[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 154 (Tuesday, September 24, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5651-S5659]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, on Sunday I had the great honor of joining 
President Trump in welcoming Prime Minister Modi to the Lone Star State 
in an event that was appropriately named ``Howdy, Modi.''
  When his trip was announced, people on the west coast and the east 
coast wondered, ``Why Texas?'' They thought, maybe, he would go to 
Silicon Valley to talk to Big Tech executives or spend some time in 
Washington hobnobbing with diplomats and legislative leaders. Those are 
great places to visit, but Houston is the energy capital of the world. 
It is providing literal fuel for our growing relationship with the 
Nation of India.
  After nearly a four-decade ban on U.S. crude oil exports was lifted, 
Texas sent the first American crude oil to India, and today India is 
increasingly running on American natural gas. The reason that is 
important is, when I visited India for the first time in 2004, I 
witnessed a country that is a study in contrast--some highly populated 
areas like Delhi and others, and then rural areas on the way to the Taj 
Mahal in Agra, you can see people literally living off the land and 
using dried cow manure as fuel for their food and for warmth. 
Obviously, India needs access to affordable energy that America--and 
Texas, in particular--can provide to help improve their standard of 
living.
  This trade is also vital to our economy in Texas, and we will keep 
exporting our greatest natural resource to our friends in India and 
around the world as a result of the energy renaissance we have seen and 
as a result of the use of unconventional extraction techniques like 
fracking and horizontal drilling.
  Those must sound like foreign words to people in Washington, DC, who 
think we ought to be able to live on solar panels and windmills 
exclusively, but I always say, as important as renewable energy is--and 
it is important--Texas generates the most electricity for any State in 
the Nation from wind turbines. The wind doesn't always blow and the Sun 
doesn't always shine, and you need some sort of baseload to try to keep 
the electricity flowing so people can be afforded the comforts of life 
and particularly in hot Texas summers make sure the air-conditioner 
continues to work.
  For as deep as our economic ties are, our cultural ties are just as 
strong. Texas is home to a vibrant Indian diaspora, with more than 
150,000 Indian Americans living in the Houston area alone and perhaps 
about half a million across our entire State. I was glad the Prime 
Minister had a chance to witness the Indian culture that is woven into 
the fabric of our State and meet a number of proud Indian Americans, 
including the 50,000 who showed up for the ``Howdy, Modi'' events in 
Houston on Sunday, from 48 States, I am told.
  Knowing the importance of a strong U.S.-India relationship, 15 years 
ago I cofounded the U.S.-India Caucus in the Senate. That was at the 
request of one of my constituents who founded one of the Indo-American 
Chambers in the metroplex in Dallas, TX, years ago. He is the one who 
encouraged my wife and I to travel to India in the first place, where I 
learned a lot about the country--the study in contrasts I mentioned but 
also that this is the world's largest democracy, and we shared so many 
values with that country because of our common English heritage and 
particularly our respect for the rule of law and use of the English 
language predominantly.
  We also saw the advantage of collaborating with India economically--
1.3 billion people--a great market for the things we make and grow in 
the United States and a great way to raise the standard of living in 
India as we deepen our ties militarily and from a national security 
standpoint. The difference between today and what things were like as 
recently as 2008, in terms of trade, is just like night and day.
  In 2016, the United States designated India as a ``major defense 
partner,'' with the goal of elevating our partnership with India to the 
same level as those of our other closest allies.
  Since then, we have taken a number of steps to strengthen our defense 
relationship, such as establishing ministerial dialogue, increasing 
arms sales to India, and the first U.S.-India triservice exercise later 
this year. We have made real progress, but there is more we can do to 
ensure that our efforts are aligned, just as our interests are aligned. 
Particularly as China is on the march, having a strong and vibrant 
economy and a strong defense partner in India is more important than 
ever.
  Earlier this year, I also introduced an amendment to the National 
Defense

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Authorization Act, which requires the Secretary of Defense to submit a 
report on U.S.-India defense cooperation in the Western Indian Ocean 
within 180 days of enactment.
  It will allow us to get a clearer picture of current military 
activities and will enable the Secretary of Defense to enter into 
military cooperation agreements and conduct regular joint military 
training and operations with India in the Western Indian Ocean. This 
would be a major step to bolster our relationship and strengthen our 
defense cooperation.
  I am hopeful this provision will ultimately be included in the 
Defense authorization bill that is now going through the conference 
committee between the House and the Senate, and I am optimistic we will 
be able to get the President's signature and see this critical 
legislation enacted into law.
  (Ms. McSALLY assumed the Chair.)


                         Tropical Storm Imelda

  Madam President, briefly, on one other matter, Tropical Storm Imelda 
made landfall in Southeast Texas last week and dumped massive amounts 
of rain all across the region.
  It is just 2 years after Hurricane Harvey, which is a more familiar 
name to people up here in DC, but the scenes are heartbreakingly 
similar. It wasn't the high winds so much as it was the incredible 
amount of water that was dumped into the Houston area and the 
surrounding counties. Neighborhood streets began to look more like 
rivers than roads. Folks were wading in the water, carrying children on 
their shoulders, and personal belongings washed away with raging 
floodwaters.
  We have learned before, and we were reminded again, that these storms 
aren't only disruptive; they are incredibly dangerous. Five people have 
died as a result of the storm, and hundreds more remain displaced.
  Imelda was the fifth wettest tropical cyclone in the continental 
United States, with some areas receiving more than 3\1/2\ feet of rain 
in a very short period of time. But as we have learned before, these 
trying times seem to somehow bring out the best in people.
  A group of residents in the small community of Cheek, TX, waded 
through chest-high water to rescue nine horses. Furniture store owner 
Jim McIngvale, known to all of us as ``Mattress Mack,'' once again 
opened up his stores as a shelter for victims. His employees were 
running rescue operations, taking furniture trucks out to pick up those 
who had been stranded by high water. There was even a 21-year-old 
college student who worked all night alone at a Beaumont hotel for 32 
hours straight. Not only did he singlehandedly manage a hotel, he and 
other guests ventured out into the flood to help distribute food and 
water to truckers stranded in their trucks.
  I am grateful to the countless people who have helped their neighbors 
in big and small ways alike and who will no doubt continue supporting 
their communities in the months ahead.
  For many Texans, this is the second time in 2 years they have had to 
recover from extraordinary flooding. The storm completely devastated 
communities throughout the southeast part of my State, and folks are 
just now beginning what will undoubtedly be a major cleanup effort.
  With waters receding, local officials are now taking stock of the 
damage and moving from response to recovery. These rain events--these 
huge floods--are often more than any one city or one county can manage 
alone. It is an all-hands-on-deck moment that brings together local, 
State, and Federal officials, as well as nongovernmental organizations.
  Governor Abbott declared a state of disaster in several counties to 
ensure State resources are available to local government agencies.
  Last week, I spoke to many of the county judges who have jurisdiction 
over much of these flooded areas, the hardest hit areas, and I offered 
my support. I want to assure everyone who has been impacted by the 
storm that they are not alone and that we are committed to working 
together as State, local, and Federal officials to ensure that they 
have what they need to recover from this devastating Tropical Storm 
Imelda.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I want to express to the Senator 
from Texas our concern and our thoughts for all of those who have been 
so impacted.


