[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 26 (Monday, February 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1161-S1164]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLOTURE MOTION
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No. 7,
S. 47, a bill to provide for the management of the natural
resources of the United States, and for other purposes.
Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, Kevin Cramer, Mike
Braun, Mike Rounds, Mike Crapo, Michael B. Enzi, Steve
Daines, John Cornyn, John Thune, Thom Tillis, Tom
Cotton, Richard Burr, Shelley Moore Capito, Rob
Portman, Todd Young.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on S. 47,
a bill to provide for the management of the natural resources of the
United States, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from TX (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from TX (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from
ND (Mr. Hoeven), and the Senator from NE (Mr. Sasse).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from TX (Mr. Cornyn)
would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from ND (Mr. Hoeven) would
have voted ``yea''.
=========================== NOTE ===========================
On page S1161, February 11, 2019, second column, the following
appears: Further, if present and voting, the Senator from TX (Mr.
Cornyn) would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from ND (Mr.
Sasse) would have voted ``yea''.
The online Record has been corrected to read: Further, if
present and voting, the Senator from TX (Mr. Cornyn) would have
voted ``yea'' and the Senator from ND (Mr. Hoeven) would have
voted ``yea''.
========================= END NOTE =========================
RBIN
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from MN (Mrs. KLOBUCHER) and
the Senator from MI Mrs. Stavenow) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mr. Sullivan). Are there any other Senators
in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 87, nays 7, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 21 Leg.]
YEAS--87
Alexander
Baldwin
Barrasso
Bennet
Blackburn
Blumenthal
Blunt
Booker
Boozman
Braun
Brown
Burr
Cantwell
Capito
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cassidy
Collins
Coons
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Daines
Duckworth
Durbin
Enzi
Ernst
Feinstein
Fischer
Gardner
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Harris
Hassan
Hawley
Heinrich
Hirono
Hyde-Smith
Isakson
Jones
Kaine
King
Leahy
Manchin
Markey
McConnell
McSally
Menendez
Merkley
Moran
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Perdue
Peters
Portman
Reed
Risch
Roberts
Romney
Rosen
Rounds
Rubio
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Shaheen
Shelby
Sinema
Smith
Sullivan
Tester
Thune
Tillis
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
Young
NAYS--7
Inhofe
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Paul
Toomey
NOT VOTING--6
Cornyn
Cruz
Hoeven
Klobuchar
Sasse
Stabenow
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 87, the nays are 7.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
The Senator from Florida.
Amendment No. 182 to Amendment No. 112
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 182 to amendment
No. 112.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Florida [Mr. Rubio] proposes an amendment
numbered 182 to amendment No. 112.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of
the amendment be waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To give effect to more accurate maps of units of the John H.
Chafee Coastal Barrier Resources System that were produced by digital
mapping)
At the end, add the following:
SEC. 2402A. JOHN H. CHAFEE COASTAL BARRIER RESOURCES SYSTEM.
(a) In General.--Section 2(b) of the Strengthening Coastal
Communities Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-358) is amended by
adding at the end the following:
``(36) The map entitled `Cape San Blas Unit P30/P30P (1 of
2)' and dated December 19, 2018, with respect to Unit P30 and
Unit P30P.
``(37) The map entitled `Cape San Blas Unit P30/P30P (2 of
2)' and dated December 19, 2018, with respect to Unit P30 and
Unit P30P.''.
(b) Effect.--Section 7003 shall have no force or effect.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from the great State of Alaska.
Order of Procedure
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that
notwithstanding rule XXII, at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 12, all
postcloture time be considered expired on S. 47; that following the
disposition of any pending amendments, the substitute amendment, as
amended, if amended, be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be
[[Page S1162]]
read a third time, and the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the
bill, as amended.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciate the cooperation of the
body on the very substantive vote, and I look forward to tomorrow.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Border Security
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, 2\1/2\ weeks ago, Democrats and
Republicans--the House, the Senate, and the White House--agreed to
reopen the government for 3 weeks to be able to continue negotiations
on border security.
A very simple statement that was made by my Democratic colleagues was
this: Reopen the government for 3 weeks. We will negotiate on border
security and come to an agreement, but only if the government is open,
and it would be limited to border security.
It was a pretty straightforward conversation.
President Trump said: We trust you on this.
We agreed to reopen the government for 3 weeks to focus on border
security.
