March 4, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 43 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Pages S1452-S1468]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         ADVANCED GEOTHERMAL INNOVATION LEADERSHIP ACT OF 2019

  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 2657) to support innovation in advanced 
     geothermal research and development, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have polled the Members of the Energy 
Committee and now withdraw the committee-reported substitute amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is withdrawn.
  The committee-reported amendment, in the nature of a substitute, was 
withdrawn.


                           Amendment No. 1407

  (Purpose: In the nature of a substitute.)
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I call up substitute amendment No. 
1407.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Alaska [Ms. MURKOWSKI] proposes amendment 
     No. 1407.

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
reading of the amendment be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in the Record of March 3, 2020, under 
``Text of Amendments.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.


                Amendment No. 1419 to Amendment No. 1407

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1419.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell], for Ms. Ernst, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 1419 to amendment No. 1407.

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

 (Purpose: To establish a grant program for training wind technicians)

        At the end of subtitle C of title II, add the following:

     SEC. 23__. WIND ENERGY WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT.

       (a) Wind Technician Training Grant Program.--
       (1) In general.--Title XI of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 
     (42 U.S.C. 16411 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:

     ``SEC. 1107. WIND TECHNICIAN TRAINING GRANT PROGRAM.

       ``(a) Definition of Eligible Entity.--In this section, the 
     term `eligible entity' means a community college or technical 
     school that offers a wind training program.
       ``(b) Grant Program.--The Secretary shall establish a 
     program under which the Secretary shall award grants, on a 
     competitive basis, to eligible entities to purchase large 
     pieces of wind component equipment (such as nacelles, towers, 
     and blades) for use in training wind technician students.
       ``(c) Funding.--Of the amounts made available to the 
     Secretary for administrative expenses to carry out other 
     programs under the authority of the Secretary, the Secretary 
     shall use to carry out this section $2,000,000 for each of 
     fiscal years 2020 through 2025.''.
       (2) Clerical amendment.--The table of contents for the 
     Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-58; 119 Stat. 601) 
     is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 
     1106 the following:

``Sec. 1107. Wind technician training grant program.''.

       (b) Veterans in Wind Energy.--
       (1) In general.--Title XI of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 
     (42 U.S.C. 16411 et seq.) (as amended by subsection (a)(1)) 
     is amended by adding at the end the following:

     ``SEC. 1108. VETERANS IN WIND ENERGY.

       ``(a) In General.--The Secretary shall establish a program 
     to prepare veterans for careers in the wind energy industry 
     that shall be modeled off of the Solar Ready Vets pilot 
     program formerly administered by the Department of Energy and 
     the Department of Defense.
       ``(b) Funding.--Of the amounts made available to the 
     Secretary for administrative expenses to carry out other 
     programs under the authority of the Secretary, the Secretary 
     shall use to carry out this section $2,000,000 for each of 
     fiscal years 2020 through 2025.''.
       (2) Clerical amendment.--The table of contents for the 
     Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-58; 119 Stat. 601) 
     (as amended by subsection (a)(2)) is amended by inserting 
     after the item relating to section 1107 the following:

``Sec. 1108. Veterans in wind energy.''.

       (c) Study and Report on Wind Technician Workforce.--
       (1) In general.--The Secretary shall convene a task force 
     comprised of 1 or more representatives of each of the 
     stakeholders described in paragraph (2) that shall--
       (A) conduct a study to assess the needs of wind technicians 
     in the workforce;
       (B) create a comprehensive list that--

[[Page S1453]]

       (i) lists each type of wind technician position available 
     in the United States; and
       (ii) describes the skill sets required for each type of 
     position listed under clause (i); and
       (C) not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of 
     this Act, make publicly available and submit to Congress a 
     report that--
       (i) describes the results of that study;
       (ii) includes the comprehensive list described in 
     subparagraph (B); and
       (iii) provides recommendations--

       (I) for creating a credentialing program that may be 
     administered by community colleges, technical schools, and 
     other training institutions; and
       (II) that reflect best practices for wind technician 
     training programs, as identified by representatives of the 
     wind industry.

