Congressional Record, Volume 165 Issue 104 (Thursday, June 20, 2019)

[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 104 (Thursday, June 20, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4151-S4162]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

LEGISLATIVE SESSION

______

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

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume
legislative session on the motion to proceed to S. 1790. I further ask
that notwithstanding rule XXII, the postcloture time on S. 1790 expire
at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, June 24.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Ohio.
(The remarks of Mr. Portman pertaining to the introduction of S. 1925
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. PORTMAN. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.

Clean Power Plan

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, earlier this week, the Trump
administration, through the EPA Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, issued
what was called the Clean Power Plan rule. That replaces the Obama-era
Clean Power Plan rule that dealt with carbon emissions from our
powerplants. I am very

[[Page S4152]]

concerned about this proposed rule, and I want to share some of my
concerns with the Members of the Senate and the American people.
The Obama Clean Power Plan rule was aimed at reducing carbon
emissions by 30 percent by the year 2030 compared to the 2005 level. It
was a strong proposal, but it gave maximum discretion to the States on
how they could meet those targets. Those States that relied more on
coal-burning power generation were given different standards than those
States that had already transitioned to cleaner energy sources. It was
a fair rule, a tough rule, and a rule that would significantly reduce
carbon emissions in this country.
Powerplants are the largest single source of carbon pollution, and we
know how harmful carbon pollution is to our environment. Nearly 40
percent comes from power generation.
We need strong Federal regulation. We were moving in that direction
under the previous administration. Now we demote the current emissions
standards to a mere suggestion. That is wrong, and I hope that does not
become the case.
There are many reasons that we should be concerned about this rule.
We should be concerned about what we are doing about carbon pollution.
Let me cite a few.
In the area of public health, we know that if we don't control carbon
emission, we will have more premature deaths. The New York Times
estimates that there would be 1,400 annual premature deaths as a result
of not properly regulating the carbon emissions coming from
powerplants.
We also know that because of the impact carbon has on public health,
the failure to regulate it means more children will miss schooldays
because of their respiratory challenges and more parents won't be able
to work because they have to take care of their children. So the result
is lost schooldays and lost workdays because of the failure to
regulate, which affects our economy and our educating workforce.
We know that children who are vulnerable to respiratory ailments,
such as asthma, are particularly at risk, and there will be more days
that they will be confined to some form of air-conditioning rather than
being able to go out in the neighborhood.
It is also a matter of our economy. We know that clean energy
produces more jobs. That is where we are headed, and the faster we get
there, the better it will be for our economy.
We also know, as a matter of energy security, the faster we move in
this direction, the more secure we will be. America has taken steps to
wean ourselves off of imported energy, but our allies around the world
are still too dependent, as we know from the way Russia uses energy as
a weapon. We need to transition to renewable energy sources so there
can be energy security for America's allies.
Lastly, on the environment, carbon is the major pollutant for
nitrogen pollution in our waters. I say that because many of you have
heard me talk frequently on the floor about the Chesapeake Bay and the
importance of the Chesapeake Bay. It is a national treasure. It is the
largest estuary in our hemisphere. It is critically important to the
way of life here in the Chesapeake Bay watersheds--six States and the
District of Columbia. We recognize its economic value--$1 trillion to
our economy.
Well, 85 million pounds of nitrogen pollution goes into the
Chesapeake Bay from the air. One-third of the Chesapeake Bay's total
nitrogen load comes as a result of our failure to regulate carbon going
into the air. This causes algae blooms in the Chesapeake Bay. It causes
dead zones. It makes it much more difficult for the stakeholders to
meet their stated goals.
I am proud of the Chesapeake Bay Program. All the local governments
have agreed on their responsibility. It is tailored toward the States
and enforced through the help of the Federal Government. But because of
this rule change, it is now going to be more difficult to meet the
goals we have set for the Chesapeake Bay. It is not just affecting the
powerplants; it is affecting our quality of life, public health, the
environment, and the economy.
The States have acted. I am proud of what Maryland has done. We have
shown that you can clean up your carbon emissions through power
production and you can grow your economy. We have done that in the
State of Maryland. We have joined with other States in the RGGI--with
Delaware, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, Vermont, and New York--and we have shown a 40-percent reduction
in emissions since 2009. That is what the States have done.
In the rule that is being proposed, they are saying they are leaving
it up to the States. Maryland has done that, but we are downwind. The
progress we are making is being negated by the pollution coming in from
the Midwest. We need a national standard in order to be able to meet
our targets.
I would urge my colleagues, let's get engaged. This rule is bad for
our economy. It is bad for public health. It is bad for energy
security. It is bad for the environment. We can do better. Let's work
together so that we have proper regulation at the national level
dealing with carbon emissions.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.

VA MISSION Act

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I wanted to join with my colleagues
this week to mark the implementation of an updated and streamlined
healthcare system that is specifically for our veterans. This is made
possible by the VA MISSION Act.
In Tennessee, we have such a large and vigorous and wonderful
population of veterans. I will tell you, we are so grateful to them for
their service, and we are so grateful they have chosen to make
Tennessee their retirement home.
One of our colleagues asked me one day about how patriotic Tennessee
is. They had been there to visit. They saw flags out in so many places.
They saw signs out that were ``thank you'' signs to our veterans. I
told them that I felt like it was because we do have a strong military
presence. Fort Campbell is primarily in Tennessee. We have Millington,
the air naval station. We have Arnold. We have our National Guard, and
a couple of our units have just finished a good deployment. We cherish
these veterans, and they are such an integral part of our communities
and our churches.
We have worked diligently on this healthcare system for veterans to
specifically meet their needs. That should be the mission of the VA. It
is not to serve itself but to serve the veterans.
Once this new structure that is put in place by the MISSION Act is
fully implemented, members of the military community who have been, in
my words, neglected for too long--their access to healthcare
neglected--they are finally going to get the attention and the care
they need. I use the term ``neglected'' because anybody who knew they
were headed to the VA clinic for a checkup knew that was not going to
be a quick checkup. There is a lot of paperwork that goes into that
process of asking for that checkup and then seeing it actually take
place.
I have heard from hundreds of veterans, their stories and their
experiences. Sometimes you will hear them say it was a comedy of
errors. But it is no comedy; it is a catastrophe of errors. The
consequences from this have really taken a toll on the life, the
health, the safety, and sometimes the sanity of our veterans community.
The reason you hear these stories is because we have asked
generations of veterans to put their physical and their emotional
health in the hands of practitioners whose hands were tied by arbitrary
rules and procedures that turned even simple procedures into what would
be a logistical nightmare. I have no doubt that if we went around this
Chamber and each Member of this Chamber were to stand, they could--
without any notes, right off the top of their head--give us a story
they have heard from a veteran. That should never happen.
But as of this month, we have dealt with a lot of these issues. We
have removed some of the roadblocks. And the new Community Care
Program, which adopted elements from the successful Veterans Choice
Program, will continue to allow veterans to seek care closer to home.
What was once a cluster of seven programs has been merged into one
single system--a whole-of-health, whole-of-the-soldier approach. It
makes this process simpler and easier to understand and to implement
this program.

[[Page S4153]]

Options will expand even more with the authorization of local
provider agreements and access to walk-in community clinics, which is
specifically and precisely, what for years veterans have said they
want:
Just let me go to the doctor in my hometown.
We have a neighborhood clinic over here.
We have a clinic over at the pharmacy, the CVS or the Walgreens. Let
me go there and not have to drive to a clinic that is out of town.
One provision in particular that I believe is going to really make a
big difference is the removal of barriers that have prevented VA
healthcare professionals from practicing telemedicine. Any of us who
have used telemedicine and have Skyped with a physician know this is a
timesaver. It gets you in front of the doctor in a more expeditious
fashion. It allows you to get that advice to start taking and treating
your ailment sooner. It is a huge timesaver. This is now going to be
available.
As we are crafting these updates, we are careful to consider the cost
to the patient and to make sure that veterans won't have to worry about
receiving a massive bill if they see a provider at a local community
facility. The VA MISSION Act keeps costs at these clinics in line with
those at the VA healthcare centers.
We have also taken steps to encourage consistent treatment at the VA
healthcare centers by providing the funds necessary for these clinics
to retain top talent. You have to have healthcare professionals in the
clinics in order for these clinics to see their patients.
Most importantly, the VA MISSION Act supports these changes via an
updated and extensive system of reporting and accountability. For
years, this body has debated the merits of various healthcare regimes
for children, the elderly, and the poor, but for some reason, we have
asked veterans to accept a system incapable of providing care without
snarling patients in miles and miles of redtape. For this, we owe the
veterans community an apology.
It is an honor to work with our veterans and now say that the VA
MISSION Act is being implemented and that care is coming to your
community. I think this reflects the sincere desire to do right by our
best and our bravest.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.

