a small business owner struggling to afford their annual tax bill for their business was highly unlikely to be able to hire a new worker or to raise wages. a larger business struggling to stay competitive in the global marketplace while paying substantially higher tax rates than its foreign competitors too often had limited funds to expand or to increase its investment here in the united states. and so when it came time for tax reform, we set out to improve the playing field for american workers by improving the playing field for businesses as well. to accomplish that, we lowered tax rates across the board for owners of small and medium-sized businesses and farms and ranches. we lowered our nation's massive corporate tax rate, which up until january is was the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. we expanded business owners' ability to recover investments

they make in their businesses which will free up cash that they can reinvest in their operations and their workers. and we brought the u.s. international tax system into the 21st century by replacing our outdated worldwide system with a modernized territorial tax system so that americanbitions are not operating at a dis-- american businesses are not operating at a disadvantage next to their foreign competitors. the goal was to free up businesses to increase investments and increase wages and benefits. i am happy to report that that is exactly what they're doing. since tax reform became the law of the land, we have seen a steady drum beat of businesses announcing good news for american workers. so far more than 500 companies and counting have announced pay

raises, bonuses, 401(k) match increases, and other benefits, business expansions and utility rate cuts. starbucks, mcdonald's, jergens, mccormick and company, apple, best buy, walmart, bank of america, exxonmobil, hormel foods, ups, american express, and the list goes on and on and on. mr. president, i don't need to tell anyone that americans had a tough time during the last administration or that our economy had stagnated. but under republican leadership we're finally starting to see the economy turn around, and tax reform is playing a very big

part. unfortunately democrats seem unable to accept the fact that tax reform is benefiting middle-class americans. in fact, democrats recently introduced an infrastructure plan that they want to pay for by repealing key futures of the tax law that are producing so many new benefits for american workers. mr. president, republicans wanted democrats to join us in the process of tkraflgt tax -- drafting tax reform. after all, a lot of provisions in the final bill were the result of years of work by republicans and democrats. i was a part of that process. we had working groups that spent a good amount of time looking at every element and feature of the tax code, bipartisan groups, republicans and democrats working together, making recommendations about things that we could do to reform our tax code in a way that would incentivize greater growth and expansion and better jobs and higher wages. well, democrats had recently, or i should say previously expressed their support for things that became key parts of the bill, like lowering our

nation's massive corporate tax rate. but unfortunately, instead of working with us, democrats chose to play politics. apparently it was more important to them to attempt to score political points against republicans than to work on a bill that they knew had the potential to help the american people. so almost four months after the bill's passage they're still playing politics despite the fact that in the face of the bill's success their attempts to criticize it are sounding pretty desperate. take their attempt to portray the bill's benefits for workers as crumbs. let me tell you, mr. president, a worker whose salary just increased by $3 an hour does not see that additional $500 a month as crumbs, especially when you combine it with the rest of the tax relief and the new tax law. a worker who gets an increased match in her 401(k) account will

see her retirement savings increase significantly as a result of the tax cuts and jobs act, and she won't see that benefit as crumbs. mr. president, it's too bad that democrats can't accept the fact that the tax cuts and jobs act is working. but at the very least, they should stop trying to undo the benefits that it is bringing to the american people. over 500 companies across this country have announced increases in wages, increases in benefits, bonuses, direct benefits to american workers to the tune of over five million americans already have benefited from this. that's the short-term impact that we've seen already, and the american people spent long enough in a stagnant economy. it's time to get this economy jump started and see those wages and those good-paying jobs come

back in this economy so that american families can benefit, can experience and enjoy a better standard of living, a higher quality of life, an opportunity to do more for their children, mr. president, to help them with their college education, to set aside a little bit for retirement, to take care of those day-to had-day -- day-to-day bills. 50% of the american people polled say they're living paycheck to paycheck. one thing we can do is make that paycheck bigger and hopefully put aside a little bit for retirement and maybe they can help save up for their kids' college education, maybe take a vacation with the family. there are so many ways in which the things that this tax cuts bill, the benefits it delivers to the american people and american families can help them in their daily lives. and so we shouldn't try and go back. we ought to try and go forward. recognize that the near-term

