[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12416-12422]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued


               Measure Placed on the Calendar--H.R. 3219

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the 
desk due for a second reading.

[[Page 12417]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the bill by title for the 
second time.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3219) making appropriations for the Department 
     of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2018, and 
     for other purposes.

  Mr. McCONNELL. In order to place the bill on the calendar under the 
provisions of rule XIV, I object to further proceedings.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The bill will be placed on the calendar.
  Mr. McCONNELL. 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. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The Democratic leader is recognized.


                               Healthcare

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the American people are looking to 
Congress to turn the page on healthcare and start working on bipartisan 
improvements to our healthcare system. Stabilizing the individual 
market is the first thing we should all focus on. The repeated attempts 
to repeal and replace the healthcare law, as well as the 
administration's threat to stop making the cost-sharing payments that 
help keep premiums down and keep markets stable, have injected massive 
uncertainty into the system.
  Insurers hate nothing more than uncertainty. It drives them to jack 
up the costs of premiums and to pull out of markets. Already, insurers 
in three States have issued two separate sets of proposed rates for 
2018--one if the administration makes the cost-sharing payments and one 
if it does not. The set of proposed rates if the payments are not made 
is 20 percent higher in all three States. I don't know the third, but 
two of them are North Carolina and Pennsylvania, which are very 
significant States. In Idaho, the State insurance commissioner said 
that rates on the most popular plans would be 50 percent higher next 
year because of ``the potential refusal by the Federal Government to 
fund the cost share reduction mechanism.'' That comes from the State 
insurance commissioner. I do not know if that is an elected position, 
but whether it is elected or appointed, my guess is that he is a 
Republican. They do not elect too many Democrats out there.
  The administration is supposed to announce today or sometime this 
week its decision on whether to make the next set of payments. The ball 
is in the President's court. He can make the payments as the law 
requires and needs or he can sabotage our healthcare system and impose 
a Trump premium tax of 20 percent higher premiums on the American 
people next year by not extending the cost-sharing program.
  Why would he do this? Why would he raise people's rates? His only 
stated reason is petty, is childish, is un-Presidential. He will get 
back at people because his hope to repeal and replace was rejected. You 
do not hurt innocent people when you lose politically. That is not 
Presidential. That is not, frankly, what an adult does. The ball is in 
the President's court, as I said, and let's hope he does the right 
thing.
  President Trump has already made it harder for Americans to afford 
insurance next year by publicly rooting for our Nation's healthcare 
system to collapse, injecting a baseline of uncertainty into the 
system. President Trump would make things a whole lot worse by not 
making the next set of payments--20 percent higher premiums, more bare 
counties, even more market instability.
  The American people need a President who puts their interests first, 
not someone who plays political games with their healthcare. The 
American people can ill afford a Trump premium tax this year, and it is 
completely avoidable. All the President has to do is to make the 
payments and carry out the law as he is supposed to. Afterward, 
Congress should move to guarantee these payments permanently or at 
least for a significant period of time.
  This uncertainty caused by the President's threats has been the most 
destabilizing factor in the individual market. That is not according to 
Chuck Schumer or any Democrat; it is according to the insurers' largest 
trade group, AHIP. The President has proved that he cannot be trusted 
to faithfully execute the procedures that keep our healthcare system on 
track.
  The only good news here is that there are moves by people on both 
sides of the aisle in this Senate to take some of this uncertainty off 
the table by guaranteeing these payments in the future.
  My good friends, the chairman of the HELP Committee, the senior 
Senator from Tennessee, Lamar Alexander, and the ranking Democratic 
member, Senator Patty Murray, have an ability to work together on many 
issues. I know they are meeting almost as we speak--in 5 minutes--to 
discuss how we can move forward. I spoke to Senator Alexander in the 
gym, where the Presiding Officer, I want to tell his constituents, was 
exercising and staying fit, too, and he seemed very eager to try to 
work together to stabilize the system.


