reform half past six over 600,000 new jobs have been created and we see that wages are up as well and with the doubling of the standard deduction we will see many more people having it easier filing their taxes than the sheer that is under the broken system. having traveled wyoming -- >> we leave the stakeout here to take you life to the floor. lawmakers are gaveling back in. , signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that the nomination of john f. ring dob a member of the national labored shall be brought to a close. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any members who wish to vote or to change their vote? if not, on this vote, the yeas are 30, the nays are 47. the nays are 50, the nays are

47. the nomination is confirmed. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, national labor relations board, john f. ring of the district of columbia to be a member of the national labor relations board.

mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i come to the floor today for two reasons. before discussion the nomination at hand which is john ridge for the national relations -- ring for the national relations

board, i want to take time to mark the equal payday. it tags women three additional months to make what their male colleagues made in may 2017. in the 21st century, there's absolutely no excuse for the reality that women are still being paid less than men for the same work. it's wrong. it's harmful. and it has to change. and what's even more unacceptable is women of color the pay gap is even worse. african american women working full time only make 63 cents for every dollar their white male colleagues make. and latinos on average earn 54 cents for every dollar their white male colleagues make. the wage gap doesn't just hurt women. it hurts families and our economy. women actually are the sole or cobreadwinner in two-thirds of families with children. families increasingly rely on women's wages to pay grocerie groceriesers, owe on grocery,

pay the bills. in order to help women and all working families get ahead, i'm very proud to be a sponsor of the paycheck fairness act. the paycheck fairness act provides transparency and support for women who are being paid less than their male colleagues. it protects women from retaliation for discussing salary information with their coworkers and allows women to join together in class action lawsuits. and it prohibits employers from seeking salary history so the cycle of pay discrimination cannot continue. as president trump now continues to roll back worker protections and prioritize corporate profits over working families' wages, i think it's time for congress to act and pass the paycheck fairness act because workers do deserve to be paid fairly. no matter their gender. mr. president, i want to turn to the nomination before the senate today, the nomination of john ring for the national relations board. i first have to object to the

unprecedented nature in which we are jamming this nominee through. it is standard practice that board nominees are always confirmed in pairs, one democrat, one republican. we do this so we keep the board as fair and balanced as possible in hopes that workers have a fair hearing when corporations violate their rights or bargain in bad faith. because the board is the only place workers can turn to to enforce their rights under the national labor relations act, workers cannot sue in court. so, mr. president, i must ask why is this nominee being forced through without also filling the democratic seat that is about to be vacated, especially at a time when so many other nominees have been waiting significantly longer, some more than six months to be confirmed. mr. president, i have to believe it is because corporate special interests are putting immense pressure on my colleagues across the aisle to confirm someone who will advocate for corporations no matter the cost to workers.

and right now the board's credibility is damaged because another trump appointed board member, william emmanuel chose to cast aside his ethics pledge and commitment to me by participating in board's actions that would directly benefit his former employer. because of those actions, mr. emmanuel, the board's independent watchdog, opened an investigation and because there was a clear conflict of interest, the board was forced to vacate that decision that overruled obama-era worker protections. so with a cloud of ethics controversy surrounding the current board members, it is clear to me why corporations and special interests are trying to get mr. ring confirmed so quickly. mr. ring has spent his career as a corporate lawyer representing the interest of companies, not workers. he has opposed the board's reforms that stop companies from unnecessary delaying union

elections and he has encouraged the board to undermine long-established rights, including the right for workers to have coworker representation and disciplinary interviews. i find it difficult to believe he will advocate now for workers that this board desperately needs to be doing. mr. president, this administration has spent more than a year undermining workers' rights and making it easier for corporations to take advantage of them. and the board under republican control has been leading that charge by ignoring long-standing practices in a rush to overturn precedence that protect workers. at a time when corporations in this country and the richest among us are getting richer, working families are left behind, it is so critical today that the board is independent and able to advocate for workers. now is not the time to break precedent and vote on a nominee without the democratic pair. for all these reasons i will be voting no on this nominee. i urge my colleagues to do the same.

thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. #

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i ask that any pending quorum call be lifted.

