December 11, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 198 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S6967-S6986]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the VanDyke 
nomination.
  The Senator from Texas.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1416

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as all America knows, climbing healthcare 
costs continue to keep the American people up at night. A Kaiser 
Foundation poll in September found that the No. 1 health concern of the 
American people is prescription drug pricing. A whopping 70 percent of 
those polled think lowering prescription drug costs should be a top 
priority--a top priority--for Congress, making it the No. 1 item on our 
to-do list, but our friend and colleague from New York, the minority 
leader, objected last time I offered unanimous consent to take up and 
pass a bill, which I will describe here momentarily.
  I hope, given the intervening time and further reflection, he will 
not do so today, and we can get this bill passed and address this top 
priority of the American people.
  The good news is, Republicans and Democrats both agree we need to do 
something about it. I have the honor of serving on both the Finance and 
Judiciary Committees, where we have been looking into this problem and 
some of the potential solutions.
  There are pharmaceutical CEOs who earn big bonuses as sales go up. I 
am not opposed to them receiving compensation, but pharmacy benefit 
managers who negotiate backdoor rebates that drive up out-of-pocket 
costs are a problem because of the lack of transparency.
  What I find very seriously concerning as well is anti-competitive 
behavior when it comes to patents by drug manufacturers. There are two 
practices, in particular, that the legislation I intend to offer a 
unanimous consent request on would address.
  One is called product hopping, which occurs when a company develops a 
reformulation of a product that is about to lose exclusivity. Let me 
just stop a moment and say that one of the ways we protect the 
investment and the intellectual property of American innovators is to 
give them exclusivity over the right to sell and license that 
intellectual property, including drugs. That encourages people to make 
those investments. In turn, it benefits the American people and the 
world, literally, by creating new lifesaving drugs, and that is a good 
thing. There is a period of exclusivity, and after that expires--after 
that goes away--then it opens that particular formulation up to generic 
competition; meaning, the price will almost certainly be much lower and 
more affordable to the American people.
  This issue of product hopping is gamesmanship, as I will explain. 
First of all, before the drug loses exclusivity, the manufacturer pulls 
the drug off the market. This is done not because the new formula is 
more effective, but it will block generic competitors.
  The second issue is patent thicketing, which occurs when an innovator 
uses multiple, overlapping patents or patents with identical claims 
that make it nearly impossible for competitors to enter the market. 
This is nothing more and nothing less than

[[Page S6968]]

abuse of our patent system, and it is coming at a high cost for 
patients who rely on affordable drugs.
  Earlier this year, I introduced a bill with our friend and colleague 
from Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal, who happens to be a Democrat, to 
address these anti-competitive behaviors. Our bill is called the 
Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act, and it streamlines the 
litigation process by limiting the number of patents these companies 
can use in court. So companies are spending less time in the courtroom 
and, hopefully, more time innovating these new lifesaving drugs, while 
opening up these drugs once they lose their exclusivity to generic 
competition and more and more affordable prices for consumers.
  This legislation does not stifle innovation; it doesn't limit 
patients' rights; and it doesn't cost taxpayers a dime. In fact, the 
Congressional Budget Office estimates it would lower--lower--Federal 
spending by more than a half a billion dollars over 10 years. This is 
just savings to the Federal Government for Medicare and Medicaid. 
Undoubtedly, it would show significant savings for consumers with 
private health insurance as well.

  I am sure it comes as no surprise, then, that this legislation passed 
unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee; not a single Senator 
opposed it. That happened in June. This is December, and there has been 
no movement since then.
  We have tried to be patient because we know there are other bills 
coming from the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. There 
is a bill coming out of the Finance Committee on which the Presiding 
Officer and I sit. My hope is that we would have been able to make 
progress on a larger package, but here we are at the end of the year, 
and there has been no movement. We have been more than patient, but I 
think there comes a time when patience ceases to be a virtue, 
particularly when it comes to providing something that would benefit 
the American people.
  There are no concerns about the policies laid out in the bill, as you 
can see by some of the comments reflected in this chart. Again, our 
colleague, the Democrat from Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal, said: 
``This bill offers a positive, solid step toward ending abuses in the 
use of patents.''
  Senator Durbin, who is the Democratic whip, a member of leadership, 
said:

       It is a bipartisan measure that passed the Senate Judiciary 
     Committee. I not only voted for it, I cosponsored it, and I 
     believe it should pass and should become the law of the land.

  So imagine my surprise when the Democratic leader objected to a 
unanimous consent request to pass it a couple of weeks ago. He even 
went so far as to call this ``a manipulative charade'' and ``a little 
game,'' which is strange because he also called it a good bill. His 
biggest criticism was it didn't do enough, but as I pointed out then, 
if you sit around waiting for the big bill to get passed, nothing 
happens in the meantime, and it is a loss to the American people.
  I think it is past time for us to take up this legislation, get it 
passed, get it signed by the President. Our friends in the House of 
Representatives have already passed two bills, which, put together, 
essentially reflect the same policy.
  I can't think of any other reason for the Democratic leader to object 
than pure politics. He doesn't want anybody to get a ``win.'' That also 
goes for the Senator from Iowa, when she had offered a bill to 
reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. She happens to be on the 
ballot in 2020 as well. The only rationale I can possibly think of that 
the Democratic leader would continue to object to these bipartisan 
consensus bills is just that he doesn't want somebody to be able to 
score a point on this side because he feels like that will disadvantage 
his candidates in the next election and advantage us.
  There comes a time when we need to put those election considerations 
to the side and focus on making good policy. I happen to believe good 
policy is good politics.
  The truth is, the Democratic leader, in objecting to the passage of 
this legislation, does have one very big and powerful cheerleader 
behind him; that is, the drug companies. The drug companies love it 
when bipartisan legislation gets blocked on the Senate floor for 
whatever reason. The truth is, they hate this bill, and they don't want 
to see anything done on this issue. Inadvertently or not, the 
Democratic leader seems to be providing them a lot of cover right now.
  My constituents didn't send me to Washington to play these endless 
games. They sent me here to get results, and that is exactly what I aim 
to do.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that as in legislative 
session, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar 
No. 132, S. 1416. I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported 
substitute be withdrawn; that the Cornyn amendment at the desk be 
agreed to; that the bill, as amended, 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?
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, my good friend, the Senator from Texas, 
is just engaged in a gimmick to cover up all that he hasn't done on 
making drug costs lower. Now, 99 percent of what the public wants is 
not being allowed on the floor by his leadership when he was the whip, 
by this leadership, and now he wants to get well with a bill that is 
very small.
  Open up the floor to debate. We will debate all the big things that 
will really reduce prices, which people want, and we will debate his 
bill. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I point out to my friend from New York, I 
am not the leader or the floor manager of legislation. That is up to 
Senator McConnell, the Senator from Kentucky. Obviously, there has been 
foot-dragging on important things like appropriations bills, the 
USMCA--the important trade agreement with Canada and Mexico--and now 
there is impeachment mania that has consumed the House of 
Representatives and has crowded out our ability to get other things 
done; hence, my loss of patience after waiting since June to get this 
bill passed.
  This isn't a case of my wanting to get well; this is a case of 
wanting to make the American people well by providing them access to 
low-cost generic alternative drugs and preventing Big Pharma from 
engaging in the sorts of gamesmanship that keep drug prices up and keep 
the American consumer down.
  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. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               Healthcare

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise this morning, or I guess this 
afternoon, to talk about a couple of issues. I will start with 
healthcare and talk about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance 
Program, as well as another piece of legislation we are considering in 
the next couple of days.
  Let me start with healthcare. There is a lot to talk about here. We 
don't have time for all of it today, but a number of things are 
happening on the healthcare front that I think most Americans are aware 
of but maybe have not heard a lot about recently.
  I would argue there are three basic threats to healthcare right now--
not just healthcare for some but, in large measure, healthcare for all. 
One is a lawsuit, which is being litigated in the Fifth Circuit Court 
of Appeals. It is a lawsuit that would wipe out the Affordable Care 
Act, and that lawsuit has already prevailed at the district court 
level. It is now before the appellate court, and if that lawsuit were 
to prevail, the Affordable Care Act--or I

[[Page S6969]]

should say it by its full name--the Patient Protection and Affordable 
Care Act would be declared unconstitutional. That would have 
ramifications not only for those 20 million who got covered--coverage 
they didn't have before--but also the tens of millions who have 
protections they never had before the act was passed in 2010.
  If you have a preexisting condition, for example--roughly, one out of 
two Americans has a preexisting condition--if you have one, you should 
be very concerned about the result of that lawsuit, the determination 
of which could be made in a matter of days or weeks. That is a big 
threat. That is the biggest threat to healthcare for virtually every 
American or at least every American family.
  The second big threat to healthcare is what the administration has 
undertaken since day one of the Trump administration, and that is the 
sabotage of the existing system in this regard, especially with respect 
to the insurance exchanges. What the administration has done is try to 
take administrative action, action by agencies under the President's 
jurisdiction, to undermine the exchanges.
  How do they do that? Well, they cut the advertising. So when they 
advertise to say that you can shop for a health insurance plan on the 
exchanges, they cut the advertising budget by 90 percent. They left 10 
percent there. I guess we are supposed to be happy with that.
  So they cut advertising by 90 percent. Then they started attacking 
the contracts for navigators. These are individuals all across the 
country who sit with people and say: Let me help you go through the 
options you might have for purchasing insurance or changing your 
insurance plan.
  For example, right now, we are in an open enrollment period, so folks 
can change their health insurance plans until Sunday--basically, 
December 15. It would be nice to have a navigator--an assistant, in a 
sense--sitting next to you if you are making those decisions about your 
healthcare.
  So threat No. 1 to healthcare is the lawsuit; threat No. 2 is the 
sabotage; and threat No. 3 has not quite played out yet, but I don't 
know a Member of the House or the Senate in the Republican caucus in 
either Chamber who is not against the threat--the cuts to Medicare and 
Medicaid proposed by the administration.
  I thought it was bad when the administration--or I should say, House 
Republicans--back in the spring of 2018 proposed a cut of $1 trillion 
to the Medicaid Program over 10 years. That was bad enough. That was 
dangerous enough. But the administration went further than that. The 
administration's proposal and, I have to say, unless it is 
contradicted, the official position of Republican Members of Congress 
is a 10-year cut to Medicaid of $1\1/2\ trillion--$1\1/2\ trillion. 
That means the official Republican position in Congress--unless they 
say they disagree with the President, and I haven't heard any Member 
say that yet--is that the Medicaid Program should be cut by $150 
billion each and every year for 10 years. That is the proposed cut. 
That is Medicaid.
  By the way, Medicaid is the kids' disabilities and nursing home 
program, for shorthand. Most of the people helped by Medicaid are folks 
in nursing homes, low-income children, children from low-income 
families, and children with disabilities who have a substantial stake 
in this.
  When you consider those three threats--the lawsuit, the sabotage, and 
the budget cuts--all are bad news, but then when you start getting into 
the details of each, you realize one aspect of this, which I wanted to 
raise today, and that is the adverse impact on children.
  We are told by the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute 
Center for Children and Families--I am holding up a November 2019 
summary of a report, a back and a front. I will not read all of it and 
I will not enter it into the Record because there is a lot of detail 
here that we probably can't enter into the Record. I do want to read 
into the Record a couple of highlights from it, though. These folks 
have been doing research on children's health insurance for many years 
and have spent their lives working on this. The headline reads ``The 
Number of Uninsured Children is on the Rise.''
  The United States of America, which finally, decades after passing 
the Medicaid Program, which was a great advancement in children's 
health insurance, then added to that with the enactment in the 1990s of 
the Children's Health Insurance Program--it had the letter ``S'' before 
it, the SCHIP program--which really was adopting programs that have 
been adopted in my home State of Pennsylvania and a few others.
  That same country which made a great advancement for children's 
health with Medicaid--tens of millions of kids--then made a greater 
advancement with the Children's Health Insurance Program and then made 
even more substantial gains when we passed the Patient Protection and 
Affordable Care Act and substantially drove down the number of 
uninsured Americans. Basically what happened was that about 20 million 
people got healthcare coverage in about 6 years--not even a decade. A 
number of those Americans were children.
  As we were substantially driving down the uninsured rate, what has 
happened in the last 2 years? The uninsured rate is going up. The 
Census Bureau told us in September that the uninsured rate is going up 
by 2 million people--to be exact, 1.9 million people. A big share of 
the 1.9 million people who are now uninsured--that number is going up 
instead of down, as it had been for most of the decade--a lot of those 
are children.
  Here is a summary of finding No. 1 in this report by the Georgetown 
University Health Policy Institute Center for Children and Families, 
November 2019. It is by Joan Alker and Lauren Roygardner. ``The number 
of uninsured children in the United States increased by more than 
400,000 between 2016 and 2018, bringing the total to over 4 million 
uninsured children in the nation.''
  That same Nation which made great advancements by lowering the number 
of uninsured children is now going in the wrong direction.
  Finding No. 2: ``These coverage losses are widespread, with 15 states 
showing statistically significant increases in the number and/or the 
rate of uninsured children.''
  The following States are listed: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, 
Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, 
Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. That is significant. Those 
States are represented in some cases by two Democratic Senators, 
sometimes two Republican Senators, and sometimes Senators of both 
parties. So it is happening in a widespread fashion. The rate of 
uninsured children is going up.
  Finding No. 3: ``Loss of coverage is most pronounced for white 
children and Latino children (some of which may fall into both 
categories).''
  The other category where the number is going up substantially is 
younger children, under the age of 6. So we are not just talking about 
children losing coverage; we are talking about that number being more 
pronounced for children under the age of 6.
  This also includes children in low- to moderate-income families who 
earn between 138 percent and 250 percent of the poverty level, meaning 
a little more than 29,000 bucks to 53,000 bucks annually--``bucks'' is 
my word, not the report's word--$29,435 to $53,325 annually for a 
family of three. So these folks who are struggling in a lot of ways--
low-income families trying to climb that ladder to get to the middle 
class, in many cases working two or three jobs, trying to make ends 
meet--at least in many cases, their children had coverage, and now 
children in those families are losing coverage.
  Point No. 4 and the last point: ``States that have not expanded 
Medicaid to parents and other adults under the Affordable Care Act have 
seen increases in their rate of uninsured children three times as large 
as states that have,'' meaning States that expanded Medicaid. The 
expansion of Medicaid was part of that advancement I talked about.
  The three threats to healthcare are bad enough. It is especially bad 
when you consider that the Americans who are carrying the heaviest 
burden of that uninsured rate going up are, in fact, children.
  The second thing I want to raise is the Supplemental Nutrition 
Assistance Program. We had a great effort undertaken in the 2018 farm 
bill. There were

[[Page S6970]]

efforts by some to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, 
which we used to know as food stamps. Fortunately, those efforts to cut 
the program and to knock people off of the SNAP program were 
unsuccessful.
  We came together in a bipartisan effort in both the House and the 
Senate, and the President signed it into the law just about a year 
ago--December 2018. The ink was barely dry on his signature when his 
administration and the Department of Agriculture started to think of 
other ways to do the same thing to SNAP they couldn't do by way of 
legislation.
  So where are we? Well, we have had basically three proposals over the 
course of the last year by the administration that would take 4 million 
people out of the SNAP program, kick 4 million people off the program.
  Here is what one of those proposals would do: According to the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture's own estimates, the proposed changes to one 
part of SNAP called categorical eligibility would eliminate millions 
from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and it could also 
leave nearly 1 million children without access to free school meals. I 
don't know about everyone here, but I think that is a step in the wrong 
direction.
  The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is important not only 
for those families--many of them working families, many of them with a 
child in the household who needs food assistance, who faces food 
insecurity without SNAP--many of those same families might have a child 
and an individual with a disability in the same household or one or the 
other. That is the SNAP program.
  By the way, everyone else in the country benefits when people spend 
those SNAP dollars because when you provide those dollars and folks buy 
food, guess what happens. You guessed it. The economy gets a jump-start 
from that activity. The SNAP program isn't about just the people who 
are directly benefiting. I think we have an obligation to help them, 
for sure. We all benefit when there is economic activity. There is more 
than a bang for the buck in the SNAP program; you spend a buck, and you 
get a lot more than a buck in return.
  This is all in the context of where we are with a lot of families. We 
hear a lot on the floor of this Chamber and I am sure on the floor of 
the other body, the House, about ``Well, certain people shouldn't get 
this benefit,'' and some make an argument against that.
  It is interesting that in the SNAP program for many years now, not 
just for the last couple of years, the payment error rate in that 
program has been way down, the lowest levels ever. Why? It is because 
of good efforts to detect fraud, and also technology allows payments to 
be tracked. The payment error rate is at its lowest level ever. Yet we 
still have efforts undertaken to knock people out of the program. That 
is not just insulting, it is very dangerous to people's lives.
  I hope Members of the Senate will tell the administration to back off 
those proposals that have been undertaken to knock literally, if you 
have the effect of all three proposals, 4 million people off of the 
program, many of whom are children.
  This all happens in the context of those healthcare issues I raised 
before. The same child or the same family who might have their SNAP 
benefits cut or taken away might be the same family who is losing their 
coverage because of cuts to Medicaid and Medicare or because of the 
uninsured rate going way up in a country that was driving it way down. 
Both are happening at the same time.