Planned Parenthood

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, we are just a few days away from the first
official Democratic Presidential debate of the campaign season in
Miami, but for anyone paying close attention, the first meaningful
debate is actually about only 48 hours away in South Carolina.
On Saturday, 11 Democrats, including 4 of the top 5 in the current
polls, are going to take part in a candidate forum hosted by the
Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
What is Planned Parenthood? Planned Parenthood is the country's
largest abortion business. That is their mainstay of operation. Last
year, Planned Parenthood reported committing more than 330,000
abortions--somewhere between one-third and one-half of all abortions
committed in America last year. Planned Parenthood's president has said
that providing, protecting, and expanding access to abortion is part of
the organization's ``core mission.'' It does this work with the help of
more than $500 million in annual subsidies from the Federal Government;
that is, from taxpayers across this country, many of whom believe that
abortion is immoral. Yet the position of Planned Parenthood is and has
long been abortion at any time, anywhere, for any reason for free. That
used to represent the most extreme position anywhere in the Democratic
Party. It was shared by only a very small, hard-fringe portion of its
elected leaders.

Just to review some history, in 2008, Hillary Clinton was still
calling for safe, legal, and rare abortion access, and as she would
regularly emphasize, ``by rare, I mean rare.'' Yet, today, the radical
things that the Nation's largest abortion business wants are basically
indistinguishable from the position of every Democrat who is now
running for President--abortion at any time, anywhere, for any reason
for free.
In fact, it is actually worse than this because the position of every
Senator who is currently running for the Democratic nomination and of
at least one Governor is that a living, breathing baby who survives an
abortion procedure can still be left to die after birth. All seven
Senators who are currently running for the Democratic Presidential
nomination voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection
Act earlier this year, and Governor Bullock of Montana vetoed a State-
level version of that bill just before he entered the race.
As things currently stand, it is entirely possible that the next
Democratic nominee for the highest office in our land will be publicly
agnostic about the moral status of post-abortion infanticide--morally
agnostic about post-abortion infanticide.
Let's be clear. These candidates are wildly and spectacularly out of
the mainstream in American life. Over the last two decades, Gallup
polling has consistently shown that a majority of Americans are opposed
to unrestricted abortion access beyond the first trimester. The Gallup
numbers actually show that well under one-third of Americans support
abortion beyond the first 3 months, and a new NBC/PBS/Marist poll finds
that fully four out of five Americans are opposed to all abortion in
the third trimester. That includes a majority of self-identifying pro-
choice voters. I want to say that again. A majority of self-identified
pro-choice voters in America are opposed to abortion in the third
trimester. So the polling of Americans is actually quite different than
what the Democrats are going to pretend it to be over the next 2 days
when they talk into their echo chamber.
What is even more important than anything about public opinion is
that the Democrats are also out of step with our fundamental American
conviction that all men are created equal--all men and women and
babies. Instead, they are increasingly committed to the proposition
that some people are less than human and are, therefore, disposable.
Sadly, though, the most radical leftwing voices are winning in their
party's echo chamber, and Democratic candidates have now decided that
they must prostrate themselves before the ``flush with cash'' abortion
industry. This has consequences well beyond policy. As Democrats'
abortion positions have become more extreme, they have no longer sought
to even persuade fellow citizens with whom they disagree. Rather, they
have become openly hostile to Americans who disagree on this great
moral challenge.
My colleague from New York, for instance, Senator Gillibrand, who
will be attending this weekend's forum in South Carolina, made her
feelings clear earlier this month in an interview with the Des Moines
Register. In promising that she would appoint only judges who would
uphold Roe v. Wade, here is what she said. Listen to this quote:

I think there [are] some issues that have such moral
clarity that we have as a society decided that the other side
is not acceptable.
Imagine saying that it's OK to appoint a judge who is
racist or anti-Semitic or homophobic.
[This is not an issue where] there is a fair ``other
side.'' There is no moral equivalency when you come to
racism, and I do not believe there is a moral equivalency
when it comes to changing laws that deny women reproductive
freedom.

What? What are we talking about here? Are you kidding me? Did you
catch what she just said?
According to a sitting U.S. Senator and a candidate for the
Democratic nomination to be President of the United States, holding
pro-life views in America is no longer acceptable. It is not a fair
position, she tells us. It is the moral equivalency of racism or anti-
Semitism. Perhaps in the Senator's next interview she will suggest that
pro-life Americans belong in a basket of deplorables.
There is so much wrong with this statement that it is difficult to
know where to begin. We could note the plain, simple fact that it is
not pro-lifers who have an ugly link to racism. Rather, since the very
beginning, the American abortion industry has been intimately connected
to eugenics. This is the origin of the movement.
As Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger put it herself--and
think about this quote--``the unbalance between the birth rate of the
`unfit' and

[[Page S4154]]

the `fit' [is] the greatest present menace to civilization.''
Sanger's racial opinions are a matter of some dispute, but this part
is clear--that she intentionally targeted efforts at Black
neighborhoods in Harlem and in the Deep South. Many of the people
involved in her efforts took things a step further--going so far as to
forcibly sterilize African-American women whom they deemed to be unfit
to procreate.
We can also note that it is, in part, because of this ugly history
that, today, Black women in America are 3\1/2\ times more likely to
have abortions than White women, and in some parts of Senator
Gillibrand's home State, Black children are actually more likely to be
aborted than to be carried to term.

We could also point to the continued eugenic use of abortion--for
example, to kill children who have nonlife-threatening diseases. In the
United States today, two-thirds of all babies in the womb who are found
to have Down syndrome are aborted, and in some parts of Europe, the
rate is pushing 100 percent. There are public ad campaigns in two
nations in Europe that celebrate the fact that they have gotten rid of
all of their Down syndrome babies.
Instead of going point by point, I will just recommend that anyone
who wants to better understand this disturbing history read Justice
Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion last month in Box v. Planned
Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky. Yet, according to my Senate
colleague, perhaps Justice Thomas is one of those racists--you know,
one of those notorious pro-life racists who is stalking America.
In their leftward lurch to become the Planned Parenthood candidate,
it is not just that the Democrats who seek this office are losing touch
with where Americans actually are on the hard questions of abortion or
with our fundamental American convictions, it is also, as my colleague
from the State of New York has shown, that we are losing touch with
even how to do politics like Americans, where you respect the dignity
of people you differ with and argue about the ideas. You don't declare
them an unfit and an unworthy, unacceptable other side. Americans have
always had a genius for talking to each other. In our constitutional
system, we set up debate fora like this to be able to facilitate,
channel, and elevate debate--even heated, feverish debate about really
sensitive topics.
Our Framers held firmly to the principle that men and women in their
exercise of reason could come to agreements by persuasion and by
dialogue even if it took a long time and even if the topics were
difficult. Anything less than that would be a violation of the basic
dignity of our fellow citizens. Our Founders knew that hard political
issues should not be resolved at gunpoint; they should be resolved by
debate, which starts by assuming the dignity of your counterparty in
that debate.
We are watching that conviction go by the wayside right now.
Slandering pro-life Americans as being, in effect, Klan members and
Nazis is just a way to crush debate, not to persuade. It is a way of
saying that these people--people like my mom, who prays outside
abortion clinics; people like my daughters and my wife, who have spent
a lot of hours volunteering at crisis pregnancy centers; and people
like the overwhelming majority of Nebraskans, whom I get to represent,
or Indianans, whom the Presiding Officer now gets to represent--are so
morally repugnant that they don't deserve a voice, that they don't
deserve to be treated like human beings, that they don't deserve to be
engaged in debate, that they are not people you could possibly have a
reasonable conversation with.
This is crazy talk.
It is not difficult to imagine where this approach leads. When we
lose sight of the intrinsic and inexhaustible dignity of unborn
children, we open the door to abortion's violence, and when we lose
sight of the dignity of our fellow citizens in debate, we open the door
to yet other kinds of violence.
I have spent a lot of time with pro-lifers in my life, probably a lot
more time than most of my colleagues who are going to be at the Planned
Parenthood debate in South Carolina on Saturday. I will tell you what
you will not find among these people is partisan caricature. What you
will find are people who are passionately devoted to the dignity of
every human being no matter how small or how vulnerable or what disease
one might have been diagnosed with. You will find a lot of Americans,
young and old, in the pro-life movement who care deeply about women who
are in need. You will also find a lot of enthusiasm for promising in
vitro surgeries and for scientific developments in ultrasound and
neonatal technology. You will find fellow citizens who are ready to
advance the basic American commitment to life through the tools of
dialogue, persuasion, and respect.
The dehumanization of our friends and neighbors, whether they are in
the opposite party or in the womb, destroys our national life together
and our national conversation. On both sides, we need to be constantly
stitching back together that fabric that has been torn asunder.
I suggest to the Democrats who are heading to the South Carolina
debate this weekend to spend less time wrestling with each other in
order to say more ridiculously extreme, clickbait things for high-
propensity primary voters and spend more time listening to the voices
of their pro-life fellow citizens. My guess is they will learn
something, and our national debate will be the better for it.
Thank you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Braun). The Senator from Oregon.

