[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 107 (Tuesday, June 25, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4488-S4501]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2020--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


                                S. 1790

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, yesterday, the Senate overwhelmingly 
voted to proceed to the National Defense Authorization Act by a vote of 
86 to 6. That is about as overwhelming a bipartisan vote as we have had 
lately, and it is for good reason. This bill represents one of our most 
fundamental duties as the U.S. Congress, which is to authorize military 
expenditures and to provide our men and women in uniform with the 
resources they need in order to protect the American people.
  The Defense authorization bill would authorize funding for the 
Department of Defense to carry out its most vital missions, as well as 
support our alliances around the world and improve the quality of life 
for our servicemembers, including the largest pay raise in a decade. 
All of us have long understood the importance of passing this 
legislation each year, which is why for the past 58 years we have 
passed the Defense authorization bill each of those years without 
delay. The bill, of course, has gained broad bipartisan support in the 
Armed Services Committee and in the first procedural vote yesterday 
evening, but that doesn't mean that our colleagues across the aisle 
aren't eyeing it as the latest target for their obstructionist tactics.
  We are hearing that our Democratic friends are actually threatening 
to filibuster this legislation in an attempt to force a vote on Iran, 
but this is really just a subterfuge. I don't buy it. In reality, the 
Democratic leader has urged the majority leader not to hold a vote on 
the Defense authorization bill this week because so many of his Members 
are running for President and need to be at the debate in Miami. He 
said the Senate should wait to have the vote until the full body is 
present. He said there is no rush to complete the National Defense 
Authorization Act. Just to translate, the minority leader wants the 
rest of us to stop working so that the Democrat Senators who are 
running for President can prepare for the debate in Miami instead of 
being here in Washington and doing their job. Instead of doing that, 
they want to audition for their next job--or so they hope. Well, the 
minority leader thinks we should delay giving our military families a 
pay raise so his Members can campaign for President. That is one of the 
more galling things I have ever heard proposed across the aisle.
  The demand for a vote in relation to Iran is a smokescreen. It is a 
tactic being used to cover up for their colleagues who don't want to 
miss yet another vote. In the first 6 months of this year alone, Senate 
Democrats have played politics with nominees for important positions 
throughout the Federal Government and with border security funding in 
the midst of a humanitarian and security crisis that is occurring at 
the border. They dragged their feet on Middle East policy bills and 
now, apparently, on the National Defense Authorization Act.
  Our constituents sent us here to Washington to cast votes--yes or 
no--on bills that shape our country and, in this case, strengthen our 
Nation's military. We should not tolerate the political ambitions of 
some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to take 
precedence over the men and women who serve us in the military. Their 
priorities may be elsewhere, but the rest of us are not buying it. It 
is appalling, and we will not let it happen.


                        Prescription Drug Costs

  Madam President, on another matter, I recently heard from one of my 
constituents in San Antonio about her growing concern with rising drug 
prices. She wrote to me:

       I personally haven't had to make the choice yet between 
     making my mortgage or getting a drug I need or my family 
     needs, but I know the day is coming. It's not a matter of if 
     it will happen, but when for all of us in America.

  She is certainly not alone. Countless Texans have conveyed to me 
their concerns about rising drug costs, and one man even told me that 
he and his wife feel like their health is being held ransom. Across the 
country more and more people are struggling to pay their out-of-pocket 
costs for their prescription drugs and are weighing financial decisions 
that no family should be forced to make.
  Now, the good news is there is bipartisan agreement here in 
Congress--somewhat of a rarity these days--that something must be done 
to reel in these skyrocketing costs and to protect patients who are 
being taken advantage of by some pharmaceutical companies. We have 
spent a lot of time looking at this issue on both the Judiciary 
Committee and the Finance Committee, on which I sit, as well as the 
HELP Committee, which is also working on legislation to lower out-of-
pocket healthcare costs.
  When it comes to drug prices, we know that the high cost frequently 
is not the result of the necessary sunk cost for research and 
development of an innovative drug or a labor-intensive production 
process or scarce supply. The high cost frequently is because major 
players in the healthcare industry are driving up prices to increase 
their bottom line.
  Later this week, the Judiciary Committee will hold a markup to 
consider some of the proposals by members of the committee to address 
this kind of behavior. One of the bills we will consider was introduced 
by Senators Grassley and Cantwell. It would require the Federal Trade 
Commission to look at the role of pharmacy benefit managers, which play 
an important--albeit an elusive part--in the pharmaceutical supply 
chain.
  Another bill we will be reviewing has been introduced by Senators 
Klobuchar and Grassley and would combat branded pharmaceutical 
companies' ability to interfere with the regulatory approval of generic 
competitors.
  I am glad we will also have a chance to consider a bill I introduced 
with my colleague Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut called the 
Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act. That bill takes aim at two 
practices often deployed by pharmaceutical companies to crowd out 
competition and protect their bottom line. Now, this bill, importantly, 
will not stymie innovation, and it will not punish those who rightfully 
gained exclusive production rights for a drug. That is what our patent 
system is designed to do. Those are two false arguments being pushed by 
opponents to my bill, though, and, believe me, there are many. The bill 
is designed, rather, to stop the bad actors who abuse our laws and 
effectively create a monopoly. Most drug companies don't fall into that 
category, but some definitely do.
  First, the bill targets a practice called product hopping. When a 
company is about to lose exclusivity of a drug because their patent is 
going to expire, they often develop some sort of minor reformulation 
and then yank the original product off the market. That prevents 
generic competitors from entering the market. One example was the drug 
Namenda, which is used by patients with Alzheimer's. Near the end of 
the exclusivity period, the manufacturer switched from a twice daily 
drug to a once daily drug. That move prevented pharmacists from being 
able to switch patients to a lower cost generic and gave the company an 
unprecedented 14 additional years of exclusivity. Now, don't get me 
wrong. There are often legitimate changes that warrant a new patent, 
but too frequently we are seeing this deployed as a strategy to box out 
generic competition.
  By defining product hopping as anticompetitive behavior, the Federal 
Trade Commission would be able to take action against those who engage 
in this practice. It is an important way to prevent companies from 
gaming the patent system and patients from carrying the cost of that 
corporate greed.
  Our country thankfully is the leader in pharmaceutical innovation. 
None of us wants to change that, and that is partly because we offer 
robust protections for intellectual property. Sadly, though, some 
companies are taking advantage of those innovation protections in order 
to maintain their monopoly as long as possible. Our bill would target 
this practice, known as patent thicketing, by limiting patents 
companies can use to keep their competitors away. One famous example is 
the drug HUMIRA, which, as I understand, is the most commonly 
prescribed drug in the world. It is used to treat arthritis and a 
number of other conditions. AbbVie, the manufacturer of HUMIRA, has 136 
patents on the

[[Page S4489]]

drug and 247 patent applications. This drug has been available now for 
more than 15 years. This type of behavior makes it difficult for 
biosimilar manufacturers to bring a new product to market to compete 
with that drug and thus bring down the price for consumers.

  In the case of HUMIRA, multiple biosimilars have been FDA-approved 
and available since last year, but the vast array of patents obtained 
by AbbVie prevent any competition from entering the market until 2023. 
This artificial structuring delays market entry years past the 
exclusivity period the law originally intended to grant. While the 
patent on the actual drug formula may have expired, there are still, in 
this case, hundreds of other patents that have to be sorted through.
  Our legislation would seek to end patent gaming that leads to high 
cost for consumers. Companies use these patents to extend litigation 
against would-be competitors. That process is lengthy, complex, and 
expensive. So by limiting the number of patents these companies can use 
and preventing this sort of gamesmanship, our bill would simplify the 
litigation process so companies are spending less time in the courtroom 
and, hopefully, more time in the laboratories, innovating new disease-
curing, life-extending drugs. Competitors would be able to resolve 
patent issues faster and bring their drugs to market sooner. Better 
competition, which is our goal, creates a better product at a lower 
price for patients.
  What my bill and those that we will be considering in the Judiciary 
Committee this week have in common is that they seek to prevent bad 
actors from gaming the system to exploit patients for profit. Since 
Senator Blumenthal and I introduced this bill, we have received 
valuable feedback from our colleagues in the Senate, as well as from 
folks at the Federal Trade Commission, the Patent and Trademark Office, 
the Food and Drug Administration, and many stakeholders. Their input 
has helped us make adjustments to ensure our bill will effectively 
carry out our goal, which is to reduce drug prices without hampering 
innovation or creating overly burdensome regulations. We are finalizing 
our revised bill, and we will introduce it soon.
  The Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act will stop 
pharmaceutical companies from deploying defensive strategies to 
monopolize prescription drug patents and ensure that our healthcare 
system works for, not against, the American people.
  I appreciate our colleagues in the Senate, especially Chairman 
Alexander of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; 
Chairman Grassley, who is chairman of the Finance Committee; and 
Chairman Graham, who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who 
continue to work with us to increase competition and bring down 
healthcare costs for patients across the country. I look forward to our 
markup on these bills later this week.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order of the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1247

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1247; 
that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill 
be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. An objection is heard.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, the reason for this request for 
unanimous consent is very simply that this legislation is based on a 
straightforward, commonly accepted idea: If you see something, say 
something.
  The Duty to Report Act, this measure, would require campaigns, 
candidates, and family members to immediately report to the FBI and the 
Federal Election Commission any offers of illegal foreign assistance. 
It is simply a duty to report illegality. It codifies into law what is 
already a moral duty, a patriotic duty, and a matter of basic common 
sense.
  It is already illegal to accept foreign assistance during a campaign. 
It is already illegal to solicit foreign assistance during a campaign. 
All this bill does is to require campaigns and individuals to report 
those illegal foreign assistance offers or solicitations directly to 
the FBI.
  I never thought--and few would have guessed--that there is a need for 
this kind of legislative mandate to do what is a patriotic and a moral 
duty. With the 2020 election on the horizon, we need to do everything 
we can to safeguard the integrity of our election.
  The President has made remarks that are truly historically 
astonishing. He made those remarks just recently, which highlighted his 
own moral and patriotic depravity. He was asked whether he would accept 
help in 2020 from foreign governments or foreign nationals, and he 
simply said: ``I'd take it.''
  That is very much reminiscent of what his son said when he was 
offered assistance from Russian agents with dirt on Hillary Clinton. He 
said, ``I love it.'' That kind of receptivity to illegality is not only 
un-American, it ought to be explicitly illegal, and all of us in this 
Chamber would reject it, I am sure. In fact, many of my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle were severely critical of President Trump's 
remarks.
  His remarks are also reminiscent of what his son-in-law, Jared 
Kushner, said in a television interview--that he didn't know whether he 
would contact the FBI in that same kind of situation, again, that 
Donald junior encountered with offers of assistance from Russian 
agents. He didn't know whether he would. It is a hypothetical.
  Well, we really know what both the President and Jared Kushner, as 
well as his son Donald junior think about this issue. According to the 
Mueller report, when a Kremlin-linked individual, Dimitri Simes, 
offered to provide Kushner with damaging information on Hillary 
Clinton, he took the meeting. That is not the only example. When George 
Papadopoulos, the Trump foreign policy campaign staffer, convicted on a 
Federal charge of lying to the FBI, was told by a Maltese professor 
that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands 
of emails and were willing to provide them to the Trump campaign, what 
did he do? Rather than go to the FBI, he eagerly alerted others on the 
campaign.
  Just last week, Hope Hicks, Trump's Communications Director for a 
while, was interviewed by the House Judiciary Committee. She said that 
she ``knew that the President's statement was troubling''--in her 
words, ``knew that the President's statement was troubling'' and 
``understood the President to be serious'' when he made those remarks.
  The President's remarks should alarm every American and everyone in 
the law enforcement community. Our legislative efforts stem from this 
basic principle. The American people--not Russia, not China, and no one 
else--should decide who the leaders of our country are and the 
direction our democracy should go.
  Eighty percent of the American people across the political spectrum--
or more--support this legislation--Republicans, Democrats, and 
Independents. All we are doing is asking that Mitch McConnell avoid 
blocking this important legislation and allow a vote on the Senate 
floor. This bill has 19 cosponsors in the Senate, including Senators 
Whitehouse, Booker, Harris, Warren, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Sanders, 
Heinrich, Udall, Markey, Leahy, Murray, Casey, Smith, Cardin, Murphy, 
Wyden, Merkley, and Hirono. It has been introduced in the House by 
Congressman Eric Swalwell, and it now has 30 cosponsors there, 
including the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler.
  I invite my Republican colleagues to support me in passing this 
legislation. Republicans ought to stand up for the rule of law. They 
ought to speak out