       (2) Stakeholders described.--The stakeholders referred to 
     in paragraph (1) are--
       (A) the Department of Defense;
       (B) the Department of Education;
       (C) the Department of Energy;
       (D) the Department of Labor;
       (E) the Department of Veterans Affairs;
       (F) technical schools and community colleges that have wind 
     technician training programs; and
       (G) the wind industry.
       (3) Funding.--Of the amounts made available to the 
     Secretary for administrative expenses to carry out other 
     programs under the authority of the Secretary, the Secretary 
     shall use to carry out this subsection $500,000.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I thank all of those who just voted for 
the motion to proceed to S. 2657. We have called up my substitute 
amendment, No. 1407, which now contains the full text of the American 
Energy Innovation Act.
  We are moving through the process, albeit a little slowly here, but 
we are moving through the process. We now have more than 150 amendments 
that have been filed to the bill. Senator Manchin and I are working 
together with other Members to sort through potential votes on the 
bill. We are also working to see which ones might fit into a managers' 
package of easy, noncontroversial, worked-out proposals. I know 
everyone thinks that theirs is easy and that it has been worked out, 
and, of course, it is not controversial, but we have a handful of those 
proposals and are seeking additional ones.
  I would remind Members that amendments require bipartisan 
cooperation, especially from those beyond the Committee on Energy and 
Natural Resources' jurisdiction. Those who are on the committee have 
had an opportunity to go through each and every one of these measures 
that we have in front of us and that have been incorporated as part of 
this American Energy Innovation Act. That input has been helpful and 
very, very positive as we have built these proposals. I know some folks 
are looking at much of this for the first time if they are not on the 
committee. They have ideas that are good and worthy, and we want to 
respect that process and incorporate them as appropriate and enhance 
this bill.
  I want to have votes. The leader has said he wants to have an open 
amendment process. I want to have a managers' package, but it is 
entirely possible--we have seen it before--that the opportunity will be 
spoiled. I would just urge Members to be honest about how ready their 
proposals really are. Sometimes, they might not be as vetted as you 
think they might be, and they might need some additional work, but know 
that, as a committee, we stand ready to work with Members on those 
proposals to better enhance them.
  I have taken the opportunity over the past couple of days to share 
with colleagues more about what our package includes--the result of 
this good work that we have done over the past year in working through 
regular order in our committee. Last night, I talked about title I, 
which focuses on innovation--the big, key buzzword here, 
``innovation''--everything from energy efficiency and renewables to 
energy storage. We all talk a lot about energy storage--advanced 
nuclear and carbon capture, utilization, and storage. So there is a 
good focus on the innovation side of this bill.
  This morning, I would like to highlight what is in title II, which is 
kind of our security title, and I put it in three different buckets. 
You have mineral security, which is critical to the supply chain. You 
have cyber security and grid security, which, again, are key to all 
operations of commerce and our economy. Then you have the economic 
security that comes with good jobs. The focus on the workforce is here 
as well.
  Out of these three, I begin with mineral security, because we don't 
always associate these efforts with meeting our energy and our climate 
goals.
  What we focus on within this bill is the development of new, clean 
technologies, but there is also a very important reality that we have 
to acknowledge, which is that meeting our energy and our climate goals 
will require a significant increase in our supply of critical minerals. 
The world is not producing nearly enough of almost all of them. Think 
about that. We are pushing and challenging those within our national 
labs and those within the private sector and are saying: Move us to 
these cleaner technologies--the world of renewables. Yet we have to 
build all of these things. Whether it is your smartphone or whether it 
is a wind turbine, we need to build them, and they require minerals--
they require critical minerals.
  If we are not producing them, where are we getting them from? More to 
the point, the United States is not producing nearly enough of almost 
any of these materials that we are talking about when it comes to how 
we move to clean energy sources. We are largely absent from the field, 
as countries--most notably, China--increasingly dominate long-term 
supply chains that will give them an almost insurmountable competitive 
advantage.
  Consider a few of the numbers here. According to the World Bank, 
meeting the goals that have been set by the Paris Agreement would 
increase demand for battery storage minerals, like lithium, cobalt, and 
nickel, by 1,000 percent. Right now, nearly 70 percent of raw cobalt is 
coming from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and over 60 percent 
of the processed cobalt used in batteries is controlled by China. Think 
about that. The United States has no capacity for battery-grade cobalt. 
That is the situation we are in right now. There is no capacity for 
battery-grade cobalt here in this country, and that is before the 
projected 600-percent increase in demand over the next 30 years.
  Despite new development on State and private lands in Nevada and 
North Carolina, the United States only produces about one percent of 
the world's raw lithium and contributes about seven percent of the 
processed materials. Think about it--the cobalt that is so necessary 
and the lithium that we require for our batteries. The same goes for 
graphite, whereby 60 percent of mined graphite and 100 percent of the 
processed material is coming from China. We have some very promising 
reserves in my State of Alaska for graphite. Again, think about what 
this means when we are talking about solar panels, advanced batteries, 
and electric vehicles. What are they made of? It is not chocolate and 
candy canes here. If we want to compete in the industries of the 
future, we are going to have to do better. We will have to compete with 
China, particularly, and right now, we are at a disadvantage.
  Last year, an expert from the Foreign Policy Analytics testified 
about China's domination of mineral markets and supply chains. For 
electric vehicles, China controls or has influence over 80 percent of 
the supply of rare earth elements. China also controls or has influence 
over 70 percent of the supply of graphite and graphene, 59 percent of 
the supply of lithium, 56 percent of the supply of vanadium, and 36 
percent of the supply of cobalt.
  Some of this is due to the production and supply chains in China. 
Some of it is as a result of extensive investments that China has made 
to acquire mines and mining interests around the world, most notably in 
places like the Congo. Yet this is the reality that we are facing right 
now--this ever-increasing reliance on and, therefore, vulnerability for 
these minerals that are so necessary to the investments that we will 
make.
  It is not just China we are talking about here. Canada is well ahead 
of us. Just this week, Prime Minister Trudeau released the Canadian 
Minerals and Metals Plan, with the goal of ``being the leading mining 
nation,'' in part, because minerals are critical to clean energy 
technologies.
  So while other countries are competing to lead in this space, what 
are we doing here in this country? How are we doing it?

