[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3215-3228]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant Democratic leader.


        President's Address to Congress and Russia Investigation

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last night, I joined most of the Members 
of Congress to hear President Trump give his first address to a joint 
session. His speech lasted about 60 minutes, and I listened carefully, 
as did everyone in the Chamber, to the President's first remarks from 
that historic setting as he addressed a joint session of Congress.
  There were some omissions, which I found very interesting. Not once--
not one time--in the course of an hour did President Trump ever say the 
word ``Russia''--not one time--even though we have been told by 17 of 
our intelligence agencies that Russia made an overt effort to influence 
the outcome of the last Presidential campaign. That has never happened 
before in American history. A foreign country attacked the sovereignty 
of the United States in the election process for the highest office in 
the land. I think that is noteworthy. It is certainly historic. It 
would certainly be worth at least a mention when a President speaks to 
a joint session of Congress just a few months after that election. 
Instead, there was radio silence, mute button, crickets--nothing about 
Russia.
  What do we have in terms of congressional response to the possibility 
that Vladimir Putin was trying to pick our next President? We have the 
suggestion by the Republican leaders in the Senate and the House that 
this matter should be taken up by the Intelligence Committees.
  It sounds reasonable on its face. Having served on Intelligence 
Committees, I can tell you it is an awesome responsibility and 
assignment. I can also tell you we have some extraordinarily gifted, 
talented, patriotic members of those committees from both political 
parties in the Senate and in the House, but there is a fundamental flaw 
to this approach. If you went searching on Capitol Hill to find the 
room in which the Senate Intelligence Committee meets, you would come 
up empty. There is no sign on the door. It is basically kept 
clandestine, confidential, and secret. For 4 years, I entered that 
door, sat down in closed hearings, with no one from the public able to 
hear or even appreciate what we were doing. It is a lonely assignment--
unlike any other committee on Capitol Hill.
  I wonder: Is that what we want to do to explore the involvement of 
Vladimir Putin in our Presidential campaign--to go behind closed doors 
in secret and meet clandestinely? I think not.
  There is an aspect of this that will require some intelligence 
gathering, some discussion of intelligence--and certainly that would be 
secret--but there is much more of it that is public in nature that will 
never be disclosed if we rely on the Senate Intelligence Committee. It 
is an invisible process, and that invisible process does not serve the 
needs of a democracy that wants the truth--the straight talk, the 
answers.
  Secondly, the work of an Intelligence Committee ends up in a report 
that is classified, which means the public doesn't get to see it. We 
have seen some renditions of it--heavily redacted pages, where one or 
two words might escape being crossed out.
  How do you move from a classified document on Putin's involvement in 
our Presidential campaign to a public document the people can 
understand? It takes declassification. Who makes the decision on 
whether we declassify the information from the Intelligence Committee 
investigation? The White House.
  So, with the possibility--and I underline that word--with the 
possibility that some people in the President's campaign may or may not 
have been involved in this, the President has the last word as to the 
American people ever hearing the results of an Intelligence Committee 
report.
  Many of us believe this is serious, and many of us believe there 
should be an independent, transparent commission, just like the 9/11 
Commission. Let's call on people we respect, such as GEN Colin L. 
Powell, Sandra Day O'Connor, a former Supreme Court Justice, and many 
others just like them, who could get to the bottom of this and answer 
the basic questions: What were the Russians up to? We hear they had 
1,000 trolls sitting in offices in Moscow dreaming up ways to hack into 
the computers and Internet of the United States and to disclose 
information to try to influence the outcome of the election. It is not 
a new tactic from Russia. They have done it over and over again.
  The last couple of weeks I visited Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine. They 
know these tactics oh so well. Under Soviet times and since, Russia has 
tried to invade their space when it comes to election decisions--
overtly, covertly, through propaganda, through cyber attacks. They have 
done it in many countries around the world. Sadly, they are

[[Page 3216]]

good at it. Now they have decided they can do it in the United States. 
They can decide who our President will be or at least try to. Are we 
going to take this sitting down?
  November 8, 2016, election day, was a day that will live in cyber 
infamy in the United States. The Russians invaded the U.S. election 
process. The President of the United States spoke to the American 
people last night and never mentioned one word--not a single word--
about this.
  How many Republican Senators and Congressmen have come to the floor? 
I don't know about in the House, but I can tell my colleagues I know 
about the Senate. None. Not one has come to the floor to even address 
this issue.
  So when President Trump ignored it last night, refused to even 
mention it, I wasn't surprised, but it is not going away. It is a fact.
  We currently have an investigation underway in our intelligence 
agencies. I just met with former Senator Dan Coats of Indiana. He has 
been designated by the President to be the DNI--the Director of 
National Intelligence. He made a statement publicly yesterday before a 
hearing in Congress that he is going to cooperate with the committees 
and with Congress in disclosing information they have accumulated in 
our intelligence agencies as to this Russian involvement in our 
election.
  We also know the Federal Bureau of Investigation is involved in this 
same exercise to find out exactly what happened and to disclose as much 
as possible and take action--prosecutorial action--if necessary.
  There is a problem, though. The Federal Bureau of Investigation works 
for the Attorney General. The Department of Justice has the power to 
impede or stop any FBI investigation. Our former colleague Jeff 
Sessions was deeply and personally involved in the Trump Presidential 
campaign. He should recuse himself. He has an obvious conflict of 
interest on this issue. For the integrity of the office and for his own 
personal integrity, he should step aside and appoint a special 
prosecutor who can follow up, if necessary, with this FBI 
investigation.
  This is a serious matter that was not addressed at all last night by 
the President of the United States speaking to a joint session of 
Congress.
  The Associated Press went through some of the claims that were made 
by the President last night, and I want to give them credit for their 
homework on this. It is important for the Record that some of the 
things the President said be explained.
  The President said:

       According to the National Academy of Sciences, our current 
     immigration system costs American taxpayers many billions of 
     dollars a year.

  The Associated Press writes:

       That's not exactly what the report says. It says immigrants 
     ``contribute to government finances by paying taxes and add 
     expenditures by consuming public service.''
       The report found that while first-generation immigrants are 
     more expensive to governments than their native-born 
     counterparts, primarily at the state and local level, 
     immigrants' children ``are among the strongest economic and 
     fiscal contributors in the population.'' This second 
     generation contributed more in taxes on a per capita basis, 
     for example, than non-immigrants in the period, 1994-2013.
       The report [that the President unfortunately 
     mischaracterized] found that the ``long-run fiscal impact'' 
     of immigrants and their children would probably be seen as 
     more positive ``if their role in sustaining labor force 
     growth and contributing to innovation and entrepreneurial 
     activity were taken into account.''

  So to argue, as the President did yesterday, that the National 
Academy of Sciences, as he said, stated that our current immigration 
system costs American taxpayers many billions of dollars is, at best, 
incomplete and misleading.
  The President then went on to say during the course of his speech 
last night:

       We've saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by 
     bringing down the price of the F-35 jet fighter.
  I remember when he said that.
  The Associated Press says as follows:

       The cost savings he persists in bragging about were secured 
     in full or large part before he became President.

  He has taken credit for something he didn't do.
  According to the AP:

       The head of the Air Force program announced significant 
     price reductions in the contract for the Lockheed F-35 
     fighter on December 19--after [candidate] Trump, [President-
     Elect Trump] had tweeted about the cost but weeks before he 
     met with the company's CEO.

  The AP goes on:

       Pentagon managers took action even before the election to 
     save [this] money. . . . Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with 
     the aerospace consulting firm Teal Group, said there is no 
     evidence of any additional cost savings as a result of 
     President Trump's actions.

  Here is another statement made by the President last night:

       We will provide massive tax relief for the middle class.

  I remember that one. That is something I hope we all can aspire to, 
but let me tell my colleagues what the Associated Press says about that 
claim.

       Trump has provided little detail on how this would happen. 
     Independent analyses of his campaign tax proposals found that 
     most of the benefits would flow to the wealthiest families. 
     The richest 1 percent would see an average tax cut of nearly 
     $215,000 a year, while the middle one-fifth of the population 
     would get a tax cut of just $1,010, according to the Tax 
     Policy Center, a joint project with the Brookings Institution 
     and Urban Institute.

  Here is another statement the President made last night:

       Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force.

  The Associated Press says:

       That's true, but for the vast majority of them, it's 
     because they choose to be. That 94 million figure includes 
     everyone aged 16 and older who doesn't have a job and isn't 
     looking for one. So it includes retirees, parents who are 
     staying home to raise children, high school and college 
     students who are studying rather than working.
       They are unlikely to work regardless of the state of the 
     economy. With the huge baby boomer generation reaching 
     retirement age many of them retiring, the population of those 
     out of the labor force is increasing and will continue to do 
     so, most economists forecast.
       It's true that some of those out of the workforce are of 
     working age and have given up looking for work. But that 
     number is probably a small fraction of the 94 million 
     President Trump cited.

  Another statement the President made: He said his budget plan will 
offer ``one of the largest increases in national defense spending in 
American history.''
  I will not dwell on this other than to say that the absolute number--
a $54 billion increase, or about 10 percent, is the largest single 
number. On a percentage basis, there have been larger increases in 
previous years, like 2002, 2003, and 2008.
  Here is another claim made by the President last night:

       Since my election, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, General Motors, 
     Sprint, Softbank, Lockheed, Intel, Walmart, and many others 
     have announced they will invest billions of dollars in the 
     United States and will create tens of thousands of new 
     American jobs.

  The Associated Press reports that ``many of the announcements reflect 
corporate decisions that predate [Trump's Presidential] election,'' 
making it unlikely his administration ``is the sole or even primary 
reason for the expected hiring. . . . In the case of Intel, 
construction of the Chandler, Arizona, factory referred to by Trump 
actually began during Barack Obama's presidency. The project was 
delayed by insufficient demand for Intel's high-powered computer chips, 
but the company now expects to finish the factory within four years 
because it anticipates business growth.
  Another statement made by President Trump last night in his speech:

       We will stop the drugs from pouring into our country and 
     poisoning our youth, and we will expand treatment for those 
     who have become so badly addicted.

  The facts:

       Addicts and mentally ill people who gain access to 
     treatment programs for the first time as a result of 
     ObamaCare--the Affordable Care Act--are worried about repeal 
     that President Trump has called for. Repeal could end 
     coverage for 1.8 million people who have undergone addiction 
     or mental health treatment, cut $5.5 billion on spending on 
     such services according to estimates by economist Richard 
     Frank, a former administration official under Barack Obama, 
     now with the Harvard Medical School.


