working on the fisa reauthorization bill to fund and reform foreign intelligence surveillance program that expired march 15th. there are several that they will be voting on today. live to the senate floor here on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. black, will

lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, the author of unity, remind our lawmakers that people accomplish laudable goals more through unity than division. may our senators remember that all of us are more effective than any one of us. as our legislators pursue effectiveness in their work, give them the wisdom to forge alliances

that make the difficult become easy and the impossible become probable. in their search for common purposes, inspire them with the conviction that nothing is impossible for those who believe. we pray in your omnipotent name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance 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.

mr. grassley: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa is recognized. mr. grassley: i ask to speak in morning business for one minute. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: people often think of prisons as places only to send criminals and then send them there and then forget about them. but as i've noted here before most inmates will one time and one day be released. helping former criminals become

productive citizens is very much an important function of our prison system. in recent weeks inmates in the iowa prison system have acquired what you might consider strange skills, but they are new skills and even monetary allowances. they've done this by producing personal protective equipment like face shields and masks, and during this time of the virus pandemic, we all know what those are used for. i commend these efforts by our prisoners and our prison system promoting this sort of training. they will help protect the health and safety of the prisons and our state in the short term but they'll also help inmates in the long term. these inmates are providing an

essential public service, and for that -- for that they deserve our appreciation. it's an important contribution that i hope that they will long remember and that will help them be productive members of society when they finish their sentence. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

mr. mcconnell: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: normally during national police week, thousands of officers from across the country come here to our national's capitol to honor comrades in the line of duty.

obviously coronavirus has changed these kinds of logistics for these kind of gatherings, but it is not less important to honor these brave men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice. tonight's candlelight vigil for these officers will go on. our hearts will be united in remembering these heroes and their names are added to the national law enforcement memorial. i'm thinking of two kentuckians. meade county sheriff chris holtzy who was a firefighter and paramedic. he was attacked while investigating a suspect and was pronounced dead hours later. chief deputy bobby wayne jacobs of the knott county sheriff

office suffered from a fatal heart attack both of these deputies left behind children, loving friends, and a commonwealth made safer by their service. we also cannot let this year's national police week pass without reaffirming our gratitude for our very own u.s. capitol police. these men and women protect this institution with the greatest professionalism no matter the challenge. to all peace officers in kentucky, here in the capitol, and all across the country, your country thank you. now speaking of keeping our nation safe, the senate has work of our own to do this week to ensure the safety and security of our nation. in addition to fighting this historic pandemic, it is also our job to keep sight of the other threats to national security that are still evolving independent of covid-19. far from any front line hospital

the p.r.c.'s domineering approach to territories in the south china sees -- seas keeping the men and women on high alert. from dark corners of cyberspace, russia busy's our national security with a steady flow of propaganda and disinformation. from the mediterranean to the gulf, iran continues to expand its regional influence, sow division, threaten america and its partners. across afghanistan, the taliban, and isis continue to work on an international coalition and representative government. these are just a few of the global threats that were with us long before the covid-19 crisis and they've only gotten worse during the pandemic. history reminds us that when great nations confront profound challenges at home, their enemies and competent ofers do not politely pause their own

efforts until the situation becomes more stable. rather from beijing to moscow to caves in the middle east, our adversaries would be tickle pinked if the coronavirus causes the united states to lose our ability to multitask. some of our democratic colleagues have implied recently that it is beneath the senate, beneath the senate to spend time on any business that does not exclusively pertain to the pandemic. i could not disagree more strongly. common sense tells us this crisis demands more vigilance on other fronts of national security, not less. when we take our oaths of office as u.s. senators, we swear to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. this coronavirus may have shoved its way to the top of that list, but the list is still a long one indeed. unfortunately, for several weeks now, our nation has been less prepared than normal to defend ourselves against those who wish

us harm. and it's not because of the coronavirus. it's because house democrats have failed to act. back in march, the senate passed a clean short-term extension of key authorities under the federal intelligence surveillance act, while a broader renegotiation was under way. after the shameful abuses of the fisa process that marred the 2016 presidential campaign, there was a clear need for meaningful reforms to bring more daylight and accountability into the process. but at the same time, many of us on both sides of the aisle were absolutely intent on preserving these critical national security tools that have helped keep america safe. so while discussions were under way on how to strike the right balance, the senate passed a bipartisan short-term extension so that these important tools could remain in our national security professionals' hands while congress got our act together. unfortunately, speaker pelosi has left that ex-- has let that extension sit on her desk and

gather dust. so for more than eight weeks, eight weeks, these important tools have gone dark. fortunately, the attorney general and members of congress have worked together to craft a compromise solution that will implement needed reforms while preserving the core national security tools. these intense discussions have produced a strong bill that balances the need for accountability with our solemn obligation to protect our citizens and defend our homeland. i understand our colleagues believe this compromise bill is not perfect. sadly, imperfection is a fact of life when it comes to compromise legislation. but while i respect my distinguished colleagues whose amendments we will be voting on later today, i would urge senators to vote against it. the current bill in its current form already strikes the correct and delicate balance. and there is certainly no guarantee that another new version of this legislation would necessarily pass the house or earn the president's support. this version has already done

both. we cannot let the perfect become the enemy of the good when key authorities are currently sitting expired and unusable. in sum, while the senate continues overseeing the national response to the coronavirus crisis, we're also making sure the pandemic does not inflict even greater harm by distracting us from other threats and challenges that preceded it. off the floor, our committees are working through a number of pressing national security nominations from the director of national intelligence to the secretary of the navy to other high openings at the pentagon. when the time comes, i hope we will be able to fill these crucial openings promptly through a bipartisan cooperation here on the floor. i hope our democratic colleagues think carefully before applying reflexive partisan delays, even to the vital security positions during a global emergency. we cannot put homeland security on auto pilot because another crisis has our attention. the senate can, will, and must

continue to pay attention to both. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of h.r. 61272, which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 440, h.r. 6172, an act to amend the federal intelligence surveillance act of 1978 to prohibit the production of certain business records, and for other purposes. mr. mcconnell: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the democratic leader is recognized. mr. schumer: are we in a quorum, madam president? the presiding officer: yes, we are. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: now, first, madam president, as you know, when i speak on the floor, i remove my mask, but today is a special reason to keep this mask on. this mask is made by hickey freeman in rochester, new york, by american labor, union labor, by a grand and proud and generous company that's been in rochester for -- in the last three decades, the 1800's, 1900's, and now the 2000's. it's a wonderful company. they have kept jobs, good-paying jobs in america to make fine clothing, and they started making the masks to give them to a local hospital at cost. so i salute hickey freeman. i salute the great tradesmen and women who work there, and may

they continue for a hundred more years providing jobs in rochester and helping when they need help. now, yesterday, house democrats unveiled new legislation to combat the coronavirus pandemic. the american people need their government to act strongly, decisively, wisely, and this new legislation is the urgent and the necessary response to what this crisis demands. as any one of us could have guessed, the republican leader is rather predictably responding against the house democratic bill to address the covid-19 crisis. his response is predictable because for weeks leader

mcconnell had been preemptively slandering any legislation coming out of the house as, quote, a partisan wish list, long before he even saw the bill. it was a paint-by-numbers response from the republican leader and continues to be. it didn't matter what was in the bill. in his eyes, not in the eyes of almost every american, it was going to be a far-left partisan wish list. and to fit the preordained narrative, last night, senate republicans were latching on to provisions that account for .0003% of the total bill. .0003%. talk about grasping at straws. it is so predictable that the republican leader would oppose the bill before he saw what's in it, and now that it is so necessary for so many americans, it's predictable that republicans are just saying no. the republican leader also

called the bill aspirational. the republican leader should know it is not aspirational when a family can't feed their children. it is not aspirational when americans for the first time are worried about losing their homes and being evicted from their apartments. it is not aspirational when americans are facing a health crisis in which every one of us is afraid that we might come down with a dangerous illness or spread it to a loved one. it is not aspirational. we are talking about urgent and necessary relief, but out of reflective knee-jerk partisanship, the republican leadership in the senate basically declared the house bill dead on arrival before it was even announced. it's a shocking and incomprehensible position to take at this moment of national crisis. it would be one thing for the republican leadership to say

well, let's sit down and negotiate. let's talk about where both parties can come together to do something for this -- the nation's well-being at this time of urgent crisis. but they have taken the position that there is absolutely no urgency to do anything at all. on monday, here's what the republican leader said. republicans, he said, quote have yet to feel the urgency to act immediately. what will it take? are they so, so wrapped around a hard right ideology that they can't see the real needs of the american people? is there no urgency on testing? talk to your local businesses. talk to your local mayors. talk to your local governors. see if there is no urgency on testing. if there is no urgency to provide relief to renters and homeowners, no urgency to

prevent firefighters, police officers, and teachers from being laid off by state and local governments whose budgets are under water. in both blue and red states. i'd like to know how many of my republican colleagues actually oppose providing reassurance to state and local governments so that teachers in iowa, firefighters in north carolina, and police officers in kentucky don't get laid off. to support our -- the support our states need is in the house bill. it is very close to what the governors, democrat and republican, have asked for. leader mcconnell frequently highlights the heroism of our essential workers. i applaud him for that. but why don't we in addition to giving speeches on the floor put a little money in their pockets for the extra expenses they are undergoing? why isn't there an urgency to provide them hazard pay?

