quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. a senator: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. portman: to spreurbt the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. portman: today i'd like to report back about the results of legislation we of passed here in the united states senate and the house, was signed into law by the president. we don't do that often enough. we tend to pass legislation and don't do the oversight to figure out whether it's working or not. in this case this was legislation we passed on a bipartisan basis called the stop enabling sex traffickers act. we passed it back in april. this is legislation that allows

the victims of sex trafficking to get the justice they deserve by being able to sue websites that traffic them online knowingly and to be able to have some accountability for these horrible crimes that are committed online, and then also to allow prosecutors at the state and local level to be able to prosecute these cases. we drafted the legislation because after looking at this for several years, realized that there was a rise in trafficking going on, trafficking of girls underage, trafficking of women, sometimes boys underage, and that this was increasing primarily because of the internet, kind of dark side of the internet. we hear a lot about what's going on on the internet these days in terms of meddling on our elections, the positives of the internet and there's also a darker side. we realized this is going on

online increasingly and a ruthlessly efficient way to basically sell people online. we looked at it and found out that there is a federal law put in place with good intentions i believe back a couple of decades ago to try to ensure freedom of the internet which of course all of us support but it provided an effective immunity to these websites even if they were selling people online knowingly. we wrote legislation to get at that, spent about a year trying to get that through the process and eventually got it to a vote and got it passed. the law which provided the immunity was part of the communications decency act that was meant, again, to try to encourage freedom of the internet but was taken too far, particularly in how it was interpreted by the courts. the internet was something that we had to address because without that, you would see this increase of drug trafficking and sex trafficking. so what happened?

after passing the law, there was a pretty dramatic change. on monday i was in cincinnati, ohio, my hometown, at a place called the change court. the change court is a place where women who are incarcerated, who are trafficked and incarcerated for prostitution are able to go through a two-year program to help them get clean and if they're willing to go through this program, to let them walk away with a clean record, understanding that sex trafficking is not a crime, that in effect they are victims of trafficking. it's very inspiring to go there because in that case i talked to about a dozen women currently in the program, some women who had graduated from the program. the stories are unbelievable of women getting their lives back together, getting back to work, getting back to their families, in almost every case getting back to their children because in almost every case these are moms, and having the self-respect and dignity that comes with work and getting back

with their families and getting their lives back on track. it's really a much, much better alternative than the system of throwing people into jail who are in effect victims of this traffic and not dealing with their issues, whether it's the trauma or whether it's the drug addiction, which in almost every case, almost every case of these women there was a drug addiction issue. almost all of them were opioid addicts or recovering addicts. one was addicted to alcohol. but this is just common. so anyway, in talking to these women, almost every one of them said the same thing, which is, yes, they had been trafficked online, and they were very interested in this legislation because they have been through it and they want to save future women and girls from having to go down this dark path. so anyway, we passed the legislation and assessed the legislation meant to be able to help on this issue. and i was able to tell these

women at the change court what the wrults -- wrults were and they're pretty dramatic. on monday i met with the national center for missing and exploited children that is the leading company in the children, they work day and night to keep the statistics and data. they focus on rescuing kids from being exploited. according to nicmic, the results signed into law has been swift and significant. they said, quote, since the enactment of sesta and backpage.com, doing most of the commercial drug trafficking prior to the legislation, since then there has been a major disruption in the online marketplace. the robust marketplace for sex trafficking including the sale of children for rape and sexual abuse that took a decade to build fragmented over the course

of just a few days. end quote. they also said, and i quote, many sites or portions of sites where nicmic knew children previously had been sold for sex voluntarily shut down. their bottom line. and i quote, this means it is much harder to purchase a child online. this means it is much harder to purchase a child online. that's great news. and that's exactly what we intended this legislation to do, to be able to save these kids and these women and sometimes boys from being subject to this horrific crime. i will tell you, there's another analysis that was shared with me recently. you can find this online, but this analysis found that online ads selling women and children have been reduced since our legislation passed by between 60% and 80%, depending on the state. between 60% and 80% depending on the state. dramatic change. again having the effect of

saving literally thousands of children. so i'm hopeful that we'll continue to be vigilant about this issue because, you know, when you push something down in one place it often pops up somewhere else, doesn't it. but we have done an effective job in dealing with a very real problem. backpage.com which we talked about was the industry leader. they have not been shut down. their c.e.o. in the company pled guilty to numerous money laundering and trafficking related charges. and because prosecutors can now do their work and go after these online traffickers and because victims of this abhorrent crime can finally have their day in court, these websites that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking are being shut down and being held liable for their action. this never would have been possible without the work of the permanent skh-t -- subcommittee on investigations. the staff there spent two years working on this issue investigating it. we had to come all the way to this floor, to the chamber in

