faith-filled person. he wanted the best for our nation. he showed us how to lose gracefully and not make enemies of our adversaries and he turned political foes into lasting friends. interestingly enough, june 12 of this year, on his 94th birthday, he wrote a note again to some friends. and in that note that he wrote earlier this year, he wrote, i'm truly touched and overwhelmed by all the messages i've received today, on his biferght day. and -- birthday. although i've seen them all, i can no longer answer them all. my 94-year-old hands would rebel. just know i appreciated hearing from you. as many of you know, for years i have said the three most important things in life are faith, family, and friends. my faith has never been stronger. i'm blessed with the world's most loving family and thanks to

you, i feel the love of the best friends a man ever had. my heart is full on this first day of my 95th year. as i walked out of the funeral yesterday, i turned to the person next to me. i said i think that's the first political funeral or event i've before -- ever been to to honor a life where gee sauce got equal time. in a lot of funerals it's all about them. president bush shaped a funeral where it was as much about his relationship with good as it was about his history and legacy. it is a remarkable reminder to a man who prioritized his faith, family, and friends, and set an example for the nation. he was around oklahoma a lot as well. he popped in and out. he spoke at oklahoma university

graduation while president. he made a comment about stopping at eskimo joe's and endorsed the cheese fries. he stopped in at a different time at cattleman's restaurant in oklahoma city, popped in and had a great establishing. if you're in oklahoma city, stop in at cattleman's. folks still talk about that when he met all the cooks. folks still remember it well. he stopped in with don nichols. he tells a story that he went out to maine at one point when he was the whip here in the senate to go have a briefing with president bush in a small group at his place in maine, and while he was there, the president offered to take him on a quick boat ride to be able to get over and president bush was notorious for the speed boat

that he was in and would take the speed throttle and go full speed because his boat was faster than the secret service that was following him and he loved to take off. even after his retirement from president, a story from one of our staff members who writes about a friend who was a student at texas around m -- texas a&m university where the president's library is there. he tells the student of -- of a student named michael. one day in the morning, president bush walks up to this 20-year-old who is working there and just says, are you hungry? to which he replied back, i'm always hungry. president bush took him to lunch that day. this was in 2004. the two of them sat, the president peppered him with questions about his family and about his background, about his

siblings. and michael got to call her -- to call his family later that day and said i just had lunch with the president. what was interesting was michael's statement which was president bush made me feel like i was the president. it could be said of all of us, no matter what our titles, no matter what our position, no matter what our place is that at the end of our life we would still be talking about our faith, our family and our friends and that every person around us, we expect compassion and gratitude to them and set a good example for them. it may be in our political discourse, it may be in our homes or our communities. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. a senator: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, all postcloture time is expired.

the question occurs on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote: vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? seeing none, the yeas are 50, the nays are 49, and 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. mr. mcconnell: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: as if in legislative session i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of house joint resolution 143. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.j. res. 143, making

further continuing appropriation for fiscal year 2019 and for other purposes. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that the joint resolution be considered read a third time. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i know of no further debate on the joint resolution. the presiding officer: if there is no further debate, the question is on the passage on the joint resolution. all in favor say aye. opposed, nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. and the joint resolution is passed. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of the following nomination, which the clerk will report. the clerk: bureau of consumer financial protection, kathleen

lauren kraninger, of ohio, to be director. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: madam president, on november 23 of this year, we had the release of the fourth national climate assessment which is required to be released under the global change research act that was passed by congress in 1990. this climate assessment is put together by 300 experts guided by a 60-member federal advisory committee, including 13 federal agencies. they rely heavily on a panel from the national academy of science. my point is that this is the best scientific information we have as to the risk of climate change and it was issued on november 23, 2018, the fourth national climate assessment volume two. its conclusions should be sobering to all of us, that

humans are responsible for the current climate crisis. we must take responsibility to minimize future destruction. madam president, four years earlier, the first volume of the fourth national climate assessment was issued, and its prediction was that we would see increased instances of flooding, wildfires, higher temperature. well, unfortunately, that has come to pass as we've experienced this year and in the last several years an unusually large number of flooding episodes and the wildfires and higher temperatures. the findings make two critical aspects in regards to how it will affect our lifestyle. first, it says that climate change there's a growing risk to the danger of human health. and by human health danger, you can look at the direct impact of