[[Page S4490]]

for our national security. They should refuse to tolerate these kinds 
of words and behavior from an American Commander in Chief
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.


                                S. 1790

  Mr. CRAMER. Madam President, I rise today to emphasize the importance 
of this year's National Defense Authorization Act--both why it is 
important and what we must accomplish this week while we are still 
here.
  The primary obligation of Congress is to provide for the common 
defense. For the past 57, 58-plus years, Congress has met this 
obligation primarily through passage of the NDAA. With this bipartisan 
legislation, we have provided our Armed Forces the resources and 
authorities they need to defend our country. This bill keeps America on 
track by confronting the readiness crisis in our military branches.
  I am the first North Dakotan ever to serve on the Senate Armed 
Services Committee, and I consider this a great honor. North Dakota is 
home to two Air Force bases: Minot, which is home to two of the three 
legs of the nuclear triad, the B-52 bombers and Minuteman ICBM 
missiles; and one in Grand Forks, home to the RQ-4 Global Hawk mission 
and, effective in just a few days, on Friday, the 319th Reconnaissance 
Wing.
  We are also home to multiple Army and Air National Guard units and 
missions, ranging from construction and combat engineers to security 
forces, to ISR and launch and recovery Reaper operations. Our Army 
National Guard, in fact, has an air defense artillery regiment that 
regularly protects us right here in the Capital region as part of 
Operation Noble Eagle.
  Our military community is a foundational element to our State as it 
is to many States. To us, the NDAA is not just arbitrary funding 
numbers for abstract aircraft and equipment. This legislation supports 
those in my State and across the country who defend our Nation at home 
and around the world.
  We are honored by the outsized role our patriots play in defense of 
our Nation and the cause of liberty. Our commitment to them and their 
families must be clear. When they are called into action, they will 
have every resource they need to carry out successful missions.
  I want to address a fundamental aspect to this week's debate. 
Apparently, there are some in this body who would rather bypass budget 
negotiations and pass a continuing resolution. There are others who 
want to delay passage of this important priority until later in the 
year.
  We cannot simply kick this can down the road. Passing a CR is handing 
our military community months of uncertainty and anxiety and could 
nullify much of the good work that we are doing here today and this 
week, such as improving the livelihoods of our servicemembers. Delaying 
passage to accommodate the political ambitions of a few of our 
Democratic colleagues is simply unacceptable and should be dismissed as 
quickly as it was suggested.
  Those who offer their lives in service to our country represent the 
best of what America has to offer. What they give us, we can never 
repay, but we can do our best to help as they serve and transition back 
to civilian life.
  For example, this NDAA seeks to improve the livelihood of our 
volunteer military force with benefits such as the largest pay increase 
in over a decade.
  It also provides personal assistance for military spouses looking for 
work or hoping to retain their job after being relocated. We also 
included language that encourages the Air National Guard to provide 
tuition assistance.
  To keep us safe from foreign adversaries, this year's NDAA bolsters 
our nuclear triad with an enhanced commitment to modernization--a move 
I firmly support. While recently visiting the Minot Air Force Base, I 
witnessed the reality the base's airmen face every day. Our brave men 
and women in uniform feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. 
Yet they remain vigilant and alert--and most of the time quite 
cheerful, I might add.
  Deterrence works. It has always worked. Democratic and Republican 
administrations over the last several decades have supported this. 
Eliminating a leg of the deterrence does not eliminate the threat. The 
world does not become a safe place when we remove that which keeps us 
safe.
  If we defied history and the military community by unilaterally 
weakening our superior arsenal, as some in the House have proposed, we 
would be placing the fate of the world in the hands of our adversaries.
  That is not to say the bill shouldn't be amended. In fact, I want to 
bring attention to a matter that wasn't included that I believe should 
be. I submitted an amendment, along with a stand-alone bill, that 
honors the Lost 74--the 74 Vietnam veterans who died in the sinking of 
the USS Frank E. Evans, whose names are not included on the Vietnam 
Memorial Wall. This year marks 50 years since they were killed off the 
coast of Vietnam while serving our Nation.
  Congress passed this legislation last year in the House NDAA, but it 
failed to be added in conference. This year, I moved from the House to 
the Senate, and so did this bill. It has received overwhelming, 
bipartisan support from my colleagues here and from constituents across 
the country; however, the bureaucrats in Washington remain firmly 
opposed. It is inexplicable to me that bureaucrats could determine that 
these sailors' ultimate sacrifice is unworthy of being memorialized 
simply because they were on the wrong side of an arbitrary line. Their 
disregard for these veterans has been a source of tremendous 
frustration to me throughout this process. I have had my own motives 
questioned. I have been told it would require too much ``work'' to 
change the memorial. I have even heard fears expressed of precedent 
being changed, as if finding more ways to honor the fallen and 
forgotten would somehow set a bad precedent for the future. These 
excuses are insufficient. The Lost 74 and the families they left behind 
deserve better than this, and I have no plans to quit this fight for 
them anytime soon.
  But this and other possible inclusions aside, this NDAA contains 
important national security efforts, including the establishment of the 
U.S. Space Force. The Senate Armed Services Committee came up with a 
bipartisan proposal that reduces redundancy in space programs, defines 
clear leadership on space at the upper echelons of our military, and 
guarantees dedicated servicemembers to the space domain. I thank my 
colleagues for seeing the administration's vision and working in a 
bipartisan fashion to improve it.
  I led two important amendments to the Space Force proposal that were 
adopted in the committee markup. The first requires that the commander 
of the Space Force report directly to the Secretary of the Air Force 
after the first year of establishment. The second is that the commander 
of the Space Force become a permanent member of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, also after the first year of establishment. Both were supported 
by the Department of Defense and should be maintained through 
conference negotiations.
  The first provision--reporting directly to the Secretary--ensures 
that the Space Force commander has direct access to the top civilian 
leadership of the Air Force, just like the Navy-Marine Corps model. The 
Commandant of the Marine Corps does not report to the Chief of Naval 
Operations, and neither should the Space Force commander be forced to 
report to the Air Force Chief of Staff.
  Reporting to the Secretary will give our space forces an equal voice 
in the Air Force's budget development process. We all know that real 
authority in the Pentagon is budget authority, and unless the Space 
Force has a true voice in the budget process, they will never be 
prioritized appropriately.
  When testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Strategic 
Command commander and vice chairman nominee General Hyten spoke to the 
challenges of the Air Force Chief of Staff making space a priority, 
stating:

       We have to have somebody in the Pentagon that focuses their 
     total attention on space all the time. I have known every 
     chief of staff of the Air Force for the last 20 or 30 years, 
     and they've all carried space effectively into the tank. 
     They've all cared about space. But it is a secondary issue.

  Rather than automatically relegating space to a secondary issue, the 
Space Force commander should follow the Marine Corps model and report 
directly to the Secretary of the Air Force.

[[Page S4491]]

  In addition, the Space Force commander should be a statutory member 
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Joint Chiefs, of course, are the 
primary military advisers to the President. The President makes 
strategic decisions on the composition and use of our national security 
resources based on the counsel received from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 
Without a separate, equal voice at the table, the Space Force commander 
will inevitably be marginalized from critical decisionmaking and 
resource allocation processes.
  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford, reiterated this 
point when he said that ``the key is to have individuals who are 
singularly focused on space and make sure we incorporate that 
perspective, that very healthy perspective, into the outcome, which is 
a joint force that can fight.'' General Dunford is exactly right. The 
Space Force commander should have a seat on the Joint Chiefs and bring 
that singular focus of space to the table.
  I understand the concerns surrounding these amendments, and I agree 
with my colleagues that we should minimize overhead and unneeded 
bureaucracy, which is why both of my amendments do not take effect for 
a year, and the language specifically bars any new staff or additional 
billets in the interim.
  Last week, the ranking member of the committee cited CBO estimates on 
the potential costs of these amendments. I would like to quote the same 
CBO report for additional context and reference. The CBO report says 
that ``the estimates in this report are for illustrative policy 
options; they do not represent cost estimates for any particular piece 
of legislation.''
  With that in mind, I would ask the Department of Defense to take 
these concerns seriously and use the 1 year to craft and present a plan 
to appropriately implement these two provisions.
  My colleagues' concerns are not unwarranted; however, it would be 
poor policy to hamstring the Space Force from the beginning rather than 
set it up for success.
  It is worth noting that the House NDAA establishes a Space Corps and 
takes two concrete steps directly in line with my amendments. The 
leader of the Space Corps would report directly to the Secretary of the 
Air Force and sit on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, without the 1-year 
delay my amendment would require. The House, Senate, and Department of 
Defense are largely in line with these two provisions.
  The idea of the Space Force will become a reality with this year's 
NDAA. The establishment process will be incremental and requires 
oversight, but our first step must set the conditions to ensure its 
success.
  The importance of this NDAA is clear. Passing it is vital to my State 
and to our Nation. It supports our troops, bolsters our nuclear 
deterrence, and provides for the creation of a Space Force capable of 
defending the next domain of military conflict. For these and dozens of 
other reasons, I urge my colleagues to support it and pass it quickly 
to demonstrate our commitment to our highest priority.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I thought there would be people here 
speaking. We are right now in consideration of the most significant 
bill of the year, the National Defense Authorization Act. It is not 
just the biggest bill but the most significant one, and we know it is 
going to pass. It has passed for 59 years in a row, so obviously it is 
going to pass. But the problem is that we have many amendments to be 
discussed because yesterday alone, we adopted 93 amendments, and they 
are equally divided between Democrats and Republicans.
  I have invited and encouraged all the Members who have amendments 
that were on the list to come down to the floor and talk about their 
amendments. I have a list of those individuals who have requested to be 
here in conjunction with that, and they are not down here.
  Let me just appeal to the Members--Democrats and Republicans alike--
to come in and describe your amendments and talk about this because we 
are going to do everything we can to get this bill passed this week.
  I have to say, there is an effort right now by the leader of the 
Democrats to try to put this off because they want to watch their 
friends run for President on TV on Wednesday night and Thursday night. 
To me, we have the most important bill of the entire year. This is 
something we have to pass because of all the problems that come up. We 
have housing, for example. The big problem with privatization of 
housing came up last February. All the solutions are in this bill. They 
are taken care of. Modernizing our nuclear modernization is in this 
bill. That is going to be done, but it can't be done until the bill is 
passed and signed by the President.
  If we wait, as suggested, in order for them to watch their friends on 
TV, then this is going to put it off for a week, and that is certainly 
going to jeopardize the possibility of getting it passed. There isn't 
time.
  If you look at the list of things which the leader of the Senate 
articulated just a short while ago, all these things have to be done 
before the end of the fiscal year. The end of the fiscal year is 
looming out there. We don't have that many legislative days.
  We have to do a budget. All these things have to be done, so we 
cannot jeopardize all of that by postponing this for a week.
  I encourage our Members to come down and be heard and describe their 
amendments.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                        Prescription Drug Costs

  Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I rise to once again talk about the 
truly obscene cost of prescription drugs and the No. 1 thing we can do 
to lower prices. It is spelled out right here: Let Medicare negotiate. 
It is very simple. Let Medicare negotiate to bring down the cost of 
prescription drugs.
  Prescription drug costs are a huge issue for people, frankly, of all 
ages who need medication in my State. Whether I am talking to farmers 
in Western Michigan, retirees in the Upper Peninsula, working families 
in Wayne County or Macomb County, families are feeling the effects.
  When you look at the numbers between 2008 and 2016, prices on the 
most popular brand-name drugs went up over 208 percent. Just ask those 
farmers in West Michigan and those working families in Macomb; their 
income did not rise 208 percent.
  Perhaps nobody has been hurt more than our seniors who tend to take 
more medications and live on fixed incomes. In 2017 alone, the average 
price of brand-name drugs that seniors often take rose four times 
faster than the rate of inflation. In 1 year, it rose faster than the 
rate of inflation. Again, I am absolutely certain that the vast 
majority of the seniors in my State did not see their incomes go up 
four times faster than the rate of inflation. I can tell you that 
seniors in the Upper Peninsula didn't see their pensions or Social 
Security checks increase that much.
  What do families do? What do seniors do? We all know the stories. 
Some people are forced to cut back on other things like food and paying 
their bills. Some folks cut their heart pills in half or take their 
arthritis medication every other day instead of every day--which, by 
the way, is not OK to do. Some families stop filling their 
prescriptions altogether simply because they can't afford it. This is 
wrong.
  I have always believed healthcare is a basic human right, and that 
includes prescription medications. How do we lower the cost of 
prescriptions so families can afford the medications they need to get 
healthy and to stay healthy? The No. 1 way to do that is to

[[Page S4492]]

let Medicare negotiate. It is very straightforward: Let Medicare 
negotiate. The VA is allowed to negotiate the price of prescription 
drugs, and the VA saves 40 percent compared to Medicare. In fact, if 
Medicare paid the same price as the VA, it could have saved $14.4 
billion on just 50 drugs if it paid the same prices as the VA. It could 
have $14.4 billion in savings if Medicare could negotiate for seniors 
the way the VA is able to negotiate for veterans.

  So what is stopping us? Republicans in Congress and pharma lobbyists 
are standing in the way of getting this done. In 2018, there were 1,451 
lobbyists for the pharmaceutical and health product industry. That is 
almost 15 lobbyists for every 1 Member of the Senate. Their job is to 
stop competition and keep prices high, and they are doing a very good 
job.
  Back in 2003, when Medicare Part D was signed into law, they blocked 
Medicare from harnessing the bargaining power of 43 million American 
seniors. Those 43 million American seniors together could see 
negotiating power, but it was blocked by language that was put into 
Medicare Part D. Let me just say that again. It is very simple. Take 
that language out and let Medicare negotiate.
  Sixteen years later, pharmaceutical companies are still boosting 
their bottom lines on the backs of our seniors. As if putting that 
language in Medicare Part D wasn't enough, we constantly see efforts to 
look for an advantage to block competition, to do something to protect 
prices, to keep prices high, and they are at it again. The name-brand 
industry that is a huge supporter of the new trade agreement, NAFTA 
2.0--some say NAFTA 1.5, some people call it the U.S.-Mexico-Canada 
trade agreement--but this deal with Canada and America that has been 
put together and negotiated by the administration has something in it 
to protect the pricing for Big Pharma. The provisions could stop 
competitors from getting cheaper generic versions of biologic drugs on 
the market sooner. If you stop the competition, you stop the ability 
for generic, no-brand names. They are the same drug most of the time 
but just without a brand name on it. If you stop that competition, even 
though that competition brings down prices, you can keep prices and 
profits high. Biologics are some of the most expensive drugs out there. 
For example, Humira, the world's top-selling prescription drug, treats 
conditions including Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis, and it 
can cost up to $50,000 a year for one prescription drug. How many 
people do you know who can afford to pay $50,000 a year for their 
medication for just one drug?
  At least three companies have developed generic versions of the drug, 
but they will not be available in the United States until at least 
2023. We have at least three companies with a lower cost generic 
version that could bring down prices. They will not be available in the 
United States until at least 2023. Humira isn't a new drug. It has been 
around since 2002.
  When we had a hearing in the Finance Committee--and I want to commend 
our chairman for doing that and bringing in the top drug company CEOs--
the CEO that puts Humira into the marketplace indicated they have over 
130 different patents that protect them from competition. Here we are, 
in the middle of a trade agreement, where they are wanting to put 
language in concerning the length of patents in order to protect their 
position.
  By the way, shortly after the President signed the USMCA at the end 
of last year, the drug companies decided to begin 2019 with price 
increases on more than 250 prescription drugs, including Humira. So 
they feel more confident their position is protected; there is not 
going to be competition. So what happens? They raise the prices again.
  Pharmaceutical companies like to argue that they need special 
giveaways--like they got in Medicare Part D and that they are trying to 
get in the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement--because they invest 
so much in research and development. However, it is also true that when 
given the opportunity to invest in research and development, many 
companies chose, instead, to put more money in the pockets of CEOs and 
shareholders rather than using the big tax cut they received to put 
more into research and development.
  I am a huge supporter of research and development. Most of the 
primary, basic research is done by all of us as taxpayers. In fact, 
last year, the 500 biggest U.S. companies spent $608 billion on 
research and development, which is great. That might sound like a lot, 
but they spent $806 billion buying back their own stock to keep the 
prices up on the stock. That also makes you wonder why pharmaceutical 
companies didn't use their tax giveaway to reduce the cost of 
prescription drugs.
  The pricing of prescription drugs in this country is the ultimate 
example of a rigged system. It is time to come together and unrig it. 
That is what we should be doing. Our job is to unrig the system.
  First, we need to allow Medicare to harness the bargaining power of 
43 million American seniors. One recent poll found that 92 percent of 
voters support allowing Medicare to negotiate. Let Medicare negotiate. 
That is 92 percent of voters who believe in this.
  Second, we need to prevent the pharmaceutical companies from 
receiving additional sweet deals that keep drug costs high. I think it 
is about time we make a deal that benefits Michigan farmers and 
businesses and seniors and working families. That should be our focus. 
We should not be in a situation where, time after time, there is 
special treatment, protective language that bars the pharmaceutical 
industry from negotiating under Medicare or that allows them to protect 
their patents longer so they don't have competition from generic drugs 
to bring down prices.
  Let's unrig this system and address the highest driver, the biggest 
driver in raising the costs of healthcare in this country, which is the 
cost of prescription drugs. We can do something about that, and we need 
to do it soon.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TILLIS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. TILLIS. Madam President, I come before you, first and foremost, 
to thank Senator Inhofe for his great leadership as the chairman of the 
Senate Armed Services Committee and a special thanks to the staff who 
are working very, very hard to process the hundreds of amendments to 
the National Defense Authorization Act that came out of the committee 
with broad bipartisan support.
  I am here to talk specifically about some provisions that I think are 
pretty important that actually started in the Personnel Subcommittee. I 
chair the Personnel Subcommittee for Senate Armed Services. Early this 
year, we heard of what I consider to be absolutely unacceptable 
conditions in military housing across the country. In North Carolina--
and, Madam President, in your great State of Tennessee--we have bases, 
and we have military housing. We have men and women, many of them very 
young. Oftentimes the spouses are deployed, so the family is back home 
taking care of their children, taking care of their own jobs, and 
living on the base.
  About February, we got reports--and these are not just one-off 
reports; these are reports across the country of mold, mildew, damage 
from storms, and all kinds of conditions that I think in the private 
sector you would find objectionable. I think it is particularly 
objectionable when you are talking about people whose families are with 
that husband or wife who serve in the military or serve in this 
country.
  We decided to have a number of hearings where we brought the private 
housing providers into the Senate and my Personnel Subcommittee and the 
full committee to get an explanation. Quite honestly, there wasn't a 
good explanation.
  Back in 1996, the Federal Government decided to get out of the 
housing business. I am glad they did because they were doing a really 
bad job. For about 10 years, we had a great story to tell in terms of 
the quality of housing, the service to the tenants, and the 
satisfaction of the military families. But then something got sideways 
in a very, very bad way.
  This is a shower. If you see this kind of mold and mildew in your 
shower,

