quorum call:

mr. durbin: madam president. the presiding officer: the assistant democratic leader. mr. durbin: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. durbin: i ask consent the

quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, i come to the floor today to discuss an issue that impacts consumers, small businesses, our general economy, and most families. it's the issue of net neutrality. the concept behind this is really pretty simple. it ensures that all content on the internet is treated equally so that the internet can remain openly accessible as a platform for users and an equal playing field for everyone. unfortunately, some leaders at the federal communications commission disagree. despite being given the responsibility to make sure that they operate in the public interest, when it came to our nation's communications networks, the f.c.c. in december walked away from this important responsibility and decided to put the needs of companies ahead of customers. it appears with this administration that everything's for sale. that means public lands, our

privacy, and in this case the pathway that american families use every single day to get on the internet. led by chairman pai, the f.c.c. voted for a radical plan in december to dismantle net neutrality rules and threaten the existence of a free and open internet as we know it today. this new plan will allow large internet providers the power to freely block, throttle or manipulate a consumer's access to the internet in ways that profit the provider. think about your access to apps and the internet today. compare it to your access to cable channels. if you want more channels, you put in more money. today the internet is open to us, and we have access to it, but the trump administration through the federal communications commission wants to change that. if you want fast internet service, you pay more money. if you want access to certain apps, you pay more money. well, that really changes the nature of the internet as we have known it.

it's a dramatic change in the way we communicate and gather information. it's just another bill. many people now are facing the prospect of cable tv shows and other things that they have to pay more money for and a pretty substantial monthly bill, now comes the f.c.c. and says we have another monthly bill for you if you want the same access to the internet today that you had before. not only does this mean less choice and higher costs for consumers whose access to content could be determined by what's in the best financial interests of the provider, small businesses would no longer be able to compete on a level playing field. for many small businesses and entrepreneurs in my state of illinois and across the country, the internet has given the ability to reach consumers across the globe and compete against large companies. the innovation and healthy competition that a free and open internet allows is essential to continue pushing our economy forward. if the f.c.c. has its way,

they're going to create internet fast lanes and slow lanes where winners and losers are no longerred determined by how good a business' product is but whether your small business can afford to pay in. that's wrong. it's not good for the economy. it's not good for our democracy. i've heard from thousands, hundreds of thousands of illinoisans who were concerned, and there's concern all across the country that cuts across party lines. we filed a discharge petition today to take up this issue of net neutrality on the floor of the senate. we have considered a lot of rules and regulations from the obama administration. now we're going to consider one from the trump administration. we're going to see if there is bipartisan support for net neutrality. already senator collins, republican of maine, has joined us. will there be more? are there a number of republican senators who want to stand up for net neutrality and for open access of america to the internet? or do they want to sell off this opportunity to the highest bidders?

keeping the internet is a place where content is shared freely and accessed equally by everyone is important to our small businesses, educators, and consumers. we are pleading with america in the hours before we take up this measure, log on and tell the trump administration to lay off. when it comes to net neutrality, it's too important a value across america to sell at the f.c.c. mr. president, i am prepared to yield the floor, but before i do, i would ask consent the additional statements i am about to hand be put at separate places in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask consent that a quorum -- that we enter into a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. barrasso: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, last friday, we got new numbers from the labor department in terms of jobs and how american workers are doing. well, the unemployment rate is now down to 3.9%. it's the lowest it has been in 17 years. one analyst from the network cnbc said this is a wow number.

the american economy has created three million jobs since president trump took office. three million americans who are now earning a paycheck instead of waiting for a government check. gotten 304,000 new manufacturing jobs since trump took office. 352,000 new construction jobs. 84,000 new jobs in pining and logging industries. compare this, mr. president, to when democrats in congress and in the last administration launched an all-out war on coal. 84,000 new jobs in mining and logging. look, republicans ended the war on coal. we struck down a major democrat regulation that would have crippled the mining industry. we showed industries like manufacturing and construction and logging and mining that we want people doing these jobs. we want people back to work. employers responded all around

the country by hiring more people. that makes the economy growing. so far, republicans in congress have gotten rid of 16 minge regulations since rump took office. wiped them off the books completely. we have shown that republicans are serious about cutting red tape and losening washington's stranglehold on our economy. now, because we got rid of these rules, americans have saved as much as $36 billion over time. that's the cost for families and businesses juchg through the hoops, filling out the paperwork that government had previously demanded. the latest one of these regulations that were repealed was just last month. begins here in the senate passed a resolution to help save people money when they are shopping for a car. we got rid of a rule that the obama administration had written to restrict how car dealers handle financing offers to buy a harry. the rule was done in a way that was actually contrary to the

law. it also had the potential to limit choices for consumers. we want consumers to have more choices, mr. president. so republicans in the senate voted to get rid of this unnecessary, burdensome regulation. president trump has been very active in getting rid of excessive regulations as well. one of the first things he did as president was to issue an order cutting red tape. he said that for every significant new rule any agency wanted to write, said it had to get rid of two rules. for every one new rule, get rid of two. well, that's how this administration has made a difference in congress. the results so far have been even better than anyone had expected. the nonpartisan american action forum has been tracking the numbers. this is what they say. they looked at all the rules that agencies have been working on for the fiscal year that we're now in since last october. agencies have cut 35 major

regulations of the kind that the president was talking about. cut 35. at the same time, they have only written five new major regulations. major regulations have -- are defined by how much money it costs people. so president trump said he would cut two for every one new regulation, but so far in terms of major regulations, he's cut seven for every new one. now, of course, one of the most important things that republicans have done that's helping the economy, in addition to the regulations, has been passing the tax relief law. this law mines that we now have a simpler tax system. we now have a fairer system. and we have a system that is much less expensive for american families. almost immediately, hardworking americans started seeing more money in their paychecks. people got bonuses at work. people got raises. people are seeing it.

