[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 125 (Wednesday, July 25, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5316-S5319]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




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

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 6147, which the clerk will 
report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 6147) making appropriations for the Department 
     of the Interior, environment, and related agencies for the 
     fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other 
     purposes.

  Pending:

       Shelby amendment No. 3399, in the nature of a substitute.
       Murkowski amendment No. 3400 (to amendment No. 3399), of a 
     perfecting nature.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we are officially on day No. 2 of the 
second tranche of an appropriations package. We have before us the 
Interior Subcommittee's appropriations bill, the Financial Services, 
the T-HUD--Transportation, Housing and Urban Development--and 
Agriculture. So it is a good combination. It is a good package. It is a 
strong package. It is a series of appropriations bills that moved 
through the full Appropriations Committee several months back. Most of 
these bills advanced either unanimously, as the Interior Appropriations 
Subcommittee's bill did, or with a strong bipartisan show of support 
out of committee.
  For those who have followed the appropriations process over the 
years, you know it is somewhat unprecedented to be able to advance 
these spending bills through the full committee process, much less to 
do so in a manner that surely shows the bipartisan approach this 
committee has taken in this fiscal year.
  I acknowledge and recognize the work of Chairman Shelby and his vice 
chairman, Senator Leahy from Vermont, for the truly collaborative 
process they have encouraged all of us to work toward.
  There was an agreement, an understanding, that our appropriations 
process had not been the model of good governance, of legislating, that 
we would have liked it to have been, that we would expect it to be, and 
that our colleagues--much less the American public--would expect it to 
be.
  With a very determined effort, the group of appropriators who came 
together earlier made a very strong and firm commitment that we were 
going to get this process back on track. With the leadership of the 
chairman and the vice chairman, that is exactly where we are. We were 
able to move a smaller minibus, if you will, a month ago. That is now 
moving through that conference process. It is not an easy process, we 
recognize, but nothing around here is easy. If it is worth doing and 
doing well, it is going to take a little bit of work. We have done that 
work, and to be here on the 25th of July--to be at a place at which the 
Senate is poised to advance seven of the appropriations bills out of 
the Senate--is really quite unprecedented.
  In my remarks on the floor on Monday evening, I noted that this was 
the first time since 2010 we had seen an Interior Appropriations 
Subcommittee's bill being brought to the floor of the U.S. Senate. That 
is a long time. That is too long a time not to have had a fulsome 
process, a process wherein we not only demonstrate the good work that 
we as appropriators have done but wherein our colleagues who are not on 
the committee also view that good work, weigh in, offer their thoughts, 
offer their amendments, and are a part of the broader, whole process.

[[Page S5317]]

