consumers as well as foreign consumers to buy a particular product, a product lucky enough to have that label. the federal trade commission currently enforces a difficult standard for all products that want to claim the made in the u.s.a. label. it requires that, quote, all or virtually all, close quote, of a product be made in the united states, and is issued a lengthy legal guidance document or series thereof establishing rules for who may or may not claim that title. however, one state holds a different standard, one that's nearly impossible for businesses to meet. under california's law, if more than 5% of the components of a particular product are manufactured outside the united states, even if that means just a few bolts or a few screws, that product cannot lawfully be labeled made in the u.s.a. .

and because the flow of interstate and international commerce in which most manufacturers sell wholesale to national and international distributors who then disperse products all throughout the country, the other 49 states are forced to comply with this one, the most rigid definition in order to avoid costly litigation. so for many practical purposes, this just means they can't use the label. it makes it impracticable and not legal as a for them. they could boast the made in the u.s.a. claim, in every other state in the country, california makes it impossible for them to do so. a single state is effectively dictating a country of origin label. think about that for a minute p. if california or if any other

state in the union for that matter would like to create a state-of-origin label, i have no issue with such a state doing that and wouldn't suggest that the federal government ought to undo those parameters. but as it currently stands, the california law undermines congress' rightful authority to regulate interstate commerce and needlessly hurts american manufacturers. you see, this is one of the reasons why we're our own country. it's one of the reasons why we fly the stars and stripes. it is one of the reasons why the constitution came into existence to begin with, to give congress the power to regulate commerce between the several states with foreign nations and with the indian tribes. our previous form of government under the articles of confederation didn't create a congress that had that power. and, as a result, in the early days following the american revolution, states were engaging in activities amountingings to

economic balkanization. we saw an economic balkanization among and between the states. it is why the founding fathers gathered in that hot, faithful, and sweltering summer for this very reason. the reinforcing the american made products act would solve this very problem. it would simply ensure that the f.t.c. has the exclusive authority to set the national standard for made in the u.s.a. labeling. it would provide clarity and consistency helping companies to avoid unnecessary hardships and frivolous lawsuits that would otherwise deter them from using this coveted and justifiably enviable label of made in the u.s.a. now, more than ever, in the midst of the economic turmoil associated with the global pandemic, we ought to be doing all we can to support american jobs and to strengthen our local communities. this legislation would help us

accomplish just that. so i urge my colleagues to vote in favor of it. on that basis, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on commerce be discharged from further consideration of s. 4065 and that the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 4065, a bill to make exclusive the authority of the federal government to regulate the labeling of products made in the united states and so forth and for other purposes. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed. mr. lee: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. lee: i know of no further debate on the bill, mr. president. the presiding officer: is there further debate? hearing none, the question is on passage of the bill.

all those in favor, say aye. those opposed, say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the bill is passed. mr. lee: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 316, s. 906. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 16, s. 906, a bill to include the management of net fishing. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding? without objection, the senate will proceed. mr. kaine: i ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendment be agreed to and that the bill, as

amended, be considered read a third time. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. kaine: i know of no further debate on the bill, as amended. the presiding officer: is there further debate? hearing none, the question is on page of the bill. all those in favor, say aye. those opposed, say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. and the bill is passed. mr. kaine: i ask unanimous consent that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. kaine: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise tonight to speak about a provision of the national defense authorization act that would direct the renaming of military bases and facilities that are currently named for those who voluntarily fought for the confederacy during the civil war. i thank senator warren for offering the amendment, and i particularly thank her for

making adjustments to the amendment to accommodate concerns of colleagues on both sides of the aisle. i was proud to cosponsor the revised amendment in committee and speak in favor of it today. it is important to state clearly what this amendment will do. if it passes and survives a threatened presidential veto, it will require the department of defense to initiative a three-year process to change the name of any military base, barracks, or other facility named after a confederate military leader. why three years? the timing is designed to allow a full public process in each location so that the desires of the community leaders can be taken into account in choosing new names. i state with clarity the substance of the amendment because one of my colleagues took the floor earlier this

month to oppose the amendment, and he obscured its purpose? describing it, only saying that it required that, quote, some of the names of our nation's military bases must be removed. he neglected to mention that the amendment specifically sought change only to facilities named for confederates. in fact, he did not mention the confederacy or the civil war at all. if you're unwilling to be plain about what's at stake, it betrays a weakness in your position, so let me be plain. i am a senator from a state with the most at stake. three of the ten bases whose names must be changed under this amendment are in virginia. virginia was the state whose people were most affected by the civil war, and i served as its 70th governor. my hometown of richmond was the capital of the confederacy, and i served as its 76th mayor.

i have dealt with issues of civil war names, statues, memorials, battlefields, and buildings throughout my 26 years in public life. based on decades of grappling with this question, i want to describe a principle, explain an epiphany, and finally pose a question. first a principle -- if you declare war on the united states, take up remains' arms against it, and kill u.s. troops, you should not have a u.s. military base named after you. if you declare war on the united states, take up arms against it, and kill u.s. troops, you should not have a u.s. military base named after you. now, this principle is nowhere stated in law because it need not be.

it is a basic commonsense principle. the principle explains why we have no fort cornwallis, fort benedict arnold, fort santa ana, fort van hindenburg, fort ho chi minh. if you declare war on the united states, take up arms against it and kill u.s. troops, you should not have a u.s. military base named after you. but we make an exception. ten bases and many other military facilities are named after confederate leaders who declared war on the united states, took up arms against it, and killed u.s. troops. and even further, they took these actions to destroy the united states, to tear our country in half, so that the seceding southern states could

continue to own those of african descent as slaves, a species of property, rather than treating them as equal human beings. is this worthy of honor? does it justify an exception to the sound principle that i described? why were these ten bases so named when they were constructed in the years before and during the first and second world wars? the names were not chosen due to the military skill of the confederate leaders. some are revered for their prowess, but some are reviled. the names were nottiesen -- not chosen to honor the character. some are blighted but others were not distinguished in their behavior or in their integrity. the record makes clear that the ten bases were named for confederate leaders upon their

construction during the first and second world wars because of a lingering belief in their cause -- dividing the nation to uphold slavery and white supremacy. in days of mandated segregation, the clue d.k.k.k. and films like "the birth of a nation" and "gone with the wind," there was a powerful desire to hold up the confederate cause, to sanitize the confederate cause and deny the reality of african american suffering. that desire even affected this very body during those years as the senate repeated lid used the filibuster -- repeatedly used the filibuster to block federal anti-lynching legislation s it's clear now as it has been clear for a very long time that the cause of the confederacy was not

just, but monstrous. destroying the nation to preserve slavery would have been a catastrophe. history can't be rewritten and it is important to tell it. but choosing who to honor is another matter entirely. so i repeat a principle which i believe takes no exception, if you declare war on the united states and take up arms against it and kill u.s. troops, you should not have a u.s. military base named after you. this wisdom was understood immediately in the aftermath of the civil war by robert e. lee. he was asked about memorials to the confederacy. and he stated, quote, i think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who obliterated the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion

the feelings engendered. this amendment is consistent with lee's wise observation. second, let me explain an epiphany that i had in just the last few months. when i moved to virginia to get married in 1984, i saw the confederate statues in richmond and i was puzzled. as a kansas-raised civil rights lawyer and then as a local elected official in a city that was majority african american, i was struck by their continued prominence. but together with the leadership of my very diverse city, we viewed these statues and other symbols of the confederacy as painful symbols of an incomplete past, painful because of the reality of slavery and discrimination which mass warped our commonwealth and country since 1619 and incomplete as

well. where were the statues to richmond heroes from the revolution or the civil rights movement? why did our city highlight four years out of a 250-year history and downplay everything else? so my generation of richmond leaders endeavored to solve this problem by painting a more complete picture -- statues of arthur ashe, abraham lincoln con, a civil rights memorial on our capitol grounds, courts, schools, many named after prominent african americans, more women leaders, aging bridges that had been named for confederate generals eventually replaced and named for six rights heroes. in short, mr. president, we viewed this problem as one that could be solved with a path of addition, not replacing the painful simple bombs of the past but instead adding to our built

environment the recognition of people and eras that had not previously by honored. this was necessary work. and i was proud to play nigh part in this during my 16 years in local and state service. but in recent months, as i spent our extended april quarantine in richmond and i talked to people about whether confederate statues on our monument avenue should be removed, i learned something. when i referred to these statues as symbols of a painful past, again and again, i was told tim, you might see these statues as signifying a painful past, but we see them as signs of a painful present and even predictors of a difficult future. this sort of stopped me in my tracks.

and i asked my friends to explain, and here is a composite of what they told me. if honoring these confederates was just about the past, that would be one thing, but these statues are honored in the present by a city and state that maintain them, spotlight them, emphasize their beauty, and market their appeal to tourists. in the present, these statues become a rallying point for neoconfederates and others who would take us back just as occurred in charlottesville in 2017. and the present is pretty frightening. african americans are dying of covid-19 at disproportionate rates. the job losses in this economic collapse are falling so hard on african american communities. we have seen scenes of police violence against african americans playing endlessly on our televisions. and we don't see an immediate end to these disparities. do you really expect us to

believe that a society that continues to honor those who tried to destroy our country to save slavery will be serious about ending the racial disparities that exist today? you either support the equality of all or you don't. and if you honor those who oppose our equality, indeed oppose the very notion of our humanity, what hope can we have? what hope can we have about overcoming the real time and justices that are manifest all around us? mr. president, i thank god i can still learn some new things at age 62. in my view, the statues and base names and the other confederate honor i havics -- honorifics have honored those in the past, but i now see that for so many,

they raise deep and troubling questions about the future. are we committed to the equality of all? the moral of north star announced in the declaration of independence and reconfirmed by lincoln at gettysburg, if we continue to honor men who fought to deprive those of african american descent of their equality, we signal that we're not committed to our most fundamental american value. and finally, mr. president, a question for those, including the president, who attacked those who want to remove confederate names from military bases or take down confederate statues. when you saw young germans in 1989 spray graffiti on the berlin wall and knock it down, how did you feel? i know how you felt. you felt good to see people standing up to leaders and saying you will no longer divide us. when you saw people throughout

the soviet bloc pulling down statues of stalin and lenin after the collapse of the soviet union or iraqis pulling down statues of saddam hussein, how did you feel? i know how you felt. you felt good to see people standing and saying with their actions, we will no longer glorify tyrants who oppress us. when you see hundreds of thousands of hong kongers in the streets protesting against the chinese government, how do you feel? i know how you feel, because i have heard you even in this chamber. you feel good seeing everyday people standing up against the government that would deprive them of their basic freedom. if you feel that way -- and i believe virtually all americans do -- how could we feel otherwise about patriotic americans who believe in a nation committed to the equality

of all when they stand up and say we will not be divided, we will not glorify those who oppressed us, we will not honor those who stood against our freedom. that is what our people, especially our young people, are saying to us now. supporting this amendment will show them that we are listening. in conclusion, we americans have grown as a nation and as a people since the civil war, and we have grown as a nation and as a people since the first half of the 20th century when, in very different circumstances, it was still seen as a good idea to honor the confederacy. one of the key areas of our growth, admittedly a progress of fits and starts, has been a greater acceptance of others, regardless of race or religion or sexual orientation or gender or nationality or physical ability. thank god for that growth.