tax cuts have been good for american families, and they have been good for the american economy as well. the congressional budget office says the economy is going to grow by more than 3% this year. by more than 3%. that's much faster than it was growing through the previous years after the recession. the office actually went back and increased their estimates for economic growth why? because of the tax relief law, the tax cuts. wages are up nearly 3% now from a year ago. people are seeing it all across the country. again, that's much faster growth than we had under the previous administration. when you figure in lower taxes, people's real take-home pay is up even more. democrat policies led to stagnant wages for americans. republican policies have allowed wages to grow much more quickly. millions of people have gotten new jobs that didn't exist before. millions of other people have been able to switch jobs, move

up in their careers, and make more money. overall, hiring this past month, april, went up by 20% compared to april of last year. it's a huge increase. a lot of these jobs are being created by small businesses. last week was small business week across america, and i visited a number of business owners across the state of wyoming. small business owners know that the government can either create opportunity or crush opportunity, and it's based on regulations and mandates and taxes. that's the kind of change that's possible under republican pro-growth policies. creating opportunities, not crushing opportunities like we have seen before. it's things like a national economy that's growing larger and growing faster that the american people are seeing today. their lives are better today than they were in 2016. it's things like a small

business being free to expand because it doesn't have to waste so much time and money on taxes and paperwork and government red tape, things like making sure america takes less money out of people's paychecks, letting people keep more of their hard-earned money. when you have policies that make life easier for families and for businesses, good things happen across america. people in my home state of wyoming get it and they're seeing it and they are experiencing it and they are living it every day. they understand that what republicans are doing in congress helps them at home. that's why we're going to keep doing what we're doing and we're going to keep going on. we're going to keep cutting regulations. we're going to keep building an america first economy that is strong, that is healthy, that is growing, so it can create more opportunities for everyone. that's what republicans have promised to do, that's what we should be doing, that's what we are going to do, it's what we are going to continue to do, it's what we are delivering in congress and in the white house

for the american people. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

mr. portman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, i believe we're in a quorum call. i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. portman: mr. president, i wanted to talk today about our growing economy. i listened to my colleague from wyoming's comments about the importance of the tax legislation. i couldn't agree with him more. i think it is stimulating not just to economic growth but higher wages, more jobs. i also want to talk about the need for us to connect americans who are not currently employed to those jobs. and then i want to talk about some very shocking new information we have about why people are outside of the

workforce. we just had a good jobs report from april. it showed a steadily growing economy. it showed unemployment at 3.9%. that's the official number but that's the lowest the official number has been since the year 2000. in my home state of ohio, there was a recent survey done by pnc bank. they asked small and mid-size companies what's your level of optimism about the future. they said that their business optimism is at record levels for the past nine years. so there's something going on that's very good in the economy. if you talk to the small business community, the national federation of independent business survey showed the same thing, not just optimism but also a sense that companies are getting ready to invest even more. so there's some good things going on in our economy. the ohio chamber of commerce this week, by the way, issued its own report. it showed something interesting which is that three out of four businesses in ohio are saying that they want to add people.

three out of four. more than half of them said they want to add more than 25 people. i can't go to a business in ohio -- i had a lot of interactions with small business people over the last week. i can't go where i don't hear people talking about the need for a qualified workforce. so they tell me, yes, the tax bill is helping, no question about it. it's helping middle-class families throughout my state. 90% of americans are getting a paycheck that says uncle sam is going to with hold less money, on average $2,000 for a median income family in ohio, just from the tax cuts alone, this year alone. small businesses again are investing more. companies are doing everything from investing in people with bonuses and higher pay and better 401(k) matches to investing in equipment and technology and therefore productivity of those workers which will lead to a better economic performance. so those things are happening. on the regulatory front, i also think that most of -- much of what we've done here in congress is beginning to help.

this includes 16 different times where congress has said we shouldn't have this new regulation that was put on by the obama administration at the end of his term and we ought to free up the economy more, $60 billion, by the way, relieved to our economy. that's helping. i think it's also very helpful as senator barrasso said with regard to the administration, there's a new attitude which is, yes, we need rules and regulations. let's make sure they make sense and let's make sure we partner with business to try to help them comply with those rules and regulations rather than an attitude of saying let's try to find out how we can punish businesses for not complying. i think that difference alone may be even larger nan what we've done here -- than what we've done here in congress in terms of passing legislation to eliminate regulations because that attitude change has helped small businesses in my state feel like they have an opportunity now to be able to take a risk, to take a chance, to invest more, not thinking that the federal government is out there to get them. so i see that.

and i'm really happy to see it because it's not again just about growing the economy. it's actually over the past few months if you look at the numbers showing that for the first time in really a decade and a half that we see wages starting to go up in my home state and around the country. that's what we should all want. but let me talk about something that concerns me greatly about the direction we're on. again, positive. the economy is picking up. things are doing well. workers that i talk to are happy with the tax bill because it's helping them both directly through their families and through the benefits they're getting at work. but what i'm hearing is that workforce is really the challenge and when you look at that, you come up with a really shocking situation where the reason there aren't people showing up for work is because we have a record number of men and probably close to a record number of men and women -- you probably have to go back to the 1970's to find these kind of

numbers -- who are out of the workforce all together. what does that mean? this means they aren't working and lot looking for work so they're not showing up in the unemployment numbers. a number of 3.9%, again the best since 2000, that's all good news. but that's not the real number. and i say that with respect because the bureau of labor standards does the best they can but they can't include the people who aren't trying to find work. those people are outside of the workforce. what the economists call this is a low labor force participation rate. in other words, the low percentage of americans who are even showing up. that concerns me a lot because, one, obviously it's hurting the economy. you have this huge pool of workers out there, 8.5 million men between the ages of 25 and 55, able bodied men who are in this category. unemployed, yes, but not even looking for work so not showing up in these numbers. when you add women and men together, millions of americans. so we need them in the economy

now. it's important for these businesses i'm talking to in ohio, small businesses who are looking for people. but even more concerning to me is what's happening to these people and to these families. because they're not getting the dignity and self-respect that comes from work. they're not able to achieve whatever their goal is in life, their piece of the american dream. they're missing out. they're on the sidelines. the 3.9%, by the way, i said is not a real number. why do i say that? because if you go back to the normal labor force participation rate we talked about, people actually working in our workforce and we're at a normal level, the unemployment rate would be far higher. how high would it be? you can go back to the year before the great recession when we had a more traditional workforce participation rate, similar to what we had before the great depression. with that rate attached to today's economy, the unemployment number would not be

