[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 187 (Thursday, November 21, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6739-S6747]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLOTURE MOTION
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The bill clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination
of Dan R. Brouillette, of Texas, to be Secretary of Energy.
Mitch McConnell, John Boozman, Richard Burr, Shelley
Moore Capito, John Cornyn, Mike Crapo, John Barrasso,
Roy Blunt, John Thune, Steve Daines, Thom Tillis, Kevin
Cramer, Chuck Grassley, Tom Cotton, Rick Scott, Roger
F. Wicker, Cindy Hyde-Smith.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
nomination of Dan R. Brouillette, of Texas, to be Secretary of Energy,
shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson),
and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran)
would have voted ``yea.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker),
the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota
(Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the
Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 74, nays 18, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 366 Ex.]
YEAS--74
Alexander
Barrasso
Blackburn
Blunt
Boozman
Braun
Burr
Cantwell
Capito
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Coons
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Duckworth
Durbin
Enzi
Ernst
Feinstein
Fischer
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hassan
Hawley
Heinrich
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Inhofe
Johnson
Jones
Kaine
Kennedy
King
Lankford
Lee
Manchin
McConnell
McSally
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Paul
Perdue
Peters
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Romney
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Shaheen
Shelby
Sinema
Smith
Stabenow
Sullivan
Tester
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Udall
Warner
Wicker
Young
NAYS--18
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Brown
Cortez Masto
Gillibrand
Hirono
Leahy
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Reed
Rosen
Schatz
Schumer
Van Hollen
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--8
Booker
Cassidy
Harris
Isakson
Klobuchar
Moran
Sanders
Warren
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 74, the nays are
18.
The motion is agreed to.
The Senator from Ohio.
NASA Plum Brook Station
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I would like to talk about a couple of
topics.
First, I thank my colleagues on the Senate Commerce, Science, and
Transportation Committee for very recently approving legislation to
rename the NASA Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, OH, after Ohio's own
and a true American hero--the late Neil Armstrong. I now, of course,
urge that this legislation be taken up by the full Senate and that we
get it passed. There is an identical bill in the House. We hope to join
both bills so that it may be sent to the President for his signature
very soon.
The NASA Plum Brook Station is a state-of-the-art testing facility.
It is near Sandusky, OH, and is a terrific facility that is doing a lot
of the testing right now for both NASA and some private sector
companies. It is part of the NASA Glenn complex that is headquartered
in Cleveland, OH.
It is an impressive operation for a lot of reasons, but the one that
is most exciting right now is their work on the Artemis Project. This
is, of course, NASA's plan to put astronauts back on the Moon by 2024,
including having the first woman go to the Moon. This mission will also
lay the groundwork for future expeditions to the next great leap in
spaceflight--that, of course, being a manned mission to Mars. It is
exciting stuff.
At Plum Brook, they are already testing critical components of the
rocket engines that are scheduled to carry Artemis astronauts into
space starting next year. Very soon, they are going to be testing the
spacecraft itself. We hope it will arrive at Plum Brook within the next
few weeks where it will undergo about 4 months of testing.
This past summer, I and my colleague, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown,
introduced this legislation to rename the facility after Neil
Armstrong, and we did so on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the
Apollo 11 Moon landing, from which, of course, Neil Armstrong became
world famous for being the first person to walk on the surface of the
Moon.
Ultimately, Neil Armstrong was a test pilot. We think of him as an
astronaut. Some know that he was also a fighter pilot and that he was a
veteran of the Korean conflict. He was just an amazing individual--
humble, smart. He was a very patriotic individual. How appropriate and
perfect that as a test pilot, which he was during his whole post-
fighter pilot career until his time as an astronaut, Plum Brook be
named after him.
By the way, Neil's family agrees with that, as does NASA, and as do
others we have talked to. So we are hoping that this will be a fitting
way to honor a man who, for all of his accomplishments, saw himself,
first and foremost, as a patriot who pushed the boundaries of flight.
Therefore, the test facility is very dear to them.
I talked to him about this test facility. After one of my visits
there, I went to see him at his home and told him about the progress
they were making. At that time, they were trying to revamp some of the
facilities there. He was really excited about it. He was a very modest
man and did not want things named after him. He viewed his service to
his country as the reward. That is all he ever wanted in life. That
makes it all the more fitting that we, in fact, do name this after him.
It is a great model for young people and, certainly, for those who are
interested in avionics and spacecraft and in being astronauts. His
example is one we should all look up to.
[[Page S6740]]
When this comes to the Senate floor for a vote, I hope all of my
colleagues will support it, and I hope that it will happen very soon.
Thousand Talents Plan
Mr. President, there was a very troubling report that was issued this
week by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. This is a tough
subject. In this report, it details for the very first time how
taxpayers' dollars have been used, really, over the past 20 years to
fund scientific research that has then been misappropriated by one of
our global competitors--China--to fuel its own economy and its own
military growth.
What do I mean by that? What happened?
Every year, Federal grant-making agencies, like the National
Institutes of Health--the NIH--or the Department of Energy's National
Labs or the National Science Foundation, give out taxpayers' dollars
for research--actually, about $150 billion a year.
This is a good thing for us as a country. It leads to new
breakthroughs in science and technology, healthcare, weapons systems,
and so on. Through research grants, this money goes primarily to
universities and to other research institutions across the United
States. This investment has been very helpful in making the United
States the world leader in scientific innovation. Again, it has
resulted in some amazing breakthroughs.
Our U.S. research is built on some principles here in this country.
One is transparency. Another is collaboration. Others are integrity,
peer review, and a merit-based system. In fact, the open and
collaborative nature of the research that is done here in the United
States is one of the reasons we attract some of the best and brightest
scientists and researchers from all around the world. That is a good
thing. Yet, without proper protections, this research is vulnerable to
theft by other countries, and that is exactly what has happened.
The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, along
with Ranking Member Tom Carper, conducted an 8-month investigation into
how American taxpayer-funded research has been taken by China--
effectively stolen--to assist its own economy and its own military.
China has been very open about its goals to surpass the United States
as the world leader in science and technology by the middle of this
century.
An important part of this effort is what China calls its talent
recruitment programs. Through talent recruitment programs, China has
strategically and systematically acquired knowledge and intellectual
property from researchers and scientists in the United States in both
the public and private sectors.
In the course of our investigation, the FBI shared with us that China
plans to spend more than $2 trillion between 2008 and 2020 toward
improving its human capital, which includes recruiting and developing
researchers and scientists.
The Thousand Talents Plan, which was the focus of our investigation,
is now in its 11th year of operation, and it is probably China's most
prominent talent recruitment program. However, there are about 200 or
more other talent recruitment programs as well.
