[Pages S6642-S6650]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
  The legislative clerk read the nomination of Barbara Lagoa, of 
Florida, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.


                         FCC and C-band Auction

  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I want to spend a very few minutes 
today to say thanks. I want to thank Chairman Ajit Pai and his 
colleagues at the Federal Communications Commission. The Chairman 
announced yesterday that he was going to put 5G technology and the 
American taxpayer first by holding a public auction, as opposed to a 
private auction, of what we call the C-band. It was a courageous 
decision that he made against a lot of pressure.
  Allow me, for just a few minutes, to explain why that is important. 
We have all heard about 5G, which stands for fifth generation. It is a 
brandnew wireless technology. It means incredibly fast internet and 
cell phone calls. It means the ability to deliver as much as 100 times 
more data through wireless technology than we can do today.
  We will notice it in our iPads; we will notice it in our computers; 
but we will notice it also in our cell phones.
  As you know, a cell phone is really a sophisticated walkie-talkie. I 
will use the cell phone as an example to explain 5G. A cell phone is 
just a very sophisticated, much more complicated walkie-talkie. How 
does a walkie-talkie work? How does a cell phone work? Radio waves. The 
scientific term is ``electromagnetic radiation.''
  A radio wave is just what it says, a wave that goes from my cell 
phone, say, to the President's cell phone through an antenna, a 
transmitter, and a receiver. A radio wave and the air through which it 
travels and the right to send a radio wave is a sovereign asset. It 
belongs to the American people. The American people own that

[[Page S6643]]

radio wave and the right to send it. Our FCC gets to decide who gets to 
use those radio waves and who has the right to send those radio waves.

  There is a particular type of radio wave that is absolutely perfect 
for 5G. It is between 180 megahertz and 300 megahertz. Why are these 
radio waves so perfect for 5G? Well, because they strike a balance. 
First, the radio waves in that spectrum, as it is called, can go a 
fairly long distance, and they can carry huge amounts of data. That is 
going to make driverless cars possible. We have heard about those--the 
internet of things. That is going to make remote surgery possible, 
where a doctor who is in one place physically and through the internet, 
using a robot, can perform surgery on someone 1,000 miles away. 5G 
going through these special radio waves is going to make all that 
possible. It is going to change our lives.
  Right now, those radio waves--I will call them the C-band spectrum--
as I said, are owned by the American people. They are being used by 
three satellite companies--two from Luxembourg and one from Canada--and 
some other companies. They are satellite companies. They don't own 
those radio waves. They don't even have a license to use those radio 
waves. They didn't pay anything to get to use those radio waves. The 
FCC said they could use them. It is sort of like a month-to-month lease 
or rental agreement where you don't have to pay any rent.
  Some time ago, those three companies came to the FCC and said: Even 
though we don't own those radio waves you allow us to use and even 
though the American people own those radio waves, which are perfect for 
5G, we are willing to give them up to use for 5G, but here is what we 
want you to do.
  The three foreign companies said: We want you to give us those radio 
waves, and then we will auction them off to the telecommunications 
companies that want to use the radio waves for 5G.
  This was the kicker: The three foreign corporations said they want to 
keep the money.
  Investment bankers estimate that through that auction being conducted 
by those three foreign corporations, as much as $60 billion would have 
been generated. That is how much telecommunications companies would pay 
to get the license to use those radio waves.
  Some people encouraged the FCC to do that. They said that we ought to 
do it because these three foreign companies can do an auction faster 
than the FCC can--even though the three foreign companies had never 
done an auction of spectrum and even though the FCC has done over 100 
public auctions for other radio waves that the FCC has auctioned off. 
In doing that, the fine men and women at the FCC in charge of these 
auctions--they have been doing it for 25 years--have brought in $123 
billion for the American people. That will build a lot of interstate, 
it will educate a lot of kids, and it will pay a lot of soldiers.
  But our three friends--these foreign satellite companies--still said: 
Even though we have no experience, we can do it faster. If you let the 
FCC do it, it will take them 7 years.
  Well, that just wasn't accurate. I have spoken to the people in 
charge of doing auctions at the FCC. In fact, on Thursday, they are 
going to appear before a subcommittee that I chair. We are going to 
talk about it some more. I don't know where this figure of 7 years came 
from, but it is just not accurate.
  Nonetheless, the FCC came under--there are swamp creatures in the 
government; we know that. Some of these swamp creatures in and out of 
government put an awful lot of pressure on the FCC. These swamp 
creatures are trying to help some of their friends in the 
telecommunications business. One of the foreign corporations spent 
about half a million dollars lobbying. I am not saying there is 
something wrong with that. We all have the right to petition our 
government. But that is just the fact. I don't mean it in a pejorative 
sense.
  The FCC was under a lot of pressure, but yesterday, the Chairman of 
the FCC, Ajit Pai, looked at all this. He resisted the pressure, and he 
announced that we are going to have a public auction. We are going to 
let every telecommunications company in America that wants to bid on 
these valuable air waves come forward and bid. We are going to do an 
auction within a year and probably less, not 7 years, and the money 
that is going to be generated is going to go to the owner of those 
radio waves, not the foreign companies that, through our benevolence, 
are now using those radio waves. The money is going to go to the 
American people.
  I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: Gosh, how was this 
ever even an issue? This should have been a no-brainer.
  Well, that is part of what is wrong with Washington, DC, in my 
judgment. Sometimes--not always but sometimes--the American people 
aren't put first. But yesterday, Ajit Pai, our Chairman at the FCC, put 
them first, and I just wanted to stand up today and tell him a genuine 
and heartfelt thank-you.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                    Prevent Government Shutdowns Act