[[Page 3217]]


  The AP goes on to say:

       The key question is what will happen to Medicaid as a 
     result of changes Republicans are pursuing? Broadly speaking, 
     Republicans want to transform the health insurance program 
     for low-income people from an open-ended Federal entitlement 
     to a system that provides States with a limited amount of 
     financing and gives them latitude on how to spend it.

  The AP goes on to say:

       If Congress is too stingy with State allotments, States 
     would be hampered dealing with the emergencies like the 
     opioid epidemic.

  The next statement by President Trump last night:

       According to data provided by the Department of Justice, 
     the vast majority of individuals convicted for terrorism-
     related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our 
     country. We have seen the attacks at home, from Boston to San 
     Bernardino to the Pentagon, and yes, even the World Trade 
     Center.

  The Associated Press responds:

       It's unclear what Justice Department data the President is 
     citing. The most recent government information that has come 
     out doesn't back up his claim. Just over half the people 
     President Trump talks about were actually born in the United 
     States, according to Homeland Security Department research. 
     That report said of 82 people the government determined were 
     inspired by foreign terrorist groups to attempt to carry out 
     an attack on the U.S., just over half [of them] were [born in 
     the United States] native-born citizens.

  The AP goes on to say:

       Even the attacks Trump singled out weren't entirely the 
     work of foreigners. Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his 
     Pakistani wife killed 14 people in the deadly 2015 attack in 
     San Bernardino, California, was born in Chicago.
       It's true that in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 
     the FBI's primary concern was with terrorists from overseas 
     feared to be plotting attacks in the United States. But 
     that's no longer the case. The FBI and Justice Department 
     have been preoccupied with violent extremists from inside the 
     U.S. who are inspired by the calls to violence and mayhem of 
     the Islamic State group. The Justice Department has 
     prosecuted scores of Islamic State-related cases since 2014, 
     and many of the defendants are U.S. citizens.

  Another statement by President Trump last night:

       ObamaCare is collapsing . . . imploding Obamacare disaster.

  The AP writes:

       There are problems with the 2010 health care law, but 
     whether it's collapsing is hotly disputed.
       One of the two major components of the Affordable Care Act 
     has been a spike in premiums and a drop in participation from 
     insurers. But the other component, equally important, seems 
     to be working fairly well, even if its costs are a concern.
       Trump and congressional Republicans want to repeal the 
     whole thing, which risks leaving millions of people uninsured 
     if the replacement plan has shortcomings. Some critics say 
     GOP rhetoric itself is making things worse by creating 
     uncertainty about the future.
       The health law offers subsidized private health insurance 
     along with a state option to expand Medicaid for low-income 
     people. Together, the two arms of the program reach more than 
     20 million people.
       Republican governors whose states have expanded Medicaid 
     are trying to find a way to persuade Congress and the 
     administration to keep this expansion, and maybe even build 
     on it, while imposing limits on the long-term costs of 
     Medicaid.
       While the Medicaid expansion seems to be working, the 
     markets for subsidized health insurance are stressed in many 
     states. Also affected are millions of people who buy 
     individual policies outside the government markets, and face 
     the same high premiums with no financial help from the health 
     law. Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation 
     says ``implosion'' is too strong a term. An AP count found 
     that 12.2 million people signed up for this year, despite the 
     Trump administration's threats to repeal the law.

  I might add, that it is despite all of the speeches made on the floor 
of the Senate and the House, promising that it would be repealed as 
well.
  The last point I want to make is this. I was troubled last night by a 
recurring theme in the President's speech. It was a theme about 
immigration in the United States. We are a nation of immigrants. My 
mother was an immigrant to this country. I am proud to serve as a 
Senator from the State where she and her family settled. I am proud of 
the struggle they went through--coming to this country, not knowing the 
language, going through some pretty rough times, facing poverty, taking 
the dirtiest and toughest jobs. Because of that, the second generation 
of my family--the one I represent--has brought some great people to 
this world in our own families and perhaps even added to the benefits 
of the United States for others.
  Last night, if you listened to the characterization of immigrants, it 
was negative, virtually from start to finish.
  In the audience last night, I had a young lady as my guest. She is an 
extraordinary lady. Her name is Aaima Sayed. She is Pakistani, and she 
was brought to the United States at the age of 3 by her parents from 
Pakistan. They settled in Chicago and eventually moved to New Jersey. 
It turns out the family had its difficulties and the mother and father 
split and separated. When the father left, he left behind his 
paperwork--which was in place or at least in the process--of trying to 
legalize the presence of his family, and nothing was done.
  It wasn't until she was in high school that this young lady realized 
that she was undocumented. That creates obstacles for any young person. 
In her case, a special obstacle was the cost of higher education. As an 
undocumented child in America, she didn't qualify for government 
assistance--Federal Government assistance--and limited State 
assistance. Yet she aspired to go on to school and to borrow the money, 
if necessary, at high interest rates from private sources in order to 
finish her education. She graduated from Rutgers University magna cum 
laude and then wanted to go to medical school.
  There weren't many medical schools accepting undocumented students, 
but there was one. I am proud to tell you that it was Loyola University 
of Chicago, the Stritch School of Medicine. There were about 65 
undocumented young people in medical school in the United States, and 
30 of them were at Loyola in Chicago. I have met most of them. Each and 
every one of them is more inspiring than the next.
  They opened up the competition. They didn't give them slots to fill. 
They said: Compete with everyone. These students were so outstanding 
from across the United States that they made it to Loyola.
  This young lady, in her third year, faces another 6 years of 
education before she completes her medical degree. When she is finished 
with those 6 years, it isn't over. In Illinois, we told her she could 
go to school, but it was part of a contract. She could attend school, 
and we would reduce the interest payments at a later part in her life 
if she gave us 1 year of service in an underserved community in 
Illinois for each year of medical school. She has 6 years of school 
left and 4 years of serving in a rural community or an underserved 
neighborhood clinic in the city of Chicago or nearby.
  She signed up for it. She is an amazing young person. She is 
determined to get this medical degree--despite the debt, despite the 
obstacles. The only reason she can do this is because she is protected 
by something called DACA.
  Let me explain. Some 16 years ago, I introduced a bill called the 
DREAM Act. It said that if you were brought to the United States, like 
she was, under the age of 16, you had a good life, no criminal record 
or history of a problematic nature, and completed your education, you 
can stay in the United States and eventually work your way toward 
legalization.
  President Obama took it up and created an Executive order called DACA 
and said to the young people in that situation: Come and apply, pay a 
$600 filing fee, then go through a criminal background check, and if 
you make it, we will give you 2 years to live in the United States 
without fear of deportation, with a work permit.
  She signed up. That is how she can go to medical school. You need to 
work to go to medical school. She is going through a clinical 
experience where she is actually working in these hospitals. Without a 
work permit, she wouldn't be able to complete medical school.
  The obvious question is this: What is going to happen to this program 
under President Trump? In fairness, the President has said positive 
things about DACA and DREAMers. I thanked him personally. I have only 
met him three times, but I thanked him personally twice for doing that. 
I hope that it

[[Page 3218]]

means that ultimately there will be some path for the 750,000 young 
people, just like her, who are simply asking for a chance to be 
educated and be part of America's future.
  I hope that, as people who listened to the speech last night think 
about immigrants to the United States, they will think about this young 
woman, as well, who has worked so hard her entire life to better 
herself and to be able to help others at a later point in life.
  She is an extraordinary person, and there are so many more just like 
her. They are immigrants to this country. In this case it is Muslim 
immigrant to this country who someday will be an exceptional doctor, 
who is going to give 4 years of her life back to my home State and then 
is going to help others all across the United States. That, to me, is 
an image of immigrants that shouldn't be lost with the negative 
connotations that were raised last night.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.


                         Miners Protection Act

  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise today to call for immediate action 
on the Miners Protection Act. Today, as we sit here, 22,600 miners have 
received letters. This is a copy of the letter, and I am going to read 
it to you. This is a letter they received today letting them know their 
healthcare benefits will be terminated at the end of April. This letter 
basically says:

       The UMWA 1993 Benefit Plan notified you in December 2016--

  This is one of multiple letters they received. Can you imagine 
getting a 4-month extension? Then by law you have to have 90 days 
before they can terminate you. Every time you get an extension, within 
30 days you get another letter saying you are going to be terminated. 
That is the inhumane treatment our retired miners and mostly widows are 
receiving--

     that the U.S. Congress had passed the Continuing Health 
     Benefits for Miners Act, which provided for the transfer of 
     federal funds to the Plan to cover the health care benefits 
     you receive through April 30, 2017. The Plan cautioned that 
     further Congressional action would be necessary in order for 
     the Plan to provide health care coverage to you after April 
     30. At this time, Congress has not taken the action needed to 
     continue your benefits. Unless Congress acts before the end 
     of April, the 1993 Benefit Plan will not be able to provide 
     you with the health benefits that you have been receiving 
     from the 1993 Plan, and those benefits will terminate 
     effective May 1, 2017. In addition, your Funds' Health 
     Service Card will no longer be valid.

