mr. mcconnell: mr. president. i ask consent that the quorum call b dispensed with. the esiding officer: without objection. -- the vice president: without objection. the chair lays before the senate

a certificate of election to fill the unexpired term by the death of senator mccain. it is in the form suggested by the senate. if there is no objection, the reading of the certificate will be waived and will be printed in full in the record. if the senator-elect will now present himself at the desk, the chair will administer the oath of office.

the vice president: do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the constitution of the united stes against all enemies, foreigand domestic; and allegiance to the same; that you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evion; and that you will well and faithfully dischargehe duties of the office on which you are about to enter, so help you god? mr. kelly: i do. the vice president: congratulations.

the presiding officer: the question somebody on the nomination. is there a sufficient second?

there appears to be. the clerk will callhe roll. vote: #

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? if not, the yeas are 51, the nays are 45, and the nomination

is confirmed. underhe previous order, the motiono reconsider is considered made and laid upon the tle and the president will bemmediately notified of the senate's action. the clerk will report the walr nominati. the clerk: nomination, federal reserve system, christopher waller of minnesota to be a member of the board of mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: under the order obtained yesterday, i ask that the senate proceed to s. 578. previous order, the financer the committee is dischargedith no the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 578, a bill to amend title 2 of the social securi act to eliminate the

five-month wting period for disability insurance benefits under such title for individuals with amytrophiclaterosclerosis. mr. mcconnell: i call up the grassley amendment to the dk. the clerk: the senator, mr. mcconnell, for mr. grassley, proposes amendment numbered 2689. mr. mcconnell: at 4:00 p.m. today, the senate will vote on the grassley amendment to s. 578 and passage of the bill. until that time, the senate will resume consideration of the waller nomination. the presing officer: the nomination is pending. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: this morning, we got to hear the farewell speech of my friend, lamar alexander.

he's a fantastic speaker and legislator. it's been an honor to serve with him and to learn from him. now you get to hear from the accountant. i rise today to give my farewell speech on the floor of the united states senate. it's been an honor of a lifetime to serve the great people of wyoming in this position for the last 24 years. i've really enjoyed being a senator. not for the title, not for the recognition, and certainly not for the publicity. i love solving problems for folks in wyoming and america. i like working on legislation. it might shock those who know me, but i never intended to get into politics. while i always had great respect for those who serve in public office, it wasn't my calling when i left college. but over 50 years ago, i joined a young men's leadership training group known as the

jaycees. i spoke about the values of leadership in communities. the keynote speaker was al simpson who had gone on to serve three terms in the united states senate. after i gave my pitch on the importance of leadership training, senator simpson did his usual, fascinating, and humorous speech, and then took me aside and said i don't even know what party you're in, but it's time you put your money where your mouth is on this leadership stuff and get into politics. that town you live in, gillette, needs a mayor. my wife, diane, and i had only moved to gillette a few years earlier. the town was facing a crisis as the discovery of oil and gas and coal turned it into a boom town. the population started to skyrocket and city services were not keeping up. on the way home from that cody

meeting while my wife was driving, i told her what senator simpson had said and that i should run for mayor. it must have come as quite a shock, because she ended up swerving and then coming back up onto the road. we ended up talking about it seriously for the four hours it took to drive back to gillette and thought of a lot of things that needed to be done to make a difference in our town. i was new to the community. i was just 29 years old, but i thought that gillette was in need of a budget agenda and planning, not the most exciting topic on any people's attention. i ran anyway, and i did win. nearly five decades later, having served as mayor, having served in the state house, having served in the -- as a state senator, and then as a u.s. senator, i still find myself motivated by the urge to help my community and my country. i also find myself still pushing those same three ideas that i

did when i first ran for mayor. budgets, agendas, and planning. i keep finding myself wanting to help solve problems. once you embrace that responsibility, it's hard to ever ignore it again. i have found that many of my colleagues in congress tend to feel the same way. the senate is a very different place than when i arrived in 1997, and it is a very different place from what it was in 1789 when the first senate met. but over all those years, it's been a place for folks rising to the challenge of being a leader. we are looking to make our communities and country a better place. we might not always agree on what the solutions are, but we can respect each other for working to find one. over the years, i've learned a great deal from those around me, just like i listened to senator al simpson all those years back there, i have tried to keep an open mind and learning from

others, and now that my time in the senate is coming to a close, i'd like to pass along some of the lessons i was taught, and so i learned the hard way. in the hope that it may be useful for my colleagues working to get things accomplished in the senate and for anybody who wants to be a leader in their community. in my office, we have a mission statement. it reads -- we have been given a sacred trust to work for our families, grandparents, and grandchildren. we will respect the wisdom of those before and the future of those to follow. we will discharge this trust through our legislative policy, our constituent services, and the way we treat each other, guided by these three principles right, doing our best, and treating others as they wish to be treated. these last three principles are advice my mom gave me often, and they remain my core values. every member of my staff has

given -- is given that mission statement when they start, and we rely on it to remind us why we are here and how we should act. it isn't just a saying. it's a way to work, a way to build trust, and a way to govern. these values are not always easy to live by. we're all human and we all struggle to live up to these ideals we set for ourselves, but that's why we call them ideals. i believe these are values we can all agree on, and by remembering the values we share, we can work together to tackle tough problems and find shared solutions. do what's right is a great slogan, but you might not ask what it means at a practical level. people see a mess in washington, so how do we actually make progress? i believe it involves focusing on common ground over compromise, especially when it comes to legislating. people sometimes think that compromise is the answer. i think it means i give in to

something i don't like and you give in to something you don't like, and we both wind up with something neither of us like. it's not legislating. when it comes to legislating, often the best way to get something done that everyone can agree on is to leave out the things you don't agree on and focus on what you can get done. that's why i suggest my 80% tool. generally speaking, people can talk civilly on 80% of the issues. it's only about 20% of the issues that we find real contention. now, even picking a single issue out of the 80%, you might still find disagreement, but once again, you can probably focus on 80% of the issue that you can agree on. it's all about focusing on what you can get done and not focusing on the points of disagreement, the weeds of debate that have choked issues,

or to say it another way, it's all about what you leave out. former senator ted kennedy from massachusetts and i used this tool when we led the health, education, labor, and pensions committee together, and it worked great. it worked even though we were on complete opposite sides of the political spectrum. i once showed senator candidate an article -- senator can he kennedy that mentioned how unusual it was for the third most conservative senator and most liberal senator to work together and he said so who's ahead of me we were able to get legislation passed that others have been trying to do for years. here's how we started working together. when i first got to the senate i wanted to change things with osha, occupational health and safety. senator kennedy was at the urging of my predecessor, senator simpson, did let me sit down and take him through the bill a section at a time. that's something we always did

in the wyoming legislature. when we marked up the bill in committee, senator kennedy said in all my years in the senate i've never had anybody take me through a bill a section at a time. but i'm still going to have to vote against it. it still got out of committee. later he called me about a safety bill he had been working on for over a decade, a bill to save nurses and medical janitors from accidental needle sticks, and asked if i'd take a look at it. i did. the biggest suggestion that i gave was to leave out a couple of small parts that had been jamming up the bill. the bill passed the senate and the house unamended and was signed. and now you see needle stick disposals in restrooms and all sorts of places. and the issue has never had to be readdressed. later i became the health,