of course, the evidence all around shows that we still have a long way to go to reach full equality. it might be like the north star. we can steer by it, but it's not in the capacity of morally in time to reach it. but when we do steer by it and step in its direction, we become better. that's what this amendment will accomplish, and it's why i so strongly support it. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. ms. ernst: mr. president, americans are facing extremely challenging times, and right now, folks are working hard just to make ends meet, to put food on their table, and to care for

their families and their loved ones. as our communities continue to grapple with the devastating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, the prices of rising drug costs in the u.s. has only worsened. now more than ever, folks are operating on very thin margins and simply don't have room in their budgets for expensive prescriptions. no individual should have to make the decision between filling a lifesaving prescription and feeding their family. the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs has become a matter of life and death for so many. we've heard the heartbreaking stories of individuals who could not afford their insulin, were forced to ration and skip doses,

and as a result they lost their lives. i remember quite vividly a conversation i had with an iowa mother explaining how she lost her son, who as a young man was rationing his insulin because he could not afford to do more. it is a heartbreaking discussion, and having that discussion with that mother, i could not help but think then of my own brother and sister who have been reliant on insulin as juvenile diabetics for all of their lives. when we talk about the cost of prescription drugs, folks' lives are literally on the line. and iowans have been very clear with me where they stand on this

issue. they want to see us come together to advance solutions that drive down those drug prices. seniors, families, and children all need to be assured that when they go to the pharmacy, they will be able to afford their medications and not have to skip a meal or more to do so. and this is why i was proud to join my friend and my colleague, senator grassley, in introducing a piece of legislation that i know he has worked tirelessly on , the prescription drug pricing reduction act of 2020. this vital piece of legislation would root out unfair pricing shenanigans and perverse payment incentives that allow pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of the system at the expense of taxpayers and

patients. according to the congressional budget office, this bill would save taxpayers $95 billion -- with a b -- $95 billion, reduce out-of-pocket expenses by $72 billion -- billion with a b -- dollars, and reduce premiums by $1 billion -- with a b, dollars. now, it needs to be said that chairman grassley worked for months, he worked for months on end to craft this bill in a bipartisan manner with his democratic counterparts. in fact, two-thirds of the senate finance committee approved our bipartisan prescription drug price reduction act a year ago this

very month. two-thirds of the senate finance committees. and yet, at a time when americans are struggling to afford rent and groceries, my colleagues across the aisle suddenly chose to drop their support for this bipartisan drug pricing reform bill that they helped write. let me make that clear. the democrats helped write the bill with senator grassley. those that sat on the finance committee approved this bill last year. this year, they are refusing to assist my senior senator, chuck grassley, in moving forward a

bill they helped write. that begs the question what changed? what changed over the course of one year? and do you know what, folks? that's exactly what happened. it was the year. 2020 is an election year, and that means washington is not focused on solutions. it's all about the political scoreboard. we've seen it already this year with our friends across the aisle blocking us from even debating the justice act, the police reform bill that contained about 70% of what our democratic colleagues were asking for in police reform.

iowans put their partisanship aside and came together and got a police reform package passed. that's iowans in our state legislature. i wish we could say the same for washington, not only on the justice act but also this prescription drug pricing bill. lowering prescription drug costs shouldn't be about who gets the credit. it should be about working across the aisle to save lives. which is the very reason that senator grassley worked hand in hand with democrats on this bill iowans should expect more from washington, and they want more, and they should get it. chairman grassley, president trump, and i won't back down

from this fight. we will press on and do everything in our power to provide relief to americans who desperately need it. i will continue to call on my democratic colleagues to come to the table to work on improving our nation's health care system and drive down the costs for americans. whether it's lowering drug costs, expanding child care options for families, ensuring protections for individuals with preexisting conditions like my sister and my brother or simply making sure that children have access to clean diapers. simple things. these are all issues that americans want to see congress take action on. just recently, i joined with my

colleague, senator braun of indiana, in introducing a bill that helps address yet another critical issue for americans. increasing transparency and lowering health care costs. our health care price transparency act would implement the administration's rules requiring hospitals and insurers to reveal their low, discounted prices and negotiated rates to patients before they receive medical care. iowans should be able to know the cost associated with their health care in advance so that they can make the best decisions for themselves and for their families. folks, let's not forget that outside the halls of congress, americans are facing hard times.

they are mourning the loss of loved ones who have been taken by this virus. they're worried about how they will take care of their children at home while they work to provide. they are concerned for their health and the well-being of their loved ones. and many of them are considering skipping a dose of their medication or cutting a pill in half to try to make that prescription stretch just a little bit farther until their next paycheck. so, folks, let's put aside political interests. let's work together on this. i'll be standing at the ready and it is my sincere hope that my colleagues on both sides of

the aisle will join me in this effort. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. gardner: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. gardner: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. gardner: mr. president, six weeks ago i stood here as the senate prepared to begin

deliberating historic conservation legislation, the great american outdoors act. i introduced this legislation with senator manchin of west virginia along with so many other bipartisan champions for the outdoors and our public lands. senator daines, senator portman, senator warner, alexander, king, senator cantwell, burr, heinrich. just a few of the champions who helped shepherd this historic legislation through this chamber. i remarked on that day that it is not often the senate has a chance to make history but indeed history we made. the senate came together in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion and passed the great american outdoors act 73-25. today the u.s. house of representatives just moments ago joined us in making history by passing the great american outdoors act with a vote of 310-107. today this legislation is headed to the president of the united

states' desk for his signature. the president has already supported the bill noting that this historic bill, the nature of this historic bill and the huge conservation victory that it is. in the weeks since senate passage, i've traveled all over the great state of colorado visiting with land management officials and professionals, stakeholders, constituents to discuss would the great american outdoors act will really mean on the ground at a personal local level for colorado and colorado's public lands. i'd like to share some of those stories with you today. so here we have a picture of an amphitheater that is outside of the black canyon of the gunnison national park. if you go a little further to the right, you would actually be in the canyon. this is an amphitheater that was built basically in the 1960's. the park itself is now about 20 years old. it had over 430,000 people visiting it last year. it's got a deferred maintenance backlog of $7.7 million and this

south rim amphitheater facility is part of that backlog. it's currently being used but needs significant upgrades. if you actually sat a one of those benches, you probably wouldn't be able to sit anywhere else for quite a long time because of the splinters and the gouges that you would receive from the shards of wood that are on those benches. there's electrical outlets that are popping up, an old projection system. this is supposed to be used for education and education opportunities. with the right improvements you will be able to restore this to have more people access it, to restore its accessibility and get it back to its original purpose. new park benches and electrical work are a bit of the amphitheater's need, a deferred maintenance project. this site for education, for experimental learning. the rest of the park there are millions more in maintenance

projects like this one that need to be performed and carried out. our lands are busy. people are loving them. this is one example and one example of a project that will be completed thanks to the great american outdoors act. it's not just national parks, though, that have maintenance needs. our secretary of agriculture sonny perdue joined me in colorado in mid-june. we toured the campground in the national forest that has been closed for a decade. this is a beautiful river and the campground is back here. there's only one problem. there's no bridge. this river wiped out the culvert and the bridge a decade ago. this is a campground without access. ten years ago a flood came through, high water came through, wiped out the access. you can't even use this public facility because of a decade-long maintenance backlog at this facility alone. the great american outdoors act

will provide line of sight funding for projects like this which no longer will have to compete for a small pool of funding with every other national forest in the country. when i talked it these professionals, when i talked to the forest rangers and the park superintendents, they talked about how they were able to accomplish structures in their park, how they were able to build campgrounds in their park, how they were able to keep up with restroom facilities, but they had for line of sight funding on additional help down the road meaning that as the facilities age, they may just have to be closed. or in this case as access gets wiped out, you'll just never regain that access. and would a loss to the american people that is. but what a benefit to the american people the great american outdoors act will become. and it's not just national parks or national forests or bureau of land management that will benefit from the great american outdoors act. this is a picture of runyon fields in the runyon sports complex in pueblo, colorado.

this area has a number of ballparks from little leagues to adult leagues. in fact, they just had their first pitch of the season last week, a day that i was actually at runyon sports complex in pueblo, colorado to kick off a tournament to celebrate the beginning of a season much delayed thanks to covid-19. this area saw people like peewee reece play baseball, babe ruth visited this same area to play baseball. now coloradans of every generation are able to come to runyon sports complex and enjoy it. it's become a regional draw to help benefit economically the city to teach kids about sports and teamwork. that's what this means. the land and water conservation fund helps forests and parks but 40% of it, of the land and conservation funds, funding is dedicated to projects at the state and local level. if you grew up on the front range of colorado and played baseball, the odds are good that you spent some time on the field

at runyon or any other number of places that have been funded by a land and water conservation project. runyon has received over a hundred thousand dollars in funding over the years. the complex continues to be a vital part of the community today. lwcf is not just about our public lands. it's about your local ballpark. it's about your local swimming pool. it's about playground facilities and urban parks that otherwise wouldn't give minority communities access to recreation. that's what it's about. just up the road from runyon field in el paso county, colorado and the communities within them, they benefited greatly from lwcf. we visited a project in el paso county that received hundreds of thousands of dollars, a county that's received over $5 million in funding over the years providing benefits for everything from building parks to tennis courts and trails. the state has received over $2 million in funding to improve the cheyenne mountain state park facilities within el paso county, colorado.

local, regional and state outdoor recreation projects will only further benefit when the great american outdoors act is signed into law. with the great american outdoors act, congress is finally, finally fulfilling its commitment to fully and permanently funding to lwcf which will benefit every state in the nation. the passage of this historic legislation could not come at a more critical time. our economy economy has suffered during the coronavirus pandemic and stay-at-home orders have kept americans cooped up indoors for the last several months. millions of people and families are facing uncertain futures. will school return in the fall? will my business survive this challenging time? will i receive my next paycheck? when the first waves of the virus hit and shutdown orders went into place, some of colorado's mountain towns and rural areas were the hardest and first hit. community restaurants closed. hotels emptied.

