[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 164 (Thursday, October 17, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5884-S5889]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              SAUDI FUGITIVE DECLASSIFICATION ACT OF 2019

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to fight for 
answers--answers that are long overdue.
  In 2018, my hometown newspaper, The Oregonian, identified a handful 
of cases where Saudi nationals accused of serious crimes in the United 
States, like manslaughter and sexual assault, fled the country and 
escaped American justice.
  Since then, The Oregonian has identified numerous similar cases--in 
fact, almost two dozen such cases across the United States. That 
includes 19 in just the last 7 years.
  Today I want to tell the Senate about just one of those cases.
  Three years ago, not far from my home in Southeast Portland, a young 
woman had her life taken from her. Fallon Smart was then a rising 
sophomore at Franklin High School, and she was aspiring to be a 
teacher. By all accounts, she would have been a terrific teacher.
  She was 15, and according to everybody who knew her, Fallon was warm 
and smart and friendly. She had her whole life ahead of her.
  According to police, she lost her life when she was crossing the 
street in front of stopped traffic, and a vehicle illegally swerved 
into the left-hand lane and hit her at 55 or 60 miles per hour. Her mom 
was in a car half a block away and ran to her daughter. Fallon died in 
her mother's arms, and the car that hit her just sped away.
  A Saudi Arabian college student named Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah later 
returned to the scene and was arrested. He was eventually charged with 
manslaughter in Fallon's death and then released on $1 million bail. 
The Saudi consulate posted his $100,000 bond, according to The 
Oregonian newspaper.
  In the United States, in our country, there was every expectation 
that Mr. Noorah would get a fair shake from the justice system. Our 
justice system was working the right way here until 2 weeks before Mr. 
Noorah was scheduled to go to trial. His tracking bracelet was somehow 
cut, and he disappeared. Mr. Noorah has never stood trial for Fallon 
Smart's death.
  Eventually, this spring, the State Department confirmed in a letter 
to me that Mr. Noorah had returned to Saudi Arabia.
  I felt then, and I do today, this raises an important and a serious 
question: How does a foreign national charged with manslaughter, whose 
passport was seized, disappear from the United States without a trace? 
How does this person escape the country and make it thousands of miles 
back to Saudi Arabia with there being no record of his doing so?
  News reports in 2018 suggest that the Saudi Arabian Government knew 
about Mr. Noorah and these other fugitives and potentially helped them 
flee justice.
  I have five children. I cannot imagine the grief I would feel if one 
of them was taken from me, and the person responsible somehow managed 
to evade the justice system. It is almost impossible to comprehend the 
anger and the helplessness and the frustration any parent would feel in 
a situation like this.
  I met with Fallon's mom Fawn, and while she and all of Fallon's loved 
ones have borne this miscarriage of justice with extraordinary grace, 
they are just heartbroken.
  In addition to being heartbroken, they are angry. They are outraged 
by the notion that the person charged with killing their daughter may 
have just been able to escape scot-free and face no consequences for 
his action.
  For some time, I have been demanding information from the Trump 
administration. In my view, the victims of these crimes, their 
families, and the American people are owed some essential answers. How 
did this happen? What is the U.S. Government doing about it?
  I have written the Department of Justice. I have written the State 
Department. I have written the U.S. Marshals Service. I have written to 
the Department of Homeland Security. As far as I can tell, I would have 
gotten better answers from the Saudi royal family themselves.
  In fact, when I asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo what he was 
doing to try to return the Saudi fugitives to the United States, 
basically what his Department did is that we just got a collective 
shrug of the shoulders. I sent the Secretary of State a letter last 
December. He didn't respond.
  So I sent another letter in February. I said: The State Department 
needs to use all its resources and all the tools at its disposal to 
hold the Saudi Government accountable. I asked whether our Ambassador 
pressed the Saudi Government about this disturbing, shocking pattern of 
Saudi nationals skipping bail.
  The State Department finally did respond to my second letter. What I 
got was a whole bunch of nothing. One of Mr. Pompeo's aides said that 
without an extradition treaty, there wasn't anything they could do 
about it. This is from a Secretary who tried to rebrand State as the 
``Department of Swagger.'' That swagger was nowhere to be found when it 
was time to protect innocent Americans.
  Today, I am not writing any more letters. I am here on the Senate 
floor asking for action--action today. I am

