[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 104 (Thursday, June 20, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4145-S4151]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2020--MOTION TO 
                            PROCEED--Resumed

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

       Motion to proceed to S. 1790, a bill to authorize 
     appropriations for fiscal year 2020 for military activities 
     of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and 
     for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to 
     prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, 
     and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


            Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 1:45 
p.m. today the Senate vote on the confirmation of the Baranwal 
nomination, with all other provisions under the previous order 
remaining in effect.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Border Security

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, yesterday I had a chance to sit down 
with a group of my constituents visiting DC from the Rio Grande Valley. 
For those who have never been to the Rio Grande Valley, I highly 
recommend a visit. It is a beautiful region, a unique part of our 
country, rich in culture and history and full of hard-working people 
and businesses that fuel our State's and the Nation's thriving economy. 
As record numbers of people continue to mass migrate across our 
southern border, it has become one of the most heavily impacted areas 
in our country, and it is working hard to manage the growing 
humanitarian crisis.
  Last month alone, 144,000 people were detained coming across our 
border. It was the largest monthly total since 2006. It only begins to 
paint the picture of how challenging this mass migration has become. 
The vast majority of the people who crossed last month were either 
unaccompanied children or families, putting a strain on resources 
across the border, particularly when it comes to detention facilities.
  It is no mistake that the human smugglers, whom we call coyotes back 
home, have figured out that if you can smuggle an unaccompanied child 
or family across the border, you vastly improve the chances of 
successfully placing them in the United States. That is because they 
understand our laws better than many Members of Congress do, and they 
know how to exploit them for their financial gain.
  The detention facilities I referred to a moment ago have been around 
a long time--long before the current surge of families and children 
began arriving at our borders. They were built as short-term detention 
facilities for single adults. As trends have changed, the men and women 
of Customs and Border Protection have done everything in their power to 
make these facilities workable on an increasingly thin and inadequate 
budget.
  I want to pause for a moment to say thank you to the men and women in 
uniform who are providing around-the-clock enforcement of our laws and 
providing quality and compassionate care to the migrants in their 
custody. It is a tough job. When you train to be a Customs and Border 
Patrol agent, you are not trained in child care, but that is what many 
of them find themselves doing--handing out juice boxes and diapers and 
providing assistance to those families as they seek to have their 
claims for asylum adjudicated.
  This is a tough job, and it is getting tougher every day, 
particularly in the Rio Grande Valley and along the border. Of the 
144,000 crossings last month, nearly 50,000 were apprehended in the Rio 
Grande Valley, making it the most heavily impacted of the entire 
border.
  In fact, it should come as no surprise that Texas is impacted more 
than any other State because, of course, we share a 1,200-mile common 
border with Mexico. Two-thirds of the apprehensions so far this fiscal 
year have occurred in the Rio Grande Valley, El Paso, or Del Rio 
sectors. As Federal resources have rapidly depleted, Customs and Border 
Protection officers and agents have struggled to manage the processing, 
care, and transportation of these migrants, and local communities, it 
should be no surprise, have stepped in.
  The Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen is one of several 
locations working to care for the migrants and has had its doors open 
for 5 years now. In the summer of 2014, we saw then-unprecedented 
numbers of Central Americans, particularly children, arriving at the 
border. This was back when President Obama called this a ``humanitarian 
and security crisis.'' The scenes were heartbreaking and spurred many 
folks to action to try to offer their help.
  Sister Norma Pimentel is the executive director of Catholic Charities 
in the Rio Grande Valley and led the creation of this respite center. 
Migrants who are released by CBP or ICE and are awaiting a court date 
are often dropped off at the center by officers or agents themselves. 
There they can get food, a hot shower, a good night's sleep, and travel 
to wherever they are going to await their court date.
  There is certainly a need for this type of assistance under the 
circumstances, and it has been in existence only 5 years. The respite 
center has helped more than 150,000 people and continues its work as 
more people cross the border each day.
  The number of unaccompanied children who illegally entered the United 
States last month is higher than in any other month since the 2014 
surge that I mentioned a moment ago. The weight felt by those trying to 
provide assistance is getting heavier and heavier. As Federal resources 
dwindle, local communities in the Rio Grande Valley and along the 
entire Texas-Mexico border have been filling the gaps, despite the fact 
that, obviously, immigration and the sovereignty of our borders are 
Federal responsibilities. In the absence of Federal response, it is the 
State and local communities that have had to step up to help.
  Like the respite center in McAllen, these communities regularly 
provide care, transportation, food, and shelter for migrants in need. I 
believe this generosity shows the true Texas spirit and helps 
illustrate how serious the problem has become and how desperately 
additional Federal resources are needed.
  Thankfully, yesterday the Appropriations Committee took action. The 
committee announced an agreement on a border supplemental package that 
will include humanitarian assistance needed at the border. The nearly 
$4.6 billion includes funding to support the missions of the Department 
of Health and Human Services, which is providing care for the record 
number of unaccompanied children who are arriving in the United States. 
It also provides funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which 
is working to enforce our laws and properly care for the adults and 
families in their custody, as well as the Departments of Justice and 
Defense. The hard-working men and women in these Departments are 
working tirelessly to care for the migrants in their custody, and I 
want to thank each of them for working day in and day out to enforce 
our laws. But, as I mentioned, these are not the only folks trying to 
provide support with minimal support from the U.S. Government.
  Earlier this month I sent a letter to the chairman and ranking member 
of both the Appropriations Committee and the Homeland Security 
Subcommittee, requesting that the funding package include reimbursement 
for local communities that helped carry the weight of the humanitarian 
crisis. NGOs, nongovernmental organizations, like the respite center in 
McAllen are trying to do more and more with less and less. Cities and 
counties are diverting hard-to-come-by taxpayer dollars from their 
intended purposes, such as public safety, power, and clean drinking 
water, to do the job that is the responsibility of the Federal 
Government. It is unfair for these folks to pay for a humanitarian 
crisis that is not of their making. I am glad to see the Appropriations 
Committee taking some action to right this wrong.