                         Digital Responsibility

  Madam President, the Senator from Texas mentioned the floods and the 
impact that had happened. I found out about some of the good work of 
the Good Samaritans in the area by watching what was taking place on 
social media, and I am certain millions of Americans saw firsthand some 
of the generosity and the help that was given there.
  Indeed, the internet and social media platforms have transformed the 
way we communicate, the way we send out information, and many times the 
way we receive it. Correspondence that, just a few years ago, would 
have taken pen, paper, and postage is now sent and received with a 
simple click of a mouse.
  Everything happens online, from communicating about disasters to 
shopping to party planning and to campaigning. We share photos and 
milestones with our ``friends.'' We let people know that we are OK in 
times of disasters or that we need help. We share all of this not only 
with our friends, but we are also sharing it with companies that have 
built multibillion-dollar empires based on their ability to convince us 
to surrender just one more little piece of unique data about us or 
about our families.
  Beyond social media, we live our everyday transactional lives online 
also. We bank via apps. We sign up for credit cards using codes we have 
received in an email and manage our finances with cloud-based software. 
Information we once would have locked securely in a desk drawer, we now 
plug into an online forum without ever giving it a second thought.
  We have contributed to our own, as I call it, ``virtual you''; that 
is, our personal online footprint unique to us, unique only to us. We 
have done this by trusting these platforms to keep our data secure. In 
a way, this level of connectivity and trust has made life a lot easier 
and more convenient, but it has also made us vulnerable to exploitation 
and exposure.
  I have spoken before about consumers' justifiable expectation of a 
right to privacy online. This year, I introduced the BROWSER Act, which 
I had previously introduced when I was in the House. It is an effort to 
codify this right to privacy that consumers expect. BROWSER gives Big 
Tech basic guidelines to follow when collecting and selling user data, 
and that user is you.

  It has become understood that you are the product when you are using 
these social media apps and experiencing this connectivity. You are the 
product. You have the right to know that you are that product, and you 
have the right to decide what is shared about your life. But protecting 
an individual's data is only part of this picture.
  Last week, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology 
held a hearing to address the role that digital services play in the 
distribution of violent and extremist content. We welcomed testimony 
from Facebook, Twitter, and Google, detailing what they are doing to 
remove extremist content on platforms.
  I will tell you, before we talk about policing content, we, as 
Members of this body, need to make sure we understand how the American 
people view their use of social media and the internet.
  Whether social media platforms should be regulated under the First 
Amendment is beside the point. Americans view these services as open 
public forums, where they can speak their minds on everything from 
defense funding to the Emmy Awards. These consumers don't want the Wild 
West, nor do they want to be censored based on a content reviewer's 
subjective opinion. What they want is an objective cop on the beat--
just as in the public square, an objective cop on the beat who is 
equipped to properly identify incitement, threats, and other types of 
speech that could put lives at risk.
  This, of course, is easier said than done. In the case of Facebook, 
for example, that translates to creating a set of standards that 30,000 
in-house engineers and analysts and 15,000 content reviewers will be 
able to apply--45,000 people, and that is just one platform.
  There is a reason that time and again Big Tech executives look at 
Congress

[[Page S5653]]

and say ``Oh, more regulatory control over the way we do business,'' 
and it is this: Policing legitimately dangerous content is a big job, 
and policing ``awful but lawful'' content as Facebook CEO Mark 
Zuckerberg likes to call it, is an even bigger, more daunting task.
  It takes 45,000 people to do a bare-minimum job for one company. 
Imagine trying to create easy-to-understand, bright-line standards that 
45,000 employees will be able to digest and apply quickly enough to 
keep up with the flow of content. That has to be an intimidating task.
  I will tell you, if those executives think the government could do a 
better job of deciding down to the letter what those standards should 
be, I think they are mistaken. Only the engineers and innovators know 
their companies well enough to set their own internal policies for 
acceptable uses of their platform, but that is not to say that I will 
not be taking an interest in their ideas.
  We need to have a Federal standard of privacy and data security. We 
need to review censorship and prioritization, competition, and 
antitrust.
  For example, Facebook is in the process of putting together a content 
oversight board to adjudicate users whose posts have been deemed in 
violation and taken down. They have pledged to make the identities of 
the moderators and their decisions public--barring any safety risks--
and to choose a diverse panel. The biggest unanswered questions here 
are these: Will the moderators really reflect the American political 
spectrum? How will they be chosen? The American people will demand more 
than a promise to be fair and impartial.
  As I said, government cannot make these decisions in total for Big 
Tech, but we can help guide them along the way by passing privacy and 
data security standards. This is where working groups like the 
Judiciary Committee's Tech Task Force come into play.
  Last week, I was speaking to a group of private sector tech gurus, 
and I told them that the only way we will be able to move forward is if 
the government does more listening and they do more talking and work 
with us on setting these basic standards.
  I stand by what I said. It is not--and should not be--Congress's job 
to decide in retrospect what sort of culture companies like Facebook 
and Twitter meant to create. It is imperative that these companies 
understand the American public views them as a public square, an online 
public square, and it is up to them to be certain that there is an 
objective cop on the beat.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.


                   Declaration of National Emergency

  Mr. UDALL. Madam President, thank you for the recognition.
  The Constitution demands that ``No Money shall be drawn from the 
Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.''
  Like any other matter, it is Congress's power and responsibility to 
determine how much taxpayer money is spent on the President's request 
for a border wall.
  Like most Presidents, he didn't get every dollar he wanted. Now the 
President, through a sham national emergency declaration, is taking 
$3.6 billion of funds we appropriated for military construction 
projects to pay for his wall. The real question is not whether the 
President is usurping our article I power to appropriate; he is, no 
doubt about it. The real question is, Will we do something about it?
  Today I urge all my colleagues to vote in favor of our resolution 
terminating the President's national emergency declaration.
  Madam President, starting off the debate, I ask unanimous consent to 
have printed in the Record the following materials: a joint declaration 
from former national security officials outlining why the President's 
border emergency does not qualify under the National Emergencies Act 
and a September 18, 2019, Washington Post article outlining the dire 
outcomes warned by the Pentagon if the military construction projects 
don't go forward.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