Climate Change

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, Ernest Hemingway said that the world is a
fine place and worth fighting for, and I couldn't agree more. My
colleague from Delaware and I are here on the floor to fight for that
world, to fight for our planet.
If you breathe in a lung full of air right now--and I invite anybody
following this to do so--hold it for a few seconds, and breathe it out,
the air that you will have just taken into your body, into your lungs,
will have had 33 percent more carbon than when I was born. That is a
dramatic transformation of the atmosphere on this planet. It doesn't
matter where you go. You could be doing this exercise here in DC, back
home in Oregon, or in Japan. It is still 33 percent more carbon in a
single lifetime. Because that extra carbon is blanketing our entire
globe, it is having a huge impact--an impact we see in all kinds of
ways.
Back home in Oregon, there has been a huge impact with the forest
fires. We had forest fires this year that started in March. Perhaps you
have seen some pictures of walls of flames and fires in Montana, in
Washington, in Oregon, and in California in the last couple of years--
smoke that has blanketed our cities and our States for weeks on end.
This is not the norm. This is the result of changing climate chaos,
and it is not good.
We see extreme weather across the country. We see more powerful
hurricanes assaulting the Southeast. We see more Lyme disease in the
Northeast and fewer moose because the ticks kill the moose and ticks
carry Lyme disease to humans. We see the slowest planting season in
four decades--too much rain, flooded farms.
As of June 3, the Department of Agriculture told us 40 million acres
of corn that would normally have been planted haven't been planted.
Climate chaos is the greatest threat humans have ever seen on this
planet, and it is happening for one simple reason: We discovered fossil
fuels. We discovered that burning them could create a lot of energy,
and we could transform the globe with that energy, but every single
time you use those carbon sources, you put carbon in the air, and now
we have started to really damage our own planet.
So what is the national response? Well, under President Obama, we had
the Clean Power Plan--the CPP. The CPP laid out a pretty ambitious
vision, an example for the world to follow, but, quite frankly, it
wasn't enough. It doesn't accelerate enough our transition to renewable
energy.
Just think about it this way: We have been gifted with a fabulous
source of fusion energy. We don't have to recreate fusion reactors here
on the planet because we have it safely stowed millions of miles away
in the Sun. That is a fusion reactor. All we have to do is capture the
energy that shines on planet Earth, and we are in pretty good

[[Page S4155]]

shape. That Sun heats up the air and creates wind, and we can capture
that same energy by capturing the wind.
We have geothermal energy, potential wave energy. We have to
transition to these sources and quit burning carbon, and we need an
ambitious plan to do so. We need a turning point.
Future generations will either celebrate the moment when we committed
ourselves to saving our planet or they will ask why we failed, and
right now we are looking at failure. The rate of carbon pollution isn't
going down; it is accelerating upward. We are accelerating into
oblivion.
When I was born, it took about 2 to 3 years to increase a single
point of carbon pollution, parts per million. You can see how this
curve is now accelerating upward. Now we are at about 2.5 points per
year. That is a huge difference.
We are kind of lulled into this false sense of comfort. Well, don't
we have more insulation in our buildings? Aren't we blessed with cars
that get greater mileage? We have appliances that use a little less
energy. Well, yes, those things are true, but they are not enough. Even
with that, the curve is accelerating upward. So we are in trouble, but
we do have some blessings in this battle.
Solar and wind electricity have plunged in cost, and the result is
they are now cheaper than or competitive with fossil fuels. That is
before you take into account the massive subsidies granted by
legislative action to fossil fuels. So they are actually cheaper, and
that is before you take into account the externalities--the damage that
fossil fuels are doing to our planet. So now we can really see that
renewables are a complete win except for the greed manifested through
our political campaigns to keep burning fossil fuels.
It means more dollars in a few corporations' pockets, pockets of a
few really rich people who say that their generational need for
wealth--which they can't take with them to the grave anyway--that
generational need, they are willing to sacrifice our planet for all.
Now, they are not willing to bear the costs. They are not willing to
pay for the damage to all the homes destroyed by those more powerful
hurricanes. They are not willing to pay for all the forests destroyed
by the forest fires in Oregon. They are not willing to pay for the
structures destroyed by those fires. They are not willing to pay the
farmers whose crop is going to produce less because they had to plant
so late. In other words, they want the private profit while planet
Earth and the rest of us bear the consequences of their greed.
So we need a strong plan, and we need it now. We need to have a
clear, robust response to transition to renewable energy quickly. So
let's build on the foundation of the Clean Power Plan. Let's make this
the turning moment in history that future generations can celebrate
because we really do have a very fine planet, and it is worth fighting
for.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. CARPER. While the Senator from Oregon is here, I just want to say
he mentioned we have a very fine planet, and God knows we do, but it is
also the only planet we have, and I think for certainly everybody who
serves in this body--and maybe some of these young pages will have the
opportunity someday to live on another planet but probably not.
The President of France was just down the hall 2 years ago. I am sure
Senator Merkley remembers it. President Macron addressed us on a
variety of subjects, but one of those was the future of our plant.
He said these words. I will never forget them. He said: We only get
one planet, planet Earth. There is no planet B. This is it.
He reminded us of our obligation, really a moral obligation, to take
care of this gift from God that he has entrusted into our care.
It is in that spirit that I am pleased to rise today with Senator
Merkley and other colleagues to speak out against the so-called
Affordable Clean Energy rule that repeals and replaces the Clean Power
Plan from the previous administration.
As I said when this rule was proposed in, I think, August of last
year--and our colleague, given where he is from in America, maybe they
say this in his State too--but we have a saying here that you can put
lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.
I said at the time when this rule was introduced that the only thing
that has changed from the proposal to the final rule is maybe a little
more lipstick.
The Trump EPA rule promotes neither affordable energy nor clean
energy. What it actually does is it attempts to scam the American
people into believing that the EPA is doing something to stem the tide
of climate change.
I think this poster probably speaks well to that thought, but this
proposal, I think, is a failure of vision, and I think it is an
abdication of leadership in our fight against climate change. We need
to fight this problem head-on.
The fact that our climate is warming, the fact that we have this
extreme weather, whether it happens to be in the Midwest with floods,
the Northwest with wildfires the size of my State, whether it happens
to be in the number of category 5 hurricanes that we are seeing,
extreme weather--literally within an hour or so of here, Ellicott City,
where they have had two 1,000-year floods in 18 months.
My wife and I were out in Palo Alto, CA, last weekend for the
graduation of our oldest son from business school, and the week before
we arrived there, he told us that the temperature in the Bay Area,
where I used to be stationed in the Navy during the Vietnam war, he
said that the temperature reached 104 degrees. I don't ever remember it
ever reaching 94 degrees in the years I was stationed in Moffett Field
Naval Air Station.
Something is going on here, and it is serious. I think we have a
pretty good idea what is causing this, and we need to fight this
challenge head-on.
The good news is this doesn't have to be something to divide us as a
nation. It doesn't have to be something that divides us as Democrats
and Republicans. It doesn't have to be something that divides us with
respect to the rest of the world. This is something that should unite
us.
There is an old saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Well,
the enemy of a world that has all this crazy weather, extreme weather--
and maybe in a lot of places in the internal part of our country you
don't see what we see. What we see is that my State is sinking.
Delaware is the lowest lying State in America. We are sinking, and the
seas around us are rising. That is not a very good combination.
Folks who don't happen to live on our coast--I was born in West
Virginia, grew up in other parts of the country, but for us it is real.
It is not just something that is esoteric. We see it every day.
The science behind climate change is, I believe, settled. Climate
change is real. It is happening. It is a growing threat to our country,
and it is getting worse every year.
Climate change is leading to rising global temperatures, rising sea
levels, more frequent and severe weather events such as hurricanes,
rainfall measured by the foot, not by the inch, and drought-fueled
wildfires, as I said earlier, the size of my State.
The more I hear about these extreme weather events, the more I am
reminded of the story in the Old Testament. I think it is in the book
of Exodus, where you may recall that Moses gets a call from on high to
lead the people of Israel out of Egypt where they are in bondage.
He tells God: God, I am not a very good public speaker, and I don't
think you have the right guy to do this.
The Lord said to him: You have a brother, Aaron, who is a real good
speaker, a real good talker. Why don't the two of you sort of lead this
effort together?
So, urged by the Almighty, the two brothers visited the pharaoh who
was running the show in Egypt. They called on him and said: We are here
to ask you to let our people go. Set us free.
Pharaoh was stubborn. He rejected their plea, and there were
consequences to that rejection. I think there were about 10 different
plagues that were brought to bear on Egypt in an effort to try to
convince the pharaoh to let the people go, like the hordes of locusts
that covered the land.
Moses and Aaron would go back to see the pharaoh and would say: We