education, labor and pensions chair and senator kennedy was the ranking member. we used the 80% tool. we were able to get 35 tools through the help committee in the 109th committee, 27 of them made their way to the president's desk and were signed into public law. and in between we were able to report out 352 nominations for consideration by the full senate. so here's how the 80% tool worked. at the beginning of each year each of us made a list of the issues the committee should do. we compared lists. we made an effort to argue some to be on both lists. then we worked on the ones on both lists. we usually had duplication of about 80% of the issues. then we could pick out any issue and work on it, usually agreeing on 80% of that issue. if we couldn't find a new way to do the part that had been argued for years, we simply left it out, believing that 80%

finished is better than 20% that only makes the press. this is the 80% tool, and it's where all of our energy, attention and talents could be focused if we just work on the 20% that we don't agree on and never will agree on, we'll only generate headlines about how hard we are working with nothing actually getting done. just gridlock. when the news comes on, if we're here in the chamber arguing and bickering and getting nothing done, we're focusing too much on the 20%. if people do not see much of us, that means we're taking on the 80% and making progress without headlines and often with unanimous consent. what we are really talking about is working together. that's what the heart of the 80% tool is ofnlt times people -- oftentimes people say what we need is more bipartisanship,

and there is very practical reason for that. in the senate you can't get anything done without working with the other side unless one party has 60 votes or more, which is rare. and even with 60 votes from one party, the bills that party passes when they have a supermajority often are flawed. it turns out that when we work together, we can create a better bill than when we just try to do it alone or force others to accept our ideas. that's why success is not really about compromise. it's really about what you leave out or finding a way to accomplish it doing a mutually agreeable new way. we used to take the people that had similar amendments and send them off to see if they could come up with one amendment, and quite often they could. and it was fascinating when they came back, they said it was my idea. and when all of them report to you that it was their idea, you

know that you've got enough votes to pass it. and that's why success is not really about compromise. it's about what you leave out or finding a third way to come up with a mutually agreeable goal. here are a few key steps that i use to find that common ground to pass legislation. first, find someone from the other side of the aisle who likes to legislate. second, discover and agree on common goals. third, consult with stakeholders that will or could effect the changes being discussed. fourth, hold roundtables instead of hearings. with hearings, each side beats up on the other's witness with clever stump the professor type questions. at a roundtable, people who have actually done something on a policy share their real-life experiences. and finally, you set aside the

part of the issues you can't agree on for another day. now you'll have a bill that has a good chance of being passed and signed into law. that's the heart of the 80% tool. this way of working also ensures that we can disagree without being disagreeable. there's a lot of vitriol in our politics and our world right now, but you can stay true to what you believe in without treating others badly. nothing gets done when we're just telling each other how wrong we are. just ask yourself has anyone ever really changed your opinion by getting in your face and yelling at you or saying how wrong you are? usually that doesn't change hearts or minds. that might make the attacker feel better in the moment, but it doesn't do much for getting anything accomplished. following the 80% tool will not get you notoriety. it won't get you fame. it won't get you headlines. most media coverage requires blood in the water.

however, the ability to work among your peers using this method can and will move us forward and get things done. this tool is only successful if we're actually working on passing legislation together, and that means letting the senate work as it was intended. one of the best ways to do that is to allow the members of each committee to actually take time to craft bills. the committees are where the experts are and where i think some of the best work gets done. i've already made it clear that i don't think hearings are overly useful and are often wasted on collecting sound bites for the evening news. instead we should be encouraging committees to give their members more say in crafting legislation and working together on best solutions. if you look at bills that pass with strong bipartisan support, they are usually because flaws were ironed out in committee. legislation is oftentimes at its

best when it is taken time in committee as being hashed out until it's ready for prime time. you might not be able to get everyone on board, but if you've done it right you should see strong bipartisan support. sometimes this also means letting others take credit for your ideas. an old salesman trick is to convince other ideas that your good idea was really their good idea. don't let your vanity stand in the way of getting the job done. too often in the modern senate legislation is crushed to committee -- rushed out of the committee to the senate floor. once it hits the senate floor both sides try to prevent amendments. but the process of allowing amendments and debates, a core component of how the senate was designed to operate. without it, the senate can get gummed up. the gears can get jammed. without the fresh air that new ideas and legitimate debate brings, tensions can rise as senators feel unable to make progress. the difficulty is that each

party is so worried about the next election, looking to hold on to the majority that everybody is either trying to force the other side to take politically perilous votes or trying to avoid take being -- taking those votes themselves. we end up blocking amendments and shying away from allowing legislation to be altered on the floor of the senate. and usually those tough votes don't really make any difference. it might help if members made it clear to leadership they'd be willing to take some tough votes in return for more chances to amend major legislation on the floor. people might be less likely to demand votes on a poison pill or messaging designed to put the other party in a tough spot if they knew they could face the same treatment. in the end the onus is on the members of the senate, on us to take on a responsibility to work together in return for a chance to pass legislation. i suggest that amendments should have to have 60 votes.

if it were so bad that it needed a filibuster, the 60 votes would be required to end that, but that takes about three days. and so many have been willing to allow their amendment to have a 60-vote threshold. i also ask you to avoid comprehensive. comprehensive bills makes it so large that everyone can find a reason to vote against it. senator alexander is a big promoter of step by step. that's taking a piece of legislation and solving it and then taking the next step and solving it, and so on. this practical solution would avoid passing comprehensive legislation. comprehensive legislation is usually a by-product of compromise, not common ground and often ends up being incomprehensible. giant bills to try to do everything usually end up with

too many consequences and contain a litany of legislation that are merely hitching a ride because otherwise would never be able to stand on their merits. these christmas tree bills are often designed so that if you vote against it, you'll be voting against key legislation for your constituents. once again, the ugly nature of compromise over common ground is clear. a simple solution i proposed would be to pass more bills as individual pieces of legislation. that's step by step. in wyoming, bills have to be focused on a single subject and all amendments need to be relevant. in the past i've introduced a bill that would require that here, but it never was really treated seriously. to talk on a little different article, my favorite article of the constitution is article 5, and the reason it is is it assures that all states will have equal representation in the

senate. and that can't even be changed by a constitutional congress. and since i come from one of those low-population states, it's very important to us. sometimes we're criticized for being overrepresented in the senate. we have two senators, the same as california and new york and texas. but in this argument of unfair representation for states, we find the same inherent issues we do with the filibuster. our government was not set up to be majority ruled by population alone. our founders, through their own debate, were able to understand the risk of pure democracy and the benefits of a federalist system where ideas were represented not just by population, but by regions and shared cultures. wyomingites deserve to have their cultural say in our system protected against the majority. we're all in the united states of america. the senate represents more than just the people to protect the individuality of the states, of the culture of those who live in

the regions of the country less populated. it also represents states that founded our federalist system. of course at that time several of them had little population. i've covered a lot of ground but for my last piece of advice i would call on my colleagues to recognize that it's time to formally allow electronics on the floor of the united states senate. it's an issue near and dear to my heart and one i think will help to work in the senate. it's clear that anyone who watches c-span, that all of us are already breaking the spirit of the law checking our phones on occasion as we walk off or on to the floor. those devices are often inseparable from our ability to do our work. we rely on them to do almost everything. it's time to make this commonsense change, allowing ipads to be used for speeches slong they're laid on a lectern like a paper speech.