  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, in the last 40 years, we have had 21 
government shutdowns--21. Twenty-one times, Congress and the President 
have not been able to agree or the Senate and the House have not been 
able to agree. As a result of that, Federal workers around the country 
have faced the consequences of Members of Congress not finding 
agreement.
  Help me understand this. Twenty-one times in 40 years, Federal 
workers who get up every single day and serve the American people and 
serve their neighbors have faced the consequences of furloughs because 
Members of Congress could not come to a resolution. It is not that it 
has gone unnoticed. For a decade or more, there have been solutions 
that have been proposed.
  Ten years ago, I had a proposal in the House--actually, Rob Portman 
had a great proposal in the Senate at the same time to deal with 
government shutdowns. Let's say when we get to the end of the fiscal 
year, we will just have a continuing resolution, but then we will cut 
spending every few months to press Congress to get to their work. The 
problem was, hardly anyone on the other side agreed with that. We 
couldn't get any bipartisan support for it. So my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle proposed that if we get to the end of the 
fiscal year, we would have a continuing resolution, and every couple of 
months, the spending would go up, and it would just continue to go up 
and up and up until it was resolved. Well, they didn't have anyone on 
my side of the aisle saying ``We are going to put in a mechanism that 
just increases spending over and over again without congressional 
involvement,'' so they got no bipartisan support.
  An idea was floated to just cut the pay of the Members of Congress. 
But it really wasn't cutting their pay; it was taking their pay and 
putting it in an escrow account and just kind of holding it for them, 
and then when everything was resolved, they would get their money back. 
So it really wasn't a reduction in pay; it was kind a shell game--push 
those dollars off to another side and get them all back later just to 
make it look like you got a cut in pay. But that hasn't had wide 
support either. A lot of people have real concerns about that because, 
quite frankly, some Members of Congress are very wealthy; some Members 
are not. Some Members don't notice their congressional pay; some do. It 
is kind of a disproportionate piece of leverage to resolve this.
  What is interesting is that all those proposals acknowledged one 
simple thing: This is a problem. It needs to be resolved. Federal 
workers are facing the consequences; Members of Congress are not.
  About 5 months ago, Maggie Hassan and I--this Chamber knows well the 
Senator from New Hampshire. She and I started working together on a 
nonpartisan--not just a bipartisan but a nonpartisan--way to stop 
government shutdowns. We have two very simple proposals.
  There are two problems here. We need to stop Federal workers from 
getting hurt when there is a shutdown and

[[Page S6644]]

make sure those families are not hurt. The second thing is, we want to 
actually get to appropriations, not continuing resolutions.
  When do you a continuing resolution for any length of time, like what 
we are in right now--we are in our eighth week of a continuing 
resolution right now. When you do one that long, it hurts temporary 
workers who are Federal workers. They are laid off in the process. 
Other folks are not. Many of these agencies need those temporary 
workers, and those temporary workers are counting on that salary. It 
hurts contracting because everything can't start in a continuing 
resolution. You have to wait until there are real appropriations before 
new programs can start. You can't stop old programs. You can't do 
purchasing. It creates a tremendous inefficiency in government.
  Our simple idea was this: Let's find a way to protect Federal workers 
and get to appropriations. The solution we came up with is pretty 
straightforward. When we get to the end of the fiscal year, which right 
now is October 1, if appropriations are not done, there will be a 
continuing resolution that kicks into effect to protect Federal 
workers, but Members of Congress and our staff and the White House 
Office of Management and Budget--none of us can travel. Members of 
Congress will be in continuous session 7 days a week until we get 
appropriations done. And one more thing: We can't move to any issues 
other than appropriations. We are locked into that box.
  Basically, if our work is not done, we all will have to stay until 
the work is done. I have had folks say that is not really a big 
consequence. A lot of folks do that all over the country all the time. 
If at the end of their workday their work is not done, they have to 
stay until they get it done. Small business owners know that full well. 
It is not like you can punch a clock. If the work is not done in a 
small business, you stay until it actually gets done.
  Here is the thing. Go back to last December. When the shutdown 
started last December and we got to an impasse here between the House, 
the Senate, and the White House, Members of Congress and our staff all 
left and went home. Federal workers across the country all took a big, 
deep breath as they walked into the holidays because they were on 
furlough, but Members of this body walked out. That should never 
happen--never.
  What Senator Hassan and I are proposing is very simple. The pressure 
shouldn't be on Federal workers. They can't vote to solve this. The 
pressure should be on us.
  For everyone in this body who says, ``I don't like that kind of 
artificial pressure,'' why don't you feel what it is like to be a 
Federal worker for a while and those Federal employees? They don't like 
that pressure on them. So let's flip it. Let's put the pressure on us, 
where it should be, and get it off the folks, where it should not be, 
and let's stay until we get our work done.
  This idea is overly simplistic, but what is interesting is, for the 
first time in a decade, there is an idea that has bipartisan support. 
We have multiple Members of this body who are looking at it, 
contemplating it, and then nodding their heads, saying: I would rather 
the pressure be on us than on the Federal workers and their families.
  Let's solve this. We shouldn't have government shutdowns. We should 
have arguments over debt and deficit. We should have arguments over the 
budget. That is why people sent us here--to solve how their money is 
going to be spent most efficiently and argue about issues on debt and 
deficit.
  In the meantime, why in the world would we want to hurt the very 
people who serve their neighbors, those people being the Federal 
employees around the country? Let's keep them out of it. Let's keep 
them still serving their neighbors, and let's keep the fight right here 
where it needs to be. Let's argue this out until we get it resolved, 
and let's not quit until we resolve it. It is a simple idea that 
Senator Hassan and I actually believe will work.
  In the decades to come, people will look back at the time when we 
used to have government shutdowns and will shake their heads and say: I 
can't believe there was a period of time during which the Federal 
government used to shut down when they argued. Now we stay until we get 
the issue settled.
  It is a pretty straightforward idea, and I hope that more of my 
colleagues will join us in this absolute commitment to solving this for 
future generations.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Remembering Kay Hagan

