[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 182 (Thursday, November 14, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6583-S6586]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Farmers and Veterans

  Last but not least, on farmers and veterans, President Trump has long 
fashioned himself a champion of everyday Americans--workers, farmers, 
veterans. This week has been a grim reminder that despite the 
President's promises, almost every week his administration undermines 
the very people he claims to champion.
  Take our veterans whose service we commemorated earlier this week on 
Veterans Day. The Department of Veterans Affairs decided in 2017 to 
help Vietnam-era veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange by expanding 
the list of diseases that were eligible for health benefits to include 
bladder cancer, hypertension, Parkinson's-like symptoms, and 
hypothyroidism.
  There are tens of thousands of veterans whose lives would be changed 
by this decision. It was the right decision based on research done by 
the VA. Unfortunately, it was recently revealed that OMB Director and 
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney blocked funding for 
these new health benefits because of what it would cost. Think about 
that. Mick Mulvaney, who thought adding $1.5 trillion to our deficit 
was an acceptable cost for tax cuts to the rich, believes the cost of 
health benefits for sick veterans is just too high. So wrong. So wrong. 
It is shameful that Mulvaney could actually be in the position he is.
  The next time the President claims to be a champion for our Nation's 
veterans, the American people should remember what he is doing here--
denying benefits to men and women who were in our Armed Forces, exposed 
to Agent Orange, and are now sick. It is too expensive to help them but 
not too expensive to give tax cuts to the wealthiest of Americans. 
Shame on the administration, shame on Mulvaney, and shame on President 
Trump.
  What about our farmers? It is no secret that America's farmers have 
struggled as a result of President Trump's trade policies and 
retaliatory tariffs from other countries. The administration even 
created a new program through USDA to help offset the losses farmers 
were facing.
  Well, now it turns out that the Trump administration has grossly 
mishandled that program. A report by the Democratic minority on the 
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, led by its ranking 
member, Senator Stabenow, revealed that the lion's share of Federal aid 
has gone to large agricultural conglomerates scattered across the 
South, not to small family farms in the Midwest who have suffered the 
most. Ninety-five percent of the largest per-acre payments have gone to 
Southern States, while the lowest payments have disproportionately gone 
to the farmers who are suffering in the Midwest. The administration 
lifted the limits on aid to row crops but kept the limits for other 
crops, meaning that more aid has gone into the pockets of the largest 
and wealthiest farms in America. The report even showed that tens of 
millions of dollars have gone to foreign-owned entities, including a 
beef factory in Brazil.
  President Trump has claimed to look after our farmers, and he has 
claimed to look after our veterans, but he has instead turned his back 
on them. More and more Americans--farmers, veterans, others--are 
starting to notice.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott of Florida). The Senator from 
Washington.


                                 H.R. 8

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I want to thank Senators Murphy and 
Blumenthal for their tremendous leadership that we are here on the 
floor today to speak about.
  I come today not just as a Member of the Senate representing my home 
State of Washington but as a former educator, as a mother, and as a 
grandmother devastated by how the gun violence epidemic is tearing 
apart our families and ravaging our communities in every State.
  I am furious at Republican leaders who continue to stand by and do 
nothing while more and more lives are lost, just as I was after 
Newtown, Parkland, Sutherland Springs, and Marysville in my home State 
of Washington. I could go on.
  We don't have to continue this cycle of violence, heartbreak, and 
inaction, and we are here today to emphasize that there is action we 
can take right now because earlier this year, the House passed H.R. 8--
meaningful, bipartisan gun safety legislation--to address this terrible 
crisis through universal background checks and other popular reforms. 
But in the 260 days since H.R. 8 passed the House, it has languished 
here in the Senate despite repeated calls from myself and my Democratic 
colleagues for a vote.
  That is why 58 days ago, following the tragic events at El Paso, 
Dayton, and Midland, I joined my Senate Democratic colleagues here on 
the floor to try to break the cycle and demand that we address the 
scourge of gun violence in this country by taking a vote here in the 
Senate on H.R. 8, which would install universal background checks--a 
policy that, by the way, is supported by an overwhelming majority of 
Americans.
  In the face of Republican apathy, people across the country raised 
their voices even louder, demanding action to end the endless wave of 
gun tragedy, so much so that after this summer's string of horrors, 
President Trump bowed to public pressure and made a commitment to 
finally act to address the gun violence epidemic.
  After months and years of inaction and far, far too many lives lost, 
it was the first sliver of hope in a long while--that the President and 
Senate Republicans would finally put the safety of our families over 
their allegiance to the NRA and do something substantive about ending 
this Nation's gun violence epidemic, working with Democrats toward 
commonsense reforms to end gun violence and keep people safe.
  Now, more than 2 months later, President Trump has betrayed his 
pledge to address this tragic epidemic as if the past summer never even 
happened. Once again, he has chosen to abdicate his responsibility to 
keep our families and our communities safe and has broken yet another 
promise he made to the American people, kowtowing to the NRA and its 
unpopular, hard-right agenda to stymie commonsense gun reform as soon 
as mass shootings were out of the headlines.
  Well, I can assure you, Senate Democrats and I are going to keep 
fighting for commonsense gun safety reforms, like universal background 
checks, even when gun violence isn't making a headline that day, 
because while President Trump continues carrying water for the NRA and 
Senate Republicans continue hiding behind President Trump,