Launched in 2008, China designed the Thousand Talents Plan to recruit
2,000 high-quality, overseas experts and to get their knowledge and
their expertise and their research. By 2017, China had exceeded that
initial goal by recruiting more than 7,000 of what they call ``high-end
professionals,'' including many from American research institutions.
Some of the U.S.-based researchers, of course, also receive taxpayer-
funded Federal grant money we talked about earlier to do the same
research right here in the United States. In exchange for spending part
of every year working in Chinese institutions, the Thousand Talents
Plan recruits are rewarded with generous salaries and research budgets,
sometimes even exceeding their pay at the American research
institutions where, in practice, they are working. These researchers
also often get access to what is called a shadow lab in science. In
other words, they provide them not just with funding, but they also
say: We will provide you lab space in China.
At our hearing yesterday, the Department of Energy witness testified
that China offered some of his researchers hundreds of thousands and
even millions of dollars to join a talent recruitment program.
For a researcher here, the Thousand Talents Plan might seem like a
good opportunity, but it certainly is not a good opportunity for the
United States, especially because embedded in the language of some of
these contracts these researchers sign are very troubling provisions
that prevent these recruits from disclosing their participation in the
Thousand Talents Plan even though disclosing foreign payments is
required by U.S. regulations. Not only is this dishonest, but it is
also a clear violation of the American regulations that require
researchers who apply for these grants we are talking about--this $150
billion of taxpayer money--to disclose any funding they are receiving
from a foreign source. In effect, what is happening with the Thousand
Talents Plan is that it is incentivizing these program members to lie
on grant applications to U.S. grant-funding agencies to avoid
disclosing their funding from Chinese institutions.
What is worse, in many of these contracts, researchers are often
required to transfer to China the technological breakthroughs--the
research--that are being developed in American labs with American grant
money. There are a lot of examples we found in our 8-month study. Let
me talk about a couple quickly.
In one, we learned that a Thousand Talents Plan recruit at the
Department of Energy's National Labs used the intellectual property
created during his work in a National Lab to file for a U.S. patent
under the name of a Chinese company, effectively stealing the federally
funded research and claiming it for China.
Another Thousand Talents Plan member illegally downloaded more than
30,000 files from a National Lab--this is connected with Department of
Energy funding--without authorization right before returning to China.
Once China has it, some of this research could be used to threaten
the national security of the United States. As an example, the State
Department witness testified at our hearing yesterday that ``the
Chinese Communist Party has declared the Chinese university system to
be on the front line of military-civilian fusion efforts for
technological acquisition for weapons research and the expansion of key
scientific and engineering talent to drive Chinese innovation.'' That
is pretty obvious. That is what all of our witnesses, in essence, said.
This is not a new problem. We found out through our investigation
that the Federal Government should have known about this issue for
almost two decades but has yet to do anything substantial to stop it.
It is unacceptable that we have allowed this to go on as long as we
have.
These talent programs are a win-win for China and a lose-lose for the
United States. First, the Chinese Government and their research
entities are getting research that is paid for by us. Second, it is not
used by us. That research is used in China to improve their own
economic and military status.
So why is it taking so long for us to do anything about this problem?
I think there are a couple of reasons.
First, a lot of the U.S. research community didn't fully understand
the Thousand Talents Plan and the threat it poses. Even though this one
program is more than a decade old at this point, it wasn't until last
year that the FBI began organizing a unified Federal response to the
threat it has been posing to our universities and research
institutions. We have been slow to focus on this issue, and therefore
it has continued.
I appreciated the FBI's candor at the hearing yesterday, by the way,
when the FBI Assistant Director testified that he wished the FBI had
``taken more rapid and comprehensive action in the past.'' I do too.
Second, I think one reason this hasn't been stopped is that the
coordination between the grant-making agencies is almost as bad as the
coordination with the Federal law enforcement folks, meaning that they
aren't talking to each other about problems they have had, about
particular instances regarding some of the research that has been
taken.
As I said, we are talking about more than $150 billion of taxpayer
money every year that goes to these agencies,
[[Page S6741]]
but once these funds are in the agencies' hands, we found no evidence
of a unified and coordinated tracking and monitoring process to ensure
that the money did not go toward the Thousand Talents Plan participants
or other programs. The National Science Foundation, for instance,
doesn't seem to have anyone who handles grant oversight in this regard.
These research entities need to share information on these issues.
But other organizations are at fault too. We found that the State
Department is on the frontlines due to its responsibilities to vet visa
applications for visiting students and scholars, but it very rarely
denies visas under that process.
Quite frankly, the research community here in the United States bears
some responsibility too. There has been a collective failure by our
universities and our research institutions to vet researchers for these
conflicts of interest with other countries. Again, this is made worse
by the fact that many of these researchers are receiving taxpayer funds
to conduct their research here.
It is going to take a comprehensive strategy across the Federal
Government to better protect our research against this threat. Our
report makes a number of recommendations that, combined, will go a long
way toward strengthening the security of our research networks, while
preserving the shared culture of transparency and fairness.
Of course we want to continue to be the top place in the world for
research, and that means that we have to be able to share and have
transparency and openness, but it also means that we need to do a much
better job of protecting this information from being misused.
We, of course, need to do better at getting the word out to
universities, research institutions, and the general public about this
threat being posed by the Thousand Talents Plan and other foreign
talent recruitment plans. This means better coordination between law
enforcement, the intelligence community, and grant-making agencies so
that the government is on the same page on this threat.
We also need to change the research culture to preserve its openness
and innovative spirit while making sure foreign researchers are
properly vetted by the sponsoring organizations.
NIH, NSF, and other grant-making institutions need to standardize how
they find conflicts of interest in grant applications. They don't do
that now.
Members of the research community need to develop best practices for
American researchers to follow so that they can determine whether
receiving funds from a foreign country would compromise our principles
of research integrity and threaten our national security.
Finally, we need to help the State Department do a better job in its
visa vetting process for foreign researchers. We need to do a better
job of determining potential conflicts of interest before individuals
who may not have the best interests of the United States at heart start
working at our research institutions and using our taxpayer dollars.
In the coming months, I will introduce bipartisan legislation that
will help address some of these challenges. I look forward to working
with Senator Carper, the ranking member on the subcommittee, and other
colleagues to get those initiatives to the President's desk.
Let me conclude by saying that we don't want to exclude China from
contributing to scientific innovation--not at all. Advancements in the
fields of robotics, medicine, energy, weapons systems, and more are
things that are very important, and many of these can benefit the
entire globe. But we want to have fair and transparent processes in
place as we conduct this research, and our taxpayers don't want to be
the ones to pick up the tab as China misappropriates our research to
build up its own economy and a military designed to rival ours.