                 Bipartisan American Miners Act of 2019

  Mr. President, I want to raise another issue, and then I will 
conclude. This is about coal miners across the country but in 
particular in a couple of States, like my home State of Pennsylvania, 
and I know this is true of Kentucky and Virginia and West Virginia, 
just to name several--or I should say the main States we are talking 
about here.
  The Bipartisan American Miners Act of 2019, S. 2788--I know Senator 
Manchin and others have spoken about this. We are trying to get this 
legislation or some version of this passed by the end of this year. I 
won't go through all the details of the legislation, but it attempts to 
help on the miners' pension issue--and these are obviously retired coal 
miners--as well as the healthcare for those same miners, those same 
families.
  I will make a comment about what this means. Many of those same 
families had to wait way too long--several years--before this body 
acted to provide a measure of relief to some of those retired miners on 
healthcare. The job isn't done yet on healthcare but even more so on 
pensions.
  The point I have always made here is that our government made a 
promise to them decades ago. In fact, it was the time when President 
Truman was in office in the late 1940s. We made a promise to coal 
miners at that time.
  In that whole intervening time period, those decades, they kept their 
promises. Many of them were sent overseas to fight in wars, from World 
War II, to Korea, to Vietnam and beyond. They kept their promise to the 
country by fighting for their country. They kept their promise to their 
employer by going to work every day in the most dangerous job in the 
world, likely. I am not sure there is one that is more dangerous. They 
kept their promise to their families to go to work and to support them, 
sometimes on that one income of a coal miner.
  In my home area of Northeastern Pennsylvania, the novelist Stephen 
Crane--he is known for the ``Red Badge of Courage,'' but what he is not 
known for as much is an essay he wrote about coal mining in the late 
1800s--1890s to be exact. He described all the ways a coal miner could 
die in a coal mine. He described the coal mine as a place of 
inscrutable darkness, a soundless place of tangible loneliness, and 
then walked through the ways a miner could die.
  I know we have advanced from the 1890s--thank God we have--but there 
are still coal miners in the recent history of this country who have 
lost their lives. All they have asked us to do--they haven't asked us 
to come up with some new fancy plan for them and their families; all 
they have asked us to do is to have this government--the executive 
branch and the legislative branch--keep the promise to coal miners and 
their families with regard to healthcare and pensions. Both of those 
parts of our policy are promises.
  So when we work on this between now and the end of the year to try to 
find a solution, we will be only meeting that basic obligation of 
keeping our promise to retired coal miners and their families like they 
kept their promise to their country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Romney). The Senator from Kansas.


                        Tribute to Kelly McManus

  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, today, I want to take a moment to recognize 
the contributions of Kelly McManus. She is a member of my staff. She is 
U.S. Army MAJ Kelly McManus, who has spent the last year working in my 
personal office as part of the U.S. Army Congressional Fellowship 
Program.
  Before Kelly departs my office here at the end of the year to return 
to the Big Army, I rise to express my appreciation to Major McManus for 
all of her hard work and dedication and service to our Nation.
  Kelly's 10 years of service in the U.S. Army have developed her 
leadership abilities and shaped her perspective on major defense issues 
of national significance. These assets and attributes have made her an 
invaluable asset to our team as we work to serve Kansans, 
servicemembers, and veterans.
  Before joining our office, Kelly's assignments had taken her around 
the world in service of our country. She deployed to both Iraq and 
Kuwait to support operations New Dawn and Spartan Shield, from 2011 to 
2012, served as the medical planner for the Allied Land Command in NATO 
headquarters in Izmir, Turkey, and reported to Wiesbaden, Germany, to 
serve on the personal staff of the U.S. Army Europe headquarters 
commanding general, LTG Ben Hodges.
  Kelly has also served stateside, leading her detachment through 
deployment in Fort Dix, NJ, in support of Hurricane Sandy relief 
efforts and commanded a medical company in the 2nd Infantry Division at 
Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State.
  Kelly joined our team in January 2018. From day one, she embraced 
Kansas, its people, and the challenges they face day in and day out. On 
her first official trip to Kansas, she visited our

[[Page S6971]]

military installations and talked with soldiers and airmen to learn 
about their life experiences. She made it a priority to spend time in 
Kansas and to learn from the Kansas people so that she could bring 
their thoughts and ideas back to the Nation's Capital. These personal 
conversations with Kansans and Kelly's experience in the Army have 
helped to drive meaningful policy.
  She led our efforts to secure maternity leave for those serving in 
the National Guard and Reserve after talking with an expectant mother 
in the Kansas National Guard. She has also sought to increase access to 
suicide prevention programs and destigmatize the notions surrounding 
mental illness.
  In addition, her experiences in serving in uniform have been 
instrumental to my efforts to support our veterans. Over the past year, 
I have continually been impressed by Kelly's leadership and 
professionalism. At every opportunity, she has proven herself to be an 
important and fully integrated member of my team, carrying the equal 
weight and responsibility of my personal staff. Her seamless 
communications and her skill in tackling issues big and small have been 
a great benefit to our office and the people that we serve. Kelly has 
exceeded all of my expectations and has demonstrated a commitment to 
excellence that has been nothing short of outstanding.
  A testament to her leadership over the past year was her promotion to 
major in July. It was my honor to be part of her promotion ceremony and 
to have the privilege to pin her new and deserving rank on her uniform.
  It will be sad when she leaves our office at the end of the month, 
but I know she will serve the Army well next year in the Army's Budget 
Liaison Office, where I am confident she will be a highly effective 
ambassador to Congress for the Army.
  Kelly is one of the most impressive military officers I have had the 
honor of knowing, and I hold her in the highest regard, personally and 
professionally. She is a significant asset to our country and to the 
U.S. Army. Kelly represents the best that the Army has to offer, and I 
know that she will continue to be a benefit to the future of our 
Nation. There is no group of people I hold in higher regard than those 
who serve our Nation, and I want to reiterate my gratitude to Kelly for 
her dedication and service to our country.
  Once again, thank you, Kelly, for all you have done for Kansans this 
year and what you will continue to do for our Nation. You have been a 
model of selfless service and leadership. I know you will continue to 
do great things throughout your Army career and your life in service, 
wherever that path my lead you.
  I yield the floor.
  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. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Remembering Berkley Bedell

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to pay tribute 
to an extraordinary Iowan with whom I shared a decades-long 
friendship--a very prominent Democrat from my State.
  Over this past weekend, former Iowa Congressman Berkley Bedell passed 
away at the age of 98. For nearly a century of life, Berkley took his 
grandmother's advice to heart: ``You can do almost anything within 
reason if you will only set your mind to it.''
  From an early age, Berkley Bedell set his mind to a high standard of 
achievement. He set an example for the rest of us. He practiced what he 
preached and he made a difference in this world.
  As a child raised during the Great Depression, Berkley became a 
soldier in the U.S. Army. He was, obviously, a World War II veteran, an 
entrepreneur, a job creator, a philanthropist, a policy influencer, 
and, most of all, a devoted husband and father.
  What I left out is how I got acquainted with him. He was a fellow 
Member of the House of Representatives during my early years and for 
some time after I came to the Senate. Our decades-long friendship began 
when Berkley and I were elected to serve Iowans in the House of 
Representatives in 1974. Soon after the orientation for new Members, 
Barbara and I developed a close relationship with Elinor and Berkley. 
This friendship remained for the next 45 years.
  Looking back, those were lonely days for a freshman Republican House 
Member. That is when the Watergate scandal upended the midterm 
elections. Voters elected 91 new House Members to that Congress. I 
happened to be the only Republican in the Iowa congressional 
delegation. Among our so-called Watergate class of 1974, I was joined 
by Iowans Tom Harkin, Michael Blouin, and Berkley Bedell. We were all 
freshman Members of Congress. We joined then with more senior Members 
from the State of Iowa--Neal Smith, who went on to serve 36 years in 
the House, and Ed Mezvinsky. The Democrat Senators from Iowa were Dick 
Clark and John Culver. Berkley would go on to represent Iowa's Sixth 
Congressional District for six terms, from 1975 to 1987. Even though he 
lived about another 32 years after that, I presume he would have served 
a lot longer if his health had held out.

  Although Berkley and I didn't share the same political points of 
view, we did share a common approach for representative government, 
meaning with dialogue and feedback from Iowans that was very necessary 
if we were going to represent them properly. Most often, the forums for 
that were our respective townhall meetings.
  Throughout our service together in Congress, party labels didn't 
displace our ability to work with and for Iowans. As one example, 
during the farm crisis of the 1980s, which was much worse than this 
farm crisis we have right now, we used our voices to raise public 
awareness and steer help to struggling farm communities in our home 
State. We did everything possible to shape farm policy and restore hope 
to thousands of farm families who were coping with double-digit 
inflation and with the farm debt crisis.
  As a Federal lawmaker, Berkley took his oversight work seriously. 
Even though I take oversight seriously, I didn't do it in quite the way 
he did. His was kind of an unorthodox approach. He just ventured, 
willy-nilly, into a Federal bureaucracy here or a Federal bureaucracy 
over there. He took the liberty of dropping by in person at these 
agencies. He would go up to people and ask: What is your job? I don't 
know exactly the questions he asked, but in knowing Berkley the way I 
did, I think he probably wanted to have very calm conversations with 
them to determine what they did and maybe even see if they were doing 
it right, particularly if they were spending the taxpayers' money 
right. He did this to keep tabs on how these Federal employees in these 
various bureaucracies were serving the Nation and, particularly, 
serving Iowans. Now, that is what I would call an in-the-flesh gut 
check--a very different type of oversight from what I have done.
  Berkley was born in Spirit Lake, IA. I assume he lived his entire 
life in Spirit Lake, IA, except for the period of time he was in the 
military and until he spent some retirement time in Florida. Spirit 
Lake, IA, is a close-knit farming community in Dickinson County. His 
neck of the woods is located in the Iowa Great Lakes region--a regional 
destination for fishing, boating, and outdoor recreation. I will bet 
the Presiding Officer has been there many times.
  The area is fondly known as the University of Okoboji, where 
generations of families go year after year to vacation and enjoy life. 
By the way, the University of Okoboji is not really a university but is 
very much a selling point for that part of the State, from an economic 
development point of view, and it has worked very successfully.
  As I just described, this is where Berkley's insatiable work ethic 
took root. It guided him for his nearly 100 years of life on Earth. 
Through philanthropic good works, he leaves behind a legacy of 
conservation, stewardship, and historic preservation. With his wife, he 
helped to launch the Okoboji Foundation more than three decades ago. 
Since then, the foundation has awarded millions of dollars to scores of 
nonprofit organizations in that lakes region of Iowa.

[[Page S6972]]

  In other words, Berkley believed in paying it forward. He cared 
deeply about giving back to his community for future generations to 
enjoy. As you would expect an Iowan to do, he rolled up his sleeves, 
opened his wallet, and pitched in to make a difference. By my measure, 
his represents a life well lived, and he lived life well.
  As I mentioned earlier, Berkley and Elinor became steadfast friends 
with Barbara and this Senator. We shared an abiding mutual respect, and 
we cherished their gracious regard for that friendship. After the 
Bedells moved to Florida in their retirement, Barbara and I enjoyed an 
annual gift from the Bedells each February. It was a very simple annual 
gift but one that had a lot of meaning to it--more than the material it 
represented. They sent us a box of oranges from their home in the 
Sunshine State. Just as regularly as a clock, we received these over 
many, many years.
  Through these many years, their annual Christmas letter was something 
that we looked forward to. In many years, in personal notes in those 
very letters, they even thanked us for our friendship. Berkley also 
stayed in touch with a friendly Valentine note each year to Barbara, my 
wife. With Berkley's passing, we are saddened to know that these tokens 
of friendship have now come to an end.
  Berkley's story is an inspiration for younger generations of 
Americans who are pursuing their dreams. It is never too early to dream 
big. This was how Berkley Bedell was dreaming as a 16-year-old: He 
became an entrepreneur. Berkley launched a fishing tackle business with 
Jack, his brother. It was called the Berkley Fly Company. I am told he 
started the company with $50 from paper route money. He started tying 
fly fishing lures in his bedroom.
  Pouring years of sweat equity into the family business boosted the 
local economy and created jobs in his beloved Iowa Great Lakes. His 
tenacious leadership developed a strong workforce for what was then 
called Berkley Industries. That company, which is now called Pure 
Fishing, is today one of the leading fishing tackle manufacturers in 
the world.
  At 98 years young, Berkley didn't let age slow him down by any 
stretch of the imagination. He remained active in public policymaking 
and immersed in electoral politics in Iowa. Usually, at least once a 
year, he called on me here in Washington, in the Hart Office Building, 
to tell me about some legislative issue he was interested in, and we 
worked together on some of those legislative issues. Everything here in 
Washington is so political, so this may sound very unusual, and maybe 
it is unusual today: Despite our differences in political 
philosophies--he was a Democrat; I am a Republican--we both appreciated 
how crucial it was to engage the next generation in civic life.
  Berkley's leadership and legacy will be remembered for generations to 
come. I am proud to have called him a very good, good friend.
  Barbara and I extend our condolences to his sons, Ken and Tom, and to 
Joanne, his daughter.
  Your dad made a big footprint in his life's journey.
  As my former colleague in the House of Representatives, Berkley later 
became my constituent when I was elected to serve here in the U.S. 
Senate. I never knew Berkley Bedell to stop advocating for his 
community or for the good of our Nation. It became Berkley's lifelong 
hallmark to leave God's green Earth better than he had found it for 
generations to come.
  I wish Godspeed to my good friend Berkley Bedell, who joins Elinor, 
his beloved wife, in eternal life.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I was in my office and just learned, by 
Senator Grassley's floor speech, about the passing of Berkley Bedell, 
and I just wanted to add my voice to his.
  He was a wonderful man. I served with him in the House of 
Representatives. Spirit Lake was his home area in Iowa. He was a really 
knowledgeable man when it came to issues of agriculture, and I didn't 
learn until many years later that he was a very successful businessman 
in the fishing tackle business, if I remember correctly, and sporting 
goods. He had many interests.
  He was a spirited, friendly, good person who worked hard at his job 
and was a credit to the U.S. House of Representatives, regardless of 
party, and I think Senator Grassley's remarks reflect that.
  I am going to miss his annual Christmas card. He and his wife--she 
passed away just recently, as well--would send a card about the comings 
and goings of their big, old family. It was a big oversized card, and I 
always looked forward to it.
  I feel honored to have been able to serve with him. I thank my 
colleague and friend Senator Grassley from Iowa for paying tribute to 
him.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. 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. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                        The World Bank and China

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, last week, despite the objections of the 
United States, the World Bank adopted a plan for lending more than $1 
billion annually to China.
  China is the world's second largest economy, and its per capita 
income is well above the level at which countries are supposed to 
graduate from needing World Bank assistance. American tax dollars 
should not be used, even indirectly, for lending to wealthier 
countries, particularly when they violate human rights.
  China seeks legitimacy through international institutions for its bad 
practices, including for its own predatory lending through the Belt and 
Road Initiative. Despite what the recent World Bank Group's Country 
Partnership Framework reads, China is not an example developing 
countries should follow.
  To sum up on this point, China has the second largest economy in the 
world, and it still wants to be considered a developing country and 
lend taxpayers' dollars around the world in order for there to be a 
greater Communist influence. As taxpayers, we should not stand for that 
to happen.


