[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 5965-5971]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Acosta 
nomination, which the clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read the nomination of R. Alexander Acosta, of 
Florida, to be Secretary of Labor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 11:30 
a.m. will be equally divided in the usual form.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.


                        Government Spending Bill

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, as Senators continue to negotiate the 
appropriations bills this week, I want to reiterate my hopes that we 
can reach an agreement by this Friday. So long as we try to operate 
within the parameters our parties have operated under for the last few 
spending bills, I am optimistic about the chances for a deal.
  I am glad the President has taken the wall off the table in the 
negotiations. Democrats have always been for border security. In fact, 
we supported one of the toughest border security packages in 
comprehensive immigration reform in an amendment offered by two of my 
Republican colleagues, Senator Hoeven and Senator Corker. We may 
address border security in this bill as well, but it will not include 
any funding for a wall, plain and simple.
  Now, we still have a few issues to work out, including the issue of 
cost sharing, Puerto Rico, and getting permanent healthcare for miners, 
which I was glad to hear the majority leader voice support for 
yesterday--permanent healthcare for miners. I want to salute Senator 
Manchin, who has worked so long and hard for these poor miners who have 
struggled and have had hard, hard, hard lives. They shouldn't have 
their health benefits taken away. But above all, in the bill we have to 
make sure there are no poison pill riders. That has been a watchword of 
our negotiations in the past and is what led to success, and I hope 
both sides of the aisle will pursue that now.
  We Democrats remain committed to fighting President Trump's cutback 
on women's health, a rollback of financial protections in Wall Street 
reform, rollbacks of protections for clean air and clean water, and 
against a deportation force. Those are the kinds of poison pill riders 
that could hurt an agreement, and I hope we will just decide at the 
given time that we can debate them in regular order, but they shouldn't 
hold the government hostage and pass them without debate.


                        The President's Tax Plan

  Mr. President, today we will also be hearing some details--we don't 
know how many--about the President's tax plan. We will take a look at 
what they are proposing, but I can tell you this: If the President's 
plan is to give a massive tax break to the very wealthy in this 
country--a plan that will mostly benefit people and businesses like 
President Trump's--that will not pass muster with Democrats.
  The very wealthy are doing pretty well in America. Their incomes keep 
going up. Their wealth keeps going up. God bless them. Let them do 
well. But they don't need another huge tax break while middle-class 
Americans and those struggling to get there need help just staying 
afloat. It is already the case that CEOs and other folks at the top of 
the corporate ladder can use deductions and loopholes to pay less in 
taxes than their secretaries. We don't need a plan that establishes the 
same principle in the basic rates by allowing wealthy businessmen, like 
President Trump, to use passthrough entities to pay 15 percent in taxes 
while everyone else pays in the twenties and thirties. We don't need a 
tax plan that allows the very rich to use passthroughs to reduce their 
rates to 15 percent while average Americans are paying much more. That 
is not tax reform. That is just a tax giveaway to the very, very 
wealthy that will explode the deficit.
  So we will take a look at what the President proposes later today. If 
it is just another deficit-busting tax break for the very wealthy, I 
predict their proposal will land with a dud with the American people.


                              North Korea

  Mr. President, later today, the Senate will be receiving a briefing 
by the administration on the situation in North Korea. I look forward 
to the opportunity to hear from the Secretary of State, who I 
understand drafted the administration's plan, and other senior 
administration officials about their views on North Korea and the 
posture of the United States in that region.
  I think what many of my colleagues hope to hear articulated is a 
coherent, well-thought-out, strategic plan. So far, Congress and the 
American public have heard very little in the way of strategy with 
respect to North Korea. We have heard very little about strategy to 
combat ISIS. We have heard very little about a strategy on how to deal 
with Putin's Russia. We have heard very little about our strategy in 
Syria. Only a few weeks ago, the President authorized a strike in 
Syria. Is there a broader strategy? Does the administration support 
regime change or not? Do they plan further U.S. involvement?
  These are difficult and important questions, and there are many more 
of them to be asked and answered about this administration's nascent 
national security policy for hotspots around the globe. I hope that 
later today, at least in relation to North Korea, we Senators are given 
a serious, well-considered outline of the administration's strategic 
goals in the Korean peninsula and their plans to achieve them.


                 The President's First One Hundred Days

  Mr. President, as we approach the 100-day mark of the Trump 
administration, we Democrats have been highlighting the litany of 
broken and unfulfilled promises that President Trump made to working 
families. It is our job as the minority party to hold the President 
accountable to the promises he made to voters, particularly the ones he 
made to working families who are struggling out there. Many of these 
folks voted for the President because they believed him when he 
promised to bring back their jobs or get tougher on trade or drain the 
swamp. So it is important to point out where the President has gone 
back on his word and where he has fallen short in these first 100 days.
  On the crucial issues of jobs and the economy, this President has 
made little progress in 100 days. His party hasn't introduced a major 
job-creating piece of legislation to date, and he has actually 
backtracked on his promises to get tough on trade and outsourcing, two 
things which have cost our country millions of jobs. I was particularly 
upset to see the President consider repealing President Obama's law 
that prevented corporate inversions that allowed big corporations to 
locate overseas to lower their tax rates.
  Instead of draining the swamp and making the government more 
accountable to the people, President Trump has filled his government 
with billionaires and bankers and folks ladened with conflicts of 
interest. Amazingly enough, he was going to clean up Washington and 
make it transparent. The White House has decided to keep the visitor 
log secret and, even worse, allowed waivers to lobbyists to come to 
work at the White House on the very same issues they were just lobbying 
on, and those waivers are kept secret. We will not even know about 
them.
  These reversals aren't the normal adjustments that a President makes 
when transitioning from a campaign to the reality of government; these 
are stunning about-faces on core promises the President made to working 
Americans.