benefits of this are very real to american workers. and the long-term benefits, mr. president, are going to be even, i think, more beneficial to american workers, to american businesses, to american families, because not only now will they benefit from the lower tax rates that are delivered through the entire, all the different tax -- to the entire tax tables. they're benefiting of the standard dukes, -- deduction and the benefits included in this bill and american businesses small and large are also seeing those benefits, mr. president, on a daily basis, so much so that they have already made these commitments to over five million americans, 500 companies that are paying out bonuses, higher pay, and bigger benefits for their workers. that is only going to increase over time as this economy starts to take off, because they now have an incentive to expand and

grow their operations through reduced rates when it comes both to large and small businesses, through the ability to recover their costs more quickly, and to free up that capital, they can invest and expand and grow this economy and create better paying jobs. this is a win-win for the american people. it's a win-win for our country. and i hope that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will quit referring to it as crumbs, because i know the american people don't see it that way. mr. president, i yield the floor and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: thank you,

mr. president. mr. president, i come to the floor today to oppose in the strongest terms the nomination of patrick pizzella as deputy secretary of labor. with this nomination, president trump is once again breaking his promise to put workers first. mr. pizzella has a record that is time and again at odds with the goals of the very department he would help lead as deputy secretary. his track record is one of not merely failing workers, but of failing to enforce laws to protect the health and safety of workers seeking to diminish workers rights and protections and undermining the unions that represent and fight for them. in fact, his record includes working with convicted lobbyist jack abramoff on behalf of causes counter to the mission. in the 1990's congress was moving to expand labor

protections to the northern marianas islands, a u.s. territory, to end the operation of sweatshops that did not follow federal labor laws. the law at the time let companies bring in foreign workers to toil under inhumane conditions. the workers were underpaid. they were forced to sign contracts, signing away their rights to protest labor conditions, and some were even coerced to have abortions. and the companies operating under these inhumane conditions were able to print the words "made in the u.s.a." on their products. while congress was looking at taking action to change the law so we can better protect workers, pizzella was working with abramoff to coordinate all expense-paid trips for dozens of republican lawmakers and staff and working to maintain the sweatshop status quo. patrick pizzella chose not to fight for workers, but for corporations. these efforts aren't just

counter to the mission of the department of labor. they are counter to our national values. and the rest of mr. pizzella's record shows he has taken equally extreme positions throughout his career. for example, his radical record as the sole employee of the conservative action project which is a far-right group funded by billionaire donors like the devos family, or his record when he last served in the department of labor, under his leadership the department of labor cut its budget in part by cutting down its own employees' collective bargaining rights and decreasing official time. then there is his long record championing antiunion policies and argue to limit collective bargaining rights. and at the federal labor relations authority, pizzella not only ruled consistently against workers and unions, he repeatedly broke with long-standing policy by calling out the names of individual workers in his decisions. he chose to call out defendants

by name and put them in the public spotlight. and the pattern of mr. pizzella's antiworker ideological -- ideology is unchanged today. throughout his career mr. pizzella's record has been consistent. from his years serving as the right hand to jack abramoff until now he has shown he's not going to fight for workers. he will fight against them. it would be irresponsible to put a man with such a strong track record of antiworker convictions, a tweet away from leading the department of labor. it is unconscionable that someone with mr. pizzella's background would be the number-two leader at the department of labor. it is unacceptable that he could be in line to serve as acting secretary should secretary costa leave the department. i strongly oppose his nomination. i will be voting against him, and i encourage our colleagues to do the same. thank you, mr. president, and i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. gardner: thank you, mr. president. over the past couple of weeks senate had its work period. during that time we would go back to our states and travel listening to our constituents. i had the incredible opportunity to go to colorado, spent time on the front range of the i--25 corridor where a vast majority of colorado lives and spend time in western colorado which most people identify being in that part of colorado they travel to often. ski resorts, rocky mountain national parks, great sand dunes. i visited some of the communities in southern colorado including the san luis valley, where some of the longest living colorado families have farms, families and businesses. but the focus of this visit was about how do we, how do we grow the economy. the san luis valley, eastern plains, western slopes, areas that haven't seen as much economic growth as perhaps