My hope is that this report is the start of a productive dialogue
with China and here in Congress on how we can better build a more
secure research system that continues to reward those who come to our
shores to discover new breakthroughs in science, while keeping China
and other nation state competitors from taking that research for their
own purposes.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Presidential Pardons
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, before I start my remarks, I want to
underscore how valuable the Department of Defense fellows program is to
our individual offices. I can tell you firsthand that Captain Ng's
presence in my office has given me capacity to deal with issues
concerning appointments that I have or issues that are pending in
Congress of a military nature.
For those of us who have never served in the military service, having
someone like Captain Ng in our office is incredibly important. I really
want to underscore that and thank all of our Defense fellows for the
services they are performing for our country.
Mr. President, on May 22 of this year, I stood before this body and
expressed my deep concerns about the media reports that President Trump
was considering granting pardons to certain U.S. military personnel who
had been convicted of committing war crimes in both Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Now 6 months later, President Trump has followed through with setting
a very dangerous precedent, pardoning three military personnel of war
crimes, two who were found guilty under the U.S. military's Uniform
Code of Military Justice and one whose trial never concluded.
President Trump's pardons significantly disrupt the foundations of
our own institutions, particularly the U.S. military.
First, President Trump's pardons cause confusion for our military
servicemembers on what actions are acceptable on the battlefield--an
already difficult task given the complexity of war. Second, he
undermines the military justice system. Finally, these pardons degrade
America's global standing and influence.
Stephen Preston, a former General Counsel at the Department of
Defense, wrote the following in the Department of Defense Law of War
Manual in June of 2015:
The law of war is part of who we are. . . . [T]he laws of
war have shaped the U.S. Armed Forces as much as they have
shaped any other armed force in the world. The law of war is
part of our military heritage, and obeying it is the right
thing to do. . . . [T]he self-control needed to refrain from
violations of the law of war under stresses of combat is the
same good order and discipline necessary to operate
cohesively and victoriously in battle.
The Law of War Manual goes on to outline the five interdependent
principles that serve as the foundation of the law of war: One,
military necessity; two, humanity; three, proportionality; four,
distinction; and five, honor.
These principles are pillars of American values and the guideposts we
expect America's sons and daughters to operate within so they remain
trusted and respected by all citizens of the world. President Trump's
ill-advised pardons have placed those pillars on shaky ground. He has
blurred the lines of morality for our troops and has disregarded the
constitutional values the Founding Fathers set forth.
By virtue of their oath and training, members of the U.S. military
are accountable for their individual and collective actions through the
Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Department of Defense policy states:
Each member of the armed services has a duty to: (1) comply
with the laws of war in good faith; and (2) refuse to comply
with clearly illegal orders to commit violations of the law
of war.
Two of these military personnel President Trump pardoned were found
guilty of violating the law of war through the prescribed Department of
Defense investigative and judicial processes. They violated
international and domestic law, and they failed to uphold their
constitutional oath. President Trump's pardons of war crimes erode the
trust, confidence, and the legal and moral authority of the military
justice system. He never gave the military justice system a chance to
work and determine all the facts surrounding the third individual whom
he pardoned.
Our own Commander in Chief has now compromised and degraded the
integrity of the U.S. military judicial system--a system America relies
on to maintain good order and discipline within the ranks of our
millions of uniformed servicemembers.
[[Page S6742]]
Perhaps most important and most damaging, President Trump's actions
have eroded America's moral standing and global influence.
That erosion emboldens our adversaries to cite our actions in
committing and justifying their own war crimes. Have we become a
country that now justifies and embraces the type of acts that occurred
at My Lai during Vietnam or Abu Ghraib in Iraq? Will we continue to
allow horrific acts committed by rogue actors who strategically
diminish America's global standing?
Moving forward, how will other nations trust the United States to
implement and enforce the law of war, as required by our own domestic
laws, policy, regulations, and orders, and by the multiple treaty
obligations with other countries?
Our Nation cannot tolerate crimes committed by rogue actors who
violate their oaths and who turn their backs on American laws and
values. If our government does not hold those individuals accountable
for their actions, the United States will never recover from the
strategic losses they incur. Under no circumstance is adopting the
behavior of our worst adversaries ever justified, ever.
Just as we seek to hold foreign actors accountable for war crimes, we
also have an obligation to hold ourselves accountable. We cannot
willfully allow our institutions or the individuals who serve them to
deviate from the laws and standards of conduct that underpin our great
Nation, but that is precisely what President Trump has done. Our former
colleague, Senator John McCain, suffered many years of torture at the
hands of the North Vietnamese captors. Nonetheless, he stood in this
Chamber to decry our use of the same tactics. He said: ``This question
isn't about our enemies. It is about us. It is about who we were, who
we are, and who we aspire to be. It is about how we represent ourselves
to the world. Our enemies act without conscience. We must not.''
Senator McCain was correct. Great power competition with our
adversaries is not just about who wins on a battlefield; ultimately, it
is about preserving international recognized norms and values that
uphold the rule of law, individual freedoms, and human dignity. If the
U.S. fails to be the global champion of current international norms and
democratic values, then our adversaries will replace those values with
their own ideology predicated on intimidation, fear, and violent
oppression.
The United States must not willfully commit or condone war crimes. We
must bring those who commit them to justice, regardless of citizenship,
affiliation, or background. Even in the fog of war--especially in the
fog of war--we must so act. We must always endeavor to act with moral
clarity and preserve the international norms and values that took so
long and have cost so many American lives to establish.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Braun). The Senator from Texas.
Senate Legislative Agenda
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, over the last few months, our friend and
colleague, the minority leader, has railed about the lack of
legislative progress here in the Senate. He believes the Senate should
spend time taking up ultrapartisan bills that have passed the House of
Representatives, but the truth is, we respectfully decline to take up
those bills, which, in some instances, would infringe Americans'
Constitutional rights, send taxpayer dollars to political candidates,
and move us closer and closer to socialized medicine.
Now, our colleague likes to call these dead-on-arrival partisan bills
part of the legislative graveyard, but our colleague from New York has
opened up a graveyard of his own, only his isn't full of partisan
legislation that could never pass the Senate, let alone become the law.
No. Our friend--the Democratic leader's legislative graveyard
exclusively caters to bipartisan bills.
Now, it is full of commonsense and critically important legislation
that would actually make the lives of the American people better if
only our friend from New York would stand down. Today, we had a chance
to kick the can down the road once more when it comes to Federal
funding because our colleagues across the aisle have put government
funding bills 6 feet under.
Over the summer, as you will recall, we came to a bipartisan
agreement on spending caps, a bicameral agreement to guide the
appropriations process. We had a deal. It provided a roadmap for
negotiations this fall, and we all promised to work hard and in good
faith and stay away from poison pill policy riders. But, unfortunately,
that promise was not kept, and our colleagues can't seem to put
politics aside long enough to even fund the government.
