Mr. Markey mr. President , the presiding officer the senator from massachusetts. Mr. Markey p mr. President , i ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum be rescinded. Mr. Markey thank you, mr. President very much. Mr. President , i ask consent to grant floor privileges for tesla revels for the remainder of the session. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Markey thank you, mr. President , very much. This summer chip turned 20 years old. I served on the House Committee that created this bill and was proud to support providing the affordable comprehensive Health Insurance to lowincome children and pregnant women. It is a Bipartisan Program and its an effective program. Last year alone chip covered nearly nine million children throughout the country. In massachusetts, chip has been instrumental in achieving near universal Insurance Coverage for our children in the bay state. Yet, instead of celebrating chips successes over the last two decades, Congressional Republicans have placed chip in programmatic purgatory. Thats because they allowed chip to expire at the end of september. Instead of focusing on reauthorizing this Critical Health care lifeline, Republican Leadership chose to waste months of time trying to repeal the Affordable Care act. Let just one of these successful programs lapse while they are trying unsuccessfully to end another. They were more interested in ripping Health Care Coverage away from millions of americans and taking a machete to medicaid rather than protecting our nations children, because we should not forget that chip stands on medicaids shoulders. Any fundamental changes to how medicaid operates, whether it is block granting or capping the program will hamstring chips ability to serve children as effectively and efficiently as it was intended to do so. But instead of immediately returning attention to insuring that this lapse deadline is not effective, House Republicans have further delayed action by inserting partisan policies to pay for the program. This has not only caused an unnecessary delay in passing a bill to reauthorize chip, but it has dragged chip on to the political game board, turning it and our children into pawns in their ruthless game of partisan chess. Chip has historically been and should be above such games, because chip is not just an Insurance Program, it is a reassurance program. It reassures states that they can provide comprehensive Health Care Coverage to some of their most vulnerable. It reassures doctors that their patients will be able to access care and treatment. It reassures teachers that their students can be healthy enough to learn. And it reassures mom and dad that their children can still get well in the face of financial hardship. Continued inaction on chip is dangerous and damaging. Every day we delay reauthorizing chip is another day parents across the United States live in fear that their children may soon lose their Health Insurance. They panic at the thought of leaving their childs asthma untreated. They skip a trip to the dentist and it could be harmful to the child. They could delay a Doctors Office visit because they cant afford to pay for the treatment or medication that may be prescribed. If we dont act soon, this fear may become a terrible reality for families. In massachusetts, chip funding will expire early next year. This could impact coverage for 160,000 children in the commonwealth, potentially delaying access to treatment and services that could have ramifications into adulthood. In congress, were celebrating the 20th birthday of successful childrens Insurance Program by effectively threatening to end it. Thats what congress is now doing to the state of massachusetts. That is what they are saying to the state of massachusetts, that they are going to effectively try to shut down a program that for 20 years has served the children in our state. That makes no sense, and i urge my republican colleagues to put their partisan games aside to provide certainty and stability to states, to providers, and to reassure families by reauthorizing chip. President trump says that he wants to make the Health Care System in america better. When President Trump says he wants to make sure that families are able to take care of their children, we have a program that does that already, and it is successful, and families love it, and the states love it. And all were going to need is the republicans in the senate to Work Together in order to make sure that that Program Continues for the health of all children in our country. Mr. President , with that, i yield back the balance of my time, and i doubt the presence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call the presiding officer the senator from oklahoma. Mr. Inhofe mr. President , i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call in progress be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Inhofe mr. President , i just came back just a week ago from visiting our troops stationed all around the world. We were in all the commands, africom, centcom and talking about the threats in all these regions. At a time when i hear colleagues across the aisle and political pundits ask the question, why do we have troops in various places like africa, its important to remember the strategic importance of africa. I remember ten years ago we had we didnt have a command for africa. It was a part of three commands. You had pacific command, the central command, and european command. Now we have africom, its own command. And it seemed a little unreasonable we were treating africa as somewhat of a stepchild when thats the breeding ground