[Pages S5815-S5828]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.


                             Maiden Speech

  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, my story begins with my mom. My 
mom had a very difficult life. She grew up with a verbally abusive, 
alcoholic father. She married a physically abusive, alcoholic husband, 
whom she divorced when I was born. At that time, divorce was frowned 
upon. My birth father never gave my mom, my older brother, or me a 
dime. I never met him.
  My mom eventually married the man who became my adoptive father, a 
busdriver who made all four combat jumps with the 82nd Airborne in 
World War II. This summer, I had the opportunity to go to the D-Day 
anniversary in Normandy and to look at the area he parachuted into, 
where 17 percent of his company died.
  He was a loving father, but with only a sixth-grade education and 
five children, he struggled to support our family. We had no money and 
lived in public housing, but even with all of those issues, I cannot 
think of a better childhood.
  Even with no money, my mom was optimistic and hopeful. She told us 
that we were blessed because God and our Founders created the greatest 
country ever, where anything was possible. I am not sure my mom ever 
really had a plan for us, but she certainly knew what she was doing. We 
sat through many sermons, and church was not optional. We were told we 
had to make straight A's. We memorized the first part of the 
Declaration of Independence and the 23rd Psalm. We became Eagle Scouts, 
cleaned the house, and had to have a job. I started working at 7 years 
old and haven't stopped since.
  We weren't allowed to complain. Debt, Big Government, socialism, and 
communism were bad. College was for a better paying job.
  We were constantly lectured about the dangers of drug abuse. 
Unfortunately, drugs have destroyed the life of one of my family 
members.
  I enlisted in the U.S. Navy at 18, where I swabbed the decks, cleaned 
the latrines, served the mess decks, and took college courses aboard a 
destroyer during the last years of Vietnam but never close to Vietnam.
  I married my high school sweetheart at 19, and, today, Ann and I have 
two daughters, six very perfect grandsons, and a seventh very perfect 
grandchild on the way next year. My wonderful wife, Ann, is here today 
and has been by my side every step of our journey.
  While I didn't always appreciate my tough-love, my-way-or-the-highway 
mom growing up, I now thank God every day for my mom and for this 
country. She gave me the opportunity to experience every lesson this 
country had to offer before I was 20.
  Unfortunately, the left has worked hard over the last 50 years to 
discredit the values of the America I was raised with--the values of 
the America I want my grandsons to grow up with. We all acknowledge 
that Americans, our country, and our institutions have flaws, but the 
left has worked to discredit our Founders, our institutions, our 
churches, our law enforcement, our morals, and almost everything my mom 
taught me. It has been happening for a long time.
  The left railed against our soldiers during the Vietnam war. They 
call those still believing in a supreme being or the commitment of 
marriage uninformed and old fashioned. They are now openly saying that 
churches that hold traditional values should lose their tax-exempt 
status.
  The left doesn't care about our enormous debt, pushes for socialism, 
and criticizes the Boy Scouts. The left thinks it is OK that our 
schools don't teach about the Founding Fathers or free markets. They 
want you to think America was never great.
  To a degree, the pressure from the left is working. Americans under 
30 are less interested in joining the military. Church attendance is at 
an all-time low. Participation in the Boy Scouts, even after allowing 
girls in, has shrunk. Many are choosing not to have families. And 
Socialism, the single most discredited idea of the last century--an 
idea that has led millions into poverty and tyranny around the globe--
has gained a foothold in one of our two political parties.
  I spent most of my life in business. The values that my tough-love 
mom instilled in me helped me to achieve the success she expected--not 
just hoped for but expected--for me. I was able to live the American 
dream because I worked hard. I lived out the values my mom taught me in 
my business career--hard work and fiscal responsibility but with a 
caring spirit to support those around me.
  I built a healthcare company that had lower costs and better quality 
of care than my competitors. We had the highest patient satisfaction 
surveys in

[[Page S5816]]

the industry. I built and bought businesses for most of my life that 
helped hundreds of thousands of people get good, high-paying jobs. Many 
of them were failing businesses that we had to turn around to save 
jobs.
  My experience growing up in a family that struggled to get good jobs 
influenced everything I have done in my life. It is not easy, and it 
shouldn't be, but everyone--every single American--should have the 
opportunity to struggle, work hard, and overcome the obstacles.
  I took those exact same values to the Governor's office when I was 
elected in 2010. Florida had been struggling, and 832,000 jobs had been 
lost in the 4 years before I took office. Home prices were cut in half. 
Debt was soaring. The State raised taxes on its poorest citizens by 
more than $2 billion to fill a budget hole.
  I always think about my mom. I think about how it impacted her when 
food prices went up, taxes went up, when my brother got sick without 
health insurance, and when my dad was laid off. I became a jobs 
Governor. It wasn't a political talking point. It was about real 
people.
  I have traveled around the State highlighting new businesses that 
opened in Florida, even small businesses. I remember a local legislator 
asking me once why I wasted my time going to a small town in Florida to 
highlight a new business's opening with just 30 new jobs. My response 
was that my dad struggled to find any job, and that is 30 families who 
have the opportunity to live the American Dream, and what could be more 
important?
  In 8 years, Florida added 1.7 million new jobs, we paid down almost 
one-third of State debt, and we invested record funding in education, 
the environment, and transportation.
  I also tried to fight for the values that are being lost in this 
country. I fight to protect life, to support the institution of the 
family, to lift up our military members, veterans, and law enforcement, 
to promote capitalism, and to defend the rule of law and the 
Constitution.
  These values are under attack from the left and have been for quite 
some time. There is no easy solution to that problem, but one thing is 
clear: Government is not the solution. Washington is not the solution.
  In my short time in the U.S. Senate, I have promoted policies I 
believe support the idea of an America where anything is possible. We 
need lower taxes. We need less regulation. We need a secure border and 
a sane immigration policy. We need to get healthcare costs under 
control. We need to defend freedom and liberty all over the world. But 
none of this will matter unless we see hearts and minds change. We need 
a renewal in America of the values that made this country great. That 
will not happen on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It will happen in the 
living rooms, classrooms, churches, synagogues, and boardrooms.
  We need to remember that hard work is a feature, not a bug, of this 
American experiment and that the family unit is at the center of our 
society, and the breakdown of the family has been hugely detrimental. 
We need to remember that capitalism is the greatest force for economic 
good in the history of the world and socialism belongs in the ash-heap 
of history. We need to remember these things because our freedoms and 
the country we love can be lost forever. The values that made America 
great can go away, and there are those among us who want them to go 
away.
  This challenge is much bigger than politics, and the solution is not 
political. It requires us--every one of us--to stand up and fight and 
to say without reservation or fear that we will not give up on America 
or the plans of our Founders. We will not stop fighting for our future.
  If we want America to be great in the future, we must reject the 
politically correct attempts to rewrite our history, and we must reject 
the leftwing attempt to slander the greatness of our ideals. America 
is, in fact, the greatest country in the history of the world, and we 
should not be embarrassed to say so. We should proclaim it proudly. 
America is the greatest country in the history of the world.
  I fear the values that I grew up with--the ones my tough-love mom 
taught me--are becoming a way of the past, but I believe these values, 
these virtues can and should be part of our country's future.
  I love it when my grandkids pray before eating, recite the Pledge of 
Allegiance, ask to visit military museums, join the Boy Scouts, thank 
police officers and soldiers for their service, and place their hand 
over their heart when they hear the National Anthem. I hope they 
memorize the Declaration of Independence and the 23rd Psalm, become 
Eagle Scouts, have crummy-paying teenage jobs with unreasonable bosses, 
and get benched in sports for not trying hard enough. Also, I pray they 
consider a life of military service--one already wants to be a 
paratrooper--and are lucky enough to marry a wonderful person and have 
enough kids to worry about how to pay for college.
  Maybe my grandkids will complain about parents being way too strict. 
Maybe they will complain about demanding teachers and bosses not caring 
what they think. Maybe they will complain about screaming drill 
sergeants, difficult degrees, restrictive banks, and life not being 
fair. If so, I will smile and say: ``That's great; America is back.'' 
Then, I will know my grandsons have the opportunity to do something 
worthwhile with their lives, like build a loving family, successful 
career, thriving community, better country, and better world.
  In the meantime, I will keep fighting. I ran for public office to 
fight for the country I was raised in because that is the country our 
children and our grandchildren deserve. They deserve what my mom gave 
me--a free country with unlimited potential for every citizen. I hope 
everyone will join me in this fight.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                    Nomination of Frank William Volk

  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the 
nomination of Frank W. Volk to be the U.S. district court judge of the 
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
  I want to thank my colleagues in the Senate for putting partisanship 
aside and recognizing the importance of confirming qualified judges to 
our Federal courts.
  Frank Volk's cloture vote earlier today cleared this body by a 90-to-
0 vote without a single dissenting vote. Let me repeat that--90 to 0. 
How many times have we seen that happen in this body? That is a 
testament to Judge Volk's judicial experience, stellar record, and his 
qualifications to become a U.S. district court judge.
  I would also like to acknowledge Frank's work in West Virginia as a 
tireless public servant to both our State and the Nation. He has 
conveyed time and again his love and desire to serve our Nation and 
particularly our great State of West Virginia. He has served with honor 
throughout his career and is willing to step up to the plate one more 
time. He shows the country how West Virginians act and serve.
  I would also like to thank his family, including his wife, Angie, and 
his two children, Garrett and Lauren, for their tremendous support of 
Frank and his continued work as a public servant. He is a proud Italian 
person, like myself.
  He is currently the chief judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the 
Southern District of West Virginia, where he has worked since he was 
appointed in October of 2015.
  As a WVU College of Law graduate and editor-in-chief of the West 
Virginia Law Review, Frank's resume is extremely impressive.
  He continues to give back to his education. He has taught part time 
at WVU College of Law for almost 15 years. He has taught courses in 
Federal civil rights, advanced torts, bankruptcy, and advanced 
bankruptcy. It is great to see a fellow Mountaineer succeed in their 
profession, and I look forward to seeing his career continue.
  He has also authored a number of bankruptcy articles and spoken at 
national and regional conferences on bankruptcy matters, along with 
being a faculty member for the Federal Judicial Center.

[[Page S5817]]

  Judge Volk is admitted to practice in the U.S. Court of Appeals for 
the Fourth Circuit, the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of 
West Virginia, the West Virginia bar, and the Pennsylvania bar.
  During his career, Frank has worked with a number of esteemed judges: 
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge M. Blane Michael, district judges 
Charles H. Haden II and previously John T. Copenhaver, Jr. Frank is 
also a permanent member of the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference.
  Frank has contributed volunteer service to the American Bankruptcy 
Institute for many years. He served most recently as the coordinating 
editor for the ABI Journal, focusing on the ``Problems in the Code'' 
column.
  Even with all of those accolades, Frank knows and understands the 
value of hard work because he is a West Virginian through and through, 
and that is just what we do.
  The Federal bench that serves West Virginia needs judges who are 
thoughtful, hard-working, and have good judgment. Frank fits that role. 
Frank brings such a great level of experience to the bench. I can 
safely say I am pleased that President Trump has nominated him to be a 
U.S. district court judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern 
District of West Virginia. I think we all will be served well by 
Frank's service.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.


