[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 161 (Thursday, September 17, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5692-S5695]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Wildfires

  Madam President, I would now like to say a few words about another 
pressing issue in the State of Washington, and that is the issue of 
fire.
  Yesterday, we heard from the Deputy Forest Chief that we needed 5,000 
firefighters in the United States to help fight fires. It is clear that 
we don't have 5,000 firefighters helping as COVID has impacted our 
ability to fight fire. So I call on the President to help us reach out 
to the international community to help us get more firefighters into 
the United States.
  While Washington and Oregon may eventually see wetter weather in 
October, we still have massive fires that we are going to see in 
California in the month of October. We need to get more firefighters 
into the United States to help us fight this incredible attack by 
Mother Nature on our communities. We can't leave them defenseless. We 
need to give them a frontline in the defense, so I call on the 
President to help us get more international support for fighting fires 
in the United States of America.
  Additionally, I will be supporting my colleague Senator Wyden's 
efforts today on prescribed burns and the ability to change our 
policies and do prescribed burns at different times of the year, which 
is to say burn some of the fuel that we think could become fire breaks 
and stop fires from becoming larger and larger. The fuel break helps to 
create a line of defense. We supported this legislation several years 
ago. Unfortunately, it didn't make it into the big fire fix bill when 
we stopped fire borrowing. Nonetheless, it remains a big priority.
  What we have come to learn now is that trying to do prescribed burns 
in the summer months, when you have clearer air, doesn't really help--
it is not helping us because we have such large-scale fires and these 
very unhealthy smoke events that last for days and days. Now, thanks to 
the new fire forecasting models that we have and the new fire 
forecasters that we put in the previous bill, we are now seeing how 
unhealthy those conditions really are. They are so unhealthy that they 
are cause of major concern for health officials across the whole West.
  So what do we need to do now?
  We need to pass this proposal that I support, along with my colleague 
Senator Wyden, to move prescribed burns

[[Page S5693]]

to other parts of the year. Yes, will it create a few smoky days here 
or there during parts of our year? Yes, but it will help us to better 
fight these fires when it comes to these very hot, dry climates that we 
are now seeing with greater frequency in the Pacific Northwest and 
throughout the West.
  It is time for us to take dramatic action in responding to these 
fires. We have taken action, but now we need to use these tools that 
are right in front of us today. Get more firefighters and get the 
prescribed burn policies and move forward with protecting some of our 
most vulnerable communities throughout the United States of America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1135

