[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 155 (Wednesday, September 25, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5681-S5691]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   RESOLUTIONS TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will 
report the resolutions to instruct.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 330) instructing the managers on the 
     part of the Senate on the bill S. 1790 (116th Congress) to 
     require certain measures to address Federal election 
     interference by foreign governments.
       A resolution (S. Res. 331) instructing the managers on the 
     part of the Senate on the bill S. 1790 (116th Congress) to 
     insist upon the inclusion of the provisions of S. 2118 (116th 
     Congress) (relating to the prohibition of United States 
     persons from dealing in certain information and 
     communications technology or services from foreign 
     adversaries and requiring the approval of Congress to 
     terminate certain export controls in effect with respect to 
     Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.).
       A resolution (S. Res. 332) instructing the managers on the 
     part of the Senate on the conference on the bill S. 1790 
     (116th Congress) to insist upon the provisions contained in 
     section 630A of the House amendment (relating to the repeal 
     of a requirement of reduction of Survivor Benefit Plan 
     survivor annuities by amounts of dependency and indemnity 
     compensation).
       A resolution (S. Res. 333) instructing the managers on the 
     part of the Senate on the bill S. 1790 (116th Congress) to 
     insist upon the provisions contained in subtitle B of title 
     XI of the House amendment (relating to paid family leave for 
     Federal personnel).
       A resolution (S. Res. 334) instructing the managers on the 
     part of the Senate on the bill (S. 1790) (116th Congress) to 
     insist upon the provisions contained in section 316 of the 
     Senate bill (relating to a prohibition on the use of 
     perfluoroalkyl substances and polyfluoroalkyl substances for 
     land-based applications of firefighting foam).
       A resolution (S. Res. 335) instructing the managers on the 
     part of the Senate on the bill S. 1790 (116th Congress) to 
     insist upon the members of the conference to include the 
     provisions contained in section 2906 of the Senate bill 
     (relating to replenishment of certain military construction 
     funds).
       A resolution (S. Res. 336) instructing the managers on the 
     part of the Senate on the bill S. 1790 (116th Congress) to 
     insist upon the members of the conference to consider 
     potential commonsense solutions regarding family and medical 
     leave, including voluntary compensatory time programs and 
     incentives through the tax code.

  Thereupon, the Senate proceeded to consider the resolutions to 
instruct conferees.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.


                      Unanimous Consent Agreement

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
recess from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. today for a briefing.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               Clinton 12

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in a few minutes, I want to speak about 
President Trump's nomination of Eugene Scalia to be the Secretary of 
Labor, but first I want to introduce two speeches that I made in 
Tennessee into the Record. I notice the room nearly cleared when I 
observed I was about to make some speeches, but at least there are some 
people watching.
  The first speech was on August 26 of this year in Clinton, TN. It had 
to do with the Clinton 12. These were 12 students, some as young as 14 
years of age, who walked down a hill and enrolled in Clinton High 
School in 1956--63 years ago--and became the first students to 
integrate a public school in the South.
  Many of us remember what happened the next year in Arkansas, when 
Governor Faubus stood in the door, and President Eisenhower had to send 
in the troops to integrate Little Rock Central High School. I remember 
those days very well. I was in high school myself then.
  It is hard to imagine the courage it must have taken for those 
children to walk down that hill and integrate that school. Most of them 
were there in Clinton, TN, when they were honored in the month of 
August.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my remarks on the Clinton 
12 Commemorative Walk we took that day be printed in the Record 
following my remarks about Mr. Scalia.


                         Tennessee Valley Fair

  Secondly, the Tennessee Valley Fair. It is a big event in Knoxville, 
TN, that was held on September 6. It was attended by almost everybody 
who has anything to do with politics in Knox County, which means the 
room was full with 500 or 600 people.
  It was an opportunity for me to make a suggestion to the people of 
Knoxville about what to celebrate. Many of us had been watching Ken 
Burns' ``Country Music'' special on PBS. He reminds us that Tennessee 
has a lot to celebrate in terms of country music. His first two hours 
were about Bristol, TN, which is the birthplace of country music. It is 
where Ralph Peer of New York City went to Bristol, in 1927, put an ad 
in the paper, saying: ``Hillbillies, come down out of the mountains 
with your music,'' and here came the Carter family, Jimmy Rogers, and 
several others.
  One of the people on Mr. Burns' show this week was Charlie McCoy, the 
harmonica player, a great musician. It reminded me of a time when I was 
Governor and recruiting the General Motors' Saturn plant to Tennessee. 
We had the executives coming from Detroit. We talked about what to 
serve them for dinner. We served them country ham. We talked about whom 
to have play a piece of music after dinner, and I invited Charlie McCoy 
to play his harmonica.
  A Nashville woman came up to me and said: Governor, I am so 
embarrassed.
  I said: Why is that?
  She said: You had all those fine people from Detroit, and then you 
had that harmonica player. She said: What will they think of us? Why 
didn't you offer them Chopin?
  I said: Madam, why should we offer them average Chopin when we have 
the best harmonica player in the world?
  The better people of Nashville had resisted for a long time calling 
Nashville Music City, but of course Music City is a wonderful 
signature, a great personality, and it is one reason Nashville is such 
a celebrated city today.
  In the same way, Knoxville has violated the Biblical injunction about 
don't keep your light under a bushel because it rarely talks much about 
Oak Ridge. So the speech I made would suggest that the sign at the 
Knoxville airport, which says, ``Welcome to Knoxville: Gateway to the 
Great Smoky Mountains,'' ought to say instead, ``Welcome to Knoxville: 
Gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains and the Oak Ridge Corridor.''
  There are nearly 3,000 scientists, engineers, and technicians who 
work at

[[Page S5682]]

the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the largest science and energy 
laboratory in America, and at the University of Tennessee and at the 
Tennessee Valley Authority. That part of the personality of the 
Knoxville area needs to be celebrated.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks on 
the Clinton 12, that my speech at the Tennessee Valley Fair on 
September 6 be printed in the Record.


                      Nomination of Eugene Scalia

  Mr. President, in my remaining time, I would like to say a few words 
about Eugene Scalia and the President's nomination of him to be 
Secretary of Labor for the United States.
  The Senate will vote, probably tomorrow, on whether to confirm Mr. 
Scalia. I certainly hope the Senate does, and I believe the Senate 
will.
  We have known for two months that President Trump intended for Mr. 
Scalia to be the Secretary. He announced that intention on July 18. We 
have had all of his papers since August 27. Those are the government 
ethics papers and the committee papers that are necessary. They all 
came a month ago. He gave us a copy of all of his writings. He came to 
a hearing the other day. The Presiding Officer was there. He testified 
for three hours. We had two rounds of questions. Senators could ask 
anything they wanted. He offered to visit, over the last month, with 
every member of our committee and did with all but two. So we know 
plenty about Mr. Scalia. He answered another 418 questions that 
committee members asked him after his hearing.
  I think two months is long enough to consider him and consider all 
that information.
  I remember when President Obama's Secretary of Education stepped down 
in the last year of the President's term. I encouraged the President to 
nominate John King, whom the President wanted to nominate, but he was 
afraid he couldn't be confirmed because we, the Republican majority, 
disagreed with him. I disagreed with him. I said: Mr. President, it is 
important for you to have a confirmed member of your Cabinet and to 
have that person considered and confirmed promptly. It is important to 
the Senate to have a Cabinet member who goes through the process of 
questions and advice and consent. That is our most important function 
in many ways.
  We confirmed John King in a month.
  We have had two months to consider Mr. Scalia, and that should be 
enough. He has a broad background in labor and employment law. He is a 
partner in a major Washington, DC, law firm, so he knows all the 
issues. He spent a year as Solicitor of Labor in the George W. Bush 
administration. He left the firm to be Special Assistant to the 
Attorney General of the United States in 1992.
  Academically, he is very well prepared. He went to the University of 
Virginia. He was editor in chief of the University of Chicago Law 
Review. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Chicago Law 
School and an adjunct professor at the David A. Clarke School of Law at 
the University of the District of Columbia. He is very well qualified.
  It is important for the Department to have a well-qualified, steady 
leader. I like the demeanor that Mr. Scalia showed in his hearing. The 
Democratic members of the committee were there, and they were very 
vigorous in their questioning. I also like the fact that they were 
courteous to him. They didn't take the attitude that sometimes happens 
in U.S. Senate--that you are innocent until nominated. They took the 
attitude that he was a well-qualified person with whom they disagreed, 
so they asked him questions. He answered them, and he did a good job.
  I like the fact that the Trump Administration has taken steps to 
create a more stable environment by having a more sensible joint 
employer standard that doesn't make it more difficult for American 
families to own and operate franchises. There are more than seven 
hundred thousand American franchise establishments. That is the way you 
get into the middle class in America. We need a steady hand there to 
make sure that happens properly.
  I like the fact that the administration has a more reasonable 
overtime rule. The overtime threshold needed to be changed, but the 
last administration raised it too high too fast. It caused church camps 
to have to lay off people and close in the summer. It had all sorts of 
unintended consequences and bipartisan opposition. The administration 
announced yesterday a more reasonable step.
  Next, association health plans. Among the people in America who have 
the hardest time paying for insurance are those who make $50,000 a year 
and don't get a government subsidy. Association health plans help 
people who work for small businesses to be able to get the same kind of 
insurance that people who work for IBM or big businesses get--insurance 
that covers preexisting conditions and offers the same sort of consumer 
protections.
  It has been estimated by Avalere that the association health plan 
rule that the Department of Labor put out would help three to four 
million Americans be able to afford health insurance and save their 
premium costs by several thousand dollars a year. Mr. Scalia can work 
on that.
  Mr. President, I received 32 letters in support of Mr. Scalia's 
nomination from small business owners, employers, industry groups, and 
his colleagues. I will mention a couple.
  Former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein wrote:

       His decency is part of what makes him someone who tends to 
     go case-by-case, and to end up where the facts and the law 
     take him. . . . He does not have an ideological 
     straightjacket. He takes issues on their merits.

  Thomas Susman, who was Senator Ted Kennedy's counsel, wrote:

       Gene is precisely the kind of person that our country needs 
     in the Cabinet: experienced, ethical, professional, open-
     minded, fair, and brilliant.

  There are a number of other letters from former Department of Labor 
career attorneys, Chicago Law Review editorial board members, Fraternal 
Order of Police members, and others.
  Suffice it to say that the country is fortunate the President has 
nominated Eugene Scalia to be the U.S. Secretary of Labor. He has 
conducted himself admirably in the two-month process of going through 
the Senate confirmation. We have a chance to bring that to a conclusion 
tomorrow. My hope is that the Senate will confirm him and that he will 
be in office by the end of the week.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   Commemorating the Clinton 12 Walk

       Thank you Mayor Frank. To Lt. Governor McNally, Congressman 
     Fleischmann, Representative Bob Clement, Judy Gooch, students 
     and teachers, and especially, to members of the Clinton 12 
     and their families and friends.
       It is hard standing here to imagine the courage that it 
     took the Clinton 12, some of them as young as 14 years of 
     age, to take a walk that we just took this morning and become 
     the first students to integrate a public high school in the 
     south.
       In that year, 63 years ago, I was a rising junior at 
     Maryville High School, about an hour away.
       I remember reading in the Knoxville newspapers about John 
     Kasper, and the demonstrations, and how the men and women we 
     honor here today couldn't be intimidated.
       I remember the uncommon courage of then-governor Frank 
     Clement, whose son Bob is here, who sent in state troopers 
     and national guardsmen in support of the Clinton 12.
       Today it seems like it would be an easy decision, but it 
     was not an easy decision for the governor.
       I remember that the very next year in 1957, it was a 
     different story in Arkansas.
       The Governor of Arkansas stood in the door and stopped 
     students from coming into Little Rock Central High School, 
     and President Eisenhower mobilized the National Guard to 
     support the students.
       It's unpleasant to remember some of the things from then.
       It's unpleasant to remember the Boys' and Girls' State 
     program that we high schoolers would attend, was then 
     segregated by race.
       That the Alcoa student, who later became the first African 
     American basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, 
     when he was a teenager and wanted to go to the University of 
     Tennessee football game, had to sit in a section of the 
     stadium that was reserved for blacks.
       It's unpleasant to remember that there never had been an 
     African American athlete who played in the Southeastern 
     Conference, or there hadn't been a black Supreme Court 
     Justice in Tennessee, or a black chancellor, or a local 
     judge.
       It's unpleasant to remember that African American students 
     couldn't sit at the front of the bus, couldn't sit at a lunch 
     counter, and when traveling across our state and some other 
     states in the South, had to sleep in the car because no motel 
     would admit them because of their race.

[[Page S5683]]

       So it is good to celebrate that things are very different 
     today, and it's important to remember the courage of the 
     Clinton 12 and to celebrate that progress.
       But it's also important to remember, as we celebrate the 
     Clinton 12, that things could be even better.
       We still have a ways to go.
       We have a United States Senator from South Carolina, whose 
     name is Tim Scott.
       He is an African American Senator elected from that state.
       He told me that he was arrested seven times within the last 
     few years in his hometown in Charleston, South Carolina, 
     basically for being a black man in the wrong place.
       And at the time, he was the Vice Mayor of Charleston.
       When I first came to the Senate several years ago, your 
     city manager, Steve Jones, came to see me to tell me 
     Clinton's vision for preserving the story of the Clinton 12.
       It's been a great pleasure to work with him and the city 
     and so many of you to try to help him do that.
       Our former senator, Bill Frist, worked with us to help us 
     secure some of the first funding for Green McAdoo Cultural 
     Center.
       And a new law we passed in 2009 directed the Secretary of 
     the Interior to take the first step to making it part of our 
     National Park System.
       The late reverend Benjamin Hooks, a Tennessean who was 
     President of the NAACP, once told me this: ``Remember, our 
     country is a work in progress.
       In my life, I have seen us come a long way, but we have a 
     long way to go.''
       That is why the story of the Clinton 12 is so important to 
     remember and celebrate today. Thank you.