3.9%. it would be 8.6%. now, if we were to talk about an 8.6% unemployment rate, we'd all be very concerned, wouldn't we? we should be concerned because that's the real number. we need a real effort to get those americans back to work for all the right reasons. who are they? it is a complicated question. but i think it comes down primarily four things. one is, there are people that don't have the skills to meet the needs out there. if you go to ohio, our website, you'll see about 140,000 jobs being offered. a number require skill, people are looking for welders, they're look for technology expertise, including coding. they're looking for people in the biosciences, the health care services, where you have to have a certain level of skill. and what workers are finding in ohio is if they don't have the skills, it is hard toest go the jobs. so there is a skills gab. there is no question -- so there

is a skills gap. there is no question about that. near congress we have to do something about that. someone called the jobs act, well-named. the jobs act says quite simply, if you are going to have a pell grant to go to college, shouldn't you have a pell grant to go into a short-term training program? because what employers will tell you, they don't need a two manufacture year college program. what they immediate is someone willing to go through a training program to get the ability to learn how to weld or the ability to learn how to code or even a commercial driver's license program. all these programs, by the way, can be less than 15 weeks, and you can get people to work. but, guess what? you can't get a pell grant for less than 15 weeks. so our goal with the jobs act is very simple. let's kind of level the playing field here. let's give young people who may not choose to go to college, at least now, but understand those jobs are out there -- and we're

talking good jobs here. they're waiting right now. these jobs are open. let's give them the ability because they're low-income families, they can't afford these training programs, to be able to take advantage of pell grants just as they would if they chose to go to a four-year college or university or to a community college for a couple of years. senator kaine and i have introduced this legislation with a bipartisan group. we think it's something we ought to do right away. so that's -- who are these people? the skills gap is part of it. that's a specific." just one of many to be able toest go the skills they need. there's something i would call the dependency track. these are people on a government dependency program and they are not working and when they look at going to work, they see two things. one, they see a reduction in their benefits. that's pretty obvious. but, second, they see an increase in their taxes. the tax bill actually helps here because it actually reduces taxes for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.

specifically i will tell you because i asked the joint committee on taxation this, 3 million americans who currently have income tax liability based on last year's tax codes, the code that was changed at the end of last year, 3 million americans no longer have any income tax liability. that's good because that'll help with this transition from welfare to work. because although people may be losing that's benefits, some of those people will not see that cliff where they suddenly have a relatively high tax to pavement and that's good but we can do more to assure that people who are willing to make that step out of welfare into work are not penalized by this tax cliff. so i think the dependency trap is also part of the issue for this unprecedented level of people who are outside of the workforce altogether, and we need to address it. i think there should be more work requirement programs for able-bodied americans who are on these dependency programs. i think that would help, partly to give them the work experience to be able to get the dignity

and self-respect that comes it with work as they step into welfare-to-work transition. so that's certainly another issue. so it's the skills training, it's the dependency trap. another issue that i think is very clear out there is we have a lot of people in america who are getting out of prison or jail and some of them have a record that makes it hard for them to get a job. and let's be honest. we've had record numbers of people behind bars. this was, you know, started back in the 1980's, wanted to lock more people up for lots of good reasons, because of the violence and serious crimes they were committing. but 95% of the people in prison are going to get out someday. and when they do get out, we need to provide a way to make that transition into work. why? because more than half of those people are back into the system in a couple of years. that makes no sense, particularly those who are committed to the crimes and to the taxpayers who are paying $25,000, $40,000, $45,000 a year

when you include incarceration and the prosecution, additional costs that are associated with that. so should we do more? yes. there's legislation now supporting the fair chance act that says when somebody applies for a job in the federal government, for example, they have to be allowed to go through the process even though they might have a felony record. why? because you want to give them a fair shake, not just take their file and put in a circular file, toss it. i was in a great program in ohio last week, it is called flying high welding school and the grow urban garden. their job is to teach exophoneders a skill. they -- ex-offenders a skill. they teach them a welding skill that is badly needed in northeast ohio rate now. and their placement record is unbelievable and their recidivism is so low. they are not only placing people in jobs and working with businesses, kind of an apprenticeship program, where the workplace is actually working with the welding shops

to give people work experience, but the -- but they keep peoplem coming back into the prison system. they got a loan and they also got some grant money from the federal government including from the department of labor. it is one of those programs that is actually working very well to give people the ability to get that job, to get out of that trap -- in this case a lot of them have felony records -- and to be able to take care of their families and be productive citizens. very encouraging stories there. so the skill training we've talked obama the dependency trap we've talked obama the people who are coming out of prison at very high new jersey would end to make sure those people are getting engaged and involved with work. let me tell you what the number-one reason is for people on the sidelines outside of work. and it won't surprise some of you because you're involved with this, my colleagues here in the chamber. including i see the chairman of the government affairs committee who has now arrived and he's been very involved in this.

and that's the opioid crisis. these numbers are being shocking. but of those people who are out of work altogether, again on the sidelines, not even trying to get into work, people that would lead our unemployment numbers to really be more like 8.6%, rather than 3.9%, millions of americans, over 8.5 million men between the ages of 25 and 5, able-bodied men, of those people, based on two recent studies, about half of them are taking pain medication hon a daily basis. and when asked in one of studies, two-thirds of them said it was prescription pain medication. what does that mean? that means that we have a huge problem in our country of opioid addiction, and that that is keeping a lot of people out of the workforce altogether. by the way, tearing apart those families, causing more crime in our community. number-one cause of crime in my state of ohio is the opioid epidemic. people who are often involved in things they would never dream of except for the fact that they have this addiction, which is a

disease. so it's shoplifting, it's thievery, it's fraud. it's an issue that addresses -- that affects every part of our community, but i guess the ponts that i want to make today most strongly is it's affecting our labor market in a huge way. one study by the brooking institution says 47% of men are i can at thatting pain medication on a -- are taking pain medication on a daily basis. that's not overreported because the stigma ttached and because of real consequences for some of these individuals. so 47% i think has got to be viewed as a relatively low number but isn't that shocking if it was 47%. another study by the bureau of labor statistics, 444%. taking pain medication the previous day. now, these numbers should be a wake-up call for us in this chamber. and should be a wake-up call for everybody, including the

business community, because again, as i go around my state, i'm seeing firsthand what the ohio chamber of commerce just reported this week, three out of four businesses in ohio want to add workers, half want to add up to 25 workers, they can't find the workers. it is leading to an unemployment rate that should be really over 8.5% instead of 3.9%. i think all four things we spoke about today are important. but unfortunately given the opioid epidemic in my state of ohio and spreading around the country, i think this is probably the single largest problem that we face. now, what are the solutions? we've made major strides here in the last year and a half in this chamber. we've passed the comprehensive addiction and recovery act. we've passed the cures legislation. we're now working on additional legislation called the comprehensive addiction recovery act 2.0. we're doing things we've never

done before in terms of funding, recovery, treatment, also prevention and education. we need to do more. but we've begun the process of turning the tide i believe by some of this legislation. we need to do more on the law enforcement side. we have legislation called the stop act that simply says, with regard to the most difficult problem we now face in ohio and around the country, which is synthetic opioids, think fentanyl or carfentanil, let's at least stop the post office for being a conduit for that coming in our country. all the studies show, including one in our country, it shows that this fentanyl is coming right through the postal service, mostly from china, by the way, and.song our communities. in ohio, two-thirds of our death in franklin county last year were from fentanyl. 60% of the deaths in the state of ohio as a whole the year before from fentanyl. so this is our biggest problem we have right now, just as we are making some progress on prescription drugs, then heroin comes along. just as we're making progress on

