[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 55 (Monday, March 27, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S946-S951]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FIRE GRANTS AND SAFETY ACT

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 28, 
S. 870.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 870) to amend the Federal Fire Prevention and 
     Control Act of 1974 to authorize appropriations for the 
     United States Fire Administration and firefighter assistance 
     grant programs.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. SCHUMER. I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  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 motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 28, S. 870, a bill to amend the 
     Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 to authorize 
     appropriations for the United States Fire Administration and 
     firefighter assistance grant programs.
         Charles E. Schumer, Gary C. Peters, Christopher Murphy, 
           Catherine Cortez Masto, Tina Smith, Jack Reed, Brian 
           Schatz, Jeanne Shaheen, Jeff Merkley, Sheldon 
           Whitehouse, Patty Murray, Mazie K. Hirono, Cory A. 
           Booker, Benjamin L. Cardin, Chris Van Hollen, Margaret 
           Wood Hassan, Alex Padilla.

  Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call 
for the cloture motion filed today, March 27, be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, just to inform the Members, I am moving 
to file cloture on this bill, which would make sure that both the SAFER 
grants and the AFG grants, which protect and help our paid and 
volunteer firefighters, continue. It expires in a few months if we do 
nothing.
  Our firefighters, both paid and volunteer, are brave; they risk their 
lives for us; they run to danger, not away from it; and they need both 
equipment and personnel so that they can continue to do their jobs, 
particularly in smaller, more rural, and more suburban areas where 
there is not the tax base to support the stuff that they need. So I 
hope we can move forward quickly on this legislation.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                 S. 316

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, this week, the Senate is expected to 
vote on legislation that would repeal the authorization for use of 
military force in Iraq.
  The bill before the Senate would repeal two separate authorizations--
one from 1991, which authorized U.S. intervention in Iraq, better known 
as the Gulf war, to stop the dictator, Saddam Hussein, from invading 
and terrorizing Kuwait. The second one passed in 2002 in response to 
Saddam's persistent violations of the peace agreement that came out of 
the Gulf war, including intelligence that he was pursuing weapons of 
mass destruction.
  In the decades since these authorizations passed, America's 
relationship with Iraq has changed dramatically. Iraq has gone from a 
hostile and unpredictable authoritarian government to become a 
strategic partner with the United States. In recent years, our 
countries have worked together to end the occupation of ISIS in Iraq.
  In December of 2017, Iraq declared victory, though we have seen a 
resurgence of some of those terrorists recently. Two years ago, 
President Biden welcomed the Iraqi Prime Minister to the White House, a 
friendship that would have been unimaginable 20 or 30 years ago.
  Put simply, Iraq is a key partner in the Middle East. Our governments 
and militaries cooperate to promote security and prosperity for the 
Iraqi people. More broadly, we work together to counter Iran's malign 
influence and continue to root out terrorism in the Middle East.
  While there is still an American military presence in Iraq, it looks 
dramatically different today than it did 10, 20, or 30 years ago. 
Today, our soldiers serve solely in an advise and assist role. They are 
there at the invitation of the Iraqi Government to support Iraqi troops 
and military leaders as they defend their own security interests.
  In short, American forces are no longer there to counter threats from 
Iraq. We are now there to counter threats to Iraq. That includes 
threats from Iran, the No. 1 state sponsor of international terrorism, 
with its hired henchmen, terrorist groups, or other adversaries that 
could disrupt peace and stability in Iraq.
  Those who support repealing the Iraqi military authorizations point 
to this evolution in our relationship as evidence that the AUMFs are no 
longer needed. It has been 20 years since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 
and they say the

[[Page S947]]

