[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 54 (Thursday, March 28, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2064-S2077]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 268) making supplemental appropriations for 
     the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other 
     purposes.

  Pending:

       McConnell (for Shelby) Amendment No. 5, of a perfecting 
     nature.
       Schumer Amendment No. 6, of a perfecting nature.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw 
Amendment Nos. 5 and 6.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendments were withdrawn.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.


                           Amendment No. 201

  Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 201.
  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 201.

  Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading 
be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (Purpose: In the nature of a substitute.)
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The senior assistant bill 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 the Senate 
     amendment No. 201 to H.R. 268, making supplemental 
     appropriations for the fiscal

[[Page S2065]]

     year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes.
         Mitch McConnell, Roy Blunt, Richard C. Shelby, Johnny 
           Isakson, Pat Roberts, Steve Daines, Mike Rounds, David 
           Perdue, Rick Scot, Lamar Alexander, John Barrasso, John 
           Hoeven, John Thune, John Boozman, Shelley Moore Capito, 
           Tom Cotton, Rob Portman.


                 Amendment No. 213 to Amendment No. 201

  Mr. McCONNELL. I have an amendment at the desk and ask the clerk to 
report.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 213 to amendment No. 201.

  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end add the following.
       ``This act shall be effective 1 day after enactment.''

  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays are ordered.


                 Amendment No. 214 to Amendment No. 213

  Mr. McCONNELL. I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 214 to amendment No. 213.

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

       Strike ``1 day'' and insert ``2 days''


                           Amendment No. 215

  Mr. McCONNELL. I have an amendment to the text of the underlying 
bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 215 to language proposed to be stricken by 
     amendment No. 201.

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

       At the end add the following.
       ``This Act shall take effect 3 days after the date of 
     enactment.''

  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays are ordered.


                 Amendment No. 216 to Amendment No. 215

  Mr. McCONNELL. I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 216 to amendment No. 215.

  The amendment is as follows:

       Strike ``3 days'' and insert ``4 days''

  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum 
calls for the cloture motions be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Mueller Report

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I thought it was exceptionally good news 
on Sunday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller did not implicate our 
President in a criminal conspiracy with Russia to attack our elections. 
The alternative, of course, would have been nothing short of 
catastrophic for our Republic.
  I also want to express my appreciation to Mr. Mueller and his team 
for their service to our country for determining the facts of what 
happened during what was an unprecedented attack on our democracy. This 
investigation endured relentless attacks during its 22-month existence. 
In fact, the investigation by Mr. Mueller was attacked 1,100 times by 
President Trump alone during this time according to the New York Times.
  These attacks may have tried to politicize and undermine Mr. 
Mueller's investigation, but they didn't deter his course. Anybody that 
knows Robert Mueller would know that he would not be intimidated by 
anybody, Republican or Democrat. In fact, far from being deterred, Mr. 
Mueller obtained 37 indictments, including against numerous close aides 
of the President. That marks this special counsel's investigation as 
one of the most productive and consequential in our history. The 
American people and their representatives in Congress now deserve to 
see the special counsel's work.
  The oversight authority of this body is deeply rooted in the 
Constitution. We would be derelict in our duties if we did not do 
everything within our power to obtain a full report and its underlying 
evidence. We already know from the 37 indictments, and from the 
testimony received by the Judiciary Committee, that this investigation 
has uncovered serious misconduct. We know the Trump campaign was 
informed that Russia had stolen Democratic emails months before anybody 
else. We know that a senior member of the campaign enthusiastically 
accepted an offer from the Russian Government to provide 
``incriminating'' information on Hillary Clinton, and, afterward, he 
and President Trump blatantly misrepresented that meeting. We know from 
Roger Stone's indictment that the President was told about a coming 
release of stolen emails, and the campaign asked Stone to keep them 
apprised of developments with future releases. And we know that during 
all of this, the President was hiding his pursuit of a lucrative 
business deal in Moscow.
  Now, these activities may not amount to a crime, but they certainly 
amount to serious misconduct that reached the highest levels of the 
campaign and this administration, and they certainly raise questions 
about the President's baffling relationship with Russia and Vladimir 
Putin. This relationship has been baffling to both Republicans and 
Democrats.
  That doesn't even touch on obstruction of justice. Attorney General 
Barr's letter revealed that there is still nonpublic evidence of the 
President's attempts to interfere with this investigation. The special 
counsel did not conclude whether the President's obsessive interference 
in this investigation qualifies as obstruction. Yet he stated that his 
report does not exonerate the President--does not exonerate the 
President. That is an extraordinary statement.
  Apparently, Attorney General Barr believes there is insufficient 
evidence to charge obstruction, but Mr. Barr also believes that it is 
not obstruction for a President to interfere with an investigation by 
exercising his Article II powers. Regardless, he believes that the only 
mechanism for holding a sitting President accountable is through 
Congress.
  Let's accept all of that. I don't necessarily accept all of it, but 
let's assume he is accurate in that. Then I would hope he would agree 
that it is the judgment of Congress and of the American people that is 
of the utmost importance in this moment. There is simply no 
justification for hiding even a portion of the Mueller report. The 
President has claimed it totally exonerates him.
  With respect to the collusion investigation, grand jury secrecy can 
be waived by the courts when there is a particular need that outweighs 
the interest in secrecy. With respect to the obstruction investigation, 
executive privilege cannot be used to hide evidence of a potential 
crime. In fact, if you want to hide evidence of a potential crime under 
executive privilege, all they have to do is look at a Supreme Court 
case where that was tried called United States v. Richard Nixon. Any 
claim would likely not survive a challenge under United States v. 
Nixon. It is hard to imagine that such hypothetical claims were not 
waived when administration witnesses talked to the special counsel's 
office.

[[Page S2066]]

  Transparency is really the touchstone of our democracy. Any attempt 
to hide swaths of the Mueller report from public scrutiny is only going 
to fuel suspicions that President Trump's Justice Department, which 
represents not President Trump but all the United States, is instead 
playing the role of President Trump's defense team. If no person, 
however powerful, is truly above the law, then no person should be 
permitted to conceal the results of such a critical national security 
investigation from public view.
  I hope that in the days and weeks ahead, the Senate has something to 
say about that. Everyone, Republican and Democrat alike, has a stake in 
knowing what is in that report and seeing the whole report. After 
months and months of work and all the investigations, all the 
indictments, and all the grand jury hearings, to say we have to rely on 
just a four-page summary is not enough. I don't accept that. I would 
hope that no Senator, Republican or Democrat, would accept it.
  I note that the House of Representatives voted unanimously--every 
Republican and every Democrat--to have the report released. I note that 
when we tried to have a similar resolution here, it was blocked by the 
Republican leader. I think the Republican leader should turn to all of 
us and say: Let the American people know the facts.


                                H.R. 268

  Madam President, I do not see anybody else seeking recognition. I 
would note, on another matter, the disaster supplemental appropriations 
legislation has been filed, and there will be discussions on that. The 
House of Representatives has a bill which does a great deal for the 
disaster relief for all Americans who were hurt by the recent disasters 
in our country. I proposed some modification of it, which would include 
all Americans and believe the House would have accepted it.
  I am concerned now that we have before us a bill that excludes a 
large number of Americans, those in Puerto Rico, people who served 
nobly in our military and helped this country and other Americans. They 
should not be excluded for whatever reason. So we will have a debate on 
that next week.
  I hope very soon, for the American people, that we can have an honest 
and clear resolution that will bring relief to those who suffered from 
disasters such as fires, hurricanes, and floods throughout our country.
  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. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Economic Growth

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, when Republicans took office after the 
2016 Presidential election, we had one goal in mind: make life better 
for American families. We knew a big part of that was getting our 
economy going again.
  After years of sluggish economic growth, family budgets were 
stretched thin. Getting ahead had frequently been replaced by getting 
by. Wages were stagnant and jobs and opportunities were often few and 
far between.
  So the Republicans and the President got right to work. We repealed 
burdensome regulations that were hamstringing economic growth, and we 
passed a comprehensive reform of our outdated Tax Code.
  You might ask, Why the Tax Code? Well, the Tax Code has a huge effect 
on American families' prosperity. It helps determine how much you bring 
home in your paycheck and how much you have left over to spend or save. 
It helps determine what kind of jobs, wages, and opportunities are 
available to you. A small business owner struggling to afford a heavy 
tax bill is unlikely to have the money to hire a new worker or to 
expand her business. A larger business is going to find it harder to 
create jobs or improve benefits for employees if it is struggling to 
stay competitive against foreign businesses paying much less in taxes.
  Prior to the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, our Tax Code was 
not helping American workers. It was taking too much from Americans' 
paychecks, and it was making it difficult for businesses to grow and to 
create jobs. We passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to put more money in 
Americans' pockets, spur economic growth, and expand opportunities for 
American workers.
  We cut tax rates for American families, doubled the child tax credit, 
and nearly doubled the standard deduction.
  We lowered tax rates across the board for owners of small- and 
medium-sized businesses, farms, and ranches. We lowered our Nation's 
massive corporate tax rate, which, up until January 1 of last year, was 
the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. We expanded 
business owners' ability to recover the cost of investments they make 
in their businesses, which frees up cash they can reinvest in their 
operations and in their workers, and we brought the U.S. international 
tax system into the 21st century so American businesses are not 
operating at a competitive disadvantage next to their foreign 
counterparts.
  Now we are seeing the results. Our economy is thriving. Economic 
growth in the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018 was 
3.1 percent, the strongest growth we have seen literally in 13 years. 
The unemployment rate dropped to 3.8 percent in February, the 12th 
straight month the unemployment rate has been at or below 4 percent. 
That is the longest streak in nearly 50 years. The number of job 
openings has once again exceeded the number of job seekers. In fact, 
the Department of Labor reports that January was the 11th straight 
month with more job openings than people looking for work.
  The economy has added more than 5.3 million jobs since President 
Trump was elected. Job growth has averaged 209,000 jobs a month over 
the past 12 months, exceeding the 2017 average by 30,000 jobs a month. 
Wage growth is accelerating. Wages are growing at a rate of 3.4 
percent--the seventh straight month in which wages have grown at a rate 
of 3 percent or greater. Median household income is at an alltime high. 
Business investment is up, which means more jobs and opportunities for 
American workers. U.S. manufacturing is booming. Small business hiring 
recently hit a record high, and the list goes on.
  This is a big turnaround.
  After years of economic stagnation during the Obama administration, 
some were predicting that sluggish economic growth would be the new 
normal. When President Trump took office, the Congressional Budget 
Office predicted the economy would grow at a rate of 2 percent in 2018 
and 1.7 percent in 2019. After Republicans cut burdensome regulations 
and passed a historic tax reform bill, the Congressional Budget Office 
substantially revised that projection, predicting 2.9 percent growth in 
2018 and 2.7 percent in 2019--and the economy has delivered on that 
prediction.
  Importantly, the benefits of our thriving economy are being spread 
far and wide. The lowest wage earners saw the fastest wage growth in 
2018. The Wall Street Journal recently reported:

       All sorts of people who have previously had trouble landing 
     a job are now finding work. Racial minorities, those with 
     less education, and people working in the lowest-paying jobs 
     are getting bigger pay raises and in many cases experiencing 
     the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded for their groups. 
     They are joining manufacturing workers, women in their prime 
     working years, Americans with disabilities, and those with 
     criminal records, among others, in finding improved job 
     prospects after years of disappointment.