  Can you imagine a 75- or 80-year-old woman--a lady, a widow--who has 
lost her husband, probably because of black lung, and all the work he 
did for our country and for himself and his family, and she has 
received that three times or more now--not knowing what in the world or 
why they can't do something that we promised, something that was done 
in 1946, where the Krug amendment and the Krug act basically said that 
we would take care of our miners so that they would have permanent 
healthcare and a pension. It was not done by taxpayers' dollars. It was 
done by the coal they mined. For every ton of coal, there would be so 
much set aside. Then we had the bankruptcy laws happen in the 1980s, 
which basically destroyed a lot of companies for paying into it. Then 
we had the crash of 2008, which took it further down.
  Now we stand here today, and we have a fix coming out of the AML, the 
abandoned mine lands, coming, again, from coal that was mined to pay 
for the miners' pension and benefit plan, and we can't get it done.
  I will tell you, if that piece of legislation was allowed to be voted 
on tonight, we would have well over 60 votes, bipartisan. My Republican 
colleagues and all of our Democrat colleagues here understand the 
importance of the working people.
  President Trump is speaking about this every time. Last night he 
shouted out to miners. I was so pleased. I have not heard that since I 
have been here--anyone saying: Thank you for the job you have done. We 
are not leaving you behind. You have given to this country the country 
we have, the superpower of the world. You have produced the energy 
through the toughest of times, and we appreciate that.
  I was very, very appreciative to see that type of recognition. I 
can't tell you how much more appreciative I would be right now to see 
us as a bipartisan group--Democrats and Republicans--standing up for 
the working people that we talk about every day and saying: Listen, as 
to the pension guarantee act, which basic to the Miners Protection Act, 
we are going to pass that. We are going to put this aside. We don't 
have to worry about this anymore. We have done it.
  That is all we are asking for. Everybody who has joined me in this 
journey understands that we are all fighting for the working people, 
which is what we were sent here to do, from your wonderful State of 
South Carolina to my beautiful State of West Virginia. They depend on 
us. The retired miners are walking our halls. Maybe you have seen them. 
If not, I am sure they will come by and say hi to you. They are very 
appreciative of the consideration we are all giving them. They are 
hoping we finally get this done.
  I am doing it for them and for their families and what they have done 
for our country. The 4-month extension is not even humane. I have said 
that. My reason for saying that is that these people can't comprehend 
it. I can assure you that, when I go back to my office after I leave 
the floor, I will get phone calls: Joe, they are going to take my 
healthcare again. What am I going to do?
  I keep saying: Ma'am, please, trust us; hold tight.
  We could have had this fixed before. We kicked the can down the road 
4 months. Now I have been told--and we all seem to accept it--that they 
are going to do a permanent healthcare fix. I am appreciative of that. 
The bottom line is that we have pensions out there hanging, which is 
going to be a bigger albatross around us if we don't something, and we 
have a chance to fix it all and put that aside.
  I spoke to President Trump, and I am hopeful that he will speak out 
on this, and he has spoken out. He has told me that he supports it.
  I said: Please, Mr. President, speak to our friends on the other 
side--our leadership--and let them know how much you support this, and 
let us put this behind us because we can fix it once and for all.
  We were told to get a legislative hearing, and we did that. We were 
told to go through regular order. We went to the Finance Committee, and 
it was passed out--bipartisan, overwhelmingly bipartisan.
  I know we have the 60 votes. I was told we have to reintroduce it 
again. So here we are. I reintroduced it, and we have bipartisan 
support again. We are ready to go.
  Why do we put these people through this type of agony? I don't know. 
We have so many other challenges, and we have to come together. This is 
one we have already agreed we are together on and can't move it.
  I know you have always been a dear friend and supportive, and you 
know the hard work our people have done, and I appreciate that. 
However, it is time to act. It is time to get this done. If we wait 
until April, that is exactly when our continuing resolution is coming 
up, and, basically, we have no budget to work off of. So we have to do 
another extension until we can get something more permanent. They could 
get caught up in that CR again. We are going to say: We are sorry; we 
couldn't get it done, but we will give you another 2, 3, or 4 months.
  I can't go home and continue to tell these wonderful people who have 
been so good and so patient that I am sorry, but we just have to wait 
another few months.
  When is enough enough? When are those few months going to be up and 
we do the right thing? I am asking all of you; I am asking all of my 
colleagues: Please, this is one time when we can do something and feel 
good about it and go home over the weekend and go back to our 
constituents and tell them that this one is finished, that we fixed 
this.
  I am asking for that vote. I would encourage all of my colleagues to 
do the same, to speak to the leaderships to

[[Page 3219]]

make sure that we can move the miners protection and make sure the 
miners get the healthcare and the pension benefits they were guaranteed 
and they have been promised and which has been kept until now, and that 
we are not going to let them down.
  With that, Mr. President, I thank you, and I thank all of my 
colleagues for the support we have been receiving. I am asking the 
majority leader to please let us have this vote and put it on the 
floor. Let's go from there and see what happens. I am willing to do 
that.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Family Planning Providers

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, thank you, and thank you to some of my 
colleagues who are going to be joining me on the floor this afternoon.
  The day after President Trump was inaugurated was one of the most 
inspiring I have ever gotten a chance to be part of. Millions of 
people, men and women, marched in Seattle, in Washington, DC, and in 
cities and towns in between. They carried signs, they chanted, and they 
made it absolutely undeniably clear that when it comes to women's 
rights and healthcare, people across the country do not want to go 
backward. Since then, they have continued to speak up and stand up.
  But we are here today because Donald Trump and Republicans in 
Congress simply are not getting the message. I want to discuss one 
crucial example in particular--the possibility that in a matter of 
days, Senate Republicans could roll back a rule protecting family 
planning providers from being discriminated against and denied Federal 
funding.
  Let me start by explaining a bit about what family planning providers 
mean to our community. These providers--part of the Title X program, 
which has bipartisan history--deliver critical healthcare services 
nationwide but are especially needed in rural and frontier areas. In 
2015 alone, Title X provided basic primary and preventive healthcare 
services, such as Pap tests, breast exams, birth control, and HIV 
testing, to more than 4 million low-income women and men at nearly 
4,000 health centers. In my home State of Washington, tens of thousands 
of patients are able to receive care at these centers each year. They 
often have nowhere else to turn for healthcare. In fact, 4 out of 10 
woman who receive care at health centers funded by Title X consider it 
to be their only source of healthcare.
  Taking resources away from these providers would be cruel. It would 
have the greatest impact on women and families who are most in need. 
But that is exactly what the law passed in the House, which is now on 
its way to the Senate, would mean. It would undo a valuable effort by 
the Obama administration to ensure that healthcare providers are 
evaluated for Federal funding based on their ability to provide the 
services in question, not ideology. In doing so, the bill would make it 
even easier for States, led by extreme politicians, to deny family 
planning providers Federal funding, not because of the quality of the 
care they provide or the value to the communities they serve but based 
on whether the politicians in charge agree that women should be able to 
exercise their constitutionally protected rights to safe, legal 
abortion.
  It is the 21st century. It is time for politicians to stop telling 
women what they can and can't do with their own bodies. That is what 
the women and men who have been marching and speaking up all over our 
country believe. That is what I believe. It is what Democrats believe.
  If Leader McConnell thinks he can rush this harmful legislative 
effort through without a fight, we are here to say he is wrong. He can 
expect Democrats and maybe even some Republicans who are concerned 
about losing healthcare providers in their own States to fight back. So 
today I am calling on the leader to commit right now to drop this 
effort and agree not to bring this bill to the floor. It is well past 
time that extreme Republicans end their damaging political attacks on 
women. I think the opportunity to start that is right this minute. So 
we urge him to take this action and not bring this to the floor. We 
want him to know that we are going to fight back every step of the way 
if he does.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I came to the floor to join my colleague 
and friend Senator Murray to say that I, too, am ready for this fight 
to oppose S.J. Res. 13, which would allow the discrimination against 
Title X family planning providers. This is a misguided measure that 
would leave millions of women and families with fewer healthcare 
options. It would drastically decrease women's access to basic primary 
and preventative health services, including lifesaving cancer 
screenings and HIV testing.
  Make no mistake, as Senator Murray said, the primary target of this 
legislation is Planned Parenthood. For years now, Republican leaders in 
Congress have tried to keep women from choosing Planned Parenthood as 
their healthcare provider--this at a time when Planned Parenthood 
serves millions of women nationwide, including nearly 12,000 women in 
New Hampshire, my home State. Most of the women in New Hampshire have 
incomes below or near the poverty line. Many of those women live in 
rural areas where they don't have other options for healthcare 
coverage.
  The sad irony of this attack on Planned Parenthood is that study 
after study has shown that cutting back access to birth control and to 
other family planning methods actually increases the number of 
abortions. So I understand that opponents are interested in supporting 
this legislation because they think Planned Parenthood provides 
abortions, but the coverage Planned Parenthood is providing to women in 
New Hampshire and across this country with Federal dollars does not 
allow for abortions. So what we are doing is taking away women's access 
to contraception and to other family planning services and saying: You 
have no choice now.
  More than ever right now, facts matter. Research matters. Talking 
away women's access to birth control and family planning will lead to 
more abortions, not fewer abortions. Yet this legislation is part and 
parcel of a broader national campaign against Planned Parenthood, whose 
clinics have been the target of vilification, of threats, and of 
violence. In October of last year, the Planned Parenthood clinic in 
Claremont, NH, was vandalized not once but twice. The second attack, a 
breaking-and-entering incident, caused extensive damage. It forced the 
clinic to close for 5 weeks.
  I have great admiration for the courage of doctors and other 
healthcare providers at the Claremont clinic. Despite threats and 
attacks, they are determined to continue serving women across the 
Connecticut River Valley, many of whom have no alternative to the 
Claremont clinic. They are typical of the dedicated healthcare 
professionals at Planned Parenthood clinics all across our country.
  The good news is that, according to poll after poll, the American 
people across the political spectrum--from Independents, to 
Libertarians, to Democrats, to Republicans--strongly support Planned 
Parenthood and oppose efforts to take away women's ability to choose 
Planned Parenthood as their healthcare provider.
  At last night's Presidential address to Congress, I was honored to 
have as my guest Jennifer Frizzell of Planned Parenthood of Northern 
New England. Jen knows exactly what is at stake for

[[Page 3220]]

women if President Trump and Republican leaders succeed in closing 
hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics across the United States.
  So let's be clear again: Supporting family planning clinics is not 
about abortion, which by law is never funded by taxpayer dollars--
something that I think is often misrepresented by some of our 
colleagues here in Congress. What this is about is ensuring that 
American women have access to the basic healthcare they need. For 40 
percent of women, their visits to a family planning center is the only 
care they receive annually. In 2015 alone, Title X provided basic 
primary and preventive healthcare services, such as Pap tests, breast 
exams, birth control, and HIV testing, to more than 4 million women and 
men at nearly 4,000 health centers.
  I am sure that every one of our colleagues is receiving letters and 
emails and phone calls from constituents on this issue. They are 
pleading with us not to take away their access to Planned Parenthood 
and the healthcare they trust and depend on.
  I received this message from Caitlin Parnell of Hampstead, NH. She 
said:

       As a young mother of a 2-year-old, my husband and I knew we 
     wanted to wait to have more children. We were both working 
     full time but barely making ends meet. The companies we 
     worked for offered health insurance, but they were small 
     companies, and the monthly cost was well more than we could 
     afford. So we went without. With no insurance, I turned to 
     Planned Parenthood for birth control. With the sliding pay 
     scale, I was able to get exams and birth control within my 
     budget. We were able to decide the best time to have more 
     children, which also allowed us to responsibly manage our 
     finances as well. An unplanned pregnancy at that point would 
     have destroyed the little financial stability we had. I don't 
     know where our family would be without Planned Parenthood.

