quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: mr. president, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. warner: i ask that the proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. warner: mr. president, i rise today to celebrate the passage of the great american outdoors act. the passage of this historic legislation marks a once in a generation step by this body to restore and conserve our national parks as well as our country's national heritage. it builds on an american tradition of conserving our natural wonders and shared

public spaces. it reaffirms our commitment to preserve if for future generations. it's also important to note that this is a jobs bill. according to a recent study, the great american outdoors act will help create or support 100,000 jobs all over the country, including 10,000 in my home state of virginia at a time when millions of americans are out of work. currently the national park service has a deferred maintenance backlog of $12 million. a chronic lack of funding from congress has focused -- has forced the park service to defer maintenance on countless trails, buildings, and historic structures as well as thousands of miles of roads and bridges. today over half of all park service assets are in desperate need of repair. to address these needs, a little

over three years ago i approached my colleague and friend, senator rob portman, with an idea. what if we took unobligated federal energy revenues and used them to address the maintenance backlogs at our national parks. so we came together in a -- on a bipartisan partnership and introduced the national park services legacy act. a little over a year later we combined our efforts with senator alexander and senator king to introduce restore our parks act. earlier this year this legislation was combined with senator gardner's and senator manchin's land and water fund legislation to form the great american outdoors act. this legislation represents one of the largest investments in the infrastructure of our national parks in its over

100-year history. over the next five years, the great american outdoors act will fund more than half of all the deferred repairs and completely fund the park service's highest priority needs. as my friend from maine, senator king has noted, deferred maintenance is really simply a debt for future generations. with the passage of this bill today, we are one step closer to paying down that debt. few states in the country are as impacted by the service's deferred maintenance backlog as the commonwealth of virginia. in the commonwealth, we have a maintenance backlog of over $1.1 billion. that's the third largest behind california and d.c. i want to give a few examples of how this legislation will help preserve our historical heritage and create jobs in my state.

here in the national capital region, the george washington memorial parkway, which is managed by the national park service, has over $700 million in deferred maintenance. as a matter of fact, anyone in this chamber who travels on that road actually knows that we had a sinkhole appear in the parkway within the last year, an enormous safety threat as well as an enormous inconvenience to anybody who travels on this important road. our legislation would help rebuild this critical transportation route between virginia, washington, d.c., and maryland, reducing traffic and, again, creating jobs. further south, along i-95, there you go, the richmond national battlefield park has over $5 million in deferred maintenance. nearby, maggie l. walker

national historic site, this is the site actually of the first african american-owned bank created by maggie walker, the first african american-owned bank and first bank owned by an african-american woman, which i visited last year has maintenance needs of $1 million and the nearby petersburg national battlefield park has grown to $9 million. this will help support critical infrastructure needs of these parks, preserving our heritage while supporting our local economies. let me take you a little further west out to one of the real gems of our national park service. probably one of the best known parks around the country and that is the shenandoah national park where, again, the maintenance backlog there sits over $90 million.

our legislation will put people to work on these overdue repairs, including skyline drive and stretches of the appalachian trail which are really at the heart of virginia's outdoor tourism industry. let me take you a little further down the skyline drive down to farther in southwest virginia. as you head southwest, the blue ridge parkway, right here, which has accumulated over $500le -- $500 million in deferred maintenance for every mile of the blue ridge parkway. the great american outdoors act will put virginians to work so visitors can appreciate the beaut of southwest virginia and support the local economy. let me end up my visual tour of virginia going to the eastern part of the commonwealth. one final example, colonial

national historic park, which is home to historic jamestown and the yorktown battlefield, some of our country's most significant sights on the birth of our nation. in this park and along the colonial parkway there are deferred maintenance needs totaling over $430 million. with this legislation, the wait on many of these repairs are over. we're going to create jobs, make sure this important part of our history is around for years to come and make sure that we leave our kids and grandkids that sense of who we are as a nation. now, before we close, i want to touch on the other half of this legislation which provides full mandatory funding for the land, water, conservation fund, the lwcf. for decades the lwcf has been the most important tool the federal government and states have had to protect critical natural areas, water resources, and, again, cultural heritage.

virginia's received over $368 million in lwcf funding, which has helped preserve and expand critical recreation areas within the commonwealth. for example, the american battlefield protection program, which is funded through the lwcf, has been vital for communities across virginia, providing them with technical assistance and funding to help them preserve their history and, again, attract tourists. lwcf has helped us to preserve land within the george washington and jefferson national forest and along the appalachian trail. these efforts help support unique wildlife habitats and provide new access for hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreation. this combination of the parks bill and permanent funding for the lwcf, the great american outdoors act ensure that we'll continue to make these important

investments in conservation in our parks for years to come. in closing, i want to thank my colleagues, again, for supporting this historic legislation with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote and a piece of legislation that is supported by the administration. my hope is that the house will move quickly on this. and what better present to our nation than to have this legislation signed into law hopefully by july 4. as we all know, at a time of significant division in our country, the fact that this body was able to come together and pass this bill with over70 votes -- with over 70 votes gives me a little bit of hope. i'm, again, proud of my colleagues to help step up to restore our national parks and public lands. as i mentioned at the outset this legislation will create over 100,000 jobs, jobs that are extraordinarily needed at this critical moment with our economy in shatter. so for current americans, future

americans, job well down. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. we are in a quorum call. mr. scott: okay. i ask to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. scott: mr. president, this morning, i woke up this morning, mr. president, wednesday

morning, june 17, 2020. for so many americans, this is just another wednesday morning. you wake up, you get ready for work. not in south carolina. in south carolina, this wednesday, june 17, is the fifth anniversary of when a racist walked into mother emmanuel church --

mr. scott: and sat through a bible study. for an hour. and listened to believers talk about their love of god. at the end of that bible study, pulled out a weapon and killed nine people. so for me, and so many south carolinians, this is a hard day.

i'll tell you, mr. president, that standing on this floor, remembering the words of one of the victims' son, daniel simmons jr., five years ago, a wednesday had passed, one week later, and i asked daniel simmons jr. whose father daniel simmons sr. had been killed in an attempt to start another race war at the home of the civil war, i asked him what should i say to the people who will be watching around the country? he said what i could not

believe, which was please remind them of romance -- romans 8:28, that all things work together for good for those who love god and are called according to their purpose. i was standing at those doors on my cell phone. i could not believe the words he was speaking. and in an fact of true unconditional love, he inspired me, he encouraged me, he taught me lessons of strength and courage and mercy our nation needs to remember. and i came to the floor today, mr. president, to speak about my new bill, the justice act, our republican response to the police reform.

and i was sitting in my office when the senator from illinois talked about the token legislation. on this day, the day that we remember mother emmanuel church and the nine lost lives, my friend, the pastor of the church clemente pinkney, the first person ever to call me a senator, a the democrat pastor of that church says to me, my senator. 2012, december. to reflect back on the fact that i have in my phone today the text from clemente where i said are you okay? he didn't answer. because he was already dead. to think that on this day as we try to make sure that fewer

people lose confidence in this nation to have the senator from illinois refer to this process, this bill, this opportunity to restore hope and confidence and trust from the american people, from african americans, from communities of color to call this a token process hurts my soul for my country, for our people. to think that the concept of anti-lynching as a part of this legislation to be considered a token piece of legislation because perhaps i'm african american, the only one on this side of the aisle, i don't know what he meant, but i can tell you that this day to have those comments again hurts the soul. to think about how the senior in

2015, walter scott in my hometown of north charleston running away from the police gets shot five times in the back. i sponsored legislation then, and i don't remember a single person saying a single thing on that side of the aisle about helping to push forward more legislation on body cameras. but today this is a token piece of legislation. because i think it's important that we stand up and be counted and make sure that we have more resources available for every single officer to have a body camera, because as we saw in georgia with mr. arbery, had it not been caught on video, in walter scott's case, had it not been caught on video, in george floyd's case, had it not been caught on video, we might be in a different place.

but on the other side, they are wanting to race bait on tokenism, while this legislation would provide resources for body cameras, for anti-lynching, for de-escalation training. but no, we can't concern ourselves with the families i have sat with at the white house yesterday and in my office yesterday. instead, we want to play politics because this is 2020 and we're far more concerned about winning elections than we are about having a serious conversation on reform in this country. no, we would rather have a conversation about tearing this country apart, making it a binary choice between law enforcement and communities of color instead of working for the american people, bringing the reforms to the table so that we have a chance to balance this nation and direct her towards due north. no, that's too much to ask on

june 17, five years later. i started this conversation on body cameras in 2015, on the walter scott notification act in 2015, but no, we want to have a political conversation. i reject that. i reject that. and i will tell you that i believe that my friends on the other side of the aisle are serious about police reform. there is just some that are more interested at scoring political points than they actually are getting a result. not the majority of them. the majority of them have the same heart that we have for the american people. that's where we should be focusing our attention on, not the color of my skin. not tokens. cool when you're out in the public. i get it all the time on twitter. i'm used to it. but on this day, my heartaches

for my state. my heartaches for my uncle's church for 50 years before he passed. and so i'm a little riled up. i sit here quiet lay trying to pass good legislation that was passed on the because i knew if we wanted to get so long done, we had to do it in a bipartisan fashion. i'm not trying to run for reelection. i'm trying to say to the families i met with yesterday at the white house, wows a camera, and in my office yesterday, without a camera, i hear you. we see you. you are not simply sitting there silent. we are working on serious, tangible, measurable results. why is that not enough?

why can't we just disagree on the three or four items that we disagree upon? why can't i say what i've been saying, which is that the house bill is in fact the blueprint for some progress? it goes too far for me in some areas, but, yes, i like the concept of more information. this is a good thing. the house does it. we do it. that's a good thing. i like the concept of more training. the house does it. we do it. i like the fact that we're looking for a way to ban choke holds. we do it by taking money from different departments. thet do it in a different fashion, bus we're -- they do it in a different fashion, bus we're about 90% there. but where do we go? people wonder why we're so divided? because its so easy to walk on this floor and send the same rate-baiting message that we've seen for a long time. but, hey, if you're a democrat, it's okay. it's not ever okay.

it's not okay to say to our kids, you can't think what you want to think and be who you want to be if you're not in line with one place and the way they think, that's good news, then you are a he a sellout. what message do you send to kids? i'm going to be okay. but what message are we sending to kids? they are our country. you can't be taught just to think. we have to teach you how to think. that's the kind of conclusion that is wrong. it's toxic. it's pushing our country towards an implosion that is avoidable. that's why i started my legislative day today with remembering mother emanuel. it's why i read my bible. i needed a little extra strength. it is why i turned to my interview trying to talk about police reform.