and their stores' doors were closed to visitors. these are challenging times, no doubt. but one glimmer of hope will always be our public lands and the great outdoors. this nation does not have republican nor democrat public lands. this is not a partisan issue. preserving and taking care of our public lands provides benefit to the entire country and will provide benefit for generations to come. but not only is this legislation about preserving and protecting our lands. it's also about job creation and economic recovery, more hope for the people of this country. passing the great american outdoors act will create over 100,000 jobs by addressing the park maintenance backlog alone. in my home state of colorado it will create thousands of jobs across the state as the mission

is fulfilled. more jobs will be created as the work addresses maintenance projects on other federal lands be the forest service, the bureau of land management, national wildlife receive finals and the bureau of indian nation schools all have needs that are addressed by this legislation and these are important opportunities to create jobs when the projects are finally and fully funded. i mentioned this statistic quite a bit during consideration of the great american outdoors act here in the senate. for every $1 million we spend on the land and water conservation fund, it supports between 16 and 30 jobs. that's a figure beyond the 100,000 jobs take will be created by the parks provisions legislation alone. this is a bill that will put people to work, a bill that will put people to work fixing trails, building ballparks, protecting our iconic landscapes for generations to come. this is a bill that reminds us that our communities and our shared public outdoor spaces are

worth investing in. it's a bill that reminds people that we have hope for america. it's a bill that reminds people that your public lands are waiting for you, and congress was able to come together during these trying times in a bipartisan fashion so strong, so great that you'll be able to enjoy the great american outdoors the way they were meant to be enjoyed. i'm pleased that the house of representatives affirmed all of this by passing the great american outdoors act today with such a strong bipartisan vote. i thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in both chambers for their hard work and dedication to passing this historic conservation legislation. i look forward to the president signing this bill in the days ahead. i look forward to getting out into the great outdoors. and i look forward to these lands as they continue to inspire the hopes and dreams of kids and adults alike for

generations to come. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: before the senator from colorado leaves the floor, i would like to offer to him my congratulations for his inspired leadership of the great american outdoors act. this is something that good people on both sides of the aisle have worked on literally for as much as a half a century. now, people are used to politicians exaggerating but that's no exaggeration because i've been around long enough to know and to understand that. first with the land and water conservation fund that was first enacted by congress in 1964, i

was chairman in president reagan's commission in the american outdoors and reiterated support for that in 1986. senator gardner, senator daines, senator portman, senator warner, senator heinrich, senator manchin, senator cantwell, a whole parade of senators on both side of the aisle -- sides of the aisle have worked very hard to help this happen. and it would not have happened without president trump's leadership either. we would not have been able to spend the money the way that it's spent -- energy exploration money for conservation purposes -- unless the president's office of management and budget had approved that. so it's usually never true that an important piece of legislation is passed by a single senator. it's usually a parade of senators. but senator gardner has been leading the parade, and i congratulate him for that and salute him on behalf of all of us who want to see our national

parks, the 419 different places we have from the great smokies to the rocky mountains to the yellowstone to pearl harbor, to the national mall, see them protected as well as our national forests, our national wildlife refuges as well as the funding for the land and water conservation fund. so i wanted to have an opportunity to say that before he left the floor. and i see my friend, the senator from ohio, here, senator port man, who really along with senator warner of virginia began the work on the other part of the bill, the bill that would take half of the funds -- that would take money from energy exploration and reduce the national park backlog by half over five years. that had the support of --

combined with the land and water conservation fund of more than 800 different outdoor recreation conservation and environmental groups as well as the president. people will say, well, that was easy to do with all the support. it wasn't easy to do. if it had been easy to do, it would have happened 20 or 30 years ago. so it took support from the senator from north dakota, leadership from the senator from ohio, and the senator from virginia, senator warner, especially. i came to the floor also to talk about something else, but i see the senator from ohio, so i think i'll yield the floor and then speak on the other subject after he has a chance to speak, if he would like to. mr. portman: i thank my colleague from tennessee for focusing on the american great outdoors act. i had come to the floor to talk about the covid-19 legislation we are considering, but i'm very pleased to be here with my colleagues to helped to get this legislation across the finish

line. it's incredible bring important and truly historic for our national parks. i have spent more than a dozen years on this. that's kind of embarrassing because i wasn't very successful for the first 11. but from my days as the director of the office of management and budget, i was been focused on what really is a tragic situation, about a $12 billion now maintenance backlog at our national parks, for more than the national parks couldafford to take care of. some exciting to think about fixing a visitor center, making sure a trail isn't eroding into the river, making sure our roads and bridges in our national parks are kept up to speed, that when you go to a national park you can actually use the restroom facilities and the lodges. but we've had a huge problem with finding funding for that. in this legislation, as was noted by my colleague from tennessee who's been at this for

many years as well, we are findally doing something to help our parks that is badly needed. the priority projects, 6.5 billion worth, will now be handled by legislation that passed the house today by a 310-207 vote. the president has agreed to sign t it will keep our promise. it is a debt unpaid to our parks. without it, future generations wouldn't have the opportunity to visit and enjoy these treasures. i spent the last couple of weeks at our parks, one the charles young home in ohio, a beautiful historic home that is actually a station on the underground railroad and therefore has particular very important historic significance for our state. charles young was the first black colonel in the united states army, the first black superintendent of a national park, and his home needs to be

preserved for future generations. yet the maintenance backlog is huge there, as you can imagine. without this legislation, it would not be able to make progress. i got to see specifically what the money is going for, which is, you know, making sure that house still stands years from now so particularly young people in our community can understand the history of our country, the good and the bad. the cooperation and the seeking for freedom that came from the underground railroad and the incredible leadership that mr. young showed both in the military and in our national park system. and i was at the cuyahoga national park, the 13th most visited national park in america, a number of needs they have, adding up to about $50 million. they are annual budget is about $11 million. yet they have $50 million of things that have to be fixed. i saw railroad tracks that runs

through there where the tracks have to be reappraised. i saw a bridge that is truly becoming dangerous and has to be fixed. it is an historic bridge. things that can't be done with their normal funding. we're doing that now. so after many years of trying different efforts of this and finding some success over the yearbooks the centennial act has helped a little bit, some other things to get private-public partnership money. the parks are going to be in good shape for our kids and grandkids. they can enjoy what lamar alexander has referred to, prayer phrasing ken burns as america's best idea. i would like to talk about the covid-19 legislation but i'd like to yield now to the senator from tennessee.

mr. alexander: i thank the senator from ohio for his courtesy. today senator tim scott from south carolina and i have introduced the school choice now act, which does two things -- it protects students that have been attending private schools from the heart heartbreaking loss of the scholarships and gives students more options. i've been working to find ways to help parents pursue the agency that best meets their child's needs for a long time. since 1979 when i began to be the governor of tennessee. in 12986 we governor got together in something called time for results. i was chairman of the national governors association, the vice chairman was the arkansas governor bill clinton. we devotedthe governor's attention to one subject -- education.

six points. one of those points with as to find ways to give parents more choices of schools for their children. then later on in 1992 when president george h.w. bush was in office and i was education secretary, i helped the president develop something we called the g.i. bill for kids which was federal funds for $1,000 scholarship to work with cities and states like milwaukee in wisconsin that were trying to give low-income families more choices of good schools for our children. then my last act as education secretary was to notice what they call start-from-scratch schools in minnesota created by the democratic farmer labor party. there were about a dozen of them, as i remember. i wrote every school district in the country and asked them to start one of these start-from-scratch schools, which were the forerunner of today's public charter schools. today we have 7,500 chart

schools. en this i started something called the pell grant for kids, a $500 scholarship that would follow every low-income child in america to an acrowedded program of their choosing. some people say, you can't call the pell grant a voucher. i say that's precisely what the pell grant is. it is a voucher that a college kid can take to any accredited college -- public, private, or religious. why can't we do that for elementary and secondary schools? then in 2005 we had a hurricane called katrina creating devastation on the gulf coast. i worked with others to provide $t-1 .2 billion in one-time emergency assistance for the 2005-2006 school year so students enrolled in public and

nonpublic schools -- children who were displaced by the hurricane could enroll in public or private schools while their families were covered. they got scholarships of up to $6,000. more recently i suggest add scholarship for kids act. why don't we give a state like tennessee, ohio, north dakota the opportunity to take most of the federal dollars and turn them into scholarships for half the lowest-income students in their state? that scholarship would amount to $2,senior senator 00 if we just took the existing money we had and spent it that way. so that's a strategy we followed in this country for many, many years. ever since 1944 with the g.i. bill for veterans. we'll remember what that was. the veterans came home and a grateful nation gave them a scholarship and said, take it anywhere you want to any college or accredited school. take it to notre dame, take it

to yeshiva, take to a ohio state, to tennessee, to the presbyterian school. and they've done that. and the g.i. bill may be one of the most certainly successful legislation -- pieces of legislation ever enacted. last year there were over 28 billion -- $28 billion in federal pell grants and over $91 billion in federal loans that followed students to public and private colleges of their choice. the effect also provides vouchers to help pay for child care. the child care development block grant was negotiated by john sununu when he was chief of staff in 1990. that gives money to states and states give vouchers to working moms and they can go pick the child care center that is best for their child. the federal government in 2019 provided $8.7 billion, states

another $1.2 billion, to provide vouchers to 1.3 million children. so i think you can see where i'm going with this. it is that the idea of giving parents choices to schools is not a new idea. we've done it in colleges since 1944. we do it with child care. we do it in community colleges. why not do it for elementary and secondary education? why not give low-income families more of the same choices of good schools that wealthy families have? now, during covid-19, children in all k-12 schools have been affected by the disease. there are 100,000 public schools across our country serving 50 million students. another 35,000 private schools serving five million students. many of those schools, public

and private, are choosing not to reopen this fall. many are failing at providing high-quality distance learning. the students who sutter most are those with no internet, families who can't afford to put a child in a private school if a public school is not open. these are the parents who have the greatest need and the children who have the greatest need. we should address that need as we think about how to deal with covid-19. just as more families need more options, there are fewer scholarships available to help them choose private schools because there's been less charitable giving as a result of the pandemic. so for low-income students attending private schools on a scholarship, that can mean a heartbreaking end to their time at schedule, trans-ifering to a new school that may not need

their needs at all. that is why senator scott and i and others of us recommend that congress first provide sufficient funding for all of our schools. 100,000 public schools, 35,000 private -- so they can safely open this fall with as many students physically present as possible. i've suggested that the cost of this to the taxpayers could be as much as $70 billion. the house of representatives has appropriated $58 billion. if congress were to agree on the higher number, $70 billion,ed tt would be -- the school choice act -- the school choice now act that senator scott and i are offering is about the $5.7 million of those 55 million children who attend the 35,000 nonpublic

private or religious schools. it provides scholarships to students to have the opportunity to return to the private schools they attended before the pandemic and gives other students a new opportunity to attend private school by doing two things -- one, providing one-time emergency funding for scholarship-granting organizations. these are nonprofits that do the important work of helping students attend private schools in each state. these scholarship-granting organizations will use this one-time funding to provide families with direct educational assistance, including private school tuition, as well as home-schooling expenses. and number two, this act would provide permanent dollar-for-dollar federal tax credits for contributions to those scholarship-granting organizations. now, what this means is that any american taxpayer who makes a charitable donation to one of these nonprofits that provides scholarships to students will

receive a credit on their federal taxes equal to the amount the taxpayer donated. same goes for private companies that make donations to these organizations. the school choice now act is not a federal mandate. states are free to create their own tax credit scholarship program that works for the unique needs of students in their states. states that don't want to support scholarships to preschools are not required to accept these funds. they could be returned to the secretary and the funds will be redistributed to states that want the funds. this bill is about one of the great principles of what it means to be an american, the principle of equal opportunity. for me, equal opportunity means creating an environment in which the largest number of people can begin at the starting line. when everyone is at the starting line in america, anything is possible. giving children more opportunity to attend a better school is the

real answer to inequality in america. i thank the president and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, the legislation that senator alexander just talked about probably is something that we will look at in connection with this legislation that we are likely to pass here in the congress in the next week or so regarding the covid-19 crisis that we face. i'm here on the floor today to talk about that, talk about what the next steps ought to be and how we should be responding as congress to this unprecedented challenge we have of the pandemic. we're now about five months into it. for much of april and certainly in the month of may, we were seeing pretty good progress on the coronavirus pandemic. the situation was improving. many of us thought we were turning the corner. unfortunately, as we have moved into june and july, we're now trending in the wrong direction in much of the country.