and a senator could do work from their desk, like early senators had to do, we would listen to more of the speeches and get something done. i do remember when i brought that one up before that it was covered by, in 1997 they thought it was important that we have that use. and "time" maaing diseeb did a special -- magazine did an article on it. i remember a senator coming back from new york city and got from the cab and the cab driver said you're a united states senator. the guy said when are you going to let the guy from wyoming have his computer on the floor? senator mcconnell told me if i lobbied it down to cab byes that it was -- cabbies that it was time do it. as we move forward our country has no shortage of problems we need to address. some are out of our control, but many are of our own making. if my experience over the years has taught me anything, we'll never be able to tackle these

challenges unless we find common areas of agreement first and work to solve these problems together. i hope everyone listening, especially my colleagues in the senate, remember the core values i spoke of today. do what's right, do your best, treat others as they wish to be treated. i truly believe that if we adhere to these ideals the world will be a better place for our children and grandchildren. i want to again thank the people of wyoming for giving me the opportunity to serve them. i also want to thank my colleagues and friends who supported me over the years. i want to thank all the amazing staff that i've had over the years in my personal office, in the d.c. office, in my state offices in wyoming. and my staff on the health and human health, labor, pensions committee and the budget committee. over the years i've had the chance to work with incredible

staff that allowed a senator by himself or herself could ever do. thank you for working so hard over the years. i want to give the most thanks to my family for their support over the years, especially my wife diana. it's been a long journey since i told you, diana, that i was thinking of running for mayor. you supported me more than anyone could truly comprehend and under no uncertain terms, i couldn't have done it without you. it's been more than 50 amazing years and i look forward to our next adventure. mr. president, i yield the the presiding officer: the

senator from wyoming. biden biden mr. president, i -- mr. barrasso: for nearly a quarter of a century, mike enzi has represented the people of wyoming in washington with intelligence, intensity and integrity. the cowboy state and the capitol will miss mike enzi. he cemented his legacy as the trusted trail boss of the wyoming delegation and it's been an incredible honor and great privilege for my wife bobby and me to serve wyoming alongside mike and his wife diana who is with us tad. mike is truly a devoted family man as well as a man of great

and deep faith. in fact, mike taught sunday schools over the decades. many in the faith community know that mike's first sunday school teacher was my wife bobbi's mother jeri brown. they had passed away. she taught sunday school in wyoming and her star pupil was mike enzi to the point that she gave mike enzi his first bible and he still has that today. and here in the senate mike has been not just a close friend and mentor to me, but he has been that to many members of this body. mike was sworn in this 1997 and throughout four terms in the united states senate he has never wavered in his commitment to god, to family, to country,

and, of koirs, to wyoming -- of koirs, to wyoming. he's known by many as the senate's moral compass. i'm a member of the prayer group and we met today and mike led us in prayer, and i've seen first hand just how much republican and democrat members depend on mike for his moral and ethical guidance. he really is a bipartisan, not just policymaker, but also a peacemaker, and we are -- we have all seen it in this body. he talked about the 80-20 rule and it has garnered support. over is 100 enzi bills have become law and i have cosponsored many of them with him in my time in the senate.

he didn't point out that most of the bills that pass passed with over 80 votes it's rare for an enzi bill to get to the floor and pass with any more than 18 to 15 no votes. remarkable accomplishment. and it's important to note these bills have been signed by republican and democrat presidents. if you go into his office, his conference walls are filled with bills and pens signed into laws by bill clinton, george w. bush, barack obama and president trump. and behind all of these that he talked about is the very successful 80-20 rule, a rule he learned while in the wyoming state legislature and it has worked extremely well for him in washington as well. but such is the practical western wisdom in mike enzi. born in 1944 in washington, his

father was serving in the naval shipyards. moved to wyoming shortly after and that is where he went to elementary school. mike didn't talk about this today, but mike there earned his eagle scout award. he's a proud eagle scout as is his son brad and his grandson is working on it as well and mike has been named a distinguished eagle by the scouts. he has a bachelor's degree in accounting from george washington university and m.b.a. in retail marketing from the university of denver in colorado. mike move to gillette in 1969 where he and his family started a small business. it's wonder fu to listen to make talk about his small businesses of the it's called enzi shoes, it's not like his last name, it's the letter n and the letter z.

they expanded their family business to different parts of wyoming. but gillette, wyoming is mike's true home and where his heart is. he served two terms as gillette's mayor. during his eight years as mayor, mike led gillette to its first economic boom. he served as a state legislature as a state rep and state senator. wyoming is mike's world. the family means the world to mike. they are the proud parents of three, amy, emily, and brad and prouder grandparents of four, megan, allison, tray, and lily. anybody who knows mike, they know that he likes to fish. even this morning, you could see his fishing lures on display in his office. he's and an -- he's an avid fly

fisherman. he completed his wyoming cut slab. this wyoming game and fish department program increases appreciation for the famous cut-throat trout. if you want to talk to him about anything, talk to him about fishing. it comes from his love of nature from spending so much time in nature's cathedral of the great outdoors. he officialses in different spots throughout wyoming and all over the world. he has been a leading voice on the budget, tax and health care issues. he served on the senate budget committee since 2015. as the first accountant to chair the budget committee, mike is committed to making government more accountable for hardworking american taxpayers. he's been a tremendous budget chairman. it's because he learned valuable lessons in the wyoming legislature where like all american families you need to balance your budget every year and live within your means.

under mike's leadership, congress passed balanced budget resolutions for fiscal years 2016, 2017, and 2018. he worked through the night, all night from the marathon debates called vote-a-ramas. his budget blew prints re -- blew prints lightened tax burdens and boosted economic growth. mike's fiscal year 2018 budget not only provided a path to balance, it paved the way for pro-growth, pro-jobs, tax relief legislation. the most comprehensive reform of the tax code in over a generation, as a reconciliation bill, this historic 2016 tax reform bill, the tax cuts and jobs act went through mike's committee. mike was focused on the soaring national debt, on budget process reform and oversight of federal

programs. mike also served as a member of the senate health, education, labor, pension committee since his arrival at the senate and he championed the efforts to ensure a quality education for all. he expanded access to affordable quality health care and spearheaded the most significant pension reform in 30 years, securing millions of americans' retirement. he's a member of the senate finance committee, homeland committee an joint committee on taxation. other policy successes including improving mind safety and passing mental health parity. mike's highest priority, of course, has been helping the people of wyoming. when he sound in announcing his retirement, he said i'm an advocate for gillette and campbell county and wyoming. he pointed out everyone lives at the local level, nobody one

lives at the federal level or even in the state level. he said diana and i are your chamber of commerce for every town and county in wyoming all the time. mike started several annual events to boost our state, the inventors conference, the procurement conference and wyoming's works tours. we started wyoming wednesday and it became a hit when people from wyoming come to washington, we greet every week and get together to host with doughnuts and friendship and people love to attend. diana and mike are a force in the senate. mike called diana the most thoughtful person in the world and that is no exaggeration. here in the senate every year diana hosts a cookie christmas

party to thank the real workers, the jan iters, the ee lick tritions, -- electricians, food service workers, they bake hundreds of dozens of cookies. all the senate workers look forward to diana's 200 dozen cookies, it's not 200 cookies, it's 200 dozen cookies, mike is the wonderful cohost and this year, because of coronavirus, she couldn't do all the baking, but they had the cookie festival with baked cookies and those who couldn't get to receive them in locations, mike and diana walked the halls of this building in the senate office building to make sure the guards and the custodians and jan it -- janitors got their christmas cookies. at a recent prayer breakfast, he