[[Page S4146]]

  The funding agreement yesterday includes $30 million available 
nationwide for direct reimbursement for local governments, States, and 
NGOs that have spent millions of dollars to respond to this crisis. 
Communities, both along the border and throughout the State of Texas, 
will be able to request reimbursement directly through local and 
national boards of the Emergency Food and Shelter Program at the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency to help lessen the financial burden 
they have incurred over the past few months.
  I want to thank the chairman and ranking member and all of our 
colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for supporting this effort 
to help alleviate this strain on Texas communities. The funding bill 
received broad bipartisan support in the committee and passed by a vote 
of 30 to 1. I hope we will soon have the opportunity to pass this 
important funding bill here in the Senate. I encourage our friends in 
the House to put politics aside and do the same.
  As happy as I am that the appropriations committee has come up with 
this additional money, this is still a matter of treating the symptoms 
and not the underlying cause. President Trump, in his frustrations with 
congressional inaction, threatened to impose additional tariffs on the 
nation of Mexico. Fortunately, the negotiations that ensued came up 
with a plan for Mexico to work with the United States to begin to slow 
down or stop the flow of people from Central America across Mexico into 
the United States.
  I have never seen anything quite like that before in terms of our 
relationship with Mexico. They have historically tended to view 
immigration as our problem, not theirs, as well as the drug problem, 
because the demand in America is our problem and not theirs. This 
really represents a change of attitude on behalf of President Lopez 
Obrador's administration, and I want to congratulate President Lopez 
Obrador and his administration for working with the United States to 
address a joint problem. This is not just Mexico's problem. This is not 
just the problem of the United States. This is our shared challenge. 
Working together, I am confident we can begin to address it.
  Finally, I want to say that Congress has largely been AWOL when it 
comes to dealing with this humanitarian crisis up to this point. A 
couple of months ago, my colleague from the House of Representatives, 
Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, TX, and I introduced a bill we 
called the HUMANE Act, which would fix some of the gaps in our laws 
that are being exploited by the human smugglers and are causing this 
humanitarian crisis in this huge flood of humanity coming into the 
United States.
  If Congress would accept its responsibility and do its job, it would 
never have been necessary for the President to threaten additional 
tariffs on Mexico, forcing this diplomatic negotiation. I am glad it 
resulted in a good and positive outcome, that negotiation, but the 
fault ultimately lies with Congress for not taking up and debating and 
voting on bipartisan legislation like the HUMANE Act that has been 
introduced in the Senate and in the House.
  I will say that Chairman Graham of the Judiciary Committee has been 
focused like a laser on this issue. We were scheduled to mark up a bill 
today in the Judiciary Committee that I believe would incorporate many 
provisions of the HUMANE Act as part of a bill which would, I believe, 
address this humanitarian pull factor because of exploitation of those 
gaps in our asylum laws. That now has been postponed, but I hope the 
discussions will continue because, ultimately, this is a matter of 
congressional responsibility. We can be glad that the Appropriations 
Committee stepped up and provided additional resources, including this 
$30 million in reimbursement for local communities. We can be glad that 
Mexico and the United States are finally now working together on this 
shared challenge, but ultimately, if we are going to address not just 
the symptoms but the causes of this humanitarian crisis, it is up to 
Congress. I believe the American people will ultimately hold us 
accountable, as they should.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Young). The Senator from Delaware.


