May 13, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 79 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session
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EXECUTIVE SESSION; Congressional Record Vol. 165, No. 79
(Senate - May 13, 2019)
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[Pages S2776-S2779] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] EXECUTIVE SESSION ______ EXECUTIVE CALENDAR Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 230. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion. The motion was agreed to. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination. The bill clerk read the nomination of Jeffrey A. Rosen, of Virginia, to be Deputy Attorney General. Cloture Motion Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion. The bill clerk read as follows: Cloture Motion We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on nomination of Jeffrey A. Rosen, of Virginia, to be Deputy Attorney General. Mitch McConnell, John Hoeven, Roger F. Wicker, Chuck Grassley, James E. Risch, Johnny Isakson, John Barrasso, Steve Daines, David Perdue, Jerry Moran, John Cornyn, John Thune, Richard Burr, Mike Crapo, Pat Roberts, Lindsey Graham, Shelley Moore Capito. Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Nominations Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this week the Senate will continue to promptly and reasonably consider a number of well-qualified nominees for important positions. Several weeks ago we put an end to 2 years of unprecedented, systematic partisan obstruction that had kept abundantly qualified nominees on the sidelines for no substantive reason. The Senate took a modest but important step to turn back toward the institutional traditions that had shaped our work in nominations throughout our history. We put in place a reform to speed up the postcloture floor time that we spend debating on lower level nominations--or, in many cases, I should say, supposedly debating them. Since then we have been able to fill several important posts in the executive branch, along with seats on the bench, at a more reasonable pace. In many cases, these unobjectionable candidates have received the overwhelming support they deserve--90 to 8, 90 to 8, 95 to 3. Over the next few days, four more will receive consideration on the floor. We will begin by processing the first of two more well-qualified nominees to our Nation's district courts, such as Michael J. Truncale, of Texas, to serve as U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of Texas. [[Page S2777]] Mr. Truncale is a graduate of Lamar University, the University of North Texas, and the Southern Methodist University School of Law. Over more than three decades of private practice, he has amassed a distinguished record in both litigation and appellate law. In addition, Mr. Truncale has served on the board of regents for the Texas State University System and the Texas Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board in the Texas Comptroller's Office. His nomination has earned a well-qualified rating from the ABA and has twice been favorably reported by our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee. So I hope each of our colleagues will join me and add Mr. Truncale's nomination to the growing list of uncontroversial nominees passed in an orderly, bipartisan fashion. Following consideration of the Truncale nomination, we will vote on Kenneth Lee's nomination to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Wendy Vitter's nomination to serve as U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Then we will consider the nomination of Brian Bulatao, of Texas, to serve as Under Secretary of State for Management. This is, effectively, the COO job at the Department of State, responsible for such critical things as embassy security. His nomination was first submitted to the Senate in June of 2018, nearly a year ago. Following those four individuals, the Senate will also consider this week the nomination of Jeffrey Rosen to serve as our next Deputy Attorney General. Mr. Rosen is a graduate of Northwestern University and Harvard Law School. He built a strong record in private practice as a litigator before entering public service in 2003. Prior to his current position, he has served as the Deputy Secretary at the Department of Transportation and at the Office of Management and Budget and as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. The American people deserve that their Department of Justice be fully staffed, fully operational, and fully committed to upholding our Nation's laws. So I hope that each of my colleagues reviews this impressive nominee and then votes to confirm him this week. Disaster Relief Mr. President, as we continue our efforts in the personnel business, work is also ongoing to reach an agreement for providing supplemental relief funding to communities hit hard by natural disasters. Last year's deadly hurricane season swept away thousands of homes across the Southeast and left hundreds of thousands more without power. The recent spate of tornadoes killed 23 and injured dozens more in Alabama and Georgia, and the devastating floods created more than $1 billion of damage to homes, businesses, and infrastructure all across the Midwest this spring. Bipartisan efforts are ongoing to provide aid to cover those in need--from our Territories to those who suffered west coast wildfires and east coast hurricanes. Disaster assistance in the past has not been a partisan issue. It has been over a half-year since many of these disasters hit, and our country is in need. I am grateful to Chairman Shelby and our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for continuing to push toward a bipartisan solution that addresses these most urgent needs. I would urge Democrats and Republicans, in the House as well as the Senate, to identify our common ground and produce an outcome for the American people. They have been waiting entirely too long. 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. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ernst). Without objection, it is so ordered. Recognition of the Minority Leader The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized. Foreign Election Interference Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, Secretary of State Pompeo will meet with Vladimir Putin tomorrow, and there is something important he must do. The Mueller report, for all its revelations about the President's conduct, also reminded us of things we know to be true and must resist at all costs. The Mueller report documented the ``sweeping and systematic'' disinformation campaign directed by President Putin to undermine our 2016 elections. Whatever you may think of the President's behavior, foreign interference in our elections cannot be ignored. It was an attack on democracy itself, and in my view, America's response has not been adequate. What happened in the past has happened, as bad as it was, but the point of looking at this is to prevent it from ever happening again in the future. We don't know what country will try to change our elections and who it might support--Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. So we have to bolster ourselves, and until we get a full, full description of what happened and a plan to stop it from happening in 2020, America should not rest because it is an attack on democracy itself. America's response, thus far, has not been adequate. Congress passed sanctions, but then President Trump failed to implement some and watered others down. Only a few months ago, the Treasury Department cut a sweetheart deal on sanctions relief for Russian oligarch and Putin crony Oleg Deripaska. Even rhetorically, the President and members of his administration have shown an unbelievable willingness to look past President Putin's actions of 2016. A little over a week ago, just after the Mueller report came out, President Trump held a phone call with President Putin in which he reportedly brought up the Russian hoax, and he did not warn Putin not to meddle in our elections. Of course, the press conference in Helsinki last year was the epitome of President Trump's inability to confront President Putin about his interference in our elections. This matters a great deal because any softness on the administration's part will be read by Putin and other foreign powers as an invitation to try and interfere with our elections again. We know, thanks to the testimony from FBI Director Wray and our national intelligence chiefs, that foreign adversaries are gearing up right now to try again and interfere with our elections in 2020. Yet it may not be just Russia next time; it might be China, North Korea, or Iran. Who knows? So it is long past time for the Trump administration to make it crystal clear that another interference campaign by Putin will not be tolerated. The Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, has an obligation to warn President Putin that any action to interfere in our elections will be met with an immediate and robust response. Secretary of State Pompeo must make clear that the cost of trying to interfere with American elections will be dear. Secretary of State Pompeo must deliver a shot across the bow to Putin and any other foreign adversary who would dare think about trying to influence our elections. Anything else from Secretary Pompeo will be a failure of diplomacy. Here in Congress, our response must also be strong. In the wake of multiple warnings about future election interference, we must do everything we can to harden our election infrastructure before 2020. There are multiple bills--bipartisan, sponsored by Democrats and Republicans--that are in committee right now that would do just that, but Leader McConnell will not commit to bringing them to the floor, which is another example of his legislative graveyard. Instead, he just schedules nomination after nomination. This is now the third week in a row that the Senate will spend processing only nominations. Leader McConnell is, slowly but surely, changing the Chamber into a legislative graveyard, where even the most urgently needed, bipartisan bills on election security and Russia sanctions get buried. Healthcare Madam President, on healthcare, it is not just election security, of course, that finds itself in the McConnell graveyard. Bipartisan bills, like background checks, paycheck fairness, and the Violence Against Women Act, have all passed the House with Republican support but have languished in the Senate. I wouldn't be surprised if healthcare legislation will soon be [[Page S2778]] added to the list of tombstones in Leader McConnell's graveyard. At the end of last week, the House passed a crucial piece of legislation that would reverse the Trump administration's attempts to weaken protections for Americans with preexisting conditions--a policy supported by the vast majority of Americans and publicly supported by several State Senate Republicans who are up for reelection. This week, the House is poised to pass another great package of healthcare legislation to further protect preexisting conditions and help people sign up for quality healthcare coverage. Compare that to the Trump administration's policies, which have only increased costs and lowered the number of Americans who have health insurance. The uninsured rate had been on a steady decline until President Trump took office. Now, for the first time since 2013, the number of Americans without insurance has been on the rise. As the leader of the majority in the Senate, Senator McConnell has a responsibility to use our time here to help the American people. As insurance rates fall, protections for preexisting conditions are under attack, and prices go up for middle-class Americans. I believe the Senate must act to improve the Nation's healthcare system, and we have multiple House-passed bills awaiting action. Leader McConnell need only call them up for debate. Instead, the legislative graveyard--where good legislation doesn't even get debated or amended, let alone passed--is upon us. Puerto Rico Madam President, finally, on disaster relief, last week, our colleagues in the House passed yet another bill that would provide crucial aid for disaster-stricken communities, including for our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico who are still suffering. Importantly, the bill passed with 34 Republicans voting in favor. Negotiations on a disaster package continue, but I believe the House vote is a sign that the Republicans in both Chambers are beginning to realize the people of Puerto Rico cannot be left behind--and rightly so. There will not be any bill if it doesn't treat all of America fairly. Don't complain just about your State. Go to those in the Republican leadership, if you are a Republican Senator, and tell them we must pass a bill that protects everybody. The President's animus for the people of Puerto Rico is antithetical to our values as Americans. Americans help each other in times of need. We wouldn't shortchange the farmers in Iowa or the people of Texas or California or Florida. So why should we ask 3 million fellow citizens-- the people of Puerto Rico, I remind my colleagues, who are U.S. citizens--to keep waiting for help to rebuild from a storm that made landfall over a year and a half ago? The bottom line is very simple: We have to help everybody. Our Republican colleagues are beginning to realize their constituents are complaining and asking, what is the holdup? We all know the story. It wasn't the original idea of the Republicans in the Senate to treat Puerto Rico unfairly. President Trump came to a lunch and demanded that aid for Puerto Rico be eliminated or greatly diminished, and our Republican friends went along. They thought we would just bow down as they did, and we have not neither in the House nor in the Senate. Now let's get moving. It is encouraging that the Republicans are beginning to realize that Puerto Rico needs help or that it at least has to be a part of the aid package. I hope these green shoots soon bear fruit, and we can send something to the President's desk and give relief to all of those who need it in California, Texas, Iowa, Nebraska, Alabama, Florida, and Puerto Rico. 