[[Page S5885]]

seeking to pass the Saudi Fugitive Declassification Act of 2019. My 
bill requires the FBI Director, in coordination with the Director of 
National Intelligence, to quickly--quickly--declassify any and all 
information related to a key question: whether the Government of Saudi 
Arabia helped any Saudi nationals escape the country when those Saudi 
nationals were awaiting trial or sentencing for a criminal offense.
  Let me just repeat that so there is no confusion. The bill requires 
that the FBI Director and what is called the DNI, or the Director of 
National Intelligence, would quickly--quickly--declassify any and all 
information on the issue of whether the Government of Saudi Arabia 
helped any Saudi nationals escape the country when those Saudi 
nationals were awaiting trial or sentencing for a criminal offense in 
the United States.
  I believe what I am asking for today must happen in the name of 
justice immediately. The American people deserve answers. The people I 
represent at home in our neighborhoods in Southeast Portland want 
answers. These are not academic matters. This is not about a series of 
victimless crimes.
  This is about manslaughter. It is about rape. It is about a whole 
array of ugly offenses. This is about real people, real families--
families who have suffered immeasurable pain. They deserve to see 
justice served. When individuals who are charged with violent crimes--
no victimless crimes here, violent crimes--manage to escape and when 
the United States fails to do much of anything about it, it undermines 
public safety and it harms the U.S. justice system.
  If, as some of the press stories have suggested, the Saudi Government 
has helped these alleged criminals escape justice, the American people 
have the right to be doubly concerned. Is the public image of Saudi 
Arabia a higher priority than the safety of American citizens?
  Any action by a foreign government to thwart our criminal justice 
system would be an attack on our national security and our sovereignty. 
If that is what has happened, then, all Americans deserve to know.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the U.S. Senate proceed 
to the immediate consideration of S. 2635, submitted earlier today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 2635) to require the Director of the Federal 
     Bureau of Investigation to declassify any and all information 
     relating to whether the government of Saudi Arabia assisted a 
     citizen or national of Saudi Arabia in departing the United 
     States while the citizen or national was awaiting trial or 
     sentencing for a criminal offense committed in the United 
     States, and for other purposes.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  Mr. WYDEN. I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be 
considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be 
considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or 
debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The bill (S. 2635) was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, 
was read the third time, and passed, as follows:

                                S. 2635

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Saudi Fugitive 
     Declassification Act of 2019''.

     SEC. 2. DECLASSIFICATION OF ANY AND ALL INFORMATION RELATING 
                   TO ACTIONS BY GOVERNMENT OF SAUDI ARABIA TO 
                   ASSIST PERSONS IN DEPARTING UNITED STATES WHO 
                   WERE AWAITING TRIAL OR SENTENCING IN UNITED 
                   STATES.

       Not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of 
     this Act, the Director of the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation, in coordination with the Director of National 
     Intelligence, shall declassify any and all information 
     related to whether the government of Saudi Arabia materially 
     assisted or facilitated any citizen or national of Saudi 
     Arabia in departing from the United States while the citizen 
     or national was awaiting trial or sentencing for a criminal 
     offense committed in the United States.