[[Page S4493]]

would you think it is acceptable? If you go in and see children's 
toys--and this is actually the bottom side of a crib--mold and mildew 
in these folks' housing with small children in them, people with 
respiratory conditions living in these kinds of conditions, I expect 
the garrison down at the bases and I expect the private housing 
providers to move Heaven and Earth to eliminate these sorts of 
problems. We are making progress, but I feel, in order to make sure it 
is not progress that is being made just when they all of a sudden get 
the attention of this Senator and other Members of the U.S. Senate, we 
have to change the rules in terms of the authorities that the 
Department of Defense has and the expectations that we have for the 
private housing providers.
  I have to give thanks to the Acting Secretary of Defense, formerly 
the Secretary of the Army, and all of the service Secretaries for 
stepping up. They have recreated a tenant of bill of rights. They have 
created a dispute process. They have demanded a more timely and more 
transparent method for actually solving service requests. All of those 
now have language in this National Defense Authorization Act that 
Congress needs to act quickly on so that we can make sure we put into 
place the right expectations in the statute, to make sure that the 
problems that exist today are fixed and that they don't happen again.
  I will tell you that while we are making progress, when I go to Fort 
Bragg and Camp Lejeune, I hold what are called sensing sessions, which 
are basically getting a few dozen people together to hear their 
complaints. There is an amazing thing that happens when I go to North 
Carolina.
  I don't know, Madam President, if you have done one of these in 
Tennessee yet, but if you announce that you are going to go down and 
hear from the tenants, there is an amazing thing that happens. You have 
all of these service requests that are about to here when they announce 
that I am coming to Jacksonville or I am coming to Fayetteville. About 
a day or two before I get there, magically, they have been able to 
solve almost all of those service requests. Then I go away for a couple 
of months, and I see them coming back up again.
  One thing that everybody who is listening--and these are not just the 
private housing providers. It is the Department of Defense and Congress 
that I think have shifted their focus away from this problem, and we 
have to maintain a focus on it.
  So for my part, I just spoke with my scheduling director and my State 
staff. I told them that I want to take the next sensing session up a 
level. I want a townhall. I want to be able to put 200 or 300 families 
with housing down in Jacksonville at Camp Lejeune and down at Ft. Bragg 
in Fayetteville--I want to put them in a room, and I want to make it 
very clear to everybody involved, whether it is the private housing 
provider, the garrison commanders, the Department of Defense, and put a 
light on us in Congress because it is our inaction that has caused the 
problem.
  We want to know what their problems are. We are going to hear from 
hundreds of people. We are going to make progress on these kinds of 
things through the provisions in the NDAA, but we still have to 
continue to focus on this problem.
  First, I want to thank Senator Inhofe. He did a great job in terms of 
casting light on this, and I know I have the commitment of the chairman 
of the Senate Armed Services Committee, but I don't want these just to 
be words on the floor. I want them to be words that are put into action 
in terms of how we can help these military families today.
  If you have a service request outstanding with any vendor and you do 
not feel like you are getting a proper response, I want you to write 
down ``Tillis.senate.gov.'' In my office, we will treat every single 
housing request you have as a request for casework, and I will have one 
of several dozen staff members in my office open up a case and track it 
until it is completed.
  As for anybody else who knows a servicemember who has this problem 
and thinks he will not have somebody who will follow up on it, give me 
a chance. We have already solved a lot of them, and we are going to 
solve a lot more. We are not going to finish until I believe the men 
and women and the families at Fort Bragg, at Camp Lejeune, and at bases 
across this country have the safe and comfortable housing they deserve.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, in 1831, a young Frenchman who sought 
to understand the motivating principles behind the world's newest 
independent Nation mused:

       In America, the principle of the sovereignty . . . is not 
     either barren or concealed, as it is with some other nations; 
     it is recognized by the customs and proclaimed by the laws; 
     it spreads freely, and arrives without impediment at its most 
     remote consequences.

  Alexis de Tocqueville had come to America on a research mission. He 
had had no special training in government or political science, but he 
had been fueled by a desire to know if the principles that had guided 
the early American Republic could help his fellow Frenchmen. Even as an 
outsider, de Tocqueville had seen freedom, not a lone figurehead or 
compulsory philosophy, as the foundation to build upon. Freedom had 
been what he had seen as an enduring foundation.
  Today, however, the belief in a moral right to self-governance is 
more often than not portrayed as quaint and the kind of fierce 
independence that drove our Founders to the battlefield as outdated in 
comparison to modern concepts of so-called global governance and polite 
codependence.
  Yet, when I look at the state of the world and all of its competing 
philosophies, I am very grateful for our bold commitment to self-
defense. That is why I come to the floor today--to express my thoughts 
on our National Defense Authorization Act and to say a thank-you to 
Chairman Inhofe for his leadership in pushing the Senate Armed Services 
Committee to present ideas, to bring forward amendments, and to work 
through this process together. I am looking forward to the couple of 
days in front of us in this Chamber with Members from both sides of the 
aisle.
  It cannot be understated that the importance of maintaining a regular 
budget for our military cannot be diminished. The failure to do so will 
put our troops at a disadvantage. Look no further than the ongoing 
tension right now between the United States and Iran and how this has 
magnified the part that deterrence plays--the importance of 
deterrence--in our defending our security without our resorting to the 
use of military force.
  Last week, I spoke at length about two emerging warfighting domains 
that challenge the way we think about modern defense. These are cyber 
and space. That is why this year's NDAA expands beyond legacy programs 
to include the recognition of emerging threats and our responses to 
those.
  The next great threat to our sovereignty may be more subtle than a 
bomb's being dropped on American soil. It could undermine our cyber 
security or slowly compromise the supply chain that provides us with 
needed microelectronics. It might cause us to question our position in 
the world or to rethink our influence in the international community. 
It is important to understand that these attacks aren't only meant to 
undermine our relationships and our infrastructure; they are 
coordinated and intentional attacks on the foundations that de 
Tocqueville recognized as being powerful, unique, and underpinning what 
we have in the United States.

  The implications are clear: Everything we do in this Chamber must be 
understood in the context of defending America's sovereignty. It means 
believing in the supremacy of the Constitution and giving the defense 
community the means to protect us in order to fulfill that first 
responsibility of providing for the common defense. It means 
recognizing that freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and free 
assembly are just as precious as any physical thing we can put under 
lock and key.
  Those who would threaten our freedom and safety do not look to 
America and see our formidable military as the single greatest threat 
to their destructive agendas. They are most frightened by our 
unwavering and ardent commitment to freedom. Our enemies are frightened 
of the young men and

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women who willingly join the military. They volunteer for service.
  They are frightened by the strength of conviction that leads men and 
women on our streets to protect protests even though they would never 
join those protests--not in a million years. They do this because they 
recognize that defending someone's right to speak is just as important 
as speaking oneself.
  Our enemies are frightened by the confidence with which we defend the 
Constitution when well-meaning actors ask if we could set the First 
Amendment aside to better protect impressionable minds from dangerous 
ideas.
  Ours is the kind of freedom that is always in danger of extinction, 
just as the late President Reagan repeatedly reminded us, but it is 
also worth protecting.
  This week, I implore my friends on both sides of the aisle to do all 
they can to ensure that our best, first line of defense has the ability 
to protect and defend freedom and freedom's cause.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, we have been discussing this, and I 
think it is not just redundant but it is important to reemphasize that 
this is the most significant vote of the year. This is a $750 billion 
bill. This is the one that our entire military is depending on having 
pass. It will pass. It has passed every year for 59 years, and it is 
going to pass this year. I am concerned, however, that there is an 
effort to try to delay it for a week or two, which is something that 
will not work, which I will explain in a minute.
  It just occurred to me that there is so much stuff in this bill. We 
talk about all of the equipment. We talk about the change. We talk 
about trying to make up and trying to catch up with Russia and with 
China and our adversaries, who are actually ahead of us in many areas. 
That is all significant, but there is one issue that not many people 
are aware of that I think is really significant and is addressed. It 
kind of lets you know how far this bill goes.
  There is a problem that exists with the spouses of the military. 
Right now, under the Trump administration, we are seeing the best 
economy we have had, arguably, in my lifetime. We are clearly seeing 
success in tax relief, a reduction in taxes, because of this. Then, of 
course, there is the deregulatory effort by this administration.
  Right now, we have the lowest national unemployment rate we have had 
in a long period of time--3.6 percent. Full employment is supposed to 
be 4 percent. In my State of Oklahoma, we are even doing better than 
that; we have 3.2 percent.
  Anyway, families across the country are feeling the benefit of 
getting the economic engine moving again, and that is good, but there 
is one group that still faces extreme unemployment, that being the 
military spouses.
  People don't think about this, but in almost every case of the 
members of the military's husbands or wives, whoever the spouse happens 
to be, they want part-time employment. Of course, many of them are 
skilled and have prepared for careers, but they are not able to get 
careers or to get employment because of the spouses' moving sometimes 
every 2 years or every 3 years so that they have to go into whole new 
environments. There are some State laws that preclude spouses from 
getting employment without their complying with certifications from the 
different States.
  In 2018, there was a RAND study that found that frequent military 
moves result in spousal unemployment or underemployment and delays in 
employment among spouses who need to obtain credentials at new duty 
locations. We need to facilitate easier paths to both licensure and 
employment for military spouses.
  Now, we make a correction in this policy that--as President Trump 
signed an Executive order last year--would work to improve employment 
opportunities for military spouses. Well, he did that with an Executive 
order, and we have gone a little further with this bill.
  We have been successful in getting these results, and they are clear. 
Military spouses' unemployment dropped from nearly 25 percent in 2017 
to 13 percent in 2019, but it is still a significant thing. It is still 
a form of discrimination by people because they are the spouse of a 
servicemember.
  That is significant progress, but it also doesn't address the more 
than one-third of military spouses who are underemployed, working part 
time or outside their education or technical field.
  One area where we can make an immediate impact is for approximately 
35 percent of the military spouses in careers that require occupational 
licenses that are administered by the States. They may be different 
from State to State, and these individuals are not in a position to 
satisfy one State and then go to another State. Most of those spouses 
are licensed in healthcare and education, but others include attorneys 
and real estate agents.
  For the military family moving an average of every 2 years, 
relicensing and transferring the license each time becomes very costly. 
So the solution is simple. We just have to go after more of the redtape 
that makes it hard for our military spouses to move their professional 
license, move their career. This is something we have addressed in this 
bill. People don't think about this, but we have done it, and so this 
is going to give a lot of relief to these people.
  It kind of reminds me, when you look at the overwhelming issues we 
have dealt with in this bill, it is something that is very significant, 
and it is something that is, by far, the most important thing we will 
be doing all year.
  There is a report from the National Defense Strategy Commission. The 
Commission has Democrats and Republicans. A year ago, this group got 
together, and they are the very foremost authorities in the country on 
military. They decided what it is we need to do.
  We went through 8 years of the Obama administration, and I have to 
admit that he was very honest about it. He never had defending America 
as a top priority, and so we find ourselves in the situation where we 
have countries like China and like Russia who are actually ahead of us 
in areas like hypersonics.
  Hypersonics is the most state-of-the-art thing we are doing in both 
defense and offense. It is a system that moves at five times the speed 
of sound, and we were leading all of the rest of the world in this 
effort until that administration, and that put us behind so that both 
China and Russia are ahead of us in that area.
  This is something that really disappoints a lot of American people 
when they find out.
  I go out and give talks around the country, and when I tell them that 
there are countries that have better equipment than we do, better 
artillery than we do, they are surprised to find that out. Clearly, 
China and Russia are doing that.
  Now, a lot of times people would say: Well, wait a minute. How could 
they be ahead of us when we are spending so much more money than they 
are on our defense? The reason for that is very simple. It is something 
people don't think about, and that is the single largest expense item 
is the cost of people. Of course, in China and Russia they just tell 
them what to do. They don't have to have good living conditions for 
their troops.
  Consequently, they are actually doing better than we are doing in 
many areas. This is more than just our conventional capabilities.
  The NDAA--National Defense Authorization Act--fully funds our nuclear 
modernization. It looks out for our troops, giving them the largest pay 
raise in over a decade. We make needed reforms to our privatized 
military housing.
  We thought things were going pretty well. A number of years ago, we 
decided to privatize our military housing. I was here at that time, and 
I thought it was a good idea. No one was opposed to it, and we did it.
  The problem is the contractors who came in and won these contracts to 
take care of military housing worked fine for the first 2 or 3 years, 
then they got a little bit greedy, and time went by, and all of a 
sudden it all exploded last February when several people got together 
from military housing and talked about the deplorable conditions that 
we wouldn't expect anyone to live under.
  Subsequently, we had a series of hearings in the committee I chair. 
The first one was a hearing on the victims, the individuals who are 
living in those

[[Page S4495]]

housing conditions. They told the stories about all the problems with 
the housing situation.
  The next thing we had was a hearing on the contractors. These are the 
guys who came along and bid so they would be able to do it. They 
admitted in the public hearing that was true and that they had not been 
doing the job they needed to do.