                               Tax Reform

  Mr. President, on another matter--taxes--it is clear that our economy 
would benefit from a bipartisan package of changes to our Tax Code that 
would focus laser-like on increasing wages for working families, 
improving middle-class job growth, and promoting domestic investment, 
while modernizing our outdated business and international tax system.
  From what we have heard from the White House so far, its plan would 
not do any of that. We Democrats are open to a bipartisan discussion on 
those issues, but we also believe that, in an economy in which wealth 
is seemingly funneled to the already wealthy, it is working Americans 
who deserve tax relief, not those at the very top. The wealthiest 
Americans have seen outsized benefits from recent economic gains. Now 
is not the time to shower millionaires and billionaires with another 
tax break while working Americans continue to struggle to make ends 
meet.
  Today, 45 Members of the Democratic caucus sent a letter to our 
Republican friends, writing that we are open to bipartisan discussions 
on tax reform but that we will not support any effort to rewrite the 
Tax Code to give another tax break to the top 1 percent or add even 
more to the deficit and the debt.
  Here are our three principles outlined in the letter:
  First, no new tax breaks for the top 1 percent.
  Second, it must not increase the debt and must be fiscally 
responsible.
  Third, we must use a regular order process that will ensure true 
bipartisan input in the product, not the reconciliation process that 
was used in healthcare, which excluded the Democrats from the get-go 
and, in part, led to the failure of the Republicans to pass repeal or 
repeal and replace. Ramming tax cuts through under reconciliation--the 
very same partisan process that failed for healthcare--is the wrong way 
to do business for this country.
  Again, the Democrats are open to a bipartisan discussion on tax 
reform, but it has to be truly bipartisan, not under reconciliation, 
and tax reform cannot be a cover story for delivering tax cuts to the 
wealthiest or result in a ballooning deficit and debt.


                         China and North Korea

  Mr. President, finally, on the matter of China and North Korea, under 
President Trump, North Korea continues to ramp up its aggression; yet 
China has not taken any significant steps to bring to an end its 
threatening and destabilizing behavior.
  President Trump has staked his administration's approach to North 
Korea on China doing more, but right now 90 percent of North Korea's 
foreign trade is with China, and 95 percent of its foreign direct 
investment comes from China.
  Even as the U.N. Security Council and the U.S. Congress have again 
sanctioned North Korea, China's trade with this rogue nation has risen 
more than

[[Page 12418]]

30 percent over the past year, according to some reports. Even after 
the recent ICBM tests--clear violations of international resolutions--
China and Russia have worked behind the scenes to water down and weaken 
additional U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions.
  President Trump has talked about his ``wonderful relationship'' with 
President Xi, but this is not the behavior we should expect from a 
partner that is serious about the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.
  The bottom line is simple. China could put pressure on North Korea 
right now, but they are taking a pass, as they have for over a decade.
  President Trump began the year by offering a ``better trade deal'' to 
China if they put pressure on North Korea. That clearly hasn't 
happened. The soft-touch approach has gotten us nowhere, as usual, with 
China; they only understand strength. China continues to do the bare 
minimum as North Korea becomes more and more bellicose.
  So, today, I am urging President Trump to use his authority over the 
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, 
and instruct the Treasury Department to suspend the approval of mergers 
and acquisitions of U.S. assets by Chinese companies until China works 
to bridle its neighbor's aggression.
  China and its surrogates must face economic pressure if they are not 
going to help deter North Korea. This is an important tool in our 
country's toolbox, and the President ought to use it.
  I urge President Trump to take a tougher line and suspend the 
approval of all mergers and acquisitions in the United States by 
Chinese companies.
  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. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              North Korea

  Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about North Korea, 
the most urgent national security challenge for the United States and 
our allies in East Asia.
  Secretary Mattis has said North Korea is ``the most urgent and 
dangerous threat to peace and security.'' Admiral Gortney, the previous 
commander of U.S. Northern Command, stated that the Korean Peninsula is 
at its most unstable point since 1953, when the armistice was signed.
  Last year alone, North Korea conducted two nuclear tests and a 
staggering 24 ballistic missile launches. This year, Pyongyang already 
launched 18 missiles, including the two recent tests of 
intercontinental ballistic missiles that are reportedly capable of 
reaching the U.S. homeland.
  President Trump has said that the United States will not allow this 
to happen, and I am encouraged by the President's resolve. Patience is 
not an option with the U.S. homeland in the nuclear shadow of Kim Jong 
Un. Our North Korea policy of decades of bipartisan failure must turn 
to one of immediate bipartisan success, with pressure and global 
cooperation resulting in the peaceful denuclearization of the regime.
  As Vice President Pence stated during his recent visit to South 
Korea:

       Since 1992, the United States and our allies have stood 
     together for a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. We hope to 
     achieve this objective through peaceable means. But all 
     options are on the table.