order to enforce our subpoenas to get the information which we were able to unveil which no one else had been able to find which showed they knew what they were doing and selling underage kids online. i'm very proud of those investigators. i share that subcommittee. it's bipartisan. they do good work and they deserve to be applauded given the results that we're now seeing. by the way, it's not just backpage, a lot of other classified websites shut down their personal ads so-called or sex-related operations. the issue of sex trafficking, again we've made good progress on, but it is so related to the issue of opioid abuse. and specifically, as i said, this goes hand in hand often. often traffickers find people who are addicted because they are vulnerable, because they crave the drug and the trafficker can provide it. but also many times we have found in my home state of ohio, as i've met with survivors that

they find vulnerable people who are not addicted but then make them addicted so they become dependent on the trafficker. this is an issue that relates to so many things. it relates to our workplace because people who are addicted to opioids are not coming into the workforce. one reason we have such high levels of unemployment, people outside the workforce altogether. they're not showing up on the unemployment numbers because they aren't even looking for work. the labor force participation rate as economists call it is so low right now is largely, in my view, because of it this opioid issue. our courts are jammed. our jails are jammed. our hospital emergency rooms are jammed. we have to do more to get at this issue for so many reasons. the driving force there in my home state of ohio and around the country now is this synthetic form of heroin or opioids. it's called fentanyl, 50 times more powerful than heroin. there's other drugs call k carfentanil as an kpaepbl --

example, even more powerful. these synthetic forms of opioids are causing most of the tkegdz tkegdz -- deaths around the country. the c.d.c. issued a report which showed the increase in overdose deaths involving fentanyl. it analyzed ten deaths and found the deaths nearly doubled from 2016 to the first six months of 2017. fentanyl overdose deaths in those states nearly doubled from the last six months of 2016 to the first six months of 2017. 2017 is the last year for which they have good records. it's unbelievable. the synthetic form of heroin is the new scourge of the opioid epidemic. it's being spread into every other drug too. when i do roundtables back home, i hear about it being spread into crystal meth, into cocaine,

being spread to heroin, of course, twice in roundtable discussions i've had with community leaders, i heard one from a police chief, one from a sheriff, similar stories about a young man who wakes up from an overdose after being saved through narcan, this miracle drug that reverses the effects of an overdose, and when the young man comes to says i was just smoking pot. how did i overdose? and in both conveys, based on the forensics, the information they were able to get from the labs, they found out that, of course, it wasn't just marijuana. it was marijuana laced with fentanyl. so no street drug is laced. they can all kill you. as i met with these first responders, community leaders and those in recovery across ohio, as i just did recently with a group called prevention first,, i've heard what is often brought up by those on the front lines. that is that we would be making so much more progress now on this war against opioids that

we've been successful here in this congress in passing more money for prevention and treatment and recovery, those funds are starting to be used back home and i see it, the see the results and there's some really exciting stuff going on -- but for the fentanyl. in other words, just as we were finally making progress on prescription drugs and then on heroin, now this fentanyl is coming in and is creating more problems. it is so pervasive. recently in ohio, there were two busts that they were able to apprehend people selling fentanyl and find this carb of fentanyl -- this cache of fentanyl that they had. enough fentanyl to kill after the people who -- half the people who live in my state of owe ohio. that's how bad it is. just this last week there was an up a that revealed -- an autopsy that revealed that a death was caused by fentanyl. the report said, acute intoxication by fentanyl. it was an accidental overdose.

i've told before the story about the police officer who brushed a couple flakes off of his shirt after a bust. didn't know it was fentanyl. those flakes were the drug. it got into his skin through his fingers. he dropped to the ground, had an overdose and it took several doses of narcan to save his life. our first responders are more in danger than they have ever been even with heroin and prescription drugs and other opioids. addiction has taken too many lives in ohio and again fentanyl is the deadliest drawing in this epidemic. there was a recent estimation by a group which suggested that opioids are responsible for more than 500,000 years of life expectancy lost in ohio, between 2010 and 2016. think about that. 500,000 years of lost life due

to opioids in ohio just in the six years between 2010 and 2016. these are often lives of young people who had great promise ahead of them and they've become involved in this opioid epidemic and the addiction takes over and it's more important than anything -- it's more important than their family, their friends, their job, their faith, more important than taking care of themselves and they end up, sadly, losing their lives and all that opportunity and all the purpose that god had for them and their lives. so we need to turn the tide on this opioid open. we can't do it unless we get at this issue of fentanyl. we need to look at why it is coming, why it is so cheap. here is what's so interesting and might be surprising. it is not coming across the border from mexico or if it is, at the very little of it. that's where the heroin is coming from, probably 90% of it probably, more pure than ever, more dangerous than ever.