because as a guy who's been stopped 18 times since the 2000's, being stopped in year, being stopped last november, being stopped coming into the senate with my pin on -- sure, i get it. but i don't point fingers at the other side saying that they're just not serious about the issue. this is not what we should do. i assume that everybody should be serious about the issue. but, mr. president, i got to tell you, it's with a heavy heart -- it's with a heavy heart that i believe that had we had more money for body cameras, we'd be in a different position today than we were in 2015, but i didn't have anybody who wanted to have this conversation -- or at least we didn't have this conversation. i believe that there are good people of good intent on the the other side of the aisle. i think there are good people of

good intent on our side of the aisle. i think the fact of the matter is that most americans are tired of republicans and democrats talking about republicans and democrats. i think most americans are tired of us talking about election outcomes and polls. what about me is what they are saying. i'm suggesting that this bill, the justice act, is a serious nationwide effort tackling the issues of police reform, accountability, and transparency. it is grounded in bipartisan principles because i believe the other side has some stuff we have to hear and our side has some stuff they need to hear. and if we do that, we'll have the votes to have a real debate next week on this bill. but if we don't do that, we'll just talk about scoring political points. you'll go on msnbc or cnn and we'll go on fox and we'll continue to have our chatter and

more folks will have less confidence in this nation because we missed a moment. we missed it five years ago. we don't have to miss it now. mr. president, as you know, i'm not really into theatrics. i don't run towards microphones. i've had a lot of them this last seven days. i don't talk a lot in conference because why say what other people are saying? and they probably said it better. i don't demonize the other side because i know in order to get anything done you have to have 60 votes. and plus if you have a grievance with your brother, talk to him. talk to him. i've tried to do that. mr. president, i'm sure i've gone over my time. let me just say that to the

families i sat down with yesterday, they don't think working on body cameras is a token experience. they don't think sitting down with the president of the united states with their tears filling their eyes, running down their cheeks, talking about their lost loved ones is a token experience. the law enforcement officers in that meeting with those families do not believe that having a serious conversation about police reform is a token experience. they don't believe that co-responders for the one man who was in the room whose son was having a mental episode who was shot on the scene, he doesn't think this is a token experience. shame on us. shame on us if we are unwilling to have a serious conversation about a serious issue that in my

opinion is a greater threat to the this nation than perhaps anything we've seen because we've never solved it, because we're all having political points. that's wrong. it's just not right. let me say, mr. president, to all my colleagues, senator lankford, senator capito, sasse, lindsey, barrasso, alexander, thank you. thank you for giving voice to a serious issue.

mr. lankford: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: i'd first like to associate myself 100% with everything senator scott just said. somehow i'm supposed to speak after he just said it. the frustration that i've had over the past couple of days as we've worked very hard on pulling legislation together, we've talked to people all over. i've talked to people all over oklahoma of all backgrounds, talked to members of the

community, i've talked to law enforcement, talked to leadership in law enforcement. we've worked to be able to build a coalition of ideas, things that would pass. answering the question that tim scott started with, could we pull together a piece of legislation that would actually help? not to just pass something so we can walk away, pat each other on the back and say, we passed something, knowing quiet lit it isn't really going to make a difference. is there something we could do that would actually make a difference? over the weeks we have worked to be able to identify what could pass, what could make a difference, what answers the question that everyone is asking. we actually didn't look whether it was republican or democrat idea. we just asked the question, what

would make the difference? because i don't believe equal justice under the law is owned by a party. but it's been fascinating to me the questions that i've had over the past couple of days, as members of the media would quietly pull me aside and would say, hey, are republicans going to be able to pass a bill on race? because quietly they're asking the question, you know, all those republicans are racists. are you going to be able to pull something off? that's really what they're saying in the background. over and over again, i just heard it in the media and seen it out there. you know, those republicans are all racists. i don't think they'll be able to pass anything dealing with race. as this dividing message continues to go out, we've done our work, as we have. because we also believe in equal justice under the law.

and as a friend of mine said to me a couple of weeks ago, we also believe that we should continue to work towards a more perfect union. see, for me it's not only a practical issue. it's not only a family issue. it's not only a friendship issue. it's not only a basic freedom and liberty for every individual issue. it's not just a constitutional issue. for me it's also a biblical issue. you can go back as many pages as you want to in scripture and work your way from beginning to the end, and you're going to find some very consistent themes. from the book of deuteronomy, this statement about how god's affection is for equal weights and measures. and his first challenge to government, when the jews are establishing their first government, god is speaking to them and saying, make sure there's equal weights and measures. it was a simple way of saying, whether you're rich or poor, whether you're a foreigner, whether you're a member, whether you're in or out, everyone is to

be treated the same. equal weights, equal measures. find that passage over and over and over again through the old testament. read it all the way to the book of the revelation at the end. in the look of the revelation at the end, there is this gathering around the throne that's pictured at the very end of the gathering of the kippagedom of god. and as they gather around the throne, it's described as every tribe, every nation, every language, every people all gathered. see, for me, this is a biblical issue. as well as being a personal issue. but for us as a nation, it's a legal issue. and it's where we find inconsistencies of the law we are to correct it. and do what we can to be able to make it right. this bill is designed with a simple statement in mind -- how can we provide accountability,

transparency, and training in law enforcement? so that the good cops shine and those that are bad apples in the mix, the light shines on them. that's all we're asking. and we want to see things change. people in my towns across my state want to see things changed. and want to know that this is not just a vote that's a partisan vote. that it's a vote to actually get something solved. it wasn't that long ago that this body was gathering and voted unanimously on an almost $3 trillion bill dealing with a major problem in america -- covid-19. why don't we get together again, hash out the issues, and unanimously come to some decisions again on a major problem in america -- injustice.

now, we can't pass something that bans racism. i wish we could. we would have all taken that vote. but we can't ban racism. that's passed on through families and through individuals. children aren't born racist. they're raised racist. families have to make a decision of what they're going to do in their family. the national conversation about race doesn't happen in this room. the national conversation on race happens in kitchens and dining rooms. but we can do things about justice. simple things that we've been able to try to gather -- a set of ideas that again aren't partisan. ideas and solutions. they've come from all over the place, some democrats, some republicans. and we've pulled these things together and we're asking a simple question -- will our democratic members take a vote with us next week to move to

this bill, to amend it, debate it, talk about it, have a real dialogue, and then pass something that we think will work? will it look exactly like this? it will probably look a lot like this because there are aspects that look almost identical to this in the democrat house bill right now. will there be additional ideas? probably. why don't we debate it and talk about it. why don't we vote to open it up and discuss it, and why don't we actually try to solve it. there are things like if there's bodily injury or death in police custody, that all that information has got to come into the f.b.i. so we can disseminate and try to get transparency around the country. about 40% of the departments already report that but a lot of them do not. there are a lot of places that do no-knock warrants. we really don't have information about that. we know they're happening all over the country and there's

some conversation about maybe we should keep some of it and what would that look like. but we have no way to track that. why don't we get information in on no-knock warrants? so we can make a decision that's an informed decision and then act on it. why don't we deal with some basic problems that are out there that we've seen several times in some of the worst moments. something happens when law enforcement's not wearing a body camera, and it's one opinion against another opinion. why don't we get more body cameras on the streets and why don't we make sure those body cameras are actually turned on all the time. there's new technology in body cameras that actually automatically turn on when there's a call, so law enforcement doesn't have to worry about i forgot to turn it on. it turns itself on. why don't we incentivize that and to encourage the new body cameras with automatic features to be able to turn it on so

we've always got footage. why don't we hold people to account if there is a false police report that's filed because in several cases of late when the incident was over, a written police report was filed and then later cell cam video came out that was completely different than the original police report. well, that's a false report. why don't we hold the bad apple to account. why don't we end choke holds. most departments already have. why don't we just end it nationwide. why don't we say to departments, if you want to get a federal grant for any law enforcement purpose, you can't get that or you get a reduced amount or you get a big deduction unless your department has already banned choke holds. to basically lay the marker out there and say we expect you to take action on this. why don't we deal with the issues that are before us that

people are asking questions about. and where we lack information, let's go get it. you see, it was several years ago that senator peters on the democrat side and senator cornyn on the republican side put out a proposal to be able to do a commission to be able to study this, these issues and a bunch more, to be able to gather, make recommendations and let's start passing these things on a unified basis. it passed the senate unanimously and died in the house. let's bring that back up. we were trying to do some work here in the senate to be able to head some of this off. let's do that again. and let's see what we can actually do. where we find departments that they're recruiting and their department does not match the ethnicity of their community, why don't we provide grants for that community and that police department to be able to have a black recruiter to recruit more black officers and then to be able to help them through the earliest days of the police

academy financially to make sure that that department matches that community, because one of the great gains of the last 30 years has been community policing, allowing officers to be able to get out of their car, meet the community, to be able to engage so the communities together are policing. why don't we do that? i did a ride-along with an officer several years ago and i'll never forget as we're riding through his community, in his neighborhood where he always patrolled. as we drove through there was an elderly lady as sweet as she could be sitting on her front porch, and as we drove by i said does she sit out there every day, and he laughed and he said yes, she sits out there every day. i said have you ever stopped to meet her? and he hesitated for a long time, and he said, no, i never have. community policing does make a

difference when you get a chance to meet the people in the community, get to know them and you share the responsibility forever. we're actually working together to be able to solve the problems that we face. we're laying down a set of ideas that we feel will make a difference, not just make a message. other people have other ideas, bring them. let's open it up. let's not have heated debate. let's have debate that solves a problem, and so at the end of this we know what we're solving and we solve it, and then we keep going. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. gray -- mr. graham: i'd like to say something about senator scott. i know how hard he's worked on this. this has not been an easy job

for tim. he's a conservative public who happens to be african american and decided to take the lead on something very important to the country. mr. graham: and he has experiences that i don't. he has been stopped multiple times on capitol hill. i've never been stopped. one year he was stopped seven times for lane changes. the point is tim believes and every african american male i've talked to in the last couple of weeks is told early on if you're stopped by the cops watch what you do and keep your hands on the wheel, don't go for the dash because it can end badly. i don't know how that happened, but it's real. and for us not to realize that would be a huge mistake. so let me be on record as saying i understand that if you're an african american male, your experience with the police is different than mine and it's unacceptable, and it needs to stop. how do you stop it?

you bring about change. what kind of change are we looking for? our democratic friends have a list of changes, i think it's justice in policing. the house is marking it up. here's what i would say to my democratic colleagues, stop lecturing me. you had eight years under president obama to do the things in the justice in policing act and 90% of it you never brought up. i'm not saying we're blameless, but there has not been this sense of urgency to deal with these problems institutionally like there is today. why? because mr. floyd. and a few other things all happening together. tim said in 2016 we had our chance. these episodes come and they go. the question for the country is, will anything ever change? the only way it's going to change is to find common ground. so the proposal that senator scott has collected along with

other colleagues has bipartisan support, but if it's not enough, i'm willing to listening regarding doing more. senator sasse was with me yesterday. we had a five-hour hearing, and i learned a lot. i learned that a police department looking like the community is important. senator lankford. but more important is that you live where you police. i asked the gentleman from new jersey, what's more important race or community attachment? he said community attachment. you're less likely to hurt somebody in a community you feel a part of. now having said that, we need more african american police personnel. we need more women. apparently women do the job a lot better than men. i haven't heard one person come forward and say i had a bad experience with a policewoman.

