Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S. Senate 11072017 20171107

Database that searches when people attempt to purchase firearms but when the federal government doesnt do this it is reported that the air force simply through interventions, human error or somewhere failed to do it then there is nothing there to contradict the misrepresentation by the purchaser when they go to buymc it. We leave these remarks to return to live coverage of the senate here on cspan2 fficer wt objection. Mr. Mccain mr. President , in recent months the United States and Coalition Forces have achieved major gains against isis in iraq and syria. U. S. Coalition partners have liberated the capital of raqqa and syria, the pocket of hawija in Northern Iraq and just days ago the border town of alkine in western iraq. The socalled caliphate the terrorists claimed would overrun the middle east is now a shadow of its former self, a shrinking swath on a map once defined by an open reign of terror. Unfortunately, however, our challenges in the region remain daunting despite these hardfought tactical victories. Our relentless focus on destroying isis, which is of course essential, has obscured a troubling reality the United States lacks a clear, comprehensive strategy that addresses the middle east in all of its complexity. This is part of the unfortunate legacy that the Obama Administration left for its successor. But merely one year into the trump administration, we lack clarity on essential questions about our nations role. Were left to observe the intensifying symptoms of a collapsing regional order as bystanders while in some cases were bystanders that take action, we do so with unclear and often unstated objectives. The United States is committed to the sale of over 100 billion of weapons to saudi arabia. We have announced an outline of strategy to counter iran while providing only limited detail. We remain conspicuously silent on the future of our role in iraq and syria beyond eliminating isis, as the assad regime and its partners consolidate power. Our power and influence is diminishing in the middle east, as a result of our lack of direction and the vacuum has been filled by forces working contrary to american interests. Consider the events that have swept the region in recent months in iraq, Iranian Forces are working to sow discord as we recently saw in kirkuk, where a commander exacerbated tensions among the kurds and government in baghdad. Iranianbacked militias continue to gain power and aim to turn next years election into a setback that drives american influence out of iraq. Meanwhile, the scourge of isis remains despite recent military successes. The terrorist attack last week in manhattan shows its persistent appeal, its ries rise in the wake of its rise in the wake of u. S. Withdrawal years ago demonstrates the danger of leaving before win wig the peas. Across the board in syria, the board backs by an array of militias has retaken most of the country, including many eastern areas that are strategically important. The consequences of the resulting humanitarian crisis have spilled beyond its border for years, destabilizing nations far beyond syria and paving the way for radicalization. Forcesthat are hostile to our interests and values are shaping the future on the ground while we we remain silent, focused on the immediate defeat of isis. I want to emphasize, we want to defeat isis. We are defeating isis. But that is not our only goal in the middle east. On saturday, the lebanese Prime Minister resigned, mr. Ariri, claiminclaiming that he faced dh threats from iran, leaving the United States with one less valuable partner in a divided government in which hezbollah plays a major role. I happen to have become friends with mr. Ariri over the years. He is a good prodemocratic outstanding individual who basically was forced out of office. The web of iranian proxies and allies is spreading from the levant to the arabian pen lins in a peninsula threatening freedom of navigation, stability, and the territory of our partners and allies, including with advanced conventional weapons. Iran itself continues to menace its neighbors, use its sanctions relief windfall to harmful ends, test ballistic missiles, and spread weapons throughout the region. According to our allies and partners, just days ago Houthi Rebels in yemen launched an iranianprovided missile at the airport in riyadh. Meanwhile, our allied allies meanwhile, our arab allies are embroiled in infighting and in diplomatic disputes that weaken Regional Cooperation and Coalition Efforts in the face of these pressing threats. Saudi arabia itself is in the midst of monumental change. The recent the appointment of a new crown prince, the arrest over the weekend of a number of prominent saudi citizens, and the kingdoms ongoing war in yemen which has spawned a humanitarian crisis of its own indicate a forcefulness that promises progress but also rai raises concern about internal stability and regional conflict and ultimately it could serve to strengthen saudirrivals. In turkey, president ered wasnt continues to consolidate power, abuse human right and rule of law and stifle democracy while growing closer to russia and straining the relationship with nato. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putins russia casts a long shadow throughout the region as it reestablishes itself as a powerbroker hostile to american interests and wholly uncertain unconcerned about human rights. These challenges are confusing and complex. Borne of years of neglect and aggravated by weeks filled with the events of decades. The questions that a comprehensive strategy must address are formidable. What are our political and military objectives in the region . How should we prioritize our pursuit of objectives given the numerous regional challenges . And how should we measure our success . What roles and responsibilities should our allies and partners play . And what support will they need to do so . What should be the size, roles, missions and capabilities of u. S. Forces in the region, whether in iraq, turkey, the persian gulf, or elsewhere . How will the United States facilitate humanitarian relief, stabilization, reconstruction, and political reconciliation, where possible . These questions, many of which we require the president and department of defense to answer in the National Defense authorization act, are not academic. The United States is not involved in the middle east because we labor under the illusion that our presence will solve every problem but because the stability of the region is vital to our National Interest and International Security alike. Middle eastern instability tends to travel far beyond its borders. The regions importance to the Global Economy that americans benefit from and depend upon cannot be underestimated. But if we keep sleepwalking on our current trajectory, we could wake up in the near future and find that american influence has been pushed out of one of the most important parts of the world. And that we cannot abide. The world faces an unprecedented array of challenges of which instability in the middle east is only one. Most importantly, the United States faces growing threats from russia and china, both of which are eager to tilt the balance of power in europe and asia towards them rather than towards us. The majority of the world favors greater freedom and openness. We need to prioritize these critical challenges by rebuilding military readiness, reorienting our force structure, investing in needed capabilities to deter nearpier competitors and strengthening alliances with likeminded peoples and partners and allies. If we neglect to consolidate our gains against isis and address the threats to american interests throughout the middle east, our gains will easily be overtaken. As my friend and former secretary of state George Shultz once observed, if you have a garden and you want to see it flourish, you have to tend to it. We could find ourselves enmeshed in conflicts far more costly in lives, power, and opportunity if we neglect to care for a particularly frustrating part of the world. Our elected leaders must articulate a comprehensive strategy that reflects these judgments with specificity and detail rather than piecemeal offerings and tactical victories. Congress, with our constitutional role as a coequal branch of government and, more importantly, the American People deserve no less. Mr. President , i note the absence of a quorum. A senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from iowa. Mr. Grassley today the senate will confirm Stephen Engel serving as assistant attorney general, office of Legal Counsel. The office of Legal Counsel, we refer to that in the Judiciary Committee as o. L. C. , functions as Legal Advisor to the president and executive branch agencies, providing advice on complex questions of constitutional statutory interpretation. The o. L. C. Essentially serves as a general counsel to the executive counsel branch. Mr. Engel is wellequipped to lead that office, and ill tell you how wel wellequipped he is. Both from the standpoint of academics and from the standpoint of background. Mr. Engel received his undergraduate degree from harvard, his masters of philosophy from cambridge university, and his law degree from Yale Law School. Following his graduation, mr. Engel clerked for junk kazinski of the ninth Circuit Court of appeals and Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Mr. Engel joined the law firm of Kirkland Ellis after clerking for Justice Kennedy. Mr. Engel practiced focus focused on appellate and commercial litigation matters. In 2006, mr. Engel joined the o. L. C. As counsel to the assistant attorney general at the time and then was later promoted to Deputy Assistant attorney general. There he provided legal advice to the attorney general, to the white House Counsel, and other executive branch clients on a variety of legal matters. In 2009, mr. Engel joined the law firm of deckart as a partner in whitecollar security litigation and later in that same firm as a member of the complex commercial litigation group. Mr. Engels nomination has broad support across the legal community. The senate Judiciary Committee received a number of letters in support of his nomination. One such letter is signed by former attorneys general mukasey and gonzalez as well as former deputy attorneys general philip, morford, and mcnulty. Other letters of support were received from coclerks on the Supreme Court, a group of mr. Engels former colleagues and Yale Law School classmates, and harvard law professor jack goldsmith. Mr. Engel also received an endorsement from the Patrolmens Benevolent Association of the city of new york, which happens to be the Largest Police union in new york city. Another letter from my former from a former senior governmental official and Legal Officers of the executive branch include kenneth waningstein and wanestein and michael hayden, they noted their enthusiastic support their words for mr. Engels nomination. Wanestein and hayden wrote, were confident that as head of o. L. C. Steve will hender legal render legal opinions with the highest level of professional integrity and according to his best understanding of what the law and the constitution is, end of quote. Mr. Engel and i met this summer and we discussed the importance of congressional oversight. The essential role played by members of this body and the house of representatives. He assured me that he agrees with each member whether or not a chairman of a committee is a constitutional officer entitled to the respect and best efforts of the executive branch to respond to his or her request for information. And further, he committed to review the may 1, 2017 opinion on this very issue and to consider whether a more complete analysis of the issue is necessary. You may remember my interest in this whole thing goes back to early in this new administration when people working for the president and resumably speaking for the president said that the only oversight letters that would be responded to would be those from chairman of committees. Now, you can imagine that leaves out at least 30some republicans that would never get answers to their oversight letters, it would leave out 48 democrats that would never get answers to their letters, and consequently, most of congress would not be able to do their constitutional role of oversight, making sure the executive branch does exactly in enforcing the laws and spending the money according to what we require. I raised that issue through a sevenpage letter to the white house and they came and visited with me about it and i think they had some misunderstanding about what oversight was all about. They rio a letter that said that they are they rewrote a letter that said that they were going to respond to every member of congress on oversight issues which satisfies me from the standpoint of their intent, but i as i just said in my remarks here, mr. Engel committed to review that may 1, 2017, o. L. C. Opinion and to consider whether a more complete analysis of the issue is necessary because every member of congress should be able to do oversight. Every member of congress ought to expect an answer to their letters from the executive branch of the government whether they are a chairman or not, whether they are a republican or not, whether they are a member of the house or a member of the senate. And i want to make sure that we follow through on this, although i will give this Administration Credit for almost totally reversing an opinion that they issued way back in february. The head of o. L. C. Is highly is a highly Important Role at the department of justice, and its a role of which its importance is felt throughout the federal government. Just to show you how its felt throughout the entire government, let me tell you that they issued an opinion in the Previous Administration on something to do with Inspector General work throughout the government maybe originally intended to say what the Inspector General could demand or not demand and understand the law passed in 1979 says that an Inspector General can be entitled to any information he wants from that department, but they issued an opinion, the o. L. C. Person at that time issued an opinion along the lines, well, theres some areas that maybe the head of the agency has to review, which means that the 1979 law has been carried out in spirit. That is kind of an example because that opinion of the Justice Department was used by general counsels throughout the administration of obama to Keep Congress from doing its oversight work. Thats how important the person who is head of the office of Legal Counsel is in determining what goes on in the executive branch of government, enough to stifle the oversight work of the congress of the United States or the work of the Inspector General of each department. So i see mr. Engel as a person thats going to be a friend of congressional oversight, and if he isnt, im going to be very, very disappointed. But he satisfied me through his testimony before a committee and through the promises that he that he made in privacy of my office that hes going to do that. So were ending up with a mr. Engel who is, as you can see, very well qualified to take on such a role as assistant attorney general of the office of Legal Counsel. So i urge my colleagues to support mr. Engels nomination and confirm him to this important position. I yield the floor. Mr. Thune mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from south dakota. Mr. Thune mr. President , are we in a quorum call . The presiding officer we are not in a quorum call. Mr. Thune mr. President , were getting close to making tax relief a reamount imri reality. Last week the house released its tax reform bill. Both houses will review the bills and debate them on