And why? Because of a disagreement over .3 percent of Federal
spending--0.3 percent. They have twice blocked vital funding for our
military. They have blocked funding for mental health programs, for
border security, for grant programs for schools--all over these petty
disputes. So here we are, almost 2 months into the fiscal year, and we
haven't sent a single appropriations bill to the President's desk, not
one.
Well, with the government set to shut down at midnight tonight, at
least we passed a bill to keep the trains running for 1 more month.
Maybe this was the least bad choice we had in light of these broken
promises. The stopgap funding bill carries through December 20 and
provides another opportunity for our colleagues across the aisle to
make good on their August commitments to fund the government through
the end of the fiscal year, using the normal appropriations process.
I hope that good faith negotiations can resume and we can fund the
remainder of the fiscal year by Christmas because the last stocking
stuffer we want to give the American people is another government
shutdown. And it is particularly important for us to fund our military
in an increasingly dangerous world where weakness is indeed a
provocation for the bullies and authoritarians who want to take
advantage of the lack of American leadership, in this case because
Congress simply refuses to do its job to fund the military.
Well, I would be wrong to say it is all bad news. I am an optimist by
nature. It reminds me of the story of the little boy who comes down
Christmas morning and finds a pile of manure under the Christmas tree.
He asked, ``Where is the pony?'' I am an optimist by nature. Yesterday,
we did manage to make some small progress when we unanimously passed a
bipartisan bill that I introduced with Mr. Merkley, the Senator from
Oregon, to ban the sale of riot control material to the Hong Kong
police force.
As freedom-seeking protesters on the other side of the globe risked
life and limb for the freedoms we too often take for granted, we cannot
condone police brutality. Admittedly, this is a small but important
step to show we stand with the people of Hong Kong, but I find this
ironic. The minority leader is fine with passing incremental bills to
support the people of Hong Kong, but when it comes to passing
incremental bills to support the American people, he objects.
I think the best example is the legislation that I have introduced to
bring down prescription drug prices. Last week, I came to the Senate
floor with my friend, colleague, and cosponsor, Senator Richard
Blumenthal of Connecticut, to ask that our bill to reduce drug prices
be passed. No one else had an objection other than the Democratic
leader.
The premise of the bill was pretty simple: prevent drugmakers from
gaming the patent system to monopolize the market. Our bill strikes a
delicate balance of protecting innovation while encouraging
competition, and it would be a win for every American who has felt the
pain or sticker shock at the pharmacy counter. This bill, amazingly,
passed the Judiciary Committee unanimously. I served on the Judiciary
Committee my entire time on the Senate, and it is famous for its
contentiousness, and we passed it unanimously. Every Republican and
every Democrat voted for it. So you can imagine my optimism, my hope,
that the bill would sail through the Senate, meet up with welcoming
arms in the House, and then get to the President for his signature, but
I guess I should have known better.
Our Democratic colleagues have continued to throw up roadblocks for
things as critical as funding the military, so why would they let this
bill that would bring down prescription costs for consumers, why would
they
[[Page S6743]]
let it pass? So right on cue, the Democratic leader came to the floor
and he objected. He was the only person out of 100 Senators to object.
He did not object because of the substance.
As a matter of fact, he called it a well-intentioned and good bill,
but he objected. He certainly did not object because it was a partisan
bill. The bill has six Democratic cosponsors, including the minority
whip, the Senator from Illinois, and the ranking member of the Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Murray from
Washington State.
So the only reason I can think of that he would object is because he
doesn't want to see anyone whose name happened to be on the ballot in
2020 score a win. Well, how unworthy of the U.S. Senate is that sort of
thinking? We should not be thinking in terms of who is going to win or
lose politically if we pass good legislation. We ought to be doing the
Nation's work and working together in a bipartisan basis, not trying to
bring the 2020 election here to the Senate floor.
But this bill isn't the only one that is subject to these kinds of
politics, unfortunately. Critical legislation to support victims of
domestic violence and sexual assault have also gotten caught up in this
way of thinking. After months of bipartisan negotiations to reauthorize
the Violence Against Women Act, our Democratic colleagues simply walked
away from the negotiating table. Rather than reaching a compromise,
building consensus on a bill that could pass both Chambers and become
law, once again, our Democratic colleagues chose the partisan path and
walked away from the table. They have introduced a near replica of the
partisan House-passed bill for VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act,
which they know doesn't stand a chance of passing here in the Senate
because it is not a consensus product.
That is not news to our friends on the other side of the aisle. They
understand that this is more about the issue than it is solving the
problem, the political issue. I think they turned their back on
bipartisan talks, not because they had a better solution, which is what
we ought to be about, but because our friend and Democratic leader
doesn't want to give any Republican colleagues who are leading the
negotiations, like the Senator from Iowa, Ms. Ernst, allow her to get a
win.
This is really, again, unworthy of the Senate to think in those petty
sorts of terms. I think we should concentrate on who would win if we
passed the Violence Against Women Act, which would be the many victims
of domestic violence and sexual assault. We ought to be thinking about
them and whether they would win if we passed bipartisan legislation.
Now, I believe the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, wants to
come back to the negotiating table. She told me that herself yesterday,
but I also believe the Democratic leader probably isn't going to let
that happen. Like me, Senator Ernst is on the ballot next year.
Again, the minority leader has demonstrated his focus on politics
rather than substance and doing what actually will help the American
people: no bills to lower drug prices, no bills to support victims of
domestic violence, nada. He can't afford to let any Republican bills
pass because it might just hurt his chances of becoming the majority
leader after the 2020 election.
I think it is a shame that the partisanship in the House has now
infected the Senate and prevented us from passing bills that would make
the American people's lives better. I hope our friends on the other
side of the aisle have a great Thanksgiving break, and I hope that he
will use that time to reconsider why it is they are here in the first
place, why we are all here.
We are all here to make the Senate work for the benefit of the
American people and not to engage in these unworthy petty political
games leading up to the 2020 election.
United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement
Mr. President, on another matter, before election year politics
completely halt the work of the Senate, here we are, 1 year before the
election, one item I am really hoping we can deliver for the American
people in addition to the ones I mentioned is the USMCA, the U.S.-
Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement.
This trade agreement, as we know, will replace NAFTA, or the North
American Free Trade Agreement, and help drive our trade relationship
with Mexico and Canada into the 21st century. When you consider the
number of American jobs that depend on trade with Mexico and Canada,
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce cites a figure of 13 million jobs--13
million jobs that depend on that trade with Mexico and Canada.
When you consider actions being taken by China to counter our
interests all around the world, our reliance on North American partners
is becoming increasingly important. The USMCA is not only an
opportunity to strengthen North America's position on the global stage,
but it is important, as I suggested, to our economy right here in the
United States.