     Joint Declaration of Former United States Government Officials

       We, the undersigned, declare as follows:
       1. We are former officials in the U.S. government who have 
     worked on national security and homeland security issues from 
     the White House as well as agencies across the Executive 
     Branch. We have served in senior leadership roles in 
     administrations of both major political parties, and 
     collectively we have devoted a great many decades to 
     protecting the security interests of the United States. We 
     have held the highest security clearances, and we have 
     participated in the highest levels of policy deliberations on 
     a broad range of issues. These include: immigration, border 
     security, counterterrorism, military operations, and our 
     nation's relationship with other countries, including those 
     south of our border.
       Madeleine K. Albright, Secretary of State from 1997 to 
     2001. Jeremy B. Bash, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Department 
     of Defense from 2011 to 2013; John B. Bellinger III, Legal 
     Adviser to the U.S. Department of State from 2005 to 2009; 
     Daniel Benjamin, Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism at 
     the U.S. Department of State from 2009 to 2012; Antony 
     Blinken, Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017; John O. 
     Brennan, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 
     2013 to 2017; R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for 
     Political Affairs from 2005 to 2008; William J. Burns, Deputy 
     Secretary of State from 2011 to 2014; Johnnie Carson, 
     Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2009 to 
     2013; James Clapper, U.S. Director of National Intelligence 
     from 2010 to 2017; David S. Cohen, Under Secretary of the 
     Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence from 2011 
     to 2015; Eliot A. Cohen, Counselor of the U.S. Department of 
     State from 2007 to 2009; Ryan Crocker, U.S. Ambassador to 
     Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012; Thomas Donilon, National 
     Security Advisor to the President from 2010 to 2013; Jen 
     Easterly, Special Assistant to the President and Senior 
     Director for Counterterrorism from 2013 to 2016; Nancy Ely-
     Raphel, Senior Adviser to the Secretary of State and Director 
     of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons 
     from 2001 to 2003; Daniel P. Erikson, Special Advisor for 
     Western Hemisphere Affairs to the Vice President from 2015 to 
     2017; John D. Feeley, U.S. Ambassador to Panama from 2015 to 
     2018; Daniel F. Feldman, Special Representative for 
     Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S. Department of State from 
     2014 to 2015; Jonathan Finer, Chief of Staff to the Secretary 
     of State from 2015 to 2017.
       Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary of State for African 
     Affairs from 2005 to 2009; Suzy George, Executive Secretary 
     and Chief of Staff of the National Security Council from 2014 
     to 2017; Phil Gordon, Special Assistant to the President and 
     White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and 
     the Gulf from 2013 to 2015; Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Defense 
     from 2013 to 2015; Avril D. Haines, Deputy National Security 
     Advisor to the President from 2015 to 2017; Luke Hartig, 
     Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security 
     Council from 2014 to 2016; Heather A. Higginbottom, Deputy 
     Secretary of State for Management and Resources from 2013 to 
     2017; Roberta Jacobson, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico from 2016 
     to 2018; Gil Kerlikowske, Commissioner of Customs and Border 
     Protection from 2014 to 2017; John F. Kerry, Secretary of 
     State from 2013 to 2017; Prem Kumar, Senior Director for the 
     Middle East and North Africa at the National Security Council 
     from 2013 to 2015; John E. McLaughlin, Deputy Director of the 
     Central Intelligence Agency from 2000 to 2004; Lisa O. 
     Monaco, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and 
     Counterterrorism from 2013 to 2017; Janet Napolitano, 
     Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013; James D. 
     Nealon, Assistant Secretary for International Engagement at 
     the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2018; 
     James C. O'Brien, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage 
     Affairs from 2015 to 2017; Matthew G. Olsen, Director of the 
     National Counterterrorism Center from 2011 to 2014; Leon E. 
     Panetta, Secretary of Defense from 2011 to 2013; Anne W. 
     Patterson, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern 
     Affairs from 2013 to 2017; Thomas R. Pickering, Under 
     Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 1997 to 2000. 
     He served as U.S. Permanent Representative to the United 
     Nations from 1989 to 1992; Amy Pope, Deputy Homeland Security 
     Advisor and Deputy Assistant to the President from 2015 to 
     2017.
       Samantha J. Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the 
     United Nations from 2013 to 2017; Jeffrey Prescott, Deputy 
     National Security Advisor to the Vice President from 2013 to 
     2015; Nicholas Rasmussen, Director of the National 
     Counterterrorism Center from 2014 to 2017; Alan Charles Raul, 
     Vice Chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight 
     Board from 2006 to 2008; Dan Restrepo, Special Assistant to 
     the President and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere 
     Affairs at the National Security Council from 2009 to 2012; 
     Susan E. Rice, National Security Advisor to the President 
     from 2013 to 2017; Anne C. Richard, Assistant Secretary of 
     State for Population, Refugees, and Migration from 2012 to 
     2017; Eric P. Schwartz, Assistant Secretary of State for 
     Population, Refugees, and Migration from 2009 to 2011; Andrew 
     J. Shapiro, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-
     Military Affairs from 2009 to 2013; Wendy R. Sherman, Under 
     Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2011 to 2015; 
     Vikram Singh, Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan 
     and Pakistan from 2010 to 2011; Dana Shell Smith, U.S. 
     Ambassador to Qatar from 2014 to 2017; Jeffrey H. Smith, 
     General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1995 
     to 1996; Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to the Vice 
     President from

