you to the floor of the u.s. senate which today will consider the nomination of -- to serve on the federal energy regular straight commission. later this week respect senate to vote on short-term spending bill one the government to december 21. live coverage of the u.s. senate now on c-span2. ning prayer wille offered by pastor louis giglio of passion city church of atlanta, georgia. the guest chaplain: father, we pause today to lift our eyes to heaven, the place our help comes from. and we bow to honor you and to worship you for who you are. we recognize we are here because of your sovereign will. so may this chamber know the wind of heaven today as it seeks the common good for those it serves. we ask that your supernatural discernment, courage, and unity rest on this senate so that your kingdom may come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. father, i lift each member of this esteemed chamber to you. please touch them and their families with your love and grace and surround them with the angel armies of heaven. we celebrate the life and legacy of president george herbert walker bush. we lift his family and those who loved him to you, knowing that you are the god of all comfort. and we ask that you guide us today as we seek to take our place among the thousand points of light. especially in this season, we thank you for the gift of your son, the prince of peace, and we commit this day to you for the sake of your great name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c., december 5, 2018. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable tom cotton a senator from the state of arkansas to perform the duties of the chair. signed: orrin g. hatch, president pro tempore. mr. corker: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: mr. president, it's an honor to be here with pastor louis giglio from atlanta and pastors the passion church there. i think everyone in this body knows that congress led on an issue to end modern slavery around the world. the appropriators have funded it. we are well on our way leading the world today trying to end modern slavery where today we have 27 million people around the world in slavery. more than at any time in the world's history. i can honestly say the genesis of that, the seed for that, the beginning of that started at passion church where he led an effort to make sure that people are aware of this scourge on mankind. so i am grateful to him. millions of people around the world will be grateful to him and his congregation. i am honored to know him and be his friend, and i thank him for his leadership in that regard, but also beginning our day in this way. thank you so much. with that, i yield the floor. mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: earlier today, our 41st president george herbert walker bush departed the capitol rotunda and was memorialized at the national cathedral. now his remains are on the way back to houston for a funeral service at st. martin's episcopal church before he is laid to rest right next to barbara, his loving wife and partner of 73 years, and their daughter robin. it has been reported that some years ago, as the bush family discussed funeral plans and the subject of lying in state came up, that the former president joked in a self-deprecating way do you think anyone will come? well, mr. president, they sure did. dignitaries, world leaders, thousands of americans from all walks of life waited for hours and streamed through this capitol to pray for and pay tribute to the life and legacy of george bush. i might add that in addition to that, on the way up to national cathedral, there were citizens on both sides of the road all along the way with their iphones, taking photographs of this great american. so today at president trump's direction, the entire country is observing a national day of mourning. i know this body continues to stand with all americans in appreciation for his inspiring example and in solidarity with the bush family. now, mr. president, on a completely different matter, the senate is resuming our work this afternoon. later today, we will vote to advance the nomination of bernard mcnamee, the president's choice to serve on the federal energy regulatory commission. this is an impressive nominee who has the right qualifications for this important job. in his career as a well-regarded lawyer on energy issues, he has represented clients and gained expertise all across the energy sector. he has helped clients build solar projects and natural gas facilities and get renewable energy standards approved. in his own words, he said i have not just talked about fuel diversity and all of the above energy policies. i have worked to help make them a reality. mr. mcnamee has worked as an energy policy expert in the department of energy as well as right here in the senate. ferc plays a pivotal role in ensuring our nation's energy security and ensuring profitability. the commission is responsible for permitting important infrastructure investments such as pipelines and export terminals. so continuing with a deadlocked and understaffed commission could threaten the status of these investments and the jobs that revolve around them. therefore, we need to confirm mr. mcnamee promptly. his obvious qualifications and his commitment to fairness and impartiality earned him a bipartisan vote out of the energy and natural resources committee last month with a favorable recommendation. i hope the same common sense will prevail today so we can move this nominee forward with the bipartisan vote he well deserves. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: mr. wyden: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: i ask unanimous consent to vacate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. morning business is closed. under the previous order the senate will proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the following nomination which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, federal energy regulatory commission, bender almost mcnamee of virginia to be a member. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the time until 4:00 p.m. will be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. mr. wyden: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: the senate is going to soon vote on the nomination of bender mcnamee to be a commissioner of the federal energy regulatory commission. if mr. mcnamee takes a seat on the commission, it means that christmas is coming early for the executives who want big, dirty energy bailouts. mr. mcnamee has had for some time a plan to build out and bail out some of the oldest, dirtiest plants in america, and he wants typical americans to pay for it with higher utility rates. that's right, a bailout for some of the dirtiest, oldest facilities, and a pretty small number of them at that, and then a big spike in rates for working families and seniors across the country. you shouldn't sugar coat the mcnamee plan. it is a rip-off, plain and simple. now all of this doesn't come out of thin air. mr. mcnamee in fact was directly responsible for this miserable proposal while he was at the trump energy department. the plan was to interfere with utility company private decisions, private business decisions to force them to actually prevent utility companies from shutting down those dirty old power plants, some of them coal plants, even when the utilities wanted to move to cleaner, newer plants. so much for the free market. the utilities wanted to actually move to cleaner, cleaner plants, and yet this would have prevented them from shutting down dirty, outdated plants to go to the more efficient newer ones. so much for the free market. so much for protecting consumers. now this proposal was so flawed, every member of the commission that he's nominated joined to vote to reject it. let me repeat that. every member of the federal regulatory commission that mr. mcnamee is so eagerred to join voted against -- eager to join voted against it. now, in normal circumstances, and, mr. president, for a period i chaired the energy and natural resources committee. and we always saw traditionally if a flawed proposal gets met with enormous rejection, the typical person in a rational way says, hey, we better get back to the drawing board and take a different tact. not so with the trump administration. the federal energy regulatory commission wouldn't green light mr. mcnamee's rate-hiking plan to prop up the executives at these dirty facilities and so the president wants to put mr. mcnamee on the inside and give him a seat on the ferk. i have to -- ferc. i have to say i haven't seen anything like this deliberate effort to hijack sound market-oriented principles that would naturally take you to cleaner power than dirty, old coal facilities. but what we have here, in effect, is an individual who wants to do the bidding of special interest. ferc is supposed to be an independent energy regulatory. as i said during the committee's hearing on this nomination, this is not a question of the fox guarding the henhouse, this is a question of putting a fox inside the henhouse. that's what this will do if the senate makes a flawed judgment to approve this nomination. now, several of us at the energy committee hearing, myself and other colleagues, asked mr. mcnamee if he would recuse himself from matters that he worked on that relate to this flawed bailout for dirty, outdated plants. he refused to commit to that. since the hearing -- since evidence new energy bias has come to light of new footage where he dan didly -- candidly expresses that he is bias against renewable power. the video reveals mr. mcnamee speaking frankly about his skepticism of wind and solar power, and he basically says you shouldn't regulate carbon dioxide as a real pollutant. his comments, joined with his recent actions, which i have described at the trump energy department, make it clear to me he is not going to bring the judicious, objective approach if he's confirmed as ferc commissioner to these critical issues. he certainly -- he's certainly not in this to protect the american consumer because his policies would pick their pockets with higher rates. finally, the nomination comes at a particularly troubling time just after the scientists for the federal government released the national climate assessment. the report warned without substantial and sustained measures to reduce emissions, climate change, and worsening climbing, would wreak havoc on our economy. and yet juxtapose, put right now to what the federal scientists said about climate change worsening, and then say here's going to be a trump nominee who is chosen for the federal regulatory energy commission and say, let's double down on support for the dirty, outdated facilities for generating electricity. it doesn't sound very liable to -- viable to me in terms of our economic future. on the entire matter of confronting the imminent threat of climate change, i think we've got to recognize that this administration is defying the will of the american people. we are no longer talking about far-off theories. in oregon, and across the country, we've seen americans watch fires getting bigger and hotter. they are ripping through populated areas. they are not your grandfather's fires. in our part of the world we saw a fire rip over the columbia river -- leap over the columbia river. we've seen hurricanes making landfall with biblical rain, unprecedented winds. each year almost sets a new high mark for the hottest year on record. the policies that this nominee is advancing are misguided. they would accelerate the problems that the scientists for the federal government cited last week. and i'll just close by way of saying, mr. president, what the scientists said last week is that dealing with cleaner, more efficient energy is urgent business, promoting it is urgent business right now because there is no time for going backward. what the mcnamee nomination is all about in one concept, it's going backward -- backward to bailouts, backwards to supporting dirty, outdated plants. we ought to be going forward. mr. president and colleagues, i urge that this nominee be rejected, and i yield back. a senator: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: there is no quorum call. ms. cantwell: i urge my colleagues toe vote on nominee bernard mcnamee and i thank my colleague from oregon being out here talking about why it matters and why colleagues both sides of the aisle should turn it down. i'm -- my constituents probably do know who the ferc is, when it -- they had to count on them to make sure that energy markets were properly policed. and in the end, they did do that basically protecting consumers for what are unjust and unreasonable rates. but the fact is that a lot of americans don't understand who the federal energy regulatory commission is. that's because of the job of the commission can range from a broad overseeing and reliability of the electricity grid to ensuring that wholesale electricity and natural gas rates are just unreasonable. that's what we argued in the enron case, they were going to make utilities pay nine years for fraudulent contracts. we emphasized how could fraudulent contracts be just an reasonable if they admitted to -- admitted to them. they also see licensing of dams, construction of natural gas pipelines and rely on ferc to protect the natural and electric gas markets from manipulation. we put in stronger language to make sure that the definition of manipulation was there and people were protected. i remember my colleagues from texas joining me in getting that language actually paf. why? because they knew how much the enron ma p nip layings -- manipulation cost all of us. this is the responsibility of the federal regulatory commission and they should have the diligence done by members of the senate. this affects many energy projects and how people will pay to heat their homes an keep the lights on. it also is about how we protect our energy infrastructure for the future and, trust me, the amount of cyberattacks in energy markets alone would make you want to have great oversight of these nominees. but, it's important that the commission also remain its role of independent and impartial because it is a quasi judicial role. that is, they act like judges and they need to be impartial making decisions about important energy projects that get built around the united states. for this reason one of the -- is that members, quote, be individuals who have demonstrated the ability, background, raining, and experience and who are especially -- who specifically qualify to assess fairly the needs and concerns of all interested and affected by federal energy policy, end quote. that's an important section because it is that issue of accessing fairly the needs and concerns of all interested parties in making these quasi judicial opinions. it is the duty of the senate to make sure that these commissions are free from political influence. i know that from time to time people have been on the commission and there have been issues about how those on the outside have tried to influence them and we will continue to make sure that the federal regulatory energy commission remains above this kind of political influence and that they remain unbias as decision makers in these important policies. i believe that this nominee, mre standard. i believe that he is too ideologically motivated to continue on what needs to be a fact-based decision-making model on outcomes that affect people's individual energy rates. the commission have to police be and regulate energy markets without regard to fuel source, market power or have a political lens. $34 billion over two years. $34 billion that american consumers don't have. how would they have done that? by saying that you had to have whole projects as a way to keep the grid reliable. well, i disagreed with that. many members, i would say, probably many members of the energy committee disagreed with that, and clearly members of the federal energy regulatory commission as is currently comprised also disagreed with that. why was it such an adamant reaction? because it's almost as if you were saying instead of letting a market make these decisions, people were going to force utilities to do projects that included coal and putting coal on to the grid, even though the renewable energy was driving down costs and helping consumers diversify. this is important because the bailout proponents have argued that based on coal is needed to ensure that the grid is always working. well, when you look a lot this analysis, it did not hold up under the scrutiny. popping up, trying to prop up uneconomical coal plants for the sake of the reliability of the grid is a fake rationale that the administration tried to use, and it would have impacted the free market and consumers and the senate, you know, there is a potential. certainly,y, i think, starting january where in the house there will be a push, i think, to do some things including on this issue and more economically as it relates to how do you do things on the ground? >> iri will say before, cut assistance makes no sense if you're trying to create the conditions to getl arab leader support for your plan, but cutting $10 million for projects that are joint projects between the israelis and palestinians, that -- the rationale for that is hardun to grasp. if there's one thing we should be doing and there's draft legislationn now for this, it's the house has the draft legislation that calls for $100 million for these tools to invest in these joint projects and the senate has $50 million. the value of demonstrating when israelis and palestinians cooperate and there's a payoff for it. that