  That is something in this bill that we have taken care of. We now 
have a system set up that has pretty much resolved that problem.
  So we have a lot of capabilities that are in this bill. It makes it 
easier and more affordable for spouses to transfer their occupational 
licenses. That is what I was just talking about.
  I said before that this bill is going to pass, and it will, but what 
would keep it from passing is if the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, is 
successful in insisting on delaying consideration until July.
  This has to be done by the end of this fiscal year, and that is 
creeping up on us. In the event that we don't get it done this week, as 
we had planned to do, then very likely it is not going to be done next 
week or the week after that because the longer it takes something like 
this to do, we know the political reality of how that works.
  We have to get this thing done, we have to get it passed by Thursday, 
and I think we will. This bill has the stuff in it that we really need. 
It is the most significant bill we have.
  So we want to avoid any delays in the calendar. It would likely mean 
that we would not be able to enact the NDAA before October 1 and the 
start of the fiscal year. That has real impact. That would delay the 
fixes we are talking about in privatization of housing. The delays in 
MILCON money. MILCON, that is military construction. We have a lot of 
military construction that is proposed right now. If you put it off a 
week, we don't know what will happen to that military construction. 
There are delays in disaster recovery. We have right now--and you have 
heard on the floor today the problems that exist in various States: 
Florida, North Carolina, and some places out in the Nebraska area and 
around there. We have disaster recovery programs that we can't do if we 
delay this thing for another couple weeks. These people are going to 
have to be living in those conditions for that period of time. The 
authority for Afghanistan National Security Forces and Iraq security 
cooperation will expire by that time.
  So there is every reason in the world that we should go ahead. I 
think it is pretty bad when a political decision is made to delay the 
consideration of this bill for another week or 2 weeks--all done for 
purely political reasons because the Democrats are having their big 
show on TV tomorrow night and the next night, and they want us to sit 
and watch that as opposed to finishing this bill.
  It is our intention to go ahead, finish the bill, get it done, and 
that is what we are going to do. We are anxious to do it.
  I am very proud of the committee I chair. The Senate Armed Services 
Committee met for a period of several months and talked about all the 
possible amendments that could be considered, and there is a lot of 
talk right now about the fact that we are not doing amendments on the 
floor.
  Well, we wanted to do amendments on the floor. Jack Reed, the 
Democrat who is my counterpart here, he and I have been talking about 
doing floor amendments for a long period of time, but under the rules 
of the Senate, if one person objects to bringing an amendment up, then 
no amendments can come up.
  For that reason, we took the initiative just yesterday and passed the 
supplemental bill that has 93 amendments. So all of those amendments 
came through this process of people talking about their amendments, 
they just can't do it on the floor. That is what is happening right 
now. We have the best of intentions to continue doing that until we get 
the bill.
  So let me just reinvite the Members down. We have, right now, a long 
list of the 93 amendments and the sponsors of those amendments, and we 
are encouraging each Member to bring his amendment down to the floor. 
Even though it may not be considered individually, it already passed 
yesterday, and people need to know what is in this bill.
  So I am going to encourage our Members, invite them to come down 
right now and to get involved and explain to not just this U.S. Senate 
but to everyone else what all is in this bill.
  People have a right to have pride in their own amendments, and so we 
are encouraging them to come down at this time and present their 
amendments.
  With that, I will invite them down.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, while we are waiting for other Senators, 
let me once again encourage Members of the Senate to come down and talk 
about their amendments.
  It is kind of an awkward situation that we have here, and we are all 
aware of this, but the Senate rules say that amendments can't come to 
the floor except by unanimous consent. That means that if there is one 
person who objects to having an amendment come up and be considered, 
then all that person has to do is object.
  Frankly, that happened last year. We had a couple Members who were 
holding out for a nongermane amendment they wanted to consider, and 
they stated they would hold up all the other amendments. That happened, 
and it looks like it is happening again this year, but we are prepared 
this year because, anticipating that would be the case, yesterday we 
passed the 93 amendments with the bill--that we went to as the 
underlying bill. We now have 93 amendments in addition to the 
amendments we already had. We are probably now in excess of 200 
amendments that we have had on this bill since its inception. Most of 
these amendments are bipartisan. In fact, the 93 amendments we adopted 
yesterday were amendments we had considered in the committee I chair, 
the Senate Armed Services Committee. Of those amendments, 44 were 
Democrats', 44 were Republicans', and the rest were bipartisan.
  So this is not really that partisan of a bill.
  Anyway, this includes an amendment by my colleagues, Senator Graham 
and Senator Heinrich, in support of plutonium pit production, which is 
key to maintaining our nuclear stockpile.
  A lot of people are not aware of the problems we have with plutonium 
pit production. Consequently, we have to be competitive in this area. 
We have not had a nuclear modernization program in quite a long period 
of time. Nuclear modernization has gotten a lot of attention this year.
  Traditionally, we have seen bipartisan support for these programs, 
and there is a good reason for that. Our nuclear force is critical to 
our deterrence posture and, in turn, the overall security of the Nation 
and really the world. This is our top priority--defending America.
  Stop and think about it. The threat that is out there today--I often 
say I look wistfully back at the days of the Cold War when there were 
two superpowers. We knew what they had, they knew what we had, and 
mutual destruction really meant something at that time. It doesn't mean 
anything anymore. There are people who are run by deranged leaders in 
countries, and these people have the power to knock out an American 
city. That is the kind of threat we are faced with today, and that is 
why nuclear deterrence is so significant. It is such a significant part 
of this bill. Our nuclear force is critical for our deterrence posture 
and, in turn, the overall security of the Nation.
  Anyway, we can't pretend that just because we take a step back, 
countries like Russia and China will do the same. And we did. For a 
period of time, in the last administration, we did step back in our 
efforts, and a lot of those efforts were in nuclear modernization. 
Consequently, while we were ahead in this area--ahead of China and 
Russia--they caught up and actually passed us.
  Right now, they have hypersonics, as an example. Hypersonics is kind 
of the state-of-the-art in warfare. It is something that travels five 
times the speed of sound. It is something we were ahead of prior to the 
last administration, and we fell behind because while

[[Page S4496]]

we were not doing anything, China and Russia were doing things. We 
tried this before during the Obama administration; it just didn't work.
  We know Russia and China are modernizing their nuclear forces at an 
alarming speed while we have been neglecting ours. And North Korea and 
Iran continue to pursue nuclear programs, furthering their goals of 
creating instability and gaining influence in their regions, and we are 
at a disadvantage. It poses a formidable threat to America and our 
allies.
  If we don't provide robust support of our nuclear programs now, do it 
now, we will be in danger of falling behind. The National Defense 
Strategy acknowledged this reality. That is the thing I talked about a 
few minutes ago, that we have the National Defense Strategy as a 
blueprint for what we have been doing in our defense authorization 
committee, and we have been adhering to that. The NDAA takes this into 
account and supports all of the aspects of the triad.
  The triad--recently, people have said: Well, we don't need to spend 
an amount of money on a triad system. ``Triad'' obviously means three 
approaches to our nuclear defense. When you stop and think about the 
three different ways a weapon can come into the United States, it can 
come in on an ICBM, it can come in on a submarine, or it can come in on 
a bomber. So that is what they mean by ``triad.'' For somebody to say 
``Well, we don't need the three approaches; we need only one,'' well, 
if we knew in advance what that weapon was coming in on, what was going 
to be used for its delivery, then I would agree with that. But that 
can't happen, so we can't block off a leg or two of the triad or the 
whole thing will collapse. Each component provides a different type of 
protection and, combined, makes it far more challenging for adversaries 
to find opportunities to strike, and there are adversaries out there 
who want to do that.
  Make no mistake--our adversaries are paying attention to their 
capabilities and to our capabilities. We need a strong, resilient, 
responsive nuclear enterprise to deter threats.
  Nuclear weapons aren't just a relic of the Cold War, but currently we 
are treating them that way. Half of our DOE nuclear facilities are more 
than 40 years old, and a quarter date back to World War II. After years 
of neglect, the ceilings are literally falling down around the workers 
in nuclear complexes across the country. Fortunately, in fact, we have 
several people coming down here and talking about that threat because 
in some States, their Senators want to be sure they are doing a good 
job in maintaining our nuclear capability. So we need to modernize and 
revitalize this infrastructure if we want to maintain pace with China 
and Russia and if we want to preserve a credible nuclear deterrent.
  I think it is important to note that the cost of modernization is not 
excessive. It averages about 5 percent of the DOD budget. That seems 
like a small price to pay to prevent a nuclear war.

