that this joint statement is so imprecise. the united states has gained its vague and unverifiable at best. what north korea has gained however is tangible and lasting. by granting a meeting with chairman kim president trump has granted a brutal and repressive dictatorship with the international legitimacy it has long craved. the symbols -- >> birthmarks from this morning and i live to the senate for four more debate on defense authorization.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: one of the greatest things about our country is the bill of rights. you know, when we passed the constitution, many people were fearful that if specific rights were not enumerated, they might be be taken away. i think other people said, well, we don't need a bill of rights. who could imagine a time when we would take away the right to trial? who can imagine a time when you wouldn't get a lawyer, or that you could be held indefinitely without a trial? so some people oppose the bill of rights -- opposed the bill of

rights and said we don't need this because it's so obvious that no one in their right mind would ever argue that an american citizen or someone apprehended or accused of a crime in the united states would be held without limit, would be sent to a camp in another country and held forever without a trial. none of our founding fathers ever imagined that could happen. and yet, here we are. here we are at a time where just four or five years ago, this body passed a bill that says an forever. citizen can be detained that an american citizen accused of a crime in the united states could be sent to a foreign camp and held forever without trial. when you mention this to people, people are incredulous. they're like who is the person that would object to the bill of

rights? who is is it that -- who is it that possibly objects to the fifth and sixth amendment. you will hearrom that perso shortly, because it is one person in the u.s. senate that objects to the fifth and the sixth amendment applying to those who are accused of a crime in our country. captured in our country and accused of a crime in our country, this person would deny you a lawyer. this person believes that the entire world is a battlefield, including the u.s., soe need to have martial law. martial law in the united states. this person discounts the whole presumption that you are presumed to be innocent until found guilty. why is this a problem? well, after 9/11, we captured 119 people and we tortured them. our government tortured them, but in retrospect, we found out

that 26 out of the 119 were the wrong person. does anybody remember a time in our history when black people were lynched because they were presumed to guilty? this ist this is about. this is about people accused of a crime, not declared guilty, not found guilty, but you're willing to lock them up without a trial? i cannot think of anything more un-american. you will hearrom today the representative of the un-american position that the fifth and the sixth amendment don't apply to everybody. now, some will say, oh, the fifth amendment just applies to citizens and maybe we could talk about citizens but not non-citizens. the fifth amendment says no person shall be held or deprived of their liberty or due process. that means the whole idea of going to court. nobody captured in this country can be deprived of that.

the sixth amendment says, in all prosecutions, the accused, not just american citizens, the accused now, people will say, but oh, we're talking about terrorists here and they're terrible people. absolutely they're terrible people. everybody would want to punish the guilty terrorist. but do you want to punish people only accused of terrorism? you say, oh, it's a terrible crime. we might as well just throw out the constitution, throw out the bill of rights, and why don't we lock these people up or better yet kill them? that is the mentality of lynching. that is the mentality of locking up all the japanese during world war ii. is that who we are as a people? they will one after -- have won after 9/11 if we give up on the bill of rights, we give up on who we are. they will have won. we presume people to be innocent. we don't lock people up because

they're japanese. not any longer. we don't lynch people because they're black. not any longer because the bill of rights applies to everyone. but if you say, well, he's accused ever terrorism, he shouldn't get a trial or she shouldn't get a trial. we've had 386 people accused of terrorism in our country. every one of them had been convicted. the man who killed 13 people in new york city the other day, if i'm on the jury, i vote to convict. but i want to hear the evidence first. i want to know they got the right person. i want to know someone saw him do it, that there's evidence, not just because he has brown skin we're going to lockim upd t a trial. we've convicted everybody tried the united states and we didn't give up on who we are. and yet the law currently says thanks to several individuals, says that you can be detained forever without a tal.

now, president obama signed this law, but even president obama knew that it was a terrible law. he said this law and this power is so terrible that i will never use it. but that's not what the law is about. the law is about being so good that even when you get a rotten person in office some day, they don't have the power to dohis. what happens if day we elect someone who is a bigot or someone who says gay people should be guilty or someone who says brown people or nonchristians or christians or home schoolers, you name it, you can be a minority because of the color of your skin or your ideology but we should never let the government lock you up without a trial or without a lawyer. my amendment that i've been trying to get for six years simply restates the constitution, restatesil of rights. it says that no declaration of war will allow people apprehended in the united states to be held without a trial.

we not only can't get this passed, we can't get a vote on it. because certain individuals have such disregard for american tradition, disregard for the presumption of innocence, and disregard for the bill of rights, they object to even having a vote. so we've been trying for six years to have a vote on this. so, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call my amendment which would forbid indefinite detention of american citizens and others who are accused of a crime, amendment 2795 to be amended to amendment number 2282. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. graham: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: thank you very much, mr. president. i'll try to be brief. i appreciate senator paul's passion. he's been doing this for six

years. i think he's been wrong for six years. and let me just say something. there's a reason i'm not talking about eye surgery on the floor. i t know anything about it. you're talking about legal concepts, you clearly don't know anything about. you're fighting a crime. i'm fighting a war. if it were up to senator paul, there would be no difference between a criminal and a warrior radical islam in the form of isis, they're not trying to steal your car or break into your house or destroy your way of life. if you believe we're at war like i do, we should apply the law of war. for 33 years i was a military lawyer, a prosecutor, defense attorney, and a military judge. i think i know the difference between fighting a crime and fighting a war. when it comes to fighting a war, if you capture somebody who's part of the enemy for, senator paul, the last thing we worry about is how to try them.

we want to hold them under the law of war to gather intelligence, to make sure we understand what this person knows about enemy operations. we had 450,000 german and japanese prisoners in the united states. guess what? not one of them had a lawyer. if you had said what he just said in world war ii, they'd run you out of town. most americans would find it odd that a japanese and german prisoner of war would be entitled to a lawyer under the bill of rights because they're not. we're fighting a war and i'd like to win the war sooner rather than lighter. -- later. when it comeso killing the enemy, that's part of war. but if you're lucky enough, clever enough to capture one of these bad guys, the last thing i want them to hear is you have a ri t lawyer. you don't. under military law, no enemy prisoner has a right to a lawyer. you're talking about fighting a

crime. i'm talking about fighting a war. there are 44 people in gitmo that have been held over a decade that will never see the light of day because they're part of the men if i force. they've had - of the enemy force. they've had due process under the law o war and too dangerous to be let go. they're not going to be tried in federal court. they're not going to be tried by military commission because they're too dangerous to let go and we have no interest in a trial. we have an interest in keeping them off the battlefield. they will die in jail without a trial. that's what happens when you join al qaeda or isis. you can get killed or you can die in jail. so if you're an american citizen thinking about joining isis, don't. you're not going to be captured because the color of your skin or your religion or your political views. you'll be captured because you've turned on your own country. and every -- in every war we've ever had, american citizens have unfortunately sided with the enemy. guess what isis is tryingo do

as i speak? recruit people in our own backyard. how many people have bought the propaganda over the internet. the two guys in boston, one of them had permanent status. they bought int this crazy construct that you've got to kill everybody in the name of religion. the guy who ran over the folks in new york. all these people have one thing in common. they were radicalized by the enemy. they became soldiers of the caliphate. so here's what i'm trying to it's not my view of the constitution that i want you to look at. it's what the supreme court has said. en expar take curran, a 1942 case, it involved capturing german saab turs in long island. now, the last tim i checked, long island, new york, is part of the until. you had american citizens collaborating with the enemy. they were captured as a group. the american citizens were tried by military commission, and one

of them was executed. why? because under the law of war, once you join the enemy, your american citizenship doesn't protect you from the consequence of your act. inray said stnship of the united states of an enemy belij ranlt does not relieve him of the consequences of beligerancey which is unlawful because it's the violation of the law of war. in 2009 an american citizen captured in afghanistan fighting for the taliban. there's no baro this nation's holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant. for those who understand the law of war, this is one of the timeless concepts. he's trying to turn the war into a crime. i agree with senator paul. if you're charged with a crime, you can't be held indefinitely and question without legal representation. because you're being accused of a crime and you have rights as a

criminal defendant. when you become an enemy combatant, you have rights under the law of war and there is no right for an enemy prisoner to be given a lawyer. oect and i have so much more to offer but i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: i think it's important to listen to what you heard and analyze what you heard because apparently if you're defined as an enemy combatant, it would be okay to not have a trial, not have a lawyer. you wouldn't be presumed innocent. you would be presumed guilty. the question you have to ask is who gets to define the enemy combat tanlt. if the government gets to define you as an enemy combatant is it not conceivable you can be an enemy combatant because you are a minority,ither of skin color or ideology? has it happened in the past? the japanese citizens were

minority but there was no evidence. no one presented any evidence that they were a threat or done anything wrong. the nondetention act attempted to fixs. there were people like this back in the time of world war ii. there are people like this in every war who are frightened of whose who would attack us so they want to give up a constitution to make it simpler to get to guilt. you don't have to have a trial. you just proclaim people guilty. if you proclaim someone an enemy combatant, there will be no trial. but it begs the question, who gets to decide? or you going to let one person decide or are we going toe a jury? imagine how important this is to our country? we should be alarmed that there are people trying to prevent a trial by jury in our country. it hadn't been used so far, thankfully. we have actually 386 times taken terrible, awful, rotten people who tried to attack us, we tried them in courts with juries. we presumed they were innocent.

we found them gynd we punished them. see, the problem isn't about how terrible terrorists are or terrorism is. murders are equally as bad. i mean, we had someby in a nightclub in orlando and kill 125 people. he's as evil as any terrorist we've got out there yet he will get a trial. not because anybody condones what he does, not because anybody doesn't want to punish him. we give him a trial because it's part of who we are. it's part of america to have trials. yo short america, you short circuit american history if you get rid of a trial by jury, if you get rid of presumption of innocence. it doesn't mean you have any sympathy for the guilty but we got to make sure we get the guilty. we can't just sort of prosecute people because they hero skinbecause they have black skin, because we don't like the way they act or we don't like their religion. that's what comes of a country that doesn't have trials. look around the world.

there are countries that don't have trials. that's not who we are. we cannot be so frightened of terrorism that we are going to presume guilt and have no trials. it will end up in tyranny. and so i ask again and again and i won't ask it now because he's left, but i ask again and again will this body not allow a vote? this isn't even about him voting no. it's about him objecting to even the democratic process of the senate allowing a vote. so america needs to know there is one opponent in the senate who does not believe in the bill of rights when heeclare you an enemy combatant, you don't get the fifth or sixth amendment. that's what thiss about. i'm happy if he wants to go home and defend that but this is a very important debate and should not end here. thank you.