                          Trump Administration

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, the most sacred, the most important, and 
the most profound responsibility that a President of the United States 
has is to keep Americans safe. Everything else that we care about--the 
citizens of this great Nation, the best Nation in the planet--matters 
very little if our physical safety and the physical safety of our 
families and our loved ones aren't assured. That is job No. 1 for the 
President of the United States.
  I believe the President has likely committed offenses that are worthy 
of impeachment, and I think it is likely that information is going to 
emerge from the House's inquiry that would present Republicans with 
clear evidence that the President's abuse of office has been serious.
  Obviously, we need to wait for the articles of impeachment to arrive 
in the Senate--if they do arrive--before any of us decide our vote on 
removal, but the publicly stipulated facts already surrounding the 
President's shadow foreign policy designed not to advance the national 
interests but his personal political interests are damning.
  So far, my Republican friends have rallied to the President's side, 
despite public opinion moving pretty quickly against the President and 
in favor of an inquiry in the House. So today I want to use my time on 
the floor to ask just a simple question of my Republican colleagues. I 
want to ask what the costs are to the physical safety of the Nation of 
continuing to protect the President from the consequences of his 
misdeeds because as we gather in the Senate for our fall session, we 
are watching American national security policy go completely and fully 
off the rails. Our global reputation and our credibility have been 
shattered to pieces, and no one knows whether they can be reassembled. 
Our Nation's defenses have never been weaker. Our enemies are gathering 
strength by the day. Fear of American power is waning. Our global 
system of alliances is falling apart. Our friends are turning away from 
America because we are a demonstrably unreliable partner, and those 
friends may never come back.
  Right now, before our eyes, American power is in a free fall, and our 
Nation's safety is at risk. American citizens are looking to this place 
for leadership, but when they lift up the hood looking for steely-eyed 
patriots, all they are finding are blind partisans. What is the cost, I 
ask my colleagues, of letting America continue to slide into global 
irrelevancy? How many American lives are going to be ultimately lost 
because we sat on the sidelines and we let American influence fade as 
our President becomes a toxic commodity, the butt of jokes, and an 
international pariah? What must it take for this body to put aside 
party and come together to salvage our shrinking American security?
  I want to take a few moments--a few more than I normally take when I 
come down to the floor--to take my colleagues on a tour of the world 
right now just so everybody understands how dangerous the situation has 
gotten, to understand just how broad the scope of our foreign policy 
dysfunction is right now, because just maybe--maybe--if you see the 
crisis all in one map, all in one summary, my colleagues might wake up 
to the magnitude of this emergency.
  It is hard to start anywhere but in the Ukraine. The power of the 
American executive branch has no equal. No individual in the world has 
more power than Donald Trump has today. That power comes with 
responsibility and guardrails.
  The one firm promise that a President must make to those he governs 
is to use the powers of the Oval Office for the national interest and 
not for his personal or financial interest. But it is now clear beyond 
a reasonable doubt after all this testimony--much of it from 
Republicans before the House--that President Trump has turned our 
support for Ukraine into a personal poker chip to be cashed in in order 
to get Ukraine to help him destroy his political rivals. This just 
isn't allowed in a democracy.
  The damage done by Trump's corruption of the Ukraine relationship is 
far beyond this broken covenant with the American people. He pulled 
essential assistance to Ukraine just when their new President needed 
U.S. support the most. Trump has weakened Ukraine dramatically by 
pulling them into this mess, and Russia is the beneficiary. Make no 
mistake--Putin has won for the time being, and those fighting for 
democracy have lost for the time being, sold out by their fair-weather 
American friends who are more interested in destroying the President's 
political opponents than supporting Ukraine.
  Now, other nations on Russia's and China's periphery, wondering 
whether to simply acquiesce to the bullying dominance of their 
neighbors or put up a fight for independence, now are less likely to do 
the latter, knowing that the United States is there only to help if 
their nation fulfills our President's personal requests.
  The world's eyes this week are down here in Syria, where the 
President has engaged in one of the worst, most abominable acts of 
double-cross in the history of the American Presidency. We convinced 
the Kurdish military to fight ISIS forces for us. We convinced them to 
take down their defense against a potential Turkish invasion because we 
promised to protect them. And then, out of nowhere, a week and a half 
ago, Trump stabbed the Kurds in the back. He announced the pullback of 
our forces and invited by press release the Turkish army to march into 
Syria and destroy our ally, the Kurds, whom today he has denigrated by 
telling the world that they are not actually as good fighters as 
everybody says they are.
  The damage to our Nation's security done by this one single act is 
almost too comprehensive to list in one speech. ISIS detainees have 
escaped their jail cells and are now likely reconstituting and possibly 
readying new attacks against the United States. They can plot without 
fear of interruption because the Kurds have ended their fight against 
ISIS to try to survive this Turkish offensive.
  Now, in addition to ISIS, Russia, the Syrian regime, and the Iranians 
all grew stronger in Syria overnight as we stood down, and they will 
quickly reap the benefits of Trump's abandonment of the Kurds. It is a 
nightmare in Syria today, and it is going to get much worse before it 
gets better.
  Let's move down to China, where President-for-life Xi Jinping has 
been steadily consolidating power, building a model of totalitarian 
control that denies basic human rights to its population of 1.4 
billion. The United States has watched from the sidelines as China not 
only conducts cultural genocide against its Muslim population in its 
own country but also grows its global clout and exports its model and 
technology of repression around the world.
  China's military continues to gain in strength and push their 
unlawful territorial claims further in the Western Pacific. We do 
virtually nothing. China's Belt and Road Initiative is forging

[[Page S5818]]

linkages across the globe, building foundations for long-term 
technological, economic, and strategic dominance.
  The United States stands on the sidelines under the Trump 
administration. The sum total of our bilateral interactions thus far 
with China has been a bungled, disastrous, job-killing trade war. It is 
a trade war that really only made sense in Trump's campaign speeches 
but never had a chance to succeed without the help of other potential 
partners that the President never tried to enlist.
  Every single day, Trump is losing the trade war badly. Our trade 
deficit with China isn't going down; it is going up. The tariffs on 
Chinese imports could cost middle-class American consumers $1,000 a 
year, and our economy has slowed down and is on its way to potentially 
losing 300,000 jobs because of the trade war. It is an unmitigated 
economic disaster for our Nation, and this nightmare, like all the 
others, seems to be getting worse. All the while, China forges ahead to 
corner the market on next-generation technologies like 5G, drones, and 
artificial intelligence, leaving America and American companies 
potentially shut out of these markets.
  Nowhere has China's heavyhanded repression been more apparent than 
right here in Hong Kong. Yet again, we have been totally absent. In 
Hong Kong, brave, pro-democracy protesters should be seen as America's 
best friends--Chinese people who are risking everything to fight for 
basic freedoms in an increasingly totalitarian state. There is no 
better way to undermine China's unfair trade model than to promote the 
rights of its consumers and its citizens. But Trump promised the 
Chinese regime that he would offer no support to the Hong Kong 
protesters--an unconscionable promise that he has kept--while China 
runs circles around him on trade talks.
  Staying in Asia, let's run right up the road to the most immediate 
and terrifying existential threat: a nuclear-armed homicidal dictator 
with the capacity and willingness to nuke us and our allies in the 
region--North Korea. A lot of ink has been spilled on the pomp and 
circumstance of Trump's summits and the ongoing love affair that he 
claims with Kim Jong Un, but what has actually been the result of 
nearly 3 years of Trump's North Korean diplomacy besides stroking his 
ego? The answer is nothing. Kim continues to fire missiles into the Sea 
of Japan. He continues to quietly build his nuclear stockpile. Even the 
freeze on nuclear long-range missile tests is temporary, and the North 
Koreans are warning they might resume that at the end of the year.
  Meanwhile, we abandoned the South Koreans, we canceled our joint 
military exercises, and we nearly withdrew our troops entirely. Kim got 
international recognition and essentially a free pass to keep building 
his arsenal and making it more deadly while we weakened all of our 
regional alliances. America and the world are dramatically less safe 
right now.
  All over the world, in fact, dictators and would-be dictators are 
racking up stunning records of human rights abuses right now because 
they know that under President Trump, America will really raise no 
issue and no protests.
  Go down here to the Philippines, for instance, where there have been 
20,000 people who have vanished in the extrajudicial massacres by 
President Duterte. No protests from the United States, and 20,000 have 
vanished.

  Thousands of political dissidents are being locked up in places like 
Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia--these are supposed U.S. allies--and 
have no one to speak for them because America now doesn't do anything 
about civil rights or human rights. We have vanished from the human 
rights playing field.
  In Saudi Arabia, in fact, their leadership felt so emboldened by 
Trump's embrace of brutal strongmen that they kidnapped an American 
resident who was critical of the Saudi regime. They chopped him to 
pieces, and then they got rid of the body parts. The dots are piling up 
in the Middle East. The response from the United States to Jamal 
Khashoggi's murder was a visit to Riyadh by the American Secretary of 
State for a smiling photo op to make sure that every foreign leader in 
every corner of the world recognized that human rights abuses would be 
forgiven pretty immediately by this new American regime.
  Elsewhere in the Middle East--I don't know that I can just keep on 
piling up more and more dots, but elsewhere in the Middle East, things 
are falling apart fast due mostly to the Trump administration's 
incompetence. It started with this nonsensical fracture of relations 
between Saudi Arabia and another key U.S. Gulf ally, Qatar. It was the 
kind of disruption that, frankly, would normally be papered over and 
fixed by a competent U.S. administration probably in days, but 3 years 
later, the two countries--Saudi Arabia and Qatar--still aren't talking, 
largely because we did nothing to fix it. Making matters worse, Saudi 
Arabia and their one remaining friend in the region, UAE, aren't 
getting along now either.
  Under Trump, the war in Yemen began to rage out of control. Tens of 
thousands of innocent Yemenis, many of them little children, died 
needlessly as Trump piled more weapons and more bombs into the war and 
did really nothing to try to find a peace agreement between the parties 
who for a year had been begging the United States to step in and play a 
traditional role as mediator. The conflict has raged on for so long due 
to Trump's unwillingness to use America's diplomatic muscle that events 
on the ground have become so chaotic that the Saudis and the Emiratis 
have now parted ways. Now, with the Qataris, the Saudis, and the 
Emiratis all on different wavelengths, the potential for proxy wars 
between these wealthy nations could get much worse all over the Middle 
East.
  In Iran, right next door, the campaign of blind escalation and 
provocation has been disastrous. Every one of the President's national 
security advisors told him to stay in the Iran nuclear agreement and 
focus his energies on addressing Iran's other malevolent behavior in 
the region, like their ballistic missile program or their support for 
terrorist organizations. Trump ignored all his advisors, like he has 
ignored all the rest of the counsel he has received on major foreign 
policy matters, and he canceled the agreement and implemented a series 
of unilateral sanctions against Iran. He coordinated with absolutely no 
one.
  Now, Iran, feeling cornered but also not feeling particularly 
vulnerable, given the fact that America couldn't recruit any of our 
friends to our new anti-Iran campaign, hit back against oil tankers, 
American drones, and Saudi pipelines. We now seem perpetually on the 
precipice of war with Iran. Meanwhile, they have restarted parts of 
their shuttered nuclear program. We haven't convinced a single nation 
to help us build new sanctions, and there is absolutely no chance that 
Trump is going to secure a better deal than the JCPOA before he leaves 
office in just over a year.
  Iran is a bigger menace than before he took office. They just scored 
another major victory with Trump's abandonment of the Kurds, and an 
anti-Iran coalition that the United States methodically built under 
Barack Obama has vanished, perhaps never again to be resurrected.
  In this very red region of the world right now, the only leader who 
has been happy with Trump's dangerous, bizarre, nonstrategy on Iran has 
been Benjamin Netanyahu, but he may not be in power much longer, and 
his alliance with Trump has left his successor a frightening legacy. 
Under Trump's watch, the two-state solution in Israel--a longtime 
bipartisan lynchpin of American policy in the Middle East--has 
effectively fallen apart.
  Trump has allowed Israel to take steps that make a future Palestinian 
state almost impossible. For 3 years, he has put his son-in-law--whose 
only experience was using his father's money to buy real estate--in 
charge of brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It was a 
joke. Everybody knew it, but since Trump was President, everybody had 
to play along. Now there is no peace plan. There was never going to be 
a peace plan, and the chances for one are almost nonexistent after 3 
years of the Trump administration.
  Down in Libya, Trump admittedly inherited a pretty miserable 
situation, but somehow, like everything else, he managed to make it 
worse. The country has been fractured for years, as

