into this concern and report back spirit can you just ask the fbi director? >> look, the president has not and i think we've gone back and forth with you guys. i think there's clearly a role that congress can play that oversight capability. they made it very clear that the resources and processes in place. place. i think that's appropriate place for this to handle. if we're to start to get involved you didn' then write ss about how we're getting involved. it's a no-win situation. i think the smartest and most deliberative way to address the situation to ask the house and the senate intelligence committees were already in process of looking into this to look into this and other leaks of classified information that are troubling to our nation's national security. as the president said in a statement on sunday, we believe -- >> take you live now to the senate gaveling back in.

we will take you live now to the capital for in remarks by members of congress and if you want to continue watching the white house briefing that continues live online c-span.org.

s. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the senate is not in a quorum call. the senator is recognized. mr. hatch: mr. president, i would like to engage senator

klobuchar in a colloquy in order to discuss issues facing patients and their families with rare disease conditionses. senator klobuchar and i have worked hard to bring more hope to families for those coping with rare diseases on a daily bases. today one in 20 individuals is living with one of the more than 7,000 rare diseases, 95% of which do not have an effective treatment. while this was first championed by myself in 1983, it has led to the approval nearly 600 orphaned drugs, much more needs to be done. many patients living with rare diseases rely on the f.d.a. to evaluate and approve treatment options for their conditions. that is why it is so important

for the f.d.a. to use its authority to accelerate the evaluation and approval of drugs for treating rare diseases and for congress to ensure that proper incentives exist for research to discover and make treatments and cures available for this community. to address this issue, congress passed the f.d.a. safety and improvement act which refined and strengthened the tools available to the f.d.a. to evaluate the approval of new drugs targeting unmet medical needs for rare conditions. cy have been looking at how this helps those suffering from conditions such as m.d muscular dystrophy and other rare diseases. in light of these changes over the past few years, i will ask

my friend from minnesota whether the current approval process is achieving its goals of safety and efficacy without hampering the development of new therapi therapies. ms. klobuchar: thank you, senator hatch. i'm so proud to be the cochair of the rare disease congressional caucus with you and i share your concerns, and i think there must be improvements that are made. i continue to be inspired by the families across my state and your state and our country that work so hard to make it easier for their kids to simply have access to drugs to treat their illnesses. unfortunately, we haven't yet achieved all we can do for these families and i heard time and time again about the emotional roller coaster than many of them have experienced when they interact with the federal government on new approaches for these rare disease conditions. too often they are unaware when drugs are under review or

confused about why experts or patients are not even consulted, the individual suffering from these conditions and their families need greater clarity about the process for evaluating and approving these drugs and they ought to be included and informed every step of the way. it's critical that treatments exist for those with rare conditions and that they be accessible and affordable the we continue to protect these individuals from discrimination and insurance coverage and work to bring down costs. we have to ensure that incentives designed to spur the sro*efplt and access -- spur the development and accessibility of treatment that the rare disease community desperately needs and are not used. senator hatch, the bill you passed helped so many, how do you focus on sharing had this message with our colleagues and our constituents? mr. hatch: i appreciate that question. we need to continue to use the f.d.a. to fully implement its

relatively new authority. every one of us in this body represent constituents who are battling rare diseases and i urge f.d.a. to consider this flexibility as applied in reviewing all candidate therapies. i will continue to work closely with my senate colleagues to ensure that f.d.a. uses the tools, authorities and resources required to provide patients and physicians with new treatment options. i've also contacted the f.d.a. frequently during the past year to encourage the agency to listen to the voices of patients during the agency's evaluation process. when the senate considers a nominee for f.d.a. commissioner, i will continue to stress the importance of inare corp. rating a -- incorporating a balanced and flexible approach when weighing risks, benefits, and outcomes, especially when dealing with small patient

populations with such rapidly progressing prognosis. patients with limited or no treatment options are depending on f.d.a. to utilize the flexibility outlined in the law. this law, which provides full and fair review of new drug therapies in a timely manner gives hope to patients suffering from life-threatening diseases and, of course, their families as well. senator klobuchar, how can we move forward into the next user-fee agreement? ms. klobuchar: well, that is going to be very important and really an opportunity to make sure that this works for patients with rare diseases and their families. we know that affordability and accessibility remain paramount. we should also think about the burden that these conditions play and the critical role of the voice of the patient. as you associated, senator

hatch, more than 7,000 rare diseases exist and the vast majority have no treatments. this is an extraordinary burden borne every day by americans in every single state across the country. as we seek to make progress, including monitoring implementation of the advances in the bipartisan 21st century cures act, we must make sure rare diseases receive sufficient attention. federal agencies need to incorporate the voice in the decision-making process as i mentioned earlier. all too often as we rightly focus on evidence-based medicine, we can lose sight of different therapies. some of these can be difficult for real patients in real-life situations, all the more so when children are involved. the f.d.a. and all agencies should enshaur they have appropriate -- ensure they have appropriate processes to seek

this vital input and again the user fee agreement will be the opportunity for us to make this case. i'd like to thank you, senator hatch, for your time to discuss these issues that are important to both of us. we look forward to engaging our colleagues on these issues as we look forward with the implementation of the cures act and the user fee agreement. mr. hatch: i want to thank you, my dear friend, the senior senator from minnesota, for your time here with me today. it's very meaningful to me and i think to everybody who is concerned about this rare disease situation in our country. this is just the start of our conversation for this congress. there is so much left for us to do. i'm certain that we will succeed as long as we stay together and work in a bipartisan way. so i want to thank my dear colleague for her words and her support and the good leadership she provides in the united states senate.

ms. klobuchar: thank you. mr. hatch: mr. president, we yield the floor. ms. stabenow: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you, mr. president. i want to speak about the health care bill that has been laid out in the house, now introduced in the house of representatives, and express great concern about the proposal as it relates to the people of michigan that i represent as well as people across the country, and, frankly, this proposal or whatever passes will be judged based on whether or not people pay more for their coverage if they can find it, whether they're going to be able to get the health care that they need. health care's very personal. despite the politics here in congress and in the white house, health care's not political.

it's very personal. can you go to a doctor? can you take your child to a doctor? can your parents get the nursing home care that they need or your grandparents? are you going to be able to find insurance after you have had a heart attack or cancer or if your child has juvenile diabetes and therefore has a preexisting condition? i am deeply concerned about the initial look i've had, and we will continue to look more and more at the details as they come out, but, frankly, this proposal is going to create chaos in the health care system and, frankly, i would say this is a mess. it's going to create a big mess as it relates to the families that i represent and that we all represent in our home states. this was written in secret. we've all seen the stories of

the senator from the other side of the aisle that was running around trying -- with his copier, trying to get a copy of what was going on, and everything was done in secret, and now that it's out, we find out there is no costs attached to it. we don't know what the overall cost will be to taxpayers. we also don't know how many people are going to be able to get health care, who's going to be able to be covered, but what i have seen really falls in the category of creating a mess for families. higher costs for middle-class families, higher costs for poor families, but less coverage. such a deal. this is not the kind of deal that the people of michigan want to have for themselves and their families. and to add insult to injury, it cuts taxes for the wealthiest americans while making most americans pay more.

it makes seniors pay more. and we have heard people calling it the age tax or the senior tax, but the reality is in a number of different ways, how we rate based on age and other costs, seniors will pay more, and then it's my understanding that in the middle of this, there is actually a sweetheart deal for c.e.o.'s of big insurance companies that will give them a pay raise. so this whole thing is stunning to me, that it's being put forward with a straight face. and then on top of everything else, it removes the guarantee for preexisting conditions so that it's very unclear what will happen to someone who's had a heart attack or throughout their life.

i have a new little baby grandniece who has had two heart surgeries already and has another one that she will have to have in another year. while she is doing great and my niece and nephew deserve incredible admiration for taking care of little layton, she's going to have a preexisting condition, mr. president, her whole life. she's going to have a reconstructed heart that is going to cause her various challenges, and without the current guarantees that we have that we can't be blocked from getting insurance, her folks are going to have a hard time, and little leighton is going to have a hard time her whole life. so when we look a little bit more on the details on all of this, we see, in fact, that this bill provides tax increases for millions of families. it repeals the tax credits in

2020 that help working families be able to afford insurance. and by the way, even though things don't happen immediately, the insurance companies knowing its coming are certainly going to find themselves making different kinds of decisions, and certainly families will make different kinds of decisions, and i would expect the insurance system to be destabilized immediately. we are already seeing problems with insurance companies pulling out just based on the debate about repealing health care. but when we look at the tax credits or help for my health care, it goes from helping those who are low, moderate, middle-class families be able to afford insurance to changing the whole thing so it's based on

your age and your income. so the higher the age, the higher the income, the more taxpayer dollars you get, which makes no sense. so a 55-year-old with higher income will get more taxpayer funding than a 30-year-old working a minimum wage job who's got the toughest time trying to find insurance that they can afford. this is not the set of values or set of perspectives that i think make sense for people in michigan as well as people across the country. and then while that 30-year-old working a minimum wage job is going to be paying more and hoping that they don't have a preexisting condition because they may not be able to find insurance at all, then we see that there's a $300 billion, with a b, tax cut for the wealthiest americans.

so picture this -- somebody on a minimum wage job who could very well see their health insurance go completely away will have that happen while someone making more than $3.7 million a year would save over $200,000 a year. so $200,000 a year is what they would get back now in the form of a tax cut. more than what most people make. certainly, the majority of people in michigan make less, and they work very, very hard, but make less than that $200,000. and to just underscore, this is the first bill out of the gate here that we're talking about any kind of tax cuts in. so we're already saying republicans cutting taxes for

the wealthy while raising taxes on the middle class and raising their health care costs, if they can find health care, and these tax cuts are just the start. wait until we get to tax reform where we're going to see this whole debate happen again, where my guess is middle-class people are going to end up being -- paying the bill, paying more and wealthy people are going to get another round of tax cuts. and to add insult to injury again, here are sweetheart deals so the c.e.o.'s of insurance companies can get a pay raise, get more money while people are paying more if they're working, poor or middle class. and there are tax cuts for prescription drug companies of $30 billion, but the bill does nothing to lower the cost of prescription drugs. so this certainly is not health

care for the majority of americans. this certainly is not health care for those who need to have access to affordable health care. and then back to our seniors who will pay more because of the changes in how health care costs will be rated. and we will essentially see older people having twice the tax credit but five times more costs. and i'm not sure exactly how it's being proposed on preexisting conditions. we are still working through that. but i do know that the bill has a penalty. if you have health insurance and for some reason the crisis in your family for some reason you can't continue it, you drop that

insurance and then you reenroll again, there is a 30% late enrollment surcharge. so you would be paying 30% more for your health insurance if you have a preexisting condition. and then just two other items, mr. president, that are very important, and that is -- and i know that the distinguished presiding officer shares concern about this as well -- and that is the fact that we have been able to create more access to health care by expanding medicaid, which is critically important. one of the great success stories in michigan today is that 97% of our children in michigan can now see a doctor. 97%. we don't want to go backwards. every child should have the ability to see a doctor. every mom, every dad, every grandpa, every grandma.

and right now, in michigan, 97% of children can see a doctor because of the work that we did on the affordable care act, including expanding medicaid. so this goes away. it takes a couple of years, but that goes away, and instead what's proposed essentially is a voucher. you can carve a lot of names. it used to be folks talking about a block grant to the states, now they call it per capita, but it's real simple. just like there has been proposals by republicans for years to have a voucher for medicare, now this is essentially a voucher for medicaid. x amount of dollars. if you need more for your nursing home care, then you're on your own. x amount of dollars for your child, for a family. if you have something happen where you get sick, you need surgery, you have cancer and it goes above that voucher, you're on your own.

