Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S. Senate U.S. Senate 20240712

The republican senate. We are living through one of the greatest failures of president ial leadership in our countries history. Did you hear that donald trump . You have created one of the greatest failures of president ial leadership. We are going to this last portion of the conversation because the senate is about to gamble back in after their weekly caucus meetings. Senators continue work on the 2021 Defense Authorization bill with votes scheduled later this afternoon for five Senate Coverage on cspan2 a senator madam president. The presiding officer the senator from wyoming. Mr. Enzi madam president , i rise today to discuss our federal finances and the need to address our unsustainable fiscal debt and deficit. The federal budget has already been on an unsustainable path before covid19 reached our shores and before the pandemic and our governments response to it, which has accelerated what i believed is a coming day of reckoning. I recognize the unprecedented crisis presented by the covid19. I supported the necessary response. Together, congress has passed and the president has signed five separate pieces of legislation responding to the pandemic and its economic fallout that together will cost more than 2 trillion. I never would have supported trillions in new spending unless i truly believed that it was necessary to combat the virus and prevent economic catastrophe resulting from the government shuttering the economy. I know many of my colleagues feel that same way. When this crisis abates and it will the federal government cannot afford to return to the status quo of unsustainable budgets and surging debt that jeopardizes the prosperity of future generations. We have to start serious conversation about how were going to pay our bills and put our finances on a more sustainable path. We can justify aggressive borrowing and spending as necessary during times of crisis, but that cant be the default. So far this fiscal year, we have already run up a deficit of 2. 7 trillion in one year, more than triple the size of the deficit we ran at the same time last year. The Congressional Budget Office says that we are on track to spend 3. 7 trillion more than we take in this year, and thats assuming we dont pass a new covid legislation. By the end of the fiscal year, our publicly held debt will exceed the size of our economy, and by the end of next year, debt as a percentage of the economy will be higher than it has ever been in our history. I have a little chart here that demonstrates that. We have been fortunate that Interest Rates on our debt are currently low, and the government has been able to borrow the funds necessary to address the crisis caused by the pandemic. The dollar has remained relatively strong, helping to keep inflation low. The u. S. Dollar remains the worlds reserve currency and the safe haven for investments in the current time of crisis. But how long will that be the case if we continue to run trilliondollar deficits each year . Future congresses will not have the same flexibility to deal with their own crises if we leave them saddled with an enormous national debt. They wont be able to fund new emergency programs without cutting other spending or raising revenues. Thats why its so critical that we get a hold of our debt and deficits once we emerge from this pandemic. Regardless of what some people far outside of the economic mainstream are saying, there are constraints on how much government can borrow and spend without triggering higher Interest Rates or inflation. If we just start printing money to pay for overspending, our country could face the curse of stagflation, a combination of high inflation and low to know economic growth. We havent had to think about this type of devastating combination since the late 1970s, and that economic history we should not repeat. And even if we have the capacity for significant onetime emergency spending, we should bear in mind the fact that the federal government doesnt have a good track record of reducing spending after its ratcheted it up during a crisis. Id remind my colleagues of the old adage there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program. Were already hearing calls to extend or make permanent many of the temporary entitlement expansions enacted in previous bills. More legislation may be needed to combat the virus and help the economy, but we cannot use the crisis to justify opening the spending floodgates and borrowing from future generations to fund nonemergency priorities. Low Interest Rates do not mean that Government Spending is free or that we dont need to spend it wisely. The house of representatives has passed a congressional a bill that the Congressional Budget Office says will cost nearly 3. 5 trillion. Thats more than the cost of all the covid19 legislation we have already enacted combined. Are we to believe every penny of that is absolutely necessary . A 60 billion bailout for Union Pensions . A massive giveaway for wealthy individuals . Living in hightax states. Billions in student loan forgiveness for all borrowers, regardless of income and ability to pay. We should not view this crisis, a crisis thats claimed over 130,000 american lives and left millions out of work as an opportunity to enact things that have nothing to do with the pandemic. And its not just the lower chamber. The senate recently approved 17 billion in new mandatory spending for land and Water Conservation fund and park and public lands maintenance. We refused to consider an amendment to even try to pay for that bill, an attempt that would have mostly charged foreigners visiting our parks. As i said, if we dont try to pay for that bill, what will we pay for . Were just adding to an already long list of unfunded mandatory spending programs that we allow to operate on auto pilot without ever being voted on or ever being evaluated again. Nobody runs a business like that. Even though these programs are allowed to bypass the annual appropriations process, most of them dont have any dedicateed revenue to pay for the spending, and those that do collect their own revenue often spend more than they take in. With no vote. It just happens. Even before the pandemic, the Congressional Budget Office projected that Social Security spending over the next ten years would total 15. 2 trillion. Listen to this. The programs dedicated tax revenues would only cover 12. 5 trillion of that. 15. 2 trillion. Cost. 12. 5 trillion revenue. Okay. Medicares taxes and premiums were projected to cover over only half of the programs 12. 6 trillion spending over the next ten years. We put the rest of it on the nations credit card left to be paid for by future generations. What kind of a crisis are they going to have . This chart shows again that this is the revenue coming in for Social Security. This is the additional that we have to borrow. This is the money coming in for medicare. This is the additional we have to borrow. Medicaid, we borrow every bit of it. The total revenue that we receive wont cover these deficits, so Everything Else that we do well have to borrow for. If the Interest Rate were to go up to its norm of 5 , we wouldnt be able to do defense, we wouldnt be able to do education. We wouldnt be able to do anything else, infrastructure or otherwise, that we expect the federal government to do for us. We would have to start getting we have to start getting control of it. It isnt an unlimited source of money. Were putting it on the nations credit card, and the future generations will have to pay for it. And there is a couple of ways you can pay for it. One is to eliminate services. The other one is to increase revenues. Another one, of course, is to eliminate a lot of the duplication that we have, but we dont even have an appetite for that. We have over 100 housing programs. Tell me there is no duplication in 100 housing programs, but we dont look at them. Most of them were mandatory, so we can just ignore the impacts of them. And the fact that we have got multiple administrators doing the same job, and we dont even know if its effective. I have been trying for a long time through the Budget Committee to get a list of the programs that we fund. Now, you would think if were writing checks, that we would have a list of programs, wouldnt you . We dont have a list of programs. We dont know what ee own. We dont know when its going to wear out. We dont know what the cost of replacement would be. All very basic business decisions, but we just keep sliding everything over to mandatory so that it has to be paid for regardless of whether we have any money or not, and we dont even look at them. That has to change and has to change rapidly, or our kids and our grandkids will find that all of their money has been spent and all they can do is pay more taxes. Im frustrated that were spending billions without so much as a discussion about how to pay for things. Yes, we needed a strong response to the covid virus, but i am disappointed that we cant Work Together on responsible solutions, even modest efforts like a paidfor fix for our parks and public lands maintenance that i mentioned would be paid for by foreign visitors. And i am dismayed that we keep digging the hole deeper for future generations. We all owe it to them to do better, and i hope we start to do it soon. Madam president , i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call a senator madam president. The presiding officer the senator from New Hampshire. Mrs. Shaheen madam president , i ask that the quorum call be lifted. The presiding officer without objection. Mrs. Shaheen i come to the floor today to speak in support of Senate Amendment 1729, which i hope will be added today to the national Defense Authorization act, and the goal of this amendment is to finish finish what i hope is to finish a Public Health study that we began with legislation in 2017 to address the contaminant known as pfas. And i know the presiding officer knows about this, because she has that chemical in her state as well. I want to begin by commending the work of the Armed Services committee, both chairman inhofe and Ranking Member reed, for working with me to establish the first ever Human Health Study of pfas and to institute a policy policies that will phase out the Defense Departments use of these chemicals over the next several years. We began this journey in 2017 when we put 10 million into a health study, the first of its kind in the country, to look at the impacts of pfas on humans, and we at the time authorized 10 million for three years. Unfortunately, because of the coronavirus pandemic, it is taking longer to complete this study than we had hoped and so were going to need some additional funding. There is real urgency in addressing pfas, as many of us know. Pfas chemicals have emerged as widespread pollutants in the Drinking Water sources of military bases across in country. Its because pfas chemicals were used in Fire Fighting foam that was used by the Armed Services. That was the main reason. And the number of military installations with known or suspected contamination from pfas continues to rise. In march, d. O. D. Updated its count of military installations impacted by these materials from 401 across the country to 651. 651 military installations which means that they are in almost every state in the United States. And other studies have reported that this is actually a conservative estimate. Now, we dont yet know what the longterm risk of exposure to pfas are, because were still trying to get research into that but studies have already linked these chemicals, and there are a whole hundreds of chemicals in the pfas category. And studies have linked these chemicals to a number of Adverse Health effects. The potential ties between pfas and various forms of cancer are of particular concern to firefighters who may have experienced exposure during Fire Fighting and Fire Training exercises. On june 11, the agency for toxic substances and disease registry, atsdr, which works as part of the centers for Disease Control, they issue add statement expressing concern about how how pfas exposure can impact the risk of covid19 infections. Now, for all of us who have constituents who have been exposed to pfas, we know that this has caused a lot of sleepless nights for countless American Families, both in New Hampshire and across the country. Who have been living appeared working near sites contaminated by these materials. In my state of New Hampshire, the city of portsmouth, which was the home of the former pees air force base, closed a major water supply well located at that air base after the air force found pfas in the Drinking Water at levels 12. 5 times higher than the provisional Health Advisory from the environment and Protection Agency at that time. That number has changed since then. Moreover, state Health Officials determined that more than 1,500 people, including children a tended Day Care Centers near the site, have he elevated legislatn of pfas in their levels of pfas in their blood from drinking groundwater. Ive heard from so many parents who are terrified about p what in means for the health of their children. One woman whos been a real leader in responding to the pfas emergency, andrea mi co of portsmouth, remembers feeling like her world was crashing down when tests showed that her two children exposed to pfas in ink doctoring water at peez, had elevated levels in their blood. She said, to actually see it on paper, to know it was true, was very devastating for me and the wide range of emotions that i experienced ranged from anger to fear, frustration, and guilt. Andreas children attended the child care center, one of the two Child Care Centers at peez. And ive already heard from elena, a mother near the air force in portsmouth. Elena said that she was exposed when she was pregnant with her son. She and her husband were devastated when they learned that their son had high levels of p n. A. S. His blood. Michelle was exposed to the contaminated water in january of 2011 when she started working on the base. Her youngest child has attended day care at pease since he was 2yearolds. Stories like theirs are not limited to portsmouth, sadly. And contamination from pfas is not limited to millets about as and bases and airports. Thats were this longterm health study is so important and its so critical that we complete it. We need to know what the Research Says are the dangers of pfas. Since congress authorized the study in 2017, the atsdr and centers for Disease Control have been working to identify the Health Effects of pfas exposure, starting with the former Pease Air Base in portsmouth. I believe its seven other sites around the country that have been designated as part of this study. Unfortunately, due to covid19, as i said earlier, the agencies expect additional costs associated with continuing the study, as well as a oneyear delay in finalizing the results. I think we could all agree that families that have been exposed to these chemicals deserve answers. What my amendment would do is provide additional funding for the pfas health study to ensure that atsdr and c. D. C. Can complete their work and do it without delay. The safety of our Drinking Water is essential and its nonnegotiable. And the potential serious Health Effects associated with exposure to pfas chemicals demand moving forward with policies that will protect our communities, especially our men and women in uniform. Senate amendment 1729 would help to do just that. Of course, this is just the beginning. This gives us a Baseline Study to tell us what the Health Effects are. Once we get that study and as we continue to move forward, we have a lot of work to do to ensure that pfas not just on military bases but in communities across this country that appears in so many different products that we can address that in a way that provides some sort of insurance and protection to families across this country. So they know what theyre dole dealing with and what theyre dealing with and so they know that they can get help. Thank you, madam president. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Cotton madam president . The presiding officer the senator from arkansas. Mr. Cotton the cars we drive, the planes we drive, the smartphones we have in our pockets are all powered by computer chips, by semiconductors. Technology that is key to modern society and that may determine whether america or the china leads the world. Programs like darpa and symantec coated the breakthroughs and demand for this hightech industry. Storied American Companies like intel, i. B. M. , texas instruments, micron and others commercialized and then perfected this technology. Brilliant american entrepreneurs and engineers kickstarted the technology that shaped the world. That was then. Today, sadly, most semiconducts are not made in the u. S. A. Weve learned during this pandemic how dangerous it is to rely on distant factories and overstretched supply chains that can be compromised by emergencies or enemies. Well, almost threequarters of the worlds capacity to make computer chips is located in just a handful of countries in east asia, closer to communist china than our shores and all within range of the missiles of the Peoples Liberation army. China is investing huge sums, possibly 150 billion, in its semiconductors industry, and this investment is paying off. For the First Time Ever last year, china surpassed the United States in its capacity for manufacturing advantaged chips. China is expected to surpass south korea next year which would put it behind only taiwan, an island just 80 miles off its show, which i must remind you, the p. L. A. Regularly trains to invade. We cannot allow china to dominate production of computer chips. Doing so would be a grave threat that could allow a corrupt clique of communists to impose a hightech tyranny on the world. Thats why im offering an amendment along with senators schumer and warner and others to ensure American Leadership in computer chips in the face of this threat. Our proposal calls for key investments in advanced factories and research and development so that america discovers and then produces the next generation of semiconductor technology. It also requires the department of defense and the Intelligence Community to work with trusted Industry Partners to secure the supply campaign for computer chips for our military and other National Security needs. This bill is a moonhot investment and such investments dont come cheap. So i regret that the question of funding this bill has been postponed to another time, but i look forward to having and winning that debate. Because, make no mistake, robust support is needed to ensure the future of the American Semiconductor industry. At the very least it is necessary to level l Playing Field so that American Companies can compete against the coercive, anticompetitive, and mercantilist policies of communist china and others, and it will provide a surge of support and demand for advanced technologies, just as the federal government has always provided. We offer this amendment so that the next digital revolution is also made in the u. S. A. Not in communist china. I urge my colleagues to support it and to support americas continued technological primacy in the world. Madam president , i yield the floor, and i note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. 