Earlier this year, the International Trade Commission provided some
insight into what we can expect to see if this trade agreement is
ratified, as it should be. The USMCA is expected to have a positive
impact on every sector of the U.S. economy. Within 6 years, we are
looking at 176,000 new American jobs and an increase in American gross
domestic product of more than $68 billion. That is bigger than the
proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.
We can also look forward to more than a $33 billion increase in
exports and more than $31 billion in imports. We know that many of
those exports and imports travel across the border in Texas because we
share 1,200 miles of common border with Mexico, and we have many ports
of entry in our State.
In 2018 alone, Texas exported nearly $110 billion in goods to Mexico
and imported more than $107 billion from Mexico. With the increased
trade and travel we expect to see once the USMCA is ratified, we need
to make sure that our ports of entry, through which these goods flow,
are prepared. We have been working with the administration on this, and
I have requested funding to prioritize Texas's ports and make sure they
are safe and efficient.
I am also hoping the USMCA will include provisions from a bill I
introduced earlier with another border State Senator, our friend
Senator Feinstein from California. This would improve the North
American Development Bank, sometimes called the NAD Bank, which invests
in our border communities and particularly in the infrastructure.
For every one NAD Bank dollar that has been invested in a project,
that successfully leveraged $20 in total infrastructure investment
using public and private sector dollars.
Throughout NAD Bank's 25-year history, they have taken on projects
that have improved air and water quality, updated infrastructure, and
increased cross-border trade. NAD Bank brings Mexico and the United
States together to finance these projects to improve trade and travel
and quality of life on both sides of the border.
This legislation that Senator Feinstein and I have introduced would
authorize the Treasury Department to increase its capital and provide
additional authority to fund critical projects. I have been working
with my friend and Democratic colleague from Laredo, TX, Congressman
Cuellar, to make sure that these provisions are included in the final
text of the USMCA. My hope is we will be able to take those provisions
up as well as the entire agreement and ratify it soon, but it depends
on Speaker Pelosi. Everybody is waiting for her to show the green light
and for the House to act. I am concerned that as we get closer and
closer into an election season, it is going to be harder and harder for
the House to even pass this bipartisan trade deal.
I read today that she is not predicting they will even be able to get
it done before the end of the year. I note that she made that comment
roughly on the same day the House adjourned for 10 days. The House does
not appear to be in any hurry, to be sure. In fact, they have dragged
their feet for many months on something that is vitally important to
our economy and job creation right here in the U.S.A.
Texans enjoy a strong trading relationship with our southern
neighbor, and I am confident the USMCA will continue to propel that
relationship forward as well as continue to grow our economy and create
jobs and more opportunity for the American people.
[[Page S6744]]
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Defense Appropriations
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, right now, as we are gathered here on
the Senate floor, the Senate and House conferees are in the process of
trying to negotiate a final agreement on the NDAA. That is the National
Defense Authorization Act. One of the key issues in the final
discussions over the NDAA involves a provision designed to protect the
integrity of American elections against outside interference from
Russia or any other adversary. It is a provision based on bipartisan
legislation that Senator Rubio and I introduced over a year ago to
deter Russian interference in a future American election. The
legislation is called the DETER Act, the idea being: Let's deter Russia
from attacking our democracy.
I believe it would be grossly negligent for the conferees to the
National Defense Authorization Act to bring back to the House and the
Senate a measure that does not include a provision to defend our
democracy from Russian interference. The entire Senate must share that
sentiment because we unanimously voted on a resolution just a short
time ago to include such a provision in the National Defense
Authorization Act.
I have in my hand a copy of that resolution. It was S. Res. 330. It
instructs the managers on the part of the Senate on bill S. 1790--that
is the National Defense Authorization Bill--to require certain measures
to address Federal election interference by foreign governments.
It goes on to instruct the Senate conferees to require the
appropriate official of the executive branch, after each Federal
election, to promptly submit to Congress a determination as to whether
the Government of the Russian Federation, or any other foreign
government, has interfered in such election and a detailed assessment
of any such interference that identifies, to the maximum extent
practicable, the individuals responsible for the interference and to
promptly impose sanctions on any foreign government that has been
determined to have interfered in a Federal election, including
specified individuals and entities within the territory of the
government.
That is what the U.S. Senate unanimously voted on to instruct our
conferees to the National Defense Authorization Act negotiations. What
I just read is the guts of the idea in the bipartisan DETER Act that
Senator Rubio and I have introduced.
Here is what we know. We know that Russia interfered in the 2016
election. How do we know that? It was the unanimous verdict of the
entire U.S. intelligence community, including the leaders of
intelligence agencies appointed by this President. It was also the
bipartisan verdict of the Senate Intelligence Committee--a committee
that painstakingly documented the fact that election systems in all 50
States were targeted by Russia in 2016--to different degrees but in all
50 States. In fact, that Senate Intelligence Committee report was the
first public--the first public--acknowledgement of how extensive the
Russian efforts were to interfere in the 2016 elections.
We know the Russians did this in 2016. We know that Vladimir Putin
sees interfering in our elections as a way to divide us against one
another. We know that Vladimir Putin fears democratic forms of
government and wants to undermine public confidence in those
democracies.
How do you undermine public confidence in those democracies? By
attacking the election process so that people doubt the validity of the
outcome of an election. When that happens, if the public loses faith in
the outcome of our elections, then we have really undermined the
legitimacy and confidence in our democratic system. That was 2016.
The measure I am talking about doesn't relate to 2016. It relates to
the future. Here is what our intelligence community just informed the
country about within the last few weeks. I am holding in my hand a
statement that was released on November 5, just a few weeks ago. It is
from Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper,
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan, Acting Director
of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, FBI Director Chris Wray, U.S.
Cyber Command Commander and NSA Director GEN Paul Nakasone, CISA
Director Christopher Krebs. Here is what they said 2 weeks ago.
Our adversaries want to undermine our democratic
institutions, influence public sentiment and affect
government policies. Russia, China, Iran, and other foreign
malicious actors all will seek to interfere in the voting
process or influence voter perceptions. This document is not
about the past; this document is about the future, about
our future elections, including the 2020 election, which
is now less than a year away.
We know in 2016 the Russians attacked our electoral process. We now
have all of the leaders of Federal Government intelligence agencies and
law enforcement telling us they predict Russia will do it again in
2020.
We have a Russian missile headed for our democracy, and the question
for all of us is, What are we going to do about it? What are we going
to do to protect our democracy and the legitimacy of our electoral
system?
First of all, we should harden our election system. We should make it
more difficult for Russia to break into our voter registration files.
