mr. tillis: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: mr. president, reserving the right to object. i want to go back and talk about the concept of doing our jobs. so loud, i could hear myself. we've done a lot of stuff over the last 12 months. for people to say we haven't done anything, then let's go back and talk about the 12 circuit judges, neil gorsuch on the supreme court, extraordinary regulatory reform, a number of very positive things. i know that your perspective is different based on what side of the aisle you're on, but i'm actually very proud of what we as a congress have accomplished and what this president has accomplished. now -- reserving the right to object. i do object. mr. president, i would like to ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to immediate consideration of calendar 31, h.r. 1301, that the amendment at the desk which provides for the full funding for authorized activities in the national again taition authorization act be considered agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed,

mr. tillis: mr. president, is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. tillis: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, most people watching tv or watching c-span know we're at a very important place here. we're in a position where midnight tomorrow night if congress doesn't act, we shut down the government. and what does shutting down the government mean? it means a lot of things. it means that there are going to be a number of employees that are wondering when they get their next paycheck or whether or not they'll get repaid depending on whether or not we make a decision to pay them for time worked. it means people who have desperately needed services may be wondering where to get those services. for no other reason, if the money is there, is the distraction going to slow down services for a number of people who rely on the federal government for their safety net. the games here that we're planning -- playing in the senate are more important t

mr. tillis: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: mr. president, reserving the right to object. i want to go back and talk about the concept of doing our jobs. so loud, i could hear myself. we've done a lot of stuff over the last 12 months. for people to say we haven't done anything, then let's go back and talk about the 12 circuit judges, neil gorsuch on the supreme court, extraordinary regulatory reform, a number of very positive things. i know that your perspective is different based on what side of the aisle you're on, but i'm actually very proud of what we as a congress have accomplished and what this president has accomplished. now -- reserving the right to object. i do object. mr. president, i would like to ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to immediate consideration of calendar 31, h.r. 1301, that the amendment at the desk which provides for the full funding for authorized activities in the national again taition authorization act be considered agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed,

mr. tillis: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, madam president. madam president, i ask unanimous consent -- i ask unanimous consent that i be allowed to enter a colloquy with the gentleman from oklahoma. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. tillis: thank you, madam president. madam president, we're here to talk a little bit about immigration reform and maybe a little bit about the looming government shutdown. i want to start with the government shutdown because it's intrinsically linked with at least some of the arguments being made by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. and what we're trying to do -- it's fairly simple. year trying to fund our service members, we're trying to fund our veterans. we want to get a long-term authorization for the chip program. the chip program actually expired last year but there were sufficient funds on account to continue funding, but they're running out. in states like north carolina and other states, this program is going to start being shut down if we don't g

mr. tillis: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i'm here today to talk about the vote we'll be taking up later this afternoon. it's the pain-capable unborn protection act. we'll be considering it later today. i want to thank senator graham and my fellow cosponsors on the bill. i think it's a very important bill and i think it's a balanced bill, a bill that has the support of the vast majority of the american citizens, and it would put us consistent with all but only seven other nations in terms of restricting an abortion to a limited number of exceptions after 20 weeks. those exceptions are the threat of the life to the mother, someone who may have been raped or someone who has been the victim of incest. this is a balanced bill. it's a bill that most of the world population agrees -- or it's a policy that most of the world population agrees should be in place. and i think it's our job to make sure that with medical science today suggesting after 20 weeks that an unborn child can exper

mr. tillis: thank you, most pee watching tv or watching c-span know we're at a very important place here. we're in a position where midnight tomorrow night if congress doesn't act, we shut down the government. and what does shutting down the government mean? it means a lot of things. it means that there are going to be a number of employees that are wondering when they get their next paycheck or whether or not they'll get repaid depending on whether or not we make a decision to pay them for time worked. it means people who have desperately needed services may be wondering where to get those services. for no other reason, if the money is there, is the distraction going to slow down services for a number of people who rely on the federal government for their safety net. the games here that we're planning -- playing in the senate are more important than the work that they're doing to protect the nation and protect our allies. it's going to mean a lot of very negative things that should be avoided. i'm going to talk a little bit about it. what i first want to do is just summarize what we're t

