[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 136 (Thursday, August 16, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5685-S5689]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

             DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume legislative session and proceed to the consideration of H.R. 
6157, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 6157) making appropriations for the Department 
     of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and 
     for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.


                           Amendment No. 3695

       (Purpose: In the nature of a substitute.)

  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I call up substitute amendment No. 3695.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Alabama [Mr. Shelby] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 3695.

  Mr. SHELBY. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment 
be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.


                Amendment No. 3699 to Amendment No. 3695

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3699.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell], for Mr. Shelby, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 3699 to amendment No. 3695.

  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

                     (Purpose: To improve the bill)

       At the appropriate place in title II of division A under 
     the heading ``Operation and Maintenance, Defense-Wide'', 
     strike ``$7,503,000'' and insert ``$8,503,000''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, today, the Senate begins debate on an 
appropriations package that I believe is absolutely essential to the 
strength and security of this Nation. The package before the Senate 
marries the two largest fiscal year 2019 appropriations bills; that is, 
the Defense bill that funds all national security and the Labor, HHS, 
and Education bill. Each of these bills carries the near unanimous 
support of the Appropriations Committee, which is quite unusual.
  Senator Blunt, the chairman of the Labor, HHS, Education, and Related 
Agencies Subcommittee, and Senator Murray, his ranking member, worked 
together to produce a strong, bipartisan bill that balances many 
competing priorities. I commend both of these Senators for their hard 
work, and I want to take this time to thank them for their continued 
efforts in this regard. If they haven't been here yet, Senators Blunt 
and Murray will soon come to the floor to discuss the particulars of 
the Labor-HHS division of this package, so I am not going to get into 
the details of that bill, but as chairman of the Appropriations Defense 
Subcommittee, I want to provide my colleagues here this afternoon with 
an overview of the funding it contains for America's military.
  Secretary Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, as we know--a decorated 
general who commands deep respect on both sides of the aisle--has 
warned us that ``failure to modernize our military risks leaving us 
with a force that could dominate the last war, but be irrelevant to 
tomorrow's security.'' Think about that for a minute. We cannot allow 
that to happen.
  I think we must rebuild America's military to where it will be second 
to none in the world. We have to defend this Nation first and foremost. 
Here in the Senate this afternoon, I am pleased to report that this 
bill takes a big step in that direction. I will explain why.
  It provides an additional $67.9 billion for overseas contingency 
operations. The fiscal year 2018 Defense bill, enacted earlier this 
year, contained the largest increase in military spending in 15 years. 
The bill now before us does even better by providing an additional $16 
billion above the 2018 level. This funding sustains U.S. force 
structure and improves military readiness.

  It also provides critical resources for a wide range of priorities 
that are essential to maintaining our technological superiority in an 
increasingly complex and competitive national security environment.
  The bill before us includes substantial investments in the areas of 
basic research, hypersonics, directed energy, artificial intelligence, 
microelectronics, missile defense, cybersecurity, and our test and 
evaluation infrastructure, among many other priorities.
  Just as important, the package before the Senate today provides our 
men

[[Page S5686]]