  Tax cuts and other Republican economic policies are making life 
better for American families. So what do Democrats want to do? Continue 
with the policies that are bringing relief to American families? That 
would make sense.
  Unfortunately not. Democrats want to raise taxes--by a lot--to pay 
for the socialist fantasies they are now embracing. Plans such as the 
Green New Deal and Medicare for All would result in massive tax hikes 
on just about everyone. Our economy would suffer and American families 
would see a permanent reduction in their standard of living.
  It is deeply alarming that the Democratic Party is rapidly turning 
into the Socialist Party. It is vitally important that we ensure that 
hard-working Americans never have to live under Democrats' socialist 
fantasies.
  Republicans are committed to protecting Americans from any attempt to

[[Page S2067]]

undo the economic progress we have made, and we will continue working 
to strengthen our economy even further.
  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. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.


                               Healthcare

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, on Monday the Trump administration 
doubled down on their assault on American healthcare by supporting an 
effort to completely eliminate the healthcare law through the courts. 
People scratched their heads, saying: Are they really doing this after 
trying for 2 years unsuccessfully and after losing the election?
  Yes, they are. The action is no small matter. The Trump 
administration's radical support for the wholesale elimination of the 
healthcare law would send our healthcare system into certain chaos. If 
the Trump administration has its way, it would send premiums soaring 
for millions of Americans. It would revoke coverage for tens of 
millions more who gained coverage through medical expansions. It would 
strike protections for an estimated 133 million adults in America who 
have preexisting medical conditions, even people who get coverage from 
their employer.
  Let me say that again. There are 133 million Americans who have 
preexisting medical conditions. If the Trump administration has its 
way, the insurance company could just tell those 133 million and their 
families: We cut you off. We don't want to pay for your insurance 
anymore because it is too expensive. Your daughter has cancer. Your 
wife has severe diabetes.
  It is a disgrace. Let's not forget that the system would impose 
billions of dollars in new prescription drug costs on seniors in 
Medicare. The consequences are dire. That is why we are introducing an 
amendment to ensure that not a dime of the American people's money goes 
to the Trump administration's fight to destroy the entire healthcare 
system. Not one cent of the Department of Justice should be used to 
hurt Americans like this.
  Donald Trump campaigned on ``End ObamaCare.'' Then, the Republican 
Party--and even we thought Trump himself--saw they had no replacement. 
This repeal and replace had no replacement. They couldn't come up with 
one.
  What is the Republican Party now standing for? Here it is. ``The 
Republican Party will become the party of healthcare,'' says Donald 
Trump. Absolutely not. Here is what his tweet should say if he is being 
honest and telling the truth to the American people: The Republican 
Party will become the party that ended your healthcare.
  You cannot have a situation in the Trump administration where 
President Trump says one thing and their Attorney General goes to court 
to do the opposite. You cannot or should not have a situation where 
Republican Senators get up and say we need to expand healthcare for 
people, and then they say not a peep when their own President tries to 
strip it away from them.
  President Trump says the Republican Party wants to be the party of 
healthcare. Well, I say, God help the middle class if Republicans are 
the party of healthcare. What, dare I ask, is their plan? Let me ask 
Leader McConnell and every Republican Senator, and I hope their 
constituents will ask them, too, because this is the No. 1 issue across 
the country.
  We should ask our Republican friends and the President: What is your 
plan to deal with prescription drug costs?
  Costs are at an alltime high. Instead, they are supporting this 
lawsuit that would impose billions of dollars in prescription drug 
costs on seniors.
  We should ask President Trump and Leader McConnell: What is your plan 
to get more people covered on high-quality health insurance that they 
can actually afford at a time when premiums are still rising because of 
sabotage by the Trump administration? How will they bring relief?
  Instead, our Republican colleagues, by their silence, are assenting 
to a lawsuit that would kick tens of millions of people off insurance.
  I ask President Trump, Senator McConnell, and our Republican 
colleagues: What is your plan to protect people with preexisting 
conditions?
  Over and over again, the Republicans say they support keeping 
safeguards for preexisting conditions. Instead, they are supporting 
this lawsuit or, by their silence, assenting to their party's 
President's lawsuit that completely wipes away the protections for 
preexisting conditions.
  The American people deserve answers because President Trump insisted 
yesterday that he has a ``plan that is far better than ObamaCare.'' We 
all know that that is not true. He just talks off the top of his head. 
He said it at the lunch.
  President Trump, what is your plan that is better than ObamaCare? You 
may not have all of the details, but give us the main points.
  When you are President, you have a responsibility, as people's lives 
are at stake. They need healthcare. It is not for you to simply say 
``we have a better plan,'' file a lawsuit that gets rid of the existing 
plan, and then give people no inclination--no clue--as to what that 
plan is.
  Why is this happening?
  One, we know that President Trump has no fidelity issues. He talks 
off the top of his head. He doesn't know what the issues are all about. 
Regarding issues, he is the least informed President we have ever had 
in American history. He just says what he thinks sounds nice at the 
moment, and then his administration does the hard-right thing all of 
the time--the extreme thing--that has a narrow special interest but is 
not in the interest of the American people.


                             Mick Mulvaney

  Madam President, President Trump's actual administration seems to be 
far to the right of even the mainstream of the Republican Party. Why 
does that happen? Well, here is one reason.
  Mick Mulvaney is now Chief of Staff and was the head of the OMB, but 
he still has a lot of say over that Agency. It was reported last night 
that it was Mick Mulvaney, against the advice of others, who convinced 
President Trump to take this radical position on healthcare. So we all 
know who is holding the strings, who is putting in President Trump's 
head these hard-right ideas that his administration continually 
effectuates and of which he almost never backs off. We now seem to be 
living in the Mick Mulvaney administration.
  He is the same person who said we need to end Medicare as we know it. 
That should send a chill down every American's spine. Let me repeat 
that. The Mick Mulvaney administration, of which President Trump is a 
willing follower, if you will, says: We should end Medicare as we know 
it.
  Do Americans believe that? No. Do Republicans believe that? Most of 
them do not. Yet this man, Mulvaney--not elected--puts ideas in 
President Trump's head, and that is what President Trump does. Make no 
mistake about it--the ultimate responsibility is President Trump's, but 
when you wonder why the words the President says differ from so many 
administration policies--and it is the policies that are hurting 
Americans--the reason is Mulvaney.
  Here is what the Mulvaney administration looks like: extreme budget 
cuts to the programs that the middle-class families depend on--cuts to 
the Departments of Education and Transportation; severe cuts to the 
Office of Science; severe cuts to the EPA; cuts to programs that are 
most in need, SNAP; faster cuts to Medicare; and repeated government 
shutdowns. It was reported yesterday that the administration is 
considering no more Fannie and Freddie--no more help for the middle 
class to buy a home. This is another great Mulvaney idea.
  Mick Mulvaney was one of the five most hard-right people in the House 
of Representatives. He was one of the authors of the previous shutdown. 
His views are far, far away from the average American's. Donald Trump, 
who gets full blame for Mulvaney's ideas because he is enacting them, 
seems to be following him lock, stock, and barrel. If the President had 
actually campaigned on these Mulvaney ideas in 2016, he would have been 
roundly defeated.

[[Page S2068]]

  If he goes to Michigan tonight and talks about these Mulvaney ideas, 
he will get booed even by his own supporters, for he enacts the 
Mulvaney ideas. His Justice Department is now suing to get rid of 
healthcare, which is something Mulvaney has always advocated for.
  President Trump, your administration is now the Mulvaney 
administration.
  That should terrify every single American, and it should terrify any 
thoughtful Republican Senator.
  Make no mistake about it--Donald Trump's hard-right administration, 
which so hurts the middle class and so helps the narrow, wealthy, 
special, and corporate interests--the brain child of many of these 
ideas--comes from Mr. Mulvaney. He puts it into the cipher of Donald 
Trump. Donald Trump enacts it, and the American people suffer.


                              Puerto Rico

  Madam President, on Puerto Rico, it has been 18 months since 
Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma devastated the people of Puerto Rico 
and the surrounding islands.
  These were extraordinary disasters that required an extraordinary 
response, but President Trump has hardheartedly said that the island of 
Puerto Rico has received too much aid. He complained that the U.S. 
Government had already given $91 billion in relief.
  Mr. President, stop making up your own facts, for $90 billion is the 
amount of damage these storms caused. The people of Puerto Rico are 
suffering. They have received a sliver of the funding they need.
  It is hard to fathom the depths of cruelty that it takes for the 
President to treat the people of Puerto Rico this way. They are 
American citizens.
  The Democrats have taken action. The House passed a comprehensive 
disaster bill 2 months ago. It would have provided aid to Puerto Rico 
and to the other States that are hurt. We want to help all of those 
States, as that is what Americans do, but Donald Trump has told our 
Senate Republicans: No aid for Puerto Rico. Instead of standing up and 
saying that it is wrong, that it is not fair, they seem to be going 
along. This is shameful. We have an opportunity to change that by 
fixing the disaster bill that is currently on the floor.
  I would tell our Republican friends that we want to help people in 
the States where there is flooding in the Midwest, where there are 
wildfires in the West, where there are droughts, but the bill they are 
trying to pass here is never going to pass the House. They know that. 
To get disaster aid for the country, which is well needed in so many 
places, our Republican friends are going to have to tell Donald Trump 
his cold, cruel-hearted, and divisive policy must fall, his policy of 
not letting any of the already allocated aid be distributed to Puerto 
Rico.