more women would be helpful. but the main thing is we need people from the community being in charge of policing that community with a system that's more accountable. so cory booker and i work together on a lot of things. great guy. tim and cory are good friends. i admire the heck out of tim scott. i'm not going to take any more time. he's one of the most decent people i ever met, and we're lucky in south carolina to have him, and i think the country is lucky. cory said two things in the hearing. there's two issues that have to be addressed or everything else doesn't matter. 24 it 2 and qualified immunity. i wrote men and women down. for those who are not convertant in 242 or qualified immunity, there's nothing wrong with you. this is a very archaic area of the law. qualified immunity is a judicial doctrine that's developed over time that relates to the 1983

civil rights statute that allows people to sue governmental entities for abuse of force, for excessive force. there's nothing in the statute about an objective standard with a reasonably prudent police officer in the same circumstance that acted accordingly. there's nothing about good faith. so justice thomas is a pretty conservative guy. he wanted to revisit qualified immunity. i don't know how he would substantively come out on the issue, but in his dissent, the nine certiorari of the concept, he explained how this judicial concept has exploded beyond every attachment. this is clarence thomas. and if you presented to me qualified immunity in its current form as a legislative proposal, i would vote hell no.

police officers need not worry about losing their house or being sued if they act in good faith in performing duties that are hard on any good day. but when police departments time and time again fail to do the things necessary to instill good policing, i think they should be subject and accountable like any other business. so there's common ground here. not one democrat has suggested to me to make the individual officer civilly liable under 1982, but i've had democrats suggest to me that the standard has become almost absolute immunity. and the president, the presiding officer has run all kind of businesses. being in the policing business is not your normal business. there needs to be a filter when it comes to lawsuits. it can't be about outcome. but it is now time, in my view, to look at the

development of the qualified immunity doctrine as it relates to the 1983 underlying statute and see if we can make it better, not gut it. to my democratic friends, if you want to eliminate qualified immunity, there would be a very short conversation. if you want to reform it so that municipalities and agencies and organizations running police departments will have some protection but not absolute immunity, let's talk. maybe we can get there if it's that important. let's at least try. that's what the legislative process is all about. 242, it allows the federal government to bring charges against an individual for denying another american their constitutional rights. this is about policing but not exclusive to policing. the presiding officer is from georgia, i'm from south carolina. there was a time in the south where juries would nullify all the evidence in front of them

because the victim was a black man and the perpetrator was white. and you could present a mountain of evidence, and you'd get an acquittal in like 15 minutes. so we came up with a concept to allow the federal government to intervene in cases like that and hold somebody liable for violating the constitutional rights of another american under color of law. the standard to prosecute is willful. you've got to prove that the police officer willfully understood the constitutional right and violated it. my friends on the other side want to lower the standard to reckless. and here's what i would say, this is not 1965. mr. floyd is going to be prosecuted. so while it's important to talk about 242, most states where these events have occurred have acted responsibly. we don't need the federal government sitting in judgment of every cop in the country.

what we do need is a system of accountability, and i'll talk to you about 242, but i think that is not the issue. what's the issue is that police departments who are immune from liability when they engage in abusive conduct over and over are unlikely to change until that changes. you can throw all the money you want to it, training and improving best business practices and they'll gladly accept your money. and if they don't do it right, they don't get the money. well, add one thing to the mix. and, oh, by the way, if you shoot a dog and you wind up killing a kid, your police officer should have shot the dog anyway in a fashion to kill the kid right by the dog, you're going to to wind up having your ass in court. that will change things. i've been a lawyer. i know how people feel about

this. if you're exposed in terms of your conduct being subject to a review by a court and a jury, you're all of a sudden going to think differently. now, don't misconstrue what i'm saying. i'm not for abolishing qualified immunity. i think it's grown too much from jew dishly -- judicially created fiat. we need to speak to what we would like to happen to the statute that we created that now has a component to it that never was envisioned when it was originally passed. that's what clarence thomas is telling us as a nation we need to do. to my friends on the other side, it's about equal fade immunity, let's talk. if it's about 24 #, let's talk. if it's about keeping this issue alive, don't waste my time. we've all had plenty of time around here to do better, now

we've got a chance to actually do some good. the only way we're going to do some good is talk and the only way you get a law passed is to engage in debate. and if you don't want to debate the topic, you don't want to have amendments about the topic, that tells me all i need to know about where you're coming from. i yield to my friend from nebraska. mr. sasse: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mr. sasse: thank you, mr. president. i want to start by just say thank you to my friend from south carolina, lindsey graham, the chairman of the judiciary committee just spoke, but i mean my desk mate, the senator from south carolina, senator scott, not only for his hard work as

he's been working around the clock to lead the six-person working group. i want to thank him for his speech 30 minutes ago, for his spirit. that speech a speech that needs to be watched by every american, and i sincerely hope that the 100 people in this room will come together and try to get an outcome, not just maintain a political issue as happens so often around here. i think if people -- if we've had the process was the custom in the senate of a couple of decades ago with the meetings in the morning. if this chamber was full, it would be tough for people to not talk about voting on the motion to proceed and getting on this piece of legislation where we could then debate it and argue about it and fight about technical pieces here and there and figure out how we'd make it

better, but we'd be on a piece of legislation and trying to get an outcome. i sincerely hope that's true. i sincerely hope that people listen to tim scott's speech from today. george floyd's murder obviously shocked the nation, but it shocked us in two ways. it shocked us on one hand because we saw a man being murdered for eight minutes and 46 seconds and saw four other police officers stand by as he was murdered. it also shocked us because it reminded us yet again that america's struggle for equal justice under the law is far, far from over. the american cede is a beautiful thing -- creed is a beautiful thing. the american creed celebrates the inherent self-worth and that so many of our founders believed that people were created in the image of good, and that dignity

is male and female, black and white, every man, woman, and child in this country is created with inherent dignity. they are beautiful and that creed is beautiful. that proposition that all men are created equal should inspire every generation of americans and we aren't doing a very good job right now of passing on the glories of that creed to the next generation. it is a beautiful and profound creed. but throughout our history our failures to live up to that creed have been ugly over and over again and george floyd's murder was horrific for that man and for his family and for everyone in his communities, minneapolis, houston, and other places where that man had made a mark. but it was also horrific because it was yet another reminder of all the ways that we failed to live up to our creed.

the creed is beautiful and our execution so often has been ugly. when communities of color have lost up to faith in law enforcement, we aren't living up to that creed. when someone says he fears being pulled over for driving while black. we need -- tim, one of my closest friends in this body, the experiences he's had with law enforcement in south carolina are different than the ones i had with law enforcement in nebraska. the experiences he had on capitol with law enforcement has been different than the experiences i've had on capitol. and no one should be wearing skin pigment or racial heritage as something that changes our experience of law enforcement and yet it's regularly the case. that is ugly. the creed is beautiful. our attempts to become and to be a more perfect union and to live

up to the glories of that creed, that is an important part of our shared project together. at the risk of sounding too theological. east of eden, sin is always ugly and that includes america's original sin. and that tells us that we have work to do together. we have work to do as 330 million americans, but we have work to do as 100 senators. and what that should mean is that next week we're going to be in this body trying to live up to that creed and to do more. there's a lot of technical stuff inside this building. as tim said, as senator scott said, 70% of what's in this bill is -- the justice act is pretty darn noncontroversial largely because it's lifting and summarizing many of pieces that's also in the house of representatives democrat bill. it puts together -- it seeks to force more accountability as stated on the floor many times

today. when police use lethal force there is a voluntary opportunity for them to report that to the f.b.i. the we want to make that mandatory. we want all of that data to be captured and passed along so there is more transparency on all lethal uses of force. the commonsense reforms include increasing police resources. there's a lot of training that needs to be done better across the country of the there's a lot of practices in local law enforcement. when you look at the 15,000, 16,000, whatever the number is, the local entities that have the capability to have law enforcement authorities, those policing practices, there's a lot of diversity in practice, some of those practices are improving but bad still. tim in our legislation wanted to try to use the federal grant-making powers to squeeze out some of those bad practices. we want to see trust rebuilt between the nation's communities and the police. we reject the false buy ordinary that you have -- binary that you

have to use of being on the side or color or law enforcement. no. we don't want that to be the choice. we want the choice to be law enforcement to get better and communities of color to have more trust. we want to see more collaboration. we want to see more progress, and, frankly, that's what the vast majority of individual police and vast majority of police departments want. the overwhelming majority of americans, republican and democrat, men and women, black and white, the overwhelming majority of americans want us to build more trust, and we can do that in this body next week. we want to strive toward equal protection under the law, that starts with trying to narrow the differences and figuring out what we can do to move forward together, and that's what this bill does. this bill is an architectural frame to do a bunch of things that are pretty darn noncontroversial and to do a bunch of things we can build on in a debate and amendment

process. we should be passing something 100-0. there will be amendment votes underneath that which will be contentious, but we should be ultimately be getting on to a piece of legislation to start the process 100-0, and at the back end we should pass something 100-0, even though in the middle there should be a bunch of amendments where people argue about the best way to do the particulars. there's no reason we shouldn't be moving forward many we can get this done. we can take another step to make america's beautiful creed a reality for every single one of god's children. that's what we should do and we should do it without delay. i yield to my colleague from west virginia. mrs. capito: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mrs. capito: thank you, mr. president. i'm really pleased to be here with my fellow senator from nebraska and the other members of the small team that was

really blessed to be asked to join senator scott as he led us to a -- where we are today, which is introducing the justice act. you know, and i'm thinking about where the great talents lie in the united states senate, and one of the things we all know pretty much all of us do pretty well is talk. we know how to talk. sometimes we talk too much. tim doesn't talk that much. senator scott doesn't talk that much and he even said that about himself, but i can tell you the skill that he has that a lot of us needed more of, and always when i'm asked by skill children what's the best skill to have, and that's the ability to listen. and he has listened for years and years. he's not just lived this, he's listened. and he said just yesterday he was with the family of one of the victims and a very moving day for him. so i'm here today to rise in support with my colleagues for the justice act.

