>>. [inaudible] >> the senate is about to meet for the first time this

week after a break for rosh hashanah. they will work on the nomination of charles bedding to be the new irs commissioner. a vote to limit debate accepted at 5:30 p.m. eastern and bills dealing with the opioid epidemic and drawn price transparency are expected this week. live coverage now of the senate here on c-span2. >>

the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer.

the chaplain: let us pray. lord of our being, on yesterday as we remembered september 11, we also felt gratitude for your sovereignty over the affairs of humanity. may our lawmakers trust in your unfolding providence to continue to sustain this land we love and guide our world. lord, disentangle our senators from life's turmoil, inspiring them to focus on accomplishing your purposes

lord, give them the wisdom to find time to read sacred scriptures. remind them that they belong to you, as you draw them daily nearer to yourself. we pray in your great name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our 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: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: majority leader. mr. mcconnell: the nation watched the president's outstanding supreme court nominee last week, judge brett kavanaugh, testify before the judiciary committee. they saw chairman grassley guide the committee with gracious, strong leadership and an incredible amount of patience. the chairman deserves our gratitude, as do all of the committee staff whose hard work and dedication made it possible for senators to thoroughly examine judge kavanaugh and review more pages of documents pertaining to his career than were produced for the last five supreme court nominees combined. the american people also saw an stiff, extremely impressive nominee. judge kavanaugh was candid and forthcoming within the ethical constraints that exist for

judicial nominees. he demonstrated the intellectual brilliance and the thoughtful temperament for which he is so widely known. he has showed exactly why he is universal acknowledged as the leading legal mind and exactly why he will make a phenomenal associate justice of the supreme court. not everyone performed as admirably or as professionally last week. some of our democratic colleagues repeatedly interrupted chairman grassley, based rudely toward the nominee and hauled out one dishonest partisan attack after another to try to distort his record and smear judge kavanaugh. now this is a nominee whom lisa blatt, a prominent litigator and self-described liberal democrat, testified as ex- --

extraordinarily qualified. law professor akilah march praised him as studious and described president trump's nomination as -- described him as president trump's finest hour and the futile attacks to be dishonest. at this point dishonest attacks and half-truths are all that's left for our colleagues who made up their minds long ago that they were going to oppose judge kavanaugh no matter what. no matter what. you don't need to take my word for this. "the washington post" fact-checker called out one of our democratic colleagues and assigned her shameless misrepresentation of judge kavanaugh's testimony four pinocchios, the strongest condemnation. this particular senator cherry-picked from the senate where judge kavanaugh was

paraphrasing one side of an argument in a case that came before him, stripped its position of the content and held it up as though it was judge kavanaugh's own personal opinion. by trying to slime judge kavanaugh, the democrats are only underscoring one of his most impressive skills, his widely acclaimed talent for thinking through all party's perspectives and engaging fairly with the full range of views regardless of his personal beliefs. this and all other specific, all other specious attacks that were trotted out said absolutely nothing about judge kavanaugh's actual record. it said a great deal about the senators who were willing to resort to them in order to appease these far-left special interests. but i suspect that everyone who listened fairly to judge kavanaugh and the other witnesses came away seriously impressed with his qualifyingses

for the court and i look forward to confirming him on the senate floor in the coming weeks. later the senate will vote on the nomination of charles p. rettig to serve as commissioner on the i.r.s. his nomination comes as a crucial time as the federal government continues to implement once in a generation tax reform. recent memory reminds us just how important it is that all americans get a fair shake from the agency that overseas the tax code. this historic new law makes it all the more important that the i.r.s. continue to modernize and improve its technological infrastructure. i look forward to this nominee getting to work on behalf of the american taxpayers and we'll turn back to appropriations. this week we'll vote to approve the conference report that will fund energy and water military construction and the v.a. and the legislative branch. this week's bills contain $147

billion for projects ranging for water and infrastructure to military family housing to nuclear security and much more. this legislation equips the army corps of engineers to carry out harbor maintenance and on waterways restoration and critical flood damage reduction. it enables the department of energy to support groundbreaking research in computing systems and energy efficiency, the security of our nation's nuclear arsenal. the military construction and v.a. titles funds overdue maintenance to operations facilities as well as nearly $2 billion for military family and personnel housing, and it expands resources for in-house v.a. medical services and broadens community options for veterans seeking vital treatment

through funding of the v.a. mission act. these are national priorities with local impacts that will be felt in every one of our states. in my home state of kentucky, hundreds of millions of dollars will go toward training facilities at fort campbell and fort knox, infrastructure improvements in appalachia and environmental cleanup efforts in paducah. all senators can tell similar stories for their own states, so we're looking forward to taking another step forward on regular appropriations and passing this conference report this week. i want to thank chairman shelby and senator leahy for all they've done to keep this process going forward. the subcommittee chairman, senator boozman and senator daines, senator alexander, who chaired the conference and all of my colleagues on the appropriations committee. so let's pass this legislation and keep making progress together. on one final matter, mr. president, the pain that

opioid addiction and drug eab has inflict -- abuse has inflicted on families across america is almost unfathomable. every day 115 more american lives are lost to overdoses. synthetic opioid deaths nationwide skyrocketed sixfold from 2014 to last year alone. sadly, the commonwealth of kentucky is all too familiar with these statistics. more than 1,500 kentuckians died from a drug overdose in 2017, and kentucky is ranked among the top ten states for opioid fatalities for several years. and the tra jibbing medical trends -- the tragic medical trends is only one of the ways this crisis is crippling communities across this country. these drugs erode our labor market, they make it harder for distressed communities to get back on their feet. so this is nothing short of a

national emergency, and that's why congress has already passed major legislation to address it and very soon we will take significant new action by passing the legislation that's going -- been shepherded by senator alexander and his committee colleagues. this landmark package combines work from five different committees and 70 different senators. i'm proud that two of my bills are included, the career act to help individuals in recovery transition back into the workforce, and access housing services, and a second provision that will step up accountability on federal efforts to combat addiction among pregnant mothers. these are just two pieces of this comprehensive package. it will cut the supply of illegal drugs that pour over our borders and make it easier for communities to invest in recovery efforts, extend a helping hand to caregivers and families and provide for the invaiftion we need to put this

crisis in the rear view mirror. i'm pleased to have played a part in this response. i'm grateful to senator alexander and his colleagues, and i'll be proud to vote for this legislation very soon. on -- on one final matter, it's been a rough week for our democratic colleagues who claim the republicans' policy agenda wouldn't lay a good foundation for a strong economy. but it has been a great week for american workers and middle-class families. the evidence keeps piling up. tax reform and regulatory reform have helped create the conditions for one of the best economic moments the american people have seen in recent memory. and some measures are at their best levels in decades. here is just a small sampling. u.s. job growth accelerated in august and wages notched their largest annual increase in more than nine years. here's another headline. job openings hit record high. and another -- small business

optimism surges to highest level ever. the economy is literally flying through all-time records faster than i can come here to the floor to discuss them. many of these numbers are unprecedented. they are exactly the opposite of what some gloom and doom democrats insisted would happen if this unified republican government put our opportunity agenda into effect. fortunately, my republican colleagues and i know that getting washington out of the way helps make good things happen for the american people, and that is exactly what we will continue to do. mr. president, i ask the chair lay before the senate the conference report to accompany h.r. 5895. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: conference report -- the committee on conference on

the disagreeing votes of the two houses on the amendment of the senate to the bill h.r. 5895, making appropriations for the energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2019, and for other purposes, having met, have agreed that the house recede from its disagreement to the amendment of the senate and agree to the same with an amendment, and the senate agree to the same, signed by a majority of the conferees on the part of both houses. mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion to the desk for the conference report. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. 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 the conference report to accompany h.r. 5895, an act making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year

ending september 30, 2019, and for other purposes, signed by 17 senators -- mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the mandatory quorum call be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. the presiding officer: 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. the clerk: nomination, department of the treasury, charles p.rettig of california to be commissioner of the internal revenue.

mr. barrasso: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. the senate recently completed what was easily the most productive august in memory. we passed six appropriations bills with full debate on the senate floor. we passed the john s. mccain national defense authorization act. we have confirmed 25 appointees to important jobs in the administration. we confirmed 17 federal judges to the bench. we set up votes for another eight earlier this month. when i was home in wyoming, i talked with a number of people all around the state, and they were very pleased to see how much we're actually getting done. i can tell you they absolutely think we should keep up this pace. maybe the most important thing that people expect us to deal with quickly is confirming judge

brett kavanaugh to the supreme court. i believe we're off to a good start with the confirmation hearings for judge kavanaugh that were held last week in the judiciary committee. what people learned who watched the hearings is that judge kavanaugh is well respected, a mainstream, highly qualified individual for this important job. well, what people also saw is that some members of the opposite party, the democrats in the senate, were totally unwilling to give him fair consideration. senators have been given access to more than 500,000 pages of records from his time as a judge and throughout his career in public service. that's three times the amount of information that any other supreme court nominee has ever produced. for some nominees of the supreme court, these kind of documents are very important. they could tell us a lot about how a nominee thinks about how he or she might approach the job

of being a justice. it's especially important when that person under consideration has never served as a judge before, and sometimes that's all we have to look at, but that's not the case here with judge kavanaugh. judge kavanaugh has served on the circuit court for 12 years, and he has written opinions in over 300 cases. if anyone wants to know what he will act like as a judge, then they can just look at how he has already acted as a judge for the past dozen years. these documents, these opinions that he wrote in the 300 cases in the court in which he is serving, these are documents that matter. they are the ones that tell us how he approaches being a judge. senators have had access to these court opinions since the day judge kavanaugh was nominated eight weeks ago. if democrats would just take the time to read through these opinions, they would see that judge kavanaugh is extremely

thoughtful and he's independent. he is absolutely devoted to preserving the rule of law, to protecting the separation of powers that is the basis of our constitution. democrats don't want to read through all of these documents and these decisions, they could focus on the 13 cases where the supreme court adopted judge kavanaugh's reasoning. that's how much respect other judges and justices have for this careful and compelling -- the careful and compelling decisions which he has written. there was one case which dealt with a regulation put out by the environmental protection agency. judge kavanaugh found that the agency exceeded its authority under the law when it wrote their regulation. judge kavanaugh wrote it is not our job to make the policy choices and set the statutory boundaries. he went on to say but it is emphatically our job to carefully but firmly enforce the statutory boundaries. the supreme court agreed with judge kavanaugh's reasoning.

one constitutional scholar pointed out that judge kavanaugh commands wide and deep respect among scholars, lawyers, judges, and justices. another legal scholar said judge kavanaugh is one of the most learned judges in america on a variety of issues, ranging from theories of statutory interpretation to separation of powers. a third law professor agreed. he called judge kavanaugh a true intellectual, a leading thinker and writer on the subjects of statutory interpretation in federal courts. finally, if it's even too much for some democratic senators to read through all of the glowing review of judge kavanaugh's career, they could just look at what he's actually said. look at his own simple straightforward summary of his judging philosophy. in a speech last year, he made it very clear. he said the judge's job is to

interpret the law, not to make the law or make policy. this view that the judge's job is to interpret the law, not to make the law or make policy, and every example i have seen from judge kavanaugh's record is squarely in the mainstream of american legal thinking today. despite all this information being available, some democrats are trying to say that they still want even more documents. they are hoping against hope that if they request another 500,000 pages, that they can delay things a little longer, but, mr. president, let me assure you it's not going to happen. i think that most democrats who have been making the most noise really don't want more documents. that's because so many of the democrats complaining the loudest are the ones who have already made up their mind and made announcements that they are planning to vote against the nominee. they were saying it -- some were saying it before the nomination

was even announced. from the very beginning, liberal activists called on senator schumer to, quote, do everything in his power to keep this seat empty for as long as possible. there are several senators on the other side of the aisle who have gladly taken up this challenge from the far left corners of their base. well, i hope that more reasonable democrats will reject the cause for needless delays and dangerous obstruction. i hope there are democrats in the senate who are willing to listen to what judge kavanaugh actually said during his hearing. i hope there are democrats who are willing to read some of the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. and i hope there are some democrats who are willing to listen to the experts who are describing judge kavanaugh as one of the most learned judges in our country. it is clear that judge kavanaugh has the right approach to being a judge. it is clear that he is a person

of solid character and that he has a strong intellect. it is clear that america needs judge kavanaugh on the supreme court, and it is time for democrats to give up this pointless obstruction. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: thank you, mr. president. the conference report that we are considering today is good news for our country. along with providing funding for our veterans and supporting critical energy and infrastructure projects, it also includes $4.8 billion for the agencies in the legislative branch. the legislative branch portion of the conference report allocates funding in an appropriate manner.