                    75th Anniversary of the GI Bill

  Mr. CARPER. Madam President, this Saturday is June 22. It is not just 
any June 22. It marks 75 years to the day that Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt signed into law one of the most significant pieces of 
legislation in our Nation's history. It was called, and is called, the 
Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944. We know it today as the GI bill.
  Since 1944, the GI bill has helped literally millions of not just 
servicemen but a lot of servicewomen. When you look at our Armed Forces 
today, there are a lot of servicewomen who serve in the Army, Navy, Air 
Force, Marine Corps, and in the Coast Guard. I remember being a 
midshipman at the Ohio State Navy ROTC in the 1960s, and we had no 
women in our unit. There were no women in any ROTC unit in colleges 
across the country, as far as I know. There were no women who were 
nominated to attend armed service academies--the Naval Academy, Air 
Force Academy, Merchant Marine Academy. None of them had women. I got 
to my squadron on the west coast during the Vietnam war, and we had 
about 300 men in my squadron. About 10 percent were officers. The 
others were enlisted men. We had no women in my squadron.
  All that has changed. When you go to any college that has a ROTC unit 
today, they are allowing women in. In the academies, you find women. In 
my old squadron, we find women. They are not just E-1s, E-2s, and E-3s; 
they are O-4s, O-5s, O-6s, and they are doing a great job. The GI bill 
is for them too.
  Since 1944, the GI bill has helped millions of World War II veterans 
purchase a home, pay for a higher education or obtain job training and, 
in turn, transformed our Nation's economy.
  Our Presiding Officer, who has served our country in uniform, knows 
of what I speak. I was just off of Active Duty at the end of the 
Vietnam war and in Delaware when I finished up my MBA, which is 
financed in part by the GI bill. I had scraped enough money together to 
buy a house. I think it cost about $35,000. I didn't have $35,000, but 
with the help of the GI bill, I was able to get a mortgage and buy my 
first home, all those years ago.
  In the years since World War II, the GI bill has continued to change 
the lives of millions of veterans by spurring economic opportunity and 
helping to create the middle class as we know it today. That is why 
earlier this week I was proud to reintroduce a bipartisan resolution in 
the Senate, alongside my colleagues Senators Johnny Isakson of Georgia 
and Jon Tester of Montana. They are the chair and ranking member of the 
Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, which designates this week as 
National GI Bill Commemoration Week, celebrating the historical 
significance of the GI bill and renewing our commitment to improving 
the lives of our Nation's veterans for years to come.
  I want to share with you a couple of reasons why the GI bill is 
oftentimes referred to as the ``greatest legislation'' and share with 
you how it changed my life and really the life of my family.
  After World War II, millions of returning veterans flooded our 
Nation's colleges, our universities, and our vocational schools. It was 
the GI bill that made financial support, education, and homegrown 
programs available to those 16 million veterans returning home and 
helped to usher in an era of unprecedented economic expansion.
  According to the 1988 report from the Joint Economic Committee, it 
was estimated that for every $1 the United States invested in our GIs 
through the GI bill, about $7 were returned in economic growth for our 
country.
  I am going to say that again. According to the Joint Economic 
Committee in 1988, it was estimated, for every $1 the United States 
invested in the GI bill, about $7 were returned to our economy. It is a 
pretty good return.
  Those are big returns. I wish I could say for every dollar we 
invested in Federal Government spending that we got seven bucks back, 
in terms of economic growth. We don't. So this is something to know.
  Thanks to the original GI bill, 450,000 engineers, 240,000 
accountants, 238,000 teachers, 91,000 scientists, 67,000 doctors, 
112,000 dentists, and thousands of other professionals entered our 
country's workforce, and many folks entered the workforce with skills 
in building trades, in assembly operations. You name it.

[[Page S4147]]

  The GI bill truly democratized our higher education system. It 
established greater citizenship and civic participation and empowered 
the ``greatest generation''--my parents' generation--to lead our 
country following World War II.
  At the end of World War II, my dad was the chief petty officer in the 
Navy and served until the end of World War II and a little bit after 
that and served many years after that as a chief petty officer in the 
naval reserve for, I think, 30 years in all. He came back. Before he 
went to work, he took advantage of the GI bill, and he had a real knack 
for fixing things and building things. He was very skilled in that 
regard. He had a high school education. He and my mom graduated from 
Shady Springs High School in Beaver, WV. They were married during World 
War II. My sister was born in 1945, and I was born in 1947. My dad used 
the GI bill, he once told me, to learn how to fix wrecked cars, how to 
be an auto body repairman. He ended up working at an Oldsmobile 
dealership in Beckley, WV, Burleson Oldsmobile, using the skills he 
gained from the GI bill. He worked there for a year or two. One day, a 
claims adjuster came in from the Nationwide Insurance company. 
Nationwide insured a car that was being repaired by my dad. The claims 
adjuster talked to my dad about the car and how it was coming. 
Somewhere in that conversation, the fellow from Nationwide Insurance 
said: You know, you could do what I do.
  My dad said: You mean be a claims adjuster for Nationwide Insurance?
  The guy said: Yes, you could do this. You have a lot on the ball.
  Two years later, my father was a claims adjuster for Nationwide 
Insurance. He continued to repair wrecked cars as a hobby. We had any 
number of cars in our family that looked as good as new. He would take 
them on weekends and went to a garage and fixed them, painted them, and 
they were as good as new.
  Out of that humble beginning as a claims adjuster for Nationwide 
Insurance--he was very proud of the work he did, but he ended up 20, 25 
years later as one of the top instructors for Nationwide in their home 
office in Columbus, OH, teaching all the claims adjusters from across 
the country for Nationwide how to do the job adjusting claims, working 
on claims.
  Here is a picture of my dad, Wallace Richard Carper. He went by 
Richard, his middle name, my middle name. He instructed a bunch of 
folks in the home office in the training school in Columbus, OH. Here 
he is with some of his compadres, some of the fellow teachers whom he 
worked with. It started with the GI bill.
  I know people who used the GI bill to get an undergraduate degree or 
2-year degree, associate's degree, a master's degree, a Ph.D. Not 
everybody used the GI bill for that. My father used it in a way that 
actually ended up enabling him to not only get a good blue-collar job 
but also actually to end up doing this kind of work as well. I am proud 
of him and thankful to the GI bill for helping him get started and 
serve as a role model for my sister and me.
  My own career, I served 5 years on Active Duty as a midshipman, 
before that at Ohio State, and served 5 years in the Vietnam war, three 
tours in Southeast Asia. I wanted to stay in the Navy. I wanted to go 
to graduate school after my career. The Navy wasn't ready to send me to 
Monterey. I wanted to go to Monterey to graduate school. The Navy 
wasn't ready to send me to a postgraduate school. They said to come 
back and talk to them in a couple of years.
  I wanted to go to graduate school. I entered my regular commission, 
took a Reserve commission, and moved from California to Delaware--the 
University of Delaware--and enrolled on the GI bill to go to graduate 
school.
  The next weekend, after I showed up in Delaware, I drove up the road 
to Willow Grove Naval Air Station in Pennsylvania, north of 
Philadelphia, and they were just getting the Navy P-3 aircraft. I had 
been a P-3 aircraft mission commander during the Vietnam war. I said: 
Are you looking for people who might help train these sailors at Willow 
Grove on how to use these P-3 airplanes?
  He said: We need somebody. We need some help, and we are were happy 
to sign you up.
  I flew with them for another 18 years and retired as a Navy captain.
  Before I did those 18 years, I went to graduate school at the 
University of Delaware and earned an MBA, and that helped me go to work 
for the State of Delaware in economic development, right out of 
graduate school, and later had a chance to run for the State treasurer. 
Nobody wanted to run. In knowing I had an MBA from the University of 
Delaware, some people thought maybe I could be a pretty good State 
treasurer. We ended up starting with the worst credit rating in the 
country back in 1977, and 6 years later, we had doubled the credit 
rating. Pete du Pont was our Governor, and he was a great Governor.