that's in the house bill. leader mcconnell and president trump have placed a great emphasis on reopening the country as quickly as possible. that's something we all want to see. so how do we achieve that safely? far and away the most important factor in reopening the economy is testing. we are far behind where we should be. fauci made that clear yesterday, despite the president's lies and mistruths about testing. remember our president said on march 6, i think it was, anyone who wants a test can have a test. that is even not true today. deluding the american people, deluding, running from the truth to say what pops into your head so it sounds good to the media for that moment, which it seems to be the president's m.o. doesn't help. doesn't help. everyone knows that until this crisis is over, and on into the future, we're going to need

personal protective equipment to begin safely returning to work. as i mentioned, i wore on the floor this mask made in rochester by hickey freeman. well, the house bill, the house bill includes crucial support for supply chain and manufacturing of p.p.p. do we wait on that? is that not urgent? an ambulance worker, a health care worker not having the p.p.p. they need? not urgent? who believes that? does leader mcconnell? does president trump? do our republican colleagues? it is just baffling, baffling that at this time of probably the greatest crisis we have faced, both health and economic, in decades, that the senate republican leadership, instead of working with democrats to find common ground on these crucial issues, has decided it will begin taking -- it will be against taking urgent and necessary action to help the

american people in a time of national crisis. unless, of course, that means liability protections for big corporations. that seems to be their number one concern. mr. president, -- or madam president, more than 30 million americans are now unemployed. more than 80,000 americans have died. just how many lost jobs, lost businesses, lost lives will it take before senate republicans begin to feel the urgency? now, on another matter, last week, americans learned that the trump white house had blocked release by the center for disease control of a document that contained guidance for safely reopening up the country. according to media reports, this guidance was painstakingly prepared by the c.d.c. to help the country determine when and how to begin easing social

distancing. without causing undue risk to public health, further spread of covid, the recurrence of a second wave, and more infections and more deaths. the c.d.c. guidance included detailed information and flow charts to help guide states, local governments, businesses, schools, churches, and religious institutions, and individuals as they consider these very challenging questions. businesses want to know how and when to open. citizens want to know how they should behave to protect themselves, yet get the country open. the c.d.c. guidance includes detailed information and flow charts to help. now a version of this document appeared in the media but we still don't have the official document as completed by the c.d.c. of course every american regardless of where they live or what party they belong to wants

to get back to normal as quickly as possible. i know every member of this senate wants that to happen as soon as it possibly can. i certainly do. but making the wrong decisions about when, where, and how fast to reopen could result in the loss of precious lives that could be otherwise saved and in the recurrence of a covid second wave that god for bid could be -- forbid could be worse than the first. in order to make these decisions widely, the country needs guidance of the nation's best medical and scientific experts. these literally are matters of life and of death. and that's exactly why the c.d.c. prepared this guidance. buff the white house has blocked the release of the c.d.c. guidance reportedly so the president and his political appointees can make changes to it. now as we all know, the president is not a doctor.

the president is not a scienti scientist. many don't even believe he's stable genius like he think he s. it's become painfully clear the last few months how unfm he is with the disciplines of science and -- unfamiliar he is with the disciplines of science and medicine. anybody who would say drink bleach, use bleach to protect yourself is not much of a medical expert. so it's difficult if not impossible to imagine any legitimate constructive purpose in a desire by the president or his staff to edit the c.d.c.'s work. i wish president trump and his aides could be trusted to tell the american people the truth about this public health crisis. i wish they could be trusted not to engage in political censorship of the medical and scientific judgments of our nation's foremost experts. but at this point in the crisis, after all the falsehood, all the

disinformation, all the transparent attempts at political spin every american knows full well that the president and his staff simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth about the coronavirus. just yesterday the president claimed that covid-19 cases are falling everywhere in america, but in another report also yet to be released by the president's own coronavirus task force is said to show infection rates are spiking to new heights in a number of large and small communities around the country, places in tennessee and iowa, texas and kentucky. the point is that america needs and must have the candid guidance of our best scientists unfiltered, u ununeditted, uncensored by president trump or his political minions. the c.d.c. report on reopening the country is an important piece of that guidance. the senate should unanimously

support the uncensored release of that document and, therefore, i will now offer a very simple and brief unanimous consent request, and i hope all senators will support it. so i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of senate resolution 572 expressing the sense of the senate that the report of the centers for disease control and prevention entitled, quote, guidance for implementing the opening up america again framework be released immediately. i further ask that the resolution be agreed to and that the motions to rebe considered made -- reconsidered be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. braun: reserving the -- madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. braun: reserving the right to object. the argument that the white

house and task force have been -- not been transparent in my mind is a foe argument -- faux argument from the minority leader. he's trying to let career regulators and agencies like the c.d.c. bog down the economy again with bureaucratic hurdles. i would probably know that as well as any senator here because i spent 12 years ago fighting to reform health care. it's related agencies -- its related agencies that bog the system down, a system that gives a health care cost that is double that of any other across the country. we'll get back to that. 80 senators on both sides of the aisle weighed in on that before the coronavirus raised its ugly head. the white house task force have been beyond taint in the midst of this outbreak. indeed holding unprecedented amount of daily press briefings

and allowing for a free flow of information that has been central to the white house' reopening efforts. this is not about transparency. the white house is always going to be in favor of transparency. the president comes from a world of entrepreneurs where we embrace it and competition. this is about the minority leader trying to use the bureaucracy at the c.d.c. to bog down the economy. we have got to from this point forward make sure that we adhere to everything the health care experts have told us, but we've got to be able to do a couple of things at once. and that means a smart restart to the economy. the c.d.c. and other health agencies were targets of the white house deregulation efforts from day one. they were the most challenging regulatory agencies to rein in.

the democrats and bureaucrats who are content with the status quo have been blocking efforts to deregulate since president trump took office. how we can do that when decades have brought us to the point with the health care system in general doesn't make sense to a main street entrepreneur like me that has found that a different dynamic works. the c.d.c., for example, was in the driver's seat during the initial stages of the outbreak. their missteps have testing forced us to take a one-size-fits-all approach which didn't make sense to many of us. we could have handled this a way that's not putting us now on the precipice of an even greater calamity. the inability to conduct early and wide testing in the u.s. caused by the c.d.c.'s and f.d.a.'s overly descriptive

stodginess prolonged the testing process in the early stages when it should have been expedited. the result has been that one-size-fits-all that we're contending with currently. we now lead the world in testing thanks to the white house's efforts to fight off the regulatory swamp at the c.d.c. and fix the testing problems caused by regulators. i submitted to the record yesterday in that over two-hour briefing with the health care experts that time line, referred for it. it happened from late january through early march. senator schumer wants to release the c.d.c.'s version of the reopening guidance, but the white house and senior health officials have rejected the initial c.d.c. recommendations in that version because the recommendations were overly printive -- prescriptive, infringed on religious rights, and risked further damaging the

economy. are we really going to let the c.d.c. shutter the economy a second time like they did with testing by dictating overly prescriptive guidelines? president trump's deregulatory agenda has proven to be an immediate success because we have gone from initially mired in bureaucratic hurdles to leading the world in testing and successfully flattening the curve and fighting the virus. spoke to a c.e.o. of a pharmaceutical company headquartered in indiana said the very same thing. they were stymied from the get-go. he among other pharmaceutical companies have put together an entrepreneurial effort to tackle this. it's not going to be done by trying to tie their hands. they're close to getting testing to where it's going to work for all of us. i have a business three of my four kids run. we want to make sure we have testing to make sure that we can

bring employees into a healthy environment and take care of customers. all businesses share that concern. the minority leader and democrats do not want to reopen the economy because i think, frankly, we had the best one i've ever seen in the 37 years i was a c.e.o. of a main street company that went from a little company like the minority leader always talks about. we share that common interest. i was disappointed when the p.p.p. did come out that they weren't helped first. we got that fixed. let's stay focused on that. we keep moving the goalpost for reopening. if we do that, we risk in economic terms what's called demand and supply destruction and there would not be enough federal dollars to remedy that. the white house pro actively gave us the appropriate road map to get the economy back on

track. we should not leave something as important as reopening the country to career regulators at the c.d.c., an agency that set back our response efforts due to their overly prescriptive approach. u.s. testing exploded once the white house efforts to increase testing, fight off the regulatory bureaucrats, when that won out. the same thing will happen with reopening the economy using the reopening guidance as a road map under the president's leadership. i object. mr. schumer: madam president? the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. schumer: madam president? the presiding officer: the democratic leader is recognized. mr. schumer: just two quick points. number one, my friend, and he is my friend, from indiana has said the white house has always been transparent and believed in transparency. does any american believe that? does any senator believe that? does my friend from indiana

actually believe that the white house has always been transparent? and second, he has said that america leads the world in testing. does any independent scientist believe that? is there anyone who believes we're leading in testing? that we've done as president trump said and accomplished everything in testing? does anyone outside the white house and their acolytes believe that? i don't it. i yield the floor.