over the past week, the number of hospitalizations, for instance, has risen in many of our states. and there is concern that the situation could worsen when the weather begins to cool. today in ohio, our governor announced a statewide mask mandate as an example. we have not had that yet. he did so because he's concerned about some of these numbers. ohio is not in as bad of shape as some states, but we're not seeing the progress that we had hoped for. the past few months have been a somewhat better story for the economy. after the initial shocks of the self-imposed economic shutdown, this past spring, a couple months ago, we have seen a steady rebound taking place in most parts of the country. new employment claims put out just last week while still far too high compared to where we were before this pandemic are the lowest we have seen since the crisis began. recent retail sales numbers are about where they were a year ago. when there was no pandemic. so we are seeing somber

improvement in the economy as compared to the disappointing progress we're making recently on the pandemic. thanks to unprecedented federal action, such as the paycheck protection program, which has allowed small businesses to keep their doors open and to retain employees thanks to some of the target tax relief to help our families and also our businesses, we have been able to prevent an even more serious economic collapse that in my view would have had a devastating impact on all of us. however, we're not out of the woods yet. there is still roughly 17 million americans out of work. that is a lot of americans, by the way, who have been furloughed through no fault of their own because their businesses are not operating. this corresponds to about an 11% unemployment rate. more than three times higher than it was just five months ago. you recall that just back in february, we had historically low unemployment. now we're up to 11%. and of course there are parts of the economy that have not seen the progress that other parts

have. so there is a lot for us to consider now that congress is back in session and now that we're in the middle of negotiating this new what they call phase 5 coronavirus rescue package. the new legislation is going to have a significant impact on how we address these dual health care and economic crises. so that's why it's important and more important than ever that we figure out how to work together, republicans and democrats alike, and make some smart bipartisan policy decisions. unfortunately, that's not the way the house of representatives has proceeded to date. the house democrats chose to construct their own proposal. it's called the heroes act, rather than working constructively across the aisle to try to find some common ground to help americans deal with this health care and economic crisis, democrats chose in may to release an 1,800-page, $3.5 trillion package that included some provisions that have nothing to do with covid-19. how big is $3.5 trillion?

well, that makes it the biggest piece of legislation ever passed by either the house or the senate in the history of our country. never have we had legislation that expensive. $3.5 trillion is also just a lot of money. the budget last year, by the way, was $4.5 trillion. the entire budget for the entire year for our country. and this one bill, $3.5 trillion. so not only the most costly legislation ever to pass but, again, it's not just about covid-19. in fact, one democratic leader called it, quote, a tremendous opportunity to fix things to fit our vision, which may be why it passed by a nearly party-line vote. if true, by the way, that vision entails raising taxes on some small businesses. it includes giving out tax breaks largely to benefit very wealthy individuals on both coasts. it has direct payouts to illegal immigrants. it has immigration reforms

related to i.c.e. and other things. it has unprecedented mandates on the states to require mail-in voting. and tell states, by the way, that they have to require certain kinds of i.d. this has always been within the province of the states to run our election systems. n.s.a. in this legislation. at the same time, out of $3.5 trillion and 1,800 pages, there is nothing there to provide liability protection to our schools, to our hospitals, to our small businesses. no funding for the paycheck protection program. no assistance for americans trying to get back to work. $3.5 trillion in taxpayer money being appropriated on a party-line vote. i don't think that's what people are looking for. i think they want us to get together, as we have already, with four previous covid-19 legislative packages, and work together to try to get it done. we have got to find that common ground. we have got to be sure we pass something that is bipartisan, that supports our health care

system, our schools, our local governments, our employers, our families, and that we do it in as targeted a way as possible, given the fact that we already have the largest deficit in the history of our country this year, and of course all this adding to our national debt. we need to do it based on good data, on what has been spent, what remains to be done. we need to keep in mind what is the most important policy proposals to include in this legislation, not make it a catch-all. first and most importantly, in my view, we need to increase funding for the health care response and the safety efforts. this is the underlying problem. until we focus on this pandemic and what the virus is doing, we can spend all the money we want around here and it's not going to make much of a difference. so we have to be sure that we are focused on the actual problem. i think that means getting our health care professionals the resources they need to effectively respond to this crisis. they need more funding.

we need more funding for testing, contact tracing, for p.p.e., the personal protective gear that unfortunately we still don't have the stockpiles here that we need. we need to be sure we are doing everything we can do to get this antiviral medication up and going. we have one that is showing very positive results. we need to do everything we can to get this vaccine as quickly as possible because with the vaccine as we have for the common flu we will be making tremendous progress in pushing back against the virus. but the stop of the spread of the virus has to be our top priority in this next bill, as it has been in some of the other legislation. it's clear from the recent resurgence in cases that we're still not where we need to be on testing, by the way. i notice there has been a lot of discussion recently about testing and whether it's needed or not. i will tell you it's critical because we need to know where the disease is and how it might be spreading. it also gives us much greater confidence in taking steps

toward reopening in a safe way. whether it's our schools, whether it's our businesses, going to restaurants, going to bowling alleys, movie theaters. the testing is very important. last week, i was in columbus, ohio, at the columbus health department where officials told me what a huge difference the cares being -- cares grant that they have received has made in being able to expand testing. it's their ability to track and monitor and contain the virus in surrounding columbus and franklin county that is needed right now. and they're doing a great job. they're providing testing that is drive-by testing. it's easy to access. if you don't have insurance to pay for it, it is covered through cares funding that was passed in the congress. we are being sure that the funding is providing the best information available as we fight this invisible enemy. we have got to continue to do that, to prioritize bolstering the ability of our health care officials at home, to be able to coordinate the response.

state level, local level, national level, and testing obviously is key to that. in addition, as more parts of our country are put in place safe plans to reopen our economies, we want to make sure that the individuals who went on to covid-19 -- on the covid-19 unemployment line in the early days of this pandemic had the opportunity and the incentive to reenter the workforce. we have got to be sure our workplaces are safe. this week, i introduced legislation called the healthy workplace tax credit, a credit on payroll taxes to ensure employers can afford additional safety measures from the plexiglass you have probably seen at some places, the shields to be able to protect people, to the p.p.e. that's needed, the gowns in some cases, the masks, the gloves, hand sanitizer, to be able to afford that, to assure there is testing in place so employees and consumers feel safe reentering the economy. this tax credit will support our efforts to make our workplaces healthy and safe and to build

consumer confidence that all appropriate measures are being taken. it doesn't really matter what we say as elected officials. it doesn't matter what our governors are saying or local health officials. if people don't feel safe, don't feel comfortable, they are not going to reengage in the economy and step forward. so i think this kind of a tax credit should be something that both sides of the aisle can strongly support and we can ensure that we are doing everything we can to get people back to a more normal life. as we tackle this health care challenge head on, we also can't afford to step back on our efforts to combat the drug epidemic. remember the opioid crisis that we were facing for the last couple of years. it's devastated communities all around our country, including my home state of ohio. unfortunately, we're seeing that during this coronavirus pandemic, the number of addictions and overdoses and overdose deaths is growing. this is very concerning, particularly because thanks to a lot of efforts, including efforts in this body, to provide

more treatment and recovery and prevention services, we were finally making progress. in 2018, in my state of ohio, we had a 22% decrease in opioid overdose deaths. every single year for the previous dozen years, we have seen increases. we are finally making progress. now, unfortunately, we seem to be backtracking because of the covid crisis. people are isolated. people are feeling anxiety. people are not being able to access the treatment that they used to be able to access. so in this legislation, we should also be sure that we make permanent the progress we have made recently with coronavirus in providing more telehealth treatment, making that more accessible. i've introduced legislation called the treats act that would do just that so we don't lose ground on this other deadly disease. we also need to look forward to the fall and ensure we have funding to support the schools so they are able to safely reopen their doors to students. keeping our children out of the classroom for a protracted

period of time has already had a negative impact on many of them with regard to educational advancement. we have heard this from the experts, the american pediatric society, the pediatricians back home, the doctors who are looking at this situation and saying it's very helpful in terms of getting kids back to school for education but also for their mental health, also for their social skills. on top of that, many parents, of course, have been forced to make impossible decisions. do they go to work to earn a paycheck or do they stay home and care for their child? so reopening the schools or having effective child care is very important. we need to act fast to ensure children don't lose more progress. our phased legislation should provide legislation to help schools safely reopen, whether it's providing additional masks, gloves, or other personal protective gear or other resources we have talked about. i think that money is well spent. second, we have got to get the economy moving again. to do that, i believe we need to

remove the disincentive currently in place whereby, interestingly, we tried to help on unemployment insurance, but we provided a flat $600 payment that has actually disincentivized a lot of people to go to work. why? because most individuals are making more on unemployment insurance than in their previous job. a university of chicago study says 60% to 70% of those who are on unemployment insurance are making more on u.i. than they did working. as part of this negotiation, i believe congress should and will extend the additional federal unemployment insurance benefit in some form. but you shouldn't get paid more not to work. and i think that's a principle that we all agree with, i hope, on both sides of the aisle. we should fix this disincentive to work by making the benefit a percentage of your previous income. by the way, july 13 yahoo

finance poll found 62% of these americans believe the benefits serve as a disincentive to work. it doesn't have to be that way. we can help people to make sure they get the support they need but not being paid more than they would if they were going to work. dweping on how high the federal payment is, we ought to consider a bonus, a return-to-work bonus for individuals that they'd receive on top ever their paycheck. take part of the federal benefit with them to work. i've been promoting this since may. we haven't been able to pass it around here. i think this would help people, help those workers who do want to go back to work to be able to make that tough decision without having a financial disincentive. help our small businesses and others when need the workforce badly, help our economy to be able to reopen properly. this idea, by the way, has broad sup port across the country. 69% of respondents support a return-to-work bonus. there are various ways we can accomplish this goal. i believe it would be helpful if

it's paired with an extension of the unemployment insurance. so this is something we have to focus on and come up with a bipartisan consensus, a compromise to be able to ensure that we are not paying people more not to work but ensure we are taking care of people who are furloughed through no fault of their own. i also think we should be considering provisions to help incentivize the hiring from the employer side. so it's also providing more of an incentive to bring people on board. a couple of ways to do this and would make a lot of sense to me because it's building on legislation we already passed is to expand and repurpose the work opportunity tax credit, to add a category for covid-19 for furloughed individuals. also the employee retention tax credit from the cares act we passioned just a short while ago can be improved to make it more encompassing and a better hiring credit. helping to subsidize the marginal cost of a new hire will allow businesses to ramp up operations more quickly as the economy reopens and also bring

more individuals off of the unemployment rolls and into the workforce. i hope these are part of whatever legislative package we end up with. again these two should both be bipartisan. the tax credit has always been bipartisan. the retention tax credit was bipartisan and the cares annual. these are things we can and should get done. we should stick to what has worth at this point in the coronavirus response. one of the biggest successes of course has been this p.p.p. loan program. however, one flaw in the original law creating the p.p.p. program was that it put in place barriers to loans for those owners who had unrelated felony records. this was brought to my attention by a constituent of mine. his name is troy parker. he's a person who's done everything you would expect you would want someone to g do who comes off a felony conviction, a mistake he made. he was given a second chance and

took t. he started a small business, a cleaning business and hired a lot of second-chance citizens, returning citizens. he gives them a chance, an opportunity and he's been successful. but during the coronavirus pandemic, he lost a lot of his business as you can imagine. so he applied for a p.p.p. loan. he was told he couldn't get one. why? because he had a felony record. he had a conviction for a financial crime and it was within the last five years. it was several years ago but within the last five years so he couldn't get a p.p.p. loan. he's just the kind of individual we would want to help. so thanks to troy, we engaged on this issue when we learned about it. we worked with the treasure trey department. we got immediate relief in terms of a rule but we now have to put that into law to provide the relief that's needed to provide certainty and to codify it. so the paycheck protection program second chance act does that. it's bipartisan. senator cardin and i introduced this legislation.