the floor and develop a final version. Mr. President , after years of economic stagnation, americans are ready for relief. They are ready to keep more of their hardearned money. They are ready to finally see a real pay increase, and they are ready for more access to economic opportunity. Thats what our tax reform bill is going to provide. To start with, our bill is going to put more money in americans pockets by lowering their tax rates and doubling their standard deduction. In our bill a family making 24,000 a year or less wont be paying any taxes. Families making more than 24,000 a year will pay significantly less than they are paying today. Were also going to help families by substantially increasing the child tax credit. Were going to simplify and streamline the tax code so that its easier for americans to figure out what benefits they qualify for so they dont have to spend a lot of time and money filing their taxes. But, mr. President , thats only the beginning. Americans dont just warrant to keep dont just want to keep more of their hardearned money, they also want to be making more of it, but americans have had a hard time doing that lately. Wages have been stagnant for years and new opportunities have been hard to find. So in addition to reforming the the tax code, we will reform the business side so we can give americans wages that will settle them up for a secure future. We need american businesses to thrive. Thriving businesses creates jobs, they provide opportunities, and they increase wages and invest in their workers. Right now, though, our tax code is not helping businesses thrive. Instead its strangling both large and Small Businesses with high tax rates. Small businesses are incredibly important for new job creation. They play a huge role in the economy in my home state of south dakota and other states all across the country. But the high tax rates that too many Small Businesses currently face makes it difficult for them to p even survive much less thrive and expand their operation operations. Were going to lower taxes for Small Businesses so they can grow and hire new businesses. Were also going to allow Small Businesses to recover their capital invested in inventory and machinery more quickly will which will create more capital. Right now it can take Small Businesses years, or in some cases decades, to recover the costs of their investments in equipment facilities. That can leave them extremely cash poor in the meantime. Needless to say, cashpoor businesses have a hard time expanding, hiring new workers or increasing wages. Allowing Small Businesses to recover their investments more quickly will mean more jobs and opportunities for American Workers. In addition to high tax rates on large and Small Businesses, another thing that is decreasing jobs and opportunities for American Workers is our outdated worldwide tax system which is discouraging American Companies from investing their profits here at home and american jobs and American Workers. Having a worldwide tax system, mr. President , means that American Companies pay u. S. Taxes on the profit that they make here at home as well as on part of the profit that they make abroad once they bring that money back to the United States. The problem with this is that American Companies are already paying taxes to foreign governments on the money they make abroad. Then when they bring that money home, they too often having to pay taxes again on part of those profits, and, i might add, at the highest tax rate in the industrialized world. Its no surprise that this discourages businesses from bringing their profits back to the United States to invest in their domestic operations and in new jobs and increased wages. From 1993 to 2003, there were 29 corporate inversions where u. S. Companies moved abroad. Between 2003 and 2014, when other countries were dropping their Corporate Tax rates and shifting to territorial tax systems, there were 47 such inversions. Our tax plan address this drag on our economy by moving from our outdated worldwide tax system to a territorial tax system. What does that mean, mr. President . Well, by shifting to a territorial tax system here in the United States, a move, a move that is supported by members of both political parties, we will eliminate the double taxation. Combine that with a reduction in the high Corporate Tax rate and we can provide a strong incentive for u. S. Companies to invest their profits at home in american jobs and American Workers instead of abroad. Business tax reform is essential to reversing the economic stagnation that weve seen in recent years. The white House Counsel of council of economic advisors estimates that the framework will boost Economic Growth by 3 and 5 . Mr. President , thats good news for the economy. More specifically, however, its good news for American Workers who can expect to see their incomes rise as a result. A study from the White House Council of check advisors shows that reducing the Corporate Tax rate from 35 , which is the highest in the industrialized world, down to 20 , which is more competitive with our competitors around the world, would increase average Household Income by 4,000 annually. Well, think about that, mr. President. Reducing the tax on businesses in this country would increase average Household Income for families in america by 4,000. A Boston University professor and Public Finance expert, larry kutlakof, found that this would increase Household Income by 3,500 per year. This was found by the former chair of economic advisors who noted that Corporate Tax reform will boost Household Income by 3 toy 500 per year. There are lots of analysts looking at the proposed changes in the tax code that we are attempting to get through the congress this year and on the president s desk. Not only will it reduce the taxes, the tax burden, the amount of tax paid by middleincome families in this country, the reduction in the rates on businesses will also increase the number of opportunities for better paying jobs and higher wages and raise that average Household Income that is so desperately in need of a boost. Mr. President , its been a rough few years for the American Economy and workers. I think all you have to do is look at the numbers and know most americans havent seen a pay raise in almost the last decade. But with comprehensive tax reform, the next few years and the next few decades, for that matter, can look very, very different. Republicans tax reform legislation is going to provide direct relief to hardworking americans and its going to create the kind of economy that will give workers access to more jobs, to better opportunities, and to higher wages. Not just for the near term but for the long term. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Senate Finance committee under the leadership of chairman hatch to put the final touches on our bill and to take it up in the committee next week. And then i hope we can bring that bill to the floor of the United States senate and have an open debate, process amendments but put something, pass something through the senate that we can conference with the house of representatives, put on the president s desk and move our economy in a direction that will provide a brighter and more prosperous future for American Workers and american families. Mr. President , its time to give the American People some relief. I yield the floor. A senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from maryland. Mr. Van hollen thank you, mr. President. I rise today to strongly oppose the legislation thats emerged from the house of representatives that pretends to provide tax relief to middleclass americans. But if you take a look at it and you look at the analyses that have already come out, what it really is is another big tax giveaway to millionaires, billionaires, and big Multinational Corporations. I believe we should do tax reform. We should take our tax code. We should clean up a lot of junk thats gotten into our tax code thats not there for good Public Policy reasons. Its there because someone had a highpowered lobbyist. We need to clean up our tax code. We need to reform our tax code, and we need to do it in a way that helps the middle class and doesnt add more big breaks to Big Corporations. Unfortunately, this republican plan does the opposite of tax reform. What it does is doubles down on big tax breaks to Big Corporations and the super wealthy. Lets just take a headline we saw today based on the analysis. The New York Times looked at it. Republican plan would raise taxes on millions of middleclass families. I can tell you that is very true in my state of maryland. In fact, its going to be true in states throughout the United States of america. You are going to see millions of middleclass tax families pay more under this plan. In fact, this analysis that is discussed in the times found that 45 of middleclass families get a tax increase under this plan once its fully implemented. That means that families making between roughly 50,000 a year and 160,000 a year, about half of them are going to end up paying higher taxes under the republican plan. And heres one of the double standards that you see continuing throughout the republican tax plan. Big corporations not only get big tax cuts, 1. 5 trillion, but theyre going to go on forever. Middleclass families, many people will see an Immediate Tax increase, an Immediate Tax increase. Others will see initially a tax cut, a little tax cut. But for individuals and families, its the great disappearing tax cut. A little sweetener to make the bill look good in the early years, but the bill takes away all those tax cuts from middleclass families on average, and then actually increases the burden on a family of four making 59,000 or under, under the plan. So corporations, 1. 5 trillion tax cut over ten years permanent. Folks in the middle, many will see an Immediate Tax increase and it will stay in place. The tax increase. Others will see a little tax decrease, but many of those, as the years go by, are going to see their taxes go up. Again, major Corporate Tax cut financed in large part by millions of middleclass families paying higher taxes. Now just to give you a sense of how well the folks at the very top will do, theres a headline from the wall street journal. This is not a democraticleaning newspaper. Headline, banks sidestep a big tax plan pitfall. Right here in the second paragraph it says this, the wall street journal article at a 20 Corporate Tax rate, banks stand to be among the biggest winners from tax reform. Thats according to s p Global Market intelligence. The five biggest diversified u. S. Banks alone might have had tax savings of 11. 5 billion in 2016 at that rate. The biggest sum for any subindustry group tracked by s p. So big banks, the biggest banks, they do just great under this republican plan. Middleclass families are left paying the bill. If you look at this on the individual side, the top 1 wealthiest americans in this country, the top 1 are going to get an average tax cut of 65,000. Thats per person, on average. If youre in that top 1 , an average family will get a 65,000 tax cut. That means that 48 of the benefit of all the tax cuts in this republican plan go to the top 1 . Let me say that again. Flip it around. The top 1 wealthiest households are going to get 48 of the Dollar Benefit of this tax cut. That doesnt sound like a plan focused on improving the situation of middleclass taxpayers. They are the ones who are going to have to finance many of those tax cuts for the very wealthy and Big Corporations. I know our republican colleagues recognize what a vulnerability this is because our colleague, Senate Majority leader, mr. Mcconnell, said about the tax bill in an interview last saturday, he said at the end of the day, nobody, nobody in the middle class is going to get a tax increase. Lets understand what that means. Hes saying that not a single middleclass household out there in the country is going to see their taxes go up. Well, i dont know what tax plan hes talking about. Its certainly one that hasnt seen the light of day yet, because the bill thats coming out of the house will raise taxes on millions of middleclass families, and that is a fact. Speaker ryan just said the other day, he said an interview on fox news he said, quote, we are making sure every middleclass taxpayer is a winner here. Every middleclass taxpayer is a winner here. Well, thats certainly not true of the plan that just was marked up in the ways and Means Committee of the house, because there are a whole lot of families in the middle class who are big losers on the republican plan. In fact, millions of them around the country. So i dont know what plan theyre talking about. Im looking forward to seeing the republican plan that doesnt raise taxes on any middleclass families in the United States. That should be our policy. We should not be increasing the burden on middleclass families in order to finance a 1. 5 trillion tax cut for big Multinational Corporations. But thats the way it is right now. Now homeowners are going to be especially hard hit under this republican plan because a lot fewer homeowners will utilize the mortgage interest deduction, and the republican plan also slashes the deduction for state and local taxes. In fact, they eliminate your option to deduct state and local income taxes. The result is going to be a lot of middleclass homeowners are going to pay a lot more. Thats why the realtors oppose this bill. These are the folks in our neighborhoods who are buying and selling homes. They are folks who have their ear to the ground in our communities. Heres what the realtors said about this bill. It said it threatens home values and takes money straight from the pockets of homeowners. In fact, they had a study done by coopers Price Waterhouse that said if youre a homeowner and your income is between 50,000 and 200,000 adjusted gross income, you will see an average tax increase. They also predicted that ohm values across the that home values across the board could drop by 10 , and its not clear when they would recover their value. The National Association of Home Builders is also opposed to this legislation because the impact it will have on homeownership and the prices and values of peoples homes around the country. Im quoting from them. The House Republican tax reform plan abandons middleclass taxpayers in favor of highincome americans and wealthy corporations. The bill eviscerates existing housing tax benefits by drastically reducing the number of homeowners who can take advantage of mortgage interest and property tax incentives. Mr. President , i think all of us know that this is not some leftleaning group. Were talking about the National Association of Home Builders finding that the republican plan abandons the middleclass taxpayers in favor of highincome americans and wealthy corporations. Thats their finding based on their analysis of the bill. And heres the catch. Its that double standard again. Just as i said earlier that youve got the tax cuts for Big Corporations going on forever, but theres much smaller tax relief for middleincome taxpayers taking effect early but phasing out. You have the situation if youre a Big Corporation you get to deduct your state and local taxes, all of them. In fact, if youre a Multinational Corporation and youre in china, you get to deduct taxes you pay to the government of china. But if youre a household in maryland or any of our states, you dont get to deduct the taxes you pay to your state and local governments. So youre paying taxes twice on that dollar. Once to the State Government and again to uncle sam out of the same dollar. Fitch ratings looked at this and concluded it will put dramatic strains on state and local budgets since people in those states are not going to be able to take those tax deductions. So either youre going to see dramatic cuts to school funding, health care, or youre going to see state and local governments raise the property taxes in those states. So you get hit coming and going if youre a middleclass homeowner. This also damages our Economic Development efforts in many parts of our country. It repeals the new markets tax credit. And while it doesnt get rid of what President Trump said was a huge giveaway the hedge Fund Loopholes. Cant remember how many times during the president ial Campaign Candidate trump talked about how the Hedge Fund Tax break was a total giveaway. Thats not eliminated in this republican bill. They keep the Big Hedge Fund loopholes. But heres what they get rid of. They get rid of the ability of people with high medical expenses to deduct those expenses from their taxes. They even take away the additional standard deduction that currently applies to taxpayers who are at least 65 years of age or who are blind. So there are many folks who are in that category who are also going to see their taxes go up. Seniors are going to have their taxes go up, which is why aarp has raised the alarm about that provision and others. So while we keep the Big Hedge Fund loophole, you get rid of the ability of families who adopt children to take a tax credit to help cover the costs of adoption. They also get rid of provisions in the tax code that helps students and teachers and schools. If youre a teacher who has been spending money to buy textbooks and other materials for your class, you used to be able to deduct the costs of what youre buying to help your kids. They take that away in the same bill that they give Big Corporations a big 1. 