  But time is not on our side. I believe U.S. policy toward North Korea 
should be straightforward. The United States should deploy every 
economic, diplomatic, and, if necessary, military tool at our disposal 
to deter Pyongyang and to protect our allies.
  However, the road to peacefully stopping Pyongyang undoubtedly lies 
through Beijing. China is the only country that holds the diplomatic 
and economic leverage necessary to put the real squeeze on the North 
Korean regime.
  According to the South Korean state trade agency, China accounts for 
90 percent of North Korea's trade, including virtually all of North 
Korea's exports. From 2000 to 2015, trade volume between China and 
North Korea has climbed more than tenfold, rising from $488 million in 
2000 to $5.4 billion in 2015. Beijing is the reason the regime acts so 
boldly and with relatively few consequences.
  China must now move beyond a mere articulation of concern and lay out 
a transparent path of focused pressure to denuclearize North Korea. A 
global power that borders this regime cannot simply throw up its hands 
and absolve itself of responsibility.
  The administration is right to pursue a policy of ``maximum 
pressure'' toward North Korea, and we have a robust toolbox already 
available to ramp up the sanctions track--a track that has hardly been 
utilized to its fullest extent and a track made even more complete last 
week with additional sanctions on North Korea.
  Last Congress, I led the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement 
Act, which passed the Senate by a vote of 96 to 0. This legislation was 
the first stand-alone legislation in Congress regarding North Korea to 
impose mandatory sanctions on the regime's proliferation activities, 
human rights violations, and malicious cyber behavior.
  A recent analysis from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies 
says:

       North Korea sanctions have more than doubled since the 
     North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act came into 
     effect on February 18, 2016. Prior to that date, North Korea 
     ranked eighth, behind Ukraine/Russia, Iran, Iraq, the 
     Balkans, Syria, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

  Even with the 130-percent sanctions increase after the North Korea 
Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, North Korea is today still only 
the fifth most sanctioned country by the United States. North Korea is 
far from being sanctioned out.
  So while Congress has clearly moved from the Obama administration 
inaction to some action, the Trump administration has the opportunity 
to use these authorities to build maximum leverage with not only 
Pyongyang but also with Beijing. I am encouraged by the actions the 
administration took last month to finally designate a Chinese financial 
institution, but this should be just the beginning. The administration, 
with congressional support, should now make clear to any entity doing 
business with North Korea that they will not be able to do business 
with the United States or have access to the U.S. financial system.
  A report released last month by an independent organization known as 
C4ADS identified over 5,000 Chinese companies that are doing business 
with North Korea. These Chinese companies are responsible for $7 
billion in trade with North Korea. Moreover, the C4ADS report found 
that only 10 of the 5,000-plus companies control 30 percent of Chinese 
exports to North Korea. So of 30 percent of Chinese exports, 10 
companies are responsible for that number in 2016 alone. One of those 
ten companies alone controlled nearly 10 percent of all imports from 
North Korea. Some of these companies were even found to have satellite 
offices in the United States.
  According to recent disclosures, from 2009 to 2017, North Korea used 
Chinese banks to process at least $2.2 billion in transactions through 
the U.S. financial system. This must stop now. The United States should 
not be afraid of a diplomatic confrontation with Beijing for simply 
enforcing existing U.S. and international law. In fact, it should be 
more afraid of Congress if it does not. As for any prospect of 
engagement, we should continue to let Beijing know in no uncertain 
terms that the United States will not negotiate with Pyongyang at the 
expense of U.S. national security and that of our allies.
  Instead of working with the United States and the international 
community to disarm the madman in Pyongyang, Beijing has called on the 
United States and South Korea to halt our military exercises in 
exchange for vague promises of North Korea suspending its missile and 
nuclear activities. That is a bad deal, and the Trump administration 
was right to reject it.

