>> on the senate side can both sides that sort of stood down on policy writers in order to expedite the process. even though it's sort of inside baseball, we've been getting all the bills without a motion to proceed and processing them. because we both decided not to try to achieve each of the political objectives, which side can block, which ends up having an under this -- >> we leave this and take you live now to the floor of the senate. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: any senator in the chamber wishing to vote or change his or her vote? if not the yeas are 52. the nays are 46. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the pred will -- president will be notified of the senate's action. under the previous order the senate will resume legislative session. under the previous order there are 5 minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the shelby amendment to h.r. 6147.

order in the senate. please take your conversations off the floor. the senate will be in order. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. shelby: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i rise here this afternoon to urge my colleagues to invoke cloture on the substitute amendment before us. in debating this measure over the past week, we voted on several amendments. we hoped to include dozens more in the managers' package that we're working with the democrats on that continues to evolve. mr. president, we sought to achieve a fair process on this package. the bill managers have gone to great lengths to accommodate members' interests within a framework that has allowed us to make so much progress thus far in the appropriation process. i want to thank my colleagues and i want to especially thank senator leahy for working together with us in a bipartisan

way. and we hope that this will be, continue to be a constructive process because it is to all of our benefit. in this light i urge my colleagues to vote yes so that we can continue to move forward on this package and build upon the momentum that we've generated thus far. mr. leahy: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, can we have a modicum of order? just a modicum. the presiding officer: will members please take their conversations off the floor. order in the chamber, please. the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: got the modicum. i applaud what the senior senator from alabama said, that we're continuing to work on a managers' package, and i also want to be able to bring up some

point in my security grants package which especially as we know that russia and others continue to try to interfere with our elections. i applaud senator shelby. we worked very closely together throughout the weekend, yesterday and today. i believe the senate has to act as a coequal branch of government with regard to the threat of democracy. the threat is very real. almost everybody in our government, certainly our intelligence community, unanimously agree that russia interfered in the 2016 elections. and there's an imminent threat to our 2018 elections. just last week relearned a russian hacker targeted the office of a sitting united states senator. we can't ignore such a threat against this chamber or our government. my amendment, if i bring it up, would provide $250 million for

state election security grants to protect our upcoming elections. they help states improve election cybersecurity, replace outdated equipment and other efforts. in 2016 republicans and democrats came together, first funding for election security in years. in just a few short months all the states and territories, 55 in all, requested funding. 100% has been committed. 90% disbursed. and last week 21 state attorneys general signed a letter pleading for congress to provide more funding to address this crisis. so this should not be a partisan issue.

i'm sorry that the house republicans blocked democrats from having a vote on the house floor. i hope we won't make that mistake here. we should heed the warnings of our intelligence agencies, of our attorneys general, of our secretaries of state, our state and local election officials who say the warning lights are pwhreufrpging -- blinking red. i'd ask consent my full statement be made part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: i will join with senator shelby on this next vote. i want senators to be on notice that i will be bringing this up at some point. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22, do hereby bring to a

close debate on senate amendment number 3399 to h.r. 6147, an act making appropriations for the department of interior, environment and related agencies for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2019. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the debate has been waived. is it the sense of the senate that the amendment, an act making appropriations for the department of interior and environment for the fiscal year ending soapt 30, 2019 and -- september 30, 2019, and for other purposes shall be brought to an end. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: does any senator wish to vote or change their vote? if not, on this vote the yeas are 94. the nays are 4. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to. cloture having been invoked, the clerk will report the bill. the clerk: h.r. 6147, an act making appropriations for the department of the interior, environment, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2019, and for other purposes.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president, to accommodate the senator from utah, i will not make my remarks first just by way of introduction to say that tonight at midnight, american national security is going to beer reversibly weakened by the actions of -- irreversibly weakened because of the actions of the administration because at midnight the administration will allow the online publication of blueprints to manufacture 3-d manufacturing of plastic guns and this is one example. so to accommodate the senator from utah, instead of making my remarks now, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration

of s. 3304 submitted earlier today, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. lee: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, reserving the right to object. i first saw this legislation literally moments ago. and therefore having had adequate time to review it. but i will say this. any legislation that comes forth from this body that begins with the following words will attract my attention and should attract the attention of anyone who's concerned about our first amendment and other constitutional rights. it begins with the words it shall be unlawful for my person to intentionally publish. that ought to be concerning to us, to each and every one of us, democrats and republicans alike. on that basis i object. the presiding officer: the

objection is heard. mr. nelson: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president, the senator is basing that on first amendment rights. mr. president, there are many limits on our first amendment rights of speech. you cannot say fire in a crowded theater. why in the world would you assert first amendment rights to publish instructions to do a plastic gun that someone could take through a metal detector into a crowded theater and start shooting in that theater instead of shouting fire, which is clearly an understood limitation upon our first amendment rights of speech. and it's inexplicable that the administration is allowing this to go into effect at midnight tonight. it's dangerous.

in fact, the president this morning tweeted that allowing these blueprints to go online, the president tweeted, quote, it doesn't seem to make sense, end of quote. i would say amen to that, mr. president. but it's your administration that has allowed this to happen because after years of winning this issue in courts at every stage of litigation, the administration has surrendered to the crazed demands of a self-described an are anarchists going to put this up on the internet. he wants to sow chaos. he said so in our country and across the world by making these blueprints widely available. and we can allow this.

we can make this impossible if, number one, the president would do it and he'd stop it before midnight and the clock is ticking, and we're only talking less than nine hours from now because these 3-d printed guns made of plastic or rosin can't be detected by metal detectors. and because they're plastic, there's not a serial number on the metal so they're untraceable. and anyone can get their hands on them, even people who are legally barred from having a gun like felons or domestic abusers. so after midnight, people could walk on to airplanes with a deadly weapon because they're not caught in the metal detector and people would not know about it. people could walk into schools.

my state is the most recent of a school shooting. as a result of parkland, people are outraged. they want to harden schools. but now are we going to render the metal detectors useless as they try to harden the schools because somebody can get through a metal detector with this or with an ak-47 or ar-15 that can be manufactured by these 3-d printers? mr. president, somebody could come into this building, somebody could be up in that gallery right now if they have a plastic gun, including the bullets that are plastic bullets. and we wouldn't know about it. and so whether you're talking about schools or this chamber or

we're talking about airports, any public space that we try to protect is going to be useless because these 3-d printed firearms are a direct threat to our national security, and we're going to let these go up on the internet tonight at midnight? i think that some of our allies like the israelis should be concerned about this because this is not limited to the united states. these could be printed anywhere in the world and, therefore, it can give national security apparatuses a great, great headache because they can't detect them. and so vs i state -- and so as i stated in the unanimous consent, i and other senators have introduced the legislation today to block the online publication of blueprints. now as it turns out, since we can't do it here and if the

president can't do it in eight hours and 45 minutes, it's going up online. it's going to take us a long time -- i mean, what senator or representative can object to this? and so even if we can get the legislation passed, it's going to take a while because the legislative process is slow. we've also introduced a separate bill to require every gun to have a serial number and to have a main component made of metal so that it would be detected by the metal detector. and obviously this is all common sense. this is not a partisan issue. everybody should be concerned about this threat posed by these deadly plastic guns.

and, mr. president, i had intended to give these remarks before asking for unanimous consent, as an accommodation to the senator from utah, who had to run to an appointment, i went ahead and asked that unanimous consent. but i want my fellow senators who have been so great and so articulate on this issue, i want them to be heard. and i'd ask for them to also speak why the senator from utah's objection was about first amendment rights -- why those objections don't apply here. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. blumenthal: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: i want to thank my colleague and friend from florida for his leadership on this profoundly important and imminently threatening issue of

public safety and, as well, my colleague from new jersey for his very important leadership; also senator markey of massachusetts. we have joined together in this cause to prevent a new wave of lethal gun violence on our streets and communities, resulting from these plastic, undetectable and untraceable weapons. we're talking about assault rivals, pistols, -- rifles, pistols, shot guns. all of them homemade. they are ghost guns. they are the new frontier and new face of gun violence in this country. our colleague from utah raised a first amendment objection. the fact is that the courts are dealing with that objective. it is the basis of a challenge

brought by a group that so far has failed in the courts to stop this public health regulation. no right is absolute. the first amendment is not absolute. the idea of crying fire in a moviehouse is one example that is given again and again. but, likewise, in the course of our history we have found that the first amendment has to yield to public safety when there is an imminent and urgent threat. clearly there is here. i have supported companion legislation that would, in fact, stop the actual making of these kinds of weapons. it involves none of the first amendment difficulties that the senator from utah has raised,

and i will be pursuing it perhaps through the same kind of unanimous consent effort in the days to come. but today the senator from florida is absolutely right to seek this body's unanimous consent in the face of this threat that is self-inflicted by the trump administration. it has caved to the right-wing fringe group and the n.r.a. that are challenging this public safety regulation, and it has, in effect, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory because the litigation was on a path to prevailing against those objections. this litigation should have been permitted to run its course. it was on a path to success. but now the administration has created this emergency, beginning at midnight tonight, because on august 1 plans,

designs, blueprints can be published without limit on the internet, making possible the mass homemade manufacture of these ghost guns. they are a scourge, a potential source of death and injury on our streets. any idea that's plastic is less durable or strong as a source of of material for these guns is completely outmoded because we make planes from plastic. plastic in some forms is as durable and strong as metal. so the threat here is real and urgent, and i join my colleague from florida in asking that there be unanimous consent. and i hope that we will pursue this legislative effort together and that we will have bipartisan support. i stress, we must have bipartisan support.

senators who fail to step up and speak out and act in the face of this emergency should be held accountable. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor to our colleague from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president, i join my colleagues on the floor, and i want to salute both senator nelson and senator blumenthal, who represent states whose citizens have felt the scourge of gun violence -- in newtown and parkland and the pulse nightclub. i don't know how many more parklands we need, but i certainly know that of my colleague from utah that only read part of what alarms him -- that it shall not be possible to publish what? to publish the ability to create

a gun, a gun that is undetectable and untraceable. why are we spending billions as we go through the airports of our country to ultimately secure ourselves? we saw it after september 11. and now we're going to undermine all of those billions and all of those securities by allowing anyone here or in the world to get access to the i.p. address that you download it and all of a sudden you can create a three-dimensional plastic gun that is as deadly as any other gun. and what draws us to the floor to ask the unusual effort of unanimous consent to ultimately bring this legislation to the floor is the failure of the administration in the first place not to allow this to

happen. we don't need legislation if the president turns back the decisions of his secretary of state and others in his administration and says, hey, wait ... this is not in our national security interest. it is not in the national interests of the united states to allow our citizens to be exposed to an undetectable, untraceable gun, as deadly as any other. it's not in the national interest and security of the united states to have our soldiers halfway around the world have terrorists have access to a new design that will be cheaper for them, and at the end of the day will allow them to attack our soldiers. it is unconscionable. but since the administration doesn't seem to be acting -- if anything, they have acted the opposite way -- that's why we come to the floor. if the government has any

specific role that rises above all others, it is to protect its citizens. that's what we're trying to do here. it should be a bipartisan request. and what's so difficult about the legislation? nothing much. one of the two pieces of legislation simply says you cannot permit an i.p. address to be published on the internet because then globally can then get that, download it and create a be gun. that's the simple part of that. the other one is that any gun has to be traceable and identifiable and, therefore, has to have a number on it. even when our colleagues who are the most ardent advocates of the second amendment say they don't want to keep guns out of the hands of catch and release, well, how do you -- the hands of criminals, well, how do you keep a hand out of a criminal who isn't traceable? i pretty amazeing. this is one of the most amazing

moments for me. look, this country has a gun violence problem. it has a mass shooting problem. but do it yourself downloadable guns will supercharge this crisis, leading to more senseless tragedies. it's already too easy for criminals and extremists and terrorists to get their hands on a gun. and now we're going to add a new concern -- terrorists packing the plans for new printable firearms. if a gun can fire a bullet and take someone's life it should be regulated. it is irresponsible for the trump administration to roll over and allow a self-described anarchist to post directions for do-it-yourself guns hon a website available -- on a website available to anyone with an internet connection. that's what we're saying here.

already, according to some news reports, the blueprints from an ar-15, the weapon used in the massacre at parkland, were downloaded more than 2,500 times. that's 2,500 unknown individuals in an unregulated space. now, as the ranking member on the senate foreign relations committee, i was appalled to find out that the state department carried this out without notifying congress. last wednesday the secretary of state, mike pompeo, was before our committee and he looked us in the eye, said he was unaware of the issue and that he would look into it. that was on wednesday. on friday the state department had suspended arms export regulations specifically to allow these 3-d gun blueprints to be posted on the internet.

so much for looking into it. this is a case that was proceeding to the courts where the government had won at every round, and in this morning's tweet, the president made it pretty clear that instead of listening to the concerns of the american people when he has a gun question -- which i would submit it's not even a question of a gun question. it is a national security question -- he listens to the n.r.a. the n.r.a. may be concerned in this particular case. why? because plastic guns don't get built by gun manufacturers and dealers that they represent and fund their causes. the posting of a 3-d gun shows just how dangerous the trump administration's regulatory effort to loosen export controls on firearms, including assault assault-style rifles and even sniper rifles, actually is to the safety of americans at home,

abroad, and innocent civilians across the globe. all you have to do is go to this company's website to see it for yourself. they're proclaiming, quote, the era of the downloadable gun is here. that's what they say on their website. the era of the downloadable gun is here. well, we should make sure that that era doesn't happen. these are two simple but powerful, commonsense pieces of legislation that can protect us. i call upon the president to stop it dead in its tracks so we don't have to wait for the legislation. but if not, we call upon this institution to protect the american people. and i hope my colleague will consider coming back later in the day and making another unanimous consent request so that we can actually protect the american people. -- against the ability of anyone -- anyone -- with a 3-d printer to go ahead, create a

gun that can kill a human being, and ultimately defy all of our security procedures at airports and elsewhere and let any terrorist in the world who wishes us harm to do it and manufacture it in quantity. that's pretty outrageous. that's what we're talking about. i hope the administration will see the light and change their course. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware -- maryland. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. president. i want to thank the senator from florida, senator nelson, for introducing this legislation and my other colleagues who have been on the senate floor today. this is emergency legislation which is why there was a request for unanimous consent to move forward today. and it's very disturbing that that consent was not provided because we know that as a result of the trump administration's actions, starting tomorrow people all over the country -- and in fact all over the world

-- are going to be able to download on their computers instructions and a whole manual as to how to manufacture plastic guns with 3-d printing. now, this is something that has been before previous administrations. the obama administration fought hard against this ability for people to be able to send at the speed of light those instructions to make 3-d guns around the world. in fact, this administration early on opposed allowing this to happen. but somehow when this whole lawsuit was resolved the other day, the folks who want to send these instructions around the world were allowed to do so. in fact, allen gottlieb with the

second amendment foundation who was part of this case said, quote, we asked for the moon and we figured the government would reject it, but they didn't want to go to trial. the government fought us all the way and then all of a sudden folded their tent. mr. president, secretary pompeo, the trump administration folded their tent, and as a consequence, americans will be placed at much higher risk starting tomorrow. we have already seen over a thousand people sign up to begin to receive the instructions to make ar-15's using 3-d printing. why is this going to pose a big danger? number one, it is a total end run around criminal background checks for the purpose of a handgun or any kind of weapon. we should be closing the loopholes in the existing background check system, closing things like the gun show

loophole. instead, this just allows for a total runaround. if you can just download instructions and use a 3-d printer to make a gun at home, you obviously aren't going to go through any kind of criminal background check. number two, we have spent a lot of time and effort giving the a.t.f. the authority to track guns used in crimes. i would have thought all of us want to make sure that people who are using guns to commit crimes, that we can track them down and catch them, but if you print a gun at home using a 3-d printer, there is no traceable number, there is no serial number. so we are not going to be able to track down easily the people who are using these guns to commit crimes. and third, with plastic 3-d printing, the technology we have at airports to detect metal will become ineffective. so folks around the world, if

you're a terrorist wanting to do harm, now you're going to get instructions over the internet, you're going to be able to download it as easily as you can download an itune, and with a 3-d printer in your basement or around the corner in some space, you're going to be able to manufacture guns. so evading metal detectors at airports, putting the entire flying public at risk. number two, a complete end run around the criminal background system which is already flawed, and number three, not allowing us to trace guns used in crime. i thought there was a consensus in this body that should get after people with guns who commit crimes, whether crimes here in the united states or crimes around the world. and yet, what this body's doing by not allowing a vote today on the nelson bill is saying it's okay. it's okay for people to be using

this technology in their basements to make guns that can evade all these systems and commit crimes and make it impossible to trace who did it. this is a really, really bad day for the united states senate. this is a moment where people should be acting in an emergency fashion to stop this danger and risk to the american public, and instead people are just folding up their tent and allowing this to happen, starting tomorrow. it's a shameful moment. mrs. murray: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: mr. president, in february, the help committee passed a bill to reauthorize the animal drug and animal generic drug user fee programs at f.d.a.