[[Page S5819]]

rival militias with a host of foreign patrons have been fighting a 
civil war that has created a vacuum that has been filled in by 
extremists and a migrant crisis that continues to expand. But instead 
of doing the hard work of diplomacy to try to get the warring parties 
back to the table, instead, Trump threw his support--his personal 
support--behind General Haftar, upending years of American diplomacy 
and endorsing Haftar's plan to try to take Tripoli by force. As a 
result, the fighting there continues, peace talks are failing, and the 
humanitarian crisis grows by the day.
  One of the consequences of this Trump death spiral in Libya and the 
Middle East is that the economic and political refugees continue to 
flow into Europe, which simply isn't politically ready to accept this 
rate of inflow, and by slashing the number of refugees allowed in the 
United States from over 100,000 to 18,000, we have communicated to the 
Europeans that we have no interest in helping. Just like everything 
else, Trump has made the assimilation of the Muslim immigrants into 
Europe even harder by serving as a model for racist, xenophobic 
demagogues, and rightwing nationalist political parties who want to 
bring Trump's form of political nativism into Europe.
  Nationalist political parties are on the rise all across the West, 
and Trump is absolutely central to their development. He gravitates not 
toward Angela Merkel, whose courageous leadership has held the EU 
together through all these crises, but he hews to Viktor Orban, who has 
stoked the embers of nationalism to take Hungary down a dark path. 
Trump and his nationalist compatriots weaponize these fears of 
immigration and cultural change to justify really bad policies--from 
labeling journalists as enemies of the state to putting kids in cages. 
And when rightwing groups try to copy Trump's success and deploy his 
playbook in countries all throughout Europe, he doesn't stand up and 
object, as the leader of the free world should; he offers a wink and a 
nod or sometimes a warm embrace.
  Trump doesn't stop there in his deliberate attempts to undermine 
European democracy. He has carried out a systematic, purposeful 
campaign to weaken the European Union and NATO. By now, we have all 
grown used to Trump's attacks on globalism, but it is still pretty 
extraordinary that we have a President who just doesn't attack the 
specific institutions he loathes, such as the U.N., the EU, or NATO; he 
levies regular broadsides against the entire concept of global 
cooperation. He sees multilateralism as a weakness, and his 
cheerleading of Britain out the door of the EU and his constant attacks 
on NATO, even to the point of wondering out loud if the United States 
would defend allies if attacked risks taking down the entire post-World 
War II order. That would be a disaster for us and a gift to countries 
like China, Russia, India, and nonstate actors such as al-Qaida and 
ISIS.
  When it comes to our relations with Europe, Trump reserves his 
greatest multilateral animus for global attempts to address climate 
change. The Paris Agreement wasn't even a binding commitment on the 
United States, but Trump felt so strongly that climate change was a 
Chinese-perpetrated hoax--unwind that riddle for me--that he pulled us 
out of the agreement in a big, grand, festive ceremony at the White 
House.
  Global climate catastrophe is coming if we don't do anything. In 
fact, it is already here. The story of Syria's descent into madness can 
partially be told through the tale of successive global warming-
connected droughts that forced farmers into overcrowded cities that 
weren't ready for those population surges. Trump's hostility to climate 
action is one of his most unforgiveable global legacies, and the next 
President may not have enough time or political capital to make up the 
ground we have lost on climate change, especially with European 
partners.
  Speaking of failure to capitalize on opportunities, let's spin the 
globe back to our own hemisphere, where, according to the script, 
things couldn't be going much worse. Here in the Americas everything 
that Trump has touched thus far has fallen apart, and the United States 
is weaker regionally than ever before.
  Trump's nativism is his political calling card, but his own policies 
seem to encourage more migration to the United States, not less of it. 
President Trump's decision to cut off foreign assistance to Central 
American countries because they weren't doing enough to stop migration 
is lunacy. President Obama's program of investing in Central American 
security so that less of their citizens felt the need to flee to 
America was beginning to work, and Trump gave it all away simply to 
provide fuel to his domestic political agenda.
  Further south, U.S.-Venezuela policy is one of the few times Trump's 
Presidency stood up to a dictator. Unfortunately, because Trump doesn't 
know how to do foreign policy, he botched that intervention too. It has 
been really embarrassing to watch this administration repeatedly and 
wrongly claim that the Maduro regime is on the verge of collapse. They 
did it in January, when Juan Guaido swore himself in as interim 
President. They did it again in February, when they said deploying 
American aid along the border would trigger the regime's fall, and they 
did it again in April in a lead-up to a military uprising that went 
nowhere. The White House has engaged in tough talk only to see Maduro's 
hold on power endure.
  Trump played all his cards on this crisis right in the first few 
days, like a nervous teenager. Now we are left sanctioning the 
Venezuelan people and recognizing a leader of the country who isn't 
really the leader of that country and probably isn't going to be the 
leader of that country. It is yet another failure that makes us look 
weak and foolish. We make a play and can't back it up. It is hard to be 
scared of the United States when everything we try to do goes wrong.
  Let's move back over to the African Continent for a moment. Now, as a 
candidate, Trump repeatedly stoked fears of the Ebola epidemic in West 
Africa, tweeting that the United States ``must immediately stop all 
flights from EBOLA infected countries or the plague will start to 
spread inside our borders!'' Of course, this didn't make any sense, and 
it doesn't make any sense now. We have known for ages that travel bans 
aren't actually the best way to deal with an outbreak of disease, but 
since he has become President, the Trump administration has asked 
Congress to rescind $252 million that had been put aside to deal with 
the virus. He ousted the NSC's top biodefense expert and repeatedly 
sought to slash funding for global health programs. Sadly, Trump's 
default response to epidemics and barriers of exclusion, defunding 
preventive measures, and opting to feed panic rather than deploy an 
orderly response that is driven by science and led by scientists only 
hurts our ability to control outbreaks that are present today and in 
the future.
  Finally, Denmark. Trump managed to even screw up our relationship 
with Denmark, which many of us would have thought was impossible. Out 
of an episode of ``The Simpsons,'' Trump canceled a diplomatic meeting 
with Denmark's leader because they wouldn't agree to sell us Greenland. 
It sounds funny, but it is an example of the relatively small things 
compared to the big world screw-ups that happen every day that only get 
a few days of media attention.
  Denmark is one of our strongest NATO allies. At the height of the war 
in Afghanistan, they had one of the highest numbers of troops per 
capita fighting alongside us. They hold the key to blocking a Russian 
gas pipeline that could avoid Ukraine, damaging their economy, and come 
into Europe, but now we have managed to even make Denmark an adversary. 
I know it sounds implausible, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. 
It is a policy massacre everywhere. The world is on fire, and in most 
places Trump is one of the arsonists. Meanwhile, who is benefiting? 
Across the board, America's enemies and our competitors are rubbing 
their hands with delight as we score own goal after own goal. Putin, 
Xi, Erdogan, Kim, the hard-liners in Iran, could not have scripted a 
better opportunity to gain power for themselves at our expense.
  I say that Trump's foreign policy is a global joke, but calling what 
he does policy is probably unfair. He doesn't really care to take the 
time to learn about the world. He doesn't read his

[[Page S5820]]

briefings. He makes it up day by day, with his personal political 
priorities, his jealousies, and his headline addiction guiding his 
decisions rather than anything connected to our actual national 
security interests. Our foreign policy is in complete, utter, total 
meltdown, and it is time for all of us to face facts.
  You can't impeach a President because you disagree with their 
policies, but this is beyond a policy disagreement. This is a President 
who has compromised our Nation's integrity and our credibility, who has 
put in jeopardy the safety of our citizens, especially as ISIS breaks 
out of detainment and looks to regroup to threaten America again in 
Syria.
  These kinds of things--the perversion of the powers of the 
Presidency--are not allowed in a democracy. Our refusal to accept this 
kind of behavior is what separates us from all the tin-pot 
dictatorships around the world.
  I hope, eventually, my Republican colleagues see this, but I also 
want my Republican colleagues who spend their time thinking of 
themselves as bulwarks of national security to see the damage, much of 
it irreparable, that Trump is doing to our position in the world. Why 
continue to offer him this unconditional protection from an impeachment 
inquiry if the cost of his staying in office is the shattering of our 
reputation around the world?
  Why continue to defend him if his actions everywhere are causing the 
world to fall apart--and it is falling apart in every part of the 
globe. Everything this administration has touched has gotten worse. The 
scariest part is that this President and this administration still have 
14 more months to do even more damage.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The Senator from Oklahoma.