it's got to be part of the next bill because it makes so much sense. we also need a plan to adapt our economy for a future where many individuals may be living more of their lives at home and online. this is easier in some urban areas where you have access to broadband but it can be a huge hurdle in some other areas, particularly rural parts of our country, including parts of ohio. think about it. we're relying much more on telehealth, much more on telelearning, much more on teleworking. and yet in many parts of the country, there's no access to the kind of wi wi-fi, the kind f broadband you need to do so effectively. earlier this month i introduced bipartisan bicameral legislation to accelerate broadband access across the country to help our economy. rural america deserves the same level of access to broadband and including this legislation in the phase five package would help them get it faster. third, we need to solve the growing problem of state and

local governments running out of funding the longer this crisis continues. this has affected some critical public safety services like e.m.s., firefighters, police departments, leaving more americans vulnerable at the worse possible time. many of our local governments are so reliant on income taxes. in fact, the brookings institute has determined the four of the top five cities in america, will feel the largest fiscal impact are probably cities in ohio. back in april senator brown and i urged treasury to provide more flexibility so local governments can use the cares funding that's been provided for these critical services like police and fire. and while the administration, thanks to secretary mnuchin understanding and acting on this, did so administratively, it now has to be codified to be sure we have the needed certainty. when i was home the last few weeks i heard a lot about this from our county commissioners, from our municipalities, from our mayors saying we don't know

if we can use these funds this way or that way. we have to be sure we have certainty. we don't want to have to repay this funding. so this codification will also be very important. the flexibility i hope is something both sides of the aisle can agree to. why shouldn't we have more flexibility with regards to the cares funding. some hasn't been spent yet so we still have in ohio as an example, $850 million that is slated to go to the local communities, to our commissioners, and to our mayors for our cities that are under 500,000. and yet we don't have the flexibility, certainty we need there. so that's important to pass as part of this legislation. these are just a few policy proposals i believe that can make an immediate and lasting impact in our response to the challenges we face with this coronavirus pandemic. i'm sure that in the coming days we'll be discussing the next step, forward in depth because i believe we all recognize how important it is to get this right and move quickly on it.

unemployment expires, $600 on july 31, the end of next week. that's a deadline we can't let pass. we're facing a momentous test to come together to address a disease that's changed almost every aspect of our lives seemingly overnight. it's our responsibility to do that. now is the time to put aside partisanship, get away from our partisan corners, and work together on some of these constructive solutions. i look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. my colleague from washington state, my colleagues from north dakota, my colleagues who i know share my concern that we can't allow this opportunity to pass. we have to once again come together as we've said tonight, there are many of these things that are bipartisan where there can be a lot of consensus. we've got to move forward to support our health care system, our schools, our employers, our families as we work to overcome this crisis. a senator: mr. president?

mr. portman: i yield back. ms. cantwell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: mr. president, i come to the floor to talk about the ndaa but before i do, i want to join my colleagues with great enthusiasm tonight out here on the senate floor who are talking about the senate-crafted bill, the great american outdoors act that took a step closer to getting to the president's desk. that is the investment that we believe we should be making in open space and public lands, passed the house of representatives and we hope will be signed by the president very shortly. this investment, as my colleagues were talking about tonight, has been a long time in coming on two fronts. obviously from a state that represents a lot of national parks and areas that need the investment in our maintenance program, everything from olympic national park that will get an upgrade on some of its water system to new trails at mount ranier, to other things at lake roosevelt and fort vancouver, i

want to thank all my colleagues, senators gardner, manchin, king, burr, warner robins, daines, and heinrich would were a coalition of people who have been working on this issue in the more recent days to make sure that we got it out of the senate and got it over to the house of representatives. but the important thing is that it has been a bipartisan coalition of people who believe in public lands and open space that has brought us to this point. the land and water conservation fund being something that "scoop" jackson led the charge on in the 1960's based on the fact that he thought america was urbanizing in our highway system, he thought we would need open space and boy, was he right. everything from gas works park in downtown slts that gives -- seattle that gives everybody a great view to the impressive things that have been done all over the state, now saying that the land and water conservation, $900 million will be permanently

go to land and water conservation will give us to to three times more money than we previously had to make investments in open space and we know that investments in open space not only are restorative to all of us would enjoy the outdoors, whether it's hunting or fishing or hiking, but it also is a big juggernaut for our economy, that its' $800 billion in revenue that is generated from this industry and it's an industry that is well worth putting more investment in. so i thank all my colleagues that were here tonight and the hard work. particularly i want to thank senator manchin. senator manchin has done an incredible job taking this issue as the ranking member of the energy and natural resources committee and understanding how important it was to get it over the goal line. so i just -- i tell the senator that i'm going to give him a picture of myself hiking in the dolly sods in west virginia as a great thank you for his

preservation of moving this effort to the final goal line. so i just want to thank senator manchin and obviously all my colcolleagues. but, mr. president, i wanted to come as we were wrapping up the final debate on the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2021 and talk to my colleagues about as this bill moves to conference, that i want to make sure we continue to pay particular attention to one provision. and that is that the ndaa bill as reported out of the armed services committee i believe included some egregious provisions that would effectively wrestle away civilian control of arsenal and give it to the military, a provision that would allow the department of defense to raid dollars out of the department of energy that are literally there specifically for us to meet our cleanup obligations and also to fund r&d at our national laboratories like the national

renewable energy laboratory at colorado or other facilities in my state, like the pacific northwest laboratories and others. so specifically the committee-reported bill would have stripped the energy secretary's power over his own budget and would require a subcabinet member on the national -- the nuclear weapons council to approve the budget for the national nuclear security administration. so i know the presiding officer knows this well. but it would have allowed the pentagon to prioritize making nuclear weapons over the critical mission of the u.s. department of energy. and i believe also would have reduced civilian control over our country's nuclear weapons complex. i am so glad that energy secretary bre brow wrote and sat

eliminates the president cabinet's secretary from managing the most sensitive national security programs in the department in assuring the viability of the nation's national nuclear deterrent. and i do want to thank senators inhofe and reed for hearing the concerns expressed by many senators on both sides of the aisle and for hearing the concerns of the secretary of energy in accepting the manchin-cantwell amendment that stripped this out of the bill because i believe it was a radical change that did not have enough debate but i certainly appreciate the presiding officer's interest and determination as well. in particular, i want to thank senator alexander and senators heinrich, cassidy, wyden, barrasso, hirono, risch and sanders who sent a letter expressing opposition to these provisions. in a letter that stated if these provisions would have remained in the bill, they would have, quote, impeded the accountability of congressional

oversight as well as imperil the future funding of other critical d.o.d. d.o.d. responsibilities, promoting since and technology work that's done at our national laboratories. so basically it went on to say and ensuring cleanup of our nation's nuclear weapons complex, end quote, of that letter. so i want to make sure -- i ask unanimous consent that that letter -- the cantwell letter and the letter -- cantwell-alexander, be entered into the record. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: and i especially ask that the members of this year's ndaa conference committee -- i am assuming that will be one -- that they consider these issues as they go to conference. this is not just a bureaucratic budget dispute or some interagency accounting measure. this is, i believe, a very important issue, as it relates to civilian oversight of our nuclear weapons complex and as

written in the original bill would have required the nuclear weapons council to set the priorities for the n.s.a. budget and would have required the department of energy to get their approval -- the national weapons council -- it would require the department of energy to get the national weapons council approval before it could submit its energy budget to o.m.b. so, yes, there was a big takeover of the department of energy budget snuck into the ndaa -- well, let's just say some of us knew about it. some of us didn't know about it -- into the bill and we objected and now we have taken this language out. but i am sure this will continue, and i this i it still continues. i think people who have a desire to have a larger national nuclear security administration budget definitely are going to continue this effort. but people should know that the

national nuclear security administration makes up about 45% of the department's energy budget. so, in other words, the secretary of energy would have lost control over almost half of his budget. and it would also mean that the nuclear weapons council, which is comprised of five d.o.d. subcabinet officials and one department of energy employee that they would have slings been addicting to members of the president's cabinet what the budget should look like. so imagine that the secretary of energy has to come before congress and he says, 45% of my budget has already been determined by somebody else and you really can't go talk to them. so this isn't, though, just an issue of transparency. this is also an issue about our obligations for cleanup. and the issues of cleanup of the national weapons council and the department of energy's obligations to clean up

specifically in washington at hanford. so i want to make sure people understand that nuclear cleanup is an obligation that we have as a nation, not just in washington but other states, and unfortunately we haven't met all the milestones for nuclear waste cleanup. in fact, idaho experienced between 2012 sand 2018 -- 2012 and 2018, d.o.d. failed to meet cleanup at the laboratory taking away d.o.e.'s ability to perform its own budget. more of their budget is taken away by nnsa. how are they going to meet these milestones? so this is probably no place more important than in the state of washington. so the department of energy is legally obligated to meet these cleanup responsibilities at the

hanford site. it is a legal contract between the state of washington and our federal obligations, and it is the duty of our nation to clean up what was for us an effort in world war ii and the cold war. so i hope our colleagues won't forget history here, won't forget the obligations to clean up those nuclear waste sites and certainly won't forget this effort we had here on the senate floor. last year the department of energy completed a life cycle scope schedule and cost report for the completion of the hanford cleanup site. it found remaining cleanup costs to be $323 billion at a best-case-scenario, and $677 billion at a worst-case scenario. so that makes cleaning up nuclear military waste sites at central washington the second

largest long-term obligation the federal government has after social security and medicare. so no wonder people come and try to raid it. trust me, i could be going on all night over all the efforts that have been going on for decades where people try to come up with a new way of either taking that money out of the budget or saying that they're going to find a quicker way to do cleanup. i'm all for speed, but i'm also for meeting the obligations. but there's not magic here. it is a responsibility and it is science and it is an investment and it belongs to the whole nation. and we certainly don't deserve to have people coming to the senate floor with a bill trying to take away 45% of the administration's budget and then say we don't have to meet that cleanup obligation because we're investing in nuclear weapons and we decided that.