[[Page S1454]]

  Now, I want to give the administration credit in this space. They 
recognize the problem. They are acting on it. The President laid down 
an Executive order. I just visited with the Secretary of the Interior 
on their minerals analysis, but, really, the facts in front of us are 
pretty clear.
  USGS tells us this every year: We are still a long, long way from 
true mineral security. Right now, we import at least 50 percent of our 
supply of 46 different minerals, including 100 percent of 17 of them.
  This is like the Achilles' heel for us because we have effectively 
surrendered the front end of the supply chain, and then we wonder why 
we have such a hard time capturing any of the rest of it.
  So our mineral subtitle will help put us on the right track. It is 
not an overnight cure-all; there is none. But it will enable the United 
States to increase the responsible production and processing of 
critical minerals. It will help us figure out what we have. It will 
help us develop alternatives and substitutes for the minerals that we 
lack, and that is an important part of this because, as much as it is 
important to have that secure supply here, we need to be pushing 
ourselves to recycle, to find the alternatives and the substitutes. 
That is key and folds into the first title, which is all about 
innovation and the technologies that will help us advance that but 
keeping and pushing on the R&D in that space.
  Then, also, what we do within the bill is increase recycling to 
reduce the need for new supplies. So you have a focus on mineral 
security, but how that ties into innovation and how we can reuse, 
recycle, and develop alternatives is key.
  Over time, our mineral subtitle will help America become a leader in 
growing industries like battery and renewable manufacturing, along with 
the jobs and the economic growth that they represent.
  I think it also helps put the United States in the driver's seat to 
prevent supply disruptions that could quickly derail our efforts to 
deploy renewables, energy storage, EVs, and other technologies.
  There is one thing our minerals subtitle will not do. It will not 
weaken laws that protect our lands and waters. Our bill continues to 
ensure that only responsible development is allowed to proceed.
  I have heard some claim just as recently as yesterday that our bill 
will somehow weaken the environmental review process, but know that 
that is not accurate. That is simply wrong.
  The United States, right now, has one of the slowest permitting 
processes in the world--in the world. Some years back we were dead 
last; we were actually tied with Papua New Guinea. We do not have a 
permitting process that is the envy of anyone. It is entirely fair to 
encourage agencies to do better, like their counterparts all around the 
world, by working smarter and more efficiently.
  I also want to remind colleagues that we passed this same provision 
as part of our 2016 energy bill. Minerals were important enough to draw 
85 votes back then, in 2016, so I would think that we would regard them 
as even more important now as our reliance and our vulnerability have 
only increased.
  I want to thank Senator Manchin for his support on our efforts on 
mineral security and for his cosponsorship of the American Mineral 
Security Act. I was also glad to be able to combine his efforts on a 
bill that he called Rare Earth Element Advanced Coal Technologies. We 
have included that bill in our subtitle.
  I also want to thank a number of members on the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee--Senators Barrasso, Risch, Daines, and McSally--for 
their help in this very important subtitle.
  Another subtitle within title II on security addresses the real and 
growing threat of cyber attacks. According to the 2019 Worldwide Threat 
Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, China, Russia, and other 
foreign adversaries are using cyber operations to target our critical 
energy infrastructure.
  We have already seen the real-world ramifications of cyber attacks on 
energy infrastructure. In December of 2015, Russian hackers cut off 
power to nearly a quarter of a million people in Ukraine. Two years 