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mr.orker:r.dent the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: mr. president, i rise to speak on the ndaa bill that is before us today, and i think most people know that we have been engaged in some tariff discussions with other countries through the administration. we have a trade act of 1974 and one of 1962 that have laid out provisions as toow we would go about dealing with tariffs. in one section, section 232 there is a place where the president of the united states can declare something a national security issue, and when he does that, it keeps him from having to go through the normal processes that one goes through dealing with tariffs.

typicall when the president chooses a section of that bill, the trade act, when he uses those, he has to go through a process when he decides he wants hecout a tariff in place on got to go to the i.t.c. or some other entity to show that somehow or anotherhe u tted states has been harmed, and the reason -- the reason that he would be putting in place taffs. what our president has chosen to do in recent times is declare that almost everything that he's dealing with relative to tariffs is a national security issue. and when he does that, what that grounds for having donee to lay that. he can just determine that it's in our national security intest to put in place tariffs on other countries, whether it's automobiles, whether it's steel, whether it's aluminum, or whether it's some other issue. he can just wake up one morning

without going through any of those processes and decide that on national security grounds he is going to put tariffs in place. article i of the constitution declares that congress is the determiner on tariffs. we're the ones that, per the constitution, have been charged with the ability, actually the responsibility to deal with tariffs, to deal with revenues, and that that is our responsibility. e i've been somewhat concerned that we are abusing this national security issue -- that we are using this national security issue so, just as an ordinary course of business, i have offered an amendment to deal with that, since this is a national security bill that says that the president can continue to deal with these other countries, he can continue to try to work through trade agreements, but at the end of the day, if he actually decides to put tariffs in place, he would have to come to congress

to get an up-or-down vote. because we don't want to slow the administration's ability down too much in these, we've actually put in this amendment an expedited process so that the president would know that we're not going to drag this out forever, so that when this comes to a conclusion, we will have acted on it in a timely fashion. so, mr. president, i've done this because of another reason, and that is if we as a country begin claiming that every single item is a national security issue, what that means is that other countries will do the same. and what they can then do themselves is avoid the processes that take place generally in international organizations to have to prove that somehow or another their country has been damaged. we use the national security issue to put tariffs on automobiles, for instance. all of a sudden another country can do the same. so my amends one that, by the way, is supported by 14

senators. it's suppoed senators on both sides of the aisle. let's take myself out of it. these are senators that are very well-respected senators with a wide range ever ideologies. as a matter of fact, this probably is the most cosponsored amendment that has been put forth. i have been really proud to be able to work with senators who care deeply about our nation. they just want to make sure that we as aess perform our appropriate roles. making sure that if a tariff is going to be put in place under this very unusual waiver that has never in the history of our country been used as it is now being used by this current president, that we have the ability to at least say, have a say in this. it's not unlike the president yesterday going to singapore and kphaoegt -- meeting with kim jong un. what they told us is they're

going to negotiate through a process that hopefully cause them to be denuclearized but when they complete that process, they plan to bring that to the uni states senate to have us ratify a treaty. they have been real clear about it. so it's exactly that same kind of process, except in this case it's even more so our responsibility to make sure that if we're going t tariff people under this unusual section, that we vote up or down. so i'm going to call this amendment up. i appreciate the way the chairman of the committee has worked with me. i know there's been a lot of resistance to us having a vote on this amendment. i don't know why that is the case. but i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 301, h.r. 2372, that the text of h.r. 5515, the national defense authorization act for the fiscal year 2019, be

offered as an amendment, considered and agreed to, that h.r. 2372 as amended be considered original text for the purpose of further amendment. that the text of inhofe-mccain 2282 as modified be made pending as a substitute to the text of h.r. 2372 as amended. th mcconnell-toomey 2700 be made pending to inhofe-mccain 2282 as modified. that reed-warren 2756 be made pending as an amendment to the toey 2700. that toomey 2700 be set aside and the corker amendment 2381 as modified with changes at the desk be made pending to amendment 2282. that lee 2366 be made pending as an amendment to the language proposed to be stricken by inhofe-mccain 2282 and that the senate vote on the corker amendment at 4:00 p.m. today.

the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. inhofe: reserving the right to object. you know, you just heard a very lengthy explanation of an amendment that no one's seen until about an hour ago. at least i didn't. i don't know of anyone who has. i think that the senator f tennessee has every right to do what he can to get his amendment heard. there are other opportunities other than the defense authorization bill. one of the problems that -- and i've been on niece defense authorization -- on these defense authorization bills for years and years, decades, is they know it's going to pass. it passed for 57 consecutive years. so a lot of people that want to put things that are nongermane and very often controversial, they want to put 0 on that because they know it's going to pass.

senator corker is not the only amendment that is a problem amendment to this. there are two other nongermane amendments, one by senator lee and one by senator paul. they say if i don't get a vote on my amendment, tn i'm going to stop all other amendments from comingp, s nobody gets to have an amendment. now at the same time they're saying that about the paul amendment and the lee amendment, we have other members, such as senator grassley and senator senator graham, graham and grassley are both saying if you end up getting a vote on that, we're going to make sure -- we'll make sure you don't get a vote on it. so you have opposing parties saying whatever the case is, if you get a vote on something i disagree with, therefore, i'm going to stop all amendments from coming forth. in a way they can do that. and i see that's hapning right now. and i would ask my friend,

cause i am going to object. i'm going to object not just because of the underlying bill but because it's an amendment that changes the underlying bill. i have had occasion to talk to two members of the house that will be part of our conference committee who strenuously object so much onhe connt of the amendment but the fact that this is being put on and will force the house to go back in, reconsider their bill. that's according to our friend who just advised us of that. so i don't want to do anything that is either going to jeopardize the passage of the defense authorization bill or delay the passage. you know, i just got back from afghanistan, kuwait, and places all over the world that, where our troops are there. and they're all, they all know that this is the week that help is on its way. we've suffered in this chamber for the last ten years during

the obama administration. i don't say this in a negative way about him, but i will say that he didn't have a strong national defense as our top priority. and he had the policy. he said we can't do anything about sequestration in defense unless we do the same thing for the nondefense programs. what does that tell you? it tells you there's n priority in defending america. now that's not what our constitution says. that should be a priority. as a result of that, we have a lot of systems that have gone down. as general dunford, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said we are losing our competitive edge. we're losing it. he said that two years ago. so we lost it in some areas. artillery is a good example. righ now artillery is measured by two means. one by rapid fire and one by range. both china and russia now have better artillery than we have in the united states.

most people don't believe that. they don't know what's happened to our military. hypersonic, hersonic is a n weapon that operates at five times the speed of sound. this thing is something that we've been working on, and we're racing against our peer competitors china and russia, and they're ahead of us. they're ahead of us in the areas of a triad, the nuclear triad. we haven't done anying to our nuclear program in the last ten years, and they're ahead of us. so all these things are happening. the troops know it out there. they know that their pay raise is in this bill. they know their benefits are in this bill. they know it's a good bill. it should pass unanimously in the united states senate. but if you start putting something on it that, number one, doesn't belong on it in terms of germaneness, and, number two, is one that is going to cause a pause that could be

detrimental to our fighting troops and for our getting the bill done, then i wouldn't want to do that. so i wou like to join senator corker until finding another bill, and i will do all i could to help himo get that on as an amendment, but not to the defense authorization bill. i think this would cause a lot of damage. the house agrees with this. i can't let that happen. for that reason, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. corker: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: i'm going to make a few comments here. i want to thank senator inhofe for working with me. i realize there's a lot happening here. i know he's conducting to the best of his ability the progression of this bill. i'll just leave it at that. mr. president, i was asked to find a solution to this blue

slip issue, and i found one that's used as customarily as waking up in the morning and drinking a cup of coffee. it happens all the tim this in no way has any effect on our ability to pass the ndaa in a timely fashion. but i am in no way countering the person who just spoke. i'm not, and he knows i'm not. i am going to speak to a larger issue. ore i do it, i wan to point out the ndaa usually passes each year in november or december. it usually doesn't pass in june. so even if there were something that needed to be worked out, we would be way ahead of schedule in dealing with this as we are between now and august. but, mr. president, if i could, these bills' germaneness has nothing whatsoever to do with our ability to offer amendments. nothing. that's something that happens

stote. for the last year and a half, under leadership, under leader mcconnell, we have had one amendment vote. emendment vote. and that amendment wasn't even really an amendment. it was a chairman who was controlling his own bill, askind substitute his own amendment. so it really wasn't even a real amendment vote. so we've been here a year and a half -- we've been here a year and a half and because senators, united stas senators that are elected by t people in their state don't want to cast a tough vote, they block everybody from voting. i have no idea why rand paul cannot get a vote on his amendment. it is ridiculous. he's been trying to get a vote on it for years. years. and we block it. why is that? i want to say for the record, i've held amendments this

morning until we could work out the solution. i am not holding any amendments. none. zero. i'moldi h no one's amendment. but we as senators, we're worried somehow that this gosh, almighty. i heard the senator from texas, the senior senator from texas saying the other day, well, gosh, we might upset the president. we might upset the president of the united states before the midterms. so, gosh, we can't vote on the corker amendment becausee' taking, rightly so, the responsibilities that we have to deal with tariffs and revenues. we can't do that because we'd be upsetting the president, the president of the united states. i can't believe it. i would b that 95% of the people on this side of the aisle support intellectually this amendment. i would bet that. i would bet higher than 95%.

and a lot of them would vote for it if it came to a vote. but, no, no, no. gosh, we might poke the bear is the language i've been hearing in the hallways. we might poke the bear. the president might get upset with us as united states senators if we vote on the corker amendment, so we're going to do everything we can to block it. to block it. if people don't like it, they can vote up or down. people can vote up or down. but, no, the united states senate right now, on june 12, is becoming a body where, well, we'll do what we can do, but my gosh, if the president gets upset with us, then we might not be in the majority. and so let's don't do anything that might upset the president. so, look, i'm in no way -- i'm in no way upset, mr. president, with my friend from oklahoma. i'm not. i understand that he's doing his job, and he's actually filling

in in a wonderful way for senator mccain, who happens to be ill at home, someone we all love. but, look, i know there's not going to be a vote on this amendment. i know it. i'm not about to hold somebody else's amendment up from being voted on, because i tpho he that every -- because i know that every ounce of power possible is going to be used to keep from voting on this amendment because, well, my gosh, the president might not like it. and, therefore, we as senators might be offending someone by, by the way, just voting on an amendment. voting on an amendment, up or down, and deciding whether we in fact want to assert some responsibility over a process of tariffing where we wake up ready, fire, aim. well, let's change this. ready, fire, aim. that's the process that is underway. that's the process that's underway on these tariffs. i haven't heard a single senator on our side that hasn't

expressed concern to the president directly about what's happening with tariffs. our farm folks are worried about nafta. our auto manufacturers are worried about canada and mexico and what's hning in europe, our steel and aluminum folks are concerned. i haven't heard a person that hasn't had some degree of concern. and all my amendment would do is say, look, mr. president, you go negotiate, but when you finish, come back, and as senators and as house members, let us vote up or down. again, i know that the powers to be here, i understand what's happening. i came up with another solution. there would be some objection. and my friend, i know knows at. there'soi to be an objection. if we named this the, no matter what it was, there's going to be an objection to this vote because people are concerned on this side of the aisle, on this side of the aisle. some people, not everybody. we some great cosponsors

who want to assume our responsibilities properly. we have a lot of great cosponsors that understand we are abdicating our responsibility if we allow the president of the united states to use the national security section 232 on every single tariff he's putting in place, not have to think about why he's doing it, not have to justify why he's doing i they know that's a problem and they have signed on. some of the most respected senators we have on both sides of the aisle have signed on. but i know there is a minority of people here who do not want us to take up issues of debate and responsibility here in the united states senate. i know that no matter what i do this is going to be objected to. i'm not going to object to rand paul, mike lee, or toomey having an amendmentr people on the other side of the aisle having an amendment. i'm kiss a -- disappointed that we've had one amendment vote in

the year and a half because the same cycle occurs every time somebody wants to bring something up. i in no way take this out on my friend from oklahoma. i realize he is doing a job. i realize he has been asked to block this, and with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. rounds: mr. president, thank you. in listening to this debate, and i wish t debate could go on the united states senate. i think it's healthy. i wish there was a process in place so that every single amendment could have this kind of discussion and debate and those proposals could be amended on the floor to approve them. i will share with you that i thought what our friend from tennessee was trying to do was an honest attempt tori back to congress -- bring back to congress section 1 or article 1 responsibilities that we have over a period of years allowed

or delegated to the executive branch. i also shared with the -- i also share with the senator, i thought while the debate was a very healthy one, i felt at this stage of the game it would not be appropriate in that the president is operating with these tariffs and i probably could not support his bill, but i thought he should haven opportunity to have a debate. but let me now share what the chairman or the ranking member who was acting as the chairman in this particular case is doing is protecting the national defense authorization act and making it as -- as viable as possible long term to survive both in the house and in the senate. for those who are wondering what we're talking about in a nebulous sort of way, what senator corker tried to do was to have a debate about whether or not the tariffs, which the president had proposed for

national defense purposes under a 1962 law, whether or not they were appropriately determined to be a national security threat. that was the language which congressadivered to the president. the president has made his choice, and there's a number of members who feel that while they support the president, they think he overstepped with regard to whether or not they were actually of national security importance. senator corker wanted to have that discussion, and i agree that he should be able to have th discussion, however i had shared with him that i think it should be in a different order making it too tough for the executive branch to succeed and he wanted a 60-vote margin for the senator to proceed. that is the way he was going to

produce it. t in doing, so i also, as the chairman here has shared, that the house sent over a bill to us, we were on the house bill, and that in order to get in this icarase a voten this particular topic, the senator from tennessee in a very innovative way a one that would normally be used elier in the process where everybody had an opportunity to recognize it, would have to change the underlying bill, and in changing the underlying bill, it would ha to go back to the house and they would have to revote on the bill once again. and in doing so, it puts this very important bill in jeopardy. and so, as a member that's only been here for three years, i understand that is not always the easiest thing to do. i'd like to thank our chairman for taking what is a very hard decision and stepping up to protect the national defense

authorization act because of everything else which is in it while at the same time i would commit the same as the chairman has committed in this particular case to senator cker that his item of discussion, which is the appropriate use of tariffs for national defen ppos, that is a healthy debate to have and that it should be had in such a fashn amendments could be offered on the floor of the senate and very straightforward debate couldth t legislation on its own and not in connectio the ndaa. and so for that purpose i just simply would like to say what i think the american public is eie today is, number one, our commitment to making certain that the national defense authorization act move forward becau o its critical -- because it's critical every single day that we improve our ability to defend our country while at the same time make a very hard decision,

which the chamber did today, to suggest tha even though we all want to have a debate on this particular issue, unfortunately this bill is not the place to do than you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. inhofe: mr. president. the esinofficer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: i thank the senator from south dakota. the most important point is it is the most important bill of the year. i wanted to make a couple of comments. i was hoping to be able to make these comments while the senator from tennessee was still here, and one is i have a disagreement because he mentioned that very often this bill, the most important bill of the year, is often not considered until november or december. the end of the deadline was december and i can remember

getting to within two or three days of the deadline in the past, what would happen there would no longer be any hazard pay. there would be a lot of things that we would have to give up that we couldn't afford to give up. this decision was not made by just me myself, it was made with the senator from rhode island, who is handling the bill on the democratic side. we wanted to have amendments and prefer not to have nongermane amendments. i want to lay the groundwork, if i do this next year, to not have -- to not have nongermane amendments. if they can get on as amendments, they can pass. we have the same situation happening right now, not just with senator corker, but also with senator rand paul and senator --he sator from utah.