that bill was the result of months of bipartisan work. during markup, we worked together to put aside differences and adopted an amendment from senator murphy increasing innovation in animal drug trial designs to advance more medicines for o pets and livestock similar to the work that we did for humans in 21st century cures and an amendment from senator paul to clarify the regulatory process for animal feed additives. now, we worked together because this bill has to pass by august 1 to avoid disruptions to the hardworking employees at f.d.a. who ensure that our pets and food-producing animals have safe and effective drugs. now, last month, the house energy and commerce committee took our bipartisan bill that we worked on together and added a controversial amendment that expands the conditional approval pathway for animal drugs. now currently the f.d.a. can conditionally approve an animal drug for a minor species or for

an uncommon disease in a major species. this narrow category of drugs can be improved for a limited time and sold to customers while the company collects data to determine whether or not the drug actually works. this pathway was supposed to spur innovation, but only four drugs have ever been conditionally improved in the pathway 14-year history and only one of those four was actually effective and gained full approval. that's not a very good track record. nonetheless, the house bill expands that pathway to any difficult to develop animal drugs that could address an unmet need and doesn't even define what qualifies as difficult. i have been very concerned that the undefined scope of this pathway sets a terrible precedent, and more importantly doesn't uphold the gold standard of f.d.a. approval that our public relies on. however, today dr. gottlieb has

made public assurances to both me and our chairman that he intends to implement this provision with additional caution and restrictions according to congressional intent. f.d.a. has committed to promulgating regulations to define what it means for a study to be, quote, difficult. and importantly, f.d.a. has publicly agreed that conditional approval is not an appropriate pathway for any human medical products or antibiotics. antibiotics resistance is a large and growing global public health problem and the rampant overuse of antibiotics in our food supply compounds that problem. i'm very pleased this bill requires f.d.a. to report on its work to bring all medically important antibiotics under veterinary supervision. there is more to do, and i want to thank senators warren, feinstein, gillibrand, and blumenthal for their leadership on reducing the non-jew dishious use of antibiotics in animals. on friday, senator warren sent a

letter to f.d.a. asking for additional actions and commitments to bring all medically important antibiotics under veterinary supervision and reevaluate duration limits for antibiotic use. i want to thank mr. gottlieb for his quick response to senator warren and his clear commitment to work with us on these issues, including greater transparency into the progress of removing unlimited durations of antibiotics use. i sincerely hope we can avoid these situations in the future where deals struck between f.d.a. and the industry with little transparency are then somehow demanded of congress. senator alexander and i included language in this year's agricultural appropriations bill that makes clear congress does not find this appropriate, and i hope the f.d.a. and its regulated industries take that language seriously in future user fee negotiations. i support moving this bill forward today, but i do plan to conduct careful oversight into the implementation of this law

and hold f.d.a. accountable for any deviation from the commitments made to me today. mr. president, i would like to ask unanimous consent that the letter addressed to senator alexander and mice from scott gottlieb and steve solomon be included in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: in a moment, i will specifically address the comments that the senator from washington made first. -- from washington made. first, i would like to acknowledge that she and other members of the senate worked with us to make sure that this legislation could become law by august 1, and i thank her for that. sometimes the house accepts a senate bill as it did with the perkins career technical education act that the president signed today, and sometimes the

senate accepts the house bill, as i will move today, and one reason we are able to do that is because our committees work closely with the house to try to take as many of their good ideas as we can so that we can pass each other's bill if that became necessary. and the second reason that happens is senator murray characteristically works with me to solve problems like she is doing today, and i'm grateful to her for doing that. we don't agree on everything, but we agree on a lot. i noticed in our committee hearing the other day that the health, education, labor, and pensions committee of which i am chairman and she is the ranking democrat has approved 50 bills this year. 18 of them have been signed by the president. some more will be signed by the president. we're working hard on opioids legislation, which is of great interest to almost every member of this body. our committee has unanimously reported that to the floor, and

we're working with other committees. the house is -- we're working with the house on that. we're working on getting generic drugs to market more easily, something that's needed to be done for 20 years. we have reported that out to the senate. pandemic legislation dealing with epidemics are being prepared for those. that's really for the senate to act on. so this is characteristic of the work that senator murray and her staff do. we have -- as she mentioned, this is the last of the so-called user fee bills. we passed four last august that dealt with about $9 billion in industry user fees to fund the food and drug administration. this is the fifth bill to do that. these bills are complicated and difficult, involve lots of discussions, and in the end, they often pass by agreement, as

this one will today, i believe. that's because of the amount of work that our staff and senator murray's staff and the house of representatives have done. so i thank them for that. the f.d.a. user fee bills provide about half the funding that the food and drug administration uses every year to keep the food and the drugs that we buy at our pharmacies and get at the doctor's office safe. we take it for granted, but it is the gold standard, and we work very hard to try to make sure that we don't infringe on that gold standard of safety and efficacy. mr. president, the house of representatives has passed by unanimous consent the bill that we referred to, the animal drug and generic animal drug user fee amendments, which we authorizes user fee programs that allow the animal drug industry and the food and drug administration to continue to expedite the review

of safe and effective treatment for animals. these updated agreements have been carefully worked out between the food and drug administration and animal drug industry with input from farmers and ranchers, veterinarians and other stakeholders. if congress doesn't do its job, as the senator from washington said, to reauthorize these critical programs before august 1, the food and drug administration will be forced to send layoff notices to 115 employees. and by our action today, we will be able to avoid that. the review of over 2,000 animal drug applications and investigational submissions currently pending before the food and drug administration will be significantly delayed if we don't act -- and we intend to act. this means it will take longer for new animal drugs and treatments to be available to farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, and families.

unfortunately because of this today, that will not happen. the house committee approved the senate version of this bill on february 28 of this year on a bipartisan vote of 22-1. the bill passed the house in almost identical form. it was approved by the help committee in february. but the house bill, as senator burr asaid, expands conditional approval to encourage innovation and competition. conditional approval allows the drug to go to market once it meets the food and drug administration's safety standards, and then the drug company has up to five years to prove that the bug is effective. based on bipartisan feedback about the conditional approval, the house of representatives agreed to make three changes in its bill. one, a ten-year sunset for conditional approval. two, clarify the conditional approval does not require an

additional fee to be paid to the food and drug administration. and three, a government accountability office report on conditional approval. senator murray and i agree that we need to clarify what it means for a drug to be, quote, difficult to study, unquote. i have talked to dr. scott gottlieb about these concerns and he agrees. dr. gottlieb agreed to quickly issue guidance and develop regulations to provide clarity on what difficult to study means and that we do not change the gold standard of the food and drug administration's drug approval process. also conditional approval is not available for antimicrobial drugs. the language in the bill is clear, and dr. gottlieb understands the conditional be approval is not available for antimicrobial drugs. congress will also conduct oversight to make sure

conditional approval is achieving the goal of helping more vets and keeping our food supply safe. this bipartisan legislation will help keep animals healthy, prevent disease outbreaks and protect our food supply. so, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.r. 5554. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 5554, an act to amend the federal food, drug and cosmetic pact and so forth. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. notwithstanding rule 22, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. alexander: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the

bill be considered read a third time. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. alexander: i know of no further debate on the bill. the presiding officer: is there further debate? if not all in favor signify by saying aye. those opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. they do have it. the bill is passed. mr. alexander: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: mr. president, i rise to speak in morning business. unanimous consent. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, from the earliest moments in the presidential campaign, donald trump made it clear that immigration was an important issue to his election. you recall statements that he made about the construction of a

wall on the southern border of the united states. he called it big glorious, 2,000 mile wall and he promised us the mexicans would pay for it. over and over he promised us they would pay for it. that wasn't the only recognition made during the campaign so it came as no surprise when president trump was elected immigration was an issue in his administration. it is ironic in a way that this nation of immigrants called america would have such struggles these days with the issue of immigration. many of us can trace our origins to recent immigrants. in my own case, my mother who was an immigrant to this country, and here her son turned out to have a full-time government job as a united states senator. mile story is -- my story is my family's story but also america's story, how the sons and daughters of immigrants came here and tried and in many ways did make a difference in the country we live in. despite that fact, despite the

statue of liberty and all of our heritage from immigrants coming to america, there has always been a political voice and a political force that resisted more immigration. there were people who said we have enough. they're going to take our jobs. they don't practice our religions. they don't speak our languages. their food smells funny. we don't like the way they dress. over the course of decades, if not centuries, that was always part of the american political life. but it was a minority position. with the trump administration, immigration issues have been front and center. we've seen that many times. kwraoerlgs -- years ago i introduced the dream act which said if you were brought to this country undocumented as a baby, as a child, you should have a chance to earn your way to legal status to become part of america's future. i tried to pass that bill and i've been successful in the senate a few times. we've been successful in the house, but it's never made it through both chambers to become the law of the land. president obama created a

program called daca based on the dream act, which allowed those who qualified to have two-year temporary renewable status protected from deportation and with the legal right to work. president trump last year abolished the program. 790,000 young people who were protected, who had renal steroid with the government, who had paid a -- registered with the government, paid a filing fee, gone through a background check, were going to school and working were told their protection would go away. were it not for a court decision to protect them, many of them would be deported today. but that court decision can change any day, any week, any month. we tried in february on the floor of the senate to come up with a bipartisan approach to solve this problem, but we fell short. when a bipartisan group of senators came up with a proposal which i supported and which received over 50 votes, at the end of the day the trump administration opposed it, and

so it went down and we did not answer the need for the passage of legislation. there is a new issue before us and one that most americans are well aware of and that's the president's announcement of what was known as the zero tolerance policy. it started back in the beginning of april, and it was a policy by our government to literally arrest and charge every person who came to this border without legal status. now you can come to the united states without legal status and apply to become a person protected with asylum or refugee. us a crime if you come for that purpose. but this new zero tolerance policy said they would charge every person who came to the border as a criminal. well, one thing led to another, because once a person has been charged as a criminal, even as a misdemeanor criminal, in most circumstances their children, their minors in their custody are removed from them, and

that's exactly what happened. in 2,700 cases, our government, under the president's zero tolerance policy, forcibly removed children from their parents. we had a hearing on it today and it's the reason i've come to the floor. because we asked the heads of the agencies that created this policy some basic questions. we asked them if they created means of determining what would happen to the children, where the parents would be, how they would be reunited. and the sad answer, the real answer is, no. and so when a federal judge stepped in in southern california and said the zero tolerance policy has ended, and now there must be a reunification of these families, parents with their children, it turned out this government of the united states of america did not have the records to reunite parents and children. they literally turned thousands of people loose trying to match up these kids with their

parents. kids who had been separated by our government at the border. you think to yourself as one of my colleagues said, when you take your child into chuck e. cheese they sometimes get a little plastic bracelet so they don't get lost and we know who that little child belongs to. we didn't do that with our federal government, and as a consequence, thousands, thousands of children were turned loose into a system. and when the court order was applied, we couldn't comply. we couldn't reunify them. where are we today? today out of the 2,700 or more who were separated, children separated from their parents, we have reunified about 2,000 of them roughly. but for 711, we're still short of bringing the reunification together. the parents are not reunited with their children. 94 of these children we do not have information on. we don't know where their parents are. think about that.

in the united states of america, with our vast wealth and talent and resources and computers, we remove children from their families and toss them into the bureaucratic sea. i'm not sure how this story is going to end, but it's a pretty sad situation. one of my colleagues, senator blumenthal from connecticut, asked the assembled representatives of the trump administration the following question: do you believe that the zero tolerance policy was a success? not one of them did. do you believe that the united states should engage in further family separation? not one of them. so we know it was a mistake, and we know there are still victims out there, kids that have not been reunited. the obvious question is what can we do about it? well, use every resource at our disposal to make sure that we bring these children back in contact with their parents. i went to one of the shelters in

chicago about five weeks ago to meet with ten of these kids. their ages ranged from about 5 years of age to 14. the youngest ones were from central america and mexico, and they came into this room. i remember two little girls holding hands, walking in the room, cutest little things, and they looked like twins because their hair was fixed the same way. it turns out they were not twins. they were not even sisters. as one of the little girl said no, amigas. friends. i watched them. they held on to one another through the entire meeting. as they left the room, they held hands together. they were clinging to the only connectivity, the only anchors in their life: other children who were going through the same experience. they had been forcibly separated from their parents. i brought some cards with me made by kids, my staff in chicago. cards with stickers on them,

construction paper. little messages, some in spanish, some in english. i let the kids choose from these cards if they wanted them, and every single one of them took one and hung on to it like it was a christmas gift. what is it like for these children to be separated at that early age? i'm not an expert. i have been a dad and a grandfather, if that gives me any claim to expertise. but when you turn to the experts, the pediatric physicians, they say this is institutional child abuse to forcibly remove children from their parents and set them off in strange settings, institutional setting for weeks and for months. and that's exactly what we did. the president finally realized he was wrong and reversed the policy, but the kids are still there. the kids have not been united. and we have not solved the problems that face this country. there are a lot of things which divide democrats and republicans in this town. i hope there are several things which we can all agree on.

number one, the united states needs border security. we can't have open borders to everyone who wants to come in this country. it wouldn't work. it wouldn't be safe. and i'm not advocating that. i doubt if many people are. secondly, we need to make sure that dangerous people who want to come in this country are stopped, and anyone who is here undocumented and dangerous should be removed. i think we all agree on that. the third thing we need and clearly need is comprehensive immigration p reform. our immigration system is desperately broken. it doesn't serve our needs in so many different ways. i was part of an effort five years ago when eight senators -- four democrats and four republicans -- joined together. john mccain and chuck schumer, lindsey graham, myself, michael bennet, bob menendez, jeff flake, marco rubio -- we spent about six months writing a comprehensive immigration reform bill. we all had to give a little.

that's what happens when you're in a political situation. we brought the bill to the floor of the senate and it passed with 64 votes. that's a pretty healthy margin in a chamber that's often bitterly divided. we had comprehensive immigration reform. so what happened to it? it crossed the rotunda into the house of representatives and disappeared. they never held a hearing. they never called a bill. they ignored it completely. they left the mess that we now have in place. we need to return to this issue and we need to do it quickly. we need to make sure that we have another comprehensive immigration reform bill which starts addressing the basic issues which we addressed in our last effort. that, to me, is the only way to put us on the right track to do the right thing. in the meantime, there are too many victims and too darned many of them are children. we can do better as a nation. the united states is a caring and compassionate nation. we have proven it over and over

again throughout our history. we need to do it again. mr. president, i ask consent that my next statement be placed in a separate part in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: thank you, mr. president. i want to discuss the conference report which is coming over on the 2019 national defense authorization act. i want to thank senator john mccain, who has been absent from the chamber for months but we think of him every day and remember fondly his amazing ability to shepherd this bill through the senate and through conference committee. jack reed, the democrat serving on that same defense authorization committee. jim inhofe of oklahoma who has stepped in to fill in for john mccain in his absence. congressman thornberry, congressman smith and all of those who worked on this conference agreement. since i'm the ranking democrat or vice chair of the defense appropriations subcommittee, i know how hard it is to take a bill of this complexity and size and work out a political

compromise. but the national defense authorization act achieved that and did it with many extraordinary efforts when it came to defense and foreign policy. no compromise is perfect, but i am troubled and disappointed by several particular provisions in the bill, and i wanted to speak to them on the floor before the bill comes up for consideration later this week. this last january, secretary of defense mattis, whom i respect greatly and voted for, argued that we are seeing, quote, the long-term strategic competition, especially against russia and china. i don't think anyone disputes that, and yet two high-profile provisions in this defense authorization bill weakened the pressure which we should be be exerting against these two nations. russia has illegally seized the territory in ukraine and georgia. it has protected the murderous

syrian regime, it has murdered its victims on -- across the western world from france to our own united states. for that reason, congress put in place tough sanctions against russia last year. they passed with overwhelming votes in the house and the senate. i voted for them, as did most of the members from both sides of the aisle. many of those sanctions required the press to impose the sanctions. they were mandatory that he do this. it gave congress the right to review those sanctions that the president would decide to waive and not apply. why? it is sad to say this congressional review was included because no one trusted president trump to stand up to vladimir putin. he believes the world of -- the word of vladimir putin over that of our intelligence community professionals. and, unfortunately, our president has shown on almost a

daily basis, he simply doesn't have it in him to stand for american interest if vladimir putin disagrees. yet, the conference report that comes before us provides the administration want even bigger national security waiver on the sanctions, a larger escape clause so the president can avoid applying sanctions to russia, and removes congress's ability to review that decision. i'm sure the secretary of defense will use his powers in this bill wisely to allow the u.s. to help key allies wean themselves off of russian military equipment. the problem is that's not the only reason this administration can use this broad waiver. it makes the congressional review act more, not less important, and yet the conference report goes in the right direction. to their neighbors as well as to the rest of the world and emto the electoral process of the

united states. it was only last week that we received the latest notification that one of my fellow colleagues in this chamber has had her office hacked by the russians during the course of her reelection campaign. this is not the end of russian intrigue and we have to aaddress this with our eye wide open. this conference agreement also waters down sanctions against china. last year a large chinese telecommunication company was caught red handed evading u.s. sanctions on north korea and iran. earlier this year the department of defense also stopped selling its phones to the military because it quote, these phones from china may pose an unacceptable risk to personnel information and mission. think of that. our department of defense has warned us that this chinese equipment could be dangerous if used by our military establishment in the united

states. we responded forcibly to these repeated violations of the law and national security risks. passing a provision to prohibit this company from doing any business in the united states. but, again, just as with the russia provision, this was watered down to prohibiting it from doing business with the u.s. government. what it means is the chinese telecommunication company, which we fear is going to make us weaker in terms of national security is prohibited from business with our government but is able to sell its products in the general commerce of america. that cannot make our country any safer. the agreement also contains a comprehensive overhaul in the way we protect our economy from national security threats so perhaps next time, if the chinese violated, or any other country does, we can catch them before damage is done. we could have made this provision much stronger. another reason why i'm disappointed by this conference committee report is the

irresponsible removal of provisions related to mir amar. there are five provisions restricting burma, impose -- and requiring the state department to make a determination on whether the atrocities committed against the rohingya people constituted ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity or genocide. these provisions were included in the national defense awfertion act with -- authorization act with overwhelming bipartisan support. similar language passed out of our senate foreign relations committee in a stand alone bill with bipartisan support. it looked like this would be in the final work product. we're aware of the horrific persecution of the rohingya people by the burmese people by misconception and hatred that

let to -- led to violence when a small group of militants attacked an outpost. the military responded in a scorched earth campaign against the rohingya people, forcibly starving their people and burning down their villages. more than 700,000 rohingya people fled burma to nearby blang la desh as -- bangladesh as they were overwhelmed. they were forced into refugee camps. these are horrible living conditions for anyone. in burma, the government authorities continue to deny any of this took place. they burn and overtake former rohingya villages. i'm particular adisappointed in

unsun suu kyi. many of us have admired her for a long period of time and the courage she has shown against the burmese military, but when it comes to this, her silence is distressing. a report released by the group fortified rights found that burmese authorities made the programses -- preparations for attacks against the rohingya people before the military attack. groups such as fortified rights, amnesty international, human rights watch, and countless others, have documented the burmese responsible for crimes against the rohingya people. despite this our president has been slow to sanction military officials. the trump administration has been sitting on a potential list for months and so far has

sanctioned one person only. here in the senate, one of our leaders will block any bipartisan effort aimed at those atrocities. i'm sorry to say it would look like an easy bipartisan provision to condemn this behavior by the burmese. finally, i want to know this conference agreement provides zero pay increaseses for -- increases for defense civilian personnel. that is unacceptable. the president did not request an increase in his budget proposal, even though secretary mattis called it essential to our military operations from acquisition to policy expertise. congress should use its independent judgment to provide the civilian pay increase. after all, we cannot continue to recruit and retain the best

civilian workers this our military without the appropriate pay. i'm glad that the appropriations committee is providing a modest increase for all civilian employees, but every branch must take responsibility for this in the future. mr. president, i understand one can't demand perfection in the legislative process, and there are many provisions in the conference report that i appreciate the work put into them. conferees rejected poison pill provisions from the house and provided a strong senate statement in support of nato. these are two of the hundreds of good provisions in this bill and conference report, but as i stated from the outset, i believe the agreement makes improper changes in the key areas i outlined and for those reasons i will vote against cloture on the conference agreement. mr. president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from washington. a senator: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. well. a senator: mr. president, i come to the floor to talk about teaching computer science and coding in our education system. throughout the united states and especially in my home state of washington, our internet economy is booming. ms. cantwell: nationwide is represents 7% of our g.d.p. and makes up 13% of washington's economy. in washington, more than 13,000 internet companies provide more than a quarter of a million

