February 11, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 26 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S1161-S1164]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No. 7, 
     S. 47, a bill to provide for the management of the natural 
     resources of the United States, and for other purposes.
         Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, Kevin Cramer, Mike 
           Braun, Mike Rounds, Mike Crapo, Michael B. Enzi, Steve 
           Daines, John Cornyn, John Thune, Thom Tillis, Tom 
           Cotton, Richard Burr, Shelley Moore Capito, Rob 
           Portman, Todd Young.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on S. 47, 
a bill to provide for the management of the natural resources of the 
United States, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from TX (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from TX (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from 
ND (Mr. Hoeven), and the Senator from NE (Mr. Sasse).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from TX (Mr. Cornyn) 
would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from ND (Mr. Hoeven) would 
have voted ``yea''.


 =========================== NOTE =========================== 

  
  On page S1161, February 11, 2019, second column, the following 
appears: Further, if present and voting, the Senator from TX (Mr. 
Cornyn) would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from ND (Mr. 
Sasse) would have voted ``yea''.
  
  The online Record has been corrected to read: Further, if 
present and voting, the Senator from TX (Mr. Cornyn) would have 
voted ``yea'' and the Senator from ND (Mr. Hoeven) would have 
voted ``yea''.


 ========================= END NOTE ========================= 
                                  RBIN
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from MN (Mrs. KLOBUCHER) and 
the Senator from MI Mrs. Stavenow) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mr. Sullivan). Are there any other Senators 
in the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 87, nays 7, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 21 Leg.]

                                YEAS--87

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blackburn
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Boozman
     Braun
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Harris
     Hassan
     Hawley
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Hyde-Smith
     Isakson
     Jones
     Kaine
     King
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     McConnell
     McSally
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Sinema
     Smith
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--7

     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Paul
     Toomey

                             NOT VOTING--6

     Cornyn
     Cruz
     Hoeven
     Klobuchar
     Sasse
     Stabenow
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 87, the nays are 7.
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from Florida.


                 Amendment No. 182 to Amendment No. 112

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 182 to amendment 
No. 112.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Florida [Mr. Rubio] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 182 to amendment No. 112.

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of 
the amendment be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To give effect to more accurate maps of units of the John H. 
 Chafee Coastal Barrier Resources System that were produced by digital 
                                mapping)

       At the end, add the following:

     SEC. 2402A. JOHN H. CHAFEE COASTAL BARRIER RESOURCES SYSTEM.

       (a) In General.--Section 2(b) of the Strengthening Coastal 
     Communities Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-358) is amended by 
     adding at the end the following:
       ``(36) The map entitled `Cape San Blas Unit P30/P30P (1 of 
     2)' and dated December 19, 2018, with respect to Unit P30 and 
     Unit P30P.
       ``(37) The map entitled `Cape San Blas Unit P30/P30P (2 of 
     2)' and dated December 19, 2018, with respect to Unit P30 and 
     Unit P30P.''.
       (b) Effect.--Section 7003 shall have no force or effect.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from the great State of Alaska.


                           Order of Procedure

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
notwithstanding rule XXII, at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 12, all 
postcloture time be considered expired on S. 47; that following the 
disposition of any pending amendments, the substitute amendment, as 
amended, if amended, be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be

[[Page S1162]]

read a third time, and the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the 
bill, as amended.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciate the cooperation of the 
body on the very substantive vote, and I look forward to tomorrow.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.