  The NDAA--that is what we are considering now--the National Defense 
Authorization Act fully funds the nuclear modernization program at or 
above the request, including additional funding for Columbia-class 
submarines and low-yield ballistic missile warheads.
  The NDAA also pushes the National Nuclear Security Administration 
toward its goal of plutonium pit production--a requirement to meet the 
needs of our nuclear strategy.
  These investments will increase our capabilities and bring us into 
the 21st century. This is what we need to be doing to implement the 
National Defense Strategy and assess the full range of threats our 
Nation faces. You know, it is a dangerous world out there, and we have 
a lot of people out there who don't like America--let's face it.
  I was disappointed in the last administration, talking about the 
Obama administration. It was the first time in my memory--certainly 
since World War II--that we had either a Democratic or Republican 
administration that used something other than defending America as a 
primary goal of our country. Instead, that has dropped back, and we 
suffer the consequences. So we are in the process right now of 
rebuilding our military. We did it in 2018. That was the first year of 
the Trump administration. He increased the military spending back to 
where it had been before--up to $700 billion and then $716 billion the 
next year and then $750 billion in the bill we are considering at this 
very moment. So we are going to end up with a stronger America. I think 
that by the end of this year, if everything we are doing with this bill 
is fully implemented and behind us, we are going to be in good shape to 
do the job we are supposed to be doing in defending America.
  In the meantime, we have this bill. Again, I will quit talking and 
encourage our Members to come down and talk about their amendments. One 
who is going to be coming down in just a few minutes--in fact, is due 
down any minute now--is Senator Richard Burr. He is in charge of 
intelligence. He chairs the Intelligence Committee, and that is a part 
of this bill.
  It is important that people understand how far-reaching this is. This 
is the most significant thing we are doing, and that is probably the 
real reason we don't want to give in to the minority leader of the 
Senate, who is trying to get us to delay this for another week or 
longer because of the big show people are going to see on TV tomorrow 
and the next day of all the Democrats who are going to run for 
President. If I remember, the last time, we had 17 Republicans running. 
This time, we have 20 Democrats running. Anyway, that might be a great 
show, but it is not as important as the work we are doing here. And we 
absolutely have to get this done this week in order to fulfill the 
obligation we have to the American people.
  Let me again encourage our Members to come down and discuss their 
amendments because we are going to be coming to a vote this week on all 
of those, and we have to make sure we have a full house of Senators who 
know everything that is in this bill.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BURR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BURR. Mr. President, I want to thank Chairman Inhofe and Ranking 
Member Reed for accommodating the Intelligence Committee's intelligence 
authorization bill for 2020 to be included in the NDAA. I want to thank 
Leader McConnell and Senator Schumer for their understanding of why 
this is important to do.
  The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is a unique committee. We 
uphold the secrecy and the confidentiality of intelligence programs 
that keep our Nation safe every day. We ensure our intelligence 
community has the tools and resources to protect America at home and 
abroad.
  So I am pleased that the Senate is considering our intelligence 
authorization bill as part of the NDAA. Our bill is 3 fiscal years in 
the making. In May, the Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously 
passed the bill with a vote of 15 to 0. Let me say that one more time. 
We unanimously passed the intelligence authorization bill 15 to 0.
  I appreciate Vice Chairman Warner's work and his collaboration to 
achieve that unanimous support of all 15 Members of the Intelligence 
Committee. The bill is a genuinely bipartisan product that protects the 
United States, strengthens our national security, and supports the 
activities of the men and women who are serving in uniform around the 
clock and around the globe. I would remind the Presiding Officer and 
the Members that it is the 15 Members of the Select Committee on 
Intelligence who give the other 85 Members of the Senate and the 
American people the assurance that our intelligence activities operate 
within the Constitution and/or the Executive orders of the President.
  The last intelligence authorization bill for fiscal year 2017 was 
enacted May 5, 2017. We have gone too long without critical resources 
and authorities that our intelligence agencies need to do their work 
and to keep our country safe from ever-expanding national security 
threats. Not only does our bill fund the U.S. intelligence activities 
across 17 agencies, but it enables congressional oversight of the 
intelligence community's classified activities. The

[[Page S4497]]

bill ensures financial accountability for the programs we authorize and 
supports development of future capabilities to stay a step ahead of our 
adversaries. We do not have time to waste as the threats increase in 
scope and scale.
  All of this bipartisan oversight and accountability can exist only 
when we have a current, enacted intelligence authorization bill. Our 
intelligence agencies need the authorization, the direction, and the 
guidance from Congress to protect and defend America, its allies, and 
its partners. The agencies need these authorizations to collect, 
analyze, and utilize intelligence and to recruit and retain the 
personnel they need. Equally important, our authorization bill ensures 
that those activities abide by our Constitution and privacy laws.
  I would like to mention some specifics in the bill. First, it deters 
Russian and other foreign influence in our U.S. elections. It 
facilitates information sharing between Federal, State, and local 
election officials. These activities are essential to protecting the 
foundation of our democracy, our U.S. elections.
  Next, the bill increases oversight of Russian activities by requiring 
notifications of Russian Federation personnel travel in the United 
States, countering Russian propaganda activities within the United 
States, and by requiring threat assessments on Russian financial 
activities.
  In addition, the bill improves our security clearance processes by 
requiring the intelligence community to take steps to reduce backlogs, 
improving clearance information sharing and oversight and holding the 
executive branch responsible for modernizing clearance policies.
  The bill protects the intelligence community's supply chain from 
foreign counterintelligence threats from countries such as Russia and 
China.
  Importantly, the bill increases benefits for intelligence community 
personnel by enhancing pay scales for certain cyber security positions 
and increasing paid parental leave.
  Finally, it establishes increased accountability for our most 
sensitive programs.
  The Senate Intelligence Committee has acted carefully and 
comprehensively to oversee our intelligence community and its 
resources. But the current gap in authorities is unacceptable and, 
frankly, dangerous. Our enemies and adversaries do not take 2 years 
off. Congress cannot afford to let our intelligence authorization bills 
lapse any longer.
  I will end where I started. Without the collaboration and cooperation 
of the chairman and the ranking member and the entire SAS Committee, we 
wouldn't have this opportunity, but they recognize as well as we do 
that the security of America comes first. Any delay in authorizing the 
intelligence community bill or passing the NDAA is not what America 
expects us to do. They expect us to pass an authorization bill rapidly 
and with as much predictability as possible for the men and women in 
uniform and those who serve in the shadows of our intelligence 
community. An authorization bill that is done quickly and clearly makes 
their lives and futures more predictable. America's safety is too 
important for us to delay any longer authorizations for the military or 
for the intelligence community.
  I once again thank the chairman for his accommodations in this bill. 
I urge my colleagues in this body to pass this authorization bill as 
quickly as we possibly can and send a signal to the men and women who 
serve this country and defend this country that Congress is on their 
side and not in opposition to them.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am pleased and honored to be on the 
floor with my colleague, the Senator from the great State of Rhode 
Island. We share a border, and we share many common views, one of them 
being a commitment to our environment. Senator Whitehouse has been a 
historic champion of action against environmental degradation, as well 
as climate change--global warming--which brings us to the floor today.
  We are here to call attention and call for action in connection with 
the effects of climate change on the waters off our State and the east 
coast of our Nation.
  There is a palpable, historic consequence to the warming of those 
waters, among others, to drive fish populations northward in search of 
cooler waters. The Northeast has already experienced some of the 
highest levels of ocean warming and sea level rise in the United 
States. They are only projected to exacerbate and exceed the present 
levels.
  There are storms our States--Rhode Island and Connecticut, and others 
up and down the East Coast and all around the country--have 
experienced. Those new superstorms are becoming the new normal in our 
Nation, the most recent being the unprecedented hurricane and then 
Superstorm Sandy.
  Connecticut and Rhode Island are poised to lose land to sea level 
rise. Scientists predict an almost 2-foot increase in the level of Long 
Island Sound by 2050. My colleague Senator Whitehouse has been here 
more times than I can count--I think more than 200 times--to call our 
attention to the effects and the causes of this historic and 
catastrophic trend of climate change in our Nation and on our planet.
  What brings us here today is the very discrete and disastrous 
consequence of those waters warming and changing fish populations that 
are available to a group of our citizens and residents who have been an 
economic mainstay and backbone for our States. They are the fishermen 
who carry on a great profession and way of life, despite an outdated 
and Byzantine quota system that has failed to adapt to those movements 
of fish stock, like black sea bass, summer flounder, and scup from 
their waters northward and then new fish populations from the Mid-
Atlantic States to our waters.
  These fish quotas fail to take account of changing fish populations. 
The fish are smart biologically. They know when the waters are warming. 
They seek cooler waters further north, but the quotas fail to keep 
track. So the fish that are caught by our fishermen are not the same 
kinds as they caught before, and they are not the same kinds that are 
contemplated by the present quotas. They are catching fish they are 
required to throw back even after they are dead. So this quota system 
is failing at every level. It is failing environmentally if the goal is 
to enhance and save fish populations; it is failing economically 
because it is driving these fishermen out of their way of life; and it 
is failing in public policy by failing to provide a rational and 
informed way to set those quotas.
  There is a solution because this whole system is governed by the 
Magnuson-Stevens Act, which, by the way, is under the Commerce, 
Science, and Transportation Committee, where I sit. There have been 
proposals to reform and change it. The current Byzantine system of 
quota setting is really a relic of a long-gone era, and it should be 
reformed. Right now, immediately, the Secretary of Commerce can 
intervene. The statute says the law governing the management of 
fisheries requires that the Department of Commerce must ensure fishery 
management plans adhere to several national standards, including the 
use of the ``best scientific information available to decide catch 
limits.'' It also says that any management plan ``shall not 
discriminate'' between residents of different States and must allow 
quotas that are ``fair and equitable.'' This system is failing those 
standards.
  I agree with fishermen of Connecticut and, I believe, of Rhode Island 
who are saying this current system is nonsensical. It is outdated. It 
is irrational, and it is worthless. It fails to give them fairness and 
justice. It is time for action.
  The Commerce Department should use its power--extraordinary as it 
is--to impose emergency regulations and create a more equitable system.
  As Bobby Guzzo, a fisherman from Stonington told Greenwire recently:

       Things have changed--the fish have moved north, but the 
     quotas have not changed to

[[Page S4498]]

     keep up with it. The science has to be better. They've got to 
     get more of a handle on it.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Greenwire article be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                             [June 4, 2019]

        As Fish Move North, `Things are Getting Weird Out There'

                          (By Rob Hotakainen)

