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tv   U.S. Senate  CSPAN  June 27, 2018 4:00pm-7:11pm EDT

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mr. wyden: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, and colleagues, two years ago the supreme court handed down its decision in whole women's health versus hellerstead, which held the view that the government should not be in the business of deciding what kind of health care a woman in america can or cannot receive. a number of my colleagues are going to be coming to the floor to discuss this issue. it was a crucial victory. my colleagues who have been so involved in this issue over the
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years, senator murray, senator blumenthal, i, as the ranking democrat on the finance committee, has done everybody i possibly could because our committee has jurisdiction over women's health with a variety of programs that are crucial for women. it's really in that context that i want to reflect on what has really happened since the supreme court handed down that crucial victory, that important win for women's health care as embodied in whole women's health versus -- hellerstead. every time the president went to the white house, they have put
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themselves between the -- the president has sought to place restrictions on health clinics that women rely on every single day for lifesaving services like cancer screenings, physicals, prenatal care and more. he has again and again sought to place restrictions on and defund health clinics like planned parenthood that women in america rely on every single day for lifesaving services, like cancer screening, physicals, prenatal care and more. i hope my colleagues will look at the words i used to describe the lifesaving services, lifesaving services which have nothing to do with abortion. cancer screening, physicals, prenatal care and more, that's
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what the president sought to place restrictions on and attempted to defund in terms of health clinics that offer those services. now, the latest blow to the cause making sure that women can go to the health care providers of their choosing, the latest blow came yesterday from the supreme court. yesterday the court, in effect, opened the door for deceptive crisis pregnancy centers that are allowed to lie to women about what kind of care they are able to receive. all of these developments demonstrate that the effortor affordable access able health care -- accessible health care, that effort is far from done, and it is going to take a constant push to ensure that health care in america moves forward and not backwards. in my view, one of the biggest
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threats to american's health care is the trump administration's full-throated endorsement of repealing preexisting condition protections. that's particularly important for women who count on these essential consumer protections to get affordable care for all services. american women don't want to turn back the clock -- don't want to turn back the clock to the days where health insurance is more expensive by default for women because maternity care and other services aren't covered in standard plans. women don't want to be denied health insurance because of the cancer scare they had a few years back or small preventive surgeries. that was the reality before the affordable care act. mr. president, i can only say that at one time democrats and republicans near the united
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states -- here in the united states senate felt really strongly -- really strongly about loophole free, airtight protection for women and men and all americans against discrimination for preexisting conditions. i know that because in the context of debating the affordable care act, i was a sponsor of legislation, the healthy americans act that had seven democrats and seven republicans as cosponsors. and our proposal which did have loophole free, airtight protection for women and all americans against discrimination for preexisting conditions, what we opposed, seven democrats and seven republicans, that essentially became part of the affordable care act against discrimination of preexisting
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conditions. it is those protections that is now law that the trump administration seeks to roll back. mr. president, it's not widely known that it is not just men and women in the individual health care market that the president's reckless approach ons preexisting conditions -- approach on preexisting conditions is actually threatening. if the trump administration is successful, protections for the 167 million americans with employer-sponsored health insurance will also lose the affordable care act's airtight loophole-free preexisting condition protections. that means that america would be turning back the clock on health care and an employer could once again put their bottom line over the health of the american
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people. back then what it meant for an individual, it meant preventing you from getting health care for months or leaving care for your preexisting condition uncovered. i think it's pretty clear, mr. president, that the american people do not want to return to a system like that. over the fourth of july break, i will be heading back to oregon. i'm going to have my 900th town hall meeting where for an hour and a half, i don't give any speeches, folks can just come in, say what's on their mind, describe what's important to them, and i would say, mr. president, that at -- a significant number of those 900 opened to all 90-minute town hall meetings in oregon folks at home talked about the importance of the issue that i have just
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described, the protection for women and men and all americans against discrimination for preexisting conditions. certainly women in america can't afford to turn to -- to return to a system where they are systematically discriminated against. women have been on the front line standing up and speaking out to ensure that doesn't happen ever since donald trump was elected. i want to thank my colleagues, particularly senator murray and senator blumenthal, who have been our leaders on this effort. i try to help them with their good work as the ranking member on the finance committee, and i appreciate them taking the time that it has been two years since the supreme court handed down the historic decision that actually protected women and why we all feel so strongly about not walking that decision back.
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i thank senator murray and i yield my time to her. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: mr. president, i want to thank the senator from oregon and say i was planning to come to the floor about the specific issue of women's health care and rights and freedoms. but before i get to that, i want to comment on the news that is very clearly closely connected. it is clear that justice kennedy's retirement comes at a pivotal point when so many of our values is under attack by a president who spent every day in office testing the limits of the constitution. i share the deep concern of so many families across this country who are already suffering under the trump administration and fear for -- fear further erosion of the progress in this country. so, first of all, i want to be
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clear. i am hopeful that republican leaders go back and look at what they said very recently and give families across the country the opportunity to weigh in with an election before moving forward to fill this seat. but, mr. president, we don't know who president trump will nominate just yet or when he will make that nomination, but i want to go back to something my dear friend and colleague, senator kennedy, said because it highlights the stakes right now. he was talking about an extreme nominee, robert bork, and he said, i want to quote him. robert bork's america is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizen's doors
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in midnight raids, school children could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of the federal government and the door would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens where the judiciary is often the only proctor of the individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy. unquote. mr. president, robert bork was rejected and justice kennedy took his place, and today we face similar stakes right now in this moment. voting rights are at stake, lgbtq right are at stakes, the right to organize collectively is at stake. those are just a few. there's a lot more. families across the country are paying attention and they are going to be watching what president trump and individual members of this united states senate do right now.
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they are going to -- they are going to -- to want to know if their rights will be protected, will their freedoms and secure, will the supreme court put people like them first or will they stand with special interests and big business and the most extreme idealogues in our country? those are the questions people across this country will be asking. that is the conversation i expect we will have here in the united states senate. and that what president trump should be considering as he thinks about this issue, and hopefully as he slows this down and gives people across the country a chance to weigh in. mr. president, one issue i know women across the country will be focused on and asking about is their constitutionally protected right to control their own health care decisions affirmed in roe v. wade, because let me
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be clear. women and men in this country understand how directly tied this write is to a woman's freedom and economic security. and they overwhelmingly do not want to see that right rolled back. now, today is the anniversary of a ruling that further upheld women's constitutionally protected preproductive -- reproductive rights, and i wanted to take a few minutes to discuss what this decision meant for women's lives and why we will not stop fighting to protect the progress we made. almost a half century ago in its historic roe v. wade decision, supreme court ruled that every woman no matter where she lives has the constitutional right to make her own decisions about her body, her family, and her future, including the right to safe legal abortion.
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but a right means nothing without the ability to exercise it. while roe v. wade has been the law of the land for years, extremists have been trying to change the court's decision by making it hard for women to exercise their reproductive rights. but women across the country have not been silent about these efforts and neither has the supreme court. two years ago the court reaffirmed the rights enshrined in roe v. wade when it ruled in favor of whole women's health and struck down an antiabortion law in texas that was designed to make it harder for women to access the care they need. the law in texas attempted to undermine women's reproductive freedom by putting access to that care far out of reach for women. if it had been allowed to stand, the law would have closed three-quarters of the clinics in that state that provided
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abortion services. if it had been allowed to stand hundreds of thousands of women would have no option but to travel hundreds of miles for their reproductive health services. but the texas law didn't stand. women's constitutional rights did. that supreme court ruling sent a strong message, one women have been making for years and one we continue to make clear today. politicians have no business interfering with a woman's most personal decisions. unfortunately, many people on the right continue to ignore that message. unfortunately they have continued to push for damaging, extreme policies that ignore the supreme court and the constitution and women across the country. from day one president trump and vice president pence have made it clear that turning back the clock on women's health and reproductive rights is a top priority for them. the recently proposed harmful
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domestic gag rule on federal family planning funds that was designed to restrict access to health care for women interfere with the care provider's ability to talk about the full range of reproductive health services with their patients, and ultimately make it harder for women to exercise their health care choices and constitutional rights, and that is just the latest of so many extreme and ideological steps and statements and policies and appointees that have repeatedly shown the trump administration's hostility to women's rights. and we are still seeing radical republicans in many states pushing to put up new barriers like those that were struck down in the whole women's health case to prevent women from making their own health care decisions. barriers that would allow perhaps a woman's zip code or her income to determine whether she's able to get the care she needs. but we are also still seeing that every time far-right
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politicians try and bring us a step back, women and men across the country are stepping forward and speaking out against them. and that is not going to stop. we are going to continue to defend women's reproductive rights on all fronts and against all attacks. one effort to do that in congress is the women's health protection act legislation i'm very proud to cosponsor that would help protect women's constitutional rights to safe, legal abortion care and bring down harmful ideological barriers to that care like the one struck down in texas once and for all. i remember being in the room when the supreme court heard the whole woman's health case and hearing the skepticism from many justices as they asked thoughtful questions about texas' flimsy excuses for trying to undermine women's rights. i remember being outside of the court shortly afterwards and seeing all the women and men making their voices heard and fighting for those rights.
