[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 161 (Thursday, September 17, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5708-S5710]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTION

      By Mr. LEE (for himself, Mr. Cotton, Mrs. Feinstein, Mrs. 
        Blackburn, Ms. McSally, Mr. Boozman, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Rubio, Mr. 
        Cramer, Mr. Daines, Mr. Blunt, Mrs. Loeffler, Ms. Ernst, Mr. 
        Risch, Mrs. Hyde-Smith, Mr. Barrasso, Mr. Braun, Mr. Romney, 
        Mr. Cornyn, Mr. Thune, Ms. Murkowski, Mr. Hoeven, and Mr. 
        Tillis):
  S. 4608. A bill to amend the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to 
provide for the portability of professional licenses of members of the 
uniformed services and their spouses, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Armed Services.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, tomorrow marks an important day in our 
Nation's history--the birth of the U.S. Air Force.
  For 73 years, countless brave American women and men have protected 
our liberty and our homeland from the skies. They have embarked on air 
combat missions, guarded our bases and missile sites, and undertaken 
heroic rescues. They have flown, fought, and won in the air on behalf 
of our great country. This year also marks another important 
anniversary in my home State--the 80th year of Hill Air Force Base's 
service to that mission.
  In 1939, Congress approved the construction of an air depot in 
Northern Utah. The following year, on January 12, the surrounding 
community came together and broke ground to create what is now known as 
Hill Air Force Base. Ever since then, it has played an invaluable role 
in building up our Air Force and supporting our air men and women 
throughout World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the conflicts that we 
still face today.
  Tucked between the beautiful Wasatch Mountains on the east and the 
Great Salt Lake on the west, Hill Air Force Base is today home to 
22,000 U.S. military personnel. It is the largest single-site employer 
in the State of Utah--providing nearly $1.5 billion in jobs each year, 
with an overall economic impact of about $3.7 billion annually. Hill 
houses and ensures mission readiness for some of our best and brightest 
personnel, including the 75th Air Base Wing, the 388th Fighter Wing, 
and the 419th Reserve Fighter Wing.
  It is also home to the Ogden Air Logistics Complex, which repairs and 
maintains some of our most cutting-edge aircraft, including the F-22 
Raptor, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, the A-10 Thunderbolt II, the T-38 
Talon, and, of course, the F-35A Lightening II, the most advanced 
fighter jet in the world.
  The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center on Hill has since 1959 been 
responsible for supporting the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic 
Missile program, the ground-based leg of our nuclear triad.
  Just a short distance west of the base, the Utah Test and Training 
Range contains the largest block of special-use airspace in the 
continental United States. The range provides an ideal location for the 
testing and evaluation of weapons and training grounds for combat, 
ensuring that our airmen are prepared to win any conflict we enter into 
with decisive and conclusive airpower.
  There is no question that Hill Air Force Base oversees vital national 
security assets for the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force and our country 
are better off as a result of its existence. Yet there is something 
even more important that makes Hill the exceptional place that it is, 
and that is its people. The patriotism, work ethic, and community 
support are unmatched anywhere else in the country--or in the world for 
that matter.
  Every commander who serves a 2-year rotation at Hill always says the 
same thing--that the community's support is stronger at Hill Air Force 
Base than at any other base where any one of them happens to have 
served.
  I am proud to say that, in Utah, we go above and beyond to aid our 
military and to support their families, as well we should. According to 
the 2019 ``Support of Military Families'' report, Utah ranks among the 
top destinations for military families transitioning to a new duty 
station. Two of the three highest ranking Air Force installations are 
in Utah--Hill Air Force Base and the Roland R. Wright Air National 
Guard Base in Salt Lake City.
  The key reason for this has been Utah's work to improve professional 
license reciprocity for military spouses. Among the many challenges 
that military families face, one of the greatest is that spouses 
working in fields requiring occupational licenses often suffer huge 
setbacks as a result of the barriers put in place by these occupational 
licensing regimes in the various States.
  Faced with a 50-State patchwork quilt of licensing laws, these 
spouses are forced to spend thousands of dollars and sometimes 
thousands of hours on top of those thousands of dollars just to obtain 
licensure every single time they move to a new State, even if they

