[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.
____________________