                               TrumpCare

  Mr. President, I would like to focus now on one issue: the 
President's promises on healthcare. On the campaign trail, the 
President vowed to the American people that he would repeal and replace 
the Affordable Care Act with better healthcare that lowered costs, 
provided more generous coverage, and guaranteed insurance for everyone, 
with no changes to Medicare whatsoever. That is what he said. We are 
not saying this; he said that. Those are his words: I am going to cover 
everybody.

[[Page 5966]]

He said, ``We're going to have insurance for everybody . . . much less 
expensive and much better.''
  ``We're going to have insurance for everybody.'' But once in office, 
President Trump broke each and every one of these promises with the 
rollout of his healthcare bill, TrumpCare. Did TrumpCare lower costs, 
as he promised? No. The CBO said premiums would go up by as much as 20 
percent in the first few years under TrumpCare.
  His bill allowed insurance companies to charge older Americans a 
whopping five times the amount they could charge to younger folks, and 
it was estimated that senior citizens could have to pay as much as 
$14,000 or $15,000 more for healthcare, depending on their income and 
where they lived.
  Did his bill provide for better coverage? No. In fact, the most 
recent version of the TrumpCare bill would allow States to decide 
whether to protect folks who have preexisting conditions. This was one 
of the most popular things in ObamaCare, even if people didn't like 
some other parts of it. If you are a parent and your child has cancer, 
the insurance companies said: We are cutting you off, and you have to 
watch your child suffer because you can't afford healthcare. ACA, the 
Affordable Care Act, ended that. They couldn't cut you off or not give 
you insurance because your child or you had a serious illness that 
would cost the insurance company a lot of money. But now, in the 
proposal they are making, it is up to the States. Tough luck if you 
live in a State without it.
  Did his bill guarantee ``insurance for everyone''? That is what he 
said. No, far from it. The Congressional Budget Office said that 
TrumpCare would result in 24 million fewer Americans with health 
coverage after 10 years.
  Despite an explicit pledge from Candidate Trump on the eve of the 
election that he would protect Medicare--because hard-working Americans 
``made a deal a long time ago''--TrumpCare slashed more than $100 
billion from the Medicare trust fund.
  TrumpCare was the exact opposite of everything the President promised 
his healthcare bill would be. Americans should breathe a sigh of 
relief--a huge sigh of relief--that the bill didn't pass.
  There is a lack of fundamental honesty here. If you believe that 
there shouldn't be government involvement in healthcare and the private 
sector should do it all, that is a fine belief. I don't agree with it. 
But that means higher costs and less coverage for most Americans, and 
the President and, frankly, many of our Republican colleagues are 
trying to have it both ways. They want to say to their rightwing 
friends: I am making government's involvement much less. But then they 
say to the American people: You are going to get better coverage, more 
coverage, at lower rates. The two are totally inconsistent. That is why 
they are having such trouble with TrumpCare over in the House, and 
there will be even worse trouble here in the Senate, if it ever gets 
here, which I hope it doesn't.
  Healthcare is another example of why this President has so little to 
show for his first 100 days. Instead of reaching out to Democrats to 
find areas where we could compromise on improving our healthcare 
system--we Democrats have always said: Don't repeal ObamaCare; improve 
it. We know it needs to have some changes. But, instead, they started 
out on their own in a partisan way, the very same party that criticized 
President Obama for working just with Democrats on the issue, despite a 
yearlong effort to try. So it failed, and it is emblematic of the 
President's first 100 days. The President's ``my way or the highway'' 
approach is one of the main reasons he has so little to show on 
healthcare and so little to show for his first 100 days in office.
  Mr. President, 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. FLAKE. 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.
  (The remarks of Mr. Flake pertaining to the introduction of S. 946 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. FLAKE. I yield back the remainder of my time.
  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. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time 
during the quorum call be equally divided.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FLAKE. 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. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                         Remembering Jay Dickey

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I come to the floor to honor the memory of 
former Congressman Jay Dickey, who passed on April 20. When Jay Dickey 
roamed the Halls of Congress, you knew there might be mischief afoot--
and what merry mischief it was.
  Jay was opinionated, colorful, and zany. Now that he has passed, the 
warm laughter of memories once again echoes in these cold, marble halls 
as we reflect on his life.
  He died last Thursday after a battle with Parkinson's, a battle he 
fought like every other--with determination and gusto. I, for one, will 
miss his counsel and friendship, as will the people of Arkansas whom he 
loved so deeply.
  Jay was an Arkansas original. He was born and bred and in the end 
breathed his last in his hometown of Pine Bluff. He shared a lot in 
common with the mighty pines of South Arkansas. He stood tall and proud 
of his community's heritage. He was a pillar of the community. A lawyer 
and a businessman, he left his mark as an entrepreneur, starting 
franchises throughout the State, as an advocate representing the city 
and later taking on such famous clients as coach Eddie Sutton.
  Unlike the proverbial tree in the forest, now that Jay Dickey has 
fallen, the whole State has taken notice.
  But, of course, a man's accomplishments are only a window into his 
character. You had to know Jay personally to get a sense of all the fun 
there was inside him. It was as if his feet had sunk deep into the soil 
and soaked up all of the Natural State's richness: its humor, its 
earnestness, and its strip-the-bark-off candor.
  I got to know Jay in my first political campaign. We had never met, 
and I was a political newcomer, but Jay spent many hours getting to 
know me and ultimately supported my candidacy, which helped to put me 
on the map.
  Of course, Jay shared a lot of candid advice too. After attending one 
of my early townhalls, Jay and I went to lunch down the road at Cracker 
Barrel. I asked him how I did. Jay replied:

       Ya did good. Ya did good. But you gotta cut it down some. 
     Ya see that baked potato there? That's a fully loaded baked 
     potato--it's got cheese, sour cream, bacon, onions. Your 
     answers are like that fully loaded baked potato! Make em like 
     a plain potato.

  That is just one of the countless stories that added to his legend.
  This was the man who offered a ninth grader a college-level 
internship because he thought the kid had potential; the man who 
answered any phone in his office that rang twice, just to keep his 
staff on their toes; the man whose dog once drove his truck into a 
radio station in Hampton because he left the truck running during an 
interview to keep the dog cool, and somehow that dog put it in gear; 
the man who kept a picture of Jesus on his wall, and who,

[[Page 5967]]

when meeting a new client, would point to the picture and say: ``Have 
you met my friend?''
  Yes, the first great joy of his life was his faith, but the second 
great joy was politics. Jay was the first Republican elected to 
Congress from South Arkansas since Reconstruction. He won in 1992, the 
very same year Arkansas elected our Democratic Governor as President.
  Despite being who the Democrats must have viewed as the most 
Republican incumbent in the country, he held onto that seat for almost 
a decade. Arkansans knew good stock when they saw it. He lost only by 
the narrowest of margins in 2000, with President Bill Clinton 
campaigning for his opponent, then-State Senator Mike Ross. True to 
form for Jay, he and Mike would become friends after that race, 
speaking regularly about issues and their faith.
  Jay's time in office will not be remembered as a historical oddity, 
an anomaly, or a one-off because unconventional though it was, it was 
also a forerunner of things to come. It was an early sign of a coming 
political realignment, as the small towns that dotted rural America--
towns where few people had ever even seen a Republican, never mind 
voted for one--were starting to cast their votes up and down the ballot 
for the Grand Old Party.
  In other words, Jay Dickey was a trailblazer--or perhaps a bulldozer. 
He smashed through history and precedent and grooved a path in rough 
terrain for the rest of us to follow. For that, he has my thanks and 
the thanks of the people of Arkansas, and for his humorous, quirky, 
unparalleled example, he has the thanks of the U.S. Congress, which 
today is a little sadder for his passing but also a little brighter for 
his memory.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, on Monday morning I stood with workers 
and fellow public officials in Bridgeport, CT, to commemorate the 30th 
anniversary of the L'Ambiance Plaza disaster. Thirty years ago last 
Sunday, L'Ambiance Plaza collapsed, 28 families lost loved ones, and 22 
others were seriously injured in the collapse. Their worlds collapsed 
as the lift-slab construction used as the device for building 
L'Ambiance Plaza, in effect, imploded.
  The workers were constructing a 16-story apartment building when that 
disaster happened. The lift-slab construction method used at that site 
subsequently was banned. It was banned because it was unsafe.
  That disaster was preventable, as so many workplace injuries and 
deaths are preventable. That was a tragedy in the modern American 
workplace 30 years ago--L'Ambiance Plaza. It is an urgent and great 
need for this Nation to confront. L'Ambiance Plaza collapsed, 
literally, within seconds, and when it was over, the 28 workers who 
woke up that day and left their homes never came back. Their families, 
who said good-bye, never saw them again alive. They were victims of 
workplace dangers that day, but so many others have followed them 
since.
  Those families are still affected, still grieving. One of them spoke 
at that ceremony on Monday morning, and it provides for many of us the 
memories of that day when literally hundreds of workers from throughout 
Connecticut went to that site, digging, often by hand, through the 
wreckage, trying to find the living survivors. On that day, and every 
day since, I have sought to increase the safety of our workplaces and 
avoid those kinds of tragedies. That is why I am here today, because 
that pledge would be, in my view, inconsistent with voting for the 