5 trillion tax break. If youre a student who has been struggling to afford college bills, you no longer get to deduct the interest on your student loans. If youre an employer who was currently receiving an incentive to employ veterans who have served our country, sorry, thats gone, too. So we want to get this straight. Were going to take away the ability of people with high medical expenses to take a deduction. Youre going to take away the ability of College Graduates to take a deduction so that their expenses are more affordable. Youre going to take away the ability of people to get the adoption tax credit. And youre going to take away incentives for people to hire our veterans. But youre going to keep the hedge Fund Loophole and youre going to give 1. 5 trillion tax cut to Big Corporations. Thats what this bill is all about. Finally and im going to talk about this at greater length at some other time, but if you look at the way the International Tax provisions in this bill, in this republican bill, how they are structured, i really urge my colleagues to take a look at this. They actually increase the incentives for u. S. Based businesses and companies to move their operations overseas. And thats for two reasons. One is when you reduce the International Tax rates, when you say essentially that a u. S. Corporation that moves its jobs overseas now just pays the tax in that country and has no u. S. Tax obligation, we under this bill are at 20 , you still have an incentive obviously to move your operations to a very low tax place like the Cayman Islands. But then there is an effort to address that issue in this bill, but the problem is the effort to address that provision doesnt work at all, so heres the current situation. Cayman islands or other tax havens, a lot of orpgz try to park their lot of organizations try to park their whats known as their intangible assets there. These are the intangible patents. You get a patent from the u. S. Patent office. You make royalties off of that patent. Then you get a lot of good lawyers, and essentially you park that patent in the Cayman Islands that has really no tax obligations, so all the profits that devief from that patent, they are not subject to any tax or maybe 1 or 2 tax. So in this republican bill, there is an effort to try to address that issue. At least it pretends to address the issue. The problem is it doesnt. Heres what they say. They say were going to catch you if you park your money in a place like the Cayman Islands, because were going to have a tax of 10 on important high return tax, is what they call it. And the way they determine whether you are making an excess profit is you look at your tangible assets in that country, and you determine whether or not the profit you have made is over 8 . Thats the way it approximately adds up onto this bill. But heres the problem. Its an average international minimum tax. Not a percountry minimum tax. So let me tell you what a company does that wants to reduce its tax obligation. They move their company offshore. They take a company, say, in baltimore, maryland, thats 100 million, and theyre making 5 million profit today here in the United States, and they will be taxed at 20 , and then theyve got this profit from the Cayman Islands at 2 million. Now, under that previous provision, i talked about this effort in the republican bill to protect against what they call high return tax areas. They would normally have captured some of the income generated, the profits in the Cayman Islands, but when i move my company from baltimore to, say, the united kingdom, i actually then escape having to pay that tax on my moneys in the tax haven. So the bottom line is this republican bill, because it has this average 10 minimum tax provision, is going to encourage american businesses and companies to move overseas, and that is not if that is not what the intention is, i urge my republican colleagues to fix this right away. It hasnt been talked about much. There have been a couple articles recently about it. Gene sperling, kim clausing and others have gone through the economics of this, and it would make the situation a lot worse compared to even today in terms of these incentives. So the bottom line is in addition to this being a 1. 5 trillion tax break for big Multinational Corporations, paid for and financed by folks in the middle, which even after you see the middleclass families pay more, results in a 1. 5 trillion additional addition to the debt, but even after all that, after the big tax giveaway to Big Corporations, it adds an incentive for them to add insult to injury for them to move their businesses and factories offshore. So, mr. President , i hope that we will take a big step back, stop rushing a bill through as a matter of political imperative. We need to get this right. We should have hearings. We should have folks from all different walks of life, and folks who will be impacted by this bill in many different ways come and testify to congress about this bill, and then lets get together on a bipartisan basis and actually do something that works for the American People, not something thats going to clobber the middle class and provide this huge windfall tax break to big Multinational Corporations, while encouraging them to suck jobs and factories from the United States overseas. We need to start again on this. I urge my colleagues to do that, and i yield the balance of my time. A senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from ohio. Mr. Portman mr. President , i dont know where to begin. I want to talk a little about the tax reform proposal but start by responding to my colleague from maryland, and he is a colleague and a friend, and say he must be talking about a different tax reform proposal than were talking about, because so much of what he said, actually, is not consistent with the legislation that i have seen the house proposing and certainly not consistent with the legislation were talking about over here in the senate. Let me start with his claim that there is a 1. 5 trillion tax cut for Big Corporations. Thats simply not true. And, you know, you can look at the house proposal because its now out. You can see the fact that it does have tax relief. It has tax relief targeted at middleclass families. He is right about the fact that it has a lower rate for our multinational businesses, but he also knows that our Current System is absolutely broken, and whats occurring is precisely what he is suggesting might occur if we were to change the code, which is companies and jobs and investment are going overseas. We he talked about the fact that we havent had hearings. Just since i was elected here in 2010, we have had 70 hearings, which is the committee i serve on, the finance committee. I would encourage people to look at what we did two years ago. We set up five Bipartisan Task forces. I encourage my colleague to look at the paper on International Tax reform and the need for us to go to a low rate, 20 , to be competitive, to get just below the average of the other industrialized countries. And then to have the opportunity to go to a new type of tax system that enables us to bring back the money that is locked out overseas. Unbelievably, there is 2. 5 trillion to 3 trillion of earnings that are overseas. Much of that could be brought back, and thats what this tax proposal does. Significantly, that report you will see was coauthored by two members of this body, one republican and one democrat, because all these task forces, these working groups were bipartisan. My colleague in that effort was a senator from new york by the name of chuck schumer. Who now happens to be the democratic leader. So i think there is a consensus, at least in the real world, about the fact that our current tax code is hopelessly broken, and we have to fix it, and if youre against helping our companies to stay American Companies, that must mean that you believe they ought to become Foreign Companies, which is exactly whats happening, and it is to me an outrage that the United States congress is allowing this to happen. Ernst and young, which is a Public Accounting firm, recently came out with a study showing that 4,700 companies that have become Foreign Companies over the past 13 years would be still American Companies if we were to go to the kind of tax reform proposal that we are proposing. In other words, if you had this 20 rate i talked about in this Competitive International system, you would have 4,700 more American Companies here, providing jobs, making investments, contributing to their communities, and it does matter, and it matters that a company is headquartered here versus u. S. S. Overseas. We have done an analysis of this. We have determined that when companies leave, they dont just change their headquarters, they take investment and jobs with them. I would refer you to the permanent subcommittee on investigations work on this. Again, bipartisan work about the fact that we have to fix this broken tax code. The congressional Budget Office, which is the Nonpartisan Group up here on capitol hill that gives us advice on the impact of tax reform, on the economy, on deficits, on revenues, they had a report that says that if you do lower the business tax rate to make these companies competitive, again, the alternative is going overseas that the benefit of that goes to shareholders, goes to workers. They say in their analysis 70 of the benefit goes to higher wages, more benefits for workers. Now, think about it. That makes sense. If a company is not competitive, they cant pay the kind of wages we want them to pay. We want them to get wages up. They cant pay the kind of benefits we want them to pay. We want them to get benefits up. I would hope that, although we could have a spirited debate about aspects of this legislation, we should stick to the facts. We should not attempt to make this yet another partisan issue here in this town where were attacking something, not so much on the merits but because the other side thought about it. I will tell you, when you look back historically, it isnt just the working group that senator schumer and i cochaired on this International Front where we have to get this rate down, we have to become competitive, we have to save our jobs here, but look at another bipartisan effort thats talked about a lot and its not agreed to by all democrats or all republicans, but its called the simpsonbowles proposal. This was several years ago, and they looked at the tax policy and deficit issues, and simpsonbowles, you know, totally bipartisan, supported by a Bipartisan Group of United States senators at the time who were on that commission. They said we ought to go to this lower rate and territorial system. This is not a partisan issue, or at least it hasnt been until now. Lets not make it one. Yes, its true, there is tax relief in this proposal, the proposal that the house has proposed and that the proposal that the senate is likely to propose later this week does have tax relief. And we believe that tax relief is appropriate, because we do believe that weve got to give middleclass families in my home state of ohio and around the country a little break right now. Why . Because they are seeing their expenses go up, especially health care but also other expenses, and i say especially health care because thats the single largest increase in expenses is in the health care area, diewbles, copays, premiums, but also in food, housing, other costs, tuition if youre trying to send your kids to school, its skyrocketed, and yet wages are flat. Meaning people are facing this middleclass squeeze. We hear a discussion on both sides of the aisle about the fact we want to help the middle class. One way to help is to help the Family Budget, isnt it . Lets get a little relief into these families so that they can be able to make ends meet and not just live paycheck to paycheck. By the way, it will help the economy. It will help just to get more money into the economy to buy that car, to be able to buy that appliance, help move the economy forward. But its part of this reform bill. Yes, it is. And were proud of that. We also again provide some of that tax relief on the business side to help Small Businesses. These ever the socalled are the socalled passthrough companies. About 90 of the businesses in america dont pay their taxes as companies. Theyre not corporations in that sense. They pay their taxes through their individual tax return. Theyre called passthrough companies. Some call them l. L. C. s or subchapter s or sole proprietorship. They tend to be smaller companies. They tend to be family own. They need a little help too. The proposal does provide some significant relief for those Small Businesses. And that in the house proposal, in the senate proposal, its hundreds of billions of dollars out of that 1. 