                            Border Security

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, 2\1/2\ weeks ago, Democrats and 
Republicans--the House, the Senate, and the White House--agreed to 
reopen the government for 3 weeks to be able to continue negotiations 
on border security.
  A very simple statement that was made by my Democratic colleagues was 
this: Reopen the government for 3 weeks. We will negotiate on border 
security and come to an agreement, but only if the government is open, 
and it would be limited to border security.
  It was a pretty straightforward conversation.
  President Trump said: We trust you on this.
  We agreed to reopen the government for 3 weeks to focus on border 
security.
  Now it appears that based on the negotiations that are happening 
right now in this building, this has become a Lucy-and-the-football-
type negotiation because this doesn't seem to be about border security 
anymore.
  My Democratic colleagues have said: Now we want to add one thing. We 
will vote for fencing at the border as long as you agree to defund a 
section of ICE.
  The whole negotiation now is this: Yes, we will add border fencing, 
but you have to agree to defund ICE.
  Here is the way that works. Their agreement is this: You will have to 
limit the number of people that ICE can detain.
  Now, to our credit, this Congress has always allocated funding to 
say: Here is x amount of dollars for detention facilities and for bed 
space for ICE, knowing that if somebody is picked up at the border, 
when they are picked up at the border as they cross, the Border Patrol 
does not house them. They are not detained by Border Patrol. They are 
arrested by Border Patrol, and then they are turned over to ICE.
  So the plan is not to allocate enough dollars for ICE detention but 
to create a new arbitrary cap for the number of people that ICE could 
actually detain, so that ICE could only hold x amount of people. That 
is what they want to get a negotiation--for the first time ever to have 
a maximum cap of the number of people that ICE could detain.
  Why does that matter? One is to allow funding for it, and another one 
is to have a cap. A cap is very different, and my Democratic colleagues 
know it.
  In real life, here is what it would look like. If ICE, at any point, 
already had the number they have in custody at that point and they 
arrest someone else, they would have to choose to release someone 
currently in detention before they could arrest someone and put them in 
detention.
  Let me give an example.
  Coyotes now try for any adult who is coming to try to have them bring 
a child with them because they know if a child travels with the adult, 
they are going to get a special lane into the country, as if they are 
coming as a family. They get their own fast lane into being released 
into the country.
  If you have this ICE detainer cap, coyotes will know: Bring people in 
mass migration because ICE can't release enough people at once. So if 
you come as a thousand across the border or 500 across the border, they 
have to be released into the country because ICE can't quickly release 
500 people from detention to add the new 500 people who are coming 
through.
  My Democratic colleagues also know that it currently takes about 41 
days for someone who is in detention to go through the whole process to 
get a hearing and get finished. This would accelerate the process of 
getting those people out and released into the country, rather than 
getting them through the actual hearing.
  The better solution on this is to add judges and actually get people 
to go through the process and get due process faster, instead of 
releasing people into the country. Once someone crosses our border 
illegally and they are released into the country, the vast majority of 
those individuals never get deported because they either don't show up 
for the hearing at all or, when they do show up for the hearing and 
they are told, no, you can't legally stay, they disappear.
  This cap negotiation that is going on right now is exactly the wrong 
direction to go. It is not about border security. It is about releasing 
people into the country.
  Several years ago, there was a young lady named Sarah Root. She was 
in Iowa. It was graduation night from college, and she was hit by a 
drunk driver and killed. Sarah Root's loss drew the Nation's attention 
for a moment to the issue of not only drunk driving but illegal 
immigration, because the person that hit Sarah was illegally present in 
the country and had a blood alcohol level three times above the legal 
limit.
  Local law enforcement, at that time under the Obama administration, 
asked ICE to detain them. ICE said they didn't meet the minimum 
qualification that had been set by the administration to detain them. 
So they released this person on bond. Sarah later died from her 
injuries, and they have never been able to find that guy again. He is 
gone. He is somewhere in the United States, or maybe he is running 
internationally. We don't know, but he is on our most wanted list 
instead of being held.
  That was a decision made by a previous administration just on 
priorities. My Democratic colleagues are trying to force ICE to make 
those kinds of decisions every single day now--to determine who needs 
to be released and who needs to be kept based on an arbitrary cap that 
they want to put in on the maximum number of people that ICE can 
detain.
  There is no State in the country that sets an arbitrary cap, other 
than the bed space that they have available. But this conversation is 
that we have enough bed space to hold someone, but you can't use that 
bed space because we want to limit the number of people that ICE can 
detain.
  This is the current debate on border security. It is not about border 
security anymore. It is not about fencing anymore. It is now about 
giving ICE a maximum cap they can detain and, literally, forcing ICE to 
release people illegally present into the United States. That is not 
border security. That is the opposite of border security, and we should 
not go for a deal that puts a cap on ICE that is an arbitrary number.
  I hope this administration rejects that. I hope we can finish 
negotiations. I hope the American people see this for what it is. This 
is no longer about border security. This is about trying to force this 
administration to release people into the country who are illegally 
present and prevent ICE from doing its job. Enough is enough on this. 
Let's allow the ICE folks to be able to do their job--they are Federal 
law enforcement--and not put a cap on them, saying: You can only 
enforce the law this far, and then after that, you cannot enforce the 
law anymore because we have an arbitrary cap. That needs to be 
rejected, and that is not a serious offer in negotiations.