mr. tillis: i'll close. i see senator cornyn here who has done an extraordinary job. it was senator cornyn who hosted the trip that i made down to the border that gave me an incredibly important perspective for the case on border security. i just want to leave maybe a final comment for the daca population. some people say, what's the crisis? we've got until march 5. i understand that every single did a that you wake up and that date seems like today. i know that we need to move more quickly. quite honestly, we could have gotten this done a couple of months ago, if people had engaged, recognized their differences, accepted a compromise. we're doing everything that we can to get it done much sooner than march 5 because we understand that there are teachers, there are e.m.t.'s, there are some 00 -- some 900 serving in the military, there are hardworking people, kids in schools. there's hundreds of thousands of good people in and a proposal that we've put together -- over a million -- that we want to welcome into this nation because they're great citizens, they love this

mr. tillis: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dar north ca. mr. tillis: thank you, madam president. before the chairman leaves the chamber, i want to thank him for his leadership as chairman of the judiciary committee. he's done an extraordinary job of bringing people together to come up with a solution to this problem. now, this is a problem that has existed for years, almost two decades. the first dream act was filed in i believe 2001. it's been some 16 years and they've failed to be able to produce a result. now, think through that. that was through president bush. it was through president obama. it was actually at a time when in 2009, not a single republican vote would have been necessary to pass the dream act. and yet my colleagues on the other side of the aisle couldn't produce a result. so we know we need to do something different. there are things in the dream act that we need to file and put into a bill. in fact, it was instructed in a bill that myself and senator lankford and senator hatch filed called the succeed act. it's a way to provi

mr. tillis's questions. i would tell you in the case of the handgun, after we had done that 18-month process, we had prototype tested, demonstrated, used soldiers, selected the handgun, and we had a protest. and i think to the degree that the congress can act on getting rid of frivolous protests, at least what the army considered one, would be helpful. all it does is add time, cost, and of course delays getting the soldier what he or she needs to be successful. >> senator king. >> perhaps the handgun example can remind me of my father's advice that even the worst person can serve as a bad example. so, maybe we can learn from that. mr. geurts, a couple of preliminary observations. somebody at the pentagon has a sense of humor to send you here on your third day. it will only get better from here, i assure you. mr. chairman, this is a very important hearing, and i want to thank you for calling it. and secondly, to the entire panel, this is one of the better or i'd say best hearings i've seen on this subject in

fisher, gardner, heller, kennedy, mansion, m murkows murkowski, perdue, roberts, rounds, rubio, tillis and young. mr. warner. senators voting in the negative. baldwin, blumenthal, booker, brown, cantwell, casey, durbin, feinstein, graham, harris, hasson, heinrich, cane, king, leahey, menendez, murphy, murray, paul, peters, reed, sanders, shots, schumer, shaheen, smith, stab now, van hol lin, warner, warren, whitehouse and widen. mr. lee, no. mr. jones, aye. mr. tesser, no. mr. gill grabrand, no. >> we heard that senator lindsey graham did vote no. at least one republican vote no. we also just heard senator jon tester vote no. a democrat of montana who was one of the senators the republicans thought they were going to be able to get. this vote is clearly going against the republicans. >> to hear lindsey graham voting no as we just did, jon tester voting no immediately after that call of the roll, at this point it doesn't look like there's a possibility for the republicans in this vote. >> no. i think thenlyhance mitch mcconnell has is slim to none and slim left town. you heard bob casey vote no. i on

senator tillis: thank you, mr. chairman. secretary, thank you for being here. i want to go back. in over 10 years since the financial crisis, we have a bipartisan bill that's intended to provide regulatory relief for community banks and regional banks. can you tell me a little bit about why you think that's important and what benefits are ultimately accrued to businesses and customers of those banks? secretary mnuchin: sure. first of all, i believe that too many of the banking assets are held in the large banks, and one of the ways to distribute risk is to allow the smaller banks to continue to grow effectively and not have them burdened by unnecessary regulations. so i think that, one, this accomplishes more diversification in the banking, and i also think lending is very important in terms to growing the economy. and in many cases, the local bank, the community bank, the regional bank has those relationships. they know how to lend and we want to encourage them to lend. senator tillis: do you think people wanting to start up a bank -- we got a very unhealthy, i think, situation