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i remember being moved by the personal stories shared by so many women about what the right to make their own personal decisions meant for their health, for their family, for their opportunities in life. i'm not going to let anyone forget those stories including president trump and vice president pence and far-right politicians across the country. i'm not going to stop defending women's health and reproductive freedoms. i'm not going to stop fighting to make sure our daughters and granddaughters have stronger rights, more opportunity, not less. i'm not going to stop and i know women and men across the country aren't going to, either. there's no question in my mind that people nationwide understand just how important a woman's ability to control her own health care decisions is. that this is not about politics. it is about women's health. it's about their economic security, about a woman's ability to contribute fully and
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equally in our country. and i'm confident people across the country who do not want to go backwards will stand up and make their voices heard and reject president trump and vice president pence's extreme ideology wherever it rears its head. so i'm hopeful that president trump takes this to heart as he thinks about his supreme court vacancy. and i'm hoping that my republican colleagues are paying attention. and i am truly hoping that president trump decides to listen to people across the country, listen to what republicans just said recently, and not jam a nominee through before people have a chance to weigh in. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii is recognized. ms. hirono: mr. president, first i'd like to thank senator blumenthal for organizing this block of time and for his
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continued leadership in the fight to protect women's health care. today marks the two-year anniversary of the supreme court's decision in whole woman's health v. hellerstedt. that landmark decision struck down two provisions of a texas law that imposed medically unness burden some requirements on abortion providers and to reaffirm -- and reaffirmed a woman's constitutional right to access safe, legal abortion. if a supreme court had allowed these provisions to stand, more than 75% of all reproductive health clinics in texas would have been forced to close leaving many women unable to access the care that they need. whole women's health was a significant victory for reproductive freedom, but the assault on a woman's constitutionally protected right to an abortion has continued unabated over the past two years. during that time, iowa passed an outrageous bill that would
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prohibit women from seeking an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, often even before these women knew that they were pregnant. west virginia enacted legislation that would prohibit the state's medicaid program from covering abortion services for low-income residents. indiana passed an onerous new law requiring physicians to report confidential -- confidential patient information to the state if a woman experienced complications from an abortion. in la -- and louisiana recently passed a law establishing a 15-week abortion ban that includes criminal penalties for any physician who performs the procedure after that time with only a very narrow exception, to save the life of the mother. these are the kinds of lengths that the -- those who want to
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limit a right -- limit a woman's right to choose will go to. they need to recognize the harm. they have filed suits to block their implementation. several courts have ruled that these restrictions are unconstitutional and could come before the supreme court for review in the months and years ahead. these laws are only a few of the hundreds of new restrictions enacted in states across the country that are harming women's health and violating their constitutional right to an abortion. to understand the negative impact of these laws on women, i point to a recent report from the good marker institute that found a 58% of women of reproductive age in our country live in a state considered hostile or extremely hostile to abortion rights. only 30% live in a state supportive of abortion rights. we're talking about millions and
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millions of women who are living in these extremely hostile hostile-to-abortion right states. respect for a woman's constitutional right should not depend on where she lives. women in texas, louisiana, or iowa deserve the same respect as women living in states like hawaii where we have some of the country's most humane, expansive protections for reproductive rights. in fact, hawaii was the first state in the country to legalize abortion. these disparities and protections for women in different states can have life or death consequences for women in need of reproductive held t care -- reproductive health care. earlier this year i shared the story of dr. gozela myota, an abortion provider who practiced in texas but now lives and works in hawaii. his story is worth sharing again
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because it poignantly captures what's at stake for women living in states with sweeping abortion restrictions. in her letter to me, dr. myota shared the story of a young woman in her texas town who sought medical treatment with another provider after her water broke at 22 weeks. this woman desperately wanted a baby but her fetus was not viable outside the womb. because of texas' restriction on abortion services, the patient's doctors were unable to counsel her on all medically appropriate options including immediate delivery. this patient became increasingly ill and requested an abortion to prevent her condition from getting worse. the doctors on her case refused this request. why? because texas law would not allow them to respond to her request. after spending two weeks in a hospital intensive care unit,
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this woman was transferred to dr. myoto's care where she ultimately had to have both hands and feet amputated due to severe infection. she also lost her baby. the doctor recently moved from texas to hawaii where she provides life-saving abortion care to women at all stages of pregnancy, including a woman with a desired pregnancy who is flown in from a neighbor island for management of her previable labor. despite the expert specialist care she received, the patient's water broke at 22 weeks. at that point there was nothing dr. myoto could do to prevent labor. she performed an abortion and saved her patient's life. the stark contrast and outcomes for the doctor's two patients is completely unnecessary. women across the country have a constitutional right to an abortion and congress needs to
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do more to fight back against what states like texas, louisiana, and iowa are doing. it's time for congress to pass comprehensive legislation that prevents states from imposing unconstitutional restrictions on abortions and that ensures every woman has access to the health care they need when and where they need it. we need to pass the women's health protection act, a bill produced by senator blumenthal and one that i supported since its introduction in 2013. this critical piece of legislation would explicitly prohibit states from imposing restrictions that limits women's access to safe and legal abortion services. it would prevent states like iowa, louisiana, and mississippi from imposing abortion bans before viability. it would preclude states like arkansas from restricting access to medication abortion. and it would stop states like
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texas from passing laws that impose arbitrary and capricious requirements on facilities and abortion providers that do not improve the health of their patients. passing this legislation is particularly important following justice kennedy announcing his retirement. the fundamental rights of women should not be subject to the whims of donald trump and whoever he selects to fill justice kennedy's seat. congress needs to take decisive action to protect a woman's right to choose. i urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the passage of the women's health protection act. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. ms. hassan: thank you, mr. president. before i begin my remarks concerning the women's health protection act, i want to just state for the record that given
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justice kennedy's announcement today that he will retire and there will, therefore, be a vacancy on the supreme court, that any nomination for the supreme court must be -- any nominee for the supreme court must be committed to protecting the rights of all americans, including the reproductive rights of women. nominees can't just be focused on protecting corporate special interests and the powerful few. i also continue to believe that supreme court nominees should have broad support from both political parties and be able to clear a 60-vote threshold. a strong and independent judiciary that is above politics and willing to stop abuses of power is more important than ever given that our current
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president regularly disregards established democratic norms and voices contempt for constitutional safeguards. and with this attention on the supreme court, it is appropriate that i rise today on the two-year anniversary of a critical victory for women and families across our nation. two years ago, the supreme court's ruling in whole women's health versus hellerstedt reaffirmed that every woman has the right to make her own health care decisions and chart her own destiny. this gave women to critical health services and that undue burden on a woman's rights violates the constitution. unfortunately, despite the fact that the court has made this
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clear, politicians in washington, and in states across our country, have made it their mission to undermine women's access to safe and legal abortions. here in congress we have seen bill after bill that marginalizes women and restricts their fundamental rights, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have confirmed trump administration officials and judges who are vehemently opposed to women having freedom to make area that own health care decisions. additionally, state legislatures have pushed burdensome restrictions. politicians have pushed these restrictions under the guise of protecting women's health. but the real point of these state laws is to deny women access to care. unfortunately, many states have
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remained persistent in their efforts, and since that 2016 decision, state legislatures have introduced 1,039 restrictive bills, passing 180 of them. and this has included everything from closing abortion clinics to criminalizing providers who offer reproductive health services. mr. president, no matter their zip code, women deserve equal access to care, but it is clear that there will continue to be attempts from politicians to violate women's rights. with all of these relentless attacks, it's evident that what we need is federal legislation that protects women's access to care in every state throughout our nation. that's why last year i was proud to join with dozens of my democratic colleagues to introduce the women's health protection act. this legislation is vital because it protects women from
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the burdensome requirements that states are enacting. it would validate laws for women to endure unnecessary test and procedures and prevent doctors from prescribing and dispensing medication that is medley appropriate. above all, the women's health protection act would ensure that women across the country are receiving safe, medically sound care if they news to have an abortion. mr. president, at a time when politicians in washington and in state legislatures continue to marginalize women, i'm going to continue to fight for the women's health protection act because women deserve respect when making their most deeply personal health care decisions, and they have to have the full independence to do so. thank you. mr. president, i ask that the following statement be printed separately in the record. the presiding officer: without objection.
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ms. hassan: thank you. i rise to recognize retiring air force lee. as the june granite stater of the month for his incredible dedication for honoring our service members and veterans who passed. over a decade ago at a military funeral master sergeant recognized that taps was playing from a c.d. player hidden behind a gravestone. when he returned home from the funeral, master sergeant hurdle went to his basement an dusted off his old trumpet, an instrument he hadn't touched since he was a college student. he taught himself to play taps and practiced until he was skilled enough to play at funerals of fellow service
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members. since playing at his first funeral he has sounded taps over 3,750 times across the northeast. when asked why he continues to sound taps, master sergeant hurdle talks about his first military funeral. at that funeral he stood alongside a new hampshire national guard member named corporal scott diamond. a year later after corporal diamond was killed in afghanistan, master sergeant sounded taps at his funeral. as master sergeant hurdle said, all service members deserve the live version of taps. we can never repay those who have served or made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our freedom, but we must commit ourselves to honoring those sacrifices. master sergeant hurdle was a
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true embodiment of that commitment. i am so proud to rig him as granite stater of the month. thank you, mr. president, i yield the floor.
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a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: the senate is not. mr. thune: mr. president, i rise today in support of my amendment number 3134. mr. president, by providing heying and grazing flexibility,
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this amendment would offer common sense and effective land management options for land enrolled in the land conservation control program or what we refer to as crp. today there are c.r.p. contracts that are 10 to 15 years in duration. as it stands, some c.r.p. contracts only allow for vegetative cover to be removed once or twice during the life of the contract, a practice referred to as mid-contract management. even in areas that have experienced a drought or feed shortage, c.r.p. mid-contract management rules have required vegetative cover on c.r.p. land to be destroyed, a practice i have never understood and one that i get a lot of feedback from farmers across south dakota who don't understand it either. the amendment before us today would allow heying and grazing under terms agreed to by usda
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and the state technical committees with safeguards in place that would protect the c.r.p. covering when long-term droughts occur. specifically, the amendment would allow haying and grazing on one-third of the contract acres which would be coupled in the c.r.p. rental payment. mr. president, c.r.p. is important for so many reasons. and after more than 30 years it remains the cornerstone of the conservation programs that usda administers. in my opinion, we need more than the 24 million acres the current c.r.p. acreage cap allows. in order to raise this cap in the current budget requirement in both the senate and house farm bills, the c.r.p. caps are lowered to 80 and 88.5% normal rental rates respectfully.
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in order to get an additional cap you have to reduce the rental rate in order to offset the cost of the cap. the house raised it to 29 million acres in their version of the bill but lowered the rental rates to 80%. in the senate bill it goes from 24 million acres to 25 million acres but the rental rate is at 88.5%. my assumption is in conference with the house when it gets there, it will be negotiated. it makes sense in my view to raise the cap because the cap today is not sufficient for what the demand is out there and for the importance of the program in terms of its impact on production agriculture, and our farming an ranching community. the haying and grazing flexibility in this amendment would help offset the rental rates and make c.r.p. a viable choice for a producer's land.