Now it appears that based on the negotiations that are happening
right now in this building, this has become a Lucy-and-the-football-
type negotiation because this doesn't seem to be about border security
anymore.
My Democratic colleagues have said: Now we want to add one thing. We
will vote for fencing at the border as long as you agree to defund a
section of ICE.
The whole negotiation now is this: Yes, we will add border fencing,
but you have to agree to defund ICE.
Here is the way that works. Their agreement is this: You will have to
limit the number of people that ICE can detain.
Now, to our credit, this Congress has always allocated funding to
say: Here is x amount of dollars for detention facilities and for bed
space for ICE, knowing that if somebody is picked up at the border,
when they are picked up at the border as they cross, the Border Patrol
does not house them. They are not detained by Border Patrol. They are
arrested by Border Patrol, and then they are turned over to ICE.
So the plan is not to allocate enough dollars for ICE detention but
to create a new arbitrary cap for the number of people that ICE could
actually detain, so that ICE could only hold x amount of people. That
is what they want to get a negotiation--for the first time ever to have
a maximum cap of the number of people that ICE could detain.
Why does that matter? One is to allow funding for it, and another one
is to have a cap. A cap is very different, and my Democratic colleagues
know it.
In real life, here is what it would look like. If ICE, at any point,
already had the number they have in custody at that point and they
arrest someone else, they would have to choose to release someone
currently in detention before they could arrest someone and put them in
detention.
Let me give an example.
Coyotes now try for any adult who is coming to try to have them bring
a child with them because they know if a child travels with the adult,
they are going to get a special lane into the country, as if they are
coming as a family. They get their own fast lane into being released
into the country.
If you have this ICE detainer cap, coyotes will know: Bring people in
mass migration because ICE can't release enough people at once. So if
you come as a thousand across the border or 500 across the border, they
have to be released into the country because ICE can't quickly release
500 people from detention to add the new 500 people who are coming
through.
My Democratic colleagues also know that it currently takes about 41
days for someone who is in detention to go through the whole process to
get a hearing and get finished. This would accelerate the process of
getting those people out and released into the country, rather than
getting them through the actual hearing.
The better solution on this is to add judges and actually get people
to go through the process and get due process faster, instead of
releasing people into the country. Once someone crosses our border
illegally and they are released into the country, the vast majority of
those individuals never get deported because they either don't show up
for the hearing at all or, when they do show up for the hearing and
they are told, no, you can't legally stay, they disappear.
This cap negotiation that is going on right now is exactly the wrong
direction to go. It is not about border security. It is about releasing
people into the country.
Several years ago, there was a young lady named Sarah Root. She was
in Iowa. It was graduation night from college, and she was hit by a
drunk driver and killed. Sarah Root's loss drew the Nation's attention
for a moment to the issue of not only drunk driving but illegal
immigration, because the person that hit Sarah was illegally present in
the country and had a blood alcohol level three times above the legal
limit.
Local law enforcement, at that time under the Obama administration,
asked ICE to detain them. ICE said they didn't meet the minimum
qualification that had been set by the administration to detain them.
So they released this person on bond. Sarah later died from her
injuries, and they have never been able to find that guy again. He is
gone. He is somewhere in the United States, or maybe he is running
internationally. We don't know, but he is on our most wanted list
instead of being held.
That was a decision made by a previous administration just on
priorities. My Democratic colleagues are trying to force ICE to make
those kinds of decisions every single day now--to determine who needs
to be released and who needs to be kept based on an arbitrary cap that
they want to put in on the maximum number of people that ICE can
detain.
There is no State in the country that sets an arbitrary cap, other
than the bed space that they have available. But this conversation is
that we have enough bed space to hold someone, but you can't use that
bed space because we want to limit the number of people that ICE can
detain.
This is the current debate on border security. It is not about border
security anymore. It is not about fencing anymore. It is now about
giving ICE a maximum cap they can detain and, literally, forcing ICE to
release people illegally present into the United States. That is not
border security. That is the opposite of border security, and we should
not go for a deal that puts a cap on ICE that is an arbitrary number.
I hope this administration rejects that. I hope we can finish
negotiations. I hope the American people see this for what it is. This
is no longer about border security. This is about trying to force this
administration to release people into the country who are illegally
present and prevent ICE from doing its job. Enough is enough on this.