the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call white then we're fine. i ask at unanimous consent that at the conclusion of senator brown's remarks i be recognized for my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio brown mr. president, thank you. i thank the senator from rhode island who is -- who has been just a great advocate on moving this country forward on everything from campaign finance rules to labor, justice -- labor

justice to keeping our planet as clean as possible. mr. president, during his campaign, president trump -- candidate trump made a lot of big promises to workers in ohio and across the country. he told them he'd put american workers first. but too often the people he's put in charge have a record of doing exactly the opposite. that's certainly true of the two nominees to the department of labor and the national relations board that we'll consider this week. patrick pizzella and john ring. they spent their careers -- think about this. they spent their careers working to strip workers of their rights, to defending corporations which are accused of mistreating workers and trying to undermine collective bargaining rights. mr. brown: mr. pizzella worked for disgraced lobbyist and convicted felon jack a abermoff.

tre tried to keep workers from being protected by federal labor laws. this is the candidate for president of the united states that talked about empowering workers, talked about being on the side of workers yet the two people he's nominated, one for the department of labor, one to the national relations board, have been busy through their professional careers and very well paid during it, mr. president, trying to keep workers from being protected by federal labor laws. i know everybody -- everybody is entitled to representation, but when you devote your life to keeping workers from having collective bargaining, keeping workers from working in a safe workplace, keeping workers -- keeping -- defending companies who are accused of mistreating workers, it makes you wonder. mr. pizzella also served previously at the department of labor but his record there gives us no reason to rehire him at the department of labor. he worked at the wage and hour division. he was supposed to look out for workers being cheated by their

bosses out of the paychecks they earn. i hear, mr. president, all over my state, from cleveland to cincinnati, from ashtabula to marietta to toledo, i hear stories of workers who simply couldn't fight back when their employers would occasionally cheat them out of a paycheck or cheat them out of overtime or misclassify. we know most employers don't do that but we know what happens with some regularity in communities all over my state and all our country. that's why it's so important to have somebody at the department of labor that looks out for the worker who doesn't often have a strong voice as opposed to always siding with the employer on every issue. but instead, an independent review by the government accou accountability office found his department at the wage and hour division when he was there was ineffective and actually discouraged workers from lodging complaints to get their hard earned money back. mr. president, when a worker feels that he was cheated or she was cheated by a situation in

the workplace, when mr. pizzella was at the wage and hour division, those workers thought that they were -- that they were reluctant to lodge complaints to get their money back because the department of labor was not on their side in those days. this is the man that wants to be deputy secretary of labor. he would be the second highest ranking official in charge of looking out for working men and women. his record indicates he'd be more interested in looking out for corporations that want to take advantage of their workers. isn't there enough of that in this country without the government siding with the richest, most privileged people in the country, the largest corporations in the country against workers who simply don't have much of a voice and we're going to put government on the side of those corporations against those workers? john ring's nomination may be even worse. he's been nominated to be on the national labor relations board, supposed to be a neutral arbiter between workers and management. he spent his career representing employers. he's attacked the agency he's

seeking to join. so much is at stake with this nomination. it will likely result in a 3-2 antiworker, antilabor, antiworker majority on a board that has enormous influence over american workers. it will mean big advances in the decade-long campaign to chip away at workers' power in the workplace. we need someone in both of these jobs. mr. pizzella, mr. ring, the department of labor and nllrb, we need someone in both of these jobs who wakes up every day thinking how do i help american workers? how do i help american workers have aive is aer workplace? how do i help american workers get paid fairly? how do we make sure companies do the right thing as they treat their workers? that's what they should wake up every day to do instead, trum has nominated -- president trump is hiring two people who have spent their careers trying to push those workers down. what these folks don't seem to understand, it's not corporations that drive the economy. it's workers. we grow -- there's a problem in