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this is a win for farmers and ranchers and it is a win for conservation. mr. president, i would like to thank senator klobuchar, my neighbor from minnesota, for cosponsoring this amendment. i think she'll be here at some point to talk about this as well. i'd also like to thank chairman roberts and ranking member stabenow for following through on the commitment that they made at the ag committee markup when we debating this to work with me on this amendment to improve the c.r.p. program. i'd also like to thank the stakeholder organizations and majority and minority committee staff who worked with my staff in the past few weeks to reach an agreement on the amendment before us today. mr. president, this, in my view, strengthens this farm bill and the c.r.p. program in a way that many producers and farmers and ranchers have sought for a long time. allows that added flexibility so they can on a three-year basis rotate and allow a certain
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amount of those c.r.p. acres to be harvested and do away with this crazy mid-contract management practice requirement that, as i mentioned earlier, has very little support out there in the farm community. i also think it does away with another issue that comes up frequently in states like mine where we have a drought. we had one in 2010 and we had one last year in 2017, we have to plead with usda to allow emergency haying and grazing and this would eliminate the need of that and on a period wick basis when -- peedic basis when we face that. i see the distinguished chairman of the ag committee is here. i appreciate his leadership on this and so many issues in this farm bill and i hope we get a good, strong vote in the end. robert robert -- mr. roberts: would the senator yield? mr. thune: i would be happy to
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yield. mr. roberts: i want to speak in support of my colleague's amendment. it makes changes in the conserve reserve program and goodness knows we have been working on this for several weiss. as a matter of -- several years. as a matter of fact i can remember when i was back in the spouse and sponsor of the program and congressman thune continued that effort. he has pointed out the amendment provides greater clarity for when a producer can conduct productive management. i strongly support that as do all the members of the committee. these flexibilities not only provide more ability to produce and it has a mutual benefit to the wildlife that rely on that habitat. and the distinguished senator pointed out exactly right during
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the ag committee markup, both senator stabenow and i are committed to working with you on this priority. i'm pleased this amendment reflects that bipartisan agreement that has the support of the grower and wildlife organization. i thank my colleague for working with senator stabenow and myself on this amendment. i support it and urge my colleagues to do so as well. thanks, mr. thune: thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate that endorsement, and that of you and your staff in helping structure this in a way to get the broad support you mentioned from the commodity groups and wildlife groups. i think this is a win-win for conservation and certainly a win-win for the c.r.p. program and for the farmers and ranchers in south dakota who -- not just in south dakota but all across this country who make use of this important and vital resource. mr. president, i yield the floor.
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mr. portman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, dal i want to talk about -- today i want to talk about the tax reform legislation that this body passed at the end of last year. turns out this week is the sixth -month anniversary of the tax cuts and tax reform legislation. and it's time for us to look at it and determine how it's working. it's particularly important because there are a number of provisions of the tax legislation that were not permanent. in other words, there's a sunset on some of the tax cuts. by the way, some of these provisions expire as soon as the end of 2019, which is just the end of next year. so it's time to start thinking
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about how has it worked. second, we have members on the other side of the aisle saying we ought to get rid of this altogether. that would mean big tax increases for a the low of folks. let's look at what the results are before we take those kinds of votes and make those kinds of decisions. i would submit that in the six months this has been put into place, it has worked incredibly well for the people i represent, for the workers i represent, the small businesses i represent. for those who are concerned about getting wages back up and fighting poverty and helping having a growing economy, i know in the debate we're having on the farm bill right now, there's been discussion about the food stamp program and one of the points that's being made is the fact that food stamp spending is actually down right now. it's decreased some in the lax six months. why -- last six months. why? because the economy is improving. that's a good thing. before tax reform, let's face it, our economy was incredibly weak and wages were flat and had
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been flat for almost a decade. and with the congressional budget office estimating that this year's growth was going to be only 2%, we were looking at more weak economic performance. we were looking at another year where we were going to be performing at way below our potential as an economy. so what's happened? well, a couple of months ago when the congressional budget office looked at what's happening with the economy which they attributed to pro-growth policies including tax reform, they said, you know what? the economy is not going to grow 2% this year. their projection now for this year is 3.3% growth. that's a huge difference, from 2% up to 3.3% means a world of difference to people in their lives, in their economy, in their ability to see higher wages, better jobs. so things are doing better. six months into this new law, our economy is up and running and it's moving toward its full potential. in the most recent congressional budget office estimate, by the way, for this quarter, it looks
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like we're going to see some significant growth. now, there's no estimate yet from the c.b.o. but one of the federal reserves has an estimate of over 4.5% growth. i don't know if that will happen, but i think the consensus estimate, when you look at all the economists, is that this second quarter of this year we're likely to see growth of over 4%. we'll have the final number from the congressional budget office at the end of july, but again we are seeing more jobs, higher wages, and better economic growth. and, therefore, more opportunity for all americans. that's a good thing. why is tax reform helping to create this opportunity? this new opportunity for higher wages and more growth? i'm going to discuss three reasons that i believe that this tax reform proposal has been helping to get the economy moving and again why it's so important to keep these in place and not to risk not just higher taxes on individuals but lower economic growth if we were to move away from this legislation
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and not make it permanent. first, updating our international tax code has definitely encouraged companies to invest in america. we had a totally outdated international tax code. we had the highest tax rates among all the industrialized countries at the business level for international companies, and we had a system that actually encouraged companies to keep their money overseas. and, therefore, spend it overseas. so if you were a company facing our old tax code, your board, your stakeholders were saying, hey, don't bring the money back because it will be taxed too high. keep it overseas. that was crazy. it made no sense whatsoever. frankly, it took too long to address that issue but we finally did. let me give you an example. i'm told in the first quarter of this year -- this year, more than $300 billion was brought into this country, repatriated back to america from overseas. $300 billion. this is profits u.s. companies were making overseas, $300
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billion of it was brought back. that compares to the first quarter of last year when there was $38 billion brought back. so this is all about tax reform and this is a good thing because this money is being brought back to invest in america. that's the most on record, by the way, the $300 billion. so something's changing and it's positive. that's number one. when we changed the international system, it's helping in a number of ways but one is to bring the money back and invest it here. second, lowering our tax rate for businesses, small businesses and large businesses, has resulted in amazing new investments in people, in plant and equipment, technology. we've seen it in terms of higher bonus, higher wages, increased retirement contributions. lots of examples. we've seen it in terms of investing in new technology and new equipment which in the end is as important as anything because think about it. one thing economists have said about our economy over the last decade is we're not improving our productivity like we should.
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what they mean by that is the productivity of the worker has been disappointing and that leads to lower wages and not having higher economic performance. if you make a worker more productive by investing in the latest technology, new equipment, that helps everybody. it helps that worker have a higher salary and helps our economy. that's actually happening out there. we've -- i've seen the results of it all over ohio. i represent a state, ohio, that has a lot of manufacturing, a lot of small businesses, and i've gone around and talked to them. i actually visited 21 individual businesses and also held about a dozen roundtable discussions with small businesses, mid-size businesses, one with large businesses, and talked about this. at the 21 businesses that i visited, every single one of them is taking the tax savings and investing it in their people, in their plant, in their equipment. some are raising wages. some are delivering bonuses to their employees. some are buying new equipment. some are expanding their operations. some of them are improving
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employee benefits. there's a company that has three branches of an auto parts store that stopped offering health care about five years ago because of the cost of the affordable care act. they just couldn't afford health care. their people had to go out on the individual market and get it through the affordable care act. and they are now offering health care again. boy, the employees are extremely happy. so their costs are down. their dibls are -- their deductibles are down. they did that all with tax savings. many companies have done a combination of these things. they're both investing in their people. there is a small manufacturing company in cincinnati. they said we're immediately going to give bonuses to all of our people, which they did, $1,000 bonuses. i was there when they handed them out. they also invested in the equipment. one of the companies i went to in columbus, ohio, is a steel processor. this equipment was from 1986.
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the equipment itself was 32 years old which is exactly the age of our old tax code because 86 -- 1986 was when we last reformed the tax code. they took a tax bill that finally modernized an antiquated tax bill that was 31 years old and they got rid of a 31-year-old piece of equipment and replaced it with a brand new piece of equipment. i thought that was appropriate. that's how these tax savings are being used. i know there are some groups saying this many groups have benefited from this and this many employees. i can tell you it is way understated because i can't find a business in ohio that hasn't benefited from it. some are doing more than others. some of the billing financial service companies, for instance, are giving big wages increases. others might be investing in a new piece of equipment. but there are so many businesses out there. they're not all putting out press releases or talking about it but they're doing something.
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this is good. this is why you see this economic growth coming up. finally after so many years of flat wages and the middle-class squeeze people were feeling, finally you are seeing a little improvement in wages. first the international part. second is what you're doing in how it affects people. ed third one is direct tax relief to individuals because that's part of this one, too. and if you hear people talk about this bill sometimes on the other side of the aisle, you would think that's not in there. but it's very much in there t people are able to keep more of their hard-earned money and it goes directly to the middle-class constituents that i represent. they're the once ones that get the biggest bang for the buck. why? because we double the standard deduction, taking it from $12,000 to $24,000 for a family. because we doubled the child tax credit, including increasing the part that's refundable, even if you don't have income tax liability, you get it. we also lowered tax rates for people so that combination means
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that people have seen their paychecks go up. 90% of workers in america, 90%, got a paycheck that had more money going into their bank account rather than uncle sam, because their withholding changed and their withholding changed, and you know this if you're listening today, because you probably had this happen to you you're one of the 90%, which you probably are. in other words, uncle sam taking a little less, you being able to keep a little more. i just said, look, the proof is? the paycheck. we can argue this all day long. when people get their patience it's either going to be better or -- their paychecks, it's either going to be better or not. for 90% of the people i represent, it's better. they're happy about that. in addition to that, we also made the tax code more progressive. what does that mean? that means those at the top of the income ladder are actually paying a larger portion of the overall tax burden, not a smaller portion. let me say that again.
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the tax code is more progressive. if you're at the top of the income ladder, you're now paying a larger portion of the tax burden and if you are at the lower end, you're paying less of the overall tax burden much the biggest percentage tax increase for those making over $1 million a year and the biggest tax decreases for those making $30,000 a year or less. this is why in the joint taxation committee said that over 3 million americans now have no tax liability at all in terms of income tax liability thanks to this tax reform effort, because they are at the lower end of the economic scale. doubling the standard deduction, doubling the child tax credit, 3 million americans don't have to worry about uncle sam because they don't have any tax liability under this bill. so is this has changed the way our tax bill works and the joint committee on taxation can show you those numbers. all of this has resulted in
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higher wages. for the first time in about decade. the strongest wage growth for nonsupervisory employees in nine years. that's the latest data. you can check it out, department of labor. the strongest wage growth nor nonsupervisory employees in nine years. it's also resulted in a lot more optimism out there. if you look at the surveys on optimism, i saw there was one by one of the nbc stations recently. the highest level of optimism they'd seen. this optimism is also in small businesses. the national federation of independent businesses does surveys regularly. their surveyors they say, are unprecedents because they saw small businesses are ready to invest and planning to investment in my home state of ohio, we had the ohio chamber of commerce do a survey. 70% of businesses have already added new employees and in this second quarter we're in now, 75% are planning to add new employees. it is amazing. this is actually happening as we talk here because we changed a
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tax system that was discouraging growths discouraging investment, making it harder for people to get ahead and see wages go up to meet expenses. so there's some good things going on. since december the number of long-term unemployed has decreased by about 400,000 people. the unclimate rate has fallen from 4.9% to 3.the% in my home state of ohio. nationally unemployment is down to 23.8%, the lowest since 2000. all good news. what do i hear now? i hear from businesses not so much about the tax burden and frankly not so much about the regimenttory burden because congress -- regulatory burden because congress has also done things to relieve the regulatory burden, particularly on small businesses. but i hear that finding qualified workers is their biggest challenge. i heard it last weekend. i'll hear it again this coming weekend when i'm home. as a small business person myself, i feel it. it is a hurdle right now. a big reason is what economists call the labor force
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participation rate. what does that mean? it just means the number of americans who are unemployed and not looking for work at all is higher than it's been in the past. these are folks who are on the sidelines, not even recorded in the employment numbers. it is so bad that our labor force participation rate was at its prerecession level of 66% of people working rather than the current level of 62.7%. if we just had the level of 66% ten years ago, our unemployment rate today would not be 3.8%. if you take in account those people, our unemployment rate would actually be 8.6%. pretty disappointing. so that is one challenge we still have with this incredible tax relief and tax cut legislation that's increasing economic opportunity, growing jobs, raising wages. we still have a lot of people who are on the sidelines, not in the workforce. among men, by the way, between 25 and 5, able-bodied -- 25 and 55, able-bodied men, 8.5 million are in this category. not even showing up in the
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unemployment numbers. that's wrong. you want them to have the dignity and self-respect that comes from work and our economy needs these people to be able to work. according to the congressional budget office, 30-year projection they just gave us yesterday, they think the labor force participation rate is going to get even worse. that's what they told us yesterday. declining over the next 30 years to even below what it is now, below 60%. that can't happen. that's unacceptable. the low labor rate participation cannot get worse. we want people to get that dignity and self-respect that comes from work. we want enemy in our economy. so as the economy is growing and businesses are expanding, there is no better time for us to reverse this trend, to bring these people into the economy and bring them back to work. i will tell you, having dug into this issue, figuring out why is this? there are a number of reasons -- dependency on government programs, the tax issue when you go to-to-work have higher taxes.