  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I want to spend a few minutes 
recognizing our late colleague and my friend Senator Kay Hagan.
  Kay and I both came to the Senate in 2009. I had the privilege of 
working with her on two committees--HELP and Banking. As a former vice 
president of the North Carolina National Bank, she had a lot more to 
offer to that committee than I had, and I tried to learn from her 
whenever I could. Kay and I both came to the Senate in the middle of 
the worst recession since the Great Depression. We were losing 700,000 
jobs a month, and millions were losing their homes. It was an 
incredibly difficult moment for the country, but it brought out all of 
Kay's best qualities.
  Everyone knew that Kay faced some of the toughest politics of any 
Member of our caucus, but in those early days, I saw her take vote 
after vote on some of the hardest issues. She never wavered. She voted 
for the Recovery Act to save the economy when we were in free fall. She 
voted for Dodd-Frank to restore confidence and accountability to the 
financial sector, which was something she knew quite a lot about. She 
spoke out against amendment No. 1 in North Carolina and for marriage 
equality. She also cast a decisive vote for the Affordable Care Act.
  As a Democratic Senator from North Carolina and as a freshman 
Senator, none of those positions were easy to take, but she knew they 
were the right places to be for her State and for the country. Because 
Kay did what she did, millions of Americans kept jobs they would have 
lost, and millions of Americans gained quality, affordable health 
insurance for the first time in their lives. In her home State, the 
LGBT community had a Senator in Washington who, for the first time in 
history, was willing to fight for their full and equal rights.
  One of our colleagues, the senior Senator from Tennessee, likes to 
say: If you have come to Washington just to hear yourself talk, just 
stay home and get a job on the radio. It is not worth the trouble of 
your coming all the way here.
  Kay didn't come to Washington to talk. She came to work and to lead.
  Over her term, Kay was a fierce and principled advocate for North 
Carolina. As a member of the Committee on Armed Services, she helped to 
prevent cuts to tuition programs for veterans. She sponsored the Lilly 
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to help close the gender pay gap across the 
country. She worked across the aisle to promote conservation and 
outdoor recreation, which is something we appreciate in my home State 
of Colorado.
  She was a lot less interested in the empty politics of this town and 
a lot more interested in making progress for the people of North 
Carolina and for our country. She was a voice of reason, pragmatism, 
and humility in this body, which sorely lacks all three. In other 
words, Kay took her job seriously but never herself, and no matter how 
difficult it might have been, she never failed to put the people of 
North Carolina ahead of the politics of the moment. It is why she 
earned deep respect from both sides of the aisle, not only for her work 
ethic but for her kindness, her warmth, and her grace. There was not a 
room in this complex, including the one I am standing in right now, 
that wasn't brightened the moment that Kay Hagan walked in.
  To Chip, her husband, and to their kids--Jeanette, Tilden, and 
Carrie--I hope you know how proud we all are of Kay. She represented 
the best qualities of North Carolina. It is why her colleagues adored 
her. It is why her staff loved her and revered her, and it is why all 
of us who had the privilege of working with her in this body will miss 
her terribly.
  I yield the floor.

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  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


  Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization Act

  Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I rise this afternoon because there is a 
legislative deadline in front of this body that we dare not miss. Even 
as I speak, our colleagues in the House Energy and Commerce Committee 
are considering the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act 
Reauthorization, or STELAR. For 30 years, STELAR and previous versions 
of the law have allowed people who live beyond the reach of a broadcast 
signal to receive broadcast programming nonetheless.
  Some Senators believe that in 2019, STELAR has outlived its 
usefulness and want it to expire, but other Senators want to extend 
some of these provisions--at least in the short term--to prevent 
consumers from losing these broadcast signals; still others want to use 
the STELAR reauthorization legislation as a vehicle to implement other 
reforms.
  I have introduced new legislation, the Satellite Television Access 
Reauthorization--or STAR--Act to move this process forward. The 
existing STELAR statute expires December 31. So absent congressional 
action before the end of the year, the provisions included in STELAR 
that enable nearly 870,000 Americans to access broadcasting TV signals 
will no longer be the law of the land. These Americans who depend on 
STELAR are mostly in rural parts of this country, like my home State of 
Mississippi. They include truckers, tailgaters, and RV drivers, and 
they include Americans living in very remote areas.
  I say to my colleagues, now is the time for Senators to make their 
positions clear. Over the course of this year, I have been polling 
Members to ascertain what this body wants. As chairman of the Senate 
Commerce Committee, I will act according to the majority wishes, but 
time is running short. Many people point to the fact that the media 
landscape is changing. There are more options for video content than 
ever before. New programming is coming out every day that is being 
streamed through new services. Those are all great things.
  As I said at a June Commerce Committee hearing, we are living in the 
golden age of television. The Commerce Committee has been working to 
close the digital divide between rural and urban America to make sure 
all families can access those choices and all families can be a part of 
the golden age, but there are still Americans without Internet access 
and without broadcast signals. They deserve the ability to view basic 
television services just like everyone else.
  Without the reauthorization of STELAR, many Americans will not be 
able to watch broadcast news or enjoy access to programming that is 
available for the rest of the country. They will be on the wrong side 
of the digital divide, and there will be a wide cultural divide, as 
they would be cut off from the flow of programs and information.
  If Members of this body are of a mind to move forward with some 
extension of this statute, we will work with our colleagues in the 
House. That may include improvements and enhancements to STELAR that 
address good faith requirements, level the playing field in the 
marketplace, promote access to programming, and ensure robust 
competition, but we don't have much time.
  After this week, Senators will go home for Thanksgiving. Many of 
those across the country who benefit from STELAR in our States will 
watch football games and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, thanks to 
the STELAR law. They will enjoy time with their families, and I look 
forward to doing the same, but when Congress returns, there will be 
just 2 weeks--10 legislative days--to finalize any legislation and send 
it to the President for his signature.
  In this body, taking no action is easy. It comes naturally. But in 
this case, no action equals the repeal of the STELAR law in its 
entirety, and Members should know that. They have 10 days to ensure 
870,000 Americans will be able to watch the same programs next year 
that they are seeing this year, or we can let STELAR expire and take 
the risk of letting the chips fall where they may.
  To repeat, my colleagues should be advised they need to make a voice 
that is heard on whether the STELAR legislation needs to be extended or 
expire.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 2486