denver has or fort collins or colorado springs. i wanted to spend time getting into the community tanned talking about issues -- and talking about issues these communities face when it comes to the opioid crisis this country faces. over the past couple of years a great deal of attention has been paid to prescription drug addiction, to prescription drug overdoses. my home state of tkrofplt, -- colorado we have an average that exceeds the national average when it comes to prescription addiction and overdoses. we're losing a person in colorado to drug overdose every 36 hours. far too many people. in our rural communities, it's not just the wealthy who are immune or the poor who are immune or the poor who are affected and the wealthy who are affected. it's everyone. the wealthy, poor, low income, high income. the opioid crisis, prescription drug addiction has affected every nook and cranny of our

communities. that attention that has been paid to the addiction crisis in this country has resulted in some of the greatest bipartisan achievements congress has had over the past several years. the passage of the 21st century cures act which will help expedite new treatment methods through the f.d.a. provides treatment dollars to the opioid crisis, prescription drug crisi. it also led to the passage of the comprehensive addiction recovery act, legislation that had great bipartisan support. people on both sides of the aisle working on this legislation together to pass a bill to address what is happening to our communities. every single day one of us has a story about somebody close to us, near to us. perhaps a friend, perhaps a relative, probably both, who have fallen victim to prescription drug addiction, to opioid addiction. now of course if you are trying to have -- if you end up with a prescription drug addiction,

that one pill might be $60 or $80, but you can go out on to the streets and find heroin for $10 to $15. now we see the rise of heroin replacing the prescription drugs and you see the cycle. and the drug dealers, of course the narcos have figured out a way to lace cocaine with phenyl phenyl -- fentanyl so it become a little more addictive so people are hooked on cocaine more than they already are. we know the dangers of fentanyl, a drug so powerful, a synthetic drug so powerful you can't even have a dog sniff for it at the post office because it will kill the animal. it's so powerful. during these roundtables i held in the western slope, san luis valley in colorado about opioids, i learned a couple of things. in alamosa i learned about 90%

of the jail population there are addicted to drugs. at that same roundtable we talked about the challenges that rural communities have in treatment because we know that if a police officer, a law enforcement officer or a paramedic finds somebody who has overdosed and revived with narcan that, yeah, you saved their life, you brought them back. but what happens after that when they're left to their own devices? do they return to that abuse? do they return to that cycle of overdose? without treatment, yes, they will. we learned in swedish hospital in englewood, colorado in the front range, a suburb of denver, that in the emergency room one out of every ten visits to the emergency room of people who are revived by narcan or some other treatment after overdose will be dead within a year. one out of tended within a year who come into an emergency room.

we know that there's been great success in finding alternatives to opioid medication. in fact, a colorado emergency rooms, colorado hospital association working together with a number of hospitals developed a program called alternative to opioids, a program that we introduced legislation based on, senator booker and others designed to make sure emergency rooms don't turn to opioid based medication to address pain but to find other alternatives, because there are other alternatives. you don't just have to prescribe an opioid-based medication. result -- as a result of this pilot program opioid prescriptions out of the emergency room decreased by 36% over the six month course of this pilot program in colorado. remarkable results. so we've introduced legislation to try to mimic the same thing and learn best practices at the federal level so hospitals around the country can work together, share those best practices, identify what works and use them. we have to reform the medicaid program so that there is no incentive for doctors to

overprescribe addictive medication when it comes to these painkillers. in alamosa, physicians we talked to are entering into contracts with their patients. at the san luis valley hospital, san luis valley health center they're entering into contracts with patients about the responsibility that goes with taking these powerful, powerful drugs. we found new ways to make sure that the pill mills are being discovered and abandoned. we tried to make sure the people can communicate with each other. in colorado we talked about the devastation drugs have had on their small community. in lahara, colorado, we learned a group of high schoolers are talking to other high schools about the dangers of addiction, dangers of prescription drug overdose. they're trying to work with each other is to stop this cycle and make sure people who need help find help and hopefully will avoid it in the first place.