reminded everyone of the importance of thinking before you speak. he entitled the presentation, me and my big mouth. he reminded us that our mowtszs cannot be -- mouths cannot be trained, as you said, mike, only guarded. mike is a true wyoming gentleman. someone who will always be a great friend and a mentor to me, to younger people in wyoming and to everyone here in the senate. in my office there's a picture on the wall of my first day in the senate right here in 2007 being sworn in by then-vice president cheney with senator enzi along with senator wallop standing behind. it's been a tremendous privilege to serve with mike during my time in the senate. people of wyoming owe him an incredible debt of gratitude for his tireless and faithful service, mike's character, his courage and his credibility have cemented his legacy as a highly

respected leader of the senate. so today so many senators are here gathering to listen to, to honor, and to thank mike enzi for his decades of distinguished service to the nation. thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the assistant democrat leader. mr. durbin: mr. president, it's hard to follow those heart-felt words from senator barrasso about his colleague and friend and our colleague and friend, mike enzi, but i'm going to make a try. just as our tribute to lamar alexander was a tribute to the better angels of nature as they are shown in the lives of senators, so too with mike enzi. i join my colleagues in thanking mike for his service to wyoming and to america. one of the most frequent questions many of us are asked is, why can't you folks get

along in washington? why can't you just do things together? i say to them there are times when we do and many times they are very important. when we do come together it's because of people like mike who worked under his so-called 80-20 rule. ã know -- we know that well. if negotiators are willing to give up the other 20%, we can actually get some things done around here and wouldn't that be refreshing. one of those items was the marketplace fairness act. mike helped lead the fight for local bricks and more tar retailers -- 34 h.m.o. rtar retailers to give them a chance to compete on an equal playing field, e-mail companies and internet companies and allow the local and state to collect sales tax revenue. it's hard to know how many years he put into the effort but the

marketplace fairness act would give the states the option -- those selling online to collect taxes owed under state law the same way local businesses do. mike knew a lot about local business as mentioned on the floor by senator barrasso, his colleague. he was a small business owner in gillette, wyoming running enzi shoe store. even as he went on to become mayor of gillette at age 30, became a staff sergeant in the wyoming air national guard, a state representative, then a state senator, he was still always the small businessman from gillette. in 1996 when he was recovering from open-heart surgery, then-senator alan simpson decided not to run for reelection. local leaders kept trying to tell mike to run when he wanted more time to hunt and fish. in the end he made an important decision. he ran and won. his career has many legislative successes using his 80-20 rule.

i will never forget the days when ted kennedy would come to the floor and talk about the compromise and bargain he struck with up. i thought what a political odd couple but the two of you did some remarkable things. poles apart in terms of political philosophy. they treated each other with respect and they had amazing successes to show for it. even when he had differing views on the best way to resolve issues, mike enzi has shown a willingness to come to the table and discuss the areas where we can agree. in 2012 democratic senator byron dorgan retired. i called mike and said, could i take up byron's position in your fight for the marketplace fairness act. he said let's do it. rebrought in senator lamar alexander, that was a pretty smart move. and then senator heidi heitkamp who both made great contributions to our work. it was our luck that heidi heitkamp was the petitioner in the 1992 supreme court case

which made the marketplace fairness act necessary. we were an unexpected group of senators, two republican, two democrats, literally from all over the united states. we disagreed on some things, sure. but we agreed that main street business needed a break and deserved fair treatment. we kempt working on it with -- kept working on it with mike's leadership. in 2013 the marketplace fairness act passed the senate overwhelmingly, 69 votes. unfortunately, the house of representatives once again broke our heart and didn't act on it. we kept introducing the bill, main street businesses were still struggling against the unfair advantage that internet-only retailers had. visitors to my office might have noticed a little something that was in my office. i brought it to the floor today. and wondered what this was all about. this was a gift from mike enzi after we were successful in the united states senate. it's a small wooden three-note train whistle and it would be a

violation of the senate rules to blow the whistle, but i want to tell you it was a gift from mike for our work together helping get the bill down the tracks of the legislative process. we were never able to get the house to take up the measure, but in 2018 the supreme court finally did the right thing. in a 5-4 ruling south dakota versus ware fair, the court closed the loophole we'd been struggling to fight and address for years. i'm proud to be part of that bipartisan coalition. in illinois it's meant a lot. we estimate our state has received $460 million in annual revenue by virtue of mike enzi's determination and leadership on the marketplace fairness front. in this pandemic crisis, this revenue is more important than ever. mike has always been a force for fairness, a friend, and a leader for whom i have great respect. as we fight this pandemic, we should strive to abide by mike's 80-20 rule and remember that main street businesses are really hurting and they need our

help. i know mike will have more time now for fishing and hunting. i wish him and his wonderful wife diana -- and she is a wonderful person -- and their grandchildren happiness. i look forward to reading about the next chapter in mike enzi's life of giving and caring. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: mr. president, mike enzi and i were both sworn into our first terms in the united states senate on january 7, 19 1997. i immediately saw in the gentleman from wyoming a quiet, effective, and ethical leader focused not on partisan advantage but rather on results, results that would benefit the people who sent him to

washington and results that would benefit the american people as a whole. the nearly 24 years since then have only confirmed my initial impression. for the first 14 of those years, mike was the sole accountant in the senate. that discipline combined with his experience as a small business owner have served him so well in his role as chairman of the senate budget committee. he knows how important it is to set a budget, to follow it, and to control spending. his priority has always been the american taxpayer. and as chairman of the budget committee and as a member of the senate finance committee, he has been a leader on tax issues as

well. he helped shape the 2017 tax reform act which has helped to boost economic growth and the creation of more jobs. mike's leadership style is characterized by his willingness to always search for common ground. he described today in great depth what he calls his 80-20 rule, and anyone who has ever worked with mike enzi on any issue quickly learns about the 80-20 rule. through it he forges solutions where many others see only impasse. the key to success in moving legislation as he told us today is to focus on the 80% of issues

where agreement can be found and not waste time on the 20% where the disagreements are insurmountable. that rule served him well when he sat at the helm of the senate health, education, labor and pensions committee along with the late senator ted kennedy. well, as mike has described today, it would be difficult to think of two individuals serving in the senate who had more different political philosophies than he and ted kennedy. and yet you could probably say that was true with the -- his current ranking member of the budget committee. but together he and senator kennedy crafted dozens of laws.

neither side got 100% of what they wanted. they put aside the areas of disagreement. for them it was far more important that progress was made for the american people. serving with mike on the help committee, i have seen him ploy this rule over and over again to bring about real progress. he led efforts to help ensure that everyone can receive a quality education. hihe's helped provide americans with access to affordable quality health care. he has helped to protect workers and to foster job training opportunities. as the leader of the committee, he worked to oversee the biggest revision in pension laws in 30 years, to strengthen funding

rules, to enhance retirement security for millions of americans, mike comes from a small business background and as senator durbin just described, he was passionate about the marketplace fairness act to enable states to collect sales and use taxes from out of state online retailers. he recognized that the brick and mortar main street businesses that provide local jobs should not be penalized. mike and i also worked together on successful legislation to improve workplace safety for postal employees and to better protect the american people from deceptive mailings that mimic official government documents. mr. president, senator mike enzi

has compiled a long record of selfless service as a business leader, as a member of the wyoming air national guard, as a mayor, as a state legislator, and as an involved citizen. when he announced his intention early last year to leave the senate, he says that he has no definite plans other than finding other ways to serve. i am 100% certain that the author of the 80-20 rule will continue to contribute to his community, his state, and our nation. and i want to wish him and his beloved wife diana all the best in the years to come. thank you, mr. president.