  Karla Canderhoof is a stay-at-home mother in Newfields, NH. She wrote 
this:

       After being diagnosed with ovarian cyst issues that caused 
     debilitating pain, I turned to Planned Parenthood for 
     treatment. In my case, the treatment for ovarian cysts was 
     birth control. At the time (during my college years) I could 
     not afford the cost of birth control due to my lack of 
     insurance. But Planned Parenthood gave me birth control free 
     of charge.

  Amanda Arel of Rochester, NH, sent this message:

       During the ages of 22 to 25, I utilized Planned Parenthood 
     for my annual exams and birth control. As I did not have 
     insurance and was in college, I was not able to afford most 
     medical care. Planned Parenthood not only provided me with 
     essential care, they made it very comfortable for me and were 
     very knowledgeable and answered any questions I had. They 
     provided birth control for me that, if it wasn't for them, I 
     would not have been able to get, at a cost I could afford.

  I still support Planned Parenthood because they provide safe, 
affordable healthcare for all, and that is so important.
  We need to listen to our constituents, those who are speaking out in 
passionate support of Planned Parenthood and other family planning 
clinics.
  As Senator Murray said so eloquently, this is about respecting 
women's access to healthcare services, including those millions of 
vulnerable women who have nowhere else to turn for essential care. This 
is also about respecting women's constitutionally protected right to 
make our own reproductive choices. We must not allow Congress to strip 
away Federal investments in family planning clinics by allowing States 
to discriminate against providers like Planned Parenthood.
  I urge our Republican colleagues, don't bring S.J. Res. 13 to the 
floor. If it does come to the floor, I certainly intend to join in the 
fight with my colleagues--Senator Murray, Senator Blumenthal, and so 
many other Democrats and, I believe, Republicans--to defeat this 
legislation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am proud and honored to follow my 
very distinguished colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Shaheen, and 
Senator Murray of Washington in this cause which invokes a line that I 
think the President used last night in his address to us, pledging 
cooperation for causes where we can make a common cause.
  Surely no cause is more important than healthcare, no goal is more 
important than preventive services for women so we can all avoid the 
costs not only in dollars and cents but the cost of human suffering and 
foreclosed futures that will come when women are denied these kinds of 
basic services.
  I met this morning with a group from Planned Parenthood, patients and 
providers working in clinics across New England. They told me their 
story--some of them patients, some of them service providers and 
volunteers--about the kind of transformative effect that primary care, 
examinations and screenings, can have for women who would otherwise 
lack those services. The community health centers cannot substitute for 
them.
  Family planning programs under title X are often the only Federal 
programs dedicated to providing comprehensive services in family 
planning but also in related preventive health services.
  Over the past year alone, title X providers have provided cancer and 
HIV screenings, contraceptive services, and other primary and 
preventive services to over 4 million women and men at nearly 4,000 
health centers in New England and across the country. This network of 
healthcare providers is a safety net. They compose a network, the title 
X network, including providers of State and local health departments, 
federally qualified health centers, and family planning councils. They 
create a network that provides a critical source of healthcare to 
people who otherwise would be denied it. They are trusted providers who 
are willing to serve the uninsured, the uninsured and low-income 
individuals who risk losing all access to healthcare if it was not for 
this network.
  These clinics are often the only healthcare providers in rural areas 
and other parts of the country. So the political attacks on providers 
that provide abortion services would mean a loss of access to all 
family planning and preventive healthcare in these parts of the 
country--rural, metropolitan, suburban. Not only are these services 
necessary, but family planning services are really good investments, 
especially when it comes to the money that otherwise would be spent 
when illnesses or diseases become more serious.
  In 2010, the $1.14 billion that was spent in this country on family 
planning resulted in more than $8 billion in gross savings. That is a 
clearly worthwhile investment.
  The resolution that passed the House last month that Senator 
McConnell is considering bringing to the Senate floor would eliminate 
protections that prevent discrimination against these very providers, 
discrimination based on facts or sometimes nonfacts that have nothing 
to do with the quality of care or the worthiness of the investment in 
these clinics and healthcare providers.
  The regulation that Republicans are seeking to eliminate ensures that 
no qualified providers will be excluded from eligibility for Federal 
funding for discriminatory reasons outside of that provider's ability 
to provide care. That is really the criterion that matters. The ones 
who want to eliminate this regulation apparently would rather risk 
limiting access to healthcare in order to score political points. 
Unfortunately, it is really that simple.
  At a time when Republicans continue to try to push ahead with 
repealing the Affordable Care Act, which also includes essential 
support for preventive healthcare, they also want to disrupt the 
country's healthcare system for this kind of women's healthcare.
  Just last night, after President Trump claimed he wanted to work with 
Members of both parties to invest in women's health, we are threatened 
with this step to eliminate an important regulation that protects 
women's health. I ask the President and my colleagues across the aisle 
to join in this common cause, which should unite us on a bipartisan 
basis. If they want to continue these attacks, we are ready for the 
fight, but we would much rather cooperate and collaborate in the cause 
of women's healthcare.
  I urge my Senate colleagues to listen to the kind of providers and 
patients whom I met with this morning, the

[[Page 3221]]

kind of provider that Senator Shaheen brought with her last night as 
her guest, the kind of providers and patients and volunteers who work 
in these clinics all across the country, whether it is Planned 
Parenthood or other kinds of clinics. I ask them to listen to the 
advocates here, supporters, like the National Coalition of STD 
Directors, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned 
Pregnancy, the American Psychological Association, the National 
Association of County and City Health Officials, the ACLU, and the 
American Medical Student Association. They are just a few of the 
stakeholders who advocate strongly that this regulation be continued 
and who oppose the step the House passed and that the majority leader 
may bring to the floor.
  These people have dedicated their lives and their careers to 
assisting the vulnerable, whether they are providing healthcare or 
legal services or other kinds of support, and they are saying to us: Do 
not eliminate this regulation. I think we ought to listen to them. I 
hope my colleagues will.
  I am determined that we will fight tooth and nail if we need to do 
so, but I would much rather that we follow the President's offer and 
that we collaborate to stop the elimination of this regulation, which 
is so important to making sure that women's healthcare is based on 
quality, not on discriminatory reasons based on political motive.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. KING. Mr. President, I rise to oppose S.J. Res. 13, which is a 
Congressional Review Act resolution to undo the regulations which 
protect title X health centers. I believe this resolution, although 
well meaning, will have the opposite effect of its intention.
  I particularly want to discuss the organization known as Planned 
Parenthood, but, more generally, these women's health centers, these 
title X health centers, No. 1, provide many healthcare services to 
women, particularly low-income women. They are the choice of those 
women. They are a place they have chosen to go to receive their 
healthcare treatment.
  I do think that one of the problems with this whole debate is the use 
of the term ``funding'' of Planned Parenthood. What we are talking 
about here is not funding, as in a budget line or a budget provision 
that says: Planned Parenthood gets $58 million or $100 million or $10, 
whatever it is. That is not the way it works. What we are talking about 
is reimbursement for women's healthcare services provided on an 
individual, case-by-case basis, and this does not include abortion. It 
does not include abortion.
  These organizations in Maine--Planned Parenthood, for example, serves 
10,000 people. Ten thousand women choose to get their healthcare 
services from Planned Parenthood.
  The other piece of this debate I have never understood is why those 
who are opposed to abortion would be so opposed to organizations that 
allow women to make choices about pregnancies and provide contraception 
and contraception advice, which statistically we know reduces abortion.
  In Maine, because of the access to organizations like Planned 
Parenthood and other women's healthcare clinics, we have seen our teen 
pregnancy rate drop 58 percent in the last 20 years or so--58 percent. 
That is a significant reduction, and it is attributable, at least in 
some significant part, to the availability of the services provided by 
these organizations.
  It has always struck me as ironic, in the extreme, that someone who 
says they are against abortion should be against an agency that 
provides contraception and family planning services that prevent 
pregnancy and therefore prevent abortion.
  I subscribe to President Clinton's formulation that abortion should 
be safe, legal, and rare. It should not be something that is chosen 
just casually--and of course it isn't. This is a terribly difficult 
decision for a women, but that is not the subject today. The subject 
today is curtailing the reimbursement for women's healthcare services 
to an organization or organizations that may also provide abortion 
services.
  It is contrary to the very idea of trying to prevent abortion, but it 
is also denying healthcare services of choice to thousands of women in 
Maine and millions across the country.
  I have sat in this body for 4 years and heard people talking about 
how consumers and patients should be able to choose their physicians, 
they should be able to choose their healthcare options. This was a 
basic principle. It is one of the arguments we have heard as we have 
been discussing other healthcare issues in this body. This 
Congressional Review Act provision would take away that choice. I think 
that is a great disservice to those citizens, many of whom are low 
income, many of whom are covered by Medicaid, many of whom do not have 
private health insurance. To take this step that this resolution would 
entail would be very shortsighted, and I believe it is a violation of 
the rights of those people to choose their healthcare providers.
  It also does not achieve the ends that the sponsors want to achieve. 
That is why I believe that this resolution--although it may be 
denominated as something to do with being anti-abortion, I think it is 
just the opposite. If this resolution passes and these healthcare 
centers under Title X, including Planned Parenthood, are unable to 
deliver these services, there will be more unwanted pregnancies and 
more abortions. I think that is a sad and unfortunate outcome to be 
perpetrated by people who say they are trying to oppose abortion.
  Planned Parenthood provides women's healthcare services. It provides 
contraceptive services. I know the people in Maine who work for this 
agency, and I know this is a terribly controversial issue, but I 
believe that if what we want to do is minimize the number of abortions, 
then it makes no sense whatsoever to somehow indiscriminately strike 
out at the funding of the agencies that provide healthcare services.
  Nobody in this body is talking about Federal funds for abortion. That 
is not what the issue is. If that were the issue, this would be an 
entirely different debate. The issue is taking reimbursement away from 
the Planned Parenthood clinic or Title X clinic for mammograms, 
cervical exams, or other women's healthcare services. Why would we want 
to do that in the name of achieving some other goal that won't even be 
achieved? In fact, it will be made a more widespread issue.
  I hope the Senate will realize that whatever the motivation behind 
this provision is, it just makes no sense. It makes no sense from the 
point of view of preventing abortion. It makes no sense in terms of the 
taxpayers. Preventive services, contraceptive services, cost about $200 
a patient; a Medicaid birth costs about $10,000. If it is a Medicaid 
patient, those are taxpayer dollars. We are talking about saving 
taxpayers money.
  This goes to the healthcare system in general: Why would we want to 
undo prevention, whether prevention of unwanted pregnancies or 
prevention of a disease? Prevention is part of the solution to the 
healthcare crisis in this country because of the excessive cost.
  Here is a specific case. Again, we are not talking about funding 
abortions. We are not talking about funding Planned Parenthood. We are 
not talking about funding these Title X health centers. We are talking 
about protecting them in terms of their reimbursement for women's 
health services delivered. That is what this vote is about. If you vote 
for this, you are voting to take away reimbursement for health services 
that are necessary to protect the health and well-being of women across 
this country.
  I hope my colleagues will vote no on this resolution, and I believe 
it will serve the public and it will even serve those people who are 
concerned most deeply--and I understand--about abortion. If you want 
fewer abortions, fund Planned Parenthood. It seems to me that is a 
fairly clear correlation, and it is one we should respect. But we also 
should respect the rights, needs, and choices of those millions of 
women who rely on these clinics for their healthcare needs aside from 
the issue of reproductive rights, just straight healthcare needs. That 
is what this vote is all about.
  Thank you, Mr. President.