that is out there for a lot of things that are happening in terms of the terrorism. So despite our militarys reach and influence, our nations shrinking Defense Budget has put africom at risk during a time when the commanders are saying that we face the most dangerous world that weve ever faced. And we have. Right now we are ive often said i look wistfully at the days of the cold war. We had two super powers. They knew what we had. We knew what they had. It doesnt mean anything any more. So you have people from all over the world are putting together equipment that we never dreamed that they would have. We just gone through eight years of another administration. I dont say this critically of him. One thing about president obama is he is a committed, sincere liberal and liberals generally are they dont pay a lot of attention to military. So now we find ourselves in a situation we really are hurting. We know that a lot of people think they assume that we dont have any problems militarily. Sometimes i remind people up until about 1962, we spent more than half, 52 in 1962 of all of our revenues on defending america. What is it today . Its 15 . When we tell people that, theyre in shock that were in the situation were in. We have terrorist groups in africa like isis, alshabaab, boko haram and theyre all growing in capability and have expanded their areas throughout africa. This year weve seen horrific events occurring at the hands of these extremists. On october 14 a truck bomber killed 300 people in somalias capital. In niger, it just happened, that we had four of our u. S. Soldiers were killed in action on october 4 by an isis group. So we know that we have really serious problems. And i think its a great disservice for people to say, well, we must have known that we had the threat that was out there in niger when in fact we didnt know. And they even compare it sometimes with benghazi. I can remember benghazi. I was there at the time. I remember chris stevens. Chris stevens was the ambassador that went there. He was in my office right before he left talking about the threats that were there, talking about the taliban training there, talking about organized terrorist activity. And i have to remind people that the persons who are responsible for advising the secretary of state who at that time was Hillary Clinton and the president who was president obama at that time, they are the d. N. I. , the defense that was James Clapper at that time. The secretary of defense and the secretary of or the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, all of them, when the when the benghazi thing happened, the annex was blown up, they all said at that time and advised us and the president and the secretary of state that they were forewarned by more than a month that on the anniversary of 9 11, things would blow up and it was going to be an organized attack. To suggest we have no evidence right now theres an investigation going on to determine whether or not theres any way that we could have anticipated that in niger this would be happening. And so far that hasnt come up. So despite the best of intentions, many of our partners in the region lack the capacity and the effectiveness to adequately defend themselves. When people say would do we have to gain there, this is exactly the same situation that we saw in afghanistan prior to the war there. The terrorists have to have a safe harbor to train in, and that is what was happening. During my travel i had the opportunity to meet the Prime Minister, Benjamin BenjaminNetanyahu Benjamin netanyahu. I have never seen him so e ecstatic. A lot of us look back at what we were trying to do during the Obama Administration. And it was disheartening to think that they put together this iran deal that our secretary of state at that time john kerry talked about how great it was and all these concessions that were made when in fact that wasnt the case. Nonetheless, when the president our president came out and said that he was not going to recertify the iran deal, that was kind of that was kind of neat because people dont realize that it takes every 30 days of recertification by the president in order to keep the keep the iran deal together. Well, he has not done that. I happened to be shortly after that talking to Prime Minister netanyahu and it was an incredible relief to him that we are going to be looking at this thing because still today, i think we all understand that iran is the thats the one that is financing terrorism all around the world. Anyway, we discussed these shortcomings. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this in the future and iran does not become a nuclear nation, not now or never. Perhaps whats most encouraging is the message that this approach sends to the rest of the world, specifically north korea. President trumps approach shows me and more importantly shows kim jongun that an american first Foreign Policy means we refuse to take a singleminded approach to global threats. I recall the change thats taken place eight years ago when our new president , president obama started his appeasing by going over, talking about how america hasnt been doing the right thing. And now all of a sudden we really changed that around. And thats what was is taking place now. But at that time we didnt have the threats that are out there today. You know, when you look at north korea and heres north korea thats run by a questionable person totally unpredictable, according to our own military leaders, and he is rapidly getting the capability not just of an icbm. Hes already proven he has an icbm. But could range not just alaska and some of those