but perhaps one of the most frightening things that i heard during this, these roundtables as a parent with three children of my own, i often worry about what happens to them when they go to school, what pressures they face. two of them are young now. our daughter is 14 and she'll be entering high school. and the pressures that they will face from their peers. i worry about them. i worry about what happens to our community, to their friends with what's around them. but i never thought that i'd hear what i heard in the san luis valley. we were talking about prescriptions and reimbursement from medicaid. and one of the providers brought up a challenge that they have with getting reimbursements. i later learned from a pharmacist that it may be a coding problem and that if it's coded correctly the reimbursement would occur. this is what this provider said. they were trying to make sure

medicaid could reimburse tor the nasal spray of narcan. so that children could administer it to their parents. when they overdosed. because it's easier for a little child to administer a nasal spray than an injection. kids are given nasal spray so they can revive their parents. if that parent goes to the emergency room in a swedish hospital in denver, colorado, revived by that child, one in ten of them -- of those parents revived, won't come back again because they'll be dead. we've done a lot of work in this country. we have a lot more work to do when it comes to opioid

educationped and -- addiction and crises. we have to find ways to break the cycle to make sure that it's easier to prescribe that will help instead of create addictions. we talked to people who have eight hours of training that makes it impossible for certain drugs to be administered by a physician in the hospital because they don't have time to comply with the paperwork, but they would rather use this drug than the opioid-based drug because the opioid-based drug would cause the possibility of addiction, and there are more barriers to prescribe the drug that wouldn't cause the harm than would cause the harm. we have a lot of work to do. these aren't republican or democratic issues, they are our friends issues, family issues, our community issues. i'll end it with this story. one of the health care professionals that we talked to told a story of their son who was a golfer, athlete, loved to

golf, was injured golfing. they wanted to make sure their son was cared for so the son could recover and go on golf career or whatever career they had in front of them they took their son to the doctor. their son was given vicadin to address the pain from the injury. at this point in the story the mother started to cry because she feels guilty and responsible for the very first treatment that led down a path of addiction. and eventual death of their son. all this mom wanted do was help. and now feels the blame of a powerful drug that led to addiction and the death of their

son. that's not a unique story. that story has been shared far too many times around the country and yet here we are once again talking about it. so i encourage my colleagues, let's continue the great work that we have already done. let's dmor. -- let's do more. let's work together. and let's make sure we can find solutions that this country will be proud of and will know that when our communities recover and people stop dying. mr. president, i yield the floor and 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: majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the provisions of rule 22, all postcloture time on the pizzella nomination expire at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow and the senate vote on confirmation of that nomination. further, 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. finally, that there be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to each vote. 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 immediate consideration of calendar 357, s. res. 224. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 357, senate resolution 224, recognizing the fifth anniversary of the death of oswaldo pyo sardinas and so forth. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding? without objection. mr. mcconnell: i further ask the commit-reported amendment to the resolution be agreed to, the resolution as amended be agreed to, the committee-reported amendment to the preamble be agreed, the preamble as amended be agreed to, the committee-reported amendment to

the title 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 senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 457 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 457 to authorize testimony and representation in kuwait and gulf linked transport et al. and john doe et al. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. the senate will proceed. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble 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 senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 458 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 458

designating april 11, 2018, as the says came seen senl of connecticut's navy installation. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered paid and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i suggest the absence of a quorum call. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: the senate is? a quorum call. mr. portman: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. portman: mr. president, i'd like it talk tonight about the brave ohioans who dedicate themselves every day to protecting all the rest of us, and that's our first responders. this week is ohio first responder week. it's a week of appreciation. the theme being bringing help, bringing hope. well-said. police officers, firefighters, e.m.s. professionals and other first responders put themselves in harm's way for us every single day. they risk their own safety to care for others. they wake up every day, put on their uniform carry out their duties with an unwaiving commitment in a pledge to protect those around them. this morning we had our weekly buckeye coffee. we had people from all over ohio there.