later, Russian hackers infiltrated the industrial control system of a 
Saudi Arabian petrochemical plant and disabled the plant's safety 
systems. We can't let that happen here.
  Our electric grid, which is composed of generation, transmission, and 
distribution resources, is a uniquely critical asset. Every sector of 
our economy depends on it. We know what the impact would be if there 
were a successful hack. It could impact homes, hospitals, banks, gas 
pumps, traffic lights, cell phone services. The consequences really go 
without bounds in terms of the devastation that could be wrought, 
particularly if power can't be restored for any meaningful duration.
  So, working with the administration, we have seen some good steps to 
address this through the establishment of the Office of Cybersecurity, 
Energy Security, and Emergency Responses, also known as CESER, at the 
Department of Energy. I thank them for the leadership there. This 
office is really pretty busy preparing for and responding to more and 
increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.
  Our innovation package builds on that effort through a bill called 
the PROTECT Act, which will enhance cyber security defenses of grid 
assets by providing incentives, grants, and technical assistance for 
utilities to invest in cutting-edge technologies.
  The innovation package will also allow all utilities and power 
producers, especially those most vulnerable smaller utilities that have 
fewer resources, to continue investing in new technology that keeps 
their systems protected against evolving cyber threats.
  This is important because we tend to focus on the big systems and 
what that impact might be, but for many, many, many around the country 
in our smaller, more rural areas, these are our smaller utilities that 
don't have the resources to really be as current or as protected as 
they want to be and as they should be in the event of any kind of cyber 
threat. So helping assist them is important.
  We included language from Senator Gardner to facilitate State energy 
security plans and public-private partnerships for grid security. We 
included Senator Cantwell's Energy Cybersecurity Act, which puts 
programs in place for the DOE to effectively partner with industry and 
other Federal agencies.
  Senator Cantwell has been a real leader--when she was the ranking 
member on the committee and now--as she continues to focus on this 
issue, the very important issue of cybersecurity. So she has a good 
provision included in this bill as well.
  The American Energy Innovation Act will help improve our national 
security in significant ways--again, through mineral security and 
protecting our electric grid from cyber attacks.
  We recognize that these measures play a crucial role in supporting 
energy innovation and ensuring that its many benefits can be enjoyed by 
the American people.
  There is more that I will take the time to outline at a later point, 
but I think it is important that, as Members consider what this energy 
provision allows for, it is pretty expansive. It is pretty expansive, 
and it is expansive because, again, we haven't seen an energy bill 
become law in 12 years, so it should be expansive, and it should focus 
on how we can help facilitate more of the ingenuity and innovation that 
will come forward from our universities, from our labs, from public-
private partnerships, from those who are working every day with great 
ideas to help, really, transform not only our economy but our 
environment as well.
  So it is more than innovation in the renewable space. It is 
innovation in the carbon space. It is innovation in the nuclear space. 
It is innovation when it comes to industrial emissions. It is 
innovation when it comes to efficiency.
  With that innovation comes security, whether it be recognizing that 
we must do more to ensure that we have stable and secure supply chains 
through mineral security, through the security that comes with 
protection of our grids and protection from cyber threats, 
modernization of our grids, and, again, the security of the good jobs 
that come with a skilled workforce.
  So there is much to talk about in this good measure. Again, I 
encourage colleagues, we are in an amendment