mr. thune: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority whip is recognized. mr. thune: madam president, so far congress has passed four coronavirus relief bills that have provided $2.4 trillion to meet the coronavirus crisis. our goal has been to provide a comprehensive response addressing not just the medical priorities but also the economic impact this virus has had on so many american families. we provided funding for coronavirus testing, for medical care, for personal protective equipment for frontline medical personnel. for vaccine and treatment development, for veterans, for nutrition programs, for first responders, for unemployment benefits, for elementary schools, high schools and colleges, for farmers and ranchers. the coronavirus aid relief and

economic security act or the cares act, the third relief bill we passed provided nearly $350 billion for the paycheck protection program to help small businesses keep employees on their payroll during this crisis. and when the program ran out of money, we provided another $310 billion to ensure that as many small businesses as possible were able to take advantage of this help. the cares act also appropriated $293 billion for direct payments to american citizens to help them get through this difficult time. at this point, madam president, government agencies are focused on getting all of the aid that we passed out the door. some of programs like the paycheck protection program have been up and running practically since day one. more than four million businesses have applied for or already received forgivable loans through the paycheck protection program enabling millions of workers to keep their jobs. the vast majority of direct

payments to american citizens, approximately 130 million so far, have been sent out. other aid is still in the process of getting out the door. the department of agriculture recently announced it will use funds appropriated in the cares act plus other money to issue direct payments to farmers and ranchers affected by this crisis. these payments are expected to reach farmers and ranchers in late may or early june. over the course of four coronavirus bills we've provided more than $500 billion to state and local governments. that equal to roughly 25% of the yearly operating budgets of the 50 states combined. that money includes at least $1,858,000,000,000 for unemployment benefits, $150 billion for general relief fund for states, loyalties and

tribes. $45 billion for the disaster relief fund. nearly $26 billion for nutrition programs. $13 billion for school districts. $4 billion to help the homeless. more than $1 billion for first responders. and, madam president, there is so much more. on top of that congress directed the federal reserve to provide an additional $500 billion in loans to help states and municipalities manage cash flow issues during the pandemic. a lot of the money we've provided has already been sent to states while some is still in the process of being dispersed. meanwhile states are in the process figuring out how to spend the money that they've received. some they spent and some they have not. which brings me to an important point. my friends across the aisle are pushing for more money, more money, more money.

yesterday the house of representatives unveiled a $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill. that's right, madam president, $3 trillion. madam president, we haven't yet seen the effects of the money that we provided already. it's difficult to understand how democrats can call for an additional $3 trillion, all money, i might add, borrowed on the backs of yearning workers and -- younger workers and grandchildren when they haven't seen what existing funds have been used for or whether they've been used at all. nobody is questioning -- nobody is questioning that we may need additional money to address this crisis. republicans have already stepped up and appropriate $2.4 trillion, roughly 50% of the entire federal budget for 2020. that's an extraordinary amount of money. but these are extraordinary circumstances. and they call for an

extraordinary response. but it's important to remember that every dollar of what we've appropriated for coronavirus is borrowed money. and today's young workers and our children and grandchildren are going to be paying for this borrowing. we're putting an incredible burden on younger generations. and we have, madam president, an obligation to make sure we are already appropriating what is really needed. and the way we find out what is really needed is by carefully monitoring the implementation of the $2.4 trillion -- $2.4 trillion that we've already provided, not by rushing in to provide trillions more before we know whether and where they are needed. once the money we've already provided has been fully allocated, we'll have a better sense of where we might need to appropriate additional funds and where we spent enough. it's also important to remember that there are other things we

can do here in congress besides borrowing money that younger generations will have to repay. yesterday the leader came down to the floor to talk about liability protections that republicans are pursuing to protect small businesses and others on the -- during the response of the reopening. as the leader noted hundreds of coronavirus-related lawsuits have already been filed around the country. and these lawsuits represent a real threat to our economic recovery. doctors and hospitals, for example, are making extraordinary efforts to protect patients and health care workers but are still reluctant to resume noncoronavirus-related medical care for fear of being sued if a patient were somehow exposed to the disease in the process of receiving care. businesses are worried that they could be held responsible if one of their employees developed coronavirus even if the business

took every reasonable precaution to discourage infection. now, madam president, there's obviously a place for lawsuits. when individuals or businesses engage in gross negligence for intentional misconduct. we will not be giving a free pass to anyone who fails in their basic duties during this crisis, but we need to make sure that medical professionals and small businesses and others can get back to running their operations and employing americans without worrying that an army of trial lawyers is about to descend. there will undoubtedly be other things we can do to help americans get back to work and deal with the effects of the coronavirus without, madam president, spending trillions of dollars, everything from regulatory reform to ensuring that front line volunteers don't face surprise tax bills. that's not to say that we won't be providing additional funding.

in fact, it's likely that we will have to appropriate more money for the coronavirus response, but as i've already said, it is absolutely essential -- essential that we consider further investment carefully and only spend money where it is truly needed. my friends across the aisle tend to think that government money and government programs are the solution, literally, to every crisis. they are happy to throw taxpayer dollars around without thought to the consequences for future generations, and disturbingly, more than one democrat has indicated that they'd like to take advantage of this crisis to remake america in their own far-left image. that, madam president, is not a responsible response. madam president, republicans are going to continue to do everything we can to help americans through this crisis. we are committed to meeting the country's needs while spending

taxpayer dollars responsibly and with an eye to the burdens we're placing on younger workers and future generations of americans. we undoubtedly have more difficult days ahead, but our country is strong and so are the american people and we are going to get through this. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. durbin: madam president. the presiding officer: the democratic leader is recognized. mr. durbin: thank you, madam president. i came to the floor this morning to listen to the statements made by the other side of the aisle in reaction to the proposal speaker pelosi to deal with the coronavirus and the national emergency which we face. the republican leader, senator mcconnell of kentucky, as well as his whip, repeated their theme on the issue of the liability facing businesses and others because of the covid virus pandemic which we are

facing. in fact, the leader, senator mcconnell, has gone so far as to declare that it is a red line, his words, a red line that bars any further assistance to state and local governments and other entities until we address this so-called liability question. he has gone so far as to say that he will refuse to fund the money that has been proposed by now fishily by the democrats -- officially by the democrats to help our police, firefighters, par medics and teachers unless we provide guaranteed immunity by covid lawsuits, lawsuits that might be brought by workers and consumers. senator mcconnell's immunity is a way for companies to cut corners when it comes to

protecting workers as well as customers. the mcconnell red line threat would result in more people being infected by the coronavirus and more people getting sick, exactly the opposite of what we should do as a matter of policy. we also heard today from both senator mcconnell and senator thune that there is no urgency in continuing to provide assistance across america because of our economic crisis that we face and certainly the public health crisis we face. i couldn't disagree more on both counts. the mcconnell red line on guaranteed business immunity as well as the argument that we've done enough. let's sit back and wait and see what happens. i couldn't disagree more. yesterday we had a hearing before the senate judiciary committee. senator lindsey graham held the hearing and the title was examining liability during the covid-19 pandemic. now, that hearing took place yesterday afternoon after

senator mcconnell had come to the floor and spoken about the concerns of businesses about lawsuits against them related to the covid-19 virus. in fact, senator mcconnell had come to the floor yesterday morning and characterized -- characterized the lawsuits that were being filed and pending because of this epidemic -- pandemic, i'm sorry, and the words he used to characterize them were very explicit. he called it an epidemic of frivolous lawsuits. he referred to the minefields created by these lawsuits. he went so far as to call them a tidal wave, his words, on the floor of the united states senate when it came to these lawsuits related to covid-19. so i went into this with my staff and said, tell me about this tidal wave of lawsuits. and here's what we discovered about this so-called tidal wave

of lawsuits. 958 covid-related cases have been discovered in tracking the database of lawsuits filed in the united states this year. 958. but then we took a closer look. how many of these lawsuits were being brought against hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, medical professionals? nine. nine lawsuits. 1.3 million americans diagnosed as infected by the covid virus, nine lawsuits have been filed. senator mcconnell calls that a tidal wave. a tidal wave, it's barely a ripple. we added in 27 other cases for personal injury. so we're up to 36 cases out of 1.3 million americans who have been diagnosed as infected -- 36 cases. that's not to say that they are

all serious or all frivolous, no way of saying. i'm counting all lawsuits, personal injury and medical malpractice brought because of covid-19. we looked at other lawsuits. it turns out 262 lawsuits have been filed by prisoners in jail arguing they are in an unhealthy, unsanitary and unsafe condition. is that what the senator wants to stop? is that what he considers a tidal wave of lawsuits? 170 cases were brought against insurance companies. in other words, businesses are suing insurance companies over the coverage they have in their insurance policy. is that one of the avalanche of lawsuits that senator mcconnell is talking about? 95 contract cases, 79 civil rights cases. we took a look at the civil rights cases with a mention of covid-19 and we noted that many of them were filed by businesses

arguing they should be allowed to reopen. is senator mcconnell suggesting we should prohibit those lawsuits as well. what it comes down to is this, there is no tidal wave of lawsuits. we shouldn't condition helping businesses, unemployed people and individuals across america because of this phantom threat of lawsuits. i'm surprised that they didn't refer to a caravan of trial lawyers coming up to the courthouses across america. it just isn't there. yesterday in our hearing we had some excellent witnesses. one of the better witnesses, i'll be happy to concede, was a person brought in by the republican senators. his name is kevin smart. kevin is a chief executive officer and president of quick check food stores out of bonham, texas. he was speaking on behalf of the national association of convenience stores. and he told the story of what he has done with his businesses and

outlets and 600 employees to make it safer for them. he's really gone, based on his testimony, to great lengths to create a safe workplace. but listen to what kevin smart said about the problems he faces. here's his testimony. this was a challenge, mitigating the threat, this was a challenge because the guidance provided by the kdz and osha -- c.d.c. and osha and state and local governments often conflicted one another in addition to being vague to follow. what he was looking for in his sworn testimony were guidelines, guidelines for a safe workplace, guidelines for a safe business place, and they don't exist and one of the reasons came up early this morning when senator schumer came to the floor and said we want to see the c.d.c. guidelines released to siss -- businesses across america can see how to deal with this in the

workplace. there was an objection on the republican side of the aisle for the publication of the c.d.c. guidelines. they can't have it both ways. they can't argue through senator mcconnell we should have guaranteed business immunity from liability and then saying the businesses, as mr. smart told us, there are no guidelines. that isn't a defense if had any lawsuit. we lived by the guidelines. we had social distancing. we put up plastic shields to protect employees and customers. we had people wearing masks. those are all good defenses in any lawsuit that might be brought. but the republicans want it both ways. guaranteed immunity for the business but no guidelines from the government as to what is a safe practice. mr. smart said that makes his job next to impossible in his important business in texas. but there were numbers that were given to us yesterday that really did show a tidal wave. mark parrone is the president of the united food and commercial