heroin, then the synthetic form of help comes along. it is cheap, incredibly powerful. three flakes can kill you. crystal meth i'm told, marijuana i'm told by law enforcement just last week confirmed. so this is a huge issue. can we do more? yes. but we're starting to table some steps. where i think we perhaps have an opportunity that we're not taking advantage of is to get the private sector, the business community more engaged in this effort. washington can and should do more but the problem is not going to be solved here in you shall with a. it is going to be solved at the local level, isn't it? it's going to be solved in our families and our hearts. if we can get the business community more involved by pointing out these statistics that you are looking for more workers, you're going to have to deal with this issue. many workers are not able to pass the drug tests and so that's something that the business community i think does understand. i just left a group of employers

from ohio about an hour and a half ago over in my office and i asked them the question i ask employers all over our state, how many people can pass the drug test who show up? the answer was, about 30% can pass. another guy said 50% are not passing. these are different kinds of businesses. the second is more of a heavy manufacturing business, more lower wages, therefore more lower-income individuals. but a huge problem with passing the drug test. what i say to them is it is much bigger than that. there are millions of americans not even showing up to take the drug tests. they are sidelined, and we have to deal with this opioid epidemic. so what should the business community do? roll up your sleeves, get involved in projects that do work. there's one in columbus ohio called the mary haven stabilization addiction center. the business community got engaged. they took about $1 million from this place, from the cures act that we passed here, but they

leveraged that with private-sector money, foundation money. they now have a place there where they have a great success rate in getting people from overdosing and the application of this miracle drug narcan which can reverse the effects of an overdose, and then into treatment. in most parts of the country, people are revived by narcan and then go right back into the same environment they were there, the vast majority. here they've been able to figure out a way to have those who are overdosing to get to a central location where right there, right where the detox center is, there is a also a door you walk through with beds to get people into treatment. they claim an 80% to 90% success rate. that's the first big gap i see in the system, people who fall out of the system, narcan is applied by our first responders. but i it is not their job to get them into treatment. then people are going back home and unfortunately overdosing again and again. talk to your first responders in

your communities. talk to your e.m.s. personnel, your police officers. i assume they'll tell you the same thing. the business community was involved in that thinking, let's look at this more like a business process. how can we actually help to change this obvious problem we've got in the current way in which people are treated and taken irof who overdose? every business owner ought to get involved in a creative, innovative project like that. second, over the years back in the 1980's and into the 1990's there was significant private sector participation in a prevent and education program. locally in my state of ohio, some businesses are starting to think about how they can do this more effectively. i believe nationwide in columbus is coming up with some very good ideas. but we need a significant investment from the private sector into a national messaging program, a prevention and education program. back then it was a tv, it was tv ads. you may remember the just say no program and other programs that were about prevention, under

president reagan. but some of these ads were very effective. some may remember the ad this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs with fried eggs cooked in a pan. that's your brain on drugs. that is not going to be tv ads today. it would be some tv, i hope. it would be some broadcast media in various ways but it would be a lot of online communication because that's where most people are getting their information, particularly younger people. it should be a concerted effort based on good research, good science. what's the prevention message that works out there? part of the prevention message that works with some young people i talk to is the fact that all these street drugs are subject to the possibility of the fentanyl being included in them. some people are taking drugs they would never think are dangerous and yet becoming addicted through fentanyl. there is a danger out there of any street drug now of ruining your life. but there is a broader prevention message that we need the private sector help.

this place again has authorized more money for this. there's $10 million in cara 2.0 for a prevention and education program. that's good. but it's going to take more than that. again, the business community and the private sector has a strong interest in this for so many reasons, but one is to have that workforce they say they desperately need. there are other opportunities for the business community to be involved. there was a step i thought was important to limit the number of days on prescriptions, prescription drugs, taken by walgreens. every business that has a health care program has an opportunity to get involved in this. probably eight out of ten people who overdose from heroin, fentanyl today started with prescription drugs in terms of the opioid that got them started with their opioid addiction. there still is overprescribing with regard to prescription drugs. have we made some progress? yes. our new legislation, by the way, cara 2.0 has a three-day limit

on prescription drugs for acute pain, not chronic pain but acute pain like an accident or injury or procedure you might have. we have that in there because the c.d.c., centers for disease control has new guide ons out that shows after that third day the chances of addiction rise significantly and for the vast majority, three days is phrepb if if phrepb -- plenty. but that's something every business can do that provides health care. every business it that has a pharmacy can do is to say let's limit those prescriptions ourselves. you don't need a government program to do that. there doesn't need to be a government edid it to do that or a mandate. they can just do it. i know this issue of the workforce is frustrating to a lot of employers out there. i know that the benefits of a great tax bill that is trading economic opportunity, a better regulatory environment to providing rerelief is drawing the economy in positive ways.

wages are starting to go up. we see economic growth numbers that are really encouraging, showing legislation is creating more economic growth and therefore more revenue, higher wages, the things we all hoped would happen. investment is happening. again, we're not going to be able to take advantage of that if we don't have the workforce out there. and when you've got millions of americans, 8.5 million men between 25 and 55, able-bodied on the sidelines, not even showing up to look for work we're not going to be able to fill our potential in this country, our economy or for them and for their families to be able to achieve their god-given purpose in life to have the dignity and self-ratepayer that comes from, would -- and self respect that comes from work. we listed how we need to address this issue of people who are on the sidelines and not reporting for work but the one i think has the most impact is the final one and that is dealing with this opioid crisis. unless we deal with that we'll continue to see people falling

through the cracks and see people not reaching their full potential. mr. president, i yield back my time. mr. johnson: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from wisconsin. mr. johnson: i rise to urge my colleagues to vote for michael b. brennan, a judge for the united states court of appeals for the seventh circuit. he have has degrees from the university of notre dame and northwestern university school of law, two federal clerkships, worked as a prosecutor, and almost a decade on the state trial court bench before returning to private practice. his accomplishments in practice are noteworthy. i'd like to focus my remarks today on mike's commitment to

public service and his reputation as a jurist. becoming a seventh circuit judge will not be a huge adjustments for mike because he has spent nine years as a judge. anyone who spends time with mike will be struck not only by his intellect but by his humility and strong commitment to justice and the rule of law. this explains why attorney general the wisconsin and the state's public defender, fierce adversaries in the courtroom, were able to come together to write a letter enthusiastically supporting his nomination. i have a sense those two don't often agree, but when it comes to who they want deciding their cases, they both point to mike. by the way, that's one of many letters that influential members of the legal community in wisconsin have written in support of mike's nomination. included in the outpouring of support are letters from two former federal defenders, five