a senator: mr. president? the presing officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whihouse: mr. president, i've had t pleasure of working with my chairman on the budget committee on budget reform initiatives. and i want to take this occasion to thank him for the wonderful way that he worked with me on those issues and for all of his support, and i want to make a pledge to him as well. the effort began with a lot of hearings in the budget committee to sort out how we could reform what we were doing. at the moment the budget committee is probably the most dysfunctional piece of this dysfunctional institution, and chairman enzi was determined to remedy that. and a lot of work went in at the committee level. then a bicameral committee was created to look at budget reform

primarily out of the house. and i had the opportunity to serve on that bicameral committee. that was an opportunity that i owe to chairman enzi. he both advocated for me to his leader that i should be on that committee and he gave up a spot on that committee to make sure that there was a spot for me there. i hope and believe that i conducted myself in due accord with chairman enzi's wishes and principles in the course of that. we had the ability to use that bicameral committee process to do a test run at our budget reform. i'm pleased to report that although the end product was never adopted between the two bodies, the product that came out of the committee included our budget reform as it was then constituted.

we raised our aspiration from the budget reform which was entirely value tirly to actually -- voluntarily to actually try to change the committee rules to force the process of the budget committee into the mold of the voluntary structure. and we did good work on that, and we came to an agreement. and i'm sorry to say that its failure to pass into law arose not from problems on the republican side of the aisle but from problems on my side of the aisle that i was not able to yet surmount. but my pledge to you, chairman enzi, is that i will keep at it. senator blunt is here and he was helpful in that regard. senator lankford, senator perdue. we have a good team along with senator kaine and senator king and myself and others on our side, senator shaheen. so this -- i will continue the work. i vow to you that i will somehow find a way to get this done and

if i could find a way to call it the enzi reform, i will find a way to call it the enzi reform. i will long remember the relationship that we had and the good work that we did together. i will long remember your 80-20 rule. and maybe because i have a similar proposal in rules, maybe we'll even be able to get your phones and electronics amendment passed. so thank you to you, sir, for doing what's right, doing what's best, and treatg others as they would want to be treated. i yield the floor. the presiding offer: the senator from missouri. blunt brunt mr. president, i feel a -- mr. blunt: mr. president, i feel a little guilty as chairman of the rules committee standing in front of the enzi trying to get devices on the floor. if you'd looked around on the floor, you would have assumed that we adopted that rule. it is a pretty hard rule to enforce with all the information that senator enzi always knew

was there and needed to be available in ways that we have not made it available. yet i just want to stand as a particular type of friend of mike enzi. he came to the senate, i came to the house. he and diane were on travel fairly early. we had the opportunity to go to lithuania as they were desperately trying to get included in nato. mike, you remember driving around that -- walking on that little square where people had their signs up. we want in nato. they'd been left behind one time. they didn't want to be left behind another time. but that's one of many memories i have with mike. another is just mike's incredible capacity to listen. i think without question and by plenty of evidence, mike is the best listener in the senate. in fact, he has listening sessions in his state where what he does, shockingly, is listen.

his talking is at a minimum at those sessions. his interest in taking in input from whoever wants to talk -- if you can envision mike at the front of the room with his notepad taking notes on what everybody says and then often the move from one speaker to the next is thank you and let's hear what other people have to say. and he absorbs that in a great way. there are many times when i've comb tonic mike -- when i've come to mike in the senate and said, stem cell me what you're thinking about this. and -- and said, tell me what you're thinking about this. it is amazing what you can learn by listening. and mike so often has a different view, a more nuanced view than others do because of that. i also thought mike, as you were speaking today, i know that your driver in the state is usually diana. and even describing the return from the jaycee's event back in

gillet, i noticed who was driving. you've spent so many hours together in a state that maybe doesn't have the most people, but it sure has the most distance. to get to it the place you live in wyoming in gillette as often as you can, that is often not possible. what will an honor and privilege to serve with you, to spend this 24 hours in the congress together, and for me to get to spend the last ten years of your senate time here in the senate with you. it is a great honor. it is a great privilege. i'm trying to learn all i can about listening from the master listener, who then takes all that information and actually produces, as we've heard here today, real results. thank you, mr. president.

mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i just want to thank all the people who came and listened. i hope there were other people watching on their televisions and taking notes on the 80% rule. i just appreciate all the friendships i've had here. i have no qualms about leaving because of the quality of people that will still be here, still solving problems for america. there are some great -- there is some great teamwork that never gets any publicity but that actually functions around here, and i can't thank my friends enough, particularly senator barrasso, who has been a part of this team and has helped to bring me along. i've learned a lot from him and

gotten to do a lot with him, and he and his wife are good friends of ours. it's not all that common to be good friends with the other person in your delegation, but we have a strong delegation and get along well that way. i want to thank senator whitehouse for his comments and particularly his promise that he's going to get some reform done so that the committee is actually doing what everybody thinks it does of providing a budget that we will follow. and those were good reform principles that we put together. i've always said that the only time we're going to have reform in budget is if we can do it just before a presidential election year because nobody knows who's going to be in the majority in the senate and in the house, and nobody knows who's going to be the president. otherwise, we want to make sure that we can keep all of the control for our party that we can. so -- and i want to thank

senator blunt. i actually remember going -- trying to get some local food and running into senator blunt, who was also looking for local food overseas. and so we had local food together. that was our first year in congress. so i've known him for a long time and appreciated your commented. well, thank you, everybody. thank you all to the pple of wyoming. mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from rhod island. mr. whitehouse: i ask that the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding offer: without

objection. a senator: [inaudible] the presiding officer: is there objection? hearing no objection, under the previous order, the senate will resume legislative session. the consideration of s. 578. the question is on amendment number 2689. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any members in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? seeing none, on this vote the yeas are 48, the nays are 49. under the previous order requing 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is not aeed to. the crk will read the title of the bill for the third time. the clerk: s. 578, a bill to amend title 2 of the social security act to elimina the five-week waiting period for dividuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. the presiding officer: the question is on passage of the bill. yeas and nays -- is there a second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vo:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, on this vote, the yeas

are 96, the nays are 1. the 60-vote threshold having been achieved, the bill is passed. under the previous order, the motion to recomt is made and laid upothe table. the senate will n resume executive session. and consideratn of the waller nomination. mr. cotton: i'm very pleased the senate passed the a.l.s. act 96-1, a bill that will bring relief to many americans suffering from a terrible disease. a.l.s. it is a progressive disease, people with a.l.s. lose the ability to control their muscles and ultimately leads to death. there is no cure. many are familiar with a.l.s. because of the baseball legend who suck succumbed to it.

others know lou gerhig's disease because it touched them, a neighbor or loved one. one of my earliest supporters for my first campaign was the great tommy may of pine bluff. tommy amazingly lived with a.l.s. for nearly 15 years, beating the odds with courage and good hiewrm. given the -- hiewrm. given the hift of time -- gift of time, he served as a trustee on the national a.l.s. association bill. a.l.s. advocates are lucky to have a fighter like tommy on their side. i've been fortunate to know kipp jackson and thomas gallion and others. sadly these a.l.s. advocates have passed away. but i know how pleased they would be to see this bill cross the finish line today. a.l.s. is not like other diseases. typically appears without warning later in life.