5 trillion tax relief. We think thats appropriate. And then finally again, on the business side, its to help make these companies competitive, to get that rate down so that they can attract investment into america rather than having that investment and jobs going out of america which is whats happening now. 4700 companies would be American Companies today if we had this kind of tax reform proposal in place but we didnt. And we should learn from that. As congress and its Congress Responsibility to keep that from happening in the future. Thats what this tax reform is about. Its about three things. It is about a middle class tax cut. And having people be able to keep more of their hard earned money. We think thats appropriate in these times. It is about helping make our companies more competitive because we want more jobs and we want higher wages. Part of doing the middleclass squeeze is provide a little help for the Family Budget with tax reform. Part of it is to get wages up. When people look at this tax reform proposal right, left, center, theyre going to say the same thing. Yes this is going to incentivize more investment. Some think more, some think less. But in a tight labor market like weve got right now will result in more competition for those workers and therefore pushing wages up. Thats what we want. Thats what this is about. Its exciting. And then third is to level that Playing Field internationally. So American Companies wont be going overseas. Thats the whole point. Were not doing this tax reform proposal to encourage companies to go overseas. Were doing this tax reform proposal to incentivize them to stay in america and attract more Foreign Investment here in this country so that an American Company can pay that premium for a foreign subsidiary rather than the other way around now where American Companies are not just inverting youve heard this word probably, inversions, going overseases and buying a foreign company. Theyre actually being taken over by Foreign Companies. Thats the reality. We cant let it continue. We have to stand up and be counted. Stand up for the middle class. Stand up for our workers who are now competing with one hand tied behind their back, whether its a big auto company in my home state of ohio. I toured five of these auto factories over the last couple weeks, talked to them about the tax reform proposal, how it would work. They gave me their input. Its going to help. By the way, its going to help whether youre a u. S. Company or a foreign company. If youre a foreign automaker here in america or you have other Foreign Investment, a lower rate and immediate expensing, in other words, being able to write off your investments as you make them and equipment, thats all good for you, too. So it will have both the desir d effect of helping American Companies be competitive but if you have Foreign Direct Investment in your state, in your community, they should be encouraged to put more money in america rather than somewhere else. If youre a japanese automaker and looking around the world and say do i put that next investment in china, do i put it in tokyo, do i put it in europe or germany or do i put it in america . Theyll like this proposal because theyll want to invest and be part of this, too. Thats going to help us give this economy a needed shot in the arm. Theres been a lot of talk and i heard it again today on the floor, gosh, this is going to be bad for the deficit. Well, i think it will be there will be about 44 trillion of new revenue coming in exmated over the next estimated over the next ten years. Yes, out of that money were suggesting a 1. 5 trillion tax cut relative to the score, the budget we have to use. What does that mean . Well, actually, about a third of that, about 500 billion of that is simply saying that, you know what . The Budget Office says that the existing tax policy thats in place is only temporary. Some of it is only temporary. These are the socalled extenders. We know thats unlikely because weve always made these permanent pretty much, including a big one called bonus appreciation which is most of take. So we think right away the way its scored is not fair. So you get down to about a trillion dollars in tax relief. Thats a trillion dollars over ten years with 44 trillion coming in. What does that mean . Well, it means that you have to have a little more Economic Growth than is projected in order to have not a deficit but actually paying down the deficit through more revenue coming in. I think that will happen. Why do i say that . Well, because the projections we have to use are very conservative. The congressional Budget Office is what we are using and we are obliged to do that which is final. Its a Nonpartisan Group. They are saying that Economic Growth over the next ten years will average about 1. 9 of growth. Now, the average over the past 30 years is about 2. 5 . So theyre saying our economy is not going to grow as fast as it has in the last 30 years. Well see. The last two quarters the economy grew at 3 and 3. 1 . So they dont seem to be on track with where the economy is going right now. More importantly to me, if you look at these proposals were talking about, these are progrowth proposals, whether its the help with regard to the business rate which gets it below the rate of other industrialized countries rather than the highest rate in the entire industrialized world which is where we are now. We have the highest rate in the industrialized world. Were getting it below the afternoon. That will increase investment and Economic Activity and jobs and, therefore, revenue. Whether its the immediate expensing where you can write down your expenses right away, thats going to increase investment and jobs according to all the economists who look at that. Thats true. They may differ on how much. If you look at the International Side where were going to bring back some of that 2. 5 to 3 trillion that stuck overseas, that certainly is going to be invested here in this country and help with our Economic Growth. So there are a number of provisions. I talked about the Small Business provisions earlier that are going to help Small Businesses to be able to innovate, to be entrepreneurial which is what we need more of, more new starts. Thats going to help. So all of that together is going to help with Economic Growth. How much . Well, lets say instead of the 1. 9 conservative estimate that they have made for next ten years, lets say it grows. 4 more. 4 more than projected. I would attribute at least that much just to this tax reform proposal because of what we just talked about. But if you believe its going to grow at. 4 more than projected, in other words instead of 1. 9 , 2. 3 , 2. 3 growth would be below the average over the last 30 years, then you actually will see the deficit start to come down because of this tax reform proposal. Because the revenue will be there, not just to make it revenue neutral but beyond that will actually pay down the deficit. We havent done that in a while. But back in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2,000 we went through this before. We began to reduce the deficit annually. You know how it happened . Well, constraining some spending helped. Thats obviously part of our challenge here in the congress. How do we get our hands around the spending . But second is growing the economy and in that case the Capital Gains rate of taxation was reduced. And suddenly in the late 199 ons, about 1990s about a hundred billion dollars of revenue showed up in the coffers. Tax revenues were greater than expected. I believe this will happen again. I believe that when you look at this proposal, it is conservative in the sense that it says, yes, lets provide needed middleclass tax relief. Lets also do these things to grow the economy. And lets assume that because of all this, were going to be able to improve the economic perform pans thats projected performance thats projected. Its a pretty disappointing projection. 1. 9 growth isnt great for any of us. It isnt great to deal with the issues of poverty. It isnt great to deal with the issues of entrepreneurship and innovation. It isnt going to help us to be able to afford the entitlements that are growing. We need better growth than that. We want more growth than that. And i think tax relief is the single most important thing we can do right now. Yes, we should have more regulatory relief. Yes, we should do better in terms of getting the costs of health care under control. People are concerned about their costs rising so fast. We havent been able to grapple with that issue. Yes, we should do more on worker training. We have a skills gap in this country. We have jobs that are available and yet we dont have the Skilled Workforce to take those jobs. Yes, we can do more in terms of helping grow the economy through education, other things. But the one policy area that is crying out for reform is our tax system. It is antiquated. It is out of date. It is driving jobs overseas. It makes no sense. It can be simplified. And this simplifies the tax code. It can be made more fair and this makes it more fair by helping the middle class more. It can encourage Economic Growth and it does so through the Small Business relief and the relief for our multinational companies. It can help bring back the trillions of dollars that are stuck overseas and thats what this does. Thats the whole idea here. So im excited about this opportunity. The house of representatives is working on their legislation now in committee. Next week that will shift to the senate and the Senate Committee on finance will have the opportunity for an open process. As i noted weve already had 70 hearings in the finance committee. Just over the past seven years since ive been in this chamber. Weve had working groups including the bipartisan one i mentioned earlier, the five bipartisan working groups of that committee. Well have the opportunity at our hearing next week to have an open process. Anybody can offer an amendment. Open discussion. And well have an interesting debate. It will be spirited as we saw here today. Weve got some differences of opinion, but lets stick to the facts. Lets not make this partisan. Lets stick to the merits. Lets try to help the American People and our economy. Then it will come to the floor of the United States senate and the same thing will happen. An open process. Every desk you see in here represents a senator who will have the opportunity should he or she wish to to offer an amendment, to have a debate, to discuss the issue. Yeah, it will be spirited at times but again i hope it will lead us to a result that actually helps to do the things we were elected to do, to give our constituents, the people we represent, the chance to have a better life, to give middleclass families a little relief as theyre facing this middleclass squeeze, to help grow this economy. From the middle out, from the bottom up, from everywhere to be able to give us the ability to say once again that america is that shining example, that beacon of hope and opportunity for the rest of the world. Thats what this is about. And lets not blow this opportunity. Lets get it done. Lets get to the president , to his desk for his signature before the end of this year and lets make good on the commitments we have made to our constituents to help create a better economy and a better future. I yield back. Mr. Mcconnell mr. President . The presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, at 4 30 p. M. Today, tuesday, november 7, there be 30 minutes of postcloture time remaining on the engel nomination equally divided between the leaders or their designees and that following the use or yielding back of time, the senate vote on the confirmation of the engel nomination and that if exon firmed, the confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table and the president be immediately notified of the senates action. Further, that there be two minutes equally divided prior to the cloture vote on the robb nomination. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Mcconnell i suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call ms. Klobuchar mr. President . The presiding officer the senator minnesota. Ms. Klobuchar i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. The. Ms. Klobuchar mr. President , i come to the floor today to call attention to the tragedies that have been caused by gun violence across our country, including the most recent attack that left at least 26 dead after a lone gunman opened fire in a church in texas on sunday. I join my colleagues in mourning for the victims. All of us are affected by what happened in texas. At the same time, we remember that these heartbreaking events came just 35 days after the deadliest mass shooting in our nations history when 58 were killed and hundreds were wounded in las vegas last month. But as we look ahead, we cannot escape the fact that we can and must do more to keep our communities safer. And while no one policy will prevent every tragedy, we need to come together on commonsense proposals that would save lives. And i appreciate the words of my colleagues about Mental Illness and funding for Mental Illness. I think that is very, very important. I come from minnesota where Paul Wellstone was one of the leaders in making sure that Mental Illnesses got covered by insurance, and i think we need to do that and more. Another area where we have found some consensus in this chamber is on improving background checks. My colleague, senator manchin, and senator toomey, have made that clear and i supported their background check legislation in 2013. But the fact remains that we didnt pass that bill in the senate. We fell short, and it was disheartening day. I remember having the parents of some of the sandy hook victims in my office that morning, and yet what happened that day, you have to contrast it with where the American People are. Consistently, we have seen, whether its with Public Opinion polls or whether its just when you talk to people that you meet when youre at home, that americans from across the political spectrum support commonsense proposals to require background checks such as requiring background checks at gun shows, and they support that by wide margins. And, about the way, i look and, by the way, i look at this in a state that has a lot of households that has guns. We are a proud hunting state. I always think of my uncle dick and how he used to love hunting and sitting in his deer stand and i think, does this heart my uncle does this hurt my uncle dick and his deer stand . And i dont think that manchintoomey bill would in any way. When i look at these things i have to evaluate them that way because i know how many proud and lawabiding gun owners we have in our state. I dont see how closing this loophole would hurt that hunting tradition in any way. When i talk to Law Enforcement around minnesota, they stress the importance of having effective background checks to stop felons, domestic abusers, and people who are prohibited from having easy access to guns from having that access, and if you remember part of the manchintoomey proposal was to do more on sharing data and getting the data out there. These efforts should not and do not have to infringe on americans right to own guns. Another sensible measure that came out of the tragedy in las vegas that we should take action on is senator feinsteins legislation to close the loophole that allows bump stock devices to convert semiautomatic firearms into weapons that work like fully automatic guns. Law enforcement recovered 12 of these devices from the hotel room of the shooter in las vegas last month. The i hope that we can find some Common Ground. Some of our colleagues across the aisle have voiced some interest in this, and i hope we can do something. When we know that would have been helpful in that shooting. Another aer where we can find Common Ground is on taking action to protect those who are at the risk of gun violence from domestic abusers. We are reminded of how important this is again this we, as the reports have revealed that the gunman in the texas shooting had a history of come to stuck violence, having been courtmartialed for assaulting his wife and child in 2012. He was sentenced to 12 months of confinement and received a bad conduct discharge from the air force. There are also reports of exgirlfriends and others that reported similar conduct. And im sure the facts will be unveiled, but what i do know, regardless of what the facts show right now here, is that this connection between Domestic Violence and stalking and those kinds of activities and some kind of homicidal behavior is something that has been wellestablished. According to recent research, more than half of Mass Shootings between 2009 and 2016 thats 54 involved some kind of domestic or family violence. Before i came to the senate, i spent eight years as the top prosecutor for minnesotas largest county, so i have seen that connection, and ive seen the connection between a history of Domestic Violence or stalking that later leads to a more serious crime. Thats why its so important that we have protection orders, and thats why its so important, as i look at the record of the shooter, that