Let's allow the ICE folks to be able to do their job--they are Federal
law enforcement--and not put a cap on them, saying: You can only
enforce the law this far, and then after that, you cannot enforce the
law anymore because we have an arbitrary cap. That needs to be
rejected, and that is not a serious offer in negotiations.
The reason we don't already have a deal that is already done right
now, with this body debating it, is that debate about capping ICE
detentions got added into the conversation last weekend and blew up the
whole negotiation.
This is not the White House blowing up negotiations. This is not
Republicans blowing up negotiations. This is my Democratic colleagues
saying they want a cap on ICE detentions and allowing coyotes to be
able to rush large quantities at the border or forcing ICE to have to
make difficult choices about which gang members they are going to
release and which they are going to hold, literally getting a briefing
every morning saying: We can't arrest anyone today because we don't
have enough detention space, so today we have to look the other way.
That is an absurd proposal, and we should reject it.
With that, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[[Page S1163]]
The Economy
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise to discuss two economic issues this
evening. The first is a reaction to a proposal that comes to us from
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Let me preface this with
the observation that I am pretty sure we are living through the
strongest economy in the United States in my adult lifetime. It has
been fantastic for the people I represent.
Our unemployment rate is pretty much at a 50-year low. African-
American and Hispanic unemployment is the lowest that has ever been
recorded. The youth unemployment rate is extremely low. It is at
historically low levels. Our economy has accelerated, and wages are
growing exactly as we said they would. It is very simple. The demand
for workers has grown so much that employers are being forced to bid
ever higher for the services of the workers.
Now we are in a tremendously enviable position of having more job
openings in America than there are people looking for work in America.
It is fantastic. This is exactly what we want to have happen.
Last week, the President was right when he said that our economy is
the envy of the world. It is totally true.
So what do our colleagues on the other side of the aisle propose to
do in light of the fact that we have this fantastic economy? Well,
Senator Sanders and Senator Schumer joined up and made a proposal that
we adopt legislation that would severely restrict the ability of
American companies to buy back their own stock. This is just the latest
iteration of a socialist tendency that seems to be growing on the far
left. This is a horrendous idea.
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised when we hear a Socialist-leaning
idea coming from a self-described Democratic Socialist or a Socialist
Democrat--whatever the description is--but I am surprised to hear this
coming from the Senate minority leader.
Let's talk about this a little bit. First of all, what is a stock
buyback? It is not that complicated. It is when the owners of a company
take some or all of their money out of the company.
Let's think about it this way. A business is owned by its
shareholders, and the shareholders hire a management team to take their
money and invest it in a way that will generate a return for the
investor, for the shareholder. That is the role of the management team.
So why would they buy back their own stock? The reason they would buy
back their own stock is that sometimes it happens that the management
team of a company is just not able to deploy any more capital in a way
that would generate a better return than what is generally available in
the marketplace. What sometimes happens is companies might make huge
investments; they may be investing tremendous amounts--record amounts--
in expanding their capabilities, expanding their production, more R&D,
and expanding their staff, but they can reach a limit as to how much
they can expand and how much they productively invest at any given
point. If they have more money--more cash--than they can productively
deploy, they have an obligation to return that to the people who
actually own it; that is, the shareholders, the investors. That is
their obligation.
Shockingly, Senators Sanders and Schumer are suggesting that
companies be forbidden from being able to return some portion of their
excess capital to their shareholders unless the company first complies
with a list of political demands that Senators Schumer and Sanders are
advocating.
Let me tell you why this is such a bad idea. I will give you three
reasons. No. 1, it is a disturbing and profound attack on freedom. No.
2, it would be terrible for the economy. And, No. 3, it would hurt the
very people they presumably intend to help. Let me go through them in
order.
First of all, as far as freedom goes, whose company is it? To whom
does a given company in America belong? I have always thought they
belonged to the shareholders of those companies--the people who saved
up and invested in them, the people who have launched those companies,
and the people whose capital made it possible. So, of course, it should
be within the rights of the people who own a company to decide what to
do with the profits after all expenses have been covered and taxes have
been paid. That is what we are talking about here.
I have a question for my colleagues. The question is, What principle
confers on politicians the right to control whether and when and under
what circumstances an investor can withdraw his own money from a
business in which he invested? I don't know what that principle is.