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.
  With that action, has this bill now been passed?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It has.
  Mr. WYDEN. 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. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Turkey and Syria

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, it is interesting. When we come here, we 
seem to think that everybody in America is reading the blogs and all 
the major newspapers every morning. A lot of people do, but some people 
have lives. They get up early. They go to work. They listen to the news 
from time to time, but they don't follow it closely. That is what they 
hire us to do and they hire us to deal with as policymakers.
  On this issue of Syria, it strikes me, and it really did earlier this 
week when I visited this gas station close to my home that I frequent. 
It also has a little convenience store with a coffee stand inside. A 
gentleman comes up to me and basically says: Why do we care about all 
the stuff that is happening there? You know, it is thousands of miles 
away. These people have been fighting forever. Let them figure it out. 
Why do we have to be involved in all of this?
  I will tell you that there is appeal to that argument. There really 
is. I understand why Americans feel that way. Since September of 2001, 
we have lost countless young men and women abroad in combat. We have 
seen families who have been ripped apart. We have seen the injuries 
that people come home with, not to mention the amount of money that has 
been spent on all of this as well. At a time when we face so many 
challenges, a lot of people are saying to themselves: Well, why do we 
have to be everywhere? Why do we have to care? These people have been 
fighting for a billion years. It is not our problem. We need to focus 
on issues here at home.
  I do understand the appeal of that argument. I want to tell you that 
despite how much I focus on these issues and spend time on them, from 
time to time, those arguments appeal to me. But then you have to 
analyze why we are there to begin with and what it would mean in the 
short to long term to our country to just walk away from these 
obligations. That is what I hope to do here today in a way that answers 
the question the gentleman asked me last Monday. I didn't have time to 
get into all of this because I had an airplane to catch, and these 
airlines don't wait for anybody.
  So here is the way I would explain it. The first is that you have to 
tell people why we are there to begin with. Let me tell you what this 
is not. This is not about an endless war or being somewhere for the 
rest of our lives. Frankly, it is not even about committing thousands 
of troops. The U.S. force presence in Syria was quite small. It 
actually achieved an extraordinary amount with such a few number of 
people.
  There were 2,000 special operators imbedded alongside thousands of 
Kurds and our international partners. Basically, it is an area that 
ISIS once dominated. They literally controlled the cities. The capital 
of the caliphate was once there at one point. They were driven out. 
There was tremendous success, a real example of the sort of 
counterterror that these missions have successfully pursued.
  The stated goal was, first and foremost, to stamp out and eliminate 
ISIS. The second was that our presence would provide leverage when the 
time came for a Syrian peace settlement--a settlement that would 
reflect our national interests, which are primarily three things.
  The first is limiting Assad's power. The guy is a stone-cold 
criminal. This guy has gassed and murdered his own people. There has to 
be some limits and constraints to his power.
  The second is to safeguard the Kurds. As you have heard others come 
to the floor and talk about, these people fought with us. We told them: 
If you will do the ground-fighting and we help you from the air and 
with logistics, we are going to be here with you. They did, and they 
lost over 10,000 people in that fight. They have been great partners in 
that endeavor. We had a moral obligation, not to mention a promise that 
we made.

[[Page S5886]]