[[Page S4156]]

want you to let our people go. The pharaoh would say, basically: Get
out of here.
Then, after that, snakes would come out and appear everywhere, all
over the land.
They would go back and see the pharaoh, and he would say: Get out of
here.
Lizards came out of the rivers and covered the land, and they went
back to see the pharaoh, and he said: Get out of here.
Finally, the river was turned to blood, and they went back to see
him, and he said: Get out of here.
Finally, after the 10th plague, he changed his tune. The 10th plague,
as you may recall, if you remember the Old Testament--the 10th plague
was the firstborn sons of every Egyptian family died.
That time when Moses and Aaron showed up to see the pharaoh, he said:
Why don't you leave. Take all your people and your stuff and just
leave, and they left--and they left.
Our President's dismissal of the extreme weather that is associated
with the unrelenting worsening reality of climate change reminds me of
the pharaoh's dismissal of the plagues unleashed on the people of
Israel 2,000 years ago.
The pharaoh was dismissive. This President is dismissive. We have
seen this movie before. In this movie version of it, our President is
playing the role of pharaoh, and we need to make sure we don't succumb
to that.
The Obama-Biden administration finalized the Clean Power Plan to
reduce carbon pollution and try to stem the tide of climate change.
The Clean Power Plan established the very first Federal targets to
reduce carbon emissions from our Nation's electric powerplants, which
at the time were the largest source of carbon pollution in our country
not that long ago.
The rule was not developed on a whim. The Clean Power Plan was
finalized after a lengthy rulemaking process, which was 2 years or
longer in the making. They considered over 3.5 million public comments,
and I am told they responded to every one of them.
The Clean Power Plan set real carbon reduction targets for each State
but gave flexibility and time for States to meet these individualized
standards. EPA estimated the Clean Power Plan would have achieved over
$54 billion--that is billion with a ``b''--in health and climate
benefits if fully implemented. The Clean Power Plan provided long-term
certainty for U.S. businesses, helping American companies make smart
investments at home and compete in the global energy market around the
world.
When finalized, critics of the Clean Power Plan--and there were
plenty of them--argued the plan's carbon targets were too ambitious.
That is only about 4 or 5 years ago. Critics swore that every American
consumer who relies on electricity to keep the lights on would soon be
in dire straits. Administrator Wheeler echoed these false claims just
yesterday. Today, we know just how wrong the Clean Power Plan critics
were.
Even though the Clean Power Plan was never fully implemented, States
and utilities went ahead and started making investments in order to
meet the plan's carbon standards. They began acting in a way that said:
We believe this is the way we are actually going to go as a country,
and we need to get onboard.
As with other clean air regulations, America's utilities have been
able to find ways to meet the carbon reduction targets faster and much
cheaper than originally estimated. When George Herbert Walker Bush was
President, he pushed for a cap-and-trade approach to reducing acid rain
in the northeastern part of our country. It was killing all of our
forests, and he came up with a plan to reduce acid rain cap and trade.
People said: It is going to cost too much; it is going to take too
long. At the end of the day, it cost less than half of what it was
supposed to cost, and I think it was accomplished in about one-third of
the time.
Today, our Nation's utilities are already on track to meet and
surpass the goals set by the Clean Power Plan way ahead of schedule--
not on schedule but way ahead of schedule--because even though the
Clean Power Plan was held up in court, it sent clear signals to the
utility industry of this country.
All the while, the vast majority of Americans are now enjoying lower
utilities--let me say that again. They are enjoying lower utility
bills, not higher, and more than 3 million Americans are now going to
work in the clean energy sector every day, which includes jobs in
renewable energy generation and energy efficiency.
Despite the revolutionary changes in our energy sector, leading
climate scientists are now telling us that we need to do even more to
protect American lives and our economy from the threats of climate
change.
In the past year alone, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change issued an alarming report that concluded that if the global
community does not enact ``rapid and far-reaching'' carbon reduction
policies in the next decade, we could face irreversible damage to our
planet as soon as 2040.
Just 6 months ago, 13 Federal agencies under the Trump administration
concluded unanimously that if this country does not take more drastic
actions to address climate change, every major sector of our economy
could be negatively affected by climate change by the turn of the
century--every one. Some sectors are expected to see hundreds of
billions of dollars of loss every year. My recollection is, in the last
year alone, we have suffered damages from extreme weather in our
country that add up to hundreds of billions of dollars in 1 year alone.
What a science-based agency like EPA should be doing is building off
of Obama's forward-looking carbon reduction vision and strengthening
the Clean Power Plan standards, not weakening them. But even though
utilities are on track to meet carbon reduction targets and scientists
are warning us to keep our foot on the gas pedal, the Trump
administration, sadly, is hitting the brakes.
What this EPA has done fails to heed the warnings of climate
scientists by weakening the Obama-Biden carbon standards put into place
almost 4 years ago. The Clean Power Plan set clear targets for States
to achieve a 32-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the
power sector by 2030. Let me say that again. The Clean Power Plan set
clear targets for States to achieve an almost one-third reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 2030.
In comparison, the Trump proposal fails to set any real carbon
emission standards for the power sector. It fails to set any real
carbon emission standards for the power sector.
This new proposed rule provides States with a menu of options for
making coal-fired powerplants operate more efficiently, allowing States
to decide whether to make coal plants implement those options. This
means States could do nothing to clean up their powerplant emissions--
nothing.
Add it up, and the dirty power scam fails to drive down powerplant
carbon emissions. According to EPA's own analysis, this rule is, at
best, going to keep powerplant carbon emissions at status quo levels.
At worst, there are credible reports that show the scam may well result
in an increase in carbon emissions.
Like all climate change policies by President Trump, the dirty power
scam also fails to advance the American clean energy economy. Instead,
this rule tries to take our country back to a decade ago, when this
country relied much more heavily on dirty coal generation. EPA
Administrator Wheeler even touted the dirty power scam as a way to
support more coal energy production in the United States. But ask any
utility CEO or investor. America's future is not in dirty coal; it is
in clean energy.
As a native of West Virginia whose family members once worked in coal
mines, let me say this. There are 50,000 people who work in coal mines
in this country today, and those jobs are going down. Today, there are
3 million people who work in sustainable energy and clean energy and
conservation businesses, and for each of those 50,000 miners, we have
an obligation to them and their families. If they lose their employment
opportunities because we are moving to cleaner, carbon-free air, we
have an obligation to help them in terms of transitioning and training
for other jobs that are available. We have 3 million jobs today in this
country that nobody showed up to do because they don't have the skills,
the education, or the desire to do those jobs.

[[Page S4157]]

Coal miners could do a number of jobs. People who work in coal mines
could build windmills. They could build solar fields. They can do all
kinds of stuff. They can build clean corridors for our transportation,
fueling electric-powered vehicles across the highways across America.
They could build hydrogen fueling stations. They can do all kinds of
stuff.
Today, our utilities are making investments that will last 40 to 60
years, if not longer. We should be providing the right market signals
today for a clean energy economy tomorrow.
The dirty power scam doesn't do that. What it does is create business
uncertainty for our Nation's utilities and States grappling with the
effects of climate change.
To recap, if I could, the dirty power scam does three things,
regrettably: It fails to heed the warnings of climate scientists; it
fails to drive down powerplant carbon emissions; and it fails to
advance a clean energy economy.
Referring again to the failure of vision and leadership, that is why
the dirty power scam is a failure of vision and an abdication of
leadership in our fight against climate change. Repealing the Clean
Power Plan and replacing it with a rule as ill-conceived as the dirty
power scam will have serious consequences for the health of the public,
our economy, and our planet. It is also a clear retreat from the EPA's
responsibility to tackle the greatest environmental crises we face on
our planet today, and those are climate change and the extreme weather
that flows from it.
The people of this country deserve a strong economy. They deserve
more job creation. They deserve cleaner air. They deserve better
environmental quality. The American people and our neighbors around the
world deserve a healthy planet that we can call home. The American
people deserve better than the dirty power scam, plain and simple.
My colleagues and I are going to do everything in our power to make
sure that the people of this country ultimately get the climate
protection they deserve.
The last thing I would say before yielding back to Senator Merkley is
that the issue of climate change is not something that should divide
us. Ultimately, this is something that should unite us, not just within
this body, not just within this country, but around the world. That is
my hope and prayer because, at the end of the day, we can clean our
air, we can clean our water, we can combat climate change, and we can
create a lot of jobs--a lot more than the 3 million jobs we have
already seen created.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.