  The reason we don't already have a deal that is already done right 
now, with this body debating it, is that debate about capping ICE 
detentions got added into the conversation last weekend and blew up the 
whole negotiation.
  This is not the White House blowing up negotiations. This is not 
Republicans blowing up negotiations. This is my Democratic colleagues 
saying they want a cap on ICE detentions and allowing coyotes to be 
able to rush large quantities at the border or forcing ICE to have to 
make difficult choices about which gang members they are going to 
release and which they are going to hold, literally getting a briefing 
every morning saying: We can't arrest anyone today because we don't 
have enough detention space, so today we have to look the other way.
  That is an absurd proposal, and we should reject it.
  With that, 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. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page S1163]]

  



                              The Economy

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise to discuss two economic issues this 
evening. The first is a reaction to a proposal that comes to us from 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Let me preface this with 
the observation that I am pretty sure we are living through the 
strongest economy in the United States in my adult lifetime. It has 
been fantastic for the people I represent.
  Our unemployment rate is pretty much at a 50-year low. African-
American and Hispanic unemployment is the lowest that has ever been 
recorded. The youth unemployment rate is extremely low. It is at 
historically low levels. Our economy has accelerated, and wages are 
growing exactly as we said they would. It is very simple. The demand 
for workers has grown so much that employers are being forced to bid 
ever higher for the services of the workers.
  Now we are in a tremendously enviable position of having more job 
openings in America than there are people looking for work in America. 
It is fantastic. This is exactly what we want to have happen.
  Last week, the President was right when he said that our economy is 
the envy of the world. It is totally true.
  So what do our colleagues on the other side of the aisle propose to 
do in light of the fact that we have this fantastic economy? Well, 
Senator Sanders and Senator Schumer joined up and made a proposal that 
we adopt legislation that would severely restrict the ability of 
American companies to buy back their own stock. This is just the latest 
iteration of a socialist tendency that seems to be growing on the far 
left. This is a horrendous idea.
  I suppose we shouldn't be surprised when we hear a Socialist-leaning 
idea coming from a self-described Democratic Socialist or a Socialist 
Democrat--whatever the description is--but I am surprised to hear this 
coming from the Senate minority leader.
  Let's talk about this a little bit. First of all, what is a stock 
buyback? It is not that complicated. It is when the owners of a company 
take some or all of their money out of the company.
  Let's think about it this way. A business is owned by its 
shareholders, and the shareholders hire a management team to take their 
money and invest it in a way that will generate a return for the 
investor, for the shareholder. That is the role of the management team.
  So why would they buy back their own stock? The reason they would buy 
back their own stock is that sometimes it happens that the management 
team of a company is just not able to deploy any more capital in a way 
that would generate a better return than what is generally available in 
the marketplace. What sometimes happens is companies might make huge 
investments; they may be investing tremendous amounts--record amounts--
in expanding their capabilities, expanding their production, more R&D, 
and expanding their staff, but they can reach a limit as to how much 
they can expand and how much they productively invest at any given 
point. If they have more money--more cash--than they can productively 
deploy, they have an obligation to return that to the people who 
actually own it; that is, the shareholders, the investors. That is 
their obligation.
  Shockingly, Senators Sanders and Schumer are suggesting that 
companies be forbidden from being able to return some portion of their 
excess capital to their shareholders unless the company first complies 
with a list of political demands that Senators Schumer and Sanders are 
advocating.
  Let me tell you why this is such a bad idea. I will give you three 
reasons. No. 1, it is a disturbing and profound attack on freedom. No. 
2, it would be terrible for the economy. And, No. 3, it would hurt the 
very people they presumably intend to help. Let me go through them in 
order.
  First of all, as far as freedom goes, whose company is it? To whom 
does a given company in America belong? I have always thought they 
belonged to the shareholders of those companies--the people who saved 
up and invested in them, the people who have launched those companies, 
and the people whose capital made it possible. So, of course, it should 
be within the rights of the people who own a company to decide what to 
do with the profits after all expenses have been covered and taxes have 
been paid. That is what we are talking about here.
  I have a question for my colleagues. The question is, What principle 
confers on politicians the right to control whether and when and under 
what circumstances an investor can withdraw his own money from a 
business in which he invested? I don't know what that principle is.
  I will say, to me, it seems exactly equivalent to confiscating the 
property of somebody--in this case, their ownership in a business--and 
redistributing that confiscated asset to whomever they choose. That 
strikes me as pretty close to the definition of socialism. It clearly 
is an attack on the economic freedom that underpins our entire economy, 
an entire market economy.
  My second point, and related, is this would be terrible for the 
economy. It would do great harm to an economy that is doing quite well 
right now. The main way it would be so damaging is it would scare away 
capital.
  Just stop and think about it. Our economy thrives when people are 
willing to invest in existing businesses, in new businesses, and in 
startup businesses, but that investment is an absolutely essential part 
of a thriving economy. Well, people are much less likely to make an 
investment if Congress makes it harder to take that investment out. So 
what we would do is we would dry up sources of capital for companies 
that need that capital because investors would understandably say: 
Well, we are heading down the road of putting all kinds of limits on my 
ability to ever get my money out. I think it may be good to just park 
it and not invest it.
  That would be a very bad development.
  The proponents of this idea of restricting companies this way say 
they want to ``incentivize productive investment.'' I have to laugh 
because I have a secret for our colleagues. You see, the free 
enterprise system already provides an incentive for productive 
investment. It is called the profit. That is the whole idea. So we 
don't need to punish people for making an investment as a way to 
incentivize productive investment. In fact, it will not work at all.