nomination of Alexander Acosta to be Secretary of Labor.
  I will state at the outset that I commend Mr. Acosta for his record 
of public service during the Presidency of George W. Bush, serving as a 
National Labor Relations Board member and holding two positions at the 
Department of Justice, as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil 
Rights Division and, later, as U.S. attorney for the Southern District 
of Florida. I want to thank him for his willingness to serve again. I 
say that in all seriousness, as a former U.S. attorney myself.
  I believe that, as Secretary of Labor, he will have important 
responsibilities if he is confirmed in the area of enforcement, and I 
am constrained to oppose his nomination because I believe, No. 1, that 
this administration needs a champion, not simply a bystander, and Mr. 
Acosta has given me no reason at his hearings and in his record to 
assure me that he will overcome what I see as a bias against 
enforcement in this administration.
  Last month President Trump proposed a budget that guts the Department 
of Labor. The budget admittedly is short on specifics and boasts little 
more than one page about the agency that is tasked with ensuring the 
safety of tens of millions of American workers. Let me make clear: It 
would slash resources at the Department of Labor by 21 percent. That is 
$2.5 billion. That means 21 percent fewer inspectors, 21 percent fewer 
investigators, 21 percent less enforcement. That is one-fifth less 
enforcement, when, in fact, five times more enforcement is appropriate. 
The budget, although short on details, singled out programs that helped 
to train workers and employers in ways to ensure avoidance of hazards 
on the job.
  President Trump has proposed the elimination--the zeroing out--of 
that program. At his confirmation hearing last month, Mr. Acosta 
demonstrated neither a willingness nor an interest in challenging the 
budget or the President's priorities, stressing that his soon-to-be 
boss, President Trump, guides the ship. I find that view and 
perspective alarming. There is an old saying that budgets are ``moral 
documents.'' It is a saying frequently repeated, but it has a real 
meaning when it comes to enforcement of worker safety. It has a real 
meaning to real people in their lives or loss of lives. It is a matter 
of life or death. Where you put scarce dollars and resources reveals 
moral values and moral priorities.
  President Trump has put his values on clear display in this budget. 
He believes in building a wall, a needless show project that he 
mentioned repeatedly in his budget, but he has given short shrift or no 
shrift to efforts that protect people who go every day to workplaces 
where they are in serious jeopardy, and where--as in L'Ambiance Plaza--
they can lose their lives. Voting for Mr. Acosta would mean failing to 
keep that pledge that I believe I made to the families of L'Ambiance, 
to the workers who lost their lives there, and to countless other 
workers in danger every day in workplaces that must be made safer--and 
can be--through vigorous enforcement of rules and laws that exist now 
and improvement of those laws.
  One of the greatest challenges facing our Nation today is fairness in 
the workplace, particularly fairness in pay for women, fairness 
concerning pay disparity between men and women, with women making a 
fraction of what men make for the same work. On this critical issue 
also, this nominee is silent. On other issues critical to the modern 
workplace--overtime pay, minimum wage, protecting workers' retirement, 
fighting discrimination, matters that affect women and minorities more 
than others--he has said little or nothing, certainly little to 
indicate that he will be an enforcer of laws that protect minorities 
and women and others who may be the victims of discrimination.
  There is no question that this nominee is far better than the 
President's first proposed person to fill this job, Andy Puzder, who 
rightly and fortunately withdrew, but the standard we should use is not 
whether he is better than his predecessor, who was found wanting even 
before the vote was taken, but rather whether they can be trusted to 
protect workers, to enforce rules vigorously and fairly, and to fight 
for a budget and a set of priorities that are critical to the future of 
American