its life expectancy, within 16 months is only 50%. in other words, a.l.s. strikes fast and it strikes hard. people with a.l.s. typically apply for disability benefits through social security. there's a problem. disability has a five-month waiting period. this waiting period is meant to ensure that applicants aren't suffering from a temporary affliction and under most circumstances it is appropriate. but, of course, a.l.s. isn't temporary. for those who have it, given the odds they face every month counts. that's why senator whitehouse and i introduced the a.l.s. disability insurance access act years ago, which will waive this five-month period for people with a.l.s. this will ensure they have rapid access to social security in the early days of their diagnosis.

so they don't have to worry about their benefits and can focus instead on the things that really matter during what could be their final months on earth. on their behalf, i want to thank senator whitehouse for his partnership over the years i want to thank senator braun for what he's done to help get this bill across the benchline today. i'm so pleased that so many of our colleagues supported this bill. i also want to explain briefly my position on the amendment offered by senator grassley. i support the amendment in concept, but i opposed the amendment today because the original purpose of this bill has always been to address a.l.s. specifically. i will support senator grassley's language in future legislation, but to pass this bill in the final days of the 116th congress, the senate, it was vital that we send the unamended bill to the house. i look forward to working with senator grassley in the next

congress to ensure the sustainability of social security disability and the a.l.s. trust fund. he has been a great partner in protecting these programs and i know he will be in the future. finally, i want to quote from lou gerhig's final aaddress. -- address. lou gerhig just received his diagnosis. he famously exclaimed, i consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. i might have been given a bad break, but i have an awful lot to live for. the same could be said of every person living with a.l.s. today. they have an awful lot to live for and this bill will help them live. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. whitehouse: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president,

let me thank senator cotton for his work with me in getting this bill to this happy result. as the presiding officer knows, a bill can look like it was easy to get done when it passes 96-1, but that doesn't mean the pathway was easy. this has been years and years of effort. and senator cotton really helped make it possible so i'm very grateful to him. i also want to thank senator braun, who was the first republican member to join me in this and who has been a constant ally and source of support and encouragement. i'd also like to extend my appreciation to chairman grassley of the finance committee. this is a finance committee jurisdiction bill and chairman grassley was willing to let it go forward as long as he got his amendment without insisting on his amendment being a part of

the bill. so he got his vote, we vote it down and that -- we voted it down and the bill has gone forward and that reflects a high degree of forbearance from senator grassley which i appreciate. i want to thank the ranking member on finance, senator wyden, who has made sure that finance issues were resolved and that he was comfortable with it and he and grassley were able to give it committee clearance to come to the floor with their support on these terms. and i also want to thank senator lee, mike lee, for his forbearance. he's been interested in this bill in the past. we debated it on the senate floor and he allowed it to proceed in this way as well. so i am grateful to senator lee. of course, that's all the gratitude within the people for the people who made the bill possible, but the people we really need to be grateful to and appreciative of are the a.l.s. advocates who come to us

to argue for support and for encouragement. they are filled with hope even though there is no cure. they continue to seek investment in the science to try to figure out a way to a cure. they show immense courage. this is a devastating, uniquely bad diagnosis for somebody to get. it's very hard for the individual who receives the diagnosis, it's also terrible for their family as well. we have all had the experience in this body of seeing our constituents come to advocate on a.l.s. and had the experience of seeing them the first time they come -- come to us with a cane and when they come back the next year come back with a wheelchair, and the following year after that come back with a -- an electronic support mechanism with ventilator assistance and still able to

steer around but an apparatus much more complex than a wheelchair and then in the next visit it's their widow who comes alone. we've had the chance to do something good here. it made no sense to require people who have had this diagnosis wait five months before they can begin to get social security disability insurance benefits. actually very often that first five months is where the support makes the most difference in terms of the quality of life that remains during the course of the illness. so we've been at this, what, senator braun, five years now? so today is a good day in that sense. i just want to call to mind just as an example of how this strikes at home.

our small local home state paper, the providence journal, has a long tradition of being a very distinguished newspaper. very often people who worked for it went on it the wall street and "the washington times" and the post, they have made national names for themselves, the providence journal is a significant newspaper. in my time in politics, two of its writers have been stricken with a.l.s., struck down, in fact, with a.l.s. brian dickenson first and bill malanowski afterwards. each had to learn to write in unusual ways, including in eyeballs by blinking as letters went by on a screen or directing by a laser. it is a terrible disease, a.l.s., but one thing that it does is that it displays the extraordinary human character of people who fight on through this

increasingly disabling condition and the courage that they show and the way that they persist, in this case to keep writing. brian dickenson was writing columns really until -- columns really until the end of his life, stands an example to all of us what courage in impossible circumstances looks like and that is a blessing that they give to all of us. so with many thanks and much appreciation to the president of the rhode island a.l.s. society an his president emeritus and to their executive director, beth flanagan, i am happy to get this done and now we hope that in the final days of this congress our friends over in the house, with 300-plus cosponsors on the bill in the house, ought to be able to get out of each other's way and get this done before this

congress concludes. with that, i yield the floor to my friend and colleague, senator braun, with great appreciation. mr. braun: mr. president the presiding officer: the senator fro indiana. mr. braun: today i rise in proud support of legislation that will break down barriers for those with medically determined a.l.s. a.l.s. is a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the spinal cord and brain, gradually robbing its patients with the ability to speak, eat, and eventually breathe. there is no known treatment, no known cause and no cure. today we have reason to hope. since 2016, senators whitehouse and cotton, have championed the disability insurance access act. thanks to their tireless efforts, we're about to give a.l.s. patients and their

families more timely access to their social security disability benefits. no longer will these patients have to wait five months to access benefits they've earned. passing this act will help alleviate some of the financial burdens that company -- accompany an a.l.s. diagnosis and will allow patients and their families to focus their precious time where it needs to be, with their loved ones in their battle against the disease. a.l.s. is not a rare disease. more than 5,600 individuals in the u.s. are diagnosed each year, meaning 15 americans are diagnosed each day. not only is a.l.s. common, it is also extremely personal to many in this chamber, and it's personal to me. my cousin lost her battle with

a.l.s. on thanksgiving day ten years ago. her husband currently resides in my hometown and is my state director of outrage. my budget and appropriations staffer robert ardway and his sister jennifer lost their father to the disease. kathy lesh, a member of my indianapolis team, has a son, brian, that was diagnosed with a.l.s. this summer. brian also lost his father, has fortunately been enrolled in a clinical trial. we are all praying for his treatments to be effective. it shows you just in the network of people i have come to know back home and here in the senate how many lives are afebd by -- affect by it. countless patients in the hoosier state -- i'd like to percently thank the executive director of the indiana a.l.s.

association for bringing this bill to the attention of our office. i'd also like to give a heartfelt thank you to cory portland, of brownsburg, indiana, for his passionate and unwavering advocacy and support of the bill. cory has become a friend to the office and a champion of the legislation i introduced, the promising pathway act which would provide new f.d.a. authority to more rapidly approve specifically diseases like this. i would be remiss if i did not thank i.m. a.l.s., especially brian wall lick, daniel carnival and dan tate for their unyielding devotion to this and to fixing our broken health care system. today we come one step closer to accomplishing this pursuit. it has been a great honor to cofound the first ever senate a.l.s. caucus with my colleague across the aisle, senator chris

coons from delaware. passage of the a.l.s. disability insurance act has been a priority for this caucus since its inception about a year ago. we readily acknowledge the bill's passage is long overdue and there's much more work to be done. we look forward to rolling up our sleeves and coming together to advance policies in the future that will continue to improve the quality of life for a.l.s. patients. in doing so, we celebrate a.l.s. patients, those we have lost, those who are currently fighting this dreadful disease, and those whose journeys have not yet begun. it is a disease which does not have the luxury of a large community to raise awareness and fight for reforms. a.l.s. has no survivor community. it is up to us then to speak up for those who can no longer speak and to stand up for those who can no longer stand.