                             Mueller Report

  Madam President, on one final matter--Mueller--yesterday and for the 
second time this week, Leader McConnell blocked our request that was 
made by the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Dianne 
Feinstein, to make public the full report authored by Special Counsel 
Mueller.
  I thank Senator Feinstein for making the request and for standing up 
for transparency. As Senator Feinstein said, a four-page summary from a 
political appointee is hardly a sufficient substitute for Special 
Counsel Mueller's 2-year investigation. There were reports this morning 
that the Mueller report is over 300 pages. All we have gotten is a 
four-page summary by someone who was appointed by the administration 
and who, before he took office, felt the President could never--almost 
never--be called for obstruction of justice, which is one of the main 
parts of the Mueller investigation.
  For Mr. Barr to quickly issue a four-page report in his attempt to 
try to exonerate President Trump and now to delay the release of an 
over 300-page report that has been written by Mueller so that the 
American people and we Senators and Congressmen cannot see what was 
written has too much of the odor of political expediency to help the 
man who appointed him, President Trump.
  The American people have a right to know the full scope of the facts 
behind Russia's interference in our election. The American people have 
a right to come to their own conclusions about actions taken by this 
administration. The American people deserve to have full confidence in 
the integrity of our system and in the impartiality of the rule of law, 
and only the full release of the report can affirm that.
  What I am saying here shouldn't be controversial. In the House, it 
passed 420 to nothing--the resolution to make the full report public--
voted for by such partisan defenders of the President's, like 
Representative Jordan and Representative Meadows.
  Transparency, we all know, is all the more important because the 
Attorney General has made no secret of his antipathy toward this 
investigation and appears intent on holding the report secret for as 
long as possible. I guess his hope is to let the dust settle, and then 
no one will pay attention. Well, he is wrong about that. He is 
prolonging this. Remember, this Attorney General made clear that he was 
hostile to the special counsel and was opposed to Mueller's inquiry 
into obstruction of justice. Then he opines about it 2 days later 
without showing anybody any backing? That is so wrong.
  According to press reports, in his phone call yesterday with Mr. 
Nadler, Mr. Barr would not even commit to releasing the whole report at 
any time. He wouldn't commit to a date. He was not even willing to 
disclose how many pages were in the special counsel's report, as if 
that were some kind of state secret.
  As I said, since that conversation, there have been reports that it 
is over 300 pages. If it is, it is just disgraceful for Mr. Barr, who 
was able to read through it and summarize it in 48 hours, to now say he 
can't release it because he is busy culling it.
  The Attorney General must end the stalling and the secrecy. It is not 
going to be a happy opening chapter for the Attorney General when 
history looks back on what he has done. We should make the report 
public now.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Romney). The Senator from Iowa.
  (The remarks of Mr. Grassley pertaining to the introduction of S. 928 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')


                    Nomination of William R. Evanina

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, another thing that I shouldn't have to 
come to the floor to talk about--and it will only take me about 3 or 4 
minutes--is that I am still hearing questions about my intent to object 
to the nomination of William Evanina. These are the same questions I 
heard last year when I initially placed my hold on Evanina.
  By the way, my hold is printed in the Record, and the rules of this 
Senate require all Members who put a hold on a nomination or a bill, 
within 2 days after doing that, to put something in the Record, and 
most Senators aren't following that rule of the Senate. So if you have 
some disagreement about something and you put a secret hold on and 
somebody wants to sit down and talk with you to see what is wrong, how 
are they going to know who it is? That is why, in 2011, on a vote of 96 
to 4, Senator Wyden and I got these rules, so there should be no secret 
holds in the U.S. Senate.
  So I am back here again. This statement will be the fourth time since 
June 4, 2018, that I have publicly expressed my reason for this hold 
here on the Senate floor. It seems to me no one has been listening to 
what I have been saying, but what is unusual about that?
  As I have said repeatedly, the Judiciary Committee has experienced 
difficulty in obtaining relevant documents and briefings from the 
Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence.
  Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein personally--I want to 
emphasize--personally assured me that the Judiciary Committee would 
receive equal access to information provided to the House Permanent 
Select Committee on Intelligence with regard to negotiations about the 
pending subpoenas from that committee related to the 2016 election 
controversies.
  I haven't received equal access, as promised.
  On August 7, 2018, I wrote to the Justice Department and pointed out 
that the House Intelligence Committee received documents related to 
Bruce Ohr on May 8, 2018, that the Judiciary Committee did not receive.

[[Page S2069]]

  I ask unanimous consent to have that letter inserted in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                      U.S. Senate,


                                   Committee on the Judiciary,

                                   Washington, DC, August 7, 2018.
     Hon. Rod J. Rosenstein,
     Deputy Attorney General,
     U.S. Department of Justice.
       Dear Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein: As we have 
     discussed on several occasions, you agreed to provide the 
     Judiciary Committee equal access to documents produced to the 
     U.S. House of Representatives, including those pursuant to 
     requests and subpoenas from the Select Committee on 
     Intelligence related to 2016 election controversies.
       Unfortunately, even though you gave me your word that the 
     Committee would receive equal access, the Department has 
     failed to deliver. On July 12, 2018, the New York Times 
     reported that the Trump Administration ordered ``more 
     lawmakers be given access to classified information about an 
     informant the F.B.I. used in 2016 to investigate possible 
     ties between the Trump campaign and Russia . . .'' The 
     article also reported that, ``[t]he F.B.I. files about the 
     informant will now be available to all members of the Senate 
     and House Intelligence Committees, instead of to just a group 
     of congressional leaders known as the Gang of Eight.''
       As you are aware, in the authorizing resolution that 
     created the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Senate 
     explicitly reserved for other standing Committees, such as 
     the Senate Judiciary Committee, the independent authority to 
     ``study and review any intelligence activity'' and ``to 
     obtain full and prompt access to the product of the 
     intelligence activities of any department or agency,'' when 
     such a matter ``directly affects a matter otherwise within 
     the jurisdiction of such committee.''
       This Committee has jurisdiction over all federal courts, 
     including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). 
     Based on public reporting, the new information provided to 
     the Intelligence Committees appears to be relevant to an 
     application to the FISC, which is an issue that has already 
     been subject to extensive oversight by this Committee. Some 
     of that oversight has been public, when possible. However, as 
     you know, the Committee has also conducted its oversight 
     responsibilities through classified letters, briefings, and 
     document reviews. We have respected the limitations necessary 
     to protect national security information. The Department has 
     been responsive to the Committee's previous oversight 
     requests and has provided access to the FISA application and 
     some of the relevant background materials on more than one 
     occasion, which is appreciated.
       Yet, my Committee staff have attempted to informally work 
     with the Department's Office of Legislative Affairs to obtain 
     the equal access you promised to all of the relevant 
     materials, but to no avail. For example, on March 23, 2018, 
     the House Intelligence Committee requested the records of 
     nine individuals related to Steele, his dossier, or campaign-
     related applications to the FISC. The nine individuals are:
       1. James Comey,
       2. Andrew McCabe,
       3. Peter Strzok,
       4. Lisa Page,
       5. Sally Moyer,
       6. Bill Priestap,
       7. Greg Brower,
       8. James Baker,
       9. Bruce Ohr.
       The Department produced records to HPSCI related to Bruce 
     Ohr on May 8, 2018, but initially withheld them from this 
     Committee and denied that any records relevant to these 
     topics had been provided to HPSCI. Only after Committee staff 
     confronted Department staff with the misrepresentation were 
     the Ohr documents finally produced to this Committee on May 
     21, 2018.
       Accordingly, no later than August 14, please produce all 
     records previously produced to HPSCI pursuant to its request 
     and answer the following questions:
       1. Are the 63 pages of Ohr-related records produced to this 
     Committee on May 21, 2018, the sum total of all responsive 
     Ohr documents in the possession of the DOJ or the FBI? If 
     not, when will production of records responsive to this 
     request be complete?
       2. When will DOJ and FBI begin producing documents to this 
     Committee pursuant to this request from the other eight 
     individuals?
       3. When will the Department provide in camera review on 
     equal terms for the material referenced in the New York Times 
     article?
       Please send all unclassified material directly to the 
     Committee. In keeping with the requirements of Executive 
     Order 13526, if any of the responsive documents do contain 
     classified information, please segregate all unclassified 
     material within the classified documents, provide all 
     unclassified information directly to the Committee, and 
     provide a classified addendum to the Office of Senate 
     Security. Although the Committee complies with all laws and 
     regulations governing the handling of classified information, 
     it is not bound, absent its prior agreement, by any handling 
     restrictions.
       Thank you in advance for your cooperation with this 
     request. If you have questions, please contact Jason Foster 
     of my Committee staff.
           Sincerely,
                                              Charles E. Grassley,
                             Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary.

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the Department flatout denied that those 
records had been provided to the House Intelligence Committee.
  That wasn't the truth.
  After my staff confronted the Department, we eventually received some 
documents.
  There is no reason for stonewalling; there is no reason for lack of 
cooperation--plain and simple.
  In that August 2018 letter, I asked for additional documents based on 
my equal access agreement with Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. To 
date, the Department still hasn't provided a response.
  I later learned that the Justice Department has taken the position 
that Director Coats has prohibited them from sharing the requested 
records with the committee.
  Then, in addition to the outstanding records request, in May 2018, 
the Director of National Intelligence and the Justice Department 
provided a briefing in connection with the pending House Intelligence 
subpoena, to which no Senate Judiciary Committee member was invited.
  The Judiciary Committee's attempt to schedule an equivalent briefing 
has been ignored.
  The lack of cooperation, then, obviously, as any one of the 100 
Senators would do--the bureaucracy, the faceless bureaucrats, are 
forcing our hand. Congressional oversight is a constitutional 
requirement. It seems that in every administration--Republican or 
Democratic--I am forced to remind them of that constitutional 
responsibility of oversight, and that responsibility cuts both ways.
  The executive branch can't hide documents from one congressional 
committee, especially one that clearly has oversight jurisdiction over 
the matter, and at the same time provide those very same documents to 
another committee.
  In this case, my colleagues on the Senate Intelligence Committee have 
received these documents. I don't blame them at all for getting that 
information. I say to them: full speed ahead with whatever you need to 
do.
  However, that doesn't mean this Senator has to stand down. It is 
quite the opposite. I am going to fight until I get what has been 
promised to me but, more importantly, promised to 21 members of the 
Judiciary Committee.
  I think it is worthy of note that the authorizing resolution that 
created the Senate Intelligence Committee made clear that other 
committees still have authority to review intelligence documents.
  For example, S. Res. 400 explicitly reserves for other standing 
committees, such as the Judiciary Committee, independent authority to 
``study and review any intelligence activity to the extent that such 
activity directly affects a matter otherwise within the jurisdiction of 
such committee'' and ``to obtain full and prompt access to the product 
of the intelligence activities of any department or any agency'' within 
that jurisdiction.
  The information I seek is connected to the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Court. That court is within the jurisdiction of the 
Judiciary Committee.
  Now, to be fair, the Justice Department has provided access to FISA 
applications and some of the relevant background materials on more than 
one occasion. One must give credit where credit is due. However, if 
they have provided the Judiciary Committee access to that information, 
what is holding them back from showing us the rest? The secrecy just 
doesn't make any sense, and it is secrecy that often prevents 
accountability.
  I will not release my hold until the Justice Department upholds its 
equal access agreement with me and the Judiciary Committee.
  In no way am I questioning Mr. Evanina's credentials. Director Coats 
and others have spoken highly of him. The fact is, if they really do 
believe in his credentials, then they should produce the requested 
documents they have promised me more than once.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.