  How did we get here from there--from a point at which we, 
effectively, were not legislating as we knew we were capable of doing?
  There was an agreement, a commitment, that we were going to stand 
down on some of the more controversial riders--in other words, those 
initiatives that were not actual appropriations but were more in line 
with authorizing within the appropriations bill.
  There has been a history around here of seeing a level of 
authorization, and sometimes that level of authorization on an 
appropriations bill has created enough controversy that it has ground 
the whole process to a halt. So standing down on some of these 
initiatives, on some of these riders, has been an important part of how 
we have come to be where we are today.
  We talk about the need to keep out the poison pills. We have joked--
it is not really a joke; it is the reality--that one Member's priority 
is another Member's poison pill. So how do we work our way through that 
process?
  We will have an opportunity to take up, at least for discussion, some 
of those priorities that may be significant, and Members have a great 
deal of desire to see them advance. Members on the other side will look 
at that and say that is too toxic--you can't go there; you can't do 
that. How we navigate through that will take a little bit of 
legislating.
  I would ask Members--I would urge Members--to please come to us as 
their bill managers, whether for the Interior appropriations issues or 
for the Financial Services issues. Senator Lankford is the chairman of 
that committee. Go to Senator Hoeven on Ag and to Senator Collins on 
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development--T-HUD. I would urge 
Members to come to us with their issues, their concerns, their 
amendments. Let's work through them. Let's get them through the 
process.
  Yesterday, we were able to advance four amendments. Some might say, 
well, that is not very much, but I would suggest to you that we are 
getting started. We are getting started in a good way, in a positive 
way, in an encouraging way, and we want to encourage that good, forward 
activity.
  We all know the most prized commodity around here is time and floor 
time. We don't have unlimited time on the floor to take up this package 
of measures. So help us get to the point at which we can work through 
those issues that we need to in order to bring to the floor that which 
will require a vote. We will help you and do so in a way that, I think, 
will do honor to the appropriations process, do honor to the 
legislative process--again, what we know around here to be regular 
order.
  Unfortunately, I think we have seen that regular order has been less 
and less regular. It has become extraordinary because we just don't 
practice it enough. We want to get back to that, and we have the 
opportunity to do so. We have demonstrated that with one package, and 
we are in the midst of demonstrating that this week. I look forward to 
the full cooperation of Members as we advance.
  I see my friend and colleague, the vice chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee, is on the floor. Again, I acknowledge his 
great leadership in working with the chairman of the full committee, in 
really getting us back to a place where we can be proud of our process.
  With that, I yield to my friend, the Senator from Vermont.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I simply say to the Senator from Alaska, in 
my having had the honor of serving here with both her father and with 
the former chair of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Stevens, that 
I hear her saying things that are very similar to what I had heard both 
of them say. Perhaps Senator Stevens--rest his soul--would have said it 
with a little bit more emphasis, especially if he had been wearing his 
``Incredible Hulk'' tie, but the Senator from Alaska is one of those 
who believes in the Senate working the way it should and getting things 
done, and I compliment her efforts.
  Senator Shelby and I made a pact that we would try to get these 
appropriations bills through, which is something that had been stalled 
for years. The Senator from Alaska has been essential, as have been a 
number of Senators on both sides of the aisle, in our getting that 
accomplished. We have gotten our bills through. Almost all of them have 
passed the Appropriations Committee unanimously. I joke that sometimes 
you can't get a unanimous vote around here that the Sun will rise in 
the East, but here is a case in which we have shown that it can.
  The Senator from Alaska is absolutely right in that one person's 
poison pill may be another person's essential, but we have worked it 
out. If we can get the appropriations bill through--and I realize the 
other body is going on a 6-week vacation, but I hope there will be some 
who stay around. We are going to be here. We could conference some of 
these bills and get them passed. I think it would encourage the country 
to see both bodies do what we have done here in the Senate. It would 
improve how the government runs.

  I share the frustration of heads of Departments, whether here in this 
administration or any other administration, who never know whether 
their appropriations are going to pass. How do they plan? How do they 
spend money? Where do they go?
  We can make this process work the way it is supposed to work.
  I see the distinguished Democratic leader on the floor, but I do want 
to compliment the Senator from Alaska for her efforts in making this 
possible.
  I yield the floor.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Democratic leader is 
recognized.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from 
Vermont for yielding and my colleague from Alaska, as well, for 
allowing me to interrupt their very important and bipartisan debate.


                     Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

  Mr. President, 8 years ago, when Elena Kagan was nominated to the 
Supreme Court, Senate Republicans said: We must get all of her 
documents from the Clinton Library and have enough time to analyze them 
so that we can determine whether she should be a Justice. The 
Republican leadership did not say some of the documents; they did not 
say a subset of the documents; they did not say the documents for just 
one administrative job; they said all of her documents.
  I showed this letter yesterday to my friend who is now the chairman 
of the Judiciary, Senator Grassley. He said it is totally different. He 
is a man of integrity, but I know there are times he gets twisted by 
his leadership and the President to do things that aren't consistent, 
and this is one of them.
  The Republicans didn't ask only for certain documents. They asked for 
all, and we are asking for all. This is one of the most important 
positions in the world and certainly in America. Shouldn't we know 
everything? It is not just some of the stuff and some of the stuff that 
the White House wants us to know--but everything.
  Our friends on the other side of the aisle demanded all of the 
documents for Justice Kagan. The Democrats agreed. It was the right 
thing to do. And because Elena Kagan had nothing to hide, she went 
happily forward and said: Go right ahead. Now Republicans ought to do 
the same thing for Judge Kavanaugh, particularly if he has nothing to 
hide.
  For the last week, Senator Feinstein has been ready to jointly 
request the same documents of Judge Kavanaugh that Republicans demanded 
of Justice Kagan, but our Republican colleagues are dragging their feet 
and refusing to agree. They are the reason this whole activity has been 
slowed down. It is not Democratic obstruction. It is the Democrats' 
desire for transparency and openness that the Republicans are blocking. 
They are being the obstructionists.
  The Republicans' rationale is--they are downplaying Judge Kavanaugh's 
role as White House Staff Secretary. They argue that we don't need to 
see documents from that part of his career, although they have no 
argument against it. They think we don't need them. We think we do. Why 
not show them to us?
  Here is what Judge Kavanaugh himself has said. He said that ``my 3 
years as Staff Secretary for President Bush--were the most interesting 
and in many ways the most instructive.''

