because her cancer isn't considered a preexisting condition under the 
Affordable Care Act, she is not subject to preexisting condition 
discrimination. In my small State of Delaware, gutting protections for 
preexisting conditions would leave one in five at risk of skyrocketing 
health insurance costs or losing coverage altogether.
  This lawsuit impacts every corner of America's healthcare system, and 
the

[[Page S5254]]

fact that our administration is not defending the law of the land is a 
shocking development. It impacts not just those who get their 
healthcare through the ACA exchanges. It would impact 150 million 
Americans who get their health insurance through their employer because 
it would eliminate protections against lifetime and annual limits on 
care. It would impact seniors on Medicare who would see increased 
prescription drug costs. It would impact Americans who depend on free 
preventive services, like cancer screenings and flu shots, because 
those policy components of the ACA would be eliminated. It would impact 
young people who would lose the right to stay on their parents' health 
insurance until age 26.
  These are just a few of the devastating impacts if the Texas v. 
United States lawsuit is successful in ripping out what is left of the 
protections of the ACA. It would have a real and tangible impact on 
families in my State of Delaware and across our country. That is why I 
am glad to support a resolution proposed by my colleagues Senators 
Manchin, Casey, McCaskill, and others to defend the constitutionality 
of preexisting condition protections in our healthcare system. This is 
critical to the well-being and the health of the families we represent.
  My Democratic colleagues and I know the ACA was not perfect when 
passed. I have heard from small business owners in my home State about 
some of the limitations due to increases in cost and the ways in which 
they wish we had a more robust tax credit for small businesses, ways 
they wish we would work together to perfect the ACA. That is why I came 
to the floor time and again in my first 4 years here, seeking 
colleagues across the aisle who were willing to work with us to make 
the Affordable Care Act better.
  Instead of working to tear down the ACA, we should have been working 
to address challenges with affordability and coverage, increasing tax 
credits for small businesses, and making it stronger and more 
sustainable. Instead of sabotaging the care millions of Americans have 
depended on, we should have ensured there was more competition in the 
marketplace, especially in small States like my own. I wish we had, 
instead, taken a path of pursuing commonsense regulatory reforms and 
cost containment efforts to slow the rate of growth of healthcare 
costs.
  It is not too late for that. It is still not impossible that we could 
set aside the divisive partisan rhetoric and that this administration 
will abandon its underhanded attempts to sabotage this healthcare law 
and, instead, focus on pursuing constructive, bipartisan fixes.
  The bottom line is the Affordable Care Act has helped millions of 
Americans--like Nicole and Kim, whose stories I shared with you--live 
healthier and more secure lives. I am not optimistic, but I insist on 
remaining hopeful that there is still time for us to do our job on a 
bipartisan basis and secure healthcare for all of America.
  As happened roughly a year ago next month, the floor of this Senate 
can still be moved by the voices of Americans who would say to this 
administration: Stop your refusal to defend the ACA. Let's move forward 
in a positive way, together.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, today I join my Democratic colleagues to 
condemn the Trump administration's efforts to sabotage the Affordable 
Care Act.
  Not so long ago, Donald Trump ran for President, promising better, 
cheaper healthcare for everyone. But instead of making anything better, 
President Trump is making everything in this regard worse.
  Big corporations are raking in trillion-dollar tax cuts while the 
forgotten Americans the President promised to protect are drowning in 
higher premiums, higher deductibles, and higher prescription drug 
costs. It is time to call out who is responsible for those soaring 
healthcare costs.
  Make no mistake, while the media is riveted on the President's every 
tweet and the Russia investigation's every turn, the Trump 
administration is doing everything it can to make healthcare less 
affordable and less accessible to the American people.
  When you turn on the news, you don't hear about the millions of 
Americans who have lost their coverage under President Trump's watch. 
You don't hear about how prices for the top 10 diabetes drugs have 
spiked over 25 percent, despite the President's wild claims that drug 
companies will voluntarily lower their prices. You will not hear about 
the administration's cynical efforts to destabilize our insurance 
markets and send premiums skyrocketing, like the Health and Human 
Services Department's recent freezing of the risk adjustment program.
  Look, healthcare policy may be complicated, but there is nothing 
complicated about the idea that healthcare is a human right. There is 
nothing controversial about the idea that cancer patients shouldn't be 
price gouged as they battle the worst illness of their life. There is 
nothing radical about the idea that in the most prosperous country on 
Earth, every American deserves quality, affordable healthcare.
  I know my Republican colleagues have no desire to remind voters how 
they spent the past year, but the American people aren't going to 
forget it. They aren't going to forget how many times Republicans spent 
in a year pushing policies that would have left 32 million people 
uninsured, with vote after vote after vote to repeal the Affordable 
Care Act. They aren't going to forget how Republicans tried to defund 
Planned Parenthood and deny millions of lower income women access to 
basic care.
  They aren't going to forget how TrumpCare would have slapped older 
consumers with a punishing age tax and eliminated the Affordable Care 
Act's essential health benefits provision, which requires all health 
plans to cover basic things like prescription drugs, maternity care, 
and visits to specialists. They aren't going to forget how TrumpCare 
slashed tax credits that helped middle-class families purchase coverage 
or how it would have ended Medicaid as we know it, abandoning seniors 
in nursing homes, pregnant women, disabled Americans, and the most 
vulnerable.
  Nor will Americans forget how President Trump turned his back on 
patients with preexisting conditions--which basically means someone had 
an illness in their life or was born with a birth defect and, 
therefore, had what insurance companies considered to be a preexisting 
condition that they could discriminate against and either not provide 
insurance coverage or have skyrocketing costs in order to get the 
coverage.
  As a candidate, and then as President, Trump promised again and again 
that he would uphold protections for preexisting conditions. He went so 
far as to say that TrumpCare would be ``every bit as good on pre-
existing conditions as Obamacare.'' So much for that. The Trump 
administration is now, as we speak, arguing in a Federal court that 
these protections are unconstitutional, and you can guess what 
Republican colleagues in Congress are doing about it--absolutely 
nothing.
  Instead of working to make healthcare more affordable, they are 
cheerleading efforts by the Trump administration to push junk insurance 
plans on consumers, ignoring the attacks on our health insurance 
markets that have sent premiums skyrocketing, and standing in silence 
as the Trump administration makes the case that the Affordable Care 
Act's protections for preexisting conditions are unconstitutional.
  Republicans' reckless abandonment of families with preexisting 
conditions is even more concerning, given President Trump's nomination 
of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. This is a judge with a 
long history of ruling against consumers, siding with corporate 
interests, and assailing the constitutionality of the Affordable Care 
Act. If Republicans were really concerned about protecting patients 
with preexisting conditions, they would put the brakes on this 
nomination. Instead, they have left the health and financial security 
of millions of patients with preexisting conditions in the President's 
hands.
  There are nearly 3.8 million people in my home State of New Jersey 
with preexisting conditions. I have had the opportunity to meet with 
some of them in recent months. They are outraged that we are even 
having this debate. They are afraid this President could take us back 
to a time when having a