[[Page S2070]]

  



                                H.R. 268

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I am glad to have been here to hear the 
distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee talk about the 
oversight and the responsiveness that the executive branch agencies owe 
to the U.S. Senate and its committees.
  In doing so, I am having a similar problem with the State Department 
as it relates to getting information about actions that have taken 
place with reference to political reprisals and firings at the State 
Department and subject to being investigated right now by the inspector 
general of the State Department and special counsel. So I can share in 
his concerns about the inability to get information from the executive 
branch as a legitimate exercise of oversight.
  I rise today, as I have so many times in my career, to be the voice 
for the people of Puerto Rico in the U.S. Senate.
  On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria--a powerful category 5 storm--
ripped through the center of the island of Puerto Rico, wiping out its 
electrical grid and leaving millions of American citizens disconnected 
and in the dark. This was preceded by Hurricane Irma, which also struck 
the island--a double body blow. What ensued were months of absolute 
darkness, hunger, despair, and death.
  While the President played golf in Mar-a-Lago, thousands of our 
fellow Americans were dying due to the lack of electricity to power 
oxygen tanks, dialysis centers, or refrigerated medications--problems 
that, as I said at the time, could not be solved with paper towels.
  I will never forget this moment, one of the most insulting moments to 
the people of Puerto Rico--a people who are a part of the United 
States, 3.5 million U.S. citizens who have served and worn the uniform 
of this Nation, whose names on the Vietnam Memorial here in Washington 
are disproportionate to the number of their population. The President 
said:

       [They] want everything to be done for them. . . . I hate to 
     tell you, Puerto Rico, but you are throwing our budget out of 
     whack.

  No other American citizen in any other of the areas of disaster heard 
anything--anything--near to that.
  Today we know that nearly 3,000 Americans perished in what is now 
known as one of the worst natural disasters to strike our Nation in all 
of American history.
  Now, let me be clear. We know that a President cannot prevent a 
natural disaster, but when the lives of Americans are on the line, we 
expect our Commander in Chief to do everything in their power to come 
to their aid. These are the moments that are supposed to reveal the 
very best of America. In the face of disasters of this magnitude, we do 
not turn our backs on our fellow citizens. We face the challenge head-
on. We save as many lives as we can. We strive to stem suffering, and 
we lend a helping hand. That is the American way.
  Just imagine how many lives could have been saved had President Trump 
directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to give Puerto Rico 
``the A Plus treatment'' he called for, for our fellow citizens in 
Alabama. For the majority Latino, Spanish-speaking island of Puerto 
Rico, there was no A-plus treatment. They got the F-minus treatment.
  The painful reality is, nothing can ever bring the thousands of 
Americans who died in Hurricane Maria back, but that doesn't mean the 
President shouldn't try to make things right. He has many opportunities 
to atone for his cruel and unfair treatment of the Puerto Rican people. 
Instead, President Trump seems intent on kicking Puerto Ricans when 
they are down.
  Just last week, he hosted a group of my Republican colleagues at the 
White House and proceeded to complain about how much Puerto Rico has 
received. What is so disappointing is that none of my colleagues even 
dared to check the President on this issue. They didn't receive what he 
said. They received a fraction of what he said.
  This President continues to behave as if the people who call Puerto 
Rico home are not real Americans. It is almost as if he views himself 
as the real victim here, not the 3,000 American mothers and fathers and 
brothers and sisters who perished in Hurricane Maria's wake.
  We in the Senate have an obligation to do what is right with this 
disaster supplemental.
  So let me say first that I am glad everyone here agrees Puerto Rico 
needs a fully funded Nutrition Assistance Program for the next fiscal 
year. Still, it is appalling to hear the White House call the House of 
Representatives bill's inclusion of an additional $600 million for 
nutrition assistance as ``excessive and unnecessary.''
  There is nothing excessive or unnecessary about helping 1.35 million 
struggling, low-income Americans in Puerto Rico--many of them with 
small children--avoid going hungry. We are talking about $649 a month 
for a family of four, just $160 or so a week for the people who need it 
the most.
  Let's turn for a moment to what is missing from the Senate 
legislation.
  First, Hurricane Maria created 6 million cubic yards of debris for 
the island. A year and a half later, the island still has approximately 
168,000 cubic yards of debris stored in temporary sites waiting to be 
removed.
  To put that in perspective, a large dump truck can carry 10 cubic 
yards. That means it would take 16,800 dump trucks to remove all the 
garbage created by the hurricane on a small island that barely measures 
100 miles long by 35 miles wide.
  Make no mistake, Puerto Rico has made significant progress, but the 
crippled economy has made everything that much harder. This legislation 
should help them get the job done, not set them back.
  Second, there remains hundreds of open FEMA projects for emergency 
protective measures. We are talking about short-term locations for 
government Agencies to provide vital services as they await the 
completion of permanent reconstruction.
  We should also allow for the continued use of generators to power 
critical facilities on the island. This would help keep the public safe 
and provide stability to Puerto Rico's power grid while it is repaired. 
We can do this by increasing the Federal cost waivers for categories A 
and B to 100 percent, just as the House of Representatives' bill does.
  Congress has done this many times before--this is not new--after 
Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, Dennis, and Rita, and Puerto Rico deserves 
no less.
  In the bipartisan Budget Act we passed last year, we specifically 
authorized FEMA to waive Stafford Act requirements so they could 
replace and repair facilities in a way that reflects today's industry 
standards, not their previous subpar condition. Yet I keep hearing of 
FEMA's nickel-and-diming over what it may fix and what Puerto Rico may 
not fix.
  So let's end the ambiguity. Let's fix this language. Let's send a 
clear message that it was always Congress's intent to rebuild Puerto 
Rico stronger and more resilient than ever.
  No one wants to face the same kind of damage next hurricane season. 
As it is said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
  So let's properly fund the Army Corps of Engineers so they can help 
rebuild the Cano Martin Pena, which continues to flood over with raw 
sewage, imperiling 26,000 American lives with unsanitary conditions and 
breeding grounds for mosquito-transmitted diseases like Zika.
  These are the kind of measures that would be stripped from the House 
bill by the pending substitute. It is just not right. It is just not 
right. These 3.5 million U.S. citizens have worn the uniform of the 
United States, have defended this Nation, going back to when Congress 
gave the all-Puerto Rican regiment, the ``Borinqueneers,'' the highest 
commendation it can, the Congressional Gold Medal, but that doesn't 
mean anything if you turn your back on 3.5 million U.S. citizens. It 
doesn't mean anything if you treat them as second-class citizens. It is 
just fundamentally biased and wrong.
  Come September, we will have to congregate once again to talk about 
the island's crumbling medical infrastructure and the need to provide 
Puerto Rico with additional Medicaid funding. We can solve that problem 
today by adding critical Medicaid funding for the territories.
  Puerto Rico is clearly a subject of angst and resentment for the 
President. I don't know why, but it is clearly so. So I suggest we do 
him a favor,

[[Page S2071]]

spare him the worry, and get the job done ourselves today. Let's do 
what is right.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against cloture on the substitute, let 
the underlying bill stand, and let us move forward so we act in the 
name of our Nation. It is the United States of America. We leave no 
American behind, and we should leave none of the 3.5 million Americans 
in Puerto Rico behind.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


                       Hurricane Harvey Amendment

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, in 2017, I said on the Senate floor that 
we needed to come together to help rebuild in the wake of Hurricane 
Harvey in the Houston area and that our work was not complete and more 
work needed to be done. That, unfortunately, still is true today.
  It is true also for the damage caused by other natural disasters 
during the same timeframe that was appropriated by Congress but has not 
yet found its way to the intended beneficiaries. Although we voted to 
send billions of dollars to help Texans still reeling from Hurricane 
Harvey, some of those funds are still needlessly caught up in 
bureaucratic redtape.
  This is not just a phenomenon that affects my State. It affects all 
of our States. This is not acceptable to me, and it isn't acceptable to 
the people I represent--all 28 million of them--and it shouldn't be 
acceptable to Members of the Senate.
  This storm ravaged the Texas coast and was the largest rain event in 
American history, with parts of Southeast Texas seeing 60 inches of 
rain over about a 5- or 6-day period. It destroyed people's homes, 
their businesses, and our communities.
  In the wake of the storm, we all pulled together in Congress, in an 
unusually bipartisan manner, to provide billions of dollars in disaster 
aid. Like I said, it wasn't just for Texas. It was for Florida, Puerto 
Rico, for wildfires out in California, and other places that suffered 
from natural disasters.
  The dollars we appropriated, and were signed into law by the 
President, have helped Texans get back to some sense of normalcy, and I 
am grateful to my colleagues for working together with us to make that 
happen. What has not been helpful, however, are the unnecessary delays 
on the part of the Office of Management and Budget in getting the 
roughly $4 billion in mitigation funds into the hands of State and 
local communities that desperately need them.
  I have searched in vain in the Constitution for where the Office of 
Management and Budget has the power to veto appropriations bills passed 
by Congress and signed into law by the President. I can't find it. Yet 
they are still the impediment to the execution of Congress's intent to 
get the money to the people who need it.