former u.s. attorneys, more than 40 judges, and 15 former presidents of the wisconsin bar in wisconsin, the state bar of wisconsin. democrats and republicans all joining together to support michael brennan's confirmation. one letter signed over two dozen wisconsin judges from across the political spectrum, sheds light on the kind of judge mike has been and will continue to be. it states, and i quote, to the litigants who appeared before him, judge brennan was a wonderfully kind and patient judge with a humble demeanor. another letter attested those same qualities, have nominated judge brennan one of the most sought after mediators and arbitrators in wisconsin. i'm sure the litigators in the seventh circuit will have the same experience in reaction to him hearing their cases. in this climate that is hyperpoliticized in the judiciary, i want to bring my colleagues' attention to one very important paragraph in the letter supporting mike who was signed by wisconsin judges. it reads, and i quote, finally

and significantly, mike is now an ideologue and has never worn his politics on his sleeve. you can ask lawyers who appeared before him or his colleagues who worked alongside him and they will confirm that mike brennan never let his personal, religious or political views influence his legal decision in any case. he is brilliant, experienced, hard-working and fair-minded. rest assured they don't come any better than mike brennan. close quote. mr. president, i agree with that assessment. we all know that type of bipartisan praise is a -- not given. it is earned. in mike's case, his ability and temperament have won him the support of many democrats and republicans of wisconsin, and it has earned him the rating of unanimously well qualified by the american bar association. let meet cite just a few

statistics to prove why the a.b.a. rating is well deserved. in wisconsin, a party can ask for a different judge and they can make this request for any reason. of the 9,000 cases mike heard as a judge, fewer than one-tenth of one percent -- let me repeat that, fewer than one-tenth of one percent of the litigants decided to go with another judge, an extremely telling statistic about his even k keeled temperament, his neutrality and legal skills. judge brennan's low reversal rate demonstrates his commitment to following the law and his dedication to performing his job with excellence. in 2005, out of 240 trial judges, brennan was the most preferred judge in the state of wisconsin. number one out of 240. of the 9,000 cases mike heard as a judge, he was reversed in only a handful of cases, less than 20. and in many shows the wisconsin supreme court ended up reversing the court of appeals and

reinstating brennan's original decision. as final proof of the strong bipartisan support michael brennan enjoys within wisconsin's legal community, let me provide a letter my office received from wisconsin former district attorney e. michael mccan. he served as district attorney in milwaukee county for 37 years. he is recognized as one of the most distinguished and accomplished district attorneys in the entire country. this is what mr. mccan had to say about mike brennan on first working with mike brennan. quote, key personnel in our office and i became impressed with mr. brennan's high energy, his mastery of the law, his integrity and his good judgment. as an assistant attorney general, as an assistant district attorney he was assigned to some very challenging cases. mr. brennan continued to exhibit those qualities of scholarship, integrity and judgment which had

initially earned him our respect. on brennan's work as counsel for wisconsin's truth in sentencing committee, mr. mccann said, mr. brennan provided appropriate materials to the committee and with his gracious manner moved the committee through its very substantial workload so closely that the contentious dispute i and others expected single polydid not occur. -- simply did not occur. mccan whose office had lawyers before judges every day said he was an excellent judge in all regards, properly respectful of lawyers, victims, witnesses and the rights of defendants. his courtroom was a model of judicial decorum. in jury trials and trials in court and in the hearing of motions he was thoughtful, patient, knowledgeable, and scholarly. he had mastery of the law and was cognizant of the problems of the justice system. he was fair, unbiased, devoid of prejudices and committed to

justice. very few motions for change of judge filed in his court quietly speaks eloquently of the perception of lawyers and litigants, receiving justice from him. mccan finished his lettering by saying i urge you to vote for his nomination. ideally qualified, a fine intellect, extensive judicial experience and a strong work ethic, sound judgment, good character and firm commitment to justice. he will be an excellent appellate judge. this strong endorsement is not from a republican. this is from a lifelong democrat who is one of the two longest-serving district attorneys in any major city in america. based on this record, based on those endorsements, i am hopeful that when my senate colleagues fully study his background and see the same virtues that garnered such ringing endorsements their review will produce a strong bipartisan vote

to confirm michael b. brennan to serve as judge on the united states court of appeals. mr. president, that concludes my prepared remarks about what a quality judge and skwraourlt -- jurist judge brennan will be. i have to say i'm very disappointed at the partisan nature of the cloture vote. it is unfortunate it was completely party line for somebody i have described that has bipartisan support within the wisconsin legal community. so, mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent the judiciary committee majority issued an excellent memorandum dated november 2, 2007. i'd like to discuss and address the primary objection which led to that unfortunate party-line vote on cloture. i'm really hoping our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will take this to heart and take the background, the bipartisan work from the wisconsin legal

community when they cast their final vote on confirmation. but rather than -- again, i'd ask that this be entered into the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. johnson: thank you, mr. president. rather than read this excellent memorandum which i would encourage my colleagues to do, let me give a summary of what that memorandum states on the history of the blue slip. the blue slip courtesy was created in 1917. it's basically been around for 101 years. only two of 18 judiciary committee chairman have allowed the blue slip to become an absolute vote blocking consideration and confirmation of judges. those two judges -- those two chairmen were james eastland between 1956 and 1978, a 22-year period and senator patrick leahy for about 10 years. of the 101 years that the blue slip courtesy has been around, only 32 of those years has the blue slip been used as an

absolute vote by any senator. looking further at the history that i think is relevant to confirmation for wisconsin seat on the seventh circuit, in 1981 wisconsin senator william proxmire returned a negative blue slip on judge john shabazz, a nominee to be a district judge. the senate took that negative blue slip into consideration but the committee still held a hearing and the senate voted to confirm the judge as a district judge. the next year, 1982, senator protection myer again -- proxmire returned a negative blue slip on justice john coffey. the committee took that blue slip into consideration and still held a hearing and the senate confirmed judge coffey later that year. so it's apparent that a blue slip historically and by

precedent for two-thirds of the 101 years that the blue slip has been around has not been used as an absolute veto by one single senator but basically as an advice of a particular senator's view on a judge. and i would suggest that's exactly the way the blue slip should be handled in the future, particularly in light of senator harry reid, at majority leader at the time in 2013 when he employed the nuclear option and changed the senate forever, changing the rules of the senate as it relates to nominations with a near majority. that, in effect, eviscerated the blue slip's possibility being used as a veto because now there was no way that a minority could block and support and confirm that blue slip. again, harry reid's precedent changing the rules of the senate, which is 51 votes,