i join the overwhelming majority of americans in west have a -- and west virginians who in sadness and frustration and sorrow when we witnessed the horrifying video of the murder of george floyd by the minneapolis police department. it was absolutely unacceptable. but you know what? the vast majority of our law enforcement officers here and around the country are just like us. they want to have a great and peaceful nation. they want to have great and peaceful communities. they want their families to feel safe in their homes and out in the -- in their streets of their communities just like we do. and a lot of them took their oath as seriously and do their best to protect our communities. so it's not enough to say that the death of george floyd was a terrible, isolated tragedy because we know many of these have preceded this. i said it is almost like picking a balloon, popping a balloon and

all of this unrest underneath an questions and sorrow has been festering. and so here we are today. i think the great majority of us want to -- want to put all of this energy and frustration into action. he we -- we want to have something substantive. we want to tell the american people, we listened, we heard, we feel this and we want to find solutions. we have to recognize that every time that force is used inappropriately by law enforcement, that our justice system has eroded. we have to understand our history where black americans have been too frequently denied their basic rights. and it is our job to make sure that americans, regardless of race, can feel that law enforcement is there to protect them and their families and that they trust that. the trust factor is where the erosion has been most remarkably just in view of all of us, the lack of trust. so it is our job to hear these voices and to act.

it doesn't mean -- in my opinion it doesn't mean defunding the police. it means improving the police and improving the police and improving equal pro protection so everyone has equal protection. and we're all equal in eyes of justice and in the law. so i think that we've seen looting, we've seen officers who have lost their lives, we've seen an underbelly to our country that's been difficult to watch, but what we've seen too is an outcry of the american citizens peacefully protesting what they see as an -- as inequities in their lives. and, you know, when i look in the crowd, and i was right there in washington last week when a crowd of about 150 protesters, i was right there and they walked by me very peaceably, signs and chanting.

most of the people in that group were probably under 30 years old in solidarity, a lot of black faces, a lot of white faces, men and women, people who felt that lack of trust. so we look, you know, how people have exercised their first amendment rights and it's a beautiful thing to see. unfortunately it's been eroded by some of the destructive things that came along with it but we're hearing basically the same things in our states every day. so while we want to know while our declaration of independence is lived up to and the 14th's which guarantee that no government, including state and local government deny constitutional rights, we haven't quite lived up to all of that. a century has passed since -- a century passed before we passed major civil rights legislation in 1964.

one of the great pride of sources is my father was one of the representatives in the house of representatives in 1964 that helped make sure that -- made sure that passed. ii have a pen that was used signing that in my office and a picture of my dad at the white house when it was signed. so our job is not done. when i hear the voices of mothers who say that they are fearful that their son might not survive a simple traffic stop or they have to have certain behaviors. as senator sasse said that is so different than what he learned growing up as a young man, how to interact with police officers in that situation. you know, we can't have those anguished cries and that double system anymore, and that's what this bill is about. i am proud to be with senator scott in introducing the justice act. it's been interesting to watch him and all of us really listen to the different segments of our society that have talked to us.

our friends, our neighbors, the police, members of the communities of color, our religious communities, our news commentators. i did like six interviews today on the tv about this, and every single one of them asked me one fundamental question, and i wish that somehow my friend on the other side of the aisle would be here. you don't have a very good history in this body of having republicans and democrats joining together to get something done. how do you think you can do this now? well, i said well, today we did. we did the great american outdoors act several months ago. we did the cares act. so we can do it. where there is a will we can do it. and if we don't do it, we're failing so many people. we're failing ourselves. we're failing our country, our communities. we're failing our law enforcement communities. and so i would say that we need to finish -- not finish but

begin this job of a difficult conversation and make sure that we get this bill onto the senate floor, debate it in front of the general public. you know, when we start debating things on the senate floor in front of the general public, do you know what happens? the same thing that happened during the impeachment trial. i know all of us were getting all kinds of input from people all around because people are watching it. they are seeing what's actually going on. that's what we need. so if we want to have discussions on qualified immunity, if we want to ban choke holds, which i want to do and our bill does essentially but more definitively, yes, i'm all for that. let's have the discussion. let's talk about it in front of the american people. so i -- i believe that law enforcement has a lot of great people that work in and around law enforcement, but they need the equipment, they need the cameras. they need to have the real-time evidence and the real-time

evidence of wrongdoing and evidence of doing it right. it's a protective device. we should have everybody have the availability of that in law enforcement. we also require that law enforcement agencies retain disciplinary records on officers and make sure that they check an officer's record from other agencies before making a hiring decision. i kind of thought that was going on anyway, i sort of did, but we need to make sure and make clear that that's what we absolutely want to do. the bill incentivizes state and local police agencies to ban the choke holds. as i mentioned earlier, i'm for even more definitive language on that. it also provides much training in all kinds of areas of de-escalation or if an officer is in a situation where another officer is using overwhelming force improperly, that that officer is trained on how to interdict that situation. we saw that happen in

minneapolis. sadly, the officers did not. but maybe they didn't know exactly how to do it, when to do it, what form it should take. let's explore that. so to keep our community safe, we need our police officers, but we need trust in our law enforcement. there should be no conflict between a pro-civil rights bill and a pro-law enforcement bill. they should be able to be joined together. so this supports our police officers while bringing about positive change that will guarantee equal protection to all of our citizens. the police reform bill will make a real difference in advancing our constitutional ideals and in making our communities safer. so i'm proud to stand with senator scott, but i want to stand with the entire body to talk about the ways to make this bill even better, to take the 70% of this bill that we have shared ideals on and shared

ideas, and put those into action and to not dither here, to not score political points, to say to the american people these are tough decisions and we're going to have it. we're going to have it where you can see it, right here on the floor of the united states senate. so thank you very much. i'm proud to be with my colleagues, and with that, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum. we're hot in a quorum call? okay, thank you mr. president. mr. president, we're in the middle of a pandemic. the president of the united states doesn't act like it, but americans are still dying by the hundreds, several hundred, almost every day. we're in the middle of an economic crisis. again, the president of the united states doesn't act like it the. he crows about the unemployment numbers when they're the worst since "u.s. news & world report" ii. -- since world war ii. and millions of americans have taken to the streets to protest the murders of black and brown americans by the people supposed to protect them.

when all these challenges -- on all these challenges, the president of the united states is failing. the senate should be stepping in right now to fill that leadership void, to get more help to families and to communities that are going bankrupt, to protect workers, to use every tool we have to force the administration to get some kind of test, trace, isolate regime in place to truly stop the preyed of the coronavirus. -- the spread of the coronavirus. we should be listening to the protesters demanding justice in under the moos all across the country large and small. they remind us this pandemic isn't a separate issue from racial justice. it is all connect. it is not a coincidence that president trump stopped even pretending to even try to fight the coronavirus once he realized it was disproportionately black and brown americans, not one of his rich friends. we have plans to fund a scaleup

of testing that gets us closer to the need. we have a plan to stem the system racism in our justice system. the last time i was on the -- the last time i was on an airplane was in mid-march. i live close enough, a six-hour drive between cleveland and washington. in mid-march there were about 90 coronavirus cases diagnosed across the united states, halfway around the world from where the presiding officer likes to emphasize it came from, wuhan. in south korea, around that same time, there were 90 cases. so south korea had 90 diagnosed cases, the united states had about 90 diagnosed cases. since that date in march, fewer than 300 koreans have died of

the coronavirus. over 100,000 americans have died of the coronavirus. that's clearly the incompetence -- this is not a partisan statement. i've watched my republican governor of ohio who is he's done a good job teamed up with dr. amy actin, the health director in the about aing this virus early, while the president of the united states was still blaming the virus -- or saying it was a hoax or not real or whatever he said. and then his inept leadership, didn't scale up testing, didn't have any national program to provide protective equipment to our people. so, mr. president, we've seen the bungled leadership out of the white house, 110,000 americans passed away, an unemployment rate higher than any time in my lifetime.

but we're not doing anything about that here in this body. why? because leader mcconnell doesn't want to do anything about it, for whatever reason. instead of rising to meet the crisis of the pandemic or unemployment or the protests 0en our streets, senator mcconnell wants to create a new crisis by confirming more extreme judges that are trying to take away america's health care. the challenges we're facing as a country are bad enough. imagine if leader mcconnell and president trump get their way, their handpicked judges through tens of millions of americans off of health care during the pandemic. that sounds far-fetched. well, no, it isn't. this president tries to overturn the american medical association. it still stands but the president is trying to take away

american's health care. they're trying to sneak a.c.a. repeal through the courts since they couldn't do it in congress. while the rest of the country is distracted, judges are deciding the fate of their health coverage right now. judge walker has served in the western district of kentucky for just six months. what makes him qualified for the d.c. circuit? it is not the six months he served in kentucky. in fact the bar association in kentucky said he wasn't qualified for that job. he's only had it for six months. what makes him qualified? just go down the hall. ii'm sure you couldn't seen many times judge walker when he was grandson of contributor walker going in and out of mcconnell's office. he thinks the weymouth thinks. he acts the way mcconnell

acts. that's what it's all about. before his nomination to the court, he praised -- so it isn't just that judge walk certificate a young, unqualified extremist far-right promote jay of the majority leader. it is not just that. talk about clearing -- about the swamp. that's what that is. but what it's all about is putting another vote in a key place to overturn the affordable care act. he's called upholding the a.c.a. indefensible and catastrophic. i don't know how in the middle of a pandemic you look at the american landscape, you see how many americans have been sick -- millions have been sick -- 110,000 americans are died, hundreds more every day, and you think one of the most important things you can do is strip millions of americans of their health care? he's continued his attack on health care protections since he joined the federal berm. in march 2020 at his formal

swearing-in ceremony as district judge, he said the worst words he heard while clerking for justice kennedy on supreme court were the chief justice justice rationale for upholding the alaska's. the worst words he heard from the man for whom he was working were his words to uphold the a.c.a. the affordable care act. what i forgot to mention was when judge walker said that at his swearing-in ceremony, there were a couple of important visitors there. although the senate should have been in session and finished order work on the -- the first round of the coronavirus, senator mcconnell -- his office is down the hall, as we know -- senator mcconnell decided to adjourn the senate and go back to kentucky for this swearing in. judge kavanaugh, another protege, if you will, was there, too. senator mcconnell son the ballot this year. senator mcconnell faces an

opponent who's running neck and neck with him. it is a very republican state but senator mcconnell is not a particularly well-liked figure in his state, as we've seen through many years. so senator mcconnell didn't do his job here, stopped -- it's not just he didn't do his job. he stopped us from doing our jobs so he could fly back, be with supreme court justice kavanaugh to remind the voters in kentucky that's he's the strongman that got judge kavanaugh on the supreme court. and then to celebrate the swearing-in of just another young judge on a federal district court. that's where senator mcconnell's priorities are. we know judge walker is the latest in a long line of judges pushed by president trump, rammed through by leader mcconnell, as his minions, shills, obedient junior senators or sheep -- you choose the noun for your colleagues,

mr. president -- all vote yes so you can put another member on another federal court who's trying to take away americans' health care. chad reidler now serving in the sixth circuit led the trump administration's efforts to dismantle the entire affordable care act. david porter who holds a pennsylvania seat on the third circuit wrote the a.c.a., violates the framers' constitutional design. imagine a lawyer, what kind of law training do you have, what kind of upbringing you have, what kind of way that you think that you think providing health care to citizens, us think that providing health care to citizens is a violation of the framers' constitutional design? who thinks that way? and on and on it goes. the american people want to keep their health care. they made that clear. he especially want to keep that health care in the middle of, for gosh sakes, a pandemic. leader mcconnell needs to stop trying to take it away through the courts, start letting it actually get to work to make people healthier. let's get to work to save lives