workers. he testified before our committee. and during the course of his testimony, he told us that 162 of his workers, those who are in grocery stores, food processing, and particularly in meat processing, 162 had died from covid-19. now, working in a meat-packing plant is something i know a little bit about. i worked my way through college, 12 months in a meat-packing plant in east st. louis, illinois. dirty, hot, and dangerous work, elbow to elbow with fellow workers. i saw it firsthand. it's changed i'm sure over the years but the fundamentals are still there, and that's the danger of that workplace, the most dangerous workplace in america, meat processing. 162 deaths and 25,000 of mark parrone's workers who have been inflected so far with covid-19. so if you want to talk about a tidal wave, we ought to take a look at what those workers and meat processing are facing right now. some companies are

conscientiously trying to do the right thing and make their workplace better and safer, test their employees, and i salute all of them. there are good people who are leading these businesses, and they are making good decisions, but they need the guidelines and standards of the c.d.c. and osha, and the republicans just objected to publishing those standards. i want to tell you there is a way through this pandemic in a sensible fashion that is fair to business and fair to workers as well. and this notion that giving guaranteed immunity to businesses across the board is the answer is just plain wrong. those businesses, many of them, will take advantage of that umbrella of protection from any lawsuits. they will cut corners, more people will be inflected, and more bad results. conscientious businesses like the one represented yesterday on the republican side in the senate judiciary committee deserve what mr. smart is asking for -- standards that we can stand by and live with. and let me say a word about this

heroes act that was released yesterday by speaker pelosi. yes, she has asked for more money to be spent. we have to decide whether it's worth spending. is it worth giving more direct economic payments to families across america? i supported president trump's call for those payments in the first round. does he believe, do we believe, does the senate believe that $1,200 is the end of the story for people who are struggling these days, facing unemployment, facing the hardships that are part of our economy? the flood of people at our food banks tells us that people need more resources to provide the basics for their family. senator mcconnell has told us that's not an urgent need. well, he ought to go to a food bank in kentucky and take a look around. he is going to see a lot of people, not just democrats but republicans and independents facing the hardships of this economy. and to say that it's not urgent that we provide money to hospitals, i will tell you even

in the areas of illinois, small town, rural illinois, hospitals are struggling even if they don't have covid-19 virus infections to deal with. they are struggling because of the economy and people who are leery about going forward with elective surgery and outpatient treatment. and one thing to keep in mind. even if you happen to have a hospital in a remote rural area with little or no infection from covid-19 virus, if you want to return to elective surgery, good medical practice requires that you test the patient before the surgery to see if they are positive for covid-19 virus. hospitals i talked to are also testing the driver who is going to take the patient home after the procedure. we need testing so that these hospitals, even in areas not directly affected by this pandemic, can get back in business and keep their doors open. what a tragedy it is in any state to lose hospitals in rural areas. speaker pelosi in her bill, the heroes act, calls for additional funds for these hospitals.

i think there is a sense of urgency to that. clearly, senator mcconnell does not. the notion that we would honor the people who are working on the front lines to make sure that they would be able to continue to serve us and to risk their lives for us in treating the patients, i think that is a priority, and there is a sense of urgency, and i think speaker pelosi was correct in including that money to give those first responders, health workers, and others a helping hand. and let me say this notion that we shouldn't be helping state and local governments, who in the world do we think is on the front line in the battle against this national emergency, this pandemic? it's the doctors, of course, and the nurses, of course, but it's also our first responders, our policemen, our firefighters, even our teachers. if we don't provide the resources that have been lost to the states and localities because of this pandemic, there will be cutbacks in pay and layoffs for sure. is that how we're going to

answer this national emergency? i believe there is a profound sense of emergency here. there is a profound sense of urgency as well. i notice that a couple of my colleagues are on the floor to speak. i will wrap up my remarks by saying we need to stick with this program of helping america get back on its feet. we need to stand by the individuals who are struggling to feed their families and going to food banks to try to get by. we need to stand by those who are drawing unemployment insurance today with additional federal help, trying to keep their families together while they are looking for a job and waiting for the economy to rebound. we need to stand by the small businesses who cannot survive if we don't continue our assistance. and this notion that because it was speaker pelosi who suggested it, it's got to be a bad idea, is just plain wrong and selfish. look at her proposals on their merits. they mirror what we have started to do with the cares act and need to continue to do. as i said yesterday, you don't build a bridge halfway across a

river. you build it all the way. let's build it to the point where our economy can rebound with strength and people can get back to work. let's stand on the workers and their families and the businesses and support the heroes act that has been introduced in the house of representatives. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: thank you, mr. president. i am honored to follow my friend, the senior senator from illinois. i enjoyed his comments very much. as you know, mr. president, this congress has passed, i think, four bills to provide money to the american people, to the american health care delivery system, and to businesswomen and businessmen throughout our country. to fight the coronavirus. and the damage that it has done to our public health and also to

our economy. we have spent and will spend, because all of the money is not yet spent, about $3 trillion. that's three, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero dollars. that is 3,000 billion i don't know -- billion dollars. we don't even take in that much money in a year. we take in in revenue about 90% of that. so we borrowed the money. i voted for the bills. we had to do it.

the federal reserve, through its lending facilities, including but not limited to its 13.3 lending facilities, will probably spend at least another $3 trillion. i asked one of the senior officials at the federal reserve yesterday, and he told me that in the past two months, the balance sheet of the federal reserve has doubled. now, many of the transactions affected by the federal reserve, of course, are loans, but we all know that all the loans aren't going to be paid back. and since the federal reserve can't lose money, we are going to have to appropriate probably even more money than we appropriated in the cares act to backstop those losses. so we're up to $6 trillion,

let's say. speaker pelosi, as you know, mr. president, has introduced a new bill that would spend another $3 trillion. that, of course, we will have to borrow. some americans think we just print the money. we don't. we issue treasure securities, which is just basically a bond. people -- we borrow the money from people, from many americans, many foreigners, including but not limited to china, and we have to pay that money back. so now we're up to $9 trillion. that's nine, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. and our total debt is -- that's

going to put us at about $28 trillion. i'm not going to repeat the zeros again. i think i've made my point. now, speaker pelosi's bill is not going to pass the united states senate in its present form. you don't have to be a senior at the university of georgia, mr. president, to know that. it has provisions in it -- for one thing, it costs $3 trillion, as i just pointed out. for another thing, it will expand the affordable care act, which, of course, is controversial in the senate. it will change our election laws dramatically. some have suggested that speaker pelosi's bill will basically federalize elections, take them away from our states, which is certainly not contemplated and i

think is forbidden by the united states constitution. speaker pelosi's bill will dramatically change our immigration laws. it will provide amnesty for people who are in our country illegally during the coronavirus pandemic. it will provide a lot of money, hundreds of millions of dollars to people who are in our country illegally. some will like that, some won't like that, but the point i'm trying to make is it will be controversial. speaker pelosi's bill will release many of our federal prisoners during the coronavirus unless the bureau of prisons can affirmatively show that those prisoners are not going to go out and commit a violent crime. so, in other words, the bureau of prisons has to prove that john doe, the prisoner, -- the prisoner who is being released, is not going to go out and

commit a violent crime. that's not, of course, an impossible standard to meet. speaker pelosi's bill is very pro-cannabis. i don't know how you feel, mr. president, about cannabis. that's your business. but it is controversial in the united states senate. i think it mentions cannabis something like 28 times. and finally, speaker pelosi's bill addresses in many respects the subject of race. for example, it directs every federal agency to keep deposits in minority-owned banks. i'm not suggesting that that's good or bad. i'm just suggesting to you it will be very controversial, and for that reason, the bill is not going to pass this body in its present form. now, that sets up, mr. president, three scenarios. one scenario is that speaker pelosi, of course, she knows her

bill isn't going to pass, and she doesn't -- she doesn't intend for it to pass. that it is what we call a messaging bill. she is sending a message on behalf of her party with an eye toward the november elections. it's done around here all the time. so one scenario is it's just a messaging bill and it's political pageantry. there is a second possibility, that this is her opening bid, and that the leadership in the senate on the democratic side and the leadership in the senate on the republican side and the republican leadership in the house and speaker pelosi and probably treasury secretary mnuchin will then sit down and negotiate without much input, quite frankly, from members of the senate. i don't know how it works in the

house. and they will -- they will sit down and come up with something, and then they will come back to us. i'm in labor, not management, as you know, mr. president. they will come back to us and say here it is, take it or leave it. without much input from us individually. that's happened before. it's happened a lot before. and then we've got a choice. we can either say jeez, you know, we weren't part of this process. or we can say -- we can money and grown -- moan and groan and glum balance and then -- grumble and then follow our leaders -- we can moo and follow our leaders into the chute. the third thing with respect to the speaker's bill would be the second scenario happens but the members of the senate and the members of the house bow up and say not this time.