jobs. we want to keep this american success story going. but to do that, we need to make sure that these start-ups have the workforce of tomorrow that they need, and that's why it's so important for children throughout the united states to be able to learn to code in school. every student in america should be taught the tools they need to enter our 21st century economy. i laugh and say all the time, i took typing and latin as my prerequisite requirements in college. i'm not saying that typing and latin didn't help me today. but i question whether we are teaching the same skills today that we need for the 21st century economy. every student in the united states should have the opportunity to learn about the internet, about algorithms and about applications. in washington we're making progress in this area because 13% of our high schools offer coding classes but still more needs to be done. according to a great organization code.org, 90% of

parents in the united states want their children to study or understand computer science. however, only 40% of their children are taught anything about computer programming. computer jobs are the number one source of new jobs in the country. currently, there are more than 500,000 computer job openings in the united states. and this is a skills gap that we have to close if we want to continue to develop these new products and services. that is why i worked with my colleague from louisiana, senator cassidy, to introduce the high school codes act earlier this year. our legislation created a new federal grant program to help high schools throughout the country establish or expand coding education programs for their students. with 90% of parents who want their children to study computer science, we should be giving more opportunities. parents in cities and suburbs and rural communities all should have access to these computer science programs. and as i mentioned in my state,

the demand for computer science and coding programs is clear. washington has more than 16,000 good-paying job openings in computer science right now. still, only 31% of our state's schools offer computer science courses for the high school level between 2016 and 2017. so what's standing in our way? well, in many cases it's the cost of developing a computer science curriculum and getting a program up and running in their high school. and that's exactly the problem our legislation tries to solve. by giving local communities the resources they need to develop and implement good computer science curriculum that make the most sense for those communities. and as i said, not everybody will necessarily go into computer science just as i took typing and latin, it gave me a fundamental understanding of both of those things. what's wrong with having everybody have a fundamental

understanding about the language of the 21st century computer programming. so i was excited with senator cassidy when we were able to include language in the reauthorization in the perkins vocational and technical education bill that the president is signing today to move us closer to this goal. the language in the bill that was passed that's going to be signed by the president would allow federal funds to support efforts to expand, develop, and implement programs to increase the students' opportunity for rigorous courses in coding and computer science and support statewide efforts to create access to implementation of coding and computer science. this is a great example of what we can do in working together in a bipartisan manner. it is the first of an important step to make sure that every student understands some level of what our economy is going to be built on in the future. we will have plenty of work to do and as i said, not everyone will enter into computer science but having a basic understanding

of just about how everything in your home is going to work, in your workplace is going to work, even your cars and other applications that you have, having a good understanding will be a good bridge to this economy. so we're going to continue to work together, find ways that computer science and coding can be taught in our classrooms. at the federal level we don't have a lot of control over that curriculum at the ole level, but we can incent like we are today schools across the unction with a little federal support to make sure that coding and computer science is a key part of the high school education. i want to thank my colleague, senator cassidy, for working on this important issue with me and helping get it included in this perkins legislation and thank all all of my colleagues for voting for it and for the president signing that legislation today. this economy of the future can leave people behind, but not if we help prepare them for the

future. and part of preparing them for the future is just a basic understanding of how programming and computer science works. so i hope that many schools across the united states will take up this opportunity. i hope that it will lead to many, many new applications, new job creation, and greater awareness of what stem education is all about. having people trained in these areas of science and engineering and math and technology is key to our country's future, and i'm so glad the president is signing this legislation today. i thank the president. i yield the floor. and would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: i request that proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: ms. murkowski: mr. president, as we are working through the remaining issues as they relate to the various appropriations bills before us, i wanted to take just a few moments this afternoon to speak about a

friend of mine, a friend of alaska, a gentleman, and a leader. alaska lieutenant general michael h. shields who is retiring from the u.s. army after 35 years of service. and i wanted to thank mike on behalf of my senate colleagues and the people of alaska for his outstanding service as he retired from active duty. mike received his commission through the army reserve officer training corps at norwich university in 1983 and like so many of alaska's best and finest citizens, we've just kind of adopted him. he came to alaska to serve. he came to love our state, and we just loved him right back. i first came to know mike as colonel shields when he was commanding the 172nd striker brigade combat team known as the

arctic wolves at fort wainwright and he led the brigade during the height of operation iraqi freedom. it was a very difficult command, probably one of the more difficult commands any colonel could imagine. the arctic wolves had executed their plan 2005-2006 deployment in northern iraq. they'd done an exceptional job and they were ready to come home. they had been there a full deployment. the plans were laid. the families had all been told. this very successful year-long deployment was coming to an end during the early summer of 2006. and again, a great deal of excitement about the end of that deployment, the problem, though, was that it was not coming to an end. the unit had performed very well in northern iraq and the

pentagon basically said we need more help. we need you to help out in the vicinity around bag baghdad -- around baghdad. and as is with the military, the pentagon didn't exactly ask the soldiers if they wanted to extend the deployment. they told the soldiers that the deployment was going to be extended. not unusual. this is the military. you go where you're told to go and when you're told to go. but unfortunately, this message was delivered in a pretty messy and a very chaotic way. it was very sudden and it was without warning to their families. some of the elements of the 172nd had already returned to fort wainwright and ultimately they had to redeploy. they had to go back to iraq. other elements were actually in the air on the way home when their planes were turned around.

i was actually in fair banks at fort wainwright at the time, and i can recall going through the gates and -- where there were areas where there were chain chain-link fences. kids had taken paper mache and stuffed it in the chain link to spell out words welcome home, daddy, and hearts and the messages of love and excitement about their dad or their husband coming home was just everywhere. but when the plug is pulled and they are told, well, you're not going to be coming home, not only extraordinarilily disappointing for those who have been deployed for this year-long period but for those families who were literally waiting, who knew exactly what they were going to be wearing when their dads stepped off that airplane

to be told he's not coming home now, and we don't know when he's coming home. it was very difficult. very difficult when these families were told to wait. the families were angry. they were upset. they were very angry. they felt that they'd been misled and with good cause. but fortunately the army and fairbanks community just kind of stepped up to wrap their arms around the families during this now extended deployment. and things calmed down. these are military families. they are tough. they have gone through these separations. and as hard as that had been, they just kind of set their heads right and said, we're going to get through this. that may have been the easy part. mike on the other hand, our colonel, had to deal with these problems from a distance.

baghdad is 5,620 miles and 11 time zones away from fairbanks. so not only did mike have to manage the challenges of the battlefield in iraq but also the challenges of maintaining troop morale and focus across all of this time and distance. and part of the problem making matters worse was that nobody really knew how long this extension would be. when you think about all that negotiation on in a tense situation like that, only the most outstanding of leaders can really pull something like this off. and mike proved himself to be the best of the best. he reminded his troops that they needed to stick together in order to survive. he said the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack. that's the motto of the arctic wolves. and then colonel shields went on to say, it means no wolf pack is

stronger than its individual hunter and no hunter is more important than the pack. individually, we accomplish little but as a team we accomplish much. so the troops endured what turned out to be a four-month extension on top of their initial deployment. the unit returned home by christmas. the american forces press service reported on december 15 of 2006 that the arctic wolves earned distinction in iraq as they took on what then army secretary francis harvey called, quote, the toughest challenge of any unit in iraq. so again ñ -- so again, many, many reasons to be proud of all that they have done under the command of current shields. mike moved on to other challenges, twice promoted following that deployment. en this he came back to -- then he came back to alaska. i was thrilled when he returned

to command u.s. army alaska headquartered at elmendorf in anchorage. he returned to alaska to command u.s. army alaska. he branded u.s. army alaska as the army's experts in high-altitude, cold-weather ground operations. one of our really great, i mean, truly great training assets is the northern warfare training center in black rapids, alaska. mike ensured that his troops were trained at black rapids for missions that would demand their unique skill sets. he then opened black rapids to allied troops who required those skills. he was really an effective evangelist for army's cold-weather mission, a mission of increasing importance as the arctic becomes more strategic. he has told me numerous times of some of the challenges of training some of these young

soldiers how to ski in extremely cold conditions with very interesting army-issued skis and equipment. one of these days he has challenged me to a race. but, i don't know -- knowing the skills of general shields, i think i'm going to pass on that. prior to departing alaska for his next assignment in 20 is a, mike was required -- in 2015, mike was required to host visiting army officials who were studying a major downsizing potentially involving the consolidation of brigades. both the 172nd that was then rebranded the first of the 25th and then the joint base at elmendorf richardson about were potentially on the army block. that brought evaluation teams to both anchorage and fairbanks. he showed the evaluation teams

our remarkable training assets, but even more important, he prepared the teams for what they would hear at the community meetings. and what they heard is that alaska is a very special place for our military families. that alaska communities go above and beyond what is expected in their support of military communities. and whatever else one may say about alaska's military value, it is a great place for military families. the evaluation teams left with favorable impressions of what alaska has to offer, the stryker brigade survived the process. and yes, we know we've glot to fight to maintain our airborne base. but mike laid a very, very sound groundwork. and we're very, very grateful for his support of the alaska mission. throughout mike distinguished himself through exceptionally meritorious service and achievement in a multitude of

assignments of increasing responsibility, culminating as the director of the joint improvised threat defeat agency. and he has proven to be an exceptional and inspiring leader there. his self of service, dedication to duty and unyielding devotion to soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and coalition partners are in keeping with the finest tra i guess dids of military service. -- traditions of military service. the distinctive accomplishments-lieutenant shields bring great credit upon himself, the united states amendment and the department of defense. it is with great pride that i reflect upon his outstanding career here before the united states senate. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: over the last several days, the minority leader has again continued his unprecedented partisan

interference with the business of the senate judiciary committee. in addition to these partisan interventions being unwelcome, many of the minority minority ls assertions are just plain false. other assertions omit significant context. so, as i've done several times here in recent days, i'm here to correct the record. so let me start by reiterating that the confirmation process for judge kavanaugh will be the most transparent in history. that's from the availability of all the documents that are out there for our colleagues to study about this nominee. senators already have access to the most important part of judge kavanaugh's record, his more than 300 opinions written during

his 12 years on the d.c. circuit. in addition to the hundreds more opinions he joined and the more than 6,000 pages submitted in connection with his senate judiciary questionnaire, moreover the national -- the senate will receive more pages of executive branch documents than the senate received for any supreme court nominee ever. i anticipate up to one million pages of documents from judge kavanaugh's time in the white house counsel's office and his service on the independent counsel's office along with records related to his 2006 confirmation to be a judge on

the d.c. the production could be larger than the last five supreme court nominees combined. hence, you understand why i'm saying this'll be the most transparent confirmation process of any federal supreme court justice. the other side is pretending like the most expansive and transparent confirmation process in history is not good enough. despite this expansive and transparent confirmation process, and that senators already have judge kavanaugh's entire judicial record in front of them already, democratic leaders continue to make unreasonable demands for more

and more documents. in fact, they demand access to every e-mail and every other document ever written or received by every staffer who ever worked in the bush white house. they want these records to fish for documents that merely mention -- merely mention -- brett kavanaugh's name. in other words, they essentially want access to every document that ever went through the bush white house. now, this is really beyond unreasonable. and it's not a very serious proposal. during judge kagan's confirmation, then-chairman leahy was adamant that documents merely mentioning justice

kagan's name shouldn't be produced. and this is just one example of democratic leaders not following the kagan standard. the motive behind the unreasonable demands for documents is obvious -- democratic leaders want to stall judge kavanaugh's confirmation any way possible. they hope to bury the senate in mountains of irrelevant documents to delay his confirmation hearing and perhaps deny him a vote during this current congress. the ranking member's hometown newspaper reported this scheme over the weekend. the headline read something using the word stall. so the "san francisco chronicle" called it, quote, a tactic that

could postpone a decision until after the midterm elections. end of quote. the article explained that, and i quote again, the democratic strategy is to demand to see every document that crossed kavanaugh's desk while he served as president george w. bush's staff secretary from 2003 to 2006. in other words, the democratic leaders are demanding these documents in order to needlessly delay the process rather than for legitimate purposes. but these tactics aren't going to work. let me address some of the minority leader's specific points.

he says that traditionally the senate judiciary committee sends a bipartisan letter requesting documents. and he said that we should have sent out this letter two weeksal. -- two weeks ago. what the minority leader fails to point out is that my staff worked extensively with the ranking member's staff to attempt to identify specific staff secretary records that might be of some interest to the democrats. but the democratic staff wasn't interested in a reasonable compromise, including my attempts to get them even more documents than the up to one million pages of documents that were already in the process of -- that we're already in the process of receiving. after multiple rounds of negotiation, the ranking member's staff still hadn't

budged from their position that they're entitled to access any of the millions and millions of pages of documents that ever went through the bush white house. these demands were unprecedented, were unreasonable, and were obviously intended to delay the confirmation process. i couldn't allow this tactic to further delay this important business of the committee, so i sent a records request for the white house counsel documents, as chairman, because we need to keep this process moving. we can't be stalling. it's unfortunate that the ranking member didn't agree to sign it because the letter requested documents that both sides agreed we should have.

both sides agreed with the documents that were in my letter, but no signature from the minority. then the minority leader, senator schumer, also says that we should have followed the precedent established during justice kagan's nomination. in suggesting this point, he is rewriting history. he may not know that, but he is. he veenl forgets that both democrats and republicans agreed that we shouldn't repeat documents from -- we shouldn't request documents from justice kagan's time as solicitor general. everyone agreed that the kagan security solicitor general documents were too sensitive for disclosure and, in fact, could

chill the candidness of internal deliberations in future -- for future presidents and their counsel, their solicitor general. this same respect for confidentiality should apply with greater force than to staff secretary documents, which include some of the most sensitive policy advice going directly to a president, in this case, president george w. bush. indeed, the white house staff secretary is essentially the inbox and outbox for the president of the united states. now, that's not to say that it's not a very important position, but it doesn't get involved in much policy. the senate's current task force is to evaluate the

qualifications of judge cavs, not to relitigate every political and policy disagreement from president george w. bush's eight years in the white house. as my democratic colleagues keep pointing out, judge kavanaugh has described how his time as staff secretary was a formative experience for him. well, justice kagan said the same thing about her time as solicitor general, but in the case of kagan, the democrats refused to request her records. on top of the undisputed relevance of solicitor generals material, judge kagan, however, lacked a judicial record. in other words, unlike the more than 300 opinions that judge

kavanaugh authored and the hundreds more opinions that he joined in his 12 years of service on the d.c. circuit, justice kagan had zero judicial opinions that she offered, zero judicial opinions that she joined, and zero years of judicial service. her solicitor general documents were therefore even more relevant. democratic leaders then are rewriting the kagan standard to further their stalling tactics. the minority leader also tried to draw a parallel or parallels with a request for documents from justice sotomayor's time as a board member of the puerto rican legal defense and education fund.

this, however, was a narrow request closely tailored to a specific need for information. it resulted in the production of approximately 100 documents. not millions of documents that were involved with the white house staff secretary. in contrast, democratic leaders demand access to every single one of the millions and millions of pages of e-mails and other records from every one of the 100 staffers who served in the white house with judge kavanaugh. as i have said repeatedly, i will not put the american taxpayers on the hook for a senate democrats' fishing expedition. clearly losing on the substantive arguments, the minority leader has even

resorted to personally attacking mr. bill burke, president george w. bush's attorney, -- attorney. mr. burke has been one of president bush's designated representatives for the presidential records act going way back to 2009. he is a leading partner in one of america's most respected and i think most liberal law firms, and i'm told that he has insisted that no lawyer be selected to participate in the review of president bush's white house papers on the basis of his or her party affiliation or political ideology. moreover, mr. burke has taken the time to personally meet with the ranking member staff and answer all of their questions about the document review

process that i'm describing to you here. the minority leader said at a press conference today that the review by president bush's lawyers, quote, wouldn't be so bad if we also got a full set of documents from the archives, end of quote. well, that's exactly what i expect to happen. in other words, a full set of documents from the archives. president bush has offered to give us access to copies of documents that we requested from the archivists so that we on the committee could quickly begin our review of judge kavanaugh's record while the archives works through our bowment request. the minority leader could have learned this by simply having a conversation with me instead of

putting on a political show in front of tv cameras earlier today. i must also address the minority leader's unprecedented intervention into the business of the judiciary committee. the minority leader is not a member of that committee. we're not going to let him run the committee. i'm chairman of that committee. he has no business inserting himself into the committee's business, including the manner in which the committee will obtain the documents needed to review judge kavanaugh's record. over the last week, he sent a letter to president george w. bush asking him to raise all records from judge kavanaugh's -- releases all records from judge kavanaugh's service in the white house while statement criticizing the way that president bush has chosen to review those records. this letter was an inappropriate attempt to meddle in the committee's business, and i am

disappointed that my democratic colleagues on the committee are tolerating that sort of intervention. i have also learned that the minority leader called the archivist on monday and asked him to, quote, unquote, do the right thing with regard to the documents. i was disappointed to hear that the minority leader was attempting to pressure a government official, one appointed by president obama, can you believe, with regard to the committee's business. i also want to address one argument that my colleague on the judiciary committee, the senior senator from illinois has made. my colleague believes judge kavanaugh misled the committee during his 2006 confirmation hearing when he said he was not involved in developing the bush administration's detention and interrogation policy. the senior senator pointed to a

media report that described a 2002 meeting in the white house in which judge kavanaugh advised whether his former boss, justice kennedy, would accept a legal argument about american citizens' access to consult. these allegations have no merit, and here's why. offering advice on the potential success of a legal position suggested by others, meaning others in the white house staff secretary, does not show involvement in developing detention and interrogation policies. multiple sources have confirmed that judge kavanaugh wasn't involved in developing detention and interrogation policies. moreover, these allegations were already referred to the

department of justice which concluded that they didn't even warrant opening an investigation. i will further point out that this 2002 meeting occurred while judge kavanaugh was in the white house counsel's office, and as i have explained, the entire senate or at least the entire judiciary committee is going to have access to judge kavanaugh's white house counsel records. in short, i'm proud to preside over what will be the most transparent confirmation process in history. as they have said publicly, democratic leaders are firmly opposed to judge kavanaugh's confirmation, and they have also said they will do whatever it takes to defeat judge kavanaugh. they would like to bury the senate in a mountain of

irrelevant documents to delay the confirmation process as long as possible. and as you can tell from my remarks today and my remarks three or four times since judge kavanaugh was appointed, i'm not going to allow the minority to abuse the process. i yield the floor. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that i be recognized in morning business for up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, first of all, let me just make a comment. or make a permission here. i have seven requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and the minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. inhofe: also, let me just follow up with my friend from iowa.