[[Page 12419]]

  Moreover, before any talks in any format, the United States and our 
partners must demand that Pyongyang first meet the denuclearization 
commitments it had already agreed to in the past and subsequently chose 
to brazenly violate.
  President Trump should continue to impress to President Xi that a 
denuclearized Korean Peninsula is in both nations' fundamental long-
term interests. As Admiral Harry Harris rightfully noted, ``we want to 
bring Kim Jung Un to his senses, not to his knees.'' But to achieve 
this goal, Beijing must be made to choose whether it wants to work with 
the United States as a responsible global leader to stop Pyongyang or 
bear the consequences of keeping him in power.
  Two weeks ago I introduced legislation with a bipartisan group of 
cosponsors called the North Korean Enablers Accountability Act. This 
legislation takes the first steps toward imposing a total economic 
embargo on North Korea, including a ban on any entity that does 
business with North Korea or its enablers from using the U.S. financial 
system and imposing U.S. sanctions on all those participating in North 
Korean labor trafficking abuses.
  My legislation specifically singles out those 10 largest Chinese 
importers of North Korean goods and sends a very clear message: You can 
either do business with this outlaw regime or do business with the 
world's largest economy. I urge my colleagues to support this 
legislation and our continued efforts to stop Pyongyang's further 
development of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles 
to bring peace to the peninsula and to denuclearize peacefully the 
North Korean regime.
  In order to put real pressure, this administration must act, and it 
must act on the regime and its enablers wherever they are based.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). The deputy majority leader is 
recognized.


                         Work Before the Senate

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, it is no secret that last week's vote on 
repealing and replacing the provisions of ObamaCare proved a 
disappointment to many of us. I have found, though, in my time here in 
the Senate that so often we agree on the goal we want to achieve, but 
we disagree on the means to achieve that goal.
  Some people see the private sector and competition and markets as the 
best place to regulate economic activity. Other people look at the 
government as the source of actions that do things like provide access 
to healthcare. The truth is, in our complicated healthcare delivery 
system, everybody plays a role one way or the other.
  We know that government plays an outsized role already, because we 
have Medicare, Medicaid, veterans health programs, and the like--the 
Children's Health Insurance Program, which we will have to take up and 
reauthorize before the end of September. But there does exist a very 
important private marketplace for health insurance, and, frankly, many 
times I think the government makes it harder, not easier, for the 
private marketplace to offer people a variety of products that they 
actually like, want to buy, and can afford.
  But it is evident that there is a lot of passion about this issue, 
and that is not going to go away. Certainly, what is not going to go 
away is the need that consumers across this country of ours have for 
lower premiums, increased access, and a marketplace that actually 
functions, where people can buy an insurance product they want to buy, 
and, of course, there is always the issue of quality of care.
  Some people think that maybe Medicaid is the ultimate answer. The 
fact of the matter is that Medicaid plays a very important role as a 
safety net for low-income Americans, but most of the medical studies 
that have been done indicate that medical outcomes under Medicaid are 
no better than those for those people who don't have insurance at all, 
and the number of people who go to the emergency room includes many 
people who have Medicaid but have a hard time finding a doctor who will 
treat them because Medicaid pays doctors at such a low rate that only 
about one-third of the doctors, especially in my State of Texas, will 
see a new Medicaid patient. As one of our colleagues has suggested, it 
is kind of like telling people: Here is a bus ticket. But there is no 
bus. There is no way to get there. That is hardly what I would call 
access to quality care.
  I know our work is not done. Now I and others turn to our colleagues 
across the aisle who fought us every step of the way in trying to 
achieve progress on healthcare reform and ask them what their 
suggestions are. Democrats need to be constructive rather than 
continuing to bury their heads in the sand about the fundamental 
problems with the Affordable Care Act.
  My firm belief is that these problems are structural in nature. They 
are not something that can be solved simply by throwing more money at 
the problem, particularly when insurance companies would love to have 
us do exactly that. That is the way they do business. They are profit-
oriented companies. I don't begrudge them that.
  It is simply not in our best interest, I believe, to just throw 
billions of dollars at insurance companies in a bailout without 
reforming the fundamental structure by which healthcare is delivered. I 
don't think we can turn to the taxpayers and say that it is their 
obligation to bail out insurance companies, particularly when they have 
seen their premiums already triple under ObamaCare.
  We can't afford to do what the Senator from Vermont wants to do, 
which is enact a costly single-payer system, which would literally 
bankrupt our country.
  With every day that passes, ObamaCare keeps getting worse, but we 
have no choice but to keep working to find new ways forward. That will 
include discussions and efforts to keep our promise and fix the mess 
that has been left to us to face.
  There is a lot the American people expect of us. With fragile 
majorities in the Senate, we have seen that we are forced to work 
together to try to solve these problems. I think, frankly, bipartisan 
solutions tend to be more durable.
  As we move forward to that work and turn to legislative priorities 
such as breaking the blockade on nominations, tax reform, getting our 
economy growing again, getting people back to work--because the economy 
is growing and they get good, well-paying jobs--and doing things such 
as rebuilding our infrastructure, something we know is important to our 
economic future, we will continue this week focusing on something that, 
frankly, we should have done months ago, which is seeing that more of 
President Trump's nominees are confirmed.
  Of course, we know the approach of the Democratic leader from New 
York has been to obstruct, block, and slow down as many of these 
nominations as he can. For example, our Senate colleagues on the 
Democratic side have allowed only 10 percent of President Trump's 
confirmations to go by a voice vote, which is a customary courtesy when 
there is no controversy associated with the nomination. President 
Obama's confirmations went through with 90 percent of them by voice 
vote because they weren't truly controversial. What we have seen happen 
this year is to burn the clock and delay and obstruct and foot-drag as 
much as possible in order to deny the President his own team.
  I realize many people were disappointed on that side of the aisle 
when President Trump was elected. He was elected President of the 
United States, and he deserves to have his team in place--particularly 
when they are not controversial nominees--rather than to deny him the 
opportunities to staff up and do the job the American people elected 
him to do.
  This obstruction is felt particularly acutely at the Department of 
Defense. You would think that if there is one thing that is bipartisan 
or nonpartisan, it would be our national security. In fact, only seven 
of President Trump's nominations for the Pentagon have been confirmed. 
Two of the remaining nominees waiting for confirmation