it promotes government transparency as well as increasing security here at the capitol complex. and this is very important. in support of good government, this agreement includes a provision known as e-file, which requires u.s. senate candidates to file campaign finance reports electronically directly with the federal election commission, as every other federal candidate must do. not only does this provision increase transparency, it will reduce bureaucratic inefficiency, and it's going to save about a million dollars in taxpayer funds. this agreement also provides $589.7 million for the government accountability office to hire additional staff to bolster oversight of government programs and spending. having spent most of my career in the private sector,

accountability is a good thing. there is not enough of it here in washington, d.c. in fact, according to a report issued by the g.a.o., the g.a.o. returns $128 for every dollar invested in its budget. that's a good example of accountability in getting results for the american taxpayer. in fact, the resulting benefit of this oversight by g.a.o. was approximately $74 billion in documented savings for the taxpayers in 2017. that's where you get the 128-dollar return for every dollar invested in the agency. the capitol police is fully funded at the requested level of $456.3 million, allowing for the continued protection of visitors who come to the capitol campus every year, as well as the members and their staff. these are just a few highlights

of the bill which allocate a resourced and responsible -- resources in a responsible way to maintain existing services as well as providing critical investment across the u.s. capitol campus. and lastly, and importantly, i want to thank senator chris murphy, my ranking member, for working with me in a bipartisan manner throughout this process. this is my first year as chairman of the legislative branch subcommittee. i'd like to also thank chairman shelby and vice chairman leahy for their leadership and effort to return to regular order on appropriations bills. this is quite remarkable. now, it shouldn't be. the bar has been set so low in washington, d.c. that congress can't get their appropriation bills, their spending bills passed before the end of the current fiscal year, going into next year. guess what, the fiscal year ends on september 30. here we are on september 12 having to debate moving forward

now on appropriations. that's a good thing for our country. i urge my colleagues to support this conference report as we continue to move these bills forward to fund the government on time, in the right way. i see my distinguished colleague, senator murphy, from connecticut is here as well and it has truly been an honor to serve with senator murphy to move this forward on behalf of the american people. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. murphy: thank you very much, mr. president. let me express my thanks in return to chairman daines for being such a fan -- such a fantastic guy and fantastic partner on this subcommittee budget. i'm excited to bring this to our colleagues this morning. i will note he took over mid-stream from senator lankford who began this process. and i will also note that we

didn't get moving so quickly to a conference committee until senator daines took over. i give him great are credit for adding so much and be a great partner in all of this. i don't really need to go through all of the important initiatives that senator daines already did, maybe i will spend a minute doing so. but i will note that we made progress on some issues that have been stalled in the legislative appropriations committee for a long time, such as intern pay or the requirement to file campaign finance reports online. i think because we were able to do this budget on its own with a real process, with a real committee debate, and with a real conference committee. when these budgets get tied up into giant omnibus negotiations, it tends to be that only the top four or five issues in the omnibus get the attention from the folks in the room, and that

these budgets are really important, but maybe a little bit smaller than the budget for h.h.s. or the budget for the department of defense go untended to. so as we return to regular order, not only as -- not only do i think that is a breath of fresh air for democracy, it's not good news for anybody when decisions over a budget gets decided behind closed doors among a small set of people appointed by the democratic leader and the republican leader, it's also good government because we get to flesh out some really important, and sometimes controversial issues, when we do these budgets one by one that we might not get to do when they are all lumped together in a massive package. and so i hope that this is now the way that we do things. i really congratulate senator mcconnell and senator shelby for setting the tone. i know there are a couple of

conference committees tomorrow on some other packages and i hope they go as well as ours did. in this budget we did some really good things. we have a long list of deferred maintenance on this campus, we have 16.5 square feet of buildings, we have millions of visitors who are coming to experience the united states capitol and we provide $734 million for the architect of the capitol to make those targeted investments. accountability and transparency is something that senator daines focused on as chairman many we have 50 additional auditors and investigators at the government accountability office, that's the department that makes sure we are spending the taxpayers' money wisely and now they have the ability to save more money. full funding for the capitol police. i want to specifically thank senator daines for working with

us to include in this budget an initiative that we started in the senate to improve protections and coordination for members security off campus to recognize the new emerging threats in and around washington, d.c. i said it before, and i'll say it again, this breakthrough on a small amount of money toe help compensate interns. you know, lives change when you get to experience something like working for your member of congress for your united states senator. it opens your eyes to a set of experiences that would not be available to you. under prior practice, when very few senate offices paid for those internship experiences, you had to be a child of means in order to get here. now, hopefully, with this small amount of money that we're giving to our interns, you will have a much greater pool of applicants and a much greater

pool of young men and women who are able to be here and work in our offices. and i just think that's good for this place, and i think it's good for a lot of kids who will get to experience government. boy, faith in government, belief in civic participation couldn't be lower today. getting more kids from more diverse backgrounds access to the federal government, i think it's a really, really positive development. so, again, this has really been a joy to work with senator daines. great to be on a conference committee. i heard rumors of conference committees, we got to sit on one and hammer out a budget with our house colleagues, and i hope that it sails through as we move to final debate and passage. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

mr. daines: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: i have one request for a committee to meet during today's session of the senate. it has the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted.

the presiding officer: the

senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. my understanding is that we're not in a quorum call. the presiding officer: that is correct. mr. casey: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. i rise before you today to express the importance of freedom of the press, both around the world and here at home. journalists take risks, often great risks to tell the story of war, genocide, hunger, poverty and corruption around the world while facing unprecedented rates of intimidation an violence. freedom of expression is the bedrock of our democracy, but we must not take it for granted. it is how we hold ourselves accountable -- hold ourselves to the standards set by the founders and hold ourselves accountable and how we protect our institutions from falling

into traps set by those who seek to abuse power. earlier this week i introduced senate resolution 501, recognizing threats to freedom of the press and freedom of expression. this resolution was introduced with senators rubio and wyden. i want to thank my colleagues for their leadership on this issue. this highlights the importance of freedom of the press, condemns attacks against journalists and reaffirms press freedom as a priority for the united states government. this resolution is in honor of the 46 journalists killed in 2017 for their reporting, for the 262 journalists imprisoned around the world last year, and as part of that 262, the 21 journalists jailed just in 2017 for, quote, false news, unquote, more than doubling the 2016 record. these journalists, of course, are mothers and fathers and sons

and daughters who are putting their lives and, indeed, their freedom on the line to shed a light on some of the world's toughest stories. i'd like to tell the story of one of the journalists who lost his life last year, bravely reporting from a conflict area. chris allen. i want to acknowledge chris' parents joyce kragen and john allen who are here with us today. chris grew up in pa park graduated from the university of pennsylvania. chris' parents say that he was an explorer from an early age when with a keen interest in history, he went on to pursue his master's degree at oxford. he was encouraged to go to places where history was being made. chris embraced this calling becoming a freelance journalist first in eastern ukraine where he embedded with for-ukrainian forces, reporting for outlets like the independents --

independent i should say and the guardian to help give his audience a glimpse of the conflict up close. his mother, joyce, and father, john shared this memory of chris. and i quote. this desire to bring to light untold stories from uncovered regions of the world and the plights of their peoples, that's what motivated chris. he wanted to know the thoughts and the feelings of those encountering conflict firsthand. unquote. so said his parents. and after three years in ukraine, chris decided to embed with the south sudan opposition near the ugandan border. on august 26 of 2017, we understand that chris walked overnight with these fighters and two other journalists to the town of kai. chris was killed shortly after

dawn while photographing a gun battle between opposition and government forces. chris was just 26 years old. in the early years of his professional life, chris had already committed himself to the vital job of covering dangerous places and exposing stories of vulnerable people whose countries were embroiled in war. in the year -- the year that has passed since his death despite commitments from the south sudanese government to investigate, joyce and john have no official information about how he was killed and no one has been held accountable for the loss of their son. it seems the south sue niece officials, the same official swearing -- let me start that sentence over. they have seen south sudanese government officials smear

chris' reputation and threaten other foreign journalists with the same fate. this is unthinkable for any parent to have to endure. chris allen's parents have more questions than they have answers. chris and others like him have lost their lives in the pursuit of truth with no accountability or justice. other journalists sit in prison today for daring to speak truth to power. we have a responsibility to swrans these core -- advance these core american values, the values of freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and these values continue to serve as an example to the world. as i mentioned earlier, a bipartisan resolution reaffirms press freedom as a priority for the united states, but what does this mean exactly? first, advocating for media freedom should be a feature of u.s. government interactions with other governments where the

media is censored, silenced or threatened. i've had tough conversations, as i know many of our colleagues have with foreign officials about human rights and the rule of law over the years. i know it can be difficult to advance these values while also cooperating on other issues, like security or other political issues. but we must press these issues. whether it's advocating for the release of two reuters journalists detained under antiquated laws in me more or pushing for reforms to allow media workers to operate more freely, the u.s. government must be consistent and persistent. but perhaps more importantly, we must model the respect for free journalism and empower journalists here at home. investigative journalism helps hold accountable government

official, elected representatives, business leaders, and others. it exposes fraud, waste, and corruption which corrode our society. it helps us connect with the men and the women in uniform serving our nation overseas and understand the conflicts in which they fight. it shows us the atrocities of terrorist groups like isis and the abuses of dictatorial regime s like those of bashar al-assads. journalists amplify the voices of the most vulnerable among us and provide for us a window into the homes and into the hearts of people a world away. instead of respecting these professionals, president trump has called them, quote, the enemy of the people, unquote. when we hear powerful voices denigrate tough reporting as, quote, fake news, unquote, or bar reporters from doing their jobs by blocking access, we all

must condemn it. reporters, writers, photographers and media workers in the united states have not been intimidated and will continue to carry the torch of core american values like freedom of the press. on both sides of the aisle, we have a responsibility to rebuke any antipress narratives by any public officials. this narrative is not only innet cal -- antithetical to the values our founders laid out in the bill of rights but it is dangerous. mr. president, i urge my colleagues to support senate resolution 501 this week and to speak up for media freedoms every day. i yield the floor.

mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, late this week or early next week, we'll be voting on a bill called the opioid crisis response act. this is a powerful piece of legislation that our colleague chairman lamar alexander deserves great credit for shepherding through the process. but he was by no means alone in doing so. this bill as he will tell you represents the contribution of more than 70 different senators and five different standing committees of the united states senate. that takes a lot of careful work and a lot of determination. the bill is bipartisan, as you would expect, and that of course would not have happened without intense collaboration. so for those who like to say that bipartisanship is dead in the united states senate, this bill and other bipartisan work that we have done and will do is

evidence that that is simply false. in 2017 president trump declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency. since then we've seen 116 americans die from an opioid-related overdose daily. and in places like new hampshire, that death rate has been double the national average. in some places coroners have asked local funeral homes to help because there's just not enough room to store the bodies at the morgue. let that sink in for just a minute. coroners are asking funeral homes to help store the bodies because there's not enough room at the morgue because of the 116 americans who lose their life to opioid addiction each day. people of all races, ethnicities

and regardless of gender are dying. drugs, of course, do not discriminate. and even when people survive an overdose, they often come back only to return to the prison of their addiction. sometimes they rob, they steal, or they sell themselves in order to get their fix for oxycodone, hydrocodone, heroin, or fentanyl, all opioids. meanwhile, for the rest of their lives, their relationships, their families crumble. maybe they're looking for escape. maybe they're looking for some sort of meaning. maybe they're a veteran who is self-medicating or somebody with a mental diagnosis that simply goes undiscovered and, thus, they try to med indicate by --

try to medicate by resorting to alcohol or in this case opioids. but the result is always the same. their bodies can't handle the poison, and their minds' craving can never be wholly satisfied. that's how the breakdown begins. drug addiction and the carnage associated with it is, of course, nothing new in our country. but what is new is the types of drugs that are being created by those who tinker with chemical formulas to evade our current laws. what's also new is the extent of the tragedy. overdoses are going up in many places, so high in fact that the average life expectancy for adult males in the united states has fallen. as christopher caldwell wrote in first things last year, he said the death toll far eclipses those of all previous drug

crises. the bill we will be voting on is our honest attempt to look this crisis in the eye, not shy away from the ugly reality. the legislation tries in several mutually enforcing ways to end what caldwell called the artificial hell of those addicted. it will supply states with critical funding. it will ensure that research is expedited and patients have access to substance abuse treatment. it will also improve detection and interdiction measures to reduce the supply of illicit drugs that are being funneled across our southern border. i'll return to the border in a moment and our neighbor mexico's role in this. part of the opioids package involves legislation i introduced with the senior senator from california senator feinstein called the substance abuse prevention act. it's one of the critical pieces of this broader bill we'll be

voting on. in addition to reauthorizing life-saving programs, it's aimed at reducing demand. of course, supply increases to meet increasing demand. and we've got to do something about the demand side in order to deal with this problem. it does this first by reauthorizing the office of national drug control policy which oversees the executive branch efforts on narcotics control by developing a national drug control strategy and coordinating efforts with the states. secondly, it reauthorizes one of our nation's most important programs for preventing youth substance abuse and keeping drugs out of our neighborhoods, the drug-free communities program. third, the legislation expands opioid and heroin awareness. of course, heroin is just one type of opioid. it also improves substance abuse treatment and will hopefully result in prescribers of

controlled substances being better trained and educated on the potential harmful effects of the drugs they are prescribing. finally, under our legislation, senator feinstein's and mine, the attorney general can also make grants available that focus on substance use disorders. some of these grants will be used to determine the effectiveness of programs pairing social workers with families struggling with substance use disorders. we need to invest in programs that actually work, that are making a quan final -- quantifiable measurable difference so these grants will help. like the rest of the country, my state is no stranger when it comes to opioid addiction. according to the national institute on drug abuse, texas deaths from heroin and fentanyl, its wicked cousin, have been steadily increasing since 2010. these are real people we've lost with real families and real

lives. cash owen from austin, texas, was only 22 years old. when he went to westlake high school in austin where my daughters a0 -- attended, he liked to cook for a hobby. he later overdosed on heroin. that's just one example. one example of another life lost to this terrible scourge. i obviously come from a border state and realize that when it comes to stemming addiction, it's a two-way street. we need to do our part to try to deal with the demand side and prevent -- and also prevent illicit substances from crossing our borders. i.c.e. deserves a lot of credit when this comes to fighting the opioid cries in america, despite the bizarre and irresponsible calls to abolish the agency on the behalf of some politicians.

it continues to make great strides in protecting public health and protecting public safety. for example, i.c.e. initiated 3,900 cases for human smuggling just last year. it's arrested more than 4,700 members of transnational gangs that move people and drugs as co our border into the united states. and i.c.e. has seized more than 980,000 pounds of narcotics, inclusion drugs like fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. but as i said, it is a two-way street, and fentanyl actually isn't worth dwelling on because it shows just how implicated mexico is in all of this. fentanyl was first developed as a synthetic painkiller and anesthetic. it is 100 times more potent than morphine and up to 50 times more powerful than heroin. what's happening is that

enterprising drug traffickers and designers are making fewer fentanyl and cutting it with other substances -- sometimes heroin, sometimes cocaine, sometimes methamphetamine. but sometimes amateurs use cheaper fillers and less professional equipment, which makes the doses even more dangerous and the people who take it more likely to overdose. well, there remains a debate just how much fentanyl comes to the united states via mexico. we know that some comes directly from places like china through our national postal system. but a sizable percentage is certainly snuck across our border along with other illegal drawings from mexico -- drugs from mexico. according to the san diego union tribune, customs and border patrol seized 355 killly grams of fentanyl at san diego ports of entry alone in 2017. a kilogram, by the way, is 202 pounds. but it 355 killly grams just at

the san diego port alone. there are fentanyl routes that run through mexico strongholdhos through the united states. they funnel an estimated 80% of the drug across the border. all this is to say that we here in the united states are not alone. because the mexican government has its hands full as well. fentanyl seizures inside mexico have risen sharply with just under a kilogram in 2013 to more than 100 kilograms seized inside of mexico last year. in the first six months of this year, 2018, mexican authorities seized 114,000 kilograms. of course it's not just problems with fentanyl that we share. our heroin problem in the united

states is also tied directly to mexico. u.s. officials estimate that 90% of the heroin used in the united states is produced and trafficked from mexico. from all the news regarding the opioid crisis, we know what the results are in our country, but what about mexico? is this just a problem for the united states? or is this a problem for mexico as well? in juarez, right across the el paso border, a rehab center treats over 300 patients a day. in tee with a in a, where drug use reportedly starts as early as middle school, we know they also have a big problem. we know that all across mexico adolescent consumption is on the rise, particularly with regard to drugs like marine, methamphetamine, heroin, you name it. in fact, the percentage of

mexican men and women between the age of 12 and 65 who admit to using illegal drugs has roughly doubled since 2011 according to the most recent survey. but here's my point, mr. president -- american and mexican carnage is related. it's actually interrelated. that's why through programs like the merita initiative, we've worked with the mexican government to combat this multiheaded monster. but our two governments will have to work even closer in the months and the days ahead because gangs, cartels, and drug runners are all adapting, diversifying, and evolving based on new circumstances, and we need to make sure we keep up with their innovations. mr. president, in mexico, since 2007, roughly 200,000 people have died as a result of drug-related violence. that's more than all of the

deaths in the war zones in afghanistan and iraq combined. 200,000 people in mexico dead as a result of drug-related violence in the last 10 years. but now the cartels have diversified. there is, as one put it the commodity agnostic. they'll do anything for money. they'll ship people from central america across the border as adults with children, or so-called family units, or unaccompanied children. they'll move drugs and now they're involved in the fuel theft business as well. black market gasoline is now a billion-dollar industry in mexico. they're also involved in mining, port operations, and other industries. they have multiple income streams. like i said, they've diversified. meanwhile, the bloodshed continues unabated. the most violent year in mexico's recorded history was