and women in uniform with the largest pay increase they have seen in 
nearly a decade, and they certainly deserve it. As we debate this bill 
over the coming days, the sacrifices of these brave men and women 
should be on the top of the minds of all of us. In light of their 
sacrifices, I believe it is our duty to ensure they are the best 
prepared and best equipped military in the world.
  The American military is the most feared fighting force the world has 
ever known, and we want to keep it that way. This bill ensures that 
continues to be true. That is how we defend this Nation.
  I thank the vice chairman at this time of the Defense Subcommittee, 
Senator Durbin, for his valuable input in crafting this bill. Together, 
I believe we have produced a balanced bill that meets the Pentagon's 
objectives and includes the contributions of Senators from both sides 
of the aisle. I am proud to present this legislation to my colleagues, 
and I urge their strong support.
  I also want to recognize the vice chairman of the full Appropriations 
Committee and his work on the committee, Senator Leahy, and the leaders 
of both sides, including Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer.
  At the outset of the appropriations cycle, the four of us met and 
agreed to work together in an effort to return the Senate to regular 
order. Since that time, the Appropriations Committee has passed all 12 
bills before the July 4 recess, all with strong bipartisan margins--the 
first time, as the Presiding Officer knows, it has been done in 30 
years.
  The first minibus contained three bills and passed the Senate by a 
vote of 86 to 5. It is now in conference with the House. The second 
minibus contained four bills, two of which had not seen the light of 
day on the Senate floor in many years--Interior and FSGG. That package 
passed by a vote of 92 to 6. Hopefully, it will soon be in conference 
as well.
  By August, the Senate had passed more appropriations bills than our 
counterparts in the House. That had not happened in the last 20 years. 
None of this would have been possible, as the Presiding Officer knows, 
without the partnership of Vice Chairman Leahy and the leadership of 
Senators McConnell and Schumer. I thank each of them once again.
  Our work continues, starting now. We have a great opportunity to 
extend the success we have generated thus far. It has been more than a 
decade since the Senate passed a Labor-HHS appropriations bill, period, 
and it has been a dozen years since the President was able to sign a 
Defense appropriations bill into law before October 1. These two 
records, I believe, must be broken.
  We must not only provide the resources necessary to rebuild our 
military, we must do so before the end of the fiscal year. There is no 
time to waste when it comes to our national security. With the 
confirmed cooperation of my colleagues, I am confident we will continue 
to get our work done in a deliberate and timely manner. I thank all 
Senators for working together to produce regular order in the 
appropriations process.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                      Remembering Aretha Franklin

  Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I rise to pay tribute to a woman whose 
voice and whose soul truly was larger than life.
  Aretha Franklin was known, first and foremost, as a singer, and what 
a singer she was. For so many of us, her voice provided a soundtrack to 
the highs and lows of our lives.

  A couple of things happened on April 29, 1967. For one, it was my 
17th birthday. For another, that was the day Aretha Franklin released 
``Respect.'' Let me tell you, that song felt like a gift that day, and 
it has felt like a gift every time I have heard it ever since. Her 
voice really was a gift, not just to me but to the whole world. She won 
18 Grammys, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, was the 1994 Kennedy 
Center Honors awardee, and was the first woman inducted into the Rock 
and Roll Hall of Fame. She was the recipient of the highest civilian 
honor in the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A panel 
of music experts convened by Rolling Stone magazine in 2008 named her 
the greatest singer of all time--not bad for a preacher's daughter from 
Detroit.
  All those awards are important; however, they don't begin to measure 
how she made us feel. I will never forget the 2015 Kennedy Center 
Honors, which saluted my friend and singer-songwriter Carole King. 
Aretha strolled onstage in her jewels and her furs, and she was pure 
magic. Her soulful rendition of ``Natural Woman'' made Carole King 
dance in her seat, and she made President Obama tear up. Those final, 
magnificent notes--when she tossed her coat on the stage and raised her 
arms in triumph--brought every single person in that audience to their 
feet, including me.
  Her voice was remarkable--so remarkable, in fact, that in 1986 the 
Michigan Legislature declared it to be a precious natural resource. 
That remarkable voice of hers wasn't limited to songs, however. Aretha 
also used her voice--sometimes loudly, sometimes quietly--to speak up 
for justice and to make a difference in Detroit and across the country. 
That is probably no surprise, given her roots.
  Aretha was the daughter of Pastor C.L. Franklin of New Bethel Baptist 
Church in Detroit, and she first found her soulful voice singing and 
playing the piano in church and in other places in Detroit. The 
Reverend Franklin was active in the civil rights movement, alongside 
leaders including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Aretha was there to 
fund the work. Her longtime friend, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, shared 
his memory with the Detroit Free Press last week:

       When Dr. King was alive, several times she helped us make 
     payroll. On one occasion, we took an 11-city tour with her as 
     Aretha Franklin and Harry Belafonte . . . and they put gas in 
     the vans. She did 11 concerts for free.

  He added:

       Aretha has always been a very socially conscious artist, an 
     inspiration, not just an entertainer.