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     2013 to 2014; Strobe Talbott, Deputy Secretary of State from 
     1994 to 2001; Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Assistant Secretary 
     for the Bureau of African Affairs from 2013 to 2017; Arturo 
     A. Valenzuela, Assistant Secretary of State for Western 
     Hemisphere Affairs from 2009 to 2011.
       2. On February 15, 2019, the President declared a 
     ``national emergency'' for the purpose of diverting 
     appropriated funds from previously designated uses to build a 
     wall along the southern border. We are aware of no emergency 
     that remotely justifies such a step. The President's actions 
     are at odds with the overwhelming evidence in the public 
     record, including the administration's own data and 
     estimates. We have lived and worked through national 
     emergencies, and we support the President's power to mobilize 
     the Executive Branch to respond quickly in genuine national 
     emergencies. But under no plausible assessment of the 
     evidence is there a national emergency today that entitles 
     the President to tap into funds appropriated for other 
     purposes to build a wall at the southern border. To our 
     knowledge, the President's assertion of a national emergency 
     here is unprecedented, in that he seeks to address a 
     situation: (1) that has been enduring, rather than one that 
     has arisen suddenly; (2) that in fact has improved over time 
     rather than deteriorated; (3) by reprogramming billions of 
     dollars in funds in the face of clear congressional intent to 
     the contrary; and (4) with assertions that are rebutted not 
     just by the public record, but by his agencies' own official 
     data, documents, and statements.
       3. Illegal border crossings are near forty-year lows. At 
     the outset, there is no evidence of a sudden or emergency 
     increase in the number of people seeking to cross the 
     southern border. According to the administration's own data, 
     the numbers of apprehensions and undetected illegal border 
     crossings at the southern border are near forty-year lows. 
     Although there was a modest increase in apprehensions in 
     2018, that figure is in keeping with the number of 
     apprehensions only two years earlier, and the overall trend 
     indicates a dramatic decline over the last fifteen years in 
     particular. The administration also estimates that 
     ``undetected unlawful entries'' at the southern border ``fell 
     from approximately 851,000 to nearly 62,000'' between fiscal 
     years 2006 to 2016, the most recent years for which data are 
     available. The United States currently hosts what is 
     estimated to be the smallest number of undocumented 
     immigrants since 2004. And in fact, in recent years, the 
     majority of currently undocumented immigrants entered the 
     United States legally, but overstayed their visas, a problem 
     that will not be addressed by the declaration of an emergency 
     along the southern border.
       4. There is no documented terrorist or national security 
     emergency at the southern border. There is no reason to 
     believe that there is a terrorist or national security 
     emergency at the southern border that could justify the 
     President's proclamation.
       a. This administration's own most recent Country Report on 
     Terrorism, released only five months ago, found that ``there 
     was no credible evidence indicating that international 
     terrorist groups have established bases in Mexico, worked 
     with Mexican drug cartels, or sent operatives via Mexico into 
     the United States.'' Since 1975, there has been only one 
     reported incident in which immigrants who had crossed the 
     southern border illegally attempted to commit a terrorist 
     act. That incident occurred more than twelve years ago, and 
     involved three brothers from Macedonia who had been brought 
     into the United States as children more than twenty years 
     earlier.
       b. Although the White House has claimed, as an argument 
     favoring a wall at the southern border, that almost 4,000 
     known or suspected terrorists were intercepted at the 
     southern border in a single year, this assertion has since 
     been widely and consistently repudiated, including by this 
     administration's own Department of Homeland Security. The 
     overwhelming majority of individuals on terrorism watchlists 
     who were intercepted by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol were 
     attempting to travel to the United States by air; of the 
     individuals on the terrorist watchlist who were encountered 
     while entering the United States during fiscal year 2017, 
     only 13 percent traveled by land. And for those who have 
     attempted to enter by land, only a small fraction do so at 
     the southern border. Between October 2017 and March 2018, 
     forty-one foreign immigrants on the terrorist watchlist were 
     intercepted at the northern border. Only six such immigrants 
     were intercepted at the southern border.
       5. There is no emergency related to violent crime at the 
     southern border. Nor can the administration justify its 
     actions on the grounds that the incidence of violent crime on 
     the southern border constitutes a national emergency. Factual 
     evidence consistently shows that unauthorized immigrants have 
     no special proclivity to engage in criminal or violent 
     behavior. According to a Cato Institute analysis of 
     criminological data, undocumented immigrants are 44 percent 
     less likely to be incarcerated nationwide than are native-
     born citizens. And in Texas, undocumented immigrants were 
     found to have a first-time conviction rate 32 percent below 
     that of native-born Americans; the conviction rates of 
     unauthorized immigrants for violent crimes such as homicide 
     and sex offenses were also below those of native-born 
     Americans. Meanwhile, overall rates of violent crime in the 
     United States have declined significantly over the past 25 
     years, falling 49 percent from 1993 to 2017. And violent 
     crime rates in the country's 30 largest cities have decreased 
     on average by 2.7 percent in 2018 alone, further undermining 
     any suggestion that recent crime trends currently warrant the 
     declaration of a national emergency.
       6. There is no human or drug trafficking emergency that can 
     be addressed by a wall at the southern border. The 
     administration has claimed that the presence of human and 
     drug trafficking at the border justifies its emergency 
     declaration. But there is no evidence of any such sudden 
     crisis at the southern border that necessitates a 
     reprogramming of appropriations to build a border wall.
       a. The overwhelming majority of opioids that enter the 
     United States across a land border are carried through legal 
     ports of entry in personal or commercial vehicles, not 
     smuggled through unauthorized border crossings. A border wall 
     would not stop these drugs from entering the United States. 
     Nor would a wall stop drugs from entering via other routes, 
     including smuggling tunnels, which circumvent such physical 
     barriers as fences and walls, and international mail (which 
     is how high-purity fentanyl, for example, is usually shipped 
     from China directly to the United States).
       b. Likewise, illegal crossings at the southern border are 
     not the principal source of human trafficking victims. About 
     two-thirds of human trafficking victims served by nonprofit 
     organizations that receive funding from the relevant 
     Department of Justice office are U.S. citizens, and even 
     among non-citizens, most trafficking victims usually arrive 
     in the country on valid visas. None of these instances of 
     trafficking could be addressed by a border wall. And the 
     three states with the highest per capita trafficking 
     reporting rates are not even located along the southern 
     border.
       7. This proclamation will only exacerbate the humanitarian 
     concerns that do exist at the southern border. There are real 
     humanitarian concerns at the border, but they largely result 
     from the current administration's own deliberate policies 
     towards migrants. For example, the administration has used a 
     ``metering'' policy to turn away families fleeing extreme 
     violence and persecution in their home countries, forcing 
     them to wait indefinitely at the border to present their 
     asylum cases, and has adopted a number of other punitive 
     steps to restrict those seeking asylum at the southern 
     border. These actions have forced asylum-seekers to live on 
     the streets or in makeshift shelters and tent cities with 
     abysmal living conditions, and limited access to basic 
     sanitation has caused outbreaks of disease and death. This 
     state of affairs is a consequence of choices this 
     administration has made, and erecting a wall will do nothing 
     to ease the suffering of these people.
       8. Redirecting funds for the claimed ``national emergency'' 
     will undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy 
     interests. In the face of a nonexistent threat, redirecting 
     funds for the construction of a wall along the southern 
     border will undermine national security by needlessly pulling 
     resources from Department of Defense programs that are 
     responsible for keeping our troops and our country safe and 
     running effectively.
       a. Repurposing funds from the defense construction budget 
     will drain money from critical defense infrastructure 
     projects, possibly including improvement of military 
     hospitals, construction of roads, and renovation of on-base 
     housing. And the proclamation will likely continue to divert 
     those armed forces already deployed at the southern border 
     from their usual training activities or missions, affecting 
     troop readiness.
       b. In addition, the administration's unilateral, 
     provocative actions are heightening tensions with our 
     neighbors to the south, at a moment when we need their help 
     to address a range of Western Hemisphere concerns. These 
     actions are placing friendly governments to the south under 
     impossible pressures and driving partners away. They have 
     especially strained our diplomatic relationship with Mexico, 
     a relationship that is vital to regional efforts ranging from 
     critical intelligence and law enforcement partnerships to 
     cooperative efforts to address the growing tensions with 
     Venezuela. Additionally, the proclamation could well lead to 
     the degradation of the natural environment in a manner that 
     could only contribute to long-term socioeconomic and security 
     challenges.
       c. Finally, by declaring a national emergency for domestic 
     political reasons with no compelling reason or justification 
     from his senior intelligence and law enforcement officials, 
     the President has further eroded his credibility with foreign 
     leaders, both friend and foe. Should a genuine foreign crisis 
     erupt, this lack of credibility will materially weaken this 
     administration's ability to marshal allies to support the 
     United States, and will embolden adversaries to oppose us.
       9. The situation at the border does not require the use of 
     the armed forces, and a wall is unnecessary to support the 
     use of the armed forces. We understand that the 
     administration is also claiming that the situation at the 
     southern border ``requires use of the armed forces,'' and 
     that a wall is ``necessary to support such use'' of the armed 
     forces. These claims are implausible.
       a. Historically, our country has deployed National Guard 
     troops at the border solely to assist the Border Patrol when 
     there was an extremely high number of apprehensions, together 
     with a particularly low number of Border Patrol agents. But 
     currently, even

[[Page S5655]]