i think we have all, most of us around this chamber have had a chance to meet judge kavanaugh. i am in kind of a unique situation in that i am not a lawyer, so i ask different questions than most people do. i was already convinced, judging from his history of voting and his adherence to and commitment to the constitution, that he is my kind of guy. i even sent a message to him saying don't bore wasting your time -- bother wasting your time on me because you don't need to. but nonetheless, he came in. what's interesting about this guy, it's true. everything the senator from iowa said is true. but over and above that, i have personal conversations with people that were from his church, his home church, and there was one lady who was a close friend whose husband died, and then every time there is an event where it's a parent-student event, judge kavanaugh would go and get the children of his deceased friend

and take them to the events as if he were their father. it's not very often you see that kind of compassion in somebody. so we had a conversation about those things. i was very excited about it. on thursday, we're going to be passing a bill that i consider every year to be the most significant bill of the year. we know it's going to pass because it's passed every year since -- for the last 57 years. it's going to pass. it's named the john s. mccain national defense authorization act. i'm pleased that this conference report is the result of an open and bipartisan process. i have got to thank, first of all, chairman mccain and his staff for working so diligently and leading the legislation that bears his name. this year's ndaa is a fitting testament to his -- and we're talking about john mccain's policies and his priorities, and the lasting legacy on our

nation. john was a true american hero, so it's appropriate that we name this bill after him. i also want to thank ranking member reed. senator reed has been by my side. the two of us have worked this defense authorization bill now for several months. we have been very busy doing this. we have been working closely with chairman thornberry over in the house and then ranking member over there, smith, for their hard work on this bill. it always gets around to the big four. after we all meet and we had the meetings with the house and the senate and our joint conference meetings, but there are always some things that need to be done and have been done by the big four. i have been involved in several of these, and this year, of course, the chairman of the house committee and the acting chairman of the senate committee and the ranking members worked very hard, and we got this done. so it should -- so we should all

be proud of this week's defense authorization act, but shouldn't lose sight of why it's so important. we need to remember the degraded state of our military. you know, i don't mean this in a partisan way, but we had eight years of the obama administration, and i think that one thing that i have always appreciated about previously senator obama, then-president obama, is that he is a real sincere, in the heart liberal. and quite often the priorities of those individuals are not the same as they are as some of us particularly in national defense. so we are really hurting. at the end of the obama administration, in 2016, only 33% of our brigade combat teams were ready at sufficient levels to be deployed. only a quarter of our aviation brigades were ready. and just 40% of the marines f-18 were flyable.

the marines use the f-18, only 40% because the first thing somebody does when he's cutting down the expense of a strong military is do away with the maintenance. and that was the problem that we had. we were short 1,500 pilots. it had shrunk the force by nearly 100,000 service members, despite growing threats around the world. i don't think anyone could really argue that this is a threat in the world. i think it's the most threat our country's ever been in. we have countries around the world who have capabilities of firing a rocket and hitting a city in america. that didn't used to be the case. you had to be a giant in order to be one of the leaders. now we have people out there that we have to question their judgment and to have this capability. so we've got a lot of things that we're supposed to do. we have fallen behind china and russia. this year's national defense for the first decade rightfully

recognize that china and russia are adversaries and competitors. we're falling behind in technologies that will define the future and capabilities. hypersonic weapons are weapons that operate at five times the speed of sound. it's still in experimental stage. we're working on it, but we're behind china and russia. they're both ahead of us at this time. the triad, the nuclear triad, it's a modernization program, and we have over the obama years didn't do anything in that. consequently during those years, china and russia both passed us up. long-range artillery. artillery is measured by the rapid fire and by the range, and right now in both cases of rapid fire and range, china and russia are all ahead of us. the national defense strategy

identified these vulnerabilities but it's our responsibility to take that strategy and turn it into policy, and that's exactly what we're doing. this year's ndaa does that. we're investing in training, maintenance and modernization, restoring our qualitative and quantative advantage around the world. i say restoring, not achieving, because we lost it. the chairman of our joint chiefs of staff back in the, i think it was in the fifth year of the obama administration said we were hraougsing our equal -- losing our qualitative and quantative advantage around the world. it's kind of hard for people to conceive of this. i'm used to the fact that most people believe and probably still believe today that the united states has the best of everything, the best equipment. we have the best troops and best trained troops, but our equipment is not all that good. so we are doing everything to try to change that. so that's the situation that we found -- the situation in.

this year's ndaa will fully fund the key priorities we have identified that will ensure that our armed forces have the training, resources, and equipment that they need to complete their mission. and we fully fund what is needed to modernize the force, including procurement for aircraft, shipbuilding, and artillery. procurement has always been a problem. it's been a problem since i was even serving in the house, on the house armed services committee. we're addressing this problem, as it has not been addressed before. we fully have, now fully funded in this bill the modernization of our nation's nuclear strategy, including the development of low-yield nuclear weapons and a layered missile defense. a lot of people don't realize that china -- actually russia had low-yield nuclear weapons and we didn't, so we're trying to catch up in those areas. we fully funded support for critical allies and partners,

including the afghanistan security forces, the coalition support, iraqi and security forces in israel. so we've increased end strength to align with the president's budget request and adopt the growing threats from around the world. now this sounds easy, but it's not because we're starting from behind. the ndaa that we're going to be voting on -- we're talking about the bill we're going to vote on on thursday -- goes beyond the president's request to provide greater funding for research and development, ensuring that we can continue to focus on new and emerging threats like hypersonic, space, and artillery. we're standing up to china by strengthening our position across the pacific region. the bill provides support to our allies who stand up against china's military and economic coercion and procures deployment air based systems to enhance credibility and combat power. the ndaa also calls out china

for illegally creating and fortifying islands in the south china sea. i was in the south china sea about a month ago, and when we talk to our allies there, they're all kind of looking at us and looking at china and wondering whose side do we want to be on because all they see is what's happening in china. those islands, those are illegal islands. they don't own the land under them. yet the islands are some seven different islands exceeding 3,000 acres that are, as if they're preparing for world war iii. and so we know what the capability is. we know what the problems are. then of course there's russia, that's growing aggression and influence across eastern europe by directing a study on u.s. forces in poland and conducting a study on russians maligned influence around the world. now that's in this bill. so we are actually going to take

some action. i think it was in march that rand corporation, r-a-n-d, rand corporation is a corporation that makes assessments as to what our capabilities are, and they actually said that russia is to the point right now that if they were to take on nato, including our forces in nato and western europe, that they would win. now that's a pretty frightening thought. and it -- the bill continues limitations on u.s.-russia military corporation, r provides defensive lethal aid to ukraine. i was in ukraine with president poroshenko when they had their parliamentary elections about four years ago. at that time, it's the first time they had a parliamentary election in the ukraine where there is not one communist in the ukraine parliament now. and he was very, very proud. and of course that upset russia

and putin started sending people into the, into the ukraine, killing them and our president at that time, president obama, would not allow us to send defensive weapons in there to help them. so we're providing military pay increase and it's the first one incidentally in about ten years. and it's modernizing officer personnel system and supporting our troops and military families. so the -- when senator reed and i started on this process, we shared a commitment to making sure this year's ndaa is more than just another piece of legislation. rather, it is a message to each and every one of our service members, and we did that. the ndaa tells them that they are our top priority. it is what we have to do to defend america. after all, the number-one thing

that we should be doing around here is defending america. a lot of people have forgotten that there's no document around, that nobody reads anymore. it's called a constitution. in the constitution it says what we are supposed to be doing defending america. i'm proud to say we did that. every soldier, sailor, airman, marine can look at this legislation and know that we have the support and commitment and they have the support and commitment also of their country. so, mr. president, i also want to speak just for a minute about the historic significance of this legislation, because the history of the national defense authorization act is a distinguished one. as i mentioned before, we passed this for 57 consecutive years. this is the 58th year. but what's unique is the fact that we are passing the legislation this week, a record of how quickly in the year it will be passed and signed into law. this was deliberate. we're moving quickly, but we're thorough, considering hundreds

of bipartisan amendments in both the committee markup, and on the floor. this will be the earliest ndaa has passed since 1996 when we were considering the legislation for fiscal year 1997. it's the result of the legislative process working. we set a budget in february authorizing the funding well in advance of next year's fiscal year. so now we can and should turn our attention to passing the necessary appropriations bill on time that aligns with that which we are authorizing today. i remember about five years ago we were, we went all the way into december before we passed this bill. to remind you, if we don't get it done by the end of december, that means that we're not going to get flight pay, not going to get hazard pay for our troops over there standing in harm's way. we've done a good job on this. i'm anxious to get this out of the way, to vote it into law, which is going to take place on

thursday. and you have to remember that without consistent, continued funding the critical reforms in this year's ndaa will not be possible if we won't be able to make the needed investments to restore our competitive advantage to china and russia. and that's exactly what we're going to do. we're going to restore what we have lost. and it's all happening in this bill. so i think this -- we'll have a chance at this on thursday to vote for what i consider to be the most significant piece of legislation each year. with that, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes as if in tphorb. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, the big oil companies, particularly exxon,

shell, b.p. and chevron want us to believe they have turned over a new leaf, they're finally in favor of climate action. all four of them claim to support the paris agreement and exxon, shell and b.p. all claim to support putting a price on carbon emissions, a price that would reflect the costs of the damage, climate change inflicts on the environment, the economy, and public health. for example, here is exxon's website. exxon mobile believes a revenue-neutral carbon tax would be a more effective policy option than -- and it lists other options. a properly designed carbon tax can be predictable, transparent and comparatively simple to understand and implement. so it looks like they're supporting a properly designed carbon tax. but is that support for pricing carbon emissions real, or is it

just p.r., just green washing by companies desperate to improve their images? senator schatz and i introduced a carbon price bill in 2014 to put a fee on products that produce carbon dioxide emissions, and we've reintroduced it in every congress since. if the oil companies really supported putting a price on carbon emissions, you'd think that they might have come to see us, the authors of that price on carbon bill. you'd think if the oil companies really supported putting a price on carbon emissions, they might have supported our bill or lobbied other senators to support it. or even come to us to say, you know, we'd like to support your bill, but you need to change this or that. well, they've done none of that. despite their public face of

pronouncements of a public fee or tax as they call it, we've had no visits from public oil ratepayers to our offices no support for our bill or any other, no lobbying to amend our bill. nothing, zero, zilch, nada. meanwhile, back at the ranch the giant trade associations these oil companies fund -- the american petroleum institute, the u.s. chamber of commerce, the senate association of manufacturers -- are all working hard to ensure that republicans oppose carbon pricing. indeed, any proposal to reduce carbon emissions. and look what the big oil companies do when the prospect of getting a carbon fee on the books looks real. this fall voters in washington

state will vote on a ballot initiative that would initially put a price on carbon. it would price carbon emissions at $15 per ton. and who is funding the campaign against this carbon price initiative? you guessed it. the oil companies. the very same oil companies that claim to support a carbon fee. already shell, b.p., and chevron have pledged to pour dollars into a super pac created by the western state states petroleum association which is another association that fronts for them to oppose this carbon pricing initiative. and the oil companies are backing the opposition here in congress also. over in the house, majority whip

steve scalise, got wind that some of his republican members were working on carbon fee legislation. so he introduced legislation that -- guess who scalise's most generous donors are. you guessed it. the oil and gas industry. the industry has given his campaign more than $1.1 million, far more than any other industry has given him, and the oil and gas industry has also given his pac $1.5 million, again, far more than from any other industry. as they say, follow the money. and then where were the big oil companies on scalise's resolution? not one opposed it. in fact, when contacted by the press, exxon, b.p., and shell

all declined to comment on the scalise resolution, but they noted their general support for carbon pricing. when you look at what the big oil companies actually do on carbon pricing proposals, their general support for carbon pricing begins to look purely hypothetical or hypocritical. general support probably gets them a little good p.r., fools the unweary, and i gets it let's their executives to hobnob with movers and shakers at cocktail parties or at home with their golf clubs without having to bear their shame for disgraceful behavior and climate change. this phony general support is also belied by the climate denial infrastructure the oil

companies have set up and funded for years. they have underwritten dozens of climate denying front groups over the years. and guess what. their front groups sprang into action to support the scalise anti-carbon pricing resolution. neat little trick. you say you support carbon pricing and then you deploy an armada of front groups that you funded over the years to make sure that the thing you claim to support never comes to pass. on july 9, 18 of these phony front groups wrote to house speaker paul ryan urging him to bring the scalise resolution up for a vote. this letter asserts that pricing carbon emissions would harm the economy, citing a bogus study from the fossil fuel industry funded national association of

manufacturers. by the way, i actually work pretty well with the manufacturers in my state, and there isn't a manufacturer in my state that subscribes to the national association of manufacturers climate denying anti-climate policies. someone somewhere is interjecting themselves so the national organization has become the tool of the fossil fuel industry, but that's not recognized in rhode island. now, it's not so easy to follow the money behind all these phony front groups who wrote this little. -- this letter. they and their donors are all very secretive about that. after all, it ruins the purpose of a phony front group if everyone can see the fossil fuel hand in the phony front group glove. but enterprising reporters and researchers have been able to shine a little light into this

dark money den. so let's see how much money these front groups have received from the four major oil companies, from the american petroleum institute, and from trusts and foundations associated with the fossil fuel maggna koch brothers. american energy ariens -- alliance, the top one there. koch-connected organizations gave the energy alliance at leave $1.7 million. a sister organization that shares both the management and the office space of this phony front group received at least $160,000 from exxon. alec, koch-connected foundations gave alec at least $600,000. we know koch industries is also a donor, but we don't know how much it has given.

we know exxon gave at least $1.6 million before announcing this month that it was cutting ties with ahe -- alec. the american petroleum gave at least $78,000 while chevron gave $28,000. shell and b.p. used to fund this front group. we don't know how much they gave before they quit in 2015. american commitment received at least $21 million from koch-affiliated organizations. the competitive enterprise institute, exxon gave at least $2 million, koch-affiliated organizations gave at least $5.2 million. americans for limited government received at least $5.6 million from koch-affiliated groups. the so-called national black

chamber of commerce, exxon gave it at least $1 million. american petroleum institute gave at least $75,000. koch-affiliated organizations gave at least $25,000. americans for tax reform. a.p.i., the american petroleum institute, gave at least $525,000, koch-affiliated groups gave at least $330,000. the caesar rodney institute. koch-affiliated groups gave at least $50,000 and the caesar rodney institute is part of the larger so-called state policy network which itself is funded by the koch organization. freedom works. freedom works has received at least $2.5 million from

koch-affiliated groups and at least $130,000 from the american petroleum institute. the heartland institute, there's some beauties. koch-affiliated groups gave at least $7.1 million and heartland got at least $730,000 from exxon. this is the group, by the way, that has compared climate scientists to the unibomber. a real classy group. i can see why the others would want to associate with them. the national center for public policy research received at least $445,000 from exxon and at least $300,000 from koch-affiliated groups. the energy and environment legal institute. here's another beauty. received at least $500,000 from koch-affiliated groups. energy and environment legal

institute, by the way, is a particularly creepy group whose function is actually to harass legitimate scientists. that is actually what they do. another super classy group. you can understand why they would all want to be affiliated with them. the western energy alliance, an oil and gas industry trade association. the group's website promises its fossil fuel members that it will, quote, actively influence regulatory actions and legislation on behalf of your business. end quote. no mystery who's behind this group,s about, as usual, -- group, but, as usual, funding details are hidden. the cornwall alliance. the cornwall alliance funders are secret, and when i tell you a little bit more about it, you can see why they would want to be secret. but i can tell you have -- you i

have seen this bogus front group showing up on the odd ball fringe with other front groups funded by big oil. once more, the cornwall alliances founder doesn't believe in evolution, thinks that tornadoes are a punishment from god, and quite disspicably believes -- disspicably believes that aids is a punishment for being gay. a really great guy for speaker ryan to be taking advice from and great company for all the rest of these groups to be keeping. co2 science received at least $100,000 from exxon and $280,000 from koch-affiliated organizations, the mississippi center for public policy received at least $340,000 from koch-affiliated organizations and is also a member of that

koch-funded so-called state policy network. and the institute for liberty received at least $1.8 million from koch-affiliated organizations. mr. president, that's a grand total of over $54 million from big oil and their climate denial allies in the koch network, and that is the minimum. that is what we know. that is what has leaked through the darkness because all these groups and donors are so secretive about their funding network we know the total, is, if -- total is, if anything, much higher. of course, a sophisticated political operative like speaker ryan knew these were phony front groups and blew this letter off and proceeded to pursue the business of the people in the house. actually no.

what did he do? he brought the scalise resolution for a vote. with this caucus, how can he -- could he say no. money talks and big money commands. with the resolution heading for a vote, the front groups reappeared. this time 41 strong. the whole front group armada was deployed with a letter to all house members. i don't want to go, again, through the list and add the new groups and which received funding from big oil and which from the koch network, but suffice it to say they have all been funded by the oil industry or koch network or otherwise tied to them. this is the web of denial that my senate colleagues and i have come to the floor to call out before.

with this type of orchestrated lobbying campaign by the fossil fuel front groups, passage of the scalise resolution was assured. indeed, only six -- six house republicans had the courage to vote against their fossil fuel overlords. instead of listening to say nobel-prize winning economists or the researchers at columbia university and serious think tanks who study this stuff or the dozens of blue chip companies who all say that carbon emissions would be good for the economy, house republicans listened to these phony fossil fuel funded front groups, including the group that equated climate scientists with the unabomber and founded by the guy who thinks that there is

fake news. how low will you go when your big donors whistle? we just saw the resolution was rammed through the house. the failure of the united states congress to act on our climate crisis is a failure of american democracy. when untold tens -- even hundreds of millions of special interest dollars slosh through our political system, what voice do the citizens of rhode island have or the citizens of florida or louisiana who are also confronting ever rising seas caused by climate change? when corporate dark money rules and phony front groups get more political respect than nobel-prize winning economists on matters of economics no less, what chance is there for reason

and truth in this body? the fossil fuel industry and its trade associations and front groups have taken the republican party hostage. and with it our american democracy. it is corruption in plain view and history's judgment will not be kind. it is seriously our -- urgently time for us to wake up. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator if maryland -- from maryland. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. president. the plan had been for me to join with the senator from florida,

now the presiding officer to address our concerns in two areas. one has to do with the chinese telecommunications company d.e.t. and the national security threat is poses to the united states and second, the urgent need for this senate to take action to protect our democracy by passing the bipartisan deter act which senator rubio and i have introduced. since the senator from florida is now residing in the chair, i will do my best to cover this for both of us. and i know that you'll have an opportunity at some other point to cover these important issues as well. first, mr. president, z.t.e. z.t.e. is a chinese telecommunications company. it's a telecommunications company that has been exhibit a in the mix of chinese companies

that have stolen u.s. technology. in fact, when secretary pompeo was before the senate a while ago talking about the relationships between the chinese government and chinese companies and talking about how they were stealing u.s. intellectual property secrets for their own purposes, z.t.e. would be on the top of that list. it's one of the most notorious leaves of intellectual property anywhere in the world. in the united states alone, they've been sued for patent infringement 126 times in the last five years. that's an astonishing figure, particularly as only a small subset of firms have the resources to even bring litigation before a federal court. z.t.e. has been reportedly sued for patent infringement at least a hundred times in other countries around the world. so this is a company that has developed by stealing high

technology from u.s. companies and others around the world. second, z.t.e. poses an espionage threat to the united states. translated, spying on americans. this past february, f.b.i. director rey testified before the senate committee, quote, we're deeply concerned about the risks allowing any company or entity that is beholden to foreign governments that don't share our values to gain positions of power inside our telecommunications networks. that provides the capacity to exert pressure or control over our telecommunications infrastructure. it provides the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information, and it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage. that answer in response to questions from the senator from florida who is now presiding.