[[Page S5255]]

history of asthma or diabetes meant being denied coverage or dropping 
your plan at any moment.
  Let me tell you about the folks I met with recently in Belleville, 
NJ. I heard from Ann, who is a survivor of sexual assault and today 
suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. If President Trump gets 
his way, insurers could once again charge her more for coverage. I 
can't think of a clearer instance of victim-blaming than charging 
victims of sexual assault higher premiums because of the trauma they 
endured.
  Then there is Mirnaly, who was 7 months pregnant when she suffered 
her first stroke. Years later, she suffered another stroke while caring 
for her autistic son. Without the Affordable Care Act, insurance 
companies could deny coverage to moms like her who have had complicated 
pregnancies.
  And of course there is 4-year-old Ethan, who is more concerned about 
which dinosaur to play with than the pacemaker that is keeping him 
alive. Before the Affordable Care Act, children like Ethan were 
blacklisted from insurance companies for life. How do you tell a 4-
year-old that his President no longer believes in protecting children 
like him? I wish my Republican colleagues could answer that question 
for Ann, Mirnaly, and for Ethan--as a matter of fact, for all of us.
  Fortunately, the American people are smarter than the majority gives 
them credit for. They know what is at stake. They know who is 
responsible for soaring prescription drug costs, for sky-high 
deductibles, for shrinking paychecks, and for soaring insurance 
premiums. It is the people in charge.
  The Republican Congress has had ample time to deliver better, cheaper 
health coverage to all Americans. Instead, they have used every moment 
to try to force consumers to pay more for less care. They have refused 
to protect patients with preexisting conditions. They have shown zero 
interest in helping struggling families pay their bills.
  They have handed trillion-dollar tax cuts to big corporations and 
wealthy CEOs. Big old corporations aren't using this windfall to raise 
wages. Health insurance companies aren't using this money to reduce 
premiums. Drug companies aren't using this money to lower prices.
  Republicans said the Trump tax cuts would grow paychecks and solve 
all of our economic problems. Thus far, corporations have spent $650 
billion buying back their own stock while workers' wages shrink in the 
face of soaring costs. Republicans promised the Sun and the Moon with 
these tax cuts, but here on planet Earth, we know that trickle-down 
economics doesn't work. In all my years serving the people of New 
Jersey, I have never seen a corporate tax cut pay for a colonoscopy or 
cover a cancer patient's prescription drugs.
  Americans deserve real solutions that will protect their families 
from rising premiums, deductibles, and prescription drug bills. 
Democrats are committed to delivering on those solutions. We have 
always been crystal clear about what motivates our work on healthcare. 
We believe that all Americans deserve affordable healthcare, no matter 
where they live, how much money they make, or what healthcare 
conditions they face. That is what I have spent my life fighting for, 
and I won't stop until we achieve universal coverage for every man, 
woman, and child across this great Nation. In 2018, voters are going to 
remember who fought to protect affordable healthcare and who worked 
relentlessly to undermine it.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.


          Amendments Nos. 3407 and 3430 to Amendment No. 3399

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
following amendments be called up en bloc and reported by number: 
Schatz amendment No. 3407; Kennedy amendment No. 3430. I further ask 
consent that following the remarks of Senators Baldwin, Durbin, Schatz, 
and Kennedy, the Senate vote in relation to the Schatz and Kennedy 
amendments in the order listed and that there be no second-degree 
amendments in order to the amendments prior to the votes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the amendments by number.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Alaska [Ms. Murkowski], for others, 
     proposes amendments numbered 3407 and 3430 en bloc to 
     amendment No. 3399.

  The amendments are as follows:


                           AMENDMENT NO. 3407

 (Purpose: To provide for a report on facilities of the Department of 
          the Interior damaged by certain volcanic eruptions)

       At the appropriate place in division A, insert the 
     following:


  damage to department of the interior facilities by volcanic eruption

       Sec. ____.  (a) Not later than 60 days after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Interior shall 
     submit to Congress a report on each facility and related 
     infrastructure of the Department of the Interior damaged by a 
     volcanic eruption covered by a major disaster declared by the 
     President in calendar year 2018 in accordance with section 
     401 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency 
     Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5170) (referred to in this section 
     as a ``covered facility'').
       (b) The report submitted under subsection (a) shall 
     include--
       (1) an inventory of all covered facilities;
       (2) a description of--
       (A) any closures of covered facilities; and
       (B) the estimated impact on visitorship to covered 
     facilities open to the public as a result of a volcanic 
     eruption; and
       (3) a plan--
       (A) to restore or replace covered facilities; and
       (B) to restore visitorship levels to covered facilities 
     open to the public to historic visitorship levels.
       (c) In preparing the plan required under subsection (b)(3), 
     the Secretary of the Interior shall--
       (1) engage the community in which the covered facility is 
     located, including the State and units of local government; 
     and
       (2) include the estimated costs of carrying out the 
     activities described in the plan.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 3430

    (Purpose: To provide amounts for inspection of foreign seafood 
       manufacturers and field examinations of imported seafood)

       On page 370, line 20, insert ``, of which no less than 
     $15,000,000 shall be used for inspections of foreign seafood 
     manufacturers and field examinations of imported seafood'' 
     after ``Affairs''.

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, we 
expect these votes to occur shortly after 6 p.m.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.


                               Healthcare

  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues 
because this week marks the 1-year anniversary of Senator McCain's 
casting the deciding vote against the healthcare repeal legislation.
  I, too, voted against that legislation, as I did on a number of very 
partisan efforts by President Trump and congressional Republicans. I 
did so because the people of Wisconsin did not send me to Washington to 
take away people's healthcare coverage. They have consistently sent a 
clear message that they want us to work across the party aisle to make 
things better and not worse.
  As I said throughout last year's debate and have said to this day, 
the people of Wisconsin want both parties in Congress to work together 
to make things better by stabilizing the health insurance market, 
making healthcare more affordable, and taking on rising prescription 
drug prices.
  I strongly believe that if both parties look past the partisan debate 
in Washington, we can find common ground on solutions that work for the 
American people. Each and every one of the healthcare repeal bills that 
were pushed by the President and congressional Republicans faced 
opposition from the American people because all of them would have done 
the same thing--they would have taken healthcare coverage away from 
millions of Americans and made people pay more for less care. They 
would have gutted protections for those with preexisting conditions. 
They would have forced older adults to pay an age tax. They would have 
cut benefits for Medicaid for our most vulnerable people, like senior 
citizens and even our veterans. Put simply, this would have taken us 
back to the days when insurance companies set the rules.
  Wisconsin families and families across our entire country let their 
voices be heard to the Congress, people like Chelsey from Seymour, WI, 
whose daughter Zoe was born with a congenital heart defect and had to 
have open heart surgery within 5 days of her birth. Chelsey wrote to me 
and said: ``I'm pleading to you as a mother to fight for the . . . kids 
in Wisconsin with preexisting health conditions.''