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we should do more to get people into work, make work pay; we should have some work requirements in some of these programs. that's been talked about a lot here on the floor. we should deal with other issues including the skills gap and we're doing that with career and technical schools and other things. but there's one i want to mention, and it's, i think, the single-most important problem we face, and that's the opioid crisis. and i say this because the opioid epidemic, which has hit our country, which is by the way the number-one killer in my state of ohio right now and in many states around the country, it's already having a devastating impact on everything -- on crime, on families, on the ability for our jails to work, our health care system to work, but it's also affecting employment in huge ways. a recent report by the federal reserve bank of cleveland found that counties with higher legislation of opioid prescriptions have lower workforce participation rates. it is no wonder. they surveyed the business community and about half the organizations said the opioid
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epidemic has negatively impacted their business. people can't get through the drug test but also people aren't even applying to work. why do i say that? the department of labor did a study, showed that 44% of these people outside the workforce altogether, off in the shadows, on the sidelines, 44% of them have taken a drug, a pain medication the previous day. brookings institute says the number is 47% and when further pushed people said two-thirds of them said they were taking prescription pain medication. that's amazing. that 47% by the way, and iv% is likely underwart reported. there is a stigma ttached to the opioid crisis. there is a legal issue for a lot of people. it is not like this is an overreported number. nearly half of the people who are outside the workforce are staying they're taking pain medication on a daily basis. the sad reality is it's likely to be much higher than. that. we know what we have to do.
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we need to too get people into treatment, support them, get them back to work and lead productive lives. there are things that congress can and will do to take cares of that. i am gag to ask unanimous consent if i could, mr. president, to continue to discuss solutions to the opioid epidemic after the majority leader has had a chance to make his remarks. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. being in mcmr. president? the presiding officer: majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion to the desk senate amendment number 3224. 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 senate amendment number 3224 to calendar number 4883 h.r. 2, an act to provide for the reform and continuation of agricultural and other programs of the department of agriculture through fiscal year 2023 and for
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other purposes, signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: is send a cloture motion to the deck for h.r. 2. 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 483, h.r. 2, an act to provide for the reform and continuation of agricultural and other programs for the department of agriculture through fiscal year 2023 and for other purposes, signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the mandatory quorum calls be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection.
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the senator from ohio. mr. portman: i ask unanimous consent that my comments i am about to make be included in the record with my previous comments. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. portman: we talked a little bit about a growing economy, we talked about the fact that one of the weak unless we have right now is the fact that despite a growing economy and lower unemployment, all this good news coming with the tax cut and the tax reforms and the investments, we have a problem right now, which is that many people are outside the workforce altogether. historically high levels of labor force participation not being part of the workforce but instead people being sidelined and how do you get those people back into work, 8.5 million men between 25 and 55 as an example who are not working, not showing up on the unemployment levels because they aren't even looking for work. i made the point that there are a number of reasons for that. we talked about those, but the one that is most significant today is puts us at this very high level of people outside the workforce is the opioid
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epidemic. i talked about the fact we have data on this from the fez reserve, from the brookings institute, from the department of labor in the trump administration showing this is a huge problem. about half the people outside the workforce are taking pain medication on a regular basis. this opioid crisis is affecting us in every way. so what's congress doing about it? we have made progress. in the last couple of years we have made unprecedented progress to combat addiction with legislation like the comprehensive addiction and recovery act, a bipartisan bill i coauthored with shell done whitehouse. the 21 century's cures legislation important inest going funding out to the states to teal with this crisis. we just passed legislation that provides more funding to go to the kind of treatment and prevention and longer-term recovery programs that are proven to work that have evidence-based results, measurements behind them. that's all very important. and we need to continue to push back against this addiction by
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helping people get the care they and into treatment they need to overcome their dependency. by the way, i have been with three community roundtables in the last few weeks talking about specifically how this funding is being used and it's exciting because it is being used on new ideas that are going to make a big difference going forward in terms of getting people, for instance, who are addicted and are overdosing, getting them the narcan they need to save their lives but then not allowing that gap to occur where they go back to the same environment but, rather, getting them into treatment. this is through quick response teams, a combination of law enforcement, social workers, and treatment providers, getting in immediately and saying, okay, you overdosed. your live was saved by this narcan, this miracle drug that real estate verses the effects of the overdose. now instead of you going back to your old community and unfortunately many of these people are overdosings again and again, let's get you into treatment. one of these organizations that's funded by the comprehensive addiction recovery act is telling me they're getting an 80% success rate of
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getting people into treatment. that's huge. it's still too low, but that is so much higher unfortunately than is typical out there. we are beginning to make progress closing some of of the gaps, getting people into the treatment they need and sending a stronger prevention message out there, keeping people out of addiction in the first place. in the meantime, we have a huge it's not getting better in my home state. it's actually getting worse. in most areas of the rate you see now higher rates of addiction and more overdoses almost all due to one thing. the increase is almost due to one thing and that's fentanyl, the synthetic form of opioid coming in and taking over, pushing out heroin, prescription drugs, other drugs. fentanyl incredibly powerful, 50 times more powerful than heroin. incredibly inexpensive. most of it's coming we're told by the experts from china. not overland from mexico but from china through our united states mail system. unbelievable.
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it's a shock but it's true. it's so potent that a few phraeubgs of it -- flakes of it can be deadly and totally unacceptable that some lab in china is making this poison and allowed to ship it into this country. the number one cause of death in my state. two thirds of deaths we believe is going to be the result of fentanyl. not heroin or prescription drugs. it's tragic and eye opening that when you look at what's happened, the ohio alliance for innovation and population health estimated that opioid overdoses were responsible for more than 500,000 years of life expectancy lost in ohio between 2010 and 2016. it's an interesting way to look at it. tragic. more than 500,000 years of life expectancy were lost in ohio between 2010 and the end of 2016. overdoses are the top cause of death for all americans over the age of 50, top cause of death in my state for everybody.
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increasingly these drug overdoses are fentanyl. in ohio, we had two thirds overdose deaths last year but from fentanyl up from about 58% in 2016. it's the deadliest, most difficult drug to deal with right now. two police ago police in dayton, ohio, seized 20 pounds of fentanyl during a drug arrest. last friday federal agents in columbus arrested four people and seized 22 pounds. taken together these two busts, 20 pounds and 22 pounds of fentanyl is enough fentanyl to kill 9.5 million people. think about that, by the way that's about 80% of the population of my state of ohio, just these two busts alone. on monday we had a tele-town hall, we do these on a monthly basis. one question i asked in the last several years is if you know anybody directly affected by the opioid epidemic. we had the highest percentage
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response ever at the town hall meeting monday. the tele-town hall meeting was 67% of the people on the call said yes, they knew someone directly affected by the opioid epidemic, the highest level we've had. one woman i spoke to on the call, pauline from zanesville, ohio, told me a tragic story that's unfortunately similar to other ones i hear as i travel the state. it's about her brother. her brother died of an offender. her brother -- of an overdose. he did not use opioid according to her but he died of an offender. she said he smoked marijuana but there was something put into the marijuana he was smoking that caused him to overdose and died. i hear this a lot of back home. tweed we had -- we had two roundtables in ohio. both of them were about a young man who overdose, saved by narcan and woke up and said i was just smoking dope. they checked and guess what it
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was. it was fentanyl sprinkled into the marijuana. and i'm sure it's the same situation with pauline's brother. the fentanyl which she talked about was what killed him. so what's the lesson here? every street drug, whether it's cocaine, whether it's heroin, whether it's crystal meth, all of them are now subject to having fentanyl included within them, including prescription pills because some are reformulated made to look like prescription pills and the fentanyl is the killer. not that those other drugs can't cause you to overdose and die also but with regard to fentanyl that is the deadliest and riskiest of all. any of these three drugs can be deadly. we need to combat the growing influx of fentanyl. congress has had a breakthrough recently in a way to do that. i mentioned it comes from china primarily and it primarily comes through our u.s. postal system. the stop act which is bipartisan legislation i authored with my colleague amy klobuchar from
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minnesota -- and i see colleagues on the floor now -- will combat at the source by closing a loophole in place in federal law. after 9/11 we insisted that all the private carriers, think of fedex or ups or d.h.l., had to give law enforcement information about every package that comes into america. this was after 9/11, you remember. we asked the post office to study it and we asked the postmaster general to get together with homeland security people and come up with an answer. that was 16 years ago. it hasn't happened. so even though if you send something by one of these private carriers like fedex, you have to provide this information up front, what's in the package, where it's from, where it's going, electronically law enforcement takes that big data, decides what packages should be taken off-line. it would stop a lot of bad stuff including fentanyl from coming through. the post office doesn't require that because we haven't required it here in the united states congress. it's time for us to do that. i'm pleased to tell you that after a few years of work, last
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week the house of representatives passed the stop act by a vote of 353-52. the appropriate committee in the senate with jurisdiction, the finance committee, also agreed to discharge the stop act recently so now we can vote on it in the full senate and get it to the president's desk to be signed into law. as we develop the stop act we conducted an 18-month investigation into this and in the permanent subcommittee on investigation which i chair. we revealed how easy it was to purchase fentanyl online and have it shipped to the united states. based on our undercover investigation these drugs can be sound through a google search, overseas sellers, access to an undercover investigation guaranteed delivery if sent through the u.s. postal service, not the private carriers. traffickers prefer the postal service because it doesn't have the screening you have through the private carriers. we need to be sure that that requirement, the advanced electronic data is on all the packages coming in. it tells law enforcement what they need to be able to use big
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data to identify suspicious packages and to keep this poison from coming into our communities. that law is something that we can do right now. the post office would say we're beginning to provide that information. unfortunately based on their testimony before my subcommittee, even with the pressure from us over the last couple of years, only 36% of packages are getting screened. 20% of those aren't presented to law enforcement based on their testimony. also some of the information is not helpful because it's not legible. we need better data. we need to get 100% of packages subject to this data and we need to be sure we can do a better job of, one, stopping this poison from coming into our country, into our communities, into our homes. but also at the very least, increase the cost of this. by reducing the supply we can increase the cost. one of the reasons fentanyl is growing so much is it is so incredibly powerful and incredibly inexpensive. let's have a vote on the stop act in the senate as soon as
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possible. i think we can do it next month. let's get it to the president. let's get it signed into law. there's an urgency here. as i mentioned, in just seven years in my home state, ohioans have lost an estimated half million years of life expectancy as a result of opioid overdoses. the impact is far greater than that, though. as families are broken apart, prisons are flooded, businesses are depleted of workers because of this addiction. we talked about this earlier. the lack of workforce because of this addiction, the stop act will allow our country to push back against this international influx of fentanyl and will help our economy continue this positive momentum we're experiencing since tax reform became law. we can do so by battling the scourge of the opioid epidemic. thank you, mr. president. i yield back my time. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota.