National Defense Authorization Act

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, each year we have a debate on the
National Defense Authorization Act. In the past, it was a real debate--
a debate for which people brought significant issues to the floor
related to American national security. Their amendments were
considered. We argued pro and con. We took votes. We lobbied our
colleagues within our caucus or across the aisle with the wisdom of our
viewpoint. That is a tradition; that is a practice; that is what this
Chamber is all about--to take on the issues that we face as a Nation,
wrestle with them, explore the pros and cons, find their strengths or
weaknesses, sometimes come to compromises that take several viewpoints,
and merge them together into an even stronger point of view. But I am
deeply disturbed that the U.S. Senate is quickly losing the ability to
consider the issues facing our Nation.
My colleague just spoke about the challenge of climate pollution, and
I appreciate his doing so. But we have had few determined efforts to
address the ideas different Members have for taking on that challenge,
despite its devastation to so many ways and different parts of our
country.
When it comes to the security of our country, no issue is more
important than the question of going to war. Our Founders realized this
is a decision that should never be vested in a single person, not even
the President. They knew that a single individual might find political
cause or corrupt purposes to make the decision to go to combat against
a force and that such a decision should be debated in a Chamber like
this and a Chamber like the House. That is why the Constitution gives
to this body, the legislature of the United States of America, the
power to go to war.
It is a question that came up early in our history. There was a
challenge that we had off the Barbary Coast with corsairs, who are
often referred to as pirates, taking charge of American brigs and
holding them hostage.
Jefferson embraced the idea of going to war. He became President in
1801. Alexander Hamilton wanted to remind him what the Constitution
said. As he said, ``It belongs to Congress only to go to war.'' Any one
of us should be able to pull out our pocket Constitutions, read article
I, section 8--that deliberate delegation to this Chamber and the House
to make that decision.
Well, right now we are in the drumbeat of war with Iran. There has
been a lot of animosity between our two countries for a long period of
time. The United States mounted a campaign through the Central
Intelligence Agency to take out the directly elected leadership of Iran
in 1953--a CIA-staged coup--and to install a leader, the Shah of Iran,
who operated with great, shall I say, violence against the people. He
had a secret police that was as feared as any in the world.
There were other points of animosity when the people of Iran rose up
against that Shah and took hostage Americans. They kept them hostage
for a great length of time during the Carter administration. They did
not release them until President Reagan came into office.
Then there was the Iraq-Iran war, a war in which hundreds of
thousands of people in Iran died, and the United States assisted the
Iraqis in that war against Iran. Well, we have had often no love lost
between our two nations over this period of time.
I mention these few points of history to say that each side nurtures
its grievances against the other, but something remarkable happened
under the last administration. They worked to coordinate pressure from
the entire world to strike a deal with Iran, to end their nuclear
program, end the risk of Iran becoming a nuclear power. This agreement
was something bought into by Russia and China, the European powers, and
the United States. They did many concrete things, things that their
rightwing did not like: dismantling their plutonium reactor, shipping
enriched uranium out of their country, shutting down their centrifuges,
allowing a massive amount of inspectors into their country to watch
everything that they were doing.
In return, the deal was we would help them economically find a better
standard of living. This is a moment of potential turning point in the
relationship--this long animosity between the two countries--
potentially a win-win, but then comes in a new administration, the
Trump administration, and they don't like this possibility, this deal.
The President says it is the worst deal ever struck. We, the United
States, pulled out of the deal on May 8, 2018--just over a year ago.
Since then, we have heard the drumbeats of war echoing on Capitol Hill.
The administration designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
as a terrorist organization and then proceeded to tighten the economic
sanctions in order to pressure the economy of Iran.
So we had the end of the Uighurs, who are partners of ours, to be
able to buy Iranian oil, greatly starving the economy of that nation.
Then we deployed, in recent weeks, the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike
force to the Gulf. Then we deployed a B-52 squadron to the Gulf. Then
we heard the advocates in the administration saying: If anything
happens with a connection with Iran, we will show them the ferocity of
our forces. We will respond and show them not to mess with the United
States of America.
Different officials cited different examples, but one was: If an
Iranian militia in Iraq should happen to harm an American, that could
be a trigger or if Iran were to disrupt the movement of oil from the
Gulf, that could be a trigger.
When you deploy forces and then start looking for triggers, you can
find one for war, if you want, but I stand here today to quote the
Constitution of the United States of America, and that Constitution
says the power of war

[[Page S4158]]

rests with this body--not the Oval Office.
As we have pressured Iran, we have had incidents occur that have been
highlighted in recent days. Some mines were put on the side of a couple
ships--blew a hole through the side, didn't sink the ships. The
administration is pretty sure, they say, that Iran did this. Well, I
always exercise some caution. We all remember the Iraq war. We remember
that the administration then--the Bush administration--built what they
said was a powerful case of weapons of mass destruction being
cultivated by Saddam Hussein and the Iraq Government. We went to war on
that evidence, and we were wrong.
Here we are at this moment and an administration that has predeployed
forces, is squeezing the Iranian people as powerfully as possible. What
happens in this situation? What is the goal? Some in the administration
say the goal is negotiations. Now, let me get this straight. The United
States broke the deal, strengthening the far right in Iran which said
don't trust the Americans. We strengthened the Revolutionary Guard
because the Revolutionary Guard did not like the deal to begin with.
Then we economically squeezed the people of Iran, creating great
hardship throughout the land--meaning we have moved the entire
population in the direction of supporting the far right in that
country.
Now, take these two things. We have strengthened not the moderates
who want to see the nation on a different course but the far right.
Then we have alienated much of the country and increased their support
for the far right, and we have shown that when we sign a deal, we don't
stand behind the deal because this administration broke the deal. How
is that a foundation for negotiation? We are saying to Iran: We
negotiated. You agreed, but we are breaking the deal, and now we want
to negotiate again.
People don't tend to want to negotiate with folks who have broken the
previous deal. So we here see that we have a challenge in which we
stand on the precipice of potential war.
My colleague from New Mexico has an amendment that restates the
fundamentals of our Constitution, and he has teamed up with my
colleague from Virginia who is here on the floor as well, and I am
certainly completely supportive of their effort. They are saying that
while we are on this bill, on security, on Defense authorization, this
is a moment we should be debating whether the President has the
authority to go to war, and their amendment says: No, he does not. He
must follow the Constitution, and he must come to this body for
authorization. That is an important message for us to send. We must not
leave the debate on Defense authorization without debating the Udall-
King amendment.
My colleagues are here to speak to it in greater detail. I so much
appreciate their work. This is a moment that this Chamber must rise to
the challenge of being a force that can wrestle with great issues
before us, and there is no more important security issue at this moment
than debating whether the President has the power to go to war. I stand
with the Constitution. I hope my colleagues will all stand with the
Constitution in this Chamber. Thank you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I also rise today with my colleagues to
talk about the rumors of war we have been hearing in this body and in
the news. I want to advocate for a very simple amendment whose timing
is, I think, propitious as we discuss the National Defense
Authorization Act. Why wouldn't we discuss what we are hearing from the
White House and others? Why wouldn't we discuss the events that are
happening on the ground in the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East?
The amendment Senator Udall has prepared that is a bipartisan
amendment that is before the body--and we hope for a vote early next
week--is a straightforward one. No funds would be used to prosecute a
war against Iran unless this Congress has a vote to authorize it, to
authorize such a war. As my colleague from Oregon mentioned, that is
what the Constitution suggests, and that is the debate we should be
having.
Part of the reason I feel so strongly about this is because I am a
Virginian. We are the most connected State to the military mission of
the United States. All States are connected and all States are
Patriotic, but if you just add up the kind of per capita in Virginia--
our Active Duty, our Guard, our Reserve, our DOD civilians, like the
nurses who work at the Fort Belvoir Hospital, the DOD contractors like
the shipbuilders in Newport News, our military families--we are the
most connected to the Nation's military mission. I am personally
connected to this with a son in the U.S. Marines. So as a Virginian I
feel very strongly about this, and I also feel strongly about it
because we are proud of the Virginians, Madison, Jefferson, and others,
who are among the Founders who crafted the Constitution. They tried to
do some things that were pretty revolutionary then, and they are still
revolutionary. Some of our Constitution was a great borrowing
exercise--taking wonderful ideas from other constitutions and laws and
assembling them together in a wonderful document they put together in
1787, but there were a couple of ideas in the Constitution of 1787 that
were not chosen from elsewhere, that were really unique to our country
and are still unique. One of the unique ideas is this: War is not a
matter for the Executive, the King, the Emperor, the Monarch, the
Sultan, the Pope. No, war is a matter that needs to be declared by the
people's elected legislative body.
That was revolutionary in 1787, and it is revolutionary today. The
balance of power that was struck was that Congress would declare war,
and then once declared, there would only be one Commander in Chief--535
Commanders in Chief would be a disaster. The decision to initiate war
would be for Congress, and then the President, working in tandem with
military leadership, would be the Commander in Chief to prosecute a war
if declared, but there should be no shortcut and no substitute for the
debate in this body before the initiation of war.
The amendment that will be on the table--and then hopefully we will
receive a vote on--that is bipartisan in nature would prevent funding
for a war against Iran unless there is a vote of Congress to authorize
such a war.
The amendment does make clear that no previous congressional act--for
example, the 2001 authorization--can be tortured and twisted and
stretched and bootstrapped into a declaration of war against Iran. The
administration has sort of been trying to lay that as a predicate,
suggesting that an authorization that passed in 2001 that did not
mention Iran would authorize war against Iran, when not a single person
who voted for it in 2001 ever thought it was to be used in
justification for war against Iran. The administration would like to
try to use that as a justification, they have said, in testimony here
on the Hill.
Think about this: If they are so afraid to come to Congress and ask
for an authorization that they want to try to use something from 18
years ago, what does it tell us about their confidence that they have a
good justification that we need to be in a war?
The amendment we have does not prevent the United States from
defending itself from attack against Iran. The President has the power
as Commander in Chief under Article II, and the War Powers Resolution
specifies that power and doesn't codify it. It doesn't need to be
codified, but it makes clear that power is always inherent in the
Office of the President.
Our amendment doesn't suggest that Iran's behavior is acceptable or
consistent with international norms. I have been part of many efforts
over the course of my time in the Senate to impose sanctions on Iran if
they violated, for example, ballistic missile protocols, U.N.
sanctions, or rules, and if they engaged in human rights abuses. The
purpose here is not to stand up and defend Iranian behavior, but it is
to stand for the proposition that we shouldn't be committed to a war
without a vote of Congress.
I will say that this administration's actions and rhetoric have been
unnecessarily provocative. It was the United States that pulled out of
a diplomatic deal that was working, not Iran. When President Trump
pulled out of the diplomatic deal at the time he did, his then-
Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson; his then-Secretary of Defense, James
Mattis; his then-National Security Advisor, General McMaster; his then
and current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