from coronavirus. let's get to work to save lives from police violence. let's get to work to save lives from the inequities in our health care system. let's get to work to put money in people's pockets, help them pay the bills and stay in their homes, help state and local governments from laying off thousands and thousands of workers. leader mcconnell, let us do our job, the job for which we were elected. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. hawley: mr. president, i'm here today to talk about the death of democracy and i'm here today to talk about how we can stand with those who are fighting to preserve it. in the united states, the death of democracy might seem like a distant and unfamiliar thing. we study examples in the history books. we read of nations and peoples that are forced through no choice of their own to surrender their basic liberties. we remind ourselves of the need always to stay vigilant, to stay aware. but today we are seeing the death of democracy unfold in real time right before our eyes in the city of hong kong, a

diverse and global city rich in culture and arts and people. hong kong is an out post of liberty. for decades it has stood as a haven for liberty, a beacon, a light, but that light is fast dimming, nearly overcome by darkness and by tyranny. mr. president, this body, along with all free peoples, has a special responsibility to take a stand for the freedom-loving people of hong kong. we must take a stand to ensure that the light of hong kong does not go out forever. we make take a stand to ensure that this outpost of liberty lives on. we must take a stand so that the flame of freedom is not extinguished forever by the chinese communist party. mr. president, on may 28, beijing announced that they

would adopt legislation that will essentially jettison the basic law under which hong kong has been governed for decades, legislation that will champion pell upon beijing's -- that trae upon beijing's commitments. they call it legislation but it is fiat, fiat by the chinese communist party in beijing that will strip hong kong of its basic liberties, strip hong kongers of the right to freedom of speech, strip hong kongers of the rights to peacefully assemble, their right to redress in fair and open courts with some process of law. beijing wants to deny the people of hong kong all of these things because liberties is a threat to the authoritarian communist regime in beijing. they fear that more than anything else. they fear the people. they fear the will of the people. they fear the liberty of the

people, and they're trying to destroy the last outpost of liberty in their nation, the city of hong kong. we were told, mr. president, that it would not come to this. we were told when china joined the world trade organization, when china was given permanent normal trade relations, when it was ushered into the liberty of nations, that would liberalize china, that would make the chinese communist party more moderate. i think we know how that's turned out. after decades now of stealing our jobs, decades of ripping us off in trade, decades of impoverishing our own workers here in this country while stealing our intellectual property, decades of building their military on the backs of our middle class and our working people, now beijing wants to dominate their region, snuff out hong kong and then turn to the rest of the world. and, mr. president, we have got to send a clear message that

we will not stand idly by. we will not allow beijing to erase the history of their misdeeds. we will not allow them to erase the history of tiananmen, not allow them to erase the history of the concentration camps they are running at this very moment. and we will not stand by while they destroy the liberties and the rights of the people of hong kong. it is time now for this body to stand and to send a clear message that will call the other free nations to stand in support of the values we hold dear, in support of all that this country stands for, in support of the liberty of the people of hong kong. and now i'd like to yield, if i could, to my colleague, senator blackburn, the senator from tennessee. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. president. and i thank the senator from missouri for the work that he is doing as he brings forward this resolution for hong kong.

i want to take just a couple of minutes to remind those of us who have been watching this issue and have concerns about this resolution, that the aggression that we are seeing now is something that is not something that is new. this is newly realized. as those of us who have followed this and followed the dealings of the chinese communist party know, the newest so-called national security law is nothing more than the party's response to the threat that uprisings and protests in hong kong pose to their hold on power. they just can't stand it. they watch the freedom fighters in hong kong and they think what if it gets away from us. hong kong is our financial center.

and they're watching what's happening in the rest of the free world. australia, canada, the u.k. all signed the official joint statement with us, the united states of america, expressing deep concern on this so-called national security legislation which really is the communist party's way to step in to hong kong and usurp the power to go back on a deal that they made long ago. beijing claims that they need this law to control against, and i'm quoting, subversion of state power. but again, anyone who has been paying attention knows that they will use this standard as an excuse torep -- redefine subversion.

engage in violent oppression of speech, association, and movement with no cause and without mercy. this is how they have kept control. it's a pattern, and there is no reason to believe that they're going to do anything differently this time around. over the past year we have seen how willing chinese officials are to trample every international norm, every law, every principle of diplomacy to force their hand on their own people and on other countries. and now against all odds, forces in beijing have found a way to make life in hong kong more dangerous than it has been by delegitimizing peaceful and nonviolent protests and journalism that doesn't mirror party propaganda, they have seized even more hope away from

the freedom fighters who have captured the world's attention in their stunning displays of defiance. it's really quite a battle that is taking place, and i thank my colleagues for the good work that they have done to stand against the chinese communist party's aggression. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. hawley: mr. president, i thank the senator from tennessee for her tremendous work on this issue. i thank her for her leadership and for her strong stance in favor of the people of hong kong and their basic liberties guaranteed to them by the international treaty commitments that beijing has ascribed to, that beijing has signed up for, and that they now seek to violate with impunity. because let's be clear about what beijing wants. they say that hong kong is their plaything to do with as they choose. that's not the case. beijing has undertaken internationally binding commitments, agreements by which they agree to protect and

honor the basic liberties of the people of hong kong. and it is those commitments that they are seeking to violate with impunity today. it is those commitments they are seeking to wriggle out of just as they have time and time again violated their agreements with this country, just as they have time and time again cheated on their obligations to americans. and that is another reason why, mr. president, i'm calling today on the senate to pass a resolution that makes it our position that china has gone too far. we must go on record and tell the world that a new national security law, this new national security law, this fiat issued by beijing is a violation of what beijing has committed to. it is a violation of the fundamental liberties of the people of hong kong, and nothing less than freedom is at stake. my resolution also calls on this administration to use every diplomatic means available to

stay beijing's hand. the president has already begun the process of down grading hong kong's special trade status. we must build on that effort now by rallying nations, the free nations of the world, to pressure china, to pressure china to back down from their attempt to strip away the basic liberties of the people of hong kong. because in the end, hong kong's struggle is the struggle of all free people. i said when i had a chance to visit the city and be out on the streets last fall, that sometimes the fate of one city defines the struggle of a generation. in the 1960's that city was berlin. today that city is hong kong, and it is time for this body to take a stand. madam president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. hawley: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. a senator: i ask further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hawley: i ask unanimous consent that the foreign relations committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now proceed to s. res. 596. i further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. van hollen: reserving the right to object. and i listened carefully to the statements made by the senator

from missouri about the aggressive and unacceptable conduct of the government of china toward hong kong. and he is absolutely right, i believe, that it's important that the united states senate, in fact, that the united states government take action strongly expressing our disapproval but also take action to actually show the government of china that there will be a price to pay if they continue down that path of aggression and try to snuff out the freedoms of the people of hong kong which is why immediately after the government of china announced its intentions to move in that direction, we introduced a bipartisan bill. senator toomey introduced the bill. i'm proud to join him as a cosponsor. we have other democratic and

republican cosponsors in the bill. i'm pleased to see the senator from north dakota on the floor. he's a cosponsor of that bill. it's called the hong kong autonomy act. and in addition to expressing the sentiments that the senator from missouri lays out in his senate resolution, it proposes that we take action as a government of the united states, and while we have heard statements from secretary pompeo, the reality is that this administration has not exercised any of its existing sanctions authority that it could take to express our strong disapproval of the actions the government of china is proposing to take with respect to hong kong, which is why we introduced a bipartisan bill again outlining all the

transgressions that the senator from missouri talked about, but actually doing something about them, by requiring that the administration impose sanctions on individuals in the government of china who are undermining the rights of people in common and requiring them to impose sanctions on chinese government entities that are depriving the people of hong kong of the freedoms the senator talked about. and it goes beyond that. it says that any bank that's aiding and abetting the government of china in snuffing out the rights of the people of hong kong can be subject to sanctions. now, i know the senator from missouri knows the government of china well enough to understand that the senate passing a resolution and leaving it at

that is not going to change their conduct. i think the senator is enough of a student of the chinese communist government to recognize that. and so that's exactly why we introduced this bipartisan legislation, because if we want to have any chance of influencing the conduct of the government of china, we have to make it clear there will be a price to pay. there is no price to be paid in the senate passing a resolution. it's a nice statement. i support the statement. but i'm also a little tired of this body passing a lot of resolutions sometimes thinking we have actually done something when we haven't changed a thing. so that's why i'm here on the senate floor, to ask my

colleagues to support what is a bipartisan bill that actually has some teeth in it. it's not just a statement from the senate. it's an action that would be taken by the senate and the house and hopefully by this administration which apparently doesn't want to take action. we have heard them already express concerns about this legislation. so i would hope that if our colleagues on the republican side feel as strongly as the senator from missouri does, they would want to back up those words with legislative action. they would want to back up those

words with something that is more meaningful, something that tells the government of china that we stand together in making sure that there is a price to pay. i know the senator from missouri has worked on other bills making it clear that we do not find acceptable all sorts of conduct by china. i have as well, bipartisan bills. i hope we can join together right here, right now to support the expression, the statement that the senator from missouri has brought to us but go beyond that and send a signal right now that we, the united states senate, want to be joined by the house and by the administration in putting action behind those words, and that's exactly what the bipartisan hong kong autonomy act does.

and so i would respectfully request the senator from missouri that he modify his request to ask that in addition to what he proposed, that the banking committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 3798, a bill to impose sanctions with respect to foreign persons involved in the erosion of certain obligations of china with respect to hong kong, that the senate proceed to its immediate consideration, the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: does the senator from missouri so modify his request? mr. hawley: i do. the presiding officer: is there objection to the request as modified?