[[Page S5256]]

  Together, we fought to protect the guaranteed healthcare protections 
that people depend on. Together, we fought the repeal plans to cut and 
cap Medicaid, putting care at risk for everyone who depends on it, from 
a loved one who depends on Medicaid for nursing care, to a disabled 
child who relies on Medicaid funding at school. Together, we fought 
repeal plans that would have increased the number of uninsured 
Americans.
  Even defeating the legislative efforts that would have made things 
worse for our families didn't end the threat to the American people. 
President Trump has been trying to do what congressional Republicans 
couldn't. He has been sabotaging our healthcare system by undermining 
the guaranteed health protections and access to affordable care. He 
ended the critical cost-sharing reduction payments that make healthcare 
more affordable for almost 90,000 Wisconsinites. His administration 
again slashed funding to States for outreach efforts that help more 
people sign up for healthcare. Trusted navigator programs like those in 
Wisconsin have had their funding cut by nearly 90 percent in the last 2 
years. This will mean fewer people in rural Wisconsin will receive the 
support they need to obtain affordable coverage.
  President Trump's sabotage of the healthcare market has created 
severe instability and already contributed to a 36-percent premium 
spike in Wisconsin this year.
  This damage is not enough for Trump's administration, as it has also 
proposed a plan to allow insurance companies to sell what we call junk 
plans that could increase costs and reduce access to quality coverage 
for millions of Americans, harm people with preexisting health 
conditions, and force premium increases on older adults. These junk 
plans once again let big insurance companies write the rules and could 
exclude basic care, including hospitalization, prescription drugs, 
mental health services, substance abuse treatment, and maternity care.
  It still does not end there. Legislative repeal efforts and executive 
branch sabotage have now moved to the judicial branch. Wisconsin's 
Governor and attorney general sued to strike down the entire Affordable 
Care Act last month. Last month, the Trump administration supported 
this repeal effort by going to court to take away guaranteed 
protections and raise costs for Americans with preexisting conditions. 
If the lawsuit succeeds, insurance companies will once again be able to 
discriminate against people with preexisting conditions by denying them 
coverage or charging exorbitant premiums.
  President Trump is threatening guaranteed and affordable healthcare 
coverage for more than 133 million Americans and over 2 million 
Wisconsinites with preexisting conditions. In fact, as a Kaiser Health 
report made clear last week, if the Affordable Care Act's protections 
for people with preexisting medical conditions are struck down in 
court, Wisconsin is among a number of States that have the most to 
lose. According to Kaiser, one out of every four Wisconsinites has a 
preexisting condition, and they cannot afford to have the healthcare 
they depend on threatened. When I was a child, I was branded with the 
words ``preexisting condition'' after a serious childhood illness.
  I am going to continue fighting to make sure that no family has to 
choose between helping their child get better or going bankrupt. Again, 
the people of Wisconsin did not send me to Washington to take away 
people's healthcare, and I will continue my fight against these 
relentless efforts to make things worse for Wisconsin families.
  This issue is personal to me. I know it is very personal to the 
individuals and families in Wisconsin. No parent, no grandparent, no 
foster parent should lie awake at night wondering if the healthcare 
they have for their child today will be there tomorrow. That is why I 
will continue my work to protect it.
  Last year, the American people sent a loud message to Washington. I 
heard it. And they are sending the same simple message today: Protect 
our care.
  I yield, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant Democratic leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is interesting--I listened to my 
colleague from Wisconsin, which is my neighboring State, talk about her 
personal and family experience with healthcare. I think every one of us 
has a story--it is our own personal story--or knows somebody in our 
family who has a medical history, tells a story of whether they had the 
proper care at the proper time, whether the family could afford it. And 
then there is the big question: Can you buy health insurance if you 
have a child with diabetes, if you have a wife who is suffering from 
cancer and survived? Can you buy health insurance?
  The interesting thing--I bet the Senator found this because I know 
she is traveling all over her State of Wisconsin--this issue doesn't go 
away because people's worry over it doesn't go away. They are worried 
about whether they can afford to buy good health insurance. They are 
worried about whether they can afford to buy prescription drugs. It is 
that insecurity, that economic insecurity about healthcare that really 
continues to make this the biggest issue year in, year out in America.
  I thank my colleague from Wisconsin for telling her story and for 
really giving my speech. So I am going to condense it and just say a 
few things she might not have touched on. And I thank her for her 
contribution earlier today.
  It happened in my life at a very early age. My wife and I got 
married. I was in law school. God sent us a beautiful little girl, and 
she had a very serious medical problem. We were living here in 
Washington, DC, and didn't have health insurance. I want to tell you 
that you have never felt more helpless in your life than to be a new 
father with that brand-new baby who desperately needs medical care and 
not have health insurance. I will never forget it as long as I live. I 
lived in such fear from that point forward of not having health 
insurance coverage that I did crazy things--getting health insurance at 
two different places of employment just to make sure I never lost it. 
It scared me that much, and I still remember that fear. I wonder if the 
people who are debating this issue about the Affordable Care Act ever 
lived through it themselves, because if they did, they wouldn't be 
standing here saying that we can do away with the Affordable Care Act.

  We know what happens if you eliminate the Affordable Care Act. 
Millions of Americans lose their health insurance. Millions of 
Americans find health insurance not affordable. Millions of Americans 
are desperate for protection, no longer have it, and can't access the 
most basic, quality healthcare that every American should expect.
  We had this debate. A new President came in and said: The first thing 
I am going to do is to get rid of ObamaCare, to get rid of the 
Affordable Care Act. Well, the obvious question was this: Could he do 
it?
  It looked like he might be able to. The Republicans controlled the 
House and the Senate, and when they were in the majority with a 
Democratic President, at least on 50 or 60 different occasions, the 
House Republicans voted to abolish ObamaCare.
  It was pointless because the Senate wasn't going to take it up, and 
the President would never sign that bill into law, but you knew what 
the sentiment was. We are getting rid of it. We are getting rid of it. 
We heard about that year after year. We passed the Affordable Care Act 
in 2010, and for year after year all the Republicans could say was 
this: Get rid of it. Get rid of it.
  Then came that moment when, figuratively, the dog caught the bus, and 
they had an opportunity to present on the floor of the Senate an 
alternative. What is it that you want to replace the Affordable Care 
Act with? We said to our Republican friends: You are elected to this 
body as legislators. Let's see your legislation.
  It turns out that they didn't have any. They just wanted to make sure 
ObamaCare was gone, but they couldn't find a replacement, and they 
couldn't answer the basic question as to how they would provide health 
insurance--or affordable health insurance--for the millions of people 
who would lose coverage.
  I remember the night--it was early in the morning it was--when we had 
the vote--the vote--on whether to eliminate ObamaCare. Two Republican 
Senators had already voted with us, but