8 quorum call quorum call a senator madam president. The presiding officer the senator from rhode island. Mr. Reed madam president , id ask to dispense with the calling of the quorum. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Reed thank you. I rise to express my support for the cornyn amendment which would among other things authorize a federal Grant Program to enable the leading global Chip Companies to manufacture in the United States. I want to commend the Bipartisan Group of senators who have worked so hard on this issue. Senators cotton, cornyn, schumer, and warner. The Semiconductor Manufacturing story is similar to other industries in america. The United States invented the technology and still leads in research and development, but the manufacture of the product itself has steadily migrated to asia. Over time not just the manufacturing expertise and capacity is lost, but also the science and engineering necessary to invent the next generation of products. While this has happened to too many industries, the impact is particularly acute in electronics because Electronics Power the modern economy, fueling all the Critical Technologies in which our future prosperity depend. Asian nations, in particular, china, taiwan and south korea, have for decades pursued aggressive industrial policies to gain control of the electronics industry. These policies directed large subsidies and protections for fledgling companies that have now become global giants. While south korea is an ally and taiwan is a partner, the plants in those countries that make the worlds most advanced logic and Memory Semiconductors are highly vulnerable to disruption or destruction by china and or north korea. In a confrontation in this region, china could threaten to bring the western economy to its knees by halting the flow of semiconductors. China itself is investing hundreds of billions of dollars in new Semiconductor Fabrication plants in a relentless bid to dominate this industry. In ten years Chinese Companies may dominate the production of the chips that power 5g wireless networks, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, the internet of things, autonomous vehicles. In america, there is one remaining company that is globally competitive in logic chips intel corporation. But intel is at least a generation behind its main competitors and historically it designed and produced chips only for its own product line. Its major global competitors, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturer Corporation or t. T. M. C. Or sam sung provide chips designed by other companies. These are typically socalled fabless Chip Companies and include the names of some of our most famous tech companies, qawl qualcomm and microsoft. Recently there was the good news that intel announced in a letter to the Defense Department its intent to compete with its asian rivals in manufacturing chips designed by fabless companies. These are companies that would design the chip and the electronic processers but would not produce the chips. That would be left to these other major companies. In addition tsmc and the administration announced an agreement to bring tsmc to america to produce leadingedge chips. It is expected that samsung can be persuaded to set up a major manufacturing facility in the United States as well. The Defense Department has two major studies nearing completion. One by the defense Science Board and one conducted in partnership with industry by the under secretary for acquisition, ellen lord. They are both expected to plea for urgent and largescale action to revive u. S. Semiconductor manufacturing. But none of this is going to happen without funding and without a plan. We did not lose chip manufacturing to asia simply due to cheap labor, especially the chip industry, which is not manpower intensive. We lost this Market Segment because the investments required on massive and constant and because foreign governments heavily subsidizing. We all prefer to let markets govern where competition is fair and mutually beneficial, but relentless actions by foreign governments to dominate specific industries regardless of economics and where they succeed like in the Semiconductor Industry must be counted by u. S. Government action because of the threat to our National Security and prosperity. While this amendment does not include funding authorizations, it is an important first step. This is amendment will serve notice that the United States senate recognizes this very serious issue and intends to take corrective action. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and to commit to finding if you could Solutions Solutions finding funding solutions. Our National Security depends upon it. Madam president , i would also now like to speak about senator shaheens amendment which would be considered this afternoon, with your permission. I rise in support of senator shah sheens amendment to increase f. Y. 21 funding for the Human Health Study on the effects of pfas substances in Drinking Water sources. As most are aware, pfos and pfoa are chemicals very effective for extinguishing fires and used in Firefighting Foam since the 1970s. Unfortunately the floor reason bonds never break and the floor flourine bonds never break and environmental problems are presented. The lifetime Health Advisory for pfas is the equivalent to one grain of sand in an olympic sized swimming pool. The w. H. O. Found these chemicals are likely carcinogenic especially in children, pregnant women and decreases effects of vaccines and known to cause cancer in animals. Pfas has been found in Drinking Water at over 650 military installations in almost every state in the United States and overseas. Thousands of americans in many states across the United States have already found elevated levels of pfas in their blood. Beginning with the f. Y. 2018 national Defense Authorization act, the department of defense has been authorized to transfer funds to the c. D. C. For a Human Health Study on the effects of all pfas substances in drink water sources for people. Specifically, it seeks to determine the exact types of cancers and other toxic effects Drinking Water with pfas has on human beings. For example, years ago the c. D. C. Determined precisely how much lead can be ingested before cognitive impacts occur in children. They can and should do the same thing with respect to pfas. The study should take seven years to complete, so this f. Y. 2021 ndaa will fund year four. The c. D. C. Study receives 7 million in f. Y. 2018, and there is 10 million currently in the f. Y. 2021 ndaa amendment. Senator shaheens amendment would increase it to 15 million and accelerate our ability to find these critical answers that affect the health and safety of the American People, and are particularly associated with military bases all across the country which means in every one of our states. We all recognize the urgent need for the c. D. C. To better understand the toxic effects of pfas chemicals on the human body and supporting this amendment will accomplish just that. And so i would urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Once again, i commend senator shaheen for her work in developing this amendment with respect to pfas, and i commend senator cornyn and his colleagues for working very, very diligently and perceptively about building up our Industrial Base in order to produce microchips so we will be the leader in the world and not the follower. And with that, madam president , i once again note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call mr. Cornyn madam president. The presiding officer the senator from texas. Mr. Cornyn madam president , are we in a quorum call . The presiding officer yes, we are. Mr. Cornyn i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Cornyn madam president , as the senate knows, we will complete our work on the 60th annual national Defense Authorization act. 60 years in a row. This legislation has provided opportunity for us to take stock of the evolving Threat Landscape and ensure our National Defense is prepared to meet the challenges on the horizon. As Technological Advancements have changed, each Years National Defense Authorization act allowed us to advance in weapons, as the new vector for warfare, this legislation has allowed us to invest in Resilient Networks and talented workforce. As the global order shifted, this annual bill has given us the opportunity to identify the greatest threat to our country and stake strategic action. This Years National Defense Authorization act is no exception. It continues to invest in a modernized National Defense thats critical to maintaining peace through strength. Thats something that we need to remember what Ronald Reagan taught all of us. Weakness is provocative. Bullies look for opportunities to take advantage of weakness. It is our strength and leadership, particularly with the military, that helps us maintain the peace. This bill also devotes resources to maintain our competitive componentses for democracy today, including china and the communist party. China has gone from a poor and isolated country for now accounting for nearly 20 of the g. P. A. But their economic muscle isnt the reason it tops americas watch list. The Chinese Communist partys ruling strategy can be best described as win at all costs and sadly the victims of that strategy are often the Chinese People themselves. On the senate floor yesterday i spoke with some of the latest Human Rights Violations by the communist party in china. Their recent move erode the freedom and autonomy of hong kong, their effort to silence protesters who dare to speak out against the Chinese Communist party, their ongoing Ethnic Cleansing Campaign targeted at the uighur people. China continues to demonstrate a lack of respect for human rights and dignity and i remain concerned by the growing threat they pose to the world order, including the United States of america. Attorney general bill barr recently gave a speech about the challenges posed by an increasingly powerful, wealthy and relentless china. Its a great speech, which i commend to you. It provides an impressive overview of how the communist party manipulates american businesses and industries, steals intellectual property, surveils and censors its own people and seeks to influence its power in the United States. For those unfamiliar with the modern relationship between the United States and china and the risks and vulnerability that this creates, i highly recommend reading the speech of the attorney general. In that speech he discusses the threats posed by the communest parties communist partys initiative which seeks to achieve hightech manufacturing. Everything from advanced robotics to artificial intelligence, china wants to lead global production. While this is framed as a way to strengthen domestic manufacturing, these ambitions paint an alarming picture for the United States and our allies. As the attorney general noted, its clear that the peoples republic of china seeks not merely to join the ranks of other advanced industrial economies, but to replace them all together. Before any piece of Technology Becomes usable for its audience, it includes parts, pieces, and materials that come from literally all over the world. Regardless of where that final product is assembled and pack packaged, each of those individual pieces are the key to protecting the supply chain that creates our most valuable assets. If the covid19 virus has taught us anything it has given us a picture of how vulnerable our unsecured supply chains are. We lean heavily on china, too heavily for things like masks, gloves, gowns, ventilators, all the equipment which the need was skyrocketing earlier this year. As a result of the fact that the world was dependent on china to produce this critical equipment, hospitals reached dangerously low levels of personal protective equipment. In the meantime china refused to disclose to the rest of the world that the virus had indeed broken out in its country so it couldin fact horde the material they knew the rest of the world would need. Well, as a result of the lack of a secure supply chain, Health Care Workers were using a single mask throughout an entire shift putting both themselves and patients at risk. This has been a wakeup call or should have been a wakeup call on supply chain vulnerabilities and a reminder that we need to take action today to secure our supply chains for tomorrow. One of the biggest of these vulnerabilities were facing today is a lack of Semiconductor Manufacturing. These chips are everywhere and almost every product. They are the Underlying Technology in everything from our cell phones and towers to computers, to precision agriculture to Missile Defense systems. As you can imagine, as technologies become more sophisticated, the demand nor highend semiconductors have skyrocketed. U. S. Companies command 47 of the Global Market of these integrated circuit chips. When it comes to manufacturing, were falling further and further behind. Since 2000, the United States has dropped from producing nearly a quarter of the worlds semiconductors to only 7 , and you only need one guess as to which company stepped up to manufacture these critical devices. You guessed right, its china. In the same period, china has gone from manufacturing zero chips to 16 of the worlds supply and plans on investing another 1. 4 trillion in semiconductor technologies. America has lost ground to our global competitors and unless we take action, its estimated by 2030, 83 of the global Semiconductor Manufacturing capacity will be not here but in asia. We need to bring those manufacturing jobs back to the United States and provide an end to insecurity in our semiconductor supply chain. Of course, thats much easer said than done. Building a new town direction, which is where these building a new town direction, which is where these semiconductors are manufactured, is quite expensive and will not happen without an investment from the federal government. The organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Estimates that 21 Major Semiconductor firms across a number of countries receive more than 50 billion in Government Support between 2014 and 2018. Some of these countries investing in manufacturing of these technologies were south korea, singapore, taiwan, ireland, germany, and, you guessed it, china. If were going to regain lost ground in Semiconductor Manufacturing and secure one of our most critical supply chains, its going to take a strategic investment, and thats exactly where the chips for america act will deliver. Senator warner, the distinguished democratic senator from virginia, and i have introduced legislation to restore American Leadership in Semiconductor Manufacturing and insure longterm National Security and economic competitiveness. Weve worked hand in hand with our colleague, senator cotton from arkansas, senator schumer from new york, in drafting the amendment before the senate that we will vote on this evening. It is truly a bipartisan product. It achieves that goal by creating a federal Incentive Program through the department of commerce to encourage Semiconductor Manufacturing right here in the good ol u. S. Of a. In short, it would stimulate Semiconductor Manufacturing and boost both our National Security and global competitiveness. It will enable us to bring manufacturing of these critical devices back onto american soil and eliminate this critical National Security and economic vulnerability. As i mentioned, these chips are literally everywhere. Many of you have them in your pockets right now or on your wrists. Semiconductors are the Foundational Technology for our military systems, our tellly communications. And we want these devices to run on madeinamerica seem mew conductors. As we conclude our work on the national Defense Authorization bill, im glad the senate has the opportunity to vote on this legislation as an amendment, and Eminent Domain a. Grateful to chairman of the Armed Services committee and im grateful to chairman of the Armed Services committee, senator inhofe, and Ranking Member reed for making that happen. It prioritizes advances to the Critical Technologies that will modernize our National Defense and restore our competitive edge, all while allowing us to secure our most critical supply chains. So i hope our colleagues will all join me in supporting this legislation so that we can reclaim American Leadership in Semiconductor Manufacturing, so we can support american jobs and so we can invest in both a strong National Security and our economy. Madam president , i would call up my amendment, number 2244, and ask that it be reported by number. The presiding officer the clerk will report. The clerk the senator from texas, mr. Cornyn, for himself and others, proposes an amendment numbered 2244. Mr. Cornyn madam president , i yield the floor. Ms. Stabenow madam president . The presiding officer the senator from michigan. Ms. Stabenow thank you very much, madam president. I rise today with deep sorrow and strong determination. Im feeling deep sorrow over the loss of one of our nations great moral leaders and a dear friend of mine, congressman john lewis. As anyone whod ever met john knows, he was incredibly kind. He was a man who had seen so much of our nations history and written so much of our nations history and yet still treated everybody with dignity and respect. I had the honor to serve alongside him in the house and to become his friend. He was so supportive of me when i decided to run for the u. S. Senate. In fact, ill never forget how knowing that he believed in me helped give me the courage torgoch into a race against an incumbent United States senator. So im grieving the loss of my friend. Yet im also determined. Congressman lewis dedicated his entire life to the fight for justice and equality. Im determined to do everything i can to do my part to ensure that the his lifes work continues. John lewis came from very humble beginnings. He was one of ten children of willie mae and eddie lewis who workous sharecroppers. Making a living off the land has always been hard, but it was even harder in the 1940s in the deep south where racism and discrimination were as relentless as the alabama sun. Faith in god was essential, and john had that faith in abundance. As a child, he wanted to be a preacher, and he certainly could have been. From preceding bible verses to the family chickens as a child, to speaking alongside dr. King at the march on washington at just 23 years old, to his message at the 55th anniversary of selma earlier this year, john had a preachers ability to inspire all of us. And like a preacher, john knew that words alone arent enough. When words come from the pulpit on sunday, when they show up on the street on tuesday, thats when the change really happens. And john lewis certainly showed up over and over and over again. He sat down at lunch counters. He sat in the front of buses. He spent his 21st birthday in jail, after blocking the entrance to a theater that refused to sell tickets to people who looked like him. He was arrested more than 40 times, beaten klansmen, nearly killed marching across the Edmund Pettus bridge, never stopped showing up and causing good trouble. Just six weeks before he died, he stopped by the black lives matter plaza here in washington, d. C. , it was the last time he was seen in public. Time and again, john lewis put his life on the line in order to protect peoples fundamental rights, including the right to vote. John knew that word alone can never be enough, and we have to be willing to take action. Late last year the house passed the Voting Rights advancement act. It would restore section 5 of the Voting Rights act that was overturned by the u. S. Supreme court in 2013. For 228 days, this important bill has been gathering dust on leader mcconnells desk. 228 days of inaction. Senator leahy is renewing the bill in the senate as the is reintroducing the bill in the senate as the john r. Lewis Voting Rights act of 2020. And im proud to be a cosponsor of this important bill. Its time to pass it and get it signed into law in congressman lewis honor. At the 5th anniversary of selma march, john reminded us of whats at stage of he said this. We were beaten, we were teargassed, i thought i was going to die on this bridge. But somehow, in some way, god almighty helped me here. He added this im not going to give up. Im not going to give in. Were going to continue to fight. We must use the vote as a nonviolent instrument or tool to redeem the soul of america. Ive seen the soul of america, and that soul looks a lot like my friend, john lewis. I urge us to take up the Voting Rights act in johns name and to pass it as soon as possible and ensure that his legacy lives on. Thank you, madam president. I yield the floor. I would suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call quorum call mr. Durbin i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be suspended. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Durbin thank you, madam president. A few steps from the chamber is the whips office and on my desk is a framed government document. It is the naturalization certificate of my mother who was brought here at the age of it 2 from lithuania. She lived long enough to see me sworn into the United States senate and im proud of the fact that i stand here today as a son of an immigrant. Thats my story. Its my familys story. It is americas story. I believe that immigration has made america the nation that it is today. Immigrants are an integral part of our economy, our culture and our soul. In the midst of this deadly coronavirus pandemic, we should never forget that one in six health care and social service workers, thats 3. 1 Million People out of 18. 7 million are immigrants. Risking their lives every day in the midst of this pandemic for the good of this nation. Immigrants are playing this Critical Role in the battle against covid19 and yet our broken immigration laws do not allow many of them to fulfill their dreams of finally becoming americans. Thousands of immigrant workers, including many Health Care Workers are suffering because of a serious problem in our immigration system, the green card backlog. What is a green card . A green card is our immigration ticket. If youre here as a temporary worker, a green card or legal permanent resident status, allows you to live in the United States without a fear of deportation and to be on a path toward permanent citizenship in the United States. Green cards are critical in the lives of so many who are here on temporary work visas. The backlog puts families at risk of losing their immigration status as they wait year after weary year to finally make it through this green card backlog. And it stops their ability many times to participate in the fight against covid19 and to work toward building our economy. Under the current law, there are not nearly enough immigrant visas, also known as green cards, available each year. The current numbers for 140,000 e2 immigrant visas were established in 1990, 30 years ago. The American Economy has doubled, the number of green cards has remained the same, as a result, immigrants are stuck in crippling backlogs year after year after year. Close to fivele million future americans are in line waiting for green cards. Many are waiting on temporary visas while many are waiting overseas separated from their families. Only 226,000 family green cards and 140,000 employment green cards are available each year. The backlogs are a real hardship on these families who are cut in this immigration limbo. For example, the children in many of these family age out and face deportation. How does this happen . Well, the person applying for the green card also lists their spouse and children. If they have to wait a long period of time and the child reaches the age of 21, they are no longer protected by the fathers effort to obtain a green card. They can be deported at any time. For many children in these families aging out and facing deportation as they reach the age of 21, it is a family disaster. The solution to this green card backlog is imminently clear noin who looks to anyone who looks at it. Increase the number of green cards, the number that might have made sense 30 years ago makes no sense today. A senior senator from utah, senator lee, whom ive worked with on previous legislation, has introduced s. 386, known as the fairness for highskilled immigrants act to address this issue. I have a basic concern about this bill and i told senator lee. Senate bill 386 doesnt allow for additional green cards an without the additional green cards it will not reduce the backlog or wait. Heres what the Research Service senate Research Service says, dont take my word for it, read the Congressional Research Study Released on marc, entitled the employmentbased immigration backlog. What do they say about senator lees bill . Quote, s. 386 would not reduce current backlogs. The total backlog for all three categories of employment visas would increase from an estimated 957,000 497 individuals currently to an estimated 2. 75 million individuals by fiscal year 2020. This would occur whether or not s. 386 is enacted and here are the operative words because there is a limit on the number of green cards issued. Madam president , thats the bottom line. If you dont change the number of green cards, and five Million People are in kuwaiting for cue waiting for 140,000, you understand the math. I agreed to sit down with senator lee to work in good faith to resolve our differences. Last december we reached an agreement on an amendment to his bill that addressed many of these concerns. I want to make it clear this amendment was far from perfect and not what i would have written. The biggest problem is it still does not increase the number of green cards. As a result, it would not eliminate the backlog, but it made a substantial improvement in his original bill. Heres what it says. It protects immigrants and their families who are stuck in the backlog. Immigrant workers and their immediate family members would be allowed to, quote, early file, close quote, a provision senator lee suggested. They would not suggest their green cards nir earlier but they would be able to switch jobs and travel without losing immigration status. I thought that was fair. Early filing adds a critical protection was not in the original lee 386, it protects the children of workers from aging out so they will not face deportation. Our agreement also had a green card set aside for immigrant workers in a backlog set overseas. This green card not eligible for early filing because they were outside the United States. This number is based on the proximate number of people who apply for employment wrote green cards from overseas each year. Finally our agreement cracked down on h1v temporary work visas. I thought this would be an easy provision. It turned out to be the real problem in this bill. Let me tell you why. The amendment pro hib its pro hib its companies from hiring additional workers if there are more than 50 employees and more than 50 are temporary workers. This 5050 bill that i offered with senator grassley, republican of iowa, this provision was included in the comprehensive Immigration Reform bill which i voted for and passed in the senate. Senator lee has said, and i quote. This is a commonsense reform to root out of use. When most people think of h1v visas, they think of microsoft and google, topdollar, thats how it was supposed to work. The top recipients were outsourcing companies that use loopholes and the law to exploit immigrant workers and even offshore american jobs. In the most recent year for which data is available, eight of the top ten recipients of h1v visas were outsourcing companies. The Vice President of one of them candidly acknowledged they used h1vs to exploit immigration workers, they said that ours is 25 less than that of a similar wage for the u. S. Employee. That is you can get wages far lower than local wages. It is important to understand the vast majority of immigrant workers are h1v temporary work visas. If we want to stop the future exploitation of immigrant workers and the displacement of american workers, weve got to stop the abuse of h1b visas. I asked my colleagues to support this bipartisan agreement senator lee and i reached. They all agreed. I told senator lee i wanted to move immediately to solve this problem. There were so many people whose lives were tied up in this debate. However, senator lee asked me for more time to discuss it with his colleagues. I agreed. In march, three months later, senator lee told me he wanted to make significant changes in the agreement. He said that without these changes he could no longer support it. Some of the changes were made at the request of the Trump Administration, which i will note is not exactly the most reliable or objective advice on immigration and let me briefly explain the changes that senator lee demanded. The original version provides no individual already proved for a green card would receive it at a later time than they otherwise would have. This provision known as a hold harmless clause is a critical protection that assures immigrants who have been waiting years patiently in line that nothing we do on the floor will change the number of years they have to wait. Perhaps improve them but not make them worse. Now at the request of the Trump Administration, senator lee wants to delete this hold harmless provision which was in his original bill. That would jeopardize many people who were innocently waiting patiently for their opportunity. Second, senator lee wants to delay for three years the Effective Date of the 5050 rule to crack down on outsourcing companies. Why on earth would we give companies that are outsourcing american jobs and exploiting immigrant workers a free pass for three more years . Third, at the request of the Trump Administration, senator lee wanted to make two changes that would allow early filing for people who are stuck in the green card backlog. He would delay early filing one year. One more year for children to abling out. One more year for them to wait. Why . That means that children who age out in the meantime lose their chance for a green card and subject to deportation. He would also require immigrant workers could only, quote, early file after their green card petition had been approved for two years. A two year delay on top of the three year delay. Any children who aged out during this two year waiting period would not be subjected and be subject to deportation. Why is senator lee or at least those in the Trump Administration advising him so afraid these children might have a future in america . When we met in march, i told senator lee these changes were not acceptable. Its been seven months since senator lee and i reached our original agreement and more than four months since we met in march. Immigrants stuck in the backlog and their children have waited long enough. Im going to ask unanimous consent on my agreement of senator lee from december 2019, the fairness for high School Immigrants act is adopted as a lee substitute amendment. Mr. Lee madam president , reserving the right to object. The presiding officer the senator from utah. Mr. Lee ive worked tirelessly. Durbin madam president , i ask unanimous consent. Mr. Durbin madam president , i request consideration of the fairness for high School Fairness act the senate proceed to immediate consideration. Further the lee amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill as amended be considered a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The presiding officer is there objection . Mr. Lee madam president. The presiding officer the senator from utah. Mr. Lee madam president , reserving the right to object, im a little flabbergasted at this moment. I find myself in the rare circumstance of disagreeing with literally every word uttered by my colleague, the senior senator from illinois. Hes my friend. He and i worked together on a number of issues, on criminal justice reform, protecting the Civil Liberties of americans when it comes to domestic surveillance. All kinds of things on the Judiciary Committee. I disagree with nearly every single word, every syllable he just uttered. I find myself wondering whether we experienced alternate universes in recent months. I worked nearly the entire time ive been in the United States senate on this issue. For years, nearly nine and a half years, on discreet pieces of legislation trying to fix immigration. Immigration is a big issue. Its a contentious issue. Its a issue as to which, to put it mildly, there is not always bipartisan consensus. It is one of the areas that ive concluded remains open and possible for bipartisan agreement. Its on taking discrete, individual problem areas within our immigration code and updating them and modernizing them. What were talking here today about is a bill that ive long championed, the fairness for highskilled immigrants act. My sole purpose for championing that legislation, frankly, at great personal expense to myself, great political expense, was to bring some equity to a system that unduly burdens some immigrants based on their country of origin. And based specifically on the arbitrary factor of the population of the nation of origin of the immigrant in question. There has been a lot of misinformation at both ends of the political spectrum at every point in between about this legislation. Its been attacked from the right, from the left, from everywhere else. A lot of people claim falsely that it would change the total number of green cards available. It wouldnt, as senator durbin just acknowledged. Thats one of the few things that he said just now with which i think i can agree. But over the years weve had a number of senators objecting to this for different reasons. Every time we r resolve one objection, sometimes well resolve two objections, and then one other will pop up. And then well resolve that one, three others will pop up. Weve been doing this for years and years. Ive worked in good faith with colleagues on both sides of the aisle in order to resolve those concerns. Most recently senator durbin objected to it, just as i have with each objecter before him, i worked with senator durbin last fall in order to resolve some of his concerns with the legislation. In december as he, as he states, we came to an agreement. We came to an agreement on a way that we could move forward and we set some objectives, and he accurately characterized many of those objectives. What i told senator durbin at the time was that i was reluctant to announce that publicly because we hadnt yet gotten, made or received a request or a response to a request for Technical Assistance and input from the affected agencies, most importantly from the state department and from uscis. At the time senator durbin requested that we go to the floor, that we introduce it, i reluctantly and perhaps against my better judgment, agreed to do that in part based on the fact that senator durbin was taking a lot of heat at the time. People were saying that he was opposed to the idea categorically and i wanted to work with him in good faith to do it. At the time we had that discussion, at the time you and i made that agreement, i made absolutely abundantly clear we still needed to get technical input and we still needed to get the input of cosponsors of the legislation. But out of consideration for you and a lot of political heat you were taking at the time, i agreed wbltions understanding to go to the floor and announce that we had reached an agreement in principle. I have honored every single piece of that agreement in principle, and i strongly resent your suggestion to the contrary. Every single piece of it. There is not one substantive piece of this as to which ive changed. Not one of them. Not the 5050 rule, not the 4600 setaside. Not the early filing. The changes that we made were in response to the Technical Assistance request that we made to uscis and a couple from the state department. They had almost entirely to do with what was feasible, what was administratively possible to implement the legislation. After all, we dont want to enact legislation that cannot be implemented without compromising the other responsibilities that that agency has. So after seeking this feedback, we understood that the language as written was in some respects technically not feasible fo uscis to implement as we had written it. Here again, i told him, we may, we inevitably will have to make some modifications based on the feasibility of this. So i went back to senator durbin. In light of the uscis comments and the response to our request for Technical Assistance, uscis made those, we made some changes. I went back to senator durbin. My recollection was that it was in february. You say march. I believe it was february. But regardless, i came back to you and i told you were honoring the agreement. We are going to have to delay the implementation of some of it so as to make it technically feasible. Some of these provisions were modified somewhat as to the timing of their implementation, but we honored the spirit and the letter of our agreement. And yet, when we presented these changes to senator durbin, he flatout rejected them. Almost without any discussion at all and almost without any discussion about how these materially departed from the agreement we had reached in december in good faith, that we announced the existence of on the senate floor against my better judgment, out of the goodness of my heart given the amount of political pressure senator durbin was getting on this. And he refused at that point to continue negotiations. This, by the way, was after months and months of trying to get him to negotiate, months and months of trying to get him to the table that we reached finally in december. So i found it astounding, senator durbin, if youre once again feeling the political expediency to do so, im happy to continue these discussions with you, but dont come here and suggest falsely, as you just have, that i have materially departed from the agreement we reached, because i did not. I hope that youre as willing as i am to allow businesses a window of time to come into compliance with the new 5050 rule so that we dont unnecessarily burden the h1b workers who are already here. Thats what my changes do, is make it so we dont unduly burden those. I hope that youre as willing as i am to extend the transition period before the per country caps are fully lifted to allow immigrants from around the world the opportunity to ease into the process. And i hope that you are willing, as i am, to tackle one major immigration problem at a time in the hope of improving the condition of immigrants in our country without insisting on poison pills. If theres one thing weve learned about Immigration Reform