  The third is to limit Iran's influence. Iran would love nothing more 
than to completely dominate Syria because it links them directly into 
Lebanon to supply and support Hezbollah. It allows them to pivot over 
into Iraq to become the dominant power there.
  Just imagine a Middle East in which Iran is the dominant power in 
Lebanon, in Syria, and, of course, in Iran, and, eventually, in Iraq, 
and, God forbid, in Bahrain, and with a growing influence in Yemen 
through the Houthis. They not only encircle Israel. They encircle Saudi 
Arabia. It would be a nightmare.
  We are engaged in a campaign of maximum pressure against Iran, and 
the last thing you want to do in a maximum-pressure campaign is to 
alleviate pressure, and having a greater influence in Syria would 
alleviate a lot of pressure for Iran. That is the purpose of our 
presence there.
  The administration's and the President's decision has undermined 
every single one of them. That is the only way to talk about it. I 
think it has done so in ways we are going to regret for a long time.
  The first is the ISIS mission. There are 10,000 ISIS killers being 
held in jails and camps in northern Syria. The guards at those camps 
are not Americans. They are Kurdish guards. What happens when someone 
invades the cities that your family lives in? You send people to go 
meet that enemy. That means that they have been removing guards from 
the prisons to the frontlines.
  There are less and less guards in these camps. Estimates are already 
that a large number of ISIS killers have already gotten out, and they 
anticipate more to get out soon. Just imagine 10,000 killers running 
loose, not to mention efforts by ISIS to break them out with less 
security.
  By the way, this is a problem not just in Syria. It is a real problem 
in Iraq. About 200,000 refugees have already amassed at the border. 
There is no way Iraq can go through every single one of them and 
determine who is an ISIS killer and who is a refugee who is coming 
back. So you can suddenly see this resurgence of ISIS spread and 
destabilize Iraq. So, suddenly, this evil movement that we had on the 
ropes and had become an insurgency--and, frankly, was already 
reemerging as an insurgency--has just been given fuel to operate in 
one, and now in two, countries.
  How about the goal of providing leverage for a future settlement to 
reflect our interests? First of all, in restraints on Assad's power, 
think about it this way. Literally, overnight, when the Turks came in 
and the Kurds didn't have us anymore, they were forced to cut a deal 
with Assad. So, suddenly, the Kurds are basically telling Assad's 
troops: Come up to the cities that we once had, and you now be the 
troops here to back us up. You take control of them. That is what they 
had to do to avoid being slaughtered.
  In practical terms, what it means is that Assad, literally, 
overnight, has captured a third of the land of Syria at no price and no 
concession. He had to make no concessions, pay no price, do nothing 
other than just send people up to take it.
  To me, this doesn't sound like we have imposed restraints on Assad. 
It sounds like he has just literally been gifted control over a third 
of the national territory at no concession and no price. He had to do 
nothing.
  How about safeguarding the Kurdish interests? I think that is self-
explanatory. The Kurds have now been forced to align themselves with 
Assad, who, in the short term, may be fine, but once this is all over, 
I doubt very seriously whether the Kurds will be treated well, not to 
mention the Yazidi and the Christian communities that the Kurds were 
protecting, who now are also under Assad's rule. Suffice it to say that 
nothing here has safeguarded their interests.
  There is news today that the Vice President and the Secretary of 
State were able to go to Turkey and work out what is being called a 
ceasefire. I think they deserve praise, along with the President, for 
pursuing that mission because anytime that human lives are spared from 
death in a war, that is cause for celebration.
  With all due respect, it does not appear to me, however, that this is 
really a ceasefire. It is more an ultimatum because what Erdogan is 
basically saying is this: Here is land that I intend to take. I intend 
to drive every Kurd out of this area, and I intend for Turkey to 
control this area in northern Syria as a security zone, as he calls it. 
The only thing he has agreed to as an ultimatum is that the Kurds can 
leave this area voluntarily in the next 5 days, or he will move in and 
take it and kill them. You can call it a ceasefire, but, frankly, it 
doesn't appear to have changed the strategic objective that Erdogan has 
for that region.
  I certainly think that while it is good news that it made some 
lemonade out of this lemon, nonetheless, these are cities in which not 
just Kurdish troops but people and families are going to have to leave 
now, and we are going to have to be involved in helping to coordinate 
and guarantee that, which runs its own risks.
  Ultimately, it is an ultimatum by him saying: You have 5 days to 
leave before I move in and kill you.
  How about limiting Iran's influence? First of all, clearly, Iran will 
now have more operating space in Syria. The lack of a U.S. presence 
there means that Iran and its affiliated groups, particularly these 
Hezbollah shoots that are now in Syria, will have much more operating 
space. The stronger Assad is, the stronger Iran will be. Assad is a 
very close ally of the Iranians, and the more space he controls, the 
more space they have to operate.
  Embedded in this, as you have noticed, is that Iran has developed 
this ability to conduct attacks against the United States, sometimes 
using third groups that they control, to either blame the attacks on, 
to claim credit for the attacks, or, in some cases, to conduct them, 
because what this does is it gives Iran the capability of attacking the 
United States without facing international condemnation for the 
attack--enough deniability--especially from countries that are looking 
to not blame Iran anyway because it would force them to get out of the 
Iran deal. And they have gotten away with it.
  But one of the things that Iran has calculated in these attacks--one 
of the things they have taken into the calculation--is this: We believe 
the United States is trying to get out of the region; meaning, if we 
attack them, we can hit them much harder than we ever had before 
because they don't want another war. They are not going to hit us back 
as hard. We can get away with more.
  I submit to you that I am pretty confident that this decision has 
strengthened that perception, not weakened it. I fear what that can 
mean next.
  This also increases Iran's influence in Iraq. If you are an Iraqi 
politician right now, whether you are a Shia or a Sunni, and you have 
just seen this decision, you are thinking to yourself: We are next. And 
when the Americans leave here at some point--at some point we will have 
to--the Iranians are going to become the most important group on the 
ground.
  In fact, there were reports yesterday that there were these protests 
on the street and there were Iranian-linked militias with snipers on 
the rooftops operating in Iraq. These were not elements of the army or 
the police force. These were Iranian elements operating in Iraq. This 
has increased their influence in Iraq and their ability to determine 
the future of Iraq in a way that is terrible for us, terrible for our 
allies, like Israel, and a great benefit to the Iranians, not to 
mention that Syria creates an extraordinary land bridge that the 
Iranians can now use to increasingly continue to supply Hezbollah in 
Lebanon and to increasingly supply their own militias just across the 
Golan Heights.
  The irony in all of this, ironically, is that I fear this decision 
actually makes it likely that there is going to be a war. I will tell 
you why. As I pointed out first, there is the Iranian attack 
calculation. This further strengthens their belief that they can get 
away with even more brazen attacks because the threshold for a U.S. 
military response is higher than it has ever been because we are 
looking to get out, and this proves it.
  What that can mean is they can miscalculate it, and we are going to 
have to respond. Then, all of a sudden, you are in a real shooting 
war--not a ``2,000 person on the ground, working with the Kurds'' war, 
a real regional conflict.
  The other point is that all of our alliances around the world are 
built on security guarantees. In Eastern Europe,