[[Page 12420]]

have been waiting for 2 months after they have been unanimously 
approved by the Armed Services Committee--2 months of delay for no 
purpose whatsoever with noncontroversial nominees.
  The minority leader is blocking these nominees, but his ranking 
member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, along with all other 
Democrats on the Armed Services Committee, unanimously voted to approve 
the nominees and vote them out of committee.
  It should not take 2 months to fill these critical national security 
roles, especially for nominees who aren't controversial. Each day that 
our Democratic colleagues delay the process, they are hindering our 
readiness and putting American lives at risk.
  This comes at a time when we are engaged in fights around the globe, 
at a time the vast array of threats around the globe are more diverse 
and, frankly, more dangerous than they have been in a long, long time. 
All we need to do is to look at what is happening in North Korea.
  It is especially disgraceful for those men and women who put their 
lives in harm's way, who wake up every day and risk their lives to 
defend the country, and who proudly wear the uniform of the U.S. 
military. This is an offense against them. It is insulting. They 
deserve better than this from our Senate Democratic colleagues.
  I hope the Senator from New York, the Democratic leader, will stick 
to what he said last week and drop the needless blockade against the 
President's nominees. The President won the election and is expected to 
appoint a Cabinet of qualified individuals to guide our country and 
carry out his policies. Whether you voted for President Trump or 
against President Trump, he did win the election, and we should move 
forward with a fully staffed executive branch.
  Americans also deserve to keep more of their hard-earned paychecks in 
their pockets. We know that businesses, particularly small businesses 
that are the primary engine of job creation in the country, have been 
subjected to a tax code that is enormously complicated, confusing, and 
that discourages economic growth.
  Why in the world would we want to do that to ourselves? Why would we 
want to tolerate a tax code that is so complicated, that is anti-
growth, and that discourages job creation? We shouldn't.
  With this new administration, we are committed to overhauling our 
outdated Tax Code to make it simpler and fairer, one that will 
encourage businesses to create jobs and bring profits back to our 
shore. Members of both Chambers--the House and Senate--have been hard 
at work on a solution that will provide that sort of relief and protect 
jobs and put Americans first, not government.
  I look forward to the debate and the fight for historic tax reform in 
the coming months. I want to particularly commend my friend and 
colleague in the House of Representatives, a fellow Texan, Kevin Brady, 
chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, for his great work in 
that body, together with our chairman in the Senate, Senator Hatch, 
chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. That is the committee of 
jurisdiction where we are going to have hearings and a markup this 
fall.
  Finally, I wish to address another area where Congress ought to be 
able to work together on a bipartisan basis, and that is strengthening 
our Nation's infrastructure. It is absolutely imperative we build on 
the success of the FAST Act, the first multiyear surface transportation 
bill signed into law in more than a decade.
  While this piece of legislation was critical to providing States and 
communities with the certainty they need, we must continue to invest in 
our Nation's bridges, roadways, ports, and other critical 
infrastructure.
  I look forward to working with the administration and our colleagues 
in the Senate and in the House on legislation that will strengthen our 
Nation's infrastructure and do so in a fiscally responsible manner.
  Finally, I hope to pass the bipartisan legislation that I have 
introduced to combat domestic human trafficking with my Democratic 
colleague, the Senator from Minnesota, this week. This has long been a 
priority of mine. The Abolish Human Trafficking Act is focused on 
getting victims of this heinous crime the help they need to rebuild 
their lives. In fact, as you talk to faith-based organizations and 
other people who are trying to help the victims of human trafficking, 
many times they will tell you the single thing these victims need the 
most is simply a safe place to live and heal and recover. That is what 
the Abolish Human Trafficking Act is focused on.
  This bill reauthorizes the Justice Department's Domestic Trafficking 
Victims' Fund, which was established in the Justice for Victims of 
Trafficking Act, a bill that I authored and that was signed into law 
last Congress.
  The Domestic Trafficking Victims' Fund provides critical resources to 
connect victims with the services they need so they can recover and 
begin to heal. Part of that fund is financed through fines collected on 
the convicted traffickers themselves. It is a clear way we can use 
these fines for good. Last year, the fund provided about $5 million in 
victim services. By reauthorizing it, we can continue to serve even 
more people, more victims.
  This bill also empowers victims by permanently reauthorizing the 
Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, survivors who annually advise 
the government on ways to combat this crime and lend a hand to victims. 
While this bill certainly focuses on human trafficking victims, we 
recognize that these victims may not have survived this form of modern-
day slavery without the dedication of law enforcement officials 
fighting for these survivors every day. That is why our legislation 
also supports local and State law enforcement agencies, so they are 
able to carry out not only the ability to track down the perpetrators 
and convict them but also to receive additional training to help equip 
them on how best to serve the victims.
  Ending this terrible crime is a cause every Member in this Chamber 
should be able to get behind. I look forward to passing the Abolish 
Human Trafficking Act with bipartisan support, hopefully, later this 
week.
  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. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, President Trump has been in office for 
just a little over 6 months. We had an election. The American people 
said they preferred the Republican vision for the direction this 
country should go, but it just seems today the Democrats in the Senate 
think the inauguration never happened.
  For more than 6 months, Democrats have engaged in a historic effort 
to obstruct the work of the Trump administration and the U.S. 
Government. Normally, on inauguration day, the President gets a 
substantial number of people confirmed to his Cabinet. The idea is to 
let the President get his team in place so then they can go about 
hitting the ground running.
  President Obama had six of his Cabinet Secretaries confirmed on 
Inauguration Day in 2009. All of them were confirmed by voice vote. 
They didn't even have to do a rollcall. People agreed, in a bipartisan 
way, to let the President have his nominees. Republicans in the Senate 
did nothing to try to block any of those Cabinet Secretaries for 
President Obama. We understood it is best to give the new President a 
chance and for all of us to work together when we can. President George 
Bush had seven people nominated and confirmed on his first day in 
office. That is the way it usually worked but not anymore.
  Now, Democrats aren't interested in giving a Republican President a 
chance. They weren't interested in working together. Last January, 
President Trump only had two people confirmed to his Cabinet on 
inauguration day. There were two people ready to get to work on the day 
he took office, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland 
Security. These