2017. the armed conflict between the cartels and mexico's military that started 12 years ago under president calderon now ranks as perhaps the deadliest war in the world apart from syria. mexico is second only to syria as the deadliest war zone on the planet. and as that war continues -- and, by the way, we support mexico's waging it -- we may think that the u.s. has been mostly spared. but that just depends really on your perspective. fortunately we've been spared the most gruesome acts of public violence by and large, although there are certainly notable exceptions. but the u.s. centers for disease control and prevention estimate that more than 72,000 americans died from a drug overdose last year. i wonder why we don't read about this in the newspapers or on -- hear about it on tv? we have somehow become numb or

anesthetized to the fact that tens of thousands of americans have taken their own life accidentally through a drug overdose. of those 72,000 people who died as a result of a drug overdose last year, 49,000 were associated with opioids, which includes substances like fentanyl and heroin. and the annual numbers continue to rise with the death toll for 2017 nearly 10% ruritan a year -- higher than a year earlier. this problem is getting worse, not better. experts believe that the rise is attributable to opioids becoming more readily available and more potent than recent versions of the drugs. so here in the united states we are losing lives as well. that's why the vote later this week on this bill is so important -- or earlier next week. it's how we will attempt to make some progress dealing with this crisis. but it's also why our partnership with mexico must

consistently be strengthened and reinforced. our drug problem and ultimately the violence and criminality, is mexico's and mexico's is ours. mr. president, i yield the floor. i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the democratic leader. the senate is? a quorum call. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be vitiated.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: thank you. yesterday was the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an event which changed my city and our country forever. i spend the morning at the 9/11 memorial in lower manhattan, two deep scars in the earth remind us where mighty towers once stood. i'll never forget that day, nor the next -- the phones when they worked ringing endlessly, the smell of death, the lines of hundreds of people holding homemade signs -- i'll never forget that, mr. president. as i walked there, president bush sent a plane and we went to ground zero the day after. hundreds of people lined up, have you seen my father, joe? have you seen my daughter, marie? because the towers had crashed but no one knew how many people have survived. it was all of. 3,000 souls lost in one day, one of the bloodiest days on

american soil since the civil war. and people i knew -- a guy i played basketball with in high school, a businessman who helped me on my way up, a firefighter who i went around the city with to ask people to donate blood. so we all know people who are gone. so 17 years ago today, septembed americans to wear the flag in remembrance of those who were lost. the brave men and women who rushed to find those who still might be alive. i've worn that flag every single day since. i'll wear it every day of my life for the rest of my life in memory of those who are lost. this year i want to turn everyone's atten to a harrowing statistic. by the end of 2018, we expect

that more people will have died from exposure to toxic chemicals on 9/11 than were killed on that day itself. last year 23 current or former members of the new york police department died of 9/11-related diseases, the same number who died on september 11. a new tablet was recent lynn stalled at the haul of heroes at one police plaza to commemorate all the new deaths of members of the fdny. there is now an american living with a 9/11-related illness in every one of the 50 states, in 429 of the 436 congressional districts. just as we -- and i guess they have 436 and counting the district of columbia. just as we'll never forget the bravery so many fallen americans

showed that terrible day, let us never forget those first responders who did survive only to contract cancer or respiratory illness from breathing in a toxic cocktail of dust and ash at ground zero. nearly a decade ago i was proud, along with my colleague from new york, to pass the act to provide health care for our first responders and a victims compensation fund to help survivors who get sick and the families who lost a loved one to illness. three years ago i was proud to work across the aisle to make the health care component of the zadroga act permanent or virtually so. next year, however, congress must reauthorize the victims compensation fund because the administrator of the fund now predicts that the funding won't last until 2020 as we had previously hoped. so many new claims are being filed because so many of these

deadly cancers are now showing up. as the death tally from 9/11 continues to grow, we have to make sure the fund is capitalized with enough money to provide an ever longer list of 9/11 victims. so i want to remind my colleagues that soon we have to come together once again to do what's right for the families of the first responders and the surviving first responders themselves who without hesitation risk their lives to save other lives 17 years ago yesterday. now last week the judiciary -- on scotus. last week the judiciary committee concluded its hearings on president trump's nominee to the supreme court, judge brett kavanaugh. over the course of two days of questioning, brett kavanaugh managed to avoid definitively answering nearly every question of substance, making a mockery of his participation in the

hearings. he refused to say that he believed roe v. wade was correctly decided. he refused to say that he would affirmatively uphold the existing health care law, including protections for over 100 million americans with preexisting conditions. he even refused to visit what many consider his extreme views on executive power. and would not even say if he believed the president was obligated to comply with a duly issued subpoena. it didn't matters if members of the judiciary committee phrased the questions about already decided cases or hypothetical situations. when he got an already decided case, he said i can't talk about those. when he got a hypothetical case, he said i can't talk about those. he couldn't talk about anything. anything. what the heck did we have him before us and the american people if he refused to answer any of his questions? and so after two full days of

questioning, the american people are no closer to understanding the kind of jurist judge kavanaugh would be if confirmed to the court. in my view, judge kavanaugh's silence on crucial questions about roe, health care, and executive power speak volumes about his fitness for the supreme court. there was so many questions he failed to answer or purposely evaded, and many times when he did answer, his answers were totally unsatisfactory and did not answer the question. senator leahy and durbin, for instance, asked numerous questions about his involvement in bush administration controversies, including interrogation, the nomination of controversial judges like pryor and pickering. judge kavanaugh either avoided answering or offered misleading testimony. in 2004, judge kavanaugh told senator feinstein he didn't know

about a potential judicial nominee involves views on abortions in a vast majority of cases but recent e-mails show he was told about and discussed nominees' views and ideology including roe. judge kavanaugh denied knowledge of the bush administration's policy on detention and interrogation of combatants but e-mails released last week indicate that he had meetings on the subjects, reviewed talking points and all kind on legal strategy. judge kavanaugh claimed that he only learned of president bush's warrantless surveillance program when it became public but an e-mail suggests that he knew about a memo justifying the white house's authorization of the program. judge kavanaugh said, african, f -- said, for instance, he didn't work on the records of judge william pryor but new records tell a different story. e-mails show judge kavanaugh was personally involved.

the extent and number of these discrepancies is very disturbing and they were made about only the small portion of his record that republicans released. given what we heard last week, who knows what's hidden in the 90% of judge kavanaugh's record that republicans continue to hide. i was disappointed to hear that yesterday mr. grassley said his committee said they would not look at his misleading statements. clearly the chairman of the judiciary committee prefers to turn a blind eye to judge kavanaugh repeatedly misleading his committee. he, like his colleagues, want to rush the nomination through. the misleading testimony judge kavanaugh gave in his confirmation raises larger questions about judge kavanaugh's fitness for the bench. here we have a partisan attorney involved in every major partisan

legal fight for two decades who shaded the truth about those events to abcongressionalment in order to cast his nomination in a more favorable light. what does that say about his impartiality? it certainly doesn't suggest he's this nonideological, nonpolitical neutral arbiter of the law. mr. president, part of our responsibility in the senate is to ensure that all judges, especially at the supreme court level, meet the highest standard of judicial impartiality and ethics, lest the supreme court become simply an extension of the partisanship we experience here in congress. its rulings viewed as illegitimate by half the country. so i urge my colleagues on the other side to scrutinize judge kavanaugh's comments to the judiciary committee and decide for yourself whether he was completely forthcoming. because if a nominee fails to provide -- sorry.

but if a nominee provides false or misleading testimony to a committee, that should weigh heavily, very heavily on the minds of every senator when it comes time to vote, to confirm, or reject the nominee. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. boozman: mr. president, sometime soon the senate will be voting on the first fiscal two-year, 2019 appropriations minibus. it's been a long time since we brought conference bills to the floor, and i'm pleased that the military construction, veterans affairs and related agencies appropriations bill is a part of this package. this bill is the result of a bipartisan commitment to return to regular order, and i thank chairman shelby and vice chairman leahy for leading the senate in this process and providing all members a voice in

determining how taxpayer dollars were -- are spent. we worked hard with our house colleagues over the past two months to develop a thoughtful and responsible conference report that took into account the input of members on both sides of the aisle. the conference committee made thoughtful decisions about how to provide maximum readiness for the war fighter and prioritize investments to the department of veterans affairs so it can take care of our veterans. this bill provides $97.1 billion in discretionary spending which is $5.1 billion over last year's level. within that, the v.a. has provided a record level of resources at $86.5 billion in discretionary funding. that's $5 billion over last year ploastles -- last year's level

and $1.1 billion over the president's request. this will provide health care and other important benefits earned by u.s. service members. included in the bill is $1.25 billion more than requested for medical services and community care to support v.a.'s tradition al community care programs as it transitions to a new and improved program. the bill includes $8.6 billion for mental health services, $865 million for caregivers program, $1.8 billion for v.a. homelessness programs including $380 million for the supportive services for veterans' families programs. $400 million for opioid misuse prevention and treatment, and $270 million for rural health initiatives. the bill provides $10.3 billion to support military construction and family housing needs.

a $241 million over last year's level. it also funds $920 million for overseas contingency operations and the european deterrence initiative. a $171 million increase over last year's level. in total,190 military construction projects are funded to restore war fighter readiness and increase lethality of our installations within the united states and around the globe. this bill also funds improvements to fuel logistics at little rock air force base in addition to the measure to move forward with developments in the base's runway. i'm also pleased that the package increases funding to the veterans' history project, an initiative led by the library of congress that builds an archive of oral histories and personal

documents of the men and women who served our country in uniform. this is a unique collection of memories of our veterans who served in world war i to the iraq war and other recent conflicts. it is an important program that ensures future generations understand the sacrifices our combat veterans made to protect our freedoms. preserving the experience of our veterans is an honorable way to recognize their bravery and dedication to our country. since its beginning approximately two decades ago the project restored the histories of 1,400 veterans from arkansas and nearly 50 of those have been conducted by my fs 0. we are training more and more arkansans to conduct these interviews for submission to the project. these are all things that we can be excited about related to this bill. a lot of time, a lot of energy

has gone into putting the legislation together. i would like to thank senator schatz and his staff, chad shulkin, jason mcmahon and chairman carter and ranking member wasserman, schultz and their staff for working hard to address the needs of service members and our veterans. i would like to thank my own staff, patrick magnuson, jo ann hoff and carlos elias for their dedication, hard work in moving this bill through the committee process to the senate floor and through conference negotiations. finally i want to thank chairman shelby and vice chairman leahy along with ranking member lowey for the dedication and leadership they provided throughout the bipartisan process. i strongly urge mile colleagues in the senate to support -- my colleagues in the senate to support final passage so we can

get this bill to the president's desk. with that, mr. president, i yield back. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president, i rise today to oppose president trump's nominee for commission to the i.r.s., mr. charles rettig. now more than ever the american people need government officials who are willing to stand up and speak truth to power. unfortunately, mr. rettig failed to convince me that he's up for that part of the job. during his time before the senate finance committee, of which i serve, mr. rettig gave me no indication that he would protect new jerseyans facing the threat of double taxation under the tax bill passed by this congress and signed into law by president trump late last year. nor did mr. rettig express any respect for the rights of states

to administer their own constitutionally upheld charitable contribution tax credit programs. instead mr. rettig left me all but certain that he would be a rubber stamp for this administration's politically motivated tax policies and allow a backdoor tax increase on countless middle-class families. at a time when we need independence and impartiality of the i.r.s., that's absolutely unacceptable. as we speak, the treasury department and i.r.s. are trying to make sense of the deficit exploding corporate tax cuts rushed through congress by the republican majority last december. tax cuts that according to the congressional budget office will drive us towards $1 trillion annual deficits by 2020, and by

undermining the affordable care act eventually strip 13 million americans of their health care coverage. as the i.r.s. attempts to implement these misguided policies, corporations are pulling every string to rig the tax code in their favor. apparently, it wasn't enough for them to get a massive trillion-dollar tax windfall from president trump. so now they are amassing armies of accountants and legions of lobbyists to get even more out of the i.r.s. that's why drug companies are rushing to reclassify their cash stocked overseas as assets so they can pay a fraction of what they would otherwise owe. that's why oil companies are drilling into the law to find new loopholes in the way that we tax foreign profits. c.e.o.'s want no stone left unturned, no loophole left

unopened. but there is one group that's not getting any special access or sweetheart deal, and that's middle-class families like those in my home state of new jersey. i have said before and i'll say it again, the trump tax bill was one giant hit job on new jersey's middle class and states similarly situated. you would think that with $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, republicans could have cut taxes for everyone, and yet under the president trump tax plan, 40% of new jersey taxpayers would either face an average tax increase of $2,100 or get no tax cut at all. that's because republicans gutted the state and local tax deduction which 1.8 million homeowners across my state alone depend on to avoid being taxed

twice, twice on the same money. these people aren't high rollers. they weren't born into multimillion-dollar trust funds. they are middle-class families who worked hard for everything they have. as you can see, 83% of new jerseyans who deduct their property taxes make under $200,000 a year, and nationwide half of all the taxpayers who claim these deductions make under $100,000. in new jersey, the average deduction totals about $18,000 per filer, far above the arbitrary cap imposed by donald trump and his corporate-sponsored republican congress. and it means the average new jersey taxpayer who itemizes their returns could lose $8,000 in deductions this year alone.