[[Page S4159]]

Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford--all said that the Iran deal was working,
that Iran was complying with it, and that the United States should stay
in it. The President pulled out of the diplomatic deal nevertheless and
in the year since has reimposed sanctions and taken a number of steps
that are provocative toward Iran--diplomatic provocation, rhetorical
provocation, economic provocation, and military provocation.
We have been having a set of briefings--some classified--from the
administration on this. I am not going to get into classified material,
but one thing I will acknowledge--and I am impressed by this--is the
administration's intel experts, when they brief us on the situation--
even yesterday--they will state that Iran's activities are--and this is
pretty much a direct quote--in response to the ``U.S. Maximum
Pressure'' campaign.
The ``U.S. Maximum Pressure'' campaign that started with the United
States backing out of the diplomatic deal is leading to Iran taking
other actions that we don't like, but they are not taking those actions
unprovoked. Their actions need to be understood as a response to the
``U.S. Maximum Pressure'' campaign.
Senator Merkley talked about it. We pulled out of the deal. We
reimposed sanctions. We designated part of the Iranian Government as a
foreign terrorist organization. We misrepresented routine military
operations in the region. We moved more troops and Patriot missiles and
aircraft carriers and other military material into Iran's region. This
is not their moving material into our region; it is our moving material
into their neighborhood.
Just this week, the administration announced the deployment of an
additional 1,000 troops to the Middle East to counter Iran, and that is
what this administration is doing--a ``U.S. Maximum Pressure'' campaign
that tears up diplomacy and thus raises the risk of unnecessary war.
I will also point out that it is not just U.S. activity that is
provoking Iran. When the United States allows Saudi Arabia to get
missiles they shouldn't have and when the United States observes the
Saudis building a missile program--by public reports, possibly with the
support of China--that is viewed as very dangerous by Iran. When the
United States transfers nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia--not even
briefing Congress about it--and the Saudis say they would try to build
up a nuclear arsenal to counter Iran, it is a provocation. So the
maximum pressure by the United States and nations like Saudi Arabia are
leading to an unnecessary escalation of tension in the region.
I want to conclude because my colleague from New Mexico, who is the
author of this, also wants to speak about why we need to take it up,
but let me just say this. I am going to state my position for the
record.
I think another war in the Middle East now would be a disaster. I
think it would be catastrophic for the United States to tear up a
diplomatic deal and then look our troops in the face and say ``Because
we tore up a diplomatic deal, you have to now go fight another war''
when we have been in the Middle East for 18 years. I think it would
represent just about as catastrophic a failure of American foreign
policy as you could imagine.
I think it would also have the disadvantage of taking our eye off the
ball. I have always been taught to keep the main thing the main thing.
I think the main thing right now in national security for the United
States is to keep our eye on our principal competitor, which is China.
When we take our eye off our principal competitor and we engage in wars
we needn't be in, China will be the victor in that. That is a very
dangerous thing for us.
So I think it would be catastrophic for the United States to be
engaged in another war in the Middle East, particularly a war against
Iran right now. But if the President feels differently about that; if
some of his advisers think we ought to be about regime change in Iran,
as they have said; if some of them think it would be easy to beat Iran
in a war, as they have said; if some colleagues here on the floor think
we should be in a war with Iran, as some have publicly urged, let them
come to the floor of the Senate, in full view of the American people,
and make that argument.
Let's have that argument right here in the greatest deliberative body
in the world with the American public watching, and I will make my
argument about why a new war in the Middle East would be catastrophic
and see who wants to stand up and make the argument that a new war in
the Middle East is something this great Nation should do. And if we
then have that argument and cast a vote and I lose, I am going to be
disappointed, but we will have done what the Constitution suggests that
we must do.
Our failure to have that debate is so unfair to our troops. It is
unfair to our troops to put them in harm's way with Congress hiding
under their desk, not being willing to state yea or nay on whether we
should be engaged in hostilities.
Let's honor the troops and the sacrifice we would ask them to make,
follow the Constitution, and have this debate before the American
public. That is what the amendment would essentially guarantee that
this body would do, and that is why I so strongly support it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, I thank you for the recognition, and let me
thank the two Senators that preceded me here. Senator Merkley spoke on
this issue of whether we should be going to another war in the Middle
East, and Senator Kaine, whom I have watched since he has been in the
Senate, has been relentless and very consistent about raising the
issues of authorizations of force and relying on authorizations of
force from 2001 and 2002--what we consider very outdated in terms of
looking at the facts on the ground. I know he has been working hard--
Senator Kaine has--in the Armed Services Committee. Both of us have
been working in the Foreign Relations Committee to try to address this
constitutional issue that is really before us.
I came to the floor of the Senate 4 weeks ago warning that this
administration's reckless escalation of tensions with Iran was blindly
leading us to the brink of war. I urged this body to assert its
constitutional authority and pass my bipartisan legislation, the
Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act. I called on all of
us, Republicans and Democrats, to make it clear that the President
alone cannot wage war against Iran without authorization from Congress.
Well, here we are, 1 month later, and tensions with Iran have only
increased. The threat of conflict has only drawn closer. Today, we woke
up to the news that Iranian forces shot down a U.S. drone. That comes
on the heels of 1,000 American troops being sent to the Middle East.
Yet the Senate does nothing--nothing to assert Congress's
constitutional authority and nothing to assume the responsibility that
the Founders clearly placed on our shoulders, the people's
representatives.
The Republican leadership should not duck all debate on the military
conflict with Iran. We need to vote. We owe it to our men and women in
uniform, whose lives would be put on the line, to have this debate, to
make the hard choices, and to take the tough votes.
Today, we are calling for a vote on an amendment to the 2020 National
Defense Authorization Act. The amendment prohibits funding for military
operations against Iran without explicit authorization from Congress. I
am joined in this amendment by Senators Kaine, Durbin, Paul, Merkley,
and Murphy. My related bill has 25 cosponsors and still counting.
Article I, section 8, of the Constitution couldn't be clearer. It is
Congress and Congress alone that has the authority to declare war. This
amendment recognizing Congress's clear-cut authority should have broad
bipartisan support. Whether you support armed conflict with Iran or
believe that the war would be a disaster, you should have the courage
to cast a vote when the Constitution says it is your job.
Let's be clear. This bill does not tie our Armed Forces' hands. Our
military is highly capable, and we have an inherent right of self-
defense, which this amendment clearly underscores. But we need to step
up. The situation is more urgent day by day.
The President and Secretary of State have accused Iran of being
responsible