  We certainly know this in Michigan, where she was named the 
Michiganian of the Year in 2003 and was awarded the Detroit News's 
Lifetime Achievement Award in June. According to Pastor Robert Smith, 
Jr., of New Bethel Baptist, a few times a year, Aretha would send the 
church checks--big ones, not small ones. That was in addition to her 
annual free concerts featuring famous gospel singers and free holiday 
meals.
  Speaking of food, Aretha's generous support of food banks in Metro 
Detroit was one reason she was named the 2008 MusiCares Person of the 
Year. Her generosity literally fed Detroit families, and her music fed 
the world's souls.
  I was personally honored to have the opportunity to be with Aretha on 
many occasions. I was particularly honored to have the opportunity to 
introduce her a year ago, in June 2017, when she gave her last concert 
in Detroit, MI, at the Detroit music festival. I know I am not the only 
person who can say that no matter the song, no matter the temperature, 
when I hear Aretha sing, I get chills.
  The world has lost a legend; however, the world can take comfort in 
the fact that Aretha will always be with us. In her voice, Aretha was 
given an amazing gift. Her gift to us was sharing it, and we are very 
grateful.
  Mr. President, 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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask that the order for the quorum call be 
rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Ohio State Work Period

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, as a number of my colleagues did, last week 
when the Senate wasn't in session, as I always do, I returned to my 
beloved State of Ohio and went home to Cleveland and spent much of last 
week going around the State.
  I love Pope Francis's comment when he exhorted his parish priests to 
go out

[[Page S5687]]

and smell like the flock. That says to me how important it is to go out 
and listen to people and listen to people's concerns.
  I was in Lima talking to workers about pensions and about their work 
manufacturing. I was in Findlay with the mayor and a number of 
providers, and we listened to people talk about what they are doing to 
address the opioid crisis in Cleveland, Toledo, Dayton, and around the 
State.
  What strikes me perhaps more than anything is the dignity of work; 
that whether you see someone waiting tables in a diner, whether you see 
someone at a plant working on an assembly line, whether you see 
somebody doing construction, whether you see somebody in a school or in 
a hospital, taking care of children in a school, taking care of 
patients in a hospital, what comes through to me is just the dignity of 
work.
  What concerns me is, this body doesn't really understand that. They 
don't understand people want a chance to make a living, they want a 
decent wage, they want a chance to raise their children in a safe 
neighborhood, and they want access to housing.
  We know one out of four people who rent in this country spend more 
than half their income for housing, and we know what that means if 
something goes wrong in their lives, if their car breaks down, if their 
child gets sick, that they can lose their apartment, they can be 
foreclosed on, they can be evicted.
  To me, what came through this trip around the State this week more 
than anything was how this body is so out of touch with what work 
means; the honor, the dignity of work, how honorable it is; that 
people, whether they work with their brains or their hands or their 
brains and their hands, as most people do, that work should be 
rewarded.
  We are seeing workers work harder than ever before. We are seeing 
corporate profits go up. We are seeing executive compensation explode. 
We are seeing productivity rise. Yet workers' wages are flat.
  In fact, during the last year and a half, while the stock market is 
up and the President brags about job growth--and we all are happy with 
job growth--what we don't hear said, which is true, is that workers' 
wages have been stagnant or have gone down. Workers are actually making 
less than they were a year and a half ago.
  We know that since 2010, since the auto rescue, we have seen job 
growth every quarter, every month since 2010. We saw greater job growth 
3 years ago than we have the last 2 years, but we have not seen wage 
growth, and I will give you one of the reasons for that.
  Congress passed a tax bill less than a year ago, and that tax bill, 
first of all, blew a hole in the budget. That is a problem because now 
my Republican colleagues want to raise the retirement age for Medicare, 
want to cut spending for the cleanup of Lake Erie, want to cut spending 
on things like LIHEAP, the low-income energy heating assistance plan 
for seniors who are struggling with the decision, do I pay for my 
medicine or my heat or do I have enough food to eat. So it is a 
question of this Congress has not really--they passed a tax bill that 
blows a hole in the deficit. At the same time, think about this one 
provision in the tax bill.
  If you are making cars in Youngstown, OH, Lordstown, or in Toledo, if 
you are making the Jeep or the Chevy Cruze in Youngstown, and you pay a 
21-percent tax rate--that corporation--but if that corporation decides 
to move overseas, they pay a tax rate of 10.5 percent. So, in other 
words, because of the tax bill the President signed fewer than 12 
months ago, the Federal Government is saying, we are going to give a 
corporation a 50-percent-off coupon on their taxes if they move 
overseas.
  So what did GM just do? The same day GM announced more than 1,000 
workers in Lordstown, OH, were laid off--the same day--they announced 
they were going to build a plant in Mexico to make the Chevy Blazer.
  Now, I asked the CEO of GM, if you are going to lay off people in 
Lordstown, if you are making fewer Chevy Cruzes, why don't you retool, 
invest some of those billions of dollars in tax savings in Lordstown, 
OH, in the Mahoning Valley and Youngstown or at the GM plant in 
Defiance or at the GM plant in Toledo or in some of your GM supply 
chain, GM suppliers? Why don't you invest there instead of in Mexico? 
She didn't say this was the reason, but it is pretty clear because the 
special interests in this body, meeting in the majority leader's 
office, meeting in the Speaker's office, meeting in the White House--
and the White House looks like a retreat for corporate executives if we 
have ever seen any such thing--made a decision to give tax breaks to 
companies that move overseas. So more and more companies are going to 
see it is attractive. They like that idea of a 50-percent-off coupon to 
shut down production in Mansfield, OH, and move to Vietnam or to China 
or to South Korea or to Turkey or to Mexico.
  Imagine that. Imagine both the economic illiteracy and the moral 
debauchery, if you will, of setting up a tax bill that says: We will 
give you a lower tax rate if you move overseas. I mean, what kind of a 
Congress passes a bill that says if you move overseas, we will lower 
your tax rate? That is what Congress did. It was already bad enough 
before we passed this last tax bill, but now we are seeing what I think 
is going to happen more and more. GM makes a decision: They lay off 
people in Youngstown, paying a 21-percent tax rate, they move overseas, 
and they are paying a 10.5-percent tax rate. I don't understand the 
logic. I don't understand the morality of that.
  I hope this Congress will look at my legislation, which will turn 
that around. It is our jobs and car act that simply will say: If you 
buy an American car--and 100 different models of cars and trucks 
qualify for this--if you buy an American car or an American truck, 
meaning mostly made in the United States, assembled here, you will get 
$3,500 off the price of that car at the dealership, and that is, in 
essence, paid for by making the tax rate we charge U.S. companies that 
move overseas--charge that same tax rate that we charge in this 
country. That is how you pay for it.
  It makes sense. It would mean more jobs in Ohio. It would matter for 
the dignity of work because autoworkers and the supply chain and 
steelworkers, glassmakers, and people making car seats in Northwest 
Ohio--all of them will have more jobs and will be able to provide for 
their families in a way that they really believe the American dream is 
all about.
  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. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kennedy). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                         Tribute to Kara Nelson