[[Page S5257]]

the critical third vote walked in that door, and his name was John 
McCain. He stood in that well and give a ``no'' sign with his thumb, 
and that was it. The Affordable Care Act lived for another day.
  Thank goodness he did it. Thank goodness he and two of his colleagues 
had the courage to do it, to stand up and say: If you can't replace 
ObamaCare with something better, for goodness' sake, stick with it, fix 
it. That didn't happen.
  After that vote, there was a determined effort at every level of the 
Trump administration to do away with ObamaCare. If they couldn't kill 
it on the floor of the Senate, they were going to kill it in many 
different ways.
  They limited the period of time when you signed up to renew your 
health insurance. They wanted to have fewer and fewer days available, 
hoping fewer and fewer people would take advantage of it.
  They eliminated the navigators, the advisers who help people pick the 
right health insurance plan. They didn't want to give advice. They 
closed down the telephones to the agencies, where people would call 
saying: Well, what is my right under the Affordable Care Act?
  They did everything they could think of to eliminate ObamaCare and 
make it more difficult for people to sign up for it, but still people 
signed up. Many people realized it was their only chance--their only 
chance--to get health insurance.
  The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are determined 
to this day to get rid of it, and they have a new approach. If they 
can't kill it outright in the Senate and they can't kill it by 
President Trump's tweets, they are going to kill it in court.
  Here is what they decided to do. Twenty attorneys general, starting 
with Texas--and I see my friend from Texas on the floor; the leading 
attorney general is from Texas--filed a lawsuit. Here is what they 
said. It is unconstitutional to say that you cannot discriminate 
against people because they have preexisting conditions.
  Now, those are three negative words. So let me try to translate this 
Helsinki style into something you might understand.
  What they basically said is this: We don't believe the Constitution 
can stop an insurance company from discriminating against people with a 
medical history, and we are going to court to prove it. And they have, 
with the support of the Trump administration.
  They are trying to find a way to eliminate the protection of people 
with preexisting conditions so that they can buy affordable quality 
health insurance.
  What an amazing mission that is--that these attorneys general and 
this administration want to find a way to deny health insurance 
coverage to millions of Americans or make it so expensive that they 
could never afford it.
  What are they thinking? Don't they represent the same flesh-and-blood 
Americans as everyone else? Don't they represent families, as I do, and 
all of us do, who have someone in their family with a medical history? 
I guess a third of American families qualify for that. Yet they want to 
say that those people should be discriminated against. Why? Because of 
the misfortune they had of being born with a congenital birth defect or 
the problem they had because they conquered cancer but always worry 
about its coming back.

  These are the things that my Republican friends say: Well, that is 
the way it goes. Good luck in the insurance market. We are not going to 
protect you.
  They say what it is all about is choice. It is pretty easy to have 
good choices in life when you are healthy or wealthy. But if you don't 
fit in those two categories, your choices are extremely limited. People 
find themselves with only bad choices if they are not healthy or 
wealthy and they don't have the protection of the law. They find health 
insurance premiums they cannot afford. When they find a premium they 
can afford and start to look at the health insurance policy, it turns 
out that it doesn't cover much.
  They also find themselves in positions where, as I mentioned earlier, 
someone in the family has a medical history. The wife has a medical 
history and you can't buy a family plan that you can afford for the 
rest of the family. That is the reality of the world the Republicans 
envision us moving to. Oh, it may be some great economic market model, 
but it doesn't work in reality--not in the reality of people who are 
born with illnesses they have no control over and who spend their lives 
fighting them and need a helping hand.
  The Affordable Care Act gave them that helping hand. The Trump 
administration and Republicans in Congress have been determined from 
the beginning to put an end to this protection, to eliminate health 
insurance for more and more Americans, and to make it unaffordable for 
so many families. Is that why they ran for Congress? Is that why they 
ran for the Senate--to go home and say: Well, sorry folks, but because 
of my principles, you don't get health insurance. You can't afford the 
health insurance being offered to you, or you can buy a junk policy 
that just will not be there when you need it.
  Is that what America is all about?
  This is interesting to me, and I will close with this. The Chicago 
Medical Society represents the doctors in the greater Chicagoland area. 
I have come to know it. It is one of the best medical associations in 
our State. It is more progressive than most and more thoughtful than 
most. I really salute them time and again.
  They did a poll of their members, and they asked them: Where do you 
think this is going?
  Well, first they said: We believe that people have a right to 
quality, affordable healthcare--these are doctors--a right to quality, 
affordable healthcare. Second, they said there are programs that work, 
like Medicare, programs that people trust.
  The premise behind Medicare is very basic. If you are of an eligible 
age, you get health insurance. We make sure of it. We guarantee to you 
that you are going to get quality care through a government-run 
insurance program. There are a lot of Republicans who would like to see 
Medicare and Medicaid go away, too, but America wouldn't. America 
believes in it. I believe in the principle behind both of those plans--
that, as Americans, we should care for one another, give each and every 
family a chance, and make certain that, at the end of the day, 
healthcare is not just a privilege for those who happen to be wealthy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to talk for a second about an 
amendment I have to the minibus appropriations package.
  I am going to talk very briefly about the amendment, but, first, I 
want to respond to some of the comments of my friend the Senator from 
Illinois, for whom I have great respect. I just disagree with him on 
this subject of the Affordable Care Act, and I want to respond briefly.
  Let me tell you what Republicans believe, at least most Republicans 
whom I know. Most Republicans I know believe what Americans believe, 
and that is that in our country, if you are hungry, we feed you. If you 
are homeless, we house you. If you are too poor to be sick, we will pay 
for your doctor. We in America, Republicans and Democrats, put our 
money where our mouth is. We spend $1 trillion a year helping people 
who are less fortunate than we are, and that separates our country from 
every other country in the world.
  Frankly, that is why so many of our neighbors across this great 
planet want to come to America. It is because we care about other 
people. I mean, when is the last time you heard of anybody trying to 
sneak into China or Russia? That is why they want to come to America.
  But when a government program, though well intended, isn't working, 
we owe it to the American taxpayer to explain to them why, and the 
Affordable Care Act has not worked. I wish it had.
  I had the highest hopes. I remember when the Senate debated it. Call 
me a nerd, but I watched it on C-SPAN. I wanted it to work. We were 
promised: Look, as a result of this act, we are going to make health 
insurance accessible, and we are going to make it affordable.
  I said: Man, I will take a dozen of those. We have been trying to do 
that for 50 years around here. Maybe this time we will get it right.
  It was offered with the best of intentions. You will never hear me 
criticize