ought to be elementary and that would be just a given and everything you're doing should be toso elevate the payoffs for cooperation, so at a time of disbelief on both sides and the israeli public disbelief, this is something that isn't -- it's not a panacea, but it ought to be at least one element in a broader approach. >> all right. other questions? yes. let's take this gentleman here first andow let's take another e at the same time. this lady, yes? >> thank you. i'm t leon from the u.s. foreig service. i'd like toha ask given the tim this extensive experience in this area, if they see the comprehensivees nature of this ready for something like a track two process to see if they can be flushed out on an extensive level. >> p okay. let's pass the mike over to the lady here who had a question.cn >> hi. thank you guys for speaking today. >> speak into the mike. >> sorry. >> thank you. >> i was just wondering, so house foreignla affairs committ. >> just identify whode you are. sorry. my name is sophie. i'm an intern for the house foreign affairs committee. you guys addressed this a little bit and i was hoping if you guys could talk about solutions that you guys could see specific legislation that you would see coming from congress with, like, a foreign affairs committee that would be interested in seeing movement on this progress and rock res on this front and what physical legislation you would like to see coming from the committee itself on, like, seeing this really happen. >> oh, boy, a chance to be prescriptive. >> before we get to that, can anyone take first question? >>ei go ahead. >> it was track two. >> i think that's what we discussed, and i think there is real opportunity herete to take the findings and recommendations in this report and if you were at a work shop and really, it's about again, not just the substance edition and it was very deeply in the report and we keep getting this issue of collective action and how you get back, and how you alain interests and positions and what about classic conflict resolution theory and how you apply that to this. ike want to act on the collecti action problem and it speaks to thens vicious cycle and reminde and one of the most striking emblematic and at brookings and in 2014 and this was premised on polling israelis and palestinians on a two-state solution. the sort of highlight solution is a collective action public opinion problem. when you poll israelis and palestinians on whether you accept thisin kind of deal presented along the lines that people would look like, you would have, you know, and you take whatth was expected and yo said, okay, the others accepted it. on both sides they went up by 10% and the least that the other side is onboard can raise the belief of the other side. it's the classic collective action problem and it speaks very much and they are a cooperative israeli-palestinian project o and all of these effos that show that peace is possible andg cooperation can happen, particularly around shared interests. i think all of these are helping move the needle forward and we're in an environment on what the political horizon is that we're looking 8%at, but this ki of motivation of giving the israeli palestinians living this reality and the sense that forward moving is possible is crucial. >> howard and dennis, you have the opportunity to write legislation for the house foreign affairs committee. go! [ laughter ] >> i'm probably the most pessimistic person in this room. i really think that we're at -- right now people are expecting the united states to take the lead and the united states has not taken the lead. the united states isun essentiay siding on one side, the stronger side in a very old conflict and it has no kwalqualms with, and don't know how we get this administration toe accept certan realities and the idea that this administration is going to force, for example, put pressure on the palestinian leadership to reconcile with hamas even though i think that's essential and that's what's required and i have a very hard time imagining that either that will come from the u.s. president or that congress ofmi all places will issue the one to force the united states to take those kinds of steps. so you know, sadly, i just don't see it. i just don't see it happening not originate in the halls of congress and it will not originate in the white house. we are at a place where the idea of theed american-led peace process is a thing of the past. i don't think that exists anymore. >> podennis, do you agree and d you thinkt. there's nothing tha the new incoming house of representatives could do? >> the irony, of course, is that congress hasue certain powers a has the power of the purse and it doesn't have the power to execute diplomacy. so the legislation you draft from my standpoint ought to be focused more on what are the capabilities that the congress actually has. here, i've already made a reference to it. you ought to be passing and adopting legislationrt that's - that first of all, withdrawal assistance to the palestinians and you should be adopting legislation that invests in tangible, practical cooperative projects because it is a way of demonstrating that in fact, what i call peace building. there's peace making and peace building. there oughtos to be legislation that i would like to see also that would g create incentives termsov of institution building. there is a big difference between cutting off and threatening and reducing assistance because you're trying to put pressure on. there are also smart ways to put pressure on and you say okay, amount of assistance, and if -- here is -- here would be additional assistance for building a rule of law, independent judiciary and building institution, but it's not -- don't hold it as a penalty and hold it as an inducement and there you have a chance to have an effect, but you're want -- the congress can't lead the united states in terms of peace making and you have to have the executive branch do it. to do that because ultimately nobody else s can. i'll just tell, you know, i tell the story from when i was negotiator. the eu, i had a counterpart in the eu who would also complain. >> what time? >> well, in the 1990s. >> okay. i had a counterpart who was complaining about how he wasn't included in the negotiation. i used to say, look, i'm not the you.xcluding if the parties want you in, you're in regardless of what i say. if the partiese aren't prepared to have you in, it also doesn't matter what i say. you're notpl in. nobody else can play the convene, the mobilizing and the framing role that the united states can. nobody else has the potential leverageis to apply to everyone. it isn't to say we can do it alone. this doesn't get to do it alone, this is not the mitchell report what you were saying and the drawing from other experiences. study other experience, german notification innd nato. what's relevant about it, here was an issue that the class thought it would be impossible and you could aren't provide germanni unification in nato because it was too hard from the soviets and they weren't asking about it and yet it happened. why? because american leadership invested heavily innd terms of time. american leadership framed the issue and built momentum behind the issue and dealt with all of the different parties constantly. i mean, george h.w. bush earlier was known as the mad -- and in he had 30 meetings with all of his counterparts to manage every issue and yet the president of the united states who held nine different summit meetings with all of thebe relevant players o his time. you tcan, if the issue is important. you can frame the issue and you can engage in public diplomacy and you're talking about socializingil ideas. you have to frame this in a way that iss. digestible. you have to create a repeatable mantra. you have to make it an issue that has meaning, and you have to constantly work it. this is something that can be done. i'm not saying it's going to be done cnow, but oourm saying it can beo done, but it has to be priority. >> well on shibley, i was going to shut it down, but in deference to you, i will give you the very last, very short question. your mike is not on. >> university of maryland brookings. it's one thing to argue we have aa desperate humanitarian issue in gaza and i'm proud to be a part 26 another to pretend like this administration is capable of doing anything good on the israeli and palestinian conflict and i do worry that playing along and making suggestions to it and seeing how we can play with it and how we can improve it, we're in essence, legitimizing somethingi that is going to be not very good for the u.s., not very good for the israelis, not very good part palestinians and not very good for the region. we have seen nothing so far that indicates that there is any room for anything that would be good for the region. there's a cost to kind of try to be creative in dealing with them to t -- because when you are playing with something that you know doesn't look good at the core, that you're legitimizing it and that you're buying time and you're in a way, presenting some additional action that might be done as an alternative. >> well, i should leave that as a member of the task force we can let that sit in the room as his comments unless any of the commentators would like to add to it. >> look, i've been doing this for 30 years so obviously i never give up. i just understand that the implication of it is that you try to work with others. you should, but i think you can't -- you can't just give up on this because the u.s. in the end plays too important a roll, but clearly this administration that could use ideas from the outside and a lot, as you said, they have reached out. so i think as a basic principle we should be pushing on every door that's available, and if it doesn't go anywhere, okay, but you're pushing on it and by the way, anybody else that you're reaching out to, say the european, and they'll ask you what you're doing with the administration so you should have an answer. all right. dennis ross leaves us with the thought of never say never. never give up which is a good thought to end on. please join me in thanking the members of the task force, the office of the report, dennis, tom, lucy, brookings and the center for new american you are the skies. thank y securities. thank you for coming. [ applause ] as the 115th congress winds down here's what to watch for. current government funding runs out this friday december 7th, but the house and senate plan to pass a two-week extension funding the government through friday december 21st. seven spending bills to avoid a government shutdown. homeland security,ing a culture and transportation are among the departments that could be affected. another issue to be resolved is funding for president trump's u.s.-merc u.s.-mexico border wall. the president has requested congress to provide $5 billion for the wall which democrats don't support. watch live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on c-span2. looking ahead, democrats will control the house when the gavel comes down on january 3rd to start the 116th congress. nancy pelosi has been nominated by her party to be the next house speaker while steny hoyer will become majority leader. james clyburn will be the democratic whip and new york's hakim jefferies will be caucus chair. for republican, kevin mccarthy will be the minority leader with steve scalise minority whip and tom will head up the national republican congressional committee, january 3rd, new congress, new leaders. watch it all on c-span. >> when the new congress takes office in january it will have the youngest, most diverse freshman class in recent history. new congress, new leaders. watch it live on c-span. starting january 3rd. >> now a discussion on u.s.-china trade relations. panelists consider steps that could potentially ease tensions that have strained certain sectors of both country's economies. they also talk about the perspectives of u.s. allies, south korea and japan in terms of their trade relationships with the u.s. and china. from the center of the national interest this is just under 90 minutes. >>. >> good afternoon. welcome to the center for the national interest. you may notice if you've been here before that we have a few more cameras than usual. that's because we'll be on c-span so therefore the other question to be answer side yes, we're on the record for this conference. the -- if you're here, you're into theed in subject so it hasn't escaped your attention that there are tensions in our relationship with china and while people talk a lot about that, nobody talks much about what the effect is on our allies and friends of what we're doing with china and we have three excellent panelists here to help answer that question. dr. robert sutter, professor of practice atquestion, dr. robert sutter, professor of practice and former intelligence officer for east asia. scott snyder at the counsel on foreign relation, author of two books written in the past couple of years, south korea at the crossroads, and japan's south korea identity clash. and dr. michael green, senior vice president for asia and japan chair at the center for strategic international studies also at georgetown. and pass history as a former senior director at the national security council. we will follow an agenda here going from your right to your heft with dr. sutter, then scott snyder, then dr. green. i am asking each speaking to talk about ten minutes. you may have picked up on your way in, a document that dr. sutter provided to extend his remarks, as they say in congress, that will be a more fulsome explanation of what he's going to talk about. without further ado, dr. sutter the floor is yours. >> it is a pleasure to be here and talk with you. i am here today to talk about a u.s./china relationship to set up the context that the allies look at this and their reaction. the handout is something i use when i give talks around the country to groups to help them understand what's been changed in u.s./china relations. it is -- i find that public audiences, well informed audiences in various parts of the country, they really have no idea what is happening here in washington. so it is quite -- i like doing this sort of thing. so i am have grateful for doing this today and i am grateful for the c-span audience as well. the way i look at it today, though, i have to focus, i think on the agreement over the weekend. and so i would like to start that as a context -- as the beginning. and then look at the context and come up with some way of looking at this situation. and i hope that's helpful to you. i will use the material in the handout in doing so, but that's my approach today. and so how big a compromise was it? and i think this is something -- i am referring of course to the xi jinping/donald trump understanding on december 1. i think there are two views. one is it is sort of a north korea deal, a lot of pressure, and then he gives up and doesn't do very much. and there are a lot of undone parts. and people point to -- observers point to the deals, the trade agreements with canada, mexico, and in other -- and the europeans as sort of an easy compromise, and the chinese will -- and that that will be the end of the pressure on u.s. trade policy toward china. the other point is one that i am more sympathetic with, and i will explain why, is that this pushback that we have in u.s. policy toward china, it's certainly influenced and led in many ways by donald trump, but it is reflective of broader trends. and the broader trends show themselves in the congress. i have spent a long time working for congress. it is interesting to see it develop there. and the various executive branches have a whole series of programs underway that will push back against various elements of china's approach toward the united states. the reason i feel this way, that i am inclined to favor the latter view, and that is that therefore we will still have a lot of pushback from the united states against china in the period as we go forward is because i have watched the evolution of this pushback. and that's what the handout talks about, is the evolution of it. and when the national security strategy came out a year ago from the trump government a lot of it -- i was very surprised, i think a lot of people were surprised. but i think a lot of people just didn't pay any attention to it. i think what we are seeing is the implementation of that strategy on the part of various government components. and so -- what these things reflect and the congress has picked up on this and they, too, in various areas have shown this kind of concern about china's approach, and that was seen in the very, very stark language used in the national security strategy. as you can see, i am an old timer looking at these issues. i didn't see language like that from the executive branch dealing with china in 50 years. i had not seen that kind of language dealing with china. even after teenmen, it wasn't like that. when i looks at the congressional bbts, looked at the testimony of various people talking about various issues with china what i found is there are two new issues, new in the sense getting new attention that are driving -- that make this more urgent. it is the sense of urgency that i think is important to get a grip of. the first one has to do with things that get a lot of attention now is this influence that china exers inside the united states, in alleged nefarious ways in many respects. that's one aspect that's gotten a lot of attention by the u.s. congress in particular but of course the justice department is very much involved with this as well. then the second is that