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I am going to be talking about a bill 
of mine that is, I think, very appropriate and very timely, the Protect 
Our Heroes Act, which will federalize certain violent crimes against 
public safety officers across the country, like the police and first 
responders, in order to deter these kinds of crimes and show the men 
and women in our law enforcement community that we have their backs.
  Before I get into the details of my bill, I want to talk a little bit 
about a very moving event.
  I was back home last week in Alaska. I was at the American Legion 
Post No. 15 in Palmer, AK, and it was on the commemoration of September 
11. It was a wonderful remembrance dinner. There were tons of veterans, 
patriots. My State is blessed with more vets per capita than any State 
in the country.
  But it was focused on law enforcement. We had the Palmer police chief 
there. We had members of the police department from Anchorage there 
because we were focused on so many things that came out of that day--9/
11.
  But honoring our first responders is something that I think America 
learned--that we need to respect the men and women epitomized by the 
police and firemen who went up the Tower. Many of them knew they were 
going to die, and they did that. They did that to protect us, and there 
was this newfound respect for our first responders that came out of the 
tragedy of 9/11.
  Now, in my remarks to my fellow veterans in Palmer at the American 
Legion post last Friday, I did mention that one of the elements of what 
is happening in our country, unfortunately, is that these memories are 
fading. They are fading, and in some ways the respect for the police is 
not just fading. It is being reversed.
  You see these movements, these national movements of defunding our 
police--a horrible idea, in my view. My State needs more law 
enforcement, not less. We have seen on our TV screens and our social 
media channels that there are people--criminals--who are focused on 
harming the police, killing the police, attacking the police, and even 
taking glee in the killing and the violence against law enforcement.
  So we have all seen in the past few years a dramatic increase in 
killings, in ambushes. In Iowa, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, 
California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Georgia this has been 
happening. It certainly hit home in my State.
  In Anchorage, in 2016, we had a brave police officer, Arn Salao, who 
was the victim of a cowardly ambush in 2016. Thankfully, he survived, 
barely. What was the result of the arrest of the individual who tried 
to kill him? He ended up being a serial killer, killing five others in 
Anchorage. But this brave police officer found him, stopped him, and 
almost lost his life.
  Unfortunately, another officer in a shooting in Alaska the same year, 
2016, in Fairbanks, wasn't so fortunate. On October 16, 2016, Sergeant 
Allen Brandt, an 11-year veteran of the Fairbanks Police Department, 
pulled over a suspect to question him, and he was shot five times. He 
eventually succumbed to the complications related to his injuries.
  I went to the memorial service. There were hundreds of Alaskans. He 
had a young family, a young wife. It was brutal to watch this.
  These are selfless men and women in my State, who are every day 
getting up to risk their lives and to wear the uniform in the line of 
duty.
  All of this inspired me to put together my Protect Our Heroes Act, 
which will enhance Federal penalties for the killing or assaulting of 
public safety officers and first responders, especially increasing 
penalties for criminals who ambush or lure law enforcement officers for 
the purpose of committing crimes against them--dramatically enhancing 
penalties.
  This is something that I think the vast majority of us in the Senate 
agree with.
  Now, I take the opportunity to go running most days, whether I am 
here or back home. And when I go running on Capitol Hill, what I see 
every morning--and I saw it this morning--are police officers. No 
matter the time of day, Capitol Police are sitting in their vehicles or 
on patrol. Their sole purpose is to protect this institution and the 
Members.
  This morning, as I usually do when I run past them sitting in their 
car, I just gave them a thumbs-up. Thank you. Thank you. We respect 
you, and we certainly have your back.
  So that is why I am offering this legislation today. I hope my Senate 
colleagues can come together to support this. I think it would be 
inconceivable to vote against this bill, especially now when we are 
seeing these kinds of heinous activities like we saw in Compton, CA. 
But we also want to send a message to our first responders and law 
enforcement: We are watching. We are going to pass laws to 
disincentivize this kind of heinous action against you, and we have 
your back and the back of your family members, who are probably worried 
when you go out on your duty every day.
  Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent 
that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration 
of S. 1135 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; 
further, that the Sullivan substitute amendment at the desk be 
considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read 
a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be 
considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or 
debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Young). Is there objection?
  The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, thank you for the recognition.
  Mr. President, I reserve my right to object.
  As a former assistant U.S. attorney and New Mexico attorney general, 
I worked hard to prosecute violent crimes, including those committed 
against law enforcement.
  The recent shootings of two law enforcement officers in California 
were heinous. My deepest condolences and prayers go out to the officers 
and their families. The perpetrator must be brought to justice. All 
such violence is appalling.
  However, this bill is both unnecessary and, potentially, a 
problematic expansion of Federal criminal law. It is already a Federal 
crime to kill or attempt to kill an officer or employee of the United 
States.
  Most, if not all, States already make killing a police officer a 
specific crime, and, of course, murder and assault are crimes in all 50 
States and Territories
  So it is unclear that this bill will increase deterrence, and the 
bill is very broad, covering not only murder and attempted murder but 
also any assault against hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of 
people.
  One new crime created by the bill is death eligible, raising historic 
concerns about executing the innocent and the death penalty being 
arbitrarily applied.
  This bill has not gone through the regular order, with no hearings on 
such a sweeping change in the balance of State and Federal criminal 
law.
  For many years, the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution, the 
Federalist Society, and congressional Republicans have all spoken out 
against the expansion of Federal criminal law. It is not just 
conservatives. There is bipartisan support for that view and broad 
consensus among criminal law experts and the Federal judiciary itself.
  The Judicial Conference of the U.S. courts has testified to Congress 
against the over-criminalization of Federal law, citing the burdens 
they already face.

[[Page S5694]]

  And former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese wrote for the Hoover 
Institution over 20 years ago, in 1999, highlighting the following 
problems with over-criminalization of Federal law. He warned about 
these:

       An unwise allocation of scarce resources needed to meet the 
     genuine issues of crime;
       An unhealthy concentration of policing power at the 
     national level;
       An adverse impact on the federal judicial system;
       Inappropriately disparate results for similarly situated 
     defendants, depending on whether essentially similar conduct 
     is selected for federal or state prosecution;
       A diversion of congressional attention from criminal 
     activity that only federal investigation and prosecution can 
     address;
       The potential for duplicative prosecutions at the state and 
     federal levels for the same course of conduct, in violation 
     of the spirit of the Constitution's double jeopardy 
     protection.

  I think the Senate should consider those warnings and should not rush 
to approve such a measure without hearing testimony and a long and 
careful study.
  Therefore, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2843

  Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to 
call attention to key legislation that addresses violence, and this 
piece of legislation should come to the floor. That is the Violence 
Against Women Reauthorization Act.
  VAWA reauthorization expired over a year and a half ago, on February 
15, 2019. Funding continues, but key improvements are being delayed by 
the lack of reauthorization.
  The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019 is supported 
by all 47 Democratic Senators. The House passed the bill 236 to 158. 
Thirty-three House Republicans voted yes on that bill.
  The bill would extend VAWA for 5 years, through 2024, while making 
key improvements.
  As the vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, I 
know how critical VAWA reauthorization is to Indian Country.
  Data from the U.S. Department of Justice indicates that Native women 
face murder rates that are more than 10 times the national average 
murder rate. There are more than 5,000 cases of missing American Indian 
and Alaska Native women, and 55 percent of Native women have 
experienced domestic violence. More than four in five American Indian 
and Alaska Native women experience violence in their lifetime.
  Without the enactment of a VAWA reauthorization, these Tribes will 
lack the jurisdictional tools they need to keep their communities safe.
  The House-passed bill strengthens Tribal sovereignty, provides 
important protections for LGBT people, and bars dating partners 
convicted of domestic violence from having handguns.
  The bill would make a real difference in preventing violent crimes 
against women and making Native communities safer, and I ask that the 
Senate take up its consideration immediately.
  As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 
2843, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, and the Senate 
proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be 
considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I have to 
say this sounds a lot like yet another attempt to just change the 
subject and obfuscate.
  I was on this floor earlier this week. The Senator from Alaska has 
just spoken about his goal here. Both of us have slightly different 
approaches to try to achieve the same thing, which is to discourage 
these attacks on law enforcement officials.
  It seems like almost every day we read about some horrific attack on 
men and women across the country just because they are police. It is 
absolutely appalling, and we are trying to do everything we can to 
discourage that, to create disincentives, and to make sure that violent 
criminals know that they will pay a very steep price if they commit the 
appalling kinds of acts that we have seen.
  I commend the Senator from Alaska for an approach to this. Yet, 
again, our Democratic colleagues refuse to support this effort and 
instead say: Let's change the subject to VAWA.
  Well, let's talk a little bit about VAWA. Look, there is a very real 
problem with violence against women. I don't know anyone who would 
dispute that. And VAWA, the legislation, has a number of programs, some 
of which are very constructive.

  I voted in favor of the last reauthorization of VAWA because I do 
think it is that important, and I have led the effort in this body to 
ensure that crime victims--very much including women--get the resources 
they are supposed to get from the Crime Victims Fund, which they 
historically have not been. But the fact is, it is a big bill, it is a 
complicated bill, and there are multiple programs, and some of it is 
very controversial.
  So the way we have actually gotten an outcome and achieved something 
with VAWA is through a bipartisan process. That is what was done in the 
past, and that effort has been underway. Senator Ernst, working with 
Senator Feinstein, has tried to find common ground. I think they are 
not quite there yet. But this legislation is not that bill. It is not 
that effort.
  This is a bill that our Democratic colleagues have declared they know 
has no chance of actually passing. So rather than changing the subject 
and putting forward a bill that everybody knows can't pass, I wish our 
Democratic colleagues would join me and my colleague from Alaska in 
doing something we can do, something modest but constructive that would 
help to diminish the risks that our law enforcement folks take every 
single day. So, Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from 
Pennsylvania. I know he and I both share a passion on this issue. I 
think the vast majority of the Senators share a passion on this issue--
that we should be standing here in the U.S. Senate to make sure our law 
enforcement knows that we have their backs.
  As Senator Toomey just mentioned, this is happening all across the 
country. The men and women who put on the uniform to protect us are 
being targeted simply because they wear the uniform to protect us. If 
this is not an issue that cries out for some kind of action, some kind 
of discussion to prevent this and tell these brave men and women, 
whether in Alaska or Pennsylvania or New Mexico, that we have their 
backs, I don't know what that topic is--I don't know what that issue 
is.
  Unfortunately, Senator Toomey tried to move his legislation the last 
couple of days, and it was thwarted. Now my legislation to send the 
message that we are not going to let criminals get away with these 
kinds of heinous crimes, that the Senate is watching, and that we have 
the backs of law enforcement and their families--that is a really 
important message to send right now.
  I am disappointed in my colleague for objecting. We will continue to 
work on this issue and, as Senator Toomey mentioned, the violence 
issue, which is a hugely important issue in my State for my 
constituents. But right now, I think we should be acting on the issue 
we are seeing, and that issue is, there is a movement across the 
country that is really focused on perpetrating violence against the men 
and women who are sworn to protect us. I can't believe anyone here 
thinks that is a good movement, but it is happening in America right 
now. We need to send a message that it is unacceptable and that we are 
going to do everything in our power to stop it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. ROUNDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote 
scheduled for 1:30 p.m. be allowed to start at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Johnston 
nomination?
  Mr. ROUNDS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

[[Page S5695]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from West Virginia (Mrs. 
Capito), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), the Senator from 
Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Perdue), and the 
Senator from Florida (Mr. Scott).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Florida (Mr. Scott) 
would have voted ``yea.''
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), 
the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Arizona 
(Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 77, nays 14, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 183 Ex.]

                                YEAS--77

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Brown
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Hawley
     Heinrich
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Jones
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Loeffler
     Manchin
     McConnell
     McSally
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Paul
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (SC)
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--14

     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Cantwell
     Gillibrand
     Hirono
     Klobuchar
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murray
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Warren
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--9

     Burr
     Capito
     Harris
     Johnson
     Moran
     Perdue
     Sanders
     Scott (FL)
     Sinema
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to 
reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the 
President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
  The Senator from Arkansas.

                          ____________________