we're not going to moo and follow our leadership into the chute like cattle. we don't agree with would they did. that's a particular danger in the house because again you don't have to be -- it understand that speaker pelosi has drafted a bill to address the interests and concerns of the left wing of her party in the house. so i can see a third scenario where the powers that be negotiate what they see is a compromise and that compromise is taken back to the house and the liberal members of the house -- i don't use liberal and conservative in a pejorative sense. the liberal members of the house say the short answer is no. the long answer is hell no we're not voting for this. that it also happen in the senate on my side of the aisle. our leaders could negotiate a

package and come back and say okay, here's the deal. the liability provision is going to cost you a trillion dollars in extra spending. and i can see some republicans -- one of them is standing right over here. i don't speak for him but he's my good friend from florida who is going to have some heartburn if that happens. and then nothing happens. there is -- we have appropriated, as i mentioned -- i don't want to belabor the point -- $3 trillion. some of that money went to states and local governments. $150 billion. my state got about $3 billion. many of the states need that money, mr. president. i'm not saying that we aren't going to have to share, sacrifice here. i'm not saying we shouldn't ask our state and local governments to submit to us revenue estimates. i'm not saying we shouldn't ask

them to pare down their budgets. we ought to pare down ours as well but it's undeniable that states and local governments have sustained damage from the coronavirus. for god's sake their comif has been shut down. and if you're a state that relies on sales tax, nobody has been buying anything, or at least not like they did before. if you're -- if you're a state that relies on income tax, income tax hadn't been coming in because nobody has been open. now, some of might colleagues believe that we should not give the states any latitude to use any of that $150 billion to address revenue shortfalls. and i understand that point of view. i do. you take florida, for example -- in a few moments senator scott is going to speak. he was a governor of florida for

eight years, did an incredible job, balanced their budget, grew employment dramatically. and i can understand, not speaking for my good friend the senator, but i can understand how someone in the senate would say well, no, you know, every governor needs to go reform his entire state government. but that's not going to happen. at least not within the next year. in the meantime, i believe that state and local governments have sustained damage. and i think that is just a natural fact. they have. i have a bill, as you know, mr. president, senate bill 3608. it is called the coronavirus relief fund flexibility for state and local government act.

we have another bill that does somewhat the same thing as mine. i think senator rounds has a bill. but all my bill would do is this. that $150 billion we've already spent which now is -- has been given to the states and local governments says it can only be used for coronavirus expenses. my bill would change that. my bill would not spend a single solitary new dollar. let me say that again. my bill will not add to our spending. it just says the governors have additional flexibility to spend the $150 billion that we've already given them. they can't spend it to bail out their pension systems. my bill prohibits that. they can spend it to address a

revenue shortfall which many of them have. we will never agree in this body about which state is well managed and which state is not well managed. one person's trash is another person's treasure. i have personal feelings. senator scott does. i seen my good friend senator warner. he is here. he was a very distinguished governor of virginia. he'll probably have a different point of view. there is one thing we can agree on. there's real danger that speaker pelosi's bill is not going to pass, is not going to pass today and it may not pass tomorrow, and it may not pass in june. the second thing we can agree on is that our states and our cities have sustained damage, and we can take off the handcuffs and allow the money we have already given them to try

to help them repair that damage as we recover from this horrible pandemic. and for that reason, mr. president, i ask -- i'm going to ask for unanimous consent -- not that we pass my bill -- i'm going to ask in a second for unanimous consent that we just vote on my bill. we don't vote enough around here. you know, i came up here to deliberate and decide. i didn't come up here to issue press releases and participate in delay and saltification. i want to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. instead we want an honest week's work or honest week's pay for an honest day's pay. we want an honest week's pay for an honest day's work. all i want to do is have a vote on my bill. if you don't like it, you can

chew it up, spit it out, and step on it. and vote no in front of god and country. but if you like it, you can vote for it. and let's be senators again. and for that reason, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that at a time to be -- at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the democratic leader the committee on appropriations be discharged from further consideration of s. 3608 -- that's my bill, mr. president -- and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. i further ask that there be two hours of debate -- see, we'll have plenty of debate -- equally divided between the proponents and opponents of the bill and that upon the use or yielding back of that time, the kennedy substitute amendment number 1581 be considered and agreed to, the bill as amended be considered

read a third time, and the senate vote on passage of the bill as amended with a 60-vote -- with a 60-affirmative vote for passage with no intervening action or debate. finally, if passed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. let my people vote. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: mr. president, reserving the right to object. i appreciate the comments and i respect the opinion of my colleague from louisiana. the coronavirus pandemic is a significant and life altering time in our nation. our country and our economy will

never be the same. this is absolutely a challenging time for every level of government. we continue to work together to try and help the small businesses and individuals that are hurting and get our economy back open as soon as possible. this crisis was unprecedented and congress took bold action to stem the spread of the virus and save our economy. but if we're not careful, congress will create another equally devastating crisis down the road. a crisis of our own making. our national debt and deficits already at unsustainable levels have skyrocketed as congress has spent almost $3 trillion to address this crisis. at some point we need to start thinking about the impact this spending will have on our country's financial future and the future of our children and our grandchildren.

as i mentioned during my remarks last week, i appreciate the spirit of might colleague's proposal and understand his desire to help his state. i know he cares as deeply for louisiana as i do about florida. i want to help states, too, which is why i support maintaining the existing restrictions tied to the coronavirus relief fund that were included in the cares act. while imperfect, the coronavirus relief fund makes sure spending is for coronavirus response. regardless of whether we're removing the existing guard rails or talking about completely new funding, both actions would result in a blank check bailout for states. let's remember we're talking about $150 billion. to put that in perspective, the median income per capita in florida is about $30,000.

$150 billion will pay the total annual income for more than five million floridians. let's talk about who we're bailing out. not those on unemployment. we took care of them in the cares act. not our teachers. we took care of them in the cairgs act. not our health care workers. we took care of them in the cares act. we are bailing out liberal politicians who cannot live within their means and now we are asking floridians to pay for the incompetency of governors like andrew cuomo. we can't give hard earned taxpayer money to poorly managed states that are going to turn around and spend it on their liberal priorities and to backfill their budget shortfalls and solve their long-standing fiscal problems. states like california, illinois and new york have big budgets, high taxes, and tons of debt

because they refuse to make the hard choices and live within their means. they know they cannot tax their citizens more so they only have -- now they have their hands out to federal taxpayers to rescue them. but that's not fair to citizens of states like florida who have made the hard choices. mr. president, let me show you this chart. from 1985 to 2018, this is how many people moved to florida from other states. we gained over two million people. this is how many people left new york, illinois, and california. and why did they leave? well, partially they may like our weather better but look at the tax rates. way higher in these states. look at their business climate. those three states are the three worst in the country. look at what the tax foundation ranking is, some of the worst states in the country. then look at the debt. we have more people than new york by about two million to

three million people and their debt is seven times as much. illinois, we're at least double and they have almost three times as much debt. so you look at this -- and this is why income is moving to our state and away from these states and now these states want us to go tax our citizens, tax our citizens to pay for their debt, their pensions, for all their fiscal irresponsibility. and that's not fair to the citizens of our state. when i became florida's governor in 2011, we had a big budget shortfall and we lost 832,000 jobs if four years. when i became governor we started cutting taxes every year. we cut $10 billion over eight years. and guess what? our revenue has increased. the state went from losing hundreds of thousands of jobs over four years to adding 1.7 million jobs in eight years. we turned a $2.5 billion budget shortfall into a $4 billion surplus.

with $3 billion in a rainy day fund. i was the first florida governor in 20 years to actually pay down state debt. we paid down -- i paid down with the support of my legislature and the success of our state, a third of our state debt in eight years. that didn't in california. that the didn't happen in illinois. and it didn't happen in new york. new york governor andrew cuomo said it was irresponsible and reckless not to bail out states like his, a state with two million more people than florida with a budget almost double ours. the opposite is true. it's irresponsible and reckless to take money from america's taxpayers and use it to save liberal politicians from the consequences of their poor choices. every day american families make responsible budgetary decisions. states like florida have done it for years. it's time for new york, illinois, and california to do the same. as you can see from this chart,

congress has already allocated billions of dollars in direct and indirect aid to states and localities. total direct funding from the federal government already exceeds over $1 trillion. and this doesn't begin to count another $1.3 trillion in indirect assistance to small businesses, individuals, and increased unemployment benefits to families in all of our states. we've got $150 billion. again, billion dollars for expenses. by the way, this is not the way it's done with fema. this money has been sent with no obligation to states to pay a portion. when i had my hurricanes, i had to pay a portion of the cost that the federal government would participate in, but we still paid a part of the cost. we've got $500 billion in short-term loans from municipal governments. $45 billion in fema disaster funds, $30 billion for education without knowing whether education costs are going up or down.

$34 billion for mass transit community grants. $270 billion for, under the appropriation that goes on top of the indirect funding. so we have not, not spent, sent a lot of money to the states already. i appreciate that the senator from louisiana is taking a vote on this proposal. however, this legislation has not been considered by any committee. although i think both -- i think we both agree the cares act was far from perfect. congress must work methodically because we make such large-scale changes such as those proposed by my colleague. we have to get absolutely serious about how we're spending taxpayer money, the fact that this year's federal budget deficit will be the largest in the history of our nation. i have seven grandchildren. four of them are watching here today. august, eli, quetin and sebastian. i have no interest in saddling

them with debt. to do so would not only be a political failure but an abdication of our moral responsibility. it is time we make hard choices to put our nation on a path to recovery, recovery from this virus, from the economic devastation it's brought with it, and from the fiscal calamity that decades of politicians have ignored. i hope my colleagues will join me in this fight to keep our country's future bright. mr. president, i therefore with respectfully object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. warner: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: mr. president, i'm coming here to speak on a different topic, but i want to comment for a moment on the exchange between my friend from louisiana and my friend from florida. i can assure my friend from

louisiana who was ranked the best managed state in america by an independent source, commonwealth magazine. we're also proud to be ranked fourth by forbes magazine the best state for business. i've looked at the senator from louisiana's bill. it may not be perfect. i actually think we should be voting on it. i think it is strange to me -- and i say this as somebody where in virginia we maintained a triple a bond rating. we are fiscally responsible. we made the hard choices to make that happen. when we say we're going to come in and bail out the airlines because they've lost revenues, we're going to come in and very generously take care of every small business when they've lost revenues, but when states and

localities across the country are losing revenues at a record rate, it to say we're not going to give them certain flexibility, i would concur if we had a bill like that i'd support a clause in place that would say let's prohibit any of those funds being used to take care of long-term obligations like pension funds. but the notion that somehow we're going to say we're going to take care of everybody else bho -- who lost revenues but we're not going to take care of a local government whose seen its meals tax dry up, its sales tax dry up, and you suddenly are on your own and you've got to lay off police officers and firefighters and e.m.t's at this moment in time, it doesn't make sense to me. i hope the senator will continue to press his case, and we'll get a chance to have that debate. mr. president, i rise today because we also face the

greatest unemployment crisis america has seen since the great depression. more than 33 million workers have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic. millions of these folks have also lost their health insurance. i just was reading 27 million americans have seen their health insurance lost due to the virus. the federal reserve actually forecasts that 47 million americans or nearly one-third of the workforce could lose their jobs. these aren't just numbers. they represent the pain being felt by families across the country. as we enter into the greatest economic crisis of our lifetime. candidly, we need to face some hard truths about how we got here and what will come next if we fail to act. the reason we are facing this dire economic crisis is simple.