so, believe me, as this bill moves off the senate floor, i am going to be watching the conference. i am not just going to watch this issue now or in conference. i am going to be keeping watch on this issue in a constant fashion, just like i always have on p hanford cleanup dollars. but i resent that people believe that congress would fall for such a tactic to believe that the efforts of nuclear weapons development should be controlled by five people within a subgroup of the department much energy and that they shouldn't report to the secretary of energy on that budget but make up their own budget and demand that it be met at the presidential level. now, i just hope we don't reach this same dilemma again. i hope we have learned from it. i hope that people understand that these priorities of cleanup of our nuclear west sites and

what these parts of the country did for us in meeting our obligations in world war ii, we -- we laud those efforts from a scientific perspective. we laud those efforts from the manpower that it took. we should now laud the focus of a budget that keeps the focus on cleanup and gets the job done and not lose track or sight because from time to time somebody else wants to do a larger investment than nuclear weapons. so, mr. president, i thank the president and i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i rise tonight to ask what was -- what does democracy look like

in america? and i have here a picture of what democracy looks like. people showing up, presenting their opinion with their feet and their voices and their signs, saying we want change. and the change they want is to pursue the important value that public safety in america be a value that is applied equally to all citizens, that every single person in the community is viewed as a client for the public safety team, that the distribution of protection is equal and the treatment of citizens is equal so that when public safety officers respond, they respond equally no matter what section of the city a call comes from, that they respond the same no matter the color of

a person's skin, that profiling is a thing of the past, that viewing two young black men on the free trade is not viewed different -- men on the street is not viewed differently than viewing two young white men on the street. it is that goal of having everyone treated fairly that has led so many to come out and say, we need major reform in our country. we need to set behind us the time period where departments of public safety tended to look at the white community and say, those are our clients, and look at the black community or the dark-skin community and say, those are the threats. that's what people are trying to change by turning out in america in this fashion. it's an important moment in

which we need substantive change, real change, real change like the bill that cory booker put together and led the battle on, and kamala harris put together with him in partnership and led the battle on. that's the type of change we need in america. that's why people have been turning out in the streets. but there is an unexpected twist, something that we didn't anticipate, in which the president of the united states hasn't listened to this message about coming together so that everyone is treated equally. instead, he's doubling down on a strategy of racism, a strategy of bigotry, a strategy of creating conflict in america

with a determined new effort. this is a picture of protesting in oregon, and i was at a demonstration much like this where people chanted, this is what democracy looks like. this is what democracy looks like. this is what democracy looks like, colleagues. people coming together with their signs and their feet and their time, saying we need change. it is as fundamental as free expression under the first amendment. it is as fundamental to our constitution as the right to assemble. this is as fundamental to the vision of we the people as anyone can imagine, that vision that lincoln summarized as -- summarized as government of the people, by the people, for the

people -- not of, by, and for some dicta editorial force, not someone who wants to consolidate power in an imperial presidency. in fact, our founders were really worried about authoritarianism. they were really worried about an imperial presidency. once they launched that constitution, what would happen with that first president? would that first president say i'm now going to consolidate power in this young republic, hold it on to the executive, ignore the balance of powers between the branches of government and consolidate power in the executive? i'm going to take the forces that were the revolutionary war forces, and i'm going to turn them into a force to keep in

power regardless of the constitutional requirement for election. they were very worried about this. and one of the reasons that they particularly liked the idea of george washington being the first president is because george washington was very worried about that. and the example that he set would mean a whole lot. it's one thing to have a constitution on paper. it's a whole another thing to hold onto it, to keep it. coming out of the constitutional convention, the story goes that someone asked one of the convention policymakers what do we have? and he replied, a republic if we can keep it. if we can keep it. this is what democracy looks like right here. here is another picture of what democracy looks like. this is the wall of the moms in

portland, oregon, coming out, standing side by side, creating a barrier between the police and the federal forces that had been allocated to the city by president trump, and the people creating that barrier, that wall of moms to say do not use flash-bang on us or all the people behind us. do not use tear gas on us or all the people behind us. do not use impact munitions -- a polite name for essentially rubber bullets. they say nonlethal bullets, we hope, right, because sometimes they do enormous damage. do not use your batons to knock us down and break our bones. do not pepper spray us in the face. we are the wall of moms.

this is what democracy looks like, but this is a message locked on president trump. we have something entirely different from the president. the president said i'm going to send some forces out to portland to basically pour gasoline on the fire and turn it into basically a much more intense conflict. so you already have the basics of a challenge in which you have had folks from the white extremist coming in camouflage to portland to create trouble and looking for a fight, and you have antifa coming to portland to look for a fight with the white extremists, the white nationalists. well, that had calmed down

enormously to where there was only a small group left, coming in late at night and causing trouble. but trump said if i can recreate conflict in portland, well, i can run a campaign on fear, because what we have seen in presidential campaign after presidential campaign is a republican candidate saying if we run on fear, we'll win because people think of us as stronger on national security. well, we have seen the different strategies. there was the ebola run on fear strategy. there was the immigrants, rapists and murders are going to run across the border and swarm america run on fear strategy. there was the isis is going to

row across the atlantic and invade america run on fear strategy. there was the willie horton, you're going to be attacked by a dark-skinned person in an alley run on fear strategy. and all too often, it's worked. this effort to gear up division in america, to play on racism in america. but to that strategy of division and racism, i say no way. that is too low, too wrong for america. we should be coming together as a country. we should have a message of coming together as a people. we should be taking on the challenges of health care and housing and education. those are the bills we should have here on the floor of the senate. we should be taking on the issue of fair labor, good-paying jobs.

we should be working on rebuilding america's infrastructure. we should be addressing the fact that even today in states all across this country, you can be discriminated against for being a member of the lgbtq community. you can get married in the morning, and you can proceed to be thrown out of your apartment. you can be told you cannot eat in this restaurant, you cannot sit in this movie theater, you cannot even receive this government benefit. the supreme court just took one step forward on the employment question. strengthening the ability to not be discriminated against unemployment. we passed a bill here in the senate back in 2013 to do exactly that, strengthen protections in employment. but the republican-controlled house wouldn't take it up and treat lgbtq americans fairly.

if we were doing our job, we would have a debate over the equality act that would end discrimination in all of these areas, because the right thing to do is that no door should be slammed in the face of an american because of who they are or whom they love. isn't that something we should be doing here? shouldn't we be taking on this challenge of carbon pollution and climate chaos? all the fossil fuel companies have worked hard to turn this into a partisan issue. it didn't used to be a partisan issue. back when president bush -- not yet president but candidate bush ran against candidate dukakis, it was the republican candidate who ran on climate change. it was the democrat who ran on fossil fuels. it's not so long ago before citizens united, we had so many climate champions on both sides.

but then dark money was introduced, and the fossil fuel community said this is our chance to control the u.s. senate, and they put hundreds of millions -- not thousands, millions of dollars into the senate campaigns six years ago, 2014. i remember it well because i was one of the folks that they were targeting. and so i saw their strategy of taking that money and putting it into third-party campaigns and running tremendous numbers of assault ads, negative ads, attack ads, doing it on social media all across the board. and since then, what happened? well, all the voices that were on the republican side of the aisle, saying we need to take on climate, disappeared. that's the corrupting power of citizens united and dark money.

then we had a bill here on the floor. we needed 60 votes under our policy rules to be able to pass it, to close debate, and it was disclosure to say at least we should disclose where the money comes from. but what happened? the fossil fuel lobby said no republican can dare to vote for this bill if you want us to keep you in power. and every single member across the aisle followed their lead and voted against disclosure. they voted for darkness. they voted for hiding these massive contributions coming in from who knows where because they're hidden. my point is this is democracy here. people expressing their views. and here in this chamber, we should have democracy as well. we had it almost over our entire history of people being able to

put virtually any issue on the floor and have it debated on and then to have it voted on and then to have voters know how their senator voted so there was accountability. but no more. we're in this incredible period in which there are a record number low of amendments and amendments we do have are basically not very significant to begin with or they are preprogrammed by leadership. not by each senator having power. the idea of 100 senators having that power, that sounds like something out of just another world, and yet that was the senate throughout its history until recently. and why do i keep emphasizing this? because this concentration of power where bills and amendments only go through the majority leader is an absolute fit with government by and for the powerful.

the opposite of government by and for the people. so if someone has a bill that says you can't gouge americans on drug prices, they can't get that bill to the floor because it's blocked by the majority leader, and the drug companies don't want that bill on the floor, so they give a lot of money to that team. and if someone says we should have reasonable gun safety laws, not violating the second amendment, it would make the world a little safer for our children, well, that bill can't get on the floor because it's blocked by the majority leader, and it's backed by massive spending of dark money and the n.r.a. or if we have a bill that says we should do a lot more about housing, i can't put that bill on the floor. how about we have a banking system that serves the cannabis industry so that we don't have huge bags of money opened up to the possibility of organized crime moving it around the

country and doing bad things. well, we should extend that coverage, but we can't get that vote on this floor. which brings me to something more important than just basically anything i just talked about, which is what president trump is doing right now deploying secret police across america. secret police here in america. now, we know that president trump admires authoritarian leaders. he has spoken with admiration about duatarte in the philippines. he seems to be in love with erdogan in turkey. he loves the crown prince in saudi arabia who assassinated an american-based journalist. he can't find anything wrong with how putin runs russia, as basically an authoritarian style

dictator. but now he's doing something beyond just his affection. he is bringing the tactics of authoritarian government to the streets of the united states of america. this is what democracy looks like, but i'm going to show you some pictures of what democracy doesn't look like. instead, what authoritarianism looks like, what paramilitary forces look like. so let's take a -- let's take an exploration of the president's strategy. well, first, authortarians don't want identity about the organization on their police uniforms. and they want the police in functionings to look more like warriors in some other fight across the sea. so you dress them in camouflage.

here are folks deployed by president trump in the streets of portland. what agency do these belong to? no shoulder patch. no identity on this front. no identity on the other shoulder. no identity on the helmet. no identity. who are these people? how about these people? are these the same group here? these are white extremists nationalists who come to portland to get in fights. and so president trump dresses up his federal forces to look like white extremists on the streets of portland. how is there accountability if you don't know where they're from? who can tell me if these folks are from customs and border protection? or are they from the federal protective service? are they u.s. marshals?

how do we know? we don't, because they are deliberately not marked. now, we're told that these are actually customs and border protection. and i called up the head of customs and border protection and i said -- excuse me -- yes, custom and border protection. i said what's the story with this tactic of secret police on the streets. they said oh, no, no, no. we insist they have imrncht c.b. he put this in a tweet. he told all-america we don't do that but america has pictures. and those pictures tell us there is no i.d. these are being deployed as secret operators on the streets of portland. now, that can be terrifying

because you don't know who they are. is it just someone who wants to create trouble who put police on their shirt or is it one of these folks? these folks have badges on them that look a little more official. we see an american flag here. we see an american flag here. are these the white extremists coming to the streets to beat people up? or are they federal agents and if so, who are they, what is their mission? well, we found out their mission in short order. here we have a picture of a navy vet and that navy vet said he came down to say what does it mean to honor your oath, the oath of office, oath to the constitution. he was a veteran who served in our forces to defend the constitution. and how did president trump's

secret police respond? well, here is a man, here is a c.p.b. agent with a baton right here striking him. here's another one with a baton coming around to strike him again. here is another one spraying pepper spray into his face. this man just standing here, his hands are basically hooked in his pocket kind of like this. he's just standing there saying i came down here to see what people thought about honoring their oath to the constitution. and he's attacked. he's attacked by multiple members of this secret force trump puts on the streets of our nation. they had not just pepper spray and not just batons. they had other weapons, impact

munitions. in this case u.s. marshals. so here is a young man. he's holding a boom box over his head or that's what it looked like and he's standing on one side of the street. on the other side of the street are the marshals. and as he stands there in the video, you see him crumple and fall to the ground because from across the street he was shot right between the eyes, critical condition, fractured skull. who in the world would expect a federal officer to shoot a protester either holding up a sign or a radio between the eyes from across the street? you think that's accidental? they accidentally shot him in the head? it wasn't accidental. it was deliberate. they're sending a message and

lots of other people got shot with these munitions. i'm told that he's no longer in critical condition. thank goodness for that. but it could have been very, very different and we still don't know the ultimate outcome of this assault on a peaceful protester. well, pepper spray, using batons on veterans, shooting a peaceful protester in the head from a few yards away, that's not all that trump's secret police were up to. because they decided to go through the streets and grab people and throw them into unmarked vans. here is one of those vans on the streets of portland. here are president trump's

secret police, unmarked, throwing another protester into a van. one of the individuals who was treated in this fashion said he was terrified because he thought these camouflage folks were the white extremists who were coming to make trouble and was he being kidnapped. they would not answer the question when they were asked who are you. they didn't answer the question. secret police, unmarked, using pepper spray, batons, impact munitions, tear gas on peaceful protesters and then throwing people, grabbing them and throwing them into unmarked vans. what does that make you think of? what country are we talking about here? are we talking about syria? are we talking about in the philippines? are we talking about erdogan in turkey? are we talking about the crown

prince in saudi arabia? are we talking about putin running russia? well, we could be talking about any of those folks as they use these tactics. but this is unacceptable and outrageous and unconstitutional in a democratic republic. well, president trump coordinated this deployment of secret police and attacks on peaceful protesters to create a big conflagration, a big explosion of protest in portland. the protests died down to less than a hundred actors and bystanders in the late evening. and then i'm told that on the days that followed these outrageous attacks, the protests multiplied not one or twofold but fivefold or more.