  I think some of what they have argued displays a little bit of 
confusion about how this works. In their argument about why something 
has to be done, they say that 90 percent of profits go to buybacks and 
dividends. What else would you use it for? I mean, you first have to 
cover all of your expenses before you have a profit. So you could have 
record amounts of research and development, record amounts of 
expansion, records amounts of employment, and growth in employment, but 
after all of that is covered, only then do you have the profit. That is 
what is left over. And after you have covered all of those things, why 
wouldn't you have buybacks and a distribution to the investors?
  That raises this question: Exactly what problem is it that our 
colleagues think they are solving here? We are running at record high 
levels of investment in our economy. Capital expenditures have gone 
through the roof in response partly--largely--due to the change in the 
tax law that we made. The buybacks that have been occurring have 
coincided with record levels of investment. What is the problem here?
  By the way, as I pointed out earlier, wage growth has accelerated at 
the highest rate we have seen in many, many years. I really don't 
understand what problem they think we are solving.
  By the way, there is an alternative to distributing excess capital to 
shareholders. The alternative is keeping the capital trapped in the 
company where it is not being put to its most productive use. You see, 
one of the great dynamics of a market economy is that by returning 
excess capital to shareholders, the shareholders get to decide what new 
idea deserves to be funded by recycling this capital. Whether it is in 
the form of dividends or stock buybacks, we encourage this capital to 
find a new home--a new startup, a new idea, or an expansion of an 
existing business. The capital is constantly being redirected to the 
best ideas, as long as you allow it to happen.
  Finally, this idea would be very harmful to the people it is, 
presumably, meant to help. About 40 percent of all equities in the 
United States are

[[Page S1164]]

held in pension and retirement accounts. These are the accounts of 
teachers and cabdrivers and truckdrivers and folks who work at 
factories and do every other job that our economy depends on, who put a 
little money away. It may be in a 401(k) plan, in an IRA, or in an 
employer-sponsored pension plan; these folks own an awful lot of the 
stock in America. Well, buybacks are good for their investment because, 
in some cases, it returns cash that can then be redeployed. In other 
cases, it provides a bid; it provides upward pressure on the stock 
price, which is good for the value of their savings. Over time, if the 
stock gets retired, then the diminished supply gets that much greater a 
share of all of the future earnings. This is completely a win-win for 
savers and investors.
  Let me just conclude by saying it is a very, very bad idea for 
America to take any steps down the road toward socialism. This is very 
much an idea of that ilk. In fact, it is a big step in the direction of 
a collectivist socialist economy, and we should reject this out of 
hand.