                         Tennessee Valley Fair

       You know, it says in Lamar Alexander's Little Plaid Book 
     that if you want a standing ovation, seat a few friends in 
     the front row.
       Thanks to those of you right there.
       Thanks to Tim Burchett and to Kelly and Isabel.
       I want you to know that Tim is not only good at the Vol 
     Market, he's good in the United States Congress, and I 
     appreciate the chance to serve with him in his good work 
     there.
       To Speaker Cameron Sexton, congratulations to Cameron. I've 
     watched his career, he's off to a terrific start.
       Mayor Jacobs, Mayor Rogero, Congressman Jimmy Duncan--my 
     good friend for many years, and he still is--and Wanda Moody, 
     with whom I worked for a long time.
       Distinguished ladies and gentlemen: Coming up here, I was 
     thinking that our favorite son, Howard Baker, used to remind 
     us that it was wise to try to be an eloquent listener, but 
     that gets harder to do the older you get.
       For example, you may remember Bobby Bare who sang Detroit 
     City.
       He's in his eighties now.
       He was on the Grand Ole Opry stage the other night.
       Somebody asked him, ``Bobby, how long you've been wearing 
     your hearing aids?''
       He said, ``Well, it's like this. A few years ago, my wife 
     said to me, `Bobby, I'm proud of you.' And I said back to 
     her, `I'm tired of you too.' ''
       He said, ``I've been wearing them ever since.''
       A few years ago, when I was buying a car in Nashville, the 
     salesman pulled out his billfold, and he pulled out a picture 
     of his two-year-old and he said, ``What do you think of 
     her?''
       And I said what a politician always says. I said, ``That is 
     a beautiful baby.''
       And he looked up at me and said, ``She won second best baby 
     at the Wilson County Fair.''
       I've always remembered that because that's what we do at 
     fairs. We celebrate the best among us.
       We celebrate the tastiest tomato, and the biggest pumpkin, 
     and the prettiest girl and the strongest man, the craziest 
     quilt, the biggest tractor and the best baby.
       And for a century, the Tennessee Valley Fair has been doing 
     that.
       Bob Booker wrote this morning about some of the history 
     even before then, and I was thinking so much happened in 
     1919.
       I know over in one county, a Maryville high school was 
     started that year.
       Proffitt's Department Store was started that year.
       The Kiwanis Club started that year.
       The West Plant was being built that year and this fair 
     started that year.
       And I think it was because the war ended in 1918 and 
     everybody came home and had a burst of enthusiasm about our 
     country.
       They wanted to celebrate what was good about it.
       And so here came the fair.
       So this fair has been celebrating all the things I just 
     talked about.
       And also, had you come to the Tennessee Valley Fair over 
     the last century, you could see pigs jumping through hoops, 
     you could see dancing horses, you could see African American 
     cultural exhibits, you could see the wildest roller coaster 
     ride, and you could see the fastest new car.
       That's why people came to the fair.
       But in the depression, Professor Harcourt Morgan, who later 
     was the U.T. president and the TVA Board Chairman, suggested 
     this. He said, ``We ought to use the fair to try to think 
     differently what we have to celebrate in the Knoxville 
     area.''
       So in that spirit, let me take about five or 10 minutes and 
     suggest to you what I think we ought to be celebrating in the 
     Knoxville area.
       We have plenty to celebrate.
       I mean, telling Eddie earlier, you'd come down to the 
     airport and there's a sign that says, ``Welcome to Knoxville, 
     Gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains.'' We've got the biggest 
     mountains in the East, the most visited park. That's 
     something to celebrate.
       Ken Burns is going to have on television this year his 
     series on country music.
       He thinks it may be more popular than his Civil War series.
       Where was the birthplace of country music? Right here in 
     East Tennessee.
       The Tennessee Valley Authority has become the largest 
     public utility in the United States.
       The University of Tennessee has become a major research 
     institution and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory has grown 
     from a Manhattan Project to build a bomb to win a war, to 
     becoming the nation's largest science and energy laboratory, 
     the home of the world's fastest computer, and the home of the 
     best new work on 3-D printing for manufacturing.
       So we've got a lot to celebrate.
       Let's add up those last three. Let's add up TVA, U.T., and 
     Oak Ridge for just a minute.
       When I do that, here's one thing I get: about 3,000 
     scientists and engineers.
       You know that's as large a concentration of brainpower in 
     the Knoxville area as exists in North Carolina's research 
     triangle, Route 128 of Massachusetts, or it even rivals the 
     Silicon Valley--which we know a lot about--in California.
       The trouble is when we come to Oak Ridge, the rest of us in 
     this area are guilty of violating the parable that Jesus 
     talked about in Matthew, which was don't hide your light 
     under a bushel.
       We just don't talk about it much.
       It's not so unusual. It just doesn't happen to us.
       About every 10 years at night in Nashville, some of the so-
     called ``better'' people will come up and say, ``We're 
     getting a bad reputation. We'll get known for all this 
     hillbilly music in Nashville. Can't we remind people we have 
     a symphony?''
       I remember one night when I was governor, we invited the 
     General Motors executives from Detroit to have dinner at the 
     mansion.
       We were recruiting the Saturn plant like everybody else 
     was.
       So Honey and I decided we would serve a country ham, and I 
     invited Charlie McCoy to play the harmonica after dinner.
       A Nashville lady came up to me afterwards and said, 
     ``Governor, I'm so embarrassed about what I see. About that 
     harmonica player, what will those fine people from Detroit 
     think of us?'' And I said, ``Madam, why should I offer them 
     average Chopin when we got the best harmonica player in the 
     world?''
       Nashville is pretty happy about being Music City and off 
     they go.
       Then I go to Memphis and they're worrying about Nashville. 
     They said, ``Nashville's got this, Nashville's got that.''
       I say, ``Well, wait a minute. Okay, let's have a jobs 
     conference.''
       So we had a jobs conference and what'd they do? Well, they 
     said, ``We've got Beale Street, we'll clean it up, we'll 
     build an agricenter. Nashville doesn't want to do that, that 
     fits us. We'll get the ducks back walking in the Peabody 
     Hotel.''
       And there went Memphis.
       Then here come the people from Chattanooga, ``You gave 
     Memphis money, we want to build a $2 million aquarium.''
       I said, ``Why would you build such a stingy aquarium? If 
     you're going to do it, build the biggest aquarium from 
     Baltimore to Miami so people will come to see it.''
       And that is what they did. And in the meantime they noticed 
     they had the beautiful Tennessee River Gorge and a great 
     downtown. And look where Chattanooga is today.
       So let's think about Knoxville, just a minute, and all 
     those cities.
       The idea of hiding our light under a bushel doesn't just 
     belong to the cities.
       It's all over the state.
       Some of you will remember Tennessee homecoming '86 when I 
     asked everybody to find something to celebrate in your 
     community--invite everybody who lived there to come do it, 
     and then have a celebration.
       And in the Forest Brook neighborhood in Knoxville, they 
     invited everybody to come home on the 4th of July and they 
     had a celebration.
       And in Hickman County, Minnie Pearl and the people who 
     lived there made a quilt with all the names of the little 
     communities in Hickman County so the children would know, for 
     example, where Bona Aqua came from.
       And in Nashville, they invited all the writers who grew up 
     in Tennessee to come home and they did. And the Festival of 
     Books still is going on in Nashville.
       So I think it's important to stop worrying about what 
     you're not and start celebrating what you've got, which is 
     why I have a suggestion to make in the spirit of Professor 
     Harcourt Morgan, who said, ``We ought to use the fair to take 
     a little different look about what we have to sell them.''
       I suggest that we change the sign at the Knoxville airport 
     and we say ``Welcome to Knoxville, Gateway to the Great Smoky 
     Mountains and the Oak Ridge Corridor.''
       Now our new governor, Bill Lee, who is an engineer, 
     understands why we need to do that.

[[Page S5684]]

       He told a group from Nashville, ``What Tennessee needs is a 
     magnet to attract jobs and capital.''
       Then he came up to Oak Ridge the next day and said, ``We've 
     got a magnet right here.''
       The first time I met Glenn Jacobs, he talked to me about 
     the Oak Ridge Corridor before I could talk to him about it.
       He's the mayor of Knox County, but he saw the 
     interconnection.
       So I'm sure Mayor Rogero must see those connections every 
     day.
       Tim Burchett is pretty good at the Vol Market, but the 
     first visit he had with me in Washington was to come talk to 
     me about the 8,000 Oak Ridgers who live in Knox County and 
     what he could do to support Oak Ridge and Randy Boyd and 
     Chancellor Plowman of University of Tennessee.
       You know, U.T. now manages the Oak Ridge National 
     Laboratory, and they started a new hundred million dollar Oak 
     Ridge Institute at the University of Tennessee to recognize 
     the importance of that connection.
       Last week, I talked to Sam Beall, who, many of you know.
       Just like this fair, Sam Beall is 100 years old.
       When he came to Knoxville in the 1930s, there was basically 
     no Oak Ridge.
       The Great Smoky Mountains National Park and TVA had just 
     been created.
       And there were no doctoral programs at the University of 
     Tennessee and no one in their wildest dream could imagine a 
     personal computer.
       Today, Oak Ridge has the largest science and energy 
     laboratory in America, TVA is the largest public utility, 
     U.T. is a major research university, and the fastest 
     computers in the world are about 15 miles away at Oak Ridge.
       So things have changed.
       When Sam Beall came here in the 1930s, which was about the 
     time Professor Harcourt Morgan said, ``Let's think about a 
     little different way to celebrate the Knoxville area.''
       When Sam came in the 1930s, Oak Ridge was a secret city.
       While a lot of people from around here work there, there 
     didn't seem to be much relationship between Oak Ridge and 
     Maryville, or Oak Ridge and Madisonville, or Oak Ridge and 
     Sevierville, or even Oak Ridge and Knoxville.
       So, my suggestion is that we take Professor Harcourt 
     Morgan's advice in the 1930s and use it this year.
       That, along with the prize chickens, the best babies, the 
     birthplace of country music, and most visited national park.
       Let's celebrate the fact that the Knoxville area is the 
     home of one of the largest concentrations of brain power 
     anywhere in the United States, rivaling the Research 
     Triangle, Route 128 and even the Silicon Valley.
       And it's also home to one of the best-known brand names in 
     the world, a brand name that stands for science, energy, and 
     excellence.
       So my suggestion in the spirit of the fair and with the 
     suggestion of Harcourt Morgan, is let's change the sign at 
     the Knoxville airport from ``Welcome to Knoxville, Gateway to 
     the Great Smoky Mountains'' to ``Welcome to Knoxville, 
     Gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains and the Oak Ridge 
     Corridor.''
       If we want to take the professor's advice and celebrate 
     what's special about where we live today, that would be the 
     best way to do it.
       Thank you.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.


