mr. wyden: mr. president, i would now ask unanimous consent that i be allowed to bring t baskets of hemp products on to the floor of the senate. the presiding officer: without obion. mr. wyden: mr. president, it was not very long ago when i was on the floor of the senate with the distinguished majority leader, senator mcconnell, and the two of us were making the case for our bipartisan bill to legalize hemp wch we a very much interested in having included in the farm bill. and i will talk a little bit more about our work on that. our original sponsors were senator merkley and senator paul and since then we have added as cosponsors 28 additional a members of the united states senate on as cponsors. so what i'm g to do this afternoon for just a few minutes is t aut why it is so important that our bipartisan legislation now cosponsored by almost a third of this body get enacd and be included as part of the farm bill. now, mr. president, it is hemp history week again, and that is why i am back on the se

mr. wyden: mr. president. the presiding offic: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: i don't want to make thi a cake-tossing contest but i also want it understood that my colleague from oregon has done invaluable service to the country by showing the importance of what is happening at the border where there is an effort in effect to traumatize children and separate kids from their parents. i look forward to working with my colleague, and we're going to do some work on it in oregon. i certainly don't want to hold up my friend from virgini and appreciate senator murphy. mr. president and colleagues, before i came to the congress, i was codirector of the oregon gray panthers, senior citizens group for about s years. and back then we were talking about ways in which to move forward on health care, to advance the rights of our people, to improve the quality of lif this country. and there was often a bipartisan coalition to do that, to make those advancements. in the last year, however, there een bn unprecedented effort to turn back the health care clock. we see it wi

mr. wyden: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, and colleagues, two years ago the supreme court handed down its decision in whole women's health versus hellerstead, which held the view that the government should not be in the business of deciding what kind of health care a woman in america can or cannot receive. a number of my colleagues are going to be coming to the floor to discuss this issue. it was a crucial victory. my colleagues who have been so involved in this issue over the years, senator murray, senator blumenthal, i, as the ranking democrat on the finance committee, has done everybody i possibly could because our committee has jurisdiction over women's health with a variety of programs that are crucial for women. it's really in that context that i want to reflect on what has really happened since the supreme court handed down that crucial victory, that important win for women's health care as embodied in whole women's health versus -- hellerstead. every time the president went to the white house

mr. wyden: mr. president, i begin by thanking senator merkley. senator merkley, in my view, delivered a wake-up call to the country several weeks ago when he went to the border and i have been very pleased to be able to join him in this effort. a few days ago we visited a detention center in sheraton, oregon. we spoke with a father then who had been separated from his 18 -month-old daughter and the day before father's day, colleagues, senator merkley and i listened to a father who had been separated from his 18-month-old daughter, had no idea where she was, didn't know when he would see her again, and all over the country, now as part of this national shame, these stories have been breaking our heart. now, the president has said, for example, that he is turning away gang members. what senator merkley and i saw last saturday is he is locking up innocent people who are in danger because they refused to submit to gangs in their home countries. that's what we heard at the sheraton prison just a knew days ago. and these stories are particularly poigna

mr. gordon sondland. >> thank you. senator wyden. >> thank you. thank you very much, mr. chairman. and let me make this filibuster freezone and perhaps just have my remarks put in the record and give you a sense of why i am here. i have known gordon sondland known in pacific northwest as gordie, for well over a quarter of a century. i think senator murphy asked, well, how did that come about? you want to play in the nba? is basketball what did it? not really. there is a really small jewish community in oregon and we pretty much know each other. so the side dowels and rosenfeld and the dancers and sondland's, we are just people who get together and back good causes, tried to stand up for our state and particularly have an interest in global kind of matters. because of our family background. we are both, gordon sondland and i come we are the children of german parents, and both of our families fled the nazis in the '30s. gordon's father used his foreign language fluency to help the british army during the war. my dad who lived for a while in ridgefield connecticut wrote the propagand

senator wyden. >> thank you. mr. chairman, my friend senator isakson makes the commendable point about simplicity. and i hope you'll take it seriously. and i'll just tell you it's confirmed you've got some heavy lifting to do. because after all of the balihoo about how the administration was going to get taxes on a postcard apparently for a lot of people, you would have to complete six schedules in order to be part of such a drill. so you're going to have some heavy lifting to do. and i'll just tell you point blank, i hope what you'll do is focus on the small business guidance on the pass-through provision which looks like it is literally from fantasy land in terms of trying to figure out what is expected of these small businesses in april. a lot of them told me they couldn't even begin to make an estimate of their estimate. i hope you'll do that first rather than continue on other matters that might -- might make for good publicity but don't really deal with the guts of what our economy needs, and particularly in my