china has reached a point of pure competitor status in high-tech areas and is moving into high-tech areas in a way that could dominate those areas, in a way that could jeopardize american economic dominance, economic leadership in the world, and its national security. robert lighthizer said in his 301 report -- incidentally, mr. lighthizer, he always has about 25 footnotes the back up everything he says. he is one of these kinds of people. as a professor, i sort of like that. anyway, but the upshot of this is that he says china's economic practices are an existential threat to the united states. now, we all know here that the u.s. uses that language when it talks about soviet union, nuclear weapons pose an extension threat to the united states. so this sense of urge edgesy that china might dominate these areas and they are close to doing it argues that something needs to be done on the economic side. but this has big implications for national security. the strategy says that u.s. national security rests on this economic foundation. and so these two elements, i think, are new. certainly newly prominent. so the course of the past year, however, it was muddled how far this would go. the pushback was very muddled because first of all, public opinion really had no idea about this. secondly, the media really wasn't very helpful in this period. they focused on trump and his an particulars in various ways but they really didn't get to this idea of a strategic competition. and then mr. trump vacilates in this period. he goes back and forth, and need -- he is a friend of xi jinping. he is cautious on taiwan, these kind of thiks. and then the senior officials in the government were quite divided and china didn't get it. at least they didn't act like they got it. they didn't understand the strategic importance of what was happening here until very late, until maybe august did they under -- did the media of china reflect an understanding of this in a significant way. what we have now, however, the whole of government approach against the chinese and the various aspects of china emerges strongly beginning in the late summer. and here's the period when congress passes the national defense authorization act, has all sorts of provisions, very critical of china, very harsh, echoing the commentaries of the leaderships of officials in the various departments that are quite critical of china. this new sense of urgency is reflected. the punitive tariffs come into play at this time. and then mr. trump who only complained about china mainly on trade issue, in september when he is at the u.n. then says china medaling in our election, meddling in internal affairs in the united states. so he endorses that approach. and then there are a series of other steps, but mainly the one i would highlight of course is mr. pence, vice president pence makes clear his case, the administration's case, the whole of government case in his speech to the hudson institute. and then after that i have a whole series of things that i list on page 3 in the handout that happened that go forward. mr. pence is the most recent one, his trip to asia, laying out all the different areas that the u.s. is complaining about china, pushing back against chinese practices. more significantly, perhaps, is that we had elements of a strategy coming from this. one element that seems to have traction is based on the reports that the united states, its allies and partners are sharing information to restrict technology transfers to china. each country is putting together a system to control technology transfer to china with this eye toward preventing or thwarting or slowing down this chinese effort to get this high technology leadership. a second one -- it is a little counter-intuitive, and i would like to hear the approach of mr. green and mr. snyder on this. but the point here is that even though mr. trump has disrupted the economic relationships with these allies and partners, they, too, have the same kind of concern with china. and it is an effort to try to weave something together with them. how far this will go, particularly in light of the poor relationships because of the bilateral relationships they have with the united states is unclear. a third element here is of course the various economic and security assistance and security operations of the united states demonstrated by the bill back and other initiatives launched over the last couple of months. and financially the defense department is following through on its defense strategy. it has more money. it has a more active presence in the region. and so these are other manifestations. when i look out at this type of situation, what i see is that -- well, i look at the deal itself. and i say, well, obviously, this is not done yet, whatever it is. it is not yet a one-sided compromise, as some think it will wind up being, and one needs to watch the conflicting views within the administration. so i am sure a lot of you are doing the same thing. i try to watch, what is mr. lighthizer doing? you know -- i mean he obviously has a very strong view. where will he come down on this issue. >> but my argument here is that the momentum of the pushback seems to be very much underway. i mean, it is continuing to develop. and things that might have been problems are really not problems. the main criticisms that we hear from the policy come from people who were associated with the previous governments. and these folks are seen as sort of in an awkward position because a lot of these things that we are criticizing the chinese for having going on a long time. and yet the question is, well, what did you do about it when you were in power? so this is a very difficult thing to deal with. and i think it makes it hard -- i think the people who are favoring the pushback view, therefore, the people that were in power as a bit discredited in that regard. a second point, a little bit inside baseball type of thing, is that the engage men with china on the part of the executive branch has atrophied. in the past when all of these components of the u.s. government were very engaged in a positive development with china when you had an interagency meeting and you wanted to have a tougher position on china, they all knew that china would retaliate, and china might retaliate on their programs. and not that they were selfish in this regard but they saw the broader interests of the united states better served by not taking a strong action on this which would result in this type of retaliation. well, today those elements have atrophied. so they are not a break, money of a break on the momentum that's moving forward to have the harder policy toward china. and beijing remains firm on this issue. so my sense is, i still see lots of tension going forward. i see -- i'm not sure -- we will obviously have an easing of the tariff tensions but i don't see this as ending this kind of a situation. even if we have a deal of just a couple of concluding points. there are constraints on the situation. one is donald trump. we know how unpredictable he is. he could move in different directions. the second are the costs of the pushback. the media -- this could be -- the media and public opinion could turn against it if it is seen as too costly. very easily. that's a very important factor. and the public, as i said, really has no idea of this situation. and then the allies and partners. and that's what we are going to hear about today from the japanese perspective and the south korean perspective. will they go along, given the costs that are involved with this kind of tension between the united states and china? thank you. >> thank you, robert, for a great relouis dags of the problem. now -- elucidation of the problem. now it is up to michael and scott to tell us how our allies are going to help us navigate out of this. >> thanks to the center of national interests for the invitation. and maybe what i will do is briefly say a little bit about how i think president moon and the south korean government see the u.s./china discussion and then get into my discussion of perceptions in south korea of rising rivalry between the u.s. and china. and essentially, i think for president moon, he is relieved that there is a break in the tension. and he got an endorsement from president trump with regards to his push for diplomacy with kim jong-un kim jong-un. plus a hat tip from president trump to kim jong-un. he is dealing good because there is a break, an apparent maybe short-lived break in the rising competition between china and the u.s. that essentially when that occurs it restricts south korea's preferred strategy of navigating choice avoidance between the u.s. and china. south korea prefers choice avoidance because it is dependent on china for economic benefits given the fact that south korea's trade with china is so significant while it relies on the u.s. for security. it generates more pressure on seoul as both the u.s. and china compete with open ear to imposey costs on south korea as to influence south koreans strategic choices. really, i think that for south korea, the sweet spot for u.s. policy toward china was the obama administration's policy of engaging and hedging simultaneously, but at the same time both the obama administration and the trump administration have presented a challenge that south korea faces. and that is in the context of the obama administration's rebalance policy toward china. the focus became more adversarial and restricted the capacity the u.s. and china to cooperate on north korea, custom is in south korea's interests. and the same thing with the emergence of the trade war. south korea's primary concern, i think, has been that reduced scioneaux/u.s. cooperation on south korea would lead to stalemate in that process. and so essentially, south korea tries to lobby for the north korea issue to be isolated from rather than subsumed by china/u.s. strategic competition. and also, south korea has been very focused on china's rising influence. and i think that that influence has a poaradoxical effect on south korea because it generates what i think is a dual hedging instinct by south korea. on the one hand south korea relies on the alliance with the united states as a hedge from china's unions. and also limiting cooperation with the united states to the extent that china looks poised to replace the u.s. as the region's dominant power. i want to go through four different areas as ways of kind of illustrating or examining the choices that south korea faces. economic, security, the impact of china/u.s. rivalry on south korean public opinion, impact on domestic politics in north korea. and with regard to the economic nengs, i think south korea is -- dimension, i think south korea's supply chain runs through china and exports will be dropped in chinese exports to the u.s. plus slowing chinese domestic growth will also an impact on china/south korea trade. plus it has an impact on south korean stock market. the international trade association estimated a full-blown trade war between the u.s. and china would cause a 6.4% drop in south korean exports and loss of about $36 billion. but to a certain extent, this vulnerability for south korea has also been mitigated by the fact that south korea has been, i think, per suing for some time now a diversification strategy away from depending on china too much. and that strategy really shows itself primarily in the extensive investment and trade that is occurring between south korea and vietnam. south korea is vietnam's number one investor, at $62 billion in total investment. and also, the reemergence of the u.s. as a destination as a destin sayings for korean investment versus china. on the security front, the first round case study for the effect of rising u.s./china rivalry on south korean security is the thad issue where the u.s. deployment of thad batteries in south korea became a litmus test in china/south korea relations as well as a loyalty test in china/south korea relations. and then the subsequent retaliation by china against south korea for hosting the deployment is estimated to have cost south korea as much as $7.5 billion. so what china was trying to do was to draw a line on the scope of u.s./korea security cooperation as a way of trying to send a message that the south korea eye liance should be confined to china only. but in doing so it suggested china should have a veto over alliance responsibilities to defend against a threat. i think the issue remains a sticking point in the china/south korea relationship. the controversy over the deployment could come back into play as inter-korean tensions ease. and the incident appears to have had a major effect on south korean perceptions of chinese intentions. and so i want to talk a little bit about south korean public opinion. and u.s./china rivalry. what we have seen i think in 2017 really as a result of the impact of china's retaliation economically against south korea is that china's popularity among south koreans dipped below of that japan. and japan is not south korea's favorite country. i think everybody knows. for the first time in 2017. it has since recovered somewhat. but on the whole, over the course of the past decade, south koreans have grown more anxious about china in rough proportion to growing levels of support for the u.s./korea security alliance. when asked in march of 2018 to choose between the u.s. and china, in the context of continued scioneaux/u.s. rainfallry an asean poll showed two thirds of the koreans polled cosmos the made to. also for the first time in that poll koreans expressed that south korean's economic future, not security, but economic future depended more on the u.s. rather than china. that was striking. really an expression of frustration in south korea for china's economic retaliations. favorable on the u.s. remains in the 6 range on a scale of 0 to 10. china has dropped to the 3 or 4 range. the impact of domestic politics, i think this is of particular interest as we think about how the south korean government will maneuver in the context of u.s./china rivalry. what is interesting is we have a progressive administration in south korea right now. historically we have thought that progressive administrations are going to be more antiamerican and more pro china. i would argue that we what see in this progressive administration in south korea is also a lot of wariness about china. and so their i think inclination is not to hedge against china's rise by depending more on the united states, but rather to hedge against china's rise by looking for more autonomous options and to try to pursue and take over control of diplomacy to the extent it can. finally, the north korea factor. south koreans are really concerned about the possibility that china is going to screw up our opportunities for inter-korean reconciliation, basically. and they are always thinking about how will china deal with north korea when he look at u.s./china rivalry? and historically, if we look at south korean inclinations in the context of dealing with china, the history shows that south korea -- that korea has always utilized accommodation with china to preserve limited autonomy rather than risking confrontation that from their perspective might result in subrow gags. this is a big deal in the context of thinking about korea's role in the context of broader u.s. policy toward china and asia. because we have been focused on working to the between the u.s. and south korea on dealing with north korea. but more broadly, the current government -- current south korean government for thing like free and open endopacific has been -- well, they have been pretty quiet about it. and i think that the gap between our coordination on north korea and our need to develop strong al ayes in the context of china's rise is increasingly going to be a potential point of friction in the u.s./korea relationship going forward. especially to the extent that also if inter-korean tensions fade while asean/u.s. tensions rise. it will change what south koreans do at the same time that it shifts the interests away from south korea's primary preoccupation with north korea to a broader regional framework. >> scott, excellent. an awful lot of information packed into ten minutes. much appreciated. maybe with help from the audience, we can expand on some of your points. michael, bring us home. >> alrighty. well, thank you. it is great to be here. thank you, chip. it is great to poll bob and scott. when i started at the nsc the first intelligence briefing i got was from bob. he was the nio. after half an hour of all the bad stuff happening in my region that i didn't know about because i was just getting my clearances i think i sat there quietly staring at him. and bob said i'm sorry, what can i say? we are the good news guys from cia. we bandied that around for a long time afterwards. as you all know at the end of the october, prime minister abe went to china and had a meeting with xi jinping that by all accounts was successful. there were graemts on japan part nation in china's belt and road initiative and so forth. a lot of media coverage spun that as somehow abe hedging against donald trump or shifting. and one thing we have to all be careful about is not attribute ing everything that happens in international affairs to donald trump. what i want to do before we go to the q and a and discussion is use that abe/xi summit to ganl how japan is reacting to the u.s. -- gauge how japan is reacting to the u.s. trade rift with china. was that a profound shift in japan/china relations hedging against the uncertainty of donald trump, somehow tilting away because of the hardened us line towards china? the short answer