[[Page 3222]]

  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. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 
up to 15 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here today for the 158th time to 
ask this Chamber to wake up to the mounting evidence of climate change. 
The sad truth is that, in Congress anyway, this issue has turned 
starkly partisan thanks to a torrent of dark political money that the 
fossil fuel industry uses to both threaten and reward the Republican 
Party in a dirty, dark money game of stick-and-carrot. Republicans in 
Congress ignore climate change for the simple reason that the fossil 
fuel industry has become their political life support system. It does 
not have to be this way.
  Outside this Chamber, even Republicans see things very differently. 
In the investment sector, where people have to make decisions based on 
real facts and where duties to shareholders limit overly creative 
accounting, the Republican signal is clear.
  An impressive group of Republican former Treasury Secretaries and 
Republican former Presidential economic advisers recently proposed a 
conservative, market-based climate solution. Republican Presidents 
trusted these folks with the conduct of the U.S. economy. Jim Baker was 
Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, Hank Paulson was 
Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush, and George 
Shultz was Secretary of the Treasury under President Nixon, in addition 
to other distinguished offices that they held. Joining those three were 
Martin Feldstein, Chairman of President Reagan's Council of Economic 
Advisers, and Greg Mankiw, who held that position for President George 
W. Bush; Rob Walton, the former chairman of the board of Walmart, the 
world's largest retailer and employer; and Tom Stephenson from Sequoia 
Capital, the venture capital firm out in Silicon Valley. This 
Republican group proposed a ``carbon dividends'' plan. It combines a 
carbon tax on fossil fuels--which reflects harm from carbon emissions 
which market economics ordinarily requires to be built into the price 
of the product--with a big dividend returning all of the revenues to 
the American people, and a reduction of regulations, which may be 
mooted by a good enough carbon fee. This idea is actually not so 
different from my own American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act.
  In their report, they all note that the ``mounting evidence of 
climate change is growing too strong to ignore.'' Many would say that 
it grew too strong to ignore a good decade ago, but it is important 
that these Republican leaders have acknowledged this.
  They also said: ``Economists are nearly unanimous in their belief 
that a carbon tax is the most efficient and effective way to reduce 
carbon emissions.''
  This report lines up with many other Republicans outside Congress who 
support a revenue-neutral carbon fee. It is the favorite climate 
solution in conservative economic circles. Indeed, it is the only 
widely accepted climate solution among Republicans.
  The Niskanen Center, a Libertarian think tank that spun off from the 
Cato Institute, last month wrote this:

       The case for climate action is now so strong that one would 
     be hard-pressed to find a serious academic economist who 
     opposes using market forces to manage the damage done by 
     greenhouse emissions.

  Like the Treasury Secretaries, economists and investors throughout 
the financial community are saying loud and clear: We can no longer 
ignore climate change.
  Goldman Sachs, for instance, in 2015 did a report on the low-carbon 
economy. It was called: ``Goldman Sachs equity investor's guide to a 
low carbon world, 2015-2025.'' So unless somebody here is going to say 
that Goldman Sachs is in on the hoax, Goldman Sachs is taking this 
pretty seriously.
  Last year, the investment firm BlackRock, with more than $1 trillion 
in assets under management, issued a report titled: ``Adapting 
Portfolios to Climate Change.''
  I don't think investors trust $1 trillion to a firm that falls for 
hoaxes. BlackRock, like Goldman, knows that climate change is real and 
is helping its investors plan for the economic fallout.
  BlackRock warns in its report: ``Investors can no longer ignore 
climate change. . . .'' Parenthetical editorial comment: That is the 
job of Republicans in Congress.
  BlackRock also had something to say about a price on carbon. They 
said this: ``Higher carbon pricing would help address [externalities 
from fossil fuels] and would be the most cost-effective way for 
countries to meet their Paris agreement pledges.''
  So in the real world, where real decisions are being made by very 
smart people backed by real money, they are telling their clients: You 
must take climate change seriously, and you must take carbon pricing 
seriously.
  The BlackRock report had this data on prices that companies are 
setting on carbon internally--in their own internal accounting--across 
sectors, including healthcare and energy and utilities. As we can see, 
the price per metric ton ranges from a low of about $10 in information 
technology, up to over $350 per metric ton--internal costs of carbon 
accounting in these industries.
  The point ought to be pretty clear. The business community is acting, 
investors are insisting on it, and a price on carbon is a key part of 
the program.
  The legendary Wayne Gretsky's rule was to ``skate to where the puck 
is going to be.'' These major firms recognize where the carbon economy 
is heading. We should too. We would, if it weren't for the political 
mischief wreaked in Congress by the fossil fuel industry.
  BlackRock and Goldman Sachs are not alone. The insurance and 
reinsurance industry is one of the world's biggest investors, as well 
as one of the world's best analyzers of risk. Munich Re and Swiss Re, 
and others in property casualty and reinsurance, warn us that climate 
change is real and portends huge costs for society. Munich Re's head of 
risk accumulation in the United States said in 2015: ``As a nation, we 
need to take steps to reduce the societal impact of weather events as 
we see greater variability and volatility in our climate.''
  One of the biggest investors in the housing market is the Federal 
Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac has warned 
about climate change impact on the real estate sector: ``The economic 
losses and social disruption may happen gradually, but they are likely 
to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis of 
the great recession.''
  When we think of what we went through in the housing crisis of the 
great recession, wow, Freddie Mac is warning that the economic losses 
and social disruption from climate change in our housing markets are 
likely to be worse.
  These are all serious investors and they have serious warnings for 
us, and ignoring all of them just to please fossil fuel industry 
patrons is a big, big mistake.
  Even President Trump's nominee to head the Securities and Exchange 
Commission, Jay Clayton, thinks we need action. For years, his law firm 
has encouraged clients, including ExxonMobil, to disclose climate 
change-related risks to the SEC and to investors. If he is confirmed, I 
hope he will enforce the SEC's existing disclosure requirements for 
climate risk and clarify that public disclosures should include asset 
valuations based on global compliance with international treaties. 
Investors need climate change risks disclosed against a ``reality 
check'' baseline that assumes international compliance with the Paris 
climate commitments. An assumption that we fail should not be 
acceptable.

[[Page 3223]]

  Slowly, investor disclosures are improving. Last year, New York 
attorney general Eric Schneiderman forced Peabody Energy to restate its 
disclosures. Just last week, Chevron acknowledged to its investors in 
an SEC filing that, lo and behold, some of its products ``may be 
considered pollutants,'' noted ``new conclusions about the effects of 
the company's operations on human health or the environment,'' and they 
acknowledged ``an increased possibility of governmental investigations 
and, potentially, private litigation against the company.''
  It is better late than never, I suppose. Now it is time for the rest 
of the industry to report fully and fairly, first on the risks that 
shareholders bear from assets that are wrongly valued now--that are 
falsely valued in their reports--and, second, on the company's 
potentially culpable behavior in climate denial.
  Institutional investors are joining in those efforts. Our Rhode 
Island pension fund, managed by our treasurer, Seth Magaziner, is 
pushing for greater transparency on political and lobbying spending at 
large energy companies like Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Devon. 
For the resolution filed at ConocoPhillips, Rhode Island was joined by 
over 20 other cofilers, including the State of Connecticut, Senator 
Murphy's home State, whom I see here on the floor.
  Just recently, the G20 nations--the 20 biggest economies in the 
world--set up a group called the Task Force on Climate-related 
Financial Disclosures. It is made up of 32 members from large banks, 
insurance companies, asset management companies, pension funds, credit 
rating agencies, and accounting and consulting firms--you know, liberal 
extremists. And they are saying: Here it comes; let's get ready. They 
have asked that companies begin to come clean on the climate risk they 
face.
  The big energy companies need to come clean on how much they are 
spending to deny climate science and where they are spending it, 
because, ultimately, it is their own investors who will be hurt by 
their irresponsibility. Ultimately, all the phony climate denial they 
pay for is a fool's errand because the laws of physics, chemistry, and 
biology aren't going away, and a day of reckoning for all this mischief 
and nonsense they have paid for inevitably will come.
  We in the Senate have a duty to the American people to find a way to 
combat climate change. I realize this body will need help in that task. 
We will need help from the business community, which can apply its 
understanding of market forces and risk analysis to this challenge. It 
would help if the fossil fuel industry would focus on the long term 
health of its shareholders rather than on short-term gain. The fossil 
fuel industry should stand down the relentless political opposition it 
has maintained to any climate solution, and it should stand down the 
phony climate denial operation it continues to support.
  It will take all of us coming together--companies, investors, 
regulators, governments, citizens, Republicans and Democrats--to 
achieve Donald Trump's once-stated goal of combating the ``catastrophic 
and irreversible effects of climate change''--his quote: ``catastrophic 
and irreversible effects of climate change.''
  I did not misquote President Trump, although he was Donald Trump 
then. It was 2009, and this full page advertisement was taken out in 
the New York Times declaring that the science of climate change was 
``irrefutable'' and the consequences of climate change would be 
``catastrophic and irreversible.'' It was signed by none other than 
Donald J. Trump, as well as his children, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric 
Trump, and Ivanka Trump. They were right then. If they get back to 
this, they will be right now.
  The evidence and the science have only piled up since 2009. It is 
time for all of us to heed the advice of our universities, our 
scientists, and the people who actually know what they are talking 
about, and put the arguments of the fossil fuel industry where they 
belong--in the trash bin of history. We need to wake up before it is 
too late.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.