I will say, to me, it seems exactly equivalent to confiscating the
property of somebody--in this case, their ownership in a business--and
redistributing that confiscated asset to whomever they choose. That
strikes me as pretty close to the definition of socialism. It clearly
is an attack on the economic freedom that underpins our entire economy,
an entire market economy.
My second point, and related, is this would be terrible for the
economy. It would do great harm to an economy that is doing quite well
right now. The main way it would be so damaging is it would scare away
capital.
Just stop and think about it. Our economy thrives when people are
willing to invest in existing businesses, in new businesses, and in
startup businesses, but that investment is an absolutely essential part
of a thriving economy. Well, people are much less likely to make an
investment if Congress makes it harder to take that investment out. So
what we would do is we would dry up sources of capital for companies
that need that capital because investors would understandably say:
Well, we are heading down the road of putting all kinds of limits on my
ability to ever get my money out. I think it may be good to just park
it and not invest it.
That would be a very bad development.
The proponents of this idea of restricting companies this way say
they want to ``incentivize productive investment.'' I have to laugh
because I have a secret for our colleagues. You see, the free
enterprise system already provides an incentive for productive
investment. It is called the profit. That is the whole idea. So we
don't need to punish people for making an investment as a way to
incentivize productive investment. In fact, it will not work at all.
I think some of what they have argued displays a little bit of
confusion about how this works. In their argument about why something
has to be done, they say that 90 percent of profits go to buybacks and
dividends. What else would you use it for? I mean, you first have to
cover all of your expenses before you have a profit. So you could have
record amounts of research and development, record amounts of
expansion, records amounts of employment, and growth in employment, but
after all of that is covered, only then do you have the profit. That is
what is left over. And after you have covered all of those things, why
wouldn't you have buybacks and a distribution to the investors?
That raises this question: Exactly what problem is it that our
colleagues think they are solving here? We are running at record high
levels of investment in our economy. Capital expenditures have gone
through the roof in response partly--largely--due to the change in the
tax law that we made. The buybacks that have been occurring have
coincided with record levels of investment. What is the problem here?
By the way, as I pointed out earlier, wage growth has accelerated at
the highest rate we have seen in many, many years. I really don't
understand what problem they think we are solving.
By the way, there is an alternative to distributing excess capital to
shareholders. The alternative is keeping the capital trapped in the
company where it is not being put to its most productive use. You see,
one of the great dynamics of a market economy is that by returning
excess capital to shareholders, the shareholders get to decide what new
idea deserves to be funded by recycling this capital. Whether it is in
the form of dividends or stock buybacks, we encourage this capital to
find a new home--a new startup, a new idea, or an expansion of an
existing business. The capital is constantly being redirected to the
best ideas, as long as you allow it to happen.
Finally, this idea would be very harmful to the people it is,
presumably, meant to help. About 40 percent of all equities in the
United States are
[[Page S1164]]
held in pension and retirement accounts. These are the accounts of
teachers and cabdrivers and truckdrivers and folks who work at
factories and do every other job that our economy depends on, who put a
little money away. It may be in a 401(k) plan, in an IRA, or in an
employer-sponsored pension plan; these folks own an awful lot of the
stock in America. Well, buybacks are good for their investment because,
in some cases, it returns cash that can then be redeployed. In other
cases, it provides a bid; it provides upward pressure on the stock
price, which is good for the value of their savings. Over time, if the
stock gets retired, then the diminished supply gets that much greater a
share of all of the future earnings. This is completely a win-win for
savers and investors.
Let me just conclude by saying it is a very, very bad idea for
America to take any steps down the road toward socialism. This is very
much an idea of that ilk. In fact, it is a big step in the direction of
a collectivist socialist economy, and we should reject this out of
hand.
U.S. Trade
Mr. President, I also want to touch on an unrelated topic, but it is
an important one; that is, the ongoing discussion we are having in this
Congress and across the country with respect to trade.
I think most of us in this Chamber agree that international trade is
very good for the United States. I know it is very good for
Pennsylvania.
I think we all understand that if we impose tariffs on imported
goods, that is a tax that American consumers have to pay on a product
or a service just because it originates somewhere else. If you add up
the impact of the tariffs that this administration has already applied,
according to the Congressional Budget Office, that is already going to
take one-tenth of a percent off of our GDP, off of our economic growth.
That is assuming no further tariffs occur, which is unknown at this
point.