[[Page S5887]]

the NATO security guarantee in many of these countries is a 300-, 400-, 
500-man force--a tripwire. It is not enough to stop a Russian 
incursion, but they are there because if they were confronted by 
Russians, that would trigger a broader conflict.
  You could say the same about South Korea, our presence in Japan, the 
commitments we have made to Israel, and the troop presence we have now 
in Saudi Arabia. It goes on and on and on.
  Ask yourself: After this, would any ally relying on the U.S. security 
assurances be more or less confident of our assurances? I will tell you 
this. Less than 48 hours before this withdrawal decision was made, the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave unequivocal assurances that 
we were not going anywhere. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
a general, General Milley, said: We are there. We are not going 
anywhere. These are all rumors. Forty-eight hours later, this 
withdrawal announcement was made.
  With all due respect, this is not his fault. I don't blame him, if he 
believes that. What is his credibility now when he says anything like 
that to anybody else or when he warns someone not to do something 
against us because we will act in return? Maybe his credibility isn't 
shot--and I would warn our enemies not to view it that way--but I can 
tell you it certainly hasn't been strengthened by this. One last point 
on this. You know, Russia and China are going all over the world trying 
to come up with an ad hoc, anti-U.S. coalition--a coalition of 
countries that are sanctioned--to try to get around the dollarization 
of the global economy, a coalition to fight against the impediments 
against Chinese spyware and technology, and a coalition to limit our 
presence in one part of the world or another. The argument they make to 
these countries is, Why are you aligned with America? They are 
unreliable. They are unreliable partners. They will cut on you as soon 
as it makes sense domestically for them to do so or somebody else gets 
elected and has a different opinion.