                               U.S. Trade

  Mr. President, I also want to touch on an unrelated topic, but it is 
an important one; that is, the ongoing discussion we are having in this 
Congress and across the country with respect to trade.
  I think most of us in this Chamber agree that international trade is 
very good for the United States. I know it is very good for 
Pennsylvania.
  I think we all understand that if we impose tariffs on imported 
goods, that is a tax that American consumers have to pay on a product 
or a service just because it originates somewhere else. If you add up 
the impact of the tariffs that this administration has already applied, 
according to the Congressional Budget Office, that is already going to 
take one-tenth of a percent off of our GDP, off of our economic growth. 
That is assuming no further tariffs occur, which is unknown at this 
point.
  In particular, I want to address a category of tariffs that are known 
as section 232 tariffs because that is the part of the trade law which 
justifies these tariffs. This is an old law. It is a Cold War-era trade 
law that is designed to allow a President to impose tariffs when he 
believes there is a national security threat that requires these 
tariffs, these taxes on some foreign product for some reason that 
affects our national security.
  In my view, the recent imposition of these 232 tariffs on aluminum 
and steel were not really about national security. They had other 
motives and other purposes, and, in my view, they have done much more 
harm than good.
  If you look at tariffs on imported steel, you might believe that it 
is helpful to the people who are in the steel industry. We have about 
140,000 Americans employed at steel mills. It is possible that the 
tariffs are helpful to those companies and those employees at some 
level. The problem is, we have 6.5 million people in companies that use 
many, many multiples, and everybody who works in that sector of our 
economy across a wide range of industries is put at a competitive 
disadvantage when they have to pay that tax on imported steel and 
aluminum.
  Some examples come to mind. Allegheny Technologies is a company in 
western Pennsylvania that last year had to pay $16 million in taxes on 
the steel they imported. They had no choice but to import it because of 
the unique nature of that steel. It is threatening one of their 
production facilities.
  American Keg is the only steel keg maker in the United States and 
makes beer kegs in Pennsylvania. They had to lay off one-third of their 
workers in March of last year because they are not as competitive as 
they need to be.
  Colonial Metal Products is a small manufacturer. They use steel in 
fabrication. Their entire workforce is at risk.
  The list goes on and on because fundamentally these taxes make many 
companies that use steel and aluminum less competitive.
  That is not the only problem. As we all know, many American exporters 
are subject to retaliation by companies that experience these tariffs. 
So there are a lot of problems.
  I have introduced legislation that is meant to address this. One 
aspect of this that I think is very important is that the Constitution 
unambiguously assigns to Congress the responsibility for managing our 
economic relations--our competing trade relations with other countries. 
In the Constitution, that explicitly includes the responsibility for 
deciding whether and to what extent we should impose tariffs on the 
products of other countries. Yet for years Congress has just let 
administration after administration take this responsibility that the 
Constitution gives to us.
  So what my legislation does is pretty simple. It says, let's restore 
to Congress the responsibility that the Constitution gives to Congress. 
Let's make sure that national security-related tariffs are only imposed 
when Congress says they should be imposed.
  The legislation has 11 original cosponsors, roughly even between 
Republicans and Democrats. Senator Warner is the lead Democrat on this 
bill, and Senators Sasse and Hassan are also original cosponsors. Four 
of the cosponsors are from the Finance Committee, which has 
jurisdiction over this issue. There is the House companion, which is 
also bipartisan. There are 61 organizations, business groups and 
others, that have endorsed this from the outside.
  It is important to make the point that our legislation, while it is 
designed to restore to Congress this important responsibility, doesn't 
eliminate the ability of a President to invoke section 232 and impose 
tariffs if there is a genuine threat to American security. What the 
President needs to do is explain the threat, make the case to the 
Congress, and under our legislation, there is a mechanism that requires 
expedited consideration of the President's request. It can't be 
filibustered. It doesn't take 60 votes. There is a strict timeline. So 
this can't languish on a shelf somewhere; Congress has to respond.
  One other feature that is important in this bill is that the 
executive branch determination of whether there is a threat to national 
security would no longer be conducted by the Commerce Department, as it 
is now; it would move to the Department of Defense. My view on that is 
very simple. The Department of Defense is the entity within our 
executive branch that is best qualified to determined threats to our 
national security.
  I am hopeful that we will grow our support and be able to get a vote 
on this legislation.
  I should point out that there are other legislative approaches. There 
are other ideas on 232. There is one bill that, like mine, would shift 
the responsibility for evaluating the threat from the Commerce 
Department to the Defense Department, but the difference with some of 
these other pieces of legislation is they contemplate a disapproval 
resolution. They simply observe that Congress can pass a law to prevent 
or rescind a 232 designation, but these alternative bills would do 
nothing to restore that responsibility to Congress today. We could pass 
a law if we had the votes, and we could override a Presidential veto. 
We could pass a law to rescind any kind of tariff. The alternative 
legislation doesn't change that fact. What my legislation does is it 
would require the affirmative consent of Congress before the tariffs 
can go into place. That is a fundamental difference.
  So I think, for the sake of expanding trade, but importantly, in my 
mind, for the sake of restoring the constitutional responsibility that 
is assigned to Congress, we ought to pass this legislation.
  With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________