[[Page S5318]]

Kavanaugh himself said that the very documents we want to see and 
Republicans are blocking us from seeing are the most instructive. 
Shouldn't the American people see the writings of what their own 
nominee calls the most instructive?
  As Staff Secretary, Kavanaugh said he ``participated in the process 
of putting together legislation.'' He drafted and revised Executive 
orders. He consulted on judicial nominations, including the replacement 
of Chief Justice Rehnquist. Isn't that something we want to know--what 
his thoughts were about who should be a Justice? Wouldn't that really 
inform us of what kind of Justice he might be?
  He was one of the most senior officials in the Bush White House, 1 of 
only 17 out of hundreds of Presidential aides who were paid the maximum 
White House salary. I am sure he deserved it. That is not the issue. 
The issue is that he was an extremely high-ranking official there. This 
is not looking at when he was some clerk. It was a major, defining part 
of his career.
  So here we go. Once again, Republicans are against transparency and 
are against the full record for one of the world's most powerful 
positions, which will last a lifetime. All of this stonewalling on 
getting Judge Kavanaugh's records from his time as Staff Secretary 
raises these looming questions: What are Judge Kavanaugh and the 
Republicans hiding? Why are Republicans hiding his full record from the 
Senate and the American people? What don't they want us to see? What 
don't they want the American people to see? Is there something there so 
damning that it might defeat Judge Kavanaugh's nomination? If there is, 
we are entitled to see it. If there is not, then what is the problem 
with moving forward?
  Just last week, we saw our Republican colleagues defeat a judicial 
nomination based on something that nominee wrote in college. Are they 
really going to turn right around and say that the nominee for the 
highest Court in the land doesn't need to release documents that he 
wrote far later in his career when his views were far more formed?
  This is about transparency. This is about making sure the Senate does 
its job in the right, complete, and open way. Democrats have made a 
completely reasonable request for documents--the same request we agreed 
to when the shoe was on the other foot. We are being consistent. Our 
Republican colleagues are being hypocritical. What was good for them in 
the minority when President Obama nominated someone is good for us in 
the minority when President Trump nominates someone. I will repeat the 
old saying from the Farmers' Almanac and elsewhere: What is good for 
the goose is good for the gander. It applies so, so well in this 
situation.
  Our request is eminently reasonable. The quickest way to get this 
nomination moving forward is to get the documents and records, and it 
is for Leader McConnell and Chairman Grassley to agree to our request.
  Mr. President, parenthetically, just today, we saw that the White 
House doctored the transcript and, supposedly, the tape of what Mr. 
Putin said right after the President and he met. It was sort of like an 
autocratic country, a nondemocracy. That is what dictators do; they 
change the facts and change the record. Are our Republican colleagues--
so many of them who have stood for transparency--going to join this 
coverup of records and truth because they don't like the results? That 
is not America. That is not the America the American people know and 
love.