this institution, mr. president, where the leaders in this institution, mr. mcconnell, the majority leader down the hall, they think you grow the economy from the top down. they think you give the richest people in the country tax breaks -- tax cuts. you give the largest corporations in the country tax breaks and it will trickle down and help workers. no, that's not how you grow the economy. you grow the economy from the middle out. that's why we've had greater job growth with president obama after the auto rescue in 2010, 2011, 2015, 2013, 2014. more jobs were created in those years than 2017, president trump's first year in office. if corporations shortchange workers with the help of lawyers like mr. ring and mr. pizzella, then americans can't earn a better way of life no matter how hard they work. how many times i hear in my hometown of mansfield or where connie and i live in cleveland or senator whitehouse's town

where my daughter and son-in-law and two grandchildren live, how many times do i hear people in these commun communities say i'm working harder than ever and have less to show for it. president trump is going to put two lawyers in key places in the federal government that's going to stack the deck even more against those workers. the the last thing we need is more people serving in washington who don't value work, who don't respect the americans to do it. i urge my colleagues to listen a little more to the americans we serve. go out, go out -- as president lincoln said, go out and get your public opinion baths. listen to workers, not just employers, not just the country clubs. go to union halls, go to where workers hang out. listen to them. listen a little more to the workers we serve, a little less to big corporations, which it seems these days are trying to squeeze every last penny out of their workers. mr. president, reject these nominations. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i

am here on the floor for my 202nd time to wake up speech. i'd like to begin by thanking this body for the passage of the oceans and coastal security fund as part of the measure that republicans and democrats agreed to before the recent recess. the presiding officer obviously represents an extremely coastal state. i represent rhode island, a very coastal state, and this new program will provide resources for the communities along our shores to be able to deal with the threats that they are seeing from sea level rise, fisheries moving about, worsening offshore storms, tides that now come ashore on bright, sunny days, and the various hazards that they must undertake so that they are not left alone trying to address them. i often use these speeches to

explore why it is that we get nothing done in congress on climate. i point out that the major reason is the insidious fossil fuel-funded web of climate change denial, with a parallel lobbying and electioneering effort. i point out that this network is funded by the fossil fuel industry in a deliberate and systematic effort to misdirect public discussion and to distort public understanding of climate change and climate science. i point out that it's actually working. it has been so effective at infiltrating our political system that the head of the united states environmental protection agency is a full-on fossil fuel flunky. i discussed the fossil fuel industry's parallel web that directs rivers of dark money into our political system and

deploys related but more clandestine threats and promises to work the industry's will in congress. like i said, it's working. the web of denial and political enforcement organizations has so far achieved its purpose to prevent congress from carrying out its responsibility to rein in carbon pollution. we are as a result failing to protect the american people and our economy from the effects of that pollution, particularly our coastal economies but now agriculture and other economies are feeling it, too. and congress is still doing nothing. so this secretive and insidious apparatus deserves our attention. nowadays, this apparatus is dedicated to denying science, confusing the public, and holding a political hand over

congress on the issue of climate change. nowadays, it does this to protect the fossil fuel industry from responsibility for its pollution. but it's actually not a new enterprise. we have never seen this machinery operating at this scale before. it is bigger and more multifaceted than ever, but we have seen its tricks before. the science denial playbook commissioned by the koch brothers, exxonmobil, and the u.s. chamber of commerce to stymie climate action is the same doubtmongering playbook we have seen used by big tobacco, by chemical industries, and by other corporate polluters for decades. i am not the only one who has noticed a lot of work has examined this denial apparatus, how it is funded, how it hides

its funding, how it communicates, and how it propagates the denial message. this is valuable work, because the better america understands the mechanisms of this deceitful operation, the better america can inoculate itself against that deceit. so i have brought some of this work with me to the senate floor today. it's kind of a beginner's bigleyography of this -- big iographyof this apparatus. i will start with a book called "deceit and denial" on the cover described by bill moyers as the best detectivive story i have read in years, written by charles markowicz and david rosner who have been tracking the efforts to hide facts for a long time. they point out in their introduction, some industries

have reassure the public that their products are benign by controlling research and manipulating science. throughout much of the 20th century, most scientific studies of the health effects of toxic substances have been done by researchers in the employ of industry or in the universities with financial ties to members of that industry. at times, their results were subject to review by industry. if the results indicated a problem, the information was suppressed. this goes way back into the annals of denial. my next book is "poison tea." " it's a book written by jeff nesbitt. it goes back into the tobacco documents that were protected in the tobacco settlement. the attorneys general demanded that the documents of the tobacco companies be set aside as a permanent reference. and jeff nesbitt was present at some of the efforts to create

