previously unformally fatal disease. >> and later, prioritizing cure at the national institutes of health. watch in prime time on c-span, c-span.org and listen with the free c-span radio app. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. and today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house. the supreme court, and public policy events in washington d.c., and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. . >> and live now to the u.s. senate in about an hour the senate will have two votes related to 2019 federal spending bill covering the

pentagon and the departments of health and human services, education and labor. we're expecting a final passage vote on the bill later this week. now live coverage. senate here on c-span2. the presiding officer : the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. father of us all, thank you for

loving us throughout the seasons of our lives. help us not to take your love and grace for granted. lord, empower us to plan to spend dwoangsal time with you each -- with you each day. give us a hunger and thirst for your amazing presence. may we always make time to experience life's wonders, pausing to consider the glory of a sunrise or to pluck a rose or to say i love you. strengthen our senators for today's issues. may they labor for you. give them an awareness of their accountability to you for the

decisions they make. quiet the tempest within and give them your peace. we pray in your merciful name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., august 23, 2018.

to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable dean heller, a senator from the state of nevada, who will perform the duties of the chair. signed: orrin g. hatch, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. are morning business is -- morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the following nomination, which the clerk will report. nomination, department of health and human services, lynn a. johnson of colorado, to be assistant secretary of family support.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: this continues to be a productive august here in the united states senate. we convene this month because too much of the american people's business remained outstanding. too many legislative priorities unfinished, too many uncontroversial completely qualified nominees left languishing on the executive calendar due to partisan obstruction and delays.

coming back to work this august was not a conventional decision, but, of course, there's nothing conventional about the historic level of obstruction which senate democrats have systematically visited on this administration's nominees, even for critical positions. president trump's nominees have already been subjected to more than four times -- four times -- as many cloture votes as the nominees of his six most recent predecessors combined -- combined -- in their first two years. 24 cloture votes on nominations in the first two years of presidents carter, reagan, bush, clinton, bush, and obama, all put together, 24 times did the majority leader have to file cloture vote on a nomination in the first two years. and for president trump, 110 in

a year and a half and counting. so we return to work to pass more legislation and to confirm more nominees. that's just what we've done and it's just what we'll continue to do. this week we will conclude the hugely important appropriation bills before us, and after that, we will turn to the 17 nominees on whom i filed cloture vote yesterday. there are a variety of impressive men and women whom the president has asked to serve both in the judiciary and in the executive branch. none are particularly controversial, all are qualified. no more obstruction, no more delays. it's time to confirm them all, and the senate will continue to work right through august until every single one of them is confirmed.

this week we've been considering appropriations measures to fund the department of defense and the departments of labor, h.h.s., and education, these bills will make america stronger overseas and right here at home. they attend to national priorities like providing the resources needed to better prepare our forces for combat and to deter our enemies. the funds meet many of the requirements of our military commanders, equipping and training units to meet and to overcome the most dangerous of emerging global threats. as ever, we are to provide adequate training, weaponry, and skills so that americans always prevail on the battlefield. this bill martials new resources for our battle with drug abuse and opioid addiction and gives

the national institutes of health to help with alzheimer's and infectious diseases and hiring workers is a top challenge for businesses, this legislation continues and expands our investments in apprenticeship programs in training and employment grants to states and in support for dislocated workers. these are national efforts, so how do they translate locally? every senator can describe how this legislation will help families and communities in their home state. in my state of kentucky, we're looking forward to increased funding for pell grants and for millions we have secured the support of work colleges like maria college and ellis lloyd college. kentuckians will benefit from new health centers to support patients struggling with addiction and from a new c.d.c. initiative to prioritize counties for funding most at

risk of outbreaks of h.i.v. and hepatitis due to injection drug use. and of course the department of defense funding touches every single community that proudly calls itself home to the men and women of our armed services. kentuckians in uniform and their families will enjoy their well-earned pay raise, the highest in nearly a decade, which this bill provides all american service members. and the communities that resolve around fort campbell, fort knox, the bluegrass army depot and the kentucky national guard can count on the funding they need to keep their important operations going. national priorities, of course, but all have local impacts. i am proud of what these bills contain and how the senate has crafted them. i want to particularly thank chairman shelby and senator leahy once more. i look forward to voting to pass these measures very soon. now, on a final matter, this week, judge brett kavanaugh has continued meeting with members of the senate.

