Quorum call a senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from colorado. Mr. Bennet thank you, mr. President. Id ask the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Bennet thank you. Mr. President , as you know, last night, President Trump fired f. B. I. Director james comey. He did this in the middle of an active f. B. I. Investigation into possible links between the Trump Campaign, Trump Associates and the russian government. This action should worry every member of the senate. And i know it worries the people we represent. My office has been flooded with calls since this decision became public. Americans are asking why this firing happened now, why the firing happened at all, and they are right to ask. Officially, President Trump said the f. B. I. Directors dismissal was necessary to restore, quote, the public trust and confidence in the f. B. I. That is laughable. Anybody who knows director comey or knows the f. B. I. Knows that that statement is completely false. I have had my issues with the decisions that director comey has made over the past months. Ive never called for his removal, but i know that he did not have a negative effect on morale at the Justice Department or in the f. B. I. I have worked for a Deputy Attorney general of the United States. Im so disappointed in the tone of the letter written by this Deputy Attorney general. We have learned this afternoon at the request of the president of the United States. Not a letter that came up through the chain at d. O. J. But a conversation the public reports are tonight a conversation that happened at the white house where the Deputy Attorney general and the president agreed that mutually they had decided it was time for director comey to go and the president apparently asked the Deputy Attorney general to put it in writing. And then he wrote a letter that the type of which i have never seen come from the Deputy Attorney Generals Office. I have worked on reports that we made with the office of professional responsibility at the department of justice. I never saw a report like this before. But what i really find amazing about this decision and i dont know why the decision was made. Im the first to say i dont know. But what i find amazing about it, having been in the senate, having worked at the Deputy Attorney Generals Office at the department of justice, that nobody at the white house said to the the president maybe the best thing to do is not to fire the f. B. I. Director when he is in the middle of an investigation about ties of your campaign to russia. Because maybe that will undermine americans confidence in the rule of law. Maybe that will undermine americans confidence in this administration and worry people that the f. B. I. Isnt treating this fairly. That idea that not a Single Member of the administration was successful in making that case to the president is really worrisome to me tonight. And its one of the reasons why people think the answer of why this firing occurred is simply not credible. President trump, unlike some, has repeatedly praised director comey over the past months. He said he had guts. He said i respect him a lot. And now overnight based on a completely nonroutine letter written at the request of the president , hes gone 180 degrees. The American People deserve an explanation for this unprecedented action. They do deserve an explanation tonight. They deserve one this afternoon. They know this isnt how our government is supposed to work. And i think the reason why people in colorado and other parts of the country, im sure, are concerned is that this dismissal is not the first action the president has taken thats raised concerns about his commitment to the rule of law, his commitment to the independent judiciary or to the freedom of the press under the First Amendment when he doesnt like the scrutiny he or his administration are getting from a free press. He does not have a fundamental appreciation for the basic institutions and traditions of this country. Its a great irony i think at this moment in our politics that the president represents a radical view of American History and american traditions, and its my hope that this senate, republicans and democrats working together, can express together a conservative view of those traditions. A view that says we need to preserve the sanctity of the rule of law. We need to preserve and elevate the idea that the Judicial Branch is an independent judiciary separate from the legislative branch, separate from the executive branch. The founders knew that when they wrote the constitution, and their biggest concern or one of their biggest concerns was that somehow the judiciary and the executive branch might reach some sort of unholy alliance that would all of a sudden call the rule of law into question. And i think thats why people are worried. They are worried because they remember this president slandered a judge because of his ethnicity and said that he wouldnt be able to decide a case fairly because of where his parents came from. They remember his attacks on the free press as well when he doesnt like their reporting and his resorting to talking about fake news when he doesnt like their reporting. Mr. President , i have had to talk with so Many High School students and middle School Students in colorado over the last four or five months about this whole question of fake news and what the importance is of edited content to our society and again to our commitment to the rule of law, the importance that middle School Students and High School Students place on edited content, on curated content, their ability to distinguish between something that is science or something that is real, something that is edited versus somebody shooting their mouth off on the internet. The president has a hard time making that distinction as well. He has shown little regard for