so that would not -- that wouldn't -- wasn't going to work either way, but the main reason that -- the problem i had with the -- with senator corker's change is it -- it was a very long change that changed the underlying bill, and as was pointed out by the senator from south dakota, that would mean that we would have to go back over to the house. i don't feel comfortable doing that when we have all of these kids out there lking at pay raise and wondering what's really happening there in washington. is there really not the suppo that we anticipated that they all had? i wanted to just mention that and to say i'm sincere -- he isn't here now, but if he was here, if senator corker wanted to get this done, and i know he does, i will hem him. we have a lot of time with a bill that would be more germane but it would not be on this bill

that weeally cannot afford to jeopardize. i feel strongly about that, and i think we were attempting to hem him get a vote initially, then when he changed the underlying bill, that means you have to go back to everyone, and he mentioned his coauthors, well, we don't know how many of those coauthors would support the amendment if they knew it would change the underlying bill. those are the things that we have here and i think we want to get on with as rapidly as possible getting these amendments opened up so people can vote on the amendments but then get the bill done -- hopefully get the bill done this week. i don't know whether it will be this week or not. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i'm here to talk about net neutrality, but first i wanted to commend the presiding officer for the agreement that we made on the stop act. he is the lead sponsor and i am

the lead democrat on the bill, and this bill, of course, is going to make it easier for -- yes? mr. inhofe: i hate to ask you to do this, but i wrote some notes down here when the senator from teesseeas talking and i inadvertently forgotten to mention the main point. is it okay if i do that rht now? ms. klobuchar: of course. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: that is implying that we're doing something for this president is what i would like to remind the floor there is something that our new president wanted to -- had in mind. he wanted to privatize the air traffic control, i single-handedly stopped that and he wanted to have a brac around this bill on the floor and we stopped that. so many of the provisions he wanted we have taken out of the bill. i ask unanimous consent that my remarks now be placed in the

journal at the location of my remarks before the senator started talking. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from minnesota. ms. klobucha presint, so i first wanted to congratulate you on the stop act. i know you worked very hard on this, and i'm the lead democrat on the bill that will really get at these drugs that will get after fentanyl that will kill someone with just a grain amount of salt that has been coming i through the postal service. you have worked out an agreement with senator hatch and senator wyden on the finance committee, and i wanted to commend you on that and we're excited the bill is moving forward. i also wanted to mention another completely separate issue as we debate the ndaa, which is the issue of the secure act that senankford and i have put on as an amendment to

this bill, and i just remind my colleagues that we are approaching a different kind of warfare, and that is cyber warfare, and it is certainly what we saw during the last election,ut we've seen it in the area of business and in tax on our -- some of our major businesses in our own country and, of course, we've seen it on elections as well with russia attempting to hack into 21 states' election systems. what this bill does is make it easier for local elected officials to get the information in ream time when hacks are going on in other states that they may n know about and have the classified information they need by getting the security clearance they need to protect eirwn election system. we have worked with the secretary of states all over the country on this, and senator burr and senator warner, the heads of the intelligence committee support this bill.

i also thank senator lindsey graham and senator harris who worked with us on this bill. we are working to get it on with the defense act, knowing that war is not the same as it was ten years ago, 20 years ago, and our laws need to be sophisticated. the protection of our country needs to be as sophisticated as those trying to do us harm. we're hopeful we will be able to reach an agreement on this given the intelligence committee has held enormous hearings about election security as has homeland security as has judiciary. today i am here in opposition to the federal communicio commission on monday to repeal the net neutrality protections. net neutrality is a bedrock of a vast and bayer and open -- bare open internet.

it holds the internet -- innovation and competition. these protections have worked and are part of the reason the internet has become one of the great american success stories, transforming not only how we communicate with friends and family, but also the way companies do business, how consumers buy goods, and how we educate our kids. but earlier this year, the f.c.c. approved chairman pai's plan to eliminate net neutrality rules. yesterday the final rollback of net neutrality went through. the f.c.c. has now given major internet service providers the ability to significantly change consumers' experiences online. big internet service providers now have the ability to block, to low slow, and prioritize web traffic for their own financial gain. this means they can sort online traffic into past or -- fast or slow lanes and charge consumers

extra for high-speed internet. and internet service providers can even block content they don't want their subscribers to access. the only protections maintained are requirements for service providers to disclose their internet traffic policies. a lot of good that will do like in the state of minnesota you have significant rural areas where there is no real opportunity to comparison shop or find a new provider. how will disclosing help if you only have one provider to go to? they have a virtual monopoly over your service. more than 24 million americans still lack high speed broadband. we should be focusing our efforts on helping those households get connected, not iminating net neutrality and worsening the digital divide. you can always pay for high-speed access. you could pay for it no matter where you live. you could run lines for millions

of dollars to your house if you're in a remote area. but that is not what they've done in other developed countries. no. they've seen it as a virtue, as part of our democracy that every one should have access to the internet and it's part of what makes an economy work, that you don't leave people behind if they don't have the money to afford running a line all the way to their homes by themselves but this isn't only about indu internet users. it will limit competition and it will hurt small business, entrepreneurship, and innovation, which has always been at the heart of the american economy. without unrestricte access to the internet, entrepreneurs may be forced to pay for equal footing to compete online rather than focusing on growing their businesses. when you talk to small companies, to some of the start-ups we've seen out there, some of the companies that young people have started and you ask them, well, how do you break

into a market when you've got a big guy out there that has millions and millions and billions and billions of dollars in a multinational -- and a multinational presence, how do you break into it if you're trying to sell baby clothes or if you're trying to have a new digital service? they tell you this. they tell you it's online. they break in because they can compete and they can get to customers online. well, guess what? they start having to pay huge amounts of money to get that accessnline to compete with the big companies that of course can already -- can already pay for that and can already afford that, you're going to have a problem and you're going to defeat the very idea of entrepreneurship. small businesses unable to pay for accso fast internet serve may soon find themselves struggling to compete on the slow lane. repealing net neutrality will hurt the very people creating

jobs and keeping our economy competitive. that's why i join my colleagues to force a vote last month on senator markey's bill to repeal chairman pai's plan and reinsight net neutrality rules. this bill received bipartisan support and was passed by the senate in this very room. now it's up to the the same. the internet should remain free and open for all who use it and fight to save net neutrality. well, that fight is far from over. i have joined senate democrats in urging speaker ryan to immediately schedule a vote on the bill to save net neutrality protections. they can do this. so to keep the pressure on, it will take all of us working together. private sector partners, business, small business, nonprofit advocates to tell our government officials at the local, state, and federal level let's takehat vote, thaoo vote in the senate as a signing that it's -- as a sign that it's

time to change the policy. and the way you do that, of course, is with a vote over at the house of representatives. at least allow a vote. the fight to protect net neutrality is far from over and we need to make our voices heard for all of the american consumers, entrepreneurs, and innovators that rely on a free and open internet. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mrs. gillibrand: mr. president, i rise to urge my colleagues to join me in voting for a bipartisan bill amendment 2294, the military justice improvement act. it will fix our broken military justice system. i believe that our service members deserve a military justice system that is worthy of their sacrifice. that means one that is both professional and fair. and i think every one of my colleagues in this chamber agree

that this is a priority no matter where you are from, no matter your background. some of my newer colleagues may be less familiar with this issue so i'm going to tell you what i'm talking about. we all deeply revere our service members which means it's not easy to talk about problems in an institution that we treasure so greatly in this country. but the fact is the military has a problemith sexual assault. it is pervasive. it is destroying lives, and it's been going on for years. listen to these most disturbing numbers. since we first introduced this bill five years ago, the number of cases that commanders have moved forward has decreased despite an increased number in reports. in fiscal 2013, 484 cases proceed to trial, and in fiscal year 2017, only 406 cases

proceed to -- proceeded to trial. it is estimated there was close to 10 casf military sexual assault in 2016. that doesn't even include spouses and civilians in that estimate. it's just an estimate of service members. in a survey of the afghanistan and iraq veterans and supported by the department of defense's own data, seven out of ten military sexual assault survivors has said that they experienced retaliation or other negative behaviors because they reported the crime. and 14% of survivors have declined to even participate in the justice process after reporting. that's how little confidence they have in this current system. and this is after years, years of our committee and working with the defense department to fix this problem. i think we've passed every small

ball incremental reform anybody is willing to agree on, and it hasn't made the difference. of defense since dick cheney was secretary of defense who have said zero tolerance for sexual assault in the military. almost nothing has changed. listen to these stories. in one case, a woman was raped by a service member. she went to the hospital. she told a friend and an investigation was started. during the investigation, two more victims came forward to tell their stories who sai they were raped by the very same service member. the military investigative team, the military police recommended the case proceed to a court martial. but because of the way our military justice system works today, a military commander was in charge of the case, not a trained military prosecutor. and that commander chose to just discharge the perpetrator, just

send him right into the civilian world with no trial, no court martial, no record. not only were those service members who were violently assaulted denied justice, but a seri predator was also released int the general public. mr. president, mr. president, that is not right. or listen to another case of a former marine who was working as an air force civilian. she's from a military family. army, navy, veterans proud to serve, loved the support, the camaraderie. but she was abused by her own immediate commander who had direct power over her in the chain of command. she tried to seek justice. but once again a military commander was in trained militay prosecutor who understands these kinds of cases and understands criminal justice.

and despite overwhelming evidence, including text message, physical evidence, eyewitnesses, the perpetrator was allowed to retire without any financial penalty, without any charges, and with a full military pension. my office hears all the time from women and men who have bn raped in the military who have been abused, who have been stalked, who had been retaliated against. it is an epidemic and it's not improving. listen to the most recent headlines from "u.s.a. today," quote, marine corps general fired for calling sexual harassment claims fake news. from the navy times, quote, officer accused of patronizing prostitutes, worked in the sexual assault prevention office while waiting for his court martial. from stars and stripes, quote, fort benning drill sergeant suspended amid sexual assault allegations. "u.s.a. today," navy top admiral kept spokesman after boozey

party, sexual predator warning and another from the same paper, quote, senior military official sanctioned for more than 500 cases of serious misconduct. and from the a.p., quote, pentagon misled lawmakers on military sexual assault cases. these are just the recent headlines. there's a pattern here. our military justice system is broken. and the pentagon i not being rthrig about this problem. but congress, mr. president, congress is still hesitating. congress still refusing to put trained military prosecutors in charge of these cases. this has to end. congress has to step in. it has to do its job. our job is to provide oversight and accountability over the administration, over the department of defense on this

very issue. we have the responsibility to ensure that military justice is possible for survivors in the military. and it shouldn't matter if the perpetrator has skills that the commander needs. it shouldn't matter if he happens to be buddies with the commander. what should matter is whether there's evidence that a serious crime has been committed. that should be the determining factor of whether these cases get put forward to trial. so we need to pass the military justice improvent act. this legislation is as bipartisan as it gets. it is supported by conservative republicans and liberal democrats alike and plenty in between. it has the support of some of the biggestet organizations, women's organizations, legal organizations. and there's good reason for this. because the bipartisan bill we have put together would ensure

that survivors of this heinous crime and the alleged perpetrators of these crimes are both afforded due process. the due process that they are entitled to under the u.s. constitution. commder's abilit to takees a action for military-specific crimes, like when a soldier goes awol. what it would do is take the prosecution of sexual assault and other serious crimes, serious violent felonies out of e chain of command and it would put it in the hands of a trained military prosecutor who actually understands how to deal with serious crimes. this would allow our surrs men and women who sacrifice everything for this country, the basic right to civil liberties and justice. and this bill would also professionalize the military. it would make sure that all people, men, women, black, white, gay, straight, that every

service member are not subjected to biased judgments and actually have the benefit of trained prosecutors looking at the evidence. sadly, according to a report that came out recently, in all four of the svices, army, navy, air force, marine, black service members are more likely to be court martialed than white service members. this is unacceptable. and this bill would help leviate some of the unfairness in the current system by having trained prosecutors make those judgments based solely on evidence. our commanders have a tough enough job defending our countr so we should let these trained prosecutors do their job, make the right decisions based on evidence alone. we could only make this change if we pass this amendment. so i urge all of our colleagues,

mr. president, toook at this bill, look at it anew, look at the facts that we have not improved our rate of cases actually going to court martial and our rates of conviction, even though more are reporting. it is a huge problem. and i promise you every year the excuses. let the reforce take more time to work. okay, it's been five years and it's had a spotlight and if commanders can't put more cases towards court martial and can't result in more conviction, we're not getting it right. we are failing the men and women who will die for this country. i yield the floor.