and that's exactly what trump wanted. because he wanted to say there's dissent and trouble in the streets of portland so i'm your law and order president. i'll take care of that trouble. so you create the trouble. you escalate the conflict so you can say i'm the one who can de-escalate it later. well, this is a horrific strategy no member of this senate should have the slightest sympathy fo for a strong man ine oval office adopting the tactics, the secret police tactics of the worst dictators from around the globe.

some of the headlines that followed were things like this. federal law enforcement use, used unmarked vehicles to grab protesters off portland streets. a navy vet asked federal officers in portland to remember their oaths, their constitutional oaths. then they broke his hand. you saw the pictures, striking him with the batons. federal officers deployed in portland didn't have proper training, d.h.s. memo says. sent untrained, undisciplined folks, but they knew what the president wanted and take was to create -- that was to create an escalation of violence on the streets of our city. now you're probably wondering didn't the president call and talk to the governor before deciding to deploy these secret police on the streets of portland? well, no, he didn't.

well didn't the d.h.s. secretary? no. how about the department of justice? the attorney general? no. well, surely they called the mayor and said before we deploy, folks -- deploy folks to patrol the streets with tear gas and batons and impact bullets, rubber bullets, pepper spray, before we beat up peaceful protesters and shoot them in the head, we want to talk to you, mayor, about what's going on. did the president call? did the secretary call? the secretary of homeland security? did the secretary or the attorney general call? did the head of customs and border protection, c.b.p. call before they sent their special operating group? did the marshals lead director,

commissioner call? the answer is no, no, no, and no. none of them called because they weren't coming to coordinate to help. they were coming to disrupt. so they knew that if they asked to come, if they were wanted, the answer would be no, you're not wanted because you're coming to inflame the violence and disruption. so the president was giving speeches saying look at what a wonderful president i am because i'm sending help to qualm violence in portland. he's sending secret police to create violence. this has to be one of the big br lies he has told in his time in the presidency. and by various accounts he tells

a number of them every single day. but this lie to the american people, this is not just a little white lie. this is not just a little misrepresentation. this is something of constitutional import about who we are as a country. we don't do secret police in our country. we don't grab people off the street to terrify them and throw them in unmarked vans in our country. at least not until now. but you see, the president has looked at the polls that say we're not very happy. americans are not very happy with the way you have executed the presidency. and we're certainly not very happy with the way you have managed this really big crisis,

the corona covid-19 pandemic. because when there's a crisis, you start to see can someone rise to the occasion, can they bring fort the best in people? can they facilitate cooperation? can they mobilize resources? can they make the case in an effective and persuasive fashi fashion? and the american people have seen that president trump could not rise to the occasion. he could not bring himself to bring people together. he could not make the case of a national strategy on how to tackle the coronavirus. he could not mobilize resources to address it in a timely

fashion. so millions more are going to get sick as a result of his incompetence and tens of thousands more will die because the incompetence of president trump. so what's a president who's running for reelection to do when his incompetence is revealed in its complete and total clarity to the nation? well, you create a war. that's what you do. you create a war because a war might rally people to your side when we're being attacked. but in this case the president couldn't come up with an overseas war. isis, too weak.

the scary ebola, too long ago. north korea, a completely failed strategy by the president of expressing his love for yet another dictator and that love not being returned in any effective policy changes. so what's left? immigration. oh, wait. he already played the rapist and murders at the border card. he already offended people throughout our nation by snuffing out the lamp of lady liberty. so what's left? you've got to create a war inside the united states. so first came washington, d.c. and he tried out the secret police strategy by deploying forces on to the steps of the lincoln memorial unmarked and nobody knew who the hell they were. who are these people who are on the lincoln memorial? are they far right extremists

carrying guns? are they customs and border protection? are they federal protective service? are they u.s. marshals? who are these people? and nobody knew. nobody knew. secret police at the lincoln monument. and then he decided to test the strategy of using weapons against peaceful protesters across from the white house. so there they are gathered together -- there's in great tradition in america where if you want to protest where the can see you, go to l'enfant plaza. you hold up your protest sign and you scream your position on something that you consider very important for america, the change you want to see or the plan that you object to. and the president and his family

look out those windows and go, i sure hate seeing those protesters. but that's symbolic of the right to assemble and the freedom of speech in our beautiful nation under our extraordinary constitution. well, what did president trump do? well, he walled off l'enfant plaza across from the white house so people couldn't protest there. that is what this president thinks of protesters. these he sees a as a threat to him. he doesn't like freedom of assembly. and he doesn't like freedom of speech. but what he does like is a good photo opportunity. so the president decides, let's get the team together and we'll go over and i'll stand on the steps of the church and hold up a bible.

and i still am a little confounded about what his message was to do that. but the thing is, is that to get to the steps of the church, he'd have to come near the protesters, thee protesters that he hates because he hates protesters. he doesn't like americans calling for change or criticizing moils. -- his policies. i'm thinking back about this wall of moms that i showed you earlier. these moms coming down and forming a line and saying, don't teargas us. don't do shock grenades. don't shoot us with rubber bullets. don't pepper spray us. and yet his forces did all those things. but where did he try this out first? in that area behind l'enfant plaza where the church steps were, his forces went out and attacked those protesters. nobody saw violence of any kind.

this had nothing to do with quell be a riot. this had to do with one simple thing. the president hates protests and wants to so what a strong man he is, like those dictators he admires all across the planet, like the crown prince in saudi arabia, like duterte with his extra judicial executions in the philippines, like putin who he just can't say enough good things about, who suppresses the civil rights of the russian people. he wanted to show how strong he was, so he sent his team out -- to do what? to teargas, use impact munitions, rubber bullets on the protesters so he could stand on the church steps with a bible. i'm still wondering, what

passage in the bible was he there about? what did the president wants to say with the good book in his hand? did he want to say, this book talks about turning the other cheek, and i will show how much i admire that principle, turning the other cheek, by coming out and telling my team to teargas and shoot peaceful protesters? is that what the president wanted to do, kind of somehow demonstrate support for turning the other cheek by having his team gas and shoot people in that area close to l'enfant plaza? close to the steps of the church? or did the president want to come out and the say, this good book talks about being swords in plowshares. and i want to come out and show

just how i believe in the principle of beating swords in plowshares, by having my people gas people -- my team gas people and baton people and do these explosive flashbang grenades. what message in the bible was he trying to convey? was he trying to convey the message that jesus christ talked about time and time and time again of helping the poor and the destitute, and he felt it was such and important message to carry to the united states, that he would use force, teargas, rubber bullets to clear the path so he could talk about how important it was to help the destitute and the poor in america and how his policies might help them? no, we don't know. i don't think the president

knew. he's never indicated that he's actually familiar with the contents of that book he was holding up. which makes it a particularly bizarre photo op. but this was his first trial run of this strategy, this strategy of using weapons against peaceful protesters, of using unmarked uniforms on the steps of the lincoln memorial, and he loved it so much -- he loved that sense that he was so strong because he could clear the path with his presidential team, so he could get to those steps -- he was such an awesome man, such an incredible president showing strength by attacking peaceful protesters so he could have his photo op. but it filled him with such energy, he thought, let's try it out elsewhere in the country. and so he comes to portland.

he comes to portland and he proceeds to say, let's use that secret police strategy again unmarked. let's use those batons and pepper spray again attacking peaceful protesters. let's use those impact munitions again against someone holding up a sign, shooting them from across the street, putting them in a -- a fractured consul in critical condition into the hospital. let's take and even amplify it a little bit and put them into unmarked vans and sweep them away. this is what we have with the trump secret police strategy. and as he did these things, he went out on the campaign stump and said, look what a mighty leader i am attacking these peaceful people with these weapons. did i it to the protesters in washington, d.c. -- i did it to the protesters in washington,

d.c. and i did it to the protesters in portland, oregon. and now i'm going to take my strategy of attacking protesters and spread it all across america. what does he talk about? he says, i want to take this strategy to baltimore. he says, i want to take this strategy to philadelphia. he said, i want to take this strategy to new york. and then he said, i want to take it to chicago. and i want to take it to detroit. and i want to take it to oakland, california. and they understand he says -- and then he says, what do those things have to common? they're led by democrats. i will take my strategy of inciting violence with secret police, unmarked van abductions,

use of pepper spray and batons and flashbangs, the whole arsenal, and i would take it all these cities where there's democratic mayors, and then i will say, look at me. i'm a law-and-order president, and i can quell all that trouble i created across this country. now you're probably thinking that i made up this list of cities that the president talked about. surely the president wouldn't take this incredibly horrendous secret police strategy and express that he wanted to take it on a trial run all across america so he could create violence in democratic cities. but in his own words, who's next? new york and chicago and philadelphia and detroit and baltimore and all of these -- oakland ... and he framed that it's going to quell violence but instead the strategy produces

violence. it inflames. it accentuates. it outrages. it creates conflict. i have here an article and it's from fox 32 news in chicago. lightfoot confirms federal agents will help manage chicago violence. yeah, chicago. they've got a democratic mayor. let's go create trouble there. mayor lori lightfoot had a different tune regarding president trump's decision to send agents to chicago. quote, i'm hopeful that they will not be foolish enough to bring at that kind of nonsense to chicago, the mayor said. well, what does she mean by nonsense? it's the polite word for attacking peaceful protesters with batons and flashbangs and tear gas. now, i'm certainly not saying that portland didn't have some

tensions. extremist groups on the right have made it a favorite trip out of portland by coming to portland for trouble. and that's what the local team has to manage and de-escalate. and they had succeeded in key he is did a lating this -- de-escalating it to where it was a small group late at night and then trump came in and blew it all into a big crisis. once again. and when i said that this is coordinated with his campaign, campaign ads went up. his strategy of creating chaos in america and then campaigning on it couldn't be more transparent. as president trump deploys federal agents to portland and threatens to dispatch to other cities, his reelection

commission is spending thousands of dollars on ominous television ads that promote fear. the influx of agents in portland has led to scenes of confrontation and chaos that the mr. trump and his aides have said they will try to burnish a false narrative about democratic elected officials allowing dangerous protesters to create widespread bedlam. the trump campaign is driving home the message with a new ad that tries its dark portrayal of democratic-led cities. there it is. campaign ads to fit his dark portrayal of democratic-led cities. you know, the idea that not only would the president bring those secret police tactics to america, to our streets it but

he would deploy them in an effort to create conflict so he can win reelection, so he can have something that scares the american people? don't we have enough to be worried about already? don't we have a pandemic to manage? a number of us worked to say, mr. president, you need to have a national strategy on producing protective equipment to help stop the spread of this contagion. mr. president, that should probably include taking available factories and putting them to work making protective equipment and distributing it quickly. and the president said, no, not doing it. not activating the defense production act to have a national strategy to stop the spread of this disease. no, i have two health care workers in my family.