authorizations are outdated. Our relationship is shifting, they argue, 
so it is time for those AUMFs to go.
  Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Despite the fact that Iraq is 
now our partner, that doesn't mean it is time to abandon our security 
interests in the region. America still has very real adversaries in the 
Middle East who would do us and our allies harm if they got the chance. 
Today, Iran-backed militias operate in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and other 
countries throughout the Middle East. They are proxies of the Iranian 
military, with the goal of spreading Iranian political influence far 
and wide.
  This isn't just some warmonger conspiracy theory. There is clear and 
absolute linkage between the Iranian regime and the militias operating 
throughout the Middle East. They are, in effect, hired guns, which are 
fighting to take territory that has been no-man's land since the 
drawdown of U.S. forces in the Middle East. And in many cases, they 
continue to target U.S. troops.
  Just last Thursday, an Iranian drone targeted a U.S. facility in 
Syria, killing an American contractor and wounding five American 
servicemembers. The U.S. responded the following day by conducting an 
airstrike against an Iran-backed militia in Syria. And then, within 
hours, Iran's proxies launched another attack on a U.S. military base 
in Syria.
  Despite the fact that we know a great deal about these groups and 
their capabilities and the threat they pose to the Middle East, we are 
relatively limited in our efforts to counter their aggression.
  Counterterrorism missions rely on the 2001 authorization for the use 
of military force, which was passed in the wake of the terrorist 
attacks on 9/11. Since many Iran-backed militia have not been 
designated as terrorist organizations, the 2001 AUMF doesn't apply to 
them. That means we can only use the 2002 AUMF to counter Iran-backed 
militia and other groups that pose threats to the stability of Iraq and 
to U.S. national security interests.
  If we were to repeal the 2002 AUMF, we limit the President's ability 
to target these groups. We, in effect, have withdrawn congressional 
consent. That applies to President Biden today, and it would apply to 
future commanders in chief as well. In effect, this would tie their 
hands when it comes to countering threats posed by Iran and its 
proxies.
  To state the obvious, we can't dispose of any tools that could be 
used to protect the United States or our partners.
  Three Presidents have cited the 2002 AUMF as an authorization for the 
use of military force. In 2003, President Bush used his authority to 
justify the invasion of Iraq. In other words, this was with 
congressional consent. In 2014, President Barack Obama cited the 2002 
AUMF to justify strikes against Islamic state terrorists in Iraq and 
Syria. Then, in 2020, former President Trump relied on this authority 
to justify the strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 
Baghdad.
  Given the growing threats from Iran, it would be absurd to toss this 
authorization out the window today. If Congress repeals the Iraqi war 
authorizations, it prompts a lot of questions about what comes next. 
Without the 2002 AUMF, the President would lose the ability to contain 
Iran and its aggression. Iran's influence in the region would swell and 
Iranian-backed militia would terrorize Syria and Iraq with impunity. 
Iran would be free to focus on its maniacal desire to destroy Israel. 
And without having to contend with the United States, it would be free 
to spend even more money financing terrorist groups like Hamas and 
Hezbollah.

  Russian influence in Syria would grow, giving Putin a launch pad to 
further project power into the Middle East. Our friends and allies, no 
longer safe with America at their side, could succumb to coercive 
partnerships with China, giving Xi Jinping another region in which to 
compete with the United States for global primacy.
  In short, passing this legislation would create a power vacuum in the 
Middle East that could be filled by Iran, Russia, and China. We would 
be ceding the region back to competition after working for years to 
promote stability.
  Of course, there are costs to maintaining our position in the Middle 
East, but the cost-benefit analysis clearly shows that we have to leave 
every authority in place to defend American and allied interests in the 
Middle East.
  Over the last few decades, as I said a moment ago, America's 
relationship with Iraq has changed for the better. It is a valuable 
partner. We work together to support security for Iraq and the region 
as a whole. The U.S. military works with Iraqi forces to counter 
threats from Iran and to reduce its influence in the region. These 
authorizations for the use of military force are key to our continued 
success.
  It also means that we will continue to work with the executive 
branch, rather than have the executive branch rely strictly on the 
President's constitutional powers. They give the President of the 
United States the flexibility needed to counter these threats and the 
threats that they pose from Iran. We would be doing Iran a huge favor 
by repealing these AUMFs.
  Suffice it to say, I oppose the effort to repeal these Iraqi war 
authorizations, and I encourage my colleagues in the Senate to join me 
in that opposition.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hirono). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, we will be voting about 5:30, about 30 
minutes from now, to end debate and tomorrow have some amendments, then 
go to final passage on legislation to repeal the authorization to use 
military force for 2002 directed against Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
  The problem I have with what we are doing is that we are repealing 
the authorization to use military force because Saddam is dead and that 
threat is gone, but we are not replacing it with an authorization that 
our troops desperately need, which is to create an AUMF to allow our 
military to go after Shiite militias that are attacking them routinely 
inside of Iraq. There have been over 78 attacks since 2021 directed at 
U.S. forces by different groups, mostly Shiite militias controlled by 
Iran, in Iraq and Syria. A couple days ago, there was an attack on an 
American base in Syria. An American contractor was killed. God bless 
him and his family. And we retaliated, and they retaliated back. The 
bottom line is that our response to aggression against U.S. forces in 
Iraq and Syria is woefully inadequate. Seventy-something attacks since 
2021. Clearly, nobody feels afraid to attack our troops over there, and 
we need to create some deterrence that we don't have today.