[[Page 12421]]

were the only two jobs the Democrats let the President fill. By the end 
of January in 2009, President Obama had 10 of his Cabinet Secretaries 
in place. His Cabinet was almost entirely set by the end of the month 
that he took office, January 2009, but because of ongoing obstruction 
by Democrats in the Senate, President Trump still only had three 
Cabinet Secretaries in their jobs by the end of January. That is an 
incredible level of obstruction when you compare it to what has 
happened historically.
  It didn't stop with members of the Cabinet, and it didn't just end in 
January. Democrats have continued to make the Senate jump through 
procedural hoops. In President Obama's first 6 months of office, 206 
people were confirmed to serve in his administration. In President 
Trump's first 6 months, Democrats continued to block the way, allowing 
us to approve only 55 nominees for those first 6 months. So President 
Obama had nearly four confirmations for every one of President Trump's 
over the same period of time. The difference is stark and the reason is 
simple: Democrats have been putting up roadblocks, one after another, 
on even the most noncontroversial of nominees. It is not how things 
worked in the past in previous administrations. Many of these nominees 
for important jobs would get approved by what we call in the Senate 
unanimous consent or by a voice vote.
  Republicans have been willing to let a lot of Democrats take their 
jobs without wasting time on rollcall votes and running out the clock. 
In President Obama's first 6 months in office, Republicans allowed 182 
of his nominees to be confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote. 
That is almost 90 percent of the jobs filled in those first 6 months by 
unanimous consent--general agreement--but in the same time, the 
Democrats only allowed five of President Trump's nominees to get 
through without a rollcall vote. That is the level of Democratic 
obstructionism.
  They have been blocking judges, Cabinet Secretaries, and other high-
ranking officials. Many of these nominees even had Democratic support. 
It is interesting. Democrats have supported many of these so they 
weren't controversial at all. Democrats in the Senate forced us to file 
cloture 34 times on people nominated to fill important jobs in the U.S. 
Government. We had to force the Democrats to act.
  In President Obama's first 6 months, there were only eight cloture 
votes. There is no way Democrats can argue that they had principled 
objections to these 34 nominees where we had to file cloture on their 
nominations. The only explanation is that they did not want the 
President to have his team in place. When you take a look at these 34 
people whom we had to go ahead and file cloture on, half of them ended 
up getting 60 or more votes for their confirmation so they had support 
by Democrats as well as the Republicans. There was no reason--no need 
to slow them down other than obstruction of the President. One nominee 
whom we had to file cloture on and go all the way through the process 
even received a unanimous confirmation vote--a rollcall vote in the 
U.S. Senate--100 to 0. Yet the Democratic leader made us file a motion 
to proceed and get a cloture vote on this individual whom then they 
approved 100 to 0.
  Why the need to go through this? Democrats blocked him as long as 
they could. Yet not a single Democrat then stood to vote against him 
when his name was called for a rollcall vote. So why are Democrats 
blocking votes on people whom they then intend to support and do 
support with their votes? They are just trying to slow things down. The 
Democratic leader actually admitted that was his plan during the debate 
over confirming the No. 2 person at the Pentagon. It is someone whom 
the Senate actually confirmed with 92 votes in his favor. Yet they 
slowed him down. Then he received 92 votes.