tillis? >> thank you, mr. chair. thank you, secretary sulkin. one thing mentioned in your opening comments that i want to get more information on, i knew and was glad that the department is showing some latitude and providing services to veterans with other than honorable discharge. can you tell me about the scope of that and maybe the numbers of people that have been served to this point? >> yep. yep. as you know, we're trying to decrease veteran suicide, doing the right thing for our veterans. take a look at where our highest risk veteran suicide is, it's in several categories. homelessness and homeless veterans that don't have access to care, clearly. that's why we're targeting an end to that. other than honorable discharge veterans, very higher risk. what we provided them with is an emergency mental health that provides -- all they have to do is show up, we'll give them 90 days of emergency mental health care, stabilize a crisis and get them into longer term treatment if that's what's required. so far, we've treated and have come to us for h

tillis? >> thank you, mr. chair. thank you to secretary shulkin. one thing you mentioned in your opening comments, i just wanted to get a little more information on is i knew and i was glad that the department is showing some latitude in providing services to veterans with other than honorable discharge. can you tell me a little bit about the scope of that and maybe the numbers of people that have been served to this point. >> yep. yep. as you know, with trying to decrease veterans suicide and doing the right thing for our veterans, when you take a look at where our highest risk for veteran suicide is, it's in several categories. homelessness and homeless veterans who don't have access to care, clearly, and that's why we're targeting an end to that. our other than honorable discharge veterans, very higher risk as well because they don't have access to services. so what we've provided them with is an emergency mental health benefit that provides all -- all they have to do is show up. we're going to give them 90 days of emergency mental health care.

tillis. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being so generous with your time in the meetings you had in my office. i covered some of this in a meeting we had him off but want to go back to it again. you've been nominated to position were you are ultimately going to be i believe when you're confirmed randy corals bostick you also said in our meeting in office that you're going to rely a lot on him to take a look at regulatory reform issues, regulatory rightsizing. in that first meeting that any boss has with anybody there were two if you try to give them some direction. what are going to talk about when it comes to recalibration of regulations postcrisis. kind of curious on your comments on also committee, basel iv, and actually do so we could start with that and a general discussion about how regulations is not about repeating regulations. some of the need to exist and if they've been a place into the liquid probably would probably would not of had a crisis of magnitude we have. now it's almost as if we either hav

tillis. >> thank you. mr. brandon, i want to go back to the time line for locking at regulations, that could be promulgated regarding bump stocks. can you give me a best case scenario for the time this would take if you determined at the end of the process, you have the authority to do so? >> thank you for the question, senator. and i was told that once the anprn would be approved from omb there would be a 30 day comment period. i don't want to guess, because we could have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of response, and we have to look at each one and categorize that. and so i would be happy to report back to the committee after that was announced to give a time frame to your question. >> we are probably talking months, right? this is a month's long proposition minimally? you think that's a fair characterization for me to make, not you? >> yes, sir. >> that's -- it's an area, you did respond to the chairman's question that the end result of this could be that perhaps you don't have the authority to r

tillis. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for being here today. mr. brandon, i want to go back to the timeline for looking at the regulations that could be promulgated regarding bump stocks. can you give me an idea for the length of time this could take before you could promulgate a rule? if you determine at the end of the process you have the authority to do so? >> thank you for the question, senator. i was told that once the anprm would be approved from omb there would be a 30-day comment period. and that i don't want to guess, because we could have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of response, and we have to look at each one and categorize that. so i would be happy to report back to the committee after that was announced to give a time frame to your question. >> but we are probably talking about months, though. >> yeah. >> it seems reasonable just based on the way apa normally plays out, the notice and public comment-gathering and review of the comments. i mean, this is a months'-long proposition minimally. do you think that's a fair charac

mr. tillis: mr. president, reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: mr. president, like the gentleman from connecticut, i don't understand why we're here this weekend myself. i don't understand why a continuing resolution that has all the provisions in it have the broad support of both sides of the aisle have gotten us to a point where we're putting so many people in jeopardy of getting the critical services that they need. i don't understand that at all. i think a simple request of extending the government for four weeks, allowing the chip program to be authorized for six years makes a lot of sense while we work through the issues that we have on the daca -- on the daca challenge, something that i am personally invested in, something i'm working hard to come up with a solution to. but instead of us spending time on providing a solution to that problem, we are playing these sorts of games and now we're talking about funding the government for