the tobacco industry version of climate denial. he saw it happening up close. he was in some of the meetings, and he writes a book whose chapter 25 opens up with this. if these 14 million internal tobacco industry memos show one thing clearly, it is this -- capitol hill network built to defend and promote large corporate interests with integrated messaging targets and allies simply don't materialize overnight. the funding and strategy behind them takes years to develop before reaching maturity, and they build on each other over time. i turn now to "doubt is their products," david michaels' book

subtitled" how industry's assault on science threatens your health." the quotation i have selected moves from the general principle of science denial on behalf of industries into global warming, as this scheme moved forward. take global warming. the vast majority of climate scientists believe there is adequate evidence of global warming to justify immediate intervention to reduce the human contribution. now, this was written, just to be clear, in 2008, a decade ago. a decade ago, the vast majority of climate scientists believe there was adequate evidence of global warming to justify immediate intervention to reduce the human contribution. they understand that waiting for absolute certainty is far riskier and potentially far more expensive than acting responsibility now, i.e. ten years ago, to control the causes of climate change.

opponents of action led by the fossil fuels industry delayed this policy debate. and for another decade, by challenging the science with a classic uncertainty campaign. he cites what he calls a cynical memo that republican political consultant frank luntz delivered to his clients in early 2003, saying, and i quote, the scientific debate is closing against us but not yet closed. there is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science. luntz understood that his clients can oppose and delay regulation by simply manufacturing uncertainty, end quote. doubt is their product. the next book is naomi oreski and aircraft m. con way's book "merchants of doubt," which was actually made into a film as well. they have done a lot of work in

this area. here's the conclusion. doubtmongering works because we think science is about facts, cold, hard, definite facts. this is a mistake. there are always uncertainties in any live science because science is a process of discovery. doubt is crucial to science, but it also makes science vulnerable to misrepresentation because it is easy to take uncertainties out of context and create the impression that everything is unresolved. this was the tobacco industry's key insight that you could use normal scientific uncertainty to undermine the status of actual scientific knowledge. doubt is our product, ran the infamous memo written by one tobacco industry executive in 1969. doubt is our product goes on to

describe how that exact same technique and many of the same individuals and organizations carried that over from tobacco smoke to global warming. subtitle, "how a handful of scientists obscured the issue of truth on tobacco smoke to global warming." this is a book by a pulitzer prize-winning author, steve cole. he is actually speaking over tonight at the library of congress. this book is called "private empire, exxonmobil and american power." it describes the mischief that exxon got up to in pursuing its political goals here in washington. he describes the underlying structure of washington policy

debates. he calls it a kaleidoscope of overlapping and competing influence campaigns, some open, some conducted by front organizations, and some entirely clandestine. obviously, if you're exxonmobil, you don't want your name on all of this stuff. hence, the kaleidoscope of overlapping and competing influence campaigns, some open, some conducted by front organizations, and some entirely clandestine. he continues, strategists created layers of disguise, subtlety, and subterfuge. corporate-funded grassroots, close quote, programs and purpose-built think tanks as fringier print free as possible -- as fingerprint free as possible. in such an opaque and un trustworthy atmosphere, the

ultimate advantage lay with any lobbyist whose goal was to manufacture confusion. and perpetual controversy. on climate, this happened to be the oil industry's position. in his book, "the war on science," sean otto goes in some detail through the scheming that backs up what he calls a steady stream of pseudoscience that can be used by foot soldiers to sway the public debate. he goes through a number of steps that are the standard parts of this campaign, starting with phony science, and i quote him there, phony science. that creates, quote, uncertainties, close quote, about the accepted views of mainstream science. so you start off with phony science that creates phony

uncertainties about the accepted views of mainstream science. step two follows with what he calls slanted press materials, spoon-fed to journalists by industry-affiliated nonprofits and bloggers. a third step of this p.r. battle is what he calls building and financing industry-aligned front groups, paren, fake public interest organizations, close paren, and astroturf groups, paren, fake grassroots organizations, close paren, and we sure do see those fake public interest organizations and fake grassroots organizations whipped up by the fossil fuel industry today. step four is outlier scientists, the ones who can cook up the pseudoscience that can be used