the traditions and norms that our founders established when they created the separation of powers. And so i say to my colleagues tonight the senate Must Stand Firm and speak with one voice. Democrats and republicans. We now have a vacancy in the f. B. I. Director, and we need to make sure whoever that is, whoever replaces james comey pledges to continue the Ongoing Investigation and reinforce the f. B. I. s independence from influence, undue influence from the white house. That needs to be nonnegotiable. And in my view, thats the least that must happen. In order for the American People to learn the full truth, the Deputy Attorney general Must Immediately appoint an independent special prosecutor to investigate russian interference in the 2016 election, which, by the way, everybody i know up here believes happened. The president continues to say maybe it was the chinese. Maybe it wasnt the russians. No Intelligence Agency in america believes that. No senator believes that. And the president who has access to all of that intelligence is saying it might not have been the russians. It was that it might be the chinese. We need to know. Im not prejudging the result, but we need to know what these links were, if there were links, between the Trump Campaign and the russian government. These are serious questions that need answers. I worry a lot about what the president has said about our ally in europe, what the president has said about nato, what the president has said about the european union, none of which serves the National Security interests of the United States but is an invitation to the russians to continue to meddle in elections, not just here but in western europe, and Eastern Europe as well. Its hard for me to see how thats in anybodys National Security interests except for the russians. Or president putin. Our intelligence agencies have been Crystal Clear to the members of congress that the russian government tried to influence the 2016 election in President Trumps favor. The American People deserve to know what the truth is, what is the extent of these relationships because it goes to the core of our security. It goes to the heart of our democracy. That is why preserving this investigations integrity is so vital, and i can tell you the American People are not going to relent. I understand there will be some time here when people want to collect their thoughts, gather their thoughts. The American People are not going to relent. They are going to want an independent investigation here, for all americans, and i would say most of the time, but certainly at moments like this, a moment in the course of our politics when they say to us partisanship needs to give way to patriotism. This is one of those moments. And i urge every member of this body, every member of congress to rise above the pressures of the moment and see this not as just another skirmish in our endless and often pathetic feuding but as a test of the resilience of these institutions. And of our public. A test whether we as Congress Stand for something more than winning praise from our base in a cable news cycle. Or in or in the next election, whether we take our oaths and our security and our country first. I yield the floor. The presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell i ask unanimous consent the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Mcconnell i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 00 a. M. Thursday, may 11, further, following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved until later in the day, and morning business be closed. Further, following leader remarks the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of thelight Robert Robert nomination the Robert Lightzer nomination. I ask that the senate stand adjourned following the remarks of senator whitehouse and senator tillis. The presiding officer is there objection . Without objection. Mr. Tillis mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from North Carolina. Mr. Tillis thank you, mr. President. Mr. President , today i rise to discuss the new f. D. A. Commissioner, or more specifically, the role that the agency must play in tackling one of the Biggest Health crisis of our day, one i have personal experience with. Unless we act decisively, this crisis will only grow in terms of the staggering human and economic crisis. That is the alzheimers. It affects patients, families, and communities across the nation. I learned firsthand about alzheimers disease when my mother was robbed of many of her golden years at a relatively early age in her 70. There is an estimated 160,000 in my state of North Carolina are living with alzheimers. Estimates project the number of alzheimers patients to grow to 16 million by 2050 with an annual cost of more than 1 trillion to the health care system. Alzheimers disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and its a current and growing problem. It is the only top ten disease for causes of death, i should say, that cannot be prevented, it cant be cured. We cant even slow the pace of the disease. Simply put, we need a war on alzheimers disease like we have on cancer. As and country, we must take the fight to this awful disease. It should be one of our highest priorities to support the discovery and development of new medicines for the millions of patients who currently havele alzheimers and the millions more who may develop it in the future. We need medicines to slow the progression of the disease, we need medicines to reverse its effects, we need medicines to cure alzheimers disease and one day we need medicines to prevent it in the first place. Thats where the f. D. A. Comes in. The new commissioner must make alzheimers an urgent priority. Obviously the science of developing new medicines and technologies is complicated under any circumstances. And those challenges are