                              Gun Violence

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, last night, President Trump began his 
speech with an appropriate reference to the anti-Semitic attacks that 
have occurred all over the country. Two bomb threats were called into a 
Jewish community center in the New Haven area in Connecticut. I visited 
that center and the staff and the kids of that center, who are now 
being housed in a nearby synagogue. He also condemned, in strong terms, 
the murder of a young man in Kansas City, the victim of an apparent 
hate crime, targeted for simply being a foreigner or being of a 
different religion. We can't know exactly what the reason was, but it 
was an attack based on hate.
  I want to tell my colleagues a little bit about that young man, to 
begin with, as a means of, once again, coming to the floor of the 
Senate to tell my colleagues about the victims of gun violence in this 
country--the 86 or so people every day who are taken by guns, suicides, 
and murders and accidental shootings; the 2,600 people a month whose 
lives are taken through gun violence, and the 31,000 a year. By the 
way, that number is just the number of people who are killed. Those are 
the lives that are eliminated. There are another 75,000 every year who 
are injured by gun fire, whose lives are irrevocably altered by that 
act of violence.
  Srinivas Kuchibhotla was a 32-year-old engineer. He was working for 
Garmin. He was just hanging out at a bar. It was Austin's Bar and 
Grill, and he was enjoying the company of friends. Witnesses saw a man 
enter the bar. He was agitated, and he was drunk. He was a patron of 
the bar. He had left and he reentered, and he began shooting at 
Srinivas and his friend. Witnesses say that the shooter told Srinivas 
to ``get out of my country'' before killing him and then critically 
injuring his friend and an unbelievably brave bystander who tried to 
stop the shooter.
  Hundreds of grief-stricken family members and friends gathered in his 
hometown in India for this young man's funeral. In accordance with 
Hindu tradition, his body was carried on a carriage and his ashes were 
laid to rest. Friends said that his mother was absolutely wailing as 
the carriage went by.
  His mother had wondered whether America was a safe place for her son. 
Months before the shooting, she asked him to return to India if he was 
feeling insecure, but he told her he was safe, that he was fine. His 
wife also wondered how safe it would be to stay in the United States, 
but she said that Srinivas always assured her that only good things 
could happen to good people.
  He undoubtedly was a good person. His family members remember him as 
the kindest person you would meet. He was, in their words, ``full of 
love, care and compassion for everyone. He never uttered a word of 
hatred, simple gossip, or a careless comment.''
  His friends and family members remember him as ``brilliant, well-
mannered and simply an outstanding human being.''
  He was ``a very sharp, top-of-his-class kind of guy,'' said one of 
his classmates at the University of Texas at El Paso where Srinivas 
earned a master's degree in electrical and electronic engineering. He 
was also an avid cricket player and a big fan of cricket as well.
  He was 32 years old. He was sitting at a bar, enjoying time with his 
friends when a man who was at the bar, who probably saw Srinivas, 
thought that he looked different from him and, filled with hate, walked 
back into the bar and shot and killed him.
  That is only one story from that day. On average, there are 85 other 
stories across the country in which people lose their lives to gunfire. 
What made me so mad last night was that after that moment--that 
appropriate moment in which President Trump talked about this horrible 
shooting--moments later, he referenced the daily slaughter that happens 
in our cities. He spoke in front of the joint session for, it seemed, 
nearly an hour and a half and offered absolutely no solutions to do 
anything

[[Page 3224]]

about the cascading gun violence that is enveloping our Nation.
  Irony of all ironies, the same week that he is lamenting, eulogizing 
Srinivas's death in Kansas City, he is signing a law passed by this 
body that would allow for more people with serious mental illness to 
get their hands on guns.
  We don't know the full story of Adam Purinton yet, but you have to 
imagine that this was someone who was deeply disturbed. Maybe he was 
just drunk, but in order to decide to pull out a gun in a bar and shoot 
someone just because they look different than you do probably means 
that there is something going on--more than a few beers. Mr. Purinton 
probably had some stuff going on. He might have been mentally ill.
  When I got here, I thought that one of the few things we agreed 
upon--Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives--was that 
if you were seriously mentally ill, you probably shouldn't be able to 
buy a weapon, not because people with a mental illness are inherently 
dangerous--that is not true at all--but because erring on the side of 
caution when it comes to someone who is seriously ill would probably be 
the safe thing to do. That used to be a bipartisan commitment.
  A few weeks ago, this body passed a law to allow tens of thousands of 
people who have serious mental illness, who have been judged by a 
government agency to be so sick that they can't manage their own 
financial affairs, they literally can't cash a check, their Social 
Security check has to be sent to someone else because they can't manage 
their affairs--we passed a law to allow those people to buy guns.
  Spare me your concern for the victims of gun violence if you are not 
willing to do anything about it and, in fact, you are going to take 
steps to make gun violence more likely rather than less likely in this 
country. So 31,000 people a year, 2,600 a month, 86 a day--there is no 
other country in the world in which this happens. There is no other 
country in the world in which these numbers of people are dying from 
guns. It is our fault because week after week, month after month, year 
after year, we do nothing about it, and now we are making it worse.
  In the 4 years after Sandy Hook happened, I went back to tell people 
that we had done nothing. That was embarrassing enough. Now I have to 
go back to the families of Sandy Hook and tell people that when 
Congress thinks about gun violence, we think about making changes in 
the law to make gun violence more likely, to put more guns into the 
hands of dangerous people. We are going backward now.
  Teresa Robertson owned a floral shop in a beauty shop in Fairfax, OK. 
Fairfax is a really small town, a really tight-knit community. It is 
still on edge because about a week ago, Teresa's estranged husband 
walked into the store, started shooting at Teresa, and then barricaded 
himself inside city hall, firing shots at the local police, who 
returned fire, fatally killing Teresa's husband.
  She had filed a protective order against her husband about 2 weeks 
before because she feared for her life. She filed for divorce a week 
later, and a week following that, he shot her.
  Laws can protect against something like that, right? We have the 
power to stop that. In Connecticut, if you file a protective order 
against a spouse who you believe is going to harm you, the police have 
the ability to take those weapons away for the period of time in which 
you were adjudicating that protective order.
  If that law had been in effect in Oklahoma, maybe Teresa Robertson 
would still be alive today and maybe her husband would still be alive 
and maybe their two kids--ages 13 and 16--wouldn't be without both of 
their parents.
  The fact is, every single day, domestic partners--women primarily--
are killed or are shot by boyfriends or estranged husbands. It often 
plays out just like this: protective order, divorce filing, murder. 
That is on us.
  We have the ability to protect women from their estranged husbands. 
There are laws. We can't stop every shooting, but it certainly can cut 
down on these numbers.
  Two days later, emergency responders found 26-year-old Michael 
``Shane'' Watkins bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound to the head 
on Berkshire Avenue in Bridgeport, CT. He died shortly after arriving 
at the hospital. The police are still investigating the shooting, but 
they believe that Shane was an innocent victim of a robbery that went 
bad.
  His friends said that Shane was someone who was always laughing, who 
was always smiling, who had a good heart, was a caring person. A 
neighbor said that Shane was ``always upbeat, always joking, always 
smiling.'' This was a good kid.
  He was a dedicated family man. He was a long time employee of the 
local Stop & Shop. He was 26 years old. This was a robbery gone bad. 
Shane Watkins was one of those 86.
  Twelve-year-old Kanari Gentry Bowers was playing basketball with 
friends in Chicago, IL, at Henderson Elementary School. A stray bullet 
hit her on February 11. For 4 awful, agonizing days, Kanari sat lying 
unconscious in the hospital with a bullet lodged in her 12-year-old 
spine before she died on February 15.
  Her family released a statement that said: ``Please keep your 
children close and do whatever it takes to protect them from the 
senseless gun violence in our city.''
  That doesn't sound exceptional, does it? ``Please keep your children 
close and do whatever it takes to protect them.'' Think about that 
idea. Think about the idea that you can't let your children get far 
away from you in Chicago today because they are not at risk of getting 
lost; they are at risk of being shot.
  The little girl had dreams of becoming a judge. That is not something 
that a lot of 12-year-old girls are thinking about, but Kanari wanted 
to be a judge. She was described as a vivacious young girl.
  I hear President Trump talk about Chicago all the time. He talks 
about Chicago as though he cares, but he doesn't propose anything that 
would reduce the trajectory of gun violence, the horror of living in 
neighborhoods that you can't let your child stray more than a few feet 
from you without fearing for their lives. He has proposed nothing to do 
with making that city safer.
  People say Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in the Nation, 
yet it is one of the most violent places. Exactly, exactly: Chicago has 
some of the toughest gun laws in the Nation. New York City has some of 
the toughest gun laws in the Nation. They are still violent places. 
Why? Because the vast majority of guns in those cities, the illegal 
guns that spread throughout the city like poison ivy come from outside 
of Chicago. They come from Indiana. In New York, they come from South 
Carolina. They come from North Carolina. They come from places in which 
it is easy to buy a gun without a background check at a gun show or on 
the internet. They flow into these cities and become used in murder 
after murder.
  If you don't have a Federal requirement that background checks have 
to be conducted wherever you buy a gun, no matter how strong the laws 
of Chicago are, they can't be protected; 12-year-old girls can't be 
protected.
  This was all in February, by the way. This was all in the last 3 
weeks.
  On February 20, some friends got together at a local church in 
Pomona, CA, and all of a sudden, gunshots started firing through the 
windows and the walls of this church--a drive-by shooting.
  You know who was dead at the end of that? An 8-year-old little boy 
named Jonah. He was adopted from an orphanage in Taiwan. He had been in 
the United States for only 3 years. His adoptive parents and his 
friends--you should read what they say about this kid: ``He had an 
infectious smile and loved everyone and everything.''
  He was still learning English, but with his playful demeanor, he had 
adapted almost immediately to life in the United States. He loved 
wrestling with his adoptive dad, running, laughing. He loved 
superheroes. He was always injuring himself jumping off of