so z.t.e. has stolen american technology. z.t.e. according to our national security officials, not just the director of the f.b.i. but also the head of n.s.a., the national security agency, and the d.n.i., the director of national intelligence and the head of c.i.a., z.t.e. poses an espionage threat. now, on top of that, on top of that z.t.e. was caught violating united states sanctions against north korea and iran. and it's not just that they got caught but when they got caught, they tried to cover it up. they were warned not just once but twice and again. and despite that, they engaged in what the secretary of commerce wilbur ross called, a, quote, multi-year conspiracy to violate u.s. sanctions against north korea and iran.

in an elaborate scheme of coverup. that is why just a few months back, i think it was in june, secretary ross imposed very stiff sanctions on z.t.e., including what's called a denial order to stop them from getting advanced technology components if u.s. companies that z.t.e. could then use in their phones and their telecommunication system and then use that to conduct espionage against the united states. secretary ross did the exact right thing. unfortunately, his decision to impose that denial order was reversed by the president of the united states. and when the president reversed that order, senators here on a bipartisan basis, senator from florida, senator rubio, senator from arkansas senator cotton and

others, senator warner, we thought it was important to protect the national security of the united states by reimposing those important sanctions that the secretary of commerce had put in. how did we do that? we added a provision to the national defense authorization bill which passed overwhelmingly in this body. that provision was first inserted in the banking committee. it was then included when that's called the cfius bill and then it was passed by this body. and we urged the conferees in the senate and the house on the defense bill to keep that provision in there and not let z.t.e. off the hook. and during that short period of time while it was in conference a couple months, z.t.e. spent over $1.3 million to hire washington lobbyists to help them pull that provision out of the defense authorization bill. and the sad and really shameful story here is that z.t.e. and

their lobbyists succeeded. and succeeded in lifting that penalty on z.t.e. so we have just sent the worst of all signals to china, whether z.t.e. or wayway that we're not serious in defending our country from espionage or that we're not serious about defending our country from the theft of our intellectual property. and that is a terrible and very weak message to send. so i am going to keep fighting along with our colleagues on a bipartisan basis to keep the pressure on these issues, z.t.e. and whatway because if we do not get serious about these threats, they will continue to come back and bite us. very disappointed the conferees

did not include that provision and it does raise serious questions about a bill that provides for our national defense. why it would have a big loophole in it, that creates an opportunity for china to harm our national security. there's another way that our adversaries can harm our national security and that's to interfere in our elections, to try to undermine our democracy. we know from the heads of all the intelligence agencies that that's exactly what happened in 2016. and our focus in this body should be on making sure that no country interferes in our elections again. we all know suspect number one has been russia. russia was the country that interfered in 2016. and we know russia is planning

to interfere in the 2018 mid term elections and beyond. how do we know that? first of all, the head of d.n.i., the director of national intelligence, dan coats, former member of this body, has said that all the lights are flashing red, a big warning that russia plans to interfere in our midterm elections which are 98 days away. we also learned just today that facebook uncovered an ongoing effort by foreign social media entities to disrupt our 2018 elections. this is an ongoing process right now. headline today, "washington post," facebook says it has uncovered a coordinated

disinformation operation ahead of the 2018midterm elections and they document what they're doing to try to prevent that disinformation campaign. so we have the testimony of d.n.i. director coats and other intelligence agency heads. we have facebook. and we also know that the russians specifically, the same operation g.r.u. that interfered in the 2016 elections has already attempted to interfere in three elections for 2018. we know one that's been made public. the senator from missouri, senator mccaskill where the russians attempted to get into their system ahead of the 2018 elections. so we know all of this is happening. and it would be surrendering our

obligation as members of the senate, both republicans and democrats, for us not to take action to defend the integrity of our elections. the clock is ticking. 98 days to go into the elections. and we know from our intelligence agencies, we know from the evidence surfaced today from facebook, we know that they attempted to interfere in three elections for 2018, we know that this russian effort is coming. so for goodness sakes, don't we have an obligation to do everything we can to stop it? and that's exactly why senator rubio is presiding now and i join toation to introduce -- join together to introduce the deter act. very straightforward, simple idea. you need to send a signal in

advance to vladimir putin that if russia gets caught again, it gets caught this time interfering in the 2018 elections, there will be automatic and harsh penalties imposed on russia and that it will hurt russia's economy. it will hit them where it hurts. and that's what the deter act does. and everything we've heard about russian conduct and behavior is that it's important to try to send these signals early if you want to influence their behavior. and so what we need to do is establish a very credible threat that if they interfere and they get caught again, they will face the penalty. and so what the deter act does, it says the director of national

intelligence on behalf of the intelligence community will make an assessment about whether or not russia interfered in the to 18 e-- in the 2018 election. this is an assessment that will take place shortly after the 2018 elections. and if their finding is yes, then very harsh penalties take place. now, we can talk about the details in the coming days and make sure that we get this exactly right, but where there should be no debate, there should be no debate about the need to do something along the lines of the deter act and to do it urgently. and as i said, the clock is ticking. we know how the senate operates. there's not really that much time between now and the elections given all the other things that we've got to do. but i would hope the senate would prioritize defending our democracy. i would hope the senate would prioritize making sure that we

have an election that the people of this country can have confidence in, that we would prioritize making sure we protect the integrity of our democratic system. because what putin wants to do is undermine the confidence in the democratic system. he wants to do that in the united states of america. he wants to do that to our allies around the world. and we can't let that happen. and so this is not a moment where the senate should just have hearings or just talk about it. this is a moment for action. and i join the presiding officer -- and i'm sorry he wasn't able to join me here because of his duty in the chair -- but i want to join him not as republicans or democrats but as americans who want to defend our democracy. let's get this job done now. let's protect the integrity of our democratic process. and i yield back my time. a senator: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, before he leaves the floor, i just want to commend our colleague from maryland and the presiding officer for the good work that they have done on this issue. as a member of the intelligence committee, i have seen firsthand what this has meant, had a chance, as my colleague, the presiding officer, knows to question mr. evanina who has been chosen by the president for a key job in the intelligence field and i asked him point blank if he considered z.t.e. an espionage threat to this day. and the answer was yes. so we are now going to spend the next hour, colleagues, talking about medicare and medicaid. this is the 53rd anniversary but before they leave the floor, i just wanted to commend my colleague from maryland, the presiding officer, my colleague on the intelligence committee, for their good work. mr.

-- mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the following individuals be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the congress, shaken mccullough and medical lhasa erickson. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: this week marks the 53'd anniversary of medicaid and medicare, our bedrock federal health care programs. i'm pleased to be joined by my colleagues. i see senator cardin, senator whitehouse here to participate. i know of senator coons' support for these programs and our colleagues will be talking today about why these programs are so violately important -- vitally important to tens of millions of americans, literally generations of our people. medicare and medicaid have stood the test of time because the american people have long understood the value of a health care guarantee, particularly for seniors and the most vulnerable among us.

medicare -- and my colleagues on the finance committee, we talk a fair amount about it -- isn't a piece of paper. it isn't a voucher. it is a guarantee. and americans have always understood that that was the case. wasn't that long ago when there wasn't a guarantee. getting older and falling on hardship meant health care was one of the first of life's necessities to go out of reach. it wasn't that long ago when there were really poor farms -- literally poor farms -- to try to meet the needs of older people. people before these programs often fell through the cracks and into destitution. if their family wasn't there, seniors ended up, as i said, on the streets or on those poor farms. the pledges behind medicare and medicaid have lasted for more than half a century because americans understand that when

they get a paycheck, part of that pay goes to supporting the health guarantee. families around the country, however, are beginning to wonder, given the events of the last year and a half, whether that guarantee will be there when they need it. they aren't wrong for worrying. every major piece of republican legislation that has had a pulse in this congress has increased the risk that medicare and medicaid won't be there when it counts. most recently it was trump's tax law that stole billions of dollars and years of security from medicare's future, all to rain down tax benefits on the largest corporations and wealthy individuals in the country. as a result of this reckless tax legislation, shareholders are now swimming in a sea of stock buybacks and executives have pocketed huge windfalls while medicare faces a crisis years

ahead of the earlier projections. in addition to leaving a gaping hole on federal balance shoots after this past law, i'm not sure many americans know this, the trump administration released a budget that outlines in black and white just how they plan to make up the difference. so you don't have to take it from me, here are some examples out of the president's budget document. on page 52, the president proposes reviving the graham- cassie proposal americans rejected last year that would repeal the affordable care act. on page 63 the president seeks to slash medicaid by more than $1 trillion over the next ten years by eliminating the medicaid expansion and placing harsh caps on the rest of the program that squeeze out critical care. on page 54, the president calls

for close to $500 billion in reduced medicare spending without an explicit guarantee that seniors won't be worse off. on pages 24, 53, and 64, the president calls in his budget for burdensome paperwork requirements for the snap program, a vital program to help hungry americans, affordable housing, and health care that really creates more bureaucracy without making people better off. so, mr. president and colleagues, as we begin this, this isn't some sort of message or something. those are the pages in the president's budget document, specific numbers on a specific page in a specific report embraced by the president that harms medicare and medicaid. i'm just going to spend a minute now, because i'm looking forward to my seatmates there in the

finance committee coming up, on medicaid. medicaid has endured the single most concentrated attack on its future that i have seen since the days when i was codirector of the oregon gray panthers. in spite of republican attempts to slash medicaid, people power stopped that effort. republicans would have blockgranted medicaid, choking off funding so the program couldn't keep up with the needs of our people. without medicaid's guarantee, two of three seniors who count on medicaid to help pay for their nursing costs would increasingly have nowhere to turn. people with disabilities who've been able to live and thrive in their homes and communities rather than institutions might not have that same kind of opportunity. and without medicaid's promise of affordable care, families with parents working two or three jobs would face yet

another unnecessary obstacle to the well-being of their kids and families. even without the partisan attacks on medicare and medicaid, there are challenges that need to be addressed to keep these programs secure. drug prices are out of control while the drug industry pockets billions every quarter with consumers and taxpayers footing the bill. a recent study by the department of health and human services, their inspector general, found that while the number of brand-name prescriptions in medicare part d decreased in the past five years, spending on those drugs increased by 77% during that time. the number of seniors paying more than $2,000 out of pocket for medicine nearly doubled. that is unacceptable. and americans are up in arms at the fact that our seniors still get clobbered at the pharmacy window. in the face of these challenges,

there are still opportunities to improve medicare and medicaid so the guarantee is strong for years to come. earlier this year on a bipartisan basis, congress passed one of the most significant updates to the medicare guarantee in a generation, one that is going to begin the effort to keep up with the rising tide of seniors managing multiple chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. chronic illness, mr. president and colleagues, is going to drive american health care and this bill begins the effort to improve medicare so that no matter how a senior gets their care, there will be more opportunities for them to thrive in later years. finally, when it comes to medicaid, the country is witnessing a groundswell of americans who are fed up by partisan grid block holding up

state decisions to expand medicaid, to help more people walking on an economic tightrope. one look makes it clear that this is a winning proposition for a state. when states expand the program, the uninsured rate goes down, the number of opioid-related hospitalizations is lowered in expansion states, medical debt is down, people have more access to preventive care. if legislators sit on their hands, people are pushing ballot initiatives to force the issue. in maine, where medicaid expansion initiative easily passed, incredibly the conservative governor says, who cares? he's going to stand in its way. health care in america is too hard to access for too many. the affordable care act is a significant step forward. there was ironclad protection -- and i'm very proud of the fact it really came from a bipartisan

bill i was part of -- airtight, loophole-free protection for americans from sea to shining sea from discrimination if they had a preexisting condition. it created a baseline for medicaid so fewer americans fell through the cracks of patchwork health systems. but for too many premium increases at a faff faster rate than their paychecks and the price of prescription medicine is still spiking. we're going to talk more over the next hour, mr. president, about these crucial issues. i'm really pleased that two very thoughtful members of the finance committee are here to start us off. they have long been part of the effort to stand as bulwarks to protect americans from financial ruin and supporting the medicare and medicaid guarantee. and i am pleased to be able to

yield to the senator from maryland, who has been involved in these programs in championing the cause of the vulnerable for years and years. senator cardin. mr. cardin: mr. president, first met me thank my colleague, senator wyden, for his extraordinary leadership on medicare and medicaid and so many other issues. mr. president, and i remember senator wyden in the house of representatives as one of the champions when the medicare and medicaid program was a lot younger, as we worked to improve and expand both medicaid and medicare. and now senator wyden in a key role in the senate finance committee, the ranking democrat, has been one of the real champions to protect the progress we've made in medicare and medicaid, but recognizing that what we need to talk about is how do we improve that's programs, actually make them better? so as we celebrate the 53rd anniversary of medicare and medicaid, let me underscore the point that senator wyden made.

that is, that these are two of the most successful programs that we have ever enacted in the congress of the united states that guarantee -- guarantee, as senator wyden has said -- affordable, quality health care to our seniors, to individuals with disability, to low-income families. in medicare alone, it's almost 45 million americans who are protected under the medicare, our seniors and those are disabilities -- and those with disabilities. in my state of maryland, it exceeds 990,000 marylanders who are protected under the medicare program. what senator wyden alluded to, and i just want to underscore this point, before there was medicare, over half of our seniors did not have health insurance, and without health insurance, their access to health care was greatly at risk. and many were unable to get access to quality care.

what medicare has done is provided affordability, so our seniors can now get quality health care. and we've improved it over the 53-year history. we've done things from adding benefits for end-stage renal disease to adding preventive health care, and i remember working with senator wyden when i was in the house of representatives, when we expanded the preventive care package to include cancer screenings and diabetes and osteoporosis screenings and diabetes self-management. all of that was done as we have together expanded medicare over its 53 years in order to provide stronger coverage and better protection to our seniors and those with disability. and in medicaid in my state we have 1.2 million marylanders who are covered under the medicaid program. we're talking about veterans, we're talking about seniors, we're talking about women, we're

talking about children. we are in partnership with our state. this is a program that the federal government works in partnership with our state to allow our state flexibility to figure out better and more efficient ways to provide health care to vulnerable people. in my state of maryland, they've taken advantage of that to work out ways to coordinate care, provide more integrated care, so that we can take care of people who desperately need help. the coverage under medicaid includes such important services as dental care, as behavioral health care, and of course for our seniors, it's for many the lifeline for long-term care. so these programs are critically important. so let me just underscore the point that senator wyden made. it's at risk today. we say that because senator wyden mentioned chapter and verse president trump's budget that would jeopardize both

medicare and medicaid. but we don't have to go to the president. we can look at the republican budget that was submitted here in congress and passed in congress that provided for a trillion-dollar cut -- $ 1 trillion cut in medicaid and a $500 billion cut in the medicare program. so this is not hypothetical. we're here today to celebrate the 53rd anniversary, but also to say that we should not be jeopardizing these programs through these reckless budget cuts. we should be strengthening these programs. and let me just quickly point out what we need to do. in medicare, i think we all understand that it -- an individual only has traditional medicare, that there is quite a bit of out-of-pocket costs that they are going to have to incur under the crept medicare laws, and it's not going to cover things such as dental care or hearing aids. we should be looking at ways to strengthen the medicare system

as previous congresses have done. let's make it stronger. let's provide help for our seniors. certainly let's not cut the program. and in medicaid, we need to strengthen the medicaid program. senator wyden is absolutely correct. our states are asking for a waiver authority. there are some slow to act here in washington and the trump administration, but let me just give you an example of my state of maryland. my state of maryland wants to move forward with dealing with the opioid crisis. now, how important is medicaid, the medicaid expansion? let me give you one example. on monday, we were in baltimore with congressman cummings and senator warren at the health care for the homeless, and looking at a program that provides some of our most vulnerable people the health care that they need. homeless. many are by the way veterans. and before the affordable care

act, 30% of their clientele were insured. after the affordable care act, 90% were insured. that's what medicaid expansion meant for health care for the homeless in my community. what did they do as a result of that expansion? they expanded services at health care for the homeless. they have a modern dental facility to take care of their population. they have expanded their behavioral health services. they have been able to expand the quality of service. we need to do more of that. and the opioid crisis, we haven't figured it out yet. what we want to do in maryland, we want to expand peer review so that we have people who have experienced this problem available to help those that are suffering. that means we need to invest money, more money in medicaid to save money. to save money. the mayor of baltimore wants to establish a stabilization center.