so it completely changes medicaid from the insurance system to a system where there is essentially a voucher. and millions and millions and millions of children, of families, of seniors where the majority of seniors in nursing homes get their coverage through medicaid, our moms and dads and grandpas and grandmas right now who get quality nursing home care because of medicaid will be severely impacted by this voucher that caps how much care that they will be able to receive. and then finally, for over half the population of those of us who are women, we will see a return essentially to being a woman being a preexisting condition because essential

services for women, maternity care, which i was at the front of the line fighting for, prenatal care, maternity care, which is not available in the majority of private plans that a woman tries to buy without paying more. you can get maternity care, but it's not viewed as basic. it may be basic to you as a woman, but insurance companies say sure, we'll cover maternity care, but you have to pay more. so women forever have been paying more for our basic health care, and under the affordable care act, that changed, but we said, you know what, as a woman, you shouldn't have to pay more for the basic care that you need. and now all that goes away under the house proposal. and just to make sure that we see women's health care taken away, planned parenthood, which provides not 97% of what they do is basic care, mammograms, you

have to go see your doctor, ob/gyn, prenatal care, all of the things that you need for annual visits and so on, that is defunded, that is completely defunded. i want to congratulate everyone vfled in the effort to make sure birth control is affordable for women under the affordable care act. this is an economic issue. this is not a frill for women or for men, for families. and those who have worked hard to make sure that we can lower unintended pregnancies in this country. well, the good news is that we are at a 30-year low of unintended pregnancies, a historic low in teen pregnancy, and at the lowest rate of abortions since 1973, 1973. and why is that?

that's because women have been able to get the health care that they need. they're able to get affordable birth control to be able to manage their health care as well as seeing the economy improve, but we are seeing more and more where information being available, costs for basic preventive care being down, women having access to what they need on health care allows them to be in a situation where we are seeing these historic, historic lows on unintended pregnancies, teen pregnancies, and abortions. i know in michigan that we have many counties -- we have a number of counties across michigan, particularly in rural communities, where the planned

parenthood clinic is the only provider of basic health care, is the only provider for family planning and for cancer screenings and basic health care for women and for many men. it may be the only provider in the community. more than half of planned parenthood health centers are in rural and underserved communities, and about one-third of all the women where planned parenthood -- living in those communities where planned parenthood is available find that this is the only health care provider available to them. so support for women, preventative health care, planned parenthood funding cut completely in this bill. access to maternity care, prenatal care, other basic essential services eliminated.

you want that? you can pay more as a woman. and on top of that, we are seeing essential services like mental health, substance abuse services, other basic comprehensive services that we've said for the last several years should be available. health care above the neck as well as health care below the neck should be viewed as essential services for people across america. all of that goes away with this proposal. so, mr. president, in my judgment, this is a mess. it's going to create a mess. more costs, less service, shifting taxpayer dollars to the wealthy while asking the middle class and low-income families to pay more. this is just simply not a good

deal. i would welcome the opportunity to work with colleagues on something that made sense. let's put aside this whole effort of repeal. let's focus on how we bring costs down, including prescription drugs, and continue to move forward. but let's not go back. when 97% of the children in my state can see a doctor today, that is worth keeping. that represents the best of our values. we can't go backwards. and the proposal that we are seeing in the house would take us back to a place that would hurt the majority of americans, and i strongly oppose it. thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota.

mr. thune: mr. president, irrespective of how the presidential election had come out this last november, we would be having a conversation about how to fix obamacare. there are many reasons for that, but most importantly is it is just skyrocketed costs for people in this country. premiums have gone through the roof. deductibles have increased. copays have increased. out-of-pocket costs have become so expensive for people that even if they have coverage, they can't use their plans in many cases. and so when our colleagues across the aisle talk about the recently rolled out proposal coming from the house, which we will be -- they will be discussing and we eventually will be discussing, to try and drive down the costs for people in this country, that's what this debate really is all about. now, you can say what you want but the fact of the matter is that this last year in -- this

year 2017, premium increases are 25% in the exchanges. 25%. six states the premium increases were 50% in the exchanges. i mean, i don't know how anybody, any family in this country can keep up with those kinds of skyrocketing premiums. and if you're buying your insurance in the individual market, it's -- the roof is blown off. i talked to people in my state of south dakota all the time, mr. president, who share with me the excessive amount that it costs now for them to cover themselves and their families. i talked to a lady in sioux falls recently at an event who told they they're now paying $22,000 a year. $22,000 a year for health insurance. that's not working. that's why what we had was a failure and it was an abysmal failure. and in terms of choices, the whole idea was people are going to have options out there. well, there are a third of the counties in america today, one-third of the counties in

america today where people have one option, one insurer. pretty hard to get a competitive rate when you've only got one option. that's a virtual mon oply. -- mon op play in the third of the markets today. you have markets collapsing, insurers pulling out and we saw that last fall, the blue cross blue shield pulled out of the individual market in south dakota, left 8,000 people wondering how they're going to continue to cover themselves with health insurance. the markets are collapsing. choices are dwindling. and costs are skyrocketing. so the senator from michigan was just in here talking about how terrible things are going to be under the proposal that's being considered and discussed in the house of representatives, but the fact of the matter is, mr. president, things are terrible today. that's why we're having this conversation. eight in ten americans think that obamacare either ought to be repealed entirely or dramatically changed, significantly changed. and it's -- it is by any

estimation, by any objective measurement or metric it has been a failure. and that's why we're having this conversation. that conversation would have occurred irrespective of what happened in the presidential election last fall. so let's be clear about why we're here and why we're having this conversation and why we're coming up with a better solution for the american people that will drive down their cost, which will give them more choice, create more competition in that marke marketplace, and e them a higher and better quality of care because it restores the doctor-patient relationship which is so important and not having the government intervene and be in the middle of all that. mr. president, we have a recovery that technically began almost eight years ago but for too many americans it still feels like we're in a recession. americans have basic lip not had a bay -- basically not had a pay race in eight years. since 2009 wage growth has averaged a paltry .25% per year, one-quarter of 1% increase in

pay per year since 2009. imagine that if you're a family and you're looking at everything that's going up in your lives, whether it's health care which i just talked about or the cost of education or the cost of energy or the cost of food, all these things that continue to go up and you're getting a .25%, one-quarter of 1% pay raise on an annual basis. pretty hard not to feel like you're starting to sink and your head is going to be below water before long. well good jobs and opportunities for workers have been too few and too far between. so millions of americans are working part time because they can't find full-time employment. even as some economic markets have improved, our economy has stayed firmly stuck in the doldrums, economic growth for 2016 afternooned a dismal 1.6% and there are a few signs that things are improving. by the way the historical average going back to world war ii is about 3.2% average growth, annual growth in the economy.

so last year we were at one half of what the average has been going back all the way to world war ii. well, the nonpartisan congressional budget office is projecting average growth for the next ten years, the next ten years at just 2%. in other words, long-term economic stagnation. the good news, though, mr. president, is that we don't have to resign ourselves to the status quo. we can get our economy going again. republicans are committed to doing just that. to get our economy going again we need to identify the reasons for the long-term stagnation we're experiencing. a recent report from the economic innovation group identified one important problem, a lack of what the organization calls economic dyanism. economic dyanism as the group defines it refers to the rate at which new businesses are born and die. in a dynamic economy, the rate of new business creation is high and significantly outstrips the

rate of business death but that hasn't been the case in the united states lately. new business creation has significantly dropped over the past several years. between 2009 and 2011, business death outstripped business births. while the numbers have since improved slightly, the recovery has been poor and far as i mentioned before from historical norms. the economic innovation group notes that in 2012 the economy's best year for business creation since the recession, it fell far short of its worst year prior to 2008. well, this is deeply concerning because new businesses have historically been responsible for a substantial part of the job creation in this country, not to mention a key source of innovation. when new businesses aren't being created at a strong rate, workers face a whole host of problems. a less dynamic economy, the

innovation group notes, and i quote, is unlikely to feature jobs, lower force precipitation, slack wage growth and rising inequality. exactly what we see today. end quote. mr. president, american workers clearly need relief and restoring economic dyanism is a key to providing it. we need to pave the way for new businesses and the jobs that they create and we need to ensure that current businesses, particularly small businesses, are able to thrive. there are a number of ways that we can do this. one big thing that we can do is to relieve the burden of excessive government regulations. now, obviously some government regulations are important and necessary. but too many others are unnecessary and doing nothing but loading businesses down with compliance costs and paperwork hours. the more resources businesses spend complying with regulation, the less they have available for growth and innovation.

excessive regulations also prevent many new businesses from ever getting off the ground. small start-ups simply don't have the resources to higher individuals let alone the consultants and lawyers to do the costly work of complying with scores of government regulations. unfortunately over the past eight years, the obama administration spent a lot of time imposing burdensome and unnecessary regulations on american businesses. according to the american action forum, the obama administration was responsible for implementing more than 675 major regulations that cost the economy more than $800 billion. given those numbers, it's no surprise that the obama economy left businesses with few resources to dedicate to growing and creating jobs. or that new business creation seriously dropped off during those years in the obama administration. since the new congress began in january, republicans have been focused on repealing burdensome obama regulations using the

congressional review act of the we've already used this law to repeal three obama regulations. and this week we'll use it to repeal at least two more, including the blacklisting rule which imposes duplicative and unnecessary requirements for businesses bidding on federal contracts an the bureau of land management methane rule which curbs energy production on federal lands by restricting drilling. this methane rule would cost jobs and deprive state and local governments of tax and royalty payments that they could use to address local priorities. another area of regulatory reform we need to address is obamacare. as i mentioned repealing the burdensome mandates and regulations that this law has imposed on businesses will go a long way toward removing barriers to new businesses and spurring growth at existing businesses. another important thing that we can do, mr. president, is remove unnecessary barriers that restrict access to capital. both new and existing businesses rely on capital to help them

innovate, expand, and create jobs. in addition to removing brdensome -- burdensome regulations, tax reform needs to be a priority. measures like allowing new businesses to deduct their start-up costs and reducing rates for small businesses would spur new business creation and help small businesses to thrives plan to take up comprehensive tax reform. the american economy has always been known for being dynamic and innovative, and we need to make sure that it stays that way. we need to free up the innovators and the job creators so that the next big idea isn't buried by government regulations before it has a chance to see the light of day. sluggish economic growth doesn't have to be the new normal. by removing burdensome regulations, we can spur business creation and innovation

and we can increase wages and opportunities for american workers and we can put our economy on the path to long-term health where that growth rate gets back to that more historic hro*efl that allows for -- level that allows for better paying jobs and higher wages for american families. i look forward to working with my colleagues in both houses of congress to achieve these goals and i'm anxious for us to start passing bills that would put policies in place that are favorable to higher economic growth, better jobs, and better wages for american people and their families. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. schatz: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, last night the republicans in the house revealed their plan to scrap a.c.a. and replace it with something much worse, trumpcare.