compounded by the fact that we still do not fully understand the disease, its causes or how to stop it. But the f. D. A. Does hard things and and they and they often do them very well. The new commissioner must ask tough questions of the agency. Are they doing everything they can to develop safe and effective new drugs for alzheimers . Are they using all the tools at their disposal and using them flexibly to advance this goal . Do they have the right policies to be facilitators of and not barriers to important efforts to innovate in this space . I recently visited with dr. Gottlieb in my office and was pleased to hear the battle against alzheimers is a Mission Critical item for him. I assume that pervades the f. D. A. I want to be clear i do not know the answers to the questions related to f. D. A. Specific repghtry polls regulatory related to alzheimers. I think that is best left to medical experts. I know the status quo. The current standard of care is not enough for patients or our nation, inaction is not acceptable. America is at its finest when we come together to do big things. Now is the time to commit to stop the suffering and death from alzheimers. The f. D. A. Didnt do this alone. This is an all hands on deck kind of battle, but the f. D. A. Will play a Critical Role in tack j this in tackling this Public Health priority. I was pleased with dr. Gottliebs confirmation yesterday. I look forward to working with him to do everything we can to defeat alzheimers. For those of us who will continue to be caretakers for alzheimers patients, i hope we will find a cure. It is a fiscal crisis we can avert, with the right focus by the f. D. A. And this congress, i am convinced this is a disease that we can take the war and win the war in our lifetime, in the near future. Mr. President , i encourage the f. D. A. And all of my members to stand in battling this terrible disease so that we can end it once and for all. Thank you, mr. President. I yield the floor. The presiding officer the senator from rhode island. Mr. Whitehouse thank you very much, mr. President. It is perhaps a providential happenstance that i should be giving this particular speech while the senator from louisiana is presiding because we are both coastal states and im sure that he will find things that are familiar in my rhode island remarks, particularly given that his governor has declared the louisiana coast a state of emergency due to sealevel rise. As the presiding officer knows, one place where the effects of Climate Change are most evident is in our oceans and along our coasts. Rhode island is the ocean state and we have almost 400 miles of beautiful coastline. Everyone in rhode island lives less than a halfhour from the shore. We count on a healthy ocean and vibrant coasts. Our ocean economy, including fishing, tourism and shipbuilding amounts to nearly 2. 5 billion every year. Perhaps not what louisianas coastal economy is, but pretty good for our small state and it employs over 42,000 rhode islanders. Warming, acidifying and rising oceans are a clear and present danger to many aspects of our rhode island way of life. Sealevel rise now threatens to remake our rhode island coast, swallowing lowlying land, widening existing inlets, eroding beaches and stranding higher shore front as new islands. For my 166th time to wake up speech, i want to show the senate what this new island chain the new rhode island island chain would look like. This a new Technology Allows us to show these changes and the science shows they may be coming sooner than we thought. How soon and how much . There is a new report that was released in january updating global sealevel rise estimates based on the latest pier peerreviewed scientific literature. Sea ice and glaciers are melting faster than expected. Raising the sea level. The we do nothing on Climate Change scenario by around 20 inches. When noaa and its partners applied these findings to americas coast, take manage into account things like regional circulation and gravitational pull and erosion settling and depletion of groundwater, the news was particularly harsh for the northeast Atlantic Coast from virginia to maine, including rhode island. Our Rhode Island Resources Management Council is telling us that for planning purposes we need to face the possibility of nine to 12 vertical feet of sealevel rise along our shores by the end of this century. A little girl born today at Rhode Islands women and infants hospital will likely actuarially live to see all of these changes, and that invasion of our shores by the rising ocean will leave Rhode Islands map unrecognizable. Early explorers to rhode island found our coastline looking much like it does today and before the 1600s, it had looked much the same for many centuries further before that to the narragansetts who lived here. In the 19th century the Industrial Revolution which began in america in rhode island brought our nation great wealth, but it also created manmade pollution which began to change our climate. Climate change causes sea levels to rise. As oceans warm, they expand and as the world warms, ice sheets melt and pour water into the oceans. We measure these things happening. This is not a guess or projection. Rhode islands coastal Resources Management council has developed storm tools which is an online simulation that models sealevel rise and storm surge so that we can see ahead what is coming at us. Once again, science gives us the headlights to look forward and see whats coming at us and this is what rhode island can expect. Here is the highwater scenario. This is the upper part of narragansett bay in rhode island, including providence up here, warwick and warwick neck and Greenwich Bay over here to the west, bristol and warren here with Mount Hope Bay to the east. This is the same image overlaying that previous scenario with the scenario