             78th Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor

  Mr. President, on another point, this past weekend marked the 78th 
anniversary of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor--a raid that plunged the 
United States into World War II. Almost 2,500 U.S. soldiers lost their 
lives that day.
  I am proud of the many Iowans who have served and sacrificed for our 
great country. Earlier this year, three of these people returned to 
Iowa to be laid to rest--Robert J. Bennett, William L. Kvidera, and 
Bert E. McKeeman.
  I honor them and all of our servicemembers for their sacrifices in 
serving our people, protecting our constitutional rights and the 
freedom and liberties we have.
  I yield the floor.


                       Nomination of Stephen Hahn

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am going to take a chance this afternoon 
and vote for one of the President's nominees. Some of my colleagues 
have come up to me and said I am making a big mistake, and I hope I am 
not.
  His name is Stephen Hahn. He is a medical doctor and an oncologist 
from MD Anderson in Texas, and he has been named to serve as the Food 
and Drug Administration Commissioner.
  This is a relatively small agency by Federal standards that has a 
major-size impact on the lives of Americans and beyond. I think it is 
one of our most important agencies. It regulates so many things 
relating to safety and quality of life, and Dr. Hahn would come to this 
position at an auspicious moment in our history.
  I refer, of course, to the fact that we are now battling a vaping 
epidemic across the United States of America.
  The Presiding Officer, from Utah, and I have worked on this together, 
and I thank him for his leadership in this regard.
  I look at Dr. Hahn and I think of all the questions that I have asked 
him. I had a face-to-face meeting with him in my office and then had 
him on the phone last night for another half hour, and he was very 
patient in answering my questions.

[[Page S6973]]

  I asked him about the vaping crisis we face, the epidemic that we 
face. He readily concedes that this is something he feels very strongly 
about.
  The latest disclosure from the youth tobacco report suggests that 28 
percent or more of high school students across the United States are 
currently using e-cigarettes or vaping. Yesterday, I had a group of 
high school students from New York who asked to see me, and they said: 
Senator, you are wrong. It is over half.
  A majority of the students in high school now are using JUUL devices, 
or vaping devices, and these flavors, and they have developed nicotine 
addictions, which have become controlling in their lives and it affects 
the way they feel and the way they perform as students.
  That is why it is so important, from my point of view, for Dr. Hahn 
to make this a major priority. He assured me that he would. He reminded 
me that he is a lung cancer doctor, and we had a long conversation 
about my father, who died of that disease, and tobacco and the impact 
it had on his life. I felt sincerity on the part of the doctor when he 
was discussing this.
  We talked about working with Dr. Azar, who has been an ally in this 
conversation about controlling vaping devices and cigarettes.
  He said that regardless of how I voted for him, he would look forward 
to working with me. I am going to vote for him as the new FDA 
Commissioner. It is a leap of faith because I am not certain where the 
President of the United States is at this moment.
  The Presiding Officer was at a meeting a couple of weeks ago in the 
White House, and I have commended him for the questions he asked there, 
hoping to hold the President and First Lady to their promise of 
September 15 to really take on this epidemic of vaping and e-
cigarettes. I don't know at this moment whether he is going to continue 
in that effort or whether the vaping industry has diverted him to a 
different point of view.
  Dr. Hahn may find himself in a compromised position soon, and I told 
him as much. If it comes to the point where the President has abandoned 
his effort against vaping and the industry is going to prevail, then, I 
am afraid that Dr. Hahn is going to be wearing the collar for some of 
the things that follow. Even though he may not even agree with the 
President's conclusion, he will be working for the President as part of 
his administration.
  Dr. Hahn said to me: I don't want to be known in history as the head 
of the FDA who saw this epidemic grow dramatically when it comes to 
vaping by young people.
  I am going to give him my vote, and I do it with the hope that he 
will have a persuasive voice with Dr. Azar and the administration to 
move in the right direction.
  I applauded President Trump--which is unusual from my side of the 
aisle--when he made his initial decision to take action against e-
cigarettes, and I would like to applaud him again. I hope he will 
resume this effort. I hope the First Lady, who rarely gets engaged in 
issues but seems to feel very strongly about this, will join us in 
persuading the President to keep true to his promise of September 15.
  I will be supporting Dr. Hahn's nomination for FDA Commissioner.


                Remembering the Reverend Dr. Clay Evans

  Mr. President, last Friday night was an amazing evening. I went to 
the Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church on the South Side of Chicago, 
not too far from where the White Sox play baseball.
  There was a Friday night memorial service for the longtime pastor of 
that church, the Reverend Clay Evans. He actually divided the service 
up and said, Friday night is for the politicians and government people; 
Saturday morning will be the memorial service for the members of the 
church. A lot of people showed up on Friday night because a lot of us 
considered Clay Evans to be a friend.
  He was more than a friend. He was a legend. The Reverend Clay Evans 
died peacefully at his home the day before Thanksgiving at the age of 
94. Let me tell you a little bit about him.
  If you ever had the good fortune to witness the Reverend Dr. Clay 
Evans preach, you were lucky. With his rousing sermons, his soulful 
baritone voice and ``the Ship,'' which is what he called the legendary 
Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church choir behind him, Reverend Evans 
was mesmerizing.
  His sermons gave hope to the downhearted. His singing could bring you 
to your feet. His Sunday services were so moving and so uplifting that 
the legendary Sam Cooke used to come and attend for inspiration.
  Even in Chicago, the birthplace of modern Black gospel music, the 
home of Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland, Mavis Staples, and so many 
others, the Reverend Clay Evans stood out for the power of his 
preaching.
  But it wasn't just his beautiful voice that drew people in. Clay 
Evans was a man of faith, integrity, and moral courage. In the 1960s, 
he helped persuade Dr. Martin Luther King to come to Chicago and use it 
as his base as Dr. King sought to expand the civil rights movement. It 
was not a popular position at the time, believe me.
  Chicago power brokers, fearful of the unrest in the streets, warned 
Black ministers: Don't let Dr. King into your churches. Many of them 
listened to that warning and turned him away--not Clay Evans.
  He invited Dr. King to speak at his church. He opened the doors of 
the ``Ship'' to Operation Breadbasket, the Southern Christian 
Leadership Conference's economic justice project. Then, he persuaded 
other Chicago ministers and churches to join him.
  He paid a price for it. Offers of construction loans he needed to 
build his church were withdrawn when he made this controversial 
decision. Building permits were withheld for several years.
  But Chicago, over time, became more just. Thanks to the work of 
Reverend Evans, Dr. Martin Luther King, and the man whom Evans 
ordained, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and many others, Operation 
Breadbasket helped to open up thousands of jobs for Black Chicagoans in 
previously all-White grocery chains and companies.
  Years ago, Reverend Evans told a Chicago Tribune reporter: ``I try to 
embody the principles of Christianity, and for me that means being 
dedicated to freedom and equality.'' For him, faith was not just what 
you believed; it was the way he lived.
  Clay Evans was born in 1925 into a large, church-going family in 
Brownsville, TN. His family were sharecroppers. He was one of nine 
kids. At night, he liked to listen to jazz music on the radio.
  He moved to Chicago in 1945, part of the Great Migration that has 
enriched that city in so many ways.
  The most successful man he knew in Brownsville, TN, was an 
undertaker, and that is what Clay Evans thought he would become in 
Chicago, but he couldn't afford the tuition for mortuary school. He 
took jobs where he found them. He worked at a pickle factory, as a 
window washer. He drove a truck delivering pies. He was working at the 
Brass Rail cocktail lounge in downtown Chicago when they prompted him 
to join in song and marveled at his voice. He might have been a 
successful nightclub performer, but he felt called to the ministry.
  He attended the Chicago Baptist Institute and was ordained a Baptist 
minister in 1950. He would later study at both the Northern Baptist 
Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago Divinity School.
  He founded the Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in 1958 and 
served as pastor for 42 years. He used radio and later TV to bring his 
ministry to homes throughout the Midwest and South and to introduce 
Black gospel music to the Nation.
  Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, or ``The Ship,'' as it is 
affectionately known, quickly became one of the most influential 
churches in Chicago.
  He helped to launch the careers of nearly 90 up-and-coming young 
ministers, including Mother Consuella York, the first woman to be 
ordained a Baptist minister in the city of Chicago.
  He ordained the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and, in 1971, the two 
ministers cofounded Operation PUSH to encourage African-American self-
help.
  Carved into his wooden pulpit was one of his favorite sayings: It is 
no secret what God can do. What God did through his servant Clay Evans 
helped to increase hope and justice in Chicago and far beyond.
  I remember when, as a downstate Congressman, I made my early trips to

[[Page S6974]]

Chicago to meet the movers and the shakers. Reverend Clay Evans was 
high on that list, and, as luck would have it, at one of the dinners we 
were seated next to one another. He leaned over to me--I knew exactly 
who he was--and he said: Congressman, I am Reverend Clay Evans.
  I said: That is not what I heard. I heard you are Reverend Chicago.
  He laughed and he looked down. He said: Well, they call me that from 
time to time.
  That is the kind of respect that he commanded, not just because of 
his ministry but also because he was such an integral part of the faith 
scene in that big city.
  We got to be friends, and I was always looking forward to the times 
we could get together.
  With a choir led by his sister, Lou Della Evans-Reid, Pastor Evans 
produced and recorded over 40 gospel albums--11 that charted on and 2 
that topped the Billboard Gospel Albums Chart.
  His first No. 1 gospel hit was called ``I'm Going Through,'' released 
in 1993. The title song talks about staying on the righteous road, no 
matter how steep the climb, how large the obstacles.
  Reverend Evans would sing:

       I'm going through. I'm going through no matter what they 
     may do. The world behind, heaven in view, I'm going through.

  The Reverend Clay Evans walked that righteous road. He overcame 
obstacles and widened the road so others could follow. He is certainly 
going to be missed, and the crowd of speakers Friday night is just 
evidence of the many lives that he touched.
  My wife Loretta and I want to offer our condolences to his wife of 
nearly 74 years, Lutha Mae, their children, their grandchildren, and 
their great-grandchildren, and all of those in the family of Clay Evans 
who tried to maintain a warm smile at a time of sadness for many of 
them.
  What he has left behind is something that we will all point to for 
years to come.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.


                          Federal Regulations

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, on Monday I spoke at the annual meeting of 
the Missouri Farm Bureau, and, in our State, as in, frankly, almost 
every other State, the No. 1 economic activity in terms of value 
produced is agriculture.
  Where we live in the middle of the country, we do better in an 
economy that focuses on growing things and making things than we do on 
an economy that focuses more on giving advice--not that we don't want 
to give a lot of advice, but the truth is we don't want to get a lot of 
advice, either.
  So there is nothing wrong with a service-based economy, and there is 
nothing wrong with an important service sector in our economy, but 
America, in so many ways, was built on a productive economy, on an 
economy that produced something and something tangible. I think we have 
a chance to see those things happen again.
  Where we are located, almost exactly in the middle of the country, 
the Mississippi River Valley is the biggest piece of contiguous 
agricultural land in the world. Compared to the near competitors in 
size, it is the only one of them that has its own built-in, natural 
transportation center.
  In fact, there are more miles of navigable river in the Mississippi 
River Valley than in the rest of the world put together. I didn't say 
more river than the rest of the world put together because that 
wouldn't be true, but more miles of river that you can actually 
navigate--river you can use as an avenue of transportation and commerce 
than everywhere else in the world put together.
  For an economy that is trying to reach out to the world or trying to 
efficiently compete, that is a big advantage.
  So at the Farm Bureau meeting, at least three of the things the 
people I talked to were most interested in were regulation, 
transportation, and trade.
  When it comes to regulation, Missouri farm families understand that 
many of the best things that have happened to them in the past 3 years 
have been the things that didn't happen. There was a terrible 
regulation proposed--waters of the U.S.--in which the EPA was trying to 
decide that their authority over navigable water would be authority 
over all the water. Suddenly, navigable water had become, under the 
Obama EPA, any water that could run into any water that could run into 
any water that could run into any water that eventually would run into 
navigable water. If that is how we want to define it, the Congress 
should decide that, not the EPA.
  I stood on this floor many times during that terrifying time when the 
EPA was about to take over anything that related to water, from the new 
sidewalk in front of your house to whether you pave your driveway to 
whether you could set a utility pole without EPA approval.
  With the Farm Bureau map of Missouri, I think 99.7 percent of our 
State would have met the new EPA definition of the water the EPA would 
regulate. The other 0.3 percent, I think, were sinkholes that went 
directly back into the middle of the Earth. So virtually 100 percent of 
all Missourians would have been affected by that.
  It would have slowed the economy in an incredible way because the EPA 
could never have exercised effectively the jurisdiction they were 
asking for. The good news is, it didn't happen.
  The Trump administration moved forward with a Clean Water Act that 
made more sense. They listened to rural America. They listened to the 
people who build houses, to the people who provide power, and to the 
people who provide jobs, and they said: We are not going to go in that 
direction.
  Then there was the Obama Clean Power Plan, which sounds like a good 
thing. Clean power--I am not opposed to that, and I don't know anybody 
who is. We want power to be as clean as you can reasonably expect it to 
be. But the Obama Clean Power Plan was so aggressive in its approach 
that where I live, the average utility bill at home and at work would 
have doubled in about 10 years.
  Well, lots of things work at today's utility rate--or some gradual 
increase of today's utility rate--that just frankly wouldn't work if 
the utility bill doubled.
  That didn't happen either. In fact, we reversed course, and there is 
now an affordable clean energy rule making its way into law and 
regulation that really understands that.
  Again, if you at home write your utility check and then write it out 
of your checkbook again, a lot of things that you would do at your 
house you wouldn't be able to do if you had to pay your utility bill 
twice. Frankly, the job you may have may not be there if you had to pay 
your utility bill twice.
  Also, when thinking about making something in America today--and I 
think there is a lot of interest in bringing manufacturing that has 
gone overseas back to this country for lots of reasons, but when you 
think about making something in America today, the first question you 
would ask yourself would be this: Can we do what we want to do and pay 
the utility bill? The second question would be this: Does the 
transportation work for what we want to do? If the answer to either of 
those questions is no, then there is no reason to ask a third question. 
There is no reason to talk about workforce. There is no reason to talk 
about tax structure in the place you are thinking about locating. There 
is no reason to ask any other question if you can't do what you want to 
do, pay the utility bill, and still have some profit.
  There is no reason to talk about--if you can't do what you want to 
do--having a transportation system that allows you to do what you want 
to do. Those things are critically important, and they were critically 
important at the Farm Bureau meeting. They certainly understood it 
takes good highways, good State roads, and it takes a strong 
understanding of connecting highways, roads, railroads, and water 
together that will allow you to compete.
  The last continuing resolution on this issue that we passed just a 
few weeks ago actually funded the fifth year of the highway bill that 
was passed 4 years ago. It provided for 5 years of authority but only 4 
years of money.
  That $7.6 billion allows the transportation systems in our States and 
many things in our communities to happen. It allows county bridges to 
be built.