       Stonington, Conn.--Here in one of New England's oldest 
     fishing communities, there's a longing for the old days, long 
     before climate change and the federal government's quota 
     system got so complicated.
       Convinced that Congress and NOAA will never allow them 
     larger quotas, many fishermen want to take their grievances 
     straight to the White House, hoping the commander in chief 
     will intervene and allow them to catch more fish.
       At his fish wholesaling business, Mike Gambardella reached 
     for his iPhone to find one of his prized photographs: a 
     picture showing him wearing a white T-shirt bearing the 
     message, ``President Trump: Make Commercial Fishing Great 
     Again!''
       Bobby Guzzo, Gambardella's friend, who's been fishing here 
     for more than 50 years, has the same sign on a bumper sticker 
     plastered on the back window of his pickup.
       ``It used to be you'd go catch fish, come in and sell 
     them,'' Guzzo said. But now the system is needlessly 
     complicated, he said, with too much bookwork and a quota 
     system that's hard to decipher, adding, ``Now you've got to 
     be a lawyer.''
       ``If you get ahold of the president, tell him to come see 
     us,'' Gambardella tells a visitor.
       With a lack of fish, Gambardella said, it's gotten to the 
     point where it's even difficult to get trucks to come through 
     Stonington any more. He tells the story of a friend in the 
     business who killed himself.
       ``We don't have enough fish--and it's not a Connecticut 
     thing; it's all of us,'' Gambardella said. ``And little by 
     little, we're all going out of business. The Lord gave us 
     that ocean, and he put fish in that ocean for us to eat. And 
     now we can't even get the fish.''
       The struggling commercial fishermen in Stonington, a small 
     town that was first settled in 1649, are doing all they can 
     to get Trump's attention.
       When the president showed up in nearby New London, Conn., 
     to address the Coast Guard Academy class two years ago, they 
     got as close as they could, parking a boat that bore a simple 
     sign: ``Please help us.''
       Gambardella even left his cellphone number on the Twitter 
     paqe of Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling 
     executive who until recently served as the head of the Small 
     Business Administration.
       ``We've been trying to get to the president,'' Gambardella 
     said. ``We like his style. . . . He sat down with the coal 
     miners. He sat down with the farmers. It's time to sit down 
     with the fishermen.''
       Without intervention, the fishermen only see their plight 
     worsening as climate change forces more fish to move to 
     cooler waters and regulators scramble to adjust quotas.
       ``Things have changed--the fish have moved north, but the 
     quotas have not changed to keep up with it,'' Guzzo said. 
     ``The science has to be better. They've got to get more of a 
     handle on it.''
       That's easier said than done, under a byzantine regulatory 
     system that's often slow to adapt. It has also forced 
     fishermen to learn the new language of Washington, D.C., 
     navigating a world of catch shares and stock assessments, of 
     fish mortality rates and maximum sustainable yields.
       While they're upset with the quota system, many fishenmen 
     and politicians are also angry that fishermen must throw away 
     the ``bycatch,'' the fish they bring in by accident but are 
     not licensed to catch.
       Gambardella said he's particularly eager to tell the 
     president that Americans are eating too much ``chemical 
     shit,'' consuming imported seafood while millions of pounds 
     of healthy wild seafood gets discarded every year.
       ``He's going to be shocked to know that we import over 90% 
     of our seafood, and we have fish in our backyard here that 
     we're throwing overboard,'' Gambardella said. ``I don't 
     understand--we're throwing good wild seafood overboard that 
     we could sell or have the kids eat healthy food. It's sad, 
     really, really sad. . . . The whole thing is so screwed up.''
       Lawmakers from coastal states have long argued the case on 
     Capitol Hill, with no luck in winning any changes.
       At a hearing last fall, Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal 
     (D) said ``there is something profoundly unfair and 
     intolerable'' with a management system that forces fishermen 
     to discard so much seafood while many people across the world 
     go hungry.
       ``They are compelled to throw back perfectly good fish that 
     they catch as a result of quotas that are based on totally 
     obsolete, out-of-touch limits,'' he said. ``And meanwhile, 
     fishermen from Southern states come into their waters and 
     catch their fish,'' he said of fishermen in more northern 
     points.
       In a speech on the Senate floor last year, Sen. Sheldon 
     Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said fishenmen in his state are now 
     routinely sharing anecdotes of catching increasing numbers of 
     tropical fish early in the summer season.
       ``As fishermen in Rhode Island have told me, `Things are 
     getting weird out there,' '' Whitehouse said. ``As new fish 
     move in and traditional fish move out, fishermen are left 
     with more questions than answers.''
       In Washington, members of Congress are trying to figure out 
     how to best respond.
       ``Climate change is throwing some real curveballs at 
     fisheries management,'' said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), 
     chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on 
     Water, Oceans and Wildlife, adding that he intended to 
     schedule ``some roundtables with folks who are living through 
     this.''
       The issue is sure to come up when Congress examines the 
     Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the 
     nation's premier fisheries law, first passed in 1976. The law 
     created eight regional fishery management councils to develop 
     fishery management plans, working with NOAA on ``a 
     transparent and robust process of science, management, 
     innovation and collaboration with the fishing industry.''
       But there's disagreement over who's best equipped to change 
     the rules: regional boards, which are dominated by state 
     interests, or Congress, which has its own share of political 
     pressures.
       ``You need some strong federal guidance,'' said Dave Monti, 
     a charter boat captain and fishing guide who operates in 
     Wickford Harbor in North Kingstown, R.I., and the vice 
     president of the Rhode Island Saltwater Anglers Association.
       ``Local needs circumvent the needs of the people of the 
     United States of America. I'm a firm believer that those fish 
     in the water don't belong to me and they don't belong to 
     Rhode Island. Someone living in Minnesota or Kentucky owns 
     these fish as much as anyone else does.''
       Chris Batsavage, who represents North Carolina on the 
     Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Mid-
     Atlantic Fishery Management Council, said regional boards 
     have struggled to find the right allocations for years. But 
     he said they're capable of doing the job.
       ``It's still a work in progress--no one has found a silver-
     bullet solution,'' Batsavage said. ``But I think we're going 
     to get to go where we need to go. Allocations are always one 
     of the most contentious things a management agency has to 
     deal with.''
       Huffman said regional councils remain ``part of the 
     critical framework'' and that he's not interested in taking 
     their power away. He said Congress' role will be to set the 
     policy and leave implementation to regional fisheries 
     officials.
       ``I don't want to undermine the councils,'' Huffman said. 
     ``And what I don't want to do is a whole bunch of 
     micromanaging.''
       But while many fishermen and politicians complain about 
     U.S. fishing rules, NOAA boasts that the nation has become an 
     international leader in fisheries management.
       In 2017, Chris Oliver, who heads NOAA Fisheries, told a 
     congressional panel that the law clearly had worked and that 
     the United States had ``effectively ended overfishing.''
       NOAA Fisheries tracks 474 stocks or stock complexes in 46 
     fishery management plans. Of those, 91% had not exceeded 
     their annual catch limits, known as ACLs, according to a 
     report NOAA sent to Congress in 2017.
       Under federal law, fisheries managers must specify their 
     goals and use ``measurable criteria,'' also known as 
     reference points, to get there. That requires a stock 
     assessment, which is a scientific analysis of the abundance 
     of fish stock and a measure of ``the degree of fishing 
     intensity.''
       Once an assessment is done, fisheries managers must 
     determine if a stock is overfished, measuring the ``maximum 
     sustainable yield.'' That's the largest long-term average 
     catch that can be taken from a stock.
       Fisheries managers then have different ways to reduce 
     fishing, including the use of ``catch limits'' or ``catch 
     shares.'' Catch limits measure the amount of fish that can be 
     caught, while catch shares are an optional tool used to 
     allocate shares to individual fishermen or groups.


                  keeping `an eye on the big picture'

       As they adjust quotas, NOAA officials walk a fine line in 
     making sure fishermen follow the law while cooperating with 
     regional officials to make any changes.
       The Trump administration has already shown deference for 
     listening to local fishermen, overriding regional decisions 
     to shorten the season for the red snapper in Gulf Coast 
     states and to limit catches of summer flounder for New Jersey 
     fishermen.
       ``It's our job in that setting to also keep an eye on the 
     big picture, and not just all of the regional and small-scale 
     interests,'' said Mike Fogarty, senior scientist at NOAA's 
     Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Massachusetts.
       Fogarty, who has studied climate issues since the early 
     1990s, said one idea under consideration is to no longer set 
     regulations for individual fish species but to instead focus 
     on their role in an ecosystem, such as whether they're part 
     of a prey or a predator group.
       ``You could set quotas for the predator groups, prey groups 
     and bottom-feeder groups,'' he said. ``Individual species 
     could change over time, but their roles would remain intact. 
     That could reduce tension between states.''
       While many fishermen want NOAA to be more flexible, 
     environmental groups want regulators to adhere to the federal 
     law and to adjust fishing quotas as soon as populations 
     change. A study published in the ICES Journal of Marine 
     Science in April

[[Page S4499]]

     showed that adapting fishing intensity to the health of fish 
     populations would make fisheries more climate-resilient. The 
     study suggested automatically reducing the catch percentage 
     when managers detect decreases in biomass, allowing more 
     immediate responses to changing conditions.
       ``If a catch limit is too high and too many fish are taken 
     out of the ocean, the ecosystem suffers,'' said Jake Kritzer, 
     senior director with the Environmental Defense Fund's oceans 
     program and lead author of the study. ``If a limit is too 
     low, with more fish than can be caught sustainably left in 
     the water, fishermen suffer.''
  So it is past time for an update for a system that takes advantage of 
science and research. We owe it to our fishing industry, but we owe it 
to ourselves as members of this ecosystem, as policy centers, and as 
legislators to keep faith with the fishermen of Rhode Island and 
Connecticut. Really, it is with the fishermen of America. As fish 
stocks shift north, fishermen from other States are going to encounter 
the same challenges. They will be sailing north to seek fish stocks off 
Connecticut's coast. Their quotas around their States are as outmoded 
and outdated as ours. The longer trips they will undertake will mean 
more carbon pollution, which will lead to more atmospheric carbon 
dioxide, climate shifts, and acidification of the ocean.
  There is some good news amidst all of this gloom and doom in that we 
are already mustering the awareness and the resolve to take action. 
That is why we are here today. It is not only to wake up but to keep up 
this kind of fight.
  I thank my colleague, the Senator from Rhode Island, for leading this 
great effort.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it is a great honor and pleasure to 
join the senior Senator from Connecticut on the floor today. We were 
both U.S. attorneys. We were attorneys general together. We now serve 
in the Senate together, and I consider him a friend outside of my day 
job as well. It is terrific to be here with him. It is also a happy 
coincidence that a Senator from another great fishing State, Louisiana, 
should be presiding while we speak about our fisheries. This is my 
247th of these speeches.
  Rhode Island, of course, shares a border with Connecticut, as well as 
a proud fishing heritage and connection to the sea. Whether you are 
walking the docks of Stonington and New London or of Newport and Point 
Judith, the story from our fishermen is the same--that these are not 
the waters that our grandparents, parents, and great-grandparents 
fished. One fishermen told me: ``Sheldon, it's getting weird out there, 
and it's a big economic deal that it's getting weird out there.''
  In 2017, commercial fishery landings from Connecticut and Rhode 
Island totaled over $114 million, and that was just the landings. That 
was not the ancillary fishing economy around it. Carbon pollution and 
warming, acidifying oceans put that whole economy at risk.
  Earlier this month, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that 
by 2100, around 17 percent of all ocean life, by biomass, will 
disappear. In February, the journal Science found that since 1930, we 
have already lost around 4 percent of our harvestable seafood due to 
ocean warming, and the fish that we are still able to harvest are 
getting smaller due to warming temperatures and depleted oxygen levels. 
A 2017 study warned ``the body size of fish decreases 20 to 30 percent 
for every 1-degree Celsius increase in water temperature,'' and the 
water is warming.
  Oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat that has 
been trapped by our greenhouse gas emissions. Of all of the excess heat 
that has been trapped by greenhouse gas emissions since we began the 
Industrial Revolution and started burning all of these fossil fuels, 90 
percent of it has gone into the oceans.
  How much is that?
  The Federal Government's 2017 Climate Science Special Report from 
NOAA, NASA, the Department of Energy, and others found that the oceans 
had absorbed more than 9 zettajoules of heat energy per year.
  What is a zettajoule?
  A zettajoule is 9 billion trillion joules. They are not jewels like 
your grandmother's earrings. They are joules as a measure of energy.
  From 1998 to 2015, the oceans had absorbed more than 9 billion 
trillion joules. That is a rate of more than 12 times the total energy 
use of humans on the planet. If you want a more vigorous, a more 
kinetic description of what that heat load is like, visualize the power 
of a Hiroshima-style atomic bomb with its classic mushroom cloud 
erupting into the sky. Imagine all of that energy from that nuclear 
blast being captured just as heat. Now imagine four Hiroshima-sized 
atomic bombs exploding every second. That is the excess heat that is 
going into our oceans from climate change--more than four atomic bombs' 
worth of excess heat energy being absorbed by the oceans every second 
of every day of every year. That is a lot of heat energy, and adding it 
to the oceans has consequences.
  The global average ocean surface temperature was already up around 
0.8 degrees Celsius, or 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit, since before the carbon 
pollution of industrial times began, and the rate is accelerating. 
According to NOAA, ``the global land and ocean temperature departure 
from average has reached new record highs five times since 2000.''
  The rapid rise in ocean temperatures is forcing species that were 
once southern New England icons to abandon our waters for cooler, 
deeper, northerner seas. A 2018 NOAA-funded study warned that hundreds 
of commercially valuable species are being forced northward as oceans 
warm.
  For Rhode Island, squid is now king. In 2017, around 60 percent of 
the longfin squid and 63 percent of northern shortfin squid caught in 
the United States were landed in Rhode Island. According to NOAA, Rhode 
Island's share of the catch was valued at over $28 million. In my 
State, that is a big deal. Remember, that is just the landing value. 
That is not the surrounding economic value. Climate change is putting 
that--our precious calamari--at risk. Squid is Rhode Island's most 
valuable fishery with its having accounted for nearly 30 percent of all 
of our States' landings, by value, in 2017.
  Rhode Island once had a booming lobster fishery. The lobster 
population shifted north as our waters warmed, and it left Rhode 
Island's lobster traps empty. NOAA reports what we already know: ``The 
lobster industry in New York and southern New England has nearly 
collapsed.'' Maine is temporarily benefiting from the northern movement 
of lobster, but the lobster is expected to keep moving north, into 
Canada, as we keep warming the oceans.