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: first of all, mr. president, let me tell you how much i appreciate the passion that the senator from new york has on this issue. she has been so outspoken in committee, and ihi most of us agree that there are problems out there that need to be addressed. we did have a -- in 2014 a congressionally mandated independent panel of experts determine that there is no evidence that removing the authority to convene court-martials from commanders to reduce the incidents of sexual assaults or improved the quality of investigations and prosecutions of sexual assault cases in the armed force the department of defense opposes the amendment on the grounds that doing so will

endanger military readiness without eliminating the goal of eliminating sexual assaults. i don't know what the intentions of the senator from new york on this amendment. i have never seen a stronger advocate of a cause or an amendment than the senator from new york. for some of us who have been in the military service, i do have a problem with taking that authority that was always historically with the commander and feel that would not be to the benefit of the overall system. i do know two years ago congress passed an extensive military justice reform which will come into effect next year. i think that's correct. rather than imposing additional reforms, i think we ought to

allow the d.o.d. to work at implementing the previous administration to see if that resolves some of the problems that are articulated very effectively by the senator from new york. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. . resident, hav nine requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. thune: mr. president, when we took up tax reform, we had one goal, a that was to make life better for hardworking americans, and that involved a couple of things. for starters, it involved putting more money in americans' pockets right away by cutting their taxes. and americans are already seeing the tax relief that we passed in their paychecks. but we knew tax cuts, as helpful as they are, were not enough.

we wanted to make sure that we created the kind of economy that would give americans access to the jobs, wages, and opportunities that would set them up for secity and prosperity in the long term. since jobs a opportunities are created byeses, that meant reforming our tax code to improve the playing field for businesses so they could improve the playing field for workers, and that's what we did. i'm proud to report that it's working. since tax reform was passed, business after business has announced good news for, -- workers, pay increases and better benefits including new and better education benefits and enhanced parental leave benefits. a recent survey from the national association of manufacturers reported that 77% of manufacturers planned to increase hiring as a result of tax reform. 72% plan to increase wages or

benefits, and 86% report that they plan to increase investments, which means new jobs and opportunities for workers. meanwhile, a recent survey from the national federation of independent business reports that 75% of small business owners think that the tax cuts and jobs act will have a positive affect -- effect on their businesses. a number of small businesses, mr. presidreen a increasing wages and that has recently hit a record 35%. in april, for the first time since the bureau of labor statistics began tracking the data, the number of job openings outnumbered the number of job seekers. the first time since they started keeping that, mr. president, the number of job openings, the number of jobs that are out there are great are than those who are actually seeking employment. meanwhile, in may unemployment dropped to its lowest level in 18 years and wageh increased at the fastest pace since july of 2009.

in other words, it is a good day for american workers. mr. president, there's nothing betterhaneeg opportunities improve for hardworking americans. i'm proud of the benefits that the tax cutss delivering for american workers, and i look forward, mr. president, to seeing this law produce even more benefits for workers in the future. fhere one thing we automicee tend to automatically rely on is the strength of our military. we have accustomed to having the best fighting force in the world and assuming we can meet every threat. but military strength doesn't just spring up. it has to be developed. once developed, it has to be maintained, but in recent years we haven't met this responsibility. while we have the very ft soldiers in the world, they don't always have the tools they

ed to defend our nation. budgetary impasses paired with increased operational demands has left our armed forces and delayed 21st century weapons and equipment. other powersti the unit states have been blding up their militaries. as a result, mr. president, our military advantage has been steadily eroding. in a 1793 address to congress, presidenteorge washington said, and i quote, there is a rank due to the united states among nations which will be withheld if not absolutely loss by the reputation of weakness. if we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it. if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war. end quote. that was from george washington, 1793.

ronald reagan put it a little bit differently. he said,ell, to those who think strength provokes conflict, will rogers hads his own answer, he said of the world championship of his day i've never seen anyone insult jack dempsey. there is no way to better secure peace than to make sure the united states military is the strongest, best equipped fighting force in the world. if we want to promote peace around the world, it is imperative we rebuild our military. since president trump's election , the democrats have been -- in march of this year, we arrived at a budget agree that contained the largest year-to-year increase in defense spending in 15 years. the fiscal year 2019 national defense authorization act, we're which we're considering this week, is the next step in rebuilding our military. this bill invests in research

and modernization to ensure that our men and women in uniform will be equipped to meet 21st century threats, including those imposed by major powers. it reforms the outdated personnel manager data system t improve merit-based advancement. it makes reform to the civilian leadership structure the department of defense to make it more add -- addal. it deters aggression from russia and china, two of the biggest threats to the security of the world in the 21st century. and it provides a 2.6% pay increase for the men and women in uniform. the largest pay increase in nearly ten years. i have an amendment to expedite the backlog of military sales. this will support the administration's efforts to balance trade deficits, support domestic industry, and permit

america's surity partners to make greater investments in their own capabilities. i'm working on an amendment to allow the air force to incorporate the b-21 bomber for training airspace requirements. this will build off a report i secured in last year's national defense authorization act on how to optimize training airspaces. my amendment will enable the air force to formally incorporate this aircraft into its planning. i know the bill managers have a hoes of amendments before them and i hope that the senate will come to an agreement and include many of those. if we want our nation to be secure. if we want to promote peace and stability around the world, then we need to ensure that our military is the strongest, best equipped fighting force in the world. this year's national defense authorization t will help our military regain its competitive edge and equip our men and women in uniform with the tools that

they need to meet an defeat the threats of -- and defeat the threats of the 21st century. i'm grateful to senator inhofe and senator mccain whose tireless work is reflected throughout this bill. i look forward mr. president, to working with my colleagues to pass this legislation this week and ultimately get this bill to the president so the important work of defending this country can continue. 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:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: and to speak -- the presiding officer: the objection is heard.

quorum call: mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: very disastrous thing happened ten years ago right now in iowa. the whims of mother nature tested the state of iowa ten summers ago when deadly tornadoes, storms and floods caused more than $10 billion in damage to communities and homes and businesses. a lot of distress.

national disasters test the medal of humanity by every measure. my iowans were tested in 2008. unfortunately, parts of iowa like mesa city are experiencing flooding once again almost ten years to the day. ten years ago 88 of our 99 counties were declared a national disaster. epic floods and e5 tornadoes ripped holes through the center of many neighborhoods. thanks to civic leadership, thanks to bootstrap mentality, tireless volunteers and members of the national guard answered the call to survive and thrive from the crisis. the rallying cry to rebuild and recover has driven a decades long drive to restore and

revitalize these iowa communities hurt ten years ago by these massive natural disasters. it was a tough row to hoe. orchestrating the massive cleanup is one thing. ng is another. congress, as we often do for ?al disaster -- natural disasters, approved nearly $800 million in federal block grants within the first year to help homeowners with restoration and buyout efforts. however, the wheels of the federal bureaucracy too often are painstakingly restrictive to navigate. from housing and urban development to fema and the army corps of engineers, local residents got a firsthand taste of the federal alphabet soup. when community leaders and

businesses and homeowners got mired in bureaucratic molasses, i worked with our entire iowa congressional delegation to take care of these immediate needs and to help develop long-term planning for the flood plain such as levy improvements and flood protection systems to avert future catastrophe. in addition to directing federal disaster distance to recovery and rebuilding efforts, i wrote the homeland disaster tax relief act to give flood-ravaged homeowners and businesses a fresh start. just as congress acted to help victims from hurricane katrina in 2005, three years before the disaster in the midwest, i made sure that midwesterners also

received the much needed break similar to what we provided at katrina time. moving forward after a natural disaster isn't easy. volunteers affirmed iowa's treasured heritage of neighbor helping neighbor, rescuing residents and pets from flood-rave ravaged -- flood-ravaged neighborhoods. voters voted on measures to help their communities rebuild and the state less tur passed laws -- legislature passed laws to help areas mitigate against future disasters. city planners developed a strategy to revitalize their cities and towns. recovery efforts stumbled along the way to be sure. you see, it takes time to see sunshine and rainbows after one of the state's worst disasters in history.

collaborating and finding consensus isn't easy. in fact, government -- governing isn't easy. despite the incalculable loss of personal belongings, blesith e finanal tol of starting over, the people of iowa didn't quit and we're more resilient and better prepared now than we were before these disasters. however, work remains to be done. working along civic and state leaders for the last decade, we have identified specific needs and places where red tape gets in the way to improve flood protection in local communities. that's why i have worked with my sleeves rolled up alongside former senator tom harkin and

now senator joan knee ernst and the rest of the iowa delegation to ensure local infrastructure needs get up to snuff. including flood risk projects on the cedar river and elsewhere. recently, the committee on the environment and public works approved a bill that once again highlights the importance of the cedar river flood protection projects and includes a secondary budgetary process that could lead to construction funds forhis project and other iowa priorities in the future, also cutting red tape and also improving public input, transparency, and accountability. the people of iowa have earned a well-deserved salute to civic participation. it's a good day to share pride with your fellow citizens,

thanks to our people's resilience and hard work. and because of that, better days are yet to come. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mrs. ernst: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mrs. ernst: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. ernst: mr. president, i'm here today to call up my amendment today so that we can

save money for our nation and for our military. certainly i'm not here to derail the national defense authorization act. i'm thankful that again this ye w have a great bipartisan bill, and i'm hopeful that my bipartisan amendment can be made pending today. amendment number 2400 is the presidential allowance modernization act, and it has cleared committee by voice vote and cleared my colleagues on the republican side on the hotline. however, my minority counterparts have had months to look at this bill now in amendment form and it still remains blocked. this bill passed the house with unanimous support and has been included in the house ndaa bill. this amendment would establish a cap on former presidents' monetary allowances which are currently unlimited and fund resources like office space,

staff salaries, cell phone bills, and more. under this amendment, former presidents would receive a $200,000 annual pension and an allowance capped at $500,000, a total of $700,000 in annual benefits. it would then reduce the allowance dollar for dollar by each dollar of income a former president earns in excess of $400,000. the national debt is over $20 trillion. we cannot afford to generously subsidize the perks of former presidents to the tune of millions of dollars, and with that, mr. president, i'd like to make my amendment pending. i ask unanimous consent that amendment number 2400 be in

order. i'd like to call up amendment 2400 to amendment number 2482. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. durbin: reserving the right to object -- the presiding officer: the assistant democratic leader. mr. durbin: mr. president, this is the first i'm aware of this amendment. it was given to me this afternoon to take a lk at. i don't have any history with it. it is interesting and coincidental that today is the 94th birthday of predent george herbert walker bush, the first president of the united states to ever live to the age of 94, a world war ii-decorated veteran, a man who served his country in so many different ways. this effort to eliminate the expenses and amount that's paid to him as a former president i'd not seen before today. i am told that this amendment would save the treasury $4.3 million a year, so i would like to suggest to the senator from iowa -- i'm going to make an official request in this regard