changing it so only a majority vote would confirm a judge has pretty well rendered the blue slip moot from being able to block a judge. so the blue slip, from my standpoint, should be used just as the advice and consent of one senator expressing opinion on a judge of their state. that is a general history of the blue slip. i'd like to address specifically the comments made around this particular circuit court vacancy and my role in it. because i think there's been a -- been an awful lot of distortions. let me correct the record. this vacancy of the circuit is the longest in history. it has dragged on for a variety of reasons, but let me give you the history. in january 17, 2010, judge evans retired from the seventh circuit. president obama was in office and wisconsin had two democrat senators, senator kohl and

senator feingold. five days later on january 22, those two senators, senators cole and -- senator kohl and feingold had a selection for president obama. president obama then nominated victoria norris for that spot. she was not really a member of the legal community. she was an adjunct professor for the university of wisconsin, so there was some tie there. but she was a former staffer and to be a future staff of vice president bieden. on november 2, wisconsin held an election for the united states senate and to senator feingold's surprise, he was retired and i replaced him. there was no action taken from the date, january 22 -- or july 14 when president obama nominated victoria norris, in

the senate with a democratic president there was no action taken prior to the 11th congress expiring. and so that nomination expired. on january 3, 2011, the 112th congress was sworn in. within a few days i received two blue slips on judicial nominations, one or district judge, and victoria norris' nomination for the seventh circuit judgeship. i just being elected, more than one million wisconsinites voted for me and i had no say in this judge so i decided not to return the blue slip. this was during a time period when chairman lai was using the -- chairman leahy was using the blue slip as a veto because it was -- because it still took 60 votes to confirm a judge.

any minority member in the senate who objected to a judicial nomination would be backed up by his party and the nomination could be thwarted. i continued to work with senator kohl trying to become involved in the nomination of somebody who i felt would be more appropriate for that seat, somebody who actually had connection to the wisconsin legal community, unfortunately senator kohl did not have interest in working with me, so the congress passed and the seat remained vacant. let me remind you all of 2010, for the entire year, the seventh circuit seat from wisconsin was vacant when we had two democratic senators and president obama. they could have nominated and confirmed any time during 2010, and i was given no input into this nomination and the only thing i could do was withhold the blue slip and work with the other wisconsin senator and come

up with a nominee that would be a good consensus choice. senator kohl decided not to run for election and senator baldwin was elected on november 11, 2012. because i felt it was so important that judicial nominations be made and work in a process on a bipartisan basis, i recommended a commission, a compact with senator baldwin, which she agreed to, i would have three commissioners and she would have three commissioners, and have people who would want those vacancies. they would only forward to the president somebody who received five out of the six votes or support from five out of the six commissioners. it worked well. the commission was set up and we nominated and confirmed district court judges for the eastern district, pam pepper, and the

western district, james peterson. a little more difficult position to fill was the seventh circuit. one of the conditions was four recommendations sent to the president. because the applicant pool was limited, only two received five out of six votes. during discussions in determining what to do because we hadn't fulfilled the terms of the compact that required four judges, i agreed to just submit the two. for whatever reason senator baldwin decided to forward to the president, president obama, all eight applicants. she breached the compact. she violated the confidentiality of the process because part of the problem with that is that some of those applicants received zero to one or two votes. now, in the end, president obama

nominated don shot. a fine man. i have no problem with who mr. shot is, but let's be honest, probably not my first bic for -- pick for a judge on the seventh circuit. but because the commission nominated him and agreed on it, i returned the blue slip. unfortunately, because of the politization of the commission that underwent by senator baldwin, the senate judiciary did not act on that nomination nor did the senate and that nomination expired, which brings us to the 114th congress, and judge brennan's nomination. now, again, i spent probably about ten minutes reading in detail the strong bipartisan support for michael brennan. there is no reason whatsoever that he should not receive a strong bipartisan vote for

confirmation. so, mr. president, i've described what happened specifically. i described in general the use, the general precedence of the blue slip, not to be used in veto, but simply to indicate one united states senator of one particular nominated judge from their state. it should not be used as a veto. i urge all of my colleagues to have a bipartisan vote for a fine man, a fine jurist, someone who will make a wonderful judge on the seventh circuit court of appeals. with that, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: we've just seen the rarest of occurrences in the so-called debate on these

nominees on the floor. we actually had an explanation of the nominee that weed be voting on. the fact that the senate's time is teacken in a way that -- taken in a way that it never has been before to process the president's nominations is outrageous. it is just outrageous. there's some view that, well, we need more time to think about the nominee. there's plenty of time to do that. it's called the committee process. it's called a vetting process that also may very well take too long now, but there is plenty of time for these circuit court nominees that we're voting on this week to be vetted. there's plenty of time to ask them questions. there's plenty of time to look into their background. the only reason, in my view, that we take the time we're taking to do six votes, basically six votes on six judges in a week, six 15 minute

votes, if we were efficient enough to do that, that would be an hour and a half weed take to vote on these six judges, and the final vote on number of -- none of them would be different than taking five days. so why do you take five days? you take five days because that means we can't get to anything else. what coast it -- does it mean that the president's ability to populate the government, as people elected him to do, is diminished. but also it eliminates the time that we have to do the other work that the senate is designed to do. the senate is in, as the majority leader likes to describe it, the personnel business, but it's not supposed to be the only business of the senate. i think we've been now over 90 of these cloture motions on -- on nominees that the president's made, 90. now, what does that mean? in the previous six administrations in the first two

years of each of them, there was a total of 24 cloture motions -- 24 times in six presidenties in two years did -- presidencies in two years did we do what we're doing now. 24 times in six presidents, an average of four times. we're going to certainly be to 104 times well before the end of two years, but an average of four times did -- was the floor abused in this way. an average of four times was there a reason to have a debate. and i haven't looked back at those deebts. i guess -- deebts. i guess i should. wouldn't it shocking if those debates were actual debates. wouldn't it be stunning if all four of those four times in each of those presidency's when the cloture motion was required and using the maximum time was insisted on or a substantial

portion of the maximum time was insisted on, wouldn't it be something if we looked back and found out there wasn't a reason to debate those nominees and there might have been. there might have been. there might have been someone who was rejected as john tower was to be secretary of defense. if you're going to reject one of your colleagues in the senate, that was probably a pretty debatable moment, maybe justified the 20 hours or 30 hours that is now initially insisted on by everybody, and many of them take a portion of that. and what really is lost is the other work that could happen in the course of the week. that's why in 2013 and 2014 when democrats were in control of the senate, a bipartisan group of senators got together and said, let's eliminate a lot of these confirmations that we really --