in recent years is that if you try to reform everything at once, you will guarantee the failure of the bill. I hope thats not what youre trying to do here but that is the effect it has when you try to add in other extraneous points. Never, by the way, was there ever a discussion about increasing the total number of visas in this. That was never the objective. I never hinted at that. You acknowledged that in every one of our discussions. If you are interested in these principles as i am, we should be able to find a path forward, because all these changes, all the changes that we made to our agreement were simply made out of expediency . Ord to be able to ensure that the legislation could in fact move forward, that it was feasible to implement, and it could resolve the concerns that you expressed to me and could do so in a manner to ensure the best possible outcome. If you can agree on these changes, senator durbin, we can pass this legislation. We can pass it not just today. We can pass it right now, this very moment. I call on you to do so. If you feel that you can work with these changes, im happy to do that as well. As i said in february, my door is open, and im always willing to talk about these things with you if youre willing to work with me. So, i ask that the senator modify his request to withdraw the amendment at the desk and include my new amendment which is at the desk of, the agreement be considered and agreed to, the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The presiding officer does the senator so modify his request . Mr. Durbin madam president , reserving the right to object, let me say to senator lee, the changes you came back with were significant. Removing the hold harmless provision to me is fundamentally unfair to anyone who has been waiting patiently for the green card. Why would we jeopardize anyone and make their wait even longer for a green card . That was one of the modifications you suggested. Two other modifications you suggested delayed protection for children. It left them subject to deportation for two to three years. Why would we do that . We both agree thats a terrible outcome. That was one of your modifications as well. As far as the 5050 rule, i believe that is whats driving this conversation. These outsourcing Companies Make a bundle of money with their approach to it and there are people who want to keep them in business and making money even at the is expense of american workers, and i think thats wrong. I really do. I cant believe thats what is really going to stop us at this point to try to protect these outsourcing companies for three years before this provision affects them. As far as what we can do here today, i think what im going to offer next is going to be the simplest thing we can achieve. Let us protect the children. Thats the next thing im going to offer. Let us protect the children and as theyre waiting in line they cant abling out and be deported. That is not an unreasonable thing to request. I im going to refuse to to the modification. But im going to offer the modification on children. Lets agree today. Mr. Lee madam president . The presiding officer is there objection to the there is objection to the is there objection to the original request . Mr. Lee madam president , reserving the right to object. Look, the hold harmless issue, it was taken care of with the three to nine year transition. Thats why we made the three to nine year transition, was to take care of the hold harmless provision. If you want to negotiate the terms of that, we can talk about that right now. We can resolve that right now. But make no mistake, you are fundamentally changing and altering the terms of what we agreed to and youre accusing me of fundamentally materially changing the terms of the agreement when all i have done is what we agreed to in december. What you are suggesting here is a deviation from what is possible. I cant agree to what is not possible, to what contravenes what uscis has said it is capable of implementing. On that basis i object. The presiding officer objection is heard. Mr. Durbin madam chair, i have a few minutes more to close this debate. I ask the forebearance of those who are prepared at 4 00 to vote. I ask unanimous consent to continue for ten additional minutes. Lee. Mr. Lee i object. The presiding officer objection is heard. The presiding officer objection is withdrawn. Mr. Durbin this proposal which im about to make, called the protect children of immigrant workers act, simply ensures that children will not age out. How many times have parents come to me with tears in their eyes dont hurt my child. Here is our schans to take chance to cake care of this one take care of this one provision. I ask the senator, please, for the sake of these children, give them the protection and let us continue to try to negotiate the other provisions. I ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to my consideration of my bill, the protect the children of immigrant workers act which is at the desk. Further the bill be considered read three times and passed and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. The presiding officer is it there objection . Mr. Lee mr. President. The presiding officer the senator is recognized. Mr. Lee reserving the right to object. You should have brought that to me. I would have loved to have considered it. I havent even seen it yet. My staff saw it for the first time earlier today. Id love to have a look at it. But this is something that could have been brought up at any moment in the last six or seven months, in the last year, hasnt been so far. Happy to have a look at it now but i certainly cant agree to pass something that i have not seen. I therefore object. The presiding officer the objections heard. Mr. Durbin in the interest of moving to the roll call, i will not offer my third amendment. I will tell you this. It will be back. This is your chance to do something for the children. Its very simple. You know what it is. Lets do this and then debate the other provisions. Mr. Lee mr. President. The presiding officer the senator is recognized. Mr. Lee mr. President , i could not agree more that we should do this. I could not agree mr that we need more that we need to eliminate the Elvis Pressley era immigration provision that discriminates on individuals based on the country of origin. There are reasons why immigration policy is a contentious one. There are reasons why its has failed. It has to do with the fact that people pile on. They get desperate. It is hard to reform the immigration code. When someone suggests one former, others suggest ten morse. Before more. Before long it chokes the horse. You cant move forward with it. This is focused on a simple concept regardless of how many visas we issue or green cards we issue, there are a lot of ways to allocate the number that we have. Lets start with the number we have and figure out on the whatever reasons ought to influence that decision. Among them should not be the country in which you were born. If you imagine two hypothetical wouldbe employmentbased green card recipients who are otherwise eligible, immigrant a and immigrant b, they are identical in all respects, in their employment qualify indicatings, education, proficiency in english, every meaningful characteristic, except one, immigrant a happen to have been born in say luxembourg and immigrant b was born in india. India has a Large Population and luxembourg has a small population, but the immigrant from india will be this is senseless. We ought to be able to get around that. I agree with you wholeheartedly, senator durbin, we should pass this right now. Theres no reason not to. Thank you, mr. President , i yield he the floor. The presiding officer the senator from oklahoma. Mr. Inhofe i call up amendment number 1729 and ask it be reported by number. Appropriate. The clerk the senator from oklahoma, mr. Inhofe for mrs. Shaheen proposes amendment 7329 to amendment 2301. The presiding officer on under the previous order, the question is on the amendment. Mr. Inhofe mr. President , i ask unanimous consent that the 60affirmative vote threshold with respect to the shaheen amendment number 1729 be vitiated. The presiding officer is there objection . Without objection. Mr. Inhofe its my understanding that we should be able to adopt the amendment by voice vote. The presiding officer the question is on the amendment. All in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes appear to have it. The aye does have it. The amendment is agreed to. The question occurs on the cornyn amendment. Mr. Inhofe i ask for the yeas and nays. The presiding officer is there a sufficient second . There appears to be. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote vote vote the presiding officer is there anyone in the chamber who wishes to vote or change his or her vote . Seeing none, there is 96 yeas and 4 nays. Under the previous order, the amendment is agreed to. Mr. Inhofe mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from oklahoma. Mr. Inhofe mr. President , of course right now were in the middle of the, what i refer to several times as what i consider to be the most significant bill of the year, the national Defense Authorization act, one that you can almost be sure it will pass since its passed for, this will be the 60th Consecutive Year that its passed. Its a pretty good indication that its going to pass. That comes with problems, however. If people know a bill is going to pass, and so you get a lot of things, a lot of pieces of legislation that have not been able to get passed in maybe a whole year, and it becomes a part of this bill. Its more than just the Defense Authorization bill, but its the most significant one. Before we even came to the floor, we did something that weve been working on now for at least i know personally for four years, and that is to put ourselves in a position where just in case we find ourselves where we cant get amendments, because all it takes is one person to object and there will be no amendments, so if this happens, we decided to go ahead and put this bill together and do it in such a way that the members who are actually drafting the bill we have 700 member items. You might remember back in january we started talking about this, saying if you want to have an amendment in the Defense Authorization bill, even though its not going to become effective until a year from december, you better get down there and do it because now is the time you can get that done. Well, we ended up with 700 member items, and that was thenn got to the floor. And then more were added. We had another 140 amendments after that. And so its a bill, you can say this bill was passed by you, and im talking about members, democrats and republicans, in the chamber. Because these items all came out of it. We didnt do it the way it used to be done. We kind of eased into this, but its worked very well, and i commend liz and john for the work that they do in Holding Everyone together and making this a reality. So where we are right now is weve had a lot of our members coming to the floor. My star and i are continuing to work on the inclusion of additional amendments. If you will recall, mr. President , two weeks ago when we footballing a break for the when we took a break for the fourth of july, we agreed upon some legislation, some amendments that would be a part of this. They are all structured right now. We already passed two, well, actually passed four today. And so were continuing to, we have another bunch of amendments, including a managers package. It was hotlined today, just today. I dont have the results of that yet. People may have objected to it. Im just not aware of it. But apparently there have been some objections. I dont know what the count is. But well keep trying to get as many amendments as possible. In my experience, this means were nearing the end of the road, and i would have to say this of my partner in this effort, which has been my partner for a number of years, jack reed, on the minority side. We have both worked hand in glove in trying to get as many amendments as possible, and we set a record this year. Either amendments or by letters from members. Now, mr. President , im going to do something thats going to make a bunch of people mad, and i dont really care. You hear so Much Negative stuff stuff, and i have said several times that when this president came in, he gave us up to the moment that we had the virus, up to that moment we had the best economy weve had in my lifetime, all indications show that was true. And he did this in a way that was thought out, and it wasnt all a republican idea. Because back when john kennedy was president of the United States, thats when they expanded the Great Society. And he said, and this is a quote, he said we are going to to have a lot more revenue to take care of the Great Society programs. The best way to increase prench is to decrease marbling nal increase revenue is to decrease marginal rates, and it worked. Unfortunately he died right after that and could not see the benefits of the efforts of this great idea. And so this was done, again, during the bush administration. It actually was done, was the first thing it was done by the Trump Administration, but he did Something Different this time, and this is the reason it produced so much more revenue than the others produced in years past. Because he said we also need to reduce the regulations at the same time. Im very sensitive to this because i chaired the environment and Public Works Committee back during the time the republicans were a minority minority, and we had during the Obama Administration we had so many regulations that had to be changed. Even the chair is probably not aware this was a regulation that was passed during the Obama Administration. Its one that said if youre a domestic oil or gas company and youre in competition with china or somebody else, you have to give them your playbook, how you calculated your rates. Well, that put them at a decided advantage. So when i was fortunate enough to get to know this president prior to the time that he took office, i was suggesting it and he was saying what a good place to start in reducing regulations, and i said a good one would be to do away with that regulation which was passed. It was only a week i think after he took office that we passed the first regulation. Thats just one example. But then regulation after regulation after regulation, those of us who have grown up in the Business World know thats what costs money. Liberals have never figured that out. Anyway, this has happened. The result of this is weve had really great benefits. I bring this up now because and put the Johnson Family up. This is a family in oklahoma. Its the Johnson Family, Charlie Johnson and he has several brothers and he has a son named andrew. They are in the tree business. They find people who want to get rid of dead trees, unwanted trees and all that, they can get rid of trees and they are the best there are. They have been doing it now very competitively and have been doing it for years. He told me when he came out to take a tree out, during the it two weeks im talking about less than two weeks ago. He said we can do this, but i want to tell you, we are really busy now. In fact, our business is better than its ever been in the history of our company. Its all because of what has happened with the president that we have. And these were his words. He said i know everybody hates the president. The media hates the president , but we love him and let me tell you why. We are now doing better than weve ever done before. Our business is better than it ever has been. And then he had a brother who specialized now when youre in the tree business, you specialize. If you look at the you cant see the bucket there, but the son is in the bucket. Another one is the guy whos developed a way of grinding stumps. Almost anyone can take a tree out, but to grind a stump, you have to have very expensive equipment. A few days after id seen these people, i got a visit by a guy named brad johnson. And brad is the one who specializes in stump grinding. So what he did was he said, our business is so good now and they all credit the president with this our business is so good that i decided id go off on my own and buy a stump grinder. Very, very expensive. No one thought theyd be able to do it. Now i think he owns the only stump grinder in Delaware County in oklahoma. And he said i want you to do something. I know that youre going to be going back to washington. And so im going to give you this, and i want you to give this to the president of the United States. Its brads stump grinding. And im going to give this to the president of the United States and take his picture. But i only say all this to let you know good things are happening around here. Things things have not been this good. Except for the virus problem, no one had any other than the president. When hi think how good our economy was right before the virus hit, i thought if we had an average economy, where would we be today . So, anyway, that was the good news and i was excited to tell them i was going to share this with a few other people. Early today i mentioned id be coming down to the floor to talk about our troop basing in germany. I think most of us on the committee know that weve been working on this for a long time. Secretary of defense mark esper put something together where he was going around and reevaluating our troop and asset distribution around the world. And i know disagreed with some of the things he came up with. Africa, for example, was an area where they are starting to have some very, very Serious Problems and and so, if anything, its going to end up taking more activity, but with the along with other members, ill be receiving detailed briefings from the department of defense on plans to carry out president s decision in the coming days and weeks. But based on my conversation with secretary esper, and the briefings ive received so far, the goal is to optimize our force posture in europe, in part, by moving some of our forces along natos eastern flank. Its always been in western europe and so going forward, as i think about the plan to realign the posture in europe, im thinking about the three Guiding Principles that i call the three fs. First, the forward presence, maintaining a strong presence in europe that gives our troops what they need to deter russia and, if necessary, to fight and win and defeat russia. And i like the idea of rational of rotation of forces in southeast europe. The second one is force protection. And really force projection is more accurate. Its keeping strong, established bases for staging air capacity and more that we have, for example in Ramstein Air Force base and weve invested quite a lot of money and thats going to work for any future use an readjustments to take place in europe. What im saying is a lot of things are going to go on in europe that are going to be enhancing as opposed to being transferred. Third is families. Now, this is kind of interesting. Tinker air force base, theres as young lady who is the wife of a worker at Tinker Air Force base. Her name is jana driver. She came to me two years ago. She said weve got a problem out at tinker. When we privatized our housing,ing it worked out housing, it worked out fine for a long period of time but then it seemed people got greedy and they talked about the