what does that mean? rather than people with o.d. problems having to take to emergency rooms, we can get them to a stabilization center that know how to follow up their care. they know that we get them in care. there's a challenge. when people who are addicted all of a sudden get heroin laced with fentanyl. we have got to protect our population that are addicted, and stabilization centers will help, and it will save money, but we have to invest to do that. that means we need to expand our budget support for medicaid, not contract it. so, mr. president, on this 53rd anniversary, i wanted to join my colleagues to just praise the progress that we have made, urge our republican colleagues to abandon this effort to reduce the federal government's commitment to both medicare and medicaid. let us work together in the best traditions in a bipartisan manner to expand the -- to strengthen and expand these programs, and let us make that

commitment on the 53rd anniversary of medicare and medicaid. i yield the floor. plaintiff wyden: i thank my colleague. mr. wyden: his usual passion is so appreciated. decades and decades of commitment to these wonderful programs, and i thank him. senator whitehouse i think will be -- oh, i think in order, senator stabenow, then senator white whitehouse, will all have the opportunity to speak. next in line is senator stabenow. ms. stabenow: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you very much. i want to thank our distinguished ranking member on the finance committee and all of my colleagues who are here to talk about and celebrate two programs that for 53 years have changed the lives of michigan families and the families of our country for the better. the words of president lyndon b. johnson who signed the programs

into law are a great reminder of what life was like before medicare and medicaid. he said no longer will older americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. no longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. no longer will young families see their own incomes and their own hopes eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents. and to their uncles and to their aunts. and no longer will this nation refuse the hand of justice to those who have given a lifetime of service and wisdom and labor to the progress of this progressive country. thanks to these two programs, we

have come along way toward building that just nation that president johnson envisioned. before medicare, only about half of americans age 65 and older had health insurance. today more than 98% of americans age 65 and older have health insurance. 98%. and in michigan, more than 675,000 people have gained health coverage through healthy michigan, our medicaid expansion. 97% of michigan children can see a doctor when they get sick or hurt. the number of people treated without insurance has dropped 50%. and in michigan, we ended 2017 with $413 million more than invested in the program, savings

for taxpayers in michigan because fewer people were walking into the emergency room who didn't have insurance and couldn't pay the bill. so it's good for state budget and it's good for family budgets, too. in fact, a recent study found that the finances of low-income residents improved in states like michigan that chose to expand medicaid. i know what a difference these programs make for michigan families because they share their stories with me as well. ann was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when she was 40 years old. she has very limited use of her arms and legs, yet she feels so strongly about medicare and medicaid that she traveled to washington, d.c., at my invitation to speak at a health care hearing last year. medicare and secondary insurance cover most of the cost of ann's medication which costs an

astounding $75,000 a year. that's nearly her entire household income, including social security benefits. ann had been caring for her aging mom, but when her mom's dementia worsened, ann didn't know where she would find $6,000 per month for nursing home care. fortunately, ann's mom qualified for medicare -- excuse me -- medicaid. here's what ann said. it was only because of medicaid that she was able to get help that she needed at the end of her life. i don't know how i could have cared for my mom on top of managing my own care. my family would have lost our home and all our savings trying to keep up with their bills. in alicia's case, she may have lost her life. in 2011, she was an americorps member with snowe health insurance. when she -- with no health

insurance. when she started feeling tired all the time and losing weight, she went to the center for family health in jackson, michigan. alicia was diagnosed with stage four hodgkin's lymphoma. the center for family health helped her get medicaid and care at the university of michigan, including a stem cell transplant. alicia wrote now i am feeling awesome. i am cancer free, and i am working part time while i am finishing college. i feel that i owe my life to the center for family health. 53 years after they were created, medicare and medicaid are more than just programs, and that's really why we're here on the floor this evening. they are powerful tools to promote health, to be prevent poverty, and to protect families and give them the dignity of

knowing that they have health care when they need it for themselves, their children, their moms and dads. as l.b.j. said 53 years ago, there are men and women in pain who will now find ease. there are those fearing the terrible darkness of despair and poverty who will now look up to see the light of hope and realliization. there just can be no satisfaction nor any act of leadership that gives greater satisfaction than this. i think we would share those sentiments, which is why we are not only here celebrating 53 years of medicare and medicaid but indicating in the strongest possible terms our commitment to keep medicare and medicaid strong for current families and for future generations. i would yield the floor,

mr. president. mr. wyden: i want to thank my teammate on the finance committee, a strong advocate for the concept that medicare and medicaid are guarantees, they are liveliness for working families, and it's a pleasure to have her here on this special education and -- special occasion, and look forward to more partnerships, as we start thinking down the road, as senator cardin said, about how we are going to strengthen these programs, not just play defense. i thank her very much for that. another outstanding member of the finance committee, senator whitehouse, joins us. mr. whitehouse: thank you, ranking member wyden. it is great to be here to have a birthday party to celebrate medicare and medicaid, which are the kind of huge invests for a nation that don't happen very often, but they sure did happen in america, and what a change it

made when medicare and medicaid were there to support american families. there is scarcely an american family today that doesn't to some extent depend on medicare or medicaid. we have planned our lives around the safety and security of those programs, and we have avoided enormous human suffering by virtue of those programs. and of course, coming from a small state as i do, it's very important for us in rhode island to celebrate our role in this important legislation, because one of the original authors of the medicare bill was representative amy foran of cumberland, rhode island. he served for 22 years. he served with great distinction. he was passionate about health care and about building this program. he was one of the original groups of the members of congress who got together and designed the medicare program. and when it came time to pass it

in 1965, it was rhode island congressman john fogerty of providence who was then the chair of the house appropriation subcommittee for labor, health, education, and welfare. and so between one of the original authors of the legislation and one of the key chairmen supporting the legislation, there was a lot that rhode island did to accomplish these wonderful goals. so it gives me particular pride as a member of the rhode island delegation to come here for the medicare-medicaid-senator wyden birthday party. i'm really glad to have the chance to do it. these programs provide health insurance coverage to over half a million people in my state. that's half the state. without it, so many lives would be changed for the worse. nationally, it's a little bit

over 130 million americans. and when you consider their families who get the protection of having a family member covered, as i said, it's virtually all of us. now, obviously it's seniors, and rhode island has a lot of seniors who we treasure and we love medicare and medicaid being there for, but it's also people with disabilities, children, pregnant women, veterans, people fighting substance abuse disorders. it's a broad, broad, broad population, and medicare and medicaid do their jobs well. they do their jobs efficiently. they do their jobs humanely. they do their jobs with super low overhead compared to their private sector competition. and they do it in a very reformed-oriented way. it is c.m.s. that is leading the

accountable care organizations process that was one of the great achievements of the affordable care act, and it is the providers, the doctors who are in those accountable care organizations who are redesigning care in ways that is wonderful for their patients. i'll briefly discuss the example because i'm so proud of it and mention it all of the time of coastal medical, one of our biggest coastal provider groups in rhode island, a doctor-run affordable care organization. what they did is they signed up earlier on, what they call pioneer a.c.o.'s. and the deal was we'll take some of the risk of how our patients, you know, run up costs in the system, and we'll share if we can make money back for you. in the bad old days of managed care, when insurance companies tried to do this, they went in

and said you can't have that and we're cutting you off on this, and we're not paying you, and we just hired 50 people to make sure that your claim never gets settled. and they basically pushed back on paying for things. that's not the way that doctors work in the a.c.o. process. they've done things like hire social workers, hire pharmacists, hire home visitors. what they have done is to take their patients and decide they're going to help make them healthier. they're going to have social workers make sure they get the benefits they need. they're going to have home care workers go to their homes to see what neck get done at -- get done at home. they use electronic monitoring and testing to keep better track of the reports and keep better track of people's care. they engage with their patients. and what have seen, a, because a lot of people i know in rhode island get their health care through coastal medical, is a lot of really happy patients.

you know, now you can call at 2:00 in the morning when you're sick, and you get coastal medical, you get a live nurse who can talk you through what's going on and help you decide if you actually need to go to the emergency room or not, and get you in quick first thing in the morning if you don't, but they still want to see you and check you out. for the patients, this has been an incredible boon. it's been an incredible boon. they feel so much better cared for, and they are in fact healthier. and that comes back to all of us here because guess what? in the time that coastal medical has been doing this, they have lowered the cost of care year over year for their patients $700 per patient. we used to talk when we were patsing the affordable care act about how we were going to bend the health care cost curve down. we're not bending the health care cost care curve down with coastal medical.

it is below where it was. it's not just it's not accelerating so fast. that is the kind of leadership that medicare and medicaid and c.m.s. support. so this is a really, really terrific and exciting program in so many ways, not just in terms of humaneness, not just in terms of security for american families, but also in terms of leadership and helping us continue to develop the health care system that we can be very, very proud of. i'm delighted to serve on the finance committee under the leadership of our ranking member, and i want to thank him for convening us on this terrific birthday, and i would only propose that when we do this again there should be cake. i yield the floor. mr. wyden: i thank my colleague. i particularly appreciate the fact that more than anyone else i know in this body, he keeps coming back to the proposition of building the health care system around paying for value. and so my colleague went through some examples in the state and around the country for doing

just that. that's a big part of what we're going to have to do to strengthen medicare and medicaid in the years ahead. and i want to thank my colleague. we're pleased, so pleased that he's joined the finance committee, and particularly this argument about paying for value has got to be right at the center of strengthening medicare and medicaid. so i thank him for it. our colleague from nevada, former attorney general, champion of the rights of seniors, very pleased that she's here tonight. my colleagues were trying to play catch up ball and start running behind a bit but i want to wildlife my colleague, senator cortez masto from nevada, and i look forward to her remarks. ms. cortez masto: thank you. mr. president, thank you. 53 years ago on july 30, 1965, president lyndon b. johnson signed landmark legislation to establish medicare and medicaid to essential programs that provide health care to over 120

million americans and over 1 million nevadans. when president johnson signed this historic bill, he said no longer will older americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. no longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. no longer will young families see their own incomes and their own hopes eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents and to their uncles and to their aunts. and no longer will this nation refuse the hand of justice to those who have given a lifetime of service and wisdom and labor to the progress of this progressive country. on that day, l.b.j. declared an end to an era in which health care was denied to the most vulnerable members of our communities. and so i rise today to celebrate

the incredible progress we have made since president johnson created medicare and medicaid. we lifted hundreds of millions of americans out of abject poverty and provided hundreds of millions more with dignity, security, and peace of mind. and then in 2010 passed the affordable care act which was built on the foundation that president johnson laid and gave 20 million additional americans, including hundreds of thousands of nevadans, access to affordable health care coverage. but today is not just for celebration, because our work is not done yet. prescription drug prices, premiums, and co-pays are still too high. too many americans can't afford the medicine they need to live. too many americans can't find a doctor whose office is less than a day's drive away. too many americans are still

struggling to get health care that meets their basic needs. instead of trying to expand access to health care, some of my republican colleagues here in congress are working every single day to attack the affordable care act and strip health care coverage away from tens of millions of americans. some republican leaders are now threatening to cut medicare and medicaid in order to pay for president trump's massive tax cuts to corporations and special interest groups. the republican tax bill exploded our deficit by $1.5 trillion, and now they're demanding cuts to critical health care programs to pay for their lavish corporate c.e.o. giveaway. so it's not enough to celebrate our progress. when president johnson signed the social security amendment act he landed an historic blow in the fight against poverty and justice and inequality.

today we have to rededicate ourselves to that fight. we have to protect, strengthen and improve the affordable care act. we have to lower the cost of prescription drugs and invest in the health of every community. we have to create an affordable public health insurance option that would be available to everyone in the united states regardless of their income level. sand we have to fight back -- and we have to fight back against cuts to medicare and medicaid, because the fight to protect our health care is a fight to protect our dignity, our security, and our basic rights. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. wyden: i thank my colleague. suffice it to say, someone who gets right to the point. she succinctly got to the central question of insuring that we build on the guarantee that has been medicare and

medicaid. she's been a terrific advocate for seniors. i followed her work both in state government and here, and we're so pleased she's here to be a passionate health care advocate for millions of americans, and i thank her. colleagues, we have three senators who arrived on time. and unfortunately the senate is in its usual position of being a little bit late. so senator king, senator hirono and senator hassan, if my colleagues can accept that. senator king, thank you. look forward to your remarks. mr. king: thank you. i thank the senator from oregon for bringing us here today. mr. president, i rise, 53 years ago this week president johnson signed the medicare bill. i believe one of the most important pieces of legislation signed in the last 100 years. it finally removed from the shoulders of the senior citizens

of this country the burden, the stress, the cost, the anxiety of not knowing whether they were going to be able to pay for health care, for hospitalization, for doctors' visits, and then later for prescription drugs. i want to talk a moment about two things. number one, what it has done to our economy, and particularly the economy involving seniors. this is a pretty graphic representation that in 1965, when medicare was passed, a third of senior citizens in the country lived in poverty. one-third lived in poverty and in fear of losing everything if they were stricken by a health catastrophe or even a minor health problem that they could not deal with. over the next 53 years this line

comes down to 9.3% of seniors living in poverty. it has declined by two-thirds largely because of medicare. largely because the financial burden of health care costs has been eliminated from their shoulders. now, medicare isn't perfect. there are things that we can do to strengthen it, to improve it. i think one of the things we need to do is to talk about high drug prices and the effect on seniors under medicare. we also have to talk about prevention. one of the faults i believe with medicare is that it only pays for medical procedures. it doesn't pay to prevent medical procedures. the cheapest operation is the one that you don't have to have. and i believe that's one of the areas where we can improve medicare to provide more preventive services that will

lower the costs for seniors, for the taxpayers, and for the whole economy. but even though medicare, i would argue, is one of the most successful programs this body, this government, this country has ever adopted, but as i stand here today, there are people in this congress who are essentially talking about scrapping it. and they use all kinds of fancy language about premium support and those kinds of things. they don't really want to do away with medicare. make no mistake, premium support equals vouchers, and vouchers equals the end of medicare as we know it. this is a horrible, no-good, rotten, lousy idea, and we shouldn't do it. it will decline, it will diminish the support for the program and ultimately put the burden back on seniors for paying the cost of their health care. and this whole idea of vouchers,

who when they are 85 or 90 years old wants to sort through ten different insurance policies, compare deductibles and co-pays and try to figure it all out? i don't think that's practical. i think it's a cruel joke on our seniors. as long as i'm here, i'm going to do everything i can to call out this idea for what it is, a cruel, a cruel swipe at the protection for seniors that medicare has provided. we're talking now -- i had a roundtable with seniors in maine just this week, talking about prescription drug prices but also about medicare. and one of the things i learned is that one of the most important programs under medicare is called the ship program, state health insurance assistance, where people help

seniors sort through what is still a fairly complex process of signing up and determining medicare coverage. that's been cut 20% in the last two years. one of the things that came out of our roundtable was that what we need as much or more than anything else is information and guidance and care and concern. and the ship program provides that. and to be cutting that at this moment, again, is just inexplicable and ultimately, i feel, is cruel. now is not the time to be making cuts in medicare. now is the time to be strengthening it, to be providing for the future, to be providing for those citizens that are coming up. i know people in maine who can't wait to be 65 because they will be covered by medicare. i suppose they would just as soon not be 65, but they genuinely are waiting for a time when the burden of health care

expenses is lifted from them at least insofar as medicare can do so. yes, it needs improvement. yes, we should do more about prevention. yes, we should do more about the cost of prescription drugs. but fundamentally this is an important program that is so essential to the lives of seniors across the country and the 200,000 medicare patients in the state of maine. this is an important anniversary, mr. president. it's one that has really shown an incredible change. if anything has shown a successful track record, it's medicare, and i'm certainly going do everything i can for my time here to make sure it maintains itself as a bulwark against the risk of medical catastrophe for our seniors. we can do that, mr. president, and we shall do it. thank you, mr. president.

i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president, before he leaves the floor, i want to thank my colleague particularly for noting some of the progress over the years as he makes the case for the future. i remember years ago when i was director of the oregon gray panthers, it was common for a senior to have 15 or even private health insurance policies that were supposed to supplement their medicare. most of them weren't worth the paper they were written on and finally we passed a law to end that incredible outrage. so my colleague really said it well about some of the things that, fortunately from yester-year has changed and has highlighted the future. i thank my colleague. we have another advocate here. it is my colleague senator

hirono and i have seen the bond she has with older people. i very much welcome her for her remarks. ms. hirono: thank you very much. mr. president, i'd like to start by thanking senator wyden for talking about medicare and medicaid and for the time to speak on this important subject. i grew up in a three-generation household. my 90-year-old grandmother lived with us for over 20 years and my mother lived with us until she was 88. i know the importance of medicare to our seniors. on may 7, 2017, a four months before he launched his campaign, donald trump bragged on twitter about how he was, quote, the first and only republican candidate for president to state, and i quote, there will be no cuts to social security, medicare, and medicaid. he made a repeat of this promise

for a reason. all across the country we know that americans across party lines care deeply about health care and expect their members of congress to protect their health care. millions of americans receive their health care through medicaid and medicare. these two programs have helped tens of millions of americans since their creation 53 years ago. medicare provides quality health insurance for millions of seniors and medicaid helps them afford nursing home care and other services when they need it. medicaid has served working families and the poor who otherwise couldn't afford health coverage, helping to bring our uninsured rate to an historic low, and medicaid is currently helping tens of thousands of americans receive drug treatment amidst the ongoing opioid epidemic.

again, it isn't surprising that donald trump pledged to protect these programs while campaigning for president. they are wildly popular programs for a reason. but it also isn't surprising that he reneged on his promise to protect medicare and medicaid p. it began when he appointed tom price, the architect of dismantling medicare and medicaid to serve as the secretary of h.h.s. it continued when the republicans sought to eliminate the medicaid expansion and cut hundreds of millions of dollars during the push to repeal the affordable care act, a.c.a. it continued when the administration issued new rules that allowed states to limit arbitrary work requirements for medicaid. four states have already taken advantage of this new authority. if the rest of the country follows their lead, between one

million and four million americans will lose their health coverage. and it continued when the president proposed turning medicare into a voucher program, converting medicaid to a block grant and cutting nearly $2 trillion from both programs as part of his fiscal year 2019 budget. these changes and cuts would have a devastating impact on the hundreds of thousands of hawaii residents who depend on these programs for their health care and their long-term care needs. medicaid, for example, serves around 350,000 hawaii residents, including 38% of all the children in hawaii and 15% of seniors and people with disabilities across our state. these cuts would be particularly devastating to hawaii residents who access health care through our federally qualified community health centers, many of which depend on reimbursements through medicaid

to provide high-quality care to those in need. during the height of the debate to repeal the affordable care act, i spoke with sheila beckham, the c.e.o. of the health center. she operates a network of health centers that cater to high-risk populations including a significant number of patients living with h.i.v. and aids. if the president and congressional republicans have succeeded in cutting medicaid, sheila would have had to lay off between 80 and 100 workers and close all but two of the clinics she operates. medicaid cuts would have also had a significant impact on women's health outcomes throughout hawaii. last year i shared a story about a young woman named ann who walked into the clinic three years ago. she had no health insurance and she was pregnant at the age of 15. the doctors at the clinic helped

ann apply for medicaid, which helped her afford prenatal care and gave her support sty healthy and in -- stay healthy and in school. medicaid helped her and her husband dan, age 17, welcome a baby boy named joseph. today ann is a high school graduate and works part time and plans to become a pediatric nurse practitioner. they now have health insurance through dan's employer. and medicaid helps with long-term nursing home care for seniors who otherwise would not be able to afford it. i know how important it is for seniors in hawaii, because we have the fastest growing aging population in the country. in our state medicaid covers three in five nursing homes in hawaii. in one island, that is closer to

80% and without medicaid many of the residents would not be able to afford to stay there. one story comes from keith. he worked as a custodian for 40 years at st. anthony's school, keith's brother lost his job and health insurance. only a few short months later, keith's brother lester, had a stroke that left him permanently disabled. fortunately lester was able to obtain medicaid coverage and is now a long-term resident at the nursing home. keith was clear what would have happened to his brother if the president succeeded in making large cuts to medicaid. keith said, it would be devastating. we had a difficult time taking care of him, his brother, when he was at home and he's gotten the care that he needs at the nursing home. it would be a big loss. i don't know what we would do. where we would be able to move him to? our seniors in hawaii would also

be significantly harmed by the plaintiff's plan to voucherize and make huge cuts to medicare. more than 230,000 seniors in hawaii or 17% of our state's population are covered by medicare. through its payments to providers and purchases of medical equipment, medicare generates $2.5 billion for hawaii's economy. our seniors are struggling with the rising costs of living and nearly 9% of them live in poverty. many more are living on fixed incomes and would be especially vulnerable to rising costs under the president's plan to turn medicare into a voucher program. last year i shared the story of lanny and ann bruner from kawui. lanny is 80 and works three jobs after losing the family home during the 2008 mortgage crisis.