  I hope I helped a little bit along the way. That GI bill helped me in 
earning my MBA and, later, to have had a chance to have served in the 
House, then as Governor, and now here in the Senate. So I am deeply 
grateful to the people of this country for investing in me. I tried to 
work hard to repay that investment they made in me all those years ago.
  Today's veterans can take advantage of the post-9/11 GI bill. It is 
an incredible benefit that pays the full cost of tuition at public 
colleges and universities, offers a generous housing allowance, and 
pays for books. It can even be transferred to veterans' spouses or 
children.
  In 2017, I was proud when Congress enacted the Forever GI bill--
legislation that expanded the GI bill and strengthened the protection 
for our veterans, for Purple Heart recipients, for National Guard 
reservists, and for surviving spouses and children.
  About 2 or 3 weeks ago, we had a send-off ceremony in the Delaware 
National Guard facility in Smyrna, DE, which is just north of Dover. 
There were 20 or so National Guard men and women. They were about to 
ship off for Iraq and other surrounding countries in that part of the 
world.
  In my remarks to send them off and wish them well, I mentioned, when 
they come home, they will be eligible for the GI bill if they have a 
total of 36 months of service, which will enable them to go to college 
for free--to the University of Delaware, to Delaware State University, 
or to the Delaware Technical Community College. There will be no 
tuition, and books will be paid for. If they need tutoring, it will be 
paid for, and they will receive a $2,000-a-month housing allowance.
  When we came back from Southeast Asia at the end of the Vietnam war, 
in the GI bill, we received a $250-a-month allowance for everything. 
That was it. It was all there. The GI bill that our veterans inherit 
today, receive today, is just incredibly generous and is, actually, 
very helpful in terms of recruiting people to serve in an all-volunteer 
military.
  One of the aspects of the bill that I mentioned a minute ago was, if 
a GI doesn't use his or her GI bill, his or her spouse can use it. If 
his or her spouse doesn't use it, his or her dependent children can use 
it. Sometimes that happens, and I want to share one sad but, in the 
end, hopeful story about one servicemember's GI benefits.
  His name was Christopher Slutman. He grew up not too far from 
Delaware, but he ended up serving in New York City as a fireman and had 
been one for 15 years. In the words of Winston Churchill, he was twice 
a citizen because, in addition to doing that, he served in the Reserves 
for a number of years--not in the Navy but in the Marines.
  His unit was activated. He was activated, and he ended up in 
Afghanistan on Active Duty. He took leave from his day job as a 
firefighter in New York City to put on a different uniform and ship out 
with his colleagues to go to Afghanistan. He was serving there on 
Active Duty--a marine reservist activated--when, one day while on 
patrol within the Humvee, they ran across a bomb that exploded and 
killed him, Christopher Slutman, and killed two other marines who were 
in the vehicle.
  Along with Chris Coons, my colleague here in the Senate; Lisa Blunt 
Rochester, our only Representative at large of the U.S. House of 
Representatives; our Governor, John Carney; the Secretary of Defense; 
the head of the Marine Corps; and a lot of other people, several days 
later, I stood on the flight line at Dover Air Force Base with the 
families of those three marines who died.