                              S.J. Res. 54

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, earlier this month, I went to Joint Base 
Andrews, which, as I think many of you know, is not far from here. It 
is where the President boards Air Force One. The mission at Joint Base 
Andrews is broad. The Air Force does an incredible job in service to 
our country. I went there to take a look at the Child Development 
Center. The Child Development Center that I visited was first 
constructed in 1941 not as a childcare center but for other purposes. 
It has had serious challenges, as the Air Force put in their request to 
build a new childcare center--a new child development center.
  I visited classrooms that had to be closed because of a sewage 
backup, which happens regularly and flows into the kitchen area of this 
particular facility. I saw the results of a roof that had collapsed 
during a heavy snowstorm that now has been replaced, but the use of 
that part of the building is compromised. I saw the concerns expressed 
about pest control, about an HVAC system that does not work properly, 
and about a facility that doesn't have the capacity they need in order 
to deal with the needs of our Air Force personnel.
  It was for that reason that the Air Force has made this one of their 
top priorities in military construction, to replace this 1941 facility. 
Through the competitive process that is used under the Department of 
Defense, this project rose to a top priority and was included in the 
President's budget and approved by Congress at $13 million for a 
replacement.
  Let me read from the Air Force's justification in requesting these 
funds. It says:

       Not providing this facility forces members to use more 
     expensive, less convenient and potentially lower quality off-
     base programs. These off-base child development centers 
     typically cost $9,400 more than on-base, creating a severe 
     financial strain on military personnel. Quality of life will 
     be severely degraded, resulting in impacts to retention and 
     readiness because Airmen and their families will not have a 
     safe and nurturing environment for child care.

  That will be the consequences if we don't replace the structure. Why 
do I talk about that? Because this was one of 64 projects that were 
included in the President's emergency power transfer, taking this $13 
million from the replacement of a child development center and using it 
for his wall. It was one of three projects in Maryland. We had $66.5 
million.
  There was another project at Joint Base Andrews dealing with 
hazardous material, the place where they unload hazardous material. 
They want to do it away from where the President's plane flies. That 
makes abundant sense. That was cut and transferred over to the wall.
  For those of you who have been to Ft. Meade--an incredibly important 
facility--try to get there when you have a traffic problem. It is 
almost impossible. Part of the moneys that were transferred was to 
alleviate those concerns--the traffic.
  The President took 64 projects--$3.6 billion, including this Child 
Development Center at Joint Base Andrews, to use to pay for his wall. 
He told us during the campaign that this was being done in an effort--
that Mexico would pay for it. We now know that the airmen families at 
Joint Base Andrews are going to pay for this wall--$9,400 more per 
child because they don't have a safe facility. This facility has a hard 
time passing accreditation considering the situation. That is not me 
telling you this; this is the Air Force telling you this. Yet those 
funds were taken away. Why were they taken away? Because the President 
used his emergency declaration power to do this.
  I believe this was an unconstitutional abuse of power. Let me quote 
from the President himself. This is what the President said in the Rose 
Garden in announcing the so-called emergency. I am quoting the 
President of the United States:

       I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn't 
     need to do this. But I'd rather do it much faster.

  Is that an emergency? Is that contradicting the direct dictate of 
Congress? Let me just remind my colleagues of the Constitution, article 
I, section 9, clause 7. It is the Congress that has the power of the 
purse strings. We are the ones who appropriate the money, not the 
President of the United States. He carries out our instructions. Yet he 
uses, by his own words, something he wanted to do for himself rather 
than a national emergency to transfer those funds. It is wrong. It is 
not just this Senator saying it is wrong; we got a letter from several 
Senators, former Senators and former Members of the House--
Republicans--who commented on this. The signatories to this letter 
include Senator Danforth, Mickey Edwards, Chuck Hagel, Jim Kolbe, 
Olympia Snowe, and Richard Lugar. They are respected Republican Members 
of this body. Let me quote from their letter.

       Our oath is to put the country and its Constitution above 
     everything, including party politics or loyalty to a 
     president. . . . The power of the purse rests with Congress . 
     . . if you allow a president to ignore Congress, it will be 
     not your authority but that of your constituents that is 
     deprived of the protections of true representative 
     government.

  This is not about loyalty to a President or a party loyalty; this is 
about exercising the constitutional responsibilities of the article I 
legislative branch of government.
  We just took a vote. We can do something about it--S.J. Res. 54, 
terminating the national emergency. We got a majority of the Senators 
who voted for it, 54 to 41, so it will move forward. We expect this 
will not be the last word, and that is why I am taking the floor time 
now. We are going to have

[[Page S5685]]

another opportunity to do this. We may have an opportunity to override 
a Presidential veto. We are going to need more support. I urge my 
colleagues to please look at the Constitution of the United States we 
took the oath to uphold. Look at Members who have served here in the 
past who are warning us that this will come back to haunt our 
constituents in their constitutional checks and balances, having the 
Congress be the people's body here--not the President of the United 
States--in passing laws and making appropriations.
  Let us do the right thing. Let us exercise the checks and balances 
that are in our system. Let us see this S.J. Res. 54 become law. Let us 
reverse this emergency declaration. Let's do it for the Constitution. 
Let's do it for the U.S. Congress. Let's do it for the men and women in 
our military service who are being denied the necessary military 
construction projects, including those service men and women at Joint 
Base Andrews who need a child development center that protects the 
welfare of their children.
  For all those reasons, I hope this becomes law.
  With that, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Medical Billing

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, for the past couple of weeks, New 
Hampshire and many other States across the country have been flooded 
with millions of dollars' worth of dark money advertisements. These ads 
have been all over TV and social media.
  Let me just be clear. They haven't been running just against me in 
New Hampshire; they have been running against Democrats and Republicans 
in competitive races across this country.
  We have also had flyers that have been jammed in the mailboxes all 
across New Hampshire. I even got several of the flyers myself. This is 
an example of one. I will read it in just a minute.
  I want to point out that the goal of this campaign has been to stop 
Congress from acting to address surprise medical bills.
  For example, this flyer makes the dishonest claim that addressing 
surprise medical bills would lead to hospital closures and doctor 
shortages. In fact, you can see, it says:

       Imagine if the care we needed wasn't there when we needed 
     it the most. Rate setting is a healthcare nightmare--hospital 
     closures, doctor shortages, windfall profits for big 
     insurance. Say no to rate setting. Don't put big insurance 
     companies in charge of our healthcare. Stop surprise medical 
     bills.

  Then you turn it over, and it says:

       Tell Jeanne Shaheen to stop rate setting. Say no to putting 
     big insurance in charge of our healthcare. Say no to making 
     it harder to see our chosen doctors when we need them the 
     most. Say no to big insurance profits at our expense. Tell 
     Senator Jeanne Shaheen to put patients first.

  You read that, and you think I am all about trying to put insurance 
companies ahead of patients. It doesn't tell you who is sending it. But 
you look at it--and we did a little digging, and we found out that the 
ads say that they are paid for by an organization called Doctor Patient 
Unity. You read that, and you think, well, they are worried about 
patients. You look at that, and you think they are worried about 
hospital closures. This is from Doctor Patient Unity, so this must be 
someone who cares about patients. Don't believe it.
  The truth is, these flyers and the ads that have been running in New 
Hampshire and across the country are paid for by two private equity 
firms on Wall Street. They don't care about patients. They care about 
profits.
  They have spent over $2 million in New Hampshire. If you look across 
the country, they have spent tens of millions of dollars. Just imagine 
that instead of trying to pad their own bottom line and worrying about 
surprise medical billing, they had put those tens of millions of 
dollars into improving healthcare for the people of this country.
  The public doesn't know this because they have been left completely 
in the dark. Due to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, 
special interests can spend unlimited amounts of money and stay 
anonymous. So the average person throughout the country who gets one of 
these flyers is not going to know who paid for these ads. They are not 
going to know who is getting the benefit of the costs from surprise 
medical billing.
  This ad campaign is not only confusing to voters; it is exhibit A in 
how our campaign finance system is broken. The voices of Granite 
Staters who are struggling to pay surprise medical bills are being 
drowned out in this case by private equity firms on Wall Street that 
are making billions off of the status quo.
  Here is how these private equity firms are exploiting patients. 
First, surprise medical bills usually occur when a patient visits an 
in-network hospital. Let's say my insurance says that I can go to the 
hospital in my hometown. As part of the treatment, I go to the 
hospital, but the doctor who sees me is not a doctor who is in the 
network of my insurance company. So unbeknownst to me, as I go into the 
emergency room, that doctor is what is called out of network. These 
doctors often are working for physician staffing companies that have 
gone out of network so they can aggressively pursue surprise medical 
bills. These physician staffing companies are also using these surprise 
medical bills to negotiate--to command in-network payments from 
insurers that are often twice as high as the average, which can result 
in higher premiums for everybody.
  So they have these surprise medical bills, and you pay more for 
those. The insurance companies and the physician staffing companies go 
to the insurers and say: Look, these doctors are getting paid this much 
from surprise medical bills, so you have to raise your payments for 
doctors in your network, and everybody is going to pay more as the 
result of that.
  Again, this is frequently done at the behest of private equity firms 
that own the physician staffing companies.
  Surprise medical bills can be a tremendous shock to patients. This is 
what happened to Donald and Kathy Cavallaro. They live in Rye, NH. Don 
works at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. When Kathy needed emergency 
surgery, Don's insurance covered the hospital costs, but the doctor 
performing the surgery was out of their insurance network. The result 
was that they got a surprise medical bill for $5,000. Now they are 
appealing that cost.
  Unfortunately, what the Cavallaros are going through isn't a rare 
occurrence. One in six emergency room visits in New Hampshire results 
in a surprise bill for Granite Staters who have large employer 
coverage.
  Nationally, the average cost of a surprise bill from an emergency 
room visit is more than $600, and the average surprise bill for 
inpatient care is over $2,000. So we can see what is happening as a 
result of surprise medical bills. Surprise bills like these can easily 
put a family budget in the red, and Congress desperately needs to put a 
stop to them.
  Today, I strongly encourage my colleagues in the Senate to move this 
effort forward. The special interests that are pushing these surprise 
medical bills and pushing up all of our healthcare costs have to be 
tuned out.
  This is about making sure that when a Granite Stater or any American 
goes to a hospital, they can have faith that their insurance is going 
to cover their costs. We should not--we must not--let private equity 
firms on Wall Street bully Congress or derail the bipartisan efforts 
that are taking place in this body to address surprise medical bills.
  These advertisements should also serve as a reminder that Congress 
has to reform our broken campaign finance system. Special interests 
shouldn't be able to hide behind nice-sounding front groups like Doctor 
Patient Unity.
  We know these private equity firms are responsible for these ads only 
because of investigative reporting that was done by Bloomberg, the New 
York Times, and some others. Sadly, this is the exception rather than 
the norm because usually dark money never gets exposed.
  In closing, I want to send a very clear message: I don't care how 
many ads these special interests run, how many