even the president's own top economic advisor agrees. according to larry kudlow -- and he made this quote before he was the director of the national economic council, which means that the quote is really clear and unvarnished in its truthfulness. he said, and i quote, when you end the state and local deduction because rates are still relatively high, you are going to hurt a lot of different people. so the internal logic was not good. this is not a true tax reform bill. well, only in washington could republicans borrow $2 trillion from china to cut taxes for big corporations and still need to hike taxes on new jersey families and families like new

jersey families and other states in order to pay for it, but that's exactly what republicans did by capping the state and local tax deduction and hitting our middle class with an even higher property tax burden. but we new jerseyans are known for -- aren't known for being pushovers. that's why last december, several marries across our state allowed homeowners to prepay their 2018 property taxes before trump's harmful policies took effect in january. that's why back in may, i proudly joined governor phil murphy as he signed a new law to shield homeowners from higher property tax burdens. under this program, homeowners who contribute to a state-approved charity may receive a property tax credit worth of up to 85% of those donations. now, in this regard, new jersey didn't reinvent the wheel with this new law. it was modeled after existing

tax credit programs on the books for at least 32 other states. 32 other states. all those here in red that offered tax credits to residents who contribute to certain charities. in our case, we're not shielding families from higher property tax bills but making sure new jersey has the resources needed to keep cops on the beat, firefighters on the job, new jersey schools on the cutting edge. and the i.r.s. has consistently respected these programs. back in 2011, the i.r.s. chief counsel, the chief counsel released an advisory memo clarifying that state tax credits do not, i repeat do not prohibit taxpayers from writing off the full value of their charitable donations from their

federal taxes. in other words, getting a tax credit doesn't mean you made more money and thus you shouldn't be -- and thus you shouldn't be taxed more as a result. and that's what was happening across the land in all of these 32 states. but it's not just the i.r.s. that upheld these programs. the issue has gone before the united states supreme court, and the supreme court ruled that these state tax credits are not considered things of value, but rather amount to, and i quote, the government declining to impose a tax. so let's review it. the i.r.s. never had a problem with the 32 other states who had charitable deduction tax credit programs on the books, never. the i.r.s. never had a problem, that is until new jersey and states like new jersey decided to create one.

until new jerseyans decided to create one in similar states. as soon as new jersey and other states established this perfectly legal tax credit program, the i.r.s. suddenly decided to reverse course, and all of a sudden they are willing to go to court over this and challenge a well-established precedent. apparently, the trump administration is so intent on sticking it to new jersey and states like new jersey that they are willing to jeopardize all of these programs in all of these states, all of them. so all of them, all of them. let me give you a few examples of these programs endangered if

mr. read rettig fails to stand up for the rights of states. in missouri, there are several very worthy programs that offer tax credits for contributions, one for shelters for domestic abuse survivors, another for donations to campuses focused on the stem fields. there are tax credits for donating to state colleges in indiana, water conservation in colorado, public road exrowx in arkansas. there are similar programs in missouri and kansas and georgia. i could go on and on, but here's the bottom line. at least 30 state tax credit programs are now in jeopardy because the trump administration changed the rules in the middle of the game. changed their previous council's decision. changed course from what the supreme court said.

you know, i have heard a lot of lip service from my colleagues about states' rights over the years. they are all about state rights until it comes to states like new jersey and its rights. now, some say president trump and the republican congress capped the property tax deduction because they have it out for so-called blue states, but at the end of the day, the states most affected by this foolish policy aren't red states or blue states. they are america's blue-chip states, america's innovation states, america's economic powerhouse states. and new jersey didn't become an economic powerhouse by accident. our success wasn't born overnight. it's the result of the priorities that we set and the investments that we make. take it from katherine, a constituent of mine from new jersey. she wrote to me and she said after she saw what happened with the tax bill, and i quote, my

husband and i pay nearly $13,000 a year in traffic report taxes to the town of orville. for this we receive excellent services and have reputable public schools. i pay taxes to the state of new jersey which supports our infrastructure of the stay and other necessary programs. i'm fine paying what i already pay, but with that being said, i feel very strongly that it's unacceptable to be taxed on taxes that i already pay. katherine's right. she is right. it's no coincidence that new jersey claims more in state and local tax deductions than other states in the nation and also has some of the best schools in the nation. we pay for them. and yet when the president trump tax scam, with it the republicans want us to pay for them twice, twice. the federal income tax system

has historically allowed taxpayers -- this is one of the longest standing deductions in the nation's history, to deduct the taxes that they pay at the local level from their federal returns, and for good reasons. states that invest in education, infrastructure, and opportunity for all have higher per capita incomes, enjoy more prosperity, rely less on federal handouts. these are the types of investments that make new jersey a great place to live, work, and raise a family. and you don't have to take my word for it. earlier this year, save the children named new jersey the number one place in america to raise a child. well, i want it to stay that way. in new jersey, we invest in public schools because we know that they prepare students to compete in high-paying fields like biotechnology, sustainable agriculture, and medicine.

in new jersey, we invest in public health and law enforcement because we know we are all better off when our streets are safe and our families are healthy. in new jersey, we invest in mass transit and infrastructure because we know that it connects workers with opportunities to climb the income ladder. we do these things for a reason. new jersey's stronger when we open the doors of opportunity for as many people as possible. and we see it here. state investments, better education, higher wages, stronger middle class, top three states by salt deduction. they also do incredibly well in educational achievement and income. there is a clear correlation. but the republican congress has put these job-creating economy-growing, opportunity-expanding investments in the crosshairs by gutting the property tax deduction. and in the process, they are

threatening the validity of legitimate programs operating in 30 other states. the federal tax code has always worked to ensure that americans don't pay taxes twice on their hard-earned money. that was until donald trump came along. then republicans abandoned their so-called fiscal conservatism, and together they passed a tax scam that subjects hundreds of thousands of new jerseyans to double taxation and many more in other states. for as long as i can remember, i have heard my republican colleagues preach about protecting, not punishing, success, but the republican tax law is a tax on new jersey's success, slamming hundreds of thousands of families with higher property tax burdens, not in a few years, not in a decade, no. right now, now. it's not fair and it's not

right. it's wrong to force new jersey families to pay more just so that big corporations and wealthy c.e.o.'s can pay less. in the end, i can't in good conscience support this nominee. it won't protect new jersey's middle class and other states like it for higher property tax bills. he won't respect perfectly legal state-based programs like those 32 other states that offer tax credits in return for contribution toss nonprofits that do critical work in their communities. it will be nothing more than a republican rubber stamp for president trump's politically motivated tax policies. the last thing we need is an i.r.s. that is politically weaponized. whether you want to take a stand against double taxation or you don't agree with the trump administration's politically motivated assault op the rights of states to set their own tax

policies, i hope republican and democrats alike will join me in voting down this nomination. taxpayers in new jersey and across the nation deserve better than tax policies that knock the knees out from under them and an i.r.s. commissioner who kicks them down -- who kicks them while they are down. with that, madam president -- mr. president, i'm sorry, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: mr. president, i intend to address the senate on the topic of bosnia. i want to observe that the distinguished majority leader may be coming in just a moment for a unanimous consent request and if he does i will be happy to yield during my lee marks -- my remarks so he can take care of that item of business. but it is important for this senate and this country to once again be interested in bosnia

and herzigovina. since joining the u.s. helsinki commission, which i now share, the balkans have been a concern of mine. although our relationship with all of these countries in the western balkan is important, the united states has a specific interest, a particular interest in bosnia and hers gov in a -- hers goaf in a. i had an opportunity in july to lead a bicameral delegation to bosnia. they sought to hear more from the country and hear from their citizens rather than meets only in the offices of senior bosnian officials. we visited the small town of tribnia and we visited the city

of mostare, in the entity of the federation, and then we went on and visited in seravo visiting with citizens seeking a better bosnia. bosnia was a u.s. foreign policy priority when i came to the house in 1995. in less than a decade bosnia had gone from international acclaim while hosting the winter olympics to the scene of the worst carnage in human suffering in europe since world war ii. the conflict that erupted in bosnia in 1992 was not internally generated. rather bosnia became the victim of the breakup of yugoslavia and the extreme national forces that

this breakup unleashed around the region, first and formost by slobodan milosevic. and in this point, mr. president, i would be happy to yield to the distinguished majority leader for whatever purposes he would choose. mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i thank my friend from mississippi. i'll be brief. i ask consent that notwithstanding rule 22, the cloture motion on the conference report to accompany h.r. 5895 be withdrawn and if cloture vote is invoked on the read -- read ig nomination, all time be reelded back, further, in the -- if the nomination is confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate resume legislative session and resume consideration of the conference report and that there be ten minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form and

following the use or yielding back of time the senate vote on adoption of the conference report. finally that s. con. res. 46 correcting the title of h.r. 5985, be considered and agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. mcconnell: for the information of our colleagues, these will be the only roll call votes during this week's session. the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: thank you, mr. president. back to the subject of bosnia. the carnage and tragic conflict that occurred in the early 1990's was about more than bosnia. it was about security in a europe just emerging from its cold war divisions and the international principles upon which that security was based. for that reason the united

states, under president bill clinton, rightly exercised leadership when europe asked us to, having failed to do so themselves. the clinton administration brokered the data -- dayton peace agreement in 1995 and enabled nato in peacemaking to preserve bosnia's unity and territorial integrity. that was the bosnian peace agreement. almost a quarter of a century later, after the expenditure of diplomatic and foreign resources, the physical scars of the conflict have been largely erased. but as we learned during our recent visit, the country remains far short of the democracy we hoped that it would become and that its people deserve. most are a spectacular -- it is

a spectacular city to visit remains ethnically divided with bosnia and croat students separated by ethnicity in schools, even inside the same school buildings. bosnian citizens, such as jews or of mixed heritage, still cannot run for certain political offices. there is 2018, mr. president. they can't run for state-level presidency simply because of their ethnicity. neither can bosniak kks or serbs run for the presidency because of their ethnicity. in europe in 2018. nor can those numerous citizens who on principle refuse to

declare their ethnicity because it should not replace their quallionfications for hold -- qualifications for holding office. this goes on despite the repeated rulings in this flaw of the dayton constitution must be corrected. in total well over 300,000 people in a country of only 3.5 million fall into these categories despite what is likely their strong admitment to the country and to its -- commitment to the country and to its future as a multiethnic state. this is wrong and it needs to end. in addition, youth unemployment in bosnia is the highest in the world. many who can do so are -- many who can leave are doing so. this denies bosnia much of its needed talent and energy. civil society is kept on the sidelines.

decisions in bosnia are being made by political party leaders who are not accountable to the people. they are the decision makers. the people should be. -- the people should be decision makers. corruption is rampant. ask anyone in europe, and they will tell you that bosnia's wealth and potential is being stolen by corruption. general elections will be held in october, mr. president, with a system favoring the status quo and resistance to electoral reforms that would give bosnians more rather than fewer choices. the compromises made two and a half decades ago in the dayon to restore peace and give the leading ethnic groups, bosniacs, and croats a sense of security make governance dysfunctional today.

two and a half decade old agreement makes governance inefficient in bosnia. this comes at the expense of the individual human rights of the citizens who are all but coerced into making ethnic identity their paramount concern and a source of division when so many other common interests should unite them. ethnically based parties benefit as they engage in extensive patronage and corruption. ethnic reconciliation has not taken hold and resulting tensions could still destabilize the country and even lead to violence. maligned outside forces, particularly vladimir putin's russia, but also influences from turkey and gulf states seek to take advantage of the political impasse and malaise, steering the country away from its european and euroatlantic

aspirations. so as a result of these developments, bosnia and herzegovina is not making much progress even as its neighbors join nato and join the e.u. and make progress toward their desired integration. in my view we should rightly credit the dayton agreement to restoring peace to bosnia. that was 25 years ago. but it is regrettable that the negotiate oshes did not -- negotiators did not put an expiration date on ethnic accommodations so they could become a modern democracy. the naint, which has substantial powers in bosnia, has steadily withdrawn, turning over decision-making to bosnian officials who are not yet committed to making the country work and naively hoping the

future of european integration would encourage responsible behavior. that has not happened, mr. president. we cannot turn back the clock and reinsert the expiration date on the dayton agreement. having made a difference in 1995, we can and should make a difference today and it is in our national security interest that we do so. i suggest the following. the united states and our european friends should state unequivocally that dayton is an absolute baseline, which means only forward progress should be allowed. separation or new entities should be declared to be clearly out of the question. secondly, u.s. policymakers should also remind everyone that the international community, including nato did not relinquish its power to bosnia but has chosen to withdraw and exercise them less robustly.

we should seek an agreement to resurrect the will to news these powers and do so if violence is a credible possibility. they should adopt a policy of imposing sanctions on individual bosnian officials who are engaged in corruption or who ignore the dayton parameters. washington has already done this regarding the president -- the current president. and just recently nikolaspirag. the scope should be expanded and european capitals need to join us in this record. senior u.s. officials and members of u.s. congress should make sarajev a priority and we

should demonstrate our continued commitment and enhance our understanding. bosnia may not be res. y to join -- ready to join nato, but it's membership action plan should be looked at immediately. the international community should encourage the quick formation of new parliaments and governments at all levels followed by reform efforts that eliminate the discrimination and the criteria of certain offices, ensure that law enforcement effectively serves and protects all residents and end the corruption in health care and so many other vital areas of daily life. our policy must shift back to an emphasis on universal principles of individual human rights and citizen-based government. indeed the privileges dataon --

dayton accorded to the three main ethnic groups are not rights but privileges that should not be upheld at the expense of genuine democracy and individual rights. we, in my view, have been far too fatalistic about accepting in bosnia what we are not willing to accept anywhere else. we also underestimate what bosnians might find acceptable and we should be encouraging them to support leaders based on credentials, positions, and personal integrity, not based on ethnicity. there should be no -- no longer be a reason why bosnia, serb, or croat should not be considered by another multinational party. all would do well to seek votes not belonging not belonging to a single ethnic group.