     with retention and recruitment challenges, the Border Patrol 
     is at historically high staffing and funding levels, and 
     apprehensions--measured in both absolute and per-agent 
     terms--are near historic lows.
       b. Furthermore, the composition of southern border 
     crossings has shifted such that families and unaccompanied 
     minors now account for the majority of immigrants seeking 
     entry at the southern border; these individuals do not 
     present a threat that would need to be countered with 
     military force.
       c. Just last month, when asked what the military is doing 
     at the border that couldn't be done by the Department of 
     Homeland Security if it had the funding for it, a top-level 
     defense official responded, ``[n]one of the capabilities that 
     we are providing [at the southern border] are combat 
     capabilities. It's not a war zone along the border.'' 
     Finally, it is implausible that hundreds of miles of wall 
     across the southern border are somehow necessary to support 
     the use of armed forces. We are aware of no military- or 
     security-related rationale that could remotely justify such 
     an endeavor.
       10. There is no basis for circumventing the appropriations 
     process with a declaration of a national emergency at the 
     southern border. We do not deny that our nation faces real 
     immigration and national security challenges. But as the 
     foregoing demonstrates, these challenges demand a thoughtful, 
     evidence-based strategy, not a manufactured crisis that rests 
     on falsehoods and fearmongering. In a briefing before the 
     Senate Intelligence Committee on January 29, 2019, less than 
     one month before the Presidential Proclamation, the Directors 
     of the CIA, DNI, FBI, and NSA testified about numerous 
     serious current threats to U.S. national security, but none 
     of the officials identified a security crisis at the U.S.-
     Mexico border. In a briefing before the House Armed Services 
     Committee the next day, Pentagon officials acknowledged that 
     the 2018 National Defense Strategy does not identify the 
     southern border as a security threat. Leading legislators 
     with access to classified information and the President's own 
     statements have strongly suggested, if not confirmed, that 
     there is no evidence supporting the administration's claims 
     of an emergency. And it is reported that the President made 
     the decision to circumvent the appropriations process and 
     reprogram money without the Acting Secretary of Defense 
     having even started to consider where the funds might come 
     from, suggesting an absence of consultation and internal 
     deliberations that in our experience are necessary and 
     expected before taking a decision of this magnitude.
       11. For all of the foregoing reasons, in our professional 
     opinion, there is no factual basis for the declaration of a 
     national emergency for the purpose of circumventing the 
     appropriations process and reprogramming billions of dollars 
     in funding to construct a wall at the southern border, as 
     directed by the Presidential Proclamation of February 15, 
     2019.
           Respectfully submitted,
       Madeleine K. Albright, Jeremy B. Bash, John B. Bellinger 
     III, Daniel Benjamin, Antony Blinken, John O. Brennan, R. 
     Nicholas Burns, William J. Burns, Johnnie Carson, James 
     Clapper, David S. Cohen, Eliot A. Cohen, Ryan Crocker, Thomas 
     Donilon, Jen Easterly, Nancy Ely-Raphel, Daniel P. Erikson, 
     John D. Feeley, Daniel F. Feldman, Jonathan Finer.
       Jendayi Frazer, Suzy George, Phil Gordon, Chuck Hagel, 
     Avril D. Haines, Luke Hartig, Heather A. Higginbottom, 
     Roberta Jacobson, Gil Kerlikowske, John F. Kerry, Prem Kumar, 
     John E. McLaughlin, Lisa O. Monaco, Janet Napolitano, James 
     D. Nealon, James C. O'Brien, Matthew G. Olsen.
       Leon E. Panetta, Anne W. Patterson, Thomas R. Pickering, 
     Amy Pope, Samantha J. Power, Jeffrey Prescott, Nicholas 
     Rasmussen, Alan Charles Raul, Dan Restrepo, Susan E. Rice, 
     Anne C. Richard, Eric P. Schwartz, Andrew J. Shapiro, Wendy 
     R. Sherman, Vikram Singh, Dana Shell Smith, Jeffrey H. Smith, 
     Jake Sullivan, Strobe Talbott, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, 
     Arturo A. Valenzuela.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 18, 2019]

Pentagon Has Warned of Dire Outcomes if Military Projects Canceled for 
                           Wall Don't Happen

                   (By Aaron Gregg and Erica Werner)

       The Pentagon warned of dire outcomes unless Congress paid 
     for urgently needed military construction projects 
     nationwide--the same projects that have now been canceled to 
     fund President Trump's border wall.
       The warnings are contained in Defense Department budget 
     requests sent to lawmakers in recent years. They include 
     potentially hazardous living conditions for troops and their 
     families, as well as unsafe schools that would impede 
     learning. In numerous cases, the Defense Department warned 
     that lives would be put at risk if buildings don't meet the 
     military's standards for fire safety or management of 
     explosives.
       Even before $3.6 billion in construction funding was pulled 
     to support a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, military 
     buildings across the country often had been neglected in 
     favor of other priorities. The defense spending limits that 
     took effect after a 2013 budget deal designed to end a 
     government shutdown starved the military's construction 
     budget for years, officials and analysts say, meaning many 
     construction projects are long overdue.
       The details in the budget documents--annual requests the 
     Pentagon sends to Capitol Hill that are mostly public--
     underscore the risky trade-offs Trump made in declaring a 
     national emergency that allowed him to divert funding for the 
     wall.
       A Pentagon spokesman did not immediately respond to a 
     message seeking comment.
       In requests to Congress over the past three years, military 
     officials describe dilapidated World War II-era warehouses 
     with ``leaking asbestos panel roof systems,'' a drone pilot 
     training facility with sinkholes and a bat infestation, 
     explosives being stored in buildings that didn't meet safety 
     standards and a mold-infested middle school. In numerous 
     instances, Defense Department officials wrote that the 
     infrastructure problems were hurting the military's readiness 
     and impeding the department's national security mission.
       Democrats and some Republicans strongly oppose the 
     emergency declaration. The Senate is expected to vote for a 
     second time in the coming weeks to overturn it, but Congress 
     does not appear to have enough votes to overcome Trump's veto 
     of such a disapproval resolution.
       A list of the military construction projects being defunded 
     to pay for the wall was released in early September. But it 
     did not contain details of the Pentagon's explanations to 
     Congress about why the projects were needed--and what would 
     happen if they were not completed. The Washington Post's 
     review of the budget documents is the first attempt to detail 
     those Pentagon warnings.
       The Post uncovered budget documents pertaining to 29 of the 
     43 military construction projects in the mainland United 
     States--not including those in territories such as Puerto 
     Rico and Guam--that are being canceled to pay for the wall. 
     The review excluded two projects that had been canceled 
     before the emergency authorization. Many of these documents 
     are publicly available but have not been previously reported.
       The Pentagon insists that the projects are merely being 
     delayed, not canceled, and Republicans say they will try to 
     ``backfill'' the money in question, but Democrats oppose that 
     strategy. In recent days, the fight over the border wall 
     money has caused angry divisions among lawmakers trying to 
     write annual spending bills to keep the government running, 
     raising the specter of another shutdown this year. Last 
     winter's record-long 35-day partial government shutdown ended 
     only after Trump declared a national emergency because 
     Congress wouldn't give him all the money he wanted for his 
     wall. (During his campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed that 
     Mexico would pay for the construction.)
       Congressional Democrats have rallied around the issue, 
     decrying unsafe conditions in their home districts and 
     nationwide.
       ``We see across the country--communities, military bases 
     and people in the military--saying, `Taking away this money 
     hurts us,' '' Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) said 
     on the Senate floor this week. ``All the Democrats are asking 
     for is to protect the troops from having their resources 
     robbed for a border wall--resources that Congress said should 
     go to the military.''
       Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said ``it shocks me that, as 
     commander in chief, [Trump] now insists that it's got to be 
     our troops, our military families and our nation's security 
     that have to be sacrificed for his foolishness,'' noting that 
     $77 million had been ``raided'' from projects in his state.