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to urge immediate passage of 
the bipartisan FUTURE Act, which is H.R. 2486, to restore critical 
funding for historically Black colleges and universities, known by the 
acronym here in Washington as HBCUs, as well as minority-serving 
institutions, so-called MSIs.
  The $255 million in funding that HBCUs and MSIs rely on lapsed on 
September 30 of this year. Both the historically Black colleges and 
universities and the minority-serving institutions are underresourced 
and don't have the flexibility to operate in the red in the hopes of 
potential reimbursement later on.
  Campuses are already feeling this impact. Just 2 weeks after this 
program expired, some campuses notified employees that their positions 
and programs may be terminated. We are talking about real people losing 
their jobs and programs being cut that play a critical role in 
graduating and retaining students in the STEM field--science, 
technology, engineering, and math fields. All of this is impacting 
students across the country. Presidents of some of these institutions 
have told us that planning has ``all but stopped.'' This funding lapse 
is urgent, and it must be addressed now.
  From the perspective of my home State of Pennsylvania, we have two of 
the oldest historically Black colleges and universities--two of the 
oldest in the whole country--Cheyney University, as well as Lincoln 
University, and, in addition to that, a growing Hispanic-serving 
institution, in this case, the Reading Area Community College.
  We know that the investment made by the FUTURE Act will support 
college completion and academic opportunities at these and all 
historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving 
institutions across the country. The FUTURE Act is fully paid for. It 
would not add to the deficit. It has strong bipartisan support in both 
Chambers.
  My colleagues in the majority are holding this funding hostage in an 
effort to pass what I would argue is a partisan bill. That is not just 
my argument or my opinion; some of my Republican colleagues have said 
this is the reason they are holding up this critical legislation.
  Instead of passing a bipartisan comprehensive reauthorization of our 
future higher education law, which my colleague Senator Murray is 
pushing for, some Republicans want to force Democrats to support a 
partisan bill.
  Instead of working in a bipartisan fashion to fix our current system 
so it works better for students, families, and teachers, they want us 
to support a so-called micropackage, the Student Aid Improvement Act. 
This act, in my judgment and the judgment of others, fails to address a 
number of critical areas, including improved campus safety and access 
to higher education affordability and accountability. Because of that, 
it maintains the status quo.
  Make no mistake, the Student Aid Improvement Act is a partisan bill. 
The bill fails to address the challenges students are facing in 
obtaining a college degree--including childcare, housing, food and 
mental health, among others--nor does it address the needs of first-
generation students, students of color, and students with disabilities.

[[Page S6646]]

  Let's debate these issues. Let's come to the table to negotiate on a 
bipartisan overhaul, but let's not hold historically Black colleges and 
universities and minority-serving institutions hostage in the meantime. 
We can get something done in the short run that would be beneficial to 
these institutions.
  We need to ensure that colleges and universities have the resources 
to provide support to all students they serve, including students with 
disabilities. A couple of examples of some of my bills--the Higher 
Education Mental Health Act, which is supported by over 250 college and 
university presidents, including 15 of the historically Black colleges 
and universities--would help institutions of higher education identify 
the resources and services needed to support their students with mental 
health needs.
  A second bill of mine, the RISE Act, would make it easier for 
colleges to provide support to students with disabilities by accepting 
student assessments from high school and smoothing the transition to 
higher education.
  A third bill, my Expanding Disability Access to Higher Education Act, 
would increase the funding for TRIO Programs that serve first-
generation students with disabilities and make higher education more 
accessible.
  These bills would provide the resources needed for students to be 
successful as they pursue higher education, but without a comprehensive 
bill, the needs of these students will continue to go unmet. Rather 
than blocking vital resources from flowing to our Nation's historically 
Black colleges and universities, we should immediately pass the FUTURE 
Act. This would restore funding, while providing us time to work on a 
comprehensive reauthorization that addresses the needs of all students.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that as in legislative 
session, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar 
No. 212, H.R. 2486. I ask unanimous consent that the Murray amendment 
at the desk be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read 
a third time and passed; and that the motions to reconsider be 
considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am reserving the right to object.
  I have a better idea, which I am going to offer to the Senate once 
again. It is permanent funding for historically Black colleges at the 
level of $255 million a year. The distinguished Senator from 
Pennsylvania has stated he doesn't want a piecemeal bill. He wants a 
more comprehensive bill. I have offered such a bill and introduced it 
in the Senate. I will describe it in a few moments when I ask unanimous 
consent to pass it, and it will include not a 2-year short-term fix 
based upon a budget gimmick, which will have difficulty passing the 
Senate, but permanent funding of historically Black colleges and 
minority-serving institutions.
  It will include simplification of the FAFSA, the form that 8 million 
minority students fill out every year, which in our State is the 
biggest obstacle to minority students having an opportunity for higher 
education and a variety of other bipartisan proposals.
  I am ready to pass a comprehensive bill. I offered one before. It was 
blocked by my Democratic friends. I am going to offer it again in a 
minute, and we will see if they agree to it, but I don't think we 
should pass a piecemeal bill. I agree with the Senator from 
Pennsylvania. I think we should be more comprehensive, and not only 
that, we should do permanent funding of historically Black colleges.
  The last point I will make before I object is that the U.S. 
Department of Education has written all the presidents of the 
historically Black and minority-serving institutions and said there is 
sufficient funding in the Federal Government for the rest of the year--
fiscal year--until October 1 of next year. So while we need to finish 
our work, there is no crisis at the moment, so let's do the job right.
  I will offer, in just a moment, the way to do that, which is 
permanent funding of historically Black colleges and minority-serving 
institutions. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2557