[[Page S6584]]

Democrats here understand that Congress has a duty to act to protect 
lives, and that the President's cowardice absolutely should not set 
Congress's agenda.

  While President Trump's backtracking on this serious issue is 
disgraceful, I ask my Republican colleagues to remember that we are not 
beholden to the President or to the gun lobby and that we do not need 
President Trump's permission to vote on bills or to act to save lives.
  In fact, in States across the country, we have been able to take on 
the gun lobby and make meaningful progress to address this crisis.
  In my home State of Washington, we have closed background check 
loopholes, and we have enacted extreme risk protection orders. We were 
able to accomplish those things because of the advocacy of groups like 
Moms Demand Action across my State, the Washington State Alliance for 
Gun Responsibility, Everytown for Gun Safety, March for Our Lives, and 
so many more, as well as the dedicated volunteers and activists behind 
those organizations, the brave people who have been out making their 
voices heard and putting pressure on lawmakers to do their jobs to end 
this senseless epidemic, people like Jane Weiss, who lives in Mill 
Creek, WA. After she tragically lost her niece to gun violence, Jane 
joined the fight to pass lifesaving legislation in Washington State by 
putting pressure on her State lawmakers and won.
  There are people like Jane all across the country who are speaking up 
and fighting back, even when it means reliving some of the hardest 
moments of their lives, in order to prevent others from suffering as 
much as they have. That is hard and brave work to do, but there is 
absolutely nothing hard or brave about simply having a vote on 
bipartisan, House-passed legislation to ensure universal background 
checks. To the contrary, it is the height of cowardice not to hold that 
vote while families across the country wonder which movie theater or 
shopping mall or synagogue or mosque or church or community space is 
next and while students spend their time in school on active shooter 
drills while they should be learning. Unfortunately, cowardice is what 
we are seeing from far too many Republicans here in the Senate and in 
the White House when it comes to protecting families from this scourge 
of gun violence.
  I want to be clear. I hope my Republican colleagues allow this 
legislation to pass today, but if they don't, for Jane and so many 
others, Senate Democrats are going to keep shining a spotlight on the 
inaction on gun violence here in the Senate and the broken promises 
coming out of the White House. We are going to keep making the case, 
building support, and we will not give up until this is done.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 8