[[Page 5968]]

workers. On that score, unfortunately, I answer this question with a 
clear ``no,'' and I will vote against this nominee.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I wish to oppose the nomination of 
Alexander Acosta to be Secretary of Labor.
  I did not come to this decision lightly, but, after closely examining 
Mr. Acosta's record, I cannot in good conscience vote for his 
confirmation to be Labor Secretary on behalf of the American people.
  The most troubling part of Mr. Acosta's record is how he handled a 
2007 sex trafficking case that he oversaw while serving as the U.S. 
attorney for the Southern District of Florida. In that case, which left 
many vulnerable victims devastated when it concluded, Mr. Acosta failed 
to protect underage crime victims who looked to his office to vindicate 
their rights against billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
  The case, led by Mr. Acosta's office and the FBI, involved an 
investigation of Mr. Epstein for his sexual abuse and exploitation of 
more than 30 underage girls.
  It ended with an agreement, negotiated by Mr. Acosta's office, in 
which Mr. Acosta agreed not to bring Federal charges, including sex 
trafficking charges, against Mr. Epstein in exchange for his guilty 
plea to State charges and registration as a sex offender. Thanks to 
this agreement, Mr. Epstein served a mere 13 months of jail time and 
avoided serious Federal charges that would have exposed him to lengthy 
prison sentences.
  What troubles me about this case is not just the leniency with which 
Mr. Epstein was treated, but how the victims themselves were treated.
  In 2004, I authored the Crime Victims' Rights Act with then-Senator 
Kyl because we both saw that victims and their families were too 
frequently ``ignored, cast aside, and treated as nonparticipants in a 
critical event in their lives.'' I strongly believe victims have a 
right to be heard throughout criminal case proceedings.
  My concern with how Mr. Acosta handled this case stems from his 
office's obligations under the Crime Victims' Rights Act. The victims 
have asserted that Mr. Acosta's office did not provide them with notice 
of the agreement before it was finalized, nor were they provided with 
timely notice of Mr. Epstein's guilty plea and sentencing hearings. 
Worse, throughout the process, the victims were denied the reasonable 
right to confer with the prosecutors; this flies in the face of the 
Crime Victims' Rights Act we authored.
  I am very concerned that Mr. Acosta's office did not treat the 
victims ``with fairness and with respect for the victim's dignity and 
privacy'' as required by law. Rather, according to the victims, Mr. 
Acosta's office ``deliberately kept [them] `in the dark' so that it 
could enter the deal'' without hearing objections. These allegations 
raise serious concerns.
  From his position of immense power and responsibility, Mr. Acosta 
failed, and the consequences were devastating.
  Another deeply troubling aspect of Mr. Acosta's record comes from his 
tenure when he led the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division from 
August 2003 to June 2005. According to the Justice Department's 
inspector general, that office repeatedly used political or ideological 
tests to hire career civil servants in violation of federal law.
  During his confirmation hearing before the HELP Committee, Mr. Acosta 
himself admitted that discriminatory actions were taken under his 
supervision and that they should not have happened.
  At a time when the public's faith in government institutions is 
eroding on a daily basis, Mr. Acosta's handling of these high-profile 
incidents lead me to question his ability to carry out the duties of 
Labor Secretary with fairness and impartiality.
  This doubt is further compounded by statements that Mr. Acosta made 
during his hearing regarding whether he will exercise independence in 
upholding and enforcing certain rules and regulations, such as the 
fiduciary rule and overtime rule to protect workers.
  In response to such questions, Mr. Acosta avoided making a commitment 
to uphold these rules as Secretary of Labor, and I am greatly concerned 
that he may not look out for the best interests of workers.
  All of the issues I have outlined here simply do not allow me, in 
good faith, to vote in favor of Mr. Acosta's nomination.
  Thank you.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill 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. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to complete my remarks prior to the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I am honored to speak here today in support 
of Alex Acosta, and I wholeheartedly encourage my colleagues to support 
his nomination to be our next Secretary of Labor. I know this nominee 
well. As a fellow Floridian and as a native of Miami, I have been 
familiar with his work for many years. As I said when the President 
nominated him, I think he is an outstanding choice to lead the 
Department of Labor.
  Alex has an impressive academic record. He has two degrees from 
Harvard--the first from Harvard College and then from Harvard Law 
School.
  He also has a sterling record of public service in the State of 
Florida and in the United States of America. He was a member of the 
National Labor Relations Board. He was appointed by President George W. 
Bush and served from 2002 to 2003. From there, he was selected by 
President Bush to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil 
Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he also served 
as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in that office. He also 
served our Nation as the U.S. Attorney in one of the most challenging 
districts in our country--Florida's Southern District.
  Most recently, Alex has served the State of Florida as the dean of 
Florida International University College of Law, where he has been 
instrumental in raising the still young school's profile and in its 
graduating young men and women who are now well prepared to excel in 
their legal careers.
  With every challenge he has confronted throughout his distinguished 
career, he has demonstrated his ability to effectively tackle with ease 
the problems at hand. He is a brilliant legal mind, someone with a deep 
knowledge of labor issues, and he is a proven leader and a proven 
manager. It is for these reasons and many more that I am confident that 
Alex Acosta will serve this Nation admirably.
  He was--listen to this--previously confirmed unanimously by the 
Senate for three different positions in the U.S. Government. This man 
is not even 50 years old, and he has already been confirmed unanimously 
by the Senate for three separate positions. I believe that in a few 
moments, he will be one step closer to being confirmed to his fourth. 
He is well qualified for this role, and I look forward to working with 
him to ensure that Americans are equipped with the skills they need to 
be successful in the 21st-century economy.
  I yield the floor.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of R. Alexander Acosta, of Florida, to be Secretary of Labor.
         John Barrasso, Susan M. Collins, Ron Johnson, Deb 
           Fischer, Luther Strange, Bill Cassidy, Lindsey Graham, 
           John Boozman, Mike Rounds, David Perdue, Lamar 
           Alexander, Tom Cotton, Orrin G. Hatch, Todd Young, 
           Mitch McConnell, Joni Ernst, Dan Sullivan.


[[Page 5969]]


  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of R. Alexander Acosta, of Florida, to be Secretary of Labor 
shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk called the roll.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 61, nays 39, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 115 Ex.]

                                YEAS--61

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     King
     Lankford
     Lee
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Nelson
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott
     Shelby
     Strange
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Warner
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--39