  Well, ask yourselves, has that argument been strengthened or 
weakened? Have we made it easier or harder for Russia and China to make 
that argument, including the countries that we have basing agreements 
with now and including the countries that we are meeting with every 
single day and asking them: Don't buy Russian weapons. Don't install 
Chinese technology and spyware in your Safer City Initiatives so they 
can spy on you and ultimately on us. Don't allow them to take over your 
port facilities or operate rotationally based military forces in your 
national territory. We will help you with those things instead.
  Well, I can tell you that when China and Russia go to them the next 
time and say that America is unreliable, they will have one more 
exhibit to show them as evidence to prove it. That is why I say this 
decision has an impact that goes well beyond Syria.
  I will tell you that, again, I think what the Vice President and the 
Secretary of State did today is noble. There are lives that are going 
to be saved because now they have 5 days to leave those areas. But that 
doesn't address any of these other repercussions. In a blink of an eye, 
we completely undermined and unraveled the very justification for this 
operation and all of the stated reasons we said we were there. We had 
these 2,000 troops working with the Kurds to keep ISIS from reemerging 
and to provide leverage in the future Syrian settlement, to restrain 
Assad's power, to safeguard Kurdish interests, our partner's interest, 
and to limit Iranian influence. Every single one of those stated 
interests--that was our policy less than 2 weeks ago--has been wiped 
out.
  One of my favorite questions in the hallway from the reporters is, 
What should Congress do now? What can we do? Well, I think we are all 
searching to see what we can do to mitigate some of this damage. But I 
want to be honest with you--there are some mistakes and some decisions 
that cannot be reversed. There is some damage that cannot be mitigated, 
and I fear that some of these things are a part of it. We will spend 
time thinking about it. I think there might be some opportunities for 
the administration in the weeks and months to come to do something 
about it, but right now, I think we need to prepare ourselves for the 
consequences, for what this is going to mean in the long term.
  So it was kind of a long answer to give someone at a gas station when 
I had a flight to catch in 45 minutes and they were in a hurry as well, 
but I hope that for the people back home and potentially around the 
country who have an interest in this topic, I was at least able to 
shine some light on why some of us do not support this decision.
  It isn't because we favor endless wars or want invasions. It is 
because while this may be popular when first presented to people, when 
you view it in its totality and entirety, sometimes what is popular in 
the short term is not good for America's national security in the long 
term, and it is my fear that this is one such example.
  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. GRASSLEY. 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. GRASSLEY. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               Healthcare

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the purpose of my speaking today is to 
remind my colleagues about some history as it relates to the adoption 
of Part D of Medicare back in 2003 and the importance of considering 
that history in regard to the importance of passing legislation this 
year in regard to high drug costs. The reminder goes to my colleagues 
who are up for election, based on the fact that the history of the 
elections of 2000 and 2002 had consequences for people who weren't 
aware of the grassroots support for doing something for prescription 
drugs and Medicare, as Part D turned out to be.
  In this environment today, I don't think there is proper concern that 
people--the grassroots of America--are expressing the need to do 
something about prescription drug prices, so I am going to spend my 
time doing what I just summarized for you going through the history of 
20 years ago versus now.
  I want to lower the cost of prescription drugs for American seniors. 
I have spoken on this topic many times before, and in my previous 
speeches years and years ago, I said that we were delivering on the 
promises of the last three elections in a bipartisan manner to help 
seniors who had waited far too long for relief, and that relief came 
out as Medicare Part D.
  That speech was more than 15 years ago. We have been here before. In 
2003, I was leading the last piece of bipartisan entitlement reform, 
the creation of the Medicare Part D Program that was entitled the 
``Medicare Modernization Act of 2003.''
  Now here we are again on the cusp of meaningful, bipartisan action in 
regard to prescription drugs. This action would fulfill the promises 
that I and many of my colleagues and the administration, meaning the 
Trump administration, made to the American people that we are going to 
do something about prescription drug pricing. We should be reminded 
that promises made ought to be promises kept.
  I want to remind my colleagues that history does not have to repeat 
itself. Hopefully, this will help rid the gridlock that delayed us from 
delivering Medicare Part D nearly two decades ago.
  As we all know, the Medicare Modernization Act was signed into law in 
November of 2003, but the process of creating Part D began long before 
the President actually signed the bill. We could go back more than a 
decade--but that is not the most important part of it--but Congress was 
voting on what would become prescription drug coverage as early as 
1988. Obviously, it didn't become law.
  Suggestions for how to help seniors with prescription drugs came from 
every corner throughout the next decade after those 1988 votes. Yet the 
proposals weren't enacted, so we failed to bring any kind of 
comprehensive change to Medicare.
  Under President Clinton, prescription drug pricing reform gained 
national attention, just like it has national attention today because 
President Trump has made it one of his premier goals of reducing drug 
prices.