  So I had an amendment that failed that would allow authorization to 
use military force to exist where the Congress blesses the use of 
military force against Shiite militias that are operating in Iraq 
because they are a threat to about 2,500 troops that we have stationed 
in Iraq.
  The forces in Syria--about 900--are there to finish the counter-ISIS 
mission, and I hear people, particularly on my side, say that we 
shouldn't be in Syria.
  You know, doing the same thing over and over again expecting a 
different result is insanity. The last time we pulled all of our forces 
out of Iraq, it was President Obama with the support of then-Vice 
President Biden, the ISIS JV team became the varsity team. They took 
over great parts of Syria and Iraq. They destroyed the city of Mosul. 
They set up shop in Raqqa, Syria, and they launched attacks from Syria, 
ISIS directed, at United States and Europe throughout the world, 
killing thousands of people.
  President Trump authorized our military to take down the caliphate. 
And this idea that if you leave, they won't come back is stupid. You 
know nothing if you believe that. You may be tired of fighting radical 
Islam. They are not tired of fighting you. I would rather fight in 
their backyard than ours. They are going to destroy us if we don't 
destroy them.

[[Page S948]]

  Here is the good news. They are on the run. As long as we keep some 
of our forces in place, working with people in Syria and Iraq who do 
not want to live under ISIS rule, we will be relatively safe. If you 
pull all the troops out, you are going to get the same outcome. People 
who keep arguing this, you really are doing a great disservice to the 
country, and your arguments make zero sense. You don't understand the 
enemy. You have no idea what this war is about.
  This is a religious struggle. They have declared war on every faith 
but their own. They want to purify Islam in their own image--ISIS and 
al-Qaida. They want to destroy the State of Israel and eventually come 
after us. Leaving them alone doesn't guarantee you much. In 2001, 
before 9/11, we didn't have one soldier in Afghanistan. We didn't even 
have an embassy. We totally abandoned Afghanistan, and the attack 
against our country on 9/11 originated in Afghanistan.
  When will you learn that these people are out to get you? And when I 
say ``you,'' I mean Americans. Anybody who believes in diversity in 
faith, they have a world view that has no place for you. The good news 
is most people in the Mideast are not buying what they are selling, but 
they are very lethal and dangerous left unattended.
  Now, when you create the right mix of U.S. forces and local forces, 
you pretty well keep them on the run and keep them at bay. So to those 
who suggest we shouldn't be in Syria with 900 U.S. forces to prevent 
ISIS from coming back, you are setting the stage for a reemergence of 
ISIS, and once is enough, folks.
  They destroyed the Yazidi population, raped women by the thousands 
and created carnage all over Syria and Iraq and projected attacks 
against American Western allies from a safe haven in Raqqa, Syria.
  Now, the theory of the case here is that we as Congress need to take 
back authority, and this authorization to use force no longer needs to 
be in place because the war against Saddam Hussein is over. We can 
argue about Iraq being a good idea or a bad idea. We did have bad 
intelligence. But here is what I would say 20 years later. Saddam being 
dead is a good thing, from my point of view, because he was a thug and 
a dictator on steroids. And the people of Iraq are on their second or 
third election. It has been messy, but they are moving in the right 
direction. And we have 2,500 troops back in Iraq to make sure ISIS 
doesn't come back and destabilize the region and try to have some 
influence against the Iranians.
  So if you want to repeal the AUMF, I think you owe it to the troops 
to follow it with something. So the people who want to do this say: 
Article II, which is the inherent authority of the Commander in Chief, 
allows President Biden to protect our troops in Iraq. There is truth to 
that. But the whole idea is for us as a Congress to have a say in 
foreign policy and not sort of give a blank check. So if you want to 
cancel the check to go after Saddam because he is not around, I think 
you owe it to the troops to lend your voice because the enemy sees this 
as retreat.
  No matter what you want the enemy to believe about what is going on 
here, all they understand is the American Congress is making a step to 
get out of Iraq, and that is good news for them.
  After Afghanistan--the disaster there--don't you think we should be 
more clear in our thought?
  The Biden administration was wrong to take troops out of Afghanistan. 
They are right to have troops in Iraq and Syria, but the Congress is 
trying to be a bit hypocritical here. We want to cancel one 