Certainly, we should make it more difficult for them to break into
voting machines. We should also make sure we build more defenses to
prevent the Government of Russia from using social media to mislead and
confuse voters. We should do all those things to better defend our
election system, but I am of the view--and a lot of folks who have
followed Russia and Vladimir Putin for a long time--that the best
defense is a good offense. We can harden our systems here, but that
doesn't stop Russia and Vladimir Putin from trying to break into our
election systems. It doesn't prevent Russia and Putin from trying to
use our social media to influence our voters. The only way to prevent
them from trying is to let them know in advance that there is a big
price to pay if they get caught.
Right now it is cost-free for Russia to interfere in our elections.
In fact, it is a net benefit because Putin divides us. Putin leads
voters and citizens to question the legitimacy of our democracy. He is
winning in this current calculus. We need to change his calculus. We
need to make it clear that the cost of interfering in our elections far
outweighs these benefits that he is gaining.
That is what the DETER Act is all about. What the DETER Act does is
set up a process whereby, if we catch Russia interfering in our future
elections, including the 2020 elections, there will be automatic,
swift, and very stiff economic penalties--not penalties on a couple of
oligarchs but penalties that will hurt his economy, penalties on his
banking sector, and penalties on part of his energy sector. If we adopt
this provision, then we are making it very clear in advance to Vladimir
Putin that if he interferes, and we catch him, there is a very stiff
price to pay.
The whole purpose of this act is not to impose sanctions; it is to
avoid sanctions by making it clear upfront what the costs will be if
Putin interferes in our elections. The whole point is to use the threat
of automatic, swift, and tough sanctions to discourage and deter the
Russians from interfering in the first place.
I haven't heard anybody provide one substantive argument for why we
should not do this to protect our democracy. I can think of no more
important place to include this provision than the national defense
authorization bill because if the national defense authorization bill
is not about defending our democracy, I am not sure what it is about.
So the question is, Why are we still debating this in the conference
committee for the national defense authorization bill? I can't figure
out who is opposing it other than the fact that somebody is. I was told
it was the Republican Senate leader and the chairman of the Senate
Banking Committee who are opposing this provision. If that is the case,
they really need to come to the Senate floor and explain this because
the Senate unanimously instructed Senate conferees to adopt just
[[Page S6745]]
such a provision--unanimously. That includes the Senate majority leader
and the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. They didn't object.
Yet somehow now we are in the middle of a conference committee on
defending our country, which I thought meant also defending our
democracy, and we have these folks who don't want their fingerprints on
it who are somehow trying to defeat this measure.
Here is what I have to say. If this provision is not included in the
NDAA, it would be grossly negligent because we know from our own
intelligence community 2 weeks ago that the Russians are coming to
attack our elections again, and we are going to pass a defense
authorization bill where we sit on our hands and do nothing about it?
That would be outrageous.
This measure needs to be in the NDAA bill. I will tell you, if it is
not, I am going to be here on this floor regularly asking for unanimous
consent to bring this bill up for a vote. I am going to have the
majority leader have to come down here regularly, or whomever he wants
to designate, to object to a unanimous consent agreement for a
provision to defend our elections.
I hope it is included in the Defense authorization bill. That is the
place it should be. If it is not, I will be down here every day, and
the clock will be ticking down day by day for the 2020 election, our
Intelligence Committee will continue to warn us about Russian
interference, and I am going to want to hear in public--in public--why
some of our colleagues don't want to take action to defend the
integrity of our democracy; why they want to allow Putin to have his
way cost-free. That is a question I will be asking every day. I hope I
don't have to ask it every day. I hope we do what the Senate already
instructed our conferees to do, which is to include it in the National
Defense Authorization Act.
I yield back my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Tribute to Rosie Habeich
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, it is Thursday. I know the pages know
this, and many people watching know this, but it is that time of the
day in the Senate when I come down on the Senate floor and talk about
somebody who makes my State a very unique and special place--and it is
an opportunity for me to talk a little bit about what is going on in
Alaska right now, particularly before the holidays--somebody we refer
to in Alaska and here in the Senate as the Alaskan of the Week.
Before I get into this very special Alaskan, I will give you a little
weather update. A lot of people like to understand what is going on.
Winter has come. It is coming to Alaska. Snow has arrived throughout
much of the State. In Southcentral Alaska it has come. Anchorage is
covered in snow. A lot of people are getting ready to undertake winter.
Sports and activities on Monday in Utqiagvik, the northernmost point in
North America--it used to be called Point Barrow--the Sun rose and set
for the last time until January 23. So it is going to be dark up there,
but they are used to that. They are great people. The community has now
officially settled in for a bit of a dark Arctic winter, but they have
been doing that for a millennium.
It is a winter wonderland right now throughout Alaska. So I always
encourage people watching, watching on TV, to come on up. Summer,
winter, fall, spring, come on up and visit. You will love it. It will
be the trip of a lifetime.
As I mentioned before, I think I come from the most beautiful State
in the country, but it is also a place made up of the most important,
caring, wonderful, generous, and supportive people anywhere. Some of
these people have had ancestors living in Alaska for thousands and
thousands of years. Others arrived more recently but immediately found
a home in a community that they were supportive of and was supportive
of them.
Let me introduce you to Rosemary Habeich. Her friends call her Rosie.
She is an extraordinary Alaskan who has done extraordinary things for
our people. She is our Alaskan of the Week.
What has she done? What is extraordinary about Rosie?
Let me just mention one off the top, which is pretty remarkable--
fostering over 50 Alaskan children with her husband, Eben Hobson, Jr. I
should add here that Eben is the son of the first mayor of Alaska's
North Slope Borough and someone who has also fought for the rights of
Alaska Natives throughout his life. He deserves mention, as well as his
wife, as a legendary Alaskan.
Not only did Rosie and Eben foster all these children, they adopted
three, and raised five of their own children. That is a crowded
household but a kind, loving, supportive and warm household--a place of
love.
I can say here that the recommendation for Rosie to be our Alaskan of
the Week comes from our First Alaskans Institute fellow, Elizabeth
Ahkivgak, who is right here with me and who has done a great job in my
office.
Elizabeth is one of dozens and dozens of children Rosie and Eben took
into their bright home and loved them so much so they could love
themselves.
Let me tell you a little bit about Rosie, our Alaskan of the Week.
She was born in Idaho. Like too many Americans, unfortunately, she
actually came from a broken home. Her mother was battling an illness
and sometimes was too sick to handle Rosie and her siblings.
It was during one of those bouts of illness that Rosie herself
briefly became a foster child. That experience, the experience of
visiting her mother in an institution, and the kindness of neighbors
who stepped up and helped during those very difficult years would form
the basis of Rosie's steadfast belief that helping others in your
community throughout your State is a higher calling.