[[Page S5258]]

President Obama for an act of patriotism. He was very well intended. He 
wanted it to work. It wasn't a question of bad motives. It was just a 
bad idea.
  You know, 150 years ago, doctors used to bleed their patients with 
the best of intentions, but they stopped doing it because it was a bad 
idea.
  Now, we can do better. I agree with the objectives from the Senator 
of Illinois. Let me say it again that I have great respect for him, but 
the American people deserve a health insurance program that looks like 
somebody designed it on purpose, and that is not the Affordable Care 
Act. I wish it were, but it is not. We can do better.


                           Amendment No. 3430

  Mr. President, let me hit a lick about my amendment to the minibus 
appropriation package, H.R. 6147.
  Here is the problem. We have a lot of foreign seafood imported into 
the United States, and some of it is very dangerous. I am afraid to say 
that a lot of it is very dangerous. I am unhappy to say that.
  Our FDA is in charge of making sure that this foreign seafood is 
safe. It spends $11.9 million a year to do that. My amendment would 
give the FDA an additional $3.1 million, and here is why it is 
important.
  Last year, the United States imported $21.5 billion worth of 
seafood--not million, but $21.5 billion. Now, the FDA is supposed to 
inspect it to make sure that it is safe before you eat it. The FDA does 
the best it can, but they are only able, with the small amount of 
money, relatively speaking, that it has, to test a very small sample, 2 
percent.
  Ninety-eight percent of the foreign seafood coming in is not even 
tested. When it is tested, the FDA often finds that it contains 
salmonella, it contains listeria, it contains dirt, and it contains 
illegal drugs, like antibiotics.
  What does that mean?
  Well, if you eat enough of the stuff, aside from the fact that you 
could grow an extra ear or glow in the dark, then, you develop a 
resistance to antibiotics. If you eat bad seafood, particularly shrimp 
full of these antibiotics, and you get sick, you get an infection, 
maybe an abscessed tooth. You go to the doctor, the doctor gives you 
antibiotics, and they don't work anymore.
  Now, remember that we are only examining 2 percent of all seafood 
imports. If you run the numbers, you will see that barely 0.2 percent 
of seafood imports are rejected every year. The vast majority, 98 
percent, were not even checked. This isn't just about public safety, 
although that is certainly important. It is also about public policy.
  As for American shrimpers, let me tell you what they have to compete 
against in my State and in other States. They are being asked to 
compete with foreign fishermen who are unfairly subsidized by the 
Federal Government and who face little to no environmental regulations 
and little to no quality control. They fish where they are not supposed 
to. They ignore international quotas. They pump much of their fish full 
of illegal drugs, and they don't look out for the health of local 
ecosystems, as our domestic fisher men and women do.
  The result is dangerous. It is unsafe for the American people, and it 
is unfair to the American shrimpers who do it the right way.
  I don't want my family eating it. I don't want my son eating it. I 
don't want my wife eating it. I don't want my dogs eating it. If the 
American people are listening, be careful if you eat it.
  That is what my amendment does.
  With that, I yield the floor.


                       Vote on Amendment No. 3407

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on agreeing to 
amendment No. 3407.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. 
McCain).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Daines). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 97, nays 1, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 166 Leg.]

                                YEAS--97

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boozman
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Harris
     Hassan
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--1

       
     Lee
       

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Blunt
     McCain
       
  The amendment (No. 3407) was agreed to.


                       Vote on Amendment No. 3430

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on agreeing to Kennedy 
amendment No. 3430.
  Mr. CORKER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient question?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. 
McCain).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 87, nays 11, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 167 Leg.]

                                YEAS--87

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boozman
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Harris
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Shelby
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--11

     Crapo
     Flake
     Hassan
     Isakson
     Lankford
     Lee
     Paul
     Risch
     Sasse
     Shaheen
     Toomey

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Blunt
     McCain
       
  The amendment (No. 3430) was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.


                 Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 583

  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, last week, the Senator from Delaware, Mr. 
Coons, and I submitted a resolution commending the Department of 
Justice for its investigation into the interference by the Russian 
Federation in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and maintaining that 
the Russian Federation should be held accountable for its actions.
  This simple resolution simply expresses support for our intelligence 
community, showing them we are behind them, we agree with them, we have 
trust in them, and we reject the words of a dictator, Vladimir Putin, 
who denies that they interfered at all. The resolution denies the words 
of a

[[Page S5259]]

dictator, Vladimir Putin, who maintains there was no Russian 
interference in the election.
  Russian interference in the election is not a debatable fact. This 
occurred. We have evidence. Anybody who has seen simply what is public 
recognizes that this happened. Any of us in this body who have sat 
through classified briefings on this surely knows that it happened. 
Forensic evidence digitally and otherwise is simply not debatable.
  The reason for this resolution is that in Helsinki, it appeared our 
President seemed to take the word of a dictator over the word of our 
intelligence community. He later walked that back but then still 
later--the next day--again talked about election interference as a 
``hoax.''
  This resolution is nothing more than simply to say it happened, we 
know it happened, and we stand with our intelligence community, which 
has said over and over again consistently that there was election 
interference.
  Last week, I cited George Orwell's ``1984,'' where he said: ``The 
party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.''
  Today our President said, what you are seeing and what you are 
reading is not what is happening.
  We need to let the agencies of government know we in the Senate stand 
behind them, that we understand there was election interference, and by 
doing this--by knowing this--we can prepare ourselves better for 
election interference that we know is coming because it is still in the 
works.
  As the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said, ``The red 
light is blinking.'' This interference occurred, and it continues. So 
by knowing the truth, then we can better prepare for what is to come.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign Relations 
Committee be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now 
proceed to S. Res. 583. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be 
agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, what we 
have here is another distraction from what we in this body need to be 
focused on today; that is, funding the Federal Government and 
confirming this President's nominees.
  Right now, we have just 23 working days, as a result of the way the 
Senate operates, between now and the end of the fiscal year--just 23 
days. Meanwhile, we have 329 nominees. These are Presidential nominees 
waiting for this body to confirm them. We need to stay on track.
  This resolution is no more than political theater. This resolution 
was previously objected to by Senator Cornyn just last week. It will 
continue to be objected to again because it is unnecessary.
  The Senate, the House of Representatives, and our intelligence 
community have all thoroughly investigated this matter. In fact, the 
Senate Intelligence Committee has held 16 open hearings, dating back to 
January of 2017. They all found that Russia did, in fact, attempt to 
interfere in the U.S. election. We all take that very seriously.
  However, let's be crystal clear. They also found there is no evidence 
this interference impacted the outcome of the Presidential election in 
2016 at all.
  This President and this body have consistently been tough on Russia. 
I have personally cosponsored strong sanctions on Russia and introduced 
legislation condemning Russian military aggression around the world. We 
are currently debating additional economic sanctions to hold Russia 
further accountable, and we will continue to do so as long as their 
nefarious activities continue.
  What we don't need are more political distractions, and that is all 
this is. Therefore, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I just want to offer my response to the 
very disappointing renewed objection to the resolution that Senator 
Flake and I have attempted to move through this body now twice.