In particular, I want to address a category of tariffs that are known
as section 232 tariffs because that is the part of the trade law which
justifies these tariffs. This is an old law. It is a Cold War-era trade
law that is designed to allow a President to impose tariffs when he
believes there is a national security threat that requires these
tariffs, these taxes on some foreign product for some reason that
affects our national security.
In my view, the recent imposition of these 232 tariffs on aluminum
and steel were not really about national security. They had other
motives and other purposes, and, in my view, they have done much more
harm than good.
If you look at tariffs on imported steel, you might believe that it
is helpful to the people who are in the steel industry. We have about
140,000 Americans employed at steel mills. It is possible that the
tariffs are helpful to those companies and those employees at some
level. The problem is, we have 6.5 million people in companies that use
many, many multiples, and everybody who works in that sector of our
economy across a wide range of industries is put at a competitive
disadvantage when they have to pay that tax on imported steel and
aluminum.
Some examples come to mind. Allegheny Technologies is a company in
western Pennsylvania that last year had to pay $16 million in taxes on
the steel they imported. They had no choice but to import it because of
the unique nature of that steel. It is threatening one of their
production facilities.
American Keg is the only steel keg maker in the United States and
makes beer kegs in Pennsylvania. They had to lay off one-third of their
workers in March of last year because they are not as competitive as
they need to be.
Colonial Metal Products is a small manufacturer. They use steel in
fabrication. Their entire workforce is at risk.
The list goes on and on because fundamentally these taxes make many
companies that use steel and aluminum less competitive.
That is not the only problem. As we all know, many American exporters
are subject to retaliation by companies that experience these tariffs.
So there are a lot of problems.
I have introduced legislation that is meant to address this. One
aspect of this that I think is very important is that the Constitution
unambiguously assigns to Congress the responsibility for managing our
economic relations--our competing trade relations with other countries.
In the Constitution, that explicitly includes the responsibility for
deciding whether and to what extent we should impose tariffs on the
products of other countries. Yet for years Congress has just let
administration after administration take this responsibility that the
Constitution gives to us.
So what my legislation does is pretty simple. It says, let's restore
to Congress the responsibility that the Constitution gives to Congress.
Let's make sure that national security-related tariffs are only imposed
when Congress says they should be imposed.
The legislation has 11 original cosponsors, roughly even between
Republicans and Democrats. Senator Warner is the lead Democrat on this
bill, and Senators Sasse and Hassan are also original cosponsors. Four
of the cosponsors are from the Finance Committee, which has
jurisdiction over this issue. There is the House companion, which is
also bipartisan. There are 61 organizations, business groups and
others, that have endorsed this from the outside.
It is important to make the point that our legislation, while it is
designed to restore to Congress this important responsibility, doesn't
eliminate the ability of a President to invoke section 232 and impose
tariffs if there is a genuine threat to American security. What the
President needs to do is explain the threat, make the case to the
Congress, and under our legislation, there is a mechanism that requires
expedited consideration of the President's request. It can't be
filibustered. It doesn't take 60 votes. There is a strict timeline. So
this can't languish on a shelf somewhere; Congress has to respond.
One other feature that is important in this bill is that the
executive branch determination of whether there is a threat to national
security would no longer be conducted by the Commerce Department, as it
is now; it would move to the Department of Defense. My view on that is
very simple. The Department of Defense is the entity within our
executive branch that is best qualified to determined threats to our
national security.
I am hopeful that we will grow our support and be able to get a vote
on this legislation.
I should point out that there are other legislative approaches. There
are other ideas on 232. There is one bill that, like mine, would shift
the responsibility for evaluating the threat from the Commerce
Department to the Defense Department, but the difference with some of
these other pieces of legislation is they contemplate a disapproval
resolution. They simply observe that Congress can pass a law to prevent
or rescind a 232 designation, but these alternative bills would do
nothing to restore that responsibility to Congress today. We could pass
a law if we had the votes, and we could override a Presidential veto.
We could pass a law to rescind any kind of tariff. The alternative
legislation doesn't change that fact. What my legislation does is it
would require the affirmative consent of Congress before the tariffs
can go into place. That is a fundamental difference.
So I think, for the sake of expanding trade, but importantly, in my
mind, for the sake of restoring the constitutional responsibility that
is assigned to Congress, we ought to pass this legislation.
With that, 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. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________