Eventually, Rosie moved with her family to Fairbanks when she was
just a young girl. Those were good years for her and her family. She
thrived in Alaska, went to college, and became a social worker for the
State. Eventually, her work took her to Utqiagvik--as I mentioned,
formerly Barrow, AK--where she fell in love both with her husband,
Eben, and with the community.
She found in Utqiagvik that if you had a good idea and were willing
to do the work and see it through, you could succeed with the help of
others, and she did succeed.
At various points during her time in the North Slope Borough of our
great State, she worked as the director of the city's rec department,
director of the health department, and executive director of the Alaska
Eskimo Whaling Commission. She also sat on the board for the Rural
Alaska Community Action Plan. She was a public health nurse and was
appointed director of the North Slope Borough Health Department by two
different mayors. That is an impressive resume, as you see.
She now spends much of her time in Anchorage, where she volunteers
for a group called Friends in Serving Humanity, or F.I.S.H.--a church
network that feeds the hungry. On many days, you can find her in
different communities handing out meals and food boxes often paid for
out of her own pocket.
Rosie gives her all to everything she does, but one of her truly
lasting contributions to Alaska and to her community is how she has
taken in so many children across the State who need a home, who need
support, and who need love. She took in siblings. She took in infants.
She took in teenagers. She took them from all backgrounds, from all
across the State, and she loved them. She was patient with them. She
intuitively understood what they needed and when they needed it. Some
of the children she took in were horribly abused, most others were
homesick, and some were confused.
In Alaska, getting running water to households across the State has
long been a major challenge, one we are still working on today. If you
can believe this--this is certainly one of my passions in the Senate--
we have over 30 communities in Alaska with no flush toilets, no water
and sewer--in America. Many of the children who came to Rosie were from
these kinds of households and these kinds of communities. Many had
never flushed a toilet in their lives.
She was sensitive to all this. One of the first things she did when a
child came to her was to teach her how a faucet and a bathroom and a
toilet worked. Then she fed them. Rosie's cooking is renowned. She
listened to them and loved them.
[[Page S6746]]
This is how one of her former foster children described the
experience of walking into Rosie's home:
Imagine coming from a place with nothing--absolutely
nothing, [poverty]--and you walk into a normal house, filled
with normal things that people and the rest of America take
for granted--a warm house, a flush toilet, food on the stove,
adults who speak to you [kindly]. It was like visiting a toy
store for the first time. It was like visiting a different
planet. It showed us what [a good] life could be like.
Not all of Rosie's kids made it out of a life of challenges and
dysfunction and abuse, but many of them have. Many have broken the
cycle of violence in their families for the first time. Some of them,
along with their biological children and the ones she has adopted, are
now doing great things for our State and our country. They are
successfully running businesses. They have joined the military. They
have worked at high levels of government. One of them, who is sitting
right here next to me on the Senate floor, works in my office. We are
lucky to have Elizabeth.
All of them, regardless of where they are now ``have a place in my
heart,'' says Rosie. Why does she do it? Why has this woman given
herself to so many others and changed so many lives?
She tells a story about a time when her mother was sick and had to go
back into the institution, leaving her to take care of her four younger
siblings. It was Christmastime, and Rosie literally had nothing. So the
neighbors got together, left boxes of presents at the door of their
house, and brought over Christmas dinner when she was young and needed
help. ``That's the way life is supposed to be,'' Rosie said. ``You're
supposed to recognize when people have less than you, and you are
supposed to help them out. It doesn't matter if you're looking at it
through a biblical lens, or through karma, or through Buddha. Giving is
fundamental.'' That is her quote: ``Giving is fundamental.''
All the Senators here today are heading home and heading back to the
great States they represent for Thanksgiving, which we will be
celebrating next week--a uniquely American holiday that all of us love
and cherish so much. I know I certainly do. Rosie and Eben's story and
commitment to others are exactly the kinds of things we as Americans
should be thankful for as we are celebrating Thanksgiving next week.
Giving is fundamental. I know I am thankful for what they have done.
Their household will be full this holiday season--friends, family,
children. At some point this season, she will make her famous apple
sausage stuffing, a recipe she learned from her own foster mother and
one she has passed down to foster kids all across the great State of
Alaska. It is made with love and with kindness and with thanksgiving.
Rosie, thank you for all you have done. From the bottom of my heart,
thanks for your spirit, your generosity, and your example as we head
into Thanksgiving weekend, for touching so many lives across Alaska.
Congratulations on being our Alaskan of the Week and happy
Thanksgiving.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Healthcare
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I have spent 3 years in the U.S.
Senate. During this time, I can tell you the No. 1 issue when I am
home--and I suspect it is in your State, as well, and across this
country--is the cost of healthcare in this country and to be sure that
everybody in this country, no matter your party, your religion, where
you live, urban or rural area, has access to affordable healthcare not
only when it is needed but also for preventative purposes to give you
peace of mind.
Unfortunately, what we have seen is high cost; inability to get
access to it, oftentimes when you are in a rural community; and a fight
here in Congress. Instead of working together to solve this problem, we
are too far apart in presenting a solution--in coming together for a
solution.
It is open enrollment season for healthcare right now, which means
Americans have an opportunity to get new healthcare coverage or change
the coverage they have.
In Nevada, the State is running a new exchange website and
working hard to make sure every Nevadan gets covered at
NevadaHealthLink.com. I thank our fantastic exchange
director, Heather Korbulic, and her team for all they are
doing.
I want to encourage all Nevadans to get coverage. I don't think
people realize how much help there is for individuals to get coverage
at Nevada Health Link. If you want healthcare, please, please reach out
by the December 15 deadline to learn more about the opportunities that
are available to you to be able to afford it.
Open enrollment is a good time for us to reflect on how far we have
come, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, and to take stock--to take
stock--of the threats to that coverage. Unfortunately, I have watched
in Congress as Members of the Republican Party, particularly this
administration, try to sabotage the Affordable Care Act at every turn.
At the end of October, the Senate held a vote on Senator Warner's
resolution to overturn this administration's damaging and dangerous
rule expanding so-called junk plans. My Democratic colleagues voted in
favor of the resolution because they know how important healthcare is
to our constituents. Yet, unfortunately, nearly all of the Senate
Republicans voted against it. They voted to allow Americans to buy
skimpy, low-benefit plans that send us back to the dark days of health
coverage in America by allowing insurers to sidestep the patient
protections in the Affordable Care Act.
These junk plans don't cover essential services like prescription
drugs, emergency room visits, mental healthcare, and maternity care.
They don't prevent insurers from discriminating against people with
preexisting conditions. There are about 1.2 billion of them in Nevada
alone.
My colleagues on the other of the aisle argue that these junk plans
are low cost. Well, they cost less than some plans, but that doesn't
mean they are cheap. They may have high deductibles or exclude coverage
of costly services, and, by law, more of the money they collect in
premiums can go toward the insurers' profits. But when you realize that
these plans provide barely any benefits, you can see, for most people,
the plans are no savings at all.