mr. gordon sunland, the president's nominee to the u.s. representative to the european union. i think after the introductions by senator wyden and senator until list, i don't think any other introduction is necessary. so, mr. sunland. >> before i begin, i want to thank both senators tillis and wi wyden for the introduction. good afternoon. it's an honor to appear before you as the president's nominee to serve as the united states ambassador to the european union. i'm grateful to president trump for the support for me and i'm very grateful to you for your consideration of my nomination. >> before we begin, please allow me to introduce my family all here in attendance with me. first, my wife katie without whose intelligence, kindness, patience and wit i might have achieved very little. certainly not a place at this table. she's a success in business, as well as in our home. and she's been an enduring source of strength and humbling smart advice since the day i was fortunate to meet her nearly 30 years ago. sitting next to katie are our two proud est accomplishments, our children max and lucy. both of whom are undergraduates at

senator wyden: thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, look, your charts notwithstanding, america's small businesses believe they are being held hostage in a bureaucratic twilight zone waiting to see if going to escape. and you don't have to take my word for it, mr. secretary. here's what going one of the to officials in the commerce department said this morning in the newspaper. he is quoted as saying that the process on these tariff exclusion issues is, quote, going to be so unbelievably random. and some companies are going to get screwed. these people are making dollar lion unbelievably uninformed decisions. mr. secretary, those are not my words. those are the words of a top official in your department as of this morning. now, the number of companies, and every single member of this committee is hearing from small businesses, every one. the number is staggering. you planned on receiving 6,000 applications for exclusion. so far you have gotten 21,000. now we're going to review your path today, but as far as we can tell, what

let mow turn to senator wyden. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i think it's been a terrific panel. next week when i have opened everybody up to hearing, i'm going to remember, miss martin, what you said where you live should not determine if you live. iooked around the room and practically the whole place got whiplash when you said that because that really sort of sums up the challenge. colleagues, let me give you my sense of where we are in terms of the bipartisan possibilities going forward. we had the bipartisan budget act. we got five years of additional funding for several important programs for rural communities, tending the medicare dependant hospital program and increasing payment for hoe-volume hospitals and as i touched on earlier the tlans add-ones. >> that first you some measure of predictable for the next five years. but it seems to me we've got some he have lifting to do in the next five years. i understand this calamity did not arrive on us in 15 minutes. we're in the going to solve it in 15 seconds. so i would like to do it for pu

wyden, please go ahead. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing. if you follow the news on trade, you know that secretary ross is a key trump official negotiating with china, determining who gets tariff exemptions and potentially reshaping the american automobile industry for decades to come. in the last few days news reports about secretary ross uncovered a short sale of stock in a kremlin-tied shipping firm. new developments show that while secretary ross was negotiating on trade with china, he may have maintained financial ties with firms connected to the chinese government. a fund controlled by the ross family reportedly owns a major international manufacturer of auto parts. this, unfortunately, is not a one-off story. virtually every day in the news you get whacked over the head with another report about trump officials violating ethics rules or coming into questionable windfalls. you don't need a thick government rule book to recognize the flagrant conflicts of interest when they are brought into public view, and when it comes to trade americ

wyden. >> thank you mr. very much. i think i'm going to ask this question of you, mr. glick. it seems to me the president and secretary perry are doubling down on this common sense defined plan to blow up the energy markets by issuing an emergency order to subsidize uncompetitive energy facilities. and this strikes me as a real abuse of power. but what i want to get into with you specifically is what this is going to mean for consumers' bills. i mean, what is this going to mean for households across america? many because when you set aside all the lingo that we use around here, the chair and i used to talk about it when i was chairman of this committee. half the time you can't even figure out what language is being discussed here. but i can tell you, people in homes understand what it means for their bills. now, we looked at one analysis, and i gather they're pretty widely respected. the pjm people, i guess they also are connected to the market monitor. and they determined that the average family would pay about $250 more per year and wouldn't be getting anything. do you gene