there are so many things that are wrong with this bill and some of us are still going through the 184 pages. i'm going to highlight eight problems with this bill to start. first of all, this bill is a complicated and rushed mess. despite the fact that they had seven years to work on their own plan, the republicans cobleding together a bill that -- cobled together a bill that makes no sense. in an effort to make everyone in their caucus happy, they made no one in their caucus group happy. that's why we have seen the heritage foundation and koch brothers come out and express opposition to the legislation. second, this bill cuts medicaid and they are going to use a phrase called block grants. but that is a euphemism for

cutting the resources for medicaid. this cuts a program that helps more than 70 million americans across the country to get the health care that they need. it means less care for pregnant moms, less care for families with loved ones in nursing homes. nursing home benefits will be totally trashed, and all of these changes will reduce medicaid to a level not seen before. and, by the way, medicare doesn't escape the ax. it's also in trouble if we enact the house legislation. trumpcare will actually move up the date of insolvenc insolvence medicare -- insolvency of the medicare trust fund to the year 2025. that's not 30 years from now when they talk about the social security. that's quite soon to have medicare be insolvent and they are inc.e.o increasing accelerae day when it becomes insolvent.

third, this bill hits the elderly with the age act. this is basically a cap on the am you can charge -- an insurance company can charge a senior for health care. it says you cannot charge more than three times the amount that you charge a young person for a senior citizen. this would increase the cap to five times the cost. so if a young person's health insurance costs $250, the maximum under the current law is $750 and now you're talking five sometimes $250, $1,250 per month. this is an age tax and if there's any doubt about how difficult this will be for senior citizen, ask the aarp. they are a bipartisan, well-respected organization that works in every state and seniors across the country need to understand what this age tax is. you will pay more for health

insurance if the law passes as it is. fourth, and this is a really important point. this is basically not a health care bill because if it were a health care bill, everybody knows it would require 60 votes. it would be enacting new legislation. this is a budget bill so all they can do really is cut taxes related to health care, and this is a bill that cuts taxes for rich people. how does it finance it? first of all, it finances probably a lot of it by borrowing and the other portion of it is by cuts to medicare and medicaid. trumpcare has special tax cuts that only benefit the highest-earning households and another one that will go to insurance company executives that make more than a half million dollars aer yao. they are cutting taxes for insurance company executives who make more than $500,000 a year

and an and they are cutting health care for all we represent. this bill will blow up the deficit. the crazy thing is we don't know how much our debt and deficit will increase because republicans are in such a hurry to rush this through without a formal c.b.o. analysis. we don't know how much this will cost. probably trillions, but they haven't asked for a c.b.o. score. they don't want to know how much it will blow up the debt and deficit because all of the fiscal hawks will be found to be hypocrites who have been railing about the deficit for all of their career, yet this might be the biggest budget-busting piece of legislation in many, many years and they don't want to know how much it costs because they made a promise and they are going to go ahead and fulfill that promise no matter how ridiculous it is. six, this bill will trash mental health coverage. the a.c.a. was a huge step

forward for the mental health community because it required insurance companies to require mental health health substance abuse disorders. every state is struggling with an addiction crisis. i don't know why we would rip those services away when so many count on it. number seven, this will defund planned parenthood because they can't represent themselves in the house of representatives. planned parenthood is a provider that offers health care to millions of women across the country, but this bill will come low-income women from getting critical care, and oftentimes this would happen in communities where women have nowhere else to turn. many community health centers don't have the services that women need or have twice the wait times that planned parenthood would have. for a woman who is finding out

if she has cancer, that is simply not an option. this bill is too partisan. we could all agree that our approach to health care could use some improvements and i'm more than ready to work with my republican colleagues to make health care better. i have tried to back that up with my legislative actions. i have worked with senator hatch to work on high-quality care in hard to reach regions and i worked with senator cassidy on a bill, i worked with senators wicker, cochran and thune on a telehealth bill. so we can work together on health care, but it requires three things, good faith -- and there is no good faith in this legislation, number two, bipartisanship. this bill, i'm quite sure, will get zero democratic0 votes in the house or senate. the third thing is we need legislative hearings. we need to have this done in the

light of day and have the american people weigh in and figure out what it is they are doing to the american health care system. if they are so proud of their plan, why no hearings. if they are so proud of their plan, why not at least get a score from the congressional budget office? if they are so proud of their plan, why do they lack the confidence that any democrat will support it. look, we do have the opportunity to work together to improve health care, but this ill bill is basically -- but this bill is basically a mess. it is worse than i thought. i think it is worse than a lot of people thought especially since they have been talking about this for seven years, so one might think they would have had a well thought-through plan, this has all of the characteristics that was rushed out the door in a 48-hour period. i hope my colleagues will join me in opposing this very bad piece of legislation and give us some space and time to do this right and to do this in a

bipartisan fashion. i yield the floor. and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. murphy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. murphy: i ask that we dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. murphy: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, trumpcare is here and you're going to hate it. seven years in the making, this replacement for the affordable care act, and on a cursory

overview, it appears that when you ask the question as to who gets hurt under the replacement plan, the answer is everyone with the exception of insurance companies, drug companies, and the very wealthy. and i hope that we are able to step back and take our time to analyze what this replacement plan is going to do to americans who badly need health care and who believed republicans whether they told them that they were going to repeal the bill and replace it with something better, who believed president trump when he said that he was going to repeal the affordable care act and replace it with something that was wonderful, that ensured everybody -- insured everybody that was insured under the affordable care act and did it at lower costs. i know that my colleagues of well meaning in this chamber cannot read this replacement plan and understand it to do

anything but strip coverage away from millions of americans and to drive up costs for millions of americans. there is no credible way to look at this replacement plan without seeing the devastation that will be wrought. and i want to spend a few minutes now that we have had this plan to look at for 24 hours talking about how dangerous it is and pleading with my republican colleagues to take their time and hopefully decide instead to work with democrats to try to strengthen the affordable care act, fix what is not working as well but preserve the parts that are working. here's what i mean when i say that everyone with the exception of insurance companies, drug companies and the super rich are hurt by the g.o.p. replacement plan. first this idea that we are going to end the medicaid expansion. that's what this replacement plan does. it says that in two years effectively 2020, the medicaid

expansion will go away. that means in my state, 200,000 people will lose health care. millions across the country will lose health care. they are by and large the poor and the lower middle class, largely women and children who can't get insurance other than through the medicaid expansion who will no longer be able to get it. medicaid has been expanded in democratic states, republican state, blue states, and red states letting medicaid expansion hang around for two years is no solace to people who will jam into those years as much health care as they can get but then be without it afterwards. but even more insidious is the part of the g.o.p. health care replacement plan that would turn medicaid into a block grant. after 2020. now, this has been talked about in conservative circles for a long time but has been resisted again by democrats and republicans who understand what that means. it means that medicaid will

eventually witter on the vine and it will become a state responsibility, no longer will the federal government help states pick up the cost for insuring the most vulnerable citizens. and remember who medicaid covers. medicaid covers 60% of children with disabilities in this country. the tens of millions of kids living with disabilities, six out of 10 of them get insurance from medicaid. if medicaid is turned into a block grant, let me guarantee you that health care will end for millions of those kids, and if it doesn't end, it will be dramatically scaled back because states can't pick up 660 -- 60% or 80%. 30% of nonelderly adults are covered by medicaid. 64% of nursing home residents are covered by medicaid. two out of every three of senior

citizen living in nursing homes are covered by medicaid. if you block grant medicaid, all of those states will not be able to pick up those costs and will not be able to deliver health care to people in nursing homes. it's just the truth. the republican bill effectively ends coverage for 11 million people across the country who are covered by the medicaid expansion after two years and then it jeopardizes care for tens of millions more by dramatically cutting the medicaid program and the medicaid reimbursement to states. this isn't a game. that's 11 million people. remember, it's not a guess because you're reverting in 2020 back to the rules before the affordable care act, and before the affordable care act 11 million people less were covered under medicaid. and even if states maybe hang around and decide to front the billions of dollars necessary to cover a few million of those,

you're still talking about 5 million to 9 million people who will lose insurance. again, these are people who can't buy it anywhere else. these are people's lives we are playing with. as i mentioned 200,000 in connecticut alone. you know who else gets hurt by this replacement plan? older americans. it seems that older americans are really targeted in this plan because although the underlying affordable care act says you can charge older americans more than three times that of younger americans, this will allow you to charge more. so a 60-year-old would have their premium go up by about a quarter and that's roughly $3,000 according to an aarp

study. i don't know about you, mr. president, but a lot of adults getting ready to qualify for medicare don't have $3,000 sitting around. but it gets worse. because the premium support is so skimpy, under this plan that same 60-year-old in connecticut would have their premium support -- their tax credit -- be cut in half from $8,000 to $4,000. do the math. that's a $9,000 increase in health care costs for a 60-year-old resident in connecticut. that's -- that's unaffordable and there is no way -- there's just no way for anybody so say that for that 60-year-old living in connecticut or living in nebraska or living in california that that's better health care -- $9,000 more out-of-pocket for a 60-year-old is not better health care.

the claim is that this bill will cover people with preexisting conditions, but because there is no minimum benefit requirement, the plans don't have to cover anything that you need for your preexisting condition. so, yes, they can't technically charge someone with cancer more, but they don't have to cover chemotherapy. the affordable care act act says insurance has to be -- affordable care act says insurance has to be insurance and some basic level of benefits so everyone who has health care insurance have coverage for cancer treatment or mental illness. because this strips away any requirement that insurance is insurance, maybe you get insurance if you have cancer, but it may not cover anything you have. and, of course, the cruelest piece of this bill says that if you lose insurance, you then get charged more.

now, republicans are right that in the affordable care act, as it exists today, there is a penalty if you don't buy insurance. republicans just do their penalty differently. what this replacement plan says is if you lose insurance and try to get it later on, you'll pay 30% more. i'll admit there's a penalty in the underlying affordable care act and there's a penalty in the republican bill. but the difference is in the affordable care act the help that you get to buy insurance allows you to buy insurance and that's why 20 million people have insurance today. but because the tax credits are basically cut in half under this proposal, it will render health care unaffordable, thus more people will have gaps in coverage, thus more people will pay the penalty. so in the end, this bill really doesn't provide protection for

people with preexisting conditions because they are not going to be able to buy insurance in the first place, they are going to fall into that gap, and then they are going to have to pay more. even if they do have insurance, it may not cover what they need. now, all of this is made harder to understand because it seems to be one big excuse to deliver a giant tax cut to the wealthy. the joint committee on tax estimates that this bill would cut taxes by $600 billion for the wealthiest americans. the affordable care act was financed, in part, by a tax on unearned income for people making over $250,000 aee. i live in a pretty wealthy state, connecticut, but those who are not making that type of income -- the average tax cut under this bill would be $200,000. why? because we are taxing so few people making so much money that

the average tax cut would be $200,000. when you do the sum total of parts that are moving under this replacement plan, it seems as if the biggest parts that are moving are care away from millions of poor people and elderly, money going to the wealthiest 1% of americans. that's not hyperbole. that's just how this bill works out. the biggest net results of this bill from the status quo are that millions of people who are on medicaid today in a few years won't have it. those are kids, disabled, and the elderly. and a handful of very wealthy americans will make out with enormous tax cuts under this legislation. and so i guess it's no secret, mr. president, that this bill

was crafted behind closed doors. seven years in the making and this bill was hidden from public view until yesterday and now house republicans are saying that they are going to give the american public one week to look at this. no estimate of the costs, they are going to ram it through as quickly as they can. now, i held a half dozen town halls in the summer of 2009 when the tea party teplest was at -- pembina -pest was at it -- tempest was at its highest. and one of the refrains i heard in the town halls is that the republicans -- was that they were ramming through the affordable care act. it was on fox news, it was part of our town halls regularly. let me tell you what happens in