deplorable condition of housing, and i thought this is my home state of oklahoma, thank goodness its one military establishment. Then ip found out it was then i found out it was in five military establishments and then i found out it wasnt just in oklahoma, it was around the world. So this is something that is very significant because when you look at the problems that we have, so many people and ill be addressing this with a little more detail in a minute because of an amendment thats going to be before us tomorrow, and that is we do so many things different than other countries do. I heard over and over again, im sure the chair has also heard, we talk about the money we spend on defense in the United States, and yet we spend more money than russia and china. , those are our strategic oop sition. We opposition. We spend more money than russia and china. We spend more money because of the people. We spend more on housing and school for the kids and we want to make sure that these things are going on and thats what costs money. If youre in a communist country, they give you a gun and say, go out and kill people and the problems solved. So we we are concerned about our families. They make a lot of sacrifices. Every few years our families have to move, change locations, the kids have to change schools, and they move to another area. Then if the spouse has a job, they have to try to get that job. And, by the way, in this bill we have some help so that we get relief from some of the regulations that normally take a long period of time. So spouses are able to get get a job on a new location. Thats something that a lot of people are not aware of is in this great bill that will we have. They have to change hometowns. They change houses, they change doctors, their kids change schools. And, of cows, they live with of course, they live with the reality that their Service Member is putting their life on the line to defend their country. Weve got to be grateful and never take sacrifice for granted. In everything we do, we should be trying to ease the burden of our military families. So when it comes to this plan that were talking about, this is changing the forces around, primarily in europe, thats what you hear more about, its important that we do it right and do it right away. We its going to be take some time to do but we need to get started. The reason im really excited about this program is that this is not something new. Some people might if you have good memories, you might remember back when the when general jim jones was the supreme allied commander of nato, and at that time, i had gone to him and said, you know, one thing that we really need to be doing is to start readjusting where we have our troops. At that time we had a lot of troops, as we do today in germany, and a lot of training was taking place. But because of the Environmental Movement in germany, they were giving us restrictions, saying you can only train with live ordnance maybe four days aweek and not past sunset and things like that. So we are doing a great thing for germany in stationing all the people over there and the money we spend and all of that and yet they are not really trying to help us. We did some surveying, and this is kind of funny, because john bonzo, who is my staff director on the committee on the republican side, we went over to Different Countries, bulgaria, poland, Different Countries in that part of the world and said in the eastern part of europe, are you willing to help us out . And they said, not only can you use your ordnances as much as you want, but at the same time well help billet you and all of that. So the program was good and it was strongly supported by general jim jones at that time. And we did all we could to put that together and we were visiting our allies about and it we already had ukraine, bulge glara and bulgaria and romania lined up. They call it the lily pad approach to basing and it was we were told it would work. Unfortunately president bush decided he didnt want to do it and so we were unsuccessful in getting that done. So ive been fighting with that with other president s since that time. Ive not gotten to look at that and the great values that would happen and that is something that is taking place right now. We dont know were going to get a member briefing tomorrow thats going to give us a lot of details on what is going to happen and what the president is proposing in that area of europe. Now, i just want to speak about one of the amendments thats next up. Senator sanders amendment would cut defense spending by 10 . This is something i happen to be very close with senator sanders, and we have areas where we disagree with each other and this is one of those areas. I looked at this and i thought he has an amendment that would cut defense spending by 10 . First of all, this amendment would break the bipartisan budget agreement of 2019 that we passed, Congress Passed this agreement last summer, with a bipartisan support and the president signed it into law. The fiscal 2021 ndaa, national Defense Authorization act, thats the bill that were that were working on right now as we speak, fulfills this agreement. It provides a total of 740. 5 billion for our National Defense and i would have preferred to see a higher number at that time, but thats its now the law of the land. So even though it is lower than ideal having budgetary certainty is critical. Its what our military leaders ask for every time they come before the committee that i chair and before the senator shelbys committee. They need on time, stable and equipment to do their job. Our adversaries are investing in their milts and building militaries and building and advanced Weapons Systems and acting more aggressively than weve ever seen before. The National Defense strategy describes this a document that weve adhered to. This was put together by six republicans and six democrats. It was one of these things where it was bipartisan. Everyone agreed, the people were experts that put this together and we followed it to the letter ever since that time. And we have the National Defense Strategy Commission report, thats this, a bipartisan document written by six democrats, six republicans. They tell us what we need to increase our Defense Budget each year and so we already know we need to be increasing our budget just to stay competitive. Weve already agreed to this total. Now one of the criticisms i hear from our Defense Budget is that we pay much more than other countries. Well, ive already explained, were the ones who have to pay to take care of our people, our troops, their families, their kids. So heres the problem with that argument. Other countries dont have to do that. So beyond the troops, we also take care of the families and all that while others dont do it. But this is significant. China and russia are rapidly modernizing their milts. When i say this militaries. When i say this in public and talk to our groups, i dont have credibility. It doesnt sound like its possible. During the and i dont say this critically of the Obama Administration the Obama Administration, by his own admission, had other priorities, one of them wasnt the Strong Military and so during the last five years now im talking about this has been 2010 to 2015, during those last five years using the president s budget, he decreased the amount of money for our military by 25 . In five years, decreased it by 25 . At the same time russia increased theirs by 34 and china increased theirs by 83 . Now stop and think about that. Our our adversaries out there who are building and building and getting ahead of us in different areas. Its important to note that the bill exempts military pay and and the Defense Health program which means this amendment is actually the equivalent to a 14 cut. Now im talking about cuts in airplanes and equipment and and and assets that are military assets. This means the nuclear modern glietion an key research that modernization and key Research Help us stay competitive with russia. So this is something that i really cant be be done. It means you the cuts it means cuts to military construction, including schools to military kids to programs that support military families and to programs that support our troops morale and welfare. It is plain wrong. Our military combat commanders tell me and our committee they need on time predictable and Stable Funding to do their jobs and this amendment would actually cut that by 14 in the areas that concern people. In the strongest possible terms, i urge a no vote on this amendment and all this is going to happen while we continue to face the burden that pandemic has placed on our military. Our military is a key part of the whole of government response to to the virus. Our competitors havent given us a free pass. Pass while this is all happening. Weve seen china and russia take advantage of this situation and theyve been acting more aggressively. At the same time the department of defense is working to protect our troops and the civilian workforce from the virus and this needs to continue to be a top priority. Everyone understands that. In fact, rather than cutting the Defense Budget, we actually need to support the military Covid Response with additional funding. Take this one example. Defense Defense Industrial companies have done a great job to ensure that their suppliers, primarily thousands of Small Businesses, stay open and keep employees paid. In the cares act we gave the d. O. D. The authority and the tools to reimburse these companies to keep the Defense Workforce strong but the d. O. D. Needs the money to use these tools. Now, if we dont help these companies, defense weapons programs and maintenance will suffer more costly overruns, and the Defense Industry will lose experience, trained workers, meaning scheduled delays are more likely. And, mr. President , these are primarily the small companies. These are not the giants that are up there. So that would be a good investment for our National Defense and a good investment for the american taxpayer. Now is simply not the time to be cutting our Defense Budget when we should be acting. I know the author of the bill that would cut defense spending by 10 is very sincere and really believes in his bill. It is not the time to do it. I hope the people understand that we are now in a position, if we actually have different resources that are in russia, in china that are better than ours, Hypersonic Weapons is a good example, Hypersonic Weapons is kind of stateoftheart, both offense and defense, and they are ahead of this. They are ahead of this right now. So i think with this budget were going to be passing, were going to be making broad steps to recapture those areas where we had previously been the leaders and now are not the leaders any longer. With that, mr. President , i yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk shall call the roll. Quorum call a senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from tennessee. Mr. Alexander i ask consent the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Alexander mr. President , in march, congress and the president said to 43 million student loan borrowers because of covid19, your student loan payments are deferred until october 1. No Monthly Payments for six months for student loan borrowers. Well, mr. President , october 1 is just around the corner, so what do we say to those 43 million student loan borrowers today . I propose that we say this. Number one, no income, no Monthly Payment. In other words, if you have a student loan, your Monthly Payment is zero. If you dont have any income, for whatever reason. Number two, when you do begin earning income, your Monthly Payment will never be more than 10 of your income after you deduct the necessities of life such as the cost of housing, rent, or mortgage, and food. And then number three, the same generous loan forgiveness that exists today for student loan borrowers will still exist. After 20 years of payments for undergraduate loans and 25 years of payments for graduate loans, if you still have an outstanding loan balance, your loan will be forgiven, and that includes all the months your payment was zero because you didnt have any income. These same policies, no income, no Monthly Payment, will be offered to students who take out new loans in addition to existing student loan borrowers. Now, new and existing student loan borrowers will be offered one other option under my proposal for paying back their loans. This option would be like a tenyear mortgage. Make equal principal and interest Monthly Payments over ten years until the loan is paid off. Some borrowers may prefer this option because it could mean paying less interest. Every borrower would be eligible to switch from one option, the incomebased payment, to the other option. The remaining good news in this proposal is that the current bewildering system of nine different ways of paying off your student loan could be thrown in the trash heap and replaced by these two straightforward proposals. One, the incomebased repayment option. And two, the tenyear mortgage option. These changes will give some peace of mind to the 43 million current borrowers and the tens of millions of americans who are expected to sign up for new Student Loans over the next ten years. These ideas are not new, nor are they my ideas. They have been recommended by Higher Education experts numerous times. Testifying before the Senate Education committee during the past six years while we considered reauthorizing the Higher Education act. These concepts have been suggested by many senators on both sides of the aisle. Democrats, republicans, including senators king and burr and rubio and merkley and portman and warner, wicker, manchin, shaheen, and collins. All of these have suggested these concepts. And, mr. President , while were simplifying the Student Loan Repayment system, i propose we also finish the job of reducing the federal loan application of grants and loans which everyone calls fafsa. From about 108 questions to 20 to 33 questions. This is an enterprise that a number of us, both democrats and republicans, have been working on for years, including senator murray, bennet, jones, king, collins, whitehouse, gardner, cornyn, stabenow, tillis, and hassan. So you see there is an unusual amount of bipartisan support for both of these ideas. Experts before the Senate Education committee have testified that simplifying the fafsa this way would remove obstacles that would make it easier for lowincome americans to attend colleges and would increase the number of pell grants each year. Last fall, congress and the president took the first step in simplifying the fafsa while allowing the i. R. S. To answer 22 questions for which applicants for grants and loans had already answered on their tax returns. 20 million American Families who struggle to fill out this essential but unnecessarily complex fafsa will be grateful to congress if we complete the job of simplifying the federal aid application system at the same time we make it simpler for 43 million americans to pay back their Student Loans. Now, mr. President , there is one more piece of good news in this proposal, and this news is for the american taxpayer. Simplifying the Student Loan Repayment system, as well as the system for applying for Student Loans and grants, will save the taxpayer about 10 billion over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This is because the simpler system will also provide more certainty in the repayment of loans. On october 1, 43 million americans with Student Loans are going to have to restart making their monthly Student Loan Repayments. Congress deferred student loan payments in march, as i said earlier, when the cares act, covid19 relief bill was signed into law, but that deferment expires on september 30. So there never has been a more important time to end the demanding complex of Student Loan Repayment and make it simpler for americans to pay off their loans. Let me briefly review how the Student Loan Repayment and fafsa simplification act will work. It offers student loan borrowers just two options. The standard tenyear repayment plan just like a mortgage, or the incomebased plan that i have described. So for borrowers with no income, if they choose an incomebased repayment plan, their Monthly Payment would be zero. If a borrower in an incomebased payment plan earns income, the borrowers Monthly Payment would be based on that amount of income. So lets take an example. The average student loan for a Fouryear College graduate today is about 30,000. So someone with a 30,000 in Student Loan Debt making 52,000 each year would be expected to pay 10 of that borrowers discretionary income, which is about 274 per month income. So if you have a 30,000 loan debt and you make 52,000 a year, your Monthly Payment is about 274 under this plan. Borrowers under the plan would never have to pay more than 10 of their income that is not needed for necessities. Now, we dont pass if we dont pass this legislation before october 1, here is what will happen. Because of the confusing repayment system we have, too many borrowers will have ended up in an unaffordable standard tenyear repayment mortgagetype plan with payments so high they will find themselves in default. And then when were through with this pandemic, the economy improves, and these borrowers are ready to tackle their debts, they will find that their Student Loan Debt may have soared out of control. Senator murray of washington state, who is the ranking democrat on our committee, and i have been working on reauthorizing the Higher Education act for nearly six years. We have held 19 hearings over that time. We were making good progress. In fact, i was hopeful we could mark up the bill this spring. But between impeachment and covid, that just didnt work out. In january, i said i saw consensus emerging. It was for more simple, effective regulations, making it easier for students to pay for college and to pay back their loans. We discussed the complexity of the federal Financial Aid system. We heard from many experts. And one at one roundtable, a University President from tennessee told me it took him months to figure out how to pay off his daughters federal student loan this is a College President even with the money in his hand. So this is not a new problem, and the solution that i am proposing has been discussed by our committee and many senators outside the committee for nearly six years. It will help both those facing loan payments starting october october 1, but millions of students graduating with student debt. When it comes time to start repaying on those loans, students have to navigate through a complicated number of options today, nine in total. I dont want to go through them in detail because it would stagger the imagination, but, for example, there is the tenyear standard repayment. There is the graduated standard repayment. There are two extended repayment options. There are five different programs based on your income, the income contingent repayment, the original income based repayment, the revised income based repayment, the pay as you go plan, the revised pay as you earn repayment. Those are all the different ways you can pay off your Student Loans which confuse the 43 million borrowers who have them. Now, if i lost you wandering through there, you can get a sense of how those 43 million borrowers must feel. The student and fafsa ends that confusion. It will reduce the payment plans down to two. One tenyear payment like a mortgage, one payment based on income. In addition, the bill reduces the complexity for borrowers who wish to participate in the government Forgiveness Loan Program which gives them an opportunity to pursue jobs in public service. Borrowers can have a hard time figuring out which plan to choose. Under this legislation, a borrower who wants loan forgiveness cant choose the wrong plan because there are only two and either apply, whether you choose the standard 10year repayment plan or the income base plan. In less than three months, 43 million student loan borrowers will be required by law to begin Monthly Payments again on their loans. Many of these borrowers wont be able to afford these payments. I propose we say to those borers, we have a better option, no income, no Monthly Payment. Whether because of covid19 or for any other reason. In other words, if you have a student loan, you may defer your Monthly Payment if you do not have any income, and when you do begin earning income, your Monthly Payment will never be more than 10 of your income after you deduct the necessities of life such as the cost of housing, rent, or mortgage and food. Now is the time to reduce the complexity of Student Loan Debt and finish the job of simplifying the fafsa, and, madam president , at the same time save the taxpayers money. I thank the president and i yield the floor. A senator madam president. The presiding officer the senator from oregon. Mr. Merkley i ask unanimous consent that senators casey, udall, shaheen, kaine, smith, schumer, feinstein, cardin, whitehouse, leahy, tester, schatz, cortez masto, warner and menendez be added as cosponsor to 4220. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Merkley madam president. The presiding officer the senator from oregon. Mr. Merkley i ask unanimous consent that senators stabenow, casey, udall, shaheen, kaine, smith, schumer, feinstein, cardin, whitehouse, leahy, tester, schatz, cortez masto, and menendez be added as cosponsors to amendment 2457 to limit the use of Law Enforcement officers for crowd control to senate bill 4049, the national Defense Authorization act for fiscal year 2021. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Merkley madam president , in the course of time, america should find a president in the oval office who choose to bring the Police Tactics of dictators around the world to the streets of america, then that is the moment its incumbent on every member of this chamber who has sworn an oath to our constitution, who is determined to practice civil rights of america, to stand up and say not now, not here, not ever, and we put an end to it. So that is why i brought forth this amendment. Stop secret policing in america amendment and asking for it to be debated on this bill because it involves police powers, military powers, the United States of america, and its happening right now. What am i talking about . Well, let me give you some sense of what we have seen on the streets of america in the past few days. And as i note here, authoritarian governments, not democratic republics and unmasked and unmarked authorities after protesters. Well, this is what we saw, customs and Border Protection in military uniform in combat cam flowj, no camouflage, no marking what they are. They said, no they had markings and identifiers, but here they are. And to make it even worse, they look a whole lot like protesters from the far right who come to make trouble dressed in camouflage and they actually have things that look more like badges than the actual representatives of customs and Border Protection. And what else did we see . Heres a navy veteran standing in the street who said he came down to the protest to simply say, are you honoring your oath to the constitution . Here we have cbp officers beating him, heres one baton, heres another, they broke one of his bones while this man here pepper sprayed him in the face. A peaceful protester standing, being attacked by unmarked warprepared, dressed in camouflage forces deployed by the president of the United States. And then what else happened . Well, they decided not to consult with the city and not consult with the state and not think carefully about what weapons they are carrying and how they use them, so impact munitions. This protester right here in the silhouette, hes standing, hes holding what appears to be a sign above his head or maybe its a radio. Moments later in the video that shows this, he is shot down. You see him collapse on the street, peace protester standing, making his case, as guaranteed by the constitution of the United States of america, and he is shot square between the eyes by President Trumps forces deployed without permission and no coordination with the local representatives or the governor of the state of oregon. This young man struck down, shot in the head in the hospital in critical condition. Hes doing better now thankfully. And then these forces deploy away from the federal buildings, go into the streets and start snatching protesters and throwing them into an unmarked van, advance like this one vans like this one right here. One young man said i was terrified. He said i didnt know who these people were. They wouldnt identify themselves. Theres a video of people saying, who are you all . And they wouldnt answer. They grab him. He thinks they might be the folks from the rightwing protesters who come in camouflage. He might be kidnapped, he doesnt know. Even after he was thrown into a jail cell, its not explained why he was grabbed off the street. Secret police, unmarked, throwing people into unmarked vehicles and sweeping them away, thats what you get from authoritarian dictat, not a country dictators, not a country, a republic where we have a constitution and we have rights. Thats whats going on here. Thats what has to stop here in america. Some of the headlines, federal Law Enforcement use unmarked vehicles to grab protesters off the streets. A navy vet asked federal officers in portland to remember their oaths, they broke his hand. Thats the navy vet in the white sweatshirt who is being attacked by two officers while another sprays him with pepper spray. Federal officers deployed in portland didnt have proper training, d. H. S. Says. They shouldnt have been there. We need a bill to stop secret police in america. We need a bill done as an amendment on this bill right now, on this bill were considering about military force, a bill which says your organization has to be identified on your uniform. It says there has to be unique identifier so you dont think you can just get away with anything and eye abuse people and never abuse people and never be held accountable. And a bill which says, if you defend monuments and buildings, you defend monuments and buildings. You have to have the permission of the mayor or governor. And if the federal government in transparency in our democracy has to tell us all as participants as this we the people government that they are disclosing how many people from where are being sent to what city. And this isnt just some small issue. This is the president saying yesterday, after bragging about what he has done in portland to violate the rights of people, saying hes looking at new york and chicago and philadelphia and detroit and baltimore and oakland deploying these secret Police Tactics all over this country. And all i do right now is stand here and say, i want a vote on any of these ending these secret Police Practices in america. I say to every republican colleague and every democratic colleague, i want a vote. Im here in full partnership with my colleague from oregon who shares this indignation, this outrage, or the violation of the constitution, who shares these thoughts and then together we will ask to have a vote. What is this chamber if it cannot take on and hold a debate or discussion over authoritarian secret Police Strategies brought to the streets of america . My colleague. Wyden wyden i mr. Wyden i thank my colleague this afternoon because he speaks today with passion and facts and clearly outlines what our constituents told us at home this past week, and i thank him for this partnership that oregonians are seeing again on the floor of this great senate. Madam president , donald trump has deployed a Para Military squad to our hometown in portland. His secret police are terrorizing my friends and neighbors. Now people across the country need to understand that yesterday donald trump announced to america that your friends and your neighbors are next. Unmarked vans full of unarmed men in military gear snatch people off the street. They interrogate them without ultimate maition and ultimately without ultimate made yums and ultimately without charges. A close personal friend, sharon miron, an e. R. Doctor and a mom was protesting peacefully and was teargassed without provocation. She felt like she was seeing democracy pass right in front of her eyes. Millions of americans have seen the video of that local navy veteran who was repeatedly beaten and pepper sprayed and left with broken bones. And people ask me, ron, what was his offense . Im sure senator merkley gets exactly the same question. What did he do wrong . He was standing, madam president , motionless, hands by his side, speaking up for the liberty that he served to protect. People are stunned that this is happening on the streets of our hometown. Weve seen reports of agents ripping a mask off of a protester who is obeying commands with hands in the air only to pepper spray the protesters face. The secret police even threw flash banes and tear gas at a wall of moms. Here they are. Here they are in our hometown. You can see them over the last couple of days moms and dads and now their kids are asking to come to peacefully sing songs and protest for justice. Oregonians just standing up for whats right. Only the cowards of the Trump Administration would try to convince america that these Peaceful Protesters, the wall of moms, represent some kind of anarchist threat. Its nonsense. I condemn violence by anybody always. And i spent much of last week working for Nonviolent Solutions in my hometown and fresh approaches that reduce tensions on our streets. The fact is, the protests in portland have been overwhelmingly peaceful. Crime in portland and across oregon was down before donald trump sent in the secret police. Donald trump did not send that Paramilitary Force this Expeditionary Force to keep people safe. Donald trump is doing this to create an image of chaos, to air them on farright television, scare the country, turn them into campaign ads. But these are the people that senator merkley and i are honored to represent. These are the people Donald Trumps Paramilitary Forces attack and terrorize. He calls it a great success. As we have indicated, hes got a game plan to basically make portland an experiment and to do it in other cities, especially by his account, those with democratic leer and voters. Democratic leadership and voters. This kind of abusive exercise of power by a rogue president would have horrified our founding fathers. They wrote our wonderful constitution to prevent exactly this behavior because democracy cannot survive in a nation that tolerates it. These tactics were used throughout the world a century ago to turn elected politicians into tyrants. Madam president , the president s first and most important job is to keep americans safe. Residents of portland are less safe and less secure since donald trump deployed the secret police to our streets. The same thing and i say this to colleagues wherever youre from. The same thing will happen in your communities where donald trump chooses to send his prayer military forces his Paramilitary Forces. Frankly, donald trump always talks about targeting portland and other cities, senator merkley. I wish he would target the coronavirus. I wish he would put a fraction of his passion for going after our cities into dealing with the coronavirus because while Donald Trumps secret police are out terrorizing portlands moms and doctors and other Peaceful Protesters, we face a raging pandemic, recordhigh unemployment. I want us to renew the supercharged Unemployment Benefits that people are essentially going to lose this weekend. Donald trump isnt doing any of that work. What hes doing is making americans in cities less safe and not dealing with the coronavirus on top of it. Hes attempting to cut resources for covid testing and treatment. His administration covers updated the Public Health professionals rely on to do their jobs. He is and he says it repeatedly anxious to cut the lifelines of 30 million jobless americans, sending them tumbling off an economic cliff, right in the middle of the worst employment crisis since the great depression. Hes not doing his job. Hes ignoring his responsibilities. And both on the streets of portland and in washington, d. C. , when he walks away from dealing with the coronavirus, he isnt keeping americans safe; he is putting them in more danger. As ive said and said repeatedly, donald trump ought to attack the coronavirus pandemic and not the people of portland. So thats why very shortly senator merkley and i will offer an amendment that will block donald trump from using these Paramilitary Forces in portland or other cities where they are unwanted. What were seeing in our hometown is were seeing these paramilitary squads brutally unleashed against Peaceful Protesters moms and veterans, doctors, activists. All they want to do is speak out for liberty and justice. What donald trump is now doing is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy laid out by our founders and expanded throughout the generations. I believe what donald trump is doing, in light of his statement yesterday to america that hes going to go after one city after another, what donald trump is doing is totally out of control. The senate cannot allow this to happen. Thats why senator merkley and i are calling for the senate to act. I thank my friend and colleague for his leadership. Hes made it clear that 100 of oregons United States senators are going to keep pushing and fighting until this chaplains. Madam president , i yield the floor. Until this changes. Madam president , i yield the floor. Mr. Merkley madam president . The presiding officer the senator from oregon. Mr. Merkley the support is felt throughout oregon to stop secret policing in america. But it is a coasttocoast feeling, and i yield to my colleague from connecticut to speak from the other side of the country. Mr. Blumenthal madam president . The presiding officer the senator from connecticut. Mr. Blumenthal i want to thank from my heart our two colleagues from oregon, who are standing up and championing not just their hometowns, not just the constituents of their state. They are speaking for every hometown, every citizen of our country from every party from every corner of our great nation. And met me just say and let me just say very simply. These pictures of heavily armed, unidentified individuals in camouflage fatigues, driving unmarked vehicles, grab individuals, throwing them into their car, would be something we would associate with the Worst Nightmare of a twobit dictatorship. And here we see it in the United States of america. I spent almost my whole career in Law Enforcement before i came to this body, and i am embarrassed and ashamed that this kind of sadistic, cruel, hatefilled abuse was done in the name of Law Enforcement. What we witnessed in oregon was in no way Law Enforcement. It was a violation of the law and of individual rights. And it is coming to your hometown as well. The president has specifically named chicago, philadelphia, detroit, baltimore, oakland. It will come to hartford and my hometown, stanford, and other cities in connecticut. Have no fear. If the president will go to these abusive extremes on the other coast of america, he will come to the east coast as well. So let me just say, the requirements of this amendment identification of each officer, limiting federal agents to their proper role in protecting federal property, transparency, and deployment of these officers, identification of them and accountability are basic tenets of Law Enforcement. We should not have to address this issue on the floor of the United States senate. And were doing it only because the president has broken the norms. Hes disrespected the law. Every senator in this body, regardless of party, should be standing up and speaking out in support of this amendment. I thank my colleagues for speaking our truth to power. Thank you, madam president. I yield the floor. Mr. Merkley madam president . The presiding officer the senator from oregon. Mr. Merkley on behalf of the two oregon senators and my colleague from connecticut and the 34 other senators who are standing up for democracy, for rights, and against secret police, i ask unanimous consent to call up amendment 2457, an amendment to limit federal Law Enforcement officers for crowd control, that there be two hours for debate equally divided between opponents and proponents, that upon disposition of the tester eight of, the senate vote in relation to the amendment with no amendments in order prior to the vote with all other provisions under the previous order remaining in effect. The presiding officer is there objection . Mr. Inhofe reserving the right to object the presiding officer the senator from oklahoma. Mr. Inhofe well, first of all, i dont know how long ive sat and listened to this. Its a long time. Probably not as long as it seemed. Secret police, sadistic, cruel. Im beginning to come to the conclusions that theyre not going to be supporting donald trump for reelection. I rise to object to my colleagues request for unanimous consent. This body has worked together to carefully consider each and every one of the 739 amendments filed on the ndaa. Never happened before. Weve opted adopted those amendments that have broadbased, bipartisan support. The majority and minority worked together to determine which amendments would be brought up for a vote. Senator merkleys request for a u. C. Circumlent vents that circumvents that process. Further, this morning the senate adopted my commonsense amendment that will ensure that Law Enforcement has the right equipment and the right training. Senator merkleys amendment flies in the face of that responsible approach. His amendment would hamstring federal civil Law Enforcement and our military, even when operating in a title 32 status under the control of a state governor. This would hinder their ability to keep our communities safe. For these reasons, i object. Mr. Merkley madam president . The presiding officer the senator from oregon. Mr. Merkley i say to my colleague from oklahoma that if these secret police were loosed on the streets of tulsa, youd be done here defending your constituents. But you have a responsibility to defend all constituents across this country, the rights of all citizens of the United States of america. Im not asking you to support my bill. Im not asking you to make the arguments for it. Im not asking the im asking the simple courtesy that this chamber do the job its vested with under the constitution, take serious issues that arise in america, hold a dialogue about them on this floor and take votes to show the American People where we stand and hope to solve problems. I have no doubt wldnt get 100 votes. You