this may take some time and effort, but it should happen sooner rather than later. let me conclude, mr. president, that asserting that greater engagement is in the interest of the united states. the economic interest and the national security interest. our country is credited with bosnia's preservation. after the country was almost destroyed by aggression, ethnic cleansing and genocide. thank god our country was there for bosnia. our adversaries notably but not exclusively russia would like nothing more than to make an american effort fail in the end. and they would ensure its repercussions are felt elsewhere around the globe. current trends in bosnia make the country an easier entry point for extremism in europe, including islamic extremism. if we wait for discrimination and ethnic tensions to explode

again, our engagement will then become a moral imperative at significantly greater cost. the people of bosnia like their neighbors throughout the balkans know they are in europe but consider the united states their most trusted friend, their most honest friend. they want our presence and engagement and given the tragedies they experienced, they have earned our support and friendship. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. portman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, today i will talk about -- a senator: mr. president, i would like to ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of senator portman's remarks, i be recognized and at the conclusion of my remarks, senator smith be recognized. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island, is there objection to the unanimous

consent request? without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you. thank you, senator portman. mr. portman: i thank my colleague and the work we have done against the opioid epidemic that has hit our states. every single member is affected by it and our country is affected by it in very significant ways. because of the dangerous hurricanes that are approaching our coast, it looks like the vote we had expected tomorrow and the debate we expected tomorrow on the opioid package may be postponed based on what i just heard from the majority leader. but the next several days, the senate is expected to take up comprehensive legislation that comes from four or five different committees in congress to fight the addiction crisis, to help our communities combat some of the deadliest aspects of the crisis nationally. and this help is urgently needed. let's start with talking about how congress got here. first, just a couple of years ago we passed two bills in this

congress that were historic and making a difference. one is called the comprehensive addiction and recovery act or cara. the other is called the 21st century cures act. cara which i coauthored with my colleague senator whitehouse who spoke a moment ago provides resources to evidence-based prevention, treatment, and recovery programs. these are nonprofit programs for the most part that are able to apply to the federal government directly for grant money. they are doing things innovative and new to get at this problem and they are working and making a difference. there will be $608 million spent on these programs that offer these innovative solutions to this stubborn problem that's affecting everyone in this chamber. the cures legislation, 21st century cures legislation this year will be $500 million annually. that goes directly to the states. the states then give grants out to various programs in those states. and my home state of ohio, for instance, $26 million has come each of the last two years. sadly, ohio is one of the

hardest hit states in the country so we have a larger grant allocation than some states that have not had as many overdose and deaths and high rates of addiction as we've had. i was a very strong supporter of the 21st century cures funding and i applaud senator blunt and other appropriations committee members on both sides of the aisle for their work on that. of course, with regard to the cara legislation, it's actually working out there. i now have had the opportunity to see how it's working. i have been to about a dozen cara grant recipients in ohio over the last year alone. i've seen new and powerful ways that the communities back in ohio are helping to turn the tide of addiction. last month as an example, i visited the white hall fire station outside columbus, ohio. they're doing something innovative at a fire station, opening their doors and partnering with another organize gaition -- organization. they get cures funding to provide immediate help for those coming in and are seeking it or

overdosed. narcan has been applied and they reverse the effects of the overdoses yet the gap doesn't occur because it's seamless. people go right into treatment. the program was made possible by the cara grant and opens the doors to the fire station and it's working. i was there at a time when coincidentally an addict came in. his name was blake. blake was, as he described himself, a heroin addict. he had heroin on his person. i had the opportunity to speak with blake and offer him some words of encouragement. had an opportunity to ask him why he was here, what had happened in the past. he said he had been to three treatment programs. they hadn't worked. he had gone from a short-term treatment program ride back -- right back to the streets. the gap had occurred. he also said he was ready and appreciated the opportunity to go straight into a treatment program which he had not had before. i had a chance to speak with him. i told him to stay in touch with me, let me know what's going o. last week he called.

blake said he's now in a three-month treatment program in portsmouth, ohio. he's optimistic. he is confident. he believes that because of this approach, he has an opportunity now to get clean, to get back with his family and get back to work. this is what's often needed is the seamless transition from immediate medical attention, the application of narcan to reverse the effects, to treatment, to longer-term recovery in order for people to overcome their addiction. that's what cara and cures prioritizes and that's why these programs are so important and once again we will see in the funding this year that those programs have been held up, the good parts of the programs in particular are being used as an example for the entire country. despite the legislative progress we have made and despite what i see back home with communities beginning to make a difference, overall the situation is not getting better president it's getting worse. why is that you might ask? i believe it's for one simple reason and that is the advent of new drugs and particularly less

expensive and more powerful synthetic opioids that have come into our communities just in the last few years. the new data from the centers for disease control, c.d.c. shows overdose deaths increased 9% from 2016 to 2017, the last year for which we have data. my home state of ohio had a half percent increase in overdose deaths. in total c.d.c. estimates that 72,000 americans died last year from overdoses, 72,000 americans being the number one cause of death for americans under the age of 50. over 48,000 of those overdose deaths were caused by opioids and about 30,000 of those were caused by synthetic forms, particularly fentanyl. that's more than 60%. so this is the big issue right now, two-thirds of the overdose deaths in my home state of ohio are being caused by synthetic opioids, fentanyl, columbus, ohio, just unfortunately had a number of deaths over a short period of time all due to fentanyl. there were about 20,000 fentanyl overdose deaths in 2016 meaning

there's been a 50% increase in just one year. when you go from 2013 to 2017, there has been an 850% increase just during five years. 850% increase in fentanyl overdose deaths in our country. the opioid crisis has continued to tighten its grip around communities across our country and the emergence of fentanyl has presented a new challenge in turning the tide of this epidemic. just as we were making progress. this more deadly, less expensive scourge has come in to our families, our communities, and our states. that's why we need to take action and take action this week. i would like to thank the majority leader senator mcconnell and the democratic leader senator schumer for agreeing to bring this legislation to the floor. i'd also like to thank chairman lamar alexander for his good work in bringing together the different proposals from the four, five committees i talked about and both sides coming up with legislation. this should be nonpartisan, not

just bipartisan. i would like to commend the several committees that held public hearings and contributed legislative ideas, the judiciary committee, the help committee, the finance committee and others. this bipartisan consensus package puts politics aside and does what's right for our communities. it includes some additional legislative priorities i've been working on over the past couple of years that i believe are going to make a real difference in this fight. earlier this year again with senator whitehouse and others we introduced cara 2.0, the next segment of the recovery act. a one is a national quality standard and best practices for recovery housing. it's critical for people as they transition out of treatment and into longer-term recovery to have this housing but it also needs to meet these higher standards because of many examples where it has not and failed those individuals and families. the legislation also authorizes support for life school and college students to help children and young adults recover from substance abuse disorders. we've had amazing models in ohio

liej the recovery program at columbus state. columbus is opening its first recovery high school next year. 2.0 contributed the opioid legislation that includes $60 million for a plan of safe care for babies born dependent on drugs. there are mothers who are addicted, born with this neonatal abstinence syndrome. it's a sad situation but a reality in my state and others. legislation includes what's called the crib act which is bipartisan legislation i coauthored that helps newborns suffering from addiction get the best care possible in the best setting possible, to get the love and support they need to be able to recover. in also helps ensure these babies born with this neonatal absence syndrome get the help needed in their development so they can live up to their god-given purpose in life which is not to live with this. the legislation authorizes a number of important programs that have a proven record of success like drug courts, like the drug-free communities

prevention grants, like the high intensity drug trafficking areas where law enforcement can coordinate at every level. these are all possible strides that will help improve what is working and combating this epidemic and provide more resources to help some of the most vulnerable groups affected. but, colleagues, i think the most important and immediate difference in turning the tide on this opioid epidemic will come from bill -- from a bill that is called the stop act. it's a bipartisan bill i coauthored with amy klobuchar from minnesota. it will combat the scourge of fentanyl we talked about earlier. this issue of an 850% increase in this one kind of drug coming in and causing more overdose, synthetic opioids, has to be addressed. 81 americans are dying every single day. that's the best data we have from last year. this year unfortunately it's likely to be even higher. it's the new poison flooding our communities. the stop act will close a loophole drug traffickers have been using to ship fentanyl into our country. unbelievably, fentanyl is

actually manufactured primarily in china and it primarily comes into our communities through the united states mail system. so you might think this comes over land from mexico or somewhere else. this is coming in through our mail system primarily from china. we conducted an 18-month investigation into this in the permanent subcommittee on investigations which i chair. we revealed just how easy it is to purchase fentanyl online and have it shipped to the united states. based on our undercover investigation, these drugs could be found through a simple google search and overseas sellers we accessed essentially guaranteed delivery if the fentanyl was sent through the u.s. mail system. to be clear, they guaranteed delivery if it's sent through the u.s. mail system, not if it's sent through other carriers like a private carrier, fedex, ups and others. it's easy why they prefer the postal service for shipping these deadly synthetic drugs. the postal service has a weaker screerning standard than do the private carriers. after 9/11 congress passed a law requiring private carriers like

ups, fedex, dhl to get what is called electronic advanced data on packages entering the united states. this information, this advanced electronic data allows law enforcement to have a chance to stop this poison because they can find out where the package is from, what's in it, where it's going. and they can then use good data, use algorithms that they've come up with to be able to determine which packages are suspect and pull them off the line. if' seen this -- i've seen this at distribution centers for these private carriers. i've also seen unfortunately that the postal service is not doing what they should be doing. without this information dengts identifying packages is next -- identifying packages is next to impossible like identifying a needle in a haystack. fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and it's relatively inexpensive. it's so deadly that as little as 2 milligrams equal to a few inteks of salt is -- specks of salt is enough to be fatal. drug dealers have moved to fentanyl as a less expensive

alternative. one gram of a deadly mixture of heroin and fentanyl can cost about half as much on the street as one gram of heroin alone. drug users seeking a less expensive and stronger high are seeking it out and drug dealers are mixing it and doing a number of other street drugs. no street drug is safe because fentanyl is being mixed, being laced into all kinds of other drugs often unknowingly to the person dying the drugs. recently police in columbus seized 2.2 pounds of fentanyl equal to about three and a half cups, small enough amount to fit in a plastic bag in your kitchen. that is enough to kill 500,000 people, roughly the population of the city of cleveland. because of its extreme potency, deadly doses can be shipped in small packages that are almost impossible to identify without having the necessary information and screening devices in a postal service. postal service isn't required to do it yet.

only recently have they begun getting this data on some packages entering the united states. they have some information on 36% of international packages. that's a step in the right direction. by the way, that still means that over 318 million international packages are coming here with no screening at all. even when they have identified drugs that -- packages that are likely to contain drugs, only about 80% of the time are they giving them to law enforcement. so 20% of the time the packages are still going into our communities. so this needs to be changed. it is a glaring loophole. everybody knows it. it undermines the safety and security of our nation. the stop act will significantly disrupt the flow of fentanyl by holding the postal agency to the same standard as these other carriers. they will collect electronic data. 100% of the packages for china.

it will require the collection of 100% by the end of 2020. it is a commonsense solution to address the most urgent and deadliest aspect of the opioid epidemic we face. at the very least, it'll increase the risk of sending these drugs into our country and raise the price -- the street price -- for fentanyl. that's why it has such broad, bipartisan support. there is a growing momentum behind this legislation, and i luke forward to the senate passing it in the next several days as part of this broader legislation we talked about earlier. the stop act alone is not going to solve this crisis. but it'll act as a tourniquet to stop the flow of fentanyl in our country, like other acts like cara, like the cures legislation to prioritize, to function, to allow americans to live up to their full potential and to allow our communities to heal. i luke forward to president trump signing this legislation into law, both the broader opioid legislation and the stop act, so it can begin making a

difference in communities in my home state of ohio and all around the country. i yield back. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i am delighted to be joined today by my colleague tina smith. both of our states are heavily involved in the booming renewable energy sector. president trump has called climate change a hoax but no matter how much his administration may try to prop up the old, dirty, dangerous, polluting fossil fuel industry, there's no denying the clean energy revolution that is sweeping the country. the rapid growth of renewables has been under way for decades, but it has really accelerated in recent years. it took global and wind -- it took global wind and solar developers 40 years to install the first trillion watts of

power generation. a recent estimate from bloomberg found that the next central will be installed within five years. 40 years for the first trillion. five for the second. part of the reason is that lower costs of renewables mean that building out the second trillion will cost half as much as the first trillion. this chart shows the year-to-year costs of generating energy from wind from lazard. since 2009, costs for on-shore wind have dropped by two-thirds. on-shore wind costs down two-thirds just in basically a decade. here's the same chart for solar power. utility-scale solar costs have dropped 86% over that same time period. in some scenarios, rights lazard, the full life cycle costs of building and operating

renewables-based projects have dropped below the operating costs alone of conventional generation technologies such as coal or nuclear. and when you look at the drop in solar costs compared to other resources, you see how dramatic the change has been. this is from the world economic forum. the renewable energy industry in america has grown to 3.3 million jobs, more than all fossil fuel jobs. at&t has been a leader in this, adopting the world wildlife fund's corporate renewable energy buyers principles and signing up under that for 220-megawatts from an oklahoma wind farm and 300-megawatts from a texas wind farm, one of the largest corporate renewable purchases in history. so congratulations, texas and oklahoma, for these new home- state rue newable energy jobs and at and t for your leadership. in rhode island, the governors

2018 clean energy industry report shows that clean energy jobs have risen by 72% since 2014, bringing over 6,000 new clean energy jobs, bringing us to nearly 16,000 rhode islanders working in clean energy, and it's projected to continue to grow. we lead also on energy efficiency ranking third on the american council for energy-efficient economies 2017 scorecard. over in senator smith's state in minnesota, the public utilities commission has required since 1993 that there be a social cost of carbon standard for new infrastructure at $43 per ton of carbon. minnesota leads in being a state whose public utility commission is factoring the cost of carbon into its decision-making rather than making the general public pay for what the

carbon-producing utilities should be paying for. other states are also powering forward. i just saw senator bennet on the floor. his state of colorado's public utilities commission just unanimously approved an xcel energy program to retire older fossil fuel units. specifically, they're going to retire 660-megawatts of operating coal, close it down, and replace it with $2.5 billion in new renewables and battery storage. -- storage. the initial request for bids brought in a new flood of energy proposals below existing coal and natural gas facilities. now here -- because of the politics and the political funding and citizens united and all the trash that that unleashed in our politics -- there's a sharp political divide on climate change and renewable energy. brought to you by our fossil fuel friends.

but out in the real world, some of the most republican states are actually at the forefront. the department of energy last week released reports showing texas leading the nation in generation, with over 22 gigawatts of wind capacity. and right behind them are oklahoma and kansas with more than five gig did a watts of installed wind. just over 6% of the nation's electricity in 2017 was wind nationally, but you go to iowa, you go to kansas, you go to oklahoma, you go to south dakota, they have all got more than 30% of their power coming from clean wind power. oklahoma is at 32%. kansas is at 36%. iowa is at 37%. south dakota is at 30%. and north dakota is at 27%. for the record, may i submit the department of energy press release on these reports. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you.

amazingly, this report comes from the same energy department currently pushing coal bailout proposals, but that's what you get with helpless, weak leadership from this administration that won't face up either to the scientific reality of climate change or the economic reality of energy markets. ferc, the federal energy regulatory commission, has just finalize add rule for energy storage that could spur as much as 50 gigawatts of additional energy storage across the united states. and that could be a conservative estimate if renewables pricings keep along those trajectories we showed before. that ferc rule on energy storage, by the way -- unanimous and bipartisan. the system operators like i.s.o. new england, are doing their best to remove obstacles that had kept renewables from competing fairly in capacity auctions and dispatch decisions. and this is saving consumers money.