these cases be taken seriously, so you actually get that misdemeanor conviction on the record, or you actually get a felony conviction or do you something about the stalking behavior when it is reported to Law Enforcement. And we would have cases when i was the county attorney in hen pen county when we would sometimes pursue it when a victim reported it and the police had gathered evidence, even if the victim later backed awade and was afraid to testify, because we knew it had happened, we had the original testimony, we had the evidence at the scene be, we trained the police on getting the evidence at the scene, so that we were able to actually make those cases. And you think about in this instant making those cases, no matter how hard it can be sometimes when you have a scared victim, is really, really important. So when i was in the county attorneys office, i made prosecuting felons in possession of firearms one of my top priorities. They werent supposed to have guns, and when they did have guns, we had to take it seriously. But i will tell you that some of the most disturbing cases that we saw involved people with that documented history with that ultimate dod history of harassment, of stalking, of Domestic Violence because you would see it building and building and building and sometimes it would be against one victim but often we would find out that there were others and that it was a pattern of behavior and in one horrible case would erupt into homicidal violence. There was one case that i had heard of whereby a woman was shot to death by where a woman was shot to deaths by her boyfriend. He killed her and then killed herself while both kids were still in the house. It was ultimately his 12yearold daughter who went to the neighbors for help. The worst part of the story, it would have been prevented. In the two years leading up to the murdersuicide, the police had been called to the boyfriends residence at least five times to resolve domestic disputes. Yet somehow the man was able to have a gun in his hand the day he killed his girlfriends. I wish i could say it was a rare tragedy. But studies have shown that more than three women a day lose their lives at the hand of their partners and over half thats an average and over half of the women murdered by intimate partners in the country are killed with guns. Many times these tragedies begin with incidents of stalking. Research has shown that one in six women has experienced stalking sometime during his lifetime and that 76 of women murdered by intimate partners were first stalked by their partner. Its for this reason that a number of years ago i introduced a bill called the protecting Domestic Violence and stalking victims act to close some of these loopholes in our existing laws. My bill would make sure that those who are convicted of stalking misdemeanor crimes are not able to buy guns. It would also expand the definition of a domestic abuser to include dating partners. The second part when we had a hearing on this bill and these issues in the Judiciary Committee, even the republican witnesses that were called supported the dating partner idea because so many states have started to do that. I introduced this legislation this time it has been bipartisan in the past, but the republican senator on the bill is no longer in the senate, although it is bipartisan in the house. But this time i introduced it with senator hirono and senator feinstein, the only other two women on the Judiciary Committee of over 20 members. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell from michigan is leading the same bill in the house, and her bill, as i noted, is bipartisan. In 2014 we had a hearing on my bill, and as i said, even the republican witnesses agreed that a major portion of the bill was a good idea. At that hearing, we heard from sheriff christopher smaling from wisconsin. He testified about the connection between stalking and guns being used in violence against women. In his testimony, he told the story of one woman from wisconsin that he said had changed his career. This woman endured three years of a violently abusive marriage before divorcing her husband. She then took out multiple restraining orders against him over several years. That horrible day in 2004 he threatened her with a handgun, beat her with a baseball bat, bound and gagged her, and left her in a storage unit to die. Through what he described as some good breaks and some great luck, the sheriff and his partner rescued terry before she died. As a result of the ordeal, she had a miscarriage and had to have her toes surgically removed. In his testimony, the sheriff talked about the importance of my bills provision to extend the protections in current law to include dating partners. So that abusers would not be able to buy a gun if they are convicted of beating up their girlfriend or boyfriend regardless of whether they lived together or had a child. As the sheriff said, dangerous boyfriends can be just as scary as dangerous husbands. They hit just as hard and they fire their guns with the same deadly force. This is a simple point that you would think we could all agree on. But sadly, we still havent been able to pass this bill. And im going to put in the record the written testimony of the sheriff, mr. President. If i could put this in the record, the written testimony of the sheriff. The presiding officer without objection. Ms. Klobuchar i also note that a justice from the Supreme Court of pennsylvania also testified that day, and he was a republican witness. And even though he didnt agree with everything in the bill, he also said i absolutely agree that we should have boyfriends, dating partners as a part. We have it in pennsylvania, okay. Its important. They can, as the sheriff said, they can shoot and they can beat up people just like anybody else. And that was actually the republican witness at the hearing. Thats why im happy that in the house of representatives, it is a bipartisan bill. But id like to see it be a bipartisan bill here in the senate. But we do have and have had, and maybe they will reconsider this now just as the n. R. A. Has said that they were looking at the bump stock issue, maybe theyd be willing to look at this issue, because they wrote kind of a fast memo on this. Its only a page long. Back when we had the hearing and we were gaining support for the bill. And the letter said that the legislation and remember, this is very narrow legislation focused on making sure dating partners are covered and also people who are convicted. Not charged. Convicted of stalking. So what they said about the bill was that let me get this to the right point here. They said that the legislation, quote, manipulates emotionally compelling issues such as Domestic Violence and stalking simply to cast as wide a net as possible. So i want to make this very clear that ive never addressed this on the floor before, but this was really focused narrowly so that we could gain republican support. I didnt really think the n. R. A. Would support it, but i thought maybe they would be neutral. And sure enough their witnesses at the hearing supported it. Weve had republican senators support it in the past. And we also have Republican House members supporting it. And so to go after the bill by saying it manipulates emotionally compelling issues, i would agree that im sure a lot of people shed tears watching what happened in texas. And im sure they shed a lot of tears when they hear the stories of people in their own communities, of victims, of women that died at the hands of a domestic abuser after years of abuse. If they want to call that emotionally compelling and manipulative, thats up to them. But i call it the truth. The other thing they said about this bill, and this was even more interesting, its the part about the stalking, which is a major part of the legislation as well. That part of the bill, as i mentioned, just takes what we know as such a signal for trouble in the future and violence in the future. And you actually would have to be convicted of stalking to have the gun protections apply. So the example they use, they said it didnt make any sense to include this, was they said if two men of equal size, strength and economic status its the only example they use joined by a civil union or merely engaged or formally engaged in an intimate social relationship, could be subject to this prohibition for conviction of simple assault rising from a single shoving match. So this actually, this part applies to the, to the domestic partners, which i think that they are really taking this in a way that surprised me since what were talking about are boyfriends and girlfriends and Domestic Violence but they changed it into a shoving match in a bar with people that might have some kind of social relationship. But it just shows you that i just dont think this is a valid reason for my colleagues, my republican colleagues to oppose this bill. And im going to keep bringing this up because it doesnt make sense to me. And so they also say they end by saying whatever the case may have been 30 years ago, Domestic Violence is now taken seriously by the legal and criminal justice system. So that was the reason they gave for opposing the bill. Really . Because look at what we just found happened in the last week when this was not just a minor example of domestic sexual assault. It was a felony, and the person was courtmartialed. And the person was put in basically was detained for a year. And somehow this was not taken seriously enough to our entire system to show up on a record check. Or how about all the reports that were made by previous girlfriends and other people about his behavior, and nothing seemed to come up . As i mentioned in many cases we had in our office, even when the victim got scared and decided she didnt want to pursue anything, we felt we had an obligation to her and to other women that we knew would come ahead to pursue those cases. And many times we did that. If the police had been trained and they are able to get the evidence at the scene and sometimes there were child witnesses and others, and we were able to pursue those cases and win them, and we did. And so to say that you dont want to support my bill because you think that the system is so great and working so well, and its being taken seriously by the legal and criminal justice systems, after you saw what just happened in texas, i dont think thats true. This memo was written two years ago. And so i hope that they will look at this again and consider supporting my bill. I want to conclude my remarks by sharing another story about yet another tragic shooting from my state. And this one i actually have gotten to know the widow. Its the widow of a Police Officer in lake city, minnesota. And this was a case where the officer who is a wonderful man, a smalltown police department, responded to a Domestic Violence call from a 17yearold girl who was being abused by her exboyfriend. So he goes to the scene in the middle of the winter, and he had a bulletproof vest on and everything because Domestic Violence cases can be much more dangerous than people think and officers know this. And he was shot in the head and he was killed. The 17yearold girl, she lived. And so this officer literally gave his life to save another. So there was a big funeral and there was Law Enforcement people there from all over our state. And ill never forget that funeral because i was sitting there at the aisle, and the i had learned that the last time that that officer had been in that church was to see his own kids, the three Young Children two boys and a girl. And he was sitting right in that front row of that same church, so proud of them at christmas. And shortly after that he was shot. But at his funeral there were those three children walking down the church aisle, the two young boys and the little girl in a blue dress covered with stars. I always think about that little girl with that blue dress covered by stars. And this was Domestic Violence gone bad. It was a Police Officer showing up at the scene. And so when we look at these cases, you can look at the numbers, you can look at the stories. You can look at whats gone on on tv, and you see this connection between Domestic Violence and stalking and then later even Mass Shootings or violence against one person which happens much more often. It happens. Its not a coincidence. Its something that has been well documented. As we extend our sympathies and prayers to all those who were affected by that tragedy in texas and of course not too long ago in las vegas, and so many other communities, and all of us those of course who are victims of that act of terror in new york, and we think of all of them. Tbu then we also think what can we do to make this better . In this case when it comes to Domestic Violence and the specific issue that i know about from my past job, we can do something. So lets pass this bill. Thank you, mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call mr. Murphy mr. President . Are we in a quorum call . The presiding officer the senator is correct. Mr. Murphy i ask that we dispense with the quorum call. The presiding officer without objection. The senator from connecticut. Mr. Murphy thank you, mr. President. Mr. President , whatever higher power is looking down on us all as we move through our daily lives, i imagine he probably doesnt see political borders. I imagine he probably doesnt care much about the distinctions that we create to tell the difference between us and others. He probably doesnt care much about walls and fences. He cares about us as people. He looks at us, how we conduct ourselves and how we treat others. We spend a lot of time here talking about the arbitrary divisions between us. But in the end, when we face our maker, it probably is just about how we treated those around us, whether we tried to make their lives a little bit better. And so im on the floor this afternoon to talk about a handful of my constituents who need our help. Young people that we have labeled with the term dreamers who came to this country, not by their decision but by the decision of their parents when they were very, very young. They are americans in every sense of the word. They are beautiful, beautiful young men and women. And they want us to see them as the beautiful individuals that they are. They dont want to be labeled. They dont want to be put into the middle of a Divisive Political dialogue. They just want our help. And we all hear from them because theres no state that doesnt have these kids. Theres 800,000 that have officially registered under the existing law that provides them with protection. They are in every single congressional district. And i thought it would be useful for my colleagues to hear from just a few of them today because they can tell the story of why we need to give citizenship, permanent protection to these kids, at the very least if not their parents and others that have been waiting for a long time for comprehensive immigration reform, they can tell the story better than i can. Voyna from willamanak a student at eastern State University. I want to read what she wrote to me. She said i was born in mexico and i was brought to the United States at age three. And ive been living in willamanak ever since. Im 19 now. I grew up there. I consider it my home. Its where i grew up. Its where i went to school. Its where i made friends. Its where all my memories are. As an undocumented student in the United States, youre constantly unsure of what your future may hold but not because youre indecisive or youre unsure of what youre going to do, but rather because you dont ultimately have the power of your own future. At a young age i always knew that i wanted to go to college. However, i also knew that because of my status, i might not have been able to carry out that goal. I didnt