is no, it is not. let me try to unpack that. there are clearly some changing dynamics in japan/china relations towards more of a cooperative tone, a more stable tone. and there are three reasons for that. and you can rank these depending on your particular training or point of view. i would rank them as follows. the first, there is a cyclical nature to japan/china relations. second, japanese domestic politics. and third, but a very distant third, the donald trump factor. first the cyclical dimension. this is the 40th anniversary of the 1978 japan/china treaty that opened up yen loans and japan aid that included an anti-hi gemny clause against the soviet union. it was the first real treaty between japan and china that suggested they had a common destiny in asia. he is celebrated every ten years and used by current leaders to put a floor under the relationship because for the last 25 or 30 years it has been a rocky relationship. in 1988, the chinese president made his first trip to .gentleman. in 1988, tao restarted communications with japan after a pause. the diplomats use the anniversaries. but it is also in a chinese system where the leaders get, until xi jinping, two five year persons. usually in the first five year term it is too risky to do japan. so it comes during the second term. history is somewhat cyclical. there is a cyclical dimension to japan and china to improving relations. but there is a little more to it. that's the second element, domestic politics in japan. abe is in a strong position. he has no major challenges within the party. he handily won re-election as party president in september. he won a major lower house election -- the lower house is more powerful in japan's parliament a year ago. but the internal polling of the liberal democratic party showed that had things gone slightly different, had the opposition not fallen into squabbling and disarray a year ago, the ldp easily could have lost that election. so under the surface, abe's position is not as strong as it seem. and he has had to move towards a more traditional ldp pattern of coalition or fashional politics. the leader who is most positional right now to giving him ballast is about the only politician in japan right now who has good ties with beijing and is considered -- not pro-china but kind of a stabilizing player in japan/china relations. abe needs nikkei. he also need the coalition leader, the clean government party which tends to want stable relations with china. he needs it because he ran on a platform of revising article nine of japan's constitution. i think the revision, if it happens, will be very modest. but he needs to secure his left flank wi flank, and a good relationship with china will help. domestic politics are a factor. third, i think the trump effect is there. there is a little bit of hedging. a little bit. the japanese corporate world, the government worries that the trump administration might talk itself into 232 tariffs on autos, which would be frankly political suicide for the republican party here. completely illogical. bad economics, bad policy, and bad politics, which is why they think we might do it. because the president likes tariffs. and peter navarro, his economics whisperer, likes tariffs. japan needs good relations with everybody who is going to be on the receiving end of tariffs. the abe team also worries a little bit about the president's penchant for falling in love with authoritarian enemies of japan. president trump has fallen in love with kim jong-un. it is less likely he will fall in love with xi jinping but abe's people worry about it. they track closely the kushner company's deals and financing in china. they follow ivanka trump's licensing deals in china and worry about a transactional president announcing the senkaku's really belong to china in a summit. they need a little bit of an alibi. i think the prime minister needs to be able to say, if that happens, i am not worried. i also have a good relationship with xi jinping. so there is a little bit of a trump factor, but i think it is a distant third. and i think it should not be the starting point. i would argue actually, xi jinping needs abe more right now than abe needs xi jinping, because of what you heard from bob. the administration's decoupling strategy with china is illegal logical in many respects. but in the high technology sector, especially when it gofs waugh way, zte, 5g, it is working. it is working in japan, with korea, it is working with india, new zealand, and australia. the china also have a problem on belt and road. the debt trap rumor is hurting then n. by jiang, the chinese said side agreed to all of japan's demand for imf world bank idp projects. there are no idp projects yet but the chinese side agreed to all of them with no pushback, because this is what i heard, chinese believe it has a branding problem and japanese endorse men would help. it is a shift a little bit towards a more stable japan/china relationship but not a funt fundamentally different trajectory. to remind you of that, if you saw the pugh polls that came out, people were asked do you trust xi jinping to do the right thing? in every country this the world the answer was no. it dropped 20 points in korea. in only one country it was up. that was japan. it went from 10 or 12% to about 18%. while abe was in china, the japan self-defense forces did three times more scrambles against chinese fighters than they had in the last month on a two day basis. and a u.s. carrier battle group did an exercise with japanese missile defense destroyers. is in japan and korea right of a the pence speech on china, which you all know tad hudson speech he gave. and i was actually surprised how enthusiastic the response was with japanese and korean corporate executives. in particular, this concern about technology. the trade ministry in japan orchestrated a lot of abe's visit and the joining of the belt and road initiatives, were finance and foreign ministry were more cautious approximate in japan. but it is also the trade ministry which is pushing for the strategy of decoupling in the high-tech sector. they are quietly but visibly pushing for data reciprocity. no participation in 5g. the trade ministry has initiated tri lateral trade ministry deals with the u.s. i think there are four so far. if you read the statements it basically says a lot of what bob said about state reciprocity, strategic date receptions. with australia, japan orchestrated a tri lateral mou that vice president pence oversaw on the bill back and basically encountering belt and road with u.s. and australia's set of equity instra structure investment. and with india. japan spent a lot of time with india working on strategic investment strategies to prevent strategic vulnerability for india's high-tech sector. and so the trade ministry is sort of playing it both ways. but the clear energy is on protecting infrastructure and technology from what china is doing. finally, you will see in the coming weeks a new defense strategy in the national defense program guidelines coming out of the japanese government i think because of the politics, the name china won't be used much but you have to realize all of the ability is about countering china's threat and working more closely with the u.s. and other countries. if there is a line for japan, i think it is the 25% tariffs. the donald trump went to 25% tariffs, that would be so detablizing for the international economy, set aside what it does to production networks, that would be truly alarming. short of that, my sense is corporate and official japan, i think korea to, to a significant extent are generally in agreement with where we are going. it is the unpredictable dimension, it is the lack of internal consensus, it is the fact that we treat our allies pretty badly right now, why are we threatening 232 sanctions on our allies like we are trying to do on china. there is a lot in way we are doing it that troubles our allies but the general rap sheet that vice president pence resonates with japan and korea, too. thanks. >> well, one is reminded of the good old days when we had a single organizing principle for our foreign policy. and that was containment of the soviet union and its economy. now we are wrestling with all the complications of our success there. and i am reminded -- confident with our three speakers, i am reminded of the stories behind all the headlines. i would like to open it up to the floor for the questions, in consideration of our audience both present physically here and our virtual audience present on c-span, please state your name and any affiliation you care to advertise and proceed with the question or the comment. thank you. >> my dear colleague -- hi. >> hi. i am waiting for the bomb here. >> extensiistential threat to t united states. existential means sees to exist. i mean, china threatens the very existence of the united states? that's the phrase extension threat. >> that's what he said. >> i want to hear more about that. because it seems to me that we begin are building an enemy the way we did vastly exaggerated the prior soviet union and we are pushing and being pushed back. so i would like you to tell them more the economic, scientific side, it is all speculative, one day they are going to build bigger chips than us and so-and-so. but the idea on the ground is first of all we are dependent on them if we are ever going to deal with north korea. we had wonderful meetings we had in this room a year ago, the combination of nuclear weapons and missiles from north korea was considered clear and present danger. the fact that they exchanged love letters changed none of it. now we can get a handled -- the economy is per capita is similar to nicaragua. they have aging population. they are polluted. they arer inially out of water. 400 million people demanding. they are under enornlous economic stress. true they build walls to amor the dam. but they are not a threat to ebb anybody. [ inaudible ] they built some land pathways to get things to get things essential to their survival. meanwhile -- i don't question foolishly ask countries to choose, like japan, they are not going the like the answer. so it is useful, but it is hardly the end of the discussion in terms of our strategy. i think, and scott referenced this as well -- i think that the growing the presiding officer: is there any senator in the chamber who issue -- wishes to vote or change their vote? the yeas of 50. the nays are 49. the motion is agreed to. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: mr. president, i have two requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. blunt: mr. president, i also ask unanimous consent that robert ivansko, a federal regulatory committee detailee with the senate energy committee be granted privilege of the floor until and through december 21, 2018. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blunt: mr. president, i also ask unanimous consent that my military fellow, our military detailee, major aaron house be given floor privileges during the duration of my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blunt: so, mr. president, i'm here today to talk for a few minutes about major house and the work he's done in our office. we've benefited for the last several years from a military detailee being on the intelligence committee and on the defense appropriating committee, and having significant military installations in our state, as many of us do, but we certainly have those in missouri. it's been really valuable having major aaron house with them. major house has been a great resource on a number of important national security issues in our office. the knowledge and experience he's gained as a u.s. army reserve officer have really helped inform our discussions on defense issues critical to missouri and critical to the country. aaron was born in platsberg, new york on the shores of lake champlain. joined the army in 2001. he first served as an enlisted soldier for three years and then as a commissioned officer after that. he served in both the engineer corps and the finance corps. he deployed to iraq where he conducted rapid crater repair, root clearance and construction operations. his most recent assignment before joining our office was with the joint staff working as analyst for the office of the comptroller in defense. he's extremely well educated and holds a bachelor's of science and manufacturing management from clarkson university in new york. a master of science in human relations and business from aberton university in texas and has both a master of business administration and a master of public administration from syracuse university in new york. he comes with all of that background combining that with his background in finance, he's really been critically important to us as we move through a number of important projects this year. he's really been able to devote a lot of time in gathering and analyzing data on historical military construction projects as we move forward on those projects. he's provided knowledgeable recommendations on a host of foreign policy issues as well. we have been involved in the last year in colombia where senator cardin and i cochaired an effort with the atlantic council to look at moving peace colombia to plan colombia and looking at that again now that the colombian government has changed. we've looked to some things that involved australia and china and russia, just to name a few of the areas where major house has really been helpful in our office. on veterans issues, he's been helpful as we try to connect veterans with the resources that they need and the benefits that they have every right to have but sometimes have a hard time accessing those benefits. having him in the office has been an asset. it's been a pleasure for me and our entire staff. i certainly wish him all the best in the next chapter of his military career. he and his wife mindy have three daughters. they have a newborn some of the even in that year he was with us, they added a fourth child at their house. his family and friends who support him and the sacrifices he and his family, his immediate family make to serve are deeply appreciated by us. he's been a real benefit to the country. he's been a particular benefit to the missourians that i get to work for. i'm grateful to have him this year and will just again say that this is a program that really is beneficial to the senate. i hear from our past detailees over the years that it was an incredible opportunity for them to understand how the congress works from the perspective of each of our offices and makes a valuable addition to what they take to their next assignment and every future assignment. i think the chief of staff for the president spent some substantial time in this building representing the army and said he was the most knowledgeable guy in the army when it came to talking about issues that he learned right here and how to work with and provide information and advice to congress. so we're glad major house has been with us, appreciative of the program, look forward to welcoming our next detailee soon and wish major house and his family great success as they move forward. with that, mr. president, i would yield. mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i am here today, mr. president, to express my extremely grave concerns about the person that we have just begun to move to a vote to the federal energy regulatory commission. he would be commission ermc in a me, if we were to confirm him. -- he would be commissioner mcnamee, if we were to confirm him. this is an administration had a that is distinguished itself for terrible energy appointments, conceivably the worst. and it's too important to our country to have an independent and reality-based federal energy regulatory commission to allow an industry plant like mr. mcnamee, who will never be independent, who will always have his thumb on the scale for the vested interests, get onto the federal energy regulatory commission. in addition to the bad decisions that he will make, because he will be trying to throw decisions for the fossil fuel industry, he will also create an enormous amount of litigation because people who come before a federal administrative agency are entitled to an honest look at their claims. and if the administration -- the regulatory agency is incapable of giving them that honest look, that's grounds for appeal. mcnamee is a walking failure of any honest look at any question in which the fossil fuel industry and specifically the coal industry has an interest. and, sadly, his position isn't just a question of a personal failing; he comes out of a system. and so i'm going to take some time to describe the system that he comes out of. no one less than our late friend, senator john mccain, was once asked in an interview, why has it taken so long for congress to address climate change. katie couric was the interviewer. she asked, why has it taken so long, senator. here is senator mccain's answer -- special interests. it's the special interests. it's the utility companies andnd the petroleum companies and other special interests. they are the ones that have blocked progress in the congress of the united states and the administration. that's a little straight talk, end quote. and the way these industries work is kind of interesting. they've figured out -- they figured out pretty early on that if you're a big power company or a big coal company or any big fossil fuel polluter and he come forward into a debate and he make your argument as exxonmobil, as koch industries, as murray coal, people will immediately discount what you're saying because they will understand that you have a massive