-- we can do much better than to $4.3 million a year in deficit reduction. i'm going to ask the senator from iowa if she will modify her request to say $400 million a year by ensuring that millionaires across the united states in illinois and in iowa don't receive generous crop insurance subsidies -- millionaires. big agribusiness in iowa and illinois receive government subsidies to the tune of nearly $600 million. a g.a.o. study found that 4% of the most profitable farmers in america aou 33% of all the federal premium support. my legislation that i'm asking to be added to your amendment here, would reduce premium support for producers with an a.g.i., adjusted gross income, higher than $750,000 a year. it would only reduce it by 15%. so i ask the senator to modify her request so that the text of her amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.

mrs. ernst: mr. president? the presiding officer: will the senator so modify her request? mrs. ernst: reserving the right to object, i do think that that is a timely request, senator, and thankfully the farm bill is being marked up tomorrow in the agrultural committee. and i do think that that is the appropriate venue then to discuss the caps on subsidies for crop insurance. and i would agree that that's probably a wise thing to take a look at. however, what we are dealing with right now is theac that we do have former presidents th are receiving substantial perks from our american taxpayers. so i am disappointed that my colleagues across the aisle continue to block this bipartisan amendment designe save millions of dollars. do my colleagues across the aisle think former presidents should continue to receive unlimited taxpayer-funded

allowances as they make millions and millions of dollars per year from book deals and speaking engagements? it's not uncommon for a former president to $400,000 per hourlong speech. the average household income in iowa is about $55,000. that means in about eight and a half minutes that former president is making what an iowa family makes in a year. i wish my colleagues across the aisle would ronsider, i formally object to the modification. the presiding officer: objection is heard. is there an objection to the original request? mr. durbin: i object.

the presiding officer: objection heard. mrs. ernst: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mrs. ernst: i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president, i ask consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call.

a senator: mr. president -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call.ms. m call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. smith: last week i gave my maiden speech and spoke about how important it is for women to be represented in government. while increasing the number of women in this chamber is important, it won't be enough by itself. elections cost too much, and that is a big problem in our country. the sharp rise of secretive unregulated money in politics means that we have no idea who is spending money on campaigns and candidates or why. and this is a profoundly troubling oblem for our democracy. while there are many causes of the rise of money in politics, perhaps the biggest is the 2010 supreme court decision citizens

united versus f.c.c. the 5-4 decision in citizens united struck down key limitations on campaign contributions that were enacted on a bipartisan basis in 2002. that decision has hadir consequences for our democracy. since citizens united, there has been successively more money poured into each congressional campaign cycle. much of that money has come from super pacs and other secretive organizations that are structured specifically to hide the identity of their donors. other funds have come from large corporations who can afford to spend millions on political activities in order to further their own special interests. at is' thepshot of all of this? superpacs and other dark money organizations spent $1.4 billion in the 2016 election. and we often have no idea who did the spending or why. this kind of secretive unlimited corporate-driven political spending is unfair to voters in

minnesota and around the country. that's why i'm fighting so hard to reform our campaign finance system. one of the most important things we can do is to enact a cotitutional amendment torerse d decision. in my very first month as a senator, i cosponsored senator tom udall's legislation to do that. a few wealthy donors shouldn't dominate the political conversation in this country. but reversing citizens united isn't the only thing necessary to restore fairness to our political process. we should also pass senator whitehouse's disclose act, which i'm proud to cosponsor. this legislati requires super pacs and big political spenders to disclose to the public exactly where their donations are going. no constitutional amendment is required for this key measure. in 2010, the disclose act came up just one vote short in the senate, and i urge the senate to immediatel take it up again so

we can finally pass this important bill. we also should replace the federal elections commission, which is mired in political squabbling and hindered with weak enforcement authority. the f.e.c. should be replaced th a new campa finance agency that has a strong mandate to enforce the law with new rules to ensure that one political party can't shut down the agency simply for political gain. i also believe that we should enact a small donor matching funds program. many americans who aren't wealthy want to support a candidate that they believe in, but they simply can't afford to write a check for thousands of dollars like the big donors do. a matching funds program will help amplify the donations of these smaller donors and working families and would be a key step towards leveling the playing field for working families who want to support a candidate. finally, we should improve voter registration. increasingly some have sought to disenfranchise voters, especially voters of color, by

making it harder to register to tou, harder to get a ballot, or intimidation. it's time that we restore the voting rights act and crack down on discriminatory voting rules that block access heol. is includes fixing the terrible recent supreme court decision allowing states to kick voters off the rolls if they don't vote regularly, even without offering same-day voter registration for those voters to easily rejoin the rolls if they do wish to vote again. i believe that all americans should be represented here in the united states senate, not just the wealthy few. our democracy is built on the principle that the american people have the power in our elections, so i'm going to keep fighting to reform our campaign finance rules. ank 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:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: mr. president, i ask that the calling of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reed: thank you, mr. president. i call up amendment number 2842 to the lee amendment. the presiding officer: the f.w. de klerk the clerk will report. the clerk: mr. reed proposes an amendment numbered 2842 to amendment number 2366. mr. reed: i ask consent that dispense with the reading. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reed: mr. president, this amendment is a technical correction to a previous amendment i filed, and i'd ask that it be accepted for consideration. the presiding officer: the amendment is pending. mr. reed: with that, mr. president, i believe the

amendment is pending, and i would yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: predent, may i ask unanimous consent that any pending quorum call b vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. may i ask also unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, a crash takes place in a system when conditions in that system reach a tipping point and the system rapidly destabilizes. climate change promises a lot of tipping points in earth's natural systems. ocean acidification, for instance, reaching a tipping point where species likehe pteropod have trouble forming

their shells and populations of those species crash taking down the tropaic levels below them. polar warming releasing trapped mean from tundrayp accelerating the greenhouse effect. at the more local level, seasonally linked species reacting to changing seasons can get out of phase with one another so the feeder and its food source no longer overlap in time. and then they have a crash. in what pope francis has called the mysterious network of relations between things, climate change promises natural disruptions large and small. and, of course, the same kind of disruption can occur in

economics. because we are iing climate change, we are hurtling toward natural disruptions like the kinds i mentioned. on top of that, recent warnings indicate we are also hurtling towards economic disruptions -- crashes, if you will, which we could avoid or moderate if w prepared. but since the philadelphia over-lords of the present congress -- but since is the fossil fuel over-lords of the present congress won't let that happen, we need to expect these economic crashes. what are these economic crashes? the first one i will discuss is the effect of sea level rise on coastal real estate values.

sea level rise can hit you economically long before the ocean actually lapse -- laps against your doorstep. when the prospect of coastal flooding begins to creep into the 30-year mortgage horizon or when the prospect of coa flooding begins to darking property insurance horizons, there will be an effect. long before your house is actually flooded, its value can crash if the house becomes uninsurable or if it becomes unmortgagable to the next buyer. freddie mac has described the effect of this property value crash on america's coastal regions as follows -- i quote them here.

the economic losses and social disruption may happen gradually, but they are likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and great recession. well, those of us who lived through the great recession of 2008 and forward know how serious that warning is. it's not just freddie mac. the insurance industry shares this exact concern. here's what the editor of the trade publication "risk and insurance" had to say -- i quote him here. continually rising seas will damage coastal reservedential and commercial property values to the point that property owners will flee those markets in droves.

thus precipitating a mortgage value collapse that could equal or exceed the mortgage crisis that rocked the global economy in 2008. so both from government-backed housingorporations to private insurance industry representatives the warning is clear. the leading edge of this predicted effect may already actually be upon us, as we have recently seen coastal property values begin to lag inlpropertyt experts think may reflect this emerging coastal economic hazard. when you're talking about matching the damage done to the

economy by the 2008 recession, that is a serious risk. the second economic crash we are warned of is the effect of a so-called carbon bubble, a carbon bubble in the fossil fuel companies. this carbon bubble collapse happens when fossil fuel reserves now claimed as assets by the fossil fuel companies turned out -- turn out to be not actually developable and, thus, become what are called stranded assets. a recent publication by economists in the journal "nature climate change" has described the following estimated asset reductions in fossil fuel reserves. i quote themere. the magnitude of stranded asss

of fossil fuel companies in a two-degree centigrade economy has been estimated to be around 82% glo coal reserves, 49% of global gas reserves, and 33% of global oil reserves. so that would be 82% of global coal reserves gone, wiped off the balance sheets. 49% of global gas reserves gone. and 33% of global oil reserves gone. this asset collapse ahead would explain why fossil fuel companies have fought so hard against shareholders who sought

st reporting of this risk. and it could explain why such reports as have been produced look like exercises in cooking the bookso avoid actually acknowledging a risk of this scale. more recently a group of economic analysts published a separate review of what the bursting of this carbon bubble would look like for fossil fuel companies. the report's analysis is pretty stark. it estimates that a potential $12 trillion -- $12 trillion -- of financial value, and i quote them here, could vanish off their balance sheets globally in the form of stranded assets.

the report notes that that is over 15% of global g.d.p. this economic report posits a market scenario in which lower-cost producers unload their fossil fuel reserves while they still can into this collapsing market, selling out their assets in the language of the report. unloading their fossil fuel assets even at fire sale prices to get what valuehey can while in tsnalysis, the report says, and i'll quote them here, regions with higher marginal costs lose almost their entire oil and gas industry.

for example, the united states. end quote. so in this environment in which there is a rapid crash in fossil fuel prices, as sellers saturate the market at whatever low price they can get to get some money for their reserves before they evaporate and get wiped off their balance sheets, the market moves rapidly, and regions like ours, like the united states, he almost their entire oil and gas industry. obviously for the united states to rapidly lose almost its entire oil and gas industry would create a dramatic economic shock spilling over into other

industries and into the economy at large. making this what the authors of this report call a systemic economic risk. now the a recommended solution to avoid this shock in asset prices, and that is for the united states to begin decarbonizing to invest more in renewables, and to broaden our national energy portfolio away from this asset collapse risk and into renewable energy. the paper concludes, and i quote, an exposed country can mitigate the impact of stranding by divesting from fossil fuels as an insurance policy. end quote.

and it goes to say specifically about the united states of america that, and i quote here again, the united states is worse off if it continues to promote fossil fuel production and consumption than if it moves away from them. so let me revert to the earlier economic piece that i mentioned because it concludes with very similar advice. i quote from the first aicle. if climate policies are implemented early on and in a stable and credible framework, market participants are able to smoothly anticipate the effects. in this case there would not be any large shock in asset prices, and there would be no systemic

risk. in contrast, the article continues, in a scenario in which the implementation of climate policy is as uncertain, delayed, and sudden, this might entail a systemic risk, because price adjustments are abrupt and portfolio losses from the fossil fuel sector and fossil-based utilities do not have time to be compensated by the increase in value of renewable-based utilities. end quote. so both economic analyses agree that transitioning to renewables is a hedge against this fossil fuel asset collapse risk. but this earlier paper also

notes something also. it also notes that this transition to renewables away from the asset collapse risk need not be a painful transition. to quote the report, a transition to a low carbon economy could also have net positive aggregate effects. so on one side you have the risk of a major fossil fuel asset collapse creating a sufficient economic shock for there to be systemic risk to the economy. on the other side you have the prospect of net positive aggregate effects. who in their right mind would not turn tar net positive aggregate effects? because a large and sudden economic shock affecting 15% of global g.d.p. and precipitating

systemic economic risks will of course be very painful. this is a stark choice. whether we can actually heed this advice depends on the congress of the united states being able to put the interests of the united states first over the interests of the fossil fuel industry. given that congress' fossil fuel industry overlords will likely object, and given that we seem incapable in congress of either seeing through their massive conflict of interest or ever telling them no, it is not

presently likely that congress will heed these warnings or take these precautions. after all, the warnings of natural crashes ahead have so far been completely ignored due to fossil fuel industry w expect that we would heed the warnings of economic crashes ahead? in the days when war loomed over europe but england would not prepare, winston crcll quoted a poem. the poem's image is of a train bound for destruction, rushing

through the night. the conductor asleep at the controls. the poem begins, who is in charge of the clattering train? the axles creep and the cuplings strained. inside the train cars, the poem describes the occupants of the doomed train lulled into confident drowsiness. but then comes the end. the pace is hot and the points are near, and sleep hath deadened the driver's ear. and signals flash through the night in vain. death is in charge of the clattering train.

well, that's how the poem ends. let us hope that we wake up before our colsion. the many was nature is flashing at us do not flash through the night in vain, and that we do not hurtle into these foreseen collions with our fossil fuel industry overlords having deadenedhe driver's ear with their money and t power. we have, mr. president, been lulled into confident drowsiness , and it's time to wake up. i yield the floor, mr. president. i note the absence of a quorum.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. lee: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from uta . le i ask unanimous consent to suspend the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lee: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that there be one hour of debate on my amendment, number 2366, equally divided between the proponents and opponents, and following the use or yielding back of that time, the sene vote the amenent. the presiding officer: is there objection? the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: mr. president, reserving the right to object. senator lee is a very good friend. he's very sincere. i will object and i want to let the body know the best way to handle this issue is if an american citizen is suspected of working with al qaeda or isis, we have a due process in place to strip them of their displenship.