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Markey
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Peters
     Reed
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). On this vote, the yeas are 61, 
the nays are 39.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, when workers and families fought back 
against President Trump's first disastrous pick for Secretary of Labor, 
Andrew Puzder, they made it clear that they want a Secretary of Labor 
who will fight for their interests, especially as President Trump 
continues to break promise after promise he made to workers on the 
campaign trail. I couldn't agree with them more. As bad as Puzder would 
have been, our standard cannot be ``not Puzder.''
  Never has it been so critical to have a Secretary of Labor who is 
committed to putting workers' protections and rights first, even if 
that means standing up to President Trump. It is with this in mind that 
I cannot support Alexander Acosta to run the Department of Labor.
  Given Mr. Acosta's professional history, I have serious concerns 
about whether undue political pressure would impact decision making at 
the Department. My concerns were only heightened at his nomination 
hearing, when Mr. Acosta said he would defer to President Trump on the 
priorities of the Department of Labor. The Trump administration has 
already cemented a reputation for flouting ethics rules and attempting 
to exert political pressure over Federal employees. We need a Secretary 
of Labor who will prioritize workers and the mission of the Department 
of Labor over special interests and political pressure.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Acosta's time leading the civil rights division at 
the Department of Justice suggests he will not be the mission-focused 
Secretary of Labor workers across the country have demanded. A formal 
investigation by the inspector general showed that, under Acosta's 
tenure, the civil rights division illegally considered applicants' 
political opinions in making hiring decisions, ignoring their 
professional qualifications. As Assistant Attorney General, Acosta 
chose to recuse himself from consideration of a Texas redistricting 
plan, instead, allowing political appointees to overrule career 
attorneys who believe the plan discriminated against Black and Latino 
voters.
  Mr. Acosta's past raises questions about whether--instead of making 
workers' rights and protections the priorities of that Department--he 
will allow political pressure to influence his decision making.
  Mr. Acosta's refusal to take a strong stand on many of the most 
pressing issues workers face today was equally concerning. We need a 
Secretary of Labor who is committed to expanding overtime pay to more 
workers, fighting for equal pay, and maintaining protections for our 
workers. But in responding to questions about those priorities, Mr. 
Acosta made it clear that he simply plans to defer to President Trump, 
who has already made it abundantly clear that he will not stand up for 
workers.
  Mr. Acosta continued to evade addressing my concerns about how he 
would prioritize workers' interests at the Department of Labor in our 
followup questions. We need a Secretary of Labor who will remain 
committed to the core principles of the Department of Labor--someone 
who will prioritize the best interests of our workforce, who will 
enforce laws that protect workers' rights and safety and livelihoods, 
and who will seek to expand economic opportunities for workers and 
families across our country.
  Unfortunately, Alexander Acosta has failed to show he will stand up 
to President Trump and prioritize those principles and help our workers 
get ahead. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to listen to the millions of 
workers who have made their voices heard about the need for a Secretary 
of Labor who is committed to building an economy that works for 
everyone, not just those at the top, and vote against this nomination.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
  (The remarks of Mr. Durbin pertaining to the introduction of S. 948 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, 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. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                 Gulf of Mexico Oil Drilling Moratorium

  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to address the Senate on the 
occasion of the solemn memorial of 7 years since the Deepwater Horizon 
explosion and the resulting oilspill, where 11 workmen were tragically 
killed.
  The oilspill fouled the sensitive gulf ecosystem in ways that we 
still do not fully realize. Yet we are hearing today that the President 
is expected to issue an Executive order this week that ignores the 
implications of that tragedy, which was also the largest environmental 
disaster in U.S. history, by blindly encouraging more drilling in very 
sensitive areas.
  I can tell you that drilling off the coast of Florida's neighboring 
States poses a real threat to our State's environment and our 
multibillion-dollar tourism industry, and that is because a spill off 
the coast of Louisiana can end up on the beaches of northwest Florida, 
just like a spill off the coast of Virginia or South Carolina can 
affect the entire Atlantic coast.
  BP, as a result of Deepwater Horizon, agreed to pay more than $20 
billion in penalties to clean up the 2010 oilspill and repay gulf 
residents for lost revenue. But, apparently, that wasn't enough, if 
BP's recent spill in Alaska is any indication.
  So we shouldn't be surprised, since oil companies and their friends 
have fought against any new safety standards or requirements, that the 
President still wants to open up additional waters to drilling, despite 
the fact that we haven't applied the lessons learned from Deepwater 
Horizon. This is at a time when the United States has been able to find 
all new reserves of oil and gas onshore. So we are not in a time of a 
shortage of discovery or a shortage of oil reserves. Our domestic 
energy market is being affected by the low price of natural gas, since 
so much of the reserves are just tremendous here in the continental 
United States.

[[Page 5970]]