[[Page 3225]]

something. He loved living in this country.
  He was a 5-year-old in an orphanage in Taiwan, and then he was in the 
United States with a dad and with superhero action figures, and now he 
is dead because somebody fired bullets randomly into a church in 
Pomona, CA.
  Why don't we do anything about this? We are not so coldhearted as to 
be unable to understand what life is like for a mom and a dad who lose 
an 8-year-old child. We are not so brain-dead as to not be able to 
comprehend the fact that every time someone is shot, there are at least 
20 people whose lives are permanently altered.
  The post-traumatic stress involved in one shooting has enormous 
ripple effects. I have talked at length on this floor about the 
constant grief that envelopes my town of Sandy Hook because of what 
happened there. It will never end.
  Now, instead of defending the status quo, we are talking about making 
it easier for deeply mentally ill people to get guns. A bill was just 
introduced on the floor of the Senate this week that would allow for 
someone to carry a concealed weapon anywhere in the Nation, regardless 
of what that local State jurisdiction wanted. If you had a concealed 
weapon permit in Texas, you would be able to walk into Manhattan 
without any way for the local police to check you out. There is even an 
effort to make silencers legal.
  Mr. President, 31,000 a year, 2,600 a month, 86 a day. I have come 
down to the floor I don't know how many times--certainly not as many as 
Senator Whitehouse but many times to tell the stories of the victims. I 
told a few more this afternoon because if the data doesn't move you--
again, only in this country; in no other country in the world does this 
happen--then maybe the stories of these victims will move you. Maybe 
being able to put yourself in the shoes of a mom who lost a child, of a 
husband who lost a wife way before their time, will move you to action.
  This is only controversial here. Ninety percent of the American 
public wants us to move forward with the universal background checks. 
The majority of Americans think these super-powerful military weapons 
should stay in the hands of the military and law enforcement. Everybody 
out there wants to give law enforcement the tools and the funding 
necessary to carry out the existing law. It is not controversial out in 
the American public; it is only controversial here.
  It is about time that we do something about this epic level of 
carnage that continues to plague our Nation and have some response to 
these voices of victims that seem endless.
  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. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted 
to enter into a colloquy with the Senator from Delaware.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                 Russia

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I am here to discuss, along with the 
Senator from Delaware, the issue of Russia. I know it has been at the 
forefront of much of the debate that is ongoing in this country. I 
wanted to begin by commending the Vice President and Secretary of 
Defense and Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary of State for 
the strong message of support for NATO. That includes the President 
last night and their strong support, by the way, for the Transatlantic 
Alliance that these individuals outlined during their respective visits 
to the Munich Security Conference and meetings with allies in February.
  At that Munich Security Conference on February 18, the Russian 
Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said: ``I hope [he means the world] 
will choose a democratic world order, a post-West one, in which each 
country is defined by its sovereignty.'' I think that based on recent 
history, it is clear that when a Russian leader says ``post-West,'' we 
should interpret that as a phrase to mean post-America.
  So I would ask the Senator with regard to this, what are his views 
with regard to Vladimir Putin's desire to establish spheres of 
influence in Europe and the Middle East, create divisions with our 
allies. How should we view the Russian world view as it compares to the 
national interests of the United States?
  Mr. COONS. I would like to thank my friend, the Senator from Florida, 
my colleague on the Foreign Relations Committee and on the 
Appropriations Committee. I would like to answer his question by 
saying, it seems clear to all of us on the Foreign Relations Committee 
who have had the opportunity to travel to Eastern Europe to visit with 
our NATO allies that Vladimir Putin has a world view and an agenda that 
is in sharp contrast with our own.
  Vladimir Putin dreams of returning Russia to the days of the Russian 
Empire, to reexerting influence over a broad geographic region from the 
Baltic Sea and Poland and Ukraine to the Caucasus and Central Asia. He 
has internally used the West and NATO as a scapegoat for Russia's 
internal economic woes. He has, as we know, launched invasions or 
extended his influence through forces and supported illiberal and 
separatist fighters in Georgia and Ukraine and Moldavia, former Soviet 
republics, and has launched cyber attacks and propaganda campaigns and 
coordinated the use of all his tools of state power against our NATO 
allies in the Baltic region and Central and Western Europe.
  All of these things suggest a very different world view, a different 
set of values than we have in the United States and a different set of 
values in a way that really worries me. As my colleague from Florida 
has suggested, when Foreign Minister Lavrov talks about a world order 
defined by sovereignty, he is challenging us. He is challenging what 
the West really stands for, what we in America stand for.
  I believe what we stand for is the universal values on which we 
forged the Transatlantic Alliance more than 70 years ago, a 
Transatlantic Alliance that has been a force for stability and good in 
the world, a Transatlantic Alliance that has secured peace in Western 
Europe, North America ever since the close of the Second World War but 
a Transatlantic Alliance that is rooted in values, values of freedom of 
speech, freedom of press, rule of law and democracy, and in opposition 
to authoritarianism.
  We support American leadership because a stable and prosperous world 
makes us safer and more economically secure. So I would ask my friend 
from Florida what he views as the agenda or the objective of Russia and 
whether we can be hopeful, in any way, that Vladimir Putin's Russia has 
an agenda that is harmonious with ours, that can be put in the same 
direction as ours or whether it is fundamentally at odds.
  Mr. RUBIO. To answer that question, I would begin by reminding 
everyone that when we are talking about Russia, we are not talking 
about the Russian people. We are talking about Vladimir Putin and the 
cronies who surround him and their goals for the future. We have no 
quarrel with the Russian people, who I actually believe would very much 
want to have a better relationship with the United States and certainly 
live in a world in which their country was more like ours than the way 
their government now runs theirs.
  The second thing I would point to is, it is important to understand 
history. At the end of the Second World War, Nazism had been conquered, 
and the Japanese Empire and its designs had also been ended, fascism 
defeated. The United States and the world entered this period of a Cold 
War, a battle between communism and the free world. The United States 
and our allies stood for that freedom. At the fall of the Berlin Wall, 
the end of the Soviet bloc, the fall of communism, the world we all 
hoped had entered into this new era,

[[Page 3226]]

where every nation had a different system--maybe some had a 
parliamentary system, maybe some had a republic, such as ours--but in 
the end, more people than ever would have access to a government 
responsive to their needs.
  That was the growing trend around the world, up until about 7, 8, 10 
years ago. We now see the opposite. We see a rising arc of the 
totalitarianism, and within that context is where I believe Vladimir 
Putin's world view is constructed. He views the values we stand for, 
which some may call Western values, and perhaps that is the right 
terminology, but I really believe in universal values: the idea that 
people should have a role to play in choosing their leader, that people 
should have a freedom to worship as they see fit, that people should be 
able to express their opinions and ideas freely without fear of 
retribution or punishment by the government.
  These are the values I think we have stood for and that our allies 
have stood for and that we had hoped Russia would stand for in this new 
era, but Vladimir Putin viewed that as a threat. In particular, over 
the last number of years, he has decided the best way for him to secure 
his place in Russian politics is through an aggressive foreign policy 
in which he views it as a zero-sum game.
  That is not the way we view it. We actually view the world as a place 
where we can help rebuild Japan; we can help rebuild Germany. They are 
stronger, and we are stronger. It isn't one or the other.
  He does not see it that way. He views the world as a place where in 
order for Russia to be greater, America has to be less; in order for 
him to be more powerful, we have to be less powerful, and it is a world 
in which he has to undermine democratic principles and try to expose 
them as fraudulent.
  That is why you saw the Russian intelligence services meddle in our 
elections in 2016. One of the main designs they had was to create doubt 
and instability about our system of government and to not just 
discredit it here at home but to discredit it around the world.
  I just returned from Europe a week ago. Germany and France, which 
both have upcoming elections of their own, are seeing an unprecedented 
wave of active measures on the part of Russian intelligence to try to 
influence their elections. In the Netherlands, we have seen some of the 
same. So this is very concerning.
  Our European allies are very concerned about the weaponization of 
cyber technology to strategically place information in the public 
domain for purposes of undermining candidates, steering elections, and 
undermining policymaking.
  I want everybody to understand this is not just about elections. The 
exact same tools they used in the 2016 Presidential election, they 
could use to try to influence the debate in the Senate by attacking 
individual Senators or individual viewpoints and using their control 
over propaganda to begin to spread that.
  I will give you just one example, and that is in May of 2015, the 
German intelligence agencies reported an attack on the German 
Parliament, on energy companies, on universities. They attribute that 
to Russian hackers.
  In Montenegro, the Prime Minister has sought membership in NATO, an 
action we have supported in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 
which both of us serve on, but Russian intelligence has plotted at a 
very aggressive level to disrupt their elections late last year.
  Moscow has used TV and Internet outlets like Russia Today, or RT, and 
Sputnik to launch propaganda campaigns to galvanize anti-EU extremists 
ahead of the Dutch elections. The list goes on and on. There is no 
shortage of them.
  The point is, we are in the midst of the most aggressive, active 
measures ever undertaken by a foreign government to not just meddle in 
American policy debates and American elections but in those throughout 
the free world, and it is deeply concerning.
  I think another matter that I would love to hear the Senator's 
opinion on is on the issue of human rights violations because, on top 
of being a totalitarian state, what goes hand in hand with 
totalitarianism are human rights violations. In fact, totalitarianism 
is, in and of itself, a human rights violation; that there can be no 
dictatorship, no repressive regime, no totalitarian leader who can 
maintain themselves in power without violating the human rights of 
their people.
  So I would ask the Senator--I would love to have his comment on 
whether or not, indeed, Vladimir Putin is a serial human rights 
violator and what our policy should be in terms of outlining that to 
the world.
  Mr. COONS. We have worked together on a number of bills in this area. 
Let me respond to my friend the Senator by saying it is clear that 
Vladimir Putin's Russia has been a serial human rights violator. When 
we talk about human rights, we talk about things that belong to 
everyone, and they are necessary as a check on state power. When 
nations break these rules, we believe they should be held accountable.
  Russia continues to engage in efforts, as my colleague said, that 
undermine democracy in free elections throughout Europe. We have shared 
concerns about the upcoming elections--the Dutch elections, French, and 
German elections--where there are overt actions and covert actions by 
Russia to influence the outcome of those elections, but part of why 
they are doing that, part of why they are violating these norms around 
Europe is because they are seeking to distract from their brutal rule 
at home.
  The reality is, many of the critics of Putin's regime end up dead or 
incapacitated.
  Boris Nemtsov, a Russian politician who supported the introduction of 
capitalism into the Russian economy and frequently criticized Vladimir 
Putin, was assassinated 2 years ago, on February 27, on a bridge just 
near the Kremlin in Moscow.
  Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian politician and journalist, was 
apparently poisoned last month, the second time in recent years. He had 
been actively promoting civil society and democracy in Russia.
  Back in September of 2012, Putin threw USAID out of Russia 
altogether, claiming that U.S. efforts were undermining Russian 
sovereignty when, in fact, we had been working in Russia since the 
nineties, supporting human rights, independent journalism, and 
promoting fair elections.
  Most importantly, in my view, Russia doesn't just violate the human 
rights of its own citizens, it exports brutality.
  Russia's support for Bashar al-Assad's murderous regime and brutal 
war in Syria continues. Their military has targeted hospitals, schools, 
and Syrian first responders. They have blocked the provision of food 
and medicine to starving families and children. Russia's diplomats have 
vetoed any efforts at the United Nations to act to stop the suffering 
in Syria. Also, Russia, having illegally invaded Ukraine and annexed 
Crimea, continues to promote violence and instability in eastern 
Ukraine, in the Donbas region, leading to the deaths of thousands.
  All of these human rights violations within Russia and in countries 
around its sphere of influence, in its region, suggest to us that they 
need to be held accountable for these violations of basic human rights.
  Like the Senator from Florida, I led a codel to Eastern and Central 
Europe. Mine was not last week. It was last August, but with two 
Republican House Members and two Democratic Senate Members, the five of 
us went to the Czech Republic, to Ukraine, and to Estonia. We heard 
widespread concern about this record of human rights and a disrespect 
for democracy in Russia and about this aggressive hybrid warfare 
campaign that threatens Ukraine's very stability and existence, that 
puts Estonia, our NATO ally, on warning, and that is putting at risk 
Czech independence and Czech elections all across Central and Western 
Europe.
  We have heard from Ambassadors, experts, those who have testified in 
front of committees on which we serve, about a Russian campaign--a 
brutal campaign--to undermine human rights