                            Turkey and Syria

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, let me take you back to December 2016. 
We are all getting ready for Christmas. It is a month after President 
Trump is elected. He will not take his office for another month after 
that, but in Turkey they are reeling from a coup attempt that happened 
in October. Hundreds of people were killed--chaos. Turkish President 
Erdogan overreacted, locking up hundreds of thousands of people, 
including one of our pastors, Pastor Andrew Brunson, and implementing 
martial law, which was kept in place for years after that. Rapidly 
changing the Constitution, he has transitioned himself from a President 
duly elected and operating a free democracy that has been Turkey to 
radically changing the direction of the country in the future. A long-
term NATO ally is going through real turmoil.
  In October that coup happened, and all the transition was occurring, 
but by December, as I mentioned before, they were rocked again. On 
December 17, 2016, a bus was stopped at a red light near a campus in 
Turkey when a car bomb exploded, killing members of the Turkish 
military. Thirteen people were killed and 55 were wounded in that 
blast. Forty-eight of those killed and wounded were off-duty military 
personnel, most of them privates and corporals.
  The same day, at another location in a different part of that 
community, still in Turkey, there was a soccer stadium attack that 
happened. In that attack, 44 people died and more than 150 people were 
wounded. Three days later--actually two days after that, December 19, 
2016, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey was assassinated in Ankara while 
he was giving a public speech.
  Most Americans don't know this because we were getting ready for 
Christmas, and we were watching the transition of President Obama to 
President Trump. There was a lot of chaos that was happening in that 
region at that time. I happened to be in Turkey when all of that was 
going on, meeting with Turkish officials, trying to negotiate for the 
release of Andrew Brunson, working toward our ongoing relationship and 
trying to figure out what direction Turkey was going to go because they 
have been a longstanding ally to the United States and a NATO partner, 
but they certainly were not acting like it in 2016, and now, in 2019, 
they are certainly not acting like it.
  The car bombs I mentioned and the terrorist actions that happened 
might surprise some Americans to know weren't led by ISIS fighters 
fighting in Turkey. The innocents who were killed that day were killed 
by Kurdish terrorists--Kurdish folks who had been listed in the U.S. 
listing of official terrorist organizations, a group called the 
Kurdistan Workers Party, or the PKK--the abbreviation in that language. 
The PKK has been listed as a terror organization by the United States 
for decades.
  Let me give some context. In the course of the dialogue I have heard 
in the last couple of weeks about the Kurds and about the Turks, 
everyone wants to seem to oversimplify this issue. Everyone wants to 
say who are the good guys and the bad guys, and they are missing the 
point in the history of what is happening in this region.
  The Kurds have 25 million people. It is the fourth largest ethnic 
group in the Middle East. They live mostly in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, 
Iran, and Armenia. They have all different political parties, and they 
have all different backgrounds. For over a century, they have worked to 
have their own nation.

  Interestingly enough, after World War I and all of the changes on the 
map after World War I, the Kurds were promised their own country, the 
country of Kurdistan, because they were a minority population for a 
long time in that region. So they worked for and pressed for their own 
country during that time period. Yet, when the boundaries were drawn at 
the end of World War I, after they had been promised that they would 
have their homeland, instead, a larger Turkey was drawn, and the Kurds 
were just listed as a minority group inside of Turkey.
  They face incredible persecution within Turkey. They are not allowed 
to call themselves Kurds. Instead, they are called mountain Turks in 
that area. They are not allowed to wear certain garb, and they are not 
allowed to practice their customs. They are oppressed in every area. 
They have worked for a long time and have asked: How can we have a free 
people's area?
  For the Kurds who live in northern Iraq, it is one of the freest 
areas in all of the Middle East. They have the freedom of religion and 
a free capitalist economy. It is a thriving economy in northern Iraq. 
They have democratically led elections, and they worked with us to 
overthrow Saddam Hussein after Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds 
to death in that Kurdish region of Iraq. They were gassed by Saddam 
Hussein. They have been forced out of their homes and have been 
isolated, and for decades, they have worked to have a free country.
  In 2017, the Kurds who were in northern Iraq had their own referendum 
to be able to establish their own place. They made a bold move and 
said: The world will not acknowledge us; so we will acknowledge 
ourselves. So, in a bold referendum in September of 2017, 90 percent of 
the Kurds voted to form their own country out of northern Iraq. 
Quickly, the Iraqi Government moved into that zone and squashed them.
  In the middle of the conflict that we have talked about before with 
ISIS, ISIS moved into areas in Syria and in Iraq and pressed in against 
the Kurds in order to attack them. When the Kurds were not able to 
establish their homeland, ISIS was determined to establish its own 
caliphate and its own land by beheading people and by murdering 
thousands of people. As they moved into the Kurdish area, the Turks on 
the other side of the border simply watched the refugees flee across 
the border, for ISIS was not killing Turks. It was killing Kurds, and 
they didn't care. The Turks would handle the refugees as long as ISIS 
was doing their bidding in Syria.
  You see, this is a complicated issue for us because there are 
sections of the Kurds that have fought for democracy for decades. Many 
of them have been doing it in exactly the right way--in having 
referendums, in organizing and working with U.N. officials, and in 
working with the countries around them to demographically establish an 
area in which they would be free to live and to worship and to function 
in a capitalist economy. That has been the Kurds' desire. There has 
also been an offshoot of the Kurds, called the PKK, that has for 
decades carried out car bombs and attacks, many of them in Turkey, 
where hundreds of civilians have been killed.

[[Page S5821]]

  President Erdogan, of Turkey, has determined that all Kurds are the 
same and has ruthlessly lashed out at them. Now, I think about how we 
operated in Afghanistan and how differently the United States really 
thought about military warfare. As the Taliban and al-Qaida rose up in 
Afghanistan, we engaged in the most Surgical way we possibly could with 
violent Taliban members and with members of al-Qaida and took the 
battle specifically to them while we established a friendship and a 
longstanding partnership with the Afghan people.
  We don't look at all Afghans in the same way, in some blanket 
declaration. We understand that there is a violent faction that has to 
be addressed for world peace and that there are others who just want 
their children to grow up and go to school.
  We have engaged them in a way that is very different than how Turkey 
is currently engaging them in the Turkish population. As the battle 
raged in Syria and finished out with the civil war in Syria and the 
fight with ISIS off the Kurdish areas, everyone knew, when this calmed 
down, that at some future date, the Turks would start going after the 
Kurds. It has been known for years. In fact, in 2016, when I was in 
Ankara, Turkey, at that point in December, and watched all of this 
chaos occur, that was the ongoing dialogue among Turkish leaders at 
that time--that they were going to go after the Kurds. Over and over, 
this has been the repetitive statement to the administration and, quite 
frankly, to the previous administration.
  In a series of phone calls in which President Erdogan talked to 
President Trump and said, ``We are crossing the border and going in,'' 
it left President Trump in a very difficult situation. Does he leave 
our American men and women--a very small number--in a forward operating 
base to sit there while tanks roll by and the battle rages between the 
Kurds and the Turks? Do we use them as some kind of tool to try to stop 
this? Do we get out of harm's way?
  Secretary Esper just made a statement last weekend that was very 
clear: The Turks didn't ask permission to cross the border. They said, 
``We are coming,'' and notified us in advance so that if we wanted to 
move out of the way, we could, but either way, they were coming.
  We have moved our forces into other areas and combined them into 
bases. Just recently, within the last couple of days, when the Turks 
started getting closer to our combined forces in northern Syria, we 
responded by putting up Apache helicopters and F-16s in order to fly by 
the Turks and say: Don't you dare come near American forces. At the 
same time, we are trying to do everything that we can and should in 
order to stop the bloodshed between two allies.
  I have been amazed at the number of people who have stepped up and 
said that President Trump is to blame for all that is happening with 
the Kurdish people and the Turks. They have ignored the basic history 
of what has happened in that region for a very long time--for over a 
century--with regard to the ongoing battle between the Kurds and the 
Turks. We should do everything we can to push back on this, because, 
for a large group of the Kurdish population, especially those in 
northern Iraq, they have been very close allies and friends and 
tenacious fighters against Saddam Hussein. They left their own place of 
safety in northern Iraq to help us fight the fight in Syria--to protect 
other Kurdish people, yes, but also to help protect the entire world 
from the ruthless nature of ISIS.
  We should engage and do what we can to help stop the bloodshed. As I 
mentioned before, when we moved into Afghanistan, we did it as 
surgically as we could. When Turkey moved into the Kurdish regions, it 
unleashed artillery fire against civilians and pummeled homes and 
businesses in the Kurdish towns of people who meant them no harm as 
they crossed the border into Syria.
  So what do we do? How do we respond in the days ahead? There are a 
few things I would bring up. One is the ``what I wish.''
  I wish the administration had been more clear with Turkey and her 
leaders and would have said: If you do this, it is not that we will 
impose sanctions, but here is exactly what the sanctions will be. We 
need you to know it, and it is going to happen as rapidly as possible.
  I wish that we would have moved all of the ISIS fighters out of the 
region. There are ISIS fighters who are currently imprisoned in 
northern Syria who are waiting to return back to their home countries, 
for many of them are foreign fighters from other places. Yet their home 
countries are not willing to take them back. So they are currently 
imprisoned in Syria. I wish, before the Turks crossed the border, that 
we would have done more to help to protect those prisoners and make 
sure they didn't get freed. Many of them did get freed, and the entire 
region will suffer the consequences of some very bad actors who will 
get back to the battlefield again because of that.
  I wish there had actually been coordination. Clearly, the 
administration did not coordinate with the State Department, the 
Department of Defense, and with other Kurdish leaders with regard to 
what was happening in the region and did not make sure we were securing 
those fighters and preparing for that moment. Instead, it was a rapid 
transition and a hurried process to move Americans out of harm's way in 
between two allies who were fighting each other and to try to shift 
them to other places and be able to stabilize them in those locations. 
There have been a lot of hurried responses that could have been done 
differently but were not.
  The ``now whats'' are pretty clear, though.
  President Trump has launched out and stated very clearly that there 
will be strong sanctions against military leaders within the Turkish 
Army and the key leaders in the government. He will try to put 
sanctions down as rapidly as possible on those individuals.
  He has also announced a 50-percent steel tariff on Turkey. You may 
say that it is no big deal, except for the fact that steel is a major 
export for Turkey, and it is a punishing tariff on it as a country.
  He has also started laying down additional sanctions on Turkey and 
has said all of the trade agreements and conversations are currently at 
a standstill. Turkey's economy is on the razor's edge because Erdogan 
has so mismanaged its economy for so many years.
  We have no beef with the Turkish people, but, currently, Turkey is 
being led by a leader who is leading their country into economic ruin 
and leading their military across foreign borders to haphazardly kill 
civilians. We should not tolerate that, and we should engage. We should 
make it very clear that there will be consequences.
  We should work with the U.N., as we already have started, and be more 
aggressive, by which, if there is someone to stand between two warring 
parties, it will be the U.N. peacekeepers who will do that, not 
American men and women who are sitting out there in a forward operating 
base.
  We should continue to sanction Turkish banks--those banks that did 
business with Iran. When Iran was sanctioned, Turkey continued to do 
business with some of those banks. We should increase our sanctions 
there.
  We should be extremely clear that Turkey will not get access to the 
F-35s. I cannot imagine how much stronger the response of the American 
people would be right now if it were American F-35s that were flying 
across the Syria-Turkey border to bomb our own allies the Kurds. We 
should make it very clear that there is no foreign military sales to 
Turkey, and we should continue to cut them off.
  We have to be clear in the consequences. We have to be rapid in the 
response because, right now, people are dying in northern Syria. Those 
same families and those same individuals put their own lives on the 
line to stand up against ISIS, and they stood with us in multiple 
areas. They have a great propensity toward freedom and toward 
democracy, which desperately need to grow in the Middle East.
  The chaos that is ensuing is the chaos of war. It is the pain of over 
a century of the mismanagement of this entire region. We need to stop 
the bloodshed first and continue to negotiate with every possible lever 
that we can to make sure we can bring a sense of calm to the chaos that 
is starting and do so with the greatest pressure on the Turks and on 
President Erdogan, who clearly hasn't gotten the message yet as to what 
the will of the American

[[Page S5822]]

people and this Congress really involves.
  This is a changing situation. It is not simple, but it is one about 
which I will come back and try to inform in every way that I can. In 
order to bring justice to the process, I will encourage this body to 
smartly and quickly engage, to help impress upon the Turks to back off 
the bloodshed, and to bring war crimes against any Turk or any 
individual we can identify who is killing prisoners and attacking 
civilians.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from the Nebraska.