[[Page S4148]]

  One of the people among the three families was Christopher Slutman's 
now widow. Shannon Metcalf Slutman was there, who has earned three 
degrees herself--her undergraduate from the University of Delaware, a 
master's degree, and a doctorate degree--and her three daughters were 
not. I think it was late at night. They were probably at home and 
probably in bed.
  When Christopher Slutman died, he left behind a widow, and he left 
behind three little girls, ages 4, 8, and 10. His wife doesn't need to 
go to school any further. She is educated well beyond my dreams. Do you 
know what, though? They have three daughters, and we are going to make 
sure, when they are old enough to go to college, they will be able to 
inherit and use the GI bill's benefits that their father and their 
mother will never use.
  A lot of times, we think about what the GI bill does to help 
servicemembers like me and like my dad, but it also helps a lot of 
families in ways we, maybe, never imagined. So I think we celebrate 75 
years of the gift that this legislation provides to those survivors, 
like to the three Slutman girls, as they prepare to face the world 
without their father.
  In closing, I am proud to join families across our country today in 
celebration of the importance of the GI bill over the last three-
quarters of a century. It has enabled hundreds of thousands of 
veterans, including, as I said earlier, my dad and me, to pursue our 
dreams and to, hopefully, contribute in some way to our Nation and to 
our economy. This week, we reaffirm our commitment to making sure that 
all veterans today have similar experiences--maybe even better 
experiences--than we had and that they get the most out of their hard-
earned GI bill benefits.
  I ask all of my colleagues to join us today, here in this Chamber and 
across the country, in wishing the GI bill a happy 75th birthday. Here 
is to another 75 years of improving the lives of our Nation's veterans.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.


                         Tribute to Billy Payne

  Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I rise to do something I rarely do. To 
start, I want to talk about a very special Georgian and a good friend 
of mine--a man by the name of Billy Payne. Billy is a husband, a 
father, a grandfather, a great Georgian, and, yes, a great American. 
Recently, he was one of five individuals to be inducted into the 2019 
World Golf Hall of Fame. It is quite an honor. Billy Payne is a 
riveting storyteller, a creative thinker, and an effective leader.
  Golf Magazine once wrote: ``Wherever he goes, Payne is the most 
interesting person in the room.''
  Billy was born in Athens, GA, and he went on to play football for his 
hometown team, the Georgia Bulldogs. He earned a law degree from the 
University of Georgia and went on to open a small practice in Atlanta.
  After helping to raise money for a new sanctuary at their church, 
Billy and Martha, his wife, were inspired and started looking for ways 
to make a difference in their community. The day after the new 
sanctuary was dedicated, Billy Payne came home from work and said to 
Martha: I've got it--we're going to bring the Olympics to Atlanta. 
Billy was undaunted by the magnitude of this decision.
  He didn't have many connections at the time, but he called up city 
and State officials and formed a team to make a bid to host the 1996 
Olympic Games. Billy spent the next 3\1/2\ years personally traveling 
to 110 countries to convince Olympic officials to bring the games to 
the city of Atlanta. On September 18, 1990, Atlanta won the bid for the 
1996 Olympics all because of Billy Payne's leadership and his vision 
for the city.
  The 1996 Olympics put Atlanta on the world map. It transformed the 
city and allowed us to build infrastructure that later helped Georgia 
to become the No. 1 State in the country in which to do business. To 
this very day, my alma mater, Georgia Tech, actually uses dormitories 
that were built to house the athletes in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
  After serving as President and CEO of the Atlanta Committee for the 
Olympic Games, Billy was invited to join Augusta National. In a very 
short period of time--actually, in 2006--he was selected to be the 
club's chairman, which is a role he served in for 11 years. Billy 
oversaw the Masters Tournament and turned it into a global brand with 
worldwide reach. When Billy took over at Augusta National, the club's 
membership was all male. Under his leadership, Augusta National broke 
the gender barrier and allowed women to join the club for the very 
first time.
  He also started two major amateur events--the Latin America Amateur 
and the Asia-Pacific Amateur. The winners of these tournaments are 
invited to play in the Masters each year. As a result, young people 
from all over the world now have a chance to actually compete in the 
Masters every year.
  In 2014, Billy launched the Drive, Chip & Putt Championship--a junior 
golf competition that gives 7- to 15-year-olds the opportunity to 
develop their golf skills, to compete with their peers, and to earn the 
opportunity to actually play and compete at the Augusta National on the 
Sunday before the Masters. I have seen this. It is an exciting event to 
see these young people compete at the very home of the Masters.
  Probably the greatest achievement, however, for amateur golf may have 
been this year's first Augusta National Women's Amateur tournament. 
When the final pair walked onto the 18th green arm in arm--one the 
winner, the other the runner-up, two women, arm in arm, cheering each 
other--it was a highlight in amateur sports. In my opinion, Bobby 
Jones, who is the hero of amateur sports in America, was in Heaven and 
probably stood up and cheered.
  Finally, Billy had a hand in naming his alma mater's football field, 
Sanford Stadium, after his coach at the University of Georgia, Vince 
Dooley. Last month, the university's athletic board approved the name 
change, and now the field is officially known as Dooley Field at 
Sanford Stadium.
  I would be remiss if I didn't say ``Go Dogs'' this morning.
  Clearly, Billy Payne's impact on Georgia and the entire country is 
hard to measure, but I want to tell you a story that really tells the 
true heart of this leader from our State.
  After he announced his retirement from being the chairman of Augusta 
National, he was at a private dinner and was asked by no less than Bret 
Baier what he was going to miss the most. Without hesitation, Billy 
said, ``The people.'' Well, those of us at the table thought he might 
have been talking about the members, but he wasn't. He was talking 
about the employees at Augusta National. Its employees have been there 
for their entire careers, and they adore this man because he loves 
them. He treated them right, and he built their careers there.
  His tenacious spirit, his love for humankind, and his steadfast 
leadership serve as an inspiration to us all. I thank Billy Payne for 
his lifetime of service to the State of Georgia and to the United 
States, and I congratulate him, his wife, and their kids on this 
induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame.