the senator from north dakota. mr. cramer: madam president, reserving the right to object, it is clear to the five or six of us senators that are in the room right now that there is passion, that it is an important issue, that there may even be unanimous consent in the hearts and the minds certainly of the senators with regard to both the spirit of the resolution and perhaps the letter of the bill, of which i am a cosponsor that has been introduced for a u.c. by the senator from maryland. i think it's clear we all have the same objective here. but i also know that there are just a handful of us in the room talking about a very important issue that maybe seems simple but we know is very complicated. we know that the administration has provided some both technical and policy views on the -- on the bill, and i think with such

an important issue that so many of us care so deeply about, it deserves a little more discussion and debate than to just come to the floor with a u.c. so i'm committed, as a member of the banking committee and a cosponsor, to working with both committees and with the chairs of both committees of jurisdiction over the resolution and the bill to make sure we get it right as opposed to this u.c. so i want to work hard. i know you all do. i think we should to work at -- looking at the comments from the administration, working together as republicans and democrats who care about this country, care about the people of hong kong, are concerned about the behavior of china. and so i object to adoption of this bill before we have a chance to do exactly that. the presiding officer: objection is heard.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. smith: it's been a little over three weeks since my constituent, george floyd, was murdered by the minneapolis police. for over three weeks, millions of people have marched in the streets raising their voices in anguish to protest the police brutality and systemic racism that killed george floyd and breonna taylor, ahmaud arbery, and so many others, but the killing hasn't stopped. just last friday, police in atlanta killed rayshard brooks, shooting him twice in the back. now, just moments ago, it was mandatory that this officer will be charged, but the killing will not stop until we take action. madam president, the senate needs to act now to take up and pass the justice in policing act. i join my colleagues, senators

booker and harris, in introducing this bill last week, and i'm grateful for their strong leadership towards creating a more fair and equitable justice system. you know, the scale of the injustice can feel overwhelming, and the path can seem very long, but passing the justice in policing act would provide concrete steps on that path. it is a necessary step toward stopping the killing and advancing our work to make transformative changes that we need to fulfill the promise of freedom and equality in america. the justice in policing act would make some of the changes that we urgently need to stop the scourge of police violence against communities of color. this legislation would prohibit some of the most dangerous police practices. it would strictly limit the use of force, and it would begin holding law enforcement accountable in a system that was designed to shield them from accountability. first, the bill prohibits the most dangerous police practices.

it would ban the use of choke holds like the ones that police used to kill george floyd and aircraft garner. it would -- and eric garner. it would also ban no-knock warrants like the one police used when they killed breonna taylor in her own bed. choke holds pose an unacceptable risk, and that risk is not borne equally. black men are more than three times more likely to be killed by police use of force than white men. the use of no-knock warrants also disproportionately harms communities of color. the practice was popularized in the 1990's as a tool in the war on drugs so that officers pursuing drug charges could enter a person's home unannounced with guns drawn, inherently and unnecessarily endangering their lives. communities and activists have been warning us about the inherent danger and injustice of choke holds and no-knock warrants for decades. it is long past time to end the debate and to ban these

practices nationally. but experience has shown us that it is not enough to ban egregious practices. when los angeles banned choke holds in 1982, officers took up batons to beat and subdue civilians. in 1991, the officers who beat rodney king actually argued that their actions were necessary because they weren't permitted to use a choke hold, and those officers were never held fully accountable. american policing resists reform and accountability, so it is not enough for us to ban the most dangerous practices. we need to set a national standard for police use of force, and that is what the justice in policing act does. so today, the current standard in law asks only if an officer's use of force was reasonable, and this makes it nearly impossible to hold officers accountable because the system, a system

designed to protect officers, not black and brown bodies, has built up decades of precedent, excusing officers from the harm that they cause. so if we are serious when we say that black lives matter, if we are serious about our commitment to equal justice, we need to hold police officers to a higher standard of care in their use of force. that's why the justice in policing act would set a national use of force standard that asks whether the force was necessary and holds officers accountable for exhausting other options before resorting to violence. third, the justice in policing act would eliminate qualified immunity for law enforcement officers and reset the impossibly high standard for convicting law enforcement officers of crime. so today our system effectively puts cops above the law by insulating them from civil and criminal liability when they violate the rights of those that they are sworn to serve. no one should be shielded from accountability for their actions

in a free society. when we change these rules, we will finally be able to provide long-denied justice for victims of police brutality, their families, and their communities, but we will also be able to prevent such brutality in the first place. when law enforcement officers believe that they will never face consequences for the -- for crossing the line, they will continue to ignore that line. the justice in policing act will begin to make this change. madam president, the house is poised to pass the justice in policing act next week, and i urge this senate to take it up. let's debate it, and let's pass it. so we are at a crossroad, and we cannot fail to act. 400 years of structural racism cannot be erased by a single piece of legislation or with a single generation of legislators. but passing this bill is a crucial step towards ending the killing and the violence against communities of color.

it is a necessary step on the path towards racial justice. now, the path towards justice leads us towards transformative changes to redefining the role of policing in america. reimagining policing means recognizing that not every social ill and emergency can dealt with by calling why the armed officers. dealing with the hurt of mental illness, of substance abuse, of homelessness, of economic insecurity. reimagining policing means does arming police with weapons make it safer and encourage officers to see the communities that they serve as hostile enemies. reimagining policing means addressing the over-policing of communities of color. it means that we ask questions about whether anyone is really

safer when we surveil neighborhood searching with possible violations. it only feeds the system of mass incarceration. reimagining policing republicans that we reassess our criminal code, justice system and sentencing laws that irrevocably affect communities. above all, reimagining policing means recognizing that our current system is not inevitable. it is the result of thousands and thousands of policy choices made over literally hundreds of years, designed to control and punish black and brown and i dith us in communities. communities which compound injustice. as we imagine a new way forward, we need to face some uncomfortable truths about the history of policing in our country. and we can and we must make different choices this time. we know better, and we have to

do better. i want to close by thanking the community leaders and young activists who are showing us the path forward. this path requires us to be courageous. it requires us to be humbling. it requires us to be uncomfortable. it requires us to listen. but it is a path rooted in love and in trust and in hope. and i'm committed to walking this path with my constituents, and i'm hopeful that my colleagues and my american fellow citizens will join me. thank you, madam president. mr. alexander: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: thank you, madam president. mr. president, it's harded to -- madam president, it's hard to think of much good that's come out of the three-month experience with covid-19. but here's one thing -- the number of patients who have seen

their doctors remotely through the internet, facebook, all of the other remote technologies we have, including the telephone, we call that telehealth. our health committee this morning had a fascinating hearing on telehealth. there was a lot of bipartisan interest from the senators, democratic and republican senators. the senator from minnesota was the ranking member of the committee today at the request of senator murray. and my sense at the end of the hearing it is what there are a number of things that we agreed on. i ask unanimous consent that my opening statement at the hearing this morning be included in the record following my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: my colleague, the senator from tennessee, who is presiding today, and i both know tim adams, who is the c.e.o. of the st. thomas hospital system in middle tennessee. he told me on the phone last week that st. thomas employs about 800 physicians in its

several hospitals. during the month of february, there were 60,000 visits between physicians and patients in the st. thomas system. only 50 of those 60,000 were by telehealth, were remote. but during the two months of march and april, st. thomas conducted more than 30,000 telehealth visits. that's 50 to 30,000. more than 45% of all the visits between patients and doctors during that time. tim adams expects that to level off, but still probably there will be 15% to 20% of all of st. thomas' 60,000 visits a month by telehealth. i talked to the c.e.o. of the largest hospital in san francisco a few weeks ago and he said that during february, about

5% of their visits between doctors and patients were tellly health. he said that was a very high percentage for a o -- for a hospital. but in march it was more than half, more than 50%. think about that just a moment. there are 884 million visits last year between doctors and patients. according to the centers for disease control. if 15% to 20% to 25% of those were suddenly by tellly health instead of -- telehealth instead of in-house visited, that would be hundreds of millions of visits per year would be by telehealth. it is hard for me to imagine that there has been a bigger change in the delivery of health care services in recent history or maybe or country's history than at sudden shift to telehealth in visits between patiented and doctors.

now, telehealth has been around for a long time. our witnesses testified to that. we had some excellent witnesses -- dr. ruban from the university of virginia, dr. kavidar from harvard, who is the new president of the american telemedicine association, dr. aroiya, the director of project across the country, and the chief medical officer of blue cross blue shield of tennessee, which apparent lay is the first major insurance company to say that it will insure telehealth vives in the same way -- visits in the same way it insures other visits. what i recommended following the hearing was that two of the policy changes which i judge to be the two most important changes in policy that the

federal government made, be made permanent. the first is that physicians can be reimbursed for telehealth appointments wherever the patient is, including the patient's home. that would change the originating site rule, as it is called. and the second is that medicare during covid-19 has begun to reimburse providers for nearly twice as many types of telehealth services. that rule -- those changes, i believe, also should be made permanent. what has happened is that we've had an incredible pilot program on telehealth. we've crammed ten years of experience into three months. we have a rare opportunity to look at the three months of experience and make a decision about what works, what doesn't work, and write the rules of the road for the future. it's not just the federal

government changing, i think, a total of 31 different policies, all of which we should examine. states made some changes, too. and those changes involve allowing individuals to cross state lines more easily to get appointments with doctors with whom they need to talk. and then the private sector is beginning to change, too. i don't know of other insurance companies that have done what tennessee blue cross blue shield did, but i know there will be some who will decide on their own to begin to move to cover those services. senator braun, senator cassidy on our committee brought up the point that we want to watch carefully to see that we're not just adding to the cost of health care by telehealth. in fact, we ought to the have an opportunity to reduce it. our goal is always when delivering health care services, is to have as an objective a better outcome, a lower cost, and a better patient experience.

but it may very well be possible that telehealth not only improves the patient experience -- we've had very few complaints about the convenience of that -- and improve the outcomes, but it may also lower cost, which is a major objective of our committee. last week i -- ten days ago i issued a white paper about the changes that i thought we needed to make -- congresses needs to make so that we can be well-prepared for the next pandemic after covid-19, the one we know will surely come. we don't know when, we don't know what the name of the virus will be, but we know it will come. and we need to take a number of steps to be as well-prepared for that virus as we can. whether it's accelerating treatments in testing and finding a vaccine or collecting data in a different way or better coordination of federal

officials, all of those things are part of what we need to examine, and we need to do that this year. this year. because our attention spans are short in this country. we move on quickly to the next crisis. and while covid-19 is fresh on our minds, we should do whatever we need to do to get ready for the next crisis, we should do those things this year. among those things we need to do this year is to make permanent the changes in federal policy on telehealth that allow this explosion of doctor and patient meetings by remote visits. people have been trying to think of ways to do this for a long time. unfortunately, it took a pandemic to cause it to happen. now while we can see the result, make sure we don't have unintended consequences that are

unfortunate, while we're doing that, we need to make those changes. so i recommend to my colleagues the testimony from our excellent witnesses this morning. 884 million doctor-patient visits last year in the united states. very few of them by telehealth. in the future, the estimates are there could be as many as 20%, 25%, 30% of all of them. hundreds of millions of doctor-patient visits by telehealth that most likely is the largest change in the delivery of medical services that our country has ever seen. i thank the president, and i yield the floor. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: i rise today -- the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call.