[[Page S5686]]

mailers they send out, or how many millions they spend. Granite Staters 
who have had their family budgets upended by surprise medical bills 
must be prioritized over the special interests who want to profit off 
of them. Healthcare costs are out of control, and tackling surprise 
medical bills must remain at the top of the Senate's agenda.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               FUTURE Act

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, right now, HBCUs, like Wilberforce and 
Central State in my State of Ohio, and other minority-serving 
institutions are facing a fiscal cliff. If we don't act now, this week, 
HBCUs and other schools will face crippling funding cuts. These schools 
are a critical part of our Nation's higher education system. They have 
a rich legacy and a proven track record of educating students of color 
and other underrepresented students.
  Wilberforce was founded in 1856 as the Nation's first private 
institution of higher education for Black students in this country--an 
institution that we are so proud of in southwestern Ohio. Central State 
has a rich legacy of educating students and is an 1890 land-grant 
institution.
  Many of us worked in the last farm bill to right a historical wrong 
and to make sure all 1890 land-grant universities, including Central 
State, have access to the funding they deserve. They have fostered 
generations of African-American students. We know that without HBCUs, 
millions of Black students would have been denied the opportunity to 
pursue higher education. There simply was no place for them in many 
places in this country. They would have been left out of careers in 
law, academia, agriculture, politics, the sciences, and so many other 
fields.
  Our country owes an enormous debt to HBCUs. Key funding for HBCUs and 
minority-serving institutions--MSIs--expires September 30. Without this 
funding, school budgets will be thrown into chaos. They will likely 
consider program cuts and layoffs. We need to pass a clean extension.
  The House has done its job and passed the FUTURE Act. It seems the 
House is always doing its job. It passes legislation, and then the 
legislation dies in the Senate graveyard. We have seen it on issue 
after issue. This is as important as any of them. We must protect the 
HBCUs. We must extend the mandatory funding for all MSIs for 2 years. 
It is time for the Senate to do the same. HBCUs and MSIs have to 
overcome enough hurdles every day to educate their students. The Senate 
should not be one of those hurdles. We need to pass the FUTURE Act now.
  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. COTTON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                      Nomination of Eugene Scalia

  Mr. COTTON. Madam President, I would like to speak today about an old 
friend and mentor, Gene Scalia. Gene is a devoted husband and father, a 
brilliant lawyer, and a fairminded advocate for workers and the rule of 
law, and he is an outstanding choice to be our next Secretary of Labor.
  Gene has proven himself as a top legal mind both in government and in 
private practice. During the Presidency of George W. Bush, he served as 
the top lawyer for the Department of Labor, where he stood up for 
workers by vigorously enforcing the law. When Enron's executives 
defrauded and bankrupted the company, Gene fought to recover the 
retirement savings of employees and pensioners.
  In private practice, Gene fought out-of-control bureaucrats who 
threatened to undercut America's position as an industrial power. When 
Washington bureaucrats tried to stop Boeing from building its world-
class Dreamliner in South Carolina, he fended off the attack. As a 
result, thousands of South Carolinians today are employed in good-
paying manufacturing jobs, and the world's best airplanes continue to 
be made right here in America.
  Gene's resume tells the story well enough. It proves that he is a top 
expert in labor law who has devoted his life to ensuring that workers 
and industry alike get a fair shake.
  But his resume doesn't tell the whole story. I met Gene early in my 
short career as a lawyer. He was one of my very first bosses. So I got 
a window into his leadership style and legal mind. I have relied on his 
hard-earned wisdom and counsel ever since, although, I have to say, 
Gene was one of the very few lawyers I knew who discouraged me from 
leaving the law and joining the Army. I think that is less a commentary 
on my skills as a young lawyer and more a commentary on his need to 
keep his lawyers on his cases. But he came around and introduced me to 
his brother Matt, who remains an Army officer to this day, and the 
Scalia family have been good friends all along.
  Gene Scalia is one of the most capable and decent men I know in 
Washington. His dedication to the law and its just application is 
absolute. Working folks in this country deserve a Labor Secretary of 
such integrity and conviction, and Gene Scalia will be just such a 
Secretary.
  I urge all of my colleagues to confirm him as our next Secretary of 
Labor.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                             Overtime Rule

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, something happened in the last 48 hours or 
so that affects 40,000 to 50,000 people in my State and affects, 
literally, probably 1 million people or more around the country. These 
are people who are making $30,000, $35,000, $40,000, or $45,000 a year.
  Essentially, the President of the United States robbed them of their 
overtime. This isn't histrionics. It is not alarmist. It is fact. This 
is how it works. If you are managing a fast food restaurant and you are 
making $40,000 a year, and if the company decides to call you the night 
shift manager--the management decides to declare you as management--it 
means they can work you 45, 50, 55, 60 hours a week and pay you not a 
cent--not pay you time and a half. They don't pay you time and a half. 
They don't even give you another cent more than your 40 hours.
  In other words, if you are a moderate-income worker making $35,000 or 
$40,000 a year--not enough to have a middle-class lifestyle like you 
could have had in this country 20 or 30 years ago--and management 
decides they are going to classify you as management, they can work you 
as many hours as they want without a cent of overtime.
  Now, that has been a problem for years. Five years ago, we fixed it. 
The Vice President of the United States with Secretary Tom Perez came 
out to Columbus, OH. I worked on this issue. We made this announcement 
at a small manufacturing firm. They supported this agreement, and many 
businesses did. This would have meant that for anybody making up to 
about $46,000 a year, if they worked those extra hours and they were 
called management, from then on they were going to get overtime--time 
and a half. That is what overtime pay is about. That is what the 
overtime rule is about.
  President Trump loves to say that he is on the side of workers, but 
you can't say you support workers individually if you don't support 
workers collectively. The President says: I care about these individual 
workers. If he really cared about these individual workers, he wouldn't 
have, in essence, robbed 40,000 to 50,000 Ohioans--and I don't know how 
many million Americans--of their overtime pay. We passed that rule. The 
Obama administration sent the Secretary of Labor to Columbus, OH, and I 
was there when we made this announcement. On behalf of 150,000 Ohio 
workers who were making $30, $40, $45, and up to $46,000 a year, we 
celebrated