                            Ominous warnings

       This month, the Pentagon announced that 127 military 
     construction projects stood to lose funding to pay for 
     Trump's wall. Although Pentagon officials have expressed 
     confidence that the projects ultimately will go forward, 
     there is no guarantee that they will.
       In many cases, the Pentagon has been ominous in describing 
     the potential outcomes should the projects not happen.
       The Air Force has been seeking a new training facility for 
     drone pilots at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico because 
     the current training facility had sinkholes and a bat 
     infestation.
       It also prevents pilot trainees from operating in a 
     classified environment, the Air Force wrote in its publicly 
     accessible budget request. This means trainees could not use 
     a safety system designed to alert drone pilots to the 
     location of ground-based personnel, as well as a separate 
     system designed to prevent aircraft from crashing into one 
     another.
       The Air Force has been seeking a new control center at Hill 
     Air Force Base in Utah, designed to replace a pair of 
     ``dilapidated WWII-era warehouses'' used for air traffic 
     control and mission control operations even though they have 
     been labeled ``structurally deficient'' and don't meet 
     regulations. The Air Force noted in its budget request that 
     air traffic control equipment is at risk of being destroyed 
     by ``roof leaks from failing asbestos panel roof systems.''
       If the $28 million project is not finished, the Air Force 
     warned in 2017, service members will continue to operate in 
     ``aging dilapidated buildings that were never intended for 
     the purpose they are now serving.''
       The Air National Guard has been seeking to replace the 
     aircraft parking ramp at a New Orleans facility, which abuts 
     a public roadway. This means munitions-loaded aircraft--which 
     are kept on alert so they can be scrambled quickly in the 
     event of a terrorist attack--expose the public to the 
     ``unacceptable risk'' of being affected by an explosive 
     accident, the Air Force wrote in 2018. An Air Force analysis 
     calculated that members of

[[Page S5656]]

     the public are inside the jets' ``explosive arc'' for about 
     3,800 hours per year as they pass by the base.
       In addition, the shelters that hold the aircraft when they 
     aren't parked on the runway are on concrete slabs that are 
     sinking, causing pipes and electrical connections to pull 
     loose. The shelters also did not have fire protections, the 
     Defense Department wrote in 2018.
       The Defense Department also warned that overly 
     decentralized weapons maintenance buildings in Anniston, 
     Ala., would continue to increase the risk of accidents 
     because of the ``unnecessary movement of artillery pieces.''
       The Air Force has been seeking $41 million to repair a 
     central heat power plant boiler at Eielson Air Force Base in 
     Alaska. The Air Force warned in its budget justification to 
     Congress that the boiler, installed in 1951, is expected to 
     fail within the next several years at a base where winter 
     temperatures can plunge as low as 65 degrees below zero. That 
     outcome ``would be devastating to facilities and the missions 
     housed in those facilities,'' the Air Force said. The base 
     could be forced to evacuate, and the facilities would then 
     freeze and require ``many millions of dollars'' to make them 
     usable again.
       The system in question is one of two 1950s-era boilers that 
     require urgent replacement at Eielson. The failure of the 
     other one is described as ``imminent'' and also could force 
     an evacuation, followed by a deep freeze that would cost 
     millions of dollars to recover from, according to the Air 
     Force's description from 2017.


                        `Substandard,' `unsafe'

       A different issue looms at Camp Lejeune, N.C., where 
     medical and dental care is provided in ``substandard, 
     inefficient, decentralized and uncontrolled facilities,'' 
     according to the military, which has sought congressional 
     approval to build a new ambulatory care center on the base. 
     Not doing so ``will result in compromised readiness, 
     uncoordinated care delivery, and inappropriate use of medical 
     resources,'' the Pentagon said.
       At Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina, the 
     military sought funding to build a satellite fire station, 
     without which ``personnel . . . will continue to work from a 
     significantly undersized and unsafe facility.''
       In another example, the military is seeking to repair a 
     middle school at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, a project that 
     has been championed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell 
     (R-Ky.) and that he has vowed to protect even after its 
     appearance on the list of installations at risk of being 
     canceled to pay for Trump's wall.
       The Pentagon described conditions at the middle school as 
     ``substandard'' and told lawmakers in requesting $62.6 
     million to repair it that ``the continued use of deficient, 
     inadequate, and undersized facilities that do not accommodate 
     the current student population will continue to impair the 
     overall education program for students.''
       At Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, meanwhile, construction 
     of a much-needed new child-care center has been put on hold 
     in favor of Trump's wall. The Pentagon notes that the 
     facility ``has suffered from sewage backups, heating, 
     ventilation and air conditioning failures and mold and pest 
     management issues.'' The upgraded facility is supposed to 
     accommodate 165 children and staff members. As of February 
     2018, 115 children were on a waiting list to get in.
       Joint Base Andrews is also home to the hangar that holds 
     Air Force One. That hangar is being relocated at a cost of 
     $154 million to accommodate a larger Boeing model now being 
     used for Trump. But the new hangar displaces a specialized 
     area designed for unloading hazardous cargo and a separate 
     disposal range where Air Force officials could be trained to 
     defuse bombs. The Air Force requested $37 million for a new 
     hazardous-cargo pad and explosive-ordnance center, but that 
     project has been included on the list of those being canceled 
     to pay for the barrier along the border. The Air Force One 
     hangar project was left untouched.
       As a result, a temporary facility will be provided. But not 
     replacing the hazardous-cargo pad would cause ``enduring 
     systemic weaknesses'' at the base, while the lack of an 
     explosive-ordinance range would ``adversely impact'' 
     training, which would have to happen somewhere off the base 
     at greater cost, the military said.
  Mr. UDALL. Madam President, with that, I yield to Senator Murray.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I join my Democratic colleagues on the 
floor to once again speak out against this President and his 
administration's outrageous abuses of Executive power.
  While, unfortunately, there is a myriad of Presidential abuses to 
which I could be referring, today, this evening, I am here to discuss 
two of his most recent and most egregious actions that have not only 
run afoul of Congress's authority and our constitutional system of 
checks and balances but also compromise our national security.
  It began with the President making a phony national emergency 
declaration to bypass Congress and steal money to build his border wall 
under the auspices of a ``crisis''--one of the President's own making--
in pursuit of advancing the most anti-immigrant agenda this country has 
seen in generations, all manufactured to secure Federal funds to build 
his often-touted vanity wall on our southern border. This is a wall the 
American people were not supposed to pay for and that we, time and 
again, have indicated we do not want.
  Now, one would think this extreme overreach of Executive authority 
alone would get our colleagues on the other side of the aisle riled up 
enough to defend the Constitution's system of checks and balances, but 
in declaring his national emergency, President Trump took his overreach 
one step further, ransacking critical Federal funds--taxpayer dollars--
that were appropriated by Congress to fund important military 
construction projects and national security priorities across the 
country. To do what with? To put money toward building his border wall.
  To be clear, instead of Federal funds going toward military 
infrastructure priorities such as a new pier and maintenance facility 
at Naval Base Kitsap in my home State of Washington that would help 
guide and protect our Navy's vital nuclear submarines, those funds are 
now going to pay for Trump's border wall.
  Instead of our military using Federal funds already authorized by 
Congress to increase access to childcare for our servicemembers and 
their families, those funds are now going into paying for Trump's wall.
  While this behavior from our President is predictable, it is no less 
wrong, underhanded, and unacceptable, and I know I am not the only one 
who thinks that way.
  Since the President's rash move to reprogram billions of dollars from 
our military construction budget toward his border wall, I have heard 
repeatedly from constituents who are upset by this President's brazen 
acts of recklessness and are wondering how the President of the United 
States can just step over Congress to do whatever he wants with our 
Federal budget, especially when it is on the backs of our troops and 
their families.
  I refuse to stand by and do nothing while this President hurts my 
State and so many others. Why? Because he cares more about his vanity 
project than our troops, the military community, or the American 
people.
  That is why, in the coming days, I plan to introduce new legislation 
that will not only recoup the military construction funds that were 
shamefully raided for Trump's border wall but put in place new 
safeguards to make sure no President today or in the future can so 
effortlessly bypass the will of Congress to loot the Federal budget.
  We need to put a check on this President, plain and simple. Right 
now, we can do so by standing up for Congress and our constitutional 
authority to set the Federal budget and pay our Nation's bills.
  So I urge my colleagues to join Democrats in voting to rescind 
President Trump's bogus national emergency declaration, taking that 
first step to roll back the President's plunder and hold him 
accountable because as a coequal branch of our Federal Government, it 
is not just our job, it is our sworn duty and one this body and our 
Republican colleagues cannot ignore.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I agree with my distinguished colleagues 
from Washington State and New Mexico for what they have said.
  Sometimes casting a vote on the Senate floor is just a matter of 
course. It is something we do routinely, often without considering the 
impact of that vote on the Senate as an institution, let alone our 
constitutional Republic as we know it, but this week's vote on 
President Trump's national emergency declaration is different. It is a 
pivotal moment in this body's history. It is a stress test of the very 
notion of separation of powers. The Constitution speaks of Congress as 
being a coequal branch of government. Well, this is going to be viewed 
as a moment when Congress either asserted itself as a coequal branch of 
government or surrendered as a subordinate to the will of a President 
who now claims his powers are absolute.
  This is a President who has said out loud that the Constitution gives 
him the right to do ``whatever I want as