mr. scott: say again? i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. scott: thank you. madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: i rise today to encourage all americans to join the fight to support our nation and our jobs and stand up against the growing threat of communitiist china k i have been saying it for months, but the best way each and every one of us can make a difference is to buy american products whenever possible. it's time we addressed the new cold war occurring between the united states and the chinese communist party and be crystal clear about the negative impacts of continuing to buy chinese-made products. communist china is stealing american jobs and technology and spying on our citizens. data collected by chinese companies is shared with the

communist government of china, which is focused solely on global domination. xi, the general secretary of the chinese communist party, is a dictator and human rights violator, who is tenning basic rights of the people of -- who is denying basic rights of the people of hong kong, cracking down on dissidents and imprisoning more than one million uighurs in internment camps because of their religion. the pandemic should be the last straw. we can no longer rely on other countries like communist china for a critical supply chain. washington politicians have been too concerned with short-term political success and have long ignored the long-term threats to our way of life. but anymore it's time for action. now more than ever, americans must remember that every time we buy a product made in china, we're putting another dollar into the pocket of the people

stealing our technology and propping up dictators like maduro in venezuela. i am proud to lead on a resolution calling on americans to buy products made in the u.s. whenever possible. buying american is not partisan. and i'm glad my colleagues from both sides of the aisle are coming together to encourage americans to take a stand. i know it's not always easy, but it's an important step we can all take at home to support american jobs, american producers, and american manufacturers and help build up the u.s. supply chain. i'm also working with senator baldwin to pass our cool online act which will make sure that all goods sold online list their country of origin to create even more transparency for american consumers. in my state, we take immense pride in products made in florida. it's a driving force that led to our incredible economic turnaround. a return to this pride in

homegrown businesses and productsencessures that america remains strong as the undisputed leader of the growing economy. we must all do our part to support our nation and make it clear to china that the united states won't stand for their behavior. i am committed to supporting american businesses over chinese products. i hope my colleagues will join me. thank you.

mrs. blackburn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mrs. blackburn: i'm confirming we're not in a quorum call. the presiding officer: correct. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. president. for more than 200 years, the american people have exercised their right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. we understand how very vitally important it is for each of us to have that right to petition our government to have our say. but just as we learned from our moms and dads when we were kids, there is a right way and there is a wrong way to get things done when we feel that in our

opinion the government has fallen short. mr. president, i would understand if this differentiation between right and wrong sometimes causes confusion because although the american people are united in their desire for justice and equality, that sense of unit, they feel, is under attack. over the past few weeks we've watched thousands of protesters peacefully march in the memory of george floyd and countless other black americans that have been killed have lost their lives at the hands of law enforcement. now, sometimes these -- protests are vigils and they very quiet. there are other times they fill the streets and they are a bit disruptive and they demand

accountability from their government in a way that has really captured the attention of the entire world. on the other side, however, we have watched professional agitators who have come in to some of these protests and then they vr turned -- and then they have turned this in riots. and the self-prescribed culture warriors silence anyone and everything that deviates from their own chosen narrative. and that is very unfortunate. the path we take to achieve our desired outcomes are informed by the goals that we have, not the other way around. this is why we must question the goals of those whose activism has taken a repressive turn

because peaceful protests is an essential element of addressing government. that is how you achieve change. that is how you get people with you and working with you, and it's a part of who we are, this absolute protection against suppression in any form. this makes the recent dismantling of meaningful public discourse all the more disturbing because as you look back through our nation's history, you realize freedom and freedom's cause has been well served by robust, respectful bipartisan debate. robust, respectful bipartisan debate. hearing all voices.

now, mr. president, you remember how sometimes we would joke about the cancel culture because it was the product of social media influencers and overenthusiastic fan clubs. but what we have seen now that has taken hold of the entertainment industry, corporations and editorial boards. partisan lines dominates every news cycle all in an intentional and targeted effort to divide the american people and thereby what would that do? it destroys our cultural identity. if this isn't what chilling speech looks like, then i don't know what does. i'd like to be able to say this body stands united against this

wave of malice or i'm confident we demonstrated a commitment to real reform, but i fear we have not yet arrive at that place. in spite of everything -- in spite of it being clear that those who seek to divide and destroy this country are working just as hard as those who seek to unite it, other priorities remain in play. and this has become especially evident today. last week my friend and colleague, senator tim scott from south carolina, announced that he was leading a working group with the goal of drafting a comprehensive police reform bill. you all know what happened next. he spoke about it just a few hours ago but i think it's important to get on the record just one more time today, he

deserves our thanks and he deserves credit. before senator scott had a chance to write a single word of his bill, some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle were ready to shut it down. it was stunning. let me read you a few of these statements. and i am quoting. someone said, i suspect it's all going to be window dressing. another, it's so far from being relevant to the crisis at hand. another, this is not a time for lowest common denominator, watered down reforms. and then another unfortunate comment for which an apology was offered later today and the apology was accepted. all of this is disappointing, hurtful, yes, disappointing

because this is a time when we have to carry on. we have to move forward. senator scott announced the introduction of the justice act. i'm honored to be a cosponsor of that legislation and i think it is imperative that we move forward with our discussions and our deliberations just as we would with any other bill. this chamber is going to find a way to move forward with suggestions but above all i urge my colleagues to consider some of the words that have been said. i urge them to take those words to heart and i urge them to remember what we are fighting for -- what we are fighting for and to stop focusing so hard on who you've convinced yourself that you should be fighting

against. i yield the floor. mrs. blackburn: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. a senator: mr. president, as everybody -- the presiding officer: we are in a quorum call. mr. sanders: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sanders: mr. president, as everybody knows, this country faces an extraordinary set of crises, a crises that are unprecedented in the modern history of our country. over the last several weeks hundreds of thousands of americans have taken to the streets and courageously demanded an end to police murder and brutality and to urge us all

to think the nature of policing in america. in the midst of all that, we continue, of course, to suffer from the covid-19 pandemic which has taken the lives of over 115,000 americans and infected over two million of our people. and then on top of that, we are experiencing the worst economic meltdown since the great depression of the 1930's, with over 32 million americans having lost their jobs in the last three months. mr. president, in the midst of all of that, enough truly is enough. the united states senate must respond to the pain and the

suffering of our constituents. let us begin work today, not next week, not next month. but right now, in addressing the unprecedented crises our people are facing. mr. president, if there is anything that the torture and murder of george floyd by minneapolis police has taught us, it is that we have got to fundamentally rethink the nature of policing in america and reform our broken and racist criminal justice system. and let us be clear, and i think everybody understands this, the murder of george floyd is not just an isolateed incident. it is the latest in an endless series of police killings of

african americans, including rayshard brooks, eric garner, sandra bland, tamir rice, alton sterling, freddie gray, walter scott, and many, many others. mr. president, the american people are rightly demanding justice and an end to police brutality and murder, and we have got to hear that cry coming from all across this country, from large cities and small towns, and the senate must act and act now. now, here is some good news in the midst of a lot of bad news, and that is thanks to a massive grassroots movement, the senate will finally begin to debate legislation dealing with the

police, and that's a good thing. the bad news is that the republican legislation, at least what i have seen this morning, goes nowhere near far enough as to where we need to go. now is not the time to think small or respond with superficial bureaucratic proposals. now is not the time for more studies. now is the time to hold racist and corrupt police officers and police departments accountable for their actions. now is the time to implement far-reaching reforms that will protect people and communities that have suffered police brutality, torture and murder for far too long and now is the time to act boldly to protect

the first amendment right to protest. let me very briefly describe some of the areas in which i think that congress should move. with regard to police brutality and the whole issue of policing. first and maybe most importantly, every police officer in our country must be held accountable, and those found guilty must be punished with the full force of war. that includes offices who stand by while brutal acts take place. every single killing of a person by police or while in police custody must be investigated by the department of justice. we must create a process by which police departments look like the communities they serve and be part of those

communities, not be seen as invading heavily armed occupying forces. that is not what police departments should look like. we must therefore prohibit the transfer of department of defense military equipment to police departments. further, we need to abolish qualified immunity so police officers are held civilianly liable for abuses. we need to strip federal funds from departments that violate civilian rights. we need to provide funding to states and municipalities to create a civilian corps, a civilian corps of unarmed first responders to supplement law enforcement. for too long, we have asked police departments to do things which they are not trained or prepared to do, and we have

criminalized societal problems like addiction and homeless and mental illness -- homelessness and mental illness. severe problems that exist in every state in this country, but these are not problems that will be solved by incarceration. we're not going to solve the crisis of addiction or homelessness or mental illness by incarceration. we have done that for too long, and it is a failed approach. mr. president, we need to make records of police misconduct publicly available so that an officer with a record of misconduct cannot simply move two towns over and start again. we need to require all jurisdictions that receive federal grant funding to establish independent police

conduct review boards that are broadly representative of the community and that have the authority to refer deaths that occur at the hands of police or in police custody to federal authorities for investigation. we need to amend federal civil rights laws to allow more effective prosecution of police misconduct by changing the standard from willfulness to recklessness. we need to ban the use of facial recognition technology by the police. finally, and certainly not least importantly, we need to legalize marijuana. in the midst of the many crises we face as a country, it is absurd that under the federal controlled substance act, marijuana is a schedule 1, along with killer drugs like heroin. state after state has moved to legalize marijuana, and it is

time for the federal government to do the same. when we talk about police department reform, we must end police officers continuing to arrest, search, or jail the people of our country, predominantly people of color, for using marijuana. we need to ban the use of rubber bullets, pepper spray, and tear gas on protesters. the right to protest, the right to demonstrate is a fundamental constitutional right and a right that must be respected. but, mr. president, let us be clear. police violence is not the only manifestation of systemic racism that is taking place in america today. just take a look at what is going on with the covid-19 pandemic. in recent months, we have seen black and brown communities

disproportionately ravaged by this virus. we have seen workers who earn starvation wages forced to go to workday in and day out in unhealthy workplace environments because without that paycheck, they and their families would go hungry. these working class families have with enormous courage kept our economy and society together in hospitals, in meatpacking plants, in public transportation, in supermarkets, gas stations, and elsewhere. these workers again disproportionately black and brown have risked infection and death so that the rest of us can continue to get the food that we need, get our medicines, or put gallon in our -- gasoline in our

car. mr. president, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, workers should not have to choose between going hungry on one hand or getting ill or dying on the other. and, mr. president, when we talk about starvation wages in this country, i was happy to hear today that target has raised its minimum wage for its many, many thousands of workers to $15 an hour. that's something that i and many others here have long advocated for. this follows the decision two years ago by amazon to raise the minimum wage for their workers to $15 an hour, and the effort in seven states across this country to raise the -- to raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour. now is the time for walmart, the

largest employer in america, owned by the wealthiest family in america, to also raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour. i should add, mr. president, that the walton family, the family that owns walmart, can more than afford this because since donald trump has been president, their wealth has increased by about $75 billion. let me repeat. their wealth has increased by about $75 billion in the last three-plus years, and they are now worth some $200 billion as a family. do you know what? i think the walton family can afford to pay their workers $15 an hour. and by the way, when we talk about racial justice, please

understand that about half of black workers in this country earn less than $15 an hour. further, mr. president, the house has done the right thing by passing legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. the time is long overdue for the senate to do the same. mr. president, this fight, what we hear from the trump administration, the covid-19 pandemic is far from over. in fact, as you may know, nine states today, nine states hit record highs for new cases in a single day. what we have seen unfold over the last several months and continue to see unfold is an