  The intent of Congress was crystal clear in the February 2018 
disaster supplemental, when we appropriated about $12 billion of 
community development block grants for disaster recovery.
  As I said, the undue delay is unacceptable, and I am filing an 
amendment to the disaster relief that is on the floor of the Senate 
this week to ensure that these funds and other like funds are properly 
disbursed.
  Last month, Governor Abbott, Senator Cruz, and I wrote a letter to 
the OMB to stop stalling, but so far all we have heard is crickets.
  The amendment we will file will start a timer on when the Federal 
Government must release funds appropriated by Congress. It will give 
the government bureaucracy up to 90 days to get the money untangled 
from all the redtape and to get it to the communities that desperately 
need it. This 90-day rule wouldn't just apply to this particular block 
of funding; it would apply to any funds that are now being withheld by 
the Office of Management and Budget that Congress appropriates to these 
States.
  As I said, last time I checked, Congress had the power of the purse, 
not the Office of Management and Budget. I don't know about the rest of 
my colleagues, but I am not OK with letting OMB dictate when and how 
duly appropriated funds are released to the intended beneficiaries.
  The disregard of those who are still struggling to rebuild and 
prepare for future storms by the bureaucrats is appalling. They know 
the kinds of hardships my constituents are facing, and they know that 
Hurricane Harvey will not be the last hurricane to hit Texas. It is 
time to do what is right by our State and local communities who have 
seen their livelihoods rot in a fleet of floodwater.
  It has now been more than a year since President Trump signed a bill 
that would have sent roughly $4 billion to Texas. Imagine what could 
have been accomplished with that money in the meantime. They could have 
repaired wastewater treatment facilities that haven't been fully 
restored. It could have led to important economic revitalization 
projects in decimated areas. They could have even relocated or elevated 
damaged facilities to prepare for the next storm. But, no--those 
projects are still on hold because the OMB has refused to release the 
funding.
  The 2019 hurricane season is fast approaching, and it is critical we 
get work done on long-term projects to protect my State and the Texas 
coast against future storms.
  It is difficult to plan for the future with the resources we need 
being caught up in bureaucratic limbo. We have been waiting to get to 
the place where before Harvey and after Harvey isn't such a stark 
difference.
  With the inclusion of my amendment, the clock will start ticking on 
the Office of Management and Budget to do its job and ultimately 
release these hurricane recovery funds. Texas communities have waited 
long enough.


                            Border Security

  Mr. President, I want to draw attention to another group of people 
who need our help, and those are the officers and agents of the U.S. 
Customs and Border Protection.
  Yesterday, Commissioner McAleenan announced that Customs and Border 
Protection is facing an ``unprecedented humanitarian and border 
security crisis all along our Southwest border,'' and he provided some 
alarming statistics.
  Yesterday morning, CBP had more than 13,000 migrants under their 
care. Under normal circumstances, a high number is 4,000. They consider 
6,000 to be a crisis, and now they have more than double that. 
Yesterday, the Commissioner said that we are at a ``breaking point'' 
along the border.
  Frankly, because the American people aren't acquainted with some of 
the details, they may think that CBP can easily handle 13,000 people in 
their custody on a given day, but, unfortunately, that is not the case.
  CBP's detention facilities are relatively small, built for the short-
term detention of single adults. The current immigrant surge from 
Central America is primarily of children and family units and has put 
these small facilities at overcapacity levels. Processing times have 
slowed due to the large number of people being processed and the lack 
of Border Patrol personnel to process them.
  As the Chief of the Border Patrol has testified before the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, this is intentional on behalf of the transnational 
criminal organizations that are responsible for transporting people 
from Central America to our borders. This is a moneymaking proposition. 
If you can charge $5,000 or more a head for every person you deliver to 
our border, that is a big, big deal. These people are not just involved 
in transporting immigrants. They are engaged in trafficking of human 
beings for sex or involuntary servitude, and they are also engaged in 
trafficking drugs.
  I will remind all of us that last year, 70,000-plus Americans died 
from drug overdoses--70,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last 
year--according to the Centers for Disease Control. A substantial 
portion of that was part of the opioid crisis, not just prescription 
drugs but also synthetic fentanyl as well as heroin. Ninety percent of 
the heroin that comes into the United States comes across the U.S.-
Mexico border. As President Obama himself said in 2014, this is truly a 
humanitarian and security crisis, but it is on steroids today.
  On Monday, CBP had the highest totals of apprehensions in more than a 
decade, and on Tuesday, they broke that record. Daily averages for 
border apprehensions are higher than we have seen at any time since 
2006.
  Last month, CBP apprehended 76,000 people in 1 month on our southern 
border--the highest monthly total in over

[[Page S2072]]

a decade. Yesterday, Commissioner McAleenan, announced that, in March, 
they are on track to beat that record with 100,000 apprehensions along 
our southwest border. That is 76,000 apprehensions in February and an 
estimated 100,000 in March.
  As a result of the surge, because the Border Patrol has to do 
something, 40 percent of the Border Patrol's manpower is now spent 
processing immigrants and providing care and transportation. In other 
words, they are not engaged in their primary mission, which is border 
security, because they are busy handing out juice boxes and diapers to 
children, as well as processing the immigrants who are providing other 
transportation.
  The Border Patrol simply doesn't have the resources, nor should it be 
expected to have the resources, to handle this crisis and perform their 
primary duty, which is to protect our border. We know that detention 
centers are at or over capacity, and local charities and 
nongovernmental Agencies are strained, as well, and all of our border 
communities are being overrun by humanity.
  Recently, Senator Cruz and I were down at the Sarita checkpoint to 
name that checkpoint after a heroic Border Patrol agent who was killed 
by two illegal aliens. We were approached by the chief of police from 
McAllen--somebody who is well respected in law enforcement circles in 
our State--who said that because the Border Patrol is simply unable to 
process all of these people, and they are being released into those 
communities or put on a bus and sent to places like San Antonio, they 
are increasingly worried about public safety. That is notwithstanding 
the fact that many of our border communities are extraordinarily safe, 
at least on our side of the border. If you go on the Mexican side of 
the border, they are some of the most dangerous cities in our 
hemisphere.
  This is having a profound impact on our local communities, on the men 
and women of the Customs and Border Patrol. Frankly, it should be an 
embarrassment to us here in this country that we haven't dealt with 
this in a more timely and more effective way.
  Because the cartels have figured this out, people crossing the border 
today are largely families and unaccompanied minors because of the 
special way they have to be processed and because of a consent decree 
called the Flores decision, which says you can't detain them for more 
than 20 days. That is not enough time to get them in front of an 
immigration judge in order to adjudicate their asylum claim, so they 
are released into the interior of the United States. Guess what. 
Overwhelmingly, they don't show up for their court hearings because 
they realize they have beat the system. The cartels know that because 
of the money they make. They are exploiting these vulnerabilities in 
our laws and in our infrastructure. The only people who can fix that 
are Congress and the President, working together in a bipartisan way.
  I know we have had a big debate over border barriers--walls, fences, 
you name it--but, frankly, you could build all the barriers you want 
along our southwest border, and it will not stop this flow of 
unaccompanied minors and family units because, frankly, they are 
showing up at the border, and they are turning themselves in. So we 
need to act.
  Two weeks ago, Ms. Nielsen, Secretary of the Department of Homeland 
Security, said: ``The situation on our southern border has gone from a 
crisis, to a national emergency, to a near system-wide meltdown.''
  Our Democratic colleagues have called this a fake emergency. They 
have opposed treating this crisis for what it is. It is even more than 
an emergency; it is a total system failure, and the only people who can 
fix it are Congress, working with the President. I am not sure how much 
longer our Democratic colleagues could be in denial when we see this 
flood of humanity coming across in higher and higher numbers every day.
  The issue is staring us in the face. The numbers confirm what we have 
said all along: This is a border security and humanitarian crisis.
  Secretary Nielsen made an important point that our communities, our 
members of law enforcement, and the immigrants themselves are paying 
the price for our inaction.
  We have heard it from people at the border who know how to fix the 
problem, and we need to listen. They have told us time and again that 
it will take a combination of technology, physical infrastructure, and 
boots on the ground. It will also take legislative action to fill the 
gaps in our laws that we know exist and are being exploited by the 
cartels.
  I want to commend the men and women of Customs and Border Patrol for 
working around the clock in a thankless job but in an important job. 
Frankly, I am embarrassed that they haven't seen more support by the 
people who represent them in Congress.
  We have sent them out on a losing battle unless we can work together 
here in Congress to give them the resources and the legislative fixes 
they need.
  I want to assure these dedicated men and women that we are trying, 
but we need their help to talk to their elected Representatives here in 
Congress. We need Ms. Pelosi to consider this the same humanitarian 
crisis that President Obama identified back in 2014, when he called it 
a humanitarian and security crisis. By any measure, it has gotten much, 
much worse. We need to give this crisis the serious attention that it 
deserves.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


               Unanimous Consent Request--H. Con. Res. 24

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today to discuss transparency 
in our democracy and security for our elections.
  It has been nearly a week since Special Counsel Mueller's report was 
completed and submitted to the Attorney General of the United States. 
We still have not seen the report. I have urged the Department of 
Justice to release the report, and the administration should not delay 
in producing the report to Congress. We know the American people want 
to know what is in the report. According to some public opinion polls, 
nearly 90 percent of them have said they want to know what is in the 
report. We also know that 420 Members of the House of Representatives 
voted that the report should be made public.
  We cannot get ourselves out of the mode of remembering that a foreign 
power invaded our election. Some people call it meddling. That is what 
I do when I call my daughter on a Saturday night and ask her what she 
is doing. I call it an invasion of our democracy.
  We have learned from the intelligence heads under both Barack Obama 
and Donald Trump, including former Senator Coats, who told us that this 
has happened, and, in fact, the Russians are getting even bolder. That 
is what he told us. That is why I think it is very important, putting 
everything else aside, that we find out the facts in this report.
  There have been indictments that have come out of this 
investigation--dozens of indictments. They made it clear that the 
unprecedented interference in the 2016 election was designed by the 
Kremlin with the goal of making Americans lose faith in our election 
system, whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent.
  We know from the intelligence heads and from some of the indictments 
that have been made public that they did this in many ways. We have 
learned that the Russians tried to hack into the actual election 
equipment of 21 States and that in Illinois, they got as far as the 
voter files. What does that mean? If we could get more facts about that 
since that was actually--the hacking of the campaigns and elections was 
referenced in Attorney General Barr's four-page letter. Well, if we 
knew more facts, it might help Senator Lankford and me to pass our 
bill, the Secure Elections Act. We have the support of Senator Burr and 
Senator Warner, as well as Senator Harris and Senator Graham. Maybe it 
would help us convince the leader that we should have a vote on the 
simple concept of having backup paper ballots and audits. Maybe