  The most visible change since the Deepwater Horizon spill is the 
division of the Minerals Management Service into the Bureau of Ocean 
Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental 
Enforcement. All of those changes were made as a result of trying to 
improve things after the BP spill, but it doesn't seem to have made any 
major improvements in oversight, according to a report issued by the 
GAO last month.
  So I have come to the floor to try to alert other Senators about the 
importance of preserving the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of 
Mexico. It makes no sense to put Florida's multibillion-dollar, 
tourism-driven economy at risk.
  And there is something else at risk.
  The Department of Defense has stated numerous times--I have two 
letters from two Republican Secretaries of Defense that say it--that 
drilling and oil-related activities are incompatible with our military 
training and weapons testing. That is the area known as the gulf 
training range. It is in the Gulf of Mexico off of Florida. It is the 
largest testing and training range for the United States military in 
the world.
  Now, in that gulf training range is where the pilots of the F-22 are 
trained. That is at Tyndall Air Force Base. It is where the new F-35 
pilots are trained, by the way, not only for the United States but also 
for the many foreign nations that have bought F-35s. Of course, that is 
essential to our national security.
  That is just pilot training. That doesn't speak of the testing done 
on some of our most sophisticated weapons over hundreds and hundreds of 
miles of restricted airspace.
  Oh, by the way, when the U.S. Navy Atlantic Fleet shut down our 
training in Puerto Rico and the island of Vieques, where do you think a 
lot of that training came to? The Navy still has to train. So they will 
send their squadrons down to Key West Naval Air Station at Boca Chica 
Key. When those pilots and their F-18 Hornets lift off the runway, 
within 2 minutes they are out over the Gulf of Mexico in restricted 
airspace. So they don't spend a lot of fuel and a lot of time to get 
there.
  That is why a lot of our colleagues across the State of Florida on 
the other side of the aisle--in other words, this is bipartisan--have 
weighed in with this administration, urging continued protection for 
the largest military testing and training area in the world.
  Opposition to drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico is bipartisan, 
bicameral--the Senate and House--but so is our opposition to drilling 
off the Atlantic coast.
  Now, let me just distinguish between the two. Years ago, my then-
Republican colleague Senator Mel Martinez and I both offered in law an 
exemption until the year 2022 of any oil drilling off of the coast of 
Florida. It is actually everything east of what is called the Military 
Mission Line. It is virtually the Gulf of Mexico off of Florida. Of 
course we did that for the reasons that I have already stated. That is 
in law up until 2022. But the administration will be coming forth with 
another plan for the 5-year period for oil drilling offshore for the 
years 2023 up through 2028.
  It is my hope that the words of this Senator and the words of our 
bipartisan colleagues from the Florida delegation will convince the 
administration that it is not wise to impede the military's necessary 
training and testing area, not even to speak of the tremendous economic 
deprivation that will come as a result of an oilspill.
  Just think back to the BP spill. Think back to the time when the 
beaches, the sugary-white sands of Pensacola Beach, were completely 
covered with oil. That picture--a very notable picture, a contrast of 
the black oil on top of the white sand--went around the world.
  The winds started blowing the oil from the BP spill off the coast of 
Louisiana. The winds continued to blow it to the east, and so some of 
the oil got into Pensacola Bay, some of the oil started getting into 
Choctawhatchee Bay, and some oil got on the beautiful beaches of Destin 
and Fort Walton Beach. The winds took it as far east as the Panama City 
beaches. There they received basically tar balls on the beach. Then the 
winds reversed and started taking it back to the west, so none of the 
other beaches all the way down the coast of Florida--Clearwater, St. 
Petersburg, on down to the beaches off of Bradenton, Sarasota, Fort 
Myers, Naples, and all the way down to Marco Island--none of those 
beaches received the oil because the wind didn't keep blowing it that 
way. But the entire west coast of Florida lost an entire tourist season 
because our guests, our visitors, the tourists, didn't come because 
they had seen those pictures and they thought that oil was on all of 
our beaches.
  Let me tell you how risky that was. In the Gulf of Mexico, there is 
something known as the Loop Current. It comes through the separation of 
the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and the western end of Cuba and goes up 
into the gulf, and then it loops and comes south in the gulf. It hugs 
the Florida Keys and becomes the Gulf Stream that hugs the east coast 
of Florida. And about midway down the peninsula, it starts to leave the 
coast, follows and parallels the east coast of the United States, and 
eventually goes to Northern Europe. That is the Gulf Stream.
  Had that oilspill been blown south from Louisiana and had the Loop 
Current come enough north, that oilspill would have gotten in the Loop 
Current, and it would have taken it down past the very fragile coral 
reefs of the Florida Keys and right up the beaches of Southeast 
Florida, where there is a huge tourism business.
  By the way, the Gulf Stream hugs the coast in some cases only a mile 
off of the beach.
  That is the hard economic reality of what could happen to Florida's 
tourism industry, not only on the west coast, as it already did in that 
season of the BP oilspill, but what could happen on the east coast of 
Florida too.
  Opposition to drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico is certainly 
bipartisan, but so is the opposition to drilling off the Atlantic 
coast. In the last Congress, Members from both parties joined together 
to file a House companion to the legislation this Senator had filed 
that would prohibit seismic testing in the Atlantic off of Florida. The 
type of seismic airgun testing companies wanted to use to search for 
oil and gas would threaten thousands of marine mammals and fish, 
including endangered species such as the North American right whale. 
The blast from seismic airguns can cause permanent hearing loss for 
whales and dolphins, which disrupts their feeding, calving, and 
breeding.
  In addition to the environmental damage those surveys would cause, 
businesses up and down the Atlantic coast would also suffer from 
drilling activity. Over 35,000 businesses and over 500,000 commercial 
fishing families have registered their opposition to offshore drilling 
in the Atlantic. From fishermen, to hotel owners, to restaurateurs, 
coastal residents and business owners understand it is too dangerous to 
risk the environment and the economy on which they depend.
  There is one unique industry that opposes drilling off the Florida 
east coast. We made the case way back in the 1980s when Secretary of 
the Interior James Watt decided he was going to drill from Cape 
Hatteras, NC, all the way south to Fort Pierce, FL. This Senator was a 
young Congressman then and took this case on and finally convinced the 
Appropriations Committee not to include any funds for the execution and 
offering of those leases. It was a simple fact that that was where we 
were launching our space shuttle then, as well as our military rockets 
from Cape Canaveral, and you simply can't have oil rigs out there and 
be dropping the first stages and the solid rocket boosters from the 
space shuttle.
  As we know, the Cape has come alive with activity--a lot of 
commercial rocketry, as well as the mainstays for our military space 
program. In a year and a half, NASA will launch the largest rocket 
ever, one-third more powerful than the Saturn V, which was the rocket 
that took us to the Moon, and