so far i believe the only senators who have met with this nominee and then had negative things to say about him were democrats who already announced beforehand they were going to oppose him. i suspect that with judge kavanaugh, you have to go in with a closed mind in order to come away unimpressed. this man has served with distinction for more than a decade on what many scholars consider the second highest court in our nation, the d.c. circuit. his legal brilliance and his fair, open-minded approach have won him vocal praise from those in the know all across the political spectrum. here's one quote. i think it's very hard for anyone who has worked before him, appeared before him frankly to say a bad word about him. i mean, this is an incredibly brilliant, careful person, legendary for his preparation. that's neil cadgill who served as solicitor general to barack obama, describing judge

kavanaugh. here's another quote. obama solicitor general donald verilly. judge kavanaugh is a brilliant jurist. he carries out all phases of responsibilities of a judge in a way you would want, in an exemplary way. he is a distinguished jurist by any measure. this is what it sounds like when legal experts who happen to be on the political left make a fair, unbiased assessment of this impressive mainstream nominee. in contrast, mr. president, about a third of the entire democratic caucus stood up the first week, the first week after judge kavanaugh was announced to declare they had seen enough, seen enough. they were dead set against confirming him. one democrat, a member of the judiciary committee, announced she would oppose whomever, whomever the president selected before judge kavanaugh was even nominated.

and the ink was barely dry on judge kavanaugh's nomination when my friend, the democratic leader, said he would oppose it with everything i've got. all this reflexive -- all of this reflective opposition occurred well before there was any mention of documents or any of the other reasons our colleagues have come up with to delay the hearing. remember, judge kavanaugh has written over 300 opinions from the bench, and the judiciary committee has already received more than twice as many pages of documents pertaining to this nominee as for any other supreme court nominee in american history. more than 400,000 pages and counting. so however you slice it, every senator will be historically well equipped to provide advice and consent on the president's nominee. no shifting rash analysis or partisan complaints can mask one

simple fact -- everyone who is willing to give this nominee a fair hearing will be able to do pro sighsly that. -- precisely that. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. schumer: madam president? the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: now, madam president, by any account, this has been a momentous week in the history of the trump presidency and in the history of presidents in general. president trump's former campaign manager was convicted on eight counts and still has another trial yet to go. the president's former personal attorney, his lifelong compadre for so long, pled guilty to multiple violations of bank fraud and campaign finance violations, implicating the

president of the united states himself in one of those crimes. let me just repeat that. president trump was named as an unindieted coconspirator in a federal crime. and what did we hear from our republican friends on the hill? was this the moment when republican leaders finally stood up and said, enough? amazingly, parentally not. apparently my republican colleagues cannot rouse themselves to offer even a word of criticism for a president now implicated in a federal crime. a president who casually tosses around the idea of pardoning his convicted former campaign chairman, a president who speaks favorably of that convicted felon because he didn't break while disparaging a former confidant for collaborating with law enforcement. sound like a scene out of the "the godfather."

just imagine if president presit obama's campaign manager was convicted of several serious federal crimes. do you think my republican friends would give circumspect quotes to reporters? or do you think they'd be down here beside me on the floor beside themselves? the answer is obvious. and yet when this comes to a president of their own party, hardly a word of criticism or censure from our republican friends. at some point, after the access hollywood tape, after the charlottesville, after the helsinki summit, and now after these most recent revelations, the broad failure of the republican party in congress to condemn the president's behavior and what that behavior is doing to the american character becomes a former of complicity. without strong voices in his party to tell him when he goes too far, the republicans have

become complicit in bringing down the character of the united states, probably the best thing we have going for us. president trump keeps destroying and hurting and gnawing at that character with u.a.e. macing n.r.a. six, with amazing ego, with misstatement of truth after truth after truth. and our republican friends, the only ones who can really stop him -- we can't -- they just shrug their shoulders. president trump thinks he can keep testing the boundaries, and our republican friends say, go right ahead. we're not going to stowp. we're going to be quiet. it seems republican party leaders have made the ultimate bargain -- foregoing their duty to the constitution and the country in exchange for a corporate tax cut and stacking the courts. they're willing to ignore the corruption and law-breaking.