                 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement

  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I rise to voice my strong support for 
the passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or the USMCA.
  When I travel the State of Nebraska, I always hear directly from our 
farmers and our ag producers. Nebraska's farmers have endured some of 
the most challenging setbacks in recent memory. The severe flooding 
from last spring devastated thousands of acres of our farm and our 
ranch land, brought hundreds of livestock deaths, and destroyed barns, 
countless grain bins, hay, and critical farm equipment. This list of 
daunting obstacles continues to grow.
  Last July, the Gering-Fort Laramie-Goshen irrigation tunnel collapsed 
and cut off a crucial source of surface irrigation water to the western 
region of our State for several weeks.
  Only a few days earlier, a devastating fire broke out in a Tyson beef 
processing plant in Holcomb, KS. The plant processed about 6,000 head 
of cattle every single day. That is roughly 6 percent of the total fed 
cattle processing capacity in the United States.
  The effects of the plant's closure rippled throughout the entire 
cattle industry and the beef processing chain. This is all in addition 
to 5 years of low commodity prices, the unfair small refinery 
exemptions for oil refiners, and the cloud of uncertainty over trade.
  While all of these factors have caused anxiety and unpredictability, 
there is one solution that Nebraska's farmers, ranchers, ag producers, 
manufacturers, and hard-working men and women have made clear, and that 
is the passage of the USMCA.
  Nebraska's farmers and ranchers have a different lifestyle than most 
people. Their patience is steadfast. They plan for the long term. They 
can envision how they want their land to look, not only next year but 
100 years into the future. It is in their DNA, and families are fed 
around the world because of it.
  They are optimists, but they are realists. As Secretary Perdue 
recently said, ``they know you can't plant in August and harvest in 
September.''
  That is exactly right. Our producers have remained patient during 
these tough and turbulent times because they know that there is an 
opportunity for a better, long-term trade solution on the horizon.
  The USMCA would replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade 
Agreement, or NAFTA, and bring the deal into the 21st century, while 
fortifying our strong trading relationships with Canada and Mexico and 
growing critical market access for Nebraska.
  The heart of Nebraska beats in the same rhythm as agriculture. It is 
who we are, and as the world knows that it is what we do better than 
anyone. So it is not hard to understand why our State needs this deal.
  America's neighbors to the north and south are the destination of 44 
percent of Nebraska's total exports. In 2017, Nebraska shipped $447 
million of agricultural products to Canada and a staggering $898 
million to Mexico. These exports include hundreds of millions of 
dollars' worth of Nebraska's high-quality corn, soybeans, ethanol, and 
beef.
  Specifically, the USMCA maintains and strengthens those markets for 
corn and soybeans. It also allows U.S. beef producers to continue to 
grow their exports to Mexico, which have risen 800 percent since NAFTA 
was first ratified.
  In 2018 alone, Nebraska exported over $250 million dollars of beef to 
both countries.
  It is important to note that the benefits of the USMCA extend far 
beyond our farmland. Agricultural trade between Canada and Mexico 
supports nearly 54,000 jobs in the State of Nebraska. According to the 
Nebraska Department of Agriculture, Nebraska's $6.4 billion in 
agricultural exports in 2017 translated into $8.19 billion in 
additional economic activity. For the good of our State and our Nation, 
these markets need to be protected.
  The USMCA goes even further than NAFTA. It adopts labor and 
environmental standards that Democrats have long advocated for. It 
requires that 40 to 45 percent of auto content be made by workers who 
earn at least $16 an hour by 2023. This will undoubtedly help close the 
gap in labor standards between our Nation and Mexico.
  According to the U.S. Trade Representative, the deal includes new 
provisions to prohibit the importation of goods produced by forced 
labor.
  The USMCA addresses violence against workers exercising their labor 
rights, and it ensures that migrant workers are protected under labor 
laws.
  The deal brings labor obligations into the core of the agreement, and 
most importantly, it makes them fully enforceable.
  On top of that, the USMCA deploys the most advanced, comprehensive 
set of environmental protections of any trade agreement in our Nation's 
history. The list of environmental protections includes first-ever 
articles to improve air quality, support forest management, and ensure 
procedures for studies on its environmental impact.
  New provisions protect a variety of marine species, such as whales 
and sea turtles, and there are prohibitions on shark finning.
  Unlike NAFTA, the USMCA provides enforcement mechanisms that will 
ensure that all countries not only meet but strengthen their 
environmental responsibilities.
  Lastly, I want to point out to my Democrat colleagues the support the 
USMCA is receiving on both sides of the aisle.
  I recently heard Tom Vilsack say this:

       I think under any evaluation, from the U.S. agriculture 
     perspective it clearly is a better deal. So, with that our 
     hope is that it gets done, and gets done soon.

  These are not the words of some Trump administration official. These 
are the words of President Obama's former Secretary of Agriculture.
  Here is another quote from Dan Glickman:

       We have a good agreement. We cannot let the perfect be the 
     enemy of the good. This is a good deal for America and 
     particularly a good deal for farmers at this vulnerable time.

  Again, this isn't support from some Republican Member of Congress. 
This is support that is voiced by President Clinton's former Secretary 
of Agriculture.
  What is more, all former Agriculture Secretaries since the Reagan 
administration have voiced their full support for the USMCA.
  We have seen the headlines of endorsements, and one especially caught 
my attention. The title of a recent op-ed read: ``Democrats Should Give 
Trump a Win on His Trade Deal with Mexico and Canada.'' Well, this 
piece wasn't composed by a conservative publication. It was penned by 
the editorial board of the Washington Post.
  Finally, a group of 14 House Democrats sent a letter to Speaker 
Pelosi last July urging her to take up the USMCA for a vote.
  The letter reads: ``Canada and Mexico are by far our most important 
trading partners, and we need to restore certainty in these critical 
relationships that support millions of American jobs.''
  Both sides of the aisle agree that the USMCA is a significant win for 
farmers, ranchers, ag producers, and America's economy as a whole.
  Nebraska's farmers and ranchers have maintained patience in these 
tough times. They deserve to know without a doubt that they will 
continue to have access to their two largest markets and closest 
trading partners.
  As I said earlier, farmers aren't just thinking about themselves. 
They are planning for the future generations that will proudly carry on 
their life's work and continue feeding our world.
  Right now, we have an opportunity to come together around a 
commonsense, bipartisan agreement that will benefit the American people 
both now and for years to come. Now it is up to Congress to deliver.
  I urge Speaker Pelosi to stop needlessly delaying this vote, and I 
encourage all of my Democrat colleagues not

[[Page S5823]]

to allow politics to stand in the way of sound policy. It is time to 
push the USMCA over the finish line.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, first I would like to associate myself with 
the comments of my senior Senator about the necessity of the passage of 
the USMCA. The House of Representatives and the Speaker should schedule 
that vote immediately. There is clearly overwhelming support in both 
bodies for its passage.
  I would also like to underscore my senior Senator's comments about 
the tragedy of the irrigation tunnel collapse in Nebraska and about the 
character of Nebraska's farmers and ranchers. They have dealt with yet 
another catastrophe after 81 of our 93 counties went through a state of 
emergency earlier this year in a flood.
  I would like to just commend my senior Senator for a fine speech on a 
really important topic.
  (The remarks of Mr. Sasse pertaining to the submission of S.J. Res. 
58 are printed in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
  Mr. SASSE. I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The measure will be received and appropriately 
referred.
  The Senator from Maryland.


