Their borders and how to regulate them. Worst of all, the socalled Clean Power Plan would have barely reduced Carbon Emissions. It would have crippled our economy and done very little, if anything, to help the environment. President obamas plan wasnt just bad policy, it was illegal. 27 states, including wyoming, filed a lawsuit to stop the regulation. The Supreme Court ruled that obamas e. P. A. Went way beyond its legal authority. The court blocked the overreaching rule. Now President Trump has put forward a commonsense replacement to protect americas air. The Affordable Clean Energy rule follows the law and is good news for the people of wyoming and the rest of the country. It recognizes that the e. P. A. Is not supposed to pick winners and losers. Under the new rule, power plants can make reasonable changes like improving efficiency. The rule promotes the use of clean technologies, cleaner technologies to generate electricity so Energy Companies can modernize their power plants without having to shut them down completely. The rule also respects the role of states under the clean air act. It gets rid of washington knows best, which is an approach we deal with, topdown approach of heavyhanded unelected bureaucrats. States understand how to protect the air their citizens breathe. They know its an important thing to do. The end result will be cleaner air and more Affordable Energy for americas households. Now Senate Democrats want to play politics once again and uproot the Affordable Clean Energy rule. Democrats want to resurrect a rule that the Supreme Court took unprecedented action to stop. Spald that would be bad for our environment, bad for our country and economy. If Congress Repeals the Affordable Clean Energy rule the administration couldnt replace it with a similar rule. The administration put forward a commonsense rule to protect our air quality, and now democrats want to kill it. Thats the proposal on the floor today. Democrats have become hostages to the farleft agenda, madam president. Even when it doesnt make any sense. Its not good policy, and weve seen this before. The environment and the public works committee, which i chair, recently passed legislation to help reduce the amount of plastic pollution in our oceans. The bipartisan bill follows up on the previous bipartisan save our seas act that passed and was signed into law last congress. Instead of supporting the legislation, extreme environmentalists opposed the bill, a bipartisan bill. We got it passed, were going on the next level now. Now the environmentalists, extreme environmentalists of course, oppose the bill because were not banning all plastics. Can you imagine something so ridiculous . Thats what they want. Working together in a bipartisan way even when were doing things that to me make sense, to others make sense, the bipartisan senators makes sense, the members in the house say members, these extreme activists want to do the same thing with our air. Instead of finding common ground, their goal seems to be to shut down our economy because thats what theyre promoting. Democrats in the house of representatives regrettably have followed a similar pattern. House democrats refuse to work with republicans to pass commonsense bills to protect our air and address Climate Change which were promoting an effort to actually address it. Apparently its not going far enough for the extreme democrat environmentalists. Bipartisan legislation to support Carbon Capture technologies which we passed in this body sits in the house of representatives waiting for a vote. The use it act, which i introduced along with senator whitehouse, who gives speeches each week on Climate Change on the floor of the senate, we have worked together. It has passed our committee unanimously. Its passed the senate unanimously. And yet with bipartisan overwhelming support in the senate, its still being blocked in the house. The bill has bipartisan support in the house as well but it hasnt gone anywhere. Its being stopped because Democratic Leaders in the house refuse to move a commonsense bill that would lower Carbon Emissions and help address carbon Climate Change. Theyre climate alarmists. They want things done drastically, unilaterally, immediately when were trying to take commonsense steps in the right direction. Killing commonsense policies like the Affordable Clean Energy rule and the use it act make no sense to me, madam president. President trumps rule respects the law and it helps the environment. It is a winwin for our country. Americans deserve clean air. They also deserve clear rules. And the Affordable Clean Energy rule gives us both. I urge every senator to oppose the resolution that is coming up to the floor. And, madam president , i yield the floor. The presiding officer l all time has expired. The clerk will read the title of the joint resolution for the third time. The clerk s. J. Res. 53 providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 title 5 United States code of the rules submitted by the Environmental Protection agency relating to repeal of the Clean Power Plan, and so forth. The presiding officer the question occurs on the passage of s. J. Res. 53. Is there a sufficient second . There appears to be. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote vote vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote . Seeing none, the ayes are 41, the nays are 53. The joint resolution fails on passage. The clerk will report the pending business. The clerk veto message to accompany s. J. Res. 54, joint resolution relating to a National Emergency declared by the president on february 15, 2019. Mr. Schumer madam president , reserving the presiding officer the democratic leader. Mr. Schumer i ask im going to speak for a minute before i do my unanimous consent request. Now, we have a crisis here in this in this world and here in america. Because of the president s precipitous action to take a small number of american troops out of Northern Syria and greenlight erdogans invasion, we are in real trouble. Were in trouble in a whole lot of ways. Most importantly, we in new york know that a small group of bad people can cause terrible terrorism with huge loss of life, even when they are 7,000 miles away. There are about 70,000 isis prisoners and their families now being guarded by the kurds, but because of the president s action, it will no longer be guarded. When we went to the white house yesterday and asked the president and his military folks whats the plan to prevent these isis wouldbe terrorists, many of them, from escaping, they didnt have one. They didnt have one, because the kurds have left, and the only people who might guard them are the syrians or the turks, and neither of them have a great interest in stopping isis. In fact, i asked the defense secretary, secretary he is per per secretary esper, is there any intelligence that shows that either the syrians or the turks would do a good job at guarding the isis prisoners and prevent them from escaping . No, there was no intelligence to that effect. And so as a result, isis prisoners are escaping, will continue to escape, and america will pay an awful price, an awful price. The kurds will pay an awful price. They have fought alongside our soldiers. They are our allies. My friend, i talked to my friend from kentucky. He said the kurds are better off with the syrians. Well, the kurds sure dont think so. They would rather be back to the status quo, talk to their leaders. And certainly, america will not be better off at all. With isis prisoners escaping. Who did this . The president. The president s incompetence has put american lives in danger. Simply, starkly put, but accurate. In new york, as i said, we know how well we know well how a small group of fanatics halfway around the world can do incredible damage and kill thousands of americans here on our soil. It should shake every member of this body, regardless of their ideology, regardless of their views on turkey, that the president made this decision so abruptly without heeding the advice of our commanders on the ground and now has no plan to manage the consequences. After meeting with the president yesterday, it was clear to both democrats and republicans in the room that he does not grasp the gravity of the situation. He doesnt understand it. The most important thing we can do right now is send President Trump a message that congress, the vast majority of democrats and republicans demand he reverse course. And im asking this as a unanimous consent not to go through a long regular process, because the bottom line is the longer we wait, the more courage will die our allies, the more isis prisoners will escape, and the greater danger hour by hour, day by day america falls into. So we should move this resolution. We need unanimous consent. I spoke to my good friend from kentucky. He said he wanted to put a resolution on the floor about military aid to turkey. Something many on my side would be sympathetic to. And i offered him the ability of moving his resolution. We have to, of course, get permission of our members, but i would work for that, in return for us moving our resolution. He still said no. He still said no. I think that is a horrible decision. I think it could well risk the lives of americans down the road. I think it will certainly risk the lives of many more kurds who are our allies. We will return to this issue. I wish we could pass it now, the same bill that passed the house with a vast majority of republicans, 21, with leaders mccarthy and scalise and cheney voting for it and go forward. I understand the motivations of my friend from kentucky are sincere and real. Hes had these positions consistently. They are not the positions of a majority on his side or on our side on many issues. On some, we have worked together and agreed. But i think it is so wrong not to move forward. It is so wrong to let the man both democrats and republicans saw in the white house yesterday stay in control without pressuring him to do better, without pressuring him to do better. There is no better, quicker, or more powerful way to pressure the president to undo the damage hes caused than to pass a bipartisan joint resolution that will go directly to his desk. We will come back to this issue. It will not go away. It cannot go away for the safety of america, for the safety of the kurds, for some degree of stability, not chaos in the middle east that the president , President Trump precipitously caused. So i plead with my colleague from kentucky and anyone else who might object to let us have the vote. Let us make our arguments and prevail. Were willing to do debate time. Let us not say it has to be my way or the high way when so many lives and such danger is at risk. I ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 246, h. J. Res. 77, that the joint resolution be read a third time, and the senate vote on passage with no intervening action or debate. The presiding officer is there objection . The senator from kentucky. Mr. Paul madam president , reserving the right to object, the constitution is quite clear on this subject. If the minority leader wishes to engage in the civil war in syria thats been going on for nearly a decade, we should obey the constitution. He should come to the floor and say that we are ready to declare war, we are ready to authorize force, and we are going to stick our troops in the middle of this messy, messy, fivesided civil war where we would be ostensibly opposed to the turkish government that has made an incursion. We would then be opposed to our nato ally. It would be the first time in history that we would be inserting ourselves militarily against a nato ally. None of this is to excuse turkeys action. In fact, today i will offer a resolution that would actually do something. The resolution thats being offered is simply a way to