really -- isn't worthy of senate time. let's -- let's take that when there are only one or two in the whole government in 1882 might have been worthy of a senate debate and senate vote, but let's take them off the list now that there are 210 of them to be confirmed. let's take them off the list. of course, neither of those numbers are numbers from the debate, but that's what we did. and let's put a whole other group on the list that if no one demands a vote they can be confirmed if the committee recommends they should be confirmed without a vote and we eliminated -- tried to eliminate the process so you could really focus in on that rare occasion when there really should be a debate on the senate floor about these nominees. people should look at the end of this week, and i will look, and just see how many minutes were actually -- we're actually taking talking about these six

nominees. now, it doesn't mean, mr. president, that the six nominees shouldn't be talked about. it doesn't mean that when you're going to put somebody on a court of appeals for life that the congress shouldn't have looked carefully at them. but that's already happened and it happened in some cases months ago and other cases weeks ago. that's already happened. this is just a matter of whether we're going to vote or not. no votes will be persuaded by running the clock. no votes will be changed by running the clock. and the power, of course, to put people on a federal bench for life is an important power given in the constitution to the president for the supreme court and such other courts as the congress may determine the country needs. it's not a thing to be taken lightly. but it's also not a thing to be abused. it's not a process where the protection that you might use

four times in two years is suddenly used 90 times in 15 months. something is wrong when that has happened to the process. and at the end of the day, the senate is a place where the minority deserves to be heard. the senate is a place where the rights of the minority -- it makes it a unique legislative body just like electing only a third of the senate every two years makes it a unique legislative body. but it takes a long time to change the entire senate. and it has always been one of the purposes of the senate to be sure that the minority had a chance to be heard and the minority is always able to hold on to those rights until the minority decides we're going to abuse the right. when a right becomes an entitlement, oh, it says we could have up to 30 hours of debate so we're going to insist on it every single time, that's

when that right is in jeopardy. that's when you run the risk of losing that right. and also today, we're talking about the nomination in a committee that should look carefully at that. it's the committee i'm on, the intelligence committee, of someone to run the c.i.a., the central intelligence agency, critically important to the country and actually the president has nominated the most qualified person ever to be nominated to that job in the history of the c.i.a., someone who spent her entire 30-plus-year career in the c.i.a., someone who has had almost every job you could have in the c.i.a., someone who has been at the front ranks in the most dangerous of countries working for the central intelligence agency and someone who currently serves not just as the acting director but has been serving at the deputy director.

nobody has ever been nominated with that capacity. when people look at the hearing that was publicly held today, i think they're going to see an individual of incredible preparation. they're going to see someone who needs no on-the-job training, someone who is not only running the agency now day to day but someone who knows more about the agency, the central intelligence agency, than anybody has ever known who held that job. when we confirm gina haspel, and i believe we will -- i know we should. when we confirm gina haspel, there will be no on-the-job training necessary. she will run the c.i.a. the c.i.a. won't run her. now, if almost any member of the senate, even members who've been on the intelligence committee for years went to the c.i.a., there would be a great likelihood that at least for a while the c.i.a. would run them, that the c.i.a. would say, well, here's something we have to do,

here's something we used to do. here's a box that's always been checked before. and it takes a certain amount of time to determine why that may have been necessary. it will take her no time to determine what's necessary and what's not. she's nominated by the president that she has been briefing since her boss became the secretary of state. and part of the time while he was the director of the c.i.a., general hayden, one of virtually every past director of the c.i.a., democrat and republican appointees, have said she is someone who should be confirmed. general mike hayden in a quote that i particularly liked said that she was the person he would want in the room when the president was making a decision. she'd be the person that you and i would want, i think, to be there understanding the facts.

sometimes we don't know the facts but all the facts we should know if anybody knows them, the director of the central intelligence agency should know them. i said in the hearing this morning, this is a phrase i don't use very often and i think it's often overused, but if there's ever a moment when someone who speaks truth to power, if that's the right way to describe a discussion, that could certainly be the moment when the director of the c.i.a. with a 32 or 34-year career there would say to the president of the united states, mr. president, that doesn't take into account all of the facts. let's be sure we understand everything that we need to know before you make that decision. that's truth to power. so hopefully we'll get to that nomination. that may even be a nomination that would justify a 20-hour

floor debate. we could certainly give 20 hours to every member of the senate or 30 hours to every member of the senate that wanted to come to the floor and talk about that nomination. and it may be close enough that if it changed three or four votes, it would make a big difference in the outcome but in all likelihood, no votes will be changed but, believe me, this would be a debate where the country should really know exactly what they're getting when they get someone who's dedicated themselves to the central intelligence agency and the country like gina haspel has. but that's a very different moment than the one we're in right now. the one we're in right now takes time and doesn't change any result. i'd just encourage my colleagues, let's get to work. let's stop hearing we don't have time on the floor to get our job where every time you turn on c-span, more often than not you

see the senate in what's called a quorum call, which is a very slow calling of the rolls of the senate because there's nobody here to say anything because we're using up someone's insisted-on 30 hours of debate. let's get to the business of the country. let's do what -- this is the greatest country in the history of the world. with the greatest capacity to impact the world than any country in the world. when you turn on c-span and look at what's happening in the united states senate, it shouldn't be a blank screen because we're waiting x number of hours for people to cast a vote that they already know what that vote is going to be. so let's take the time to debate the nominations we need to debate, but let's quit wasting the time using the excuse, well, we need to have thoughtful consideration of this nomination

that, by the way, no one is going to come to the floor and talk about. if we have -- senator johnson may have set a new standard here. certainly when i checked this a few days ago, we had a debate on a very controversial nominee, and the -- this was to nasa. this was the nasa director. i think it passed by one vote, pretty controversial. we spent hours and hours for an open debate on the floor and there was 17 minutes of debate on the floor. 17 minutes and something exseeding 17 hours, no -- exceeding 17 hours, no wonder people are frustrated with the way they would like to see their government work and the way it should work and the excuses we come up with to keep the government from doing what it ought to do in a way that people should openly see it and be proud of it. i would forward, mr. president,

to the quorum call no longer being the daily flag of the united states senate. and maybe appropriately seeing no one here, mr. president, i would yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i'd ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: i have eight requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate which have been approved by both the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. cornyn: mr. president, earlier today, the senate select

committee on intelligence heard from the president's pick for director of the central intelligence agency gina haspel. actually, we had an open hearing this morning and then i just have returned from a recently concluded closed hearing during which classified information was shared with the committee and discussed with the nominee. as we know, the president's nominees for various positions have been the victims of hearsay, innuendo and rumor and at least, thankfully, miss haspel had the opportunity today to respond to some of the -- some of the questions and attacks, really, that have been posed against her in the public. she now has had a chance to respond. and i thought she did so with tremendous knowledge and grace and the kind of tem temperamentt you would hope for in a director of the central intelligence agency. she exemplified the core