but this deadly fentanyl is mostly coming through the mail system. it's being mailed into the united states of america, mostly from overseas, mostly from china. so there are some evil scientists somewhere in china making this fentanyl and then shipping it into your community, and it's the number-one killer right now. and, by the way, opioid overdoses and deaths is the number-one cause of death in my home state of ohio. nationally it is the number-one cause of death, i'd told, among people over 50 years old. what can we do about it? there is something we can do about it. we've got to be sure that the post office helps law enforcement to find these packages as they're coming in and to get these packages out of circulation so they don't come into our communities and poison our families, our children, our

neighbors. we have legislation to do that. it's called the stop act. one-third of the members of this senate have now cosponsored that legislation. we've now had it reported out of finance committee of the united states senate. we need to get it to the floor and get it the to a vote. it's really very simple. it is legislation that amy klobuchar, a democrat from minnesota, on the other side of the aisle and i have come up with that says the post office should have to do what any other carrier should have to do -- fedex, u.p.s., d.h.l. -- which is they have to tell law enforcement in advance what packages are coming in, what's in it, where it is going. you have to provide that electronically so you can use big data to sift through the millions of packages coming in and find ones that are suspect and then use sophisticated equipment to pull those out of slackers that have fentanyl.

ist been to these distribution centers for these private carrier companies. i have a he seen the dangerous work that the customs and border protection men and women are doing, usually in a room that has significant ventilation and they have to have masks on and gloves. they have to be very careful about it. but thank god they're there because they're saving lives. if you send is it through the mail system, that very rarely happens. we did a year-long study of this in our permanent subcommittee on investigations i talked about earlier and we found a number of things that were very troubling. one is just how easy it is to buy fentanyl online. but second is the fact that these drugs, when they come in through the post office, it's guaranteed delivery. the traffickers will say, if you extend by fedex or another private carrier, it it it is not guaranteed. but if you send is it through the government, no problem.

letter carriers in my community and your community, they want this fixed, too, because they care about what comes into their communities. thet care about the people they serve and they want to be sure that they're not delivering poison. they also are at risk, just like anybody else is who's anywhere in that train. i talked about the law enforcement officers. think of the other first responders who are using narcan to revive people. they sometimes get exposed to it. we have too many stories of little kids accidentally dying from being exposed to fentanyl in the home. so we've got to fix this. the information as to where it is from, where it's going and what's in it when it's put into a digital format and can be analyzed can quickly through incredible intelligence that our customs and border protection people have be able to determine whether that package is suspect or not. that will make a huge difference in taking this off-line and

ensuring that we can in fact begin to stop some of the poison but at a minimum raise the price by reducing the supply. the post office, frankly, because of the pressure that they've gotten from congress on this over the last few years, have begun to start to look at some of this. they've begun to provide some of the electronic data based on testimony that they provided for our subcommittee just recently, they are now receiving data on about 36% of international packages they transport into the country. unfortunately, of that 36%, just over a third, about 80% of those packages are presented to law enforcement, 20% get lost and epidemiology up going into the system, into our -- end up going into the system. some of the data is not decipherable. so we have a long way to go, even if all 36% was being delivered to law enforcement, that would mean that 318 million international packages each year

was coming in without any screening. 318 million packages. so the stop social security very simple. it just holds the post office to the same standard as private carriers and requires that by 2020 they get all the data on all the international packages entering the united states. it is a commonsense solution. it has already passed the house of representatives recently with a broad, bipartisan vote. our committee has reported it out. we need to get it to the floor and get it voted on. if we do so, by the way, it will be signed because the administration has already issued a statement of administrative -- administration policy on it, which supports the legislation. it was actually a recommendation of the president's commission on opioids. it's part of the solution. is it the whole solution? no. but it is a critical part right now to try to stop some of this new poison, this fentanyl from coming into our communities, the number-one killer. so that we can through treatment and recovery and through better

prevention efforts and other better law enforcement efforts truly begin to turn the tide on this opioid epidemic. it's critical we do so for so many reasons we've talked about this afternoon, and my hope is that my completion both sides of the aisle -- my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will come together on this issue, the stop act, and say, yes, we can do something to help those in our communities who are suffering, those who are dying from overdoses, those families who are looking to us and saying, what can you do to help? i run into them all the time. today i'm heading back to ohio and i know that this weekend i will be talking to people in cleveland, cincinnati, or i'll be in columbus and they would be tell me about it. this week i was walking down the hall back to my office on tuesday and a young man came up to me and says, i just want to talk to you about something. and i figured he was with the media. wanted to ask me a question. i stopped and asked him what he wanted and he said, i just wanted to tell you thank you. and he started to well you have.