to those that we have lost to a.l.s. and to those currently battling this disease, an seitz, douglas raymond, cory poland, brian wall lick, dan tate, and so many others impacted by a.l.s., we here in the u.s. senate are your advocates. i yield the floor. a senato mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, today is my 276th climate change speech. my increasingly battered graphic is showing its wear. but for the first time in a really, really long time, there's real hope for climate action in america. the light of science will shine in a biden administration. our united states government will heed actual data. agencies will act based on facts. the white house will care about

the harm carbon pollution does right now across the country. president biden will restore e.p.a. to its role of safeguarding our air and water and task the state department to every department fromabroad. transportation to usda to h.u.d. will have a role in turning this ship around before catastrophe. and alas, the biden administration will cleanse america's government of its grimy infestation of polluter lackees, stooges, and hangerson and shut off the disastrous handouts to fossil fuel industry donors, a flood of cleansing executive actions will wash away the grime. the american presidency with its great power will shake free of the polluter's grip but the presidency alone cannot spare us. congress must pass a

comprehensive climate bill. stop rewarding polluters for polluting and clean you our energy market so it's not corrupted by or for the fossil fuel energy. for instance, putting real price on carbon to pay for the fossil fuel damage. we have to invest in new green infrastructure to create millions of jobs. we need to prepare communities along our coast for rising seas. others for higher temperatures and other complaint daipger -- dangers. we need to address the dangerous systemic financial risks fossil fuel presents to our economic system. there is work to be done, and it's overdue. so what's been stopping us? well, four years ago senate democrats came to the senate floor and here exposed this web of denial and obstruction built by the fossil fuel industry to prevent meaningful action on

climate change. this evil web is a front for billionaire polluters like the kochs and fossi fuel pushers like exxonmobil and marathon this web usesreepy identity scruing groups like donors trust and donors capital. they move money and people around in the web in a whack whac-a-mole array of disposable groups with misleadingly wholesome names like the artland institute or the franklin center for government and public integrity. benjamin franklin would vomit at this abusef his name. following big tobacco's playbook, this web of denial kept the polluters' fingerprints off the dirty wor of sowing doubt about climatecience just as the tobacco industry

fraudulent stood up front groups to dispense denial of the harms of tobacco. this polluter web of denia also kept the republican party in amounts of money in american politics. dr. robe brulle now of brown university creating this graphic off of his research and it gives you a sense of how big and how complex this web of denial is that the fossil fuel industry stood up and it funded by huge amounts of dark money, anonymous nders. when we expose this web -- exposed th web back in016, fossil fuel gnts like exxonmobil said they were out of the climate denial and obstruction business. exxon claimed it hadn't funded the heardland -- heartnd institutes of the world for a deca. fossil fuel executives said they knew climate change was a threat. they claimed to have turned the page on this nonsense.

well, that just ain't so. the network of phony front groups, identity laundering outfits, and bogus p. campaigns is alive and well. like any threatened, crooked enterprise it more ofs to hide -- morphs to hide in its grounding but we caught another glimpse of it through a "new york times" expose of the corporate p.r. firm f.t.i. consting. f.t.i. started 40 years ago as a litigation, and now offers virtually any nasty service a corporation could need. according to the times, the fossil fuel destroy employs f.t.i. for a lot of dirty work. stand up fake front groups. "the new york times" chronicles how organizations like citizens to protect pnsylvania jobs,

new mexicans fo economic prosperity, and the liberty energy proct actually all trace bk to f.t.i. through mmon employees, internet domain registrions, and other ties. each of these pop-up groups suggests tha it's a broad coalition of regular americans. each sports a flashy website like this one with neighborly looking folk in scenic vistas and of crse they all make the foss fuel case for cutting corporate taxes and slashing environmental protections. we call these fake environmental grassroots groups astroturf, a product manufactured by big, powerful special interests to look like grassroots support. this one is a classic texans f natural gas.

the times writes about thi outfit acting as texans for natural gas representatives, f.t.i. employees have launched pro-indury petitions, introded videos and reports on themportance of the permian base oil field and written opinion feces -- pieces for local newspapers supporting fossil fuels. the site features testimonials from three women. i'm quoting still. two of whom are represented with stock photos. t me interrupt the quote for a minute because you know you can go to the internet and find stock phos of people that you can use. so these aren't real testimonials. these are fake f.t.i. testimonials with a stock photo to make it look liket's credible. okay. back to the qte. one more of the three women, with a photo used without permission from the flicker page of a photographer in the philippines. classy, huh?

this bag of polluter tricks is pretty familiar to those who've studied the web of denial here. but f.t.i. is also pulling som new tricks. one new target is fossil fuel' own investors. a new challenge for oil and gas companies is their own shareholders, even their biggest institutional investors calling on them to identify and address climate risks. for instance,ast spring black rockthe largest institutional investor in the world, voted at a shareholder meeting to rove two exxon directors and install an independent exxon chairman all to improve this oil giant's, quote, insufficient progress, close quote, in addressing its business rk from climate change. well, that kind of warning shot

sends shivers done the spine of a big polluter. so there's f.t.i. which popped up a group in 2018 called main street investors which commission studies argue activist shareholders harm shareholder value and it launched a website, divestmentfacts.com to argue against big university endowment, pension funds and other big investors divesting from fossil fuels. the times not about this scheme. i quote, at least six academic pape published on this website were by professors who in addition to their university jobs were ao worki for compass lexicon and f.t.i. subsidiary. -- excon, an f.t.i. subsidiary. need trick using shareholder

money to fool shareholders. who paid f.t.i. to set up main street investors? the national association of manufacturers which the watchdog group influence m has called the worst clite obstructor in america. so no surprise that they're paying for this phony fon sense. -- phony nonsense. but the question is who paid the national association of manufacturers set this up. they won't say. so we have to take a guess. there's more that f.t.i. is up to. don't like your news coverage? f.t.i. can build you your own news site. the times found f.t.i. lurking bend energy indepth and western wire, two ses that churn out pro-fossi fuel articles and spread them around the internet.

with mass extinction of real local newspapers under way, f.t.i. i busy setting up polluter news pages to fill the void. it's clever if repulsive. and of course f.t.i. does dirty work on social media. after new york city filed a climate lawsuit against exxon, f.t.i. launched a social media atck on new yorkayor bil de blasio. in a participant mine two-fer, f.t.i. used content from its phony energy indepth news site in its paid-for social media attack. and who paid? they won't say. take a guess. another f.t.i. campaign bald -- bought social media ads to steer people to another f.t.i. front group, the arctic energy

centerhich promotes -- guess what? -- drilling in the arctic national wilife refuge and off the alaskan coast. in yet another campaign, f.t.i.'s shadowy special strategic commucations unit to secretly track envonmentalle protesters. it does this for apache energy whh wanted to drill for fossil fuel next to a state park in texas. see the pattern? but wait. it gets even creepier than ts, if you can believe it. f.t.i. has a menu that it offers to its clients of fake personas. these fake psonas use fake

social media and message board accounts to interfere in internet debate, say by harassing local citizens who are concerned about pollution and who may be criticizing an f.t.i. client so they'll bomb into t internet debate around that offering fake personas as the phony voice to disrupt that debate. this is actually their menu. you've got what they callhe derailleur. the deraieur seizes on a seemingly innocuous section of the otherwise negative narrave and attempts toull the comment thread into a discursive discussion around that detailed nonissue. they offer next the drunken conspiracy theorist uncle. the drunken conspiracy theory

commenter butonflates otherive unrelated a offensive issues intot, lumping it all together into an unpalable whole. they also offerhe semtic nit-pick irw asks an endless series of questions seeking clarification or pointing out argument is constructed. it can be played both fendly and oppositionally but by different stacks of kids. and on it goes through the skeptical capitalist, the patronizing voice of reason, the confused time traveler, the ncerned hipster, and, believe it or not, here's a real beauty -- the dog typing on a keyboard.