wyden. >> thank you very much. mr. chairman, let me start with you if i could. dr. giroir, i think we all understand we've got a public health calamity on our hands. thousands of deaths, spent something like a trillion dollars since 2000 in terms of trying to pick up the pieces, you know, financially and i reviewed your written testimony carefully and it almost suggests that the opioid epidemic happened by osmosis. your written testimony completely omits the role of the pharmaceutical manufacturers that put a greater emphasis on increasing sales rather than protecting the patients. you state in your written testimony, quote, well intentioned healthcare providers began to prescribe opioids to treat pain in ways that we now know are high risk and have been associated with opioid abuse addiction and overdose. now, it is hard to believe that trained physicians would just come up on their own with these pervasive overprescribing practices on their own. in your view who told the physicians that these doses, these amounts, were acceptable? >> so thank you for that question

after introductions by senators wyden and tillis, no further introduction is necessary. esther sondland? mr. sondland: before i begin, i want to thank the senators for an overly generous introduction. it was much appreciated. chairman johnson, ranking member murphy, and established members -- good afternoon. it is an honor to serve as united states ambassador to the european union. grateful for the confidence placed in may, and the secretary tom payoff for his support. i'm grateful for your consideration of my nomination. before we begin, please allow me to introduce the members of my family in attendance with me. first, my wife katie, without his intelligence, kindness, patience, and wit, i might have achieved very little -- certainly not a place at this table. she is formidable success in business as well as our home, and has been on enduring source of strength and humbling, smart advice since the day i was fortunate to meet her nearly 30 years ago. sitting next to katie are our proudest of compliments, our children max and lucy, oath of whom are undergraduates at duke and departed challe

going to turn to our ranking member, my good friend and partner, senator wyden, for his opening statement. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. and mr. chairman, thank you for holding this hearing. i'm going to get to rescuing americans who are getting mugged by their prescription drug bills, as well as the administration gutting safeguards for those with preexisting conditions. first, the american people are owed an answer about what is going to be done to protect the thousands of children the trump administration separated from their mothers and fathers and put in the custody of today's witness. as of this morning, health and human services, homeland security and the justice department seem to be doing more to add to the bedlam and deflect blame than they're doing to tell parents where their kids are. according to new reports, the government is ransoming these children by telling their parents they can have their kids back if they agree to leave the country. the president tweeted that the u.s. should forget about due process rights for immigrants, essentially an endorsement of judging people by the color of their

mr. secretary if you consider these terrorist attacks on the american family you are putting attacks and destroying markets for american businesses of all types, sorts and sizes. democratic senator ron wydenhe move seemed more like quote major imposes in any thought-out strategy produce a white house writer at the lawmakers fighting for free trade? hedge fund manager and a "fox news" contributor jonathan hoenig is here. jonathan i feel like a lonely voice alone in the forest screaming for help against the terrorists. no one is listening. >> i have to shake my head when i'm watching the president on "fox business" aunties announcing the tariffs and people are clapping and cheering they are cheering taxes on americans, not on china, not on mexico, on americans. we know the net result of this. tariffs cost jobs. adam smith discovered this george bush discovered this. kennedy: what are some of the impressions we are seeing right now? what are some of the effects that we are seeing on items that are manufactured with steel and aluminum? >> people keep saying this as a negotiating tactic. the trade war has begun kennedy. started in january. the presence engineered tariffs on lumber and washing

isakson, murray, blumenthal, hirono, gillibrand, manchin, warren, brown, mccaskill, jones, durbin, and wyden. mr. president, this is a good amendment. it's a good government amendment. it's an amendment that will allow us, the folks in the senate, to be able to of 0 the kind of oversight we need to offer of the v.a. and make sure that it is serving the veterans of this country. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the question occurs on the young amendment number 2926. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: vote: spro. the presiding officer: are there any senators who wish to vote or change their vote? if not, the yeas are 96. the nays are zero. the amendment is approved. under the previous order -- we'll have order in the chamber. under the previous order, the question occurs on the tester amendment number 2971. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or wishing to change

mr. bound is also controversial. recently learned that bound had some rather offensive writings that he failed to disclose to the bipartisan judicial advisory committee established by senators wyden and merkley. that certainly validates their decision to withhold the blue slip. but despite the opposition of both, both home state senators, the majority is moving forward. in doing so, they will further erode the century-old blue slip tradition that they themselves used to block an unprecedented number of nominees when obama was president. net neutrality. on another matter, the republican-led f.c.c.'s repeal of net neutrality goes into effect today. the rules enacted by the obama administration to bar large internet service provides from charging customers more for certain content are gone. the rules to bar large internet providers from slowing down certain websites are gone. the rules ensuring an open, free internet with a level playing field for small businesses, public schools, rural americans, people without a lot of money, communities of color are gone. democrats tried to forestall this day by writing and then passing a c.r.a. act through the senate, bipartisan. some republican