authorization to use force, and we don't have the courage, apparently, 
politically, to say the military has our approval, as a Congress 
working with the President, to go after Shiite militias that are 
killing our forces in Iraq and attacking them regularly.
  What does Iran want?
  Now, this is not an authorization to go after the Iranian regime. It 
is an authorization to protect American forces in Iraq from attacks in 
Iraq coming from Shiite militias loyal to Iran.
  What are they trying to achieve?
  They want to drive us out. If the 900 troops left Syria tomorrow, 
Assad would eventually conquer what is left of Syria and ISIS would 
fill that vacuum and you would have a conflict with Turkey and the 
Kurds. And all the people--our chairman of the Armed Services Committee 
is a very smart guy and a very great friend--all the Kurds who fought 
with us, they would be wiped out.
  So I am glad the Biden administration is going to stay in Syria 
because we need those troops to keep ISIS from coming back and to work 
with our Kurdish partners.
  But when it comes to Iraq, they are trying to drive us out because 
Iran wants us out of Syria so their buddy Assad can run the place. They 
want us out of Iraq so the Shiite radical elements in Iraq can topple 
the Iraqi Government, and the Shiite militias would take authority away 
from the Iraqi Army, and they will have influence over Iraq and Syria.
  It is not in America's interest to allow the Ayatollah in Iran to 
have more influence and more spaces to govern and more oil to generate 
revenue from. So if you don't get that, you are not really following 
what is going on.
  So no matter what you say about article II, I hate to tell you, ISIS 
probably doesn't follow our Constitution that closely. The best thing 
we could do, if you want to repeal the 2002 AUMF that was generated to 
get rid of Saddam, replace it with something new--an authorization to 
use force to protect our troops that we all agree or most of us agree 
should be in Iraq to protect America from attacks from Shiite militias. 
That amendment was rejected.
  Here is what you are doing. You are sending a signal by doing this 
that we are leaving, we are withdrawing, and that we don't have the 
will as a nation to see this thing through. There is nothing good comes 
from this. You are openly admitting the President has authority to use 
force to protect our troops, but you are not going to lend your voice 
to that cause, and I don't understand that.
  If the Congress, working with the President, said: No matter who is 
President, you have the ability to use military force to protect our 
troops against Shiite militias in Iraq, that would make us stronger. 
The enemy would understand it better. Our allies would understand it 
more clearly. And they have got to be wondering, What the hell is going 
on here?
  So the bottom line is, you are setting in motion, by not replacing 
the AUMF with something specific to Shiite militias that are attacking 
our troops regularly--you are setting in motion more danger for those 
in Iraq and eventually Syria.
  And I don't question your patriotism. I do question our judgment as a 
body. This is a very ill-conceived idea. It is going to juice up the 
enemy. It is going to confuse our allies. And it could be easily fixed, 
but we choose not to.
  I don't know what the political environment is in America today, but 
the idea that the war is over with radical Islam is insane. I have 
listened to people--some on my side--come down here and want to repeal 
the authorization to go after al-Qaida and affiliated groups after 9/
11. General Kurilla, the CENTCOM commander in charge of the region, 
said, last week, because of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, ISIS in 
Afghanistan has the ability to strike us in this country within 6 
months without warning.
  So can you imagine the damage to be done to national security 
interests if we repeal the 2001 AUMF?
  So I will close with this. While I understand theoretically why we 
want to replace--get rid of the 2002 AUMF because Saddam is gone, I 
don't understand why we are leaving this vacuum and this doubt. This is 
easily fixed.
  You are creating a narrative that is going to come back to haunt us. 
You think it is an accident within 2 days of introducing this idea that 
they hit us in Syria again? They are going to test us.
  And here is what I think. The Biden administration is doing a lousy 
job, quite frankly, of instilling fear in the enemy. Whether you like 
Trump or not, people were afraid of him. And there is no fear. And here 
is what I would like to have established: Working with the 
administration, not against them, to send a clear signal: You kill 
Americans at your own peril. We are not leaving. We are not going to 
let radical Islam come back and do it all over again.
  So I will be voting no. This is one of the most ill-conceived ideas 
after 9/11.