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, as Senator Murray noted, 100 people die 
from gunshot wounds every single day. We can't go 24 hours without news 
of another mass shooting somewhere in America. My kids and millions of 
others hide in corners of their classrooms or in their bathrooms 
preparing for a mass shooting at their school, and this body does 
nothing about it.
  The good news is, we have a piece of legislation that enjoys 95 
percent support in the American public and will undoubtedly make an 
enormous impact on gun violence rates in this country.
  I will give more extensive remarks after I make this unanimous 
consent request, but my request will be that the Senate immediately 
take up H.R. 8, the universal background checks bill which was passed 
in a bipartisan way in the House of Representatives and which has 
received no action, no debate here in the U.S. Senate since that time.
  As in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 29, H.R. 8; 
further, 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. Is there an objection?
  The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, 
legislation that would affect the rights of American citizens under the 
Second Amendment should not be fast-tracked by the Senate. Efforts to 
criminalize otherwise lawful conduct with firearms by law-abiding gun 
owners should not be exempt from consideration by the appropriate 
committee of jurisdiction. It should not be exempt from debate on the 
Senate floor.
  If this so-called commonsense, bipartisan legislation was indeed 
crafted with strong bipartisan input, it shouldn't have any problems 
advancing by regular order.
  Many questions about this legislation need to be answered before it 
is forced upon law-abiding gun owners. If I wanted to give my best 
friend's son or grandson my hunting rifle, would we first have to 
appear before a licensed gun dealer and go through a lengthy and 
potentially expensive background check? This is my understanding. We 
have many questions like this.
  My constituents would like to have an opportunity to weigh in on 
measures like these, which is why we can't fast-track legislation that 
affects America's Second Amendment rights.
  I object to this unanimous consent.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I appreciate the good-faith objection from 
my friend from Mississippi, but the good news that I can convey to her 
is that my Republican Senate friends who want to have some impact into 
the consideration of the future of American gun laws have ample 
opportunity to do that because they are in the majority.
  Senate Republicans control the Judiciary Committee. Senator McConnell 
can decide to bring any measure to the floor. If the concern is that 
there hasn't been enough Republican input into the question of whether 
criminals or terrorists or people who are seriously mentally ill get 
guns, then, convene a discussion on this, bring a debate to the floor, 
have a process in the Judiciary Committee. Don't just stay silent. It 
doesn't pass the straight-face test to come down here and say: Well, we 
can't take up H.R. 8, despite the fact it has 90 percent public 
approval because we haven't had input on it. You are in the majority. 
You have the ability to pass legislation that you support and that 
Democrats can support as well.
  The idea that we are just going to sit here and twiddle our thumbs 
week after week as 100 people are killed by guns through suicides and 
homicides and accidental shootings is an abdication of our basic 
responsibility as U.S. Senators. There is nothing that matters more to 
our constituents than their physical safety.
  There are kids who are walking to school in cities in every single 
State in this Nation who fear for their lives, whose brain chemistry is 
changed by the trauma they go through because of that fear for their 
safety, and they can't learn, they can't cope, and they can't build 
strong relationships.
  My kids go through active shooter drills at school because they, in 
fact, expect that someday someone will walk through their doors and 
start firing a military-style assault weapon in one of their 
classrooms.
  I get it that there is a difference of opinion on exactly how we 
should expand background checks. I understand that maybe my Republican 
colleagues don't want to support H.R. 8. But you are in the majority. 
You have the ability to lead a conversation that can find that common 
ground on expanding background checks.
  I am not going to accept this argument that we can't bring H.R. 8 to 
the floor because we have some concerns about it. I can't get a piece 
of legislation to the floor any other way than to offer this motion.
  The American public is not going to accept silence from this body 
week after week, month after month, in the face of this epidemic 
carnage that is happening across this country. Parents know their kids 
aren't safe, and they expect us to act.
  The President's Attorney General said the other day that we made some 
progress on the issue of background checks over the summer, but now we 
have the impeachment proceedings, and so that stops all of this 
discussion.

[[Page S6585]]