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, it is Thursday. Even though we had a 
short week here in the Senate, it is one of my favorite times of the 
week because I get to talk about the Alaskan of the Week, which is a 
recognition we give to somebody who is doing something important in our 
State.
  I can see by the smile on the pages' faces that it is their favorite 
time of the week, too, because we talk about Alaska and we talk about 
somebody who is making a difference. Maybe, it is a difference just in 
their local community. Maybe, it is in the State. Maybe, it is 
nationwide.
  What I really enjoy doing in this speech every week is not just 
highlighting my great State. Of course, we all think our States are 
great. I know the Presiding Officer thinks his State is great, and I 
encourage people watching on TV or in the Galleries to come on up to 
Alaska. You will have the trip of a lifetime. There is great fishing 
right now and wonderful, beautiful scenery, but the reason you will 
love it so much is the people--strong, tough, resilient, wonderful 
people. That is what we do in terms of the Alaskan of the Week. We talk 
about the people.
  Today, I want to talk about someone very special, a woman who has 
become a good friend of mine, named Kara Nelson. She is our Alaskan of 
the Week. Kara calls Juneau home.
  Sometimes our Alaskans of the Week are unsung heroes. Maybe they have 
been working on something for years--decades, really--and not a lot of 
people know what they are doing. Other times, their efforts go from 
something