[[Page S6975]]

Missouri would lose $350 million in Federal highway funds if we hadn't 
figured out how to fund that fifth year, which we did figure out just a 
few days ago. Knowing that is going to happen allows people to begin to 
look forward to other things.


              United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement

  Mr. President, on trade, I was predicting on Monday that we would get 
to the USMCA before the end of the year. I was pleased on Tuesday when 
it was announced that we had an agreement between the House and the 
administration.
  The votes had been there for a long time to pass this, but the House 
had to pass it first. So it is important to understand that the 
election has consequences. Speaker Pelosi got to decide and got to do 
some final negotiation, but trade is important.
  Trade policy, tax policy, and regulatory policy are the three Federal 
policies that make a difference in how competitive we are and how 
strong our economy is. Certainly, when you have our No. 1 and 2 trading 
partners--Mexico, our No. 1 trading partner, and Canada, our No. 2 
trading partner--involved, clearly, when they are the only two 
countries that we share a border with in the continental United States, 
for the neighborhood to do well, it is important.
  What has happened in Mexico since NAFTA is incredible. What has 
happened in the United States in a positive way is also incredible. So, 
hopefully, we will see the continuation of the commitment to have a 
vote in the House this year and a vote in the Senate as soon as we meet 
the deadlines the law requires--the waiting periods--once we get a bill 
in the Senate. A lot of people are going to be relieved to know that 
there is more certainty about that.


                       Tribute to Leighton Grant

  Mr. President, I also want to take a moment today to recognize 
Leighton Grant, for whom I asked earlier to have floor privileges for 
the rest of this Congress.
  Leighton Grant has really been critical both to my work in 
appropriations and in our work on foreign policy in our office. He has 
handled many of our national defense matters in the 116th Congress.
  Leighton's 15 years of service to our country, both in Active Duty 
and as a civilian in the U.S. Air Force, have allowed him to cultivate 
a deep understanding of national security issues that affect the State 
of Missouri and affect our country. His prior experience at the 
Pentagon, where he worked extensively on generating the Air Force's 
budget and strategy documents, has been particularly valuable in my 
work as a defense appropriator.
  The air defense of the country is critical. The appropriations 
decisions we make are critical. The order we keep them in is critical--
keeping defense lines active so that we are not stopping and starting 
to meet our future needs--so doing that in a reasonable way matters.
  Leighton certainly understands that, and he should. He joined the Air 
Force in 2004 as a command and control battle management operator. He 
served four deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the global 
War on Terror. He also deployed to Qatar and Jordan, as well as to 
Latin America.
  He holds a bachelor's degree in aeronautics, as well as a master's 
degree in project management. While working as our military fellow, he 
completed work at the Air War College and obtained a certificate of 
legislative studies at Georgetown University.
  He has contributed greatly. He has helped support us in veteran 
casework, Defense appropriations, and military construction projects 
that will impact our State.
  On Sunday night, I ran into a mom who said: I just want to thank you 
for all you did to get my son out of Syria. This was a young man who 
got caught up while hiking in Syria. She knew Leighton Grant's name 
because Leighton Grant took that seriously and, after several weeks of 
working, helped to get him out of Syria. That is the kind of thing he 
has helped us do. He has worked on matters that relate to Iran, 
Colombia, Australia, China, and other areas. I am glad to have him.
  I want to thank his wife Jennifer, his daughter Marleigh, and his son 
Cyrus for supporting his career as he serves the Nation. I wish him and 
his family well as they embark on a new chapter. I hope this year of 
working with the Senate and Congress, with the vast breadth of issues 
he has helped us with, turns out to be as valuable to him as his help 
has been to us.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Daines). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                          Tax Cut and Jobs Act

  Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, it has been almost a year since I was sworn 
in. I thought it was a good time to kind of reminisce a little bit 
about the first year of being a U.S. Senator from Indiana. I want to 
cite that, when you come from a place like Indiana, it is where America 
really works. Think about it. We still believe in balanced budgets. We 
have rainy day funds. We take on big issues and talk about how we are 
going to pay for it, not borrow the money, throw it on the backs of our 
kids and grandkids.
  So, in being here now nearly a year, I want to reminisce back to what 
motivated me to stick my neck out and do it in the first place. I saw 
in November of 2016 that it looked like we might have a different 
dynamic here in our U.S. Government. I look back and see, in December 
of 2017, a Main Street entrepreneur, someone who has always lived by 
those rules of stick your neck out, take a risk. You don't really 
exceed mediocrity unless you do things that push the envelope a little 
bit now and then, but do it in the context of where it is sustainable.
  I noticed, in December of 2017, we finally got some legislation 
across the finish line that rewards enterprisers, rewards Main Street 
USA. That was in the Tax Cut and Jobs Act passed then. I did not know 
how it was going to unfold. Of course, even our CBO said it was going 
to end up costing the government, not rewarding it through more 
enterprise, greater revenues. Well, we have now got some evidence from 
it. We have got the hottest economy that we have had in modern history, 
and, yes, we are raising record revenues, despite having lower tax 
rates.
  Well, that sounds like the math wouldn't work out. Well, there is a 
point, especially in small business on Main Street, that you will not 
keep enterprising, you will not work hard if you end up having to send 
too much to a place like this that over the years did not, to me, look 
like it was delivering good value. So we have been vindicated; it is 
working.


                               Healthcare

  Mr. President, so what else has happened in this first year? That 
happened before I got here. I ran because I wanted to weigh in on 
things like the cost of healthcare. I tackled that in my own business 
back in 2008. I found a way to make it consumer driven to where the 
people that use healthcare actually have some skin in the game.
  I did it in a way I wanted to emphasize wellness, not remediation. I 
tried as a State legislator back in 2015--served 3 years in the Indiana 
State House--and realized how hard that was going to be. I had three 
really good bills that now, ironically, are pertinent here on the main 
stage. I could not even get a committee hearing. The healthcare 
industry has dug in to the point where I think, if they don't start 
embracing the fact that they need to reform themselves, they could be 
under a drastically new system.
  So we had a President that was elected that wasn't going to be happy 
with business as usual. I was hoping that we might parlay some of that 
into real results here. Well, we have worked a year on trying to reform 
the healthcare system, and we are really not any further ahead than 
what we were a year ago. That is because the system is digging in and 
fighting it. That doesn't mean I am going to give up. That is kind of 
bad news, other than the fact that 80 Senators have come forward to 
say, Hey, you are not doing a good job. We have got suggestions. That 
ought to be a real wake-up signal that you get with it.


                          Judicial Nominations

  Mr. President, one thing we have done here that has been immensely 
valuable is that we, as conservatives, have

[[Page S6976]]

been able to impact our court system, which got lopsided over the 
years, to where many laws that were passed here get into the court 
system and then either get overturned or get impacted in ways that did 
not have the original intent. We here in our own conference, I think, 
have addressed that imbalance, and I think here soon we will have 
appointed, in the 3 years that President Trump has been at the helm, 
the 50th circuit judge. That is impressive. We are also filling slots 
now that we made a change in the rules here to not only get judges 
appointed but also to fill a lot of the slots in our government that 
are vacant. So that is good news.


                            Economic Growth

  Mr. President, you don't hear much about the fact that household 
incomes have increased more than $5,000 a family in the 3 years since 
President Trump was elected. It went up a total of $1,000 in the 16 
years through the Bush and Obama administrations. That should be the 
banner, the headline, and sadly, we are mired in other discussions that 
I will address here in a moment.
  I believe in the long run that, if we are going to change the 
dynamic, we will need more disruption in an institution that, in the 
year I have been here, I have been surprised how many people come here 
actually wanting more, not realizing that when you are running 
trillion-dollar deficits, that is a bad business partner. That is a 
business partner that I would hedge my bets and maybe find other ways 
to pay the way in the long run. Sadly, I don't think we are going to 
fix that component until we probably have a crisis or two, and then we 
solve it in that fashion.
  So the budget which is, in my opinion, in the long run what we need 
to do here, if we want to be helpful to the American public, it has got 
to straighten itself out. Whether that will happen, I do not know.


              United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement

  Mr. President, let's talk about some of the things that have been 
occupying time here, and let's talk about something that looks like, 
finally, it is going to get across the finish line: USMCA. We hear 
about trade issues. It is correct to be concerned about trade. Our 
focus is normally on the Chinese. I do believe this has been the time 
to take them on, call them out for their bad behavior when it comes to 
stealing intellectual property, forced technology transfers, 
manipulating currencies, creating gluts, dumping it on the market; no 
one else is doing that. Until President Trump came along, nobody else 
was talking about it. He was over in Europe recently, reminding our 
allies that, when you are running trillion-dollar deficits, you can no 
longer afford to be paying the bills for the rest of the world. That is 
business as usual, thank goodness, because we simply can't afford it 
anymore.
  USMCA reflects arrangements between our two largest trading partners, 
Canada and Mexico--many inequities there, mostly because we were kind 
in those original agreements, but it needed to be changed because we 
cannot sustain that in the long run. This is going to help 
manufacturing. It is going to help farmers. The number of jobs it will 
create, even in this low unemployment context, are amazing.
  When you look at that, it finally gets across the finish line, and we 
now, over the next couple weeks, couple months--who knows--we are 
dealing with what is going to happen in one of the biggest political 
events that has occurred in the history of this country. All I can tell 
you is we will get through it.
  I don't think we are going to find out any more than what we know 
currently, but hopefully, when we do get it resolved, we are going to 
give full credit due to getting tasks done like the USMCA, lowering 
taxes, creating more enterprise across this country, and hopefully 
relying less on this institution in all parts of our daily lives until 
it sets the example that it starts to live within its means, live 
sustainably. And then we start tackling issues like the cost of 
healthcare, where we start talking about climate, when we start talking 
about the issues that future generations will have to deal with and 
that are currently paying all the bills through the money that we are 
borrowing, hopefully that dynamic will change, and hopefully, we will 
be back on track in November 2020 with the leadership that has put us 
in a position to actually change things here to where we do live in a 
way in the future that is sustainable, setting the example starting 
right here.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from Georgia.


                         Farewell to the Senate

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I always come to the well of the Senate 
with a purpose. I try not to talk too long, and I try to make my point 
and get out before I make a big mistake. When you are saying thank you 
to people who have done so much for you, it is almost always the time 
where you do make a mistake and you leave somebody out here and 
somebody out there and somebody out here. I am going to do a little 
something I have never done before. I know one thing, I will leave 
nobody out.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
a list of names of my staff.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   Personal Office Staff and Interns

       Monica Heil, Jeremy Johnson, Jay Sulzmann, Amanda Maddox, 
     Marie Gordon, Charles Spry, Michael Gay, Toni Brown, Jody 
     Redding, Kathie Miller, Nancy Bobbitt, Nancy Brooks, Tommy 
     Nguyen, Maureen Rhodes, Sheila Robinson, Andrew Blascovich, 
     Michael Black.
       Laura Gower, Will Dent, Jack Overstreet, Gus Youmans, 
     Elizabeth McKay, Tripp Adams, Hanna Yu, Preston Miller, 
     Kristine Nichols, Brad Williamson, Ryan Williams, Brooke 
     Doss, Drew Ferguson, Connor Rabb, Taylor McDowell, Logan 
     Purvis.
       Caroline Maughon, Kate Hunter, Nyjel Jackson, Jason 
     Maynard, Max Turner, Hannah Kitzmiller, Colleen O'Connell, 
     Ken Ciarlatta, Seth MacKenney, Riya Vashi, Matt Sartor, 
     Sahiti Namburar, Olivia Kelly, Frederick Severtson, Floyd 
     Buford.

                           VA Committee Staff

       Adam Reece, Thomas Coleman, Reider Grunseth, Asher Allman, 
     DeKisha Williams, Barry Walker, Leslie Campbell, Annabell 
     McWherter, John Ashley, Brian Newbold, Lindsay Dearing, David 
     Shearman, Patrick McGuigan, Jillian Workman, Emily Blair, 
     Pauline Schmitt.

                         Ethics Committee Staff

       Deborah Sue Mayer, Karen Gorman, Cami Morrison, Geoff 
     Turley, Madeline Dang, Shane Kelly, Katharine Quaglieri, 
     Kelly Selesnick, Charlotte Underwood, Danny Remington, Katie 
     Jordan, Gabrielle Quintana, Taylore Presta, Taisha Saintil, 
     Mary Yuengert.

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, it contains a list of literally hundreds 
of people who have helped me get to where I am today in this Chamber. A 
few of them are in this Chamber with me right now and a lot of them 
were here Tuesday of last week when the Senate was very kind to give me 
a sendoff. In fact, I thought they were so happy I was leaving, I had 
done something really wrong, and I was saving them some trouble, but 
they were really happy because we were being happy together about the 
years we have had together.
  I have had 15 years together with Members of the U.S. Senate, and it 
has been the greatest 15 years of my life. I learned as much about 
myself as I learned about anybody else, but I learned even more about 
my country, which I love so passionately.
  I want to take a few minutes today to talk about a few people I want 
to thank for what they said about me, what they have done for me, and 
how they have helped me. I wish to also tell the people who may be 
listening to this show or watching C-SPAN today to understand there are 
a lot of people who make us work. We do all the mistakes by ourselves 
without any help, but the good things we do take a lot of help. They 
take a lot of strength and a lot of time and a lot of commitment.
  The 100 Members of this Senate sitting here have literally hundreds 
of people behind them who help them do their job they otherwise 
couldn't do. I represent 10 million people; Senators from California, 
almost 30 million people; from New York, almost 15 million people. All 
of the States have different populations, but all of them have a lot of 
people who need help.
  That is what Members of the Senate are there to do, along with the 
Members of the House, and that is to give them the help they need from 
the country they love and the country they were born in or became a 
naturalized citizen in.
  I want to talk today more about the hard work--the hard work of 
licking stamps and envelopes when I first got