by foot soldiers, outlier scientists are recruited to publish in phony journals and speak at conferences of physicians, lawyers, and other professionals, emphasizing the controversy and sowing uncertainties, close quote, and denial, thus using peer pressure to create true believers among the influential opinion leaders. you then shove out 0 into quote, sympathetic cable tv purr viewers who react with outrage and call for policy action. this provides political cover for legislative or other policy action, bipartisan allies -- by partisan allies in government o industry representatives after that is all done -- i'm quoting here, industry representatives can step safely out from behind the kurtaentain for the main act and plead their case to policymakers. the strategy is designed to

neutralize the primacy of objective knowledge. you wouldn't want to make decisions here based on objective international knowledge. and slowly move public opinion toward accepting the industry's position as the truly reasonable reasonable, subverting the democratic process. that's a pretty good description from my experience as to how this game is played. thank you, sean otto. two of the people who do some of the best work looking at this climate denial paratus and track being its funding are academic >> reilly dunlap and robert brulle. their book "climate change and society" drills into this pretty well. here is the description. over time, manufacturing uncertainty -- that's the doubt is their merchants of doubt

scheme -- over time manufacturing uncertainty has evolved into, quote, manufacturing controversy, close, close quote quote. creating the impression that there is major debate an dissent within the scientific community over the reality of atheropogenic climate change. to accomplish this, corporations and especially conservative think tanks have supported a small number of contrarian scientists, many with no formal training in science, and other self-styled experts, close quote, paren, often social scientists affiliated with conservative think tanks, close paren, to produce non-peer-reviewed books and reports, publish in a handful of marginal journals, hold, quote, scientific, close quote, conferences, compile dubious lists of supposed scientists who question climate change, and in general minimum mick the --

mimic the workings of science. fashion ago parallel scientific universe that serves to generate confusion among the public and policymakers. talks rile lay dunlap and -- thank you, reilly dunlap. the books book "dark money" has gotten a lot of attention. it focuses on how the koch brothers specifically use the caverns for subterranean dark money to mess around in our politics, following you p on the use of conservative think tanks. we have an early, i guess you call it a strategize of this effort quoted as saying it would be necessary to use ambiguous and misleading names, obscure the true agenda, and conceal the

means of control. that's the background. a understand that wholevestment a think tank is described this way. in the 1970's with if i understanding from a handful of hugely wealthy donors as well as some major corporate support, a whole new form of, quote, think tank, close quote, emerged. that was morgan engaged in selling predetermined ideology to politicians and the public than undertaking scholarly research. engaged in selling predetermined ideology to politicians and the public. to use her phrase, it was the think tank as guised political weapon. that is part of what we are up against. democracy and chains, a book by

nancy maclaine, looks back at some of the earl early history h the koch brothers and others funded this operation. it points out that the koch team's most important stealth move and the one that approved most -- proved most critical to success was to wrest control over the machinery of the republican party. beginning in the late-1990's and was sharply escalating determination after 2008. what made them want to do this? i will read. the koch cadre identified the public's embrace of environmentalism as a problem early on. they then pulled together a

circle of less known koch-funded libertarian think tanks driving what two science scholars describe as systematic environmental misinformation campaigns. they spread junk pseudoscience to make the public believe that there is still doubt about the peril of climate change, a tactic tying back to the beginning -- a tactic they learned from the tobacco companies that for years sowed doubt about. the koch team by then could count on its club for growth to fund primary challenges to enshower that the party line on environmentism would be maintained by republican members of congress. we're looking at a party, paul krugman rightly pointe pointed ,

that has turned its balk on science that at a time puts the very future of civilization at risk. backing you p that chokehold on federal action is what one reporter called a, quote, secretive alliance, close quote, between red-state attorneys general and fossil fuel corporations. again, we link back to my early remarks, one of the red-state attorneys general who linked up with the fossil fuel corporations is none other than our e.p.a. administrator scott pruitt. she concludes this way, to put all another way, if the koch network-funded academics and institutions were not in the conversation, the public would have little doubt that the evidence of science is overwhelming and government action to prevent further global warming is urgent. and i'll close with a return to jane mayer, whose research on this whole dark money problem