raise some interesting points. You note that my request to debate a very serious issue in america circumvents process. I can tell you that for 200 years, this chamber believed it was here to address serious issues it, and they didnt raise process issues to keep serious issues from being debated. You didnt need unanimous consent. Just a few decades ago, i was here watching this chamber, working the Tax Reform Act and watching each amendment completed and as soon sasse it was done, the next and as soon as it was done, the next senator asked for the recognizeddition of the chair. It was all of a sudden mr. President now its often madam president but they were getting the attention because the next person who spoke got the next amendment. This this system has taken away the fundamental responsibility of senators to be able to introduce important issues in america, have them debated and voted on. My colleague says we have a new process where the majority leader and the Ranking Member of the committee consult and decide what should be considered. That concentration of bowr is totally at power is totally at odds with the division of this chamber. Mr. Inhofe will the senator yield . Mr. Merkley no. You said it sir circumvents process and you said it takes equipment and training away. My bill doesnt deal with equipment or training. So clearly that doesnt stand. You noted title 22 status under the control of the governor. But this bill says an expanded role of crowd control occurs under the permission of the governor, note without it. So this is why these issues should be debated on this floor, and i call on all of my colleagues to return to the senate to a police where serious and important issues regarding the rights of americans can be considered and not shoved aside because one member doesnt want them addressed. That is a challenge for this chamber, but we have a bigger challenge, which is how do we defend the rights of our citizens if we cant put an amendment on the floor and have it debated and voted on. To my colleagues that secret police have no role in america, that unidentified officers delegated without proper training, without coordination who are beating up Peaceful Protesters have no place in america, that being flown into a van and you dont know what that van is or who those people that has no place in america, and that the tactics of putin and turkey who have no place in government, those completion i thank and lets bring this those colleagues i thank and lets bring this issue to the floor and have the debate and have the vote. Mr. Merkley madam president , i note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call the presiding officer the senator from oregon. Were in a quorum call. Without objection. Mr. Merkley i ask unanimous consent that senators rosen and hassan be added as cosponsors to Senate Amendment 2457 to reform the department of defense and to senate bill 4049, of amendment to the national Defense Authorization act for fiscal year 2021. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Merkley madam president. Apologies to my colleague from wyoming. I think we are not in a quorum call. The presiding officer we are not. Mr. Merkley i ask unanimous consent that hassan and senators be added to 4427. The presiding officer without objection. The senator from wyoming. Mr. Barrasso i have six requests for committees to meet during todays session of the senate with the approval of the majority and minority leaders. The presiding officer duly noted. Mr. Barrasso thank you, madam president. I come to the floor today to discuss our economic recovery. Let me be clear. Our economy will not shut down again. Government will not forcibly close businesses for a second time. Yes, america is coming back from the coronavirus. The prepandemic economy was strong. It was healthy and it was growing. Every part of the economy had record job growth. Unemployment was at a 50year low. Shutting down the economy slowed the spread of the virus but it did not eliminate it. It saved lives and it brought us time. Reopening was never conditioned on having a vaccine or eliminating the virus entirely. Businesses, large and small, are today continuing to reopen and they are opening in a safe scientific and sensible way. I saw it all across wyoming the last two weeks as i traveled the state. In casper and cheyenne main streets are busy again, mom and pop businesses are bringing back workers. Cody was full of activity over the 4th of july. Yellowstone is welcoming thousands of visitors and people are heading to all of the activities in thermopolis. The rodeos have been a huge success. Wyoming is literally back in the saddle again. Businesses all over the country are bouncing back and bringing back workers. In june the economy added nearly five million jobs. This shattered all forecasts. This was by far the largest monthly job gain in u. S. History. More than seven Million People have been hired back in the last two months. May and june job creation set records. The recent rise in the new covid19 cases, to me as a doctor, is troubling. Still, it is no reason to stop reopening as long as we open in a responsible way. Now, people have made great sacrifices. We all did what the experts said we needed to do. Now americans are ready to get back to business and get back to work. People dont want another shutdown, and you know that, madam president , youve seen that in your own home state. And they most assuredly dont want laws coming out of congress to make it easier to stay closed and heard to harder to reopen. As a doctor i know we can flatten the virus curve without flattening or flatlining the economy. People can resume normal life and stay healthy. The key, of course, is for all of us do our part and take the proper precautions and we know what they are. Social distancing, good hygiene, and, of course, wearing masks. As a doctor i know masks help lower the infection spread, especially indoors when we cant socially distance. Together we can manage the risks and as a nation we can move forward. Millions of americans are returning to work and doing it safely. Congresss Rapid Response to the pandemic back in march set this recovery in motion. Medical workers now have better tools for virus testing, for treating the disease and for developing a vaccine. Americans are doing everything they can to protect the most vulnerable. Were taking care of seniors and people with chronic medical conditions. The country is conducting a Record Number of tests. More than 45 Million People have been tested i think the number is now close to 50 million. Well over 700,000 tests each day. Widespread testing allows us to pinpoint virus hotspots so that were able to surge aid where it is most needed. Hospitals now have more effective covid19 treatments. Ive talked to doctors around the state of wyoming and around the country. Were seeing incredible progress in vaccine trials. A successful vaccine is vital to beating the virus. Now its key to the economic comeback as well. Scientists hope to have a vaccine ready in record time, actually before the end of this calendar year. All of this progress has given businesses the confidence to reopen and to put people back to work. A solid majority of americans now will tell you that they see their finances as being stable. Consumer spending in the last two months has been way up, manufacturing has started to take off again. Simply put, the prohealth, projobs policies that this senate has put in place, those policies, madam president , are working. And were only getting started. Now Congress Must build on the cares act successes. The next bill, the one that were working on now, cannot be a bloated bailout bonanza. We will not pass speaker pelosis bill from handout heaven. Madam president , no. The next aid measure must be focused. It must be focused on health care and safety and schools and jobs. Heres my threepart test for the next pandemic package. Will it save lives . Will it save lives . Testing, treatment, vaccinening im very optimistic vaccine and im optistic about the research with the new vaccine. Will it protect Small Businesses and schools from lawsuits. 3,500 have already been filed across the country by sue and settle lawyers focused on coronavirus. And will it get people back to work and children back to School Safely . Madam president , we must help schools reopen in a safe way. Children need to get back to school. It is essential for their wellbeing. Now, thats why the nations pediatricians, the American Academy of pediatrics is urging schools to reopen and they say with the children physically present with the children physically present. Remote learning, we know for very young people has not worked. Children cannot lose another year of school. To lose a full year of school, madam president , for these young people, would be devastating. It would be a learning loss as well as a loss of the ability to learn and making it that much harder to pick up further down the line. And if kids arent in school, many parents cant go back to work. Most people with their jobs cannot work from home. So i urge my kliegs colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the democratic colleagues, to join us, join your effort to reopen our economy and reopen our schools. Thank you, madam president. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call mr. Blumenthal madam president. The presiding officer the senator from connecticut. Mr. Blumenthal thank you, madam president. Madam president , i think we can be are we in a quorum call . The presiding officer we are yes, we are. Mr. Blumenthal i ask that the quorum call be lifted. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Blumenthal madam president. The presiding officer the senator from connecticut. Mr. Blumenthal thank you. Madam president , im proud to talk about the national Defense Authorization act which has come to this body with a strong bipartisan vote from the Armed Services committee where i serve. Im proud to have helped to craft this legislation. And im proud to be voting for some of the amendments that have been permitted votes on the floor. One that has not been permitted relates to the insurrection act, a 213yearold law that has been invoked at various points in our history to protect civil rights, as it was during the era of desegregation. But President Trump had threatened to use this slaveryera law to silence calls for justice from americans protesting centuries of racist oppression. In effect, he had threatened to invert the insurrection act to deprive americans of their First Amendment rights, and so i introduced the bill called the civil act that would preserve president ial accountability to Congress Whenever the insurrection act is invoked. It would require the president to consult with Congress Prior to invoking the act and provide certification to congress to justify the use of this. He has other provisions. It was voted down in the markup of the Armed Services committee, but i sought a vote on the floor, and apparently it wont happen. If the president uses force against americans at home, congress should demand at least the same check that applied to his use of force against adversaries abroad. I offered this act as an amendment, and im grateful to all my democratic colleagues on the committee for supporting it. I am also grateful to the house of representatives that just yesterday passed an ndaa amendment to its bill modifying the civil act which i introduced. Its called curtailing insurrection act violations of individual liberties. And i would like to thank my colleagues on the house side who supported this amendment, particularly congresswoman escobar who led the charge in the house Armed Services committee and on the house floor. I urge that our colleagues, whether its now in the course of considering the ndaa or at some point in the future, to hold the president , any president were talking not only about this president but any president accountable when he uses military force against americans, when the American Military and troops of our country are used against americans, there ought to be at least the same accountability as when american troops are used abroad with the same kind of checks. Maybe not identical but the same kind of checks because the president using troops against our own citizens denies potentially fundamental freedom and the need for accountability is even more urgent. Our military should defend liberties, not endanger them, misdirected by a misguided president. Despite my disappointment in the senates lack of action to curtail the president s unaccountable use and abuse of military power, im proud of a number of provisions that i also authored in this bill that invests in our most valuable military asset, our Service Members and their families. Im grateful to all of the military spouses and advocates from across the country who have shared their challenges with me and my office, their stories, their voices and faces made an immensely impactful difference. We used their difference to craft these overdue policies, and i want to say to those families, those spouses and loved ones, that they serve as much as the men and women they support in uniform. The ndaa includes important provisions that i championed to hold commanders accountable to military families, make child care more affordable, expand support for military moms and prevent Mental Health discrimination. These measures are profoundly important. Provisions i offered with senator mccain will make child care more affordable by authorizing hardship waivers, requiring fee reductions for families with more than one child, and the ndaa will support those military moms by extending tricare to include other kinds of services. The connecticut military Industrial Base will benefit from the increased expenditure, the robust investment in two virginia class submarines. My priority during the negotiations on the Conference Committee will be to advance this cause. Madam president , with your permission, i am going to interrupt to yield to the majority leader so that he can remark on the remaining business, and then i will resume. Mr. Mcconnell my friend from connecticut, this will only take a minute. The presiding officer without objection. The majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell i move to proceed to executive session and consider calendar number 643. The presiding officer the question is on the motion. All in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes have it. The clerk will report the nomination. The clerk nomination, the judiciary, William Scott hardy of pennsylvania to be United States district judge for the Western District of pennsylvania. Mr. Mcconnell i send a cloture motion to the desk. The presiding officer the clerk will report the cloture motion. 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 William Scott hardy of pennsylvania to be a United States district judge for the Western District of pennsylvania, signed by 17 senators as follows mr. Mcconnell i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Mcconnell i ask consent the mandatory quorum call be waived. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Mcconnell i thank my friend from connecticut. I yield the floor. Mr. Blumenthal thank you, leader mcconnell. Madam president , if i may resume. The presiding officer the senator from connecticut. Mr. Blumenthal these provisions for expanding our production of submarine and other military platforms must also focus on our supply base, on the workforce that keeps us safe, on men and women who comprise indeed the most talented workforce using and building unmatched military technology to keep our country secure. We should keep in mind the families of our military and continue fighting for even more provisions that enable them to continue their great work, but these military platforms assure that our troops will never have a fair fight, that they will always be superior no matter what the terrain or arena or the fight. Im pleased that the ndaa makes robust investments in connecticuts Industrial Base, and i will make as my top priority during the negotiations of the Conference Committee to restore full funding for two submarines, even beyond the commitment in this ndaa to a second virginia class submarine in this budget authorization. I was pleased again to see action by the house which provides for two fully funded virginia class submarines in the house Armed Services Committee Version of the ndaa. And in addition to fully funding the First Columbia class submarine, a historic milestone for this program, the Senate Version added an additional 175 million for columbia class supplier investments. The heroes in this story are not only the big contractors, they are the supply chain, not only the companies with hundreds of employees, but the components makers and the Parts Manufacturers that may make tiny pieces of the submarine by comparison to its massive length. But they are all heroes of our Defense Industrial production. People are the foundation of the submarine Industrial Base, and this bill authorizes an additional 20 million in Workforce Development funding, and i will seek to expand a Supplier Development program which provides the kind of support that the supply chain needs. We must ensure that the final bill preserves not only the next level of funding for the virginia class and the columbia class submarines, but also for continued growth of our fifth generation fighter fleet. Its a key component of our National Defense, the Senate Version of the ndaa authorizes the growth of the f35 fleet by 93 aircraft, including 14 aircraft above the president s budget request. I remain a staunch advocate of the ch53k program, and i was happy to see the House Appropriations Defense Committee fund nine ch53k helicopters. Im going to work to continue to ensure that the final ndaa also authorizes nine helicopters. I want to congratulate and thanks pratt whitney, raytheon technology, sikorski, and again the many suppliers throughout connecticut that contribute to an Aerospace Program second to none in the world. And finally, let me talk a little bit about the fair care for Vietnam Veterans act of 2020. Later this week, well vote on an amendment to the ndaa based on a bicameral fair care for veterans act of 2020. In march, i, along with senator tester and 30 senate colleagues, introduced this legislation to require the v. A. To provide benefits for veterans suffering from bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, parkinsonism, and hypertension. The National Academy recognized that these illnesses have an association with herbicide exposure. It reached that conclusion in 2016, and since then, i have been fighting, along with many of my colleagues, to get the v. A. To include these four conditions that is presumptive linked to agent orange, only to have this Administration Officials block us at every turn despite the scientific proof, the incontrovertible science that these conditions are linked to agent orange and despite more than 3,000 veterans who suffer from these conditions, the Trump Administration v. A. Resisted and refused to acknowledge the connection. I look forward to voting to add bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, and parkinsons to the list of agent orange presum presumptives. One condition in our bill, hypertension, was not included in this ndaa amendment, but i am committed to adding it during conference. It is supported by the science as a condition linked to agent orange. The Trump Administration says it doesnt want to spend the money to cover the four exns in this bill, but when we send people to war, we make a commitment. We make a commitment and we accept an obligation to treat them, no matter what the costs, no matter what the costs of their servicerelated injuries are, when the science and the facts support it. Facts are stubborn things, as many have said. To veterans in connecticut and nationwide, i will never stop fighting to get Good Health Care for our veterans, and i know this issue is bipartisan in its support. So i look forward to voting in favor of f. Y. 2021 ndaa, but i also think our colleagues must recognize that military spending alone does not guarantee our National Security. These weapons platforms and the hardware that we produce does not constitute alone our National Defense. It is the quality of our people, whether they are in the supply chain or the defense establishment or our troops on the ground or in the air, at sea , to recruit and train the best possible military. We need to have a strong nonmilitary infrastructure. Education, health care, housing. Our National Defense includes those essential components. And so i believe that we must scrutinize this budget with a view to reducing any expenditures that are unnecessary, and i will state as a matter of principle when we vote on this ndaa that i will be supporting amendments that potentially achieve more equity and effectiveness in the way we make commitments in support of our National Defense. And we must interpret as broadly as is necessary how that defense must be supported. Its not alone the money in this ndaa. Its also how we commit to racial justice, the quality of our policing and the quality of our education, which should not depend on a Young Persons zip code; the quality of our health care, which right now has Racial Disparities that are inexcusable; housing that often results from redlining. And protections in the workplace which could be achieved by a fairer, more effective use of osha. The quality of our society and our projection of power abroad depends on our quality of life and the quality of services that we provide on education and health care and housing and all of the other infrastructure, including transportation. So we need to consider those factors and do what is necessary to assure that our war fighters and our military never have a fair fight, that they always predominate on the battlefield. And we must protect our veterans to whom we make the commitment that we will always have their back when they come home. Thank you. Madam president , i ask unanimous consent that my statement appear uninterrupted in the congressional record. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Blumenthal thank you, madam president. And i yield the floor. Mr. Moran madam president . The presiding officer the senator from kansas. Mr. Moran madam president , thank you. I am here this evening to discuss a tragic issue that is affecting way too many, way too Many Americans across the country. This tragedy is Mental Health and suicide. The majority of americans are encountering unprecedented amounts of stress due to covid19 and resources previously used to help individuals to cope are even more limited. What is more concerning is that compounding stressors and depleted resources increase the like layhood of Public Health disparities like the one i am discussing today. If there ever was a time to invest in Mental Health, it is now. In a recent article from the journal of the american medical asoldiers, researchers discussed several risk factors that put our nation collectively at a higher risk for suicide. These risk factors include economic stress, increased access to community and religious support systems, lack of access to adequate Mental Health, and Suicide Prevention services and social isolation. This has unfortunately caused a severe lack of personal and social connection which we know to be a protective factor against suicide. This evening i want to specifically highlight veterans as they face unique risk factors for suicide in addition to the increased stress around covid19. Veteran have a higher rate of suicide than their civilian peers. We know there is not one single reason for suicide and there is no one single treatment or prevention strategy. While posttraumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries are predominant around veterans, we now realize other conditions such as depression, anxiety and Substance Use disorder also contribute to suicide among veterans and all americans. Our veterans are fighting new battles and the stress coughed by caused by covid19 has only exacerebrated exaber baited these exacerbated these issues. A 74yearold veteran died and another former green beret here in washington, d. C. , died. They are two of the 20 veterans who are lost each day to suicide, a number we know is way too far great. The army recently lost a respected soldier known as captain america, Master Sergeant fought in afghanistan and according to news reports, 30 soldiers from his unit have died by suicide since their 2009 deployment. Until the end, the Master Sergeant was encouraging members of his old unit to reach out and talk if they found themselves struggling, telling them, quote, dont let the valley win. Even soldiers who try to be strong for others find themselves in a circumstance where they dont see another option and they lose their battle. Madam president , another veteran i want to highlight who fought a battle with her Mental Health was commander hannon. His dd214 says he was a decorated navy seal. The wounds he bore as a result. His family and friends remember him ace a passionate Mental Health advocate for veterans with a gentle heart and a fierce belief in taking tangible actions to tack 8 big challenges. To tackle big challenges. He lost his courageous fight with the posttraumatic stress disorder, bipolar scarred and the effects of a traumatic brain injury in 2018. He lives on in the memories of his friends and families and as the namesake of pivotal legislation new england the senate that of pivotal legislation in the senate that i am pleased to lead. Our committee has been working closely with the v. A. And the white house to improve upon and advance the commander jon scott hannon act, senate bill 785, which will make necessary investments in Suicide Prevention services, Innovative Research and improvements to menial health care. This bill will establish a Grant Program that requires the v. A. , the Department Veterans affairs, to better collaborate with a Community Organizations across the country already serving veterans. This collaboration will result in earlier identification of veterans who are at risk of suicide and will provide the ability to intervene with preventive services. This is a provision championed by my colleague from arkansas, senator boozman. Additionally you this legislation requires the v. A. To Bolster Research efforts upon brain and Mental Health conditions, expand upon tellly Health Partnership to provide better care to veterans in rural areas, allow veterans to take advantage of emerging complementary and integrative treatments and really so much more. This Bipartisan Legislation received a unanimous 170 vote in the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs earlier this year and the time to act by the full senate is now. We should not wait. The increased risk factors coupled with the negative effects of the pandemic could be a perfect storm for our veterans as researchers from the American Psychological association molted in a recent article. With this in mind, i am calling on my colleagues to do our part to make certain that every veteran has access to lifesaving conveyor and support, that they need. We need to ensure that every v. A. Medical center is equipped with the proper personnel, evidencebased Treatment Options and best researchinformed care to meet the needs of teach veteran that walks through the hospital door. For veterans and Service Members like ha. In non and makasano, they dont have to struggle alone. This legislation will help connect these veterans to more resources to provide them tools related to their service. To my colleagues, we have a significant role and responsibility to combat this struggle and here today we can do our part to make certain that in the end, the valley does not win. In the spirit of this bills namesake, we must take real and urgent action to tackle this challenge together. As we seek swift action on s. 785 on the Senate Floors i ask my colleagues to join us in our fight against suicide. And lastly to the veterans across the country who may hear this message today who are experiencing thoughts of suicide, i ask you to reach out for help. Call a trusted friend, family member, or reach out to the Veterans Crisis line. That number is 18002738255. And then press one. Again, 18002738255, followed by press one. I was pleased to know that in future dash in the future, this crisis line will be updated to 988. This is because of senate act because the senate acted on my legislation along with senator gardner to designate 988 as the new National Suicide and Mental Health crisis hotline earlier this year and last week the f. C. C. Announced they will make this designation operational by july 16, 2022. Madam president , suicide is preventable and now is the time that we take the stand necessary to protect the lives of people who have given so much for our nation. They have protected us. We need to protect them. Madam president , i yield the floor. Mrs. Loeffler madam president. The presiding officer the senator from georgia. Mrs. Loeffler madam president , in downtown atlanta theres a 56foot mural of congressman john lewis with the caption, hero. I got to see it from the downtown connector as i drove to the airport, i was struck by the void left by his passing not only in georgia but across our entire country. When parents teach their children about courage and the fight for freedom and equality, the story of congressman john lewis will be told. He dedicated his entire life to pushing america to live up to its promises. He championed nonviolent protest. He stood for community, justice, and love. Congressman lewis story has inspired millions. At just 18, he wrote to dr. Martin luther king jr. When he sought to attend the allwhite troy state university. He went on to become a leader in the civil rights movement. He organized sitins at segregated lunch counters in nashville. He was on the buses during the 1961 freedom rides. He was the youngest speaker at the 1963 march on washington and he was brutally beaten while leading demonstrators across the bridge in selma, alabama. He served georgia in the u. S. House of representatives where he was known as the conscience of congress. He was also known for his many bipartisan friendships, one of them was with my predecessor, senator johnny isakson, a true statesman. They shared a powerful moment last year here on the senate floor when congressman lewis embraced him during farewell speeches to the senator, one of the most touching moments in the senate. Georgia also lost reverend c. T. Viffian. He and congressman lewis were champions of peaceful nonviolent protests and i hope we can honor their legacy by using nonviolent means as we strive toward equality and a more perfect union. Georgians cannot think of our beloved state without thinking of these and other civil rights leaders like dr. Martin luther king jr. Our nation is better because of their leadership and their courage. Their legacy will never be forgotten. May god comfort the lewis and viffian families during this incredibly difficult time. Madam president , i unanimous consent that my following remarks appear separately in the record. The presiding officer without objection. Mrs. Loeffler madam president , this spring 14yearold hanina vans swaila vanwasla was killed as part of an initiation into an ms13 gang. The d. A. Called it the most horrific death in recent history. His murder left two children without a father. In 2010, 11yearold nicholas was shot and killed sleeping in his bed during a driveby shooting in georgia. These are three of too many lives lost tragically cut short due to senseless Gang Violence. In georgia there are over 21,000 gang members representing a variety of gangs, including an allwhite gang in georgia, and the gangster desiefals and the airian brother hood. Nationwide there are more than 1. 4 million members and 33,000 gangs across the u. S. According to the most recent gang report, half of all Law Enforcement officials report that gangrelated violence has increased in each of their jurisdictions. Thankfully President Trump and georgia leaders have taken strong action to address the rising tide of Gang Violence and to end the cycles of violence that they cause. For the First Time Ever the department of justice has brought terrorism charges against a member of the ms13 gang, taking action against their leader and 21 other gang members. Under the leadership of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and attorney general chris carr, my home state of georgia has led the way on confronting Gang Violence, passing legislation that gives prosecutors the tools they need to disrupt and dismantle these terrible gang networks. Today im introducing the cracking down on gangs and deporting criminals act to apply georgias antigang procommunity measures across our country. This legislation, based on the georgia law that attorney general carr has called one of the strongest statutes in the nation, aims to deter and punish criminals who set out to destroy lives and communities. This includes Violent Crimes like the murders of hanina, christopher, and nicholas. In addition to violence, gangs run elaborate drug operations. One recent bust in Pickens County last month resulted in the arrest of nearly 50 individuals. Law enforcement confiscated nearly 2 million of methamphetamine from a drug ring. And they deal in the abhorrent world of Human Trafficking. A study in san diego found that an astounding 85 of those involved in Human Trafficking were involved in gangs. It is difficult for prosecutors to meet to hold someone accountable for their participation in a street gang. The legislation im introducing today will make it easier for federal prosecutors to seek harsh sentences for gang activity. It will facilitate the removal of criminal gang members who are in our country illegally and it would create a National Gang database making it easier to eradicate these gang networks. We need to take action now to take violent gang members off of our streets across the country violence is skyrocketing in our cities while radicals call to defund and abolish the police. The troubling decline in support for Law Enforcement, coupled with the effects of the pandemic and recent unrest, threatens the further spread of Gang Violence across communities in america. The cracking down on gangs and deporting criminals act will help keep our communities safe and support Law Enforcement in their work to rout out gang activities. No family should have to go through what hanina, nicholas and christophers did. Families should be able to send their children off to School Without worrying about making it home and chirnt shouldnt fear that children shouldnt fear their parents wont return home. It is time to hold gangs accountable for their vial and even vile and evil actions and keep the public safe. I yield the floor. Mrs. Loeffler i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. Res. 654, submitted earlier today. The presiding officer the senator from georgia. The senator from georgia. Mrs. Loeffler i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of s. Res. 654, submitted earlier today. The presiding officer mrs. Loeffler i ask unanimous consent dproosh the senator from georgia the presiding officer the senator from georgia. Mrs. Loeffler i ask unanimous consent 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. Mrs. Loeffler i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. Res. 654, submitted earlier today. The presiding officer the clerk will report. The clerk Senate Resolution 654, designating july 25, 2020, as national day of the american cowboy. The presiding officer is there objection to proceeding to the measure . Without objection. The senate will proceed. Mrs. Loeffler i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to and the the preamble be agreed to, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. The presiding officer is there objection . Without objection. Mrs. Loeffler i ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 3989, and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. The presiding officer the clerk will report. The clerk s. 3989, a bill to amend the United States semiquinn Centennial Commission act of 2016 and so forth and for other purposes. The presiding officer is there objection to proceeding . Without objection, the committees discharged and the senate will proceed. Mrs. Loeffler i ask unanimous consent that the bill will be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The presiding officer is there objection . Without objection. Mrs. Loeffler madam president. The presiding officer the senator from georgia. Mrs. Loeffler i ask unanimous consent that at 12 10 tomorrow, all debate time with respect to the sanders amendment 1788 and tester amendment 1972, as modified, expire and the senate vote in relation to those amendments in that order, with all other provisions under the order of july 2 remaining in effect with respect to these amendments. Finally, that the time from 11 20 a. M. Until 12 10 p. M. Be under the control of senator sanders, and that ten minutes be under the control of senator sullivan prior to the votes in this series. The presiding officer is there objection . Without objection. Mrs. Loeffler i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it will adjourn until 10 00 a. M. Wednesday, july 22. Further, that the that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning business 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 that morning business be closed. Finally, following leader remarks, that the senate resume consideration of calendar number 483, s. 4049 under the previous order. The presiding officer is there objection . Without objection. Mrs. Loeffler if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. The presiding officer the the presiding officer the and that the senate is gobbling out they continued work today on the authorization bill 2021 earlier they agreed to an amendment by arms chair that plays a some restrictions on u. S. Military equipment transferred to Law Enforcement agencies. Their expected finish work on the bill. Follow live on cspan2. Strack u. S. Attorney general william barr appears before the Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on the Justice Department on tuesday, july 28 watch live coverage on cspan, watch any time on cspan. Org. Or listen on the go with the cspan radio app. So treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and secretary staff mark meadows were in capitol hill today to talk about the next round of Coronavirus Relief legislation was senate republicans. Follow the closeddoor meeting Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell and other Republican Leaders talk to reporters