[[Page S949]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Madam President, I rise today to express my support for S. 
316 and the repealing of the 1991 and 2002 authorization for the use of 
military force, or AUMF. I commend Senators Kaine and Young for their 
relentless work on this bill, and I am glad to be a cosponsor of it 
along with 43 of my colleagues.
  I voted against the 2002 AUMF when it was introduced more than 20 
years ago. And I can assure you that as we debated that bill at that 
time, no one would have believed that 20 years later we would be on the 
floor debating its repeal. The war against Saddam Hussein is long over, 
and our bilateral relationship with Iraq is fundamentally different 
today. In our current fight against violent extremists, the Biden 
administration has clearly stated it does not rely on the 2002 AUMF as 
the basis for any ongoing military operations.
  Let's remember what the 2002 AUMF authorizes. The United States went 
to war, ``to defend the national security of the United States against 
the continuing threat posed by Iraq.'' The Bush administration alleged, 
falsely, that Iraq had amassed an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Bush 
administration officials also alleged that the Iraq Government had ties 
to the al-Qaida terrorists that attacked the United States on September 
11, 2001. These false pretenses and cherry-picked information provided 
the basis for Congress to authorize the war in Iraq in 2002--again, an 
authorization I opposed.
  And this costly war of choice caused the United States irreparable 
harm. It caused us to take our eyes off violent extremist groups 
throughout the region and resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. It also 
forced us to take our eyes off Russia and China as they became peer 
competitors. As we spent billions of dollars investing in tactical 
vehicles to protect our troops in a counterinsurgency, as we spent 
billions of dollars to try to train Afghan forces, the Russians and the 
Chinese invested in hypersonic vehicles, in very sophisticated long-
range precision strike weapons. And the Chinese have been building an 
entire navy since then. We paid little attention because we were 
preoccupied with Iraq.
  And finally and ironically, our war in Iraq allowed Iran to become 
one of the most powerful and dangerous forces in the region, because we 
took out a block against their ambition, which had been Saddam Hussein 
and Iraq. As a result, we are paying, today, for those errors in 
judgment, and I think it is only fitting that we recognize it and 
repeal those AUMFs.