conflict of interest. that you have the massive conflict of interest of wishing to pollute for free. so they have set up this whole array of front groups to disguise that it is truly the fossil fuel industry whose hands are pulling our strings. and we came to the floor some time ago, a considerable number of the democratic senators, to point out this coordinated, phony, false front, fossil fuel-funded operation. and we made the phony front groups so mad that they actually sent a letter disputing that they were a coordinated group of phony fronts by putting all their phony names on a single letterhead together arguing that they weren't coordinating together in a letter in which they most obviously were coordinated together. that's how upset they were when it was pointed out what mischief they are up to. so this was groups like americans for tax reform, alex, cascade policy institute, cfact, competitive enterprise institute -- i love this name: the franklin center for government integrity which has little to do with public integrity. heritage foundation, the notorious heartland institute, which distinguished itself by putting up billboards equating groups to the unibomber. the james madison group. these groups love to steal the names of historic figures to give themselves a little bit of initial credence so there is also a john locke foundation. historians know how important he was to the founding of this country. the mcgwire institute, kansas policy institute, montana policy institute, npri, p.l.i., virginia institute, and of course a yankee institute for public policy. this whole piece of public relations and propaganda machinery is something that is an ongoing disgrace, and there's some folks who've been looking at it pretty hard recently and saying some pretty rough stuff about it. i'd like to start with two recent articles by paul krugman. he's no fool. he won a nobel prize for economics. he begins by noting what everybody who studies this knows already -- climate change poses a major threat to the nation and some of its adverse effects are already being felt. he goes on to say the, there are almost no good-faith climate change deniers. and i think he's accurate about that. i think there are almost no good-faith climate change deniers because, to use his phrase, denying science for profit has become such a constant activity, as shown by this whole array of phony fossil fuel-funded organizations. he goes on to describe some of the history that climate denial -- i am quoting him here -- climate denial actually follows in the footsteps of the long campaign by tobacco companies to confuse the public about the dangers of smoking. i've given several speeches about this on the senate floor. the apparatus that the tobacco companies used to confuse the public about the dangers of tobacco morphed over into a bigger, more cleverly hidden and better funded apparatus but basically started with the same root that the fossil fuel industry took over to confuse the public about the dangers of their product in the same way that the tobacco industry had tried to confuse the public about the dangers of its product. the tobacco scheme was so fraudulent that they were actually found liable for fraud in federal court, not just at the trial court level but upheld at the d.c. circuit court of appeals. he goes on to say, every one of the handful of well-known scientists who have expressed climate skepticism has received large sums of money from these companies or from dark money conduits like donors trust and of course it also flows through these phony front groups that i described who wrote back to us to deny that they were coordinated, phony front groups. climate denial is rooted in greed, paul krugman continues, because it is paid for by the fossil fuel industry. then he comes back the very next week with a second article, still on the same theme, bewailing the fact that the republican party has committed itself to denying the facts on climate change that it is now completely dominated by climate deniers and hostile to science in general. he describes the importance of climate denial and the weaponized fake news and the relentless propaganda as being, to use his words, climate denial, you might say, was the crucible in which the essential elements of trumpism were formed. deny facts, repeating lies insist and thely, weaponizing fake news through unreliable sites and poisoning the public debate with nonsense is how i would generally describe what he was describing. conspearcy theorizing has long been standard practice among climate deniers and these are the organizations who propagate those conspiracy theories. he goes on, most prominent climate deniers are basically paid to take that position, receiving large amounts of money from fossil fuel companies. if we fail, he says, to meet the challenge of climate change with catastrophic results, it will be a disaster brought on by corruption had willful ignorance, conspiracy theorizing, and intimidation. and this question of corruption isn't just coming from the left. there is a free market think tank, they have will wilkins from that institute just wrote a piece about what he called the spiraling crisis of american corruption, which includes failure to require financial transparency of those who would fix our fates. all of these groups hide who their donors are. there is no financial transparency because they are fronts for the fossil fuel industry, and if they reported all the money they got from them, their purpose as front groups evaporated. creating, as wilkinson continues, a class of rich and powerful miscreants who profit by ghawing away at the rule of law. god forbid we should have real hearings on climate change that there should be legislative rule of law. god forbid that we should get honest opinions out of e.p.a. based on the science of the rule of law. all of that goes out of the wind so that miscreants of the fossil fuel industry can get their way. their pooled wealth, wilkinson continues, can be deployed to keep themselves in the money, and that is what is going on, creating in what i think is a really pointed phrase in our country, a doom loop -- a doom loop of corruption, distrust, and institutional degeneration. so what our friend senator mccain said was is the mischief, this is how it's done, through secret money, dark money, front groups, phony propaganda, and all backed up with fossil fuel industry political muffle. -- muscle. it is sickening p, and this guy, mcnamee came smack out of one of these groups, the texas public policy foundation has received more than $3.5 million from koch-related foundations. this is koch distribution not coke the softdrink. i don't want to disparage the wrong coke. coke industries and koch brothers-related foundations -- $3.5 million. it also received over -- about $1.5 million from donors trust. donors trust is an entity that has no business purpose. it is set up to die dentty landers donationsment society if you don't want to somebody to know that exxonmobil is funding you, exxonmobil gives the money to donors trust. donors trust gives the money to exactly who exxonmobil told them two to. it is donor-directed. you can report that you got your money from donors trust you not exxonmobil. no business purpose. it simply sells transparency out, brings obscurity in, and is a dark money conduit for big special interests. it really is a disgrace. and this guy comes out of this world. by the way, $100,000 from expoabl also because they -- exxonmobil goes into the public policy foundation. the last contribution from the texas public policy foundation to the trump nominee pool was a woman named kathleen hartnett white, who did such a horrendous job in the environment and public works committee, showed such ignorance of environmental matters, had no clue that carbon dioxide reacts chemically with ocean and is acidifying the oceans, that science you can do in a high school lab. it's incredibly simple. i've done it here on the senate floor with one of those bubbleer stones for an aquarium, and my own breath, and our glass of water. to not know that carbon dioxide acidifies the ocean is appallingly ignorant. she also didn't know how much climate change and the warming atmosphere was warming the oceans. well, it's more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases that has gone into the oceans. the oceans are warming at a rate, if you took the explosive power of a nuclear weapon, the hiroshima nuclear bomb, if you took the explosive power of that and converted 100% of that energy into heat, you'd have to be setting off multiple bombs per second in our oceans to match how fast climate change is warming our oceans. and you can measure that with thermometers. this is not complicated. too much for her. she couldn't figure it out. when oceans warm, they rise because oceans expand. warm water expands as it warms. basic physics. no clue. this you can measure essentially with yardsticks. you can measure it at the tide gauges that noaa and the navy have run in some cases for over a century. so this is the world he comes out of. this is the infiltration of the fossil fuel front groups and koch industries into what used to be legitimate institutions of government. what really kills me is that mcnamee at one point talking about climate science said, i quote here, there is an organized propaganda campaign. the problem is it's taken hold, there is a lot of money behind this. well, he's describing something very accurately, but it's not the scientists all across this country in every one of our home state universities working on,ing studying and teaching climate science. this is called projection. it's the rhetorical device where you take the sin that you are most obviously guilty of and immediately accuse your adversary of it so that when you're caught, it looks like it's a tie of mutual criticisms. as paul krugman said in one of his piece, projections, much indeed. i'll close by talking about this guy's effort to prop up coal through these completely bogus power protection plans that have come out of the department of energy on his watch, and that he's defended here. even the trump appointees to ferc threw these dumb things out they were so bad totally violating the federal power act. but i was for them, and he has said that if you don't preserve coal, you risk resilience and security on the grid. that's a question that ferc's going to be looking at. he ought to recuse himself on this. he's refused to recuse himself on this. but there are a lot people who say that it's actually working the other way. here's an article "powering into the future: grid energy and renewable." it contributes to capacity and resource adequacy, maintaining local voltage of frequency performance, providing grid balancing services, and creating a more flexible and diverse generation fleet." here's another one. headline, renewable microgrids can enhance grid resilience. here's another one, against physical risk and cyberattack, the electric grid have made renewable energy sources more attractive. they're more attractive when you measure for protecting against physical risk and cyberattacks. they, quote, can add a layer of protection from physical damage to the grid. it's not coal. here's a report out of texas suggesting that the state's power production can be made more reliable by the addition of solar and wind renewables. here's an article headlined, solar energy is better than coal for national security infrastructure, says department of energy. i'd love to know how mcnamee let this one get by him. this is his department of energy telling the truth because nobody seemed to notice. deloitte, the case for renewables has never been stronger in part because wind and solar power -- i'm quoting here -- are now viewed as a solution to grid balancing, says deloitte, while placing downward pressure on electricity prices, solar and wind are pressing downward pressure on solar and wind prices, and they have also demonstrated an ability to strengthen grid resilience and reliability and provide essential grid services. so give me a break about this coal needs to defend the grid nonsense. that was cooked up probably by these phony baloney front groups as an excuse to continue to sell their polluting product. the deloitte report itself, executive summary, utilities are beginning to demonstrate how distributed renewable generation in a microgrid setting can be a cost-effective alternative to traditional transmission and distribution alternatives and protect the grid that way, that independently owned utilities are exploring opportunities to enhance resilience through strategic renewable integration. integrating renewables strategically improves grid resilience and -- here's the clincher -- various independently owned utilities will be granted regulatory license to innovate. whether those reforms will drive innovation fast enough to keep consumers' lights on during future catastrophic weather events remains to be determined. here they're saying getting renewables in will actually help keep consumers' lights on. but how are they ever going to get a fair hearing from this guy who pretends, based on phony baloney front group information, that it takes coal plants to keep the grid secure, when all these reports show that that just plain isn't true. it's nonsense. and the worst of all, and the closer for him is that he was on the 2009 transition team for attorney general ken cuccinelli when he was elected attorney general of virginia. i am really honored that our departing senator from florida is, happens to be here on the floor today because he and i are both graduates of the university of virginia. there was a scientist at the university of virginia named michael mann. he was a climate scientist. he's the guy who did what became known as the hockey stick graph, which showed carbon emissions and then, boom, up it goes like the blade of a hockey stick at the beginning of the industrial revolution. so how did the fossil fuel industry react to that? did they engage him in scientific debate? no. they tried to get him fired. they sent their front groups out to attack his e-mails, to try to get into his e-mails so they could mock him and set their trolls to work on him. our university, the university of virginia, had to fight attorney general cuccinelli, take him all the way to the virginia supreme court where his bogus effort to harass and intimidate a climate scientist was finally for once and for all thrown out by the supreme court of the state of virginia. it was one of the lowest points in rule of law in the history of this country when an attorney general is using his powers of office to flak for an industry that supported him to try to damage the reputation and career of a climate scientist because the science wasn't showing what the industry wanted. their solution was to go after the ient scientist and try to ruin his reputation. it was a disgrace, and this guy was on his transition team. give me a break. if we can't do better than this, we should all be ashamed of ourselves. i yield the floor. mr. nelson: mr. president, would the senator yield for a question? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. a senator: would the senator yield for a question? mr. whitehouse: of course. mr. nelson: i say to my friend, the senator from rhode island, would it be fair to sum up the senator's statement of what is happening to the planet by saying that the additional heat that is prohibited from radiating out into space and is trapped by the greenhouse gases, that additional heat, 90% of which is absorbed by the oceans, and as the water of the oceans heat up, the volume rises. and, thus, sea level rise, and the increased heating up of the entire earth's temperature. is that a true statement? mr. whitehouse: that is a very true statement, and i would add that there are very few transcendent moments that take place here in the temple of mamman where big special interests throw their weight around. but one of them that i've been privileged to be here for was the senator from florida, senator nelson, talking about his time in space in a nasa space ship and looking down on this earth, not seeing red states or blue states, not seeing sectarian differences or differences among countries, not seeing national boundaries. seeing us as the small globe spinning through the void that we are. and it is a moment i will never forget. and when you look at that and think of that message that you brought and think that we are busily doing everything we can to ruin the balance of the systems upon which we depend, because we won't say no to the biggest and most muscling and remorseless industry that probably has ever stalked the halls of this building, it is such a national tragedy that this would happen in the united states of america. the whole world will suffer for our failing. the finger will end up pointing at us because the story will come out -- it is already coming out already about fossil fuel money and influence and threats and their hidden money and the front groups and the whole piece of stinking machinery that they operate. so the contrast between your, the senator's transcendent view of the globe from space and the foul politics of this industry that we experience here every day is one of the great discrepancies that is most hard for me to take into my heart. mr. nelson: mr. president, would the senator yield for a further question? mr. whitehouse: yes. mr. nelson: i say to the senator from rhode island, since it is documented over time that the average annual temperature of the earth is rising and we see the statistics, the measurements of temperature, and is it not true that the scientists tell us that there is a temperature some 4 degrees-plus farenheit more beyond which there is no return for the earth continuing to heat? is that a true statement? mr. whitehouse: that is a true statement. the scientists of the world have more or less reached consensus that that 2 degrees centigrade increase is one we do not want to go beyond because it could set in force further consequences that would accelerate the problem. for instance, large amounts of frozen arctic methane or even under sea methane letting loose. you're already seeing lakes that bubble in northern russia and in canada from methane melting up through them. they're methane bubbles. it's not air bubbles. if that accelerates, you can get a feedback loop in which the input that we've done releases more greenhouse gases which in turn feed that feedback loop into more greenhouse gases, more temperature, more greenhouse gases, and up you go. and of course all of that, a lot of that, i should say, go into the oceans and nobody knows better than florida what that is doing along your coasts to people's properties. so you don't have to wait to hit two degrees centigrade. the safe opinion is 1.5 degree centigrade is all we can afford. why not be safe when you're dealing with our planet? even well before then in your state, we're seeing what's going on and we're seeing the daytime flooding. you and i have been walking around in boots on sunny days as the tide comes washing in where it's never been before, these king tides, and we have groups like freddie mac which is not exactly a left-wing green organization, warning that because of this, there is a significant chance of there being a coastal property value crash along our coasts. as that danger of sea-level rise backs into the insurance and mortgage to buy your house. if you can't -- if the next person to buy your house can't get insurance or ar mortgage, good luck getting a good price on your house. that's the -- and they predicted it could be as bad as the 2008 mortgage meltdown. so it's happening now and we think that 1.5 to 2 degrees centigrade is a clear point of no return where the consequences begin to move us out of control where we can't stop it at that point. mr. nelson: mr. president, if the senator would further yield just for a concluding statement that the senator has -- from rhode island has outlined exactly what is happening to the state of florida with the rising sea levels, the intrusion of saltwater into the fresh water, the ferocious and highly intense hurricanes as well as how he has outlined the threat to property values and the normal financial commerce of building buildings and houses that now along the coastline in the future may well be threatened within the near future. and i thank the senator for his time here. mr. whitehouse: i thank my friend. we sat on the intelligence committee and i was able to see his extraordinary skill as an examiner and cross-examiner of witnesses. he usually began, mr. president, by saying, i'm just a country lawyer from florida. and everyone knew once they heard that, something was about to happen because this country lawyer knew how to get to the bottom of things in a hurry and what he has done to protect his home state has been nothing but inspiring to me. and i appreciate it. if we can say one thing that is hopeful, on the other side of this building there will be gavels that go into the hands of a party not controlled by the fossil fuel and they will have questions and witnesses and a lot of what i'm talking about is going to become very apparent to the american people. the coverup of the role of the fossil fuel industry and putting people like mcnamee into these positions will be exposed. i yield. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president, i have a couple of subjects to talk about and one of them is all of us in the senate have attended a most moving in the national cathedral for the late george h.w. bush. there were many alg laids -- allocades and it was so moving. i just want the senate record to reflect one little vignette that i think underscores the compassion and goodness of the man george h.w. bush. many years ago when this senator was a young congressman and had the privilege of serving with former senator and then-congressman claude pepper, a fellow that had risen to the heights of political power in the 1930's during the depression became a champion of the little people, and then as he transitioned to the house of representatives became known as mr. senior citizen and the protecter of medicare and social security. many times in the reagan administration he was the -- he was the constant irritant to the presidential administration, and yet, those two irishmen when they knew they had their differences but they knew when to set aside those differences for the sake of the country. that too was carried over by the then-vice president who became president, president bush. an example of george bush's humanity was in the late 1980's the florida delegation got an emergency call to go to walter reed army hospital because it was in the final hours of senator then-congressman claude pepper. by the time got to the hospital, they were proceeding to get claude into a wheelchair. he had come out of a deep sleep, very possibly a coma, and he was being wheeled out into the waiting room, and who should appear because president george h.w. bush and mrs. bush because the word had gotten to them that claude pepper was about to pass on from this life into the heavenly life. the president decided to make that a real occasion. and so as he joined everybody gathered about senator pepper, as claude was actually master of ceremonies of greeting everybody and introducing this one to the other one and mr. president, this is so and so, it was an extraordinary scene. and then president bush, because he knew a fellow that was his political opponent but who had been such a substantial part of american political history said, claude, i have something that i want to produce and i want to present to you on behalf of a grateful nation on behalf of your public service. and president bush bent down and put around senator pepper's neck the medal of freedom. naturally there wasn't a dry eye among those of us that were there and it's another little vignette in the life of george h.w. bush that shows the humanity, the care, and the concern for his fellow mankind that was exhibited that day in walter reed army hospital. so, mr. president, i wanted to make that little vignette, which is appropriate today after such a moving service over at the national cathedral. and now, mr. president, i rise to speak about the importance of the sacred right to vote. in the tumultuous days of the 1960's on a hot afternoon, i watched as a law student on a greeny black and white tv as dr. king delivered his memorable "i have a dream" speech on the steps of the lincoln memorial. his soaring, spiritually laced speech challenged us to commit our lives to ensuring that the promises of american democracy were available, not just for the privileged few, but for all of god's children. black men and white men, jews and gentiles, protestants and catholics, now is the time, dr. king urged, to make real the promises of democracy. he stressed that the central promise made to the citizens in a democracy is the right to vote and to have that vote counted. half a century has passed and our country has changed with the times, but one thing has not changed, the right to vote for all god's children in america is still under assault. unbelievably we are not so very far from the problems of 1963. despite the passage of time and landmark, civil and voting rights legses -- legislation, five decades later there is still considerable voter suppression in this country. in fact, several states have recently enacted restrictive laws cutting back voting hours on nights and on weekends and eliminating same-day registration and beaskly making it harder for people to vote. standing in between a citizen and the voting both is a direct contradiction to the vision of equality put forth by the founding fathers. in 1776, they declared that all men were created equal but many in our country had to wait another 94 years before the 15th amendment to the constitution granted citizens the right to vote, though not all citizens. ratified in 1870, the amendment states the right of citizens of the united states to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the united states or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. the congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. that is a quote. but it still took another 50 years before women in america were allowed to vote. after her arrest for casting a ballot in the presidential election ofle 18 -- of 1872, susan b. anthony delivered a number of speeches in upstate new york on women's sufferrage. in those speeches she noted that the right of all citizens to vote in elections is key to a functioning democracy, and specifically one line from her speech stands out. quote, and it is a down right mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them by providing the democratic republican government the ballot. end of quote of susan b. anthony. and after the passage of the 19th amendment granting women the ballot, it took another 45 years before our nation belatedly enacted the voting rights act of 1965 intended to guarantee every u.s. citizen the right to vote. does this principle really hold true in practice? the continued voter suppression of which i speak may not be as blatant as it once was with jim crow laws and poll taxes and literacy tests and the like, but it is still very much with us. in recent years it's obvious that hurdles have once again been placed between the voting booth and the young and minority. a devastating blow was dealt by the u.s. supreme court when it gutted the voting rights act in as recent as 2013. our nation's highest court struck down a central provision of the law that was used to guarantee fair elections in this country since the mid-1960's, and that includes the guarantee of elections in my state of florida since that time. congress passed the voting rights act of 1965 to protect our right to vote. it required states with a history of voter suppression to get federal approval before changing their voting laws. and for nearly five decades, the states had to prove to the department of justice why a change was necessary and demonstrate how that change would not harm voters of their right to vote. and then in a 5-4 decision, the court declared that part of the law was outdated. it essentially rendered a key part of the law void until a bitterly partisan and gridlock congress can come up with a new formula for determining which states and localities need advanced voter approval to amend their right to vote laws. the majority of the court justified its ruling by pointing out that we no longer had the blatant voter suppression tactics once used to disenfranchise voters across the country. well, i vigorously disagreed with that majority opinion because removing much needed voter protections also prevents the federal government from trying to block disi am toar -- to block discriminatory state laws before they go into effect. in essence, states and local jurisdictions are now legally free to do as they please. in fact, just moments after that supreme court decision, the texas attorney general said his state would begin immediately honoring local legislation that imposed in the words of the federal court strict and unforgiving burdens on many texans attempting to cast a ballot. and has been noted the right to vote was not always given to all american adults but our laws adjusted as we became a more mature and tolerant democracy. but the reverse is what's happening in america today. since the 2010 election, in addition to cutting back on early voting, north carolina, ohio, wisconsin, and florida have approved voting restricti restrictions that according to some experts are targeted directly at reducing turnout among young, low-income, and minority voters that traditionally vote democrat. in 2011 the florida legislature and state officials reduced the number of early voting days. they reduced them from two weeks down to eight days, including very conveniently canceling the sunday night before the sunday right before the tuesday election, a day that historically had seen heavy african american and hispanic voting. and state officials countered that registered voters would still have the same number of hours that they could still vote early only in eight days instead of two weeks. well, it didn't work out that way. florida also made voting harder for people who had been recently moved to another county and had an address change, such as college students. it also subjected voter registration groups to penalties and fines. if they made a mistake or they didn't turn it in within a certain number of hours. these laws were so burdensome that the league of women voters challenged the provisions in federal court and they won. judges found that florida's 2011 reduction of early voting would make it materially more difficult for some minority voters to cast a ballot. and as a result, florida had to restore 96 hours of early voting. but even with these added protections, the next election in 2012, it was a fiasco. lines outside polling places were prohibitively long with some people waiting up to eight hours to cast a vote. this year's 2018 midterm election brought added difficulties in florida and across the country. in broward county, florida, this year, ballot design caused over 30,000 people to miss voting in the u.s. senate race because they didn't see it buried in the lower left-hand column under the instructions in english, spanish, and creole. in north dakota, the republican state legislature moved to require residential addresses to registered -- to register to vote. this move was widely seen as an attempt to prevent native americans, a democratic-leaning constituency, from voting since many of them used p.o. boxes to get their mail on reservations. in north carolina, nearly 20% of early voting locations were closed this year because many of them simply couldn't meet the burdensome requirements imposed by the state legislature. now in north carolina, absentee ballots that were stolen or missing and never delivered are under a federal investigation for fraud. in our neighboring state of georgia, the republican candidate for governor was the sitting secretary of state responsible for administering his own election. his office pursued aggressive policies that made it measurably harder for many people to vote, particularly african americans and other minorities. so in light of this evidence and following a widespread public outcry, what can we do? and what can we do now? well, as i had said earlier, it may not be as obvious as poll tactics and all the other blockades to voting. and we've seen a lot of that in the past, particularly by all of the marches and so forth during the 1970's civil rights era. it might not be as obvious, but there are all these subtle attempts. so what should we do? i submit that the problem albeit complex, the solution, the answer is relatively simple. as americans who cherish the right to vote, we must turn to those schemers and say there is a promise of democracy that we will not allow you to break. we have an obligation to keep this promise of democracy for our children. there are bright spots we should celebrate. in my state of florida, voters overwhelmingly this year approved a ballot initiative that would restore the right to vote to nearly a million and a half individuals who had been convicted of felonies, nonviolent felonies, and had served their time. this is a positive step. and although the congress may be dysfunctional, but we must continue to push lawmakers for a fix to the voting rights act that the supreme court struck down on a divided 5-4 vote, that provision that i spoke about. we ought to be making it easier to vote, not harder. keep in mind what president johnson said a half century ago. the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men. also remember what dr. king said. so long as i do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote, i do not possess myself. i cannot make up my mind. it is made up for me. i cannot live as a democratic citizen observing the laws i have helped to enact. i can only submit to the edict of others. that's what dr. king said. so don't we owe it to our children the right to possess themselves if this is to be a truly free and fair democracy? i believe that some of the most fundamental rights in our democracy are the right to vote, the right to know whom you're voting for, and the right to have the confidence that vote that you cast is going to be counted as you intended it. if that were not enough, just as concerning as the ongoing efforts to suppress certain votes is the amount of undisclosed and unlimited money that is sloshing around in our campaigns. the supreme court's 2010 decision in citizens united has opened the floodgates and allowed the wealthiest americans to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections. allowing such unlimited, undisclosed money into the political system is corrupting our democracy. i have strongly supported several pieces of legislation, such as the disclose act to require groups who spend more than $10,000 on campaign-related matters to identify themselves. tell us who is giving the money by filing a disclosure with the federal elections commission. the american people have a right to know whom they're voting for. not just the name on the ballot but who is behind that name on the ballot. the supreme court itself said that, quote, transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages. end of quote, straight from the court. i believe we as a congress have a moral obligation, a moral obligation to correct what has happened in our system and to ensure that our voters have the information they need to make an informed decision in the election process. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. kennedy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i just wanted to make a few comments in memory of president george herbert walker bush whose funeral we attended today. you know, losing a parent or grandparent is never easy. i know i speak for the people of louisiana when i offer my heartfelt sympathies to the entire bush family in their time of grief. i want them to know that their loss echoes in the hearts of all americans this week, and i want them to know that their family is in our thoughts and in our prayers as we mourn together. mr. president, at an age when most kids are trying to figure out what kind of smartphone they want to buy, president george h.w. bush thought of nothing except answering the call of duty. he really was a part of the greatest generation. and that i believe he was a hero and a patriot. not just because he made the choices that he made to fight for his country but because he got up and continued to make the choice to serve the american people every single day of his life. as an navy aviator, as a congressman, as an ambassador, as c.i.a. director, as vice president of the united states, and ultimately as commander in chief, president bush very simply was a great american, not just because he served his country during some of the darkest days in world history, though he did -- and he did courageously -- but because he embodied so many of the values that distinguish the american spirit. tax rates like bravery -- traits like bravery, selflessness, faith, and kindness, something we don't have enough of -- in the village of washington anymore. kindness that sometimes seems to be in short supply. but president bush had them in spades. he was smart as a whip. he was a patriot, but he was also a person who deeply believed in the importance of working together to try to build a better world. upon leaving office, president bush started the points of life foundation. the points of life is a charity whose mission is based on a fairly simple premise, that there's nothing more transformative than an individual choosing to be generous with his or her time, gifts, and talents. this idea has resonated with millions of americans across the world. since its founding in 1990, points of light has electrified the american spirit of volunteerism. and each year the foundation supports more than 20 million hours of community service. what an extraordinary legacy. president bush understood that at its core, public service is about -- this is going to sound strange -- but it's about loving your neighbor. points of light foundation is a fitting legacy for this fine american who loved his country and he loved his family to the fullest, and he devoted every day of his life to serving all 350 million people of his neighbors. he was, without a doubt, one of the brightest of those thousand points of light and our loss is heaven's gain. a smart person, mr. president, once told me that people don't really care how much you know until they know how much you care. president george herbert walker bush knew a lot, but he cared a lot, too. america weeps, both in joy for his life and in sadness because his soul is in a better place but not with us. america and the world have lost a favorite son. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. quorum call: mr. casey: mr. president if. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. i'd ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to speak about a very special child, whose photo you see on my left. her name was scar lot. scarlet and her mother stephanie are the people i'll talk about mostly tonight. stephanie was a former staffer in my senate office and scarlet was, as you can tell from the photograph, a ray of sunshine for her parents, stephanie and ryan, also for her extended family and for her many friends. and that's how they described scarlet. she was their sunshine. tragically, scarlet passed away on january 8, 2016, at just 16 months old. scarlet's mom stephanie said the following about her daughter, and i'm quoting -- our little scarlet lived up to her name. she was a little spitfire, strong and determined. she took in the world around her with such wonder. her favorite things were books, blueberries and our pets. her favorite song was "you are my sunshine." she was our sunshine. we lived and breathed for her. but shortly after midnight, very early on sunday, january 8, all of that ended. it didn't just end. it was shattered. every shred of happiness we had and any semblance of the lives we knew before that moment was demolished. shortly after i entered her room to check on her that night -- unquote. that's what stephanie, scarlet's mom, said in that horrific moment. in the time since scarlet's death, as i and my current and former staff members who know stephanie can attest, stephanie and ryan have been consumed -- consumed by the loss of their little girl. they did what any grieving parent would do -- they sought answers about what caused scarlet's death. sadly, despite an autopsy and genetic testing, the only answer they got was that her death was, quote, unexplained, end quote. unexplained. they still don't know what caused her death. stephanie and ryan have endured so much pain, first of course because of their grief over losing scarlet and, second, because they still don't know what caused her death. that means that scarlet's death falls in the category known as, quote, sudden unexplained death in childhood, unquote, known by the acronym sduc. many people have never heard of it because it is estimated to be the fifth leading cause -- i should say, but it is estimated to be the fifth leading cause of death for children between the age of one and the age of of four years old. we're not doing enough to learn why these children are dying, and it's time that we take action. sudden unexplained death in childhood has too often been ignored and of course the acronyms have been very confusing. many of us are already familiar with sids, s-i-d-s, sudden infant death syndrome and the after the back to sleep campaign of the 1990's that taught parents how to put their babies to sleep safely on their backs, we learned a lot more about that category as well. sids is spart of a broader category of sudden, unexpected infant death, as opposed to unexplained. so unexpected is the broader category, and i'll be speaking mostly about the sudden unexplained category. the most prevalent cause of unexpected deaths in infants -- and this is children under one year old -- is sids. what one and three unexpected infant deaths is unexplained and the remaining deaths are related to unsafe sleep. similarly, sudden unexplained death in childhood, as i said before, sudc, what took the life of scarlet, disproportionately impacts children ages one to four, beyond the age of one. such that in 2016 over half of all unexplained childhood deaths were in children in this age group like scarlet. we don't know why these infants and children have died, and we didn't know -- we still don't know, i should say, how to prevent future deaths. we don't know which children are at risk even. as a parent, these numbers are horrifying, terrifying. one one represents a beloved child like scarlet who was taken from their family too soon. so that's why i introduce the scarlet sunshine on sudden unexpected death act, to shine light on this problem of unexpected and unexplained infant and childhood deaths. i am grateful the united states representative gwen moore of wisconsin for her work on this issue. i used her bill as a starting point for this new legislation. representative moore introduced companion legislation in the house of representatives. i'm also grateful that senator johnny isakson has cosponsored this new bill. the bill, scarlet's sunshine on sudden, unexpected death act, will bring light to the darkness of these tragic and unexplained deaths. the bill provides resources to help standardize and improve investigations into and reporting data from sudden, unexpected child and infant deaths and to enable full medical review of all -- all -- child and infant deaths. the bill also directs the centers for disease control and prevention to commission a study to advise on best practices for genetic testing that may identify the cause of death. we need this consistent and complete data about unexpected and unexplained child and infant deaths in order to drive research that can find the cause or causes and then develop interventions and ways to prevent future deaths. the bill also creates a new grant program to support safe sleep since we know preventable sleep-related infant deaths are still happening. and, finally, the bill requires an end report to congress on the incidence of sudden, unexplained infant and child deaths, a summary of actions the department of health and human services has taken, and any recommendations that the department of health and human services has developed to reduce these deaths. as stephanie said at scarlet's funeral, quote, there is no measurement for the size of our love for you or the hole you left behind, unquote. nothing we do will bring scarlet or other precious children lost to unexpected death back to their grieving families, but this legislation will help -- or i should say, will be a big first step forward in figuring out why these children are dying and what we can do to prevent it. stephanie and ryan's daughter and scarlet's younger sister is named illiana -- illiana's name means, quote, daughter of the sun and is a tribute to the big sister she never met. so to ryan and stephanie and illiana and to all the other families and friends of children taken from us too soon, we say to you, although we cannot truly understand the awful gravity of your pain or the depht of your loss, we're listening to you and we're listening to your plea for help. we want to bring the bright light of data, medical reviews, genetic testing, and other research to this problem. in other words, we want to bring some of scarlet's sunshine to this cause. we are summoned by little scarlet and other infants and children to take action. i urge my colleagues to support scarlet's sunshine on sudden unexpect the death act, this legislation, and i ask for their support. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. warner: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: first of all, i want to thank my colleague, my friend from pennsylvania, for his impassioned plea and work on this legislation that i intend to support. i intend to support that legislation and the enormous story you just told and the notion that sids is still such a challenge to so many families. it's a little remarkable. i am going to be speaking about a piece of legislation now named after another person, not quite as young as charlotte, where there was another tragedy, but i hope that we can act on as well, and i intend to have acted on before the end of this congress. different circumstance, but there are things where we can sometimes with relatively small legislative fixes make a real difference in people's lives. i commend the senator from pennsylvania and look forward to supporting his legislation. mr. president, i rise today to support h.r. 5075, the ashante alert act of 2018. i'd like to take this opportunity as i start to thank my friend and colleague, the congressman from the second district of virginia, scott taylor, for introducing this important legislation in the house of representatives and for ushering it through the chamber so that now we can take part and pass -- this legislation or similar legislation here in the senate. the ashante alert act seeks to establish a national communications network within the department of justice to help those missing adults by providing assistance to regional and local search efforts. the ashante alert act of 2018 is named after 19-year-old virginia resident ashante billey who was attending culinary school in the hopes of opening her own bakery one day. pursuing her dreams, she split her time between working at a blimpie's restaurant at fort story and taking culinary classes at virginia beach. but on september 18, 2015, in norfolk, virginia, ashante's dreams were cut short when she was abducted shortly after arriving at work. unfortunately, ashanti was found murdered in north carolina 11 days after she was first reported missing. her parents, who were not living in hampton roads at that point, rushed to the region after she disoopped and spent literally almost two weeks trying to get enforcement and others engaged and get the word out. the truth is after she was missing for those 11 days and discovered in north carolina, the authorities did later find and arrest her killer. but ashanti's tragic murder raised an important question about whether more could have been done to save her life. because at a time of her abduction, at just 19 years old, ashanti billie was too old for the issuance of an amber alert and too young for the issuance of a silver alert. and this tragic murder made me realize something i hadn't thought before. we have got alerts in place named after amber for young people up to the age of 18. we have got an alert system in place for seniors called silver alert for folks over 65. what about everybody between 18 and 65? no such alert system exists. so in the case of 19-year-old ashanti billie, her family had nowhere to turn to get the word out about her disappearance. the unfortunate circumstance is -- and it's, again, fairly remarkable that this issue has not been raised at a legislative level before because of that glaring gap about young adults and not-so-young adults, but folks that are younger than 65. unfortunately, ashanti is not an isolateed case. families across the country are affected by loved ones who have gone missing. right here in washington, d.c., we're having an overdue conversation about the plight of missing teens, many of them who are young women of color, and many of them who fall into that same age group as ashanti -- 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. i think about my three daughters who are 23 through 29. god forbid if they were ever abducted, where would i turn to get an alert out? there is no system in place. according to the national crime information center database, over 55,000 missing adults are and have been recorded as missing. according -- in my state, according to the virginia state police, there are currently 240 people aged 18 and older who have gone missing in our commonwealth. now, of course, nobody wants to overload this kind of good functioning alert system with too many reports which could have -- which could take away the effectiveness of existing systems like the amber alert program. so this legislation addresses that issue in order to make sure that in order to issue an alert, the missing adult must either suffer from a proven mental or physical disability or law enforcement must certify the person's physical safety may be in danger or their disappearance was not voluntary. in this way, the department of justice can help states and localities create a system that provides alerts only when a missing adult is in real danger. what i know is that we need lifesaving protections for missing adults between the age of 18 and 65. while as senator casey mentioned that we can never replace the hurt of that family that died -- for that young child that died from sids, we can never replace the hole that has been left in the billie family by the loss of ashanti. but by passing this legislation and naming it after ashanti by calling it the ashanti alert act, we may be able to prevent some tragedy like this from happening in the future. it is past time for congress to enact legislation that can help save the lives of many, many like ashanti. as i mentioned, while we can't bring ashanti back, her memory can live by helping save the lives of others who may find themselves in these same kind of unfortunate situations. now, mr. president, i had planned to come down today and ask for unanimous consent to pass the house bill in its current form. however, in respect to some of my colleagues who have raised nonsubstantive but certain technical issues that can be corrupted, i will hold off for today on asking unanimous consent. but this legislation cannot wait. this legislation cannot be held up by technical concerns. i'm anxious to work through these concerns tonight so that we can move forward on this, perhaps in a hotline version so they can get back to the house and this legislation can become law so that the billie family knows that ashanti's memory will be honored. so i intend to work with my colleagues tonight on making sure that their corrections are included, but the spirit and heart of this legislation, which no one opposes, the idea that we have got a system for young people on alerts under 18 and a system for folks over 65, what about the rest of adults who also fall into these kind of circumstances? we have got to make sure that they are protected as well. so i look forward to making these technical corrections. my hope is we can get this passed even with the hotline and that we can send appropriate legislation back to the house and fill in this needed gap. i thank folks on both sides of the aisle and the law enforcement community for working with us. there is complete agreement that this