[[Page S5688]]

hardly noticed to somebody who is really noticed. I would say that Kara 
is somebody who, over the last couple of years, is really noticed. She 
is kind of a rock star in the State, and to be honest, she deserves the 
attention that she is given.
  Kara works with women who have been in trouble, who have struggled 
with the issues of addiction, and have gone to prison sometimes for it. 
She is working with women who are trying to get a new start in life. 
There is nothing more important, I think--whether it is in Alaska or 
Louisiana, or anywhere in the country--than to give people a new start.
  Here is a little bit about Kara, who has been generous enough to 
share her story openly, because it can be a difficult story to tell. 
She was born and raised mostly in Ketchikan--``logging camps,'' she 
calls them. She was a good student. She was a good athlete. She got 
good grades. But then, unfortunately, like too many of our young people 
today--whether in Alaska or anywhere across the country--she started 
using drugs.
  Eventually drugs took over her life completely. She dropped out of 
high school, and, in her words, ``lived the life of an addict'' for 20 
years. For two decades, she was addicted to heroin and other drugs. She 
was arrested in 2005 for drug-related charges. For years--again, like 
so many people who we are seeing in our country--she ping-ponged in and 
out of prison until she was released on June 1, 2011.
  It has been a tough life with tough experiences, but here is the good 
news. What has she done with that life since? She has been clean and 
sober ever since, which we all know is not easy. It takes courage. It 
takes discipline. She credits her faith and the peer support community 
she was able to find once she was released from prison. It is the kind 
of support she is now offering to hundreds of women across Alaska.
  Shortly after her release from prison, Kara began to attend meetings 
led by two women she knew had been part of prison ministries. These 
women, Ellen Campbell and Ramona Ignell, had an idea of opening up a 
place for women who were getting out of prison and needed help 
transitioning into freedom. They needed help. Many were going through 
their own addiction challenges. They thought Kara would be the perfect 
person to direct the program. As all Alaskans know now, they thought 
right because she was that person.
  In 2015, the transition house that Kara and others founded, called 
Haven House, in Juneau, AK, opened its doors. So far, 33 women have 
gone through the program and only 2 have reoffended, which is a 
remarkable record and success story.
  Kara is also involved in so many other programs throughout the State. 
There are actually too many to name, but let me give you a few 
highlights. These are just a few of the highlights of what she has 
done. She is the cochair of the Juneau Reentry Coalition and the 
cofounder of the Juneau Recovery Community Organization. In 2016, she 
was a fellow of Just Leadership USA. She is an active member of the 
Juneau Homeless and Housing Coalition, Juneau's Disability Abuse 
Response Team, Juneau's Recovery Coaches Advisory Board, and Alaska's 
Statewide Recidivism Reduction Task Force. The list is a lot longer 
than that. That gives you a sense of how involved she is and how much 
she cares about these issues. Last year, for all her work, she was 
awarded the prestigious Director's Community Leadership Award from the 
FBI in recognition of her outstanding service to the advancement of 
justice.