you can pay f.t.i. to send a fake -- send somebody real behind a fake persona to go interfere anonymously in a conversation, at -- in this case, a dog typing on a keyboard. the dog chimes in with very poor grammar and tries to ma it very hard to read. basically packing the debate with so much nonsense that everybody has to tune out. these are actually services offered to the fossil fuel indury clients that they pay for. they payo disrupt legitimate internet debate using phony, paid-for personas that come in

occupying these characteristics, it's unbelievably disgusting behavior for any corporation to enge in, which is probably why theyide the money. you may ask, why? why on earth would fossil fuel companies spend big money on all th fancy fake activity? from phony astroturf groups to take attack campaigns to the dog typing on the keyboard. why would the fossil fuel industry go through all these complex phony schemes? won't they ultimately get ught? well, the answer is simple and it is a number -- $650 billi. $650 billion is the subsidy for fossil fuel the unitedtates

of america every year -- every year, $650 billion. anher year, another $6509 billion. according to the intertional monetary fund, which is kind of a technal bean counter organization that's not an environmental group, by any so let's say you're getting that year. billion subsidy every even if all this fetory ends up -- faketory ends up exposed, if in in the meantimeou've disrupt the opposition and kept your business scheme going, you've reaped another year of multillion-dollar subsidi. i mentioned in this web of denial the identity laundering

group called donors tst. and i'll come back to the right now because i've called them out just put a letter to the editor into my home ste newspaper to assure i readers that donors trust was just as pure as t driven snow. and of all the newspapers in the world had donors trust just happened to pick mine. i appreciate the attention, but let's get the facts straight. because here's donor trust, right in the middle of the web ofenial. it has been called the dark money a.t.m. of the right behind the rht's assault on labor unions, climate scientists, public schools, and economic regulations, end quote. it's been called the right's favote dark money conduit

which allows the intity of wealthy donors to stay hidden, end quote. its been called donors trusts right-wing secret money machine, and it's smack in the middle of this dir, dark foil fuel web that has ppagated and funded the lie -- the lie -- of climate denial. from f.t.i. and all of its schemesnd its typing dogs to donors trust, the sleaze and the scale of t fossil fuel's scheming is itsel a signal of the mischief afoot. you don't put up a pho baloney operion of this magnide unlessou've got some real nasty stuff that youe trying

to defend and mislead people about. well, for $650 billion a year, you can crank up a lot of sleazy mischief. and re in congress, we can't keep dancing to the tune of this crowd. . president, we still don't know which party will control this chamber next year, but we do know that the senate is out of excuses on climate change. its time for a strong climate bill that can be signed into law office with the most votes ino history on a strong commitment to climate action. it's on us. it's on us whether this web of denial will hold us back or whether we will break free at st of its corrupting influence and do, for once -- for oe -- our dutynstead of its bidding.

with that, i yield the floor. the presiding oicer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. i always appreciate the persistence and integrity and intellectual vigor of senator whitehouse's comments on the floor talking about climate and talking about the corruption of big money in climate politics and climate decision-making. senator whitehouse, thank you. mr. president, this weekend we lost a great champion for american workers, larry which willis, at the afl-cio. he dedicated his life to the labor movement, work fighting for workers. he worked to empower bus drivers and flight attendants and train operators around the country so they could fight for better wages and protections on the job and they could build a middle crass for their families. we know the labor movement is

the single biggest reason that we have a middle class in this country. we know that the decline of the labor union movement is the reason that the middle class is shrinking in this country. all of what larry did said a lot about his character. he spent his whole career fighting to bring power to the workers who have so often been denied of rights in this country. everyone who worked with him attests to his skill, compassion, commitment to justice, love of life. one of his greatest strengths was his ability to find compromise on even the most difficult, thorniest issues in front of us. make no mistake, larry was always a fierce fighter for transportation because he never compromised when defending worker safety. he always challenged us to make legislation better but he also understood that meaningful change sometimes comes in smaller steps, no the in the great -- not in great bounds. he was will will be to work behind -- he was willing to work

behind the scenes to make real changes for transportation workers. someone who believed deep lay in the cause and backed it up with work to find a solution. he was very direct, didn't hold back when congress did something this was not in the best interest of workers. but he never closed the door on anyone, even his adversaries. he was always willing to pick back up a conversation to find a path forward. he did not let egos get in the way of progress, something that happens all too often in this town. he always kept his head up and door open. my staff and i relied on larry's guidance and wisdom for many years. he knew every angle of our nation's transportation system. he used that knowledge to help millions of transportation workers. he was a wonderful person we loved working with. we're deeply saddened by his passing. we're keeping his wife amy and daughter samantha -- oh, how he loved both of them and lit up

when talking about them -- as they cope with this sudden loss. we'll continue to fight to empower transportation around -- workers around the country and fight with the doggedness that would make him proud. mr. president, i ask to put the following comments in a different place in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. this spring i was talking with a grocery store worker in southwest ohio who told me, you know, they call me essential but really i feel expendable. that grocery store worker and thousands of others risk their lives so people can keep food on the table and get their packages delivered. then workers go home at night, they worry they're going to bring to their home the virus and infect their family. always the anxiety they live

with. we know that hundreds of thousands of workers have been exposed to the virus, thousands have died. we don't know how many,, mr. president, because the go president hasn't directed the government to make it a priority to keep track of the numbers. we know that more than 16,000 grocery store workers have been exposed at work, more than 100 have died. 16,000 exposed, more than 100 have died. the national workers united has recorded at least 1,700 deaths, many people of color. 1,700 died, 58% people of color. in meatpacking plants, we know the toll has been horrific. as of this summer, 16,000 workers in meatpacking plants, including in the dakotas, have

died. in the white house, they're putting up holiday displace with a lit up ceramic post office. that's right. workers are dying around the country and h. instead of doing anything to protect them, the president of the united states is decking the halls with ornaments. workers don't need christmas ornaments. they need protections on the job. president trump hasn't lifted a job to protect workers on the front lines. he spent four years in office putting corporate lawyers in charge of the department of labor. the secretary of labor made millions of dollars practicing law by representing corporations against workers. sometimes union workers, sometimes unorganized workers. the department of labor goes -- makes it easier for corporations to skirt labor rules -- safety rules. the point of the department of labor is to protect workers.

yet this secretary of labor, this department of labor, including from ibew workers to steelworkers to meatpacking workers, he refused to issue workplace safety requirements throughout the pandemic. he failed to get workers the protective equipment and medical supplies they need to protect themselves. he forced people back to work in meatpacking plants around the country and in south dakota we know in a company owned by the chinese communist party, 1,300 workers got sick, four have died that we know of. the trump administration fined this chinese-owned communist party-owned meatpacking plant $10 a worker. 1,300 workers got sick. osha, the government, the president, find them $10 a worker. but don't worry, he and his contributors who