attributes we've come to know about her since she was nominated. professional integrity, i inin-- innate sense and a drive to work hard, not just for the advancement of her individual career but to protect americans and put our national security first. the fact that she is here today as president trump's nominee to him about the first female director of the central intelligence agency is a testament to both her character and her exceptional decades-long career as an intelligence professional. all the while she's endeared herself to her colleagues in the intelligence community who have an immense amount of respect for her and her work. in fact, in addition to being the first female director of the central intelligence agency, miss haspel would be the first operations officer in perhaps 40 years or more. in other words, at the c.i.a.,

they have analysts. they have people who do operations wh, who are case officers, who do intelligence work. and then they have other people that perform technical intelligence activity. and she would be the first one in 40 years to actually work in some of the hot spots around the world that i'll mention more about here in a moment. yesterday i spoke about some aspects of her career, about some of the pieces that our colleagues across the aisle have left out of the picture which in fairness should be painted in full context so people could understand that her career spanning 33 years is far more than a couple of anecdotes or caricatures of her experience. in other words, she's not defined by those experience, although as she said today, we have all learned from those experiences. her 33 years of service showcase an unparalleled commitment to

the central intelligence agency and a devotion to the rule of law. she understands that when the intelligence agencies don't follow the rules of the road, that somebody is going to be held to account for it at a later time. in this case, ironically, having followed the rule of law, we find that some of our colleagues across the aisle want to relitigate decades-old incidents after the fact of 9/11 where relying on the premier legal authorities in the country from the department of justice and having received orders from the commander in chief, they simply did their job and now are being questioned in a way that suggests that they did something less than honorable when in fact they did exactly what they consider asked to do. and the fact is here in america, we have not seen a follow-on attack from 9/11. i'm reminded -- i mentioned

yesterday, i believe, about a book i was reviewing that reminded me in the days following 9/11 after which -- on which 3,000 people died, some at the pentagon here when one plane crashed and two others crashed at the world trade center, there was actually some chatter about a potential nuclear device getting into the hands of al qaeda, the same people that took down the two towers and hit the pentagon. that would have been catastrophic, obviously. and thankfully, as a result of the good investigatory work and the intelligence collection that the intelligence community acquired, we learned those rumors did not end up proving to be true. but that sort of sets the tone for the environment and the attitude that many had about the potential for a follow-on -- for follow-on attacks that would have been tremendously devastating. it is a strange business that we

ask our intelligence officials to play to the edge of the law. in other words, follow the law but to be aggressive, be forward leaning to prevent these attacks, and when they do exactly that, to come back years later when we're feeling safe and secure and say, well, you went too far. you can imagine what it would have been like if there had been another follow-on attack during which american citizens were killed. cue imagine our intelligence community would be criticized for allowing that to happen, for somehow not stopping it, finding out about it and preventing it. so really it strikes me, unfortunately, too many people have 20/20 hindsight and are engaged in second-guessing and, frankly, for people who serve honorably in the intelligence community, it seems like a lose-lose proposition. do too much, prevent an attack.

don't do enough, an attack occurs, we'll criticize you for that. suffice it to say that in all respects during her career, jean take haspel has acted in -- gina haspel has acted in accordance with the law as determined by the department of justice. by the way, the supreme court of the united states is not going to hand down an opinion in a case where the executive branch has to act. it is opinions that are handed down by the office of legal counsel and the justice department that are the authoritative legal guidance for executive branch agencies like the c.i.a. miss haspel has worked in assignments for africa and europe and then posted to dangerous capitals around the world. she's been shot at, survived a cue data an. those who work with her say her management skills and integrity are unmatched. that's why she served as a station chief, the deputy director of the national

clandestine service and deputy director of the central intelligence agency itself. all of this experience is extraordinary, and it's important, and it's exactly what our country needs in this uncertain time. the former director of national intelligence james clapper testified in the recent -- in recent memory that in his 50 years in the intelligence business, he said he's rarely -- he's never before seen such a diverse array of threats confronting our country, from north korea to iran to russia to china, to the terrorism threat, to domestic home-grown terrorist attacks inspired by social media and online activity from overseas. so america clearly needs someone with the deep expertise and understanding of the central intelligence agency and the intelligence community. and someone who doesn't have to get up to speed. americans need someone with

extensive counterterrorism experience who's worked with difficult and hostile intelligence services. and i would say also with our friends and allies around the world, some of those relationships we have with other country, like britain, are some of the most important relationships we have, government-to-government, intelligence-to-intelligence community. and miss haspel has the admiration and respect of those coalition agencies around the world. she may well be the most qualified person ever to be nominated for the role of c.i.a. director. but we saw today in the hearing, there is a determination by some to relitigate the past. we saw an attempt to relitigate issues that have been closed for a long time, going on 17 years, almost 20 years. there were questions about miss haspel's role in counterterrorism efforts in the days immediately following the

9/11 terrorist attacks. i'm not questioning the questions, but i am questioning using some of these issues as pretext to block or to vote against her nomination. she was accused of making decisions which clearly were made by her supervisor when it came to getting rid of videotapes because of concerns for the safety and security of the intelligence officers depicted on those videotapes, even though there were verbatim cables of the activity on the tapes and obviously in this case, the decision to destroy the tapes was not hers but her supervisor who took full responsibility for that. as i said, it's easy here today in the safety and security of 2018 to remember what the post-9/11 climate was like. it's easy to second-guess the legal guidance that had been provided to our intelligence

professionals at the time which they relied upon in good faith. and it's easy to overlook the considerable pressure placed on the agency at that time. as i said, if they didn't do enough, we would criticize them. if they did too much, we would criticize them for that. and so it is a fine, thin line they had to walk which they did with incredible skill and determination. and i would say that it is nothing less than obscene to hold someone to a standard that was set after their actions were performed in good faith reliance on the law as determined at the time they did act. in this case, two different justice departments, one under president bush and one under president obama, conducted investigations and exonerated miss haspel, chose not to proceed against her or her colleagues at the c.i.a. the fact is early on that congress was briefed on a regular basis and approved of

the activities in which she was engaged when it came to the enhanced interrogation program which she herself did not directly participate in but which occurred during her time in the counterterrorism center. that condecided after the fact to change -- that congress decided after the fact to change some of those policies does not make the prior implementation of the policies improper at all. indeed, it was her professional obligation to carry them out. and were it not for -- was not for her or her fellow officers to second-guess the legality of those policies. in fact, at the time miss haspel, at the time in issue miles an hour haspel was a gs15 which is a civil service rank chg would be the equivalent of either a major or lieutenant colonel. its a -- it's as if saying the decisions made by the