[[Page S4160]]

for the attack on two oil tankers last week. Iran has denied that
involvement. There is a somewhat conflicting report from the Japanese
tanker owner. I do not know whether Iran, its surrogates, or another
party is responsible for this heinous action, but this administration's
itch to go to war is all too reminiscent of how we got embroiled in
Iraq in 2003 and how the disastrous tanker war of the 1980s began.
We must not make the same terrible mistakes again. We do need to find
out precisely what happened and who is responsible, but the response
need not be another endless war in the Middle East. We need a thorough
and objective investigation of this incident, as has been called for by
a number of nations, and the Senators need a real intelligence briefing
that covers sources and evidence and not just a statement of opinions
from administration officials.
If the Trump administration is entering our forces into hostilities,
then this Congress should demand that a report be submitted to Congress
in accordance with the War Powers Act. Those who wrote that act made it
clear: ``Hostilities also encompasses a state of confrontation in which
no shots have been fired, but denotes a situation in which there is a
clear potential either for such a state of confrontation or for actual
armed conflict.'' We may have already crossed this threshold. Some have
said we have.
The Reagan administration failed to submit such a report to Congress
during the tanker wars, and the Congress failed to hold that
administration accountable, despite the overwhelming evidence of
hostilities.
Now, the current administration has hinted that it does not need to
go to Congress for approval for hostilities against Iran. They seem to
believe that the 9/11 AUMF gives them legal authority for war. Many of
us in Congress today voted for that AUMF, including myself, and let me
be clear--no one who voted for it thought it would be used to justify a
war against Iran 18 years later. Congress needs to make that clear
before it is too late.
Yes, the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf, and the Gulf of Oman
should be safe from navigation. Vital interests are at stake. But I
agree with the statement issued by the U.S. Central Command in the
aftermath of this recent attack:

We have no interest in engaging in a new conflict in the
Middle East. We will defend our interests, but a war with
Iran is not in our strategic interest, nor in the best
interest of the international community.

A war with Iran is not in our strategic interest, and a majority of
Americans agree. The American people are tired of forever wars in the
Middle East that take our resources, produce no strategic gains, and,
most tragically, endanger the lives of American men and women.
In any war with Iran, we will have few allies to back us. The
international community is not behind the National Security Advisor and
Secretary of State's bellicose rhetoric. We would have to go it nearly
alone.
The administration's maximum pressure strategy is supposedly intended
to bring Iran to the negotiating table, but this strategy has
predictably failed to produce any negotiations or make any diplomatic
inroads. Instead, it is emboldening the hardliners in Tehran who also
want confrontation.
The administration's pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement was a
colossal strategic blunder. It was supposedly intended to get the U.S.
a better deal, but violating our obligations has only produced saber-
rattling, brinksmanship, and the very real risk that a miscalculation
or mistake will result in an all-out war.
The United States and the world were safer with the Iran nuclear
agreement. It included strict verification requirements. The
International Atomic Energy Agency and the President's own intelligence
and defense teams agreed that Iran was complying.
The unilateral withdrawal only undermined relations with our allies,
signaled that the United States will not keep its word, and
destabilized the Middle East even more. This was a predictable result
and many warned the Trump administration about this outcome.
Iran threatens to exceed the agreement's limits on nuclear fuel
within days. While I hope Iran holds to its end of the bargain, the
United States pulling out of the agreement and reimposing sanctions has
opened the door for Iran to walk away as well.
Now we must do all we can over the next 17 months to make sure this
President does not precipitously start a war with Iran, a country of 80
million people, about four times the size of Iraq, and with proxy
forces throughout the region. A war would cost trillions of dollars and
undoubtedly American lives. With each passing day and with each
incident, the risk of a catastrophic war grows closer.
I realize some of my colleagues have a different view of the
situation. Some talk about how all options must be on the table or say
that the Iranian regime must be overthrown. I hope they reconsider and
change their minds.
If they don't, they should at least have the courage of their
convictions. If you want to empower this President to fight a war with
Iran, let's vote on that question. The American people and our men and
women in uniform deserve to know that their representatives will
debate, discuss, and vote on these most difficult of decisions. That is
why all of us in this body must demand that this amendment be heard,
debated, and voted on. Senate gridlock cannot be an excuse.
The Constitution puts this decision squarely in our court. It is long
past time for Congress to reassert its war powers authority. Our oath
demands that we make any decision to go to war. The real possibility
that this administration will precipitate conflict in Iran requires us
to face this question now. The fact that American lives will be on the
line places the moral imperative on us to debate this issue and to make
clear to the President and his administration that any decision to go
to war with Iran must be made by Congress.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for
the National Defense Authorization Act and to highlight amendments that
I have sponsored or cosponsored to enhance opportunities for
servicemembers and their families.
The NDAA represents one of the Senate's most important
responsibilities. It authorizes funding to support our servicemembers,
including those who are serving in harm's way. It sets policy for our
Nation's military and authorizes critical national defense priorities.
It is vitally important to ensure that our men and women in uniform, as
well as our Department of Defense civilians, have the training, ships,
planes, vehicles, and other equipment they need to help defend our
Nation and its interests.
I commend Chairman Inhofe and Ranking Member Reed and the other
Members of the Armed Services Committee for their leadership and
bipartisan work on this important legislation. They have done an
excellent job.
This bill contains many provisions that are important to the State of
Maine and to our Nation. To cite just a few items, I am pleased that
the NDAA includes authorization for three Arleigh Burke destroyers, 94
fifth-generation Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, and six CH-53K King
Stallion helicopters. These essential ships and aircraft will help to
ensure that our military maintains its superiority in both the seas and
skies. I also strongly support the 3.1 percent pay increase that
members of the Armed Forces will receive when this bill is signed into
law.
In addition, the NDAA expresses our commitment to key international
partners and allies. For example, the bill includes a full $500 million
authorization to continue the cooperative missile defense programs with
Israel, which are becoming increasingly vital in that volatile region.
It also provides additional security assistance for Ukraine to help
check continued Russian aggression on its eastern and southern borders.
To build on the impressive work done by Chairman Inhofe and the rest
of the committee, I have introduced amendments to improve benefits for
military widows, increased access to and awareness of Department of
Defense and VA apprenticeship programs, and improved temporary duty
travel lodging for DOD employees, such as those serving at the
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, ME.
The first amendment, which I am pleased to join my colleague Senator

[[Page S4161]]