                             Farmer Bailout

  Mr. President, on the farmer bailout, yesterday, President Trump 
announced a $12 billion bailout for farmers who have been hurt by the 
President's economic policies. Obviously, the farmers are hurting or 
the President wouldn't have done this.
  The drawbacks of this particular policy aside, the bailout is another 
example of the President chasing his own tail. It is becoming a 
leitmotif in this administration: President Trump's impulsiveness and 
incompetence, his lack of thoroughness and study of an issue, lead him 
to act impulsively. He creates a massive problem, and then he is forced 
to hastily contrive a way to make it look as if he is saving the day.
  The irony of this policy should not be lost on anyone. The 
President's bailout is like a Soviet-style program in which the 
government props up an entire sector of the economy. That 
characterization is one that I spoke of this morning to several 
colleagues, and I have now been told one of my Republican colleagues 
used the same characterization--Soviet-style program. The Freedom 
Caucus, the Koch brothers--this is not what even the hard right in 
America stands for.
  Knowing this administration, they will design a bailout to help only 
massive agribusinesses that will use the money for stock buybacks. 
Knowing this administration, family farmers are likely to be left to 
suffer.
  It was not so long ago that our Republican friends complained 
bitterly about picking winners and losers in the market. What is the 
President doing here? He is picking winners and losers.
  The President's policies have hurt scores of Americans. He proposes a 
massive bailout in this case but tries to slash health insurance for 
tens of millions of middle-class Americans. He pushes a bailout in this 
case, but his budgets continue to decimate infrastructure, education, 
healthcare, environmental protection, and more. I would say that is 
picking winners and losers.
  The President's bailout is another example of President Trump 
lighting the fire and grabbing the nearest thing off the shelf to douse 
it and then patting himself on the back as to what a great guy he has 
been. It is not good policy, it is not good politics, and it is 
incredibly telling of this administration's failure to anticipate the 
consequences of its decisions.
  One more point: If you talk to our farmers, they would rather have 
long-term contracts and good markets. A bailout and storing all these 
agricultural products on the shelves will lower prices and cause the 
people we sell to overseas to find other suppliers and sign contracts 
with them. In the long term, it is going to make things worse.
  Where does the bailout stop? What about people who use steel and 
aluminum? What about other goods that have been targeted by our foreign 
competitors? Are they going to get bailouts too? Is it going to go up 
from $12 billion to $50 billion to $100 billion? Amazingly, are our 
Republican colleagues--this is so against their principles--going to go 
along? We shall see.


                                 Russia

  Mr. President, there is one more point on Russia. After President 
Trump's inexplicable behavior in Helsinki last week, many of us were 
forced to wonder whether President Putin had something on President 
Trump because his behavior was so obsequious in front of Putin.
  Well, now it seems it is not just a few Democrats who are wondering. 
Yesterday's Quinnipiac poll showed that 51 percent of Americans believe 
that the Russian Government has compromising information about 
President Trump. That is astounding. Our leading enemy has information, 
compromising information, and then our President acts obsequiously. 
Whoa, where are we in this country?
  Let me repeat that poll. A majority of Americans believe the Russian 
Government has something on President Trump. That is astounding. The 
fact that millions of Americans are wondering if our President is 
compromised by our leading adversary is a message to the White House: 
America wants you to be tough with President Putin.
  The President will say: Oh, this is fake news. This is made up.
  Well, President Trump, if Putin has nothing over you, why aren't you 
being tough with him? The best way to show that Putin has nothing over 
you is for you to stand up to him--not to be so obsequious and fawning 
and not to invite him here to the White House this fall.
  There should be no more accepting of Putin's denials over a consensus 
of American intelligence, no more bending over backward to avoid 
criticizing Putin for interfering in our election, and no more one-on-
one meetings with Putin where no one else--not the intelligence 
community, not our military leaders, not the Congress, and not the 
least of which, the American people know what was said or agreed to.
  The writing is on the wall for the White House. This White House 
keeps reaching new lows. The American people, so disturbed by the 
President's

[[Page S5319]]

posture toward Russia, believe that President Trump may be compromised 
by our biggest enemy. I don't think that has ever happened, certainly 
in my memory, in my lifetime, and I can't remember an incident in 
history where this has happened this way.

  President Trump ought to reverse course immediately. He can start by 
revoking his invitation to President Putin to visit the White House 
this fall.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________