climate change, those whose lives have been forever changed as a result of storms or as a result of flooding or as a result of wildfires or as a result of sea-level rising. we know that many people have lost their lives and our lives have been compromised as a reality of the new current weather conditions. it also affects the safe supply of water, clean drinking water, very much impacted by what is happening with climate change and sea-level rises, and the president of diseases from people who are suffering from asthma to the spread of west nile disease and many, many other examples of how climate change is accelerating those types of conditions which have a major impact on human health. the report then indicated that, yes, it directly affects the health of the people of our country and the globe, but it also has a direct economic

impact. the damage effects -- affects in a negative way the rate of our economic growth. now, i could give you many examples why. take a look at infrastructure damage. you recognize that the bridges and the highways and our infrastructure in this country was not designed to construct it with the re -- it with the realities of the weather experiences we have now. as a result, that now affects the resources that we have to devote to the new realities of the -- of our infrastructure. coastal communities have been put at dresk risk. we, first of all, have seen coastal communities shrink because of the loss of shoreline. we know the risk factor of coastal communities affect their economic growth. they have to deal with the cost of adaptation, that devotes

revenues that could be used for other purposes. in addition, we've seen the economic challenges to agriculture and the sustainability of agriculture. in many parts of the world, the realities of climate change have taken away their traditional livelihoods and sustainability of agricultural products. we are seeing a direct impact that climate is having on tourism, which for many communities is a large part of their economic activity. the report estimates that the gross domestic product of this country could be adversely affected by as much as 10%. that's a major hit on our economic progress. the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change issued a report in october of 2018. that report indicated that by 2030 the economic damage as a

result of climate change could reach $54 trillion. that's trillion with a t. this is an economic crisis that we must address. we cannot ignore it. we must deal with it. the good news is that mitigation and adaptation policies work. they work. we can -- we can mitigate the causes of climate change by our activities here on earth. we can adapt to some of the realities of the new weather conditions, but we're not doing it on a scale necessary today to avoid substantial damage to human health in our economy. we've got to step up our game dramatically. madam president, i might tell you it disproportionately impacts the poor. the poor don't have the resources in order to adapt or move to deal as other people have, they are trapped in more vulnerable communities and they

suffer more as a result of it. we can talk about every one of our states are impacted by this. my state of maryland, i've taken to the floor to explain that ellicott city, a wonderful city in howard county, maryland, which has a main street which reminds of you main street america. well, ellicott city has two 1,000 year floods in 20 months, and these floods are unprecedented because normally the flooding conditions are a result of just -- the rising of the river next to ellicott city. these were floods caused by the increased amount of rainfall in a short period of time that could not be handled in its -- in its run-off causing extreme damage, 1,000 year floods two and 20 years. we have flooding in annapolis which should be of concern not only to the ee people of maryland -- to the people of

maryland but to the nation because of what our tagses pay for the naval academy and also in virginia because of the military facilities. in baltimore city, we've had 25 heat-related deaths in 2018. that's three times more than what we saw in 2017. there's no question that this affects maryland and it affects every state in this nation. this is an american issue and a global issue. there's a path forward. there's a path forward that's not terribly difficult for us to embrace because it will not only help us deal with climate change and the environment, it will mean a better economic future for us and it is using energy sources that we have plentiful, meaning that there is a security advantage by doing the right thing for our environment and our economy. green energy, conservation efficiencies all are activities that could help reduce

greenhouse gas ee motions and -- emissions and carbon emissions, there will create -- it will create more jobs in green energy, it's less dependent on fossil fuels, it's good for our national security since there's an abundance of the green energy sources here in america and with our allies around the world. in my own state we have taken actions to reduce carbon emissions, we have been effective in doing that and it has meant a plus for our economy. what we need is u.s. leadership. we saw that in 2015. i was proud to be part of a 10-member senate delegation that went to paris. as we entered into a global agreement to deal with our responsibilities to change the projectry for climate change. the u.s. role in paris was