they're willing to ignore corruption, law-breaking, as long as they have someone in the white house to sign their tax cuts, to gut health care, which they despise, and to nominate conservative ideologues to the bench. the republican -- the mantra of the republican majority in this 115th congress is this -- the mantra of the republican party in the 115th congress is, put your head in the sand. the symbol of the republican party, the elephant, is being replaced with the ostrich, an animal that just puts its head in the sand whenever trouble occurs. put your head in the sand, they must tell themselves. we want to pass a corporate tax cut. put your head in the sand. we want to eviscerate obama's health care law, even if it means raising costs on working

americans. put your head in the sand, like an ostrich. we want a conservative majority on the supreme court. if you ask me, the price of that faustian bargain has already become too steep. i have real admiration for the never trumpers, hard-right conservatives who hardly agree with me on anything. but they've had the courage to say that the character of america, which donald trump day by day is destroying, is more important than a tax cut or a nominee to the supreme court, because if our character goes away, we don't have much left. and donald trump's actions -- we all know what he did. when i see republicans -- i saw the majority leader in the house talk on fox news -- i said to myself, doesn't he know -- he

must believe that trump did what it's alleged he did, paying dollars to someone to avoid her telling what happened between her and him. everyone knows that's true. no one doubts it's not true. the president knows it's true, i'm sure. and yet, the republican ostrich puts its head in the sand and ignores the day-by-day erosion of the american character that donald trump creates. the faustian bargain has become too steep, my republican friends. consideration of country and constitution aside, if my republican colleagues remain silent, the party is becoming a coconspirator in the culture of corruption that surrounds this president. now is the time for republican leaders to do what's best for

their party and for their country. sometimes it's as simple as saying "enough" to this president. but it would be a far better thing, in addition to our republican colleagues speaking out, to pass legislation to protect the special counsel from political interference, to hold hearings on the power of the president to pardon, to pass legislation to bolster election security, and to hold russia accountable. to use congress' power to investigate the serious crimes that were committed by the president's close associates during the election. but it has to start with our republican colleagues recognizing the moment we're in, for them to look back at figures like howard baker, who rose to the occasion in a similar

situation 50 -- 45 years ago. where are the howard bakers? where are our republican colleagues who i know they love this country. but it's either fear or expediency or something else not admirable that is making them complicit with the president in their ostrich-like silence. it is time, my republican friends, to quote the scriptures, to speak truth to power. next, the recent legal developments for mr. manafort and mr. cohen shed an entirely different light on judge kavanaugh's nomination to the supreme court. it is conceivable that down the road the supreme court could be

faced with a decision as to whether a sitting president can be subpoenaed or indicted, something the court has not yet ruled on. in my meeting with judge kavanaugh, he not only refused to answer crucial questions about whether roe, casey, or cases involving the a.c.a. were correctly decided, he even refused to affirm that a president must comply with a duly issued subpoena. even in a criminal investigation that concerns vital national security. considering judge kavanaugh has such a voluminous record on the issue of executive authority on which he seems to take an almost montana narc cal view, his refusal to say a president must comply with a subpoena should give everyone -- everyone -- great pause. just as the president is implicated in criminal activity, the senate is considering the nomination of someone to the supreme court who believes that

sitting presidents are vitter lit immune from legal -- virtually immune from legal jeopardy. i understand that my republican colleagues don't want to delay hearings for judge kavanaugh, despite this overwhelmingly good reason to do so, made even more piquant by yesterday's events with mr. cohen and mr. manafort. i believe still chairman grassley, leader mcconnell should consider, given the president's legal trouble, given the fact that the majority of the senate has not yet had a chance to review or even access judge kavanaugh's full records and what he might feel about executive power, i feel that we should hit the pause on the hearing. it makes logical sense. senators should be wary of the unknowns in judge kavanaugh's hidden record. he's been a hard-right republican warrior for much of his career before he got on the