sure enough, it was the e.m.s. chiefs association. they're helping with regard to traffic accidents or gunshot wounds and so on. but one of the new challenges that they face, which is taking an enormous amount of their time and effort, is the opioid crisis. so these first responders now in your community i bet you if you go to your firehouse and ask them are responding more to overdose runs than fires. this is one example where they are on the front lines dealing with these issues, using narcan to be able to save lives. the service and commitment of these first responders is needed now more than ever. so i urge all ohioans this week to dedicate their thanks to first responders. if you live in a community with an event i hope you'll attend the event. when you cross paths with a first responder, thank him,

thank her, tell them you appreciate what we're doing. i know i speak for the entire buckeye state when we say that we're grateful for the work our first responders do every single day and they'll continue to as the theme says this year, bring help and hope to all of us. we thank them. mr. president, on another topic, today is a big day in the fight against sex trafficking. and i say that because i just got back a couple hours ago from a meeting at the white house where the president of the united states signed the legislation that we've been working on for several years to be able to push back against the sex trafficking that's occurring online. it was very emotional. we had a lot of survivors, victims of sex trafficking who were there. one of them was standing next to the president and when he signed the bill, he asked whether she wanted to say anything and fig fighting back tears, yvonne ambrose said, well, i want to tell you about my daughter.

she told the president about her 16-year-old daughter who was trafficked on backpage.com, a website that has most of the commercial sex traffic. and how she got a call on christmas eve a couple years ago that her daughter had been murdered. as she said, no mother should ever have to accept that call, take that call. and she talked about the fact that her daughter got dragged into this issue of trafficking and that she hopes that the legislation that we have passed will be able to save other daughters, other granddaughters, other americans who otherwise would become part of this sex trafficking tragedy that we've seen unfold in our country. this legislation comes out of experiences we've all had when we go back home. we talk to victims and survivors and we have learned over the past several years that trafficking is actually on the increase. in this country, in this century. so people think there's trafficking going on but that happens in africa, or it happens

in asia or it happens in latin america. it happens here. it happens in your community probably. unfortunately, it happens in my state of ohio way too frequently. and we also learned through our investigation and studies of this is that increasingly we were hearing about online trafficking and so survivors would tell me, rob, this who is moved from the street corner to the smartphone. and there are some groups out there including the center for missing and exploited children who showed that i think it was between 2005 and 20 is a you had an 800% increase in reports of trafficking. and all the experts agree, increased trafficking. and all of them agree that most of that is attributable to one thing, which is the movement to the ruthless efficiency of the online selling of women and children. and one website in particular kept coming up, backpage.com i mentioned earlier, so we launched an investigation and

over a two-year period at the permanent subcommittee on investigations that i chair, we decided to really dig deep and find out what was going on and why it was happening and what the nature of this was. and what we found was shocking. the ranking member of that committee is senator clean air e mccaskill of missouri. she and i did this discretion together with our committee. we issued the report together. it was bipartisan from the start. i would say even nonpartisan and nonpartisan and bipartisan to this day. this investigation involved asking backpage for a lot of information that they were unwilling to give, so we had to subpoena them. then they refused still to provide the information. so we had to come in this chamber, to the united states senate, and get a vote of the entire senate -- the first time in 21 years we had to do this -- to be able to enforce these subpoenas. so every member of this body got engaged and involved in this. by the end of the process, we had a unanimous vote from the senate to say, yes, you should be able to enforce your subpoenas and force people to provide relevant information to

the committees that are doing oversight like ours. and so we got the permission here to enforce it, which meant potential criminal sanctions. and they still wouldn't give us the information because they fought us at the district court level. they lost there. we fat at the circuit court level. then we had to take it all the way to the supreme court. we won there. then yes, they did provide us about a million documents. they still refused to testify. they took the fifth but they did provide us the documents because they had to under threat of penalty of law. through those documents, we found out something shocking, which was that not only were they selling women and girls online and making a lot of money doing it, but that they were purposely selling underage girls and trying to hide the fact that they were doing it. think about that. they were not only selling girls and women online, but they were taking ads for underage girls, knowing they were underage, and

yet running the ads anyway. in fact, they would go to the people who were trying to place the ads and say you know what? you need to change this word. you can't use the word schoolgirl because that indicates this girl is under age. you can't use the word cheerleader because that shows she is under age. you can't use the word lolita which is a novel about a young girl and older man, you can't use the description of the girl and put her age in there because she is underage but we want your ad anyway. they edited the ads. you would think a prosecutor would be able to go after these people. they are engaged in illegal activity on line but that activity was happening here off-line on the street corner in your community, it would be illegal. but when the prosecutors went after these people online and when the victims of trafficking, like the woman i talked about earlier whose 16-year-old daughter was murdered while she