let it discourage me. I, like many other undocumented students, did the best we could and constantly strived to be the best at anything we did. And now thanks to daca and all of the hard work that ive done, its finally begun to pay off. Daca is more than just legal status. Its the puzzle piece that many of us have been missing in order to reach our goals. It allowed me to get a Social Security number, a drivers license, but more importantly, a higher education. Growing up, i constantly had all my teachers say to me, do good in school. Try your best at anything you do. Stay out of trouble, and youre going to be guaranteed to go far in life. Let me step out of her comments for a second. Boy, if thats not an encapsulation of the American Dream do good in school, try your best at anything you do, stay out of trouble, and youre guaranteed to go far in life. I dont think i could find a better way to encapsulate what we hope is the story for every single child in this country. Vonya says so thats exactly what i did. Most other Daca Recipients are the exact same but it doesnt seem enough for this government. Theres no longer a fight for a work permit, but rather a fight for my human rights. Im just as worthy to live here and carry out my goals as any other natural born citizen. Ive done my best consistently contributed to society in a positive way. This is my home, says vonya. I deserve to feel safe here, and ill continue to fight for that until i do. Merka is from wallingford, connecticut, a Southern Connecticut State University student. She says i came here from mexico 16 years ago. Im currently a senior at Southern Connecticut State University. Im studying bilingual education. We need more good people in bilingual education. I just started student teaching last week, but all that is in danger. Besides being able to get a license and work permit, daca has allowed me to follow through on my passion of becoming a teacher writes merka. Its given me a hope that i have a future career in education and that i can live my life without fear of deportation. In need profession, bilingual educators, somebody willing to devote their lives to our kids. Needs our help. Faye in norwalk says im one of the more than 800,000 Daca Recipients in the United States. Im from Trinidad And Tobago and have been in the United States for almost 19 years. I live in norwalk and ive lived there for 16 years. Its home to me. You hear that over and over again. Its home to me. Im currently a lead radiology scheduler and i have a second job working at ulta, which i both enjoy. My bowl in working my goal in working both jobs is to purchase my first home. Another really critical component of the American Dream, homeownership. Growing up i wanted to be a homeowner. I wanted a place that i could call mine. And with daca, i saw that as a possibility. Now im not sure when or if that would come through. But i still will continue to work hard because in my heart, i know god is bigger than even this moment. And i know that we will be victorious, even in a land that would not allow me to claim it as my home, i want to buy a house so i can call it my home. One day i will be called american not just by my undocumented community, but by my nation. I mean, listen, weve got some really articulate people in this body, republicans and democrats. Im not sure that any of us could write something that poignant, that beautiful, and that compelling. Im not sure if any of that will come through, but im going to continue to work hard because in my heart, i know that god is bigger than even this moment, and i know that we will be victorious, even in a land that would not allow me to claim it as my home, i want to buy a house to call it my home. One day i will be called an american not just among my community, but by my nation. There are 4,900 Daca Recipients just in my state alone. I met a lot of them. And, frankly, maybe not everyone is as beautifully articulate as faye, but, boy, they have done some really impressive things with their lives. Maybe in part because they always knew that their status here was in jeopardy and they had to make the most of their time in the United States not knowing when it would end, knowing that they had opportunities here in the United States that they simply would not and could not have if they ever went home, especially those kids who came here when they were three years old going back home in a place where they might not even speak the language. They certainly know no one, a place where opportunity is further off even for those that were born there. They worked hard. They hustled a little bit more knowing that they might be at risk of someday being pushed out of this country. Theyre americans. Every single one of these students, these dreamers use that phrase this is home. And they want our help. I think this is a moral issue, first and foremost, just how we treat each other. These people are our neighbors. Theyre our coworkers. But 800 business leaders, c. E. O. s from Companies Like walmart and target and facebook, pepsi, kaiser, they want them to stay here because they are their employees. They know how much they add to the economic bounty of this country. They wrote to us and asked for us to provide permanent protection for these kids. 75 National Colleges and universities, including all the ones in my state yale, trinity, connecticut college, the state universities said the same thing. They want to educate these kids. They see them. They see what stellar students they are. And they just cant imagine the United States deciding to send 800,000 of these incredibly capable kids away. 186 civil and human Rights Groups running the gamut say this is a moral and civil rights issue. Let these kids stay. And so because of President Trumps decision to telegraph the end of the temporary protection for these students, the burden is now on us, republicans and democrats, to do something and do something soon. Its hard to describe the psychological toll for these kids right now. It was bad enough when they were pushed into the shadows. It got a little bit better when they got temporary protection. But now that weve put a clock on, now that they have revealed themselves to the world and put themselves on a list that can allow them to be targeted, theres a little bit of their soul that atrophies every day as they wonder whether or not were going to come together and do the right thing. And part of the reason why part of them is crumbling inside is because they see themselves as being made political pawns in a bigger game here. It would just be so easy for us to decide to protect these kids. Just do it now. Dont wait until the end of the year. Dont wait until this issue is mixed together with all sorts of other mustpass legislation. Just come together right now and step up and give these kids some degree of confidence that they can be there. Ive heard so many of my republican colleagues say that they want to do that. Why wait . Why push this up until the last minute . Do it right now. Its the right thing to do. In the end, whoever is up there does not look at borders. He looks at us. He looks into our soul. He thinks about how we treat those who need our help and our protection, and no one needs our help and protection more than these kids right now. 5,000 of them in my state. 800,000 of them across the country. So my plea is simple, mr. President. Lets do this and do this now. Lets give permanent protection, citizenship pathways to citizenship to these beautiful, beautiful boys and girls, men and women. Dont make this issue about politics. Dont make it about parties. Dont make these kids a bargaining chip in a bigger game. Just do the right thing. I promise you if you do, you wont regret it. I yield the floor. A senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from oregon. Mr. Merkley mr. President , i ask unanimous consent for my intern kaylay davis to have privileges of the floor for the balance of the day. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Merkley thank you. Climate disruption is a challenge of our generation. We will see it in the change of Carbon Dioxide and methane being emitted from disappearing glaciers, dying coral reefs and more powerful storms and raging fires. So its the responsibility of us in this generation, in this time to take action. And indeed communities across the globe are taking action. Theyre increasing the Energy Efficiency of buildings and vehicles and appliances and they are replacing carbonpolluting fossil fuel energy with renewable energy. This is such an important issue, how much do you know about the changes underway . Well, lets find out. Welcome to episode 7 of the Senate Climate disruption quiz. Our first question is since the year 2000, the rate of global Carbon Dioxide pollution has decreased dramatically. Decreased slightly. Stayed the same. Or increased substantially. The answer is d, increased substantially. Many folks think that because of the actions being taken at the local level and by the community of nations and by the Paris Agreement that in fact global co2 pollution has decreased dramatically but it has not. The rate at which the pollution is occurring is increasing. So it isnt just the total level. For example, in 1990, we had 354 parts per million. And ten years later, in 2000, we were up to 369. 64 parts per million. And in 2017, we were up to 408. 8 parts per million. So the levels are climbing. But the speed is increasing as well. In that period around 1990, we were increasing about 1. 5 parts per million per year. By 2000 it was about two parts per million per year. And now were at 2. 5 per million per year. So this increase is substantial. We have to as a community of nations not only proceed to decrease total Carbon Pollution, but first we have to get the rate of increase under control. This brings us to a second question. In september of this year, how many miles did proterra bus drive on a single charge . Did this bus set a record by going 270 miles, the distance between l. A. And las vegas. Or did it set a record by going 600 miles from new york city equivalent to columbia, South Carolina . Did it travel over 1,000 miles, 1,100 miles equal in distance from arizona to arkansas . Or did it manage to go 2,092 miles, the shortest distance from the east coast to the west coast in america . So, lock in your answers. And the answer, the correct answer is c. It went 1,100 miles. The electric bus traveled 1,100 miles. And this bus was a new version of the catalyst e2, the catalyst e2 max produced by proterra, a battery 50 percent larger than the previous version. That p roterra has a functional range for the transit agencies buying it for 350 miles. By having a battery 50 lighter and moving quite slowly, driving it slowly, they managed to go 1,100 miles. Its an indication of the Rapid Transformation of this particular type of electric vehicle. Question three. Warmer weather is contributing to what problem in major American Cities . Is the problem caused by warmer weather transit delays . Is it an exploding rat population . Is it warmer warmer weather contributing to larger potholes or to longer tourist seasons . Well, the dramatic answer here is the warmer weather is contributing to exploding rat populations. Rate breeding usually slows in winter, but if you have a mild winter, that doesnt happen. Since 2013, oregon, organ has orkin had a 61 growth in chicago, 67 in boston, 174 in san francisco, 129 in new york city, and 57 in washington, d. C. , right here where the capitol is located. Now, this is a Major Economic and health problem. Rats costs dz 49 4,912,000,000 and they are the cause of road enterborn diseases. We dont like having them in our cities. So lets turn to the next question, question number four. As of today how many nations in the world are rejecting the Paris Agreement that addresses climate disruption . Is the answer 25 out of the roughly 200 nations in the world, or 12, or three nations, or one nation . Lock in your answers. The answer is not 25, nor 12. Its not three. Its now just one nation that is rejecting the Paris Agreement. Now, until recently there were three nations. You had two nations that had not signed up and one nation said that it would withdraw. The two that had not signed up were nicaragua and syria and the one that said it would withdraw was the United States of america. President trump made that announcement. A short time ago nicaragua announced that it would ratify the treaty and today syria announced it would ratify the treaty. That leaves the United States standing alone as the only nation that says that it will reject the Paris Agreement. Of course this has a big impact on American Leadership in the world since we worked very hard to bring nations together to craft this agreement. The nations were so impressed that all of them are now participating except for us, except for the United States. So lets go to question number five. Better management of our lands and forests could help reach what percent of the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement . Better management of lands and forest, could it contribute to reaching 5 or one20th of the goal or 12 , or 25 , or 37 , more than a third of the goal laid out in paris . Lock in your answers. The correct answer to this is, d, 37 , or more than a third. A surprisingly high number. A Study Released last month said that the that this could help us reach more than a third of the goals in the Paris Agreement. They looked at conservation and improved Land Management actions that helped to avoid Greenhouse Gas emissions in a costeffective manner. The most single important factor among this is refor hesation reforestation. Years ago i heard an individual say wouldnt it be great to invent something that could pull Carbon Dioxide out of the air. We have that already, its called a tree. Growing trees is a very effective strategy in addressing Carbon Pollution. Of course there are issues related to how we manage our forests, making them more resilient to forest fires, less likely to burn and emit carbon and certainly how we farm and how we take care of other types of lands including peat and coastal restoration. So thats our five question for this edition, episode seven. These questions were ripped from the headlines in regard to the biggest test facing humankind on this planet. Its up to us in this generation to act. We are the first generation to experience this enormous range of impacts from Carbon Pollution and a warming planet, and were the only generation thats able to head off disaster ahead by acting quickly now. Were racing the clock. There is no time to spare so stay engaged and do all you can to help take this on, and meanwhile, as we learn more about technology and about the planet all in the near future, bring you climate disruption quiz episode eight. Thank you, mr. President. Mr. President , i note the i dont think i need to absence note the absence of a quorum. My colleague is ready to speak. The presiding officer the senator from connecticut. Mr. Blumenthal thank you, mr. President. We are here in the wake of yet another senseless mass shooting. Again we continue to watch in horror a community torn apart and families seeking solace and comfort, loved ones deprived of people close to them forever. We know about that feeling in connecticut because we have been through it at sandy hook just five years ago almost to the month. Next month will be the fifth anniversary. But every day in america in communities across this great country there are senseless similar acts of violence one by one, person by person. Every day there is a mass instance of people dying of gun violence. So the danger is that this kind of incident will become a normal way of life in america. We cannot allow ourselves to become desensitized. We cannot lose hope that action is possible. We cannot allow ourselves to become used to this supposed normal and we cannot be complacent or hopeless. Our hearts and prayers are with the brave souls who are enduring this unspeakable grief and pain. Again, we know about it in connecticut because i remember well that afternoon at sandy hook and the days that followed when families hoped for numbness. They hope that the rawness can unimaginable pain of that loss would leave. And for some it has lessened, but it will never go away for them or for the families in texas or orlando or San Bernardino or virginia tech. The list is a long one and it should include those families in hartford and new haven and stanford and bridgeport and in other communities not necessarily suburban, but rural. Numbness is not the answer. Action is the answer. Honoring those victims by action. That honor is never too soon. That sense of grief will never go away, and so as much as our hearts and prayers go out to those families, we must also honor them with action, and it ought to be action not necessarily aimed at the last shooting or the last death by gun violence. It should prevent the future ones and the trap of the gun lobbyists to say well, what youre proposing wouldnt have have prevented what happened in sutherland springs, texas, but we do know 26 people might have been alive today if the United States air force had done its job. 26 people might be alive today if the United States air force had reported this conviction by courtmartial of the shooter to the ncis background system. 