bench. when he got on the bench, he was still a hard-right warrior in the decisions he made. president trump didn't vet him any better than he vetted scott pruitt or tom price or any of the other catastrophic appointments he made to the cabinet. it'll be a rude awakening for senators to find out after a confirmation vote that the nominee had a number of issues in his past that the senate did not properly consider. i repeat my plea -- we should delay the hearing of judge kavanaugh -- at the very minimum, until the full record of everything he has said and done on executive authority is made public. finally, madam president, late last night -- in this administration, you just can't believe what goes on. it is so faraway from what the american people believe and feel. it is so dominated by a small,

powerful group on the hard right, in this case the gun lobby. what did secretary devos say last night? well, the "times" reported that betsy devos and the trump administration have a plan to allow states and school districts to use federal funds that were intended to help high-poverty schools bring things like computer science, civics, mental health treatment, to instead by guns for teachers. is that amazing? unbelievable! teachers don't want guns. they know it makes them a target, if god forbid a shooter comes no the school. and now devos wants to take federal funds away from instruction so that the school district can buy guns for teachers? what is that all about? what recklessness, what

absurdity? everyone knows it will not make our schools or teachers safer. the teachers themselves know it. that's why congress -- democrats and republicans -- explicitly prohibited the use of d.h.s. grants to purchase weapons or ammunition for schools. we just did that, democrats and republicans together. that's why earlier this year, congress prohibited that. bringing more guns in our schools is not the answer at all. i can't believe that ms. twos is secretary of -- ms. devos is the secretary of education, this is so antithetical to safety in school and education. she's highly unpopular with the american people. thrawout the country -- throughout the country, not just in the blue states. in some of the reddest states, education is so important that

her kowtowing to private education hurts millions of rural school children. the trump administration, this time led by secretary devos, has twisted a plan to advance the n.r.a.'s dream policy. that's all it is. the trump administration is giving the keys to the special interests, this time the n.r.a. until president trump breaks the n.r.a.'s stranglehold on the republican party, he's occasionally talked about it, but then fearful, retreated from the things he said, meaningful gun safety reform in this country will not continue to be subverted by radical and dangerous ideas from the n.r.a. like arming teachers. now this announcement occurs as we wrap-up labor, h.h.s. we have a bipartisan agreement

to fund the title 4 grant program at $1.2 billion, the most since its inception, but this news about secretary devos's plans chill our celebration. i'm calling on our colleagues to reaffirm that we do not believe that more guns in schools will create safe, effective learning environments, that we shouldn't use federal dollars to arm teachers. let's stop this hair brained idea before it gets off the ground. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: we will vote in a few minutes to move forward with the defense and labor, health and human services, education appropriating bill. that probably sounds like a pretty unusual combination, even

though i think most voters, most taxpayers understand that to get this work done in the time frame we have to do it, we generally need to bring more than one topic together on the floor at the same time, but why defense and labor, and health and human services, and education? well, first of all, that's 62% of all the suspension. if we can get -- spending. if we can get this bill passed today, get a conference with the house, get this single bill on the president's desk by the end of the fiscal year, we will have funded that much of the government in a time lay way for the first time in a decade. if we can add the other bills to it that the house and senate have passed, we'll have 90% of the spending on the president's desk and in place before the spending year starts. now, it doesn't sound like that will be a very big accomplishment, but in the standards of the last decade, it would be an incredible accomplishment to bring these

bills to the floor, to allow them to be debated, to have them -- allow them to be amended. we have a managers' package that would include a number of the 60 or so proposed amendments just on the labor, health and human services, education part of the bill. i don't know how that's exactly going to work out today, but i do know that we can take that managers' package to the conference and say this is what we agreed to as a managers' package, we're we can officially add it, every bit of it is germane to the bill, germane, in my view, of what could happen in conference. but i would also point out, madam president, that for decades the priority of my side of the aisle, of our side of the aisle, has been defend the country first is the number one priority. one of the top priorities on the other side of the aisle has

been, well, let's take the biggest of the nondefense bills and be sure we're equally prioritizing it. so in my view, in perhaps the first time this has ever happened, the leaders have decided to bring these two pop priorities -- two top priorities to the floor together and let the senate decide how to move forward with the bill. let me talk for a few minutes about one of the items in the bill, labor, health and human services, education committee you and i serve on, and that would be health care research, and specifically alzheimer's and how it relates to that research. first of all, for a dozen years ending four years ago, there had not been a penny of increase in health research. when i became chairman of this committee four years ago,

senator murray and i began to work on reprioritizing health care research. democrats and republicans getting together to figure out what we needed to do for at least the first couple of years, what we needed to do was eliminate other programs and combine other programs and make tough choices to really be sure that health research was a priority. when we passed this bill -- when we pass this bill today, madam president, we will have increased health research spending in a budget that for two years had no growth at all and has had some growth in the last two, but by 30%, from $30 billion a year to $39 billion a year at a time when we know more about the human genome, we know more about what makes each of us differently from all the rest of us than we had before.