ann, his wife has glaucoma and pays what she calls a ridiculous amount for eye drops. like many of our seniors living on a fixed income, they simply not afford the extra money they would be forced to pay if republicans succeed in their efforts to privatize and voucherize medicare. these stories underscore the importance of the need for congress to pass specific legislation to protect medicare and medicaid from partisan attacks from donald trump and congressional republicans. this week i will driewf new -- introduce new legislation that would prohibit congress from making cuts to medicare and medicaid through the reconciliation process. this would require any legislation that seeks to make any changes to medicare or medicaid to receive 60 votes in the senate before such changes can be implemented. and, of course, these changes

include increasing the medicare eligibility age, privatizing or turning medicare into a voucher program, block granting or imposing per capita caps on medicaid, and rolling back the a.c.a.'s medicaid expansion. my legislation builds on the succeed of an amendment i introduced with my colleague from indiana, senator donnelly, during last january's budget debate to protect these programs. although our amendment did not pass, it came pretty close, when two republicans joined us in supporting it. it is good to know that some republicans are concerned about seniors, children, and working people who rely on medicare and medicaid every single day. i think it is just astonishing that as we are talking about cutting medicare and medicaid for hundreds of seniors, hundreds of seniors in hawaii that these kind of changes are

are being proposed by the very president and the people in -- in congress who gave the richest 1% of the people of our country and corporations a huge -- a huge tax break. by the way, the president is talking about giving the rich people in our country even more of a tax cut. it's just astounding to me that while all of that is happening on the one hand, on the other hand the proposed changes to two huge programs that millions of people in our country rely on. where are our priorities? they are definitely misplaced if we go along with these schemes. ile call on my colleagues both sides of the aisle to join me in this fight to protect these critical social safety-net programs. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president, before she yields the floor, i want to thank my colleague for an

excellent state. , and particularly that last point -- statement, and particularly that last point highlighting the position that the administration seems to be considering after all the boondoggles that the fortunate few have already gotten, they seem to be considering the idea of administratively, unilaterally cutting the capital gains tax to provide another windfall while, as my colleague said, and i went sort of page by page of the president's budget while they seek to clobber medicare and medicaid, she has given us the starkest example of what priorities ought to be and what they shouldn't be, and i want to thank her for her excellent presentation. i look forward to working with her. and our last senator slated to speak, senator hassan, a governor who knows inside out how these programs, understands the federalism aspect of this,

the federal state partnership, for example, in terms of medicaid. she has been working with families in her state and around the country for years and years as an advocate of these programs, and i really appreciate her joining us tonight and look forward to her remarks. ms. hassan: thank you very much, senator wyden, for organizing this evening's presentation. mr. president, 53 weeks ago this week, president lyndon b. johnson signed medicare and medicaid into law, delivering health care to seniors and some of our most vulnerable citizens, and bolstering efforts to expand opportunity and help more of our people thrive. today tens of millions of americans are covered through medicare and medicaid. in communities in new hampshire and throughout our country, seniors are able to live active, engaging, and high-quality lives, participating civically and economically because of the

care that medicare provides. and we know that medicaid has delivered countless benefits and opportunities to people from all walks of life. medicaid helps seniors and those who experience disabilities receive support that allow them to live independently in their homes and in their communities. it also helps countless children who experience disabilities go to school, and it assists school districts in covering costs for special education services and equipment. new hampshire's bipartisan medicaid expansion plan has provided more than 50,000 hardworking granite staters with the peace of mind that comes with quality, affordable health insurance. experts on the front lines have said that our medicaid expansion plan is the number one tool at our disposal to combat the opioid crisis in new hampshire. what we've learned is that when

people who have substance abuse disorder have medicaid coverage, they have the opportunity to change their lives. people like a granite stater named elizabeth who at one point in her life was homeless and lost custody of her son as a result of substance misuse disorder. elizabeth is in recovery and works at the s.o.s. recovery community organization in rochester, a facility that recently celebrated an expansion to ensure that they can help even more people in need. elizabeth has credited her recovery to the services she's received through medicaid expansion and has stressed its importance in helping people who have struggled with substance misuse disorder find the support and help that they need to improve their lives, to get better, to work, to raise a family. mr. president, on this

anniversary, we must reaffirm our commitment to protecting medicare and medicaid and strengthening them so that they're available for future generations. unfortunately, the trump administration and my republican colleagues have repeatedly pushed efforts that would undermine and drastically cut medicare and medicaid. during last year's trumpcare debate, a top priority for republicans was instituting massive cuts to medicaid that would have forced states to choose between slashing benefits, reducing the number of people who can get care, or both. threatening the very services that children, people with disabilities, and seniors depend on. thankfully, the trumpcare bill failed, but efforts from this administration to sabotage the health of millions haven't stopped. and medicare and medicaid continue to be under threat for drastic cuts.

also that republicans can pay for their massive tax breaks for corporate special interests. these attacks on our health care must stop. our constituents understand the benefits of these programs, and they want us to work together to safeguard them so that they are available and effective for our seniors, our children, our most vulnerable now and in the future. mr. president, with the creation of medicare and medicaid, our country acknowledged an obligation to protect the health and wellness of our people and it acknowledged and it has seen the value of doing so for individuals, for communities, and for our economy. mr. president, 53 years ago americans made a promise to each other as a self-governing people has the unique privilege and power to do.

i'm going to continue fighting to make good on that promise for years to come. i thank you, mr. president. and i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president, before my colleague yields the floor, i want to thank her for her thoughtful remarks and recognize that as we talk about the future of medicare and medicaid, what we see is a constant need to update these terrific programs for the times. i was director of the great panthers. opioids were not an issue. today it is a dominant force in american life. my colleague is a leader in the effort to find smart, passionate, cost effective programs to deal with those challenges. i want to thank her for her thoughtful comments. ms. hassan: thank you, senator wyden. thank you for your leadership for our seniors, for our nation's economy and for all of our people. i really appreciate it. thank you. mr. wyden: i thank my colleague. i have one brief comment to wrap up. i see my colleague from florida

here. mr. president, my colleagues have essentially spent close to an hour talking about these programs that are literally a lifeline to millions of americans. medicare and medicaid. it has always been. it's been highlighted tonight that we've had to play a lot of defense to prevent big attacks on these programs. you even see them in the president's budget as i went page by page when what we really would like to do is play offense and think about the future. my colleague from florida is here, and he has a very large elderly population, as many senators do. when i was director of the great panthers, medicare had two parts. there was part a for hospitals and part b for doctors. that was it. you had a broken ankle, you went

to the hospital. that was part a. if you had a horrible case of the flu, you went to the doctor and you were taken care of in an outpatient fashion. that is not medicare today. medicare today is chronic illness, diabetes, heart disease, chronic pulmonary diseases. 80% of the medicare program is going to be consumed by chronic illness in the days ahead. and so congress has just begun the effort to update the medicare guarantee to incorporate those hugely important challenges, cancer, diabetes, heart disease. those are chronic illnesses. and i close, mr. president, by way of saying that this update means again that the guarantee reaches into every nook and cranny of our communities.

so that means seniors in traditional medicare, seniors who secure their health care through medicare advantage, seniors in accountable care organizations, all of them wherever they get their health care ought to be able to secure an updated medicare guarantee that addresses the upcoming challenge of our time, the great challenge of our time dealing with chronic illnesses. my colleagues have laid out what our job is all about. preventing the effort to go backward when we'd like to think about going forward into the future in a fashion that updates the medicare guarantee for all older people and those who look forward to those years and protecting the great safety net of our time, medicaid. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. rubio: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of calendar 1017 through 1029 and all nominations placed on the secretary's desk in the air force, army, and navy, the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order, that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the record, the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate then resume legislative session.

the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. rubio: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that my remarks follow senator van hollen's remarks earlier today on the same topic. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rubio: one of the interesting developments in our public debate in america today is russia and the elections of 2016 and lost in all the noise and all the debate and all the legitimate issues that arise from it is this perception that if you are taking on russian interference, that is a democratic position or anti-president trump position. and if you think this is all to do -- much to do about nothing, that you are taking a pro-president position. nothing could be further from the truth. if vladimir putin is neither a republican nor a democrat. he is not interested in making

america great. he is interested in making america weak. and the reason why vladimir putin is interested in making america weak is because, while america is not at war with vladimir putin, vladimir putin is at war with america. and you may say well, that doesn't sound right because war means bullets, rockets, missiles, aircraft, launching attacks. this misses the broader point. for russia under russian doctrine of conflict, information is a weapon. information war is a part of war. we are not in an armed conflict but, sadly, while we americans go on about our lives and do not spend all day obsessing about russia until 2016 and some of the issues that arose there, vladimir putin is obsessed with america. and those in his government who surround them are as well.

for we americans, we look at russia and say they're an important country. they have nuclear weapons, significant conventional military capabilities, but they have a very small economy of $2 trillion, about the size of italy's or spain. they're not really geo politically relevant in many parts of the world. they still can't project power the way they used to during the soviet union. yes, they're involved in syria and other places and doing that more than ever before and have a veelt toe vote on the united nations security council. their culture, people have much to be proud of. they contributed a tremendous amount to the world. but on a daily basis, russia may be a nuclear and somewhat military peer competitor of the united states but not economically, not commercially. but the russian view of america is different. the russian government's view is different. they view america as an aggressive power that seeks to destroy russia. i know that sounds bizarre for americans who know that we spend

little of any time thinking about how to go to war with russia, but in their mindset we do. the u.s. is an aggressive power that wants to fight and degrade them. they hold us responsible for the end of the soviet union which to them represented power, not so much ideology but power for the current leaders. they blame us for expanding nato in a way that they feel encircles them. they blame us for the color revolutions throughout europe that they believe we want one of those to happen in russia as well. most of all, they think that we are seeking to take advantage of russia and humiliate them. this is the view of russia's leaders. and this is why while we are not at war with russia on information, russia under vladimir putin is at war with the united states. we keep talking about this issue as if it was es nanl. i've had people -- espionage. i've had people say to me everyone spies on one another. this is not es package. trust on me. many countries in the world spy

and on each other, including our allies. this is not about espionage. this is about information warfare. information warfare is part of the russian doctrine of confronting an enemy and weakening them from within. and what happened in 2016 and what is happening now is nothing less than an information war against america, not for purposes of electing donald trump president or having republicans win or vice versa, but for pumps of -- for purposes of dividing us among each other, opening a permanent front domestically in order to hurt this country. they do this all over the world. they do this in eastern europe. they do it all over the world where they have an interest. and it takes different forms. and many of the countries in which russia is involved in information warfare, one of the things they do is they openly and strongly financially support pro-russian candidates,

pro-russian parties, or they may support pro-russian separatists the way they did in parts of ukraine. we don't have a pro-russia party in the united states. we don't really have pro-russian constituencies in american politics, certainly not if large numbers that yield any power or influence. so instead the way to weaken us is to divide us from within. by pitting us against each other. the weapons they use in this war are -- their goals -- let me start out with their goals. how do they weaken us? the first is, they seek to amplify political and social divisions in our country. and you will see both in 2016 and in the current efforts that i'm about to show, that they focus largely on issues of race, on immigration, on gun control. they know the issues that pit americans against each other. they know these hot button issues that get us to fight and call each other names and accuse

one another of horrible things. and this is why they focus on those issues. the other two goals they have is to undermine confidence in our democracy, to be able to go around saying that our elections are rigged, that we my come to doubt that the winner of an election really one. third, they seek to weaken our image globally, making up stories about how american troops in some country are killing civilians or committing war crimes, things of this nature. doctoring photos and spreading fake news through their russian propaganda outfits. this is how they seek to weaken us. and the methods that they use are enlightening, because they use them -- used them in 2016, and they are using them even at the very moment that i speak to you now. how do they amplify our political and social divisions? what do they do to get us to fight with one another? do they just put a bunch of segments on r.t., everyone knows that r.t. is the kremlin's

television station, but they are keen watchers of american habits. what do they know? they know that a significant and growing percentage of americans get their news and their information from social media. in the old days, if you wanted to start a rumor, you started a rumor and people had to tell someone else. propaganda and information warfare is not new. what is new is the ability to spread it to millions of people instan instantaneously by using platforms that were not available just a short time ago. they know that americans increasingly, as i said, get information from social media. so the first thing they do, they develop networks of followers for fake social media accounts. fake meaning they are a real account but fake in that it's not the person. it is a russian operative. who creates a social media account, and initially the account may not have anything to do with politics. it might have a variety of different topics in order to attract people to follow it.

so you get to 10,000, 15,000, 20,000, 30,000 followers. once they reach a critical mass -- and they have dozens of these -- then they use those platforms to inject divisive or false content or means. they can use that, for example, to just sow instability, but they can also use it to target specific candidates. using these networks potentially to delete stolen documents that they hacked into a computer and got, and even doctored documents where they change a few words and make it sound like you said something you never said. or even a greater and growing threat, potentially one day develop deep fake videos that you will watch on your news feed, you will look at the video. it looks like someone is saying and doing something but it was carefully doctored, only an expert could tell. by the time a candidate gets it down, the election has passed. that video has spread far and wide and probably found its way into regular media. once they have put this negative information on these sites, then

in order -- they know how the metrics work. how does the story pop up on your news feed? for example, on facebook? based on how many people click and look at it. and they unleash automated bots and even potentially paid advertising to drive traffic to these sites so that those fake stories or that that false content, those that divisive content begins to rise on the news feed, meaning more people will read it. and the result is you have started a massive internet rumor that you know is going to get americans to fight against one another. this is not a relic of 2016. this is happening now. this is happening today. we're reminded of it just earlier this morning, earlier today. i want to show you just two slides that facebook revealed. two slides of content that facebook has now removed because they have identified it as the work of russian intelligence and

their -- in their information war against the united states. our first slide under a fake account named resisters was posted on september 1 of last year. it says millions of indigenous people died during the conquest of america. history is history. but if we want integrity and equality, we have to erase these bloody memories and start over. congratulations, louisiana. but what it posts is a picture, a picture with a sign on it that says christian terrorism begins in 1492. congratulations, los angeles, because what it's referring to is that los angeles cancels columbus day. columbus day is no more in the nation's second largest city. now, why did they put that on facebook? why would they post that? because they know it's going to get us to fight. some people will see that and be outraged about christian terrorism. it will make them angry that this kind of thing is happening. they will ascribe this as the

work of the political left. others potentially who agree with this message will send to to -- it to their group of followers, saying this is exactly right. this is what we have been saying all along. the point is this is a message that would divide americans against each other. it would get us to fight along religious lines and potentially ethnic lines. that is the purpose of this kind of stuff. a fake account that they boosted with automated bots so that it got on people's news feeds. and by the way, they do dozens and dozens of these sorts of posts. this is just one example of it. this may reach 4,000 people there, 18,000 people over there. this stuff adds up. let me show you a second slide. this is a slide from aztlan warriors. it is pictures and names of various native american figures from america's past. giving thanks to our vets in the 500-year war against colonialism. look at that one. why would they post that?

geronimo, crazy horse, chief joseph and the like. why would they post that? again, these are just two examples of things that they were pushing on to get people to fight. maybe they are hoping that some political or well-known figure will like it and then create a scandal about them and the press, but they know this will outrage people. this is an outrageous message. this is a message designed to generate outrage. this is not a pro-trump message or a pro-democrat message. this is an outrageous message. this is informational warfare. and they know we have a first amendment. they know that this is protected speech oftentimes. they use it against them. you can't do that in russia. this stuff is censored in russia. but they have figured out how to use this information to get us to fight against one another. there are dozens of ads like this that were removed. one of them attacks president trump as a nazi. a divisive message designed to get us to fight.

again, these are not ads designed to win a campaign. this ad is not going to lead you to directly go out and vote for your congressman or against him or your senator or against him. this is designed to drive conflict along the lines in this country that they know drive conflict. these are conflict messages. this is information warfare. this is what they are doing now year-round. in campaigns, they may tailor it for something else, but this is what they are doing to us year-round. this is what they did in 2016. with the primary objective of getting us to be divided. with the primary objective of ensuring that no matter who won that election, hillary clinton or donald trump, the next president of the united states was going to take office with a dark cloud over their head. and a nation continually debating these issues and divided over it. this is how you weaken an adversary from within.

this is 21st century information warfare, and this is what's happening to our country. the target of this campaign, it's not the democratic party, it's not the republican party. it's you. the american people. a foreign country under a foreign dictator is coming into your homes across your computer screen and your mobile phones and targeting you for psychological and informational warfare, and that is what we have to fully accept and the implications that it has for our country, for its future, for our republic, for our elections, for our ability to do work here. imagine when they get increasingly -- they are better at this today than they were two years ago. imagine when they start using that to try to influence the debates in the senate or the house. contemporary issues. it's coming. now, no one -- i don't have a magic solution for how to stop it. this is the 21st century reality. we have to address it and be

prepared for it. but i know this -- i don't like vladimir putin. i don't respect vladimir putin. i don't consider him to be a great leader or anything on that front. i largely consider him to be a weak and very corrupt man whose government is largely based on corruption and the ability to provide wealth to those who surround them as long as they give them some of their money. he is largely an organized crime figure in charge of a nuclear arsenal and a great nation of great people. he has empowered himself of that. but i do know that he is a calculated actor. we have every reason to believe that he makes decisions by weighing the benefits and the costs. i believe in 2016 he looked at the efforts in 2016 and he said i think weakening america from within through an informational warfare campaign will yield great benefits at a cost that i am willing to pay. and i believe as we get closer

to 2018 and future elections, he will have to make that decision again. and i believe that one of the things that we can do, something that the senator from maryland, senator van hollen spoke about earlier and we are working on together, and that is we have to do what we can to ensure that when he makes a decision about what to do in 2018 or beyond, the price of doing it is substantially higher than the benefit he thistle gain from informational warfare. and that is the purpose of deter act, a bill that we have filed together that continues to gain cosponsors. it's to make sure that vladimir putin knows how high the price will be in comparison to the benefit before he decides what he wants to do about 2018 or beyond. the bill is pretty straightforward. it doesn't deal with 2016. it doesn't look backwards. it looks forward. it says two things. the first is that after every election, the director of national intelligence has to issue a report after consulting

with the attorney general, with the white house, with all the heads of the intelligence agencies about whether or not russia attempted to interfere in our elections. and i'm not talking about five russian guys on twitter. i'm talking about a real campaign to interfere in our elections and conduct informational warfare for the purposes of disrupting our election, for the purposes of undermining confidence in the ballot box, for the purposes of driving divisions in america. and if the answer is yes, it defines very clearly a set of specific very hard-hitting sanctions in waiting. sanctions in waiting that will be imposed if but only if there is interference. you see, sanctions are important as a penalty for what's been happening in the past, but deterrence happens when people know what's going to happen in the future. he's already paid the price for 2016. those sanctions are already in place. that's already baked into the equation now. you can't reimpose the same

sanctions. he needs to know -- vladimir putin is well aware of what would happen if he conducts a massive cyberattack on our infrastructure. he is well aware of what would happen if he launches a rocket missile against one of the american cities. he knows very well what would happen if he tries to shoot down one of our airplanes. but right now, he's kind of wondering what would happen if i did this again? because they seem pretty divided about this whole thing. maybe i can get away with it. we have to change that equation, and that's what this bill is about. the best way to prevent these things is to change that calculus. the best way to deal with this or any problem is to prevent it from happening in the first place. i cannot guarantee that if we pass a strong deterrence bill that he will not still wage informational warfare. i can almost guarantee that if we don't, he will at some point in the future, and the target

could be the republicans the next time or anyone, for that matter. vladimir putin is not a republican. he's anti-american. he seeks to destroy this country from within by driving an informational warfare campaign. and we're prepared to change and tailor our bill. there are some parts of that bill that need to be altered and refined. we recognize that. we're working to do that. we are willing to take ideas from anyone. the purpose of this is not to do something reckless or irresponsible. i'm not interested, and i know senator van hollen is not interested in a talking point or a messaging exercise. we want to pass a law which means it has to have 60 votes in the senate, a majority in the house, and something president trump will sign. so we are willing to change the bill so long as it can pass and it will actually have strong enough deterrence and that it's good public policy without unintended consequences. that's the purpose of this.