[[Page S5709]]

have previously acquired years or even decades of experience in 
licensure in another State. Oftentimes, by the time the new license in 
the new State and in the new duty station has been processed, it is 
already time for the family to move, yet again, for the next military 
assignment.
  This isn't fair. It is not right. It is not how we ought to treat the 
families of our brave military men and women.
  The Department of Labor estimates that 13 percent of military spouses 
are unemployed, and a more recent Department of Defense study put the 
rate even higher, at 24 percent. This, needlessly and unjustly, burdens 
military members and their families. In some instances, it prevents 
servicemembers from reenlisting, and, in others, it prevents spouses 
from entering their desired fields in the first place.
  Thankfully, some States have already taken steps to move forward in 
the right direction. They have already stepped up to the plate to 
address this problem in a meaningful way. In fact, thanks to the 
diligent work of two prominent Utah lawmakers, Senator Todd Weiler and 
State Representative Brian Greene, my home State has been one of the 
first to allow licensure reciprocity for military spouses as long as 
they meet certain established criteria.
  I commend Senator Weiler and Representative Greene for their efforts, 
and I am encouraged to see other States following the example set by 
Utah.
  The Federal Government has a role to play here, too. While 
occupational licensing is a field that is generally controlled by the 
State, we have a role to play insofar as the activities of the States. 
The regulations imposed by the States end up impacting our military 
families. Military readiness and talent retention, as well as movement 
of our troops across the Nation and throughout the world, fall under 
the oversight responsibilities of Congress. We at the national level 
should be doing everything in our power to ensure that licensing laws 
are friendly and flexible and certainly not hostile to or prohibitive 
of the activities of military spouses and their families.
  That is why I am introducing the Military Spouse Licensing Relief 
Act. This bill will simply ensure that, when servicemembers are 
relocated on military orders, their spouses can receive reciprocity for 
professional licenses across State lines regardless of where within the 
United States they might be reassigned.
  In order to receive reciprocity under this bill, a license would have 
to be in good standing, according to the requirements of the 
jurisdiction that issued the license in the first place, and the spouse 
must still comply with the State's standards of practice, of 
discipline, and the fulfillment of any continuing education 
requirements.
  As a State function, protected under principles of federalism and 
explicitly by the Tenth Amendment, the bill does nothing to preempt the 
State's rightful authority to set licensing standards within each 
State.
  We owe a great debt of gratitude to the men and women who give so 
much to protect our Nation, whether on the land, the seas, or in the 
skies. This bill is a simple, just, constitutionally sound solution 
that will lessen some of the burden placed on them. It will not fix all 
of the problems, and it will not make easy all of the sacrifices that 
are made by our military spouses and their families, but it will make 
some of it easier. That is the least we can do.
  As we commemorate the birthday of the Air Force and the anniversary 
of Hill Air Force Base this week, this bill's passage is the least we 
can do for our military and their families. We need to get this passed. 
I invite all of my colleagues to join me in securing its immediate 
passage
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. COTTON:
  S. 4609. A bill to withdraw normal trade relations treatment from, 
and apply certain provisions of title IV of the Trade Act of 1974 to, 
products of the People's Republic of China, and to expand the 
eligibility requirements for products of the People's Republic of China 
to receive normal trade relations treatment in the future, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Finance.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, 20 years ago this week, Joe Biden and 
other politicians from both parties gave a gift to the Communist Party: 
permanent most favored nation status.
  Permanent most favored nation status is a trade privilege we grant 
most countries that are members of the World Trade Organization. It 
places lower tariffs and fewer restrictions on those countries' goods. 
But historically our trade laws have treated hostile countries 
differently--Communist countries, countries that cheat on trade, human 
rights abusers; in other words, countries exactly like Communist China.
  A few of those countries, like Cuba and North Korea, are denied most 
favored nation status outright. What few goods their miserable 
socialist economies produce face steep tariffs, sanctions, and other 
restrictions, which is one reason you don't see too many ``Made in 
North Korea'' items on your local store shelves.
  Other countries historically have faced a yearly review of their 
trading privileges with the United States in which the President and 
Congress can assess the human rights and trade abuses ongoing in those 
countries and then determine whether it is in our interests to grant 
those trading privileges for another year.
  Communist China was one of those countries subject to yearly review--
at least it was until 20 years ago. This yearly review led the spirited 
debates about whether Communist China should be stripped of its trading 
privileges or whether it deserved a temporary reprieve. It put a 
spotlight on the crimes of the Chinese Communist Party, and it used our 
market as leverage to advance our interests. Of course the Chinese 
Communist Party didn't like that--not one bit; neither, sadly, did many 
bankers and businessmen here in America, who seemed a little more 
concerned about making money than pressuring Communist China to reform. 
This China lobby pushed hard to get rid of the annual vote and give 
China permanent most favored nation status, and 20 years ago this week, 
they finally won.
  Here is how Senator Joe Biden defended his vote at the time to give a 
big gift to Communist China. He said:

       Trade concessions are all one-way in this deal. They drop 
     tariffs. They drop non-market barriers. They agree to 
     increased protection of our intellectual property laws.