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ms. smith: i am proud to recognize the anniversary of a landmark supreme court decision, whole woman's health versus hellerstedt. before i talk about that decision, i want to talk today about justice anthony kennedy's retirement. this is a pivotal moment in our country with justice kennedy's retirement announcement today, the stakes have never been higher for making sure we choose a supreme court justice committed to the constitution and protecting the most fundamental rights of americans. the right to vote, the ability to organize, a woman's right it to choose. and whomever replaces justice kennedy will no doubt have a say on issues that affect the lives of every american on issues like the health care system and our elections and the health of our environment. in february of 2016 some nine months before the 2016 election, majority leader mitch mcconnell issued a statement saying, and i quote, the american people should have a voice in the selection of our
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next supreme court justice, and he kept his word. he didn't hold a hearing or a vote on president obama's nominee america garland during that -- merrick garland during that year. i believe republicans should be held to the same standard they set themselves. the senate has a constitutional duty to provide advice and consent. we are a little more than four months away from an election that will decide the balance of the senate, so let us let the american people decide who provides that advice and consent, especially given the close balance of the senate as it stands today. now, back to the whole women's health decision. two years ago today the court reaffirmed that women have a constitutional right to make their own decisions about their reproductive health and family planning. the court found that this fundamental right cannot be unduly burdened with regulatory restrictions and requirements by the state or federal
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governments. this was just one in a long line of supreme court decisions that affirm a woman's right to make personal private decisions about her health care and family planning. whole women's health recognized that in order to protect women's constitutional rights, it is not enough that abortion services are theoretically available. they must also be practically accessible. it is especially important to recognize the anniversary of this important decision today because just yesterday the supreme court issued another decision, one that unfortunately threatens to make it harder for women to receive reliable and accurate information about the full range of their reproductive health care options. as united states senator, but also as a woman who served as a volunteer for planned parenthood and then as an executive for planned parenthood in minnesota, north dakota and south, i know the right to safe and reliable health care has a profound impact on women's lives.
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women cannot have economic security if they do not have the freedom to decide when and how to raise a family. this deeply personal decision influence women's choices about whether to go to school, buy a home or start a new business. and i trust women to make these decisions for themselves and their families without the government looking over their shoulders. whole women's health struck down some of the most egregious burdens on women's right to access reproductive health care. but the fight to protect women's rights to accessible, safely, and reliable reproductive health is far from over. despite this ruling, some states have continued their attempts to undermine women's constitutional rights. in fact, in the two years since whole women's health was decided, states have proposed over 1,000 new restrictions on abortion and 180 of those have become law. many of these restrictions are aimed at shutting down clinics
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or criminalizing providers. make no mistake, this is not about protecting women's health. this is about influencing women's choices. and it is wrong. i believe strongly that the government has no business interfering in a woman's medical decisions. these decisions should be made by a woman, her family, and her health care providers. and i trust women to make these decisions that are best for themselves and their own situations. this is why i am proud to cosponsor the women's health protection act, which would protect women's access to safe and legal health care services regardless of where she lives. the bill would prohibit states from imposing restrictions on abortion services that do not promote women's health or safety. for example, laws that target providers with unnecessary and burdensome building codes or those that force women to undergo medically unnecessary testing and procedures, those would be prohibited. this bill would codify the standards set in whole women's
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health and authorize the department of justice to protect women's constitutional rights by going after these unconstitutional laws. i stand with women, and i invite my colleagues to do the same by cosponsoring the women's health protection act. thank you, mr. president. and i yield the floor.
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the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i'd ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: we're not in a quorum call. been been well, that's good news. thank you. been bind he like to spend a -- mr. bennet: i'd like to spend a few minutes on the farm bill. unlike much of what comes to this floor or never comes to this floor, never makes it to the floor, this not a five-month bill pour a five-week bill or a five-hour extension. this is an honest-to-goodness five-year farm bill. that's five years of certainty and predictability for our farmers and ranchers. it's a testament to the great work of the senate agriculture committee, and i want to thank chairman roberts and ranking member stabenow for leading yet another bipartisan
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consensus-driven process. when democrats were in charge way back in 2014, we passed a bipartisan farm bill then. now we're doing it again, only this time the republicans are in charge. that's how this place should work. we've set aside political antics and focused on our farmers and ranchers and rural communities, especially when they've all faced more uncertainty than they have in years. in colorado, we've dealt with years of persistent drought. in the southern part of my state, waterthrows in the rivers are less than half their average levels. feed shortages are even forcing ranchers in southwest colorado to sell off their cattle. besides deficit reduction our farmers and ranchers -- besides drought, our farmers are dealing with a broken immigration system that is actually putting some of them out of business because they can't find workers.
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and uncertainty over trade because of the administration's unusual approach to our foreign policy. all of this has made it harder for them to plan for the next five months, let alone the next five years. this farm bill cannot come soon enough. mr. president, the agriculture committee has put together an excellent piece of legislation. for the first time in 80 years this bill legalizes hemp. we forget, but hemp was widely grown in the united states throughout the mid-1800's. americans used hemp in fabrics, wine, and paper. our government treated industrial hemp like any other farm commodity until the early 20th century until a 1937 law defined it as a narcotic drug, dramatically limiting its growth. this became even worse in 1970 when help became a schedule i
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controlled substance. in colorado, as is true across the country -- i talked to a lot of colleagues here about this -- we see hemp as a great opportunity to diversify our farms and manufacture high-margin products for the american people. that could help drive incomes in rural parts of my state, like in montrose county, colorado. let me tell you about montrose. it's a rural mountain area on colorado's west slope. i got 29% of the vote there in 2016, which -- and it flattens out to the west. i managed to win 29% of the vote there in 2016 and managed to win 29% the first time i ran as well. i can't seem to improve my position well. but i want to somehow you a picture shall -- but i want to
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he should you a picture from there. this is from montrose. this is their republican state senator, my friend dan chrome standing in front of a hemp plant. this is his greenhouse. he was kind enough to let me visit in past march and he told me that hemp growers operate under a shadow of uncertainty worried that at any moment somebody in the justice department is going to wake up one morning and decide to cripple their remains by targeting their access to labor or water. when we passed the last farm bill in 023014, colorado farmers harvested around 200 acres of hemp. last year we harvested 9,000 acres. that's despite the uncertainty around hemp's legal status. our farm bill eliminates that uncertainty by legalizing hemp. if this farm bill passes, our growers are going to have a much easier time opening a bank account, buying and selling seeds, transporting their goods and accessing water.
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this bill also gives hemp growers access to important risk-management tools like crop insurance. that is hemp that don corum, my republican politician friend, is standing in front of at his greenhouse. this means dollars for rural colorado and rural america where the ingenuity and creativity of people is already being unleashed on a crop that until this farm bill was written we could not grow in our country. -- in a meaningful way. and whose biproducts, the things that will create margins for our farmers, were imported from canada. go into stores in the united states today and you'll see hemp by-products. but they're grown in canada. that doesn't make any sense s and i'm glad that farm bill
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fixes it and i'm glad the majority leader was the one that led the way on that. looking ahead in the west, we know the risk of drought and wildfire are only going to grow worse. and that calls onuses to make sure risk-management -- and that calls on us to make sure that risk-management tools are use i.g. the best data. we worked in colorado's ranchers to make sure the usda has good market data for livestock disaster assistance. in uncertain times, these programs are critical to sustaining our farms and working lands, which are fundamental to our heritage in the west and the legacy we hope to leave the next generation. the same is true of our vast grass lands, healthy fosts and abundant wildlife. they are fundamental to what it means to be in the west, which is why we made sure this farm bill emphasizes conservation and responsible management of our natural resources. in this bill, we increase
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funding for conservation easement. we also make the equip program easier to access for small farmers and ranchers. that idea came directly from mike noland, a vegetable grower who was having trouble accessing conservation tools designed more for big farms than his seven-acre operation. we reward farmers in this bill for improving soil health. we strengthen the regional conservation partnership program and reduce red tape for projects that improve drought resilience. we increase funding for voluntary wildlife habitat, improvements on working lands, an approach in colorado that helped us protect habitat for iconic species like the greater sage-grouse but today it on our own and in collaboration on the ground. in colorado, forests are one of our most natural -- most important natural resources.