Doug Jones in sponsoring, calls for the elimination of a longtime
inequity in the Survivor Benefit Plan and the Dependency and Indemnity
Compensation Plan. This inequity, which causes there to be an offset
between the two programs, is commonly known as the military widow's
tax. This unfair offset is currently preventing as many as 65,000
surviving spouses--more than 260 of them in Maine--from receiving the
full benefits that they deserve.
The Department of Defense's Survivor Benefits Plan, or SBP, is
primarily an insurance benefit that military families purchase, usually
in their retirement, and it provides cash benefits to a surviving
spouse or other eligible recipients when the military retiree passes
away. On the other hand, the Department of Veterans Affairs Dependency
and Indemnity Compensation Program, known as DIC, is a monthly tax-free
payment to survivors and dependents of servicemembers who pass away
from service-related conditions.
For example, if a military retiree pays premiums into the insurance
program, then, their spouse ought to be able to receive those benefits
when the retiree passes away. However, what we find instead is that if
the surviving spouse receiving SPB insurance payment is also eligible
for the separate payment from the VA, there is a dollar-for-dollar
offset. In some cases this leads to the total elimination of the
Service Benefit Plan. In other cases, the offset greatly reduces the
amount that is received. In either case, it is out and out unfair, and
it harms survivors of our servicemembers and military retirees.
I am often reminded by our military commanders that you recruit the
soldier, but you retain the family. We have an obligation to make sure
that we are taking care of our military families, who have sacrificed
so much.
This problem goes back decades, but this year can be the time that we
finally solve it. With more than 75 Senators--three-quarters of the
Senate--and 340 Members of the House of Representatives supporting this
effort as cosponsors of the stand-alone bill, this is the year. It is
our time to do our duty, not only to support the brave men and women of
our military but also to honor our commitment to their families.
I would urge all of my colleagues to join in this effort and to
support the repeal of the military widow's tax as part of the National
Defense Authorization Act, and, indeed, Senator Jones and I have
introduced an amendment to do just that.
Mr. President, the second amendment I wish to discuss is one that I
have introduced with Senator Klobuchar. It would authorize
servicemembers transitioning to civilian life to carry out skills
training, apprenticeships, and internship programs at other Federal
Agencies, in addition to the private sector. Currently, the military
services are permitted to authorize servicemember participation in job
training, including apprenticeships and internships, beginning up to 6
months before their service obligation in the military is complete. In
a recent report to Congress, the Department of Defense recommended that
we expand this authority to allow for inclusion of Federal Agencies as
well as the private sector as participants.
I am very grateful to Chairman Inhofe and to Senator Reed for
recently accepting this amendment and including it as part of the NDAA
managers' amendment. That will ensure that these provisions are
included in the Senate bill. This is a win-win for both servicemembers
as well as Federal Agencies, as this simple expansion will create new
opportunities for individual members of the military and allow the
Federal Government to benefit from the talents that our highly trained
soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines bring to their careers
subsequent to their military service. It is a commonsense reform that
will expand access to apprenticeships to our servicemembers and ease
their transition.
Third is an amendment that I introduced with Senator Cantwell. It
would require the Department of Defense, in coordination with the
Departments of Veterans Affairs and Labor, to report on their efforts
to promote the utilization of apprenticeships and on-the-job training
by servicemembers transitioning out of the military. So, obviously,
this report is very much related to the earlier amendment that I just
described.
The dramatic underutilization of apprenticeship and on-the-job
training under the GI bill demonstrates the need to promote these vital
programs. In fiscal year 2018, fewer than 1,500 veterans participated
in apprenticeships and fewer than 1,400 participated in the other kinds
of on-the-job training, and that is out of a universe of over a million
beneficiaries of the VA's educational programs.
One obvious benefit of apprenticeship programs is that graduates
learn hands-on skills for jobs that will immediately be available to
them, and there are many of these kinds of good-paying jobs available
in the State of Maine and elsewhere today.
Finally, there is an amendment that I have introduced with Senators
Shaheen, King, and Hassan. This would address significant problems that
the Department of Defense workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in
Kittery, ME, and elsewhere in the country have encountered with the
Department's Integrated Lodging Pilot Program, which was initially
authorized in the 2015 NDAA. The intent of the pilot program was to
save money by assigning TDY lodging first at government facilities and
then at specific commercial lodging at prenegotiated rates. However,
what we have seen with employees at our shipyard is that they are often
being forced to stay in subpar or inconvenient lodging--sometimes, in
areas that simply are not safe.
Workers have shared stories with me and with the other members of the
Maine and New Hampshire delegations about being awoken in the middle of
the night to the sounds of loud shouts while staying at required
government lodging, as well as more serious incidences of robberies and
shootings nearby. In other cases, travelers describe staying in remote
lodging on military installations without security or desk attendants
nearby to resolve standard issues that are ordinarily addressed quickly
at commercial hotels--basic things like dealing with room keys that
don't work or addressing other problems in the hotel rooms.
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, in fact, has directed its travel office to
no longer use the Integrated Lodging Pilot Program for travel to at
least one installation due to repeated problems with personnel who were
promised lodging only to find that it was not even available when they
arrived, leaving these workers scrambling to find an alternative place
to stay.
This was a pilot project that simply did not work. It is for these
reasons that I have joined my colleagues from Maine and New Hampshire
in introducing an amendment that simply allows this pilot program to
end in December of this year as currently scheduled. This program may
be something worth revisiting after we straighten out the problems with
it--certainly, after Congress reviews the still uncompleted DOD report
on the pilot. But for the time being, it clearly has not worked well
for the workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and other DOD
employees, and it should be allowed to expire at the end of this year.
I am very proud of the role that the State of Maine plays in our
national defense. From the accounting center in northern Maine to the
Air National Guard base in Bangor that refuels so many military
aircraft, to contractors like Bath Iron Works, where we will christen a
ship on Saturday in honor of our former colleague Senator Daniel
Inouye, to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, to countless other
smaller suppliers, the State of Maine is essential to our national
security.
Enactment of this bill is vitally important to the security of our
Nation. I would encourage my colleagues to support the underlying bill,
as well as these commonsense amendments.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.

Gun Safety

Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues who
have come to the floor this week to call for action to prevent gun
violence.
On Tuesday we marked the 4-year anniversary of the horrific shooting
at the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, where a White supremacist
killed nine people during Bible study.
Last week was the 3-year anniversary of the massacre at Pulse
nightclub in

[[Page S4162]]

Orlando, when an act of terror and hatred took the lives of 49 people
in the LGBTQ community.
After each of these tragedies, we say ``never again'' and ``enough is
enough.'' But after each mass shooting, Congress fails to take action.
The discussion fades into the background until another tragedy occurs,
then this same cycle is repeated.
It is unacceptable that Congress has still yet to take meaningful
action to address this epidemic. The victims who have been lost, their
families, and those who have experienced life-changing injuries and
trauma deserve action--as do all of our communities, because nearly
every aspect of American life has been afflicted by gun violence.
Nowhere is the impact of gun violence and the way it has changed our
lives more clear than in our Nation's schools. Just this year, a friend
of mine's son started kindergarten. Shortly after the school year
started, he and his other kindergarten peers had to participate in a
drill--what to do if there is an active shooter or danger in your
school.
At about the same time that my friend received information from the
school that her son would be participating in a lockdown of sorts--a
lockdown for 5-year-olds--she read an article by a teacher who had
participated with her young students in such an active shooter drill.
When the teacher got the kids still and turned off the lights in the
room so they could practice staying safe, she noticed the little lights
in the soles of their sneakers. You know those little light-up shoes
that children have? The teacher wrote that she realized that if those
children came to school with those shoes on a day when there was a
shooter, even with the lights down, they would be targets. Well,
needless to say, my friend's son no longer has light-up sneakers.
It is time to finally meet words with action. It is time to finally
take steps to keep the American people safe. It is time to finally pass
commonsense gun laws.
A good start to address this public safety issue would be to improve
our background check system. According to the Department of Justice,
since 1994 background checks have stopped over 3 million dangerous
individuals from obtaining guns, including people with violent criminal
records, domestic abusers, and those with mental health issues.
But we know that there continue to be loopholes in that system.
Research indicates that millions of guns are sold each year to
individuals without background checks. We need to extend background
checks to all gun sales and ensure that people who are legally barred
from owning guns cannot easily access them.
I have joined with Senator Murphy, who has been a passionate,
dedicated leader on this issue, on legislation to do just that. Earlier
this year, the House of Representatives passed bipartisan gun safety
legislation aimed at improving our background check system. There is
real momentum and urgency on this issue. Strengthening background
checks is a measure that the American people overwhelmingly support.
Unfortunately, Republican leadership in the Senate is more focused on
putting the priorities of the gun lobby ahead of the will of the
American people. It is outrageous that some in this body suggest that
there is simply nothing that we can do to stop the gun violence that
has plagued our country. The refusal to even bring up gun safety
legislation for consideration is unconscionable. That must change.
I come from a State with a long tradition of responsible gun
ownership. People across New Hampshire own guns for hunting, sports,
and protection. I respect the tradition, and I am committed to
upholding it, but I know that the people in New Hampshire don't want
dangerous weapons in the wrong hands. They are also deeply frustrated
that Congress has refused to address the heartbreaking acts of violence
that have become far too common in our country. Granite Staters,
particularly our young people, are speaking out to voice these
frustrations.
Last year, I was proud to march with students in Nashua who organized
their own March For Our Lives rally, and students across our State have
engaged in everything from writing to public officials to staging
school walkouts. They are demanding that we take action, and Congress
needs to listen to them.
I am going to keep pushing to pass commonsense gun safety laws, and
it is long past time that the Senate finally take this issue up for
debate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

____________________