[[Page S6977]]

in politics. I don't do that anymore. We punch a computer key, and it 
says ``reply all'' or ``distribute to all'' or ``send to all.'' 
Technology allows us to communicate at the drop of a hat.
  The biggest challenge I have every day communicating is because of 
what is on television beginning at midnight. President Trump usually 
makes a tweet about 3 o'clock in the morning, and the news starts. We 
get phone calls, our staff gets phone calls, and for the rest of the 
day we are responding to what he said at 3 a.m., knowing the next 
morning at 3 a.m. there will be a new tweet. There will be a new issue, 
and he will be setting the pace. During the afternoon, when people 
respond to it, their response to it will be setting the pace. All of us 
are reacting in the third person or for the third time. It is a 
challenging job.
  With communications like it is and 24/7 television like it is and the 
media like they are, it is really a challenge. The men and women who 
work for me help me to make that communication. I want to, first of 
all, start off by thanking them.
  The lady sitting to my left--on the screen, I guess that would make 
it your right--Miss Amanda Maddox. Amanda came to work for me a number 
of years ago when I stole her from one of the House Members because I 
knew she was the best person on the floor of the House. She was not an 
easy steal because I knew she was a tough lady, but I knew I needed a 
tough lady and somebody who could help. She has been a tremendous help 
for me through a lot of difficulties we never expected, neither she nor 
I--health challenges that I had, challenges I had in terms of my staff, 
training for trips I took, going on trips I took, dealing with the 
media during things we took on that were tough. Every day she did it 
with skill and aplomb. Every day she did it right, and every day she 
helped me look much better than I deserved.
  I look in the mirror so I know what I start out with, but when I get 
up and open my mouth, I can do even more damage. Amanda keeps me from 
doing that. She is a first-class lady.
  Another lady who is not here today, unfortunately, is Marie Gordon, 
who is in Atlanta. Marie works under Amanda. She works for me in 
Atlanta, GA.
  They are really my communication. You heard of left brain-right 
brain. This is my left brain. Marie is my right brain. They make me 
work, and I know how many times I owe to say thank you to them, and it 
is more than I could ever come to. They have been wonderful to me, and 
I will miss them a lot as I retire, but I know they will be here to 
help somebody else along the same way who will take my place and do 
just as good a job or better.
  I want to, personally, publicly, thank Amanda and Marie for what they 
have done and how they made me look good.
  A harder job is getting me around with my current difficulties I am 
having in terms of movement.
  Where is Logan?
  Logan is on the floor somewhere. He is my pusher. He is not the kind 
of pusher you are thinking about. He is my wheelchair pusher. He 
doesn't sell anything else but wheelchairs, but he does a great job 
with it and gets me in a lot of bad places I am not supposed to be able 
to get into, but he does it safely. We haven't had any accidents, and 
he makes me look good. I could not do without Logan and his talent and 
his willingness to get up early hours to get me in a truck or get me in 
an airplane or get me in my own car and get me to the places I need to 
go safely and on time and get me back home to see my wife if we are in 
Atlanta or back here to see my many supporters in the office when they 
need me.
  He is my instant communication man. That means he is also my right 
brain. He is in there thinking ahead to make sure we have enough time 
to get where we need to go and have enough places to stop for the 
restroom, which when you are in a wheelchair, that is something you 
have to think about from time to time and all the other little parts of 
life you take for granted until you can't do them anymore. When 
somebody helps you do them, they are a lifetime friend, and Logan 
Purvis is a lifetime friend for me in what he does.
  There is a real tall guy somewhere in the room who is good golfer. 
His name is Trey Kilpatrick. Trey has been with me for 10 years. He 
started with me in my third reelection or second reelection--one of my 
reelections--in the first half of this century. Sometimes elections 
seem like a century, not a day or not an hour but a century.
  Trey has done everything. He has made appointments; he has 
substituted for me; and he does an excellent job of that. He has given 
me advice on what not to say. When he does this, I know what it means. 
I know what it means from my wife, too, but when Trey does it, it means 
to shut up, you dummy. He gets me to shut up in time and not say a bad 
thing. That is a valuable person.
  He is also valuable because I can't play golf anymore, but I let him 
play in my stead, and he is a scratch golfer. For those of you who are 
listening or watching this, that means he will beat anybody who tries 
to beat him, and I hope to get half the money. If I don't get half the 
money, I just enjoy seeing him and his great talent.
  He has his third child coming pretty soon, so he is producing some 
good voters for us in about 15 or 20 years from now. I appreciate that 
as well. I appreciate Sally, his wife, and the sacrifice she has made 
to let him take as much time out of his life and her life as I have 
taken out of their lives.
  I appreciate those who have made me look good. They made me look good 
all the time, and I appreciate what they have done to help me along the 
way with my service in the U.S. Senate.
  There is another person I want to talk about for 1 minute. I will do 
it some more tomorrow. I will break it up, so I am not taking up all of 
the time of the Chair, but I want to take as much as I can right now to 
talk about Joan Kirchner Carr. I have a unique situation with the chief 
of staff. Joan Kirchner is my chief of staff. Her name is now Joan 
Carr. She changed her name because she married my previous chief of 
staff. She came with me as a deputy chief of staff and fell in love 
with my chief of staff, and they fell in love with each other. He is 
now the attorney general of Georgia. She married my chief of staff.
  I actually have pretty good luck for somebody who wants to get 
married. If you come to my office, you will find a husband or wife or 
something like that. That is not a bad thing to happen in Washington, 
DC.
  Joan has been fantastic. She wrote for AP. She covered me when I was 
almost a little guy. I first got elected in 1976, and she was working 
for AP at that time in the Georgia Legislature and wrote speeches about 
all the people who were in the legislature, and I was one of them. I 
was the minority leader. I was the minority leader of a group of 19 
Republicans who had 161 Democrats opposing them. Custer had better odds 
than we did. We didn't have good odds at all. She was a great writer, a 
great reporter, and I fell in love with her--not in the physical sense 
but in the platonic sense--because I knew how good she was at what she 
did.
  Over the years, she impressed me so much, I brought her along on 
whatever campaign I had. I brought her along to help me in the office I 
had. She ultimately became my press secretary, my deputy chief of 
staff, my chief of staff, and my best friend. When you can cover all 
those bases at one time, you are doing pretty good, and Joan does 
exactly that.
  I am so grateful for all those who have helped me along the way, all 
those who gave a lot, all those who gave a little but mostly those who 
gave of themselves. Politicians are always asking for money; they are 
always talking about money; and they are always promising money. Money 
is fine, but that doesn't get you much of anything--but relationships 
are impossible to replace. You take a good relationship with somebody 
who has worked hard to help you get where you want to go, there is 
nothing better or more valuable in life. No contribution of money is 
worth anything more than just that act of love or that act of kindness 
or act of support that gets you where you are going.
  From this one guy who is leaving the U.S. Senate under his own power, 
but not as much as I used to have, I enjoyed my 15 years more than you 
would ever know, and I want to thank all those people who helped me get 
here and made it possible for me, particularly those I pointed out now 
and will point out later in my speeches this week. May God bless them, 
may God bless all of you, and may God bless the United States of 
America.

[[Page S6978]]

  I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The Senator from West Virginia.


                       Tribute to Johnny Isakson

  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I am pleased to be on the floor with my 
colleagues to honor our friend and our colleague, Johnny Isakson from 
Georgia. I could almost tell you he is probably hating this about now, 
but I want to get my two cents in. I don't need to read off his 
impressive resume or thank him for his service in the Georgia National 
Guard, his successful real estate business, his extensive public 
service, and all that he has done and accomplished in Congress.
  I want to talk about Johnny Isakson, my friend. You hear everybody in 
this body get up and we say: My colleague and my friend. Sometimes I am 
not sure we are really talking about friends, but I want to tell you, 
Johnny, I am not making this up. I am talking about you as my friend. I 
am not just being polite. You know me better than that.
  I will tell a little story, and he has heard me tell it, but when I 
was first elected to the House of Representatives in the year 2000, I 
was walking down the aisle, probably our first vote, had no idea really 
what I was doing, didn't know anybody in the 435-Member body, and I 
must have had it written all over my face because I was wandering, and 
this hand reaches out, and he says: Why don't you sit down here next to 
me, and we can talk about what is going on.
  That was my introduction to Johnny Isakson. We talked about what was 
going on on the floor. We talked about who his friends were. We talked 
about the fact that my mother's family was from Perry, GA, and I had 
some Georgia blood running through these veins.
  Johnny, as we have heard, doesn't care if you have been here 20 years 
or if you have been here 20 minutes, he wants to be a friend. I heard 
him say that the other day; that he has friends and then he has future 
friends. I have actually thought about that a lot over the holiday 
weekend. He doesn't care if you are a Republican or Democrat, from the 
North or the South--South will probably help a little bit--East or 
West, he has an innate ability to put everybody at ease. He doesn't 
count anybody as an enemy. We have been to the Prayer Breakfast. We 
have shared our highs and lows together in our respective lives. He 
never cares who gets the credit. He just cares about getting things 
done. I think you have seen that through everybody's wonderful tributes 
to Johnny. He brings people together. That is hard to do, but he leads 
by example. He has been a great example to me. You have been a great 
example to me. My colleague from North Dakota, Senator John Hoeven, has 
called you ``Mr. Congeniality of the Senate.'' I can't think of a 
better analogy. You are Mr. Congeniality, but you are also a very 
forceful, strong person with a steel spine to know what is right and 
what is wrong.

  The Bible asks, ``What does the Lord require of you?'' Johnny is 
living that answer: to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly 
with God. We could use a few more humble walkers around here, I think. 
We could sure use more Johnny Isaksons.
  You will be there cheering us on, I know, because your heart is with 
your many friends who are here. I will miss seeing you coming around 
the corner because our offices are very close. I will miss our car 
rides together and our golf games together. I will miss that extended 
hand in friendship, but I know that you will still be extending it from 
your home with your family and your many, many friends.
  I am really happy to be here. This is happy for me because I think it 
is happy for you. I think that as much as you probably regret leaving 
and feel there is more work to be done, you can go in peace and love 
and know that you have happy days ahead of you and a lot of well-
wishers on the way.
  Johnny, thanks a lot. Thanks for extending that hand of friendship. 
It meant so much to me then, as it does today. Good luck and Godspeed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues, like 
the Senator from West Virginia, and pay tribute to our friend Senator 
Johnny Isakson.
  It has been an incredible privilege to work with Senator Isakson. 
Senator Isakson and I got to know each other first through the 
bipartisan Senate Prayer Breakfast and then serving together on the 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Finance Committees. I have 
always appreciated his commitment to bipartisanship, problem-solving, 
and getting results for the people in his home State of Georgia and for 
people all across our country. Because of that commitment, Senator 
Isakson and I have worked together to cosponsor a number of pieces of 
legislation, including efforts to improve care for veterans and to make 
hearing aids available over-the-counter. We also partnered together to 
pass a resolution designating March 25 ``Cerebral Palsy Awareness 
Day.''
  In addition to being kind, thoughtful, and bipartisan, one thing 
stands out to me about Senator Isakson the most: his bravery in 
speaking out on issues regarding human dignity. He demonstrated that 
bravery early on in his career as a State senator who spoke out against 
a local anti-gay resolution. At a time when standing up for the rights 
of people of all sexual orientations wasn't easy or convenient, he did. 
That took real courage.
  In addition, I am in awe of Senator Isakson's bravery in sharing 
publicly his family's experience losing his grandson Charlie to an 
overdose. By opening up and sharing this tragedy, Senator Isakson 
helped reinforce that this crisis affects families from all walks of 
life. His public discussion has and continues to make a real difference 
as we work to break down the stigma that comes with addiction. I know 
he has continued working here in the Senate to prevent more families 
from experiencing a loss like his own.
  I am also grateful for Senator Isakson's leadership on behalf of our 
country's veterans. In June, Senator Isakson led a bipartisan Senate 
delegation to Normandy to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day 
landings. During that visit, I saw firsthand Johnny's incredible 
kindness and commitment to our country's veterans. I also saw how 
quickly he dismissed compliments and thanks directed his way to ensure 
that others got credit for their part in his success. I know that 
carries over to his tireless efforts and hard work on behalf of 
veterans as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.
  Above all, I appreciate Senator Isakson's friendship. He has 
represented the people of Georgia in the Senate with dignity, 
determination, and grit, as well as a really good sense of humor. He 
has made a real difference.
  As Senator Isakson confronts a health challenge of his own right now, 
I am confident that he will face it with the bravery, humility, and 
humor he has exemplified throughout his life and here in the Senate.
  Senator Isakson, we will all miss you terribly, but we are looking 
forward to traveling to Georgia to see you and to continue the many 
conversations that have made us all better people and better Senators 
and makes this country a better place.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. President, I know I am not in the right order, but 
since we have a gap here, I thought I would just jump in.
  I am honored to be here today for the Johnny Isakson memorial tribute 
part two. Being the lower person in the Senate on the totem pole here, 
I didn't get a chance to talk last week, but I did sit through the 
Senators' remarks, which I found very compelling.
  I have found Johnny Isakson to be very compelling. You know, there 
are times when you watch a movie or a TV show, and there are these 
special moments when two people meet, and there is one person who has 
that spark, who has that magic, and when they touch, when they embrace 
with a hug or a shake of the hands, all of a sudden, the other person 
realizes they are talking to somebody very special. That is Johnny 
Isakson. That moment is built around Johnny Isakson.
  From the first time I had the chance to meet him on January 3, 2018, 
I knew all of those things that are being said about his 
bipartisanship, about his friendliness, and about how he wants to work 
with people and how he cares about people were absolutely true. I could 
tell by the first handshake and the ``Welcome to the Senate, Doug.''
  I will say that I think meeting me and having that spark was a real 
test

[[Page S6979]]

of Senator Isakson more than anybody in this body because you have to 
understand that when we first met, it was about 5 days before his 
beloved Georgia Bulldogs were going to face the University of Alabama 
in the national championship game.
  For those who don't know this, I am telling you, you can think of 
``partisanship'' and ``tribalism'' as political terms here in 
Washington, DC, but if you ain't experienced football partisanship and 
football tribalism as far as SEC rivals, you ain't experienced nothing. 
So the fact that Johnny Isakson embraced me, a Democrat from his 
neighboring State of Alabama, was very, very special and something I 
will always cherish.
  I truly mean that, Johnny. I have watched you as a member of the HELP 
Committee with me. I have watched you in so many hearings and listened 
to you and your wisdom. That wisdom often came from personal 
experiences. Whether it was business or education or whether it was the 
tragedy with your grandson, everything about what you have done in the 
U.S. Senate has been personal.
  I think that is something we should all strive to do. Everything we 
do in this body needs to be personal because for all of our 
constituents, it is personal to us. It is personal to our States and 
personal to everyone, but we don't always seem to act that way. A lot 
of times, we act in a way that it seems to be more political than 
personal. I have never seen that in Senator Isakson. I have seen that 
time and again, where everything he has spoken about--whether or not I 
agreed with him was not the issue. I could tell that what he was 
speaking of was personal, that it meant something to him, and that he 
knew how it was going to affect those in the State of Georgia and 
across the United States.
  I can remember last year when we were moving toward trying to find a 
way to help farmers in south Georgia and south Alabama who had been so 
devastated by Hurricane Michael. This was crossing party lines. He and 
Senator Perdue and I talked a lot about how this was affecting people 
and people's lives and how frustrating it was for all of us to see the 
politics kind of take over for a period of--I don't know--4 or 5 months 
while these farmers suffered. That is the Johnny Isakson who reaches 
across the aisle. That is the Johnny Isakson who cares about people. 
That is the Johnny Isakson who goes to funerals and sits in the back of 
the room and then works to make sure he does the right thing for all 
those who could be affected.
  Johnny, I am going to miss you a lot. I enjoy our talks about 
football. I enjoy kidding you. I enjoy your ribbing me. But more 
importantly, I just enjoy the camaraderie. I enjoy the warmth, the 
feeling that I belong here. I, a Democrat from Alabama, belong in this 
body--maybe not after 2020. I ain't going to push you that far, Johnny, 
OK? I get that. But for me, there has always been a sense that you 
belong in this body and you have a voice, and it is an important voice. 
We need more of that.
  We need to make sure everything Johnny Isakson said is remembered in 
this body. We are about to go through some rough seas. The ship of 
state, as I have said before, is about to chart some rough seas. We 
need to remember the words of Senator Isakson as he leaves this body to 
make sure we continue to do the work.
  I think what we have done these last couple of weeks is reflective of 
the legacy of Johnny Isakson. Whereas what was going on in the House 
and what was dominating in the media--we still got an NDAA done, we 
still got the FUTURE Act done, and we are still, over in the House, 
negotiating USMCA. Things in this body can work if we work together and 
we make sure that whatever happens after the first of the year does not 
interfere with our ability to relate to each other and to our 
constituents and for the people of America.
  Johnny, I have been honored and privileged to serve with you. It will 
always be one of the greatest honors in my life to have been able to 
have served in this body with you. I wish you and your family nothing 
but the best in the future. I hope that you will continue to contact me 
during the football games and throughout so that we can commiserate the 
good, the bad, and the ugly about Georgia and Alabama football. I love 
you, and I appreciate you. Thank God you have been here.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I agree with my colleague from Alabama, 
Senator Jones. Senator Jones and I haven't been here as long as some of 
our other colleagues have been, but I think it is probably fair to say 
that when Senator Jones and I have a colleague who is departing or if 
the Presiding Officer has a colleague who is departing, there will be 
one day of farewell. Maybe there will be an hour's window in which we 
can come to the floor to say thank you or there will be a reception in 
the Mansfield Room. I think it is fair to say, as has my colleague 
Senator Jones, that I have been in line for a long time to get to this 
day to say thank you to Johnny Isakson.
  These tributes started when Senator Isakson first announced he would 
be retiring from the Senate. It is very fitting that they continue 
through this day because of the work he has pursued and because of his 
accomplishments but also because of the humanity that rests in his 
heart. All of us are better off because of his work.
  In my knowing him, I hope that a little bit of Johnny Isakson rubs 
off on all of us and that we can be here today, knowing that we are a 
better institution, better leaders, and better public servants because 
of his model.
  Senator Isakson has done a lot of things that have been discussed on 
the Senate floor. I don't know how much I can add, but I am going to 
add a few things to the kind words that have been said. So many people 
have said such great things.
  The first time Senator Isakson and I had an opportunity to really 
work together was on something that will benefit generations of 
Coloradans. It was the VA hospital in Colorado--something that may have 
shaved off some of the patience Senator Isakson has, which seems to be 
unending at times. This one, though, I am sure, took a little bit of a 
toll--the frustration with a very crazy collapse of a VA facility that 
had taken over a decade and--gosh--hundreds of millions of dollars to 
complete. It was a project that started out in the nineties but that 
didn't get done until about a year ago or so. It was a project that had 
started out at $300 million but that had ended up being over $2 
billion.
  Through it all, Senator Isakson was mindful of a very simple purpose, 
which was that this facility was to benefit the veterans who had given 
so much to this country. The first thing Senator Isakson said to me 
was: Don't worry. We are going to get this done, and we are going to 
make reforms so that this never happens again.
  Under Senator Isakson's leadership, we have seen changes at the VA, 
and we have also seen changes about how new facilities are going to be 
completed and built so that we can avoid the kinds of mistakes that led 
to the delays in Colorado.
  Ultimately, Senator Isakson knew that this would be the crown jewel 
in the Rocky Mountain region for veterans' service and veterans' care, 
and that is exactly what it continues to be. We have Senator Isakson to 
thank for the completion of that and the time on task it took to get 
the job done.
  Senator Isakson held a field hearing in Aurora, CO, with, I think at 
the time, Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson to find out what had happened, 
why the delays occurred, and then to fix it and to hold the people 
accountable who were responsible for the delays. That is the kind of 
leadership Senator Isakson provided.
  Throughout that process, I think I threatened to rename the 
colonoscopy unit after a couple of people, but for Senator Isakson, we 
should name the town after him for the work he did to complete that 
facility.
  I remember the first time I gave him a little bit of a treat from 
Colorado in order to thank him for his work. It was a box of Enstrom 
Toffee from a family company in western Colorado. It was a pretty 
incredible treat. I gave it to him and thought he had never had this 
before.
  He looked at it, and he said: Oh, Enstrom Toffee. I love this stuff. 
I used to give this out to my clients when I was in real estate.