[[Page S5687]]

that they were going to get time and a half. If they were away from 
their family, working those extra 10 hours, which meant working 50 
hours a week, or an extra 20 hours and working 60 hours a week, they 
were going to take home thousands of dollars in overtime pay if they 
did that week after week.
  This President says he is for workers. Then, he changes this rule. In 
a sense, he robbed those people. This new rule deprives millions of 
workers, literally, of the pay they have earned. It is as disturbing as 
anything I have seen from the President.
  Like the Republican leader's office down the hall, I know the White 
House looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives. In the White 
House, whatever corporate America wants, this White House gives them 
every single time. If corporate America wants to block the minimum 
wage, which hasn't been increased in 10 years, the President of the 
United States blocks the minimum wage. If corporate America wants this 
overtime rule done away with, compromised, or half-obliterated, saving 
millions of dollars for corporate America, the President of the United 
States does their bidding.
  To do a renegotiation of NAFTA, or the North American Free Trade 
Agreement, right to help workers, you enforce worker rules, and you 
enforce labor rules. The President backed off from his campaign promise 
and didn't do it.
  There were lots of tax cuts for the rich. Almost 80 percent of the 
corporate tax bill that President Trump pushed through Congress goes to 
the richest 1 percent of the people. It is a betrayal. It is a White 
House betrayal of workers every single day. For people making $30,000, 
$40,000, $50,000, $80,000, or $90,000 a year, this White House betrays 
them.
  It is pretty simple. Think about the dignity of work. Whether you 
punch a clock or whether you swipe a badge, whether you are raising 
children, whether you are taking care of aging parents, whether you are 
working on tips, or whether you are working on a middle-class salary, 
all work has dignity. Instead, the President has undermined that 
worker.
  And we all know something about CEOs. When I was a kid, CEOs made 
about 30 to 1 in CEO pay versus the average worker. Now it is about 300 
to 1. Who gets the tax cuts in this country? The CEOs. Who gets hurt 
every time? It is moderate wage earners.
  I hear this talk of populism, that the President is a populist. Well, 
populism is never racist or never anti-Semitic. It doesn't divide 
people. It doesn't push some people down to lift people up. That is 
what we have seen far too much of.
  To me, this overtime rule was sort of the last straw. You give tax 
cuts and massive giveaways to the wealthiest 1 percent and encourage 
more corporations to move overseas.
  The President's tax bill says this, which is almost not even 
believable: If you have a company in Mansfield, OH, or Toledo, OH, you 
pay a corporate tax rate of 21 percent. If you shut down that 
production in Mansfield and Toledo and move to Guadalajara or 
Guangzhou, you pay 10.5 percent. What does that do? That means more 
companies are going to move overseas as wages continue to be depressed 
in this country.
  I was in the White House with the President in his Cabinet Room one 
day during the tax bill. After he signed this tax bill, he said: You're 
going to start seeing a lot more money in your paycheck.
  We know that was a lie. Corporations reaped the benefits, and then 
spent their windfall not on workers' wages or growing the company but 
on stock buybacks.

  General Motors received huge tax cuts. They moved more jobs overseas 
and they shut production in Hamtramck, MI, and in places like 
Lordstown, OH. He stacked his Cabinet and the National Labor Relations 
Board with corporate stooges who spent their whole careers undermining 
workers on behalf of corporations. His new Labor Secretary, Eugene 
Scalia, is a corporate lawyer who has fought over and over against 
worker rights. Think about this. The Secretary of Labor--whether it is 
a pretty conservative Secretary of Labor, whom Republicans over here 
are likely to support, or a more progressive, pro-worker Secretary of 
Labor, whom Democrats are more likely to support--is usually somebody 
who cares about workers and workers' rights. The new Secretary of Labor 
appointed by President Trump is a corporate lawyer. He spent his entire 
career attacking workers, attacking workers' rights, trying to put 
unions out of business, trying to encourage decertification of 
elections, and trying to come down every time on the side of 
corporations against workers.
  I said this before. You can't say you care about workers 
individually, but then you don't side with workers collectively. What 
does that mean? It means when that workers have a union, they get 
better pay, they get better benefits, they have retirement, they have 
healthcare, and they have more job security and more safety in the 
workplace. But if you say you care about individual workers but you 
don't care about workers collectively, then you simply don't care about 
workers.
  It comes down to this: Whose side are you on? Are you on the 
corporations' side or American workers' side? Do you fight for Wall 
Street or fight for the workers and fight for the dignity of work? Do 
you honor work? Do you respect work? Do you pass legislation that 
supports workers and rewards work or do you pass legislation to take, 
literally, thousands of dollars out of the pockets of workers who 
should be getting overtime but, because of this new Trump rule, they 
lost their overtime.
  The President promised to fight for American workers. He has broken 
that promise over and over. If you love this country, you fight for the 
people who make it work. We don't see that over here. We don't see that 
in the majority leader's office, and we sure don't see that in the 
White House.
  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. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for my 254th ``Time to Wake 
Up'' speech. In the time I have been giving these speeches, I have 
watched the shifting trajectory of climate denial. First, climate 
change was a hoax. Then, there wasn't enough science. Then, the science 
is still uncertain. Then, solving this problem would hurt our economy. 
Then, innovation will magically save us, and now there is a new entrant 
in the climate denial lexicon: China. ``China isn't doing enough on 
carbon emissions,'' goes the argument. So we shouldn't do anything at 
all.
  It is a talking point you hear all the time from the fossil fuel 
industry and its array of front groups working to block climate action 
here in Congress.
  Now, China has done plenty to complain about. China has stolen our 
intellectual property, manipulated its currency, jailed its political 
dissenters, set unfair labor rules, and more. I have been front and 
center with those complaints about China. Yet, before we offer up China 
as the latest ``climate denial lite'' excuse for doing nothing, let's 
take a look at what China is really up to.
  For starters, China is still a party to the Paris climate accord, and 
China's President doesn't say stuff like ``wind turbines cause 
cancer.'' OK--a low bar, I concede.
  Our President recently tweeted:

       Which country has the largest carbon emission reduction? 
     AMERICA! Who has dumped the most carbon into the air? CHINA!

  Actually, that is not quite true. We have still dumped more 
CO2 into the air than China because we have been at it 
longer, and we still dump a lot more than China per capita, but China's 
1 billion people do put out more carbon pollution than our 300 million. 
They overtook us as the world's top national emitter in 2007. Last 
year, China accounted for about 28 percent of global CO2 
emissions, and the U.S. accounted for 15 percent. Cumulatively, China 
accounts for 13 percent of emissions, and the U.S. accounts for 25 
percent, which is about twice as much. Americans' per

[[Page S5688]]

capita carbon emissions are among the highest in the world. The average 
Chinese citizen--China is here--accounts for less than half the per 
capita emissions of the average American.
  We actually don't have lots to brag about on our emissions, but that 
is not where it looks the worst for us. Forget the past. Look to the 
future at climate action. That is where China is blowing us out of the 
water.
  As the Trump administration slavishly fronts for fossil fuel--and is 
even turning the agencies of our government over to this corrupting 
industry--China is leaning in hard on a green energy future. China is 
resetting its economy for a clean energy future. China began 
implementing a national cap-and-trade system--a price on carbon--for 
its power sector in 2018, which will go into full force across the 
country next year. Several provinces already run cap and trade locally. 
This year, China is launching a mandatory renewables quota, requiring 
that 35 percent of its electricity be renewable by 2030, and its energy 
plan seeks 50 percent of total electric power generation from nonfossil 
sources by 2030.
  China is also investing to dominate clean energy manufacturing and 
technology. In 2017, nearly half of the world's new renewable energy 
investment took place in China--triple the investment made in the 
United States. China leads the world in renewable power deployment with 
there being more than twice as much capacity as in any other nation. 
Almost 30 percent of the world's renewable power capacity right now is 
in China, including the most solar, the most wind, and the most hydro. 
China dominates the global deployment of solar panels. It has several 
times greater installed solar generation capacity than the United 
States. In fact, we virtually lost solar panel manufacturing to China.
  On this graph, China is the yellow, and it shows China outdoing all 
of the other countries in total capacity. We are here compared to China 
there, and the gray is the general category for the rest of the world. 
China is even bigger than the rest of the world, not counting the 
United States, Japan, Germany, and India.
  So that is China's lead in total renewable electricity deployment, 
with more than double the installed capacity of the United States and 
nearly a third of the total global renewable electricity capacity. Here 
is the world's total. There is China at 404. Then you actually have to 
scale down the graphic to get over here to the United States at 180--
180 to 404. If you count nuclear power as clean energy, there is China.
  China currently has the world's largest nuclear power construction 
program. It has 37 nuclear reactors in operation, 20 under 
construction, 40 in planning, and proposals for an additional 100. Next 
generation nuclear technologies originally designed in the United 
States are among those Chinese proposals. If all of those reactors are 
built, China will end up with twice the U.S. nuclear fleet.
  In the transportation sector, we feel pretty good in the United 
States. We all see Teslas driving around, and Chevy has its terrific 
Bolt. There are emerging EV manufacturers, like Rivian, that are 
proposing extremely cool vehicles. Again, there is China--far out front 
in building electric vehicles and in deploying the infrastructure 
needed to run electric vehicles. China now requires that 10 percent of 
vehicles sold be electric or plug-in hybrids. This quota increases to 
12 percent in 2020. By the end of 2018, 45 percent of all of the 
electric cars on the planet were in China. Last year, China 
manufactured nearly half of all of the electric vehicles that have been 
manufactured in the world.
  In other areas, it is China, China, China. China dominates global 
markets for electric buses and two-wheelers. Exxon fabulously predicted 
to its shareholders that there would be zero electric buses by 2040; 
China is already operating 400,000.
  High-tech batteries will power transportation and balance the 
electric grid of the future. China is planning for three times as much 
battery manufacturing capacity as the rest of the world combined. 
Carbon capture will grow as an industry as soon as it has a business 
model, which, by the way, carbon pricing, including China's cap-and-
trade plan, will provide them. On carbon pricing, there is China, with 
20 carbon capture projects under construction or in development--more 
than in any other nation.
  Of course, it is not all good news on climate out of China, not by 
any stretch. The Chinese continue to build more coal-fired powerplants 
than any other country, not just in China but around the world. 
However, the difficult truth for us is that China's progress on climate 
change is real, and it is way more than ours. China is not doing this 
to be nice. It is doing this to outdo us economically and politically.