                              S.J. Res. 53

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about S.J. 
Res. 53. We will have a chance to vote on that tomorrow. I am joined by 
my colleague from Maryland, Senator Van Hollen, and my colleague on the 
Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Whitehouse from Rhode 
Island. I also want to thank Senator Carper for his leadership as the 
senior Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee in regard 
to this resolution.
  This resolution will be voted on tomorrow. It deals with the CRA--
Congressional Review Act--vote in regard to the Trump administration's 
affordable clean energy rule. That is probably a misnomer. It is what I 
call the dirty powerplant rule. The CRA would repeal that so that we 
can go back to the Clean Power Plan that was promulgated under the 
Obama administration in 2015.
  Let me explain what the Trump-era rule would do. First, it would 
repeal the Clean Power Plan that was issued in 2015. That plan had real 
results in it. It set limits on a powerplant's production of dangerous 
carbon. It made meaningful progress. The rule promulgated by President 
Trump's administration would repeal that and substitute it with a plan 
that would be a powerplant judgment in each powerplant--coal-burning 
only--and would not take into consideration the powerplant mix of 
individual States.
  The previous rule allowed the States to figure out how to reach those 
goals. So a State could do a mix. They could start using natural gas. 
They could start using renewable energy. They could meet their goals 
that are set with a reduction of about one-third of these dangerous 
carbon emissions but with local discretion on how to reach those goals.
  The rule that was promulgated that I am seeking to reverse allows 
only efficiency per coal powerplants, does not allow the mixing of the 
different technologies, and prohibits the States from pursuing market-
based plans.
  I am going to tell you, in my region of the country, we have what is 
known as REGI, which is a compact to reduce carbon emissions. We do it 
by energizing market forces so that we can get to friendlier sources of 
energy, which, by the way, has helped our region not only reduce carbon 
emissions but create green energy jobs, which is in our interest.
  Let me point out from the beginning that the powerplants are the 
largest stationary source of harmful carbon emissions. Why should 
everybody be concerned about it? We know its impact on climate change. 
We have seen the harmful impacts of climate change in America, from the 
wildfires out West to the flooding here in the East. We have seen the 
problems not only in our own community but throughout the world. In my 
own State of Maryland, we have had two 100-year floods within 20 months 
in Ellicott City, MD. The list goes on and on about the impact of 
climate change. We see the coastal line changing in our lifetime. We 
are seeing regular flooding. We are seeing habitable land become 
inhabitable. All of that is affected by our carbon emissions, and the 
Obama-era Clean Power Plan did something about it. The rule that we 
will have a chance to vote on tomorrow would do nothing about it.
  We see this as a public health risk. I can't tell you how frequently 
I have heard from my constituents who have someone in their family who 
has a respiratory illness: What can we do for cleaner air? Children are 
staying home from school because of bad air days. Parents are missing 
time from work. Premature deaths. All that is impacted by clean air.
  I talk frequently about the Chesapeake Bay. I am honored to represent 
the Chesapeake Bay region in the U.S. Senate, along with Senator Van 
Hollen, and we treasure the work that has been done. It has been an 
international model of all the stakeholders coming together in order to 
clean up the Chesapeake Bay, and we are making tremendous progress on 
dealing with the sorts of pollution coming from runoff or from farming 
activities or development. But, quite frankly, we have not been 
successful in dealing with airborne pollutants that are going into the 
Chesapeake Bay.
  In Maryland, we are a downwind State. We need a national effort here. 
Maryland could be doing everything right, but if the surrounding States 
are not, we suffer the consequences. That is why the Clean Power Plan 
was so attractive in dealing with this issue, because it dealt with it 
with national goals. Establish how to attain them by the local 
governments. That is the way it should be.
  Let me give the numbers. The Clean Power Plan that is repealed by the 
rule under the Trump administration would have reduced dangerous carbon 
emission by about one-third. We believe the rule that was promulgated 
by the Trump administration could actually increase dangerous 
emissions.
  Let me use EPA's regulatory impact analysis. Looking at 
CO<inf>2</inf>--carbon dioxide--the Agency says that the Trump rule 
will reduce it by 0.7 percent. That is less than 1 percent. The Clean 
Power Plan issued by President Obama--19 percent. SO<inf>2</inf>s under 
Trump are 5.7 percent; under the Obama rule, 24 percent. NO<inf>X</inf> 
emissions under the plan that was promulgated under the Trump 
administration are 0.9 percent--less than 1 percent. Under the Clean 
Power Plan, it is 22 percent.
  We really are talking about whether we are serious about dealing with 
dangerous carbon emissions or whether we are going to at best maintain 
the status quo; at worst, make things even worse.
  It saddens me that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are 
embracing the ACE rule, since it threatens to reverse much of the 
progress we have made in reducing air pollution--progress their 
conservationist Republican predecessors helped to spur. The Clean Air 
Act amendments, which established the sulfur dioxide--SO<inf>2</inf>--
cap-and-trade program, were adopted in 1990. This was never a partisan 
issue; cap-and-trade was originally a Republican idea. George Herbert 
Walker Bush was President. It passed the House of Representatives by a 
401-to-21 vote. It passed this body, the U.S. Senate, by an 89-to-11 
vote. It has been highly successful. During George W. Bush's 
Presidency, the EPA determined that the SO<inf>2</inf> cap-and-trade 
program had a 40-1 benefit-to-cost ratio.
  The Supreme Court held in Massachusetts v. EPA that the EPA has a 
responsibility to regulate these carbon emissions. So that is exactly 
what was done in 2015, which is now being jeopardized because of the 
regulation that was issued under the Trump administration.
  I had a chance to serve in the State legislature. This is an affront 
to federalism. Innovation for green energy and jobs is prohibited under 
the rule that I am seeking to repeal. It is prohibited. That is why 22 
States and 7 local governments have filed suit against this regulation. 
But we can act.
  The Congressional Review Act allows us to take action in this body, 
and that is why I filed that so we can take action. If we allow this 
rule to go forward, it will delay the implementation of carbon emission 
reductions--delay it. If we vote for the CRA, we will be back on track.

[[Page S5824]]

  We have already seen the U.S. leadership challenged in this area with 
President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris accord--the only 
nation in the world that has done so. Who has filled that void? Quite 
frankly, it has been China.
  Do we want to cede our leadership globally to a country with a 
controlled government economy like China or do we want to reassert U.S. 
leadership? We are going to have a chance to do that tomorrow with a 
vote in the U.S. Senate. I urge my colleagues to support the 
Congressional Review Act resolution I have filed, S.J. Res. 53.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I would like to start by thanking my 
friend and colleague from the State of Maryland, Senator Cardin, for 
bringing this resolution to the floor of the Senate--as he said, we 
will be voting on it tomorrow--but also for his longstanding support 
and efforts in trying to protect our environment, to protect the 
Chesapeake Bay, and to address the urgent issue of climate change, 
which anybody with eyes can see is already having a devastating impact 
on communities throughout our country and, indeed, throughout the 
world.
  I am also very pleased to be here with our colleague, the Senator 
from Rhode Island, Mr. Whitehouse, who has made this such an important 
cause and has kept the Senate focused on this pressing issue.
  As Senator Cardin indicated, under the previous administration, under 
the leadership of President Obama, as a country we adopted something 
known as the Clean Power Plan rule. This was a historic step forward. 
It was a blueprint to create more good-paying jobs in the clean energy 
sector. In fact, we have seen a tremendous growth of those jobs in the 
area of solar and wind power and other jobs.
  That Clean Power Plan rule, under the Obama administration, also 
really addressed the issue of carbon pollution in the atmosphere, 
beginning to reduce it significantly, to offset the damage and real 
costs we are already experiencing in communities from that climate 
change.
  As Senator Cardin said, this is an area where there are huge 
communities, if our country moves forward, in the area of clean energy 
jobs. Right now, with this new Trump administration action, we are 
ceding the playing field to China, which is happily seizing the 
initiative and moving forward and creating more and more jobs in the 
clean energy sector. If we don't wake up, we are going to lose that 
important global competition in the vital sector to China, which has 
established a goal of dominating the area of clean energy technologies 
by 2025.
  Instead of building on the progress of the Obama administration, on 
June 19, the Trump administration decided to repeal and roll back these 
important rules that have been put in place and substitute them with 
something that, in the worst case, actually makes the situation much 
worse than even before these Trump rules and, at the very least, is a 
huge retreat from the progress we were headed toward under the rules of 
the previous administration.
  Let me just point out the analysis that was done by a very good 
organization called Resources for the Future. They looked at their 
analysis of this Trump proposal, which I agree with Senator Cardin is 
better termed the ``Trump dirty power plan,'' and they concluded it 
would do very little, if anything, to address climate change and would 
have an adverse air quality impact in many of our States.
  Some people may recall when the Trump version of this power plan, the 
``dirty power plan,'' was released last year, people looked at the 
EPA's own analysis of that rule, and it showed that 1,630 of our fellow 
Americans would die prematurely under the Trump provisions compared to 
the Obama-era provisions.
  So when the Trump administration released this most recent version of 
their amended plan back in June, they made it really difficult to put 
together all the data so people would not be able to connect the dots 
in many of these areas, but Senator Cardin has presented some of the 
results of this. I want to emphasize those and put them in somewhat 
different terms, which is, what does the Trump rule accomplish compared 
to the Obama rule on some of these issues?
  So with respect to carbon dioxide emissions, the Trump rule would 
reduce carbon dioxide emissions, carbon pollution emissions, by 2.7 
percent of what the Obama administration would have done--2.7 percent 
of what the rule they are replacing would have done.
  With respect to sulfur dioxide, the Trump plan reduces sulfur dioxide 
emissions by only 1.9 percent of what the Obama administration's rule 
would have done.
  When it comes to nitrous oxide, the Trump proposal, the Trump plan, 
reduces nitrous oxide by only 2.5 percent compared to what the Obama 
provisions would have done.
  If you take all of these together, you can see it is a really anemic 
proposal that takes us way backward compared to where we were. That is 
why I support Senator Cardin's efforts on the floor, with the vote 
tomorrow, to say no, to say no to the Trump administration's efforts to 
roll back the progress on clean air, to roll back the progress on clean 
water because a lot of that pollution settles in places like the 
Chesapeake Bay, and to roll back progress on climate change, which we 
know is hitting our communities as we speak.
  I want to give some additional Maryland examples here. The Baltimore 
Sun ran a story a little while back about the staggering costs that 
Maryland and Marylanders would have to pay to build seawalls to protect 
communities from sea level rise. A study from the Institute for 
Governance & Sustainable Development found that in the coming decades, 
seawalls to protect thousands of homes, businesses, and farmlands from 
Ocean City to Baltimore City will cost more than $27 billion--$27 
billion.
  We have also seen dramatic flooding in the city of Annapolis that is 
already hurting the Naval Academy. This past week, we just had a famous 
national boat show, and in the middle of this boat show, there was huge 
flooding in the city of Annapolis. The costs to the city and that 
community are rising rapidly and have been well-documented.
  I ask my colleagues to support Senator Cardin's motion. Let's not go 
backward. Let's not go backward in terms of protecting our air. Let's 
not go backward in terms of the battle against climate change because 
going backward means less good jobs in America, it means more dirty air 
and more asthma, and it means ceding this important area to China and 
others in the global economy.
  I urge my colleagues to support the motion of Senator Cardin.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). The Senator from Rhode 
Island.


                      Unanimous Consent Agreement

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
vote be extended until 4:30 p.m.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Seeing none, without objection, it is so ordered.


                              S.J. Res. 53

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am delighted to join my colleagues 
from Maryland and Delaware to support this resolution expressing 
disapproval of the Trump administration rescinding the Clean Power Plan 
and replacing it with its so-called affordable clean energy rule, which 
is a name fanciful enough to make George Orwell blush.
  The first thing to understand about the so-called affordable clean 
energy rule is that it is a do-nothing rule, exactly as the polluters 
wish. EPA admits its own rule would do virtually zero to reduce carbon 
pollution. It requires zero emissions reductions at natural gas-fired 
powerplants, and it would allow coal-fired powerplants to make minor 
efficiency improvements and then run for longer hours. That could 
actually lead to an increase in carbon pollution.
  This rule is designed to fool people into thinking that the Trump 
administration is obeying the Clean Air Act, but no one should be 
fooled.
  From the get-go, the Trump administration made clear it didn't care 
about cutting carbon pollution, fighting climate change, or protecting 
the environment or public health. It cared about obeying the fossil 
fuel industry, not the law.