  We have ongoing operations to suppress violent extremists. Beginning 
on 9/11 and going forward, we have been fighting anyone who has 
aspirations to use terror attacks against the U.S. homeland or our 
allies. That is as a result of the 2001 AUMF that essentially empowered 
our government to find and defeat terrorists, anywhere they are, who 
pose a threat to the United States and to our allies. Retaining the 
2001 AUMF or an appropriate successor to that statute remains essential 
for the Defense Department's current counterterrorism operations, and 
Congress must continue to exercise robust oversight over its use.
  Further, the Biden administration has drawn a clear distinction 
between the two Iraq AUMFs that would be repealed under S. 316 and the 
2001 AUMF. The repeal of the two AUMFs would have no impact on our 
current operations, and as a domestic legal basis, no ongoing military 
activities rely solely on either the 1991 or the 2002 AUMF.
  Leaving the 2002 authorization in place sends a harmful signal to 
Iraq, where our forces remain at the invitation of the Government of 
Iraq. Iraq is a critical partner now in our fight against ISIS and in 
our fight against Shia militias that are transiting Iraq and attacking 
our forces in Syria. We should not communicate to the Iraqi Government 
that the United States reserves the right to use force against its 
nation in the future. This is contrary to the cooperation that our 
military forces need to counter ISIS operations.
  Further, keeping the 2002 AUMF provides a propaganda tool for Iran. 
The Iranian Government is constantly seeking to convince the Iraqis 
that Tehran, not Washington, is a more reliable partner. We face a real 
and growing threat from Iran, but the 2002 AUMF does not authorize the 
use of force against Iran, and it must not be relied on for that 
purpose now.
  Finally, as laid out in the Constitution, Congress has the sole power 
to declare war. We must exercise that responsibility with the utmost 
care when it comes to matters of the use of military force. Repealing 
AUMFs that have served their intended purposes and are no longer 
applicable to current military operations is fully consistent with the 
careful exercise of the Senate's constitutional responsibilities.
  On that basis, I support S. 316 and the repeal of the 2002 and 1991 
AUMFs. Again, I commend Senator Kaine for his leadership, and I urge my 
colleagues to vote yes on this bill.
  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. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
allowed to complete my statement before the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, the vote the Senate is about to take 
is about what is right for our Nation. It is part of exercising our 
most solemn duty as elected officials. It is a recognition that 
Congress not only has the power to declare war but also should have the 
responsibility to end wars, and it is a decision to turn the page on 
one of those chapters in our country's history.
  With today's vote, we can move closer to repealing two obsolete and 
outdated authorizations for the use of military force against Iraq. 
Repealing these authorizations will demonstrate to the region--and to 
the world--that the United States is not an occupying force; that the 
war in Iraq has come to an end; that we are moving forward, working 
with Iraq as a strategic partner. So I commend the Senate for moving 
forward to take this critical step.
  I hope the Senate will speak overwhelmingly in support of preserving 
congressional prerogatives as to when and under what circumstances we 
send our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters into harm's way and 
clawing back authorities that have clearly outlived their purpose and 
scope.
  Some of my colleagues have argued that repealing 20- and 30-year-old 
authorizations will weaken our ability to confront Iranian aggression. 
Some have offered amendments that would alter these authorizations. 
Others have offered amendments that would expand these authorizations. 
And a few have offered amendments that have, well, quite frankly, 
nothing at all to do with these authorizations. So let me address that 
point briefly.
  Just in the last few days, the President directed targeted strikes 
against groups affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps 
in Syria. This was in response to Iranian-backed drone attacks that 
killed a U.S. contractor and wounded five American servicemembers at a 
maintenance facility in Syria. The President looked at the 
intelligence, he consulted his advisors, he ordered the strike, and he 
committed, publicly, to continue to defend against Iranian aggression 
and to respond to attacks against U.S. forces. He did so without--
without--relying on the 1991 or 2002 authorizations for use of military 
force against Iraq.
  This President has been clear in his view that he has sufficient 
authority to defend against threats to U.S. personnel and interests. If 
we are going to debate whether to provide the President additional 
authorities, then we should have that debate separately. But it should 
not be under the cloak of keeping old authorizations on the books, 
authorizations that are not needed to meet any current threat. They are 
not about the current threat; they are about a regime that is no longer 
alive and has been gone for the better part of those 20 years. This is 
just a tactic to delay this repeal from going forward. Nor should we 
turn a debate about repeal and a chance to take

[[Page S950]]

a historic step forward into a new backdoor authorization for the use 
of force against another country.
  So I urge my colleagues to stay focused on the facts, repeal an 
authorization that is no longer used or needed, and close this chapter 
on American foreign policy. Let's finally--finally--repeal the 1991 and 
2002 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq. I urge my 
colleagues to vote to move forward with repeal of these AUMFs.
  I yield the floor.


                             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 legislative 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 Calendar No. 25, 
     S. 316, a bill to repeal the authorizations for use of 
     military force against Iraq.
         Charles E. Schumer, Robert Menendez, Tim Kaine, Tina 
           Smith, Benjamin L. Cardin, Jeanne Shaheen, Sheldon 
           Whitehouse, Tammy Baldwin, Patty Murray, Michael F. 
           Bennet, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Robert P. 
           Casey, Jr., Christopher Murphy, Catherine Cortez Masto, 
           Jack Reed, Brian Schatz.

  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 
Calendar No. 25, S. 316, a bill to repeal the authorizations for use of 
military force against Iraq, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), 
the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), the Senator from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman), and the Senator from California (Mr. 
Padilla) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. 
Blackburn), and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell).
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 65, nays 28, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 70 Leg.]

                                YEAS--65

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Braun
     Brown
     Budd
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cortez Masto
     Cramer
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Gillibrand
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Hawley
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lee
     Lujan
     Lummis
     Manchin
     Markey
     Marshall
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Paul
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schmitt
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Van Hollen
     Vance
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Welch
     Whitehouse
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--28

     Boozman
     Britt
     Capito
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Graham
     Hagerty
     Hyde-Smith
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Mullin
     Ricketts
     Risch
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Tuberville
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Coons
     Feinstein
     Fetterman
     McConnell
     Padilla
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). On this vote, the yeas are 65, the 
nays are 28.
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.