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the health of our forests affect the strength of our outdoor economy. the quality of our water and the safety of our communities from wildfire. this bill doubles funding for a collaborative forest project that promotes forest health and prevent wildfire risk. it creates a new water source protection program to bring utilities. it also requires the forest service to evaluate the health of our watersheds and monitor the effectiveness of treatments and it provides new authority for the forest service to work with local communities on housing and infrastructure, a major issue in our mountain communities. finally, this bill makes new investments in our rural communities by encouraging projects to improve energy efficiency, energy storage and cybersecurity. working with senator daines, we also maintain funding for the voluntary public access program to increase opportunities for
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hunting, fishing, which are so important to our outdoor recreation economy. all in all, mr. president, this is a good bill. it would materially improve the lives of communities in colorado and across america, something i don't get to stay a lot about our work around here. it's even more impressive because the farm bill is not some tiny piece of inconsequential legislation. it's the most, it's among the most complex things we do in congress. it touches every region of our country, urban and rural. it involves thousands of different often competing interests. it affects the lives of every single american, whether they know it or not. through its investment in our food, forests, water and wildlife. we passed this bill 20-1 in the agriculture committee. i told the majority leader the other day when he came for our markup in the committee that i wish he'd send everything
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through the agriculture committee. then we might actually get something done for the american people around here. we might fix our broken immigration system and make sure our farmers have access to the labor they need. we might address the threat of climate change and the strain it will put on our food systems. we might address the backlog of infrastructure projects in rural colorado and all across the west where some of our pipes and dams date back to the 19 30's. we might push for a coherent trade policy that increase market access for our farmers and ranchers instead of subjecting them to retaliation and uncertainty. there's a lot we could do if we took a page from the senate agriculture committee and approached our work not oriented toward a political fight for the benefit of the cable news, but oriented toward a solution for the benefit of the american people. we need to get back to that kind of work around here.
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we could start by passing this bill and giving our farmers and ranchers the certainty they deserve from our government, given all they do for us, providing the food, fuel, and fiber we rely on every single day. that is the least we can do for them. with that, mr. president, i thank my colleague from arkansas who's joined me on the floor, who has been such a great member of the ag committee as we brought this bill forward, and i yield the floor. mr. boozman: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. boozman: thank you, mr. president. i also want to thank my colleague, the senator from colorado, and his efforts in getting this done. it has been a real bipartisan effort. we hear so much about all the infighting that goes on in here, and this is certainly one of the
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underpinnings of our country. again, we're working very hard to get it across the finish line. so thank you very much. mr. president, the majority leader recently announced his intention to keep the senate in session through the majority of august. it's the right thing to do. we have a lot of work to complete ahead of us and our to-do list just got a little bit longer with today's excellent news. 12 appropriations bills are at the top of that list. we are being busy clearing these bills at the committee level and now on the senate floor. i'm particularly pleased that our military construction and v.a. appropriations bill was part of the first group of appropriations bills that received bipartisan approval here on the senate floor. while we work to ensure passage of bills that fund vital federal programs, we must also continue to pass the important bills that authorize them.
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we have a chance this week to add to our list of bipartisan achievements by passing the farm bill which was recently approved by the ag committee with overwhelming support from both sides of the aisle. if you have ever been to arkansas, i don't need to tell you how important the farm bill is to our state. you've seen it. you've seen the cotton fields, the rice silos, the chicken farms, the cattle ranches. we have it all in the natural state. in fact, 95% of arkansas' land resources are devoted to agriculture and forestry. while there's a variety in what our farmers grow or raise on their land, the family farm is a way of life shared by thousands of arkansans. agriculture is the driving force of the natural state's economy, adding $16 billion to our economy every year and accounting for approximately one in every six jobs. with the farm economy in a much
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different place than the last time this chamber debated a farm bill, and that's the case not just in my home state of arkansas, it's an issue nationwide. if you look at the numbers across the nation, farm income is approximately half of what it was then. farm bankruptcies are up by 39% since 2014. financing is becoming expensive. input costs are rising. and the trade outlook is volatile and uncertain. farmers across the country, regardless of where they call home or which crops they glow, are hurting -- they grow are hurting. they are e experiencing the most fragile farm economy since the 1980's farm crisis with the current farm bill set to expire at the end of september, we must pass a new one in a timely manner to provide certainty and predicability to the folks who feed and clothe our nation and
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the world. programs authorized by the farm bill are vital to making sure that as a nation we do not become dependent on other countries for our food supply. along with providing key risk management tools for our farmers, the farm bill also helps our rural communities by authorizing key economic development and job creation programs. it helps rule arkansans with everything from home financing to internet access to small business loans. the agriculture committee, under the leadership of chairman roberts and ranking member stabenow, approved a fair and equitable farm bill with overwhelming bipartisan support. i was particularly pleased to see that the committee passed a mark contained strong farm policy for producers of all stripes. these programs allow our family farms to compete in a high-risk,
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heavily globalized subsidized marketplace as we debate amendments on the floor, we must defeat amendments that would harm the farm safety net for our producers. ensuring that producers across the nation have options that meet their specific needs when those needs are so varied is a delicate balance to strike. but the chairman and the ranking member have achieved it. i appreciate what a heavy lift it is and what it took to get to this point, and i hope the senate as a whole does as well. i do have very deep concerns about the provisions included in the substitute amendment that undermine this delicate balance. one provision in particular aimed at bolstering small family farms will in fact hurt family farms across the country. unfortunately we do not know exactly how deep this cut will
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be. the provision was not filed as an amendment, and senators were not given time to properly vet it. but i do know one thing, this will hurt farmers and the rural communities where they live. usda estimates that my home state of arkansas will be third most impacted. the state behind texas, illinois and iowa. iowa will be the fourth most impacted state. this provision does not discriminate against regions. it discriminates against farmers and those who feed and clothe this nation. i am very much opposed to this language, but i am thankful that the house did not take this tact in crafting its farm policy. i'm committed to working to remove this provision before we enact a final farm bill this congress. we must provide a farm bill that gives producers certainty and predicability without further exacerbating the difficult farm economy that they are facing.
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if we can commit to continue to follow the fair and equitable approach that was exhibited when we fashioned the bill in committee, we can pass a farm bill that has a chance to become law. let's not squander this opportunity. our farmers in rural america need this bill. let's get it passed so that we can provide our farmers and ranchers with the certainty and predicability they need to succeed. and with that, mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:
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a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. a senator: thank you, mr. president, for the recognition today. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. udall: i would ask to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection.
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mr. udall: i rise today to talk about the immigration crisis that this president has generated. the nation has seen images of children trapped behind wire fencing, children sleeping on concrete floors. we've seen the tents hurriedly set up to house children separated from their parents. and we've seen the video of jessica, who doesn't know where her mother is and wants to talk to her. we've heard the audio of young children crying out for their mothers and fathers. and we've heard the audio of a detention facility staff person telling the kids not to talk to the press, claiming it will hurt their immigration case. as of june 12, on american soil, over 100 babies under the age of one year are being held in detention by the american government. and we think this can't be
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happening in the united states of america, but it is. last friday senators heinrich and blumenthal and i visited president trump's tent city in torneo, texas, and we toured a border patrol station in clint and el paso and a port of entry in el paso. we were turned away from tourneau on friday, and so i went back saturday and got inside to see the children. we all went to these government facilities to get answers, but we came up short. most pressing, we still don't know when or how all the thousands of children taken from their parents will be reunited. we don't know how children whose parents have already been deported will be reunited. we have parents scared they will never see their children again.
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the confusion, chaos, and incompetence with which the president's zero tolerance policy was executed is only outmatched by the confusion, chaos, and incompetence with which reunification is being handled. the immediate priority must be to get these children back to their parents as soon as possible. we know we are doing damage to these children every day they are not with their families. we know this. pediatric and mental health professionals all agree the american academy of pediatrics condemned the administration because those doctors know separating families can result in irreparable harm. that's the quote of the american pediatric association. irreparable harm to separated children.
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last weekend i saw children detained in tents in tourneau, only able to talk to their parents twice a week for ten minutes. i saw astounding young children k-rbgs children three to ten years old who crossed the border without their parents and i saw families from guatamala, honduras and el salvador fleeing violence and persecution, locked in detention at border patrol. and i met have gabriellela who is not own 2, her father detained, both of them trying to escape the brutality and gangs in honduras. president trump claims there is a border crisis, but communities on the border dispute this. i'm a senator from a border state, and i dispute this. i represent border communities, and i have been to the border
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many, many times, recently and over the years. president trump has not. he should come down for himself and see the humanitarian crisis he has created. detention facilities for children are overwhelmed. we have heard from a whistle-blower in new york that there is not enough staffing at her facility because of all the young children coming in. these internment camp-like facilities, as former first lady laura bush has compared them to, are costing americans and american taxpayers millions of dollars. the tent city costs $400,000 every day. and the president's poorly conceived executive order directs the secretary to set up
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even more facilities on bases. zero tolerance has overwhelmed the u.s. attorneys' offices on the border. now instead of prosecuting violent criminals for serious crimes, federal prosecutors are wasting resources, focusing instead on criminally prosecuting mothers and fathers for misdemeanor improper entry violations. there is a call to take military j.a.g. lawyers away from their more important duties to handle the flood of immigration cases, and recalling prosecutors from their post in indian country where they are so sorely needed. all systems are bursting at the seams, thanks to the president's madeup crisis. cruelty and bureaucratic incompetence. as of today, there is no clear path forward to reunite families, no timeline.
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tuesday, the secretary for health and human services the czar admitted in his testimony before the senate finance committee no timeline. the department of health and human services is prohibited under the flores case from reuniteing children with parents going into detention. but the president wants to keep zero tolerance in place and continue to prosecute and keep parents in detention with their children. not only is this cruel and un-american, but i think the federal judge in flores is going to reject the president's request to allow children to be jailed with their parents longer than 20 days. the president has doubled down on zero tolerance, and like many of his policies that are hastily implemented and borne of his divisive agenda, there is no plan b. if the court refuses, as
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it should, to allow children to be jailed with their parents. there is an obvious solution. successful alternatives to detention have demonstrated compliance rates of 99% with court appearances and i.c.e. appointments. these programs are both effective and cost a fraction of what it takes to detain families. so why doesn't the president use these programs and save taxpayers millions of dollars? because he thinks it doesn't appear tough, and he takes away his bargaining chip of detained children he thinks he can use to get his wall. in the president's rush to gain political traction, he has created a humanitarian and moral crisis within our own borders, the likes of which we have not seen since we interned families
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of japanese heritage during world war ii. but i can tell you that i will not back down from this fight, and more importantly i can tell you that the american people and new mexicans are with me. it is the voices of the american people that forced the president to retreat from his brutal family separation policy, and it is those voices that will prevail in the end. the administration is trying its hardest to hide what's going on from the american people, but the american people are demanding answers. we all must continue to speak out until we have policies in place that make sure families stay together lawfully and humanely. we need alternatives to detention, and we need to stand up for due process. as americans see images of separated children and family detention camps, they turn to congress and they turn to the
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judicial system as well. the federal district judge recently issued a ruling barring family detention and ordering reunification within 30 days, but the trump administration may fight this ruling just like they are fighting to overturn flores which came out of a supreme court case. and now today, justice kennedy has announced he is retiring. i had some very strong disagreements with his rulings, especially on campaign finance reform, but i thank him for his service. he was a thoughtful judge. but i am very concerned with the process to replace him. the majority leader is trying to eliminate advice and consent from the process. we should wait until after the upcoming election. that will be a shorter time than leader mcconnell waited in
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2016, the last election year. and i am very concerned with the president's process. he's picking from an ideological list, with a history of personally attacking judges he disagrees with while demanding loyalty from his appointees. at the same time, this administration is undermining due process across the board, along the border for minority races or religions for a woman's right to choose. the constitution requires a real advice and consent process. the majority leader needs to ensure one. if the mcconnell rule was in place in 2016, election year, it should be in place for 2018. given the president's attacks on due process and rule of law, we should let the people speak before we consider his next supreme court nominee.