[[Page 3227]]

within Russia and to undermine democracy throughout Western Europe, 
with a larger strategic goal of separating the United States from our 
Western allies and undermining the Transatlantic Alliance that has been 
so essential to our peace, security, and stability for 70 years. We 
cannot let this stand.
  There is no moral equivalence between Russia and the United States. 
If we believe in our democracy and if we believe in our commitment to 
human rights, we must stand up to this campaign of aggression. So I ask 
my colleague what he believes we might be able to do on the Foreign 
Relations Committee, on the Appropriations Committee, or here in the 
Senate, what we might do, as voices working in a bipartisan way, to 
stand up to these actions undermining democracy and human rights?
  Mr. RUBIO. That is the central question. The first is what we are 
doing now, which is an important part: shining the sunlight on all of 
it, making people aware of it. For example, we know in France two of 
the leading candidates have views that I think the Kremlin would be 
quite pleased with, if that became the foreign policy of France--a 
third, not so much. He is a very young candidate running as an 
independent. His last name Macron. Suddenly, as he began to surge in 
the polls, all these stories started appearing, ridiculous stories 
about his personal life, about his marriage, things that are completely 
false, completely fabricated. Fortunately, French society and the 
French press understands this and has reported it as such.
  It is important for us. This is happening and is real, and it is 
unprecedented in its scope and in its aggression. So shining a light on 
the reality and understanding, as I always tell my colleagues--I said 
this last October, that this is not a partisan issue.
  I am telling you that--to my Republican colleagues who might be 
uncomfortable about discussing Russian interference--this is not about 
the outcome of the election; this is about the conduct and what 
happened throughout it. And what they did last year, in the fall, in 
the Presidential race, they can do against any Member here. If they 
don't like what you are saying, if they think you are getting too far 
on policy, you could find yourself the target of Russian propaganda in 
the hopes of undermining you, perhaps even having you eliminated from 
the debate because they understand our political process quite well.
  The second is to do no harm. There is this notion out there--and I 
think on paper it sounds great, right--why don't we just partner up 
with the Russians to defeat ISIS and take on radicalism around the 
world.
  The problem is this: No. 1, that is what Russia claims they are 
already doing. Vladimir Putin claims he is already doing that. So if he 
is already doing it, why would we have to partner with him? He is 
already doing it. Obviously, the answer is because he hasn't. This has 
been about propping up Assad.
  Here is the other problem. When you partner up with someone, you have 
to take responsibility for everything they do and all the actions they 
undertake.
  Senator Coons just outlined a moment ago, he said: Well, we talked 
about the bombing in Aleppo.
  Think about it. If we had partnered with Russia in Syria and they 
were bombing Aleppo and they were hitting hospitals and they were 
killing civilians and they were our partners, we have to answer for 
that as well. We would be roped into that.
  The third is to understand their strategic goal is not to defeat 
radical elements in the Middle East; their strategic goal is to have 
inordinate influence in Syria, with Iran, potentially in other 
countries at the expense of the United States.
  We have had two Presidents--a Republican and a Democrat--previous to 
the current President who thought they could do such a deal with 
Vladimir Putin. Both of them fell on their face because they did not 
understand what they were dealing with. It is my sincerest hope that 
our current President doesn't make the same mistakes.
  In addition to that, I know there are a number of legislative 
approaches that we have worked on together, as members of both the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Operations 
Appropriations Subcommittee, and I would ask the Senator from Delaware 
if he could highlight some of those legislative matters that we have 
been talking about: resolutions, laws, and public policy that we have 
been advocating.
  Mr. COONS. Well, briefly, if I could. Two bills that are currently 
gathering cosponsors--and which I hope our colleagues will review and 
consider joining us in cosponsoring--one is S. 341, the Russia 
Sanctions Review Act of 2017, which currently has 18 cosponsors. The 
other is S. 94, the Counteracting Russian Hostilities Act of 2017, that 
has 20 cosponsors--10 Republicans and 10 Democrats. In both cases, we 
are proud to have a very broad range of both Republicans and Democrats 
engaged in this important legislation, which ensures that Russia pays a 
price for breaking the rules. It starts by taking action to support the 
sanctions against the Russian Government for its occupation, its 
illegal annexation of Crimea, for its egregious human rights violations 
in Syria, and for meddling in the U.S. election. It prevents the 
lifting of sanctions on Russia until the Russian Government ceases the 
very activities that caused these sanctions to be put in place in the 
first place. It supports civil society, pro-democracy, anti-corruption 
activists in Russia and across Europe to show that many of us are 
determined, as members of the Foreign Relations Committee, as members 
of the Appropriations Committee, as Senators--not as partisans--that we 
intend to fund the tools that will enable the United States and our 
NATO allies to push back on Russia's aggression. Most of these tools 
come from the international affairs budget: State Department and 
foreign assistance accounts.
  I want to commend you, Senator, for giving a strong and impassioned 
speech on the floor today about the importance of our keeping all of 
these tools in our toolkit so that as we confront our adversaries 
around the world, we have the resources and the ability to partner with 
and strengthen our allies as well.
  We have no quarrel with the Russian people, but we are here because 
there is nothing Vladimir Putin's regime would love more than to see 
his actions divide us in this Chamber and divide us in this country 
from our vital allies in Europe and divide the whole North Atlantic 
community that for seven decades has brought peace and stability to 
Europe, has brought prosperity to the United States, not as an act of 
charity but as an investment in the best interests of security.
  We are here to say with one voice that we will stand up to Russian 
aggression that undermines democracy and violates human rights.
  I am grateful for my colleague, for the chance to join him on the 
floor today, and I look forward to working together with any of our 
colleagues who see these issues as clearly as my friend and colleague, 
the Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. I thank the Senator for joining me in this endeavor here 
today. It is important that we speak out about this.
  In a moment, the majority leader will be here with some procedural 
matters that will, I guess, take the Senate to a different posture.
  Before that happens, I wanted to close by not just thanking him for 
being a part of this but by making a couple more points.
  The first is, I want you to imagine for a moment, if you are sitting 
at the Kremlin and you are watching on satellite television the debate 
going on in American politics today, you are probably feeling pretty 
good about yourself. You have one group arguing that maybe the 
elections weren't legitimate because the Russians interfered. In 
essence, there have been news reports about a tension between the 
President and the Intelligence Committee. You have these reports every 
single day back and forth. You are looking at all this chaos, and you 
are saying to yourself: We did a pretty good job. If what we wanted to 
do was to divide the

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American people against each other, have them at each other's throats, 
arguing about things, and sowing chaos and instability into their 
political process, I think you look at the developments of the last 6 
weeks and 6 months, and if you are in the Kremlin, you say: Well, our 
efforts have been pretty successful with that. I think that is the 
first thing we need to understand.
  The second thing is, this should all be about partisanship. I am a 
member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It is probably known that 
we are undertaking an investigation into Russian interference in the 
2016 elections. I want everyone to know--I speak for myself and I 
believe almost all of my colleagues when I say, on the one hand, I am 
not interested in being a part of a witch hunt; on the other hand, I 
will not be part of a coverup. We are going to get to the truth. We 
want to get to the truth. We want to be able to deliver to this body 
and to the American people a document with truth and facts, wherever 
they may lead us, because this is above political party. Our system of 
government and this extraordinary Republic has been around for over two 
centuries. It is unique and it is special, and with all of its 
blemishes and flaws, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
  I want people to think about that. The next time you wonder and say 
to yourself that things are so tough in America and things are going so 
poorly, well, with whom would you trade places? I am not saying we 
don't have problems, because we do, but I ask, in what country would 
you rather be? I promise you that you won't say China if you know 
anything about China. I promise you that you won't say Russia if you 
know anything about Russia. There is no nation on Earth we would trade 
places with, and there is no process of government I would trade for 
ours. It is not perfect.
  One of the strengths of our system is our ability to stand up here in 
places like the Senate and discuss our differences and our problems and 
make continuous progress forward even if the pace is slower and more 
frustrating than we wish. That is what is at stake in this process and 
what is at stake in this debate. That is what none of us can allow to 
see erode because of interference by a foreign government, especially 
one that is a thug and war criminal in every sense of the word.
  So our quarrel is not with the Russian people and it is not with 
Russia. I have extraordinary admiration for the Russian people. I have 
extraordinary admiration for the sacrifices and contributions they have 
made throughout history to our culture and to the world. But, 
unfortunately, today their government is run by an individual who has 
no respect for his own people and no respect for the freedom and 
liberty of others, and it is important for our policymakers on both 
sides of the aisle to be clear-eyed and clear-voiced in what we do 
moving forward.
  I thank the Senator for being with us today and allowing us to engage 
in this discussion. I hope we will see more of that in the weeks and 
months to come so we can speak clearly and firmly in one voice that on 
issues involving America and our sovereignty and our system of 
government and decisions we must make, we will speak with one voice as 
one Nation, as one people, as one country.
  I thank the Presiding Officer, and 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. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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