[[Page S5888]]

  So going back to the Clinton administration as part of the Balanced 
Budget Act of 1997, Congress created a forum to bring more attention to 
the prescription drug program under Medicare. That was called the 
National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare.
  After a year's worth of work and research, the Commission voted on 
three recommendations in 1999, including a prescription drug benefit. 
However, the recommendations failed to receive the mandated 
supermajority of members' votes, so no formal recommendations were ever 
submitted to Congress because that was the rule of the Commission at 
the time. It had to be a supermajority of the members of the 
Commission.
  Facing mounting pressure from the public in anticipation of the 2000 
election, all of the major Presidential candidates presented plans. 
President Bush had suggested a new Federal subsidy to help low-income 
beneficiaries purchase drug coverage through private insurers.
  Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, proposed a new 
voluntary benefit within Medicare to protect chronically ill and low-
income beneficiaries against catastrophic expenses. Yet the Congress 
still couldn't reach a compromise, even though it was very much 
discussed during that Presidential election, and it was in a lot of 
discussions in Senate races as well.
  At that time, the country was united behind Medicare reform, but 
Congress was divided on how or even if it should act, and it did not 
act.
  In the Finance Committee, the person that preceded me when I took 
over the chairmanship of the Finance Committee, a person by the name of 
Bill Roth of Delaware, proposed two plans to committee members in hopes 
that a consensus could be reached. The first plan worked to 
fundamentally change the Medicare Program. The proposal included a 
universal drug benefit for the Medicare Program with several major 
contracting reforms. The reforms would have permitted pharmacy benefit 
managers, insurers, and other qualified firms to compete to manage the 
government drug benefit in a cost-effective way.
  Then-Chairman Roth also proposed a scaled-back plan which would 
extend prescription drug coverage to low-income seniors and on the 
State level to those seniors facing catastrophic levels of spending. 
This second piece of the Roth proposal was meant to be a backstop--just 
a short-term, bipartisan bandaid on a gaping wound while negotiations 
continued to find a longer term solution.
  Despite the support from then-President Bill Clinton and the 
Republican majority leader, Trent Lott, compromise was elusive, and the 
Finance Committee did not act before the November election. So then we 
had the 2000 election. Prescription drug coverage was a big issue, and 
it was a big issue probably more for Republicans because we controlled 
the U.S. Senate. We lost five incumbent Republican Senators because 
people didn't pay attention to this being a major issue. Hence, to 
remind you what I opened with, I don't want Senators making that same 
mistake this year.
  The American people were obviously disappointed in the lack of action 
back in 2000, and it showed, but as we have to do when there is 
grassroots support like there was then, we marched on to find a path 
forward, but building consensus was not easy.
  I was chairman during part of that time between the years 2000 and 
2003. I wasn't chairman all that time because the Senate flipped to a 
Democratic majority when Senator Jeffords of Vermont changed from 
Republican to Democrat. Between the years 2000 and 2003, we held 
countless meetings and hearings on the status of Medicare and how we 
could come to an agreement to add Part D and bring Medicare into the 
21st century. The gridlock seemed inescapable.
  In 2002, the budget allowed for $350 billion to reform the Medicare 
Program, most of that going toward the prescription drug reform that we 
were proposing. Partisan discord led to three separate proposals being 
sent to the Senate from House Republicans that were subsequently voted 
down.
  As a result of the 2002 elections, Republicans were back in the 
majority, and I retook the gavel as chair of the Finance Committee. I 
promised at that time legislation that would address seniors' concerns 
and be bipartisan so it would pass an almost evenly split Senate. That 
was my goal. In the Finance Committee, we went through the important 
and wide-ranging process of creating what eventually became the 