and what are we beginning to see? we are seeing things in cancer and in brain research. we're not seeing the kind of results we want to see yet in alzheimer's, but we're moving in that direction. every hour alzheimer's disease costs taxpayers at least $ 21 million every single hour. someone in the united states is developing alzheimer's every 65 seconds. we're spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $277 billion tax dollars a year on alzheimer's and dmeengsa -- dimentia-related care. it is hard to talk about this without giving numbers, but numbers are not the most rivetting thing, particularly when you talk about millions, billions, or even trillions.

what does that really mean? that means that we're spending -- an amount equal to half of the defense budget on alzheimer's and dimentia-related care. just the overwhelming impact of that. if we don't do something differently by -- than we're doing it right now just because of the protected long life and demographics of the country, in 2050, which is 32 years from now, we'll be spending in today's dollars $1.1 trillion on alzheimer's and dimentia care, $ 1.1 trillion. 1.1 anything -- who knows. let's go back to defense again. that's twice the defense budget of last year, twice the defense budget. now, i don't really have a great

grasp of what $1.1 trillion is, but i do have a sense of what every military base every in the world would be and add to that every ship, every plane, every piece of equipment and add to that every training dollar, add to that every paycheck for every soldier, sailor, airmen, marine, the coast guard, the reserves, you're beginning to approach a pretty big number, but weeding spending more than twice that amount, if you added all i just talked about, more than twice that just on taxpayer spending on alzheimer's and dimentia. obviously there is a huge taxpayer need to find a solution here. there is even a bigger individual need. you know, it's not only a devastating disease for people to have it, it's a devastating disease for the people that care

about them. there's one generally used number out there that says for every tax dollar we're spending on alzheimer's and dimentia right now, we're spending two private dollars almost never insured. this is caregivers, this is people who care about you, who give up part or all of their career and time to take care of you instead of doing what they otherwise would be doing so that -- and you may be the person being taken care of may not have any real idea at some point of what's going on, but the people taking care of them know. that's a big reason to find a solution here. the -- if we could just delay onset of alzheimer's. if we could figure out how to come up with something that

could slow down the onset of that disease. if we could delay onset by an average of five years, weed cut that $ -- weed cut that $ -- we would cut that $1.1 trillion by almost 42%. if we could have the average person that gets alzheimer's get it five years later than they are getting alzheimer's today, almost half, 42% of that $1.1 trillion would go away. so this is something that obviously we need to prioritize. just four years ago we were spending about $600 million on alzheimer's research so we were spending $250 billion on taxpayer-related care. we were spending $600 million -- what is that?

is that one-quarter of 1%? $600 million on research to try to help solve this problem that we're spending these billions of dollars on every -- every year. so -- we have in four years got that number beyond the disease goal a handful of years ago. if we say we could have $2 billion on alzheimer's -- on alzheimer's research every year, we could begin to find -- have a better chance to find the solution. well, this year we passed the $2 billion. we're at $2.34 billion, but we're still only -- we're still spending less than 1% on trying to find a solution to the problem of what we're spending every year on the problem. but it's an important 1%. at washington university in

st. louis, which i didn't know when i started chairing this committee, what a great leader they were in this research effort. i knew they were one of the top health research universities in the country. i didn't know where we were cutting-edgewise on alzheimer's, but dr. randy baitman at -- bateman at washington university in st. louis is very close. has unveiled the results of a blood test that would hopefully detect early on whether you should individually -- whether you're on the way to developing this problem or not. now, obviously that matters if we can find things that you could do that would significantly slow down the advance of this disease. it's not -- it's not expensive particularly to take a blood test. it's not very invasive. it gets a quick result. you know, what do you have to do?