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, for the convenience of the Senator from 
Pennsylvania, I am going to offer my unanimous consent agreement at the 
beginning of my remarks, and then if he wishes to stay, he can, but if 
he has another place to go in his schedule, he may do that.
  Let me just say that the provision I am going to--let me preface it 
in this way. I know very well the value of historically Black colleges. 
One of my favorite stories is the story that the late author, Alex 
Haley, the author of ``Roots'' and ``The Autobiography of Malcolm X''--
I suppose the two best selling books ever on the history of the African 
American--used to tell about his father, Simon P. Haley, who was wasted 
as a child. That was the word they used.
  He was allowed to go to college, and he went to North Carolina A&T 
where he was ready to drop out. He came back, got a summer job on a 
Pullman train to Chicago, and a man talked to him at night asking him 
for a glass of warm milk. He got the glass of warm milk and thought 
nothing more about it. He went back to North Carolina A&T, a 
historically Black college.
  The principal called him in. He thought he was in real trouble, as 
the president of the college called him in. Simon P. Haley thought he 
was in real trouble. The President of the college said that the man on 
the train had sent enough money for Simon P. Haley to graduate--to pay 
his tuition to graduate from college.
  So Alex Haley wrote for the Reader's Digest the story of the man on 
the train who helped his father. That father went to Cornell and became 
the first Black graduate of Cornell's agricultural college. He came 
back to Lane College, one of the six historically Black colleges in 
Tennessee, where he taught and raised a son, who is a lawyer, later 
Ambassador to Gambia; two daughters, one a teacher; he raised another 
son, an architect; and then he raised a son he thought wouldn't amount 
to anything who joined the Coast Guard and ended up writing a Pulitzer 
Prize-winning book, ``Roots,'' and ``The Autobiography of Malcolm X.''
  I know the value of Lane College, Fisk University, Tennessee State 
University, Lemoyne-Owen College, Meharry Medical College, and America 
Baptist College, and I want to help them. The request I am going to 
make is that the Senate pass a small package of bills that are 
sponsored by Democrats and Republicans, 29 Senators--17 Democrats and 
12 Republicans. The first provision would be permanent funding. That is 
$255 million every year permanently for historically Black colleges and 
minority-serving institutions. A second provision--I ask consent to use 
this document on the Senate floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. That is the FAFSA. This is the document that 20 
million Americans fill out every year. We know how to reduce it. It is 
the biggest impediment to minority students going to college today. We 
are ready to pass it. Eight million minority students fill this out. 
The president of the Southwest Community College from Memphis tells me 
he loses 1,500 students a semester because of the complexity of that.
  There are other provisions in this package, which include the 
Portman-Kaine provision for short-term Pell grants sponsored by about 
20 Senators, many of them Democrats; the provision for Pell grants for 
prisoners who are eligible for parole; an increase in the number of 
Pell grants; an increase in the amount of Pell grants. All of that is 
in this package that I have offered, but it starts with permanent 
funding for historically black colleges. Since there is time until 
October 1 of next year, the Department of Education has said that there 
is plenty of Federal funding for all of those institutions. There is no 
reason we can't agree to my package today, send it over to the House of 
Representatives, send it to the President, and let all of these 
institutions know they don't have to worry about funding permanently 
instead of just for 2 years.

[[Page S6647]]

  So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further 
consideration of S. 2557 and the Senate proceed to its immediate 
consideration. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read 
a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered 
made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I just want 
to make a couple of comments by way of response.
  I really want to go back to what we said earlier. There is no reason 
we can't at least get this piece of legislation done. I will say it 
again: These institutions are underresourced. They don't have the 
flexibility to operate in the red in the hopes of potential 
reimbursement later on.
  We are also told by the institutions themselves that planning has 
``all but stopped.'' Campuses are feeling this impact already. Just 2 
weeks after this program expired, some campuses informed employees that 
their positions and programs may be terminated. So I would argue that 
the present circumstance is not acceptable.
  I realize the chairman wants to proceed to other issues, and I 
respect that, but when you consider what he is proposing, there are 
some changes that should be pointed out.
  First of all, when considering the proposal he has, in comparing what 
it would do, for example, on the Second Chance Pell proposal, that only 
contains a limited repeal of the ban rather than a full repeal of the 
ban. Any reference to the JOBS Act making short-term programs eligible 
for Pell grants--a bipartisan bill that was introduced--excludes for-
profit colleges. In this micropackage that the chairman is proposing, 
the for-profit colleges are added back in.
  No. 3, just by way of some examples, in the Grassley-Smith bill on 
financial aid award letters, some changes were made to that on 
financial aid award letters that weren't contemplated by the bill's 
original authors.
  Our legislation is fully paid for. It reinvests up to $55 million in 
recovery programs. For several reasons, by way of contrast but also by 
way of what is happening right now with regard to these institutions--
for those and other reasons, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I know this Senate is a deliberative 
body, but we have been working on higher education for 5 years in our 
committee, and suddenly, out of the blue, comes a bill out of the House 
which says that we have an emergency in one provision of the Higher 
Education Act; don't take it through committee. That is the way we 
usually do things.
  The distinguished Senator from Louisiana is a member of this 
committee, and the Senator from Pennsylvania is a valued member of the 
committee. We have a pretty good reputation for working together, 
despite our differences, in fixing No Child Left Behind, 21st Century 
Cures, opioid legislation. Healthcare is a contentious issue, but by a 
vote of 20 to 3, we brought out a bill to lower healthcare costs.
  Yet the suggestion is that we take this bill to the Senate floor 
without any consideration by the committee. That is not the way we 
usually do things.
  Let me reemphasize that the U.S. Department of Education has told 
every one of the historically Black colleges and minority-serving 
institutions that there is sufficient Federal funding between now and 
October 1 of next year. There is no reason to cut anybody's pay and no 
reason to stop planning. That is what the Federal Government has told 
those institutions. That is plenty of time for us to take a provision--
such as the one I have proposed or such as the one that the 
distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania has proposed--through our 
committee and recommend to the full Senate what we ought to do.
  Let's not minimize what else there is to do. I mean, we literally 
have been working for 5 years on simplifying this FAFSA. There are 8 
million minority students who fill it out every year. I think we should 
be concerned about the 300,000 students who attend historically Black 
colleges and universities. Many of them fill this out. I am told by the 
former Governor of Tennessee that filling out this complicated form is 
the single biggest impediment for low-income students having an 
opportunity to go to college because their families think it is too 
complicated.