[[Page S5657]]

President.'' It makes one wonder if the President has ever actually 
read the Constitution of the United States. This President is 
attempting to ignore the explicit will of Congress by simply declaring 
a national emergency to fund his ``big, beautiful'' wall. That is 
after, time and time and time again, he gave us his word that Mexico 
would pay for the wall.
  For 3 years, he failed to convince Congress that the wall was a good 
idea. Even when his own party controlled both the House of 
Representatives and the U.S. Senate, his tweets and tantrums could not 
convince enough Members that his cynical campaign promise was worthy of 
tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money. He could not convince 
anybody, Republican or Democrat, that he was telling the truth when he 
said Mexico would pay for it.
  So when Congress did not comply, he directed his yes-people to tell 
them he could fund his pet project, nonetheless, by declaring a 
national emergency out of thin air and stealing the money from our 
troops and their families.
  He even admitted his national emergency declaration was a matter of 
political expediency rather than justified by facts. I remember him 
standing in the Rose Garden. He said he did not ``need'' to invoke a 
national emergency; he could ``build the wall over a longer period of 
time,'' but he just wanted to do it ``faster.'' Once again, the whims 
and tweets of the President were used to trample our Constitution.
  President Trump's declaration of a national emergency to build his 
wall should offend all 100 Senators--Republicans and Democrats alike--
in this body. First and foremost, he is using it to steal $3.6 billion 
from critical military construction projects that would benefit our men 
and women in uniform and their families. This impacts 127 military 
construction projects, including a child development center, an 
elementary school, a fire and rescue station--all falling victim to his 
fixation on the wall. He is telling the families of our military who 
are living in substandard housing--some of it with mold and other 
damaging health conditions--that, no, you are not going to get that 
money you need to fix that up. I am going to put it toward my wall.

  We already ask our military families to sacrifice so much to keep our 
country safe. Now they have to sacrifice, yet again, and to what end? 
To keep this President's ego safe.
  Furthermore, I would note that his national emergency declaration is 
a transparent end-run around Congress's constitutional power of the 
purse. Article I, section 9 of the Constitution, which I doubt the 
President has ever bothered to read, states that Congress--and Congress 
alone--decides how to spend Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. That 
has been the case from the time of the founding of this country until 
today. It is one of the most critical checks and balances in our 
constitutional system. In our democracy, Presidents must respect--and 
normally do--the appropriations decisions of Congress but, for the 
first time, not this President.
  I was here when Congress enacted the National Emergencies Act of 
1976. When we passed it then, we assumed that any President would have 
enough respect for the office to invoke the extraordinary powers 
granted under it judiciously and only in times when there was, in fact, 
an emergency to be addressed.
  But not this President. Where the world sees women and children 
seeking refuge at our southern border, he sees criminals and terrorists 
invading our country. Where the world sees declining border crossings--
crossings have dropped steeply since June--he sees an escalating border 
crisis that only his wall can fix. Facts may not matter to a President 
willing to invent a hurricane path with a sharpie marker, but they 
should matter to us. We must not allow this President to invoke such 
sweeping powers--powers we granted to him for real emergencies--simply 
to address some emergency he has concocted in his head.
  So this week I hope all Senators, no matter what their political 
background is, will think carefully about their vote on the President's 
national emergency declaration. I hope each of us thinks long and hard 
about what it would mean for our role as a coequal branch, for the 
separation of powers, for the Constitution, which has protected our 
country all these years, and what would it mean if we fail to reject 
this naked power grab by President Trump.
  In March, 12 of my Republican friends joined Democrats in rejecting 
the President's emergency declaration, forcing him to override our vote 
with a veto. I hope every one of us tonight will go home and read the 
Constitution and realize what we must do. I hope more Republicans will 
join Democrats this time in voting aye on the joint resolution of 
disapproval. We must send this President a veto-proof message that 
Congress will rise above party to protect what is most precious in our 
American democracy; the Senate will stand for the Constitution above 
all else; that the Senate will be the conscience of the Nation, as we 
should be.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I am pleased to join my colleagues and 
very much appreciate Senator Udall's leadership on the joint resolution 
we are speaking to today. This is the resolution that would end the 
President's unconstitutional emergency declaration, which is diverting 
money from critical military construction projects to fund a costly and 
ineffective border wall.
  Congress has made it abundantly clear that we did not provide funding 
for the President's border wall and that we don't approve of raiding 
military resources to fund his campaign promise--which, by the way, the 
President vowed Mexico would pay for.
  It is important to note that Congress works on a bipartisan basis to 
provide funding to secure the southern border. According to the 
Constitution, it is Congress and not the President who holds the power 
of the purse. Just 6 months ago, in a strong bipartisan vote, a 
majority of this body--59 Senators--successfully passed the resolution 
disapproving of the President's emergency declaration. Unfortunately, 
President Trump chose to veto that legislation, which is why we have 
brought it to the floor again for a vote.
  It is imperative that this legislative body--this Senate--defend its 
authority as derived from the Constitution and protect funding that is 
vital to our troops and to our national security.
  I think it is difficult to overstate the critical role military 
construction projects play in maintaining military readiness and 
supporting our national defense. Yet this administration is treating 
funding set aside for our national security like a slush fund.
  Take military construction, for instance. At the Portsmouth Naval 
shipyard in New Hampshire and Maine--it is on the border between New 
Hampshire and Maine--any disruptions for funding in construction 
projects can result in costly delays to our military's carefully 
crafted plans to upgrade aging infrastructure. Delays in projects that 
support the shipyard's mission threaten to exacerbate the Navy's 
already high demand for submarine maintenance and the projected 
submarine shortfall in the coming years.