[[Page 5971]]

that is the beginning of the Mars program, as we are going to Mars with 
humans. Because of that space industry--whether it is commercial or 
whether it is civilian NASA or whether it is military--you simply can't 
have oil rigs out there in the Atlantic where we are dropping the first 
stages of those rockets. That is common sense.
  When President Obama took the Atlantic coast off the table from 2017 
to 2022--that 5-year period planning in the offshore drilling plan--
Floridians finally breathed a deep sigh of relief. They sighed happily 
too. If President Trump intends to open up those areas to drilling, his 
administration will receive and can expect to receive a flood of 
opposition from the folks who know what is going to happen.
  It is this week--and here we are midweek--that we are expecting the 
Trump administration to move forward with an Executive order that would 
ignore the wishes of coastal communities. I want to say that the areas 
off of Florida in the east coast of the Atlantic are very sensitive, as 
I have just outlined, but there is nothing to say that if you have a 
spill off of Georgia or South Carolina, that it can't move south, and 
that starts the problem all over.
  This announcement by the President will be like a big present for the 
oil companies, which, by the way, in areas in the Gulf of Mexico that 
are rich with oil--and there are, in fact, active leases that are not 
producing the oil. Why would they want to grant more leases in areas 
that are important to preserve the Nation's economy as well as our 
military preparedness?
  I hope the President thinks twice before putting Florida's economy at 
such a risk. I hope he refrains from issuing this Executive order, but 
if he doesn't, this Senator and a bipartisan delegation from Florida 
will fight this order.
  Mr. President, 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.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to urge my 
colleagues in the Senate to oppose the nomination of Alexander Acosta 
for Labor Secretary.
  The test of whether a nominee is qualified to be Labor Secretary is a 
pretty simple one: Will that person stand up for 150 million American 
workers and their families? Mr. Acosta has had multiple opportunities 
in more than 2 months since he was nominated for this position to 
demonstrate that he would stand up for workers, and time after time, he 
has refused.
  Americans deserve to know where a nominee like Mr. Acosta stands on 
key policy matters that will have a powerful impact on the lives of 
working people.
  At Mr. Acosta's confirmation hearing, I asked him where he stood on 
three policy issues that are important to working Americans and their 
families.
  First, will you promise not to delay a rule that will protect 2.3 
million Americans from being poisoned by lethal cancer-causing silica 
on the job?
  Second, will you appeal a Texas court's injunction that has halted 
implementation of a new overtime rule that would give 4.2 million 
Americans a $1.5 billion raise in a single year?
  And third, will you promise not to delay a rule that will stop 
investment advisers from cheating retirees out of an estimated $17 
billion a year?
  Now, these are not tough questions. For most people, these would have 
been total softballs: Will you keep workers from being poisoned, will 
you make sure that employers pay for overtime, and will you make sure 
that investment advisers aren't cheating retirees? Come on. This is the 
very least that a Labor Secretary can do--the very least.
  Mr. Acosta refused to answer a single one of these questions. 
Instead, he bobbed and weaved, stalled and repeated my questions; he 
even insisted that these topics were so complex that he needed more 
time to study them. And it wasn't just my questions that Mr. Acosta 
refused to answer. He spent more than 2 hours ducking, hand-waving, and 
dodging basic questions from committee members--both Democrats and 
Republicans--questions about whether he would commit to stand up for 
workers on issues that profoundly affect their health, their safety, 
and their economic security.
  Mr. Acosta has been so evasive about his views that we still have 
virtually no idea what he will do to help or harm workers if he is 
confirmed for this job.
  The fact that Mr. Acosta isn't willing to step up on easy questions 
and tell us that he will be on the side of workers tells us a lot about 
him--and none of it is good.
  That is particularly troubling, since Mr. Acosta is President Trump's 
nominee, and we can see how President Trump treats workers. In less 
than 100 days on the job, President Trump has managed to kill, weaken, 
or undermine an unprecedented number of protections for working people.
  He signed a bill to make it easier for government contractors to 
steal wages from their employees.
  He signed a bill to make it easier for employers to hide injuries and 
deaths that their workers suffer on the job.
  He signed a bill to keep cities from offering retirement accounts to 
more than 2 million employees who don't have access to a retirement 
plan on the job.
  He delayed a rule protecting workers from lethal, cancer-causing 
beryllium.
  He delayed a rule protecting construction workers from deadly silica.
  And he delayed a rule preventing investment advisers from cheating 
retirees--a rule that will save hard-working Americans about $17 
billion a year.
  That is a pretty long list, and it doesn't even include the 
devastating impact to workers of the President's proposed 20-percent 
cut to the Labor Department funding, which means fewer cops on the beat 
when employers steal wages or force people into unsafe working 
conditions.
  During his campaign, President Trump talked a big game about standing 
up for workers and creating good, high-paying jobs. But if his first 
100 days are any indication, his real plan is to keep corporate profits 
soaring by gutting the rules that American workers depend on to keep 
money in their pockets, food on their tables, and to keep them safe in 
the workplace.
  Unlike President Trump's first failed nominee for this job, Mr. 
Acosta is not openly contemptuous of people who work hard for a living, 
and I suppose we should be thankful for that. But that is not the test 
for Labor Secretary. The test for Labor Secretary is whether this 
person will stand up for American workers.
  Mr. Acosta won't make that commitment, and he has made it perfectly 
clear that he sure won't stand up to President Trump. That is just not 
good enough. Because of this ongoing evasiveness, I have no confidence 
that Mr. Acosta is the right choice for this position, and I urge my 
colleagues to join me in opposing his confirmation.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the role.
  Mr. McCONNELL. 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.

                          ____________________