                            Border Security

  Mr. President, on another topic, there is a growing crisis at our 
southern border, and we are told, next week, we are actually going to 
vote on an appropriations package for humanitarian aid at the southern 
border.
  Recently, I and a colleague of mine, Senator Steve Daines of Montana, 
traveled down to the McAllen sector of the border in Texas. We went out 
on patrol overnight with the Customs and Border Patrol agents--we were 
out all night with them--and then went on patrol in the early morning 
hours just as dawn broke on the river. We saw firsthand that we don't 
have just an illegal immigration problem--we have a national security 
crisis right there at our southern border.
  My biggest takeaway was that the drug trafficking down there has now 
risen to being a full-blown crisis. Between fiscal year 1997 and fiscal 
year 2018, the CBP saw a 22-percent increase in heroin, a 38-percent 
increase in meth, and a 73-percent increase in fentanyl seizures. In 
that year alone, fiscal year 2018, enough fentanyl was brought into the 
country illegally to kill every woman, man, and child in America. The 
Border Patrol agents we

[[Page S4149]]

spoke to estimated that they are only able to interdict between 7 and 
10 percent, however, of the drugs that actually cross the border in the 
McAllen sector. That is a crisis. If for no other reason, we have a 
crisis.
  In addition, the amount of human trafficking we are seeing at the 
border is unprecedented. Last month alone, 144,000 individuals were 
apprehended at our southern border. This is the highest number of 
apprehensions in over 13 years.
  In just the first 8 months of the fiscal year, 411,000 unaccompanied 
children and family units were apprehended at our southern border, 
including 84,000 family units and 11,000 unaccompanied children, just 
last month--11,000 unaccompanied children. How does an unaccompanied 
child get all the way from Honduras or Guatemala to our border?
  This is a conspiracy led by the cartels. I have seen it firsthand. We 
heard the gunfire across the river the night we were on patrol. It is 
real.
  If this trend continues, 800,000 children and families could be 
apprehended at the southern border by the end of this fiscal year 
alone. To put that in perspective, we issue 1.1 million legal green 
cards a year that are a pathway to citizenship. This year alone, just 
the family units alone could be 800,000 people apprehended at the 
southern border. Clearly, our Border Patrol agents are overwhelmed.
  When an unaccompanied child arrives at the border, they are cared for 
by Border Patrol agents until they can be placed in the care of the 
Department of Health and Human Services. However, the number of 
children arriving today greatly exceeds HHS's capacity to deal with 
them.
  As of last week, 1,900 unaccompanied children were in CBP custody 
awaiting placement in HHS's care. But Health and Human Services had 
less than 700 beds in which to place them.
  Now, according to the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol 
agents are spending more than half of their time caring for families 
and children, providing medical assistance, driving buses, and acting 
as food service workers instead of performing law enforcement duties.
  Pulling Border Patrol agents away from their law enforcement duties 
only exacerbates the crisis at the border. We saw that firsthand on our 
overnight patrols.
  The Acting Commissioner of CBP said recently: ``We are in a full-
blown emergency, and I cannot say this any stronger: the system is 
broken.''
  On May 1, the Trump administration requested $4.5 billion in funds to 
help address the growing crisis at the border. At the time, we were 
debating disaster relief for my home State of Georgia and a dozen other 
States across the country.
  On May 23, President Trump broke the logjam and agreed to separate 
border humanitarian aid from the disaster relief question and it 
allowed us, then, within hours on this floor, to pass the disaster 
relief bill. Now we have to do the same thing for this humanitarian aid 
to the border.
  Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis at the southern border has only 
continued to escalate, and we have to do something about it right now.
  This week, Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland 
Security sent a letter to every Member of Congress. It said: ``Absent 
an emergency appropriation, we anticipate running out of funding as 
soon as later this month.''
  The Department of Homeland Security has already started pulling 
resources away from critical missions in order to try and keep up with 
this surge of human traffic. Without additional funds by August, the 
Department of Homeland Security says they will have to redirect 
manpower and funding from TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard in order to 
address the crisis at the border.
  The Acting Director of ICE just recently said: ``We are begging. We 
are asking Congress to please help us.''
  This should not be a political issue. I am hoping that it will not 
be. This is about giving Federal agents the resources they need to care 
for children and families in their custody and respond to this crisis 
situation.
  Even the New York Times editorial board said this: ``Congress, give 
Trump his border money.'' That is the New York Times, not a big fan of 
our President.
  The Senate will vote on this emergency funding next week, and I hope 
it will receive bipartisan support. It absolutely should. Going 
forward, we have to address the underlying cause of this crisis, 
however.
  Since 2014, the number of unaccompanied children and family units 
arriving at the southern border has skyrocketed because of loopholes in 
our asylum and immigration laws. Minors and family units can easily 
assert broad and unspecific asylum claims. Then, they are released into 
the United States while they await formal removal proceedings, which 
could be months or years down the road.
  These loopholes, combined with programs like the DACA Program, have 
led to a staggering increase in the number of unaccompanied children 
and family units arriving at our border.
  Oftentimes, these kids and families are exploited by cartels on their 
journey to the United States and are in dire need of human services by 
the time they get here. It is truly heartbreaking what some of these 
people go through. These cartels profit off the most vulnerable. They 
fuel the drug trade and endanger communities across our country--
indeed, the world, for that matter. We have to put the cartels out of 
business. We have to close these loopholes that encourage illegal 
immigration into our country.
  Finally, we have to give the Border Patrol officers the tools they 
need to do their jobs and protect our country. This means more 
technology, more personnel, and more barriers.
  In conclusion, I want to say thank you to the women and men who 
protect our border. Their job isn't easy, but I will say this today: 
The best--and I mean the very best--are in our military uniforms around 
the world and doing our business, they are our Border Patrol people, 
who are protecting our border every day and night on our southern 
border here in the United States. We appreciate what you all do. God 
bless you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.