                       Remembering Gladys Kessler

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here this evening to commemorate 
the passing of a remarkable individual. I only met her once when I went 
over to speak at a gathering of the U.S. District Court for the 
District of Columbia. But on March 16, at the age of 85, Her Honor 
Judge Gladys Kessler passed away.
  She had been quite a trailblazer before she went on the court. She 
cofounded the Women's Legal Defense Fund, now known as the National 
Partnership for Women & Families, and she served as the president of 
the National Association of Women Judges.
  In her career, she rendered a lot of very good decisions, but the 
most memorable one and the one that exemplified some of the 
characteristics I admired the most about her was the decision that she 
rendered exposing in detail a conspiracy by the tobacco industry to 
deceive the American public about the safety of tobacco.
  The Big Tobacco scheme is one that we are, I think, pretty familiar 
with. You pay a lot of phony-baloney for-hire scientists to produce 
studies making false claims about your product, you hire a web of PR 
experts and front groups to spread doubt and critique the actual real 
science that you don't like, and you have paid intermediaries to 
relentlessly attack and try to smear your opponents.
  In the face of this behavior, we had a remedy: the Racketeer 
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the RICO Act.
  In 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil RICO lawsuit 
against the major tobacco companies and their associated industry 
groups alleging that the companies, and I will quote the complaint 
here, ``engaged in and executed--and continue to engage in and 
execute--a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public, including 
consumers of cigarettes, in violation of RICO.''
  The case took 7 years, but in 2006, Judge Kessler wrote one of the 
most impressive opinions I have ever seen from a U.S. district court 
judge. It was 1,683 pages long. She went through the evidence that the 
U.S. Department of Justice had marshaled, and she organized it and laid 
it out in a way that was completely compelling, that completely crushed 
the defendant tobacco companies, to the point where, when it was on 
appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit very powerfully 
upheld it. It is one of the powers of a district judge that, with the 
authority to find the facts and marshal the evidence properly, you can 
make virtually bomb-proof opinions, and in 1,683 pages, Judge Gladys 
Kessler did just that. She found the defendant--here is her quote:

       Defendants coordinated significant aspects of their public 
     relations, scientific, legal, and marketing activity in 
     furtherance of a shared objective--to . . . maximize industry 
     profits by preserving and expanding the market for cigarettes 
     through a scheme to deceive the public.

  She added:

       In short, [they] have marketed and sold their lethal 
     product with zeal, with deception, with a single-minded focus 
     on their financial success, and without regard for the human 
     tragedy or social costs that success exacted.

  It was a testament--this opinion was--to judicial diligence, and it 
left a permanent, solid record for history of the campaign of fraud 
that the tobacco industry had run until that point.
  Of course, in order for her to be able to render that decision, there 
had to be a plaintiff willing to bring the case. So kudos also to the 
U.S. Department of Justice back then for being willing to take on a 
defendant as powerful as the tobacco industry. We forget, now that 
smoking is so much less of a thing, how enormously powerful the tobacco 
industry was, how its network of suppliers gave it footholds in every 
State, how its enormous revenues allowed it to cut into this building 
and manipulate the politics of the U.S. Congress to the great detriment 
of the health of the American people.
  It goes without saying that there is an obvious parallel between the 
conduct of the tobacco industry leading up to Judge Kessler's decision 
and the conduct of the fossil fuel industry.
  In fact, experts point out that when Judge Kessler's decision shut 
down the fraud of the tobacco industry, some of the individuals and 
some of the organizations that had been involved in that fraud simply 
rebooted themselves as new experts in how to deny climate science.
  I hope that we come to a point where today's Department of Justice 
has the diligence and the fortitude to go ahead with a similar action. 
But today, this is about Judge Kessler--a woman who saw something going 
very badly wrong and sat down and wrote a 1600-page decision to put it 
right. I think it is a pretty terrific example.

[[Page S951]]

  And I have a few bits of business, if I may, and then we will open 
the floor to the other speakers.

                          ____________________