i knew what he was talking b i knew what he was talking about. he was talking about a family member of his who had overdosed and died and he was talking about the fact that he appreciates that the congress is finally beginning to respond to this issue, as we have in the last i do noter and a half, we have passed -- in the last year and a half we have passed legislation that's historic. but there's so much more to do. let's get the stop act into law and therefore be able to help people be able to live their god-given purpose in life. thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back my time.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that appointments at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that following leader remarks on monday, july 23, the senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of the following nomination,

executive calendar 1000, i ask that the time until 5:30 p.m. be divided in the usual form and that the senate vote on the nomination with no intervening action or debate. that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, the president be immediately informed of the -- notified of the senate's action, no motions be in order and any statement related to the nomination be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that following the disposition of the welke nomination that the senate resume legislative session and resume consideration of h.r. 6147. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 3:00 p.m. monday, july 23, 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.

i ask that following leader remarks the senate proceed to executive session under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: if there's no further business to come before the senate i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of senator sullivan. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. sullivan: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: mr. president, it's thursday afternoon and it's one of my favorite times of the week, and i know for many of my fellow senators, including the presiding officer and the pages, this is one of their favorite

times of the week too because it's the time that we get to talk about the alaskan of the week. now, there are people -- i had a couple of people come up, hey, senator, when are you giving your speech on the alaskan of the week? i said later. okay. we're going to keep an eye on it because people have a lot of interest in the great state of alaska. now, the alaskan of the week, as many of my colleagues know, is somebody who we like to highlight who has just done great stuff for the state, community, town, state, maybe country, sometimes it's someone famous, but, mr. president, oftentimes it's someone who's been working really hard for much of their life and doesn't get a lot of recognition, just doing it, the heroes of the community. and so that's why we like to talk about the alaskan of the week. it's also a great taunt to talk to people in the gallery, people

watching on tv and c-span to get them to come on up to alaska. come on up. it will be the trip of a lifetime. of course it's a gorgeous, huge state, mountains, glaciers, wildlife. when you get off the plane, you go to alaska, you get the sense of freedom, liberty. you can almost breathe it in ways that you can't in other places. so i ask everybody who's watching, come on up, you will love it. it will be a trip of a lifetime. you will feel that freedom in the air leak you do in almost -- like you do in almost no other place in the world. so, mr. president, let me introduce you to our alaskan of the week, genie fallet who has displayed incredible commitment to keep our state clean and special. all right. let's talk about genie.

she was born in detroit. she moved to anchorage when she was 6 years old and called alaska home ever since. like so many alaskans she led an interesting life. she began her career as a court reporter for the anchorage daily news covering all kinds of trials when our state was new and the court system had just been formed. eventually she moved to gerdwood, which is a beautiful ski resort town outside of alaska where she was a breakfast cook and managed condos. she got restless and drove across the country but missed alaska so much she came home and worked on the transatlantic pipeline that flows of billion of barrels of oil down to valdez

and then she met her husband, ken, when she was working on the transalaskan pipeline. they bought and restored a lodge in a wonderful small community called moose paths, a warm, welcoming, and gorgeous community in the heart of the kenai peninsula about 10. if you are going to go fish the famous russian river, moose pass is a great home base. ken and jeannie worked at the resort until they both retired. jeannie always liked to keep her yard and her surroundings clean and organized, free of trash. but when her husband ken unfortunately got sick and then tragically she lost him over 13 years ago, jeannie began to spend her days helping clean up the state.