             50th Anniversary of the Cuyahoga River Burning

  Mr. BROWN. Fifty years ago this Saturday, in Cleveland, OH, about 7 
miles from where my wife and I now live, sparks from a railcar 
traveling over the Cuyahoga River near Lake Erie ignited debris in the 
water below, lighting our river on fire for what would be the last 
time. It wasn't the first time the river had burned. It wasn't the 
biggest fire ever on the river, but it surely had the most impact.
  Soon after that fire, Time magazine published a story calling the 
Cuyahoga River one of the worst rivers in the country. It was hard even 
for us who live in Ohio to argue otherwise.
  I remember how polluted the river was and the lake was when I was 
growing up. Even to a child, it was obvious that most of what was in 
the river didn't belong in that river. Industry used the river as an 
open sewer, and oil coated the Cuyahoga River.
  We knew that for generations Ohio's industry powered our country, 
making the steel that won our wars, built our skyscrapers, and went 
into the cars and trucks that carried our products and workers around 
the country. But our river--the Cuyahoga River--paid the price.
  The city's own wastewater system was outdated and ill-equipped for 
what was then America's tenth largest city. Americans were horrified by 
the scenes of that burning river. It was a wake-up call to people all 
over our great country that industrial pollution had real costs.
  People were becoming more and more aware of the scope of our 
environmental problems--polluted air, dirty rivers and lakes, oil 
spills off our coasts.
  Citizens woke up. Citizens demanded that their government take 
action. Our mayor in Cleveland, Carl Stokes, helped to lead the charge, 
pressing this Congress for Federal help.
  Congress passed the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. Congress 
created the Environmental Protection Agency. The country celebrated the 
first Earth Day, and we made real progress.
  The city of Cleveland, the State of Ohio, and citizen activists 
transformed