[[Page S5825]]

  Within weeks of taking office, Trump's swampy Cabinet rolled out the 
red carpet for coal baron Bob Murray, who had an action plan for the 
administration. Here is Murray with Energy Secretary Perry, and look 
who is accompanying Murray at the meeting, our EPA Administrator, 
Andrew Wheeler, then Murray's lobbyist. It looks like a friendly 
meeting, and why wouldn't it be? Look at that, such a nice big hug. 
Isn't that sweet?
  Murray was the major financial backer of the Trump administration, 
and this was his payback time. Individuals associated with Murray 
Energy were the largest source of donations to Donald Trump's 
Presidential campaign, and Murray himself chipped in a cool 300 grand 
for Trump's inaugural festivities. Murray was also one of the largest 
donors to election spending groups associated with disgraced EPA 
Administrator Scott Pruitt, under whose tenure this botched ACE rule 
began.
  So what was the first item on Bob Murray's action plan? To get rid of 
the Clean Power Plan. Bob Murray wasn't the only one who wanted to 
scrap the Clean Power Plan. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the 
National Association of Manufacturers, two of the largest and most 
powerful trade associations in Washington, also asked the EPA to scrap 
the Clean Power Plan. That is no surprise. The independent watchdog 
group InfluenceMap found the chamber and NAM the two worst obstructers 
of climate action. They will not reveal their donors, but I believe 
they took lots of money from the fossil fuel industry and became its 
mouthpiece. They got paid, and this was the play.
  The chamber and NAM were also aligned with shadowy fossil fuel 
industry front groups like the so-called Utility Air Regulatory Group 
and the American Council for Clean Coal Electricity--more Orwellian 
names. These groups also asked the EPA to scrap the Clean Power Plan 
and replace it with this toothless rule.
  Is that unsavory enough? It gets worse. Guess who represented UARG, 
that Utility Air Regulatory Group. It was none other than fossil fuel 
industry stooge Bill Wehrum, who helped orchestrate a web of front 
groups, like UARG, which obscured and multiplied the influence of 
Wehrum's polluter clients--clients responsible for massive carbon 
pollution.
  Naturally, Trump put this guy in as head of EPA's Air Office. Before 
Wehrum headed for the exits this summer, Murray's man Wheeler praised 
Wehrum for ``tremendous progress'' in repealing climate regulations. 
Pruitt to Wheeler to Wehrum--this is rank fossil fuel crookedness in 
plain view.
  Several of us submitted comments laying out the financial and 
professional connections between the Trump officials who developed this 
bogus rule and the fossil fuel industry that asked for it. Those 
comments are posted online and in the Federal Register. I urge you to 
have a look. Also available online is a report I did with Senator 
Carper detailing Wehrum's industry ties and conflicts of interest. 
Median.com/@senwhitehouse will link you to all of this.
  The crony capture of EPA is not the only problem with the rule. The 
industry is so greedy and its hacks are so clumsy that they don't 
bother to align the rule with the scientific and economic evidence.
  In court, Agency actions will be found to be arbitrary and 
capricious--and therefore invalid--if they are not the product of 
reasoned decision making.
  In this case, it is clear that the EPA ignored the science, ignored 
the economics, and produced exactly what the fossil fuel industry told 
it to do: a do-nothing rule that took good care of the coal and natural 
gas industries.
  What does the science tell us? According to the world's best 
scientific report, if we reduce carbon pollution by roughly half by 
around 2030 and reach net zero emissions sometime around the middle of 
the century, we stand a chance to hold the global average temperature 
increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
  Our own best scientists warn that if we don't limit carbon pollution, 
we will be hit with economic losses in the hundreds of billions of 
dollars per year by the end of the century. Legions of economists, 
investment banks, asset managers, central banks, credit rating 
agencies, and other experts warn of serious economic risks from climate 
upheaval. Here is a summary of just some of these warnings, which I 
have delivered to every colleague in the Senate. That, too, can be 
found on that Medium page.
  Pruitt, Wehrum, and Wheeler ignored all of this for their do-nothing 
rule. The only voice that mattered was the polluter industry that they 
came from and will go back to in an oil-greased revolving door. This 
ACE rule is the exact opposite of reasoned decision making. But that 
was never the point. The fix was in. Even a bogus rule that courts 
throw out buys this crooked and corrupting industry time--time to keep 
polluting, time to burn through reserves, and time to use its political 
muscle to fend off action here in the Senate. If you are in the 
fiddling business and fiddle for money, fiddling while Rome burns is a 
fine economic proposition for you.
  The Supreme Court has ruled that greenhouse gases are pollutants 
under the Clean Air Act. The EPA has found that greenhouse gases from 
powerplants endanger human health and welfare. Those determinations 
mean the EPA must limit carbon pollution, consistent with the law. This 
masquerade of a rule fails to do this, so it must be replaced with 
something effective, as a matter of law.
  I ask colleagues to think carefully about their vote on this 
resolution. Do you want to endorse this record of obvious industry 
capture? Do you want to side with this corrupting industry over your 
own constituents' health and safety? Do you want to go on record 
ignoring all the warnings from the Bank of England, from Freddie Mac, 
from Nobel Prize-winning economists, and from hundreds of our own 
government's most knowledgeable experts?
  The fossil fuel industry--its voice full of money, as F. Scott 
Fitzgerald might say--has drowned out the voices of everyone else for 
too long here. But you can't shout down the laws of physics. You can't 
shout down the laws of biology, chemistry, and economics. Those laws 
will have their way, and we have been well warned. So, please, let's 
turn the corner to a brighter day where decency rules, not industry 
political thuggery; a brighter day where facts and science matter more 
than dark money and paid-for denial; and a brighter day where we don't 
give our grandchildren daily cause for shame. It is time to wake up, 
and this vote is a chance to do so.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.


                               Hong Kong

  Mr. COTTON. Madam President, as we speak, the brave people of Hong 
Kong are demonstrating to protect their freedoms from the Chinese 
Communist Party in Beijing. Chinese state TV has portrayed these 
millions of demonstrators as violent anarchists and separatists, but 
these Hongkongers are merely insisting that China live up to the 
promises it made to Hong Kong and the United Kingdom--promises China 
made as binding conditions of the transfer of sovereignty from London 
to Beijing.
  The Chinese Government promised that Hong Kong would enjoy a high 
degree of autonomy, including many of the freedoms that Beijing denies 
to its more than 1 billion subjects on the mainland, but, as the world 
has learned through bitter experience, the Chinese Communist Party's 
promises aren't worth the paper they are written on. Slowly but surely, 
Beijing has chipped away at the independence it promised Hong Kong--
disappearing citizens guilty of wrongthink, undermining Hong Kong's 
longstanding political and judicial systems, and issuing menacing 
threats of military intervention to crush the demonstrations.
  Most Americans are rightly outraged by China's brutal crackdown in 
Hong Kong. Daryl Morey is one of them. He is the general manager of the 
Houston Rockets. Just a few days ago, he tweeted a simple and justified 
phrase: ``Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.''
  Morey probably knew his words would offend the Chinese Communist 
Party, but he was also violating a different party line--that of his 
own league, the NBA. For daring to speak up about Hong Kong, Morey was 
disavowed by his team, his fellow executives, and some of the most 
famous

[[Page S5826]]

athletes in the NBA. That is because he was threatening not only the 
powers that be in China but the cash cow that China represents for 
American business, including professional basketball. China's 
government may be red, but its money is green, and plenty of people are 
willing to cash its checks, no matter the cost.
  The league's biggest star, LeBron James, said that Morey's support 
for Hong Kong was ``misinformed'' and ``not educated.'' He reportedly 
called for Morey to be punished. Perhaps it is no coincidence that 
LeBron James stands to make billions of dollars from the Chinese 
market--not only from a higher NBA salary cap, shoe sales, and Nike 
ads, but also from his own movie company. Often known as King James, 
perhaps ``Chairman LeBron'' would be a better honorific today.
  Joe Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets, called the protest in Hong Kong 
a separatist movement that was trying to carve up Chinese territories 
like colonial powers or Imperial Japan. Perhaps it is no coincidence 
that Mr. Tsai is an executive at Alibaba, a Chinese company that 
developed a Communist propaganda app that hijacked cell phones of 
anyone who downloaded it.
  At a Wizards game last week, security confiscated a protest sign that 
said simply ``Google Uighurs,'' referring to the native people of 
western China whose culture and religion are being exterminated by the 
Chinese Communist Party. That sign was not confiscated in China by the 
secret police but right here in America's national capital.
  Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, drew a moral 
equivalence between Communist China and the United States. ``None of us 
are perfect,'' he said, ``and we all have different issues we need to 
get to.''
  Nobody is perfect. That is what he says of an authoritarian regime 
that starved, shot, or beat to death 50 million of its own people on a 
forced march to modernity and a regime that runs a network of 
concentration camps in its western provinces and harvests the organs of 
political prisoners for its own pampered elite. Nobody is perfect, 
indeed.
  This is craven and greedy behavior, and it stands in stark contrast 
to how America has historically used sports to promote our interests 
and our aspirations, from the triumph of Black Olympians in Hitler's 
Germany to the Miracle on Ice against the Soviet Union. Even our 
diplomatic opening to China happened in part through sports with ping-
pong diplomacy.
  Today, the tables have turned. China has used sports to export its 
authoritarian model to our soil. So far, it has found too many willing 
enforcers in the NBA. But it doesn't have to be this way. Commissioner 
Adam Silver, after a slow start, defended Daryl Morey's right to speak 
his mind about Hong Kong. He said: Free expression is ``what you guys 
stand for.''
  Too many American companies kowtow to China not because they love its 
government but because of the tremendous pressure that government can 
exert on their operations. But the NBA is in a unique position. Beijing 
can ban an airline, or it can ban a hotel that lists Taiwan as a 
country in its online drop-down menu, and the Chinese people can use a 
different airline, or they can use a different hotel, but there is only 
one NBA. Beijing can't create another one.
  And here is the rub: There are more than 500 million basketball fans 
in China. More people in China follow the NBA than there are people in 
the United States. No doubt Beijing has some leverage over the NBA, as 
it does over all businesses, but the NBA has a lot of leverage over 
Beijing. Is Beijing really going to ban the entire league, as they have 
done with the Houston Rockets, at the risk of alienating more than 500 
million people who follow the league and the resultant public backlash 
that could create? So instead of acting as a bullhorn for Communist 
propaganda in America, the NBA could be a beacon of freedom in China. 
They could dare China to shut them out.
  Let me urge all of these NBA executives and players who say they care 
about social justice, don't just speak out when the stakes are low for 
you personally or when the cause is popular among your friends; speak 
out now when the stakes are deadly high for millions of Hongkongers and 
more than a billion Chinese, including so many of your fans.
  LeBron James tweeted not long ago: ``Injustice anywhere is a threat 
to justice everywhere.'' Live out that principle consistently. There 
are a million Uighurs in concentration camps yearning to hear a 
champion who speaks out on their behalf, particularly since the NBA 
runs an elite training academy in proximity to those camps.
  Steve Kerr never held back on expressing his opinion about our 
President. That is fine. That is his right as an American. But how 
about some outrage for the authoritarian regime in Beijing?
  Joe Tsai was born in Taiwan. His fellow Taiwanese live in constant 
fear of meddling, attack, and subjugation by the Chinese Communist 
party. Are they separatists for wanting to maintain their way of life? 
Speak out proudly on behalf of your homeland about the true nature of 
the government in Beijing.
  I realize it is a hard thing to ask any person. No doubt this is a 
harder path than the path many in the NBA are traveling at present. It 
would require sacrifice, and it would certainly invite the wrath of the 
Chinese Communist Party. But if the league used its unique leverage for 
freedom, millions of ordinary Chinese would surely notice, despite an 
army of Chinese Communist censors arrayed against them.
  The NBA didn't pick this fight. It probably prefers to avoid this 
fight. The Chinese Communist Party wants this fight. So the choice 
isn't to fight or not; it is to win or lose. And perhaps alone among 
American businesses, the NBA has a shot to win against Beijing. And in 
any fight against Communists, there can only be one strategy and one 
policy: victory.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              S.J. Res. 53

  Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I rise in support of the Congressional 
Review Act resolution of disapproval of the Trump administration's so-
called affordable clean energy rule, which really should be called 
President Trump's dirty power plan or unclean energy rule.
  To be clear, I believe that the Environmental Protection Agency has 
an urgent moral responsibility and economic imperative to reduce the 
global warming pollution from powerplants, which are by far the largest 
stationary source of carbon pollution on our planet. I also believe 
that those of us in Congress must act now to protect the American 
people from the dangers posed by poor environmental quality and the 
worsening impact of climate change. That is why we are holding this 
vote tomorrow--to send a clear message to this administration and to 
take a strong stand for the American people.
  Truth be told, I am not typically a staunch supporter of the 
Congressional Review Act. It is a blunt procedural tool, and I prefer 
to embrace a better way to express our disapproval of the 
administration's failure to address one of our Nation's major sources 
of carbon pollution.
  For Senate Democrats, this vote is about holding supporters of this 
shortsighted, irresponsible policy accountable for surrendering 
America's global leadership and for jeopardizing the health of our 
planet and the promise of our children's future.
  Nearly 4 years ago, the Clean Power Plan set the first Federal 
targets to reduce carbon emissions from our Nation's powerplants. The 
Clean Power Plan set meaningful but achievable carbon limits for fossil 
fuel powerplants and gave flexibility and time for States to meet those 
standards. It was not a one-size-fits-all deal. It provided quite a bit 
of time and flexibility for States to try to figure out how they would 
go about meeting those standards in their own way. This 
administration's alternative to the Clean Power Plan--President Trump's 
unclean power plan--allows States to decide whether to regulate harmful 
emissions. At the same time, this rule will, at best, have essentially 
no impact on powerplant carbon emissions--no impact.

[[Page S5827]]

  Let me say that again. At best, this rule will have essentially no 
impact on powerplant carbon emissions. At worst, it will increase 
emissions by extending these plants' lifespans and allow them to burn 
more coal each year.
  Today our Nation's utilities are already on track to meet and surpass 
the emission reduction goals set by the Clean Power Plan way ahead of 
schedule. All the while, the vast majority of Americans are now 
enjoying lower utility bills, not higher utility bills, and more than 3 
million Americans went to work today in the clean energy sector, which 
includes jobs in renewable energy generation and energy efficiency. 
Yes, you heard that right. There are more than 3 million jobs in the 
clean energy sector today.
  The President's dirty power plan does not build on this progress. It 
does not promote affordable or clean energy. What it actually does is 
attempt to scam or fool the American people into believing that the EPA 
is doing something to stem the tide of climate change while taking us 
backward--backward, not forward.
  By repealing and replacing the Clean Power Plan, the Trump 
administration is ensuring that our country forgoes a vast number of 
economic opportunities of the clean energy future. Instead of building 
on the Obama-Biden administration's forward-looking environmental 
standards, the Trump administration, with its dirty power plan, is 
refusing to see or accept that the global economy's transition to clean 
energy sources is already underway. Instead of mustering the political 
courage to lead on the issue of climate change, yet again, the Trump 
administration is walking away from the bold action we need to address 
this climate crisis.
  This failure of leadership will make it all the more likely that the 
worsening storms and flooding, record-setting rainfall, and volatile 
temperatures we are already seeing all over the world will continue to 
be our reality.
  So where do our Republican colleagues stand? Tomorrow we will find 
out.
  Sadly, for too many of them, President Trump's dirty power plan is a 
sufficient plan to address carbon pollution. In truth, it is not. It is 
a failure of vision and a retreat from global leadership, and it is 
time for Congress--Democrats, Republicans, and maybe an Independent or 
two--to hold this administration accountable.
  That is why Senate Democrats are calling for a vote on this issue. 
Our government needs to provide the right market signals today if we 
are going to create a clean energy tomorrow, and we need to take a 
stand for a stronger economy. We need to lead the world to act on 
climate change, and we need to take a stand for clean air and 
environmental quality.
  We can do that tomorrow by standing together against President 
Trump's dirty power plan, and I hope a number of colleagues will join 
us by doing just that.
  It is a false statement to say we can't have cleaner air, less threat 
to our planet, and create jobs. We can do both, and we need to.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to complete my 
remarks prior to the vote for Ambassador Barrett.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hyde-Smith). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                Nomination of Barbara McConnell Barrett

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, a few weeks ago, I had an opportunity 
to come to the floor and talk about the outstanding public service of 
some senior U.S. marines: Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Secretary of 
Homeland Security General Kelly, and the outgoing Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs, Gen. Joseph Dunford. The service these gentlemen have given to 
their Nation includes almost 140 years of combined Active-Duty military 
service in the Marine Corps but also at the highest levels of 
government at a critical time in our Nation's history.
  Men and women who are committed to the service of our Nation are 
continuing to follow in the footsteps of these three very impressive 
U.S. Marine generals who brought the Marine Corps ethos of honor, 
courage, and commitment to our Nation's military and to their work in 
government. We should all be thankful for that.
  At the end of September, I had the privilege of attending the 
swearing-in of a member of the new team that President Trump is putting 
together in terms of national security, GEN Mark Milley, as the next 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now in the position succeeding 
General Dunford. At the Department of Defense, we have Secretary Esper, 
Secretary McCarthy, the Secretary of the Army, and General Milley who 
have all served their country with honor and will continue to do so.
  Now we are considering the nomination of Ambassador Barbara Barrett 
to be the next Secretary of the Air Force. In fact, we are going to be 
voting on her nomination in a few moments.
  I want to talk about her experience and her qualifications, which are 
diverse and very impressive. I think she is extremely well qualified to 
be the next Secretary of the U.S. Air Force.
  Let me provide just a bit about her background and exceptional 
experience. She is a private pilot, astronaut, Deputy Federal Aviation 
Administrator, past CEO of the Aerospace Corporation, past member of 
the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services and Defense 
Business Board. Importantly, she is a former U.S. Ambassador to 
Finland. That is a very impressive resume, a very impressive 
background.
  I first met Ambassador Barrett in 2015 when I had the opportunity to 
share dinner with her and the late Senator John McCain. Prior to that 
dinner, I was talking to Senator John McCain, and he told me how highly 
he thought of Ambassador Barrett. I can state--and I think many of my 
Senate colleagues will agree--that there can be no better an 
endorsement than that from Senator McCain.
  Ambassador Barrett will be taking over from Dr. Heather Wilson, who 
did an outstanding job as Secretary of the Air Force. Secretary 
Wilson's leadership was critical in rebuilding the U.S. Air Force, 
which had shrunk to its smallest level ever just a few years ago since 
the Air Force was created in the late 1940s. We had to start bringing 
it back. She did a great job on that, and I know Ambassador Barrett is 
committed to continuing that rebuilding of this critically important 
branch of our military.
  Another important element of Ambassador Barrett's experience is that 
as a former U.S. Ambassador to Finland, she understands the strategic 
importance of the Arctic and what is happening in terms of great power 
competition in the Arctic.
  I want to spend a few minutes talking about that critically important 
part of the world and the role of my State, the great State of Alaska. 
Dating back to Gen. Billy Mitchell, who is the father of the U.S. Air 
Force, Alaska has been recognized as what General Mitchell said in an 
Armed Services Committee hearing; that it is ``the most strategic place 
in the world.'' Former Secretary Wilson and our current Chief of the 
Staff of the Air Force, General Goldfein, have been leaders at the 
Department of Defense, raising awareness of the critical importance of 
the Arctic in defending America's national security interests. 
Additionally, Congress has been playing a role in highlighting this in 
our national security priorities in the National Defense Authorization 
Act over the last 3 years and so, too, has the Trump administration.
  Secretary Pompeo, our Secretary of State, was recently in Finland for 
the Arctic Council, all the nations of the Arctic, and he had this to 
say:

       We are entering a new age of strategic engagement in the 
     Arctic, complete with new threats to the Arctic and its real 
     estate. . . . This is America's moment to stand up as an 
     Arctic nation and for the Arctic's future.

  That was our Secretary of State a few months ago in Finland.
  America is an Arctic nation because of Alaska. I like to say that my 
State constitutes three pillars of America's military might. We are the 
cornerstone of missile defense for the entire Nation--the missile 
fields and the radar sites that protect Washington, DC, New York, 
Miami, Rhode Island, L.A. They are all based in the great State of 
Alaska. We are the hub of air combat power for the Arctic in the Asia-
Pacific.
  In the next 2 years, we are going to have over 100 fifth-generation 
fighters, F-35s and F-22s, stationed in Alaska.

[[Page S5828]]

No place on Earth will have that kind of combat power with those 
critical fifth-generation supersonic stealth fighters. We have a 
platform for expeditionary forces--some of our best trained military 
units--to be able to deploy on a moment's notice because we are so 
strategically located to other countries.
  Because of Alaska's strategic role in defending America's interests 
in the Arctic and the Indo-Pacific, the Congress and this 
administration, together in a bipartisan way, have been building up 
each of these three critical pillars of our Nation's military might and 
defenses.
  Let me give just one example. The Senate has been pushing lately to 
ensure that the air combat capability we have in Alaska is matched by 
air refueling capacity. The last three National Defense Authorization 
Acts passed by this body and signed by the President have established 
criteria that the Air Force needs to use when deciding where to base 
the next modern aerial refueling tanker platform, the KC-46.
  Ambassador Barrett and I have discussed this issue and what the Air 
Force is going to do with regard to stationing of the KC-46 outside of 
the continental United States, and I look forward to working with her 
on the advice already provided to the administration from the Congress 
on where those military assets need to be based.
  As the current Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, said in his 
confirmation hearing, having KC-46s colocated with 100 fifth-generation 
fighters would give America ``extreme strategic reach'' anywhere in the 
world. I believe Ambassador Barrett also understands this, and she 
clearly understands the importance of the Arctic as a former ambassador 
to Finland.
  So, as I mentioned at the outset, we need good people and highly 
qualified people to serve at the highest levels of our military, 
civilian and uniformed, and I believe Ambassador Barrett is certainly 
one of those individuals.
  I was heartened to see that my colleagues in the Senate gave a very 
strong bipartisan cloture vote, 84 to 7, which shows very strong 
support for her nomination. I know we are going to vote in a couple of 
minutes. I encourage my colleagues to vote yes for her nomination to be 
the next U.S. Secretary of the Air Force.
  I yield the floor.


                       Vote on Barrett Nomination

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). Under the previous order, all 
postcloture time has expired.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Barrett 
nomination?
  Mr. SULLIVAN. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. 
Isakson).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. 
Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), 
the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California 
(Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator 
from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. 
Warren) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 85, nays 7, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 319 Ex.]

                                YEAS--85

     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Hawley
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Manchin
     McConnell
     McSally
     Menendez
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Sinema
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--7

     Blumenthal
     Duckworth
     Gillibrand
     Markey
     Merkley
     Smith
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Alexander
     Bennet
     Booker
     Harris
     Isakson
     Klobuchar
     Sanders
     Warren
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. I ask unanimous consent that the subsequent votes be 10 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________