administration that continues to ignore the recommendations from scientists and physicians. no one doubts any more, for example, that masks can play an important role in cutting back on the transmission of the virus. we need to utilize the defense production act and manufacture the hundreds of millions of high-quality masks our people and our medical personnel desperately need, and it's part of the defense authorization -- and as part of the defense authorization act, i will be offering an amendment to do just that. other countries around the world are sending masks on a regular basis to all of their people. we can and should do exactly the same thing. mr. president, not only do we need to act boldly and

aggressively to address this horrific pandemic that we are experiencing, not only do we need to act boldly to fix a broken and racist criminal justice system, but we need to respond with a fierce sense of urgency to the worst economic crisis in the modern history of our country. over the last three months, over 30 million americans have lost their jobs. over 30 million americans have lost their jobs. and because half of our people live paycheck to paycheck, having virtually nothing in savings, many of those people are now facing economic desperation. today, all across our country, tens of millions of americans are in danger of going hungry. in vermont and in states all

over america, we are seeing long lines of people in their cars lining up in order to get food that the federal government is now supplying. but i.t. not just food. millions of americans are frightened to death that they will soon be evicted from their apartments or will lose their homes to foreclosure. imagine that. in the middle of an economic meltdown, in the middle of a pandemic, millions of people are in danger of being thrown out onto the streets. further, as part of the economic crisis, we are in danger of losing over half of small businesses in this country within the next six months. impossible to contemplate. half of all small businesses in

america are threatened with destruction. so i would say to senator mcconnell and the republican leadership here in the senate that the american people cannot afford to wait. they need our help now, not a month from now, not two months from now. we need to respond vigorously to the enormous economic pain and suffering and anxiety that the american people today are experiencing. and what does that mean specifically? it means, among other things, that the federal government must guarantee 100% of the paychecks and benefits of american workers up to $90,000 a year through a paycheck security act, which is legislation that i introduced

with senators warner, jones, and blumenthal. countries in europe that have taken this approach have not experienced the skyrocketing levels of unemployment we have seen here in the united states. mr. president, as a result of the economic downturn, we know that over 16 million americans have already lost their health insurance. further, there are estimates that that number could go as high as 43 million people losing their health insurance. and that is on top of the 87 million americans who were already uninsured or underinsured before the pandemic. -- with a fierce sense of -- responding with a fierce sense of urgency means that within

this horrific pandemic, every man, woman, and child in this country must receive the health care they need regardless of their income. that means that medicare must be empowered to pay all of the health care bills of the uninsured and underinsured until this crisis is over. and if this crisis has taught us anything, it has taught us that we are only as safe as the least insured among us. responding with a fierce sense of urgency means providing every working-class person in america with a $2,000 emergency payment each and every month until this crisis is over so that they can pay the rent, feed their families, and make ends meet. a one-time $1,200 check does not cut it. an emergency $2,000 monthly

payment will serve also as a major stimulus in reviving the economy. responding with a fierce sense of urgency means making sure that no one in america goes hungry, which means that we have got to substantially expand the meals on wheels program, the school meals program, and snap benefits. responding with a fierce sense of urgency means making sure that the postal service receives the emergency funding that it desperately needs. mr. president, if we could bail out large corporations, if we could provide over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthy and the powerful, please do not tell me that we cannot save and strengthen the postal service, an agency of huge importance to our entire economy. acting with a fierce sense of

urgency means extending the $600 a week in expanded unemployment benefits that expires in july. failure to extend these benefits would slash the incomes of millions of americans by 50%, 60%, or even 70%. you can't do that in the midst of an economic crisis. mr. president, here we are today. we are in the midst of the worst public health crisis in over 100 years, and the republican senate is doing nothing about it. -- we're in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the great depression of the 1930's. people all over this country in every state in america are financially hurting, and the republican senate today is doing nothing about that.

we continue to see african americans brutally murdered by racist police officers, and the republican senate leadership opposes a woefully inadequate solution. now, i understand that not everyone in america is hurting. not everyone in america needs help from the senate. while over 32 million americans have lost jobs during this horrific pandemic, 630 billion hires -- heirs in america have seen their wealth go up by $565 billion. amazing but true. over the first three months of this horrific pandemic,

america's top 630 billionaires have seen their wealth go up by $565 billion. hard to believe. in other words, at a time of massive income wealth inequality, which is already today worse than at any time since the 1920's, a horrific situation is becoming much worse. during the last three months, while the very, very rich have become much richer, american households have seen their wealth go down by $6.5 trillion. billionaires see their wealth increase by over $600 billion. american households see their wealth go down by $6.5 trillion. in all likelihood, in the midst of everything else that we are

experiencing, we are currently witnessing what is likely the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the very rich in the modern history of our country. mr. president, in the midst of these unprecedented crises, it is time for the senate to act in an unprecedented way. at every state in this country, our constituents are hurting, and they are calling out for help. let us hear their cries, let us hear their pain. let us act and act now. thank you very much. and with that, i yield the floor.

you. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: here on the floor this evening to talk about china and to talk about how we can have a better relationship with china, one that's fair and equitable. i'm going to talk specifically

about some of the investigations and reports that we have worked on here in the united states congress over the past couple of years. i'm going to be talking about four specific reports that came out of what's called the permanent subcommittee on investigations. i chair that subcommittee. it's under the homeland security governmental affairs committee, and it's a committee that takes these investigations seriously. we do a fair, objective, thorough job. all of our investigations are bipartisan. i'm going to talk a little about why these investigations that we have done have led me to the conclusion that we need to do much more here in this country to be able to respond to china and to be able to have the kind of fair and equitable relationship that we should all desire. a lot of china critics talk about the fact that china needs to do things differently, and i don't disagree with most of that. but the reality is there's much

we can do right here in this country to create a situation where we do not have the issues that i'll talk about tonight, some of the unfair activities that have occurred here in this country. frankly, i think we've been naive and not properly prepared. and i'll talk about some legislation that we are proposing tomorrow morning which focuses on how to make america more effective at pushing back against a specific threat to our research and our intellectual property. our goal is not to have china as an enemy. our goal is to have china actually as a strategic partner, where there is a fair and equitable and sustainable relationship. but it's going to require some changes, and again, i'm going to focus tonight on some changes we need to make right here, changes within our control. our investigations have been thorough and fact-driven.

and our reports have been objective, bipartisan, and eye-opening. and i encourage you to go on the p.s.i. website, psi.gov, and check it out. our first report was in february of 2019. it detailed a lack of trance prancer and -- transparency and other concerns with the confucius institutes that china operates in this country. these confucius institutes are at our colleges and universities. some people are aware of that and some may not be aware they're also at our elementary schools, middle schools and high schools. our reports show how these confucius institutes have been a tool to stifle academic freedom where they are located, towing the chinese communist party line on sensitive issues like tibet or taiwan or the uighurs or tiananmen square. and, by the way, when i talk

about china tonight, i hope people realize i'm not talking about the chinese people. i'm talking about the chinese government and, therefore, i'm talking about the chinese communist party. and as an example with regard to the confucius institutes which are spread around this country, ultimately they report to a branch of the chinese government that is involved with spreading propaganda, positive propaganda about china, ultimately controlled by who? the chinese communist party. so i hope the comments i make tonight will not be viewed as comments that are regarding the chinese people as much as a small group in china, the chinese communist party that with regard to the confucius institutes and other approaches they have taken to the united states have led to these issues. by the way, thanks to our report and the broader scrutiny

that followed about the lack of academic freedom and the fact that history is taught a certain way in the confucius institutes, also by the way, we pointed out that the chinese language is taught, and that's a good thing to have this intercultural dialogue and the opportunity for people to learn more about china. but it needs to be, again, an understanding and a history of china that is fair and honest and that does include discussions of what happened in tiananmen square or what's happening today with regard to the uighurs, a minority group in china that's being oppressed. in the year that followed our scrutiny, so really in the last year and a few months, 23 of the roughly 100 confucius institutes on college campuses in america have closed and others have made some positive changes as to how they operate. so i believe our report made a significant difference in terms of how we relate to the

confucius institutes. i said earlier that one of my concerns about the confucius institutes is the lack of reciprocity when our state department has attempted to set up something comparable on chinese universities campuses, they're unable to do so. in fact, whereas the confucius institute employees and members of the chinese government are able to come on our college campuses, we are told that u.s. government officials, and for that matter, private citizens cannot go on chinese campuses without a minder, somebody to be there to monitor what they're doing, and that sometimes they're not permitted to go at all. so that goes to the lack of reciprocity. but my goal really is again to talk tonight about what we can do here, and i would urge those tonight who are watching, who are connected with the colleges and universities that still has a confucius institute, or a high school or middle school or elementary school, check it out

check out our report where we have many instances of where the students, american students who are learning there are not getting the full story. that may not be true in the case of all confucius institutes, but i would recommend that you do the research yourself. then in march of 2019, after the confucius institute report, we reported into the equifax data breach here ne america. we showed how china has targeted private u.s. companies and stolen the information of millions of americans. and the equifax data breach of 2017 which we studied, which is one of the largest in history, the personal information of 147 million americans was stolen by i.p. addresses originating in china. so we should just be aware of that, and we should take precautions here and protections and encryptions and security

measures here to avoid it. again, this is about us doing more here in this country to be prepared for the reality of the 21st century. then in november of last year, we released another eye-opening report. this one detailing the rampant theft of u.s. taxpayer-funded research and intellectual property by china by way of their so-called talent recruitment programs meaning they systematically find promising researchers doing work on research that china is interested in, and they recruit them. these programs have not been subtle. the thousand talents plan is the most understood of these programs, although there are a couple hundred others. but we showed in studying the thousand talents plan how this problem has been ongoing for two decades in this country, and much of what through this

program china has taken from our labs and taken to china has gone directly toward fueling the rise of the chinese economy and the chinese military. again, this is about china but it's really about us. how have we let this happen? specifically, we found that the chinese government has targeted this promising u.s.-based research and researchers. often this research is funded by u.s. taxpayers. we spend as taxpayers $115 million a year on research to places like the national institutes of health or the national science foundation or the department of energy for basic science research. it's been a good investment because we have discovered through some of these investments cures to cancer and particular kinds of cancer and technologies that have helped our military. but it's not good if the u.s. taxpayer is paying for this research and then china is

taking it. china has not just taken some of this research funded by u.s. taxpayers, but they have paid these grant recipients to take their research over to china at chinese universities, again, universities affiliated with the chinese communist party. this is not about the people of china. this is about the chinese communist party. they have been very clever. they want to make sure that congress is a stronger competitor, that china is a stronger competitor against u and so they take the research delivered from the united states to a lab in china where they try to replicate the research, provide the money to these researchers. just last week we released a fourth p.s.i. report that shows that this problem of china not playing by the rules extends to the telecommunications space as well. let me explain that situation, and then i'll go back to the thousand talents program.