the federal government failed to take the appropriate early actions to control this virus. that's why we have to do social distancing. social distancing isn't very much fun -- and i see some of my friends and colleagues on the floor. it's particularly hard for people who spend their lifetimes shaking hands and saying hello to folks. but it has saved lives and it's begun to flatten the curve. but we also know that things can't just go back to normal overnight, not before we have a vaccine, not before the government working in concert with the private sector solves the chronic shortages in p.p.e. that have hampered our response to this pandemic from day one. states like mine are working towards a new normal where we gradually scale back social

distancing, when it's safe to do so. but it's just not realistic to suggest, as the president has, that we can just immediately reopen the economy before we've contained the virus. , as if companies will simply resume normal business knowing that another coronavirus outbreak could shut them down any day. as if a virus for which we still don't have a vaccine didn't just kill more than 80,000 of our fellow americans. mr. president, it's time to face the facts about what it will take for our economy to recover from this public health crisis. there is not a magic switch we can flip. there will not be a v shaped recovery if we stay our course. just as it took the u.s. years to emerge from the great depression, it could take years or even decades to recover from the coronavirus if we do not

take immediate bold action in the next coronavirus relief bill. our first goal must be to prevent further job losses as well as permanent disruptions like business closures, evictions and foreclosures. second, we must work quickly to reduce the economic uncertainty facing workers and small businesses. to do this, we need to provide immediate assistance to millions of american workers who have gone overnight from a steady job to unemployment through no fault of their own. i'm not talking about another stimulus check. i'm not talking about unemployment benefits. i'm talking about paychecks. the proposal which i've put forward with senators sanders, senator jones, senator blumenthal, would create a national paycheck security program for american workers. a very similar proposal has been put forward by my friend on the other side of the aisle, senator hawley from missouri.

it uses a direct support model that has support on both the left and the right. as a matter of fact, "the new york times" and "the wall street journal" have both commented on it. we know those news organizations never agree on anything, but they both think this approach bears merit. and we know this direct support approach works because it has been implemented successfully in a number of european countries and in canada where the unemployment rates, yes, they've bumped up but a couple of points, not to the level of what i believe will be over 20% unemployment and what the fed and even the administration officials have predicted may reach 25% within the next month. paycheck security means that the federal government would help cover the payroll expenses for rank and file workers who have been furloughed or laid off because of the coronavirus. these treasury department grants would cover salaries and wages

up to $90,000 for each employee plus benefits and run for at least six months. they would also provide funds to many businesses to help cover business operating costs such as rent and utilities. the program would be delivered through the employee retention tax credit. i was happy to work with my friend from oregon on it when we got into the earlier be bill, which is already set up at the i.r.s. and can be leveraged to deliver far greater benefits than it currently provides. in exchange for the paycheck security grant, employers would commit to forego further layoffs and maintain the pay and benefits of rank-and-file workers. they would also be required to spend stock buybacks and limit c.e.o. compensation for at least the term of federal assistance. a national paycheck security program would immediately work to prevent financial calamity for millions and millions of american families. at the same time it would

maintain in many cases reestablish that critical link between workers and their employees. that reestablishment of that link would put in place the health care benefits that many workers receive through their employment that they have now lost even though they may be on generous unemployment. if we reestablish this connection, the economy would be able to bounce back much more quickly after the public health crisis ends. the certainty provided by this program would also give consumers the confidence they need to begin spending money in the economy, accelerating the eventual economic recovery. it will be expensive, and i can say this as someone who spent a long time thinking and working on trying to erase the deficit. but when we compare it to over

$660 billion spent on the p.p.p. program, which has only taken one section of our economy, businesses under 500, that's done nothing so far for those mid-level businesses, 500 to 10,000, i think the alternative will actually be viewed as much cheaper. it actually would be pennies compared to the damage that will be done if we fail to adequately assist our fellow americans in this moment of economic crisis. now, mr. president, i'm pleased that my colleagues in the house have put forward an initial draft of their view of the next coronavirus relief package. it has a number of important provisions. however, it has not taken what i believe is the bold step to say before we simply refill up some of the existing buckets which have had in many cases mixed results so far, perhaps we should take a pause and a

time-out and see is there not a better way to provide the kind of security and guarantees that the american people are looking for from their government. even though the one thing i do know is that my house colleagues and i share enormous sense of urgency. with unemployment, at least the official numbers at nearly 15% and numbers all of us expect to go over 20% when reported later this month, this is not the time to play wait and see. it's no exaggeration to say that we face the prospect of not a recession, but actually a great depression. every day we delay, we drag ourselves deeper and deeper into the hole that we must eventually climb out of when the health care crisis is behind us. and as we enter into negotiations over the next phase of the coronavirus response, i

would encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take a look at bold solutions. let's give our fellow americans the kind of paycheck security they deserve. let's put paychecks, not stimulus checks, in their hands. let's help them to get back to work as fast as it is safely able to do so. thank you, madam president and i yield the floor. -- mr. president, and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: mr. president, americans want their privacy protected. for far too long the patriot act and the foreign intelligence surveillance act, commonly referred to as fisa has been used to trample the civil

liberties of american citizens. for montanans the right to privacy is so fundamental it is enshrined in our own constitution. in fact, very few states have such protections, but the drafters of the montana constitution recognized that privacy was essential to exercise all of the other freedoms that we hold so dear. the fill the u.s. house has sent us does have some good reforms. it has some good provisions in it, including a provision from my bipartisan bill with my colleague from oregon, senator wyden, called the safeguarding americans private records act which would revoke the now terminated call detail program which secretly collected data on our cell phones, our land lines as well as private conversations. but the house bill fails to

enact real reforms to fisa that will actually protect the privacy of the american people. and we saw what a handful of scornful government bureaucrats did to president trump when they abused fisa to serve their political motives. our own government spied on an american citizen, a political advisor to then-candidate trump with no oversight. and what happened to president trump can happen to anybody for any purpose, and that is a very serious problem. republican or democrat, we can't allow the abuse of our government intelligence services to be used for political attacks. it puts our democracy in danger and it undermines the trust and the confidence that our citizens

place in these same institutions that are meant to protect them. the house bill fails to prohibit the warrantless searches of browsing data and internet search history and it fails to include any meaningful oversight and accountability. we need to get government out of our private lives and instead prioritize freedom and privacy. we can and must protect our national security and protect our civil liberties by making targeted reforms that will keep every day americans, their privacy secure, and continue to allow the government to go after the bad guys. the house bill does not go far enough and we cannot compromise on an issue that is so vital to the very foundations of our

government. montanans sent me to congress to get government off their backs, and i'm working not only to get government off their backs, but to get government out of their phones, out of their computers, and out of their private lives. at the end of the day this is about protecting privacy, and today -- today, this day, we have the opportunity to get these reforms right. i've been working on behalf of mon montana tannians to be sure to take a bipartisan approach to this issue. mr. president, i'd like to speak on the wyden-daines amendment we'll be voting on shortly. my bipartisan amendment is simple. it protects all american civil liberties by prohibiting the collection of browser data and internet search history under section 215 of the patriot act. browser data is some of the most

personal and revealing information that can be collected on private citizens. your internet search history can reveal extremely intimate information, including personal health data, religious beliefs, political beliefs, where you might go on your next vacation, even what you bought your mom this past mother's day. and i don't think the government should have access to such private information without a warrant. in section 215 of the patriot act is supposed to investigate potential terrorists, not spy on our own browser's data. let me be clear. my amendment doesn't stop the intelligence community from doing their job. i'm grateful for the intelligence community. but it doesn't prevent them from doing their job or accessing the data they need to keep americans safe. it simply requires our intelligence agencies to abide

by the constitution and work within our nation's laws which means requesting a probable cause warrant to get this type of information. that means they might have to go to a judge and prove that they have a valid reason to believe someone is involved in espionage or possible terrorism operation. without my bipartisan amendment, the government would be able to access browser data through the secret 215 spy program with little to no oversight. at the end of the day this is about securing our most basic fourth amendment rights to protect our citizens most personal data. in fact, recently the supreme court found in the carpenter decision that the government needed a warrant to access cell site location data because of how personal and how invasive that information is.