[[Page S2073]]

it would help us convince the public to put pressure on the White House 
not to block that bill.
  It doesn't matter what political party you are in--we all want to 
have secure elections. None of us want to have a situation where there 
is one county or one State in which elections get screwed up because 
someone hacked into them.
  The other thing that we learned and got confirmed in the four-page 
letter was that we know there was hacking into a political campaign, 
right? Well, we want to know the facts about that.
  Again, as people have noticed, there are a lot of people running for 
office--not just for President but for the U.S. Senate and the House of 
Representatives--and certainly the American people and the people who 
work in the Congress have the right to know exactly what happened. That 
was one of the major reasons we had this investigation in the first 
place.
  There was something else that was mentioned in the four-page letter 
that we all want to have more details about; that is, another way 
Russia tried to influence our election was through the spread of false 
propaganda on the internet, right? We have now seen the ads. We have 
seen them in sworn hearings. One of the ones that I will never forget 
is one that was Russian sponsored, which was a picture of an African-
American woman, and it basically said--I am paraphrasing--``Why wait in 
line? You can text your vote for Hillary Clinton,'' with a texting 
number on it. That is a crime. That is illegal. That was one of the ads 
the Russians put into our system.
  We know that they put false issue ads out there to divide Americans--
sometimes from the left, trying to make it like they were looking from 
the left, and sometimes from the right. They were simply trying to sow 
discord in our great democracy.
  Our democracy is fragile. Our democracy is something that we cherish. 
Our democracy must be protected. That is why, if we could get this full 
report, that would help us greatly to perhaps step back and look at the 
Honest Ads Act. That is a bill which I had with Senator McCain and 
Senator Warner, and we have a number of Republicans who are actually 
cosponsoring it in the House of Representatives.
  I think getting more details here would help to make the case that 
before the 2020 election--we know that in 2016 alone, $1.4 billion was 
spent on internet advertising, on social media platforms, such as 
Facebook and Twitter, and we didn't know who was paying for it. We 
later found out that some of it was in rubles. How obvious can you get? 
And then also we didn't even know what the ads were because they just 
vanished from the internet.

  So when we first proposed this bill, people said: Oh, you are trying 
to regulate. Well, guess what. Things changed after Cambridge 
Analytica, and we suddenly got growing support for this idea that the 
same rules that apply to newspaper and TV and radio should apply to 
internet platforms. Now, a number of the major platforms are doing it 
themselves, although they vary in what they do and it is a patchwork. 
Also, major CEOs of these companies are saying they now support this 
bill.
  The time has come--in fact, we are running out of time--to put the 
rules in place on issue ads and candidate ads. I believe it is not just 
selfishly what I want to get done; it is something that a lot of people 
in this Chamber want to get done, and that is, making sure our next 
election is protected from foreign influence on the propaganda side, on 
the election security side, and on the hacking side. Getting the full 
report will help us make the case. It will help us figure out exactly 
what happened.
  As I mentioned, there are many people--420 in the House of 
Representatives--who said they want to see it. Congress should be able 
to see the full, unredacted report without delay. We are a coequal 
branch of government and have received unredacted grand jury and 
classified information in the past. But more than Congress, the public 
should be able to see this. That is why the House voted 420 to 0--we 
don't get that kind of vote on a volleyball resolution--in support of 
publicly releasing the report. Members standing in the way of this 
report becoming public will have to explain why to the American people.
  We know we can do two things at once in this Chamber or maybe 20 
things at once. We know the importance right now of making sure we 
don't repeal the Affordable Care Act, which is why 2 nights ago I was 
here at this very desk until late at night reading 100 letters from 
people who opposed repealing the Affordable Care Act because of the 
protection it gives them to not get kicked off their health insurance. 
We know how important it is to finally do something about prescription 
drugs. We know how important it is to work on advancing an optimistic 
economic agenda for the people of this country. At the same time, we 
also have to protect the public's right to know. We have to protect the 
security in many ways--security of our country abroad, our military--
and make sure we are protecting the very democracy that is at the core 
of this country. The way to do that is to make sure no foreign power 
messes with our election.
  There are hundreds of pages in this report. There are hundreds of 
people who were interviewed. All of us are a little in the dark, 
especially those people who are not on the committees that receive 
classified information. There are many people who would like to know 
exactly what went down. If I were the secretary of state in one of our 
States, whether it be the State of Arkansas or the State of Arizona, I 
would want to know what happened because I, if I am the secretary of 
state, am responsible for my State's election security.
  We urge the Attorney General to do everything he can to make this 
report public. Now that the special counsel has completed his 
investigation, we must see the report.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate 
consideration of H. Con. Res. 24, expressing the sense of Congress that 
the report of Special Counsel Mueller should be made available to the 
public and to Congress, which is at the desk; further, that the 
concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the 
motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with 
no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. Reserving the right to object, I think we all want 
transparency. I think we all want reports to be revealed. We think the 
American people deserve to know what happened with the Russians hacking 
into Democratic emails and with the Russian involvement in trying to 
affect the outcome of our elections. I think we all want that.
  What do we know so far? We know that we spent $30 million to 
investigate this, and they have decided and concluded--after doing 
hundreds of interviews and thousands of subpoenas, they have concluded 
that President Trump did not collude with the Russians, did not 
conspire with the Russians, did not commit a crime with the Russians, 
and the President has said repeatedly he never talked to the 
Russians. We do know that. That is what we know so far.

  But now that we know that, in addition to the Mueller report, we also 
need to know: Was there malfeasance? Was there misuse of government 
power? Did President Obama's administration get involved in an election 
to actually try to manipulate and infiltrate the Trump campaign to 
entrap them or try to spread information that was incorrect? We need to 
know that.
  So I am asking the Senator by unanimous consent to accept my 
amendment, which would say that not only will we see the Mueller 
report, but we will also see the communications between John Brennan, 
known to have already lied to the Senate about spying on Senate 
computers, and James Clapper, also known to have lied to the Senate in 
testimony over the bulk collection of phone records, and their 
communications with James Comey, who is known to have illegally leaked 
information about this investigation to the press--that their 
communications become known to all of us.
  We need to know why they decided that the fake Russian dossier was 
real. The country had concluded it wasn't. No media outlet would 
produce the Russian dossier because it was so unverifiable. Yet the FBI 
head and the CIA head kept sending the dossier out to people, having it 
come back to them again, saying: Oh, my goodness, look at what this 
Senator gave us. It was what

[[Page S2074]]

they already had that nobody was believing and nobody was discounting 
and now the Mueller report has said was fake, was made up. The dossier 
was not true, but that is what began this entire investigation.
  Why should we know about this? Because we don't want this to happen 
every 2 to 4 years. I don't care whether it is a Democrat President or 
Republican President. We should not waste the time of the entire 
country sending spies into campaigns, making false accusations, and 
tying the country in knots for 2 years. Tying us in knots such that 
people are at each other's throats and will not talk to each other 
because we spread this false narrative that President Trump had 
something to do with the Russians. It was not true. We spent $30 
million and now we know it is not true.
  So I ask unanimous consent that my amendment be added to the current 
resolution.
  We will agree to see the Mueller report as long as the other side 
will agree to show us the communications that took place in deciding to 
promote this fake allegation against the President. We want to know 
whether there was misuse of their office. If that is allowed, then I 
will agree to the consent request.
  I would ask unanimous consent that my amendment be added to the 
Senator's resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Reserving the right to object, I would simply point 
out that this entire investigation was started by the Justice 
Department under the Republican administration, and then, of course, 
guided by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was appointed by 
the President.
  I will note that this is a simple resolution to just get the report. 
We may not agree with the foundation of this investigation, but we are 
simply trying to get the fruits of the investigation, which I believe 
will be helpful to this Chamber to figure out what we should do to 
protect our national security.
  We are simply trying to adopt and consider the House resolution, 
which again was voted on 420 to 0, including all Republicans present. 
The House voted 420 to 0 to see the report. That is why I was simply 
hoping that we could do this on a bipartisan basis and try to see the 
report ourselves.
  Therefore, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Is there objection to the original request?
  Mr. PAUL. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. The Senator made one point that the investigation was begun 
under Republicans of this dossier.
  The Mueller report and the Mueller aspect of this was begun under 
Republicans, but the actual investigation--the promoting, the passing 
around of the fake Russian dossier--occurred under President Obama's 
administration.
  What we need to discover and what we do not yet know is, Was 
President Obama involved? Was this done for partisan purposes? Was this 
done to try to elect Hillary Clinton? Was this done with mal intent?
  We need to know the truth, and to get to the truth, we need not only 
the Mueller report, but we need every ounce of information about the 
people at the very top of our intelligence community who were promoting 
the inclusion of this fake dossier that most American media outlets had 
discounted as unverifiable and that turned out to be unverifiable.
  We based this investigation on a lie. We should investigate who the 
liars were.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, if my Republican colleagues don't 
want to read the report and they want to rely on a summary, that is 
their right, and they can make requests in the future. I am sure they 
can get all of that in the future, but all I am simply asking for right 
now is that whether you agreed with this investigation or not, the 
public have the right to see the hundreds of pages that may well help 
us understand what Russia did.
  I believe our constitutional duty requires us to have the report and 
the American people do not deserve to be left in the dark about what 
the report says.
  I hope that it will be made public very soon, and I hope the Attorney 
General of the United States understands there are a number of us who 
would like to see a full unredacted report, and there are a whole lot 
of people who would like to see it as well.
  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. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              MOMMA's Act