you have to have a cat scan. somebody in an expensive process look at your brain to figure out if you have amiloids developing in your brain that is likely to cause this. dr. hotus at n.i.h. said that one of the real reasons we can't find solutions is that we can't figure out how to get the right group to clinically test. a blood test would help with that. we're working on that. i see my friend, senator markey, is here. i would point out him because of the leader's time, i only started talking about eight minutes ago and i maybe only have two minutes right now. if you want to use that two minutes before the vote. but we to have a -- we do have a vote and then we'll figure out how to get back to your time. but thanks for your interest in health research. certainly dr. blumenthal, your

wife is a great advocate of this. why don't i yield this last minute or so to senator markey and maybe there will be other time later. but i know we have a vote scheduled in a minute. mr. markey: i thank the gentleman from missouri, and i ask unanimous consent that i be allowed to speak for four minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. markey: i thank you, madam president. so i thank the senator from missouri. thank him for his great leadership on this issue. as he was pointing out, this is an issue that is whether or not we make a continued increase in the research for n.i.h. that goes right to the long term budgetary objectives of our country. as he pointed out, if we do not find

the cure for alzheimer's by the time we reach the year 2050, the budget at medicare and medicaid for taking care of alzheimer's patients will be equal to the defense budget of our country. obviously, that is nonsustainable. so the only way in which we are going to be able to deal with this issue is to find a cure. research is medicine's field of dreams from which we harvest the findings that give hope to families that there could be a cure for the disease that runs through their family's history. it could be alzheimer's, parkinson's, diabetes, cancer, whatever the disease. it's going to take funding from the n.i.h. to match the magnitude of the challenge. that's what this bill is going to do. in working with chairman shelby

and senator leahy, along with senator blunt, what we're seeing here is another dramatic increase. he and senator murray have worked with the chairs in order to accomplish this goal. and ultimately, i know how important this issue is because my mother died from alzheimer's, and the funding level for alzheimer's research has been woefully inadequate matched against the magnitude of the problem. so there has had to be a dramatic increase. unfortunately from 2002 until 2007, we actually just had level funding at the national institutes of health. and that meant a cut by ultimately 20% in the spending capacity of n.i.h. so now we're making up for lost

ground, and the key is it draws the most talented young people in america towards the goal of finding the cures, finding the breakthroughs that can ultimate ly give hope to families, because n.i.h. isn't just the national institutes of health. it's the national institutes of hope. it is the hope that people have that the disease that runs through their family will, in fact, be cured. and so that's why this budget is so important, because it is going to increase the hope that families have. it is going to draw more scientists towards these issues. it is going to lead to more breakthroughs. because whether it be alzheimer's or cancer or diabetes or a.l.s. or whatever the disease is, failure is not an option. we must find the breakthroughs

that are going to make a difference. when it comes to alzheimer's itself, when i was a boy, president kennedy said that the mission to the moon was what we should all be focused upon. well, in the 21st century, it's the mission to the mind. it's to try to find ways in which in these labyrinthian passageways of human brains that we can find the clues that make it possible for us to find the cure. so i thank the senator from missouri. i thank you, madam president, for giving me an opportunity to extend. there is no more important issue that we're going to be dealing with. with that, i yield back. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion. we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on

senate amendment numbered 3695 to calendar number 500, h.r. 6157, an act making appropriations for the department of defense for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2019, and for other purposes, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on amendment numbered 3695, as amended, offered by the senator from alabama, mr. shelby, to h.r. 6157, an act making appropriations for the department of defense for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2019, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: any senators wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, on this vote, the yeas are 90, the nays are 60 -- i'm sorry, the nays are 6, three-fifths of the senators duly colons and -- chosen and sworn having voted in the

affirmative, the motion is agreed to. mr. leahy: mr. president. the presiding officer: cloture having been invoked, senate will resume legislative session on h.r. 6157 which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar 500, h.r. 6157, an act making appropriations for the department of defense ending fiscal year 2019, and for other purposes. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, as vice chairman of the appropriations committee, i'm sure i can also speak for the chairman of the appropriations committee, senator shelby. we appreciate this vote, this strong vote so we can move forward. we have spent a lot of time here on the floor, but what many people have not seen are the hours and hours and hours that a