  Well, we know what to do about this. Senator Bennet, the Democratic 
Senator from Colorado, and I began working on this 5 years ago. Senator 
Murray, the Democratic Senator from Washington, and I recommended that 
the Senate pass legislation getting rid of 22 questions that were 
double reporting. You have to tell the IRS some facts, and you have to 
tell the Department of Education the same facts, and then they come in 
the middle of the semester and try to catch you having one answer here 
and another answer there. So at East Tennessee State University, 70 
percent of the student body has their Pell grant verified, and some of 
them lose their Federal funding while they check to see if the 
information they had to give to two Federal agencies is different. We 
passed the Senate with that--Senator Murray and I did that last year.
  So why should we wait on this? I don't think we should wait on 
permanent funding for historically Black colleges, but why hold this 
hostage to that?
  I am ready to move ahead on permanent funding for historically Black 
colleges. I am ready to move ahead on simplifying the FAFSA for 8 
million students who fill this out every year. I am ready to move ahead 
on short-term Pell grants. I have been working with the Senator from 
Washington on this and with other Members of the Senate. I think we are 
moving to a consensus. We have time to do this right. Let's take it 
through committee and send back to the House of Representatives a 
permanent solution.
  I think it is very important that we make clear to all of the 
presidents and all of the students at historically Black colleges and 
minority-serving institutions, No. 1, you have a year of funding ahead 
of you; No. 2, you have a proposal by the chairman of the Education 
Committee that will permanently fund what you are doing; and No. 3, our 
Democratic friends are asking that the Senate pass short-term funding 
that will create another funding cliff within a matter of months and 
that is funded by a budget gimmick that will never pass muster in the 
Senate. That is not going to happen.
  So we need to work together as we normally do and come to a 
conclusion on the Higher Education Act, including permanent funding of 
historically Black colleges and minority institutions. I am ready to 
keep doing that. But I am also ready to encourage the passage not only 
of the provisions that I have introduced and that I asked for 
permission to pass today, which the Senator objected to, but other 
provisions that might be included.
  I think 5 years is long enough to work on the Higher Education Act. I 
am coming to the conclusion we have time to do it, and I look forward 
to saying to our six historically Black colleges in Tennessee that the 
result of our hard work and debate and discussion has been permanent 
funding, so you don't have to worry about Federal funding.
  Mr. BURR. Mr. Chairman, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I will yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. BURR. Mr. President, I thank the chairman for yielding, and I am 
here as living proof that he is not the Lone Ranger on this. The 
committee has worked diligently. We may not be as passionate as he is, 
but the committee has worked diligently to get higher education done.
  It is a farce to come in here and think that we are going to pass a 
2-year House bill to fund historically Black colleges. Nobody has more 
historically Black colleges in their State than I do. What they want--
they want predictability, permanent funding. The chairman is willing to 
do that, but part of the condition to do that is to sit down and, now, 
quit talking and pass higher education. Reduce the FAFSA application to 
one page. Let these students go out--and their parents--and be able to 
fill this out and not miss an education because they can't go through 
the laborious process.

[[Page S6648]]

  What the chairman has laid on the table is reasonable. The committee 
has talked about it for years. Now it is time to act. It is not time to 
act on one little piece of it for temporary funding. It is time to 
provide permanent funding for that and to do the rest of higher 
education.
  As proud as I am of our being the home of the majority of Black 
colleges and universities, I also have about 70 other colleges and 
universities in North Carolina, and they are the beneficiaries of 
everything else that is in this education bill.
  Compromise is not about ``Take what I have'' and not give anything 
else. We have been trying to work, with the chairman and the ranking 
member working together, to find compromise for 5 years. Many times the 
chairman has come to me and said: I think we can do it this year. Well, 
we have to have willing partners on the other side of the aisle. Today 
is a live example of where it is either their way or no way.

  I hope we can get back, and, before we leave this year, we can get 
this package passed. It is really simple: Just commit to do what we all 
have sat down and talked about for 5 years. If there are minor changes 
that need to be made, let's make them in the next day or two. But to 
say that we are going to wait until next year and be here a year from 
now when that timeframe has run out, let me assure you, if the chairman 
is not here to object to this request, I will be here to object to this 
request.
  The time to talk is over. The time to act is now.
  I thank the chairman for yielding.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Just a couple of points on where we are: There is no 
question that, in my judgment, if you have more time to consider these 
issues for a full reauthorization, we could address some of the 
shortcomings that have been proposed already. I mentioned earlier 
issues that are not addressed, such as childcare, housing, food and 
mental health, the needs of first-generation students, needs of 
students of color, and students with disabilities. We can do that if we 
can get through this short-term period. We are asking for help only for 
a very limited timeframe so that we can work through these other 
issues.
  The second point I would make is, I can't stand in the shoes of the 
leaders of these institutions, but when they tell us that they are in a 
difficult circumstance in the short run, I will take their word for it. 
The word of the Department of Education--just from my point of view--
doesn't compare to what these institutions are telling us. So I think 
we should rely upon the representations by the leaders of the 
institutions and act in a short-term fashion, all the while committing 
ourselves to have a longer process to fully explore and try to reach 
consensus on a range of issues that come under the broad purview of 
reauthorization.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I want to thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for 
coming to the floor today on an issue I know he cares about. I thank 
the Senator from North Carolina.
  We are accustomed to working together. We are accustomed to getting 
results, and I want to get a result on this.
  I agree with both Senators in this sense: I think it is time to send 
a signal to historically Black colleges and minority-serving 
institutions that they don't have to worry about funding for the 
future. For the next year, the Department of Education has told them: 
You have the money for the next year. It shouldn't take us a year to 
finish our work.
  So I look forward to sitting down with the Senator from North 
Carolina and the Senator from Pennsylvania and working out their 
differences on the provisions that we have. We have the basis for a 
very good higher education bill--the permanent funding for historically 
Black colleges, the simplification of the FAFSA, which affects 20 
million families every year. We have broad bipartisan consensus on 
simplifying how you pay back student loans. There are nine different 
ways now. We could reduce that to two. That affects 43 million 
families.
  The short-term Pell grants make a big difference.
  So we have a number of provisions, and I am working well, as I always 
do, with the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray. I would like to 
bring this to a conclusion as rapidly as we can. I think this debate 
has been useful to do that. I look forward to continuing it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, for this 259th climate speech, I am 
going to return to the theme of corruption. Before diving into the how, 
let's start with the why because the scale and the remorselessness of 
the scheme of corruption the fossil fuel industry has run is hard to 
comprehend without understanding why.
  Here is the why. The fossil fuel industry reaps the biggest subsidy 
in the history of the planet. I will say that again. The fossil fuel 
industry reaps the biggest subsidy in the history of the planet. The 
IMF--International Monetary Fund--estimates that the global subsidy for 
fossil fuel is in the trillions of dollars every year. That is 
globally. In the United States alone, the fossil fuel industry got a 
$650 billion--that is with a ``b''--subsidy in 2015, according to the 
most recent report from the IMF. That is about $2,000 out of the pocket 
of every man, woman, and child in the United States. Here is that IMF 
report. Look it up. Read it and weep.
  Stop for a minute and understand this subsidy. Some of it is 
favorable tax deals and other direct subsidies that pour public 
taxpayer money into the pockets of this polluting industry. In recent 
years, that has been estimated at around $20 billion annually.
  The vast bulk of this $650 billion is something else. It is people 
getting hurt. It is the cost of people suffering economic harms. It is 
the cost of your home burned in a wildfire or swept away in a storm by 
rising seas. It is the cost of farms withered from unprecedented 
droughts or crops drowned in unprecedented flooding. It is the cost of 
fisheries that are lost or moved away as oceans warm and acidify. It is 
the lost day of work with your kid in the emergency room waiting out a 
climate-related asthma attack on the ER's nebulizer. It is the cost of 
tick-borne and mosquito-borne illnesses that didn't used to be where 
you live. It is the cost to dive tours of tourists seeing dead, white, 
bleached coral reefs instead of vibrant undersea gardens and the cost 
to snowmobile moose tours of going through mud instead of snow and when 
you see moose, seeing emaciated moose calves with thousands of ticks 
slowly killing them. It is the cost of American military deployments to 
conflicts caused by resource scarcity or climate migration. It is the 
cost of relocating Naval Station Norfolk when the community around it 
floods out. It is the cost of Glacier Park with no glacier. It is the 
cost of trout streams with no trout. It is the cost of millions of 
acres of healthy forests killed off by pine beetle infestation. It is 
the cost to Phoenix of staffing up emergency services when it is not 
safe to work outside because it is too hot and lost airline flights out 
of the airport when the tarmac melts. It is the myriad costs of basic 
operating systems of the natural world gone haywire because of climate 
change.
  All this pain, all this loss, all this suffering has a bloodless 
economic name: externalities. Externalities are the social costs that 
are imposed on others by the use of a product. Pollution, of course, is 
the obvious example. In economic theory, those social costs should be 
baked into the price of a product. That is why courts and companies and 
countries around the world apply a social cost of carbon calculation.