-- citizenship. you can call them -- hold them as an enemy combatant. mr. madia was held as an enemy citizen. court held it doesn't matter the location of capture and still be held as an enemy combatant. i object and i want to work with senator lee to seef we can work something out. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, i appreciate the opinion of my colleague, the senator from south carolina. i would like to respond for a moment and speak for a few minutes about a bipartisan imri compromise -- bipartisan compromise that i introduced with the senior senator from california, senator feinstein. the legislation i'm referring to is called the due process guarantee act. and senator feinstein and i have

introduced this as legislation and it has been offered up as aw before this body to the national defense authorization act. alexander hamilton called arbitrary imprisonment one of the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyrants, and with good reason. the constitution includes safeguards against this form of tyranny, including the right of habeas corpus and that american citizens would not be deprived of life, liberty, by the government. if you are going to take away somebody's life, liberty or property you have to give them due process. you can't do it without that. that is by mandate of the constitution. that's made clear as applicable to the federal government in the fifth amendment and it's made applicable to the states through the 14th amendment.

our commitment to these rights has, of course, been tested at times -- in times of crisis this is what happens to our rights when crises erupt. now, sadly, tragilly i would add, we, as americans have not always passed these tests. we have not always emerged unscathed from the temptation to dip into the well of deprivation of due process in times of crisis. during the second world war, for example, president franklin roosevelt unilaterally authorized the internment of over 100,000 japanese americans for fear they would spy against the united states american. over 100,000 americans -- japanese americans were

interned. no one in the administration presented any kind of evidence that these americans, the 100,000 americans who were imprisoned at tt time, posed any kind of threat to our country. not one piece of evidence. not a thread, not any evidence was presented to that effect. most americans were themselves native-born citizens, elg inl in that -- eligible in that respect to run for the united states. many never visited japan and many didn't speak the language spoken in japan. that episode in our nation's history was tragic. it remains a blight on our record to this very day. it's also an example that is sadly personal to state i represent. you see, the u.s. government unjustly detained thousands of japanese americans in utah at the topez war relocation center.

japanese american internment is perhaps the most dramatic and shameful instance of this kind of detention in our nation's history, but, unfortunately, it's not the only instance. in 1950, in a climate of intense fear about communist infiltration of government, congress enacted the mccarren internal security act and did so over the veto of president harry truman. that law contained an emergency provision allowing the president of the united states to detain any person he thought might spy on the united states. think for a minute about what that means. that one person was then vested with this authority to delve most deeply into one's process rights without providing them due process at all. that's scary. that's the very kind of thing that the constitution was

designed to protect against, the due process clause, certainly, but the whole point of having a contusion in the first place is to protect the people from the dangers inevitably presented by the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few. more recently in the post-9/11 era there has been, of course, some renewed pressure to diminish our constitutional protections, o liberty in the name of security. lawmakers from both parties have authorized a detention of americans suspected of terrorism many their detention without charge, without trial, indefinitely, and without meeting the evidentiary standard required for every other crime potentially for the rest of their lives. you see, this happened just a few years ago in this very chamber. if i hadn't been here at the

time, i might have accused whoever was describing this of engaging in some sort of paranoid fantasy for the purpose of making a point. no, this actually happened. in the national defense authorization act that president obama signed into law for fiscal year 2012, congress authorized the indefinite military detention of suspected terrorists, including american citizens apprehended on u.s. soil. these episodes, the japanese-american internment, the mccarren internal security ac and the 2012 ndaa are significant. they are teachable moments, if you will. in all three cases, the united states faced real threats from formidable foes, foes hostile to

our very core values as a nation, f who are not comfortable with the idea that we, as americans, share in common which is the belief in the fundamental inherent dignity of the human soul. but instead of defying our foes by holding fast to those core values, we jettisoned them in a panic. fear and secrecy won out, the constitution lost, liberty lost. thankfully that's not the whole story for there have also been times when americans have stood up for the constitution, even in the face of threats, especially in the face of threats, thus sending a really strong message to the totalitarian forces that reigned against us. for instance, in 1971, congress

passed a nondetention act stating that, quote, no citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the united states except pursuant to an act of congress, close quote. now, congress can make an understand for the constitution by allowing a vote on this amendment, by allowing a vote on the amendment to the ndaa. so what, you might ask, is the due process guarantee act? well, in short, this bill presented as an amendment would raise the bar that the government has to clear in order to claim and assert the right indefinitely to detain american citizens and lawful permanent residents who are apprehended on u.s. soil. it would forbid the government from justifying such detentions authorizing u.s. military force.

why, you might ask, would this even be necessary. why would we need to consider doing this? that's a very good question. that's a question that should be directed towards those who inserted this language into the 2012 ndaa. under this legislation, und thismendment as it has been proposed, the government would have to obtain statutory authorization by government, the branch of government most accountable to people before approving the detention of americans without charge, that is, if they are captured in the united states. this isn't too much to ask. some would say this is far too little to ask. it is somet that is required both by the letter and by the spirit of our constitution and by the very concept of liberty and by the very concept alluded to earlier that each human soul has inherent dignity that needs to be respected by our government.

so the due process guarantee act is based on a very simple premise. if the government wants to take the extraordinary step of apprehending americans on u.s. soil without charge or trial, it should get extrary permission from congress. now, to be very clear, if my colleagues want to grant the government this power, that power over their own constituents, their own voters, the very people who elected them into office, then by all means let's have that debate, let's have that discussion. if they want to do that, let them authorize it themselves. i hope never to see the day when that would happen, but i think we should all be able to agree that we should have to agree, that congress should have to agree before any such step is taken. members of congress should not simply hide behind vague, broad

authorizations, so that the voting public won't or can't know what they're doing. i'm offering this amendment because of my faith in our law enforcement officers and our judges who have successfully apprehended and prosecuted, overseen the prosecutions of hundreds of homegwn terrorists. their example proves that our security is not dependent upon a supercharged goventnd a correspondingly weakened constitution. we can sure the homeland without using the formidable instruments of tyrants. not only can we, mr. president, but we must. this, after all, is our constitutional imperative. each one of us, upon taking office, is required taking oath to uphold and defend this document, the united states constitution.

i would hope, i would think, i would expect, in fact i'm quite confident that the overwhelming majority of our constituents, voters in every state in this country, regardless of where they fit on the political continuum, wre they would identify themselves on the political spectrum would agree that it's not really too much to ask to say that if the government's going to arrest someone and detain putting them into a position of incarceration indefinitely without charge, without trial, that that's extraordinary, and that that kind of extraordinary remedy, perhaps never to be approached, but certainly if it's going to happen at all, it ought not ever happen without the explicit statutory authorization from congress. all of this relates back to section 1021 of the 2012 national defense authorization act which purports to authorize

the government to indefinitely detain without trial american citizens and lawful permanent residents, both of whom would be protected by my amendment here who were captured in the united states. so, look, it's easy to look at this. it's easy to separate yourself from this. you think this measure could apply only to bad people, maybe only to bad people who don't look like people that we orally associate with. perhaps they don't look like they came from our neighborhood. perhaps they don't look like the kinds of people who ought to have protection. this, mr. president, the very folly we should always seek to avoid. either due process is a thing or it's not. either due process is a constitutional imperative that we should be very, very reluctant to depart from ever, or it's not.

section 1021 of the 2012 ndaa represented a departure from that. think of it this way. your rights as an american citizen to be charged in a certain way, to have access to a speedy trial, toave access to counsel, your rights to a whole host of constitutional protections generally does not and ought not ever be something that should be dependent upon how you are charged. if all the government has to do is alter the way in which you were charged to allege that you have been involved in some type of offense that can be characterized as terrorist activity or the aiding and abetting of those who planned the 9/11 attacks, if that's all that has to happen, then you are entrusting an enormous amount of discretionary power to

government, to a very small handful of decision-makers who themselves can deprive you of everything that's dear to you, of those you love, of the place you call home, and subject you to indefinite incarceration, indefinite detention, without access to trial, without access to the ability to confront your accusers in front of a jury of your peers. this is a problem. it's a problem that would sound extreme if it weren't true, because it is, in fact, extreme. now we have gone now for the last six or seven years after this was passed into law without it getting a whole lot of attention. i think this is unfortunate because this ought to be concerning to every single american. if you exist on u.s. soil lawfully, if you are a citizen or you are a lawful permanent resident, this should concern you. even if you're not, even if you

reside outside the united states or are here temporarily, perhaps on a temporary visa of some sort, this should worry you. if you believe in the american fundamental dignity of the human soul, this should bother you. and if you are bothered by this, it should grow even more see fear by virtue of the fact that we have this discussion this afternoon in our nation's capitol within the halls of what purports to be the world's greatest deliberative legislative body. not in the context of being on the precipice of casting a vote on this. no. we are having this in the discussion of a simple request to vote up or up or down, yes or no, yea or nay, on whether or not we should require congress to state explicitly when it's going to invoke this kind of extraordinary remedy. it defies reason. it defies logic. it defies the rules, the customs, the traditions of this great legislative body for us to

refuse tca a vote on this. by the way, about five years ago, a nearly identical version of this samemendment passed through this body with 67 votes. not only is that more than a majority, but it's also more than the standard reqred to close debate, and it's also a standard that is consistent with what's required to overcome a presidential veto. and yet somehow that measure didn't make it into the final product. somehow it didn't survive the process of negotiation between the house and the senate. it didn't survive the final bill as produced by the conference committee. and so five years go by. we have been trying to get a vote on it ever since then. we have been unsuccessful in ing so. we're not asking for every member to agree right now to support this. what we are asking for is for them to weigh in and allow us to

cast a vote on this. you see, we have this quaint governed requires a certaineing amount consent from those being governed, that when the government does somhing, especially something that could so deeply impact the lives of individual americans, that it ought to be done with the consent of the governed through their elected senators and representatives. we've got two people here from every state in the union. i would -- i would -- i could say with a high degree of confidence, mr. president, that if you polled not just the american people at large, not just people within every state, t i would add to that people within every demographic, people within every political party, at least every political party that i know anything about, people of

race, sex, national origin, religious affiliation, belief or inbelief. i would bet that an overwhelming majority of people in every single category in every state in the union would say that this is really troubling. the fact that you would have a government that would be so bold in the first instance as to claim the right, which it did in the 2012 national defense authorization act, to detain indefinitely citizens of this country apprehended on u.s. soil without charge, without trial, without access to counsel. and that after having done that a few years ago, this same body would refuse even to allow a vote on whether future votes should be cast on whether or not this is appropriate. the senate, i'm told, used to be a place -- in fact, the history books made clear that it was in fact a place where extended debate and discussion could be

heard, pause -- because we as a people tend to believe that more debate is preferable to less. more input is preferable to less input. and that whenever governments make a decision, especially a profound decision like the one we're talking about here, that the people's elected representatives ought to have some say in it. it's an act of cowardice, mr. president, that we as a body would refuse to cast votes on something like this. so i say to my colleagues who object to us even being able to cast a vote on this, what are you afraid of? what is it that you fear so much about the american people that you're unwilling to have a provision like this explored, examined, and, yes, voted on by the united states senate? this doesn't have to take a long time. we could have easily done it today. we could have done it in a matter of hours,ps a matter of minutes, but is that really too much of a sacrifice

to ask for a few hours or a few minutes of our precious time? to vote on whether or not the u.s. government should have the power indefinitely to detain without trial, without charge, without counsel american citizens after hended on u.s. soil. i think not. and i'd implore my colleagues with all the energy i'm capable of communicating to please reconsider, look in the mirror, examine your conscience. you decide whether you want to stand accountable to god and the american people one day if and when this power is abused. one thing we know about power is that when it's excessively accumulated in the hands of a few, bad t happen. hueis are flawed. they're redeemable, but they are also flawed. that's why we have a constitution. that's why we're here. we're here to cast votes and to stand accountable to the american people. i urge my colleagues to allow a vote on this amendment, mr. president. i yield the floor.