well, the current house bill before us does have a prohibition for the collection of cell site location under section 215, and that's a good thing. but my amendment extends this prohibition to include browser data and internet search history which is even more sensitive and personal than location data. and i agree with many of my colleagues that we have to have the tools in place to help find and stop our nation's enemies who seek to harm the american people, we all agree on that. yet, we need to make sure we are protecting americans from our own government spying and intervening in our personal lives. and my amendment balances these important civil liberties and national security by allowing the government to track down terrorists while also stopping them from violating the rights of lwcf-abiding -- of law-abiding citizens. this is not a zero-sum gain.

we can have both and this amendment has strong bipartisan support. senator wyden and i have been working on this issue for months and we have joined by a long list of bipartisan cosponsors including senators cramer and markey and more. the amendment is also supported from a diverse group of stakeholders across the political spectrum from freedom works and americans for prosperity on one end to the aclu and demand progress on the other. americans across the country overwhelmingly back this amendment. this is a core constitutional issue that brought a democrat from oregon together with a republican from montana. montanans and oregonians may have different priorities, but we all believe strongly in the right to privacy, to protecting our civil liberties, and preserving our american way of

life. i urge my senate colleagues to stand with senator wyden and myself to protect the privacy of all americans and i judge them -- i urge them to vote in favor of this amendment. mr. president, before i yield to senator wyden, i also want to take a minute to speak in the lee-leahy amendment. this bipartisan amendment strengthens and clarifies the role and the authority of the amic -- ami krirch in the court. the department of justice's inspector general found major -- major abuses in applications to surveil president trump's campaign advisor carter page, and this abuse is just the tip of this eisenberg. we need -- iceberg.

we the lee-leahy does that, it gives americans a fighting chance and brings some clarity, and importantly, some transparency to the fisa court. i encourage my colleagues to also join me in supporting the lee-leahy amendment. and i see that my distinguished colleague and friend, the senator from oregon, ron wyden, is on the floor and i yield to senator wyden for his remarks. wind wind mr. president. the presiding officer: -- mr. wyden: mr. president. mr. wyden i call up amendment 1583. the clerk: the senator from oregon calls up amendment 15583 -- 1583. mr. wyden: i ask that the reading of the amendment be

dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. wide which i i thank my -- mr. wyden: i thank my colleague from montana for his support and i hope we can count on his caucus, the senate majority when we vote in a little bit. mr. president, i rise to offer this bipartisan amendment because i think a basic question needs to be asked at this unique time. is it right when millions of law-abiding americans are at home for their government to be able to spy on their internet searches and their web browsing without a warrant? should law-abiding americans have to worry about their government looking over their shoulders from the moment they wake up in the morning and turn on their computers to when they

go to bed at night? i believe the answer is no. but that is exactly what the government has the power to do without this bipartisan amendment. i want to start by reflecting for a moment on how americans are using the internet these days. they are helping kids with homework, checking out prescription drug prices for a sick parent, and they visit scores of different websites. in a pandemic the internet may be their own connection to the outside world. so the question that we're presenting is, don't those americans deserve some measure of privacy? don't they deserve better than their government's snooping into

the websites they visit? how can this be that the government can spy on them when they are not suspected of doing anything wrong? and most importantly, how is this okay in america? with web browsing and searches, you are talking about some of the most intimate, some of the most personal, some of the most private details of the lives of americans. every thought that can come into people's heads can be revealed in an internet search or a visit to a website. their health history, their medical fears, their political views, their romantic lives, their religious beliefs. mr. president, collecting this information is as close to

reading minds as surveillance can get. it is digital mining of the personal lives of the american people. now, typical americans may think to themselves, i've got nothing to worry about. i've done nothing wrong. the government has no reason to suspect me of anything. why do i need to worry? unfortunately, the question is not whether you did anything wrong. the question is whether a government agent believes they have the right to look at your web searches. in other words, without this bipartisan amendment, it is open

season on anybody's most personal information. now there's a simple solution. require a warrant. with this amendment the government can go to court and with a warrant collect whatever it needs from those who actually threaten the safety of our people. and in an emergency, something i feel very strongly about and have worked for as a member of the p intelligence committee, the government can use emergency provisions, collect the information immediately, and settle up with the court later, proving once again, mr. president, that liberty and security aren't mutually exclusive, that smart policies like this type of amendment help to get you both. now a brief explanation of how we got here. right now the government can

collect web browsing and internet search history without a warrant under section 215 of the patriot act. section 215 from the beginning has been the most controversial and dangerous provision of the fisa law. that's because it is so extraordinarily broad and so vague. under section 215, the government can collect just about anything so long as the government believes it's relevant to an investigation. this can include the private lives of many innocent law-abiding americans. as i indicated, they don't have to do anything wrong. they don't have to be suspected of anything. they don't have to even have been in contact with anyone suspected of anything. their personal information in some way, some way just has to be connected, relevant to what the government is looking for. back in 2001 when congress

passed the patriot act, americans were rightly concerned about their government collecting their library borrowing records without a warrant. my colleague, the president of the senate, might remember because this was nationwide. people were up in arms about the prospect of the government looking at library records, the books they borrowed and the like. i'll tell you something, what we're talking about here today, looking at web history, browsing, it is thousands of times more invasive of privacy than the library records that americans were concerned about years ago. and there is, regrettably, a long history of abuse of section 215. a few years ago the government decided it could use section 215 to justify the collection of every americans' phone records.

the government secretly decided that the phone records of millions of innocent law-abiding americans were again somehow connected, somehow relevant to something the government wanted and wanted to get it without a warrant. it was only when this abuse was publicly revealed that congress stepped in and began reining in the government's phone record collection. now the supreme court did determine recently that physical tracking of americans as they move around requires a he -- requires a warrant. in this bill congress is getting around to stopping the government from using section 215 to collect, to conduct warrantless collection of certain location data. but the irony is -- and i say this to my colleagues because of this unique time. the irony is now that americans have been asked to stay home and not move around so as to help

our country fight this unprecedented contagion, they are more vulnerable to abusive surveillance than ever before. i think that's wrong. people today, whether they're in north dakota, washington state, montana, oregon, any of our home states, people are at home and they're living their lives online. now more than ever i would say to senators of both political parties because i've long felt that these issues were fundamental, fundamental to ensuring that we prove, as i stated earlier, that liberty and security aren't mutually exclusive. smart policies give you both and not so smart policies don't give you either. during this pandemic, americans

deserve assurances that the government isn't spying on them as they're home where they think they're going to have some measure of privacy, and probably until they heard this debate didn't know the government could spy on them at home as they move around the internet. americans deserve to know at this unique time that the government is not engaged in digital tracking of their personal lives. the warrantless collection of americans' web browsing history offers endless opportunities for abuse. tonld trump called -- donald trump called for investigation of his political enemies. all it would take is for some innocent americans' web browsing history to be deemed relevant to an investigation, and the government's off to the races

collecting all of that personal information. and then it wouldn't even matter whether that web browsing history had anything to do with the original goal of the investigation. for any number of reasons, the web browsing history of that innocent american could reveal potentially such embarrassing information that that person would be humiliated, humiliated for years to come, and of course could be used against him or her. this is not a partisan proposition. any administration, given the direction of the law absent this amendment, could be tempted to collect the web browsing and internet search history of political enemies, politicians, activists, journalists. and i'm just, before we wrap up, going to touch on some of the arguments against this amendment because having served

on the intelligence committee and followed these issues closely, invariably at some point in this discussion someone's going to come and say this bipartisan amendment is going to be pretty much the end of western civilization as we know it. we won't be safe. it's not going to protect our liberties. it's going to set up all kinds of arbitrary policies. and i just want to show how those arguments don't hold water. the first argument is that the government needs this information before it can get a warrant. but without web browsing history, there's still plenty of information available to the government even without a warrant. phone and e-mail metadata, subscription data, business records. but the biggest response of this argument is that it's congress' responsibility to determine when some information is so sensitive that it requires a warrant. in this bill, that was done with respect to geolocation

information. i believe digital tracking of innocent americans demands the same protection. and let me say as i did earlier, when there is an emergency and something that i have made a priority in my work on the intelligence committee, the government can go get the information immediately and then come back to the court later on and settle up. the other argument i imagine we'll hear is that this amendment would create protections for americans that don't exist in the criminal context. the problem with that argument is that congress isn't legislating on the criminal law right now. but it does have the unique opportunity to prevent intrusive surveillance of americans and prevent abuses. mr. president, fisa requires an extra layer of protection. that's because unlike criminal law, fisa is secret.