critical, to get all the nations of the world together with realistic strategies to reduce our carbon emissions. i say that knowing full well that cop 24 is meeting as we are meeting here in poland, this is a convention whose attention will be to finalize the paris agreement, work program, a workbook of guidelines and procedures to turn the paris agreement into a working system. every country made commitments in paris, we now need to make sure those commitments are carried out. shortly before the queening of cop 24, -- convening of cop 24, the g-20 met. this is the economic powers of the world, all the major economies of the world and they reaffirmed their commitment to paris. the world economic powers did that. what's happened in poland and what happened in g-20, every

country participated except one. the g-20 was actually g-19 and their commitment to implement the paris agreement. the united states through the trump administration did not join. and of course in poland right now, the united states is not an active participant since president trump announced that we would withdraw from the convention on climate change known as cop. that's not leadership. the world will always be better off with america in leadership. and we are missing in leadership. so my plea, madam president, is that we need to step up. this should not be a partisan issue. climate change should not be a partisan issue. it's a human rights issue. it's a human issue. it's a health issue. it's an economic issue. we need to restore the u.s. leadership on this matter. we can do that through our tax code. we can do that through renewable

energy legislation, by increasing the cafe standards, by dealing with clean air standards. u.s. leadership. it's not going to come from the white house. let the united states senate exercise that leadership and show the international community that we understand our responsibility. we understand the risk factors to our health and to our economy. the national climate assessment and the activities in the g-20 and cop 24 should motivate us to action on behalf of the health and welfare of the american community and our global neighbors. i urge our colleagues to get engaged in leadership on this issue. with that, madam president, i would yield the floor. mr. daines: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana.

mr. daines: madam president, this week i had the honor of recognizing nana ne e se skan for her tremendous service to veterans and the impact on montana's educational system. hannah grew up spending time in montana with her family and then was awarded the presidential scholarship to attend montana state university in bosto boesm. after graduating with honors, she began her career in education in the billing school district. during her four years in billings, she met her new husband kelly who served in the army and they fell in love. hannah and kelly now have three children, two daughters, charity and hope, and their adopted son joshua. joshua is currently serving overseas in the air force. hannah has a distinguished career in education. she has served her community as a teacher in billings, the dean of wolf point high school, and

the principal at northside elementary school and now is the sixth through 12 principal in white hall. last year hannah was named montana principal of the year and now hannah is one of three finalists for the 2019 national principal of the year. in addition to hannah's devoted career to education, hannah has a passion for serving montana veterans. after kelly was severely wounded while serving in iraq, hannah began volunteering to help other veterans in the community navigate the v.a. hannah even earned a law degree to be better prepared to assist kelly and other veterans struggling with the v.a. hannah currently serves as the montana dole fellow where she advocates on behalf of montana's military families. hannah has great pride in calling montana home and we're

lucky to have her. she's made a lasting impact in her community and the entire state, both through her service to our veterans and by shaping our future generations in the school system. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that my following statement appear in a separate place in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. daines: mr. president, once widely viewed a as successful, our nation's primary welfare-to-work program is now broken. is will soon expire and i rise to highlight my efforts to get it, woulding again. -- it working again. the temporary assistance for needy families program, also called tanif, was created with bipartisan support back in 1996. in fact, at its core, it recognized that finding and maintaining a job is the most effective way for healthy

working-age parents to go from government dependency to self-sufficiency. after tanif became law, welfare caseloads plummeted, child poverty declined, and employment among low-income, never mattered parents went up. as we debate modernizing the program, we should not forget the doom and gloom predicted by some liberals when the original 1996 reforms were debated. perhaps most famously, our former colleague, senator daniel patrick moynihan, predicted that tanif would result, and i quote, children sleeping on grates picked up in the morning frozen. end quote. let me tell you something. those critics were wrong, very wrong. but yet more than 20 years after historic 1996 reforms, we should

be clear-eyed that the tanif program suffered from neglect and loopholes, both of which are undercutting its fundamental work requirements. today very few states are meeting the work participation rate that's required by law. my state of montana is one of the many that is falling short. the law calls for 50% of welfare enrolees to be engaged in work. in montana they're only reaching one-third. in addition many states are using tanif dollars for purposes unrelated to work and the program lacks the trans parenty and the -- transparency and the accountability metrics that are critical to its success. because of these shortfalls, too many low-income parents are not finding a sustainable job and too many children are at high risk of suffering the hardships of poverty. part of the problem is tanf has