  In addition, New Hampshire's National Guard readiness centers are in 
desperate need of modernization, and they can't afford further delays 
to readiness center improvements. All those projects are funded through 
the military construction program.
  While New Hampshire's and Maine's shipyard and National Guard were 
spared from President Trump's latest money grab, the same can't be said 
for 127 other important military construction projects across this 
country.
  The 552 middle school children at Fort Campbell in the majority 
leader's home State of Kentucky will have to wait for a new school as 
President Trump diverts construction funding to the border.
  Critical projects in Virginia that would improve a cyber operations 
facility and replace hazardous materials in warehouses are another 
casualty of President Trump's political games.
  The Child Development Center in Maryland, the missile field in 
Alaska, the weapon maintenance shop in Alabama--the list of projects 
that are affected by the President's unconstitutional mandate just goes 
on and on. It includes hundreds of millions of dollars for critical 
infrastructure to support the Defense Department's European Deterrence 
Initiative. What message does that send to our European allies

[[Page S5658]]

on our efforts to deter Russian aggression?
  The impact of the President's actions and Congress's own complacency 
is painfully real to the men and women who serve our Nation. These are 
the same men and women who are being deprived of the resources they 
need to complete their mission.
  Perhaps not surprising, there are now reports indicating that the 
Trump administration is again planning to take military construction 
funds appropriated by Congress to build the border wall. According to 
the Washington Post, you can see this pretty clearly. The 
administration plans to pitch its appropriations request to Congress as 
replenishment money to the Department of Defense for the money they 
took this year to fund the border wall.
  A Trump administration official said:

       The plan is to sell it as replenishment money. . . . Then 
     once they got it from Congress, they would take it again.

  This isn't just a one-time deal. We are talking about the 
administration setting us up to do this again and again and again. This 
type of deception from the administration makes funding the government 
extremely difficult for Congress because we can't trust--we don't know 
if the President is negotiating in good faith.
  The Members of the legislative branch are endowed by the Constitution 
with the power to fund the government. We must be sure that the 
resources we provide in spending legislation are being used as they 
were intended by the Congress. This constitutional duty is particularly 
salient when the President has shown such a flagrant disregard for 
congressional intent and the constitutional separation of powers. The 
authority of the Congress is very clear: The power of the purse is held 
by the legislative branch. Those powers were enumerated for the very 
reason that we are here today--to shield against an overreaching 
Executive.
  This isn't about Democrat versus Republican; this is about whether 
Congress votes to uphold its powers and responsibilities--powers and 
responsibilities that are enshrined in the Constitution. We must take 
action now in defense of both our Constitution and our national 
security.
  I would urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to protect our 
constitutional authority as Members of Congress, to defend our national 
security, and to support the resolution to terminate President Trump's 
emergency declaration.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. UDALL. Madam President, I very much appreciate being joined on 
the floor by my colleagues at this critical time in history. Senator 
Shaheen just spoke. We also had Senator Murray and Senator Leahy down 
here.
  This issue will come to a head tomorrow. We are really at a 
crossroads. This body can continue to allow the President to subvert 
our constitutional authority to appropriate, or we can take back our 
power of the purse and exercise it as the Founders intended. The issue 
before us is not partisan; it is constitutional. If we don't put the 
Constitution above party, above politics, we might as well pack up our 
bags and go home. The voters did not send us here to shirk our 
responsibilities. History will not be kind to us if we allow the 
Executive to run roughshod over our constitutional authority.
  For the second time, we have introduced a bipartisan resolution to 
terminate the President's national emergency declaration along our 
southern border. I thank Senators Collins and Shaheen for once again 
joining this resolution and affirming their commitment to the 
Constitution.
  Our first vote on this resolution in March passed 59 to 41. We had 
strong bipartisan support because the President's emergency declaration 
is clearly an end run around Congress. We have the power to bring this 
resolution back every 6 months. I hope we can add to our majority this 
time because what were once fears about a so-called emergency in March 
have become a stark reality in September.
  While I firmly oppose the President's approach on immigration, this 
vote is not about whether you oppose or support that approach. In 
March, a Republican Senator wrote in conviction about the President's 
emergency declaration:

       It is my responsibility to be a steward of the article I 
     branch, to preserve the separation of powers and to curb the 
     kind of executive overreach that Congress has allowed to 
     fester for the better part of the past century. I stood by 
     that principle during the Obama administration, and I stand 
     by it now.

  We all have another opportunity to stand with the Constitution and to 
object to a President actively diverting billions in defense funding 
for a political purpose. Congress, not the President, was given the 
power of the purse to make sure taxpayer money was spent on projects 
with broad public support.
  We have different views in Congress, but as a whole, we have 
responded to the American people, and we have not appropriated all the 
funds the President has sought for his wall. But instead of allowing 
Congress to decide on spending, which is what the Constitution 
envisions, the President caused the longest shutdown in American 
history to get his wall. That 35-day shutdown caused a lot of pain and 
anxiety for many Federal workers and contractors and their families in 
New Mexico and across the Nation. When the shutdown didn't work, the 
President issued his emergency declaration.
  If we allow this President to issue an emergency declaration to get 
funding for his wall, we will be setting a dangerous precedent--a 
precedent that could be used by future Presidents on issues my 
Republican colleagues surely wouldn't like.

  The President is now taking $3.6 billion from 127 military 
construction projects that we have approved and funded. We all know the 
rigor with which these projects have been vetted, scrutinized, and 
approved. According to the Pentagon, these projects are necessary for 
national security and military readiness, necessary to ensure the 
safety of our men and women in uniform and their children. In other 
words, they are not projects simply designed to fulfill a campaign 
slogan.
  Two projects in New Mexico are on the chopping block, and both are 
critical. One is an $85 million drone pilot training center at Holloman 
Air Force Base to replace a facility that is falling apart, and the 
other is a $40 million secure information technology facility at White 
Sands Missile Range. Both of those are gone.
  In Utah, the Air Force has sought a new control center at Hill Air 
Force Base to replace ``structurally deficient, dilapidated World War 
II-era warehouses'' for mission control.
  In Louisiana, the Air National Guard sought to replace an aircraft 
parking ramp in a New Orleans facility that exposes the public to 
``unacceptable risks'' of being impacted by an explosive accident.
  In Indiana, Army servicemembers have worked in violation of safety 
standards for handling explosives and need additional space from 
munitions.
  In Kentucky, the military seeks to repair substandard, deficient, 
inadequate, and undersized facilities at a majority school at Fort 
Campbell that impairs the overall education program for the children of 
servicemembers.
  Back in March, we worried that this would happen, but now it is a 
reality. Our men and women in uniform and their children are paying for 
the wall. And if we do not stand up and stop it today, it will happen 
again and again. This is unacceptable, and I believe it is unlawful and 
unconstitutional. We here in the Senate have decided to fund these 
projects and others in 23 States instead of a border wall, and with 
good reason.
  Some in Congress are calling for us to backfill 127 projects and 
reappropriate the funds for them. Backfilling does not solve the 
problem. It does not repair the constitutional violation. It only gives 
license to the President to continue raiding funds we have already 
appropriated for military construction projects. Unless we stop the 
emergency, the backfilled money will be subject to being raided again. 
If your house is robbed, it is foolish to buy new valuables without 
putting a new lock on the door.
  Canceling these 127 projects is not just a one-off; we all know the 
President fully intends to keep it. It has already been reported that 
if the President doesn't get the $5 billion he has requested for his 
wall in 2020, the administration plans to take another $3.6 billion 
from the Pentagon's construction budget.

[[Page S5659]]

  I will come back in a minute.
  I yield to the majority leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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