  Last week, Senator Flake and I came to call on our Senate colleagues 
to speak clearly in support of our intelligence community, our Federal 
law enforcement community, and to state unequivocally that Russia's 
attacks on our democracy will not be tolerated and that we will take 
action in a firm and bipartisan and swift way.
  Some have said this is merely a simple or symbolic message. I say 
there are powerful symbols that motivate our Nation, like our flag, and 
that, although symbolic, are substantive in their consequences.
  After the narrow objection of one Senator to this resolution last 
week, we hear another objection tonight saying what we should be 
focused on is confirming nominees and funding the Federal Government. 
I, frankly, don't get the point. If this symbolic resolution, which 
calls on this Senate to act on hearings, on receiving notes, and on 
imposing sanctions, in order to push back against Russia's attack on 
our democracy--if we cannot find 2 minutes to adopt by unanimous 
consent this simple resolution, then I worry that we continue to have a 
problem. We continue to have a problem of lack of clarity about what 
actually happened in 2016 and what may happen in 2018.
  I will remind my colleagues, briefly, that President Trump's own 
Director of National Intelligence has warned that Russia's attacks on 
our digital infrastructure are ``persistent, pervasive, and they are 
meant to undermine America's democracy.''
  I know I don't need to remind my colleagues that what defines us as a 
democracy is free, fair, and open elections that our people find 
credible.
  Just this morning, the Department of Homeland Security publicly 
released that air-gapped control centers for utilities in more than 100 
places across our country had been penetrated successfully by Russian 
military intelligence.
  The threat to our 2018 election continues to build, the clarity that 
we have been attacked in our 2016 election continues to build, and the 
sanctions that our President could be fully exercising were passed by 
this body by a vote of 98 to 2 last summer through the Countering 
America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.
  This resolution is simple. Because of a lack of clarity at the 
Helsinki summit between President Trump and President Putin, it calls 
for prompt hearings, the release of relevant information and notes to 
better understand the impact of what was committed to in that meeting 
in Helsinki, and the full implementation of the sanctions adopted by 
this body by a vote of 98 to 2.
  Either we mean it or we don't. Either we care about knowing what 
happened in Helsinki or we don't. Either we get the threat to our 
upcoming election or we don't. In my view, we continue to face threats 
to our elections and to our critical infrastructure, and it is long 
past time for Congress to work together to secure our democracy.
  I will close by thanking my colleague and friend from Arizona for 
being a partner in this effort, for seeing clearly what is happening, 
and for standing up and asking this body to act. He gave, I think, a 
haunting opening quote from ``1984.''
  I am concerned that if our President thinks it is appropriate to 
invite President Putin of Russia to meet with him in our White House or 
in our Nation's Capital, that he may not yet fully get the point. I am 
encouraged that Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell said clearly 
earlier today that President Putin is not welcome in this Nation's 
Capitol, in this building, in the Capitol where this Congress meets. I 
wonder what more it will take for there to be clarity on the part of 
the administration that President Putin is our adversary, has attacked 
our election, is a threat to our democracy, and should not be welcome 
in this Nation's Capital as a whole.
  I call on my colleagues to support this resolution, to stand with our 
intelligence and law enforcement communities and against this dangerous 
foreign adversary, Russia.
  Again, I thank and compliment my colleague from Arizona for joining 
me in this important effort.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware for his 
very

[[Page S5260]]

forceful articulation of the reason for this resolution.
  Again, I repeat what was said by the President today: ``Just remember 
what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening.''
  Continually, the topic of election interference is being muddied and 
being further clarified and then further muddied. That is why it is 
important for this body to stand up and say: We know what happened, and 
we don't want it to happen again. That is what this resolution is all 
about.
  The Senator who objected noted that we have a lot to do in Congress 
and we can't waste our time with resolutions like this. If this simply 
passes, it is done. We have stated what we came here to state. But as 
it stands now, since it has been objected to, we will bring it back. So 
if we are really concerned about the agenda for the rest of the year, 
let's simply agree to it and let the intelligence community know that 
we stand with them. That is what we are doing here. Why object to it?
  There is not one sentence in here, not one word that says anything 
about whether the election interference by the Russians was 
dispositive, if it had any impact on the election. That is not implied 
in any way by this resolution. It simply states what is obvious, what 
the Senator who objected acknowledged, which has been repeated again 
and again by this body, by the House Intelligence Committee, and by 
every intelligence agency that we have. Because there was such a 
muddied statement in Helsinki, why not state once again here that we in 
the Senate know what happened and that we stand with those in the 
intelligence community who have brought this forward?
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 
up to 15 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for the now 214th time to 
urge that we wake up to the effects of carbon pollution on the Earth's 
oceans, atmosphere, and climate.
  One obstacle to action on the threat that we face from climate 
change, however, is the manufactured doubt that so often surrounds this 
issue. We find this manufactured doubt a fossil fuel industry product--
just as oil and gas are fossil fuel industry products--flowing even 
from the editorial page of one of our Nation's leading publications, 
the Wall Street Journal. Whenever the issue is harmful industrial 
pollutants, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page has a long record 
of misleading its readers, denying the legitimate science, and even 
ignoring its own news reporting, all to shill for the polluting 
industries.
  A pattern of science denial repeats itself in the editorial pages of 
the Wall Street Journal on environmental issues--issues such as acid 
rain and depletion of the ozone layer and now, and for years, climate 
change. This editorial page has persistently published editorials 
against taking action to prevent manmade climate change.
  In June 1993, the editors wrote that there is ``growing evidence that 
global warming just isn't happening.''
  In September 1999, the editorial page reported that ``serious 
scientists'' call global warming ``one of the greatest hoaxes of all 
time.'' If that is what they are saying, I suspect that what those 
scientists are serious about is the money they get from the fossil fuel 
industry.
  In June 2005, the page asserted that the link between fossil fuels 
and global warming had ``become even more doubtful.'' This was June 
2005, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page was questioning 
whether there is a link between fossil fuels and global warming?
  Even more recently, a December 2011 editorial said that the global 
warming debate requires what the page called ``more definitive 
evidence.'' I guess having essentially all the serious scientists in 
the world lined up on this is not serious enough.
  In October 2013, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal 
warned that in addressing climate change, ``interventions make the 
world poorer than it would otherwise be.'' I guess if the world of 
Exxon shareholders is your world, then it does make it poorer, but in 
any real world, that just ain't so.
  You would think that as the evidence mounted over the past several 
decades, the Wall Street Journal editorial page would have at some 
point woken up and begun to publish editorials based on real science 
and data. To put it mildly, that has not been the case. Instead, the 
editorial page has doubled down on climate denial.
  Just last month, the Journal published a piece titled ``The Sea is 
Rising, but Not Because of Climate Change.'' This piece is riddled with 
readily fact-checked scientific errors, and it ignores all the 
legitimate science on climate change and sea level rise. Not 
surprisingly, the author of this article, Fred Singer, is a notorious 
and longstanding climate denier who has for years been affiliated with 
or funded by the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute, the Cato 
Institute, and others. He has been funded by a rogues' gallery of 
climate denial front groups that have themselves been funded by 
ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers' network.
  Dr. Michael Mann and Dr. Andrea Dutton--both actual legitimate 
climate scientists--wrote a response to the Wall Street Journal. Their 
article, titled simply ``Water's Rising Because It's Getting Warmer,'' 
directly addresses the factual problems with Singer's piece.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed 
in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  In response to Singer's claim that ice sheets are getting bigger, the 
actual climate scientists wrote:

       No, ice is not accumulating on Earth--it is melting. No, 
     Antarctica isn't too cold for melting--warming oceans are 
     eroding the ice from beneath, destabilizing the ice sheet. 
     And no, legitimate scientific conclusions are not reached in 
     op-ed pieces, but through careful peer-reviewed research.

  Climate denial, by the way, tends to avoid peer review like the 
plague. It goes straight to FOX News, straight to hearings, and 
straight to the talk shows, because there it gets the audience it wants 
without having to face the rigor it would not survive.
  Singer also erroneously claims that sea levels are not rising due to 
warming temperatures. In response, Drs. Mann and Dutton explain:

       That research shows that sea levels are rising and human-
     caused climate change is the cause. Don't take our word for 
     it; help yourself to the mountain of scientific literature 
     showing as much. When water warms, it expands. When ice 
     warms, it melts. To deny these facts is not just to deny 
     climate change. It is to deny basic physics.

  But in the spirit of climate denial, there is very little that these 
denialists won't say.
  The Trump administration's own ``Climate Science Special Report,'' 
issued by the Trump administration, found that ``it is virtually 
certain that sea level rise this century and beyond will pose a growing 
challenge to coastal communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems.'' The 
``Climate Science Special Report'' will serve as the scientific 
backbone for the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which is due later 
this year. The authors list is a who's who of top university 
scientists--many from universities in the home States of Senators here 
in this body--and experts from NOAA, the EPA, NASA, our National Labs, 
and the National Science Foundation. By the way, those NASA people have 
a rover driving around on Mars. They may know a little something about 
science. The report is backed by the Departments of Agriculture, 
Defense, Energy, Commerce, Interior, and State--in all, 13 Federal 
Agencies and Departments. Or you can believe the editorial page of the 
Wall Street Journal and its phony baloney fossil fuel-funded 
scientists.
  The Journal actually continued its climate denial spree in June, 
publishing another piece titled ``Thirty Years On, How Well Do Global 
Warming Predictions Stand Up?'' In this one, Patrick Michaels and Ryan 
Maue argue that Dr. James Hansen's 1988 climate change warnings were 
overestimated.
  Well, let's start by pulling the curtain back on these two characters 
who wrote the piece. You will quickly see that they are, to put it 
politely, aligned with the fossil fuel industry. Patrick Michaels is a 
senior fellow at the Koch-founded and Koch-funded Cato Institute. 
Michaels at one point admitted that 40 percent of his funding came from 
the fossil fuel industry. His

[[Page S5261]]

coauthor also joined the Koch-funded Cato Institute last year.
  Believe it or not, yes, the fossil fuel industry still pays for this 
nonsense even as fossil fuel CEOs claim to recognize: Climate science 
is real, and we support a carbon fee. That, of course, being the latest 
chapter in the fossil fuel industry's long and ongoing campaign of 
fraud--now pretending that they support a carbon fee, when all of their 
political apparatus is dedicated to opposing the very result they claim 
to seek.
  Thirty years ago, Hansen's testimony outlined three scenarios. 
Remember, this was 1988. The first scenario was a business-as-usual 
projection with accelerating emissions, yielding 1.5 degrees Celsius 
warming by 2017. The second scenario showed drastic emissions cuts, 
yielding 0.4 degrees Celsius warming by 2017. Hansen proposed a middle 
scenario of continued but not accelerating emissions, resulting in 0.84 
degrees Celsius warming by 2017. In his testimony, Dr. Hansen stated 
that the middle scenario was the most likely.
  Michaels and Maue claim that the scenario with the least amount of 
warming turned out to be correct, and therefore Hansen was wrong, and 
therefore climate models can't predict climate change. Unfortunately 
for them, the facts are otherwise.
  Hansen's analysis projected that global surface air temperatures 
would increase by approximately 0.84 degrees Celsius between 1988 and 
2017 in his middle scenario, the one he said was most likely. Once you 
account for the effects of a slight cooling that resulted from the 
success of the Montreal Protocol in phasing out chlorofluorocarbons, 
Hansen's projected warming is 0.6 to 0.7 degrees Celsius by 2017.