number of senators, both republican and democrat, have been working out and getting where we are, and then tens of hours more being done by our staff. i get e-mails sometimes at 1:00 in the morning because of negotiating. we are just within an hour of finishing and doing things that the senate, as senator mcconnell has pointed out, hasn't been able to do in words. i think passing is good, responsible legislation where both republicans and democrats have had a voice. we've had numerous votes in the senate appropriations committee, all of them overwhelmingly bipartisan, many of them

unanimous, some that, prohibition one or two -- approximately one or two votes. we have done this -- we have gotten this bill to where it is. i have seen some of the chairs from the subcommittee who worked hard to put together these coalitions. i know a lot of people want to get out of here and soon will head to the airport. let's get this done and show the united states senate is doing its work, what we were elected to do, what we know how to do, what we can do. and there are some things that we'll be talking about -- i'm about to suggest the absence of a quorum, in a moment i will, and i'm sure the leaders are

willing to be here, the quorum call will not be called off. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mrs. capito: yes, mr. president, i would like to ask that we vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mrs. capito: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mrs. capito: thank you. mr. president, i'm here today on the floor -- i want to thank the ranking member of the full committee for his good, hard

work on this bill. certainly senator shelby and the subcommittee chairs. we're here to talk about some of the important issues in this bill and the fact that how consequential really this bill will be and has the potential to be. i mean, we're enxapsing both -- encompassing defense and labor, h.h.s., both of which passed out of the committee with a lot of bipartisan support and a lot of input from members in the process. bills of this magnitude deserve to be debated on the senate floor like we're doing today. i would like to first address the defense part of this measure, because i think it impacts not only our standing here and our military here but also has a deplorable im -- global impact. president trump has made rebuilding and strengthening our military one of his primary objectives. this bill does exactly that.

this legs invests in programs, technologies, and capabilities that will strengthen our nation's military. more importantly, it invests in the people behind all of these efforts by including a 2.6% raise for all of our military. that includes our national guard, our national guard presence in west virginia is essential not only to our nation's security but to all the core values and the core strengths that guard brings to the state of west virginia. all of these men and women deserve our support and our commitment to provide them with what they need to defend a freedom both here and abroad. of course the legislation under consideration doesn't just focus on the military. it also focuses on the war -- another war being waged right here in our own country and that's the fight against the opioid epidemic. under the leadership of chairman blunt, he's been fantastic in the committee, the labor h.h.s.

subcommittee has made this issue a top priority. i could not be more grateful, more proud, and even more importantly, more hopeful. we saw the statistics come out last week of the over 70,000 deaths across the country. it's deeply troubling how to get the best hand on this very difficult problem. over the past four years we've increased funding for this effort, fighting the opioid crisis by more than 1,125%. we are not just doing this blindly and throwing money at this problem. we focused on treatment through our community health centers many we focused on prevention, working with the c.d.c. we focused on recovery through the workforce initiatives and we focused on research, n.i.h., where hopefully n.i.h. can develop a nonaddictive opioid treatment which i think will be a major breakthrough for this

problem, and we focused on directing fund to the -- funding to the states to meet the local challenges through their state opioid response grants. we've also focused on the ripple effects of this epidemic, including the impact on families and children in foster care. these are all important resources and much needed. but i want to call special attention to our work to something that is extremely important to my home state of west virginia. in the previous funding legislation, when we were dealing with this problem, i offered language with senator shaheen. we had language directing funds in the copy response grant to those with the -- to those states with the greatest states. unfortunately the metric in my state, we have states with smaller populations, but we have some of the biggest impacts, the highest addiction, the highest overdose and death rates across the country. this has enabled us to focus

more funding on those states that are more deeply affected but don't have the population to drive the formula funding to have enough formula funding in the states to meet our needs. just a few weeks ago our state department of health and human services released preliminary numbers -- in west virginia we had almost 500 copy-related deaths so far in west virginia. while this is the most devastating statistic, when it comes to west virginia and the opioid epidemic, it's not the only one -- it's not the only one we need to look at. we are seeing an increasing number of children in foster care. this is impacting the entire family. there are more grandparents and great grandparents who are raising their grandchildren and their great grandchildren. our state has an increased need for treatment facilities. we have more babies that are requiring neonato care as wel