significantly been reformed only once since president clinton signed it into law. in 2006 congress reauthorized and strengthened the program thanks to the hard work of chuck grassley and his republican counterparts in the house. since its expiration in 2010, hurricane harvey, tanf has received a whopping -- this is so d.c. -- 24 short-term reauthorizations. talk about kicking the can down the road. efforts to address the persistent concerns about the program have not crossed the finish line. this must change. for starters we viet losing tan ni -- revitalizing tanf is important to our economy. there are seven job openings that remain unfilled, seven million job openings that are unfilled. the good news is employers across our country are clearly

looking to hire. jobs are being created. the economy is strong. but as my good friend, house, ways, means committee chairman kevin brady has said, we have gone from a country that asks where are the jobs to one that now asks where are the workers. a big part of the answer is that millions of able bodied working age americans are completely on the sidelines and a strong revitalized tanf program is urgently needed to close this jobs gap and empower more americans to find work. and this is exactly what my bill, the jobs act would do. this is building a legislative that passed the ways and means committee earlier this year in the house. the jobs act demands positive work outcomes rather than simply meeting ineffective participation rules. it requires states to engage

with every work eligible individual and establish a plan that will result in a sustainable job. it holds states accountable for their work outcomes, not activities. we're talking about outcomes, about results, and it bolsters transparency of every state's performance. it doesn't just demand work. it enables work. it substantially increases funding for child care services that can be essential to holding a job. it provides struggling beneficiaries with additional time to get the mental health or substance abuse treatment they need before holding a job, and make that a realistic goal. it adds apprenticeship as a permissible work activity alongside job training, getting more education, and building job readiness skills. and my bill targets funds to truly needy families by capping participation to families with

incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level. mr. president, the jobs act is built on the recognition that there is dignity in work. a job can start low-income parents down the path toward achieving lifelong dreams. a job can create opportunities that are simply out of reach without. and a job can be the spring board to higher wages and upward mobility. a job can rescue young children from the challenge that positivity and despair. in short, finding sustainable work can create better lives for low-income parents and children alike. last, my bill extends marriage promotion and fatherhood initiatives because healthy, intact families are also part of the solution. there are approximately 4,000 families in montana who are currently on tanf.

over 90% of them are from single-parent or zero-parent homes i cannot speak more highly of the single parents and the extended family members who are tirelessly taking care of their children on tanf. but we should continue to encourage volunteer -- voluntary participation in local marriage support programs. we should continue to encourage fathers to step forward and be the men that their children strongly need. and the reason is simple. healthy families remain the bedrock to strong communities and a flourishing society. so, mr. president, the jobs act, the jobs act equips and empowers low-income families toward a better future. i urge my colleagues to reclaim the bipartisanship that created the historic reforms a generation ago and support this important legislation to make

our largest welfare-to-work program actually work again. i yield the floor.

mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: today i want to raise an issue for my colleagues, an issue that impacts many families in iowa but also throughout the country. you hear it everywhere. it's about high prescription drug costs. now, i'm not going to address that issue across the board, but

i'm going to do it in a narrow way for one part of it. one contributing factor that has played a part in how much money the government and taxpayers pay for some drugs is a government program called the medicaid drug rebate program. on tuesday i introduced a bipartisan legislation with senator wyden of oregon. the bill, called the right rebate act of 2018, would close a loophole in that program that causes the problem that i'm addressing. as a condition for participation in the medicaid drug -- in the medicaid program, drug companies must pay a rebate or some people might call it a discount to the federal government and to the

various states for the drugs that are offered. generally speaking, the rebate dollar amount is less for a generic drug than for a brand-name drug. the rebate program hasn't worked as designed. some drug companies have been able to game the system to boost their bottom line and do all that at taxpayers' expense. some drug companies have paid smaller rebates to the government, and when that happens, that means that taxpayers are footing a bigger bill. one example in particular highlights the main issues we aim to solve with this legislation. during the obama administration, but it could have been a republican administration as

well, iowans, because of the problems in this program, regularly contacted me by phone, e-mail, and at my annual 99 county meetings about the difficulties they face with paying the rapidly rising prices of epipen. epipen is an emergency medicine used to treat severe, life-threatening it allergic reactions. epipen is distributed by a company called mylan. in 2007, a pack of two epipens cost $100. by 2016, the cost of that two-pack epipen exploded to more than $600. that's a very substantial price increase. nobody is going to argue with that.