  That, in blue, is the adjusted Hansen projection. I don't think you 
can fault him for not predicting the Montreal Protocol that happened 
after his prediction. It is fair to adjust his prediction for the 
Montreal Protocol and the effect of reduced chlorofluorocarbons. Once 
you do that, it shows that observed temperature in red tracks pretty 
darned well with his projections.
  If that were my work, I would be pretty proud of it. Here it is 30 
years later, and we are off by a gap that my finger can cover on the 
graph.
  Michaels and Maue did not bother to mention that Hansen also 
predicted which parts of the globe would warm more quickly than others. 
Thirty years ago, he calculated the Arctic would warm faster, and there 
would be more warming over landmasses than over the oceans. All of 
these things are happening. Even Hansen's early climate models were 
accurate and reliable. And global warming is proceeding, just as the 
scientists have warned.
  As the Wall Street Journal editorial page continues to publish its 
fossil fuel-funded nonsense--stuff that is written by pseudoscientists, 
funded by the industry with a massive conflict of interest about this 
question--it has been 30 years since the warnings of Hansen. Despite 
all of the evidence that has piled up, consistent with his warnings, 
despite the regular litany of current events driven by climate change 
now, Congress has been taking no action. We have been stilled by the 
forces of the fossil fuel industry.
  The real irony here is that the Wall Street Journal claims to be the 
news source for businesses and financial investors. Off the editorial 
page, out in the real world of business and finance, real decisions are 
being made by real executives, backed by real money.
  Are they buying what the Wall Street Journal editorial page is 
selling? No. No, indeed. They are telling their clients and their 
companies: You must take climate change seriously, and you must take 
carbon pricing seriously.
  In the real world, businesses are demanding better climate policies 
and investors are demanding better reporting of climate risk. The giant 
investment firm BlackRock led a group of major investors and broke the 
back of ExxonMobil's opposition to answering to its shareholders about 
climate change. They are demanding this. Many companies are even 
setting their own internal price on carbon to account for the real-
world costs of climate change. The business community and the 
investment community are acting because they know climate change is 
real, is affecting their prognosis for their companies, and carbon 
pricing is a key part of the solution.
  Increasingly, economists and financial regulators warn that we are 
actually hurtling toward an economic disruption--that we need to 
prepare for a possible crash of what they call the carbon bubble. This 
carbon bubble collapses when fossil fuel reserves, now claimed as 
assets by the fossil fuel companies, turn out to be useless as 
renewable energy sources grow more competitive, and those useless 
assets become what are called stranded assets. How much gets stranded?
  A publication by economists in the journal Nature estimated the 
following impacts in a 2-degree Celsius world: ``stranded assets . . . 
around 82 percent of global coal reserves, 49 percent of global gas 
reserves, and 33 percent of global oil reserves.''
  Imagine that--82 percent of global coal reserves gone, wiped off the 
balance sheets; 49 percent of global gas reserves gone, wiped off the 
balance sheets; and 33 percent of global oil reserves gone, wiped off 
the balance sheets because they are no longer economically producible.
  Is this nuts? Even the Bank of England in an official statement has 
warned that investments in fossil fuels and related technologies may 
``take a huge hit.''
  At some point, there has to be a grownup in the room. The fossil fuel 
industry, obviously, is not capable of being that grownup. They still 
pay for denial and obstruction. The Wall Street Journal's editorial 
page is obviously no use. That page is still yapping on the industry's 
leash.
  There is some good news. This week, two House Republicans, at long 
last, introduced a bill that would put a price on carbon emissions. But 
we still await one Republican in the Senate, just one--anyone who will 
face up to this problem, who will stand up for science, who will 
acknowledge what their own home State's universities are teaching and 
take some real action. Climate denial is a dangerous and ultimately 
doomed game, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page should know 
better.
  It is time to wake up.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               Water's Rising Because It's Getting Warmer

       May 22, 2018.--Would the Journal run the op-ed ``Objects 
     Are Falling, but Not Because of Gravity''? That's pretty 
     similar to climate contrarian Fred Singer saying The Sea Is 
     Rising, but Not Because of Climate Change'' (op-ed, May 16).
       No, ice is not accumulating on Earth--it is melting. No, 
     Antarctica isn't too cold for melting--warming oceans are 
     eroding the ice from beneath, destabilizing the ice sheet. 
     And no, legitimate scientific conclusions are not reached in 
     op-ed pieces, but through careful peer-reviewed research.
       That research shows that sea levels are rising and human-
     caused climate change is the cause. Don't take our word for 
     it; help yourself to the mountain of scientific literature 
     showing as much. When water warms, it expands. When ice 
     warms, it melts. To deny these facts is not just to deny 
     climate change. It is to deny basic physics.
       New York City experienced an additional 25 square miles of 
     flooding from the approximately one foot of sea-level rise 
     that has occurred due to human-caused warming. Without 
     concerted efforts to reduce carbon emissions, it could 
     experience as much as eight feet by the end of the century--
     permanently inundating most of Wall Street.
     Asst. Prof. Andrea L. Dutton,
       University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.
     Prof. Michael E. Mann,
       Penn State University, University Park, Pa.
                                  ____

       Fred Singer leaves out any real evidence to refute research 
     attributing the measured sea-level rise almost exactly to the 
     measured thermal expansion of seawater and glacier melt.
                               Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.),
     Newport, RI.
                                  ____

       Our emissions will continue shaping how much seas rise in 
     the coming decades. Taking this threat lightly endangers 
     hundreds of communities in the U.S. and world-wide, and 
     wastes the dwindling time we have to reduce our risk by 
     cutting carbon emissions and investing in resilience. Since 
     1900, global sea level has risen by seven to eight inches. 
     Sea-level rise has brought more frequent flooding to dozens 
     of coastal communities, including Atlantic City, N.J. and 
     Charleston, S.C., where the number of floods has quadrupled 
     since 1970. The pace of sea-level rise has recently doubled.

[[Page S5262]]

       Mr. Singer acknowledges there's ``good data showing sea 
     levels are in fact rising at an accelerating rate,'' yet 
     makes the unscientific claim that this is disconnected from 
     rising global-warming emissions and temperatures. The risks 
     are clear. Sea-level rise projections for 2100 range from one 
     foot to more than eight feet--far greater than the six inches 
     Mr. Singer claims. Swiftly reducing our global-warming 
     emissions would give us the best chance to minimize sea-level 
     rise, but our current emissions trajectory makes achieving 
     the range's low end more unlikely each day.
                                             Kristina Dahl, Ph.D.,
     Union of Concerned Scientists, Oakland, CA.
                                  ____

       NASA disagrees with Prof. Singer. A Feb. 13 paper notes: 
     ``Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth's 
     atmosphere increase the temperature of air and water, which 
     causes sea level to rise in two ways. First, warmer water 
     expands, and this 'thermal expansion' of the ocean has 
     contributed about half of the 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) of 
     global mean sea-level rise we've seen over the last 25 years 
     . . . Second, melting land ice flows into the ocean, also 
     increasing sea level across the globe.''
                                                  Wendy Fleischer,
     Brooklyn, NY.
                                  ____

       Melting ice is not the only thing that can raise the sea 
     level. Note the eruption of hundreds of undersea volcanoes in 
     the oceans and what they deposit. All of the rivers of the 
     world flush millions of acre feet of mud and silt into the 
     sea floor daily. During an undersea earthquake a tectonic 
     plate could override another, affecting a thousand miles of 
     sea floor, displacing a great deal of water and raising the 
     sea level.
                                                     David Darlow,
                                                      Spokane, WA.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I yield the floor.
  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. ROUNDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________