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mr. president, i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:
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quorum call:
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a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kansas.
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mr. moran: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. president, thank you very much. i'm here on the senate floor this afternoon to discuss really the farm bill, but more importantly, the current state of the farm economy in the place i call home, kansas. every five years we have an opportunity to develop farm policy and this is my, i would guess, fourth time of being involved with farm bill discussions and negotiations and passage of a farm bill, each farm bill is developed at a time when there are unique challenges and rural america is in a different circumstance, but the farm bill is important to us, it's important to kansans. it's important to kansans whether they are a farmer or not. this is a way we provide certainty, security, a are future for the places that many of us call home. and the challenges that farmers and ranchers face today are
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significant, they are tremendous. the ag economy is struggling. commodity prices are low. over the course of the 2014 farm bill, the one we are soon to replace, farm revenues fell by over 50% and it continues to be those low commodity prices today. in addition to low commodity prices, weather has not been our friend in kansas and many places across the country, especially in the midwest, with tang drought. so you -- continuing drought. so you end up with the worse of bots circumstances, low commodity prices and not much production. so it is important that we are able to pass a farm bill. it is important that we provide certainty. it's important that we provide a safety net to those who struggle every day to feed, cloatdz, and -- clothes, and provide energy to us and the rest of the world. a primary motivation for which i
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ask kansans to represent them here in the united states senate, to represent them in congress, was a belief that rural america is a place worthy of keeping around for a while longer. i hope a long while longer. by when agricultural interests struggle, when farmers and ranchers are in difficult circumstances, every community across kansas struggles and in fact the united states of america faces tremendous challenges. again, you don't have to be a farmer or rancher in our state, but your community's future depends upon whether or not farmers and ranchers are successful. the extended downturn in the farm economy has forced more and more ag producers to look for off-the-farm income. many, many farmers, i would say most farmers in kansas no longer earn a living solely by farming. husband, wife, or both have to find off-the-farm income to keep the farm intact. "the wall street journal" indicates that 82% of income for
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u.s. farm households is expected to come from jobs off the farm this year. i highlight that because it is that struggle that farmers face every year all the time every day to keep the farm intact. i visit with farmers and ranchers on a regular basis, and it's apparent the stress they are encount countering. it's -- encountering. it's taken its toll. many farm families are now stretched to the limit of their financial viability. this week the senate has the opportunity to consider and to vote for legislation that will help address the challenges in rural america. the senate farm bill provides a stable safety net for our farmers and ranchers, protects key management tools, crop insurance in particular, and ensures that continued success -- continued access to credit for producers, particularly for
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our young farmers, is so important. you cannot borrow money from a bank, from a financial institution in the absence of the safety net that the farm bill provides. you cannot borrow money from a financial institution for a line of credit for your farm to pay for the seed, to buy the fuel in the absence of crop insurance that protects you in the loss or reduction in production on your farm. i appreciate the strong focus in this farm bill also on rural development and on conservation programs. the farm bill is mostly about snap, nutrition programs. but the titles of the farm bill that are also important to the country are the -- is title 1 which is the farm programs but you add to that conservation programs, add to that rural development programs, and this
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is one of the most significant opportunities we have to stand strong side by side with those who live in rural america. one of the primary ways that i judge whether or not farm policy or a farm bill is of value is the circumstances in which we allow for young farmers, young men and women who grew up on a farm, young people who want to be a farmer, do they have the opportunity to return to their home community, to their family's farm and become farmers? is that increasing or decreasing? and again we -- i look at a farm bill whether or not is successful, are we increasing the number of young men and women across kansas and the united states who return to take over family farming and ranching opportunity -- excuse me -- operations. the hercurry brothers in kansas is an example of this generation
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operation that we ought to make certain continues into the future. i just saw and learned yesterday that this year the mercurry brothers' farm is notably celebrating their 90th anniversary. we need more aspects of american life like the mercurry brothers and other farming operations where sons and daughters work alongside moms and dads. grandparents, grandmother's and grandfathers. in agriculture, land, equipment, and livestock are passed down from generation to generation. i care about farmers and ranchers because they are the economic future of most communities in my state, but i also care about farmers and ranchers because it is a way of life that allows us to pass on values, morals, integrities, traditions from one generation to the next. that opportunity to work side by side with mom and dad, the opportunity to work side by side with grandparents is a vanishing
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thing in our country. agriculture is a place in which it still occurs, and it's been important in the way our country has developed, that relationship, that passage of again integrity, character, love of life, an understanding of what's truly valuable in life, knowing about farming and ranching and working with your grandparents, working with your parents changes the way you see the world and in my view, this country needs more of that, not less. this farm bill is especially important now because of the uncertainty that exists related to trade. with low commodity prices and uncertain now export markets, providing risk management tools for a -- and a strong safety net through a farm bill is even more important than ever. lower commodity prices, poor weather, and now the uncertainty of where the united states will send up in regard to trade around the globe.
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we should be clear that no farm program safety net can replace lost exports and lost markets in agriculture. that's why it's critical that we successfully conclude nafta negotiations and avoid a multifront trade war that will have a direct economic consequence for agriculture in rural kansas. in meetings across kansas, sometimes i hear, let's just forget the rest of the world. let's just take care of ourselves. but if a farmer thinks that or says that or if we think that's possible, i would say to those people, what 48% of wheat acres in kansas do you not want to plant and do you not want to harvest because we produce more in the united states in agriculture than we can consume, and we earn a living by selling that surplus to places around
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the globe. it is income to farmers and ranchers. it is the economic future of my state. the trade uncertainty has already impacted markets. as countries that typically buy american grown commodities have started to look to other suppliers, including to our competitors, especially argentina and brazil. given the trade and market uncertainty, it is critical that we do our job and pass a farm bill this week as we work towards sending a finished product to the president to sign by the end of september when the current farm bill, the current legislation expires. in that economic development aspect of a farm bill, in that rural development aspect of a farm bill, i want to mention a key provision of the senate farm bill. i want to indicate some areas in which we can make some improvements and i'd like to do this in a highlight way and a
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brief manner. i want to talk about the importance of broadband to rural states like mine. i was excited to see in the f.y. 2018 omnibus bill it included a new pilot program, a loan and grant program with -- to bolster employment across our states and bridge the digital divide between urban and rural. to ensure he effective use of te resources, i applaud the farm bill for including critical guardrails, what i call guardrails to prevent duplication and overbuilding of broadband infrastructure for new and current usaid programs. we want to make sure those dollars are spent where there is no broadband services or where there is very little, where access to broadband -- and again agriculture is so important -- it matters in our schools, our library, and our hospitals and our businesses but to farmers in
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today's world, technology is the key and broadband access determines whether or not your farm equipment can provide you with the latest technology and information to more efficiently and effectively and therefore hopefully more profitably farm. access to quality, high speed broadband will remain a necessary tool for rural communities to participate in an increasingly globalized economy. i also want to mention that -- something called e.c.p. i note my appreciation to chairman roberts that this bill includes an amendment that i offered, offered by me and republican and democrat members of the senate to increase the level of support that ranchers would receive under emergency conservation program, e.c.p. in 2016 and 2017, i talked about how weather wasn't our friend but that drought then caused fires to consume thousands of
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acres of grass land in our state causing great damage to cattle producers. 10,000 miles of fence was destroyed in clark county, kansas alone. the e.c.p. provided assistance to producers but in many cases fell well short of providing the level of assistance needed to replace the miles of fence that ranchers lost in the fire. it wasn't just fence that our ranchers lost. it was their entire herds in many instances. we also learned of areas of e.c.p. that ought to be improved as a result of those fires, and this legislation incorporates those provisions. and i'm appreciative that that's the case. farmers and ranchers have been frustrated by the long delays that they have encountered in receiving reimbursement for building those fences under e.c.p., and many instances ranchers didn't have the money to pay for the fencing in the beginning. so this is a significant
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improvement, and i'm grateful that it's here. when a ranching family has lost everything in a fire, including cattle, fence, range land and their homes, taking over a year to provide emergency assistance is unacceptable. further, because they've lost everything, many of the ranchers do not have any collateral necessary to get a loan to cover those significant costs to rebuilding fencing. mr. president, i also want to compliment the senator from south dakota in legislation that he -- an amendment that he has offered regarding livestock hauling. we have a significant problem in our ranching world where in many communities, truckers, those who haul cattle from market to market, from feed yard to market, to processing plant, that's an important way to earn a living. the senator from south dakota, senator thune, has offered an
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additional 150-mile radius exemption for agriculture at the end of that drive. cattle are transported across the nation to kansas each year, and we need to make sure that the hours of service rules for those haulers allows that to occur safely and humanely but yet allows the transportation to continue to occur. i'm a cosponsor of legislation to address this issue, and i hope that amendment is included in the farm bill. again, mr. president, i'm preesh -- i appreciate the chance to have a conversation with my colleagues this evening to highlight the importance of this legislation. this is about the future of america. it's about the future of rural america. i always look forward to working on a farm bill that allows us the opportunity to enact and improve on policies that help farmers and ranchers and the rural communities they live in and support. this farm bill will provide stable farm policies during a time of high uncertainty in agriculture. i thank senator roberts, the
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chairman of the agriculture committee, i thank the senator from michigan, senator stabenow, the ranking democrat on the committee for working together and i hope at the end of the day, hope at the end of this week we will see the benefits of their work. mr. moran: i look forward to this bill and work to improve the final version through conference with the house. mr. president, i yield the floor after noting the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: will the senator withhold his request. mr. moran: i will. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: i commend my colleague for his focus on the farm bill, and thank him for the work that we are doing together on the consumer protection subcommittee of the commerce, science, and transportation committee, and i look forward to that continuing to work together which involves so closely and
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importantly the rule of law. i come on -- to the floor on a separate issue involving the rule of law. we have been reminded literally within the last 24 hours about the importance of the rule of law as applied to the families who have sought to cross the border. and experienced extraordinary cruelty and inhumanity when their children were taken from them. a court literally in the last 24 hours issued an order requiring that those children be reunited with their families. that decision is not only a humane and moral one, it is also in accord with constitutional and statutory requirements. those children never should have been separated from their parents. but now because of the courts,
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and excessive and abusive use of power will be -- an excessive and abusive use of power will be collected. we're living in a time of unapparelled threat of the rule of law and liberties from a chief executive who seems to have no respect for them and the courts are exercising their traditional role. in fact, the role of the founders envisioned for them as a check on unhinged executive power. we also learned just today that a key figure in the judicial system, justice kennedy, will be retiring this summer. this retirement is earth shaking
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and gut-wrenching, and his departure means a historic challenge is ahead. the american people should have a voice. my republican colleagues should follow their own precedent. the confirmation vote should take place after the new congress is seated. a historic decision, one that will literally shape the decisions of the courts for years and likely decades requires deliberate consideration that simply is impossible in the short months we have between now and the election. indeed, politically charged months. the future of privacy protections, women's health care, and many basic civil
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rights, including health care, whether or not young people are on their parents' insurance until the age of 26, whether people are vulnerable to preexisting conditions abuses, whether people have basic health care rights that are guaranteed to them under the affordable care act, all of these rights are at shake and at risk. the supreme court is not just marble pillars and velvet drapes. its decisions have a direct impact on people's lives and the lives of our children. so we are here in this chamber at a critical moment when the judicial system lit literally will be -- literally will be determined for decades to come.