[[Page S6980]]

  So I couldn't even surprise him with what I thought was a very 
special Colorado treat.
  Johnny is the kind of person who has the ability to cut through 
problems, to cut through the smoke, to cut through the haze and the fog 
of a challenge and go right to the merits of it, to very concisely riff 
on any issue at a moment's notice, cut to the heart of a problem, and 
provide a solution to that problem and to that challenge.
  As the old saying goes, you are known by the company you keep. When 
one looks around this Chamber, one sees the people who came to pay 
their thanks to Senator Isakson. It is pretty good company. He has done 
such great things for Georgia and for this country. I can't thank 
Senator Isakson enough for his leadership, for helping us all out in 
Colorado, and for making this country a better place.
  Senator Isakson, thank you for all that you have done.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to 
pay tribute to our good friend Senator Johnny Isakson of the great 
State of Georgia. I say ``ours'' because I know he is a friend to 
everyone in this Chamber. It was a real blow to me and, I know, to all 
of the Senators to hear that Senator Isakson wouldn't be seeking 
another term and that he would be leaving early.
  Over the years, Johnny and I have had a chance to partner on a number 
of bipartisan initiatives. He has established a reputation in this body 
as an honorable and hard-working Senator who cares deeply about his 
constituents. Beyond that, he is just a kind person. As we think about 
the accolades we could say about somebody, somebody who is kind to 
everyone they meet, that is about as nice a thing, I think, as you can 
say.

  What Johnny does has been demonstrated time and again in Congress. He 
develops trust and good working relationships, and he gets things done.
  As chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and a veteran himself, 
Johnny has taken on the difficult but critical task of making reforms 
to the VA to better deliver care to those who have fought for our 
country. Having been through some of those challenges with veterans in 
New Hampshire and seeing what they are facing with getting the care 
they need, to be able to go back to them and say that because of the 
work of Senator Isakson and Senator Tester, we now have the MISSION 
Act--which is bipartisan legislation to expand care and services to 
veterans--has been very reassuring.
  We also know that Senator Isakson is a fierce advocate for local 
priorities in his home State. I have a sister in Georgia, in Atlanta, 
and when I ask her about Senator Isakson, she speaks very positively 
about what she has seen that he does in Georgia.
  Of course, many of us here have been reminded time and again of the 
importance of the Port of Savannah and its dredging needs. I can 
especially identify with those since we have small ports--much smaller 
than Savannah's--in New Hampshire, but they consistently have dredging 
needs, so I know how important it is to have an advocate who is there 
all the time, making sure that the needs of those ports are being seen 
to.
  One of the many areas where Senator Isakson and I have found common 
ground is reforming our budget process. I think it is not a secret to 
anybody in this body that the Federal budget process is broken. Since 
2011, I have worked with Senator Isakson, who had been working on 
trying to get a biennial budgeting process for the Federal Government. 
That is something that I think makes sense. Nineteen States, including 
New Hampshire, operate on a biennial budget. We believe that taxpayers 
would be better served by a process whereby Congress budgets for 2 
years rather than 1 and is able to use the second year for oversight.
  As we know, it is not easy to change things in Washington. I couldn't 
have asked for a better partner in this effort.
  One of the things I have especially appreciated about Johnny is that 
he has very little time for partisan sniping, which has too often 
characterized much of what we do here.
  One of the gestures that mattered to me and that has stood out about 
what his character is and how he has operated in the Senate has been 
the fact that he came to New Hampshire to advocate for our biennial 
budgeting efforts in 2013, a year when I was in cycle for reelection. 
It didn't matter to him. What mattered was that we were working on this 
issue, and it was important to the American people.
  I had the opportunity to go the following year to Atlanta, and we did 
the same presentation in Atlanta to again show that we could work in a 
bipartisan way to try and address what wasn't working in New Hampshire.
  I have especially appreciated that he has taken that approach on 
everything we have worked on together.
  I know Senator Isakson also cares deeply about the institution of the 
Senate. He served as chairman of the Senate's Ethics Committee, a 
committee I have also been a member of, though not nearly as long as he 
has. I have seen closeup how he has faithfully and honorably conducted 
the committee's business and, again, how partisanship has not been any 
part of how he has approached his duties on the Ethics Committee. What 
has been important has been preserving the integrity of the Senate and 
the responsibility that each of us has as a Senator.
  There have been so many ways in which Johnny Isakson has bridged the 
partisan divide. One of those is through food, and I think all of my 
colleagues would agree with me that one of the highlights of our year 
is when Senator Isakson has his bipartisan barbecue lunch, which 
features not just the dishes his home State is known for but, as he 
points out, the best barbecue in America.
  In New Hampshire, we don't have a lot of barbecue, so I don't have 
much basis on which to judge, but I certainly would agree it is very 
good barbecue.
  I think, as somebody who has served in the Army, he understands that 
the way to our hearts is through our stomachs, and we know if we keep 
our troops eating well that they do better, and I think the same is 
probably true of Senators. If we can keep eating well and collaborate 
when we are doing that, it is great for our morale, and it is a great 
way to help work better together.
  In closing, I just want to say that throughout his time in Congress, 
Johnny Isakson has been a statesman, and he has been a gentleman of the 
highest order. They say that we remember people not by what they say as 
much as by how we feel we are treated, and I know it is fair to say, 
whether it is the person operating the elevator, the person who is 
serving us lunch, each of us as Senators, or his constituents, Johnny 
Isakson has made all of us feel very important, and he recognizes the 
value that each individual in the Senate contributes to this body. For 
that, I am very appreciative, and I will miss you, Senator Isakson.
  Thank you for everything you have done for all of us.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, let me join my dear friend and colleague 
from New Hampshire in paying tribute to so many things about Johnny 
Isakson.
  I know we are supposed to abide by the rules, address remarks to the 
Chair, and not speak to each other, and if I occasionally look over at 
the senior Senator from Georgia and call him Johnny, I will apologize 
in advance to the Chair and to the keeper of the rules.
  I think one of the points that Senator Shaheen was making about the 
bipartisan barbecue lunch every year is that we ought to do this more 
often. We choose sides so many times, and for those of us on this side 
of the aisle, it is three times at lunch every week--Tuesday, 
Wednesday, and Thursday. The senior Senator from New Hampshire and I 
never have a chance to have lunch together because we are there with 
our leadership talking about what our folks are going to do.
  Johnny Isakson decided at least one time a year, when he was in 
charge of making that decision, that he would invite Republicans and 
Democrats. Sometimes we got pushback from the leadership of both 
parties because they didn't have us captive that particular hour, and 
some of us who tried it didn't do it year after year after year. Johnny 
Isakson has done that and has been an example of bipartisanship.

[[Page S6981]]

  I hope, Johnny, we are not making you weary of speechmaking, but I 
did want to make an extra point that perhaps others haven't made and 
give a quotation that Senator Johnny Isakson has made about others that 
he would never have made about himself because he is too modest.
  I first became aware of Johnny Isakson in 1990, and he and I had not 
met at that point, but I was in Atlanta, GA, for some party function. 
Johnny Isakson was a successful businessman and a member of the Georgia 
senate. He was the Republican nominee for Governor that year, and it 
was pretty well known that he was not going to win that race. But he 
came before us and gave a rip-roaring talk, very impressive, and I said 
to myself: You know, he may not win this year, but this Johnny Isakson 
fellow has a future, and he is going to go places.
  It turned out that the impression I had that day was correct. He 
would go on to serve for some time in a bipartisan way in Georgia, and 
then, when the Speaker of the House of Representatives resigned from 
office, Johnny Isakson was there to win the special election and became 
my colleague in the House of Representatives.
  During that time when we served in the House together, we were on the 
deputy whip team together. And, Johnny, it was usually you and I 
sitting next to each other at each of those weekly meetings of the whip 
team.
  I began to realize on a personal, day-to-day basis what an 
outstanding leader he was, what an articulate leader he was, how 
persuasive he was, and how able he was to actually come up with some 
accomplishments in the Congress.
  Boy, it is hard to get a bill passed, and Johnny Isakson has gotten 
bill after bill after bill passed for our Nation's veterans, of which I 
am proud to be one--a list as long as my arms. I am proud to be a 
veteran. I am proud to be the father of an Air Force major and the son 
of an Army-Air Force veteran from World War II. We all appreciate in 
our family, down through the generations, the efforts that Johnny has 
made.
  He has been so effective because he understands people, because he 
understands the business about building consensus and using strong 
relationships and treating each and every one of us on both sides of 
this center aisle with dignity and respect--the kind of respect that we 
would hope to be treated with always.
  Senator Isakson enjoys poetry, as do I, and I have been known to 
quote a line or two from a poem, but today I want to quote from a poem 
entitled ``Sermons We See'' by Edgar Guest.
  The reason I want to do this is that from time to time, when we have 
honored people Johnny Isakson admired, he would cite this poem or a 
verse or two from it as a way of honoring and pointing out the virtues 
of the person being honored. He would never be so bold as to quote the 
poem about himself.
  I submit today for the Record the entire poem, and ask unanimous 
consent that it be admitted.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                             Sermons We See

                            (By Edgar Guest)

     I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day;
     I'd rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way.
     The eye's a better pupil and more willing than the ear,
     Fine counsel is confusing, but example's always clear;
     And the best of all the preachers are the men who live their 
           creeds,
     For to see good put in action is what everybody needs.
     I soon can learn to do it if you'll let me see it done;
     I can watch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast 
           may run.
     And the lecture you deliver may be very wise and true,
     But I'd rather get my lessons by observing what you do;
     For I might misunderstand you and the high advise you give,
     But there's no misunderstanding how you act and how you live.
     When I see a deed of kindness, I am eager to be kind.
     When a weaker brother stumbles and a strong man stays behind
     Just to see if he can help him, then the wish grows strong in 
           me
     To become as big and thoughtful as I know that friend to be.
     And all travelers can witness that the best of guides today
     Is not the one who tells them, but the one who shows the way.
     One good man teaches many, men believe what they behold;
     One deed of kindness noticed is worth forty that are told.
     Who stands with men of honor learns to hold his honor dear,
     For right living speaks a language which to every one is 
           clear.
     Though an able speaker charms me with his eloquence, I say,
     I'd rather see a sermon than to hear one, any day.

  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I will read the first two verses of 
``Sermons We See'' by Edgar Guest.

       I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day;
       I'd rather one should walk with me than merely tell the 
     way.
       The eye's a better pupil and more willing than the ear.
       Fine counsel is confusing, but example's always clear;
       And the best of all the preachers are the men who live 
     their creeds,
       For to see good put in action is what everybody needs.
       I soon can learn to do it if you'll let me see it done;
       I can watch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast 
     may run.
       And the lecture you deliver may be very wise and true,
       But I'd rather get my lessons by observing what you do;
       For I might misunderstand you and the high advise you give,
       But there's no misunderstanding how you act and how you 
     live.

  Those are first two verses of ``Sermons We See.''
  I am so grateful for the sermons I have been able to see as a Member 
of the House of Representatives, as a fellow colleague of Johnny 
Isakson's here in the U.S. Senate.
  He has demonstrated, in the way he has acted, the way we should 
always act. He has shown us how to be a gentleman and how to be an 
accomplished gentleman in the way he has lived and the way he has 
worked across the aisle. How he ends this chapter gives us an 
opportunity to say thank you for the way he has made the Nation better 
and the way he has made life better for millions and millions of his 
fellow Americans. Thank you, Johnny.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, it is now my pleasure to also say some 
words of tribute to my colleague from Georgia.
  When I first came here and found out about his real estate background 
and his interest in homeownership, I felt it was a powerful connection, 
in that while I was never in the real estate business, when I went back 
to Oregon in 1991, I found a connection with Habitat for Humanity and 
eventually became their director, and it was all about homeownership. 
So I spent a tremendous amount of time working to advance homeownership 
for families in Oregon. Certainly, that is what the residential rules 
say business is all about, and he spent decades in that world before he 
came to Congress.
  In fact, I also felt a connection because of his service in the House 
of Representatives in Georgia. I only had 10 years in the Oregon House, 
and he had far more than that in the Georgia House of Representatives. 
I don't know if the Georgia House is like the Oregon House, but the 
Oregon House was a very functional place, where people came to the 
floor and listened to each other and shared ideas. They were only 
allowed to speak for 5 minutes so everybody could hear each other. You 
could borrow time from others, but if you borrowed time, then, people 
started to say: The longer that you speak, the less support you will 
have.
  So it was great to have the entire group present, talking to each 
other, working, and talking on the floor.
  That is how I envision the Georgia House, as well, which I think is a 
tremendous foundation for networking ideas, working with others, 
realizing that relationships make such a difference as we strive for 
policies we believe in. But the pathway involves relationships.
  John F. Kennedy once said: ``Let the public service be a proud and 
lively career.'' When I think about my colleague's career spanning the 
Georgia House and Georgia Senate and the U.S. House and now the U.S. 
Senate, and all that he has worked on, I think of it as exactly that--a 
proud and lively career not only that he can be proud of but that all 
of us can be proud of, as evidenced by the many folks who have