2009. the house process spanned three committees -- the energy and commerce committee, the ways and means committee, labor and health committee and there were 79 bipartisan hearings and markups. house members spent nearly one00 hours in hearing, heard from 181 witnesses, considered 239 amendments and accepted 121. the help committee had 14 bipartisan roundtables, 13 bipartisan hearings and 20 walk-throughs on health reform. the help committee considered 300 amendments and accepted 160 republican amendments. the finance committee held a similar process and when the bill came to the floor, the senate spent 25 consecutive days in session on he'll health

reform -- on health reform. so don't tell me that the affordable care act was rushed through when the help committee during that time considered 300 amendments, held dozens of hearings, and in 2017 there are going to be no committee meetings, no committee markups, no committee amendments and barely a week for the public, for think tanks, for hospitals, for doctors, for patients to be able to consider the chaos that will be wrought if this health care plan goes through. and so, mr. president, i'm on the floor today to plead with my republican colleagues to step

back from this potential debacle. this seems like it was written on the back of a napkin in order to rush something out into the public so that republicans can claim they are fulfilling the promise that they made without thinking through the consequences. over and over again i heard my republican friends and i heard trump say they are going to repeal the affordable care act and replace it with something better. i heard the secretary of health and human services that costs would not go up, that insurance protections would be preserved. none of that will be true under the current plan under consideration and everybody knows it, which is why it's being hidden from public view. politician love praise. right. we love good press. and so if republicans thought that this was a praise-worthy

plan, they wouldn't be hiding it. they wouldn't be trying to rush it through, they would be celebrating an achievement they have been crowing for years, replacing the affordable care act with something that is better. this is worse for everyone except for insurance companies, drug companies, and the super rich. the super rich get a big tax cut and all of the fees that were levied on the insurance companies and drug companies that were used to pay for additional expansion, they go away. tucked inside here there is even a very specific tax cut for insurance company c.e.o.'s. think about that, tucked inside this bill is a specific tax cut for a select group of individuals, insurance companies and c.e.o.s. i represented a lot of those c.e.o.s, but it doesn't make it right. i hope we will work together to

strengthen the affordable care act and fiction what's wrong. -- fix what's wrong, the plan that was unveiled yesterday by the house. it hurts everybody, except for a select few. i know my colleagues know we can do better. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: i ask unanimous consent that at 3:45 there be 15 minutes of debate remaining on h.j. res. 44 equally divided in the usual form. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on small business and entrepreneurship be discharged from further consideration of s. 1416 and the bill -- it go to housing and urban affairs. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: thank you, mr. president, we are going to the end of debate on the disapproval resolution for the b.l.m. planning 2.0 and i'd like to

take just a few minutes in wrap-up on this to highlight the very broad support that it has drawn both here on capitol hill, but really across the country. here in the senate i mentioned earlier there's a total of 17 members who have joined me in sponsoring our version of this resolution. that's nearly one-fifth of this chamber. it includes every republican from a western state with b.l.m. lands within its borders. these are alaska, arizona, ida idaho, wyoming, colorado, nevada, montana, even kentucky, and occupant of the chair here, north dakota, oklahoma. so, again, a very strong contingent of members that are in -- in support of this disapproval of resolution. across the capitol, the house of representatives passed this resolution with bipartisan support a couple of weeks ago through the leadership of representative cheney of

wyoming. this resolution wound up with 234 votes in the house. that's pretty strong. the reason why so many members of the house and the senate want to overturn b.l.m.'s planning 2.0 rule is pretty simple. we know what it means for our western states. we d -- we don't like the impaments that if will -- impacts that it will have and neither do a wide variety of officials and stakeholders back home. in my state of alas carks i've heard from -- alaska. i've heard from the alaska farm bureau, associated general contractors of alas carks the greater fair banks chamber of congress wrote us to overturn the law. the alaska chamber of commerce wrote in support of our resolution because they said b.l.m.'s planning process has grown to be substantially lengthier, more confusing, and burdensome for stakeholders to engage in. we've heard from our leaders in the state legislature, state senator pete kelly and john

coglieu who asked for the bill to be codified. the alaska chapter of the safari club opposes it because its landscape level approach to land management planning has the potential to withdraw and lock up even more land in alaska. alaska's energy, mineral and timber producers are united in their opposition to the rule and their support of our disapproval resolution. we've heard from the resource development council, the alaska oil and gas association, the alaska forest association, the council of alaska producers, the alaska support industry alliance, the 40-mile mining district in the alaska miners association all oppose b.l.m.'s planning 2.0 rule because it reduces economic opportunities for alaskans, those who actually live near these b.l.m. lands, who know the most about them, and who depend on them to provide for their families. and it's the same story in many

other western states, from arizona and new mexico to washington and oregon, montana and south dakota. this rule affects all 12 b.l.m. states, and those states just are not happy about it. we've heard from about 80 groups so far that oppose that rule, and i will ask that a copy of the list of supporters be included as part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: that list includes our nation's energy and mineral producers, the people who keep our lights on, who provide the fuel for our vehicles, who make the construction of everything from semi conductors to skyscrapers possible. this is the american petroleum institute, the independent petroleum association of america, the western energy alliance, the national mining association, the american exploration and mining association, all opposed to the rule. and so many state groups like the arizona mining association, the montana electric cooperatives and the petroleum association of wyoming. joining them are many of our

nation's farmers and ranchers, the individuals who provide so much of our nation's food supply, whether that's steak or milk or something else. the national cattlemen's beef association, the american cheap industry association have registered their opposition. the american farm bureau federation opposes the rule. and so do many of the state partners, including the colorado farm bureau, new mexico farm and livestock bureau, the oregon farm bureau and the washington farm bureau federation. perhaps most critically the b.l.m. 2.0 rule has drawn strong opposition from local and state governments, the tenties who are -- entities who are elected to represent all of the people, not just one specific interest. the national association of counties, the voice of county governments all across the country sent a letter outlining their support for the disapproval resolution being debated here today. another group, the national association of conservation districts, wrote that planning 2.0 should be repealed because it, quote, skirts the federal land policy and management act

and reduces the ability of local government involvement while seeming force and blind to the many issues raised in the pub politic comment period. again, this disapproval resolution has drawn strong support from a wide range of stakeholder groups, energy, mining, grazing, america's farmers and ramplers, state officials -- ranchers, state officials, local counties, conservation districts, everything from the alaska truckers association, public lands council and u.s. chamber of commerce have all weighed in. at last count more than 80 groups have asked us to repeal b.l.m.'s planning 2.0. i'm sure there are many others who are not included in that count. we've heard such strong support because this is a misguided rule that will negatively impact our western states. it subverts the special status relationship between the federal government and states and local governments. it limits local involvement and local input. it opens the door for decision-making authority to be

centralized at b.l.m.'s headquarters here in washington, d.c., and it up ends b.l.m.'s multiple use mission by allowing the agency to pick and choose among preferred uses while sidelining industries that provide good-paying jobs in our western communities. i think there's broad agreement that planning 2.0 should be overturned. that's what we are here to do and we'll have that opportunity in just a few moments. so i would ask all members of the senate, including those who do not have b.l.m. lands in their states to consider the strong support this resolution of disapproval has drawn and to join us in passing it at 4:00. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor and would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president i ask the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: we had a chance earlier today to talk about the congressional review act, resolution before us that i urged my colleagues to turn down. this resolution basically would negate a very important aspect of a rule that was put in place to help the public have more input on public lands. the rule was pretty straightforward, commonsense, to make sure there was a lot of increased public input to bolster the decision-making process, and to assure that there were 21st century management policies in place. there is nothing in this rule that was implemented in the last administration that erodes or takes away states and local governments' planning process in the decision-making that they do it's very important to me that we continue to have the transparency and openness and

sunshine in our public planning. but i think one editorial said it best. i'm going to read from it, mr. president. that is, the idaho post register in which it said, quote, resource management planning sounds boring. maybe. but if you're a westerner, it definitely shouldn't be. resource management planning affects how you can or can't use the vast swaths of public land outside your back door for things like hunting and camping, four wheeling, hiking, fishing, and rock climbing and a lot of other things you probably love about being a westerner. with the new republican presidential administration in power, the g.o.p.-controlled congress rubbing its hands together in delight ready to have to implement part of its grand scheme for public lands, cashing in on those resources. r.m.p.'s would get a lot more interesting to westerners. since 2014, the bureau of land management has been working away rebuilding the current rules and

the planning in a significant way for the first time since 1983. and one important change in that plan would let the bureau of land management take into account local impacts from the very beginning. going on to read from the editorial, the republican-controlled house has already passed a resolution to striex this from the -- strike this from the books once and for all. the senate will vote within days on whether or not they will use the same sledgehammer, the congressional review act. it is an especially diabolical weapon. once the c.r.a. is used on this planning 2.0, it will be gone forever. it will prevent future management rules for planning and uses being introduced if they are substantially the same. this -- i'm sorry. the utterly confounding part is why is this rule being picked on in the first place. planning 2.0 actually mandates more local control, gives more often and smarter and more

elegant solutions to sharing our use of public lands. so, mr. president, i couldn't say it better than that editorial. local communities are watching. they want more sunshine. they want more input. they want a smoother process. they don't want lawsuits that take forever. they want us to work in a collaborative fashion guaranteeing the public input of local governments, states, and our citizens in how we manage our federal lands. i urge my colleagues to turn down this resolution. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

ms. cantwell: mr. president? i ask the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: mr. president, i yield back the remaining time. the presiding officer: all time was yielded back. the clerk will read the title of the joint resolution for the third time. the clerk: house joint resolution 44, disapproving the rule submitted by the department of the interior relating to bureau of land management regulations and so forth. the presiding officer: the question -- is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays have been ordered. the question occurs on passage of h. j. res. 44. the clerk will call the roll.