What is more, because insurers often use deceptive marketing
practices, people who purchase these plans don't always know just how
skimpy their coverage is. Sometimes patients don't realize that their
plans leave out much needed procedures until after they have racked up
huge bills.
Paving the way for junk plans is just one way Republicans are
undermining the Affordable Care Act. The Trump administration and 18
Republican State attorneys general are trying to get the Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals to overturn the entire Affordable Care Act in a case
called Texas v. United States. This is just the latest and one of the
most dangerous of over 100 Republican attempts to get rid of the
Affordable Care Act in Congress and the courts.
If the Fifth Circuit overturns the Affordable Care Act, Americans
will lose the peace of mind and protections they have told us so many
times that they want. The last thing Americans need is for us to turn
back the clock to a time when they couldn't get healthcare for
preexisting conditions or they couldn't get insurance to cover
essential health needs.
This summer, I met with Ashby Bellows and Charlie Bell, two Nevadans
with juvenile diabetes. Both girls are doing well now, but their
parents worry that when the girls are no longer on their parents' plan,
they might opt to ration their insulin. Think about that--ration their
insulin. Unfortunately, it is a common practice among people who cannot
afford the often sky-high cost of insulin, and it can be deadly. In
fact, one out of seven Americans knows someone who passed away in the
last 5 years because they couldn't afford treatment for a medical
condition.
Senate Republicans have told their constituents that they will
protect Americans' healthcare, and President Trump has said he has a
plan to provide Americans with healthcare. Well, where is it? I mean,
the only plan we have seen is an attempt to sabotage the Affordable
Care Act and rip away coverage from hundreds of thousands in Nevada and
millions across America.
My Democratic colleagues and I are fighting to ensure that everyone
in this country has access to affordable
[[Page S6747]]
healthcare. Unfortunately, what I have seen on the other side of the
aisle and in this administration is that they are fighting to take it
away. There is a clear distinction between the two, and I think the
American public is tired of it.
We all should be working in a bipartisan way to make sure that
everyone in this country has access to affordable healthcare. I will
continue to vote for comprehensive and affordable healthcare in this
country, and I will continue pushing to strengthen the Affordable Care
Act and reduce prescription drug costs for Nevadans. I will keep
fighting to ensure that Americans stay safe and healthy, and I will
assure you that I will keep talking to my colleagues so that,
hopefully, one day we will be fighting for the same thing, which is to
ensure that everyone in this country, no matter your background or
where you live, has access to affordable healthcare when you need it--
when you need that coverage and you want to protect a loved one.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Presidential Pardons
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to express my concerns about
the President's recent interference in war crimes cases involving
members of the U.S. military and the President's inappropriate public
statements regarding these cases.
The President has the power to pardon, but he has a responsibility to
use that power wisely, not recklessly. The way he has gone about it in
this instance does a real disservice to our troops and the entire
American military justice system.
Good order and discipline are critical and time-honored traits of the
U.S. military, not only to enable military readiness and effectiveness
but also to ensure that military men and women remain firmly tethered
to our Nation's moral and ethical principles in the most demanding
wartime environments.
A few have argued that the President has the authority to pardon, but
that is a false defense. The issue is that the President's intervention
in these cases sends a damaging message to the world, our adversaries,
and, most importantly, our men and women in uniform. The Commander in
Chief's actions should make us safer and stronger in the world, but
President Trump's actions do not.
The cases in which the President intervened fall far outside of the
norm. The President's pardon authority has traditionally been reserved
for nonviolent infractions, including draft evasion and desertion. I am
aware of no other instance in which a President has intervened to grant
clemency for violent crimes committed while in uniform, especially for
war crimes including murder.
Especially concerning is the President's decision to intervene in a
case prior to its even going to trial--an action that I believe is an
insult to our entire system of military justice.
Just this morning, the President again intervened--via tweet--to stop
a Navy administrative review process that could have resulted in the
removal of a servicemember from the Navy SEALs, despite the fact that
the servicemember was previously found guilty of posing for photos with
a dead ISIS fighter. We must expect more from our military men and
women, especially those in our Special Operations forces.
Regrettably, President Trump has repeatedly advocated for a return to
torture, stating that we should ``take out the families'' of terrorists
and expressing his view on standards of military conduct by saying:
``You have to play the game the way they are playing the game.'' The
President's statements are reminiscent of former Vice President
Cheney's embrace of the ``dark side'' of counterterrorism--the very
kind of thinking that underpinned later abuses at Abu Ghraib and the
CIA's use of torture as part of its so-called Detention and
Interrogation Program.
President Trump tweeted in October that ``we train our boys to be
killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill!''
No, Mr. President, the U.S. military does not prosecute its own for
carrying out lawful missions in service to our Nation. We do not train
our troops to kill indiscriminately. We do not train them to attack
noncombatants. We do not train them to violate the Geneva Convention
and the rule of law because we want our troops to be protected by those
same standards. To think or say otherwise is to go against discipline,
the selfless service of so many, and the history of our military.
As former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff GEN Dempsey wrote in
May:
Absent evidence of innocence or injustice the wholesale
pardon of US servicemembers accused of war crimes signals our
troops and allies that we don't take the Law of Armed
Conflict seriously. Bad message. Bad precedent. Abdication of
moral responsibility. Risk to us.
I couldn't agree more.
Some have claimed that the President's intervention in this case has
somehow improved the morale of our military and given them more
confidence on the battlefield. On the contrary, President Trump's
disregard for our military justice system risks undermining the
confidence of our servicemembers in the rule of law--especially those
who are courageous enough to bring allegations of war crimes to light
and testify against their teammates.
By substituting his judgment for that of commanders and military
juries, the President may also inadvertently increase the risk to our
U.S. personnel overseas. When we do not hold our military personnel to
appropriate standards of conduct, it makes it more likely that they
will face similar abuses on the battlefield and less likely that we
will be able to hold our enemies accountable.
There is no one with more credibility and no one with the service and
sacrifice who can say it any better or more authentically than former
Senator John McCain, who stated:
This is a moral debate. It is about who we are. I don't
mourn the loss of any terrorist's life. What I do mourn is
what we lose when by official policy or official neglect we
confuse or encourage those who fight this war for us to
forget that best sense of ourselves. Through the violence,
chaos, and heartache of war, through deprivation and cruelty
and loss, we are always Americans, and different, stronger,
and better than those who would destroy us.
Those are the words of John McCain.
I believe the President's actions minimize the honorable service of
all U.S. servicemembers who have served with discipline and distinction
since 9/11 and have answered our Nation's call throughout the history
of this country.
With that, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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