That is not true. The impeachment proceedings right now are in the 
House of Representatives. The discussion on the future of a background 
checks bill was in the Senate. It was happening between myself and 
Senator Manchin and Senator Toomey. We are still at the table, ready to 
negotiate a compromise version of the Background Check Expansion Act. 
We, frankly, have lots of time on our hands in the Senate because we 
are not doing anything other than approving an appointee here, a judge 
there. We have plenty of time. We have plenty of bandwidth in the 
Senate to negotiate with the White House over a universal background 
checks bill.
  You can't say that we can't take up H.R. 8 because we haven't had 
input. Republicans are in charge. You have the ability to have as much 
input as you want. The White House can't say the impeachment is 
stopping a debate on background checks from happening. I am ready to 
talk. Senator Toomey is ready to talk. Senator Manchin is ready to 
talk.
  We have evidence from this summer about how important universal 
background checks are. On the last day of August, a gunman fled from 
police in Odessa, TX. He hijacked a U.S. Postal Service van. He killed 
its driver and then randomly fired on people as he drove through the 
streets. During his shooting spree, the gunman killed seven people and 
wounded over 20 others--a reign of terror throughout the streets of 
this Texas town.
  The current background checks law worked as it was intended to work. 
The shooter tried to buy a gun in January 2014, but he was denied. Why? 
Because he had been found to be so seriously mentally ill when he was 
committed to an inpatient institution that his name was placed on the 
list of individuals who were prohibited from buying weapons.
  The problem is, Texas doesn't have universal background checks, 
meaning that it was as easy as pie for the shooter, after he got denied 
a gun purchase at a brick-and-mortar store, to just go find a private 
seller who would sell him a military-style weapon without a background 
check. In this case, it resulted in 20 people getting hurt and seven 
people being wounded--this easy way to find loopholes through the 
Nation's background check system. But that happens every single day. 
Every single day, somebody buys a gun at a gun show or online or 
through a private sale because that is the way they can get a gun 
without having to go through a background check.
  I am deeply troubled. I am profoundly aggrieved by my body's 
reluctance to even take up a conversation about the future of gun 
policy in this country. I wish there wasn't an objection. I wish we had 
an opportunity to be able to discuss the future of background checks 
and the future of our gun laws on the Senate floor. Our constituents 
expect us to have that debate.
  This will not be the last time we come down to the floor to try to 
force a debate, to force a conversation in this body so that we can 
find bipartisan consensus on an issue that enjoys 95 percent public 
support, 80 percent support from gun owners, and 70 percent support 
from NRA members. There is almost nothing else that is less 
controversial in America today than the issue of universal background 
checks, and we will continue to press that case on behalf of the 
American people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, we ought to be aggrieved, we ought to 
be angry, and we ought to be furious--not just frustrated but furious--
at this sad, even pathetic, objection to moving forward with a bill 
that is supported by 95 percent of the American people. The simple fact 
is that our Senate colleagues have been talking to us in good faith, 
not only about a background checks bill but also about emergency risk 
protection orders, because we know there is no single solution, no 
panacea, and that emergency risk protection orders are the other side 
of the coin to background checks.
  Last week, the Washington Post reported that President Trump has 
given up on passing lifesaving gun violence legislation. The reason is 
fierce lobby by the NRA.
  Let's face the stark truth here. The objection on the floor today is 
not the result of any lack of clarity about the need for background 
check legislation. It is the result, purely and simply, of the 
President saying no.
  We need to do our job. We have continued talks, in fact, with members 
of the White House staff after the impeachment proceedings began. My 
hope is that the Washington Post article is untrue. I believe it, 
certainly, in no way forestalls or prevents these discussions from 
continuing. I think there is a reason to hope, but it will take courage 
and strength to do it.
  The President said yesterday that he was too busy doing his job 
meeting with the President of Turkey--an individual who has potentially 
enabled war crimes in northern Syria. If he wasn't too busy to do that 
kind of meeting, he shouldn't be too busy to do gun violence 
prevention.
  The fact is that the stakes are simply too high for there to be 
delay, and 36,000 Americans are killed every year, or more. That is 100 
every day. Gun deaths are, in fact, rising, not declining.
  The trends are absolutely alarming and appalling, and we are 
complicit in these deaths if we fail to act. As I speak on the floor 
right now, there is a school shooting in Santa Clarita, CA. How can we 
turn the other way? How can we refuse to see that shooting in realtime, 
demanding our attention, requiring our action? We are complicit if we 
fail to act. It is not just a political responsibility. It is a moral 
imperative. The unconscionable loss of life is our responsibility.
  This problem is one that we can solve. We may not be able to prevent 
all the deaths that occur--all 100 every day in America--but we can 
save lives. Our goal has to be to save as many lives as quickly as 
possible.
  I have been hopeful for the first time in a long time, as I have 
talked with my colleague Senator Graham. He and I have worked together 
conscientiously and closely on ``extreme risk protection order'' 
legislation. There have been a series of encouraging conversations with 
the White House, and all seemed to be proceeding well, until there was 
a report of the President talking to Wayne LaPierre of the NRA. 
Apparently, it takes only a phone call--or a couple of them--with the 
NRA to turn around the White House and stop the progress we have been 
making and throw out the window all the good work we have done.
  Over these past several months, Senator Graham, the White House, and 
my office have made important strides on emergency risk protection. We 
know that they work. They enjoy broad popular support. At least 70 
percent of the American people support some type of ``extreme risk 
protection'' legislation, including two-thirds of Republicans and 60 
percent of gun owners.
  States like Connecticut, which was the first to adopt them, have 
shown they have a palpable, tangible, measurable effect. They are a 
crucial tool for law enforcement. The full implementation of 
Connecticut's ``emergency risk protection order'' law was associated 
with a mere 14-percent decline in firearm suicide rates, and the 
passages of Indiana's law in 2005 is associated with a 7.5-percent 
decline in the firearm suicide rate.
  We know these laws work. In the 17 jurisdictions that have passed 
them, there has been a decline in suicides and homicides and domestic 
violence shootings. We can save lives. We can put together a measure 
that combines background checks, emergency risk protection orders, and 
other sensible steps. We can work through this body. The objection that 
we are bringing it to the floor precipitously is absolutely ridiculous. 
There is no reason we have to give up now and throw away all our work 
simply because the House is doing something unrelated, on impeachment.
  There has been too much good work as well by groups doing the 
grassroots task of mobilizing public support--Moms Demand Action, 
Students Demand Action, and all of the groups that have rallied around 
for gun safety. In Connecticut, the Newtown Action Alliance, 
Connecticut Against Gun Violence, and Sandy Hook Promise show us the 
way.
  In the last election, gun violence was on the ballot. Gun violence 
prevention won. That is the reason the House has passed H.R. 8. That is 
the reason why

[[Page S6586]]

we should do it here. History will judge my Republican colleagues 
harshly if they fail that, and the voters will judge them even more 
immediately equally harshly.
  The NRA is imploding. Its vice-like grip should be crumbling in this 
body. They may have the ear of the President, but they should not have 
the ear of my Republican colleagues.
  To the President, I say: The NRA is telling the American public they 
own you and that all they have to do is snap their fingers, and you 
fall into line. Prove them wrong. All you need to do is take the final 
steps on this legislation. Give us a green light. Tell us that we can 
move forward and that you will sign this bill.
  To the majority leader I say, whether or not the President gives us 
that green light, we need to do our job. Please do your job. Let us 
have this vote.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________