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or to change their vote? if not, the yeas are 51. the nays are 48. the joint resolution is passed. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the the majority leader is recognized. mr. mcconnell: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 18, seema verma, to be the administrator of the centers for medicare and medicaid services. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to.

the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of health and human services. seema verma of indiana to be administrator of the centers for medicare and medicaid services. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, can we order in the senate. the presiding officer: may we have order in the chamber, please. thank you. mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: cloture motion, we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of seema verma to be administrator of the centers for medicare and medicaid services, department of health and human services. signed by 17 senators as follows. mr. mcconnell: i ask the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask the mandatory quorum with respect to the nomination be waived. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. mcconnell: i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed. all those in favor say aye.

all those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. mr. mcconnell: i move to proceed to --. the presiding officer: the motion is agreed to. mr. mcconnell: i move to proceed to h.j. res. 58. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: motion to proceed to house joint resolution 58, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, united states code of the rule submitted by the department of education relating to teacher preparation issues. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the joint resolution. the clerk: house joint resolution 58 providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5 united states code of the rule submitted by the department of education relighting to teacher preparation -- relating to teacher preparation issues.

mr. sasse: mr. president, i rise today in support of s.j. res. 26, a resolution to disapprove the obama administration's department of education regulation on teacher preparation issues. this issue is. it controversy turns the last administration's overreach into scores of state and territories into thousands of college and university teacher preparation programs and into millions of american classroom.

s. last night i drafted a fairly detailed statement on some of the problems deep inside this regulation, but i've decided to skip past most of that. why? because the problem with this regulation is actually much more basic than all of the substantive problems in the regulation. this regulation actually makes the assumption that bureaucrats in washington, d.c., are competent to micromanage teacher training programs in america. that's what this regulation ultimately does, and that's absurd. so i would like to ask three questions of folks who plan to vote to defend this regulation. first, do you really think that bureaucrats in this city know better how to run teacher training programs than people who've spent most of their lives inside actual classrooms with actual future teachers and with students? how many of you have ever run a teacher training program? has anyone in this body ever run a teacher training program?

because i have almost. i've spent a lot of my life around these programs. as a kirks my dad was a -- as a kid, my dad was was a lifelong teacher. then with my wife, she was also a public high school teacher. and then i was a college president at a university that had multiple teacher training programs. i know keith rohr and i know the other deans of education that have been at midland university and yet even though i've been around a lot of these programs in some detail, i wouldn't possibly think that i am ready to decree all the details inside those programs from thousands and thousands of miles away. question number two: has anyone actually read this regulation that folks are going to say they want to defend on this floor? because i've been reading in it. i won't claim that i'veed are it

but i've read -- i won't claim that i've read it, but i've read in it. this is the 695-pages of the regulation that we're talking about today. and it's actually really silly. if you read inside it, it is filled with enough specificity that if you tried to explain it to thoughtful, generally educated americans, i submit to you that you would blush. there is a level of detail and a level of specificity in this that we are not possibly competent to defend at the micro-level. and question number three: can the folks who think that this is what washington, d.c., ought to be doing right now please show me somewhere in this document -- this is the senate version of the constitution -- show me somewhere in this document where we are given the specific authority to micro- manage local

programs like this from here. because honestly -- i mean this sincerely to my colleagues who plan to vote to defend this rule -- i don't see how you can read this document and think that this is conceivably our job from here. we are not competent to do this. now, a couple of qualifications are in order. am i suggesting that all teacher training programs in america work well? heaven's no. there are some that are fairly strong, and there are actually a lot that are really, really poor and weak. but having a good intention to make them better is not the same as actually having accomplished something that will make them better. good intentions are not enough. for us in this body to act, because we have compulsory governmental powers, we would need not merely good intentions, we would also need competence and authority. we have near the of those about teacher training programs.

-- we have neither of those about teacher training programs. everybody agrees that teacher training is darn near the center of our country. we all want and need good teachers. most of us can remember specific teachers who stood out because of her or his creative presentation, because of their unexpected humor, because of their charm and their compassion, because of their tireless drive, because of their inspired mentorship. none of us in this chamber who have the privilege of serving our fellow countrymen and women regret or are unaware of the fact that the skills and the guidance and the abilities that we have are the function of the mentorship and th the pedigogy. we have benefited from and need good, prepared teachers. if we all agree that teachers are critically important to our future and if we all agree that teacher training programs are important and we also agree that some of them aren't very good,

the question would be: what would we do about that? what kind of debate should we have about why much education in america isn't good enough? does anyone in this body sincerely believe that the big pressing problem in american education is that there aren't enough rules like this coming out of bureaucracies in washington, d.c.,? because if you believe that, i would humbly suggest that you should go and meet with some of the ed school faculties back in your state and ask them if you can read them these 635 pages so you can tell them that we have the answers. read it to them, and then please come back and tell us in this body that they agree with you, that what we really need is more 700-page regulations from washington, d.c., micromanaging things as specific and local as teacher preparation programs. oh, and one more thing which is actually kind of big: this

regulation explicitly violates the plain language and the congressional intent of the federal education law that was passed in this body last year. you'll all recall that the elementary and secondary education act was passed in this chamber with overwhelming bipartisan support last year. i think it got 83 votes. the act prohibits the secretary of education from prescribing -- ander i quote -- "any aspect or parameter of the teacher, a principal or other school leader evaluation system within any state or any local education agency, quote quote, or, quote, indicators or specific measures of teacher, principal or other school leadership, quality, or effectiveness, end quote. there's nothing ambiguous about this language. in addition, the higher education act is clear that the levels of performance used by a state to assess teacher training programs, quote, shall be determined sole by the state,

close quote. this rule overrides state authority over literally tensions of thousands of specific teacher preparation programs around the nation burdening states with a federally defined and expensive mandate. under this regulation, states would be required to create elaborate new data systems that would link k-12 teacher data to evaluation data on teachers and administrators in particular schools and then on to the data back into the teacher preparation programs. this regulation's goal would be to measure the success of teacher preparation based largely on teachers' students' subsequent test scores and would need to all be backlinked in the data. this is data that is not currently gathered. rube goldberg is smiling somewhere because this sounds like a bureaucrat's dream, a paperwork trail monitoring all the strengths and weaknesses of some vast machine spitting out layers and layers of new data

over which washington's experts could then postulate and tinker. again, i have no doubt that the bureaucrats who wrote these 700 eye-glazing pages, pages about rules, about data to be gathered that states are not currently gathering -- i have no doubt that the people who wrote this mean well. i also have no doubt that the people who are going todon this rule as somehow commonsensical -- and why is it 700 pages? -- also mean well. you but those good intentions don't change the fact that what they've actually done in this rule, what they've actually done, is build a much larger requirement set of paper trails demanding further burdens on our teachers, on our principals, and on the professors who are teaching teachers, and then to require all of them to report back through new or expanded bureaucracies at the state level, though the states have not chosen to gather this data, and then to pass this data on to a bureaucracy a couple of blocks from here. these rubiks cubes of rules and

data collection are not being done today and supposedly we are going to make teacher preparation programs better by all of the specificity that comes from this rule. the fact that these regulations will likely cost states millions of dollars to implement simplyed as insult to injury. let's be honest. education is not some vast, complex machine that just needs a little bit more tinkering from washington-level intervention before it will be at utopia. it isn't true and this rule is not an effective way to actually help the teachers who care so much that they're investing their live in our kids. nebraska'sparents and educators and locally elected school boards are better equipped and better positioned to tack the most important educational challenges. they're better-equipped and they're better-intentioned even than the most well-meaning experts in washington, d.c. and if you disagree, again i humbly challenge to you go and

try and read this rule to elementary and secondary schoolteachers in your state and to those who are running the programs that train them. read the 695 pages to them and then report back to us that they actually share your view that the really big problem in american education is not enough 700-page rules from educational bureaucrats in d.c. good intentions are not enough. federal intervention and reforms should never make problems worse, and it is what this rule would dox i urge my colleagues to reject this rule and to rededicate ourselves to the duties that really and fundamentally are ours, to the duties that the federal government is exclusively and monopolies stickily empowered to care out because it isn't this u we are not competent to displace the expertise of the district and the state level and we should not be trying to regulate teacher training programs from washington, d.c. we are in the competent to do this. thank you for your consideration, and i yield back my time.

mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator washington. mrs. murray: well, thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor today actually on behalf of students across the country and for those who are so passionate about their education that they want to dedicate themselves to teaching. and to urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution and support strong and accountable teacher preparation in america today. while this rule may not be the rule that any of us would have written on our own, it is important. let me say at the outset that there are many great teacher prep programs that exist around our country, and they are doing a great job preparing our teachers to succeed in the classroom. but there are also teacher preparation programs out there that are struggling and need support to help make sure they produce great teachers for our schools. as a former preschool mom -- a former preschool teacher and a mom, i know how important it is

to have great teachers in our classrooms, and i understand how a good education with an amazing teacher can change a child's life. i'm sure all of our colleagues think back on that one special teacher they had who shamed shaped their mind and changed their life. they teaches us not only how to read and write and do arithmetic, but how to think critically, how to be creative, how to form an argument. i know i'm not alone in saying that i owe much of what i have to the quality public education i received growing up, and i have spent my career fighting to make sure every child in america has the same opportunity that i did. unfortunately, mr. president, too many teaching students students today are forced to make out huge amounts of student loans afford continuing their education so they can realize their dream. they are willing to make the sacrifice.

they don't complain. but the very least that we can do for those who want to become teachers is to make sure they're actually getting their money's worth when they make an investment in themselves. that's what this truly. it helps make sure that students can make informed decisions, that the students can make informs decisions about the quality and preachedness of their -- preparedness of their education. here are a few ways that this rule does that and i'm hoping my colleagues will see that this shouldn't be controversial. this rule strengthens and streamlines reporting requirements of teacher prep programs to focus on employment placement and retention of graduates. it provides information from employers to future teacher candidates so they can make an informed decision about their education by choosing a school that improves the likelihood they will find employment after graduation. it makes sure that prospective

teachers can access this information they need before they take out massive amounts of student debt. and when teacher programs are struggling, this rule helps states identify at-risk and low-performing programs so states can provide them the support they need to adapt or adjust their program and help their teaching students succeed. mr. president, there is one more reason why i would urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution today. simply put, it would put more power into the hands of secretary devos, and many of us don't yet have the trust that she would use that power to promote the best interest of students and higher education. secretary devos does not come from a higher education background. we don't know whether she supports providing information on teacher placement rates and retention rates before

prospective teachers take out student loans. we have no idea what she would do if this rule went away. and i believe it would be too risky to find out. mr. president, by investing in our teachers, we are investing in our future generations. but our future teachers have the right to know whether or not they are receiving a quality education, and they deserve to know that before they take out massive amounts of student debt. it helps to improve teacher program accountability and gives prospective teachers the information they need to make an accurate decision on which program is most likely to make them a successful teacher in the classroom. and it ensures that secretary devos does not have more power to implement unknown policies that could hurt students and reduce the number of qualified great teachers in our public schools. without this rule and the information that it ensures,

students will have a hard time finding a quality teacher prep program that will help them get a job after they graduate. and i think that's simply wrong. we should be working to make sure teaching students have full access to information and options. this rule would give them less. for all the future teachers out there, i urge my fellow senators to vote against this c.r.a. because every young adult deserves to know the program that they enroll in is actually preparing them to be a successful teacher in the classroom. and every student deserves to have an amazing teacher in every classroom. and finally, mr. president, i would like to bring up one more thing that is very important to me. the bipartisan every student succeeds act and a potential serious threat to it. it seems that republicans are thinking about bringing to the floor another c.r.a. that would eliminate the rule that provides states with flexibility and

guidelines to create their state plans. i want to be very clear. i really hope republicans reconsider that approach. the every student succeeds act is a critical part of our bipartisan education law. it is an important part of the civil rights protections it offers as well as the assurances it made that every student would have an opportunity to succeed, no matter where they live or how they learn or how much money their parents make. but jamming through that resolution would weaken it and it would be a major step towards turning our bipartisan law into another partisan fight. rolling back the every student succeeds act rule less than a month before states have to submit their plans to the department of education will cause chaos and confusion in the states and it will hurt our students, our teachers and our schools. and it would also give secretary

devos great control over that bipartisan every student succeeds act and give her the tools to implement her anti- public education agenda. secretary devos' lack of experience and expertise as well as her damaging track record on school privatization leaves her unqualified to implement this bipartisan law that governs public education and public schools without the important guardrails that that rule ensures. given her record and her comments, she would almost certainly push for measures that disregard key civil rights protections in the every student succeeds act and could scal -- allow unequal, unfair and unaccountable reliability for schools across the country. mr. president, the every student succeeds act rule is supported by democrats and republicans, by teemps and -- by teachers and businesses, by

parents and communities. we should not go backwards. so i urge my colleagues to reconsider moving forward with that resolution that i understand they want to bring up later this week, and work with us to continue building on that bipartisan progress that we all worked towards for our students. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: mr. president, thank you. i rise today to offer a few comments about the house republican bill that was just unveiled yesterday. they are claiming in the house, those who have been promoting it or those who have been working on this issue for a couple of weeks, they're claiming it's a new health care plan, or a new

comprehensive health care proposal, in essence, by their argument, a replacement if the affordable care act were repealed. i disagree. i don't believe in any way it's a plan. it might be a bill, but i think it's a better description of it in terms of its impact would be that it is a scheme, not a plan. it's a scheme that will roll back coverage gains from the affordable care act. better known by a longer name, the patient protection and affordable care act. kaiser, one of the great institutions that tracks health care data and health care policy, told us that there are 156 million americans with employer-sponsored coverage. those americans didn't have much protection before the patient protection and affordable care act with regard to preexisting conditions or with regard to annual or lifetime limits.