many would argue that it's an unjustified price increase, especially considering the gut punch to the taxpayers who foot the lion's share of the medicaid bill for families, and they happen to be families in need. i listened to the concerns of my constituents and began an investigation about how the drug rebate program was working. in a nutshell, mylan had classified the epipen as a generic drug in the medicaid program when it should have been classified as a brand drug. that means mylan misclassified epipen and c.m.s. let it happen. because of this incorrect classification, mylan paid a much smaller rebate than it

should have. i asked the health and human services inspector general to look into these classification practices. the inspector general found that the taxpayers may have overpaid for epipen by as much as $1.3 billion over ten years because of the incorrect classification. eventually mylan settled a false claims act case with the justice department for $465 million. now, don't ask me why the justice department didn't go after the other some probably $700 million. i don't know, and i haven't found out why. but upon learning of that settlement, i expressed my disappointment that it didn't seem that the taxpayers had been

made whole. quite obvious, right? we should have had to -- we shouldn't have had to depend on lawyers and lawsuits to get taxpayers' money back. this deception should never have happened in the first place. that's common sense. government agencies should have, as an initial matter, been responsible for overseeing the program that they're in charge of. because of insufficient attention to the problem by the center for medicare services -- and that's the c.m.s. i have been using -- mylan escaped accountability over a long period of time. and during that long period of time, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions -- eventually over billions of dollars.

and it's not just mylan. and it's not just epipen. in a december 2017 report, the inspector general found that 885 drugs may have been potentially misclassified. specifically, the inspector general found that from 2012 to 2016, medicaid may have lost $1.3 billion in rebates for ten potentially misclassified drugs with the highest total reimbursement. so where do we go from here? it's clear the law must change to provide clarity, so let's establish clear lines of authority to hold the government bureaucracy and also the private sector accountable. taxpayers demand and deserve accountability. simply said, accountability will

bring cost savings. so this right rebate act that senator wyden and i are introducing will shut down this loophole used by drug companies. this legislation will prevent the misclassification of drugs in the first place and protect taxpayer dollars. it does this by requiring c.m.s. to enforce penalties on drug companies that knowingly misclassify drugs in this medicaid program. the legislation also provides remedies for states that are shortchanged by drug companies. it requires an annual report to congress by c.m.s. to make sure the agency is doing all that it can to protect taxpayer dollars and keep drug expenditures down.

this is commonsense legislation. it would close a loophole used by drug companies to keep prices artificially high, much higher than they should be, and it grants the secretary of h.h.s. the authority to properly enforce the law. the right rebates act is only one step in the fight against high prescription drug costs, but it is the right step -- and there are a lot of other steps that must be taken. i look forward to working with senator wyden in the 116th congress on many issues important to americans, including the high cost of prescription drugs. i yield the floor.

mr. casey: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: mr. president, i would ask consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to talk about not the mueller investigation, as much as i want to talk about robert mueller himself because of the substantial responsibility that he has -- and i think it is important for us to remind ourselves, as well as to remind our country, about his service at a time when he's been often attacked from folks here in washington. when i think of an individual like robert mueller, i think of two words -- public service. or maybe just one word -- service. he was inspired, as many people

know, to become a marine by one of his friends from the college la crosse team that he was on. this man's name was david hackett, who later died on the battlefield in vietnam. as mr. mueller said in a speech -- and i'm quoting him here -- one would have thought that the life of a marine in david's death in vietnam would argue strongly against following in his footsteps. what many of us saw in them, the person we wanted to be, and a number of his friends, teammates, and associates joined the marine corps because of him, as i did, unquote. so said robert mueller about his friend david hackett. to paraphrase the words of president kennedy, robert mueller didn't join the marine corps because it was easy. he joined because it was hard. while many of his peers were seeking to avoid the horrors of the vietnam conflict and the combat in