  If we keep kicking our own renewable industries in the teeth here in 
America just to please Trump's coal industry donors while China invests 
in these new technologies, we will be making a losing bet. China's one-
party government has put economic growth above all else. Chinese 
scientists see the same data that ours do. Chinese economists see the 
same economic risks that ours do. Chinese businesses see the same 
threats and opportunities for their workers and their supply chains 
that ours do. Chinese cities see the same threat from sea level rise 
that ours do. Yet the Chinese Government has chosen a smarter path 
because it is not under the thumb of the fossil fuel industry. The 
Chinese are acting out of self-interest. They are acting on climate 
because they want their country and their economy to succeed. They want 
to own these industries of the future. Rather than compete, we are now 
helping them win--all to make some grubby political donors happy.
  The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate reports that strong 
climate action could deliver at least $26 trillion in economic benefits 
worldwide through 2030 compared with business as usual--a $26 trillion 
relative benefit. Over that period, these actions would generate over 
65 million new low-carbon jobs globally and avoid over 700,000 
premature deaths from air pollution, by the way. Whoever acts swiftly 
will get the biggest share of these riches.
  Last year, Stanford's economists found that keeping global warming to 
1.5-degrees Celsius as opposed to the riskier 2-degree safety limit 
would likely save more than $20 trillion in economic damages around the 
world by the end of this century--$20 trillion.
  The world power that positions itself to reap the economic benefits 
of a carbon-neutral technology and that helps lead the world away from 
runaway climate calamities will garner tremendous economic, strategic, 
and diplomatic advantage. In particular, China recognizes the 
diplomatic advantage to acting on climate as the United States 
withdraws from its traditional position of international leadership.
  The last century has been called the American century. We are fast 
handing over the next century to become the Chinese century. We are 
doing it to ourselves, and we are doing it for the worst of all 
possible reasons--to cater to and kowtow to a corrupt industry. Making 
sure that the next century is the American century, as well, is as good 
a reason as any for us to wake up and act on climate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.


                                Ukraine

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, once again, I come to the floor to call 
for action in light of revelations that President Trump appears to have 
no problem in seeking the assistance of a foreign government for his 
own political gain. Today's summary of the telephone call from the 
White House between him and a foreign leader exposes this in black and 
white. Given this White House's lack of transparency, I have little 
faith that this so-called transcript reflects the totality of the 
conversation, but what it did release was shocking enough.
  He clearly pressured the Ukrainian Government to investigate former 
Vice President Biden for his own political benefit. He mentioned the 
Attorney General of the United States or his personal lawyer six times, 
and in using the levers of State, the President sought to weaponize the 
Justice Department to pursue a personal political vendetta.
  We now know that for more than 2 months, the President urged Ukraine 
to investigate a political opponent while holding $391 million in 
urgently needed security assistance that Congress appropriated to 
support U.S. national security interests. In fact, Congress approved 
this security assistance,

[[Page S5689]]

including $141.5 million from the U.S. State Department and $250 
million from the Pentagon, with overwhelming bipartisan support.
  Indeed, for years now, the Republicans and the Democrats have come 
together to offer America's support to Ukraine in the face of 
relentless Russian aggression. We have stood together on Ukraine 
because we have known what has been at stake. Our friends in Ukraine 
sit on the frontlines of a struggle against the Kremlin's vision of a 
world that is not guided by democratic values or the rule of law but, 
instead, ruled by Putin and his corrupt cabal of oligarchs. The 
Democrats and the Republicans have stood together behind a free and 
independent Ukraine because, together, we stand behind our shared 
values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights.
  We have stood in support of Ukraine in pursuit of our own strategic 
interests in the region. That is why we came together when Russian 
forces illegally invaded Crimea in 2014 and worked to bolster American 
support of Ukrainian sovereignty. I was proud of that moment as the 
chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee at the time; that we passed 
the Ukraine Freedom Support Act with strong bipartisan support. In an 
era of growing political divides, our support for a democratic, free, 
and sovereign Ukraine inspired us to transcend partisanship and to work 
together in common cause.
  I applaud my Republican colleagues who have worked on these efforts, 
who have traveled to Ukraine, who have been strong advocates for our 
partners, standing up against Kremlin aggression.
  That is why it is all the more puzzling that Republicans have largely 
been silent over the past few days. Whatever happened to solidarity 
with Ukraine? Whatever happened to standing up to Russia? Whatever 
happened to putting the national security of the United States ahead of 
petty partisan politics?
  We have found ourselves with a President in the White House who has 
now sought to manipulate aid to Ukraine to advance his own personal 
political agenda.
  Let's examine what we know.
  President Trump admitted that he spoke with President Zelensky and 
raised the issue of investigating the family of Vice President Biden. 
That was included in today's so-called transcript of the congratulatory 
call with President Zelensky.
  We know that after Congress appropriated this funding, the Department 
of State sent a notation to the White House Office of Budget and 
Management on June 21. We know deliberations over this kind of funding 
typically just take 5 days. Instead, the White House sat on this 
funding for 2 whole months.
  My staff met with the State Department last Friday. We tried to glean 
what could be the cause for this delay. Did the Department have an 
objection to this money moving forward? No, they did not.
  Did they know why the White House sat on it for 2 months? No, they 
did not.
  Did the White House ask them any substantive questions on the 
security assistance to Ukraine over these months? No, they did not and 
neither did the Defense Department.
  In other words, the State Department was unaware of any policy 
motivation that could have delayed the dispersal of urgently needed 
security funding to Ukraine. There was no policy motivation.
  On the contrary, the revelations of the past few days suggest a 
political motivation. It appears that President Trump's willingness to 
use the powers of his office for grossly inappropriate behavior on the 
international stage is pretty vivid.
  We need to know exactly who in the Trump administration played a role 
in the improper withholding of congressionally appropriated funding for 
Ukraine and how. That is why today I am calling for unanimous consent 
for my bill, the Ukraine Foreign Assistance Integrity and 
Accountability Act of 2019.
  This bill would require an inspector general, State Department, 
investigation into the Office of Management and Budget's delay in 
obligating these funds.
  My legislation would require the State Department to share all 
records in its role in facilitating the President's personal lawyer's 
engagement with the Ukranian Government.
  It would require that the administration obligate all Ukranian 
security assistance funds and authorize additional funds to counter 
Russia malign influence across Europe.
  It would also express solidarity with the Ukranian people by imposing 
new sanctions on Russia for its continued aggression in eastern 
Ukraine. Those sanctions would target Russia's shipping sector, 
oligarchs, and cyber attacks.
  I want to be clear that I am an advocate of regular order in the 
Senate, but we are in a crisis. It is a crisis potentially of 
constitutional proportions, a crisis that goes to the heart of our 
democracy, and how we respond to it will forever define our willingness 
as a Congress to defend the rule of law and live up to our article I 
responsibilities.
  President Trump has once again stood in the way of congressional 
efforts to support Ukraine and all of Europe in the face of Russian 
aggression. The administration has once again flouted the rule of law, 
this time with the Acting Director of National Intelligence refusing to 
disclose to Congress the whistleblower complaint on President Trump's 
conversations with President Zelensky--and we don't know what more--as 
he is mandated to do.
  It is time for this Congress to stand up for its article I powers. We 
need to act quickly to send a message to the White House and to the 
Kremlin.
  If there is anything we have learned from President Trump, it is that 
lawlessness begets lawlessness. It is time for us to remind the 
American people and the world that the rule of law means something.
  We will not allow the corrupting of our national security assistance. 
We will not allow our relationship with Ukraine to become a political 
football, and we will not let the foreign policy of the United States 
be corrupted for campaign purposes.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2537