was trafficked on backpage, when they went after backpage in that case, they were unsuccessful. why? because they said, yes, desiree died. yes, debt -- desiree would havea lawsuit here as well as other women and families who came to testify before us -- viky pride is one, her daughter was there today. but there's a federal law that says we, the courts can't even take up this case because the federal law provides an immunity, a shield to these websites. unbelievable. we had a court in san francisco, in sacramento last year to tell congress basically please change this law. they said we can't stop this exploitation. they said this alleged exploitation of women and girls. we can't stop it because congress has passed a law that protects these websites. no one can go after them. so the more we learned, the more we dug, the more we found out

what was really going on, we determined that our report which you can see here -- and i encourage you to go and check out this report, you can find it online, backpage report is the search. and look on portman.senate.gov. go to portman.senate.gov and you'll see this report if you're interested in it. we have a is summary as well. what it says basically is the trafficking these individuals, and they know they're doing it. and yet they're immune. so once we determined that that was our issue, we determined it was time for us to figure out legislation to actually change a federal law that was permitting it. the culmination of that was today when the president of the united states signed that law. but for a couple of years, you know, we had quite a legislative struggle because you had a lot of individuals who said you can't touch these internet companies because of this law. the law was passed 21 years ago at the infancy of the internet.

it was well-meaning. but i do not believe that any member of this body intended when they passed that law to say you should be able to traffic people online knowingly and not pay some consequence for it, not be accountable for it. so we made a very narrow carve-out for trafficking of individuals online. we made sure that it was consistent with the federal criminal law that was already in place if you were to do it off-line. we ensured there was a good samaritan provision so if a website was in good faith trying to clean up its site and edit its site and get information off it they would not be liable. that safe harbor provision was in our legislation and we proceeded to try to get it passed. we had a lot of push back particularly from the tech communities. not everybody in the tech communities but certain people who believed strongly this legislation which will changed section 230 of the

communications decency act was a threat to internet freedom. i do not believe that to this day. i believe it is targeted. it is responsible. and it certainly is an issue where you would think everybody would agree that just because you're online doesn't mean you're not accountable and responsible for selling people online, again, in the context of more and more trafficking in this country. as you look into it, determining that's because of this online presence, the ruthless efficiency of the online selling of women and children. we were able to bring it to the floor for a vote after a committee process. we went through the permanent subcommittee investigations. we went through the commerce committee. we got, at the end of the day a vote in this chamber of 97-2. that rarely happens around here. rarely, if ever. and then again, today finally the president signed the bill. it looks like it was easier to do at the end. i will tell you a couple of years ago we were told this will never happen. you can't make this happen.

you can't beat us. we have a lot of power. we have a lot of lobbyists. we have a lot of abilities to stop you in the committee. and yet, through persuasion and, frankly, through the personal testimony of victims, survivors who were willing to come forward and courageously share their story, we were able to prevail. so today it was a victory not for this body, not for the legislative process, but it was a victory for those victims and those survivors. and as one mom told me today, this means my granddaughter won't have to worry about this issue. it means when my kid goes to the mall, i don't have to worry as much about what might happen, who might try to take her into this web of trafficking. my hope is that this legislation will be able to curb the online trafficking in a significant way, and already we're seeing the results of that. i was told today in fact that

websites are shutting down all over america that traffic people online because they don't want to be sued, because they're losing their immunity. it's not affecting the freedom of the internet but it is affecting those evil websites that were engaged in criminal activity and hiding behind section 230 of the communications decency act. i'm told that as many as 80% of those trafficking websites have now shut down just in the last several days because they don't want to be subject to these lawsuits. we also had something else happen that was interesting this week. the department of justice went after backpage.com and they actually indicted seven individuals. if you look at the indictment, which i have here, you can find this by going on the justice department website, i'm sure. it's in the district court in arizona. you'll see that they name seven individuals here. these are the same seven individuals that we named in our report, you'll see.