a whole series of protections for people that were not there before that. but this scheme, as i'm calling it, will not only roll back coverage gains in the patient protection and affordable care act, it will also devastate in the process the medicaid program, leaving many of the most vulnerable americans behind another impact of this scheme will be to increase costs for middle-class families while cutting taxes for millionaires or multimillionaires as well as big corporations. it would raise the cost of care for older americans and would substantially cut funding for hospitals in rural communities. so how do we get there, and where are we going, based upon what the house republican proposal is? last night the republicans released their bill to, quote,

replace the affordable care act, and the house energy and commerce committee and the house ways and means committee will be marking up the bill tomorrow. tomorrow. i guess it doesn't require much reading to get to a markup tomorrow. usually when you introduce a bill, the bill is reviewed by members of congress, there is some public debate about it, there is some back and forth. and then a period of time later, maybe weeks, there is a markup. the committee engages in a thorough review of the bill, and the markup means they just make changes. they add amendments or try to alter the bill in one way or another. so that's a serious approach when you do this work of legislating on a serious issue. health care is about as serious and difficult an issue as there is. i think it should be accorded the serious review that the

complexity and the consequence of this issue demands. this is not a serious proposal. it's a scheme. but it's also not a serious process that the house seems to be focused on right now. this process means that the house will mark up this bill within, i guess, about 48 hours of it being unveiled; maybe less than 48 hours. that means there won't be a single hearing on the bill or getting the bill scored, which is a fancy washington word for having someone tell us what it costs. so there'll be no thorough review, no serious review on such a monumental issue called health care, and what happens to hundreds of millions of americans. but at the same time the markup will proceed with lightning

speed, and there won't be any information on the record about an analysis of the bill that's thorough and serious. and of course we won't know how to pay for it, or we won't have the score that will tell us how it will be paid for and what the costs will be. so this bill, it's hard to come up with the words, but it's -- the impact of it would be a disaster. if you're a millionaire and up, you're doing quite well under this bill. you're going to get a bonanza from this bill. you're going to have a great payday. but if you're a child or happen to be a senior, or if you're a woman or if you're an individual with a disability or a chronic disease, you're out of luck. you're in big trouble. and i would hope that those americans would have the benefit of a serious review of a serious issue. but if the bill is not serious, then i guess they're going to

just ram it through. so we'll see what happens in the next couple of days. but there's one analysis that should be on the record. there are some that are just hot off the presses. this is a report released today that i'm looking at. it's about a little more than -- about two and a half pages. and because they know that the vote will tack place soon in thn the committee, two committees, maybe in the house, so this report by the center on budget and policy priorities is moving quickly to keep up with the fast pace that the bill is proceeding at. here's the title of the bill, the title of the report. i won't read the whole report and won't enter the whole report into the record. i'm sure people can go online and look at it. here's the title of the report report -- house g.o.p. medicaid provisions would shift $370 billion in costs to states over

a decade. written by edwin park, who has been writing about medicaid for a long time. few americans know more about medicaid than edwin park and people like him that study it. but here's the first, just one sentence. i'll just read the first sentence which kind of gives you the basics on it. the new house -- and i'm quoting here. the new house republican health plan would shift an estimated $370 billion -- that's with a "b" my emphasis, $370 billion to medicaid costs to states over the next ten years, effectively ending the affordable care act's medicaid expansion for 11 million people while also harming tens of millions of additional seniors, people with disabilities and children and parents who rely upon medicaid today. unquote. that's the opening line, the

opening summary and opening line of this proposal, which i believe is a scheme. so what does that mean for medicaid? one of the basic debates we will have around here is just what happens to medicaid itself. and we'll have a lot of debates about other aspects of the implications for the affordable care act. but here's what it means. it means that 70 million americans who rely upon medicaiy are children in urban areas, children in rural areas, children in small towns who get their health care from medicaid. it's a lot of individuals with disabilities, a lot of children with disabilities benefit from medicaid. it's also, of course, pregnant

women as well as seniors trying to get into a nursing home, because we know that a lot of seniors can't get into a nursing home unless they have the benefits of medicaid. what the idea is in the bill on medicaid that is objectionable, among other objections i have, is the so-called per capita cap. this idea limits federal contributions to a fixed amount, yet the caps are not tied to overall increases in health care spending. the net effect is fewer health care dollars over time so they can afford the tax cuts that they want to have as part of this scheme. we've heard a lot around here about flexibility, that states want more flexibility when it

comes to medicaid. i'll tell you what they don't want. they don't want a flexibility argument to be a scheme that results in cuts to those states. where the federal government says, here's a block grant which may increase or may not, but good luck states with balancing your budget. states balance their budgets and they have difficult choices to make. sometimes choices the federal government never makes. if you're a governor -- that's why some republican governors who tack advantage of the medicaid expansion and expanded health care to a lot of people in their states, that's one of the reasons they are worried about -- and some will oppose -- this idea of so-called per capita caps or block granting of medicaid or the like. so if we have a proposal to cut

$370 billion from the house, what does that mean for some of those groups that i just mentioned earlier? well, we know that more than 45% of all the births in the united states of america are paid for by medicaid, so that's a consequence for pregnant women and their children. one in five seniors receives medicaid assistance by way of the benefit to someone trying to get into a nursing home. medicaid also pays for home-based care for seniors and, of cows, long-term -- of course, long-term care as well. how about if you have a disability. over one-third of the nation's adults with disabilities who require extensive services are covered by medicaid. we know in a state like mine because we had a republican

governor embrace the medicaid expansion and then a democratic governor embrace it and really develop it and bring it to wore it is today. we have expansion of medicaid that resulted in some $700,000 - -- 700,000 pennsylvanians gaining coverage to the medicaid expansion. 62% of americans who gained coverage did so through the -- i'm sorry, 62% of americans who -p gained coverage -- who gained coverage through the medicaid expansion are working. so we're talking about a lot of families and a lot of individuals who are working and they are getting their health care through medicaid, and that opportunity presented itself because in the affordable care act medicaid was expanded. so there are lots of numbers we could talk about. maybe i'll give just two more. medicaid is the primary payer

for mental health and substance abuse treatment. medicaid expansion enabled 180,000 pennsylvanians to receive these lifesaving services. so if you're a member of congress and go home and talk about the opioids crisis -- and to say it's a crisis is an understatement. it has devastated small towns and rural areas and it devastated families and some of the numbers indicate it is getting worse. it's not leveling off. if you say you cared about that and you supported the comprehensive care recovery and addiction act and you say you're working towards help for communities devastated by the opioid crisis, that's okay to say that, but you can't then s say -- but i want to support the

house republican proposal on medicaid when medicaid is the primary payer for these substance abuse -- substance abuse treatment programs. i mentioned before adults and children with disabilities. medicaid covers 60% of children with disabilities -- 60% of children with disabilities. we know the range of that -- ranging from autism to downs syndrome and many other disabilities and circumstances that i have not mentioned. so this is for a lot of people real life. it's not some theory that gets kicked around washington often by people who have good health care coverage as they are talking about cutting health care for others. we have a lot of testimony from what we might want to call the real world. one of the most compelling

pieces of correspondence i received in my time in the senate was from a mom about her son. her name is pam. she's from coatsville, pennsylvania, that's in southeastern pennsylvania within the range of philadelphia -- suburban philadelphia. she wrote to tell me how important medicaid is to her family and to tell me about her 5-year-old sun rowen. she sent me a picture of rowen with a firefighter's hat on. he is fascinated by the heroic work of firefighters. i won't go through her whole letter, but she got news a couple of years ago that many parents get during the course of the life of their children. she got news in march of 2015 that her son rowen was diagnosed

with autism spectrum disorder. the diagnosis was made by a psychologist who works for the intermediate unit, meaning the unit that provides special education. rowen continued in the preschool program and day care program before and after school, but pam goes on to say, quote, i was never able to find a day care suitable for all of rowen's needs. i applied for medical assistance. i'll stop there to explain. medical assistance is the state end of the medicaid program. we call it medical assistance. other states have a different name for it. pam says she applied for medical assistance. i'm quoting again. afro-en was awarded this -- after rowen was awarded assistance we were able to get a

therapeutic staff support worker. pam goes on to say that -- and i'm quoting her again -- without medical assistance i'm confident that i could not work full time to support our family. i would -- we would be bankrupt and my son would go without the therapies he needs. unquote. those are the therapies i just mentioned. then pam goes on to say -- urging me as one of her two senators -- focus on her son, focus on her family when we're casting votes and having debates about policies as it relates to health care and medicaid. here's what pam asked me to do as her senator. quote, please think of rowen, my son. please think of my 9-month-old luna, who is rowen's sister who smiles an laughs at her

brother -- and laughs at her brother. she will have to care for rowen late in her life after we are gone. we are desperately in need of rowen's medical assistance and would be devastated if we lost these benefits. unquote. so said pam about her son and about the importance of the medical assistance program which is known on the national level as medicaid. so i would hope that those in the house as their quickly -- as they are quickly marking up legislation that would have a huge impact on families like p pam's and many, many more, i would hope that they would think of rowen, think of his little sister luna and what her challenges will be years from now when she will likely have to care for rowen and answer some

of pam's questions. there are a lot of questions that we have about policy and numbers and budget impact and they are all appropriate. but some of the most important questions we have to answer for those who are asking them are questions that our constituents are asking, and one of those is pam. we've got to be responsive to her concerns about her son and the challenges her son faces. so i would -- her son faces. so i would hope in the midst of debate and in the midst of very rapid consideration of a complicated subject and a bill that has been slapled together, in my -- slapped together, in my judgment too quickly, pam's considerations would be up are most in the minds of those working on this legislation. i yield the floor and note the

absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president ?ch. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island white white i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: and i be allowed to speak up to 15 minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, this is time to wake up speech number 159 and giving these speeches, i've come to realize that some of my colleagues seem to have a hard time wrapping their heads around the basic understanding of climate change. some of president trump's

cabinet nominees seem to have the same problem. they say the scientific community is split on the issue. it's not. they say that climate has always been changing. not like this it hasn't. they say we can't trust projections and complex computer models. but overall they've actually been right. and of course they had the notorious i'm not a scientist dodge. well, mr. president, if a colleague doesn't understand this, then perhaps he ought to trust the scientist at noaa and at nasa and our national labs, and at universities in rhode island and across the country, the scientists whose job it is to understand this.