  Republicans wanted to speed up the process a little. Senator Schumer 
objected. Did he have a problem with the nominee's qualifications? No. 
The Democratic leader said on the floor: ``We would be happy to 
consider the nominee in regular order, and maybe once things change a 
little bit in healthcare, we can.''
  It had nothing to do with the person who was nominated, nothing to do 
with anything, according to Senator Schumer, other than the fact that 
we were discussing healthcare in this country. It had nothing to do 
with the importance of the position that was going to be filled in the 
Pentagon. It was all because Democrats were trying to stall the debate 
over healthcare reform. There are the numbers: nominees confirmed in 
the first 6 months for Obama, 206; President Trump, 25.
  Republicans are trying to keep the Federal Government functioning by 
filling these jobs that had been empty. Healthcare is a very separate 
thing. Both of these are important. The only thing they have in common 
is the Democrats have been playing politics with both of them. It is 
not normal. It is not acceptable. The Democrats' blockade against 
President Trump's nominees has caused what I believe has been a 
dangerous backlog. We still have 84 people who have been nominated by 
the President for positions in the government who have cleared the 
committees and are now just waiting for a vote on the Senate floor--
slowed down by Democratic obstruction.
  Democrats are trying their best to drag this out, it seems to me, as 
long as they possibly can. The Senate rules say that means up to 30 
hours of debate once we vote to move forward on a nomination. Maybe 
that is too long. Senator Ron Johnson wrote an op-ed in the Washington 
Post over the weekend with the headline: ``Let's break this Senate 
logjam.'' He suggests we cut the time back from 30 hours of debate to 2 
hours of debate. That would certainly speed things up, and maybe that 
is the step we are going to have to take if this level of obstruction 
continues.
  Whatever we do, we cannot allow this logjam to continue. These are 
important jobs--important positions. The American people deserve to 
have someone doing their work.
  Last Friday, after the healthcare vote, Senator Schumer called for us 
to work together. He said: ``There are things we can do rather quickly, 
including moving a whole lot of nominations.'' I am going to hold the 
Democratic leader to his word on this. Let him show that he meant what 
he said. We should be able to clear the decks of these 84 nominees who 
have come through the Senate committee, who have been approved by the 
committee and are waiting here to be confirmed. We should do it by 
unanimous consent. If Democrats object to one or two of them, let's 
have a rollcall vote so we can get it on the record. It is time to stop 
this mindless obstruction that serves no purpose except to delay.
  Thank you, Madam 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. BARRASSO assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I rise today in support of Kevin Newsom, 
formerly Alabama's solicitor general and currently the President's 
nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
  He is someone whom the Presiding Officer knows well, having himself 
been the solicitor general for the State of Texas before he became a 
U.S. Senator.
  I believe Kevin Newsom to be an exceptional choice for this high 
honor. I have the utmost regard for his intellect and integrity.
  Kevin grew up in Birmingham, AL. He graduated first in his class from 
Samford University in Birmingham and went on to graduate with highest 
honors from Harvard Law School, as the Presiding Officer did.
  One month prior to Harvard Law School, Kevin married his wife 
Deborah. They went on to have two sons, Chapman and Marshall James, who 
are now 12 and 14 years old respectively.