it was reported by utility dive that during the july heat wave in new england, distributed zola, which -- solar saved customers some $20 million. and this is reliable stuff out in iowa where midwestern i.s.o., they figured out the algorithms to treat it as reliable power and the ferc will further enable this transition much the fossil fuel fishery is noteletting this go without a fight. they are up to their usual political mischief to try to protect their $700 billion annual subsidy that they get from polluting for free. but their shady tactics are just as you'd expect -- behind -- well, you start with the fossil fuel industry and then they put in front of them the u.s. chamber of commerce and the

national association of manufacturers to scream that it's really the dirty fossil fuel industry, and then those two put in front of them some fake consumer group called the consumer energy alliance, and that fake consumer energy alliance put in front of it something called kentuckians for solar fairness -- all in an effort to fight rooftop solar for individuals in kentucky. that's the kind of nonsense the fossil fuel gets up to to try to defend itself. but despite that, you can't stop progress. you can't deny costs and you can't win against energy that is cheaper, that is reliable, and that is carbon-free. so it's time for us to wake up, throw our weight into clean energy and move forward into the future rather than let the fossil fuel industry condemn us to at dirty past. with that, i yield to my colleague, senator smith. ms. smith: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. smith: i ask consent to be allowed to continue my remarks.

the presiding officer: without objection. ms. smith: mr. president, i rise today to join my colleague, senator whitehouse, as he takes to the senate floor to speak on climate change for the 219th time. senator whitehouse is the senate leader on climate change, and his foresight, his actions, and his determination on this issue are remarkable, and i'm very proud to join him today. climate change is a dire threat to our environment and to our children's future. and yet if we rise to the challenge of responding to climate change, it will offer us major economic opportunity. the clean energy transition is already creating jobs, reducing the costs of generating electricity, clearing the air, and improving our health. the old idea that responding to climate change comes at the expense of the american economy is outdated and inaccurate. the clean energy economy is the economy of the 21st century. we see this every day in minnesota, which is a national leader in the clean energy

transition. the climate is rapidly changing, and these changes are caused by human activities that release greenhouse gases. i know this because it is what science shows us. now, in minnesota we take special pride in the severity of our winters. but minnesota winter temperatures have increased by six degrees since 1970 and more than our pride is at stake here. agriculture and forest pests that were once held at bay which cold are now thriving. summer temperatures are now at a pace to make our -- some suggest that changing climate and spreading pests could eliminate minnesota's iconic evergreen forests by 2100. urgent action is needed to limit further climate change. if we don't reduce greenhouse gas emissions to near zero by 2060, the world will cross a

dangerous warming threshold, one that the united states and other nations have pledged to avoid. i am deeply worried about these threats and so are our children. but i'm also hopeful because i have seen how tapping into the abundant wind and sunshine is building a new energy economy that is clean, green, and full of opportunity. here is just one example. shortly after becoming a u.s. senator, i visited the vetter farm in minnesota and saw firsthand how renewable energy can provide new sources of income for farmers. the vetters raise hogs, but they also farm the sun through a 14-acre community solar garden. the vetters inspired me to become a champion for the energy title in the senate farm bill, which provides federal support for rural renewable energy projects. just three years ago, minnesota within much of a player in solar energy, despite the fact that we have nearly the same solar

potential as houston, texas. however, new state policy has led to strong growth and solar energy development. the state became -- the state began a community solar garden program in 2013 and minnesota now has enough solar energy to power nearly 120,000 during the first quarter of 2018, minnesota was fifth in the nation for solar installations. now, minnesota is a model but the southeastern united states and almost all of the western half of our country have as much or more sunshine than minnesota, and lots of opportunity. minnesota is new to solar but we have long been a national leader in wind energy. today nearly 20% of our electricity comes from wind turbines. like solar, the fuel costs for an installed turbine is zero. and so wind energy is sheltered from the ups and downs of fossil fuel prices.

wind energy is is also a rural economic engine, a single industrial-sized turbine can bring a family farm 4,000 to 8,000 dollars in lease ref flew each year. -- revenue each year. my state is home to the two largest wind and solar installation companies in the country. more -- together they have solved renewable energy capacity across the country equivalent to 1100 coal plants. clean energy brings good jobs. for example, wind energy technician is one of the fastest growing jobs in the country with an average salary of $54,000, and it doesn't require a four-year college degree. jobs in minnesota's clean energy sector are growing twice as fast as jobs in other parts of our state's economy, and employers report that they're having trouble finding the skilled workers they need to fill these jobs. to address this problem i've introduced legislation to help

employers partner with high schools and community colleges so students can gain the skills they need to get these jobs. last year renewable energy contributed 25% of the electricity generated in minnesota. nuclear power, which also does not release greenhouse gases, contributed an additional 23%. so from a climate change perspective, minnesota is already halfway to being a 100% clean energy state, and we are not slowing down. xcel is on track to deliver 60% renewable by 2030. great river energy which serves many of our rural electric co-ops is committed to 50% renewables by that same date. and why are they doing this? it's not all about saving the planet. energy, wind energy has become the cheapest way to add new electricity to minnesota's electric grid. yes, minnesota is windy, but

so is every state in the middle of the country. and as senator whitehouse described, most coastal states have tremendous wind power potential through offshore wind farms. this summer the mcknight foundation released a groundbreaking analysis of what decarbonizing minnesota's economy would mean. if minnesota continues to move away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, we can achieve a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. that would mean an electric mix that includes at least 91% clean energy. and this would mean total energy bill savings of $600 to $1,200 per minnesota household each year, and it also would mean 20,000 more jobs in our state compared to a business as usual scenario with continued reliance on fossil fuels. so given all of these upsides it's disheartening that the

president continues to do everything in his power to slow down the clean energy transition. he would rather take us backwards and have america remain a world leader pushing forward. he's pulling the united states out of the paris climate agreement. he's taking steps to roll back auto fuel efficiency standards and trampling on the rights of states who want to maintain rigorous targets. he has tried repeatedly to keep uneconomic and polluting coal plants open, a move that if successful would cost american taxpayers and electric ratepayers billions of dollars a year. in a recent attack on clean energy, president trump has proposed replacing the clean power plan with an alternative that would actually increase greenhouse gas emissions. and by the administration's own calculation, cause up to 1,400 additional deaths per year due to air pollution. just yesterday the trump administration proposed to weaken rules that limit the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

instead, the federal government can and should partner with states to encourage the spread of clean energy. the federal government should help states lead and not hold them back. first, we should set national clean energy targets. these should be a floor, not a ceiling. setting states free to innovate and adapt the best way to meet energy emission reductions given their local resources, their local economies and their local sensibilities. second, the federal target should be technology neutral. the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. in one place this might mean wind power. in another, nuclear power. some states have great hydropower resources while others might choose to utilize carbon capture or storage upgrades to existing coal plants. third, we should work with states to enhance the interstate transmission system. i've talked a lot about what minnesota is doing on clean energy in states like california and hawaii and many others are certainly also leading the way.

with transmission, the texas grid expansion provides a potential national model. that expansion is helping bring clean electricity from the windy western part of texas to the large cities in the east. fourth, the federal energy regulatory commission must properly account for greenhouse gas emissions when it approves projects. it should allow states to value their nuclear plants as zero emission sources and as the original fleet of nuclear plants retire it is imperative they be replaced with nonemitting power sources. last, the federal government should expand support for cutting-edge energy research at our national labs and at state universities. the federal government also needs to recognize that discoveries in the lab only help if they're actually deployed. we must help states and utilities alike take on risks, take on the risks of new potentially game-changing technologies. and to those ends, i recently

introduced legislation to help fund both research and initial deployment of new energy storage technologies. so we have everything to lose if we fail to meet the challenge of climate change. we owe our children and the next generation a better alternative. thank you to senator whitehouse, again for your leadership on this issue. and thank you for inviting me to join with you today. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, the senate is a bit behind in terms of the schedule. i would ask unanimous consent if the ranking democrat on the senate finance committee, we will be voting on mr. rettig here shortly, that i be allowed to speak for up to 15 minutes at the conclusion of my colleague's remarks, senator bennet. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. bennet: thank you. mr. chairman? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you. i'd like to ask unanimous consent to complete my remarks,

mr. president. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, in recent weeks president trump has gone around the country touting the strength of the economy. he said our economy is the strongest it's ever been in the history of our country, and you just have to look at the numbers to know that. the numbers do tell us that the economy is strong and getting stronger, and that's a good thing. but they also tell us that the economy has been strengthening since it 2010 after president obama acted to save us from another great depression and when some members of congress wouldn't lift a finger to help him. and during president obama's term, even as the economic data showed, more and more investment and more growth, the other side talked down the recovery because even though it was good for america, it didn't help them win elections. as a candidate, this was donald

trump's specialty. he was a master at this. in september of 2016, long into the recovery, he said this is the weakest so-called recovery since the great depression. the great depression wasn't a recovery. it was the great depression. we were coming out of the great recession. he even questioned the government's monthly jobs report, at one point calling it, quote, total fiction. quote, nobody has jobs, he said. quote, it is not a real economy. it's a phony set of numbers. they cooked the books, he said of the government's report. don't believe those phony numbers, he said, when you hear 4.9% or 5% unemployment. the number is probably 28% or 29%, as high as 35%. i even heard, he said, recently 42%. he campaigned on that. now as president, donald

trump's attitude has changed. this month he said, we have the strongest economy in the history of our nation. and those job reports that he criticized so readily under president obama, it turns out he loves them now. just out, 3.9% unemployment, he tweeted. 4% is broken. in the meantime, witch hunt. if you only read the president's twitter feed, which i don't recommend, you could be african for believing that the -- you could be forgiven for believing the economy is collapsing under president obama but is roaring back under his administration. as usual, the truth is not nearly as partisan. if we ignore the hyperbole and exaggeration and review the actual history, the trends are clear. the economy with a shrinking and shedding jobs when president

obama took office. he stepped in and made difficult decisions, and soon after the economy began growing, adding jobs and gaining strength. and it's continued under president trump, i'm pleased to say. let's look at the record. last week president trump celebrated almost 4 million jobs created since the election. in the first year and a half of president trump, the economy created an average of 189,000 jobs a month. that's good. compare that to the last year and a half under president obama, when the economy created 208,000 jobs a month. unfortunately we've lost some ground since the obama administration, but we're still making progress. this chart demonstrates that. and it also demonstrates that despite president trump's deficit-busting tax cuts and higher spending job growth is actually slowed under his

administration. the same is true for wages. i don't take any pleasure in this, but as you can see here, mr. president, average hourly earnings grew at a rate of 1.3% during the course of president obama's last 18 months. they grew by 1.1% during president trump's first 18 months. that growth is slow. last week president trump also said we have more people working today than at any point ever in history. that's true, but it has been true since may of 2014. in fact, the private sector has added jobs for 102 months straight, the longest streak on record, 80% of that streak during the obama administration. so as in other parts of life, when it comes to jobs, president trump is once again coafgget on -- coasting on his

inheritance. president trump has also said economic growth last quarter was 4.2%, and as you know, it was headed down big, he said, and it was a low number, he said, a very low number. in my opinion, it would have been less than zero. it was heading to negative numbers. first the economy did grow by 4.2% last quarter, but it grew by the same rate for several quarters in 2015 and 2016 under president obama. and there is not a single economist who thought we were heading into negative numbers at the end of the obama administration. in fact, when asked a surrogate of the administration couldn't name a single economist to back up the president's claim. most recently, on monday president trump tweeted the g.d.p. rate is higher than the unemployment rate for the first time in over 100 years. even fox news had to call him

out on that one. they pointed out that since 1948 the g.d.p. growth has been higher than the unemployment rate 63 different times. this is not the first time. it's happened 63 times. the one thing that actually has happened for the first time during the course of this administration is that it is the first time in american history that the unemployment rate is falling and our deficit is going up. that has never happened before. it is hard to do that. the level of irresponsibility required to have an outcome where your unemployment is falling and your deficit is rising is unheard of in american history. the congressional budget office just announced that the government spent $895 million more -- i'm sorry. $895 billion more than it took

in over the past 11 months. that is a 33% increase in our deficit from last year. in one year. fox news. 33%. it is a 53% increase in our deficit since the last year of the obama administration just two years ago. and by the way, we still have a month to go in this year. so the deficit has increased under this republican president, this republican senate, this republican house majority by more than half since president obama left office. by the way, and parenthetically, the last time unemployment was 3.9% was the year 2000 when we had a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion. that was at the end of the clinton administration.

this is all a far cry from candidate donald trump's promise to eliminate our debt over a period of eight years. or his promise to provide great health care for a fraction of the price price, where everyone is going to be taken care of better than they're taken care of now. or -- or his promise to build the greatest infrastructure on planet earth, the roads, railways and airports of tomorrow. i haven't seen any tweets about that lately. i'll give him this. president trump promised that he would be the greatest jobs president god ever created. and you know what? he has been the greatest jobs president god ever created since barack obama was president of the united states. i have want to finish by suggesting that instead of trafficking in complete

falsehoods and untruths and exaggeration exaggerations about what he saved us from and how phenomenally well he's doing while he's creating these enormous deficits as our economy grows, the american people would be a lot better served by a conversation about the much deeper challenges that we face. for example, why wages have decoupled from productivity, why incomes have not kept pace with costs, why automation and global competition have put tremendous pressure on workers and wages and what we're going to do about it. why inequality continues to rise as economic mobility in the united states continues to fall below our -- the european countries. that's what we should be talking about. ignoring these issues doesn't make them disappear. reality is out there in states like colorado and all across our

country. and our lack of mobility and our extraordinary inequality is bearing down on us, even if the president chooses to ignore it for the sake of -- ignore it. for the sake of our children, we cannot. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president, tonight the senate is considering the nomination of charles rettig to lead the internal revenue service. and let's be clear, this is not a typical i.r.s. commissioner debate. over the last several months,

the trump administration has weaponized the tax code to punish its political adversaries and benefit shadowy, far-right groups that seek to buy american elections. two months ago, just hours after maria buttina was outed as an alleged russian spy who sought to influence our elections, the trump administration announced a new rule opening the floodgate to more dark money and foreign money in american politics. dark money groups used to be required to disclose their donors to the i.r.s. with this new trump rule, they won't be required to disclose at

all. so, mr. president and colleagues, here is what this all means. over the next two months, while political ads flood the airways, millions of americans are going to wonder how much of this stuff is paid for by law-breaking foreigners and special interests because of the new rule the internal revenue service and law enforcement, they are going to be in the dark as well. there are a few reasons why this new rule is unjustifiable and undemocratic. first, it got no debate in the finance committee where we have jurisdiction over the tax code. it got more debate on the senate

floor. i do recall my republican colleagues bemoaning what they considered to be anticonservative political interference by the internal revenue service, even when none was found. now, with a republican administration in office, they are changing the tax rules to allow more political interference by secretive outside groups and foreigners. second, the timing of this announcement could not have more clearly underscored the rotten corruption at the heart of this policy. the new dark money rule was announced on a monday night, the same day it was revealed that maria butina had been indicted for using the national rifle

association as a conduit to influence our democracy with personal and financial ties. another administration, seeing that kind of news come down, might have said hey, we ought to hold off making drastic changes. it might have said let's put a little more space between the indictment of an alleged russian spy and the rollout of our dark money rule that would make the spy's job even easier. not this trump administration. they were undeterred. they decided they couldn't wait to get this new rule on the books, making it easier for foreign actors and special interests to hide in the shadows while their doctors influence our elections.