26 people might be alive today if the United States air force had followed the law. There is a law that hires this reporting. It was passed in 2007. It requires all courts and all jurisdictions to make that reporting. The law here is also clear that the shooter never should have had access to firearms. There are laws on the books right now specifically designed to help prevent dangerous individual with criminal records of exactly this kind from getting their hands on guns, and that includes anyone who has a domestic violation conviction in any court, including military courts. And as the author of that legislation, frank lautenberg, said at the time, its a very simple principle. Wife beaters and child abusers should not have guns and the statistics bear out that principle now more than they did ever before the mix of guns and Domestic Violence is a toxic one. 55 of all homicides against women occur during Domestic Violence disputes, and a woman is five times more likely to die during a Domestic Violence dispute if there are guns in the house. And the law also prohibits anyone who has been dishonorably discharged from the military or carries a sentence for more than one year from buying a firearm. So the department of defense has a clear legal obligation to have made that report and, by the way, that obligation includes military court indictments as well as convictions because they may disqualify someone from obtaining a gun. We know today that the shooter in sutherland springs, texas, also was involuntarily committed to a Mental Health facility after sneaking guns on to an air force basin trying to kill his military base and trying to kill his military superiors. That person should have never been anywhere near a firearm let alone having the ability to buy one from a licensed firearm dealer, as apparently occurred. The air forces lapse is shocking and inexcusable. Its a lapse that may have contributed, if not directly caused, that shooting because otherwise that shooter would have completely lacked access to the firearms he used so lethally. The American People deserve to know why the gunmans conviction was not reported to the background check database. The American People also deserve to know what immediate steps the department of defense will take to ensure that every courtmartial indictment or conviction is reported to the f. B. I. When they disqualify someone from accessing guns. The American People deserve action. And so i have written to the defense secretary james mattis urging him to take immediate action to ensure that guns are prevented from falling into the wrong hands. And that means specific concrete steps to identify people whose convictions in Court Martial disqualify them from obtaining a gun and making sure those records are submitted to the f. B. I. I want to know what system there will be for identifying those convictions. And i am planning also to introduce legislation because enforcement of that law should be done and reemphasized and reinforced so there is no question in any mind of anyone in the military about their obligation. They must ensure that people who are convicted of disqualifying offenses in military courts are reported to the National Background check database so they are prevented from having access to these firearms by purchasing them from licensed firearms dealers. Now, the background check law applies only to those licensed dealers. We need to extend it to include all firearms sales. We need other commonsense measures to prevent and stop gun violence. But at least the military can be compelled to honor this obligation. I know its heart in the right place and i know they will diligently reform what they need to do largely on their own because they recognize that obligation. We have an obligation as well to enforce all of these laws more diligently as a Law Enforcement person, one who was the state attorney general for 20 years and the United States attorney before then, im proud of the state of connecticut for classifying domestic offenses so they can be disqualifying under the law. Connecticut is only one of a handful, perhaps three states that have that disqualifying classification. So the states need to do better as well. To especial enforce laws that are already on the books to keep america safe will enable the law to be real and effective. If its unenforced, its deadletter. It must be enforced. We need better enforcement and we also need better laws. And i hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join in this effort and that this new legislation will be bipartisan just as we grieve together regardless of party. Thank you, mr. President. I yield the floor. Ms. Stabenow mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from michigan. Ms. Stabenow thank you, mr. President. First i want to thank my friend, the distinguished senator from connecticut, for his very important words. I want to rise at this point to say a few words about one of President Trumps nominees that well be voting on in a few minutes. The National Labor Relations Board is a crucial tool for protecting working men and women in michigan and across the country. The right to collectively bargain, the freedom to be able to bargain for fair wages, good benefits, retirement security, safe and fair workplaces, all of these things depend on a National Labor Relations Board that works, that works for people. And perhaps no person at the nlrb is more critical at protecting these rights than the nlrbs general counsel. When a worker believes the law has been violated and brings their concern to the National Labor Relations Board, its the general counsel who investigates. If the employer is found to have violated the law or the freedoms and rights of working men and women, its the general counsel who takes action to make these rings. Unfortunately while President Trump talks a lot about having our workers backs certainly said that a lot in michigan his actions speak much louder than his words. Thats certainly true in the case of his choice for general counsel peter robb. Mr. Robb was voted out of the help, education, labor, and Pensions Committee in october without any democratic support. And there was a reason for that. The reason was that during his career, hes shown so little support for working men and women across our country. When dominion energys workers at the millstone power station in connecticut attempted to use their freedom to organize one of the freedoms in america is to be able to come together, to be able to organize, to be able to collectively bargain on behalf of yourself and others to make sure youre able to get fair pay and a pension and safe working conditions. But when the people at the mil millstone power station in connecticut attempted to do that, mr. Robb who represented dominion delayed the election for more than two years. Not only that, he bragged about it on his law firms website making people who wanted to exercise their freedoms to collectively bargain, to organize, making them wait two years. Mr. Robb also was lead counsel on the case that led to 11,000 air Traffic Controllers being fired. People, again, who were part of a union, who had collectively bargained for safe conditions and good pay and pensions, they were fired and barred from federal service. A watershed case in the history of Union Suppression and taking away peoples freedoms. And while he worked for a reaganappointed nlrb member, longstanding policies changed to weaken the governments ability to enforce the rights and freedoms of working men and women. You know, it stagnant wages and Rising Health care costs and worries about pension cuts and workplace discrimination, frankly, i know working men and women in michigan and across the country have enough to worry about. They shouldnt have to worry that the person whos supposed to have their back is instead looking for ways to strip away their freedom to organize on the job. And thats why i will vote no on peter robb, and i encourage my colleagues to do the same. Mr. President , i now want to turn to another very important topic. Ive been speaking about workers. Now i want to speak about our children and standing up for our children. Every year nine million children receive Health Insurance through a very Successful Program called the childrens Health Insurance program. Children from low and middleincome families who dont qualify for medicaid, working families are able to receive health care through chip. And every year 25 million people, including 300,000 veterans and 7. 5 million children receive medical care through Community Health centers in cities and towns and Rural Communities all across michigan and across the country. Thats nine million children who can see a doctor when they get sick or hurt. And thats millions of parents who dont have to lay awake at night worrying about what will happen the next time their child falls, breaks an arm, gets strep throat or something even worse. Thanks to republican inaction, these millions of parents do now have to worry. Its been 38 days since the Republican Leadership let funding expire for the childrens Health Insurance program and Community Health centers. 38 days and counting. 38 days when we could have been working together to fund these important programs and yet that didnt happen, even though they have bipartisan support. Thats 38 days of telling children and hardworking families who use these programs that they dont matter as much as other things that were doing. For the longest time, the childrens Health Insurance program and Community Health centers have received strong bipartisan support. And that is true today. If these programs, if bills that a bill that came out of finance committee and a bill that senator roy blunt and i introduced were brought to the floor, they would get strong bipartisan support. If we could get them on the floor. Were hearing from more than 1,000 organizations, including the American Academy of pediatrics, the american heart association, the march of dimes, the National Association of counties all urging us to take up the chip bill and to pass it, the fiveyear extension which is so critical. Senator hatch and the finance committee of which im proud to be a member have worked with senator wyden, myself, and others to put together a good bill, a fiveyear reauthorization of chip on a bipartisan basis. And 70 members of this body led by senator roy blunt and myself have signed a letter of support for continuing funding for Community Health centers. And senator blunt and i with eight other democrats, eight republicans have put in a bill to do that. So we know the supports there. The problem is we cannot get it brought up on the floor as a priority for the senate. As i mentioned, this crucial funding expired 38 days ago, more than a month ago. Over those 38 days, the senate has taken up 54 record roll call votes. The republicans passed their budget, and weve considered 16 nominees, but we havent considered over the past 38 days the nine million children who depend on the childrens Health Insurance program to stay healthy. And the 25 million patients who use Community Health centers. Mr. President , we might be 38 days late, but theres no time like today to make children and families a top priority. These programs are a big deal in my state. Before chip, too many hardworking families in michigan couldnt afford to take their children to the doctor. And now 97 of our children in michigan can go to the doctor. Moms and dads can take their children to the doctor because of what has been put together around Health Insurance and making Health Insurance available in michigan. Its the highest percentage ever, 97 . Last year michigans Community Health centers treated more than 680,000 patients, including 12,710 veterans. Having access to Health Insurance, health care we know is life changing and even life saving. Just ask jan of davidson, michigan, whose daughter susie was covered by my child, what we call chip. Actually, my child in michigan. Susie was diagnosed with adhd as a child. Later with bipolar disorder. In jans words, without having access to Quality Health care, we would have been lost and thanks to my child coverage, were able to afford the help she so desperately needs. Today susies a high school graduate, plans to go to community college. Albert, a resident of owe was sue owe would sue, michigan knows the value of community centers. He graduated high school, was taking college classes. He had a great full time job with Health Benefits. He said it was like a dream come true until it stopped. Work dried up. In a matter of months, albert lost his job, his insurance and his home. He fell into a deep depression many of us would have done the same. Albert was lucky. A friend noticed he was struggling and urged him to visit Great Lakes Bay Health center. Within two weeks he had a medical appointment. Three days after that he was speaking with a Community Health center counselor. And albert said, it happened so fast, there was no time for me to fall through the cracks. Today hes running a local business and has his confidence back. Hes lost 50 pounds and stopped drinking. Hes rebuilt his relationships with his family, and hes now giving back to the very clinic that changed his life. Serving on the board of Great Lakes Bay Health center. Each one of the children and the people who receive coverage and care from chip and Community Health centers can tell their stories. The presiding officer the senators time has expired. Ms. Stabenow if i mate take might take 30 seconds. The presiding officer without objection. Ms. Stabenow we can fix this. We dont have to put up one more day on the count chart. Today we can make children and families a priority by passing krit health care that has the bipartisan Critical Health care that has the bipartisan support to get it done if we have the courage to do so. The presiding officer all time has expired. The question occurs on the engel nomination. Is there a sufficient second . There appears to be. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote . If not, on this question, the ayes are 51, the nays are 47. The confirmation the nomination is confidence. Under the previous order, the motions to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the president will be immediately notified of the senates action. The senator from tennessee. [inaudible] the presiding officer is there objection . Without objection, all time is yielded back. The clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. The clerk cloture motion we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of peter b. Robb to be general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, signed by 17 senators. The presiding officer by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. The question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of peter b. Robb of vermont to be general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board for a term of four years shall be brought to a close . The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote the presiding. The presiding officer are there senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change that voyeur . The nays are 51. The noes are 47. The motion is agreed to. The clerk National Labor Relations Board peter b. Robb of vermont to be general counsel a senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from rhode island. Mr. Whitehouse mr. President , i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as if in morning business. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Whitehouse thank you, mr. President. Our e. P. A. Administrator scott pruitt has a little problem. You see the Supreme Court has ruled that Greenhouse Gases are pollutants under the clean air act. Therefore, under the clean air act, the Environmental Protection agency which pruitt leads is legally obligated to regulate Greenhouse Gases. They must do this as a matter of law. Moreover, the e. P. A. Has determined that Greenhouse Gas emissions endanger the Public Health and welfare of current and future generations. And scott pruitt has said that he wont contest that endangerment finding. He is stuck with it. Why . Because he knows its a contest hed lose by a landslide. The climate denial nonsense he espouses has never passed peer review. Its not real science. And it would get buried in any forum where facts and truth matter. Thats also likely why the house released the Climate Science and special report, part of the National Climate assessment that we mandated by law without significant alteration. Scientists had prudently disclosed what they sent in to the white house so that everyone could compare what went in to the white house with what came back out of the white house. That put the white house in a box, and caught in that box, the white house went ahead and released the report without alteration. The Climate Science special report affirms that Climate Change is driven almost entirely by human action. It warns of a worstcase scenario where seas could rise as high as eight feet by the year 2100, which is the scenario our home state planners are looking at for rhode island. And which i know is, has occasioned dire forecasts for the presiding officers home state of florida. And the report details a wide array of climaterelated damage already unfolding across the United States. Here is what the report says it is extremely unlikely, extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid 20th century. The document reports for the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation, supported by the extent of the observational evidence. No convincing alternative explanation. Well, we actually knew that because climate denial has all along been bogus, phony propaganda created by the fossil fuel industry and pushed out through its array of phony front groups. Nobody by but the ignorant would seriously believe their nonsense, least of all in congress, except for the fact that that propaganda is backed up by ferocious political artillery and an implacable fossil fuel position to deny, deny, deny as the ship goes down. This will be a disgrace whose odor will last a long time, as history looks back and recounts a congress so subservient to the fossil fuel industry that it would ignore unanimous real science and go instead with the flagrant selfserving industry with the worlds biggest conflict of interest, an obvious plain conflict of interest. It is a sickening display of what our Founding Fathers would plainly describe as corruption. And were supposed to act as if things are normal around here. Things are not normal around here. Not since citizens united, for sure. Things are also not normal at e. P. A. That agency of the United States government has been corrupted. Theres no straighter way to say it. E. P. A. Now answers not to the public interest, but to the special interest of the fossil fuel industry through its new administrator scott pruitt, whose entire history is one long exercise in subservience to the fossil fuel industry. And if hes not bad enough, check out the creepy coterie of fossil fuel lackies hes surrounding himself with. It is another disgrace, but given the fossil fuels industry control over congress, the legislative branch is compliant and complicit in the industry takeover. And this body has yet to utter a peep of dissent as our national e. P. A. Sinks into Banana Republic status. Last week i talked p about the phony tricks pruitt is using to undo the Clean Power Plan. The Clean Power Plan is an annoyance to certain folks in the fossil fuel industry that have long underwritten pruitts political ambitions. So for their sake, something had to be done. Well, given the Climate Science special report that the white house just released, they couldnt really mess with the science, at least not without it blowing up in their faces. So they reverted to some tricks. One trick was to recount the costbenefit calculations of Climate Change and count only domestic effects of an international danger. Now the Climate Science special report the white house just released says, and ill quote from it, the climate of the United States is strongly connected to the changing global climate. But nevertheless, pruitt made the decision to count only the domestic effects of domestic emissions. That trick neatly wipes a major fraction of the harm the fossil fuel industry is causing right off the books. It doesnt affect the actual harm. Just the accounting of the harm. And in my example, it wiped twothirds of the harm off the books in a neat feat of accounting trickery. Of course, that still leaves a third of the harm to account with, so they took another whack at that, and their trick there was to juice the discount rate. In years to come, prompt action now on Climate Change would prevent things like Sea Level Rise washing over our coastal infrastructure, unprecedented wildfire seasons burning our forests, and disruptions in agricultural yields from drought and flood extremes. The Clean Power Plan would achieve between 14 billion and 34 billion in future Health Benefits also, like preventive illnesses and deaths. But all those things happen in the future, which brings in this matter of the discount rate. The discount rate discounts the present value of things that happen in the future based on a percentage. Heres a simple example. If you assume a discount rate of 5 that means anything one year from now is worth 5 less than it would be right now. So 10,000 of something in ten years would be worth 6,000 today. And if you assume a discount rate of 10 , that means 10,000 of something in ten years is only worth 4,000 today. You can jig gel the discount rate to lower the present value. The higher the discount rate, the lower the present value of future harms. A report this year from the National Academies of science confirms this. The rate at which future benefits and costs are discounted can significantly alter the estimated present value of the net benefits of that rule. Now the george w. Bush administration recognized that special ethical considerations arise when comparing benefits and costs across generations. End quote. The Bush Administration guidance urged lower discount rates when a rule is expected to harm future generations. Ill quote them again. If your rule will have important intergenerational benefits or costs, you might consider a further Sensitivity Analysis using a lower but positive discount rate, wrote the office of Personnel Management at the time. That describes exactly what we face with Climate Change. Our Carbon Pollution today will hurt generations far off in the future, as, for instance, temperatures and sea levels inexorably rise decade after decade and properties and land are lost to the sea. In 2015, the federal government settled on a 3 discount rate to estimate the outyear costs of Carbon Pollution to society. That was the recommendation of leading economists, the top researchers from top universities, putting forward credible analysis from the scientific community. But in our new industryfriendly pruitt analysis, they jacked that rate from 3 up to 7 . They more than double it. Theres little actual analysis. They just picked a higher rate. And what a payoff for pruitts fossil fuel friends. At 7 , future harms, injuries and losses count for far less. Indeed, with this trick, pruitt wiped away nearly 18 billion in predicted harm from Carbon Pollution. Remember again, nothing changes in the real world. The harm to future generations is unchanged. Thats a given in either h scenario. But like that domestic harm only trick, this is an accounting trick to help the fossil fuel industry dodge accountability for its pollution. It doesnt change the situation on the field. It just changes the score on the score board. Contrast the pruitt fossil fuelfriendly nonsense with real peerviewferred peerreviewed science. In real per reviewed science we can now calculate not only the harm of individual pollution but how much individual fossil fuel companies have contributed to that harm. A Peer Reviewed study until the scientific journal climatic change tells us a few major fossil fuel producers are responsible for as much as half of the recorded global surface temperature increase. And the study demonstrates a method for attributing their corporate share of the harm to chevron, exxonmobil, conocophillips, peabody coal, arch coal, devon energy, among about 50 investorowned carbon producers. You can take the emissions data from that climatic change study and factor in wellestablished social cost of carbon estimates and approximate individual corporations responsibility for climate damages. Those companies ought to be taking a hard look at what they are reporting to their shareholders about this. Because they are under strong legal obligations to report outyear risks to their shareholders. The National Climate assessment Climate Science special report that we first talked about was developed by dozens of leading scientists from 13 different federal agencies detailing the extent of Climate Change driven by manmade Greenhouse Gas emissions and the urgent need to address it. That report is as solid as solid gets. The report is stark. Temperatures are climbing, seas are rising, ocean waters are becoming more acidic, fires are more frequent and more severe and fire seasons are longer, storms are stronger and more frequent as weve seen particularly menacing coastal america. Downwind states like rhode island cope with air that carries more particulate matter. Fishermen haul in foreign catches full of fish their fathers and grandfathers would hardly recognize. Woodsmen harvest in distressed and changing forests, farmers till land subject to extremes of more frequent drought and more severe flood. The inexpaibl science inescapable science exile compiled by the top scientists and concurred by i think every single State University in this country which not only understands Climate Change, they teach Climate Change, every Single National lab in this country, the labs we fund and trust, the armed services, our National Intelligence assessments, its virtually impossible to find anyone not on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry who disputes this stuff. And it shows that Climate Change touches every corner of the country already, not later. Up against that study, up against that unanimity of legitimate science, pruitt puts a bunch of accounting tricks cooked up for him, i believe, by a conflicted and corrupting industry. We cannot let fossil fuel hacks like pruitt and his merry crew prevent america from responding to the reality around us. This week its been reported that nicaragua and syria have joined the paris climate agreement. They were the last two outliers. That was the company the United States was in with President Trumps decision to remove us from the paris climate agreement. Nicaragua, syria, and the United States of america. Some company. And now even nicaragua, and just today syria, have joined. You know, at some point our National Reputation is put at hazard. Our National Reputation is put on the line when we cant do what is obviously right because we cant tell one greedy industry, youve had enough. No more. Its time we treated this issue honestly. When we cant do that, dont tell me history will forget. Its seriously time to wake up. This is corruption in plain view. I yield the floor. Mr. Daines mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from montana. Mr. Daines i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Daines mr. President , i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of the following nomination, executive calendar number 362. The presiding officer the clerk will report. The clerk nomination, department of commerce, david j. Redle of new york to be assistant secretary for communications. Mr. Daines i ask that the senate vote, and if confirmed the motion be confirmed and laid upon the table, that no further motions be in order and any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the record. The presiding officer without objection. The question is on the nomination. All those in favor say aye. Opposed nay. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it. The nomination is confirmed. Mr. Daines mr. President , that the senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Daines mr. President , i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 220, s. 1088. The presiding officer the clerk will report. The clerk calendar number 220, s. 1088, a bill to require voluntary feedback by agencies and for other purposes. The presiding officer is there objection . Without objection. Mr. Daines i ask that the committeereported amendments be agreed to, the mccaskill amendment be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Daines i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 256, senate 1015. The presiding officer the clerk will report. The clerk calendar number 256, s. 1015, a bill to require the federal Communications Commission to study the feasibility of designating a simple, easy to remember dialing code and so forth. The presiding officer is there objection to proceeding to the measure . Without objection. Mr. Daines mr. President , i ask unanimous consent that the committeereported substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Daines mr. President , i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes completes its s today, it adjourn until wednesday, november eight, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. Further, following leader remarks the senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the robb nomination postcloture. All time during morning business and leader remarks count postcloture on the robb nomination. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Daines if theres no further business to come before the senate i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. The presiding officer the Senate Stands adjourned untiline will be 60 minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form. The senator from connecticut. The senator from connecticut. The senator from connecticut. Thank you mr. President. Mr. President we are grieving yet it and today another horrific mass