they also used the information from our report about the fact that backpage was changing ads, editing ads. in other words, knowingly allowing ads to run about underage girls because they wanted to have the profits. and that's exactly what is talked about in this indictment. so the work of the permanent subcommittee on investigations was very important because it enabled us to be able to provide to the justice department information that they then used for these indictments. we provide that information ten months ago and the indictments came out in the last several days. my hope is that now, because this law has passed, we'll see a lot more prosecutions, because we have now allowed state prosecutors, attorneys general around the country, we've allowed local prosecutors, district attorneys, county prosecutors who are the ones that ultimately are going to be much more effective and more able to go after this kind of activity to do so. backpage has been in existence for 14 years, and until this

week the federal justice department had not made these indictments. so it was great that they did it. it's also about time, in my view. and now we have again this tool to be able to allow other prosecutors to be more aggressive to do what should have been done years ago to save the lives of so many girls, women, boys whose lives have been taken off track because of the trauma associated with this. we also now have the opportunity for the victims themselves to be able to file lawsuits. and i think this, again, is already having a chilling effect. in other words, it's already taking down these websites who don't want to be sued because they know that our legislation, although very nearly crafted, applies to them because they are knowingly involved, supporting, assisting sex trafficking. so i think this is a victory, again, for the victims, the

survivors and maybe most importantly the potentially future victims. it's an opportunity for us also to celebrate something that this chamber has accomplished in a bipartisan way going through the right process, doing the research, coming up with the facts, narrowly crafting legislation that works. it doesn't have negative impacts but in fact helps to change behavior, and we're already seeing it. my hope is that we'll do some more of that around here. we have a lot of other issues to address. we talked about the opioid crisis earlier, and congress has passed some good legislation there, but we need to do more. we have an issue with getting people back to work who are in the shadows of our economy, some of whom have a felony record, some of whom are addicted to opioids, some of whom don't have the skills to be able to engage in a modern economy. that's a huge challenge. to me it's unbelievable that we have so many people who are in our country but not in our labor force. our labor force participation rate as economists call it is as

low as it's ever been in the history of our country. probably nine million men between 25 and 55 who are able-bodied are not working today. that's wrong. so there's lots of issues we need to address. and if we can do those studies in the same way and come up with sensible solutions based on research, based on good practices and keep it not just bipartisan but nonpartisan, just to say let's get the politics out of this. let's try to figure out how to actually help people which is our job around here. that's what we were elected to do. i think we can make progress in a number of different areas. today at the signing ceremony for this legislation, sesta legislation, i had the opportunity to see a friend of mine, theresa flores who runs a group called save our adolescents from prostitution, soap. the reason she uses that acronym soap is theresa who is a survivor, she was trafficked

years ago and has a passion for this issue, she calls her organization soap because she goes to sporting events around the country where there tends to be an increase in trafficking. what she does is she goes to the hotels and asks them to put a bar of soap in the bathroom. and on that bar of soap, she has listed the national hotline for sex trafficking where a girl can call that number and have someone come rescue her and escape from her trafficker. and that simple act of making these bars of soap, getting the hotels to place them in these bathrooms, has been remarkably effective. you think about it, these girls or women may have no other time where they have privacy where you don't have the trafficker with them, where you're not feeling the duress. their private moment in the bathroom, they see the number, many of them have called that number and have been able to escape this life and get back to

a productive life. with treatment, with support, with the kind of longer term recovery that's needed to get through the trauma, to p get through in many cases drug addiction because drugs are involved in this as you can imagine as a way to make these women and girls and boy dependent. in fact in ohio, unfortunately that's the common practice, is that drugs are involved. so theresa flores has done something incredible. she has channeled her frustration and all of the trauma she went through into something very constructive. well, she was there today and her comment to me was that by this act, by passing this law, we are going to save lives and we're going to enable future generations not to go down the tragic and dark road that she had to go down. so that should make us feel good in this chamber. it should make us feel good for those whose lives can be helped through this and for those victims that they have at least

the opportunity to have their day in court to be able to see justice. mr. president, i thank the president of the united states for signing the legislation today. i thank ivanka trump in particular for her support of the legislation all along the way. and i hope that this legislation will be a model for others to come. i yield back my time.

the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. perdue: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:15 a.m. thursday, april 12. further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning business 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, i ask that following leader remarks, the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the pizzella nomination under the previous order. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. perdue: if there is no other 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

>> today was facebook ceo mark zuckerberg second day of testimony on capitol hill. he testified before they house energy and commerce committee.