the fax rules and election laws in america with respect to who has to disclose political spending, mr. president, they are already badly broken, especially after citizens united. now the administration is taking an enormous problem and making it much worse. the trump dark money rule is only going to mean that individual americans have even less faith that they are in control of our democracy. this takes us even further from the true meaning of one person, one vote. it puts even more power and more influence in the hands of the special interests. the fact is the argument for this change do not add up. i have heard members of the

trump administration, including the treasury secretary, say that none of this information was public before, so there is no reason to collect it. there is just no big deal here. mr. president and colleagues, the overwhelming majority of americans want more disclosure, not less. the administration in effect admits that they weren't using the information that political donors used to have to turn over. so it sounds to me like the trump argument for this dark money rule goes pretty much like this -- we weren't going to enforce the campaign spending laws anyway, so we decided not to bore collecting the special interest information at all. that is going to be cold comfort for the millions of americans

who are going to get clobbered by anonymously funded political ads for the next two months, mr. president, before our election. my bottom line is the trump dark money rule is antilaw enforcement, antidemocratic, and antidisclosure. it puts the blindfold on law enforcement at the exact moment when the congress ought to be coming up with new approaches to shed more sunlight on political spending and defending american democracy from foreign influence. now, the finance committee's vote on mr. rettig's nomination was coincidentally scheduled to take place the same week the rule came down. obviously, this issue was a focal point in the discussion. i raised the issue during the markup. mr. rettig had an opportunity to tell the committee he tried to

fix it. he did not. he wouldn't even acknowledge that there is a serious problem here for the cause of transportation pairncy and openness in our government. in my view, this rule ought to be put up to the same standard of scrutiny that the majority has applied to several other rules that were put in place by the previous administration. the senate ought to use the power granted to us by the congressional review act, and we ought to vote on whether this rule should stand, but now the trump administration is taking unprecedented steps to hide their dark money policy from that kind of scrutiny. trump officials are keeping their rule off the official book for as long as they can to prevent the senate from holding their dark money rule to the

same standard applied to the obama administration. whether they publish the rule in the federal register or they confirmed that it won't be published there but will be published elsewhere, the rule becomes eligible for a challenge under the congressional review act, but so far the trump administration hasn't taken either step even though i have asked for a response three weeks ago. as a result here in the senate, we have been unable to get a straight answer as to when it's coming or whether they plan to publish the congressional review issue at all. it looked to me like the administration has a policy on their hands that they know is corrupt, that they know is undemocratic, and so they are playing hide the ball because the more the public hears about

the dark money rule, the less they like it, and we are going to keep talking about it. mr. president, i want to close with one last point. there is lots about the trump tax policy to be concerned about this evening. senator menendez talked about how blue states like oregon, california, new jersey, and others were hit with a gut punch, capping the state and local tax deduction. to target people in those states reveals the rotten core of the trump tax policy. what i want to say tonight as we consider the rettig nomination, i don't know of anything more corrupt in front of this body

than making it even harder for the american people to know where dark money, foreign money is coming from. for that reason, i urge my colleagues to oppose the rettig nomination. he was asked to acknowledge that this was a serious problem. he wouldn't go there. he was asked to describe what he would do to correct the problem. he wouldn't go there. this is as corrupt as anything i know of before the united states senate, and i will be working with my colleagues to fix this dark money crisis, undo the damage the trump tax law had brought on, and i will be opposing the rettig nomination. and i yield. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president,

thank you so much to my colleague from oregon for his remarks taking on this systematic corruption of dark money and as it relates to this nomination. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent for my intern sam sutterfield to have privileges of the floor for the balance of the day. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, and i yield the floor. 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 the nomination of charles p. rettig of california to be commissioner of internal revenue, for a term expiring november 12, 2022, 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 the nomination of charles p. rettig of california to be commissioner of internal revenue for the term

expiring november 12, 2022, shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on had vote, the nays are 63, the noes are 34. the motion is agreed to. the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: i ask consent that the remaining votes in this series -- the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the remaining votes in the series be ten minutes in length. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, all postcloture time has expired. the question occurs on the nomination. is there a sufficient second?

there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: any senator wishing to vote or change his or her vote? if not, on this vote, the yeas are 64, the nays are 33. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's actions.

under the previous order, the senate will resume legislative session and consider -- in consideration of the conference report to accompany h.r. 5895. the cloture motion is withdrawn. there will now be ten minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form. the senate will be in order. the senator from alabama. mr. shelby: mr. president, i will try to be brief. it is getting late and people have to go somewhere. a few months ago, i came to the floor here and urged my colleagues to set aside partisan disputes so we could focus on our most basic constitutional responsibility, funding the government in a deliberate and timely manner. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order.

mr. shelby: mr. president, most observers then deemed the prospect dubious at best, and who could blame them? like so much in washington, the appropriation process was broken, but it's urging leaders -- but with the urging of leaders mcconnell and shrimper and the chairmen on both sides of the aisle, leahy in particular, we put the pieces together. steadily and methodically, we passed nine of the 12 annual appropriations bills in the senate by overwhelming bipartisan margins, and today i'm pleased to present my colleagues with the first dividends of their cooperation, the conference report before the senate tonight contains the 2019 appropriations bill for the energy and water development, military constructions and veterans' affairs and the legislative branch. it contains very critical funding to help the transition to our veterans to help the new health care program they deserve and have earned under the v.a.

mission act. it funds, mr. president, over nearly 200 -- it funds nearly 200 construction projects that are very important to america's military, and it does a lot of other things, but i can say this is an important package, and it's very important in what this package does not contain. it contains no poison pills. none of the partisan riders that have taken down appropriations bills in recent years are in this package. and as a result, the conference report looks a lot like the package that passed the senate a few months ago by a vote of 86-5. we have a long way to go, but we're getting there with this first batch of appropriation bills. and i want to thank -- take a second here and thank the leaders of both sides, vice chairman leahy, the members of the appropriations committee, and all of my colleagues for their cooperation in this effort, and at the proper time, i look forward to continuing to

work and urge you to vote for the conference report. mr. leahy: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, first i would ask consent my full statement be made part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, i do want to speak briefly on this, and i agree with what chairman shelby has said. it's final passage of the minibus one conference report, legislative branch, energy, weament development, military construction, veterans' affairs, and so on. now, when we first considered this package in june, when senator shelby and i brought it to the floor, we held our first real debate on the senate floor on an appropriations bill for many, many years. we had eight roll call votes on amendments. we adopted a managers' package that senator shelby and i submitted that contained 32 more. a step toward regular order. we're going to do another step. now, this is not exactly the bill i would have written.

i think it's safe to say it's not exactly the bill chairman shelby would write. but we know you have to have compromise, you have to work things out. he also knew i could rely on his word, he could rely on my word, and that's why we're here. military construction, veterans' affairs, significant new investments in mental health and opioid abuse treatment. not just talking about things we would like to do about opioid abuse treatment, but actually having it in a bill. it provides resources important to veterans. certainly that includes my own state of vermont. i am extremely disappointed that the house republicans and president trump refused to accommodate funding for the costs associated with the v.a. choice program. it's going to have shortfall beginning in may, 2019.

we are not helping our veterans if we make promises we don't keep, but we'll keep working on this. we can't just take funding from other programs for veterans or terminate programs to help low-income americans or important research at the national institutes of health, even though the president has proposed that. we will work on this. we have to take care -- the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. leahy: i thank the presiding officer. we make these promises to veterans, it's easy to make the promise. we have to pay for it. and the chairman and i will work hard on that. we have in the energy and water development significant investments for scientific research. we have to make america more competitive with clean energy, increase funds for renewable. so now this is a compromise bill. it makes significant investments

in the american people. it wasn't an easy pass, but the shelby, leahy, mcconnell, schumer agreement we entered into, the four of us, has laid a bipartisan framework for a path forward. this does have bipartisan support. it's free of poison pill riders and other authorizing portions. i commend my friend, richard shelby, for his leadership, but i also thank senators alexander, feinstein, boozman, schatz, daines, and murphy for their final contributions. i'm hopeful the house will see how we do it. we have come together, actually the senators acting as senators. we have made more progress than we have in decades in appropriations. so let's continue. and lastly, i often say i am a constitutional impediment to my staff. if it wasn't for the staff here,

as well as chairman shelby's staff, shannon heinz, david atkins, staff on both sides, they are important. so as i said, i ask unanimous consent my whole statement be part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: and again, i commend the -- and i'm ready to vote. should we ask for the yeas and nays. go ahead. i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. all time is yielded back. the question is on the adoption of the conference report. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the yeas are 92, nays are 95 -- the nays are 5, and the conference report to accompany h.r. 5895 is agreed to. under the previous order, s. con. res. 46 is considered and agreed to and the motion to reconsider is considered made

and laid upon the table. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each and i ask to speak for as long as i may require. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: mr. president, boy scouts shouldn't get a merit badge for telling the truth and senators shouldn't get an award for passing a bill. for the first time in ten years, these appropriation bills that we just passed are on time and within the budget that congress has set. with this vote today we're moving toward restoring the practice of regular order in the senate from start to finish. had is what the right way means, hearings, we held three, markup the bills, all 12 bills

completed before the fourth of july recess, consult with other senators, in the case of the energy and water appropriations bills, 87 senators, we believe, had their wishes reflected in our bill. floor debates, amendment votes, restraint on and off the floor without a cloture vote and then a conference committee and then the vote today. i look forward to president trump signing these bills into law. they will help to keep our country first in science, technology, super computing and will build the ports and waterways that creates jobs. this supports funding for several agencies, including the corps of engineers, national nuclear security administration, nuclear regulatory commission, bureau of reclamation and regional commissions, including the appalachian regional commission. the amount of money in the bill is sufficient with the spending

caps agreed to. it sets priorities while reducing unnecessary spending. let me start with the army corps of engineers which affects the lives of almost every american. based upon the appropriations requests we received, this is the most popular item in the budget. the corps maintains our inland waterways. it keeps our ports open. it looks after our recreational waters and lands. it mapgs our rivers to prevent flooding and provides emission free, renewable, hydroelectric energy. the bill restores $2.3 billion cut from the president's budget request bringing the corps' budget up to $6.999 billion. a new record level of funding and a regular appropriations bill. for the fifth consecutive year, the bill makes full use of the inningland waterways trust fund revenues for water

infrastructure projects. including up to $117.7 million to continue construction of chick mog ga log in chattanooga and $2.5 million for dredging at memphis lake. the bill also provides funding that exceeds the harbor maintenance trust fund spending target established by the water resources reform and development act of 2014. this is the fifth consecutive year. the bill has met or exceeded the harbor maintenance trust fund spending targets which is necessary to adequately fund our nation's harbors including mobile harbor, savannah harbor in georgia and long beach harbor in california and many others across the country. now the department of energy. for the fourth consecutive year, mr. president, we've included record funding levels and regular appropriations bill for the following activities. number one, the department's

office of science. this is the nation's largest supporter of research in the physical sciences. its funded at $6.5 billion, a new record funding level. the office of science provides funding for our 17 national laboratories. i call them our secret weapons, including the oak ridge national laboratory. no other country has anything like them. let's take supercomputing. the bill provides a total of $1.6 billion for high performance computing, including $935 million within the office of science and $723 million within the national nuclear security administration. this includes $6.76 million to deliver at least one exascale machine in 2021 to reassert the united states' leadership in the critical area of supercomputing. this accomplishment is not the

result of one year of funding but of ten years of bipartisan effort through three different administrations, democrat and republican, to try to make sure that the united states is first in the world in supercomputing. we continue to do that in this appropriations bill. nuclear power. it is our best source of inexpensive carbon-free base load power. it's important for national security and competitiveness. nuclear power provides 20% of our nation's electricity, carbon free electricity. the regulatory commission whichover sees our 99 nuclear power reactors is also funded in this bill. we wanted to make sure that it was prepared to review applications for new reactors, particularly small modular reactors and advanced reactors and to extend the licenses of existing nuclear reactors if it is the safe thing to do. the bill also provides $47

million for research and development at the department of energy to support existing reactors. $27 million for the center for advanced stimulation of light water reactors, and $30 million for the transformational challenge reactor. it also advances efforts to clean up hazardous material, a cold war era -- at cold war era sites t. provides $7.2 billion to support cleanup efforts, $578 million above the president's budget request. a key pillar of our national defense is a strong nuclear deterrent. that's in this appropriations bill as well. $11.1 billion for weapons activities within the nnsa including nearly $2 billion for six life extension programs which fix or replace components and weapon systems to make sure they're safe and reliable. congress must maintain a safe and effective nuclear weapons

stockpile and keep big construction projects on time and on budget. i want to compliment senator feinstein of california, my partner on the energy and water subcommittee. we've worked hard together on all aspects of this bill but especially on keeping those big construction projects on time and on budget. a principle reason, mr. president, why the united states produces 24% of all the money in the world for just 5% of the people in the world is the extraordinary concentration of brainpower in the united states supported by federal dollars through our national laboratories, the national institutes of health, the national science foundation, and other agencies. it is important that the american people know that the republican majority in congress worked together with democrats to provide record levels of funding for science, research, and technology. so i would say to all those who might not have noticed this

quite a development that congress is funding science and research at record levels. and that we continue to do so -- and if we continue to do so, we will make america more competitive and spur creation and high-paying jobs. a lot of hard work went into these negotiations over the last several months. our staff members worked over weekends and vacations to make that happen, including the last few days. on my staff tyler owens, jen armstrong, rachel littleton, and senator feinstein's staff, doug clapp, chris hanson, samantha knell sofn. on senator shelby's staff, shannon heinz, jonathan graffio, david atkins. i'm deeply grateful to them for their professionalism and their bipartisan work. now, mr. president, i would like to say a word about legislation that the majority leader, senator mcconnell, has described as landmark legislation which i would expect

the senate to move to early next week. and that is the legislation dealing with the most serious public health epidemic in america today, the opioids crisis. we will be voting on the opioids crisis response act. this landmark legislation is the work of five different committees in the senate. more than 70 senators, half republican, half democrat have provisions in this bill. a big bill is hard to talk about so let me just mention ten key provisions. first, senator portman's stop act to stop illegal drugs, including fentanyl at the border coming through the mail. second, new addictive painkillers, research and fast track. i call this the holy grail of the opioids crisis because 100 million americans hurt, they have pain. 25 million have chronic pain. they need help. and we need new nonaddictive

treatments to help them. blister packs for opioids, such as a three to five-day supply. we authorize the f.d.a. to require manufacturers to do that. more medication assisted treatment. prevent doctor shopping by improving state prescription drug monitoring programs. more behavioral and mental health providers. seven, support for comprehensive opioid recovery centers. eight, help for babies born in opioid withdrawal. nine, help for mothers with opioid use disorders addicted to opioids. and ten, more early intervention with vulnerable children who have experienced trauma. those are the 70 provisions -- ten of the 70 provisions that changed the authorizing law. but in addition to that, we placed unprecedented amounts of federal dollars toward the opioid crisis. in march in the omnibus bill, congress and the president directed $4.7 billion toward the