that Rhode Islands crmc now predicts for our state. This bright blue color is land now that gets covered up with ten feet of sealevel rise and this teal color is what we get when the sealevel rise hits 12 feet. Over here, bristol gets two new islands and bristol and warren become an island themselves. If you cross over the bay to warwick neck, which is now part of our coastline, that becomes a new island. Warwick neck island. And much of barrington, which is a welldeveloped and prosperous Bedroom Community just disappears under the water. And, as i said, warren and bristol become their own island. So now we move down the bay to historic newport, rhode island, and you can see the historic waterfront area completely floods. The historic point section here floods. Down here the western part of newport becomes a new island, and again all of this is now land. We lose that to rising seas. Not only does western newport become western newport island, but it gains its own castle hill island off to the side of it. Up here the existing to get island, goat island virtually disappears. This story is repeated all along Rhode Islands coast. The tip of Little Compton breaks off to become its own tiny little archipeligo of new islands and this is tiveton which is just north of Little Compton and on the other side here is the shore of portsmouth and what you see is that the sealevel rise turns this pond into ocean and makes an island of this section of tiverton here near fogland point, another new island. Here we see the point on the other side of the opening in narragansett bay from Little Compton. You have Little Compton and then at the other side you have point judith. Point judith also girches to break up into begins to break up into little islands. If you go up here, galilee is our fishing port. Its where most of the fishing g trollers have their own port. And this runs up here into the protected harbor area. Galilee is pretty much under water. For folks who like to go to champlin seafood, you probably have to row there and it might not even be there. For those who like aunt careys better, its here. Its not in great shape for surviving storms. So we can go off shore to block island which has been designated by the Nature Conservancy as one of the worlds last ten great places. Well, its no longer one of the worlds last ten great places. Its now two of the worlds last i guess it would have to be 11 great places, because it breaks into two separate islands. Block island becomes block islets. And the beautiful, beautiful town of jamestown which is its own island between aquidneck island and our mainland shore breaks up into three separate islands. Its now one. Jamestown goes up a little bit further. That parts stays intact but the upper part breaks away from downtown jamestown here and the beaver tail area breaks off into i guess it would become beaver tail island. So now lets go up to our capital city. We started with that first map showing providence. And this series of images will show what happens to providence as sea levels rise. Just to orient people who are seeing this, this is the Providence River coming in. This is the river. This is the circle at water place park. And then the river continues out underneath the Providence Place mall and it goes on from there. And this is providences Downtown Business district. So thats at 3 feet of Sea Level Rise. Not much changes yet. Now you get to 7 feet of Sea Level Rise and you see the encroachment of the ocean into our business center. Seven feet used to be our worstcase scenario but as the evidence comes in and were seeing things happening faster and Sea Level Rise occurring greater than had been expected, weve been raising our expectations. So heres the new worstcase scenario, 10 feet of Sea Level Rise. And as you can see, the business section of downtown providence is entirely overwhelmed. 12 feet of Sea Level Rise is a natural consequence once you get to 10 feet of Sea Level Rise because if youve got 10 feet of Sea Level Rise, then what you get is regular and recurring what people call as mommic tides astronomic tides or king tides when celeste yal bodies line up so you get a higher than usual tide. We can predict these things. And for sure people in florida know all about it because those are the days when the street in front of their house on a sunny day is filled with saltwater because the tide is washed in over it. If you go at king tide times along the best wharves, you see parking wharfs, you see parking areas already flooded. Its not unreasonable to look at 12 feet of Sea Level Rise if youre expecting a baseline what they call bathtub level of 10 feet. And as you can see, downtown providence, our Business District is more or less completely inundated. So google oh, this is climate central. Google comes later. Climate central has allowed us to get these images of what downtown providence looks like up close with various levels of Sea Level Rise. And this is something that they run off of google earth. This again is downtown providence. This is providence city hall. This is kennedy plaza, youll be pleased to know, senator. Its named after another john kennedy because he gave his last speech in his campaign for president before he went home to take in the Election Results and find out that he had been elected. His last speech was right here to a huge crowd that had come out to see him in downtown providence. This is our famous biltmore hotel. This used to be the train station. Its now the offices of the Rhode Island Foundation there. And as you can see, most of these Historic Buildings are up to their second floor. If you look at old pictures from the hurricane in 1954, the hurricane in 1938, you see buildings where the water has gotten that high, but that was at the peak of a hurricane surge. This is the baseline. This becomes what it looks like every day. Heres