picking up trash on the road by her house further and further from her home in moose pass. now, mr. president, think of this. as the snow melts in alaska and in all sorts of weather, to this day, jeannie laces up her hiking boots, grabs her visors, her gloves, her safety vest, drives up the highway to the spot where she left off the previous day, and she starts cleaning up the highway. every single day. she gets out her bags, she starts walking, cleaning up trash on the side of the highway, and this highway abuts the majestic, beautiful chugach national forest. she guests that every summer, she spends three to six hours a day volunteering, picking up

trash. think about that. alaska is a beautiful, pristine place. as a matter of fact, that's one of the things that when people come to visit, they're going to see, but like all states, in particular highway areas in states, you have some garbage. so jeanne takes action every single day, doesn't get paid. three to six hours a day. five days a week. she is out there cleaning up the highway. remarkable. sometimes friends and neighbors come and help out, boy scouts join her. one summer, she picked up 800 bags of trash to keep alaska clean and pristine. people stop on the side of the road to talk to her, ask where the nearest gas station is. sometimes people donate gas money to her because, remember,

she is starting where she left off the next day just to drive up the highway 40 miles to continue. so it's not just time and effort. it's actual money. she thinks her presence on the side of the highway helps motivate others. there was a story recently on ktuu, channel 2 -- that's our big news station in alaska. she said in that story, she thinks that she has helped inspire people to help keep the whole state clean, whether it's picking up trash themselves or not throwing litter outside your car. so why does she do it? why does she do it? several hours a day, no pay, day after day, week after week. she does it because she loves alaska. she wants to keep it clean. she doesn't want the many tourists -- we have hundreds of thousands, really millions of tourists who come to our state state -- to see trash when it's going to be a trip of a

lifetime. she said, quote, it embarrasses me to think that tourists from the lower 48 might show up in alaska and see trash. so i'm going to clean it up. she does it because it's her way to give back to a state that has given her so much. she also gets to see things that others don't see often, beautiful wildflowers on the road, creeks, secret vistas. i'm sure she has seen a few bears and a lot of bald eagles and moose. she even saw a man once walking a chicken. yes. you see everything in alaska. a man walking a chicken. well, jeanne, she has found lost items on the side of the road -- fishing licenses, cell phones, cameras, and she tries her best to get these back to their owners.

once she found a set of hubcaps that had contact information on it for the owner. when she called and told him she had his hubcaps, he couldn't believe it. he was tickled pink to get his hubcaps back. so, mr. president, i think every state has somebody like jeanne. there is no doubt we all owe a debt of gratitude to people like her working selflessly, volunteering thousands of hours to keep our states clean like alaska, to keep america clean. so, jeanne, thanks for what you're doing for the great state of alaska, and thank you and congratulations on being our alaskan of the week. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until monday at

>> you can follow the senate at live on c-span 2 when members gavel back in. >> c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up friday morning, heritage action for america's tim chapman discusses his group's role in the up coming midterm elections and supreme court confirmation hearings. then a look at election security in the up coming midterms, amid concerns of russian interference, with liz kennedy from the center for american

progress. and political report editor charlie cook on the outlook for the 2018 elections. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern friday morning. join the discussion. earlier today the senate banking committee held a confirmation hearing for president trump's nominees to lead the consumer financial protection bureau and the export import bank. we will show the hearing tonight starting at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. tomorrow the national governor's association begins its summer meeting in santa fe, new mexico. with discussions about the future of technology, workshops on workforce equity, women in leadership and economic opportunities in the outdoors. live friday, starting at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2. and saturday the final day of the summer meeting governor wills attend a discussion on collaboration between state and

federal governments, as well as the importance of art and history education starting live saturday at 12:15 p.m. eastern on c-span. tonight it is my honor and privilege to announce that i will nominate judge brett kavanaugh to the united states supreme court. [applause] >> mr. president, i'm grateful to you. and i'm humbled by your confidence in me. >> thank you. >> brett kavanaugh of the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit is president trump's nominee for the supreme court. >> i'm pleased with the nominee that the president has chosen and after talking to him yesterday morning, i look forward to supporting his nomination and doing whatever i can to ensure his bipartisan confirmation. if judge kavanaugh is confirmed, women's freedom to make decisions about their bodies, reforms to our healthcare

system, the quality of our air and water and much more will be at risk. >> frankly i cannot think of anybody who is more qualified to serve as the next associate justice of the supreme court. >> follow the confirmation process on c-span through congress as judge kavanaugh meets with key senators. the senate confirmation hearings, and the vote. watch live on c-span, watch any time on c-span.org, or listen with the free c-span radio app. next remarks by u.s. ambassador to the united nations, nikki haley on president trump's decision to withdraw from the u.n. human rights council. she said the council has strayed away from its mission and was too politicized, particularly regarding issues involving israel. held by the heritage foundation, this is an hour.