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nothing brings this issue home more readily and dramatically than viewing the children who have been separated from their families and the families themselves at the border. i visited the border this past friday, along with my colleague, senator heinrich and senator udall of new mexico, two good friends and colleagues. at each stop we made, we saw the devastating human impact of this president's immoral and inhumane policies of family separation and family detention. in tornillo, texas, we visited a tent city where teenagers 14 to 17 years old are confined, in effect incarcerated in a modern-day internment camp. make no mistake. they have been deprived of basic access to the outside world and
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of access by that outside world to them. the deprivation of liberty is the core definition of incarceration, and the potential detainment of tens of thousands of families in exactly that kind of tent city located on our military bases throughout the country should frighten and alarm every american because we are seeing repeated at a different age in black -- in color rather than black and white the images of those internment camps where thousands of people of japanese descent were sent during world war ii. now, we may not agree with every
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decision of the united states supreme court, but we know it is unique, it is certainly different as a judicial institution, and it should be considered unique in choosing open-minded and fair jurors in the mold of justice kennedy for these positions, not right-wing fringe ideologues. i believe that colleagues on both sides of the aisle will stand up and be counted if that kind of right-wing frigido log is nominated, and we certainly must use every tool available to stop that kind of nominee, because what's at stake are real lives like the ones i saw in el paso. i met with a 2-year-old girl who
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trekked across mexico with her father for a month. her father held her as we spoke to him, and he must now worry whether she will be separated from him and detained indefinitely and indiscriminately. the anguish and anxiety that i saw in that girl's eyes still haunts me, and it will be with me for a long time. we saw a legal, moral, and humanitarian crisis unfolding before our eyes in real time. this administration claims that it's solving this crisis, but the clear virtually undisputed evidence suggests exactly the contrary. more than 100 facilities nationwide house migrant children, and the administration is looking to open even more
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facilities very likely on military bases, and little progress has been made on reuniting these families. the department of health and human services has reported that 2,470 -- 2,047 unaccompanied minor children are still in its custody. health and human services secretary azar has claimed before the finance committee yesterday, and i quote him, that there is, quote, no reason why any parent would not know where their child is located, end quote. he claimed that, and i quote him again here, every parent should know, end quote, where their child is located. well, the reality is there's no plan to reunite them. thousands of parents have no idea where their children are.
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what's happening on the ground is that many parents are enduring the pain and suffering of simply not knowing where their child is, and many children, the pain and suffering of not knowing where their parents are. the father of the 2-year-old whom i saw clutching his child to his chest as she stared into the unknown future ahead of her has no reason to believe the secretary of health and human services because he knows what the reality is on the ground. if the department of health and human services or the department of homeland security can tell parents where their children are as easily as secretary azar
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claims, it should have done so yesterday. it should have done so friday when i visited. we all know from firsthand accounts it simply isn't happening. and that the emotional and physical damage to these families will last a lifetime for many of them. that trauma will be enduring. the president claims his executive order has solved these problems, but it has not. all it has done is to substitute family imprisonment and incarceration for family separation. this executive order is in clear violation of the flores settlement agreement, which is legally binding on the united states government. it prohibits detaining children for more than 20 days, in effect
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imprisoning them with their parents as the executive order has the effect of doing, and put aside the humanitarian and moral costs to this nation and the damage to our image around the world. the cost per individual per day in tornillo is $2,000. let me repeat that number. the cost per individual per day for every person in tornillo is $2,000. that cost alone financially is intolerable, but the moral and humanitarian costs are even more profound. this executive order is destructive, it is draconian, it is no answer to the problem of family separation and detention. the evidence is clear from my visit to the border, as far as i'm concerned but also in everything the administration
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has said, that the time is now to end this immoral and inhumane zero tolerance policy that involves intergally criminal prosecution, and the rest of these issues really flow from that criminal prosecution because it triggers the imprisonment, in effect confinement without bail is the way it would be looked at in the civilian setting. this administration must adopt less restrictive alternatives if it wants to guarantee the appearance of these families for their hearings. we know that less restrictive alternatives work, and they have been proven in the past, and they also cost less. they are more humane. they protect our moral principles, and they are less
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expensive. piecemeal announcements from this administration have been contradictory and unclear. it has been the opposite of transparent. congressional committees now must exercise our responsibility for oversight and scrutiny. there must be hearings. and it must involve all the federal agencies with responsibility. as a member of the senate armed services committee, i am particularly concerned that the department of defense is dramatically increasing its involvement in immigration enforcement. the plan is to build these tent camps on two military bases in texas -- at fort bliss in el paso is one of them -- and unaccompanied children will be held at goodfellow air base in san angelo. the families at fort bliss, the
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unaccompanied children on good fellow air force base in san angelo will be in effect incarcerated on the basis of military men and women who serve and sacrifice for the values that will be betrayed by that illegal and immoral confinement in violation of the flores agreement and fundamental principles of fairness. military services are preparing as well to offer additional military bases to detain migrants. department of defense had sent 21 active and reserve uniform judge advocates to the border on temporary order to prosecute department of justice immigration cases. all of these developments represent a clear diversion of department of defense resources from military missions to immigration enforcement. the presiding officer and i
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served together on the armed services committee as well as the judiciary committee, and we both know the deep and serious consideration that was required as to resource commitments in the latest national defense authorization act. a difficult decision that had to be made in a time of scarce resources and growing danger around the world to our military and national security. i am concerned that these policies will compromise military readiness and lead to the indefinite detention of immigrants on american military installations. i have consistently opposed the use of these military installations to house unaccompanied migrant children. i will continue to oversee the department of defense involvement in this critical issue, and again i urge my colleagues on both sides of the
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aisle that the senate armed services committee must hold an oversight hearing on this issue as soon as possible. we owe it to the american people. family -- family separation and detention should no longer be a political issue. we need to come together and make sure the president understands that my grant children -- migrant children can no longer be treated as pawns that have nothing to do with the plight of immigrant families. we should reject this president's crude and cynical strategy. we cannot risk continuing to separate and indefinitely detain migrant families. this offends our basic sense of morality and justice, and they
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are unnecessary to protect our border. yes, we all want border security. yes, we want to stop drug traffickers, and human traffickers from taking advantage of our borders. we want more resources in judges and border patrol agents and members of the united states customs and border protection services. they should have the resources and support they need. we met with the many dedicated men and women who are serving in those agencies. but violating our basic sense of due process, abrogating due process rights to adjudication is denied and due process is be a row indicated -- be a indicated should be intolerable.
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at this juncture, the urgent need, it has to be now, reuniting these families. and if shaming the administration is what is needed, we should do it. but ultimately the rule of law will be enforced by our court. they will be regarded in history, along with our free press, as the bulwark between a potentially tyrannical presidency and preservation of our fundamental rights. now is the time to celebrate and protect those basic rights and the rule of law. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.
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quorum call:
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>> you know, the senate failed on the immigration issue earlier this year, and sadly the house may do the same thing. >> will this be the compromised bill that was initially supposed to be voted on last week? >> it will. we call it the consensus bill because we're not allowed to compromise in washington, d.c., but it really is an effort to bring together -- it won't be a single democratic vote for this even though the bill would, you know, give legal status to
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dreamers and a path to citizenship, but i think the immigration enforcement, particularly the boarder wall issue for democrats is probably a bridge too far. we're really bargaining between the two extremes of our caucus. we have got some people that would very much, you know, vote for a clean dreamers bill and some people that frankly are not as moderate in a sense as president trump is. president trump legalized -- not just the daca enrollees but the eligible population under his four pillars proposal and offered a path to citizenship. this is actually a bill that president trump supports and we've still got people that are more conservative on the issue than him. >> you are talking about house freedom caucus types? >> to be fair, they have participated in very good faith in this exercise. you have to remember most of them voted for a bill that gives legal status to dreamers last
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week. so i think they have been -- we will wait and see how the vote goes. part our problem is i was with president trump yesterday to talk about how we move legislation that appropriates money for the government through, and about half of it was senate and half of it was house, and he made a point, he says i was talking to a lot of the house guys on this bill, i think i could move them in that direction but they say you have this rule of 60 in the senate so it is not going anywhere so why would she run a risk if the -- why should we run a risk if the senate is not going to do anything? he was critical on the senate on that deal. he said you can't blame the house guys, if it's not going anywhere in the senate, why should they run the risk? it is a frustrating issue. there's an answer here, border security, legal status and ultimately a road to citizenship, but the extraneous issues have made it very knotty.
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again we can't get any democrat support because of the border security. >> would you place the blame on the president? >> i don't place the blame on anybody, to tell you the truth. >> could he have had a more stronger hand on this, like look i like this versus that? >> in private he has been -- i shouldn't say private because he came to republican conference and said look, i'm for both of these bills. gs under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. thursday, june 28. further, following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and morning business be closed. finally, i ask that following leader remarks the senate resume consideration of h.r. 2. the presiding officer: is there objection? 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
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>> senate today working on its version of the 2018 farm bill. the legislation sets farm, conservation, crop insurance, nutrition and rural development policies through 2023. it also legalizes commercial hemp production for industrial use. the senate version of the farm bill does not include a provision passed by the house that would expand work requirements for people who receive benefits, under the supplemental nutrition assistance program, also known as snap. also today senate majority leader mcconnell and minority leader schumer spoke on the floor about the announcement this afternoon that supreme court justice anthony kennedy is retiring. >> mr. president, just a few moments ago, justice anthony kennedy announced that he is retiring, as an associate justice of the u.s. supreme court and taking senior status effective july 31st.

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