  But destroying the basic operating systems of the planet is a high-
priced externality--by the IMF report, $650 billion in 2015 just in the 
United States. And because it is hard to calculate a price for so much 
of this harm, that is a lowball estimate. For instance, we can estimate 
the loss to the dive shop of the coral reef off the coast dying, but is 
that really the full cost of the dead reef? There is a lot more. So the 
externality is probably well over $650 billion.
  By comparison, let's look at the five major oil companies' earnings. 
The five major oil companies earned somewhat more than $80 billion in 
profits last year all around the world, all right?

[[Page S6649]]

Global profits are $80 billion versus $650 billion in destruction and 
harm they caused just in the United States. So make those oil companies 
follow the rules of market economics. Make them put the cost of the 
harm of their product into the price of their product--$80 billion 
versus $650 billion--and guess what: Their business is in a $570-plus 
billion hole. That is why the fossil fuel industry is so corrupt. It 
knows it needs to break the laws of market economics in order to 
survive, and it knows it needs political help to do that.
  Fortunately for the fossil fuel industry, up against that $650 
billion subsidy, politicians come cheap. They could put $650 million 
into politics every single year, and it would earn them a 1,000-to-1 
return on that expenditure protecting the $650 billion subsidy.
  So that is the why of fossil fuel corruption: It pays. It pays 
hugely. It is as simple as that. They are corrupt because it pays.
  Now let's look at the how.
  By the way, they have some expertise in this area. These companies 
operate in the most crooked countries in the world, so they know how to 
work crooked deals and politics. But what happened here in the United 
States? Well, I saw it happen. The big change came when five Republican 
Supreme Court Justices gave this industry and other mega industries big 
new political artillery. It came in the disgraceful Citizens United 
decision that let unlimited special interest money into our elections.
  I will tell you, there is no special interest more unlimited than 
fossil fuel. Fossil fuel front groups were all over that Supreme Court 
case, by the way, signaling to the five Republicans on the Court what 
they wanted them to do, and sure enough, they did it.
  Of course, it does take some fun out of spending unlimited money in 
politics if people can tell who you are. In theory, we were supposed to 
know. To get to the outcome the fossil fuel industry wanted, the five 
Republican Justices had to pretend, as a legal matter, that all this 
political spending--all this unlimited political spending they were 
authorizing--was going to be transparent, that we would know who was 
behind it.
  Well, that transparency was not going to work very well for Exxon or 
Koch Industries or Marathon Petroleum, so they cooked up all sorts of 
schemes to hide behind. Tax-deductible 501(c)(4)s appeared that can 
hide their donors. Trade groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce got 
taken over and co-opted. Disposable shell corporations turned up behind 
political donations. An enterprise called Donors Trust was established, 
whose sole purpose is to launder the identity of big donors.
  By the way--back to Citizens United--those five Republican Justices 
would have to be idiots not to see this apparatus of phony front groups 
out there mocking their assurances of transparency--assurances that 
were at the heart of the Citizens United decision--but those Justices 
have studiously ignored this flagrantly obvious flaw and have made zero 
effort to clean up their unlimited-spending, dark-money mess. I was 
taught as a kid that you are supposed to clean up the messes you made. 
That is not a message that got through to the ``Roberts Five.''
  We have addressed this flotilla of propped-up, dark-money front 
groups in the Senate before. We call it the web of denial. Academics 
who study these groups have documented well over 100 of them in the 
last decade. That sounds like a lot--100 front groups--but remember, 
there is $650 billion a year riding on this. And it is a really big 
help if you can pretend you are, say, Americans for Peace and Puppies 
and Prosperity instead of ExxonMobil or the Kochs or Marathon 
Petroleum. People tend to get the joke when the ad says: Brought to you 
by ExxonMobil.
  So they have the motive and the means to spend millions of political 
dollars and to do so from hiding. How much do they spend? Well, that is 
hard to tell because the whole purpose is to hide. Responsible 
watchdogs won't even venture a guess as to how much dark money is 
sloshing through the political system, but total dark money spending on 
Federal elections has been at least $700 million since the Citizens 
United decision, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The 
lion's share of that dark money is probably from fossil fuels because, 
first, nobody else has the same corrupt motive on the scale of fossil 
fuel. Plus, when you look at the spending, it is usually groups who can 
be connected to fossil fuel. And for most, the activity is climate 
denial and obstruction, so it is fossil fuel work being done. So it is 
pretty easy to conclude who is likely behind all this.
  For colleagues who weren't here before 2010, let me tell you, things 
were different then. In 2007, 2008, and 2009--those were my first 3 
years here--there were lots of bipartisan climate bills kicking around 
the Senate, real ones that would have headed off the crisis into which 
we are rocketing right now. Heck, in 2008, the Republican nominee for 
President ran on a strong climate platform.