it's also a nonadversarial process. it relies on government representations as we've learned from the inspector general are frequently inaccurate. when the government uses fisa information against americans, there's little or no notice or opportunity of challenge or surveillance. and most of all, it is subject to something that i have come to call secret law, law that nobody knows about in a coffee shop in washington or north dakota or montana. it's basically secretly interpreted. and as i pointed out on the floor in the past, warning the american people about these secret interpretations, americans sometimes don't learn about them for years. and when they find out, they are really unhappy. so i want to just touch briefly on the amendment of the senate

majority leader, the mcconnell amendment. not only is the majority leader trying to block the bipartisan effort that we've been talking about, his amendment would actually make the situation even worse. right now the government can collect the web browsing and internet searches of americans without a warrant under section 215. but so far, so far there has not been explicit congressional authorization for the government to do it. the mcconnell amendment would for the first time provide that authorization. the mcconnell amendment would in effect tell the government that congress approves of the warrantless collection of americans' most private information. wrap your arms around that one. congress explicitly approving of the warrantless collection of americans' most private information when millions of americans are sitting at home today in kansas, in south

dakota, all across the country, sitting at home believing that they have some expectation of privacy. the mcconnell amendment prepare tends to limit the -- pretends to limit the collection of this personal information of americans, but it's just a fake. what the amendment really does is meaningless. it says the government can't collect content, but no one knows what that means when it comes to web browsing and internet search history. there's no clarity in the statute, there's no settled law in the courts. the supreme court hadn't weighed in. so what the mcconnell amendment does is invite the attorney general to produce yet more secret law, yet another secret interpretation, designed, as these things always are, to allow for the collection of the broadest possible set of americans private information. at some point, mr. president, i believe the senate needs to focus on a little bit of history. section 215 was secretly

interpreted and abused in the past. the use of these authorities to spy on americans' web browsing and search history is a screaming alarm warning us of future abuses. what the american people deserve and what this amendment provides is clarity and transparency about what the government cannot collect without a warrant. one last argument, and that is we've heard if the senate amends this bill, oh my goodness, the house just won't do anything at all. well, there were 75 house democrats and many republicans -- i want to underline that. 75 house democrats and many republicans who voted against this bill because it didn't include enough privacy reform. adding key reforms like this amendment can only strengthen the support in the house. mr. president, the american will not tolerate warrantless government spying on their most

private information when they find out, when they find out that right now during a pandemic the government has the authority to do that. i can't accept that level of unchecked surveillance. i'm very grateful for the sponsors that we have. they were listed by my colleague from montana. a great array of organizations who share our view that liberty and security aren't mutually exclusive. i ask unanimous consent that a list of those organizations be entered into the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: and will just say that i think right now during a unique time in american history when millions of americans are at home and online, they deserve to have the united states senate step up, defend their privacy and their constitutional rights and protect them from abuses. this is the moment to stand up

for those millions of people who have to be at home because we come together to deal with this contagion. i believe the senate ought to pass the wyden-daines amendment, oppose the mcconnell amendment, protect those people who are at home. and in wrapping up, mr. president, i also want to commend our friend, senators leahy and lee. as was noted, they have worked with us on a host of these efforts. i think they have a terrific amendment to strengthen the oversight role of the independent amici of the fisa court. i hope senators will also support it. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: i ask unanimous consent to speak for one minute. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. daines: mr. president, this amendment is about protecting americans' privacy. it's about making sure that government isn't intruding into our most private data. it's about respecting the constitution and the fourth amendment and the wyden-daines

amendment simply prohibits a collection of browseer and search history data under section 215. browseer data is extremely personal. it's sensitive and should require a probable cause warrant to access. this data shouldn't be allowed to be collected behind closed doors with no judicial oversight. we can protect national security and protect the civil liberties and the constitutional rights of americans at the same time, plain and simple, if you want to see an american search history, then you better go to the judge and get a warrant. i yield back. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are 59. the nays are 37. under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is not agreed to. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. a senator: mr. president, countless utahans have stepped to serve our country during the covid-19 pandemic. their actions are inspiring and they help save lives. i rise today to recognize some of these great efforts. i would prefer to name individuals and their particular circumstances but because of the tens of thousand, even hundreds of thousands of people who participated, i'm going to talk about groups and organizations. mr. romney: health care workers from our state travel across our state and also across our

country. two 100-person teams were went to new york city to help the surge of patients there. physicians, nurse, respiratory therapists and other health care professionals were there for weeks, oftentimes 24-hour days. in partnership with intermountain, university of utah health has helped with labs and testing, including the hero project which has tested more than 10,000 utahans to assess the disease spread throughout the state. the university's wellness bus brought mobile testing to underserved areas across our state. groups around campuses are using 3-d printers to produce hundreds of face shields per day for the health care community. the businesses of silicon slopes have helped extend -- expand state testing efforts through the test utah challenge.

tens of thousands have been tested through this program. the utah manufacturers association and its membership and its businesses have spearheaded the effort to provide a mask free of charge to every citizen of our state. the world trade center utah has partnered with my team to help make sure that local employers are able to access small business loans and other federal relief programs. the utah food bank is using mobile pantries to safely distribute food on a regular basis throughout the state and teaming up with organizations like the larry miller group to host statewide food drives. the utah farm bureau has purchased food from local farmers and then helped distribute it to families in need. project protect in partnership

with intermountain, university of utah health and latter day health centers has masks and gowns for front line caregivers throughout the state. to date more than 30,000 volunteers have sewn more than three million masks. those are some of the many organizations and individuals that have come together to help their neighbors. our state's pioneering heritage is a big part of what makes utah a model of what we can do when we work together as a community. thank you, and i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: we're in a roll call. the senator from north dakota.

a senator: i ask unanimous consent to suspend the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: i ask unanimous consent that at 4:15 that the senate vote on the lee amendment if offered. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. cramer: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: i come to the floor today to recognize this month of may as national foster care month. in 1988, president reagan brought attention to the importance of foster care. he first designated the month of

may as a time to celebrate and remember all of those people in foster care that would include foster parents, case workers, and others who worked to improve the lives of those in care. we made some progress since that time with legislation such as the foster and connectses act of 2008 and the child and family services improvement and innovation act of 2011. we've provided new investments and services to improve the outcomes for children in the foster care system. more recently in 2018 congress passed the family first prevention services act. that legislation passed 2018 changed the way federal reimbursement for foster care

works, then allowing states to provide services to parents before their kids were placed in foster care, not just after they went into foster care. it also ensures more kids will be cared for by a family instead of being placed in a group setting outside of the home. last year, i introduced and congress passed the family first transition act to help states get moving to this new system and do it more quickly. now, a lot has changed since president reagan first announced this month of may as foster care month. but one thing hasn't changed, and that is the tireless work of one iowan in particular that i

want to recognize today. that is linda faye herron of johnson county iowa. linda started serving as foster parent in the 1970's, so at least a decade before president reagan recognized the importance of highlighting foster care. and over the course of almost 50 years linda has fostered over 600 kids. to emphasize, over 600 kids in need of a place to call home even if for a few days were welcomed in linda's home. just think, how many lives just one person, meaning linda, was able to impact by making the

decision to be a foster parent. it's not just 600, although that's a number that is staggering enough, it's the birth parents of those children who due to the help that they receive from the foster care system may have been able to treat their substance abuse and turn their lives around, and maybe to be a mother and/or a father to their children again. also, this month honors all the parents who are able to adopt children that temporarily stayed in linda's home. linda's -- linda's influence -- influenced her own family as well because that family that she had continues her good work.

it's this kind of example of selfless service which caused five of linda's children then and three of her grandchildren to also become foster parents. foster parents deserve more recognition. they deserve more support. and even more services. and i will continue to work in the senate to try to make these goals a reality. but if you have ever considered becoming a foster parent, this senator urges you to take that first step and reach out to your local child welfare agencies and tell them you're interested in being a foster parent. there is a great need out there for that. sometimes the numbers can seem overwhelming because there are over 400,000 kids in foster care

, some of them sleeping on the floor of their social worker's office due to the lack of available homes to care for them, but linda is proof that just -- that it takes just one person to make an incredible impact. over the years, i have heard from many kids in foster care. i make a special effort to hear directly from them on what they think needs to improve about the system so future foster children can have a better life and a better future. do you know what? after decades of being involved in this subject, i hear the same thing from them. i -- they tell me i'd like to have a home. now, why would they say they would like to have a home? they have been shifted maybe in

one-year period of time to two or three different foster homes, two or three different school districts maybe they were in. they say i want a mom and a dad for the same reason because they could have had three or four different moms and dads in one year. they want to be part of a family. those are the things i hear from you. whether that's their biological family getting the help that they need to parent their children or foster an adoptive parent, stepping up to the plate, kids belong in a family. all children deserve a safe, loving, permanent home. unfortunately, the foster care system has also been impacted by the virus that we're all affected by in the last four or five months. families who were already vulnerable were thrown into

unemployment and instability. children in temporary foster care placements are remaining there much longer time than usual. and all because of canceled and delayed court proceedings that makes staying in that foster home longer than getting into a permanent home. foster parents, birth parents, children in foster care lost access to peer networks and other vital support services because of the last four or five months we have been dealing with this pandemic. especially impacted at this time but almost all the time are older youth who have aged out of the foster care. youth in college as a result of

a virus lost their housing when campuses closed. those who were training for a career or in the workforce may have lost their jobs as well. many of the provisions in the cares act will help foster families and the youth generally that are in their care. however, i will continue to work to ensure that needy relief for kids and families is provided. i ask my colleagues in the senate to support my resolution marking may as national foster care month to bring awareness to the issues that kids and foster care -- kids in foster care face and to honor linda of johnson county, the one i use as an example of helping 600 kids, but not only linda but all the other foster parents who make a world of difference. that's what this month is all

about. 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, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. ernst: without objection. iowans from every county of our state have faced unforeseen challenges and hardships as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. but in trying times like these, the american people have always banded together and have risen to the occasion, and that pandemic is no different. this has been especially true in iowa where i've seen and heard so many heart-warming stories of iowans stepping up to help other

iowans. take ann and megan, for example, two teachers in the knoxville community school district. these two iowans noticed that some of the residents at the west ridge speciality care center might need some additional entertainment due to social distancing so they started an amazon wish list and with the help of their community were able to provide games and other fun items for the residents to use during the day. and then there are the hardworking folks at the iowa motor truck association who are helping provide meals to our truck drivers all up and down interstate 80. and, of course, there are the great men and women of the iowa national guard who are working around the clock to deliver medical supplies and materials across the state. but it's not just individuals.

it's also local iowa companies and their workers who are stepping up and helping out. kent corporation has been working closely with local nonprofit partners to address food insecurity for folks in their community. partnering with the salvation army, united way, and the muskatine center for social action, they're preparing nearly 300 meals every wednesday and thursday to be distributed to families and individuals who are in need. folk, while we are facing challenging times, we have also been reminded of the generosity and charity of the men and women across our nation and the tremendous courage and resilience of our workforce. throughout the