Medicare Modernization Act of 2003.
  I worked across the aisle, across the Capitol, and down Pennsylvania 
Avenue to make sure the prescription drugs and Medicare improvement 
bill struck the right balance, spending the money allocated to us by 
President Bush to be done in a fair and equitable way. A lot had 
changed in the practice of medicine since Medicare had been signed into 
law 40 years before, in 1965, and we needed to recognize that the 
practice of medicine had changed. My friend Senator Baucus, who was at 
that time the Democratic ranking member of my committee, and I were 
able to thoughtfully pull together a Medicare package by closing a big 
coverage gap and doing that in the right way. The Part D marketplace 
offered consumers better choice, better coverage, and better value. Of 
course, it was about time that Congress had taken this action demanded 
by the grassroots of America in a serious way. I said in 2003, ``We all 
know seniors don't want politics, they want prescription drugs,'' and 
that holds true today as we consider this issue.
  It is important to note that just like in the 2000 election, the 
country took notice, but this time it was for our accomplishments, and 
Republicans gained four Senate seats in that 2004 election.
  I am now standing here again, more than 15 years later, to make the 
very same point. It seems like deja vu. American seniors don't care 
about party politics any more now than they did in 2003. When it comes 
to almost any issue, but particularly healthcare issues, what they care 
about is having access to affordable medication.
  Once again, I am leading a bipartisan effort to enact much needed 
entitlement reform, and once again some of my colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle are resisting compromise. Once again, medicine has changed 
since the last entitlement reform I led. Let me remind you, 
prescription medication was not much of a part of the cost of medicine 
in 1965 when Medicare was passed. By 2003, it had become a significant 
portion of the cost of medicine. That is why people needed Medicare 
Part D. Pharmaceuticals are even more a part of the practice of 
medicine today. Scientific advances have led to many new and more 
effective treatments. However, they are often accompanied by very high 
costs. That means prescription drug prices have skyrocketed, and 
Americans want Congress to act now so they can afford their lifesaving 
medications.
  Our seniors deserve better than the over 5-year delay in action we 
put them through last time--in other words, 5 years before we finally 
passed something in 2003 called Part D of Medicare. They shouldn't have 
to wait 5 years this time. Congress has been here before. We want to 
make sure history doesn't repeat itself. I want to make sure it doesn't 
repeat itself. I personally have been here before. I have watched the 
opportunity to help patients slip away. Now, just like in 2003, 
Americans want action on entitlement reforms. Now, just like in 2003, 
the President supports action. Now, just like back then in 2003, 
numerous proposals were floated and ultimately fell short of the finish 
line.

  We have another opportunity to deliver meaningful reforms to help the 
Part D program adapt to new innovations in the healthcare world. The 
bill that came out of my committee 19 to 9, titled the ``Prescription 
Drug Cost Reduction Act of 2019,'' builds on the successful programs we 
created in 2003. It will lower beneficiary premiums by $6 billion and 
lower out-of-pocket costs by $25 billion. The bill will implement an 
out-of-pocket cap, eliminate excess payments, cap taxpayer subsidies, 
and permanently repeal the doughnut hole in Medicare Part D. It uses 
market forces. Those market forces will incentivize manufacturers to 
lower list prices and report more accurate calculations of their rebate 
obligations.
  In short, this is the right bill at the right time. We should seize 
this opportunity to support actions that Americans need now, not 5 or 
10 years from now.

[[Page S5889]]

  I want to give credit to Senator Wyden of Oregon, the ranking 
Democrat on my committee and my partner on this issue.
  Thank you for working with us in the tradition of the Finance 
Committee in the same way that Senator Baucus and I worked together 15 
years ago on Part D legislation.
  I ask all of my colleagues to join Senator Wyden and me in our 
bipartisan effort to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________