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, if you had to pick a country--anywhere 
in the world--where you faced a serious illness, you are likely to pick 
the United States. Here we have some of the greatest hospitals, 
doctors, and some of the greatest research institutions in the world. 
In some other countries, they certainly have good medical care, but if 
you could only pick one, I certainly would pick this country, the 
United States of America. That is why it is kind of surprising to learn 
that when it comes to some basic indicators of how well we are doing in 
the United States compared to other countries, there are some 
surprising answers.
  We are facing a public health crisis in this country today that is 
often overlooked and ignored, and it is one I am sure will touch each 
and every one of us. It is the issue of maternal and infant health.
  Too often in our country, new mothers and their babies--especially 
women and babies of color--are dying from completely preventable health 
complications. Take this statistic to heart: The United States is only 
1 of 13 countries in the world where the death rate of new mothers is 
worse today than it was 25 years ago. How can it be possible that in 
the United States of America, mothers are dying at a rate worse than it 
was 25 years ago? Nationwide, more than 700 women die every year as a 
result of pregnancy. More than 70,000 others experience severe, near-
fatal complications. In my State of Illinois, 73 women die every year 
due to pregnancy-related complications, and 70 percent of those deaths 
are preventable.
  Not only are we losing these new moms, we are losing their babies. 
Every year, more than 23,000 infants die in the United States largely 
due to factors that could be prevented. Some of them are birth defects 
which could be detected in utero, preterm birth, low birth rate, and 
maternal complications. Here is a startling statistic. The United 
States of America--our home; this great Nation of plenty--ranks 32 out 
of 35 wealthy Nations when it comes to infant mortality. Is it 
possible? If so, what are we going to do about it?
  The tragedy of maternal and infant mortality is even more pronounced 
when you look at mothers of babies of color. Black infants in America 
are twice as likely to die as White infants. That racial disparity is 
greater today than it was in the year 1850. Nationwide, women of color 
are three to four times more likely than White women to die as a result 
of their pregnancy. In Illinois, African-American women are six times 
more likely than White women to die of pregnancy-related complications.
  Something has to be done. That is why, this week, I joined with 
Congresswoman Robin Kelly, Senator Duckworth, and others introducing 
what we call the MOMMA's Act. First and foremost, our bill would expand 
the length of time a new mom can keep her Medicaid healthcare coverage. 
More than half of the babies born my State of Illinois are to mothers 
who are covered by Medicaid--health insurance for those who are not 
wealthy and don't have access to private health insurance. The Medicaid 
Program covers more than half of the babies and mothers as they go 
through the birthing process.
  Do you know what happens to Medicaid under the current law? Two 
months after the baby is born, the

[[Page S2075]]

mothers are cut off. Our bill would expand that to a year. Given that 
60 percent of maternal deaths occur in the weeks and months after 
delivery, it is imperative that these new moms have the protection of 
Medicaid longer than 60 days.
  We understand that many States' Medicaid Programs, including my own, 
are strapped for cash. Our bill will pay for itself by increasing 
Federal tobacco taxes. That is right. This Senator just called for an 
increase in taxes. You bet I did. The last time we dramatically 
increased the Federal tobacco tax was to create the Children's Health 
Insurance Program.
  Is it worth it for kids to be born healthy and live to their full 
terms in life? Of course.
  Given that Big Tobacco and its vaping interest have made billions of 
dollars at the expense of children and, I might add, of the African-
American community, we believe they should help pay for this 
undertaking. As I said, in 2009 that is exactly what we did to create 
the Children's Health Insurance Program.
  Next, the MOMMA Act would improve access to doulas. Too often, Black 
women are not listened to or taken seriously by healthcare providers. 
Doulas can help to provide education, advocacy, and support for women 
whose voices are often ignored.
  To this point, our bill would also improve implicit bias and cultural 
competency training among healthcare providers. Sadly, the United 
States is still struggling with racial bias in healthcare.
  Finally, our bill would improve hospital coordination and the 
reporting on maternal health outcomes, and it would ensure the 
widespread adoption and implementation of services to improve care.
  If you have listened to the speech so far, you are probably thinking 
there is one thing he didn't mention--that many of those African-
American women are in poverty, that they are low-income women. That 
probably explains why they don't have adequate care during their 
pregnancies or adequate care for their new children.
  That is what I had concluded, but it is wrong. The statistics I have 
given you about racial disparity do not link up with one's economic 
status. Even African-American mothers who have high incomes and high 
educations are facing the same threats of maternal mortality. It is not 
driven by income or poverty. There is something more to the story. 
Don't we owe it to ourselves to look at it?
  There are issues that divide this Chamber, and one of the issues, of 
course, is abortion. There are people with differing views on both 
sides of the aisle. It is always a contentious debate, but can't we all 
agree--pro-choice and pro-life--that we ought to focus on this, on the 
mothers who are delivering babies, to make sure that the mom survives 
and that the baby survives? That is what this act is all about, the 
MOMMA Act.
  There are 23,000 infants and 700 new moms who die each year in the 
United States--some of the worst statistics in the world. We could 
prevent them with screenings, interventions, and the right healthcare. 
On a bipartisan basis, I can think of no better way to help babies and 
moms than to keep them alive and healthy, and that is what the MOMMA 
Act would do.


                         women's history month

  Mr. President, on June 26, 1913, on a beautiful day in Springfield, 
IL, Governor Edward Dunne signed into law a bill making Illinois the 
first State east of the Mississippi where women could vote.
  It was not equal voting rights, to be sure.
  The new law gave Illinois women the right to vote only for 
Presidential electors and most local offices--but not for Governor, 
State representatives or Members of Congress. Still, it was historic.
  Word of the milestone sped around the world.
  When the legendary Chicago humanitarian Jane Addams--the first 
American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize--announced the news at 
an international suffragette conference in Budapest, delegates roared 
with approval.
  The suffragettes' battle to achieve even limited voting rights was 
long--it took nearly 60 years--and bitterly fought.
  The first time the suffragettes took their campaign to Chicago's 
street corners, in 1910, they were ignored by some and derided by 
many--including many women.
  When Illinois suffragettes traveled by train to Washington in 1913 to 
lobby President Woodrow Wilson for voting rights for all American 
women, their train stopped at Harper's Ferry, WV--this same place where 
fiery abolitionist John Brown made his stand against slavery.
  As they spoke publicly for voting rights, the women were pelted with 
snowballs by men and boys, but they didn't back down.
  In Washington, D.C., suffragettes from Illinois and other States 
encountered angry mobs and police who refused to intervene.
  More than 100 women ended up in hospitals. Still, the women didn't 
retreat.
  In 1914, 200,000 women registered to vote in Chicago, and eight women 
ran for aldermanic seats.
  Five years later, on June 10, 1919, Illinois became the first State 
in the Nation to ratify the 19th Amendment to the United States 
Constitution, giving all American women the right to vote in all 
elections.
  That is a distinction we are proud of. By 1920, the 19th Amendment 
was ratified by the necessary two-thirds of States.
  Next year, we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the women's 
right to vote in America.
  As this Women's History Month draws to a close, I want to take a few 
moments to recall the courageous women who have helped advance the 
cause of freedom in my State and in our Nation and the women who 
continue to shape our Nation's shared destiny.
   This Congress--the 116th Congress--includes more women than any 
Congress in our Nation's history. In the House, America's first woman 
Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, returned to her leadership post with 102 women 
as her colleagues.
  Here in the Senate, we now have 25 women Senators--the most in our 
Nation's history.
  The congressional delegation from my home State of Illinois also has 
more women members than ever before--including the youngest African-
American woman ever elected to Congress: Representative Lauren 
Underwood, but we still have a long way to go to reach true gender 
equality in America.
  This Congress may include record numbers of women, but women still 
make up only 25 percent of the Senate and less than that--a little over 
23 percent--in the House. Those numbers ought to be higher.
  The number of women serving in State legislatures has quintupled 
since 1971. Women now make up nearly 29 percent of State legislatures 
today.
  In Illinois, women make up one-third of the General Assembly. That's 
progress, but all States--including Illinois--can and must do a better 
job of recruiting, supporting, and electing women leaders.
  Women are making history in other professions and other ways, too.
  More than 200,000 women serve in the U.S. military today, and America 
has 1.6 million women veterans. My friend and fellow Senator from 
Illinois, Tammy Duckworth, is one of those veterans. She is amazing. 
She lost both legs when a Blackhawk helicopter she was co-piloting was 
shot down in Iraq. As soon as she healed from her injuries, she asked: 
``What else can I do to help other veterans and help my country?''
  I encourage the Department of Defense to do more to harness the 
patriotism and talent of American women by opening more combat roles to 
women.
  It has been said before, and I agree: You can measure a nation's 
character and its hopes for a better future by how it treats women and 
girls.
   While America has made great progress, in gender equality, 
especially in the last two generations, we still have far to go.
  It has been nearly 60 years since President Kennedy signed the Equal 
Pay Act into law in 1963. Yet American women in general still earn only 
80 cents for every dollar earned by men. For women of color, the gap is 
even greater; African American women earn only 61 cents, and Latina 
women earn only 53 cents for every dollar a White

[[Page S2076]]

man makes. These disparities persist even among women and men who do 
the same or comparable work. That is wrong, and we need to close the 
pay fairness gap.
  Many women across the country still lack access to affordable 
healthcare, including reproductive health care services.
  Roe v. Wade was decided more than 40 years ago, but attacks on access 
have limited a woman's right to choose in many States, and too many 
women, especially women of color, are dying during or shortly after 
childbirth.
  Here is a sobering fact: The United States is one of only 13 
countries in the world where the maternal mortality rate is worse now 
than it was 25 years ago. Every year, more than 700 women in our 
Nation--most of them women of color--die as a result of their 
pregnancies, with more than 60 percent of these deaths being completely 
preventable.
  This is unacceptable. Having a baby anywhere, especially in the 
United States, should not be a death sentence. We must do better.
  The Equal Rights Amendment has been waiting for passage since the 
1920s. My home State of Illinois finally ratified it last year.
  Here is an idea. Let us work together to ratify the Equal Rights 
Amendment in this Congress.
  For the 100th anniversary of women's voting rights in America let's 
pass the ERA. If we truly believe in gender equality, let's put it in 
writing in the U.S. Constitution.
  Let's not just celebrate Women's History Month; let's build on 
women's historical successes and make this an even more perfect Union.