  After the Citizens United decision in January of 2010, all of that 
was snuffed out. An oily curtain of denial fell around the Republican 
Party as the fossil fuel industry brought its new political weapons to 
bear. The before and after comparison is as plain as day, and it cost 
us a decade of inaction when time was of the essence. It has been a 
high cost except, of course, for the fossil fuel industry, whose lying 
and denying, whose front groups and dark money, whose political 
obstruction and threats still remain fully dedicated to protecting that 
$650 billion subsidy.
  Do the math just for a second. At $650 billion a year, from January 
2010 until now, Citizens United let the fossil fuel industry protect 
nearly $6 trillion in subsidy--$6 trillion in losses to our 
constituents, $6 trillion that this industry dodged in the laws of 
market economics to foist on everyone else--and you wonder why they 
worked so hard to take over the courts.
  The fossil fuels' denial operation and obstruction operation is 
likely the biggest and most corrupt scheme in human history. I can't 
think of one that is worse, and it is still operating today--right 
now--as I stand here and speak. Its oily tides pollute our public 
debate with deliberate falsehoods and nonsense, grease our press to 
steer away from this subject, slosh slimily through the hallways of 
this very building, and grip the Supreme Court in a web of oily, dark 
money influence. We have become like the people who have lived in the 
shadows for so long and have forgotten what sunlight, what free debate, 
what laws based on facts can look like.
  The fossil fuel industry has polluted our American democracy on as 
massive a scale as it has polluted our atmosphere and oceans. For those 
in our history who gave up their lives--who died in the service of our 
democracy--who are looking down on us now, that pollution of the 
democracy they died defending must be a bitter spectacle.
  As a boy, there was an ominous hymn that we often sang in chapel 
about how ``once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, in 
the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.'' 
``Truth,'' the hymn went on, is ``forever on the scaffold, wrong 
forever on the throne,'' but ``though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 
`tis Truth alone is strong.''
  Now is our moment to decide: Do we finally bring down fossil fuels' 
false Babylon of corruption or, in the strife of truth with falsehood, 
do we keep protecting the evil side?
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.


                        Freedom Around the World

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, it really has been quite a year here 
in Washington for drawn-out policy battles. It is November, and we are 
still fighting over defense spending, trade, and the results of an 
election long since decided in 2016.
  A quick flip through this morning's world news sections serves as my 
daily reminder that Americans really do have so much for which to be 
thankful. One might even feel inclined to say we are really lucky to 
live here in the United States. Yet I will tell you that luck really 
doesn't have a lot to do with it. Our freedom was bought with the blood 
of thousands who instigated a revolution in spite of being outspent, 
outmanned, and outgunned by the global superpower of their time, and 
thank goodness they had that fighting spirit. That same absolute belief 
in the

[[Page S6650]]

right to self-determination went on to fuel the abolitionists, the 
women's suffragists, and the civil rights warriors. Their fearlessness 
inspires freedom movements that we are seeing all across the globe 
today.
  Just a few months ago, heads turned toward China as thousands of Hong 
Kong people poured into the streets and said no to Beijing's 
stranglehold, but just saying no wasn't enough. Now their neighborhoods 
and universities have morphed into war zones, and Chinese authorities 
have long since justified shooting live rounds of ammunition into the 
crowds.
  Imagine the intensity of the fear it takes to push a government to 
fire on its own people when the entire world is watching. Beijing is 
worried, but Beijing will also not hesitate to use any force it deems 
necessary to tighten its grip on Hong Kong.
  Now, here in the Senate, we are working on a few pieces of 
legislation to let the Chinese and the Hong Kong Governments know that 
the United States is watching. We have included a bill that will 
prevent U.S. companies from exporting crowd control supplies to the 
Hong Kong Police Force. It is important, though, for everyone to 
understand that the motivating factors behind political oppression have 
nothing to do with tear gas or with stun guns. There is only so much 
that legislation can do.
  Governments in Iraq, Vietnam, Algeria, and Lebanon are also hard at 
work in doing whatever they can to prevent their citizens from stepping 
out of line, because they know what will happen if their citizens are 
free to criticize the state, and they are terrified of losing power.
  This month, the entire world looks toward Central Europe to 
commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall. When East Berliners first 
stepped into the western half of their city, they revealed to the rest 
of the world the horrors of living under a political regime that 
sustained itself by consuming the autonomy of its subjects. History 
serves as an enduring warning against the dangers of the all-powerful 
state.
  As we watch mass protests play out a half a world away, many 
Americans still see social chaos not as a symptom of a disease but as a 
spontaneous expression of some nebulous desire to be free. They don't 
stop to recall what sparked the first feelings of unease long before 
the Molotov cocktails started flying through the air.
  This is why, here in the United States, my colleagues in the majority 
have forced many conversations on the perils of degrading the 
foundations of our Republic. We have debated ad nauseam the 
Constitution's place in civil and legal discourse, asking: Does it 
provide a workable standard or is it just an outdated piece of paper 
now rendered illegitimate by the male whiteness of its drafters? I 
think the Presiding Officer knows my response.
  We defend the Constitution and the system of government it created 
because we know, from studying history and from observing current 
events, that freedom does not suddenly expire. Freedom begins to wither 
the moment those in power convince themselves that a reprieve from 
uncomfortable policy debates over speech, self-defense, or the size of 
government will be worth the risk of shelving the standards that 
protect individual liberty.
  The current blase tolerance and, in some cases, incomprehensible 
enthusiasm for socialism and other authoritarian philosophies is 
sending a strong message to the rest of the world that the standard for 
global freedom is up for debate. If we acquiesce to the argument that 
America's founding principles have passed their expiration date, we 
will have failed as a people and as a world leader. That failure will 
change the course of our history, and it will be used as a weapon to 
quash dissent elsewhere in the world.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.

                          ____________________