areas but the entire continental United States. On july 4 he launched his First Successful icbm. Now, if that were fired on a standard trajectory, that missile could have reached alaska and some experts think it could have reached even further into the continental United States. Well, in light of that test, the Defense Intelligence agency updated their assessment by the timeline by which north korea would have the capability of hitting an American City instead of being two years out and three years out, its now down to one year out and some people say theyve got it right now. We have that threat thats out there, the greatest threat in my opinion that we are facing now or that we have ever faced. So following this on september 3 north korea tested what is believed to be a Hydrogen Bomb that would be seven times the power of what was dropped on hiroshima. Even if delivered by a relatively inaccurate icbm would be horrible damage it could impose on our continent. So its important to remember all this power is being wielded by an erratic, desperate king jongun. North korea officials have stated that they are not interested in diplomacy until they have an icbm capable of reaching the east coast of the United States. Well, what does that tell you . It tells you that theyre on their way. And this stresses the need for the United States to enhance and accelerate our Ballistic Missile systems and to continue to put pressure on north korea through every other means we can, diplomatic and otherwise. My recent travels enforced again what ive been saying for some time. That is, this is the most dangerous weve had certainly in my lifetime. But we have an opportunity to counter that threat right now. Were in the midst of our ndaa. One thing about the National Defense authorization act is that this act is its going to pass. Its passed for 55 consecutive years so we know its going to pass now. But we need to go ahead and get it done. Its important because the primary constitutional responsibility that we have is to provide for the common defense of our great nation. And we have a serious readiness issues that are going to have to be addressed, and they are being addressed in this bill. The chairman of the Readiness Committee, thats me, we have fought hard to ensure that this years ndaa has takes care of these shortfalls that we have had. Our forces are smaller now than in the days. We actually had a Readiness Committee hearing and we had the vice chiefs of all the services. They came in and they said right now we are in the same situation we were when we had the force following the Carter Administration in the 1970s. Well, speaking in january, the army Readiness Committee, and this is just january of this year, the vice chief of staff of the army, thats daniel allen, general allen, he said, what it comes down to, were going to be too late. Our soldiers will have arrived too late. Our soldiers will require too much time to close the manning, training, and the equipment you v. The end result is excessive casualties to civilians and to our forces. Were talking about deaths. Thats whats at stake right here. Just last week i met with secretary of the air force Heather Wilson to discuss aviation readiness. You know, right now weve got 1,500 pilots short. 1,300 of those are fighter pilots. Only 50 of the air forces squadrons are actually trained and ready to conduct all their assigned misses. A third of our brigades on the ground, our ground brigades dont work. Theyre not ready for combat. A fourth of aviation brigades, the same thing. Right now as we know, the marines use the f18 of our fleet of f18s, 62 of them dont work. They dont have the parts for combat. So we have this situation that is going to have to be direct. And this years bill will increase the troop levels. Well do whats necessary to correct these problems. We need to get moving on that and i think people who are aware of the threat that were under need to know help is in fact on its way. By the way, one of my concerns in this bill and there are a lot of people interested in the brac process, we do prohibit base realignment and Closing Commission to take place for another year. And the reason for that is not that there may be excess right now, capacity, or excess resources out there that when were in a rebuilding mode, we would rather be able to use those resources that arent used now than build new ones. And one thing thats true about a brac, it always loses money the first few years and right now we cant afford to lose money that goes to defending america. Anyway, the additional funding, theres going to be an 8. 5 billion for the Missile Defense thats been suffering. Were going to be doing some good things. So as we continue the conference process which started today we had our first Conference Committee meeting today. We need to ensure we focus on where we are. So again, ill just repeat that the threat is there. We understand that. We know whats happening in africa. By the way, the number of people that we have, troops that we have over there, youve got to quit using this thing about 6,000. Its really 1,300 troops for the entire dont innocent that are continent that are not committed to working in some of the emembassies the embassies. We need to get busy on that i have another thing i wanted to visit about. A lot of people are critical of whats happening right now in the Environmental Protection agency. I feel ive got to really talk about this because first of all, i was chairman of the committee that was had jurisdiction over the Environmental Protection agency for about eight years. And i see the things that are happening now