aator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. perdue: mr. president, one of the great honors in this body is to bring a contrasting point of view to the topic of the day. i hope to do that today. many of my colleagues in this body have voiced concerns on both sides of the aisle, frankly,bout president ump -- what president trump is doing to try to create a more level playing field for our workers and businesses. they're nervous about his negotiating style, about things he says, what he's trying to do with our allies, our adversaries, and all that around the world. people in this body worry sometimes it's going to create a trade war. well, colleagues, i have worked in the trade environment internationally most of my clear. i have sourced products all over the world. i have shipped products all over the world. i can tell you for a fact that

in the last 40 years, we have been in a trade war. in that time, america has helped develop the third world and reduce global poverty largely becausef an imbalanced trade agreement that we made with pretty much each country around the world, and we did that intentionally. this was not by accident. it was out of our goodwill that we set up trade deals that granted access to our markets while denying us access to other markets around the world. well, why did we do that? when china was a $1 trillion economy, that made sense. we wanted to help them develop economically. now that they are a $12 trillion economy, it no longer makes sense, mr. president. when japan was rebuilding after world war ii, of course we wanted to help them rebuild. we spent billions of dollars behind the marshall plan to do just that with japan and all of east asia. we then set up trade deals that we knew would help their economy grow, and that made sense then. it no longer makes sense to have an unlevel playing field with

the rest of the world just so they can develop. let me give you a reason why. one of the reasons is that because of the american consumer and taxpayer, global poverty over the last 50 years has been reduced dramatically, by som estimates of over 60%. let me say that again. global poverty because of the american taxpayer and the american worker has been reduced over 60%. unfortunately, during that time period of time, american poverty since 1965 when the great society was signed into law and the great war on poverty was initiated, we spent some tryi to eradicate poverty in america. unfortunately, today we know poverty is basically the same as it was in 1965. so this imbalance that we have lived with for the last half decade that partially helped the development of the third world brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty begins to not make sense when it damages our well-being here at home. like me, president trump is an

outsider to this political process. he is just a business guy who spent his career successfully negotiating deals all over the world. for years, he has seen how america has often been treated unfairly when it comes to trade. es he also seen how previous administrations repeatedly fail to contain the growing threat of rogue regimes with nuclear ambitions likhe nort korea and iran. since taking office, president trump has put america back in a position of power and strength when it comes to our standing with the rest of the world. this comes after a decade where america withdrew. we had red lines drawn. we had a russia reset. the world was questioning what our position was. were we going to be the leader of the free world? were we going to stand up for individual sovereignty, for individual liberty, self-determination? i think he's made that very clear that we've turned a corner here. president trump has no doubt an

unconventional negotiating style, a outsider style, if you will. but you know what? as we've seen in his personal career but as we've seen in his presidential career just in the last 15 month, nato, south korea, and just last night a historic summit in north korea, president trump's methodology indeed works. remember when he was running for office? he said, well, if nato doesn't increase their military spending, we just might back out. everybody panicked. oh, my goodness, we're -- it will upset the balance wur allies over there this is the no the time to be doing that. guess what? nato stepped up. i just met with a major ambassador from one of the countries in that region. i'm delighted to fell my colleagues -- tell my colleagues tonight and we all know basically nato is doubling the amount of money they're spending for their own national security which is exactly what the president wanted. president trump is working to fix problems that others would

not address and he's moving it with a sense of urgency to deliver those results. so i'm tired of members of this body trying tondercu him at every turn and especially in the middle of a negotiating process. one thing you learn when you're dealing internationally, you have to have respect of the person you're negotiating with across the table. president trump has earned that. what we're beginning to do in this body is undercut that. i understand the article 2, article 1 debate. i get that but we're in the middle of processes now that are so critical, you cannot deal with trade in a one dimensional fashion. it's part of the geo political, complex calculus that president trump is trying to negotiate. we need a unified voice, there's no doubt. right now this body is sending mixed signals. it's time to put aside political self-interest and focus on what's best for the united states of america. as a business guy, i wouldnk this is something my colleague, especially those who come from the business community would understand. that's what we have to do all the time in the real world.

last year president trump said job one was to grow the economy. as a body, you and i, we all together focused on regulations, energy, and taxes. as a result the economy has begun to turn a corner. just this year we passed a moderate bill that modif dodd-frank and frees up onerous regulations on small and community banks and regional bafergs, freeing -- bank, freeing up some $6 trillion between regulation and taxes and the work in dodd-frank, $6 trillion potentially coming back into the economy. th a people who work for a living, not just the people who own the businesses. today small business optimism is at a 30-year high. some three and a half million jobs have been created. 870 regulations have been reversed. over 1,500 people in the veterans administration have been let go because they were not concerned and did not perform their job properly. this year it's all about continuing to grow the economy

by focusing on immigration, infrasucture, and trade. trade is a very complex mat of countries and industries. it's not just a very simple thing of back and forth. i understand what the president is trying to do in a bilateral way. i would prefer the t.t.p. approach but that's just two individuals. we're committed tohis bilateral path and i support that. of course, how we deal with each one should be thoughtful and strategic and we need to be in a hurry to get that done. we need aisticppo trade, not the ad hoc approach we've seen in the past. but you know what? if you want meaningful results in trade, then you have to have the courage to have serious, tough conversations with other countries regardless of how many headaches it may cause for some folks here in washington. and that includes some of our allies, by the way. the imbalance we have in trade is not just with china. it's with pretty much every one of our allies. and the solutions are not controversial. they can be dealt with directly.

when it comes to trade, including trade with some of our closest allies, america isn't being treated fairly. we've covered that already. and eee in this position for some time and it's really of our own making. we didhis intenly. president trump is working to begin to fix this by negotiating better trade deals for american businesses, products, andworker. make no mistake, the beneficiaries of these trade negotiations are american consumers and american workers. trump is doing so from a position of strength, ielieve, and he's leveraging that strength to get a better deal. it's not about upending alliances. it's about telling other countries we aren't going to stand for anything less than a level playing field. i think that's only fair when'rr adversaries. presidt trump has the attention of the world and the momentum to pull off better trade deals. so why are members of this body trying to confuse and complicate the process by undermining the president's efforts? furthermore, we cannot discuss trade in a vacuum.

credibility of the negotiator is all important when dealing with certain parts of the world. we need to take that into consideration when we're considering things that we've been debating here in the last 24 hours on this floor. we need to talk a trade from an economic and national security standpoint. it is in fact a full blown, complex geo political issue. tt point we should all share the priority of denuclearization of the korean peninsula. president trump is also working from a position of strength on that topic. this president and his team have the momentum to denuclearize the korean peninsula. imagine what progress that would be if achieved compared to just six months ago when the worst was being contemplated. just as president trump has brought china to the trade table, he secured their cooperation with north korea. and i can tell you personally having just visited there recently, we would not be in these negotiations with north korea without the help of

president ping and the chinese people. president trump's leadership on this maximum pressure campaign led to china's cooperation on tough sanctions which helped bring north korea to the table in the first place. the president made a personal commitment to another foreign leader about how to deal with z.t.e. he should be able to follow through on his word. this agreement may be tied to other elements of this administration's national security agenda that we don't know about in full details but we need to give them the benefit of the doubt and stop undercutting the negotiating power of our commander in chief. this z.t.e. amendment which has been thrown into the ndaa at the last minute and before the commerce department made its full ruling could threaten china's cooperation in dealing with tbhort korea. -- north korea. it's remarkable shortsighted for politicians in this body to complicate the situation with the z.t.e. amendment, in my opinion. i believe it will undercut our ability to negotiate and i think it jeopardizes our negotiator's

credibility. of course, congress has an important role to play on all ee tra agreements and certainly treaties. the advice and consent principle that's built into our format is absoluly critical. i'm not trying to undermine that in the least. however, it should not be -- it shoot not try to undercut our chief negotiator in the middle of a negotiating process. i personally have survived some of those in my career, and i understand the credibility of the person doing the notiating is absolutely critical. however, in our situation in dealing with any foreign leader, the full breadth of the legislative branch has to be explained upfront. i'm fully supportive of that. to say -- to those who say this president is only picking winners and losers, going back to the z.t.e. issue, let me just say this. the only winner president trump is trying to pick today is america. i think it's refreshing that we have somebody finally standing up and fighting for us for a

change. after decades of making sure that the third word was developed. this is about making sure america is treated fairly and is in the best place to do business in the world. it's aboutaking america more it'sbout making sure that the people who take showers after work and not before work get treated fairly in dealing with the rest of the world. this is about making america more competitive. it's about making america more secure. it's about ensuring our economic and national security for the next 100 years. this body should put aside self-interests, focus on the national interest, and give this president the room he needs to negotiate on everything from betterra to denuclearization of the korean peninsula. stop the hysteria in my opinion. this iut a much bigger picture. the much bigger picture, mr. president, we talk about the rise of china and the impact on the world. let me just highlight a couple of things from this past weekend. president trump raised an issue just this weekend.

he issued a statement that offered an olive branch to russia aut the g7, that he reen t g7. did putin say? putin said well, no thank you. i'm more interested in or things like the s.c.o. most people in this body are not familiar with the s.c.o., the shanghai cooperation organization. it's basically china, russia, uzbekistan and a few other countries in that area but india and pakistan just attended their first meeting. and i think this is an extremely dangerous development fo the future of self-determining people. mr. president, i tnk it's time for this body to get behind a unified approach with regard to what we're trying to do with trade, what we're trying to do in north korea and tell the rest of the world we want to be the strongest ally you've ever seen, just like we've been for the last 200 years. but it's time as the president said, it's time to take care of our business so we can help you take care of your business.

thank you, mr. president. i yield my time. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: mr. president, i ask consent thathe senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak ein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: i ask consent to speak for as long as i may require. the presiding officer: the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: mr. president, the senate's majority leader, senator mitch mcconnell of kentucky, will become the republican leader in history surpassing former senator bob dole of kansas. this according to theate historicalffice. today is senator mcconnell's 4 79 lgt day as senate republican leader, a position that he assumed on january 3, 2007, after republicans lost control of both chambers of commerce. i'd like to take a few minutes

to put senator mcconnell's leadership in pspective that perspective begins in the year 1969. i was 29 years old and working in the nixon white house. senator howard baker, jr., of tennessee said to me, you might want to get to know that smart, young legislative assistant for marlowe cook. marlowe cook was kentucky's newly elected republican senator. that smart, young legislative assistant was 27-year-old mitch mcconnell. if anyone has noun him for a long -- known him for a long time, the evolution of mitch mcconnell's leadership isn't hard to trace. to begin with, when he was 2 years old, the doctor said, mitch has polio. it's hard to imagine today how terrifying those words were for parents then. mcconnell remembers, quote, it was 1944. there was a serious epidemic that year all over theoury.