have petty partisan criticism of the president infect this body. Mine actually would have the force of law and would prevent any arms from being sold to turkey, which would be a serious rebuke to what theyre doing in syria. But the constitution is quite clear. No authorization has ever been given for the use of force in syria. No authorization of declaration of war, no permission to be there at all. So if they want to insert themselves into the civil war, by all means, lets have a debate. Lets have the constitutional debate. But i for one am not willing to send one young man or one young woman, one soldier over there without a clear mission. There is no clear mission. There is no clear enemy. And in fact, the war is largely over. Assad is going to remain for better or worse. So we have a despot on one side, erdogan. We have another despot on the other side, assad. And heres the deal. The kurds have to live there. Its despairing that they have to live there. But you know what . Their best chance for survival is having an ally inside of syria. If they become allied and it appears they are if they become allied with assad, do you know what . There is a possibility of a kurdish area within syria. There may well be an opportunity for a kurdish area similar to what has happened in iraq. So i object to this resolution because this resolution does nothing to fix the problem. My resolution would stop arm sales to turkey, and so i will object to this resolution. The presiding officer objection is heard. Mr. Schumer mr. President. The presiding officer the minority leader. Mr. Schumer i believe history will show that the country, the senate, and even the senator from kentucky will regret his blocking of this resolution. I yield the floor. Mr. Paul mr. President . The presiding officer the snow shower for kentucky. Mr. Paul sit i would like to ask unanimous consent that we introduce senate bill 2624, turkey arms sales, which would eliminate any further sale of arms to turkey and instead of sending a fake message or a senate sense of the senate resolution, would actually be binding legislation and would tell the turks, yes, we are serious. We object to your incursion into syria. You need to respect the territorial integrity of syria, and we are, therefore, no longer going to be selling you arms. I ask unanimous consent that this be passed. A senator mr. President . The presiding officer is there objection . A senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator for idaho. Mr. Risch reserving the right to object, mr. President , our colleagues this is a very fluid situation, as we all know, and certainly people americans who are watching this from home are confused about the parties, and then when you overlay the politics on top of it where you have a level of aminos towards the commander in chief that there is at this point, it becomes very difficult to sort this out. So, as chairman of the Foreign Relations committee, i want to try to lay out some fundamentals here that we need to deal with. As has been pointed out by everyone and i think everyone agrees that the situation on the ground in syria is an incredibly complex situation. It is difficult to understand and impossible to manage at some point because of the fact that there are dozens and dozens of tribal entities that share religious or cultural or tribal affiliations, either together or in opposition. The result of that is the mess that weve had in syria for so long. Now on top of that in Northern Syria, we have a situation where the kurds and the turks are at odds with each other. This has happened just recently. And as everybody in this body, house and senate, republicans, democrats now, it is a very serious situation. But this is not new. The animosity and the fight between the turks and the kurds has been going on for centuries. Let me say that again. This fight between these two groups has been going on for centuries. Who are these two groups . We have the turks on the one side, north of the border, who are members of nato and are at the very least theoretical allies of the United States, though in recent years that alliance has been strained, and thats an understatement of what the situation is. Recently they negotiated a deal with the russians to buy s400 missiles, which is a horrendous problem for a member of nato. Nato was formed of course to push back against the russians. Now you have a member of nato that is engaging with the russians in this fashion. Those of us that deal with it, have dealt with it for months. Weve been pressing the turks as hard as we can about the mistake theyve made ant consequences that its going to have. They have an order for f35s. They make about they make a number of parts for the f35. We have told them clearly in no Uncertain Terms for months, they can have the f35s or they can have the s4000s. But they cant have both. They have insisted that they can and it is simply not going to happen. I think maybe theyre starting to believe that. Fastforward to the point we are now where the turks amassed 30,000 troops on the border with syria ready to come in and take on the kurds who had moved into the northern part of syria due to the failedstate status of syria. To say that the president of the United States is responsible for this is simply a political statement that isnt true. You can dislike the commander in chief, you can dislike the calls that he makes. But this is a war thats been going on for two centuries. It was going to happen. The fact that erdogan had amassed 30,000 troops on the border was a clear indication that it was going to go forward. We had about 028 troops between the two standing armies and admittedly the president of the United States pulled those 28 troops out of harms way. In any event, you can argue about what got us here, what the triggering factor was, whether it was or wasnt going to happen anyway, but what you cant argue about is what the situation