[[Page S6982]]

come to the floor to say thank you for your service.
  There was one particular event that I will never forget, and that is 
after the passage of Dodd-Frank. I heard that a problem had occurred 
related to the interest on lawyer trust accounts, known by the term 
IOLTA. This interest, which was not allowed to accrue directly to the 
company of lawyers, was dedicated by law to funding legal defense funds 
for noncriminal assistance to American citizens facing court 
proceedings so they could get a fair day in court.
  So I was trying to get unanimous consent for us to fix this, and I 
needed a partner on the Republican side of the aisle. I was walking 
from one Senator to another to another. I probably went through about 
15 Senators, and I would say: Have you ever heard of IOLTA?
  And, universally, the answer was no. I would explain what it was and 
say why it might make a difference, and each time I spoke they would 
say: Well, it is probably not something near the top of my list to 
spend time on.
  Then, I asked Senator Isakson: Have you ever heard of IOLTA?
  He said: Of course, I have.
  I explained to him exactly what it was and why it mattered, and I 
said: Would you be a partner and try to fix this so that the funds will 
go to the public legal defense fund? And he said yes.
  We had to persuade, collectively, a number of folks who had holds on 
the amendment, which we did. We finally had one Senator who was still 
putting a hold on it, and we met with him--I don't know if my colleague 
from Georgia will remember this, but we met with him--and explained our 
case.
  He said that, well, he would think about it, and we decided to inform 
him that we were going to ask for a unanimous consent motion on the 
floor at a certain time on a certain day, and that he was welcome to 
come back and object if he wanted. He did come back, and he met with us 
at that moment and withdrew his objection, and we passed that fix.
  Now, interest rates have not been as high. So the amount of funds 
that went into the fund were not equivalent to what they were in a 
previous era, but it is an example of bipartisan work. It is not blue 
or red work. It is work to help make something go a little better for 
people in the United States of America.
  So to my colleague from Georgia, thank you for doing many things to 
make life better for the citizens of the United States of America, 
working with that goal in mind, not partisanship.
  Bless you and your family. Thank you for your service.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                     nomination of lawrence vandyke

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I oppose the nomination of Lawrence 
VanDyke to fill a Nevada seat on the Ninth Circuit. When my Republican 
colleagues decided to abandon blue slips for circuit court seats, many 
on our side warned that we would start to see nominees with little 
connection to the States in which they were nominated to sit. Those 
warnings are coming true. We saw it earlier this year, when the Senate 
approved the nomination of Daniel Bress to fill a California seat on 
the Ninth Circuit, even though he had barely lived or practiced in 
California as an adult.
  Now, we are seeing it again with Mr. VanDyke, whose ties to Nevada 
are minimal. He did not grow up in Nevada or attend any schools there. 
He did not move to Nevada until 2015, after he had lost a race for the 
State supreme court of Montana. He did not become an active member of 
the Nevada Bar until October 2017. He does not have family ties to 
Nevada. He does not currently live in Nevada. Since he moved to 
Virginia 8 months ago, he has not been to Nevada even once. Mr. 
VanDyke's only real tie to Nevada is that he was given a job there for 
a few years as solicitor general, apparently as a landing spot after he 
lost his race in Montana.
  There are many longtime members of the Nevada legal community who are 
well qualified to serve as a Federal circuit court judge. But none of 
them will get the chance to fill this seat. Instead, Senate Republicans 
are going to rubber-stamp someone with minimal Nevada ties for this 
Nevada judgeship. How would my colleagues like it if that happened to 
their States? Mr. VanDyke also has a deeply troubling record.
  When he was Montana's solicitor general, we saw from his emails that 
he allowed political considerations to guide litigation decisions. For 
example, in a 2013 email, he urged that Montana join an amicus brief 
supporting the NRA in a cert petition involving a challenge to a gun 
law on the books. VanDyke wrote, ``I'm not sure I agree with the 
strategy of bringing this case to SCOTUS, but I think we want to be on 
the record as on the side of gun rights and the NRA.''
  I am troubled that, for his judicial election campaign, he filled out 
an NRA endorsement questionnaire in which he said he agreed that ``gun 
control laws are misdirected.'' He also has a lengthy history of 
criticizing and undermining LGBTQ rights. This includes his 2004 column 
where he wrote that there is, ``ample reason for concern that same-sex 
marriage will hurt families, and consequently children and society.''
  Mr. VanDyke is the ninth Trump judicial nominee who has been rated 
``Not Qualified'' by the ABA, out of over 260 Trump nominees the ABA 
has reviewed. The ABA conducts a peer review process. In VanDyke's 
case, the ABA interviewed 60 attorneys and judges who knew him and his 
work.
  Mr. VanDyke's peers said that Mr. VanDyke ``is arrogant, lazy, an 
ideologue, and lacking in knowledge of the day-to-day practice 
including procedural rules,'' ``does not always have a commitment to 
being candid and truthful,'' and ``in some oral arguments, he missed 
issues fundamental to the analysis of the case.'' These were scathing 
comments from dozens of judges and lawyers who know Mr. VanDyke and his 
work well.
  In short, it is no surprise that both of Nevada's Senators oppose 
this nomination. I agree with them. I will oppose the VanDyke 
nomination, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today in strong opposition to 
the nomination of Lawrence VanDyke to a Nevada seat on the Ninth 
Circuit Court of Appeals.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a number of 
letters and other documents relevant to Mr. VanDyke's nomination 
following my remarks.
  Mr. VanDyke's temperament and integrity have been called into 
question by his colleagues and the American Bar Association, which 
rated him ``Not Qualified'' for the Federal bench. Mr. VanDyke's 
record, including his opposition to rights of LGBT individuals and 
commonsense gun control, is far outside the mainstream.
  First, I want to discuss concerns raised by Mr. VanDyke's colleagues 
regarding his temperament, competence, and work ethic. The American Bar 
Association interviewed 60 of Mr. VanDyke's colleagues, including 43 
lawyers, 16 judges, and one other individual who have worked with Mr. 
VanDyke in the four States where he has worked and who are ``in a 
position to assess his professional qualifications.''
  In its letter to the committee, the ABA reported that Mr. VanDyke's 
colleagues described him as ``arrogant, lazy, an ideologue, and lacking 
in knowledge of the day-to-day practice including procedural rules'' 
and stated that he ``has an 'entitlement' temperament, does not have an 
open mind, and does not always have a commitment to being candid and 
truthful.''
  As Montana's solicitor general, Mr. VanDyke's coworkers raised 
similar concerns. They noted that he ``avoids work'' and that he ``does 
not have the skills to perform, nor desire to learn how to perform, the 
work of a lawyer.'' These concerns were echoed by six retired justices 
of the Montana Supreme Court who wrote that Mr. VanDyke ``has neither 
the qualifications nor the temperament to serve as a federal court of 
appeals judge.'' Based in part on these assessments, the ABA deemed Mr. 
VanDyke ``Not Qualified'' to be a Federal district court judge. The ABA

[[Page S6983]]

has rated 97 percent of President Trump's judicial nominees since 1989. 
It has a process and standards. It has rated 97 percent of President 
Trump's judicial nominees ``Qualified'' or ``Well Qualified.'' Mr. 
VanDyke, then, is a clear exception.
  Mr. VanDyke's record on LGBT rights is also deeply troubling.
  In a 2004 op-ed, he wrote that there is ``ample reason for concern 
that same-sex marriage will hurt families, and consequentially children 
and society.'' Lambda Legal rightly characterized this claim as a 
``stigmatizing and disproven myth.'' During his hearing, and in written 
questions, Mr. VanDyke was given many opportunities to disavow this 
statement, which is not supported by the research. He declined to do 
so.
  I asked Mr. VanDyke whether the Supreme Court's decision legalizing 
same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges has harmed families and 
children, and I presented him with research showing that the children 
of gay and lesbian parents do as well as children raised in opposite-
sex households. Still, Mr. VanDyke refused to disavow his anti-LGBT 
statements.
  In its letter to the committee, the ABA reported that some 
interviewees were unconvinced that Mr. VanDyke would be fair to members 
of the LGBT community. The ABA further noted that Mr. VanDyke ``would 
not say affirmatively that he would be fair to any litigant before him, 
notably members of the LGBT community.'' I am concerned based on Mr. 
VanDyke's record and the ABA's assessment that LGBT litigants cannot 
expect to be treated fairly in his courtroom.
  Finally, I would like to highlight Mr. VanDyke's long history of 
advocating against commonsense gun control.
  As Nevada solicitor general, he undermined implementation of a 2016 
ballot initiative, passed by Nevada voter that would have closed a 
loophole by expanding background checks for private gun sales. As 
Montana solicitor general, he called assault weapons bans 
``ineffective'' and questioned the Federal Government's authority to 
regulate guns in any capacity.
  While running for a seat on the Montana Supreme Court in 2014, he 
filled out an NRA Questionnaire that highlights how far outside the 
mainstream his views on gun control are.
  On this questionnaire, Mr. VanDyke indicated that he believes all gun 
control laws are ``misdirected.'' He opposed banning the possession, 
purchase, or sale of any firearm. He also opposed assault weapons bans 
and requiring background checks for guns sold at gun shows.
  Mr. VanDyke even appeared to pledge loyalty to the NRA itself. He 
wrote on the questionnaire that he had stopped being a member of the 
organization because he ``didn't want to risk recusal if a lawsuit came 
before [him] where the NRA was involved.'' Mr. VanDyke willingly 
offered these views when he was seeking judicial office, and so I asked 
him to answer the same questions from the NRA's questionnaire as part 
of this nomination process. He declined to do so.
  It is distressing that a nominee would offer his views on gun control 
to the NRA, but not to a Member of the U.S. Senate who must vote on his 
lifetime appointment to the Federal bench.
  It is no wonder that gun safety groups, including the Giffords Law 
Center and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, fear that Mr. VanDyke 
has demonstrated a ``clear lack of impartiality'' and is ``incapable of 
serving as an impartial justice.''
  The Nevada Senators strongly oppose Mr. VanDyke, in part because he 
lacks ties to the State. Their opposition is justified. It is hard to 
believe that this nominee, whose views are so far outside the 
mainstream and who is unqualified for the position, is the best the 
Nevada legal community has to offer.
  Federal appeals court judges must be knowledgeable, and litigants 
must have confidence that these judges will treat them fairly and 
honestly. Unfortunately, Mr. VanDyke does not meet these basic 
standards. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing his nomination.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

     NRA-PVF
     National Rifle Association of America
     Political Victory Fund

                  2014 Montana Candidate Questionnaire

       Name: Lawrence VanDyke
       Website: www.VanDykeforJustice.com
       Campaign Name: VanDyke for Supreme Court-
       Campaign ID #: 46-5103703
       Public Office(s) Held: Montana Solicitor General
       Occupation: Attorney
       Office Sought: Montana Supreme Court Justice-
       District: Seat 2--
       Party: Non-Partisan
       For further information on Montana firearm laws, Please 
     visit www.nraila.org and click on the ``Gun Laws'' feature 
     located in the menu.
       1. Do you agree that the Second Amendment to the United 
     States Constitution guarantees a fundamental, individual 
     right to keep and bear arms that applies to all Americans, 
     regardless of where they live in the United States?
       a. X Yes.
       b. ___ No.
       2. Which of the following statements best represents your 
     opinion on the prevention of violent crime?
       a. ___ Gun control laws will solve the crime problem.
       b. ___ Gun control laws will not solve the crime problem, 
     but they must be a part of the overall solution.
       c. X Gun control laws are misdirected; the solution is the 
     enforcement of existing laws which punish criminals who 
     misuse firearms and other weapons in the commission of 
     crimes.
       d. ___ Other:
       3. Considering current Montana firearm laws, would you 
     support any additional restrictive state legislation 
     regulating firearms and/or ammunition?
       a. ___ Yes, I support additional restrictive state 
     legislation regulating firearms and/or ammunition.
       b. ___ Yes, I support additional restrictive state 
     legislation regulating firearms. Please explain:
       c. ___ Yes, I support additional restrictive state 
     legislation regulating ammunition. Please explain:
       d. ___ No, current state firearm laws are sufficient.
       e. X No, current state firearm laws should be improved to 
     benefit law-abiding gun owners and sportsmen in Montana.
       4. Would you support state legislation banning the 
     manufacture, possession, ownership, purchase, sale and/or 
     transfer of any firearms?
       a. ___ Yes, for all firearms. Please specify type of 
     restrictions:
       b. ___ Yes, for all handguns. Please specify type of 
     restrictions:
       c. ___ Yes, for some firearms. Please specify types of 
     firearms/restrictions:
       d. X No, I oppose banning the manufacture, possession, 
     ownership, purchase, sale and/or transfer of any firearm.
       5. Many .50 caliber firearms are used in big game hunting 
     and target competition and the .50 caliber BMG cartridge has 
     been used for nearly a century. Would you support legislation 
     prohibiting the ownership and/or sale of any .50 caliber 
     firearms or ammunition in Montana?
       a. ___ Yes, I would support such legislation. Please 
     explain:
       b. X No, I would oppose such legislation.
       I personally have hunted with a 50 AE Desert Eagle Pistol 
     (.50 caliber)
       6. In 1994, Congress imposed a 10-year ban on the 
     manufacture, for sale to private individuals, of various 
     semi-automatic* firearms it termed ``assault weapons,'' and 
     of ammunition magazines capable of holding more than 10 
     rounds of ammunition, which primarily affected handguns 
     designed for self-defense. Congress' subsequent study of the 
     ban, as well as state and local law enforcement agency 
     reports, showed that contrary to the ban's supporters' 
     claims, the guns and magazines had never been used in more 
     than about 1%-2% of violent crime. Since the ban expired in 
     2004, the numbers of these firearms and magazines owned have 
     risen to all-time highs and violent crime has fallen to a 42-
     year low. Would you support state legislation restricting the 
     possession, ownership, purchase, sale, and/or transfer of 
     semi-automatic firearms and/or limits on the capacity of 
     magazines designed for self-defense?
       * Semi-automatic firearms have been commonly used for 
     hunting, target shooting, and self-defense since their 
     introduction in the late 1800s. All semi-automatics fire only 
     one shot when the trigger is pulled. They are not fully-
     automatic machine guns, which have been strictly regulated 
     under federal law since 1934.
       a. ___ Yes, I would support such legislation for semi-
     automatic firearms only.
       b. ___ Yes, I would support such legislation for magazines 
     only.
       c. ___ Yes, I would support such legislation for semi-
     automatic firearms and magazines.
       d. X No, I would oppose such legislation.
       7. Federal law requires federally-licensed firearms dealers 
     to keep records of the make, model, caliber, and serial 
     number of all firearms sold. Would you support state 
     legislation requiring all firearm owners to register all 
     their firearm(s) for entry into a centralized state file or 
     database?
       a. __ Yes, for all firearms.
       b. __ Yes, for all handguns.
       c. __ Yes, for some firearms. Please specify which 
     firearms:

[[Page S6984]]

       d. X No, I oppose state registration of firearms.
       8. Would you support the state licensing* of law-abiding 
     citizens who own, possess and use firearms?
       *Licensing, as used here, refers to state legislation 
     requiring firearm owners to obtain a license from a 
     government official or agency to own and possess a firearm. 
     As a rule, firearm owner licensing laws generally require 
     fingerprinting, photographing, and/or a background 
     investigation of the applicant. Note: this is different from 
     acquiring a ``permit to carry'' a concealed weapon from the 
     state.
       a. __ Yes, for owners of all firearms.
       b. __ Yes, for owners of all handguns.
       c. __ Yes, for owners of some firearms. Please specify 
     which firearms:
       d. X No, I oppose state registration of firearm owners.
       9. Federal law requires all federally-licensed firearms 
     dealers to conduct a criminal records check prior to the sale 
     of any firearm, whether the sale occurs at their retail store 
     or at a gun show. Access to the FBI-run telephone-based 
     ``instant check'' system is limited to licensed dealers only. 
     Under federal law, individuals who only occasionally sell 
     firearms from their personal collections are not ``engaged in 
     the business'' of selling firearms, and are therefore (1) not 
     required to be licensed; (2) not required to conduct records 
     checks prior to transferring firearms; and (3) not permitted 
     to access the records check system used by licensed dealers. 
     Although less than 1% of guns used in crimes are purchased at 
     gun shows (Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics), gun 
     control advocates are trying to ban firearms sales at gun 
     shows by occasional sellers and private collectors, or 
     require that any transactions involving their legal property 
     be conducted through a licensed dealer. Would you support 
     legislation restricting firearms sales by occasional sellers 
     and private collectors at gun shows?
       a.__ Yes, I would support such legislation. Please explain:
       b. X No, I would oppose such legislation.
       10. In the United States, the number of privately owned 
     guns has risen by more than 10 million annually to an all-
     time high. Meanwhile, according to the National Center for 
     Health Statistics, firearm accident deaths have decreased by 
     90 percent over the last century. This trend is due in part 
     to an increasing use of NRA firearm safety training programs 
     by tens of thousands of RA Certified Instructors, schools, 
     civic groups and law enforcement agencies. Nevertheless, 
     several states have recently considered legislation that 
     would mandate the placement of locking devices on firearms 
     kept in the home. These devices greatly restrict access to 
     firearms for self-defense purposes and potentially increase 
     the risk of accidental discharge of a firearm. Would you 
     support legislation that would mandate the use of locking 
     devices or other locking procedures for firearms stored in 
     the home?
       a. __Yes, I would support such legislation. Please explain:
       b. X No, I would oppose such legislation.
       11. Recently, some employers have extended their ``gun-
     free'' workplace rules to employees' locked private vehicles 
     in parking lots. Such policies effectively disarm law-abiding 
     citizens, including concealed weapon license holders, from 
     the time they leave their house in the morning to their 
     return home in the evening. Would you support ``Employee 
     Protection'' legislation that would allow law abiding 
     citizens to keep lawfully transported firearms locked in 
     their personal vehicles while parked on publicly accessible, 
     privately owned parking lots (see 2013 Montana House Bill 
     571)?
       a. __Yes, I would sponsor/cosponsor this legislation.
       b. X Yes, I would support this legislation.
       c. __ No, I would oppose this legislation. Please explain:
       12. Current Montana law (MCA Sec. 45-8-328) lists certain 
     ``prohibited places,'' including banks, government office 
     buildings and establishments where alcoholic beverages are 
     served, where concealed weapon permit holders (and law 
     enforcement officers) may not carry a concealed firearm. This 
     puts law-abiding citizens at a disadvantage because, although 
     they could carry ``openly'' in these locations, criminals 
     will obviously ignore the law and carry concealed. Would you 
     support legislation to repeal the restrictions on where law-
     abiding citizens may carry a concealed weapon (see 2013 
     Montana House Bill 358)?
       a. X Yes, I would sponsor/cosponsor this legislation.
       b. X Yes, I would support this legislation.
       c. __ No, I would oppose this legislation. Please explain:
       13. Current Montana law allows law-abiding citizens to 
     carry a concealed weapon for defense of themselves and 
     others, free from government interference, anywhere outside 
     the official boundaries of any city or town. In order to 
     cross into a city or town and still be in compliance with 
     Montana law, however, a law-abiding citizen must have a valid 
     concealed weapon permit. Would you support state legislation 
     to remove the requirement that law-abiding citizens obtain 
     governmental permission in order to provide a means of self-
     protection when they cross into the boundaries of cities and 
     towns in Montana (see 2013 Montana House Bill 304)?
       a. X Yes, I would sponsor/cosponsor this legislation.
       b. X Yes, I would support this legislation.
       c. __ No, I would oppose this legislation. Please explain:
       14. Under the National Firearms Act (NFA), an individual 
     wanting to acquire an NFA-regulated item, such as a firearm 
     sound suppressor or fully automatic firearm, must submit the 
     proper paperwork and fingerprints to the Bureau of Alcohol, 
     Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), pay a $200 tax and 
     have a chief local law enforcement officer (CLEO) sign-off on 
     the proper forms. Some CLEOs simply refuse to sign such 
     forms, even for otherwise qualified applicants, because they 
     oppose civilian possession of these items, are fearful 
     of liability or the perceptions of anti-gun constituents, 
     or for other subjective reasons. Legally owned NFA items 
     are very rarely used in crime, with the total number of 
     cases documented numbering in the single digits. This 
     legislation would also include an immunity provision for 
     CLEOs. Would you support state legislation that would make 
     this process more objective by requiring CLEOs to sign 
     such forms if the applicant is not otherwise prohibited 
     from obtaining an NFA item?
       a. X Yes, I would sponsor/cosponsor this legislation.
       b. X Yes, I would support this legislation.
       c. __ No, I would oppose this legislation. Please explain:
       15. Many public colleges and universities allow visitors 
     with concealed handgun permits to carry concealed firearms on 
     their campuses, yet nearly all state-funded higher learning 
     institutions ban faculty, staff and students from carrying 
     concealed handguns on campus--even if they have permits to 
     carry concealed firearms. The NRA believes a person with a 
     permit to carry a concealed firearm should be able to carry 
     that firearm concealed anywhere he or she has a legal right 
     to be, except in certain ``sterile'' high-security locations. 
     Assuming each classification of individuals listed below 
     possessed a concealed handgun permit recognized by the state, 
     who do you believe should legally be allowed to carry a 
     concealed handgun on state college and university campuses?
       a. X All law-abiding persons, including visitors, faculty, 
     staff and students.
       b. __ Visitors, faculty, staff and some students. Please 
     explain:
       c. __ Faculty, staff and students.
       d. __ Visitors, faculty and staff.
       e. __ Faculty and staff.
       f. __ Each college or university should determine the 
     policy for its campus.
       g. __ No one should be allowed to carry a concealed handgun 
     on state college and university campuses.
       16. The residents of 39 states can legally own firearm 
     suppressors. Contrary to Hollywood portrayals, suppressors 
     are virtually never used in crime or poaching and criminal 
     misuse carries severe penalties. Suppressors can improve 
     shooting accuracy, protect against hearing loss, reduce noise 
     complaints from the public and make shooting and hunting more 
     enjoyable. The current prohibition on hunting suppressor use, 
     in effect, requires firearms to be as loud as they can 
     possibly be, contrary to the manner in which virtually all 
     other noise-emitting objects are treated. Suppressors are 
     strictly regulated under federal law. Individual purchasers 
     must pay a $200 federal tax; submit to an extensive 
     background check that includes fingerprints and photographs; 
     and obtain the approval of the chief law enforcement officer 
     in their jurisdiction. Would you support legislation that 
     allows the use of suppressors while hunting and allow law-
     abiding Montana sportsmen the freedom to protect against 
     hearing loss, improve accuracy and reduce noise complaints?
       a. X Yes, I would sponsor/cosponsor this legislation.
       b. X Yes, I would support this legislation.
       c. __ No, I would oppose this legislation. Please explain:
       17. Many states provide civil liability protection to 
     private property owners who allow the public to hunt on their 
     property. Shielding property owners from frivolous lawsuits 
     eliminates a significant concern for property owners and 
     encourages them to open their land to hunting. This enhances 
     public hunting opportunities and assists the state in 
     effectively managing its wildlife populations. Would you 
     support passing or strengthening liability protections for 
     private landowners who allow hunting on their property?
       a. X Yes, I would sponsor/cosponsor this legislation.
       b. X Yes, I would support this legislation.
       c. __ No, I would oppose this legislation. Please explain:
       18. Youth/mentored hunting programs have been implemented 
     in 29 states to help promote our hunting heritage by removing 
     barriers to participation. This enormous case study has 
     proven safe beyond anyone's expectations. Mentored hunting 
     allows novice hunters--young and old--to hunt prior to 
     completing hunter education requirements if they hunt under 
     the close supervision of a licensed, adult hunter who meets 
     hunter education requirements. This is the ``try it before 
     you buy it'' concept. These programs also dramatically reduce 
     or eliminate minimum hunter ages. Would you support a youth/
     mentored hunting law to help promote Montana's hunting 
     heritage?
       a. X Yes, I would sponsor/cosponsor a youth/mentored 
     hunting law.
       b. X Yes, I would support implementing a youth/mentored 
     hunting law.
       c. __ No, I oppose implementing a mentored hunting law. 
     Montanans will prove to be the exception to the rule of 
     extraordinary safety established by the citizens of the 29 
     states that have implemented this program.

[[Page S6985]]

       d. _ Other. Please explain:
       19. For which of the following reasons do you support 
     firearm ownership for law-abiding Montana citizens (please 
     mark any and all that apply)?
       a. X Constitutional Right.
       b. X Hunting.
       c. X Competitive shooting.
       d. X Informal sport shooting (e.g., plinking).
       e. X Defense of self, family, and home (basic human right).
       f. X Collecting.
       g. X Defense of state and nation.
       h. X All of the above.
       i. __ None of the above.
       20. Have you ever run for or held state or local elective 
     office?
       a. __ Yes. Please specify:
       b. X No.
       21. Are you a member of the National Rifle Association, the 
     Montana Shooting Sports Association, the Montana Rifle & 
     Pistol Association or any other shooting/sportsmen's/gun 
     rights organization?
       a. __Yes. Please specify:
       b. X No.
       I have previously been a member of the NRA, but am not 
     currently a member. I don't want to risk recusal if a lawsuit 
     came before me where the NRA was involved.
       --Please see the information from the email sent to Brian 
     Judy on Sept. 16, 2014.
       --Please also see the attached article from the Great Falls 
     Tribune dated 9/18/14. The emails referenced in the article, 
     which are available at the website, are very illuminating 
     regarding my defense of the 2nd Amendment while serving as 
     Montana's Solicitor General. See especially page 93.
       Candidate Signature: Lawrence VanDyke Date: 9/18/14
                                  ____



                                     American Bar Association,

                                                 October 29, 2019.
     Re Nomination of Lawrence J.C. VanDyke to the United States 
         Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

     Hon. Lindsey Graham,
     Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Dianne Feinstein,
     Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Graham and Ranking Member Feinstein: The 
     American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal 
     Judiciary has received a full report on Lawrence J.C. VanDyke 
     and a supplemental review by a former chair of the Committee. 
     The Committee's work is based solely on a review of 
     integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament. 
     Based on these criteria, a substantial majority of the 
     Committee has determined that Mr. VanDyke is ``Not 
     Qualified,'' and a minority determined that he is 
     ``Qualified'' to serve on the United States Court of Appeals 
     for the Ninth Circuit. The majority rating represents the 
     Standing Committee's official rating. I write to offer a 
     brief explanation of this rating.
       The evaluator's Formal Report is based on 60 interviews 
     with a representative cross section of lawyers (43), judges 
     (16), and one other person who have worked with the nominee 
     in the four states where he has worked and who are in a 
     position to assess his professional qualifications. They 
     include but are not limited to attorneys who worked with him 
     and who opposed him in cases and judges before whom he has 
     appeared at oral argument. The evaluator obtained detailed 
     background materials such as more than 600 pages of publicly 
     produced emails involving and/or written by Mr. VanDyke, news 
     reports where Mr. VanDyke had been interviewed, and articles 
     and opinions written about him.
       Mr. VanDyke is a highly educated lawyer with nearly 14 
     years of experience in appellate law, including one year as a 
     law clerk, an associate in a law firm, and as a Solicitor 
     General for over five-plus years, first in Montana and then 
     Nevada, two states in the Ninth Circuit where he would serve 
     if confirmed. The Committee was tasked with balancing Mr. 
     VanDyke's accomplishments with strong evidence that supports 
     a ``Not Qualified'' rating.
       Mr. VanDyke's accomplishments are offset by the assessments 
     of interviewees that Mr. VanDyke is arrogant, lazy, an 
     ideologue, and lacking in knowledge of the day-to-day 
     practice including procedural rules. There was a theme that 
     the nominee lacks humility, has an ``entitlement'' 
     temperament, does not have an open mind, and does not always 
     have a commitment to being candid and truthful.
       Some interviewees raised concerns about whether Mr. VanDyke 
     would be fair to persons who are gay, lesbian, or otherwise 
     part of the LGBTQ community. Mr. VanDyke would not say 
     affirmatively that he would be fair to any litigant before 
     him, notably members of the LGBTQ community.
       Even though Mr. VanDyke is clearly smart, comments were 
     made that in some oral arguments he missed issues fundamental 
     to the analysis of the case. There were reports that his 
     preparation and performance were lacking in some cases in 
     which he did not have a particular personal or political 
     interest.
       While the evaluator was careful in her interview with Mr. 
     VanDyke not to name interviewees, the nature of the issues 
     that gave rise to some of the negative comments had been 
     publicly discussed and other adverse comments could be raised 
     without identifying interviewees. The negative issues 
     discussed in this letter were thoroughly discussed with 
     interviewees and vetted with the nominee. Significantly, the 
     interviewees' views, negative or positive, appeared strongly 
     held on this nominee.
       The Committee's work is guided by the Backgrounder which 
     reflects that judgment is a component of professional 
     competence, and that open-mindedness, courtesy, patience, 
     freedom from bias, and commitment to equal justice under law 
     are components of judicial temperament. Based on these 
     principles, a substantial majority of the Committee 
     determined that the nominee is ``Not Qualified'' to be a 
     Ninth Circuit judge.
           Very truly yours,
                                               William C. Hubbard.

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, yesterday, I went to the Senate floor 
to ask unanimous consent on the DETER Act, bipartisan legislation that 
I authored alongside Senator Rubio that is languishing in the Senate 
legislative graveyard.
  The DETER Act is absolutely critical to protect our democracy from 
foreign interference. It serves a clear, simple, and essential purpose. 
It says to Russia and any other foreign power that, if they interfere 
in our elections and undermine the integrity of our democracy, they 
will face severe consequences in the form of tough sanctions. Foreign 
interference in our elections remains as critical a threat as ever. 
That is why, on November 5, seven U.S. Federal agencies jointly stated, 
``Russia, China, Iran, and other foreign malicious actors all will seek 
to interfere in the voting process or influence voter perceptions. 
Adversaries may try to accomplish their goals through a variety of 
means, including social media campaigns, directing disinformation 
operations, or conducting disruptive or destructive cyberattacks on 
state and local infrastructure.''
  The Senate endorsed the inclusion of this bill in this year's 
National Defense Authorization Act, unanimously passing a resolution in 
the fall instructing NDAA conferees to include such a provision in the 
conference report. However, the Republican leadership has stonewalled 
the inclusion of this bill in the NDAA. Instead, we are voting this 
week on two Ninth Circuit judicial nominees of dubious qualifications, 
including one who was rated ``Unqualified'' by the American Bar 
Association, ABA.
  Circuit courts play an important role in our country. Circuit court 
judges review the decisions of district court judges. Instead of 
nominating experienced jurists, Republicans have chosen to advance two 
nominees, Messrs. Bumatay and VanDyke, neither of whom have absolutely 
any experience as judges, at the Sate or Federal level. Mr. VanDyke was 
harshly described by his peers and colleagues as someone who is 
``arrogant and disrespectful to others, both in and outside of this 
office. He avoids work. He does not have the skills to perform, nor 
desire to learn how to perform, the work of a lawyer.'' This harsh 
criticism of a judicial nominee from their peers is extremely rare and 
factored in heavily into the ABA's ``Unqualified'' rating.
  Instead of trying to confirm unqualified radical ideologues to the 
bench, Republicans should be working across the aisle to pass 
bipartisan legislation to secure our elections and address other 
national priorities. Failing to do so is a dereliction of our duty.


            Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
rollcall vote scheduled to begin at 4:15 begin at 4:05 p.m., 
immediately.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Vote on VanDyke Nomination

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Will the Senate advise and 
consent to the VanDyke nomination?
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Kentucky (Mr. Paul).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), 
the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. 
Sanders), and the Senator from Massahusetts (Ms. Warren) are 
necessarily absent.

[[Page S6986]]

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Are there any other Senators in the 
Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 44, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 391 Ex.]

                                YEAS--51

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     McConnell
     McSally
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--44

     Baldwin
     Blumenthal
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Jones
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Bennet
     Booker
     Paul
     Sanders
     Warren
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and 
the President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

                          ____________________