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. ISAKSON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Tribute to Dean Lewis Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, we are called upon many times to do many things in this Chamber, and in 21 years I have been called to do a lot of different things, but today may be the most different of all. In a way, it is something that is a joy to do. It is about a place in Bartow County, GA, in White, GA, a small rural town that is being caught by the urban growth of the city of Atlanta, one of the biggest cities in the United States of America. White, GA, is a great town. The first Sunday of every month, there is a breakfast at 7 a.m. for the guys in town, where we all go and talk politics, talk about the future of the county, talk about what is happening, share good and bad ideas, tell jokes for the week, and come back a month later to see how things are going. It is something I relish doing. It is something I started doing because I am a politician. You go where two or more are gathered, and you go to talk to them and to try to get them to know you and to make sure they know you are on the ballot the next time. I have been in politics a long time--41 years. I have learned a lot of things. I have learned that in politics the best thing to know is your next-door neighbor and people. The best thing for them to know is to know you. But I also learned some interesting things about our economy and about business. The No. 2 producer of revenue to our governments around the country is revenue off of tourism. Tourism is the No. 2 industry in the country in terms of revenue at the local level--for sales and use taxes, for bed taxes, for hotel-motel taxes, for entertainment taxes, and for all kinds of taxes. They generate money to help our cities and counties buy and build facilities that attract tourism to come in the future, whether it is convocation centers, educational centers, or whatever. I am always paying close attention everywhere I go to see what somebody new is doing around the country that we might not have done in Georgia before. But I have been sitting on a ham sandwich, starving to death, because every first Sunday of every month, when I go to the breakfast in White County, GA, I am going to something that is exactly that, unique to the country. So I thought I would bring it to the floor of the Senate today and tell you a little bit about it. It is about a guy named Dean Lewis and Dean's family's home place. Dean's family's home place is in Bartow County, GA. Dean grew up on a piece of property that in 2009 was a junkyard. It was just a junkyard of old cars--in fact, 40 years' worth of old cars. There was kudzu. I don't know if the Presiding Officer knows what kudzu is. The South is full of it. It was a great idea to stop erosion, but it was a horrible idea because you can't kill it. It just gets bigger and bigger. We have 40 years' worth of kudzu that has grown through these cars, wrecked tractors, buses, and everything. They are almost canopy hidden by the kudzu. Dean Lewis was sitting on the front porch of his house, looking across the street at what he has now named Old Car City, and said: You know, that would be an interesting place for people to come and visit, because people are always looking for parts on old cars that they might get to help restore the old cars they have. It started out as just a place where people who wanted to come and tear some old parts off of an old car to fix their jalopy or their old car would come and get them from Dean. One day Dean had somebody come from the Atlanta Ballet and said: You know, this would be a big, great background for our ballerinas in a photo contest to talk about how agile they are. So the Atlanta Ballet used the backdrop of Old Car City for photos for their calendar a few years ago. The Atlanta Falcons have used it. All kinds of businesses have used it. Businesses from around the world have used it. It has become a famous place. It is not a famous place because it is handsome or beautiful. It is not famous because it is famous but because it is unique. Dean Lewis and his family took something of theirs that was unique to them and molded it into something people would come and see. It is one of those ``if you build it, they will come'' deals. You saw the end of that movie, where all the taillights and headlights were weaving through the town to go see the field that was finally built. That was [[Page S2779]] the same thing with Old Car City. They took a useless, rusted-out old junkyard and turned it into something people would want to come to see, someplace where they would want to come to get old parts for cars or come to get their pictures taken with the cars. International companies want to come to do business there, to where it is now one of the most attractive places we have in North Georgia. I thought I would come to the well for no other reason but to pay tribute to Dean Lewis in White, GA, because he has taken an old car in a junkyard--a jalopy--and turned it into something that raises money for the community, that memorializes our heritage and our past, that takes the use of something everybody thought was wasted and turns it into something good. If we can always try to do that, as well as make something new good, then we would all be doing well as business people, as tourist promoters, and as builders of local government. I rise tonight to commend Dean Lewis on what he and his family have done, to commend Old Car City on what has turned into a great money- making project for the State and for our local property--the tourist attraction they have created there--and to tell them to keep on doing the work and making chicken salad out of good fried chicken. Georgia chicken is the best that you can have, and there is no better chicken than a junkyard in Georgia called Old Car City. God bless you. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Boozman). The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. ____________________
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