a closeup. Providence city hall. Instead of coming along the sidewalk here and walking up the steps, youd have to come over in one of our gone today las gondolas in order to get in and of course the front of city hall is lost. If you look at all of this, it represents a loss of billions of dollars in Property Value to rhode islanders. Let me grab the original top o one. This one. All these areas are occupied right now. Peoples homes, peoples businesses are there. And if they disappear below rising seas, all that value is lost. Its actually worse than that because if this is the new coastline, then behind that coastline is going to be a new set of flood zones. And a new set of velocity zones. For those who are not familiar with what a vel loss city zone is, its part of a flood zone that its deep enough and exposed enough that you actually get wave action against structures. So you get the physical force of waves damaging structures, rather than just tides rising. Between the v zones and the flood zones, theres a much larger area in which structures become uninsurable. They become unmortgagable. And as a result they become unsellable. So the economic harm from this potential Sea Level Rise inundation of rhode island is virtually incalculable. And we are not the only ones who are looking at this. Looking ahead at this coastal threat also is the massive governmentbacked home loan mortgage corps freddie mac. Freddie mac has predicted, and i quote them, the economic losses and social disruption may happen gradually, but there are likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and great recession. Think about that. Think about the economic damage that this country sustained, the pain that families experienced after the 2008 wall street meltdown in that housing crisis great recession. And here is freddie mac saying this problem is going to be greater in total than the harm from the housing crisis and great recession. Now, some people would say, well, you cant trust the government about this stuff. You have to trust the private sector. Government never knows what its talking about. Well, heres a recent a quote in the trade publication, risk and insurance. An insurance trade publication. The editor of that publication wrote that this was what he called a growing and alarming threat. He went on to say, continually rising seas will damage coastal, residential, and commercial Property Values to the point that Property Owners will flee those markets in droves. Thus precipitating a mortgage value collapse that could equal or exceed the mortgage crisis that rocked the Global Economy in 2008. So anybody who wonders why i come and give these speeches every week, anybody who wonders why im up to number 166, how about seeing the coastline of my home state of rhode island whittled away into this chain of islands, this new rhode island archipelago. If this was your state, youd be up here, too. We have a responsibility here in congress to all americans to face up to what is happening. This isnt just a rhode island circumstance. Its going to be louisiana. Its going to be north and south carolina. Its going to be massachusetts and maine and california. Its going to be the gulf coast. We are all going to have to face up to this. And help communities prepare. The Carbon Dioxide that we have already pumped into the atmosphere will make some of the Sea Level Rise inevitable. It is baked in now and we just have to wait for it to happen. But we can still avoid these worstcase scenarios if we act appropriately, if we will for one minute say to the fossil fuel industry youve had enough, you have fed enough at this trough, you have silenced congress enough, your power and your greed will no longer prevail here. We are going to solve this problem for the people of our states. We can still do that. We do have to act appropriately. And for the stuff that we cant avoid, we also have an obligation to help our coastal communities prepare for this, make this transition. All of these islands, theyre going to need bridges to get to them where there are now roads, where things are falling into the ocean and you can shore them up and protect them with hard protection, you need to do that. You need to go back and adjust zoning and planning so nature can defend herself a little bit better through dunes and through marshs and so forth. Theres a lot we need to do with this coming at us. This isnt funny. Nature wont wait for our politics to sort themselves out. The laws of physics, the laws of chemistry, the laws of biology dont give a hoot about the laws in the senate. They are going to do their thing. And we need to get ahead of it. And ive got to say when this happens, that big old fossil fuel industry with all its lies and its long dishonorable campaign of calculated disinformation and phony front groups so you dont see their hands and deliberate political mischief to prevent us from acting, theyre not going to be around to help us. They will be no help when this flooding comes. So its up to us. And thats why we have to wake up. Thank you, mr. President. I yield the floor. The presiding officer the Senate Stands adjourned until Senate Stands adjourned until three republican senators, john kane Susan Collins joined all democrats in voting to keep that regulation from the obama ministration. Also today, senators talked about President Trump firing fbi director into. Minority leader Chuck Schumer called for special prosecutor to investigate times between the top campaign in russian government. Mack irvin, objected to this saturdays meaning that all Committee Meetings and hearings had to end at 11 30 a. M. Eastern senator durbin said he objected to the committees meetings because of the fbi directors firing. The official business before the senate today is the nomination of robert the president s nominee to be the us trade representative