i must say in addition to trusting the scientists, i must trust the read road fishermen who see -- rhode island fishermen who see the changes in their nets and the homeowners who see the sea steadily rising toward their homes. you don't need fancy computer models to see the ocean changes already taking place. you just need a thermometer to measure rising temperatures, basically a yardstick to measure sea level rise or a simple ph kit to measure the acidification of our oceans. let's look at ocean acidification. the oceans have absorbed about a third of all the excess carbon dioxide produced by humans since the industrial revolution. around 600 gigatons worth. when that carbon dioxide

dissolves into the ocean, chemistry happens and it makes the oceans more acidic. carbon dioxide reacts with water to form carbonic acid. carbonic acid isn't stable in ocean water, so it breaks down into biocarbonate ions, a base, and hydrogen ions, an acid. the increase in acidic hydrogen ions is the crux of the chemistry of ocean acidificati acidification. more hydrogen ions lowers the water's ph and the lower the ph, the higher the acidity. regular viewers of my time to wake up speeches or people who

spent the night up with us while we objected to administrative -- administrator pruitt's nomination may remember that i demonstrated this in a simple experiment on the senate floor just a few weeks ago. i took the glass of water on my desk and i used the carbon dioxide in my own breath and blowing through an aquarium stone i was able to show with the help of a little ph dye how easy it is to actually measure the effect of co2 on the acidity of water. with just a few breaths into the water, i was able to visibly make this glass of drinking water more acidic. that little experiment, mr. president, is a microcomes him of what -- microcosm of what is

happening in our oceans right now. instead of bushels through a straw, it's a transfer of co2 from the atmosphere into the surface waters of the ocean all around the globe. scientific observations confirm that what the laws of chemistry tell us should happen is actually happening. massive carbon pollution resulting from fossil fuels is changing ocean acidity faster than ever in the past 50 million years. now, you start talking in big numbers and it all goes into a blur. 50 million years compares to how long the human species has been on the planet, which is about 200,000 years. so 50 million years is what? 250 times the length of time that our species has inhabited

the earth. this chart shows measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere taken at the mon low ya observatory in hawaii. that's the red line of climbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. and it shows carbon dioxide in the ocean which is the green measure also climbing in tandem with the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. finally it shows the ph of ocean water in the sea and of course as the chemistry would tell us, carbon dioxide goes up, hp comes down, -- ph comes down, acidity rises. the water becomes more acidic. we measure the sea water on the earth's oceans has since the

industrial revolution become roughly 30% more acidic. noaa predicts that oceans will be 150% more acidic than now by the end of the century. coastal states like rhode island and florida will feel the hit. ocean acidification disrupts life in the sea when those loose hydrogen ions we talked about latch on to free carbonate ions. usually that carbonate is plentiful in ocean water and shell-forming marine creatures like oysters and clams use the loose carbonate to help form their shells. but if the carbonate they need is bound up by hydrogen ions, they can't get enough carbonate to build their shells. we have even seen acidification scenarios in which shells start to dissolve in the water.

shellfish hatcheries on the west coast have already seen devastating losses of oysters due to acidic waters. ocean ph fell too low. baby oysters couldn't form their shells and they quickly died off. dr. jewel ya extra, told cbs that it has cost the pacific northwest oyster industry more than a hundred million dollars and jeopardized thousands of jobs. her research flagged 15 states where the shellfish industry would be hardest hit from alaska to florida to my home state of rhode island. toward the bottom of the oceanic food web is the humble pteropod. pteropods are sometimes called sea butterflies because their

tiny snail foot has evolved into an oceanic wing. in 2014 noaa found that more than half of pteropod sampled off our west coast were suffering from severely dissolved shells due to ocean acidification. this is a pteropod shell degrading over time in acidified water. and it's worsening. of course we are here in mammon hall where it feels laughable to care about anything that can't be monetized. we talk a good game in the senate about god's earth and god's creation and god's creatures but what we really care about is the money. so let's monetize this. who cares about this humble species? salmon do. as the west coast loses its pteropods, that collapse

reverberates up the food chain and the salmon care because many of them feed on the pteropod. and the west coast salmon fishery is a big deal. so salmon fishermen care about this. another foundational marine species krill is also affected by ocean acidification. in the southern ocean nearly all marine animals can thank krill for their survival. from penguin diets to whale diets, krill is king. a 2013 study in nature climate change found ocean acidification inhibiting the hatching of krill eggs and the development of larvae. the researchers note unless we cut emissions, collapse of the krill population in the southern ocean pore tends, and i quote, -- portends, and i quote, dire predictions for the ocean. the acidification research

center, yes, ocean acidification is serious enough that the university of alaska has an ocean acidification research center, and it warns that ocean acidification, quote, has the potential to disrupt alaska's fishing industry from top to bottom, end quote. turning to warmer water, coral reefs are also highly susceptible to ocean acidification. a healthy coral reef is one of the most productive and diverse ecosystems on earth, home to 25% of the world's fish biodiversity. those reef-building corals rely on calts yum -- calcium carbonate to build their skeletons. since the presiding officer is from florida, i hoe how important -- i know how important rorl reefs are to the tourism in his state. corathey live in the surface tie

of the coral. there's a range of ph and temperature salinity and water clarity within which this symbiosis between the coral and zanthalai survive. the coral gets stressed and they begin to evict the algae. this is called coral bleaching because coral shed their colorful algae and without these algae, corals soon die. the effects of acidification on sea life are far-reaching. studies have found ocean acidification disrupts everything from the sensory systems of clown fish, those are little nemos for those who have seen the movie, to sea urchin reproduction and the donous crab, another west coast

specialty. i asked scott pruitt, our ethically challenged administrator of the environmental protection agency about ocean acidification. he gave these answers. one, and i quote him here, the oceans are alkaline and are projected to remain so. and, two, the degree of al lynnty in the ocean is highly variable and therefore is difficult to attribute that variability to any single cause. let's look at those answers. the first answer is plain and simple nonsense because the harm to ocean creatures from acidification comes from the dramatic shift in ocean acidity, not from where along the acid-based spectrum the shift takes place. the observation he made is irrelevant to the question. his second answer is no better. it exhibits purposeful ignorance

of the role humans carbon pollution plays in damaging the ocean. because the chemicals at issue are irrefutable. as i showed in my little demonstration, you can replicate them even here on the senate floor. like its carbon cousin, climate change, ocean acidification doesn't care whether you believe in chemistry. it doesn't matter to chemistry if you swallow the propaganda pupled out by -- pumped out by the fossil fuel lobbies. the science operates notwithstanding, the chemical interactions take place by law of nature whether you believe them or not. if you believe in god, then you have to acknowledge that these laws of nature are god's laws,

the basic operating principles he established in his creation. but, of course, here in manmon hall it is always wit about the money. each e.p.a. administrator is obliged to trust in real science and protect human health and the environment. i am deeply unconvinced that administrator pruitt will live up in any respect to those obligations, but i will welcome being proven wrong. likewise, i similarly challenged my colleagues here in the senate. this chairman per and our -- chamber and our nation will be underharshly by our -- judged harshly by our descendants for the disregard for the basic

operating system of the world we live in and for the shameful reason why we disregard them. manman call, indeed. it is time for the senate to wake up before it's too late. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. the house's plan to repeal the affordable care act is dangerous and irresponsible. just listen to governor john kasich, republican governor of my state who it says we should not be throwing $500 -- 500, 600, 700,000 medicaid beneficiaries, many who work in low-income jobs, we shouldn't throw them off of their

insurance. in ohio there are 700,000 on medicaid, one00,000 on their -- 100,000 on their parents' health care plan and others in the exchanges that would lose their insurance if the succeeds and the senate goes along in changing dramatically the affordable care act. my office is flooded with letters and calls from ohioans begging us not to take away their care. a woman from beach sp wood, ohio wrote to me on january 11 terrified of possible changes to the medicaid system that helps fund nursing homes like the one where she lives. she writes, i strongly believe changes would dramatically diminish my quality of life and many other residents in the nursing home setting. my care needs are currently well managed by qualified and caring staff members. i'm a two-person -- i have

two-person assist with dressing, bathing, and getting to the bathroom. medicaid cuts would decree the number of staff members -- decrease the number of staff members. i'm afraid of extensive wait periods and frequent bathing accidents. it would cause embarrassment, destroy my dignity in the process. i'm not as strong as i used to be. i have children who love and care for me and placed me in a safe environment. living in the nursing home has allow me to live a little better, smile a little more, and enjoy my days with family members. she writes, please consider the people who will be affected the most. understanding most of medicaid dollars -- dollars that unfortunately republicans want to block grant or capitate in some ways, send to the states, shrink those dollars and people like this lady from beachwood

are the losers as a result. understand again most medicaid dollars go to nursing home care. please consider the people who will be affected the most. another woman from mount vernon, ohio, in the part of the state where i grew up in mansfield, wrote to urge me, quote urges not to rip services. she writes as a constituent concerned about preserving access to lifesaving health in addiction services, i write to urge and request your support in protecting the affordable care act in preserving medicaid expansion. i work as a substance abuse counselor in knox county, ohio, and work with adolescence and women. without medicaid many of our clients would not get the help they need. without obamacare, without the affordable care act, without the medicaid expansion, she writes, many of our clients would not be

able to get the help they need. today in ohio 200,000 people are in the midst of opioid addiction treatment, 200,000 of them who have insurance so they could get that treatment in the right way, delivered in the right way who have insurance because of the affordable care act. this house proposal would just rip it away from them. she goes on and writes -- knowing that they receive help and health care often is one of the motivating factors for our clients to begin to make change. their ability to access medications through medicaid has been a strengthening point in the recovery process for so many. i have seen teens change substance use with the resources that medicaid provides. in other words, some of them are breaking their addiction, some of them are being cured because of the affordable care act because they have medicaid. medicaid allows our rural and

low-income teens -- of the 88 counties in ohio, 70 or so are classified as small town or rural. many of them would otherwise not be able to attend treatment due to transportation barriers they attend treatment through public transportation. we work with these clients, you learn their stories, so many through the unimaginable trauma and losses and emotional and physical pain. many have not had the support to begin to work through these issues underlying their substance use. this lady in mount vernon, ohio is worried that these repeal plans would leave millions of americans, she said, without access to needed mental health health and addiction treatment in our states. most recently another woman from butler county, the congressional district of speaker john boehner, -- former speaker john boehner and some members of my

staff, writes, i'm extremely concerned about the cuts that trump and the republican-led congress want for the medicaid program and the services for the medicaid disabled. her son is 14 years old. he was diagnosed with a specific type of autism. he is nonverbal with severe challenges. she wrote to my office and said that medicaid has been a god -- her spending was spending $100 a month in copays for psychiatric medication alone. that is in addition to the other additional medical costs in caring for a severely challenged child. they couldn't afford the physical therapies he needs despite having coverage through her son's employer. she said that medicaid, more than anything else, improved the quality of my son's life and by extension the life of our whole

family. understand health challenges, especially mental health health challenges, in one member of the family afflict the whole family. it's something we should remember as this congress seems to rush into trying -- into trying to repeal medicare and the affordable care act. these three letters are three of thousands of letters that we receive -- hundreds of thousands of letters and calls that members -- that members of the senate are receiving. i just don't understand when 20 million people will lose their insurance how so many members of congress can think that it's -- who -- who have themselves government financed health insurance. we have health insurance in this body paid for by taxpayers, most of us, yet we think it's appropriate to pass legislation, in part giving tax cuts to the richest americans, at the same

time stripping away medicare benefits, taking 22 million people who now have insurance off of that insurance, proposing minor insurance for some of them but not nearly all of them -- how -- if we are a people of god, if we are a people that care about our constituents how we can do that is just beyond me. i go back to the quote from one of the people i read today from beachwood. she writes, please consider the people who will be affected the most. mr. president, i ask in the remainder of my remarks they be in a different place in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown brown: thank you, mr. president. trump ignores the many ways that large corporations cheat consumers and the biggest tools that americans have to fight back. not once does the proclamation mention the consumer protection bureau.