[[Page 12422]]

  Kevin is no stranger to the courtroom. He began his legal career as a 
law clerk on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for Judge O'Scannlain, 
as well as U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter. He has argued four 
cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
  In 2011 and again in 2014, Kevin was appointed to the Advisory 
Committee on Appellate Rules by Chief Justice John Roberts. This is a 
signal honor, as the Presiding Officer knows. He is one of only 3 
private practitioners on the 10-person committee.
  Currently, Kevin serves as the chairman of his firm's appellate group 
and has been recognized by several national publications and 
organizations for his leadership in the legal field.
  As the former solicitor general of Alabama, Kevin has proved to be an 
exceptionally skilled attorney. He understands and respects the law, 
and I believe he will be an asset to our Nation's judicial system as a 
Federal judge on the Eleventh Circuit. Moreover, the American Bar 
Association unanimously gave Kevin a ``well qualified'' rating to serve 
on the Eleventh Circuit--the highest possible recommendation they are 
able to give.
  I am confident that Kevin Newsom will serve honorably and apply the 
law with impartiality and fairness, which I believe is required of all 
judges. I believe that President Trump has made the right decision in 
selecting Kevin Newsom to sit on the Eleventh Circuit. I am hopeful 
that later today my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will vote to 
confirm Kevin Newsom without any reservations.
  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. 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.


                     Return of Papers--H.J. Res. 76

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the papers 
with respect to H.J. Res. 76 be returned to the House of 
Representatives at their request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
notwithstanding rule XXII, at 2:15 p.m. today, the Senate proceed to 
the consideration of Calendar No. 178, the nomination of Christopher 
Wray to be Director of the FBI. I further ask that there be 4 hours of 
debate on the nomination, equally divided in the usual form; that 
following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote on 
confirmation of the nomination with no intervening action or debate; 
that if confirmed, the President be immediately notified of the 
Senate's action. I further ask that following disposition of the Wray 
nomination, all postcloture time on the Newsom nomination be considered 
expired.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________