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign 
Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. 2537; that the 
Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be 
considered read a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider 
be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action 
or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. RISCH. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, first of all, let me say I concur with the 
good Senator from New Jersey that we should follow regular order.
  He, like myself, has spent decades of service in a legislative body, 
and we both know this system works when the committee system works.
  Every legislative body is set up with a committee system. Now, why is 
that? One of the reasons is because people develop an expertise in a 
certain lane, and they can use that expertise on the committee.
  Most importantly, the issues regarding a bill--whether it is good or 
bad or whether it should be amended or whatever should happen to it--is 
best handled in the committee system, where people have an expertise in 
the area that the bill goes to.
  This bill goes to the Foreign Relations Committee, which I chair--
which my good friend from New Jersey previously chaired--and it will be 
handled in the regular order by that committee, but it is a bad way to 
do a piece of legislation to draw it, drop it, and then come to the 
floor and try to pass it unanimously.
  This piece of legislation was brought to the committee yesterday, and 
it is a piece of legislation that certainly deserves consideration but 
not this way.
  I have not had a chance to even read it, let alone study it, and that 
is true of virtually every Member of the majority party. I frankly 
don't know whether the other members of the committee who serve in the 
minority party have had an opportunity to read it or to study it or, 
for that matter, to prepare amendments to it to make it better and to 
move it along.
  So given that, the committee system is really important here. I don't 
want

[[Page S5690]]

to really go into the merits of all this. A lot of it is being debated 
out in the hallway right now with the national media and that sort of 
thing.
  Look, what has happened over the last few days here is really a 
poster child for what has happened to the entire Trump Presidency. A 
fair amount--not all but a fair amount--of the national media and a 
fair amount of the minority party here have done everything they can to 
delegitimize this President, not the least of which is taking anything 
that comes along and attaching to it some nefarious idea, some 
nefarious purpose.
  Let me give you an example. My good friend said: What happened to 
standing up to Russia? This administration has imposed more sanctions 
on Russia than the entire 8 years of the previous administration. So 
what has happened to standing up to Russia? We continue to stand up to 
Russia.
  I think my friend from New Jersey and I would be able to agree on the 
many sins Russia has committed starting way back, but if you go with 
fairly recent history, their invasion of Georgia and then their promise 
to back off and to get out of Georgia--they still occupy two of the 
regions in Georgia.
  Of course, the invasion and takeover of the Crimea, their cause of 
problems on the eastern border of Ukraine, their interference in 
Ukraine, their interference in our elections, their interference in all 
kinds of European elections, and it goes on and on, poisoning people in 
London--I mean, that is about as far out as you can possibly get.
  So we all need to stand together. We all need to stand up to Russia, 
and this administration has been doing it. They are going to continue 
to do it. I think virtually everybody here is urging them to do it, and 
we are going to continue to do it.
  Look, the argument that there was some significant delay in moving 
funds to Ukraine is simply not well-taken, and the reasons for it, with 
all due respect to my friend, I think, are well known.
  In fact, if you read the transcript of this telephone conversation, 
the President himself raises the important issue that he has raised 
with all of us from time to time, and that is that any time he sees the 
United States getting on the short end of the stick with whatever you 
talk to him about, it raises an alarm with him.
  In this particular case, he has been very distressed by the fact that 
we have been carrying the bulk of the dollars and cents for helping 
Ukraine. We want to help Ukraine.
  Senator Menendez, I think, very clearly laid out many of the problems 
that have to do with Ukraine. The country has serious problems, not the 
least of which is corruption, but the first reason he had issues with 
the spending was the fact that Europe just simply is not doing what 
they should be doing in helping to fund this, and that is clearly laid 
out in this transcript.
  The second thing is the corruption itself. When money goes into 
Ukraine, it is a well-known fact that there is tremendous corruption 
and graft within the country and a lot of the money disappears.
  The most notorious institution within the country is the gas 
company--interestingly enough, the gas company board on which Vice 
President Biden's son sat and was appointed to and has received $50,000 
a month to sit on after the Vice President was tasked by President 
Obama to look into the corruption and do something about the corruption 
in Ukraine.
  In any event, corruption is a big problem and funds get diverted.
  I am just going to close by saying, look, every American that is 
interested in this talking that is going on back and forth about this 
call that the President had with President Zelensky should look at that 
transcript and read it. It will take just a few minutes to read it, and 
it will not take long to figure out that the mischaracterization of 
this is off the wall.
  It is absolutely amazing to me that people would take this 
conversation, which was a standard, ordinary, regular conversation that 
a head of state has with another head of state, and characterize it the 
way it is being characterized.
  It was a congratulatory call. There was a lot of banter in it. My 
good friend knows--he has met with a lot of heads of state, as I have. 
Sometimes we even meet together with heads of state. It is common to 
have bipartisan meetings with heads of state.
  I don't know whether people think these things are scripted and that 
they are focused directly on issues, but there is always a lot of 
banter. The banter can be in the form of having conversations about 
family. It can be talking about sports. Frequently, if one of the teams 
has done well or poorly, one party or the other will raise it and talk 
about it. These things are very informal, as this phone conversation 
was.
  In my experience, one of the frequent issues that is discussed in 
these conversations is local politics--what is happening in your 
country, what is happening in my country--and then also a discussion of 
mutual issues with friendly countries or, for that matter, countries 
that are not friendly.
  This call that the transcript was released on is very, very rare. If 
you are looking for a window to see what actually happens in these 
calls, this transcript is a really good characterization of what 
happens in these calls.
  It is not a good thing to be releasing these calls. I think heads of 
state should be able to have these conversations--all of us should be 
able to have conversations with our counterparts, with a head of state, 
with Ministers in the other countries without having to be thinking 
about every word we say is going to wind up being analyzed and pulled 
apart and taken by your political enemies and badly misrepresented.
  Look, don't take my word for it. Don't take Senator Menendez's word 
for it. The transcript is all over the internet right now. It is going 
to be published in every newspaper probably in America tomorrow. It 
takes just a few minutes to read it. Read it and take away for yourself 
the feelings you have about it.
  The President of the United States is tasked with being the frontline 
of foreign policy. Yes, foreign policy is shared by both the first and 
second branch. It is one of those things the Founding Fathers did not 
resolve 100 percent for one branch or the other, such as appointments 
for the second branch or such as appropriating for the first branch.
  There is sufficient authority given to each branch of government, but 
the head of state, in this case, the President of the United States, is 
tasked with carrying on these relationships with other countries.
  This phone conversation that he had is clearly, clearly, part of 
that. Don't take my word for it. Everybody make up your own mind on 
this. It isn't rocket science. As you can see, the English is very 
straightforward. It can be understood. I think everybody will come away 
with their own belief.
  If people hate Trump, they are going to look at that and say that 
this is terrible, as a lot of people in this town have done. I think 
most ordinary, good, straight-thinking Americans are going to look at 
this and say: What is the big deal? It was a conversation between two 
people talking about various issues they were interested in, and it 
isn't a problem.
  In any event, in order to preserve the regular order, in order to 
preserve the jurisdiction and the hard work of the Foreign Relations 
Committee, Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I understand we are supposed to be 
heading to a briefing on Iran. I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes, 
and then I will cease, and I ask unanimous consent for my entire 
remarks to be included in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. No. 1, it is not unusual for--there have been many 
times when the urgency of the moment has had legislation come to the 
floor. I think this is one of those moments. But I do appreciate the 
Chairman's suggesting that he will take up consideration of this issue, 
and that is something I think is incredibly important.
  On Russia, I would just say the congressionally mandated sanctions, 
which the committee and the Congress passed, gave very little 
flexibility to the administration and have been the driver on sanctions 
on Russia. But

[[Page S5691]]

there is a lot that hasn't been done that Russia has done subsequently, 
which we should be ultimately pursuing, and I look forward to the 
Chairman's having a markup on DASKAA and other related legislation to 
actually continue to fight Russia.
  Lastly, I would simply say that holding money from Ukraine doesn't 
make other countries give money to Ukraine. That was money that was 
directed by the U.S. Congress, which was promoted, as well, by the 
State Department and the Department of Defense. They had no concerns 
about corruption as it relates to this money. They understood the 
importance of the security assistance.
  Finally, on the question of the transcript, overwhelmingly, there 
wasn't banter there so much as there was a direct effort to get 
President Zelensky to use his powers to investigate former Vice 
President Biden's son. That is crystal clear, and any plain reading 
will do it, and I do hope the American people will read the summary.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________