  In January, the Washington Post ran this amazing piece as part of its 
``Gone in a Generation'' series. It featured the stories of Rhode 
Island and Maine lobstermen who deal with our changing ocean.
  New England's fishermen also see declining shellfish populations. The 
total landings for eastern oysters, northern quahogs, soft-shell clams, 
and northern bay scallops all declined 85 percent between 1980 and 
2010. NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center identified warming 
ocean temperatures as the culprit.
  As climate change warms the oceans, all of that excess CO2 
in the atmosphere chemically acidifies the oceans as 90 percent of the 
heat is absorbed by the oceans and 30 percent of the CO2 is 
chemically absorbed by the oceans--out of the atmosphere and into the 
seas. It acidifies the oceans, and for many species, that is a double 
whammy. Sea scallops were one of the Nation's most valuable fisheries 
and Connecticut's most valuable species in 2017 landings. So let's look 
at that one.
  Ocean acidification and warming both trouble sea scallops. Scallops 
and other shellfish extract calcium carbonate from ocean waters around 
them in order to build their shells. Acidic waters decrease the 
chemical availability of that compound, and if you actually get it high 
enough, you actually dissolve the shells of living creatures. In 2018, 
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution warned that ocean 
acidification ``could reduce the sea scallop population by more than 50 
percent in the next 30 to 80 years under a worst-case scenario.''
  While we in the Senate struggle to free our Chamber from the 
remorseless political grip of the fossil fuel industry, our fishermen 
pay the price. The oceans are warming too fast for us to respond to 
rapid changes in fish stocks. So, in our States, black sea bass and

[[Page S4500]]

summer flounder--both species mentioned by Senator Blumenthal--are 
poster children for this disconnect.
  He mentioned his fisherman Bobby Guzzo in the article from Greenwire, 
and Rhode Island's fishermen are telling me exactly the same thing. The 
Science Director for NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center says, 
``Much of our management assumes that conditions in the future will be 
the same as they have been in the past,'' but that is no longer true. 
We are already so off base from historical trends and data that we can 
no longer rely on that history to forecast where fish populations will 
be.
  So black sea bass and summer flounder head north toward cooler waters 
from the Mid-Atlantic States, which used to be the home base. You would 
think, as they did, that it would make sense for the catch allocations 
of that fish to move northward with them. The blue is the base of where 
most of the black sea bass food stock existed back in the seventies. Up 
here is the base right now. That is the Chesapeake Bay. There is Rhode 
Island--there at the hook of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
  It is a big move up into our space, but did the catch limits move up 
with it? No. Southern States were unwilling to give up their quotas, 
which left our fishermen in Connecticut and Rhode Island to fish our 
northeast waters with an abundant catch they couldn't harvest. Imagine 
the frustration as Rhode Island, Connecticut, and other New England 
States don't have a vote on a critical fishery management council that 
makes this decision to put our fishermen at a severe disadvantage to 
fight for their right to the fish that are now settling up here in 
southern New England. Our fishermen have to throw back valuable fish 
from lobster pots and from nets because our fisheries' management rules 
haven't caught up with their ocean reality.
  We have to update how we manage these shifting fish stocks as climate 
change moves fish populations around. We must speed research and catch 
limits to match what fishermen actually see in the water. Our fishermen 
and our coastal economies depend on it.
  I am very grateful to Senator Blumenthal, my outstanding colleague 
from Connecticut, for joining me today. Together, we will continue to 
fight for a day when our Rhode Island and Connecticut fishermen can 
foresee their children and grandchildren continuing their long 
tradition of fishing the seas.
  We strive for meaningful action on climate change and ocean 
acidification, for updated fisheries and climate modeling, and for 
improvements on how we manage these stocks. To save our seas and to 
save our fishing economies, we must wake up to the threat of climate 
change and respond to these consequences that real fishermen are seeing 
in their real nets and boats every single day.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senator from Connecticut and I be allowed to engage in a brief 
colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, after that eloquence, I hesitate to 
even add anything, but the urgency of his plea and the need to hear the 
voices of these fishermen brings to mind this photograph, which was 
taken from the Greenwire article. In fact, it is of a boat in 
Stonington Harbor during a visit by President Trump in 2017 to the 
Coast Guard Academy in New London. The banner on this boat reads: 
``Please help us.''
  We need help for the fishermen of our Nation, whether they be in 
Louisiana or Rhode Island or Connecticut, because of this completely 
obsolete, obscenely outdated system that is depriving them of decent 
livelihoods, depriving our Nation of sufficient fish nutrition, and 
depriving our Nation and our world of an end to climate change.
  I would ask my colleague from Rhode Island very briefly, does he 
believe that the administration is heeding that message, not only 
behalf of the fishermen of Stonington in Connecticut--please help us--
but on behalf of the planet to please help us stop global warming and 
climate change? Is this administration acting sufficiently?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Well, clearly, when it comes to climate change, this 
administration is embarrassing itself and our country with the 
factually and scientifically preposterous claims that they make, and 
the nonsense denial that they continue to propagate is going to be, I 
think, a lasting blot on our country, as the rest of the world looks to 
us for leadership and sees instead more fossil-fuel-funded denial and 
treacherous political behavior by the industry that guides, very often, 
the hands of people in government. So from that point of view, it is a 
complete train wreck.
  From the point of view of helping the fishing communities, they have 
actually been taking it on the chin for a while. I will say a good word 
for the fishing communities. I think they have really tried to do their 
best. When we asked the fishing community to consider moving to a catch 
shares type of regulatory model, a lot of them didn't like it, but a 
number of them tried it, and they realized they actually could make it 
work and it actually improved their business prospects. So that move 
has been one that has not been easy for them to make, but more and more 
they have made it, and they have been able to see how it works better 
for them to be able to share catches.
  If somebody is out at sea having a great day, instead of having to go 
back in, they can get on the radio to somebody and say: I am having a 
great day out here. It is cheap for me to stay out here. I will keep 
fishing if you will give me some of your catch. You can stay home. And 
they work out the deal over the radio.
  That has been a good thing, but, again, it is not easy for them. And 
they have also really stepped up, as Senator Blumenthal knows so well, 
in our regional ocean planning, the offshore planning. The fishermen 
have come forward, and they have participated. They have been, I think, 
very fair and productive.
  Unfortunately, the manner in which the Obama administration rolled 
out the offshore marine monument was a bit of a blow to the trust that 
had been developed, but they had participated in good faith. I have 
good things to say about what our fishing community has tried to do to 
keep up.
  But no matter what you try to do as a fisherman, if you have an 
abundance of black sea bass--if it is so abundant that it is going into 
lobster pots to eat the bait and you are pulling up black sea bass in 
lobster pots, if you are pulling it up in your trawls--and you find 
that you can't keep this fish, you could go to the dock and you could 
sell it for several dollars but, no, you are obliged to throw it 
overboard because you can't bring it in. It has already been probably a 
little bit compromised, particularly if it has been caught in the 
trawl. So it is not likely to survive very long when you put it back in 
the water. So you are not really helping anybody by throwing it in. You 
know it is valuable. You know there are a lot of them. You know you are 
throwing them back injured or having difficulty surviving or, very 
often, dead. I have seen them just go twirling down through the water. 
You wonder, who is looking out for me, because this does not make 
sense? This does not make sense.
  The science supports what they are saying. NOAA has known for a very 
long time that this black see bass population was moving northward. 
This was only 2014. It is even further north from there.
  Nothing is more frustrating than not being taken seriously, and I 
think we need to take the concerns of our fishermen seriously. Of 
course, one way to do that is to take climate change seriously and not 
listen to this nonsense about it being a Chinese hoax and not have a 
bunch of really creepy eccentrics from the climate denial stooge 
community brought into government and actually given positions as if 
they were legitimate.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island 
and I look forward to coming back to the floor with him and expanding 
on this colloquy in the future. I will be a proud partner of his in 
advocating for the measures, and I join him in praising our fishing 
community because they have stood strong in the face of adversity.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, let me conclude by thanking Senator 
Blumenthal for his leadership on this issue. Our fishing communities 
have a powerful voice in Senator Blumenthal. He has worked with them 
for many,

[[Page S4501]]

many years in the Senate and before, when he was attorney general. It 
is a great honor for me to share the floor of the Senate with him 
today.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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