  In the middle of all of this hard work, she went back to school to 
finish her associate's degree and was able to be reunited with her 
three children. On paper and in a speech like this, this certainly all 
looks impressive, but I am here to tell you there is nothing like 
hearing her story in person.
  Let me take you back to a meeting I had in 2015. I had just been 
elected. Kara and seven other women--three of whom were recently out of 
prison and the first residents of Haven House--came to my office. They 
were in DC to attend a march to combat addiction. They were trying to 
get Members of the Senate and the House to support the Comprehensive 
Addiction and Recovery Act, cosponsored and led by my good friend 
Senator Rob Portman, from Ohio, and my good friend from Rhode Island, 
Senator Whitehouse.
  They came to my office. On this day, I had certainly one of the most 
impactful meetings I have had in the Senate. It was a meeting where 
they were all very honest and open about what they had been through, 
and, to be perfectly blunt, these women have been through hell. They 
talked about it with courage, grace, and dignity. They talked about how 
Alaskans were suffering through this addiction--opioid and heroin 
addiction, in particular--and how they needed help and how they needed 
Federal legislation.
  Their honesty, resiliency, and courage were something I was so 
impressed by, so moved by. In many ways, it was a gift for me as a 
Senator to see this and to try, just a little bit, to understand this.
  This meeting went very long. After I heard these stories, I started 
reading more about this crisis. It is impacting all of our States, and 
certainly many parts of Alaska. I told my staff that we have to focus 
on this. For 2 years, we convened a summit in our State. It was called 
the Alaska Wellness Summit: Conquering the Opioid Crisis.
  Kara and her colleagues who came to see me inspired all of us to do 
this. In many ways, they were the stars of this event. They told the 
Alaskans who gathered their stories and their challenges. We talked 
about all kinds of issues--Federal, State, and local. We brought 
Federal officials to this summit. The Surgeon General of the United 
States came. The Deputy Secretary of HHS came. Statewide and local 
officials were all there gathering together, saying: We can do this. We 
can tackle this. Let's work together. There is hope. There is hope 
because of people like Kara.
  I have a big State in terms of territory, but it is not a big State 
in terms of population. Over 500 people showed up at this summit, with 
several hundred more online to listen and to get ideas and to give us 
ideas and to get inspiration from people like Kara. Inspired by that 
summit and people like Kara, we are organizing another summit--
actually, tomorrow--in Anchorage: the Alaska Wellness Summit 2.0. This 
event will also bring together, like we did before, a number of 
Federal, State, and local stakeholders to discuss not only the 
addiction epidemic but also issues relating to drug trafficking and, 
unfortunately, the associated crime wave that is hitting many of the 
communities in Alaska and victimizing many Alaskans.
  Kara will be one of the people in front of hundreds presenting at the 
summit. Again, she will likely talk about her own experiences and 
inspire people and give them courage that they can get through what 
they are going through, and she will talk about how successful peer-to-
peer work has been for her and the other women she has been working 
with. Whatever she talks about tomorrow, I know that she will bring 
courage, insight, and internal fire because she has it. She has been 
through a lot. She is a leader, and she is a leader by example.
  I want to conclude by saying that her work and the work of so many 
others on tackling this crisis and all of the difficult side effects is 
so important. Kara, please keep it up. From the bottom of my heart, 
thank you for all the work you have done, for your courage, your 
commitment, and your inspiration, and, of course, congratulations to 
you on being our Alaskan of the Week.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.


    AMENDMENT NO. 3705 AND AMENDMENT NO. 3706 TO AMENDMENT NO. 3695

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
following amendments be called up en bloc and reported by number: 
Menendez-Murkowski No. 3705 and Fischer-Baldwin No. 3706. I further ask 
consent that at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, August 20, the Senate vote in 
relation to the 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 en bloc by number.
  The assistant bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell], for others, 
     proposes amendment

[[Page S5689]]

     numbered 3705 and amendment numbered 3706 to amendment No. 
     3695 en bloc.

  The amendments are as follows:


                           Amendment No. 3705

(Purpose: To provide funding for the Firefighter Cancer Registry Act of 
                                 2018)

       At the appropriate place in title II of division B insert 
     the following:
       Sec. __. (a) There is appropriated under the heading 
     ``National Institute for Occupational Safely and Health'' 
     under the heading ``Centers for Disease Control and 
     Prevention'', in addition to any other amounts made available 
     under such heading, $1,000,000 to implement the Firefighter 
     Cancer Registry Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-194).
       (b) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the 
     total amount appropriated under the heading ``General 
     Departmental Management'' under the heading ``Office of the 
     Secretary'' is hereby reduced by $1,000,000.


                           Amendment No. 3706

 (Purpose: To appropriate an additional $10,000,000 for Operation and 
Maintenance, Defense-Wide for POW/MIA identification within the Defense 
         Personnel Accounting Agency, and to provide an offset)

       At the appropriate place in title VIII of division A, 
     insert the following:
       Sec. ___. (a) The amount appropriated by title II of this 
     division under the heading ``Operation and Maintenance, 
     Defense-Wide'' is hereby increased by $10,000,000, with the 
     amount of the increase to be available for POW/MIA 
     identification within the Defense Personnel Accounting 
     Agency.I20  (b) The amount appropriated by title II of this 
     division under the heading ``Operation and Maintenance, 
     Defense-Wide'' is hereby decreased by $10,000,000.

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