is legislation. this hole needs to be filled. i think it will be filled. and ashanti billie's legacy will be honored by the ashanti billie act becoming the law of the land. with that, mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum and yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. plucker -- ms. murkowski: mr. president, are we in a quorum call in. the presiding officer: we are. ms. murkowski: i request the proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: senator sullivan and i just returned to washington after a almost surreal 24-hour period up in the state. we went up on sunday night, monday morning. we hadn't anticipated being up there but the state of alaska, more specifically south central alaska experienced a powerful earthquake on friday. it was a, an unsettling event certainly, a frightening event to many, and it caused significant damage in the most populated part of our state. so it was last friday morning at 8:29 in the morning when we had a magnitude 7.0 on the rick ter scale, an earthquake that struck the community of anchorage. the epicenter was about seven miles north of anchorage. it was deep, about 25 miles deep. that shock hit. it lasted anywhere, folks were saying from about 40 seconds to a minute was the initial hard jolt, and then movement after that depended on where you were and what kind of ground you were located on, but it was a very, it was a very significant earthquake by all standards. i heard about the earthquake not because i got some alert on my phone, but because my phone rang when my son called who lives and works in anchorage. he had been at his shop, and he called me right after the shaking stopped. my son is a pretty calm young man, but i could tell that something, something was wrong, something was different. i could hear it in his voice. he was clearly rattled. his comments to me reflected so many of the comments that i heard from so many that i have had a chance to visit with. as we were speaking on the phone, it was about seven minutes after that initial jolt that we had another earthquake, a 5.7 following that, and he literally said you've got to hold on, mom, because we're having another one. these are significant at any time, but to have a 7.0 followed by a 5.7 and then to know that these aftershocks have been continuing, continuing up until today. as of this morning, we have had -- well actually, as of this afternoon the total number of aftershocks that we have had is about 2,500. so think about that from friday morning to just midafternoon in alaska time, about 2,500 aftershocks. the number that were above 4.5 in magnitude, we've had 14 in that time period that were over 4.5. 4.5 is going to get anybody's attention. yesterday morning when i was leaving alaska to come to washington, i'm getting ready, in the bathroom, and there's another shaker then, and that was a 4.8. so as people have asked me how are things back home, i said, well, we had the big jolt on friday, but it is still rocking and rolling, and people are anxious. but the report that i'd like to share with folks today is that it has been an incredible response at so many different levels. but the initial response was pretty intense. after i spoke with my son, i talked with a staff member whose pipes had burst in her home, and she was dealing with flooding. one of the main arterials in anchorage, minnesota drive, is the, one of the access roads to get to the airport. parts of that had collapsed. many people have seen the picture of the vehicle that is sitting in the middle of this depressed area where the bottom literally has dropped out of that, of that that overpass of that road. across anchorage and in the matsu valley, school had just started for the middle schools and the upper grades, and the kids were doing what the kids have been trained to do for decades now. since the 1964 earthquake, believe me, every kid in south central alaska, i think probably every kid in alaska knows what the earthquake drill is, to duck and cover. but during this quake, they were ducking and covering as books from the bookshelves were crashing to the floor, as ceiling tiles were coming down. it's extraordinary to think that during all that we saw, all the damage in the schools that there were two injuries. there's 48,000 kids in the anchorage school district, about 17,000 or 18,000 in the matsu district. two injuries. one was cleaning up glass. another was a student who was putting his arm up to shield himself from a ceiling tile that was falling down, and he injured his wrist. but it is absolutely extraordinary, nothing short of a miracle that we suffered no loss of life. but it was pretty dramatic. transformers blew. much of the city went dark. a tsunami warning was issued for the kenai peninsula in the low-lying areas of anchorage bowl, even down past kodiak. we got a call from friends that were in kodiak that were out on a hunting trip, and they got word that they needed to hike to higher ground. hike to higher ground, of course there's no communication, no way to know whether it's all safe. these stories are coming in from all over the state. but what we heard in those first hours, the first reports coming in from our first responders who just truly jumped into action and were responding to calls as they were coming in, the civil engineers were dispatched to go out to check on the highways, the bridges, the essential infrastructure like the hospitals. we had almost immediate updates from the u.s. geologic survey and noaa, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration, about the earthquake, what was happening with the subsequent tsunami warning, the aftershocks. all of these, all of these were just in real time. and we kept waiting to hear whether there were any reports of serious injuries or fatalities. but fortunately, amazingly, miraculously they never came. and meanwhile, the utilities were working to restore power and to test the city's water systems. anstar, our natural gas supplier, received over 2,700 requests to check on broken gas lines. they went house by house to make sure that they were safe. it was extraordinary in terms of the immediate on-the-ground response by the alaskans that were there in place, the teams that are at the ready because that's what they're trained to do, but then those who were just being good neighbors and knowing that when you have something hit, we are all hands on deck. congressman young, senator sullivan, and i gathered on friday afternoon. we got updates from the vice president, who was traveling. we spoke with the fema administrator, brock long, secretary of transportation cho. all of them were all in on their promises to help throughout the federal government with resources. president trump also his support in promising to spare no expense as we work to recover from this natural disaster went a long way to just providing levels of assurance there. so senator sullivan and i, as i mentioned, flew up on sunday evening. we waited until the weekend was over to fly back home. we didn't want to get in the way of the immediate recovery efforts and i got in at 1:00 o'clock in the morning and went to work cleaning up the glass and the broken things in my house as many of my neighbors had been doing all weekend long. over the course of the day on monday we were able to see some of the damage that this earthquake has caused. and you think about the words when you're trying to describe something that the syrians are just so -- so difficult and it's words like gut wrenching and astounding and then remarkable, but it was -- it was really gut wrenching being in -- in the school. we went out to -- we went out to houston middle school. this is an area out in the matsu valley. this is one of the schools that will not be opened, at least not this year, and perhaps more longer. but it was -- you're standing in a building -- this is the library there in the middle school, and you see all of the books that have fallen to the floor. you see the guts of the ceiling that have some out, the sprinkler system has activated. not only do you have the chaos of the books, but you have the saturation. there's another picket hire of the group of us that went in, but the did picture here of the group of us that went in here, but the ceiling is dissint greating on top of the library there. and when you think about the time that this all happened. you had students in the library. you had constants that were -- students that were passing in the hallway. this is cinder block construction in the school and the actual concrete cinders popping out, crashing to the floor, and breaking. the metal struts coming out of the ceiling, the panels. this is all happening at 8:29 in the morning. it's dark in alaska at 8:29 in the morning. the lights have now gone out and you have this crashing all around you. and when i use the word remarkable to describe some of it, it's remarkable about how the students responded, how the teachers responded, the calm. the kids knew what to do. they got under their desks. they did what they were trained to do. and then when they got the order that they needed to get out to evacuate, what they did was exactly what they were trained to do and no injury -- no injury. it's absolutely extraordinary. so the schools in anchorage are going to be closed for the entire week. the matsu is opening some of theirs this week, but more than 85 of them sustained damage that, clearly -- that clearly needs to be cleaned up, needs to be repaired. the schools were one aspect of the damage that we saw, but what many have seen through the views out there have been the damage to the infrastructure. this is a picture of a collapsed road. this is out in vine road, again, out in the valley. this is kind of a bogey area that runs through here, but it was as if a big suction came in and literally sucked the ground from underneath that. this is an area that we visited. we took this picture here from above in the air. this is it up close, but as you're standing here on these slabs of asphalt, the crevasses are extraordinary and you realize the intensity of the action of the earth. so you see scenes like this and you say, you know, how are we going to get through all of this? and the work that is ongoing now, whether it is the onramps, whether it's the bridges, whether it's the roads like this on vine road, our department of transportation is working to firm up the roads to, believe it or not, fill it in, repave them, even restripe them and get folks back on their way. it is absolutely extraordinarily impressive what we have seen in those 72, 78 hours. the alaska railroad is in a situation where they are assessing their damage. they are operational. they are going to be going much slower than they would like. that is going to be causing complications, but they are -- they are up. the port of alaska is undergoing an expansion. it has been complicated by this earthquake, but that is something, again, very critical to how goods move around our state, 85% of them come through that port so being able to allow for functionality is critical. so we look at our assets, we look at the transalaska pipeline, that was closed down temporarily just for precaution, but it is up and running. and when i think about all of this, given what happened -- the visible damage that we saw earlier this week, i find myself thinking that we're just so lucky. not that we were hit by this major earthquake, but that it could have been so much worse. we talk a lot about resilience, resilience of a people. i think we learned a lot from the 1964 earthquake, the good friday earthquake. that registered at 9.2 on the richter scale. it lasted four and a half, almost fives minutes, extraordinary. we are seismically the largest state in the country and so we work to be prepared. again, i mentioned last friday's earthquake was deep and that mitigated some of the shaking that was associated with it, but the proximity to our state's population center put people and infrastructure at great risk. but the depth of the source and the mechanism of the fault helped reduce the damage. but that's one part of it. the other part of it is -- is being prepared, and this is where i'm just so proud of -- of, defend, the resilience of alaskaians, whether it's at the -- alaskans, whether it's at the schools where they practice the earthquake drills where the students get under the desk, hold on to the chair of a desk, they cover their heads. we have one alaskan who is a page, she has gone through this drill, i know she has. even through it all, through the crashing, students knew what to do. they did it not only for themselves but they did it for other students as well. and there are some stories of some real young heroes out there, and i have a young nephew who not only took care of himself but made sure that a fellow student who had severe mobility issues was able to get under a desk. and i just -- i think about -- i think about the -- the calmness and the presence that so many exercised. i'm going to end by just noting, again, how we have worked as communities in our state to be prepared for -- for disasters when they should come. we have some of the most stringent building codes in the world, and for the most part, our buildings held up. families have earthquake kits in their houses, they've got batteries, they have flashlights, they have nonperishable food, all of which came in handy as folks hunkered down over the weekend. i end my remarks by noting just how grateful i am for the first responders who took action in the after math of the earthquake, even -- aftermath of the earthquake, even amid of the ongoing aftershocks, even with their households totally turned upside down. not only for our first responders, but all of those who acted as first responders. the neighbors that came together, it is alaska at its finest when we all work together. i'm very grateful that we had no tsunami. i'm very grateful that the damages, at least on the surface, are not worse. and we're certainly grateful, we're certainly espionage that there -- certainly thankful that there were no reports of serious injuries. we have partners that are committed to help us in any way they can and i appreciate the reach out from so many colleagues in the senate who sent me texts and called and said, is everything okay in alaska, is there anything we can do? thank you for that. we know we're tough in alaska. that's a reputation that we have. we're kind of proud of that. we know we're hardy and resilient, but knowing that others are going to be with us as we go through this recovery period makes that much better. so i -- i thank you, mr. president, and i thank so many who have been there to help alaska. and with that, i yield the floor and would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: i ask that the proceedings ready the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: i ask unanimous consent all postcloture time on the mcnamee nomination expire at 12:00 noon on thursday, december 6. further, that if the nomination is confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. i further ask following disposition of the nomination, the senate resume consideration of the kraninger nomination and the time be divided until 1:45. further following the use or yielding back of that time, the senate vote on the kraninger nomination as under the previous order. finally, if the nomination is confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 715 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 715 honoring the life of president george herbert walker bush. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. ms. murkowski: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. thursday, december 6. further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved and their use later -- morning business be closed. finally, following leader remarks the senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the mcnamee nomination with the time until 12:00 noon equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the provisions of s. res. 715 and do so as a further mark of respect for the late george herbert walker bush, 41st president of the united states. the presiding officer: under the previous order and pursuant to the provisions of s. res. 715, the senate stands adjourned until 9:30 a.m. and does so as a mark of further respect to the late george herbert walker bush, 41st president of the united states.

Related Keywords

Taiwan , Montana , United States , Louisiana , Australia , Clarkson University , New York , Alaska , Beijing , China , Minnesota , Whitehouse , District Of Columbia , Anchorage , Syria , Russia , City Church , Washington , Nicaragua , Mexico , Charlotte , North Carolina , New Zealand , India , Ireland , South Korea , Spain , Georgia , Japan , Kenai Peninsula , Texas , Missouri , Atlanta , Rhode Island , Vietnam , Republic Of , Florida , Virginia , Colombia , Wisconsin , Oregon , Canada , Virginia Beach , Tennessee , Iraq , Israel , Gaza , Israel General , Lincoln Memorial , Houston , North Korea , Pennsylvania , Ohio , North Dakota , Broward County , Colombian , Americans , America , South Koreans , Alaskans , Alaskan , Israelis , Irishmen , Japanese , South Korean , American , Chinese , Syrians , Missourians , Spanish , Soviet , Palestinian , Freddie Mac , Dennis Ross , Asia Scott Snyder , George Herbert , Ashanti Billie , Walker Bush , Statesrepresentative Gwen Moore , George Bush , Jinping Donald , Michael Green , Robert Sutter , George Herbert Walker Bush , John Locke , Katie Couric , Herbert Walker Bush , Kim Jong , Hakim Jefferies , James Madison , Susan B Anthony , James Clyburn , Peter Navarro , Paul Krugman , John Mccain , Illiana ,