it has given back $12 billion to consumers. it was created under dodd-frank eight or nine years ago. not only does it talk about the unscrupulous lenders that targeted those with predatory -- not once was it talked before those financial people blew up the economy in 2007 or 2008, not once does the president's consumer protection week proclamation mention the millions of fake accounts opened by wells fargo, not once does it mention the shady outfits that set up shop outside the gates of our military bases. think of that, pay day lenders and other unscrupulous learned and financial people set up shop right outside the military bases to try to exploit our service men and women and their families. not only did the president ignore some of the most pressing

consumer are protection issues, his administration is attacking the most important consumer advocate, that is the consumer financial protection bureau. last week president trum -- prep signaled that the cfpb wouldn't be independent. the white house wants it under its control so they can weaken it so they can help wall street and take away some of its power. they think the president should have the power to fire the head of the agency for any reason. the whole reason we wrote it to be independent was to protect it from an administration -- from a president that always chose wall street over main street. this was a president, candidate trump, who sounded pretty good standing up to wall street and helping main street. if you look at the nominees and his appointments and his actions so far, it's been exactly the opposite. it's been a president of wall

street, at the same time exploiting main street. it means the president, what he's proposed is the president could fire the director for doing his job, stepping on the toes of special interest. the cfpb works because it has an independent director. the current director from ohio, from my state, is protecting consumers, returned billions to americans who were cheated and taken advantage of by companies. banks can't kill it by lobbying congress an cutting off its budget. that's the whole point. banks -- people that he has in -- in many cases recovered money from because he represents consumers, those banks -- those large wall street banks and other financial institutions can't -- because of the way it's setup can't lobby deng take money away -- lobby congress and take money away from it.

president trump ran on the promise of protecting the little guy but hasn't followed through on that promise of protecting ordinary americans from some of the wealthiest most privileged special interests in this town. if you're one of the 29 million americans who received help from cfpb you might know how important this agency is. you might know how important it is to protect one group of people which is our veterans and service members. cfpb has an entire office dedicated to helping men and women who have served in uniform, the office of service member affairs. a couple of weeks ago, my rhode island senator friend jack reed was at an armed service committee with the senior enlisted advisors of the military service, army, air force, navy, marines. their job is to make sure our service members and their families are getting the support they need. every one of them had great things to say about cfpb's office of service member affairs, the value it provides, the support it provides to the men and women who sacrificed so much for our country.

senator reed brought up an alarming figure. a recent report estimated thousands of service members were forced out of service every year because of financial hardships. problems with their mortgages, with payday loans, with credit card debt. remember earlier in the presentation, i talked about how many of these financial groups set up right outside military bases. that causes a tragedy for these men and women who want to serve their country, and it causes tragedy for their families. it costs taxpayers $57,000 every time someone's forced out of service. many other service members lose security clearance because of financial trouble directly affecting the mission readiness of these -- brought on by shady business practices. the cfpb is stepping in to protect these heroes who are often taken advantage of. cfpb's office of service member affairs are led by men and women who have served in the military and know what kind of help

service members need. they have visited 145, 145, mr. president, military facilities across the country to help service members get their finances straightened out and hear about their concerns. they have handled 70,000 complaints from service members and veterans about abusive practices by financial institutions. they returned $130 million back to service members and their families simply by enforcing the law and protecting those consumers. cfpb protects the men and women who protect our country, it protects all of us. the best way, mr. president, to celebrate consumer protection week is not through words and proclamations. it's through actions. we need to combat cyber crimes and identity theft as the president mentioned, but we also need to combat all kinds of tricks and traps, loans with outrageous interest rates, for-profit colleges that promise far more than they deliver, lenders who discriminate based on race. the list goes on and on and on and on. i urge my colleagues to join me

in working to ensure that the consumer financial protection bureau remains a strong, active ally in the cause of consumer protection this week, next week, every week. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, i'm truly saddened today in that i must rise to address what i fear is a growing threat to our republic. the silencing of political debate by totalitarian mob violence on college campuses. i was not in burlington, vermont, last thursday to witness what happened at middlebury college, but i'd like to read from accounts provided by two people who were, in fact, there, who saw these things unfold. they were the targets of the mob's violence.

their names are allison stanger, professor of political science at middlebury college, and charles murray, author of several ground-breaking books, including the work "the bell curve," and a scholar at the american enterprise institute. america deserves and needs to hear their story. on saturday, two days after the incident, professor stanger wrote on her facebook page as follows, quote, i agreed to participate in the event with charles murray because several of my students asked me to do so. they're smart and good people, all of them, and this was their big event of the year. i actually welcomed the opportunity to be involved because while my students may know that i'm a democrat, all of my courses are nonpartisan, and this was a chance to demonstrate publicly my commitment to a free and fair exchange of views in my classroom. as the campus uproar about his

visit built, i was genuinely surprised and troubled to learn that some of my faculty colleagues have rendered judgment on dr. murray's work and character while openly admitting that they had not read anything that he had written. with the best of intentions, they offered their leadership to engaged -- engage students, and we all know what the results were. i want you to know what it feels like to look out at a sea of students yelling obscenities at other members of my beloved community. i saw some of my faculty colleagues who had publicly acknowledged that they had not read anything dr. murray had written join the effort to shut down the lecture. all of this was deeply unsettling to me. what alarmed me most, however, was what i saw in student eyes from up on the stage. those who wanted the event to take place made eye contact with me. those intent on disrupting the event, steadfastly refused to do

so. it was clear to me that they had effectively dehumanized me. they couldn't look me in the eye because if they had, they would have seen another human being. there is a lot to be angry about in america today, but nothing good ever comes from demonizing our brothers and sisters. when the event ended and it was time to leave the building, i breathed a sigh of relief. we had made it. i was ready for dinner and conversation with faculty and students in a tranquil setting. what transpired instead felt like a scene from the tv show "homeland." rather than an evening at an institution of higher learning. we confronted an angry mob as we tried to exit the building. most of the hatred was focused on dr. murray, but when i took his right arm, both to shield him from the attack and to make sure we stayed together so i could reach the car, too, that's when the hatred turned on me. one thug grabbed me by the hair and another shoved me in a

different direction. i noticed signs with expletives and my name on them. for those of you who marched in washington the day after the inauguration, imagine being in a crowd like that only being surrounded by hatred rather than love. i feared for my life, close quote. the next day, on sunday, the american enterprise institute's web site published this account from dr. charles murray. dr. murray wrote, quote, if it hadn't been for allison and bill burger, middlebury's vice president for communicatings, keeping hold of me and the security guards pulling people off me, i would have been pushed to the ground. that much is sure. what would have happened after that i don't know, but i recall thinking that being on the ground was a really bad idea and i should try really hard to avoid that. unlike allison, i wasn't actually hurt at all.

in 23 years since "the bell curve" was published, i have had considerable experience with campus protests. until last thursday, all of the ones involving me have been as carefully scripted as ca bookie. -- kabookie. the calendar number administration meets with the organizers of the protest and the ground rules are agreed upon. the protestors have so many minutes to do such and such. it is agreed that after the allotted time, they will leave or desist. these negotiated agreements always worked. at least a couple of dozen times, i have been able to give my lecture to an attentive or at least quiet audience, despite an organized protest. middlebury tried to negotiate such an agreement with the protestors, but for the first time in my experience, the protestors would not accept any time limits. if this becomes the new normal, the number of colleges willing to let themselves in for an experience like middlebury's

will plunge to near zero. academia is already largely scweeferred in an ideo-- sequestered in an ideological bubble, but at least it's translucent. that bubble will become opaque. worse yet, the intellectual thugs will take over many campuses. in the mid 1990's, i could count on students who had wanted to listen to start yelling at the protesters after a certain point, sit down and shut up, we want to hear what he has to say. that kind of pushback had an effect. it reminded the protesters that they were a minority. i am assured, he continues, by people at middlebury that their protesters are a minority as well, but they are a minority that has intimidated the majority. the people in the audience who wanted to hear me speak were completely cowed. that cannot be allowed to stand. a campus where a majority of

students are fearful to speak openly because they know a minority will jump on them is no longer an intellectually free campus in any meaningful sense, close quote. mr. president, i suspect that most of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle may not necessarily be fans of dr. charles murray. there's nothing wrong with that. i'm confident that they at least would be honest enough and self-respecting enough not to condemn any scholar's work without ever having read it like many of middlebury's faculty members apparently did. but more importantly, i'm confident that my democratic colleagues would join me in denouncing the violence of the middlebury campus protesters seeking to silence dr. murray. on countless occasions, i've heard my democratic colleagues come to the senate floor to condemn violence in all of its

forms. why would this time be any different? we do not agree on everything, but i am confident that if dr. murray were invited to testify here on capitol hill, perhaps at a committee of the united states senate, my democratic colleagues would for examplarly join in an open -- would eagerly join in an open and respectful debate that would ensue as a result of that visit. i'm confident that they would reject any evident to silence or do -- any effort to silence or do harm to any of those with whom they might disagree. i'm confident that if that were to happen and whoever was chairing that committee and the ranking personnel associated with that committee would immediately bring the disruption to a close so that an open, honest, respectful discussion would occur within that meeting.

mr. president, i know tensions are high in america today and i know what it's like to be on the loosing side of a bitterly fought presidential election, as we as republicans found ourselves on just a few years ago in the wake of the 2012 election cycle and in the wake of previous presidential election cycle before that of 2008. but that does not and cannot give anyone the license to shout down a fellow american, let alone physically assault him just because he holds a different opinion. democracy and freedom, the republican form of government, they all depend on an open, tolerant and civil political discourse, and sustaining our democratic freedoms is perhaps the sole reason why the government subsidizes institutions of higher education in this country.

it's embarrassing that teachers and students at an elite college like middlebury should need reminding, but speech is not violence, violence is not speech, and the totalitarians who fail to recognize this core fact of decency and tolerance are goose stepping into some of the darkest corners of the human heart. if there's anything that should unite us in these polarized times, it's that the kind of violence we saw on middlebury's campus last week must not be tolerateed. that's why i commend the 44 middlebury college professors who have signed a statement of principles on free inquiry on campus. i hope more middlebury professors will join them. and in any event, i hope all americans will join them in standing up for free, open,

honest, respectful debate. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, i ask

unanimous consent that the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lee: i ask unanimous consent that the foreign relations committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate proceed to s. res. 68. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 68, raising awareness of modern slavery. the presidin the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr mr. lee: i know of no further debate on the resolution. the presiding officer: hearing no further debate, all those in favor say aye. opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the bill is passed. mr. lee: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lee: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 82 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 82

congratulating the johns hopkins university applied physics laboratory on the 75th anniversary of the finding of the laboratory. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. lee: i further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the informations to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lee: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate complete, its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. wednesday, march 8, following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. finally, that following leader remarks, the senate resume consideration of h.j. res. 58. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lee: mr. president, if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until will a final vote on teacher preparation is expected tomorrow on the floor today we heard senator speak about the healthcare law replacement offered by house republicans. right now here are mitch mcconnell followed by chuck schumer.