                             Mueller Report

  Last Friday, Attorney General William Barr announced that Special 
Counsel Bob Mueller had submitted a lengthy report from his 
investigation to the Attorney General.
  On Sunday, Attorney General Barr sent another letter to Congress 
summarizing Mr. Barr's view of the ``principal conclusions'' of the 
Mueller report.
  This letter is very troubling, particularly because the Attorney 
General inserted his own judgment about potential obstruction of 
justice by the President rather than letting the Mueller report speak 
for itself.
  I have said repeatedly that I trust Bob Mueller. I believed he could 
be trusted to do a thorough and fair investigation into what happened 
with Russian meddling in the 2016 election. I still feel that way.
  We have now heard Attorney General Barr's description of what Special 
Counsel Mueller found, but, respectfully, that is not good enough.
  The American people need to hear Special Counsel Mueller's 
description of what he found.
  Attorney General Barr is a political appointee. The reason a special 
counsel was appointed in this case was to take politics out of the 
investigation.
  The Mueller report needs to be made public without delay. That is 
what we need to have confidence in the outcome of this investigation. 
The House of Representatives voted 420 to 0 for making the report 
public. Even the President claims he wants the report to be public, but 
we are already seeing an effort by the White House and Republicans to 
walk back from transparency of the Mueller report.
  On Monday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the White 
House will ``want to make sure we're protecting the office of the 
presidency; have to look at things like protecting executive privilege 
and sources and methods.''
  Let us be clear--We need to see the full Mueller report, not just 
summaries and not just page after page of redacted text. The sooner 
this happens, the sooner we can reassure the American people about the 
integrity of the process. The American people deserve no less.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Young). The Senator from Montana.


                          Affordable Care Act

  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, the decision earlier this week to undo the 
Affordable Care Act--the decision made by a bunch of unelected 
bureaucrats at the Department of Justice--is nothing short of a slap in 
the face to our democracy.
  The Affordable Care Act was passed by majorities in the House and the 
Senate; it was upheld by the Supreme Court; and it continues to be 
supported by folks on both sides of the aisle.
  Nonetheless, the Department of Justice, through the direction of the 
President of the United States, has decided to undo the ACA and all the 
things that are in the ACA.
  This isn't the first time. For the last nearly decade, I have heard a 
seemingly endless number of speeches on the floor of this body, and we 
have seen vote after vote after vote after vote, under both Republican 
and Democratic leadership, to repeal the ACA. It hasn't succeeded.
  So what the Department of Justice decided to do is take the law into 
their own hands and circumvent the legislative process. I guess they 
felt they had no other choice.
  It didn't just happen this week. Last summer, they refused to defend 
a provision of the ACA that protects people with preexisting 
conditions. That is pretty interesting.
  My best friend in life, other than my wife, has diabetes, and he is 
somebody who has fought diabetes since we were in junior high. His 
folks didn't have diabetes, but he did. He still does.
  He was not able to have health insurance that was affordable until 
the ACA came along. He wasn't even allowed to change jobs for fear that 
when he did get health insurance when he changed jobs, he would lose it 
and then have to go uninsured until--until--the ACA came along.
  So when the DOJ decided to not defend the provision for preexisting 
conditions, it left many of us scratching our heads.
  Then, earlier this week, the administration took it even further by 
lending its full-throated support for overturning the ACA in its 
entirety, which would result in ripping healthcare away from tens of 
millions of Americans.
  This administration's actions would put millions of Americans at risk 
by getting rid of every last protection that was enshrined in the law, 
including Medicaid expansion and coverage for preexisting conditions 
that are, without debate, providing lifesaving and affordable 
healthcare to folks across this country.
  If they, the administration, succeed in dismantling our healthcare 
system, I guarantee you the cost of healthcare will rise through the 
roof.
  Oh, yes--no, no--they will point to junk plans. There are junk plans 
out there. They are cheap, but they are called junk for a reason. Just 
hope, if you have a junk plan, you never get sick because they are 
junk.
  Dismantling this healthcare system not only will cause healthcare to 
go through the roof--because we are going back to the old system--there 
is no replace here. They will replace it with the old system. It will 
imperil the sustainability of our hospitals across this country but 
particularly in rural and frontier communities.
  Don't ask me about this; ask hospital administrators. They will tell 
you that if the healthcare bill is repealed, they will either have to 
change the entire way they provide healthcare or close entirely. Once 
again, it will mean American families are just one devastating 
diagnosis away from bankruptcy, particularly if you live in rural 
America.
  This administration's heartless decision is going to have devastating 
consequences on Montana's families. Let me give some statistics from a 
Montana perspective:
  Fifty thousand Montanans who buy their healthcare coverage on the ACA 
market would lose that. Now, 50,000 is not many people, right? In a 
State of just over 1 million, that is a lot of people.
  Ninety thousand Montanans who receive coverage as a result of 
Medicaid expansion would lose their coverage. I have told the story 
many times about a gentleman in Butte, MT, who was fighting diabetes 
and, by his own admission, mental health problems. This guy was about 
45 years old, by the way. When the legislature expanded Medicaid 2 
years ago, he was able to get healthcare to finally get his diabetes 
under control, and he was able to see a psychologist to get the tools 
he needed to take care of his own mental health. It resulted in his 
ability--for the first time in his life, he said--to be able to get a 
full-time job and support his family. He was incredibly proud of that.

[[Page S2077]]

That is one story of many across Montana and across this country, where 
Medicaid expansion has done an incredible job getting people back into 
the economy and helping build our economy. Know, once the ACA is 
repealed, Medicaid expansion is gone.
  In Montana, we have 152,000 Montanans with preexisting conditions 
that before the ACA would disqualify them from coverage for healthcare. 
If the ACA is repealed, they could once again face lifetime caps; so, 
when you get sick and need that health insurance the most, it will not 
be there because you would be up against a cap.
  They already have Medicare, where more than 110,000 Montana seniors 
rely on Medicare prescription drug plans for coverage of prescription 
drugs. That is going to be gone. It would reopen the doughnut hole and 
make hundreds of thousands responsible for increased costs.
  I can tell you, in Montana, where poverty is the highest is in Indian 
Country. They would lose their assistance to purchase coverage or cost-
sharing reductions to eliminate out-of-pocket expenses--these are our 
Native Americans--or those who were able to get on expanded Medicaid 
would lose that.
  These aren't nameless, faceless folks. These are folks like Donna 
from Big Timber, who, after battling cancer, wouldn't be able to access 
quality, affordable healthcare without the ACA. They are people like 
Jeffrey from Great Falls, who has a daughter with special needs and 
owns a business. He told me his family and business would both fall 
apart without the ACA. It means the many folks in Libby who rely on 
quality insurance to access their community health center to address 
the unique healthcare challenges their government promised to protect 
would be gone.
  Look, I have sat in this body, and I have heard speech after speech 
after speech about the ACA, what it does good and what it does not so 
good, but I am telling you, if you want to cause a train wreck in 
healthcare, this is a great way to do it--repeal it and let everybody 
be on their own--and it is not going to be pretty.
  If you start losing rural hospitals in rural America, they will not 
come back. You will see further depopulation in rural America--because, 
by the way, that golden hour is called golden for a reason when you get 
hurt. If that hospital isn't there, you are more likely to go live in a 
more urban population center where healthcare is more expensive.
  Nobody in this body has ever said the ACA was perfect, but I firmly 
believe it was a lot better than what we had. We always have the 
opportunity to step forth and improve it. Repealing it is not improving 
it.
  What repealing is, is a campaign promise. We have heard them before: 
We are going to repeal the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare. We are going 
to build a wall on the southern border, no matter if it separates 
farmers from their land, no matter if it creates a different border on 
the southern border. It was a campaign promise, just like repealing the 
ACA was.
  The reason we are in single-digit popularity in this body is that we 
don't listen to the people. We listen to a select few who have certain 
people's ears in this body, and we don't make decisions based on what 
is best for this country and the people who live here. This is just 
another example of that.
  It is time the Members of the greatest deliberative body wake up, 
take the ACA and improve the things that are wrong with it, and do our 
level best to make sure people can afford to get sick. It is pretty 
basic.
  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. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                     Nomination of Nicole R. Nason

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the 
nomination of Nicole Nason to serve as Administrator of the Federal 
Highway Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation.
  The Federal Highway Administration plays a central role in America's 
mobility. The administration is the lead partner to State and local 
transportation programs that maintain and improve our Nation's roads, 
highways, and bridges. It has been without a Senate-confirmed 
leadership director for far too long.
  America's transportation infrastructure faces a number of challenges. 
Authorization of the Federal highway programs are going to expire at 
the end of September of 2020. We need to work together in Congress to 
write and pass a bipartisan highway infrastructure bill that upgrades 
America's roads and bridges.
  The Environment and Public Works Committee, which I chair, has 
already begun the bipartisan process of drafting this legislation. The 
Federal Highway Administration needs a strong Administrator in the 
office, one who can work with Congress on the development and 
implementation of highway infrastructure legislation.
  Nicole Nason is the right person for the job. She is well qualified, 
and brings impressive experience in transportation policy to this 
critically important position.
  Under President Bush, she served as Administrator of the National 
Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That is the Department of 
Transportation's top road safety official.
  Before that, she served as the Department of Transportation's 
Assistant Secretary for Government Affairs. In that role, she played a 
key part in negotiating the bipartisan passage of a 5-year highway 
reauthorization bill.
  Ms. Nason most recently served as the Assistant Secretary of the U.S. 
Department of State's Bureau of Administration, a position where she 
has managed nearly 2,000 employees and contractors.
  Ms. Nason has won praise from a wide variety of groups. Helen Witty 
is the national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. This is 
what she stated:

       Nicole is a true champion of highway safety and will be an 
     asset to the Department of Transportation as the Federal 
     Highway Administration Administrator. On behalf of MADD, I 
     wholeheartedly endorse her for this position.

  The Associated General Contractors of America had this to say:

       Ms. Nason is a superb choice to fulfill the Federal Highway 
     Administration's leadership role in improving mobility on our 
     nation's highways.

  The Governors Highway Safety Association has stated:

       Throughout her career, Ms. Nason has demonstrated a clear 
     commitment to public service and, during her tenure as 
     Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety 
     Administration (NHTSA) a dedication to advancing highway 
     safety.

  Confirming Ms. Nason to be Administrator of the Federal Highway 
Administration will be an important step in supporting our Nation's 
highways, roads, and bridges.
  The Environment and Public Works Committee recognized this when we 
reported her nomination by voice vote on February 5. That has been 
nearly 2 months ago. It shouldn't take this long to confirm such a 
highly qualified nominee to such an important position.
  Nicole Nason will be an excellent Administrator of the Federal 
Highway Administration. I encourage every Senator to vote to confirm 
her.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________