that bedevils our democracy has been nothing less than her row in my view. she wrote, if there was any lingering doubt that a tiny clique of fossil fuel barons has captured america's energy and environmental policies, it was dispelled when the trump administration withdrew from the paris climate accord. a majority of americans and in literally every state wanted to remain in the agreement and the head of many of the countries most iconic companies did, too. yet a tiny and until recently almost faceless minority somehow prevailed. how this happened is no longer a secret. the answer, she says, is, quote, a story of big political money.

it is perhaps the most astounding example of influenc influence-buying in modern american political history. and it's focused now on denying climate change because climate change is and i quote her again here, a direct challenge to the most powerful industry that has ever existed on the face of the earth, period. there's no death to which they're -- there's no deputy to which they're -- there's no depth to which they're willing to sink. that's a pretty good description by a lot of well-regarded and sometimes pulitzer prize-winning and award-winning researchers about where we are and the result of all that is the gridlock that these interests have bought and paid for in congress on this critical issue.

and an administration that is driven by fossil fuel interests to roll back all regulations that impinge on fossil fuel profits. using that screen these authors have talked about of think tanks and foundations and public relations firms and trade associations and of course those rivers of dark money flowing through tub terrainian political calf earns, the fossil fuel industry has taken control of and disabled our american political system. that is a very inconvenient truth for those in our political system, but its inconvenience takes away nothing from its truth. thanks to meese authors and researchers and many others like them, many others like them, the truth of what has happened is plain, and it's not just plain

in these books. it willen plain before the reckoning gays of history. there will be a reckoning. history always looks back ultimately. you look at these books and you look at others and you luke at the record of what has taken makers you look at the reporting, there is no doubt that this is the biggest influence-buying operation of all time. do we here in congress really want to be fads on the side of this crooks pennsylvania rat us when that reckoning comes? god, i hope not. it's time to wake up. i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be tkeus -- dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: not withstanding rule 22 i ask unanimous consent that at 12 p.m., april 11, the the senate vote on confirmation of the ring nomination and that if confirmed the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate resume legislative session for a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 454 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report.

the clerk: senate resolution 454, relative to the death of zell bryan miller, the former governor and senator of the state of georgia. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 455, submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 455, relative to the death of the honorable daniel k. akaka, senator from the state of hawaii. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the immediate consideration of the measure. mr. mcconnell: i further ask the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the

motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 456 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 456, to constitute the majority party's membership on certain committees for the 115th congress or until their successors are chosen. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration of s. res. 377 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 377, recognizing the importance of paying tribute to those individuals who have faithfully

served and retired from the armed forces, and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i further ask the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: now, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 10:30 a.m., wednesday, april 11. further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour 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 i ask that following leader remarks the senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the ring nomination under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask it stand adjourned under the provisions of s. res. 454 and 455 as a

further mark of respect to the late senators zell miller of georgia and daniel akaka of hawaii. the presiding officer: under the previous order and pursuant to senate resolution 454 and senate resolution 455 the senate stands adjourned until 10:30 a.m. tomorrow, april 11, 2018, and do so as a further mark of respect to the late zell miller, the former senator from the state of georgia; and the the state of georgia; and the

facebook ceo mark zuckerberg told a senate panel today that a social media company is an arms race with russia and other foreign entities who want to use the platform to influence u.s.

elections. mr. zuckerberg testified before a joint hearing of the senate judiciary and commerce committees. here's a portion of that hearing started with judiciary committee chair senator chuck grassley. >> the history and growth of facebook mirrors that of many of our technological giants founded by mr. zuckerberg in 2004, facebook has exploded over the past 14 years big facebook currently has over 2 billion monthly active users across the world, over 25,000 employees and offices in 13 u.s. cities and various other countries. like their expanding user base the data collected on facebook users has also skyrocketed. they have moved from schools lights and relationship statuses today facebook has access to dozens of data points rangi