mr. udall: and then i would yield to senator merkley. mr. merkley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that my intern aaron mcguiness be allowed floor privileges for the balance of the day. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i'm delighted to be here following my colleague whos a the ranking member of the subcommittee has done such excellent work with the senator from alaska in undertaking, really bringing together a vision for their subcommittee that we needed on this floor for a long time. and so well done. i stand here as the ranking member of the agriculture appropriations subcommittee. i'm very pleased we were able to pass this bill today, or we will hopefully soon do so. strong bipartisan support. appreciation to the chairman of the subcommittee, senator hoeven, and his excellent appropriations subcommittee team, carlisle clark, elizabeth dent, patrick carroll and carlos elias around they worked hand in hand with diane naylor, jessica shulkin and bob ross. i came to the floor t

mr. merkley: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes. mr. merkley: i ask the quorum call be vitiated, and i ask unanimous consent my intern amelia ziegler, have permission to be on the floor for the balance of the day. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, madam president. i come to the floor to talk about two things. the first is this saturday will be the one-year anniversary of the beginning of a horrific genocide against the rohingya in the country of miian march. -- myanmar. this genocide was preplanned, as various independent investigations have established. so it's time for the united states to take a strong response as a statement of global leadership on human rights on behalf of this horrific circumstance. we have 350 or so villages burned, countless individuals slaughtered as they ran from their villages, shot from helicopters, systematic rape, children tossed into burning piles. it doesn't get much worse anywhere in the world at any time in

mr. merkley: thank you. i come to the floor tonight with a simple and clear message which is we must not allow internment camps to be built in the united states of america. i come with this message because we've heard here on capitol hill that even as i speak individuals are planning to bring forward legislation that would in fact create internment camps as a strategy of family incarceration, a strategy that president trump has been championing. so i say tonight absolutely not. we must not allow internment camps to be established in the united states of america. when you look at the history of the world, in the history of america, we realize that in many ways we're still a very young nation with less than three centuries behind us. and in that comparatively short time we've accomplished great things. we've helped save the world from tyranny and fascism while pushing the boundaries of science. we spread democracy and human rights nations far and wide. we have broken down barriers of race and gender and sexual

merkley: thank you very much, mr. chairman. and i'm glad we're able to have this hearing and expedite the process for so many individuals in key positions. thank you to mr. fischer and ambassador miller, mr. rosenblum, mr. tom, ambassador yamamoto, for being here today and for being willing to serve in critical posts for our nation around the world. i have seen the work agencies have performed, the food and agricultural sectors during my congressional delegations abroad. i'm glad to see a nominee for ambassador for these vital institutions. and i'm pleased to see on this panel civil servants who have come to their positions with years of experience. ambassador miller, saturday will mark one-year anniversary the start of the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing conducted by the burmese military against rohingya which is relevant to your position because of the 700,000 refugees that have fled the violence in burma to neighboring bangladesh. i look forward to hearing from you how the united states can assist bangladesh in addressin

mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: what is the use of a house if you don't have a tolerable planet to put it on. that's a question that we should all grapple with in this chamber. it's a question that propels my colleagues from the environmental committee to come to the floor and take note that the trump administration's plan to replace the clean power plan with a dirty power plan is one egregious step in damaging our planet, an egregious step to increase carbon pollution. carbon pollution that has all kinds of effects we're seeing across the country from raging forest fires in the northwest with my state covered in smoke to the stronger, more powerful hurricanes that hit my colleague from texas' city of houston to my colleague from florida's cities in florida to the impact across the country on agriculture, the impact with greater droughts in some cases greater floods in others. one of the single, most effective steps that can be taken is to reduce the amount of carbon pollution from power plants, power plants

mr. hoeven: thank you, i want to thank my colleagues for advancing the appropriations bill, specifically the ag appropriations bill. also, i want to thank senator merkley, my ranking member on the committee. throughout the process, we've had open communications and have worked to advance the bill and to address amendments brought forward by our colleagues. also i want to thank specifically senator merkley's staff jessica, diane neller and bob ross for their work as well as my crew, carlo clark, patrick carroll, elizabeth and rita endrew. this has been a process that's involved other subcommittees as well. i want to thank all of those who have worked on these appropriations bills, including senator collins and senator reed and their staff on transportation, housing, and urban development. senator murkowski and senator udall and their staff on the interior bill, senators lankford, senator coons on the financial services subcommittee. this has certainly been a deliberative process. again, the way regular order is supposed to work. more than a dozen amendments that affected, for example, our agricultural bill have been accepted over the course of the bill.