opioids crisis. tomorrow the conference report of the labor, health, and human services committee will meet. and if that is approved as we expect and hope it will be by the end of the month, that's another $3.7 billion. so $8.4 billion in the last few months would have been directed toward the opioids crisis. mr. president, we've had seven hearings in our committee on opioids. on june 14, becky savage talked to us about two of her sons. she lost both of them after they accidentally overdosed on a combination of alcohol and opioids that they took in their own home after a graduation party. at our hearing, becky savage said, how could two boys who have always seemed to make good decisions in life make a choice that would ultimately cost them their lives? how did someone's prescription end up in the pocket of a

teenager at a graduation party? nick and jack were just two of the 33,000 americans who died in 2015 from an opioid overdose according to the center for disease control and prevention. by 2016 the number had increased to 42,000 americans. we suspect those numbers are even higher now. last year 17,076 tennesseans died of a drug overdose according to the tennessee department of help, up from 1,630 the year before. we know the opioid crisis is ravaging virtually every american community. becky savage's story was one of the heartbreaking stories that senate help committee heard last year at our seven hearings. senator isakson of georgia told us of waking up to answer a phone call at 3:00 a.m. in december of 2016. his son john calling to tell senator isakson that his grandson had passed away from an

opioid overdose. we heard dr. omar obakur who lost his youngest son adam at 21 after he overdosed on a mixture of heroin and ben zone diozotha. since my son's death three years ago, more than 65,000 other parents in this country have experienced the same agony. imagine every senator has heard heartbreaking stories of how the opioid crisis has impacted patients and children, doctors and nurses, entire communities in our states. but at our hearings we heard stories also of hope. jessica nickel knows, quote, firsthand the devastating impact that addiction can have on families losing both her parents to addiction. jessica has since dedicated her life to helping others battle the same disease. trish tanner, the chief pharmacy officer at ballard health in johnson city, tennessee, lost

her nephew dustin to an opioid overdose. as part of an executive fellowship program she worked on a project on ways to reduce opioids describing as a pharmacist, i have a duty and a desire to bring about change now. and to spread awareness and tell the story of losing her two sons, becky savage and her husband have created the 525 foundation in memory of nick and jack. when she testified before our committee, becky told us, quote, you could hear a pin drop in many of the auditoriums where i speak, unquote. after her story, after we heard it, you could hear a pin drop in our committee room at well. the challenge of solving the opioid crisis has been often compared as needing a moonshot. i wish we could do that. i wish we could appoint a single agency in washington to solve this problem in every community

in america, but what we have found is that won't work. solving the opioid crisis might require the energy and resources of a moonshot but ultimately it's not something that can be solved by single agency here. what the federal government can do is create an environment so that everyone, governor, mayor, judges, counselors, law enforcement, doctors, nurses, families like the savages can succeed in fighting the crisis. this is a package of more than 70 proposals from nearly three-quarters of the members of the united states senate, 72 members, that includes the work of five committees, the health committee that i chair, the finance, judiciary, commerce, and banking committees. since last october, the senate health committee which i chair and senator murphy -- and senator patty murray of washington is the ranking member of has held seven hearings on this crisis.

we've heard from governors, from doctors, from addiction experts, family members, and others on how the federal government can be the best possible partner as we work to solve the crisis. we took the input we heard of the first six hearings. we turned it into a draft package of proposals. senator murray and i released that on april 5. on april 11 we head our seventh hearing to review the draft proposal. on the 17th we introduced an updated package of 40 proposals based on the feedback we heard at the seventh hearing. on april 24, the senate health committee voted 23-0 to pass this legislation which included proposals then from 38 different senators. because this crisis is so widespread, the finance, judiciary, commerce, and banking committees also have been working on their contributions to this bill. on may 22, the commerce committee passed two provisions. may 24, judiciary passed six.

june 12, finance committee offered 22 more provisions. we've also included a provision that the budget committee has been working on. senator murray and i have since worked with senators hatch, grassley, thune, wyden, feinstein, and nelson. we thank all of them to combine all of these proposals along with other proposals such as senator portman's stop act into one package of legislation, the opioid crisis response act. over 20 senators contributed to the finance committee provisions. 25 to the judiciary provisions. seven to the commerce committee's provisions. i think it's a testament to just how far-reaching this crisis is and why we feel a sense of bipartisan urgency in passing this legislation in the senate and in the congress. in june the house of representatives passed its own package of legislation to fight

the opioid crisis by a vote of 396-14. the senate and house staff have gun to combine our legislation and what the house has passed. we believe it will frows an even stronger bill. my hope is that the five senate committees will work quickly with our house colleagues to reach an agreement by september 21 so the house can pass a final opioid package, the senate can pass it, and we can send it to the president's desk as quickly as possible. that is the bipartisan sense of urgency i feel so we can help states and communities fight the opioid crisis. this act builds on the work already done, the comprehensive addiction and recovery act, cara, passed in 2016 which gave a substantial boost to states on the front lines. it expanded grants to lifesaving opioid overdose reversal medications and to support state efforts to help individuals.

later in 2016 congress enact enacted -- enacted the 21st century cures act to fight the crisis. it sought to accelerate research for major discoveries like new, nonaddictive pain medicine, which as i mentioned, i believe is the holy grail of solving the opioid crisis. then the omnibus appropriations bill in march provided $4.7 billion of funding, $1 l about of of that for grants and we believe another $3.7 billion is coming from the labor, health, and human services, education appropriations bill which we hope to pass this month. do, to senator blunt -- according to senator blunt, the chairman of the subcommittee on labor-h, funding has increased nearly 1300% over the past four years. the bill we're voting on next week builds on in legislation in funding.

so we'll be passing the stop act and new addictive painkillers and blister packs for opioids and more medication-assisted treatment, efforts to prevent doctor-shopping to provide for more behavioral and mental health providers, to support componentive opioid recovery centers, to provide help for babies born in opioid withdrawal, help for mothers with opioid use disorders, more early intervention with vulnerable children who've experienced trauma. these are just a portion of the more than 70 provisions in the opioid crisis response act. this is, as senator mcconnell, the majority leader has said, landmark legislation that represents the work of nearly a quarter of the senate -- nearly three-quarters of the senate, five committees, and countless staff to try to help states and communities put an end to this crisis that's ravaging virtually every community in america.

the house of representatives has passed its version. we have our bipartisan urgency to work together. no mother should have to go through what becky savage has gone through. it's time to finish our work to help states and the communities bring an end to the opioid crisis. this legislation would give us many of the tools we need to do just that. i thank the president. i yield the floor.

mr. flake: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. flake: mr. president, in the annals of the presidents say the darnedest things, last week's twitter outbursts will stand out -- at least for me. because the president attacked the attorney general of the united states for simply doing the job that he swore an oath to do. of course it wasn't the first time the president has so diminished himself. but this particular slander was leveled at the attorney general for having the temerity to prosecute public corruption by members of congress who also happen to belong in the president's political party. that's right. the president attacked mr. sessions by name for refusing to cover up allegations

of republican misconduct. the president's concern was not for justice but for the political fortunes of the accused because their congressional seats might now be at risk of falling to democrats. in doing this, the president is projecting a vision unto the system of american justice that is both bizarre and, more important, destructive. of course, the only truly shocking thing about this statement from the president is that given all of -- given what all of us have become accustomed to during this presidency, or even worse have become numb to, this twitter eruption was not at all surprising this. numb is an appalling statement threat to our democratic institutions, mr. president. at this point, it might be too late for tutorials on the american justice system.

but it certainly bears repeating that in order for justice to truly be served, justice must be based in empirical truth and must be absolutely carried out independent of politics, period. no president, any president, administers the justice system in america any more than he or she decrees what is objective truth. in this country, justice and truth operate quite independent of the dictates of evening the most powerful of offices -- of even the most powerful of offices. the reason for this point are obvious to most, but we know by now that this particular president seems to have a profound unease with both justice and truth. and so has been at unrelenting war with both, virtually since the moment he swore the oath. not because there is any deficiency in justice or truth that requires his intervention, mind you, but for other less

noble reasons. the president seems to think that the office confers on him the ability to decide who and what gets investigated in the united states and who and what does not. weekly it seems this president has been threatening to, quote, get involved, unquote, in the function of the justice department, sometimes indim tating, sometimes plainly threatening to corrupt the independence of justice in america. he has overtly expressed a desire for his political opponents to be investigated and almost two years into his presidency he presides over boisterous rallies where the last election is relitigated and chants of "lock her up" fill the hauls. none of this is normal or acceptable. but it is not mere recklessness. it seems to be a deliberate

program by which he intends to weaken the institution of american justice, threaten its independence, and perhaps set the stage for some future assault on it. the firing of the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, and perhaps even the special counsel. it has been said that the president deserves to have an attorney general of his choice, a top lawyer with whom he is compatible. this is true. the president's appointment powers are clear and all of the appointments -- his appointments serve at the pleasure of the president. but what no president deserves is a top lawyer who is simply there to do his bidding. the attorney general is not the president's personal lawyer, and his job is not to protect the president from damaging facts or to turn the power of american justice onto the president's enemies or to direct justice department investigations in any

particular way that is either politically motivated or presupposes guilt or innocence or favors any outcome whatsoever other than that which is supported by the evidence and truth. the attorney general's job description, as tweeted last week by the president, bears scant resemblance to the attorney general's job in a constitutional democracy. and so i rise today, mr. president, because the founders gave us the article one branch of this government that they conceived, the responsibility to curb such reckless behavior. thus far, i believe that we've been all so incredulous at the daily excess and ever hopeful -- hopeful beyond any reason -- that this president would at last begin to inhabit the office in a more responsible fashion, that we have been somewhat uncertain what to do. first and foremost, we must

speak out. we cannot be quiet when the moment requires us to defend the democratic norms under which this system functions and without which our system seases to function. the president has repeatedly and over time heedlessly breached these norms. if we say nothing, then we've become accomplices with the destruction of these democratic norms. the united states senate is not the place to come for deniability. we must do what we can to curb the destructive impulses of this white house. we must encourage the administration of justice. that means voicing our support for mr. mueller and his team. we've passed bipartisan legislation out of the senate judiciary committee, legislation to protect the special counsel. i call on the majority leader to bring this legislation to the senate floor. we must also say in no uncertain

terms that to call this investigation a witch hunt is wrong. to call mr. mueller's team thugs is wrong. relentlessly slandering the attorney general of the united states is wrong. it is a travesty. and it is unbecoming of the office of the presidency. and i would say to the attorney general, stand firm. you've september your life in public service -- you've spent your live in public service, at the service of your country. at the risk of being presumptuous, i would say that these days of your service right now during this crucial period in which we have a president who in a maligned fashion is actively testing the limits of power and the administration of american justice and the independence of american justice. well, your determination to safeguard the independence of the justice department at the time that you have been under assault by the president has

verged on heroic. in your long career, you will render no more consequential service to your country. stand firm, attorney general sessions. i appeal to the leadership of this body to speak out. you don't have to speak out at every twitter outburst, but when the president so blatantly calls for the department of justice to act as an arm of the republican party, then the leaders of the republican party in this body need to stand and say that the president is the out of bounds. mr. president, we all have our polls to conscience. most recently for me i hear the whispers so well-described a few weeks ago -- the whisper over my shoulder that says we are better than this. america is better than this. in a time of tribalism, mr. president, we is need to remember that we're all

americans. that is our only tribe. it is to the rule of law and the ideals of it our founding that we owe our allegiance. i yield the floor.

mr. flake: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to executive session for an en bloc consideration of the following nominations -- executive calendar 933, 934. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. flake: i ask consent -- the presiding officer: the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of state, cherith norman chalet to be a representative of the united states of america to the united nations for u.n. management and reform. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent the senate vote on the nominations en bloc, that if

confirmed the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table en bloc, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, and that no further motions be in order, and that any statements related to the nominations be principled for the record. the presiding officer: without objection. the question occurs on the nomination en bloc. all in favor say aye. all those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nominations are confirmed en bloc. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that the committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs be discharged from further consideration of s. 1050 and that the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 1050, a bill to award a congressional gold medal collectively to the chinese american veterans of world

war ii in recognition of their dedicated service during world war ii. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that the duckworth amendment which is at the desk be agreed to and that the bill as amended be considered and read a third time. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. flake: i know of no further debate on the bill as amended. the presiding officer: if there is no further debate, the question is on passage of the bill as amended. all in favor say aye. all opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the bill as amended is passed. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that the committee on the judiciary be discharged from further consideration of s. res. 576 and that the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 576, designating september 4, 2018, as national polycystic kidney disease awareness day, and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged. the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. flake: i further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 503, s. 3029. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 503, s. 3029, a bill to revise and extend the prematurity research expansion and education for mothers who deliver infants

early act. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that the alexander amendment at the desk be agreed to, the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to, and that the bill be amendee considered read a third time and passed and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate proceed to s. res. 525. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 525, designating september, 2018, as national democracy month, and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged. the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. flake: i know of no further debate on the measure. the presiding officer: if there is no further debate, the question is on adoption of the

resolution. all in favor say aye. all opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the resolution is agreed to. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 627, submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 627, designating september, 2018, as national spinal cord injury awareness month. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res.

628 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 628, to authorize document production by the select committee on intelligence in the united states v. paul j. manafort jr. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will now proceed to the measure. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. flake: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn and then convene for a pro forma session only with no business being conducted on thursday, september 13, at 9:45 a.m. i further ask that when the senate adjourns on thursday, september 13, it next convene at 2:00 p.m. monday, september 17, and that following the prayer and pledge, the morning business be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two

leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. further, that upon the conclusion of morning business and notwithstanding the orders of september 6, the senate proceed to the consideration of h.r. 6 and that debate time on h.r. 6 and s. 2554 run concurrently, be equally divided in the usual form, and be considered expired at 5:30 p.m., and that the senate proceed to votes in relation to s. 2554 and h.r. 6, with all other provisions of the previous orders remaining in effect. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. flake: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until ls

or make your comments on twitter and facebook before we finish open phones at 9:00. we will be talking to

legislators in states that are going to be directly affected by hurricane florence. representative scott taylor republican from virginia, representing the second district, including virginia beach and cape charles. caller: good morning. a representative of the virginia pilot newspaper says the president has reported -- has responded to the state of emergency in >> what does that mean for the commonwealth? >> great question first we are thankful the whole virginia delegation asked the president to do so and he responded and we are appreciative it coordinates to give us more resources to deal with damage and emergency collaboration and coordination through the federal agencies. it is more resources al to bear