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the Cuyahoga River Valley. Representatives Ralph Regula, a Republican, 
and John Seiberling, a Democrat, led efforts to create the Cuyahoga 
Valley National Recreation Area, which later became the Cuyahoga Valley 
National Park.
  Think of that. There aren't that many national parks east of the 
Mississippi River--a national park in the Cuyahoga River Valley.
  Today our river is home to more than 60 species of fish. Families 
canoe and kayak and fish. The industrial river valley in downtown 
Cleveland, what we call the Flats, has been transformed into a center 
for recreation entertainment.
  NPR this week said that the cleanup ``has been such a success that 
environmental officials travel from around the world to take notes.''
  All the cleanup we have done has not hurt our economy--far from it. 
We know the talking points. We hear from lobbyists in this building. We 
know the talking points we hear from corporations. They say that 
environmental protections hurt businesses and kill jobs.
  The Cuyahoga proves them 180 degrees wrong. The river transports 
millions of tons of materials to and from local industries and supports 
15,000 jobs. It produces $1.7 billion in economic activity.
  For all that progress, more needs to be done. Last week, I was on the 
shores of Lake Erie and held a roundtable with Ohioans who love this 
lake. They told me they are worried that after 50 years of progress on 
the Cuyahoga and across Lake Erie, the shallowest and most vulnerable 
of the Great Lakes, we are at risk of going backward. The lake is 
threatened by harmful algal blooms and by climate change. I thank 
Senator Whitehouse for being the most important Member of this Senate 
talking about that issue every day, every day, every day. The lake is 
threatened by invasive species, and it is threatened by emerging 
contaminants that are in our drinking water.
  Unfortunately, we have a President and an administration that deny 
climate science and that yesterday, again, with their announcement, 
want to give polluters free rein.
  The President has tried every year to gut the Great Lakes Restoration 
Initiative, which keeps our five Great Lakes clean. Every single year 
the President has tried to do that. His EPA proposes leaving thousands 
of miles of waterways unprotected. They have abandoned the Paris 
Agreement--the best blueprint we have to combat climate change.
  Having watched for 50 years, first as a young child, then, having 
seen what has happened, having watched for 50 years the cleanup of this 
great lake and the waterways in my State, which is still an industrial 
State and still an agriculture State, I know we can't go back. We can't 
let our country return to the days when our rivers flowed with trash, 
sewage, and industrial waste, and our air and water made our children 
sick.
  We can't ignore climate change, one of the great moral issues of our 
time.
  Let's honor this 50th anniversary by committing ourselves to trusting 
our scientists, protecting our lakes and rivers, taking action to 
preserve our country for our children and our grandchildren before it 
is too late.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it is my great honor to join Senator 
Brown of Ohio here on this 50th anniversary.
  The image of a river aflame is engraved in our collective memory. For 
Ohioans, for Senator Brown, and for all others who care about our water 
and environment, the Cuyahoga River remains a rallying cry.
  Time magazine ran a piece in 1969 calling it this: ``Chocolate brown, 
oily, bubbling with subsurface gasses, it oozes rather than flows.''
  No fish lived in it. It was too dangerous for drinking or swimming.
  ``The lower Cuyahoga has no visual signs of life, not even low forms 
such as leeches and sludge worms that usually thrive on wastes,'' a 
Federal report said.
  Virginia Aveni, captain of a vessel charged with cleaning up, told 
the Plain Dealer that the river ``was a complete gel almost of 
petrochemicals.'' There was a ``sheen and thickness of the river . . . 
. it was totally jammed with downfall from upstream'' and had ``every 
kind of litter you can imagine.''
  Today, waterfowl are back, and paddlers enjoy themselves. It has been 
named River of the Year for 2019. Fish from the river are now safe to 
eat. A river that inspired a generation to act in the name of our 
environment has rewarded that effort.
  By the time a spark jumped off a nearby passing train and lit the 
river on fire in 1969, it was no surprise. The river had burst into 
flames 13 times before between 1868 and 1969. This is the most 
economically damaging fire, in 1952, which cost over $1.3 million--$12 
million in today's dollars.
  An earlier fire in 1912 was the deadliest, killing 5 people.
  What was different this time? America paid attention.
  Of course the Cuyahoga was not our only polluted waterway. The 
Potomac River in Washington, DC, was, to describe it in Time's words 
``stinking from the 240 million gallons of waste [that] were flushed 
into it daily,'' and ``Omaha's meatpackers [filled] the Missouri River 
with animal grease balls as big as oranges.''
  Americans wised up to what we were doing to our planet. We grew tired 
of unchecked industries using our common assets as their dumps, and 
things changed. It produced some of the most significant environmental 
and public health protections in history: the December 1970 
establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, the 1972 
amendments to the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Lead-Based 
Paint Poisoning Prevention Act, the Ocean Dumping Act, the Safe 
Drinking Water Act, the Resources Conservation and Recovery Act, and 
the Toxic Substances Control Act. And, of course, there was the big 
one--the National Environmental Policy Act.
  Each one had broad popular support. Each garnered bipartisan support. 
It is hard to imagine that today, but it happened.
  The American people have made hard-earned progress protecting our 
waters in the last 50 years. We want to swim in our lakes. We want to 
fish in our rivers. We want to drink from our streams.
  We do not want to go back to the days when rivers oozed, but the 
Trump administration has the clear aim of allowing industry donors to 
pollute more and faster.
  The price for this is paid in our rivers, on our lands, in our 
oceans, and in our climate. Right now, in our atmosphere and oceans, we 
are approaching the kind of environmental catastrophe that befell the 
Cuyahoga, only magnified many times over.
  Let's ensure that the Cuyahoga did not burn in vain and that the 
lessons of the Cuyahoga River, Love Canal, Deepwater Horizon, and other 
preventable disasters are not repeated by us, now on a global scale. We 
took bipartisan action to protect our environment before. If we can 
break the devil's grip on the fossil fuel industry here, we can do it 
again.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.


                             Change of Vote

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, on rollcall vote 176, I voted nay. It 
was my intention to vote yea. I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to correct my vote since it will not affect the outcome.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.


                      nomination of rita baranwal

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to speak in 
support of the nomination of Dr. Rita Baranwal to be Assistant 
Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the Department of Energy. Dr. Baranwal 
was reported from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee without 
opposition in both the 115th and 116th Congresses, and I am glad we 
will vote to confirm her today.
  Over the past several years, the United States has lost influence in 
nuclear energy to countries like Russia and China. That is not a 
positive development, but advanced nuclear technologies have the 
potential to reposition the United States as a leader in the world 
market.
  To achieve that, we will need strong, experienced, and consistent 
leadership at the Department of Energy. Dr.

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Baranwal's experience as the director of the Gateway for Accelerated 
Innovation in Nuclear, also referred to as GAIN, provides her with an 
informed perspective to push forward the research, development, and 
deployment of advanced reactor technologies.
  Congress began to demonstrate its strong support for advanced nuclear 
through the enactment of two bills in the last Congress, the Nuclear 
Energy Innovation Capabilities Act and the Nuclear Energy Innovation 
and Modernization Act. These new laws are intended to facilitate 
reactor development and streamline the licensing process at the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission.
  In addition, legislation I have sponsored, the Nuclear Energy 
Leadership Act, has garnered 17 bipartisan cosponsors in this new 
Congress. Our bill provides for the next steps on advanced nuclear 
technologies, including the need to ensure high-assay, low-enriched 
uranium fuel is available for them.
  We need a strong leader in the Office of Nuclear Energy, someone who 
recognizes the potential of these technologies, who will move forward 
so that we can realize that potential and who will work to restore the 
United States' leadership in nuclear energy. I appreciate Dr. 
Baranwal's willingness to serve in this role and urge my colleagues to 
support her nomination.

                          ____________________