and i will close where i began. we make a terrible mistake if we think that this somehow is an effort by vladimir putin to engage himself in a partisan competition in the united states his goal is not to elect one party or any individual candidate. his ultimate goal is to divide us against each other. i ask everyone this -- if some stranger came into your home, no matter what problems you may have with your family member or your children, if some stranger came into your house and actively encouraged you to fight with your spouse and fight with your kids and fight with your relatives, constantly trying to instigate, i know most people would tell this person be listen, we're family and we argue with one another, but you are not. you have no place to come into our home and get us to fight with one another. we need to do that with our country. we need to do that with america.

that's what we are hoping that we can do here. 2016 is being dealt with. the intelligence committee that i sit on continues to do its work. we learn more every day that i think will help us be stronger for the future. as an independent counsel doing his work, the best thing that could happen is that all the truth comes out and the best thing for the president and for the country is that he finish his work and that we know everything in detail. i truly believe that's in the best interest of everyone, including the president of the united states. we can't do anything. we can't change the past. we can react to it, but we can't change it. we have an influence to change the future and that's the reason for the deter act and that's why i hope we can make progress. the election in the fall is less than 100 days away. we are less time to put in place the things that we need to put in place to ensure that this

doesn't happen. we are already pretty irstated about these issues -- irstated about these issues. the last thing we need is a foreign, malign power that makes it worse for us. and in cases like what i just showed, getting us to fight with one another over things that aren't even real -- we are the target of a psychological and informational war. it's time we stand up for ourselves, and i hope that we will pass something like the deter act to do so. mr. president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president, is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: it is. a senator: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lankford: mr. president, over the past week the senate has been discussing the appropriations bill. it is the first time this bill has the potential to cross this floor of this senate since 2007 when the bill title was created, not one time has it passed the senate since this appropriation bill was created. usuallile this particular appropriation bill is airdropped into an end of the year spending package or omnibus without ever being publicly debated, without ever coming to the senate floor without a single amendment. this year changed that. this bill's been on this floor this entire week, and it was last week, and it's being amended, and it's going through

a process. that may not seem like a big deal to some, it should be a no-brainer for most, they would think that of course a bill is being amended and debated but that has not happened since 2007 and we are trying to are relearn how to pass bills and debate them and go through this. i think countless americans who complain about the congress has been justified. but, i'm telling you, we're at an historic turning point of trying to shift this process around. we demonstrated that appropriations bills can be debated for all the country to see. i was grateful to accept the role as the chairman of the subcommittee earlier this year because of the agencies and programs that are impacted by this particular appropriations bill. it affects the lives of millions of americans, plays an important role in spurting the american economy, and promoting private

sector growth. the funding for this particular appropriation bill is $ 23.688 billion. it includes funding for entities across all three branches of government, from the white house to the supreme court to a diverse group of 27 independent agencies and the treasury. in fact, more than half of this particular appropriation bill, $12.7 billion funds the department of the treasury whose offices execute important function that promote economic growth, combat illicit finance, safeguard our financial system, administer the internal revenue code. last year the tax cut and jobs bill act, it passed this congress and is now law. it provided much-needed relief to oklahomans and all americans by lowering tax rates for the middle class, simplifying tax rates for every american, and doing a dramatic change in how we do business tax. the tax reform bill has helped small and large businesses and

individuals throughout this year. in fact, as a direct result of that bill passing last year, this past quarter, our economy grew at 4.1%. unemployment is down to historic levels, wages have started to increase again. we've seen some significant growth in our economy. but with that significant growth with a new tax code, there are also significant changes that are happening in the tax code. this particular bill provides the funds necessary for the i.r.s. to be able to complete its work to implement the tax reform bill to ensure that the tax forms and all the i.t. systems are ready for the filing system for next april 15. we want to make sure that americans get their questions answered because there will be additional questions coming this next year as they file under a new system. we hope it's a much simplified system. the bill also provides funding to ensure that local offices of in my state like in oak oklahoma

city -- like in oklahoma city will be able to have face-to-face conversations with someone from the i.r.s. and the opportunity for them to be able to call directly if they have calls to the i.r.s. many these important centers help oklahomans resolve tax issues, change tax account information, arrangements, and -- and this includes $159 million for the office of terrorism an financial intelligence. it's at the treasury department, but it levies the sanctions against terrorist organizations, international narcotics traffickers, rogue regimes and entities involved with weapons of mass destruction. it is an incredibly important office. the state of oklahoma knows firsthand the devastation that can be caused by terrorism and i'm pleased this be increases the bill.

it will dismantle the financial networks that support them. if you stop the flow of money to terrorism and to cartels, can you stop the flow of drugs and violence and every other evil thing that they bring. this bill also includes $118 million for the financial crimes enforcement network, what's called fin send. it combats money laundering. in 2018, financial institutions in oklahoma filed over 12,000 suspicious activity reports to identify suspicious activities or potential suspicious activities. that helped them to follow the mon and track down -- follow the money and track them down. it provides targeted increases for the securities exchange commission. the s.e.c., securities and exchange commission, works to ensure that our financial

markets are fair, orderly, and efficient. this helps oklahoma companies have access to the capital that they need to get started, to grow, to hire, and to thrive. over the past year the s.e.c. has made protection a main street investors its top priority. this will ensure that wall street can't give unscrupulous financial advice. i'm pleased we were able to fund this initiative. households in oklahoma have more than $164 billion in mutual fund assets, and the s.e.c. regulates investment companies that issue these securities so families are not victims of ponzi schemes or fraud that will wipe out their life's savings. with over $12 billion of oklahoma money invested, it is important to get this regulated and done right. the bill provides funding for the cftc, which ensures that

derivative markets will not abused. some say it doesn't affect me directly. if you're a soybean farmer or rancher or oil and gas production in oklahoma, these markets help people hedge their risk. it's important to them and to their comep. i'm pleased that the cftc chairman is vilsing oklahoma next -- visiting oklahoma to meet with agriculture and energy groups face-to-face as the agency implement thoughtful rules and regulations that encourage participation and innovation in the markets. we welcome the cftc chairman to oklahoma. the bill $280 million for high-intensely drug trafficking programs, which helps in drug be trafficking regions and corridors. one of those initiatives is a handful of counties in north texas as well as cleveland,

mukogi, oklahoma, pittsburgh, and tulsa counties. those counties are sometimes used as a transnational shipment distribution area for drugs arriving from mexico destined for oklahoma and other parts of the country. with this they are able to share information an joint task forces that connect several different law enforcement agencies. for example, this week from wednesday to friday they are hosting a training for local street patrol officers, investigators and detectives to keep them aware of the drug activity and the most common street gangs. it's important that stays in place. the bill includes $99 million for the office of national drug control programs that supports

coalitions to prevent youth drug use. many youths have a difficult time navigating junior high and high school and early colleague trying to stay away from drugs. this supports grants and nonprofit organizations in towns in my state like lexington in reference to reduce teen substance abuse. it includes funding increases to the postal service to stop the drug trafficking it through the mail. this funding increase will enable the inspector general to address the increase in the number of allegations of postal employees stealing drugs from the mail or assisting drug trafficking organizations in the delivery of narcotics shipped through the mail. we have thousands and thousands of great employees in the united states postal service, but sometimes if we've got a bad apple in the group, the mail itself is being used to deliver

some of the worst narcotics to americans. we need to be able to increase what the inspector general can do to track down a bad actor even in the united states postal service. the bill provides full funding to the federal communication division to help close the digital divide between metropolitan areas and rural areas in oklahoma. we want to protect consumer safety and improve the telecommunication companies throughout the state. this sets the precedent for increasing cellphone coverage in some of the most rural areas in the country, including rural areas in oklahoma. oklahoma receives the second-largest allocation of lifeline funds in the entire country, $128 million. but there is some waste and inefficiency and there are some individuals, even in my state, that are getting lifeline funds that should not get them. so we've increased the ability to be more efficient and make sure that lifeline funds are targeted to the people who actually need it the most. further, this bill provides full funding for the federal trade

commission to fulfill its mission to prevent anticompetitive mergers and anticompetitive business practices, it has a real impact on oklahoma and oklahoma families. but it's important to note that we're not just sending a check these families and these companies an entities and agencies walking away. we required agency leaders to publicly defend their budget request and we will continue to hold hearings and have conversations with agency heads and senior leaders about the use of their funders. in some cases -- funds. in some cases we have made cuts. last year there was $150 million provided for the technology and modernization fund at the g.s.a. they came back this year and asked for $210 million. we said no. we have not seen results from that program yet and if we don't -- and we don't have any data on it and i wasn't going to

allocate $210 million to something that we don't know if it's working. the national archives and records administration does incredibly important work to protect our nation's history. but we reduced their budget for dmin straysive -- dmin straysive -- administrative expenses in this bill. this can be a model for other agencies an entities. there are ways to protect america's money and it begins by the government remembering that the money that's allocated in this bill is not our money. it's the money that's coming out of the paychecks of hardworking americans and they want us to be responsible with it. rightfully so. again, this is a historic week for the appropriations committee and this particular subcommittee and for the senate. i do applaud the determination of chairman shelby and vice chairman leahy as they push these bills through and publicly debated these bills on the floor. i also want to thank ranking

members of the subcommittee chris coons. he's been a great partner in this effort. our team and his team have worked very cooperatively together through a lot of very difficult issues. and i appreciate everyone's engagement on these issues as we try to solve this long term. i look forward to continuing oversight in the months ahead as we pass this bill and that watch over how those dollars are actually spent. we want to make sure decisions that had been made are best for the american people, best for the agencies, and best for the future of our country. i look forward to seeing this bill done. in just the next few hours, the next couple of days, and finishing the work to then partner this bill up with what the house has passed, to get a final conference report, and put it on the president's desk. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, i appreciate the comments of the senator preceding me and i thank him very much. he's worked very, very hard on the appropriations committee. senator shelby and i worked very hard to get a bipartisan bill i hoped we could have very soon a consent agreement to bring this, the current bills to a conclusion. i would tbhoat that both senator -- note that both senator shelby and i have done our best to work with members of both parties. many people on the appropriations committee have

concerns, some of which are by nature parochial. many national. i think we have tried to accommodate as many people as possible, and i would hope that senators can reach an agreement soon so we can know exactly what we'll be voting on if not tonight, tomorrow morning. but i thank the senator for his comment. and i yield the floor. and i suggest -- i would suggest the absence of a quorum but i see my friend about to speak so i will yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. a senator: mr. president, i appreciate the kind remarks and the comments about the appropriations process and bill by the ranking member, otherwise chairman of the committee. mr. moran: in this package of appropriation bills is the fsgg

that was just talked about by the senator from oklahoma, the chairman of that subcommittee of which i'm a member. but tonight i want to speak about an aspect of that appropriations bill. i want to speak on the evolving threats in cybersecurity that not only pose harm to individual americans but also to federal agencies that are tasked with ensuring the economic and national security of our nation. in recent years, it has become clear that threats in cybersecurity are rapidly changing. cyberattacks are not only growing in volume but also in complexity. i chair the subcommittee of the senate commerce committee, a subcommittee on consumer protection, product safety, insurance, and data security. i've convened hearings and publicly questioned federal agencies and private corporations alike to determine what standards and practices they have in place to better protect their customers' personal and financial data. with examples of breaches

exposing the personally identifiable information of tens of millions of americans like the 2015 breach within the u.s. office of personnel management, the ability to compromise data networks in the term government cannot be overstaighted -- overstated. companies must do all they can to prevent hackers from gaining access to their customer information. the federal government and state officials must do the same. advancements in information technology or i.t.e. will continue to drive the changes in our nation's security, economic competitiveness, communications, health care, privacy and other areas. the federal government must keep pace with these changes through nimble, expeditious and result-driven decision making. a stringent and cumbersome budgeting and acquisition process has tied the hands of federal agencies in their efforts to modernize their i.t. systems in an efficient fashion. the u.s. government accountability -- accountable office g.a.o. 2015 high risk

series reports highlighted several issues it deemed critical to improving i.t. acquisitions. specifically, the report stated that about 75% of the $80 billion the federal government spends annually on i.t. investments is spent operating and maintaining outdated and unsupported legacy systems creating major cybersecurity vulnerabilities at home and abroad. in fact, the federal chief information officer, suzette kent recently testified to the house committee on oversight and government reform where she identified the replacement of legacy i.t. systems as critical to achieving stronger federal cybersecurity protections. with the support of the trump administration, i partnered with senator tom udall of new mexico to introduce the modernizing government technology that's being referred to m.g.t. act in an effort to address the foundational cybersecurity threats that outdated legacy

systems in our federal agencies pose. the m.g.t. act establishes i.t. working capital funds for 24c.f.o. act eligible agencies and allows them to use savings obtained through streamlining i.t. systems, replacing will legacy products and transforming to cloud computing for further modernization efforts for up to three years. the bill also creates the technology modernization fund, a separate centralized fund within the department of the treasury. these resources would be administered across the federal government by the head of the general services administration in consultation with a board of federal i.t. experts. it is fitting that the m.g.t. act was signed into law last year as part of the national defense authorization act for f.y.2018. as cybersecurity policy is increasingly enter woven into comprehensive national security discussions. as contributors to the original

drafting of the m.g.t. act, senate appropriators demonstrated their continued support for the innovative policy by appropriating $100 million to the technology modernization fund for f.y. 2018, last year's appropriation bill. of this original funding, the technology modernization fund has already awarded substantial grants to applicant agencies, including the department of housing and urban development, energy, and the department of agriculture to replace their outdated, unsupported, and july vulnerable systems. during the early stage successes, i was disappointed that the subcommittee for financial services and general government, the subcommittee that the senator from oklahoma chairs and i'm a member of, provided no funds for the technology modernization fund in the mark for this fiscal year 2019. i appreciate the opportunity to work with subcommittee chairman lankford and his staff. it is clear to me in that conversation and those discussions that g.s.a. and o.m.b. need to provide more

information on individual agency proposals submitted to and awarded by the technology modernization fund. i work with the subcommittee to include specific reporting requirements in this bill for the agencies to provide congress, agency officials have been providing necessary information to appropriators since the markup of the bill. so progress is being made. these commonsense requirements are absolutely critical and will lead to more transparency and it is important that the g.s.a. and o.m.b. work closely with the appropriations committee on proposals for moving forward. congress and the federal agencies must work hand in hand to provide the necessary resources, the technology modernization fund which used responsibly is a vital tool for the federal government task of keeping our nation's critical i.t. infrastructure efficient and secure. inherently tied to improving our nation's critical i.t. infrastructure is bolstering cybersecurity efforts to protect us from those who wish to do us harm in the cyber domain.

the federal role and cyber security involves cybersecurity and assisting and protecting nonfederal systems. under current law all federal agencies have cyberresponsibilities related to their own systems and many have sector specific responsibilities. one of the most well known topics related to our nation's cybersecurity capabilities is related to the intelligence community indicating that russian cyber actors interfered with u.s. elections. these exposures threaten to compromise one of the most sacred privileges we have as americans afforded to us in our constitutional freedoms to participate in democracy through an election. back in the -- back end election systems including ballot creation systems, voting machine, configuration systems, absentee processing, and reporting and tabulation software are increasingly vulnerable and have been compromised by both private and state actors.

while states are charged with primary responsibility of securing their systems, the federal government can bolster those efforts through a legislation like the secure elections act which i cosponsored in an effort to strengthen protections against foreign interference and prevent russian meddling in our elections as they did in 2016. our nation faces existential threats from disearses such as russia and china in warfare we cannot see the rages in the shadows of cyberspace where cyberattacks know no bounds. affecting our federal systems, state, and crossing the lines in our nation's critical infrastructure. our intelligence community and other agencies analyze cyber threats. whether atagging our -- attacking our democracy or infrastructure, it's important the federal government promptly streamline and share cyber security information with state, local and private sector partners. through talk of cyber threats to

our state networks and critical infrastructure across all sectors continue to grow, this threat is not new and just last july we saw hackers infiltrate a network of companies that run nuclear plants in the united states, including a power plant in my home state in kansas. incidentally, across -- a cross-section of stakeholders at the state and federal level and among the private sector are represented at the kansas intelligence fusion center which plays a critical role analyzing and comparing cyber data and intelligence among public-private partners and federal agencies to identify similarities, anomalies, and ways our cyber defenses can improve. the fusion center headquartered in toe -- toe pico is annal lit cal -- has analytical capability that works as an intermediary supporting companies across the united states in our financial and energy sectors as well as our intelligence community and the department of defense, the department of energy, and the

department of homeland security. with the fusion center's ability to access, analyze and transmit data at classified levels, they are able to more accurately assess cyber threats from the vantage point that private sector partners cannot. similarly, we are able to share what they learned from cyber attacks on private sector partners to federal agencies. as we look for ways to improve i.t. systems across the federal government, there is much to be gained from the private sector and their experiences and exposure to cyberattacks. as the departments of defense, energy, and homeland security develop and assessment of our nation's cyber infrastructure, i hope they seek itself perspective of our -- the perspective of our private sector partners that are just as much as stake as protecting our private sectors across the country as well as the federal government. we must do all we can to protect, respond to cyber security attacks which is why fully funding the technology

modernization fund is so important to bolstering an environment that incentivizes organizations to strengthen their i.t. systems. i hope my colleagues recognize the importance of investing into defensive cybersecurity capacity and join me in supporting funding of the technology modernization fund and the financial services and general government appropriations bill and supporting the secure elections act. mr. president, i yield the floor and notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will take the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. moran: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. moran: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. moran: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up and consider the amendments in the managers' package which is at the desk with a modification to amendment