my son works in a doctor's office recording the computer code on the symptoms and so forth. he is a scribe, a medical scribe. and my wife goes house to house visiting folks who are in hospice. they're in the final chapter of their life. she coaches them and their family on care and support during this final chapter of our journey cheer on this here on this planet. the number of people that she says are very high-risk because they're fragile and sick in that final chapter. so they would be very affected if this disease was introduced. some of them have the disease. she has to be very careful she doesn't pick it up and bring it up to my elderly mother who lives in our house because my elderly mother, in her 90's, h. -- she probably wouldn't want me to call her elderly -- she's fragile, and she would be affected.

and my son doesn't want to bring it home or spread it. both of them had trouble getting protective equipment they needed early in this pandemic. we didn't have a national strategy. trump failed the leadership test. well, how about another critical piece of this, which is testing. so we needed to crank up all the biological manufacturing capacity of america to produce the reagents so people can be tested and get the results within hours or a day, so that if they are infected, even if they are nonsymptomatic, asymptomatic, they don't have the disease symptoms but they have the disease and they can spread it, that they will quarantine. but the president said no. so we put into a bill a requirement for the president to produce a national test strategy, and he had to produce a report with his test strategy, and what did it say?

it said our test strategy, our national strategy is to leave it to the states. what kind of leadership is that? have no strategy on producing the reagents or the tests and getting them around the country. and one thing we did here is we funded a lot of money to help community buy tests because they are expensive. we should they should be free to the victim, to the person who is getting tested, that is, and every health expert has said we have got to crank up this testing so that there is no wait time. it doesn't help to get the results seven or ten days later. well, i have been holding town halls, and i hold one in every county every year in oregon, 36 counties. this year, i only got 21 in before coronavirus made it impossible to hold them in person, but i have been holding them digitally, electronically. and i keep hearing the report from the county health agents.

now that testing has increased to taking seven days to get a response, nine days to get a response, 11 days to get a response. and why is that? well, because we didn't have any national strategy for producing tests. and as the disease flares up and grows in magnitude in the southern states, more and more resources are getting diverted to those southern states. so there is not the testing supplies, so there was no national strategy. and then the experts said well, you should have a contact tracing strategy so when somebody tests positive, you can immediately find out who they have been in touch with. so those people will get immediately quarantined before they can pass it on to other people. that doesn't work if you can't get test results quickly, and it doesn't work if you don't have

contact tracers. so a number of us have worked to provide funding for contact tracers. elizabeth warren and i have introduced a bill that called for 100,000 contact tracers across this country. there is $75 billion in the house bill for testing and tracing across the country. and how did president trump respond this last week? president trump said i don't want any money for testing in this bill. no money for testing. he wants it stripped out. yet it's an essential element for controlling the coronavirus. i don't think he will win on that one. i think the members of this chamber on both sides of the aisle care enough about their constituents, they want to help with testing and contact tracing. but the president wants the testing stripped out. and why does he want it stripped out? because if you test more people,

then you get more positives. if you get more positives, it doesn't look good. it doesn't look good. so he's choosing to have things look good rather than containing the coronavirus. so if you proceed to offend people across the country by failing in leadership on protective equipment and failing on leadership on testing and failing on leadership in contact tracing, you need another plan. and we have got the plan. the president has made it clear test out his secret police and attacks on peaceful protesters in d.c., magnify that experiment in portland and see if it creates more chaos, and if it does, deploy that effort across the nation.

that's president trump's plan, and it is as wrong as everything could be. secret policing have no place in the united states of america. so i introduced a simple amendment on the defense authorization act which deals with security powers and things like customs and border protection. it deals with things like u.s. marshals and said we are on that right now on the floor of the senate. let's have this debate about secret policing. let's just ask a few simple things. first, that when the president sends agents anywhere in the country, they have to carry an identification about who they work for. it's not that big of request. it's not expensive.

instead of putting a generic police or no marking at all, you put c.b.p. or u.s. marshals or federal protective service or one of a dozen other federal police units that play different roles. that way, the american people know who they are, and then you put a unique identify fire on this. so that if -- identifier on this. so if they walk up and shoot a protesters in the head, you know who did it. you can find out. now, some of my friends said, well, we're not sure we want to require names to be on the uniforms because there has been some cases where people were so outraged they harassed families, all the police officers or public safety officers or these federal agents. we don't want that. okay. a number would work. they could be used to identify someone after an egregious act,

but protect families of our federal agents who are doing a good job. well, that's pretty simple. i.d. what agency you belong to and a unique eye dent -- identifier. you are no longer secret. and then you can't be controlled on some expanded mission of sweeping the streets because your mission should be protecting -- the legitimate mission, protecting a federal monument or a federal building, then you have to be at that federal building in the near vicinity of it or the monument. that's pretty simple. if you want a broader mission, you have got to coordinate with the mayor, the governor, and get their permission. pretty straightforward. a patch of agency, a unique

identifier and pursue your mission in the near vicinity of the federal property. what else? the president would have to tell the people of america how many people from what agency he is sending to what city. the transparency. that's it. this bill that i am proposing, stop secret policing, simple. and yet my colleagues are blocking it from being considered on this bill. i yield the floor. mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. merkley: in a moment -- the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. in a moment, i will again ask

for this important issue of the deployment of secret police to be debated and voted on on this floor. that's what the u.s. senate is for, to address the issues facing americans. but i didn't want to ask until my colleague was here to respond from the republican caucus. when he is ready, i will make that motion. he can give me a thumbs up when he is -- i am getting the thumbs up. i make this motion to send a couple different messages. one, most importantly, is that secret policing has no place in america, and all americans will stand arm in arm and say no. the second is when there is an important issue like this, this is the chamber where it should be debated and voted on. so we can hear the conflicting views.

there may be clauses in the amendment i proposed that people don't like, insight that they can provide, modifications that they would like to propose to my amendment, but it can't happen unless this amendment is considered on the floor. that is why, mr. president, that notwithstanding rule 22, i ask unanimous consent to call up my amendment, the stop secret policing in america, amendment number 2457, an amendment to limit federal law enforcement officers for crowd control, that there be two hours for debate equally divided and controlled between proponents and opponents, that upon the use or yielding back of time, the senate vote in relation to the amendment, with no intervening action or debate. mr. cramer: mr. president.

the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. cramer: reserving the right to object, mr. president, i, like the entire staff in the chamber today and you for most of this time, have enjoyed this last hour. an hour that's very similar to the hour we had yesterday on the very same topic, with the very same motion, to have the very same amendment passed in the defense authorization act. mr. president, i'm a member of the armed services committee. prior to your presiding, i was presiding. i was honored to sit in that chair and watch the chairman of the armed services committee from oklahoma and the ranking democrat of the armed services committee talk in glowing terms about each other and the bipartisan effort that has led to a national defense authorization act that has considered 807 amendments to this point. as we sit here, 40 more amendments, 20 by republicans,

20 by democrats, are being hotlined for further consideration for hopefully tomorrow's final passage. the national defense authorization act has been greatly debated. in fact, the most debated bill that i have been part of since i got here. not only that, but the amendments that are represented in these 807 are almost nearly equally divided among the two parties represented in this great chamber. and what we have been witnessing tonight is a diatribe of in some cases fantasy. in every case, an exaggeration. in many cases, fabrication. and this good senator from oregon has shown us pictures of what democracy looks like. i don't disagree.

we are self-governed. it is the exceptionalism of an america, is that we're self-governed. but democracy also demands protocol in this chamber, the most deliberative body in the world. and without any warning, without any heads up, here we are dealing with the unanimous consent motion on an amendment that's already failed to get unanimous consent just in the last 24 hours, on a bill that's already been debated for weeks and months. this included bipartisan amendments across the board, and then we're confronted with this breach of not only protocol, not only -- well, let's just say common decency and respect for each other, but i do agree with the senator from oregon on this point. he's right. we should have the debate. and that's why it's too bad that

his amendment want allowed to be debated in senator tim scott's justice act, and the reason it couldn't be debated there was because he and most every one of his colleagues on the democratic side other than three filibustered against tim scott's police reform bill. i don't think they want a solution. they want to have this crazy rhetoric, de demagogue all day d all night wherever they can have a demagogue and they want to blame president donald trump for the actions of criminals. now, i've heard it all when i've heard from the senate floor antifa referred to as the anti-- what did he call them? the antifascists. the antifascists. that's too way to sugar -- that's the way to sugar coat

thugs. mr. president, for these reasons and i can think of dozens of others but i'll spare you all and the staff this late night getting any later, i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. the senator from oregon's postcloture time has expired. mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent to speak for five minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. merkley: i'd invite my colleague to stay if he'd like to and yield to him if he wants to jump into the conversation. mr. cramer: i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak for t two minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. cramer: mr. president, i don't object.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. my colleague has said that the facts i presented tonight are fabrication, to use his exact word. he's called it a breach of protocol. he's called it a violation of common decency. i think we are here as a chamber to address difficult, important issues in america. this is a difficult and important mission. this is a new use of force in a manner that doesn't belong in the streets of america. it's important that we debate it. i would be happy to have it be a stand alone bill, come up right after this defense authorization act, have it debated for two hours and voted on because then we actually have a conversation and we have to a position and our constituents can see where we stand and folks could propose an amendment to it, if they didn't like the way i've written it. it's so simple. it says do what we have always

done, put i.d. about where you come from, have a unique against fire and -- dent fire and don't go through sweeping through the streets if your mission is to stay at that federal property or work with the governor or the mayor if you have a broader effort. those are reasonable things. i don't think it was a breach of protocol to ask this chamber to consider that on this bill because there is a connection. we're awking about a bill -- talking about a bill that involves the use of force and how we govern in america. i don't think it's a violation of common decency. my colleague does. and i would prefer that we actually have that conversation about the facts and about the arguments, about the simple solution i proposed when we can actually take a vote or other people can offer amendments to it and modify it. that's this chamber doing what it should be doing. so i'm disappointed that my colleague is blocking this from being considered before this

body. i do love this body and i first came here when amendments were freely -- the presiding officer: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. mr. cramer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. cramer: mr. president, i'm just going to reiterate any final point one final time, and i promise not to take more time than the gentleman from -- the senator from oregon. he had his opportunity to have this amendment considered, debated, and voted on in the justice act introduced by senator tim scott, a bill that dealt specifically with police reform. it would have been the perfect place to have the debate except that my colleague voted against cloture so we couldn't even proceed to the bill. i don't know how we could have made it any easier or better. in fact, when we took up the justice act, he and his side

were provided at least 20 debate opportunities or 20 amendment opportunities. we could have had the debate he seeks tonight at the appropriate time on the appropriate bill. and i am sorry that we didn't do that. perhaps after tonight's episode, he and his colleagues will reconsider and perhaps before we are done this year, senator scott's justice act could be brought to the floor and we could have an adult discussion, debate on amendments and the bill and all kinds of great ideas right here in the most august body in the united states. i hope that can happen. with that i yield the floor and wish you a good night.

mr. cramer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. cramer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cramer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now proceed to s. res. 617. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 617 designating july 22, 2020 as glioblastoma awareness day. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed. mr. cramer: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made

and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cramer: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. thursday, july 23. if urt, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and morning business be closed. further, following leader remarks, the senate resume consideration of calendar number 483, s. 4049. finally, that all time during recess adjournment, morning business and leader remarks count postcloture on 2301 as amended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cramer: if there's no further business for come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. adjourn:

>> the u.s. senate gobbling out for now, the debate on defense program and policy authorization bill for 2021, they also debated a number of amendments, their expected to finish the bill this week, follow live senate coverage here on c-span2. ♪ >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court in public policy events, you can watch all of c-span public affairs programming on television, online or listen on our free radio app and be part of the national conversation through c-span daily washington program or throw social media feed, c-span created by