and the disease was very unpredictable. first you think you had the flu and a couple of weeks later some people would be completely normal and some of them would be in an iron lung or dead. heti in my case, it affected my left quadriceps, the muscle between the knee and your thigh and one of the great good fortunes of my life, my mother was living with her sister in this little cross points of five point, alabama where there was not even a stoplight while my dad was overseas fighting the germans. and it happened to be 60 miles from warm springs where president roosevelt had gone to treat his own polio. my mother took me to warm springs, mcconnell said. they taught her a physical therapy regiment and said to do it four times a day to keep me off my feet. she watched me every minute. it prevent me from really walking. my first memory in life is when they told my mother i was going to be okay. that i would be able to walk

without a limp and we stopped at a shoe star in la grange, georgia, on the way back to alama to get a pair of low-top shoes which were a kind of symbol that ias going to have a normal childhood. if one knows about the determination of mitch mcconnell's mother, it's not hard to imagine how her son determined as a college student to be a united states senator and did, determined to be his party's senate leader and did, and determined to hold that position longer than anyone in u.s. history and has. this was an arguous two-decade leadership journey. chairman of the republican national senatorial committee, counselor to majority leader trent lott, majority whip, minority leader, finally majority leader. as for his mother's example, this is what mitch mcconnell says. quote, it sure had to have an effect on me which was if you stick to sometng, you keep working at it and giving it your

best, the chances are you may actuallyvercome whatever problem you're currently confronting. a second leadership quality that mitch mcconnell learned early in a fist fight was not to be pushed around. according to mcconnell again, quote, i was 7. we lived in athens, alabama. aid friend across the street named ricky mcgrew. he was older than i and bigger. he was a bully and kept pushing me around. my dad called me around said, son, i've been watching the way he's been pushing you around. i want you to go o there and beat him up. i went across the street and i started swinging and i -- and it was an incredible -- and i beat him up and bent his glasses and it was an incredible lesson in standing up to bullies, and i have a thought about it throughout my life at critical moments when people are trying to push you around. as a junior senator on the

foreign relations committee, mitch mcconnell surprised colleagues when he sponsored sanctions against the apartheid regime in south africa andaman in 1986 he voted to override prest reagan's vietnam of those -- veto of those sanctions. these colleagues wouldn't have been surprised had they known him 25 years earlier when he was a student at the university of louisville. the civil rights movement was the defining issue of our generation. working an an intern in congress during the summer of 1963 i got to see martin luger king jr.'s i have a dream speech. then in 1964 i was a intern in john sherman cooper's office. two things happened. cooper was in the middle of breaking the southern senator's filibuster on civil rights and we nominated bry goldwater, one of the few people who voted against the civil rights bill.

honestly, mitch mcconnell said, i was mad as hell about it and i was so irritated about goldwater voting against the civil rights bill and defining the roone party in a way that i thought would be unfortunate, th i voted for lyndon johnson, which in retrospect was a huge mistake. but it was a protest vote. senator mcconnell's willingness as a college student to buck his own political party resurfaced 40 years later in his leadership on first amendment free speech issues. in 2006 he cast the deciding vote against the adoption of a constitutional amendment to prohibit flag burning. when most republican colleagues and almost all of his constituents had a different point of view. he argued that the first amendment protects even personally offensive messages. and mcconnell became the senate's leading voice against restrictions on political speech underhe guise of, quote,

campaign reform, unquote. again, some of his own party disagreed, including president george bush and sator john mccain, but he persisted and on multiple occasions the supreme court has agreed with mcconview of protecting political speech under the first amendment. mr. president, two of the three united states senate office buildings in washington, d.c., are named for pllip earhardf and mitchell rustle of georgia, two senators who were never elected to formal leadership positions by their colleagues. senator mcconnell discussed leaders without foalio describing occasion when a senator describes a major policy role outside of the confines of formal party or committee leadership. his favorite was senator cooper. who mitch has described as, quote, my role model as a young

man, a man of great conviction, very smart. in his auto biography, the long game, senator mcconnell says when cooper took him to the signing of the civil rights bill of 1965 and later on of watching cooper's principled questioning of the vietnam war, senator cooper's example must have influenced his young interns' one-man crusade 20 years later against an oppressive junta. according to "the new york times" in 2016, senator mcconnell has been a lead sponsor, the times said, of every major sanctions measure against the burmese government over the last 20 years and has worked tirelessly with several administrations to try to bring democracy to the country. unlike south african apartheid, it was a totally unknown cause. his foreign policy advisor told the "times."

he championed the cause of the leader who for years was under house arres in 2012 when suu kyi came to washington, d.c., she traveled to ky to thank mcconnell for everything he did for us, she said, over two being decades. that's a long triumphant -- -- that's a long time, she said. in order to be the senate leader, one first has to be elected to the senate. in mitch mcconnell's early contrary, one can find multiple clues that point to his campaigns and the style in which he wins them. i was the old 14-year-old in america h says watching political conventions from gavel to gavel and i began to practice the craft and see if i could get good at it. when he was elected president of his high school student body, he remembers, i was hooked. at the university of louisville,

he campaigned for president of the student council both in college and in law school, participated in civil rights marches on the state capital, was president of the college republicans, persuaded barry goldwater to come to speak. he did learn the casts of politics and he did get good at it. he's undefeated in his own political campaigns winning six senate races in kentucky, more than any other commonwealth senator. he's been elected republican leader more than any other u.s. senator, each time unanimously. and he's been proficient in not just his own races. in 2010 and 2012, the senate conservative fund helped nominate republicans in five state who lost the general election when a more mainstream nominee might have won. so in 2014 and 2016 mcconnell organized an effort to defeat incumbent republican senators who were challenged in imie he was successful in every case.

including his own primary. this is what he said. we were not going to allow what happened in 2010 and 2012 to happen anymore. and so we got the most electriccable people nominated who basically took them on because if you're dealing with a group of people who think compromise is a dirty word and who always want to make a point but never want to make a difference, the only thing to do if you wo w the election is to beat them. mostly mitch mc connell's political skills were born of necessity. in july 1984 he was 34 points behind in his challenge to incumbent democrat senator dee huddleson. mcconnell discovered that his opponent had been making speeches for money. now, that was legal then, but dee huddleson had been missing senate votes to make those speeches. so mcconnell ran an ad featuring a kentucky hunter with bloodhounds looking for senator

huddleson to get him backo work. in ad, the dog treed the senator right at the end of what became known as the bloodhound campaign. mcconnell defeated him by .04% of the vote s i'm searched in veins for one more aspect of mitch mc connell's leadership style -- his parsimonious use of words. sometimes he reverted to absolute silence. in his auto biography, he admits that he only speaks to the press whent iso his advantage. he also tells of when microsoft founder bill gates visited him and the two of them just sat there waiting for o to speak, making others in the room uncomfortable. and another time someone once told president george w. bush that mitch mcconnell was excited over a certain vote and president bush replied, really?

how could you tell? why so few words? mcconnell's answer is, i learn a lot more by listening. sing fromly i start out by listening and think about what i want to say before i say it. you don't get in trouble for what you don't say. there's nothing wrong with being cautious about your comments. i think certainly don't mind talking, but i usually like to know what i'm talking about before i venture down that path. in july 23014 when he was minority leader, senator mcconnell spoke on the senate floor will what kind of majority leader he would be if republicans won the majority in the november election. his model, he said, would be mike mansfield, the democrat who was majority leader 45 years earlier when mcconnell and i were senate aides. what i meant by that he said, first of all was you have to open the senate up.

the last year of the previous democrat majority, 2014, there were only 15 roll call votes on amendments the entire year. in the first year of our majority in 2015 we had over 200.en the senate up, let people vote. number two, we needed regular order, which means the bill is actually worked on together in committee, comes out to the floor with bartisan support, and has a better chance of success. he said, the best example i can think of was the bill to rewrite no child left behind. the law had proved to be unworkable and unpop l by the time it came out of committee, you had the democrats and republicans lined up. it went to the floor, it was relatively open for amendnts, not that absolutely everybody got everything they wanted but in the end it passed with a very large majority. president obama called it a christmas miracle and "the wall street journal" said it was the largest devolution of federal control to the states in a quarter century.

the humorous roy blunt jr., who grew up in georgia, has written, quote, you start getting into trouble when you stop sounding like where you grew up. the political corollary is you start getting in trouble when you stop coming home. this is advice mcconnell has not forgotten. he and his wife elaine go home to kentucky almost every he has kept his eye on kentucky matters, both large and small, including disposal of chemical weapons that have long been stored in the middle of kentucky, enacting a tobacco buyout to help local farmers, support for the state's public universities, and his advocacy for workers at the paducah gas fusion plant. kentucky anglers and tourists appreciate his helping to enact a law to require the army corps of engineers to allow fishing below the dams on the cumberland river.

20 years ago he created the mcconnell center at the university of louisville, attracting a bipartisan parade of national leaders to visit with ten scholars chosen each year from each undergraduate class. each year mitch mcconnell buys 12 season tickets to the university of louisville football games. he says, i have some regulars. we go to every home game and occasionally anway g we m d oay it. we go out early. one of my friends has an r.v. in the parking lot and we will talk about what will happen in the game and then go to the game and then we'll talk about what happened after the game. and it's a complete lengthy exercise and one of the great joys of my life. mitch mcconnell's university of louisville honor thesis on clay tempted him to pursue a career as a professor. those of us who know him doubt that he would have been satisfied interpreting the

action rather than being in the middle of the action. but his devotion to american history, his understanding of the importance of the united states senate as a unique institution in american life have contributed a valuable extra dimension to his senate leadership. in a 2016 c-span interview, he was asked, what would you like for high school american history teachers to tell their stu about the united states se? he replied, that the senate has been the indispensable legislative body because that's the place, mcconnell said, where things are sorted out, the place where only rarely does the majority get things exactly its own way, the place where stability can occur. and at a time when many americans are non-optimistic about the country's future, he was asked, what would you want those teachers to tell students about their future in this untry?

mitch mcconnell replied, because of our woeful ignorance of american history, we always thinkhe current periode' in is tougher than others. we've had nothing like the civil war period. we haven't had a single incident where a congressman from south carolina came over and almost beat to death a senator from massachusetts. america has had plenty of challenges, mitch mcconnell said, tough challenges, world wars, depressions. this is a great country. we're going to deal with whatever our current problems are and move on to another level. and i'm just as optimistic as i ever was that this generation is going to leave behind a better america than our parents left behind for us. i thank the president. i yield the floor.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the senate resume consideration of h.r. 5515. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion to the desk for the toomey amendment number 2700. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senator from kentucky mr. mcconnell, cloture motion, wegn senors in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the sene do hereby move to bring to a close debate on senate amendment number 2700 to amendment 2282 as modified to h.r. 5515, an act to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2019 m fitary activities of the department of defense, for military construction and for defense activities of the department of energy to prescribe militarysonnel strengths for such fiscal year and other purposes signed by 17 senators. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion forhee amendment number 2282 as modified. the presiding officer: the clerk will report clerk we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on senate amendment number 2282s modified to h.r. 5, an a

to authorize appropriations for fiscal year9 and forth and for other purposes signed by 17 senators as follows. mr. mcconnell: i ask the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion to the desk for the bill h.r. 5515. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion, we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on calendar number 442, h.r. 5515, an act to authorize appropriations for fiscal yr 2019 and so forth and for other purposes signed by 17 senators as follows. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the reading of the names westbound waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the mandatory quorum calls be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of

the following nomination, executive calendar 835. the presiding officer: without objection the clerk will report the nominations. the clerk: nomination, department of homeland sury, christopher crex of virginia to be under secretary for national protection. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the senate vote on the nomination with no intervening action or debate, the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, that no further motions be in order and that any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. the question occurs on the nomination. all in favor say aye. all opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. monnell: 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 understand there's a bill at the desk. i ask for its first reading.

the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the first time. the clerk: h.r. 5895, an act making appropriations for energy and water development and related agency for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2019, and for other purposes. the presiding officer: i now "owe. mr. mcconnell: i now ask for its second reading and in order to place the bill on the calendar, i reject to my own request. the presiding officer: the objection havingee heard, the bill will be heard a second time the next legislative day. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 542 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 542 congratulating the washington capitals for winning the 2018 stanley cup hockey championship. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will receive the measure all caps. mr. mcconnell: i ask the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on 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. 543 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. therk senate resolution 543 congratulating the florida state university seminoles softball team for winning the 2018onalolc association women's college world series. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the 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. 544 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 544 celebrating june 11, 2018, as the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the united states choral wreath task force. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will

proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i further ask the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action orebate. the presiding ficer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 545 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 545 honoring the memory of the victims of the terrorist attack on the pulse orlando nightclub on june 12, 2016. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i further ask 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 tervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 377, h.r. 2229. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 377, h.r. 2229, an act to amend title 5 united states code and so forth and for other purposes.

the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the committee-reported amendment be agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed and the tions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the commerce committee be discharged from further consideration of h.r. con res. 111 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: house concurrent resolution 111 recognizing and supporting the efforts of the united bid committee and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee discharged. the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i further ask 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: now, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. wednesday, june 13. further, that following the

prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. finally i askea fr remarks, the senate resume consideration of h.r. 5515. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: so, if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands

>> and to keep weight low i have told rages for the wealthy are in now i will be going into the job market for there is not a lot of jobs. and congress just doesn't seem to care about that. the neck i'm here at the salt lake community college library and the important issue state of utah is overpopulation. with the root cause. i do note there are easy solutions to the problem