  That is what Joe Biden said at the time, but is that what actually 
happened? Were all the trade concessions ``one way,'' as he predicted? 
In fact, they were, but not the way Joe Biden intended because all the 
trade concessions ended up benefiting Beijing, while devastating 
America.
  The main consequence of that decision was to make it harder to put 
tariffs on China in response to human rights and trade abuses, and it 
sent a strong signal to businesses and banks that China was open for 
business for good. The gold rush to China was on.
  In the two decades that followed, America invested more than $200 
billion in China. Most of that money went to building factories and 
training workers over there, while our factories were dismantled and 
our workers were laid off.
  In the 6 years that followed that vote, manufacturing employment 
plunged by 18 percent as cheap Chinese goods flooded our market and as 
our factories were dismantled and offshored to China.
  The vote to give trade privileges to Communist China is just more 
evidence of the alternate reality that politicians like Joe Biden have 
been living in for decades. There is a consistent pattern. They treat 
our enemies like friends and our friends like enemies, and the American 
people suffer because of it.
  Twenty years of getting ripped off by China is more than long enough. 
That is why I am introducing a bill that would repeal China's permanent 
most favored nation status and return us to the older way, where 
China's trade status would be assessed by the President and Congress 
every year.
  My bill would make businesses think twice before sending more 
American jobs overseas to China, and it would add new human rights and 
trade standards that China must work toward to qualify for most favored 
nation status. This would put a spotlight on the Communist Party's most 
recent crimes, including its use of slave labor and concentration camps 
in Turkestan.

[[Page S5710]]

  Ultimately, repealing China's most favored nation status would force 
regular votes in Congress, so politicians like Joe Biden would have to 
go on the record about whom they serve--the American people or the 
interests of the Chinese Communist Party
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. THUNE (for himself and Mr. Rounds):
  S. 4616. A bill to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to transfer 
certain National Forest System land to the State of South Dakota, and 
for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of 
the bill be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be 
printed in the Record, as follows:

                                S. 4616

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

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Gilt Edge Mine Conveyance 
     Act''.

     SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.

       In this Act:
       (1) Federal land.--The term ``Federal land'' means all 
     right, title, and interest of the United States in and to 
     approximately 266 acres of National Forest System land within 
     the Gilt Edge Mine Superfund Boundary, as generally depicted 
     on the map.
       (2) Map.--The term ``map'' means the map entitled ``Gilt 
     Edge Mine Conveyance Act'' and dated August 20, 2020.
       (3) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary 
     of Agriculture, acting through the Chief of the Forest 
     Service.
       (4) State.--The term ``State'' means State of South Dakota.

     SEC. 3. LAND CONVEYANCE.

       (a) In General.--Subject to the terms and conditions 
     described in this Act, if the State submits to the Secretary 
     an offer to acquire the Federal land for the market value, as 
     determined by the appraisal under subsection (c), the 
     Secretary shall convey the Federal land to the State.
       (b) Terms and Conditions.--The conveyance under subsection 
     (a) shall be--
       (1) subject to valid existing rights;
       (2) made by quitclaim deed; and
       (3) subject to any other terms and conditions as the 
     Secretary considers appropriate to protect the interests of 
     the United States.
       (c) Appraisal.--
       (1) In general.--Before submitting an offer under 
     subsection (a), the State shall complete an appraisal to 
     determine the market value of the Federal land.
       (2) Standards.--The appraisal under paragraph (1) shall be 
     conducted in accordance with--
       (A) the Uniform Appraisal Standards for Federal Land 
     Acquisitions; and
       (B) the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal 
     Practice.
       (d) Map.--
       (1) Availability of map.--The map shall be kept on file and 
     available for public inspection in the appropriate office of 
     the Forest Service.
       (2) Correction of errors.--The Secretary may correct any 
     errors in the map.
       (e) Consideration.--As consideration for the conveyance 
     under subsection (a), the State shall pay to the Secretary an 
     amount equal to the market value of the Federal land, as 
     determined by the appraisal under subsection (c).
       (f) Survey.--The State shall prepare a survey that is 
     satisfactory to the Secretary of the exact acreage and legal 
     description of the Federal land to be conveyed under 
     subsection (a).
       (g) Costs of Conveyance.--As a condition on the conveyance 
     under subsection (a), the State shall pay all costs 
     associated with the conveyance, including the cost of--
       (1) the appraisal under subsection (c); and
       (2) the survey under subsection (f).
       (h) Proceeds From the Sale of Land.--Any proceeds received 
     by the Secretary from the conveyance under subsection (a) 
     shall be--
       (1) deposited in the fund established under Public Law 90-
     171 (commonly known as the ``Sisk Act'') (16 U.S.C. 484a); 
     and
       (2) available to the Secretary until expended, without 
     further appropriation, for the maintenance and improvement of 
     land or administration facilities in the Black Hills National 
     Forest in the State.
       (i) Environmental Conditions.--Notwithstanding section 
     120(h)(3)(A) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, 
     Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (42 U.S.C. 
     9620(h)(3)(A)), the Secretary shall not be required to 
     provide any covenant or warranty for the Federal land 
     conveyed to the State under this Act.

                          ____________________