[[Page S1455]]

process. Come to us with your comments, your suggestions, your 
concerns. Let's work them out, but let's get an energy bill through the 
Senate, through the House, and signed into law by the President.
  I yield the floor.
  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. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cramer). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                             Net Neutrality

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, 2 years ago at this time, we were hearing 
that the internet, as we know it, was going to disappear. On February 
27, 2018, Senate Democrats sent a tweet warning that Americans would be 
getting the internet one word at a time. Why? Because the Federal 
Communications Commission had repealed heavyhanded, Obama-era internet 
regulation. If we didn't immediately undo the FCC's rules change, 
Democrats warned, the effects on internet access would be catastrophic.
  Well, 2 years later, the internet, as we know it, isn't just still 
with us, it is flourishing. Broadband access has expanded; Americans 
are enjoying faster internet speeds; and we are implementing 5G 
internet technology across the Nation, including in more rural places 
like South Dakota.
  It turns out the internet doesn't fall apart without the heavy hand 
of government. In fact, it thrives. That should be an important lesson 
for us going forward. Historically speaking, the Federal Government has 
taken a light-touch approach to internet regulation. The government 
largely stayed out of the internet's way, and innovation and creativity 
flourished, delivering nearly everything from Netflix to weather apps, 
to Uber. But in 2014, the Obama administration decided it wanted the 
Federal Government to start regulating the internet more heavily, and 
in 2015, the Obama Federal Communications Commission passed the Open 
Internet Order, which dramatically expanded the Federal Government's 
power over the internet in the name of net neutrality.
  Now, you might not know it from Democrats' rhetoric, but net 
neutrality is a concept that enjoys broad support in both parties. I 
support net neutrality and rules that prevent blocking, throttling, or 
the paid prioritization of internet traffic. I don't think a major 
service provider should be able to block a small new startup, and I 
don't think Netflix should be able to pay to have its search results 
appear before anyone else's.
  What the Obama FCC did in 2015 went far beyond net neutrality. In the 
name of keeping the internet open to everyone, the Obama FCC asserted 
broad new government powers over the internet using rules that were 
designed for telephone monopolies back during the Great Depression. 
This opened a whole host of new internet regulations, including price 
regulations.
  Unsurprisingly, the FCC's move resulted in a decline in broadband 
investment as companies saw the possibility of burdensome new 
regulations headed their way. That was bad news for Americans, 
especially Americans in rural States like my home State of South 
Dakota.
  Getting broadband to rural communities is already more challenging 
than installing broadband in cities or suburbs. The possibility of 
heavier regulations acted as a further disincentive to expanding 
access.
  Fast forward to 2017, and the Federal Communications Commission, 
under Chairman Pai, voted to repeal the heavyhanded internet 
regulations passed by the Obama FCC. Democrats, as I already mentioned, 
responded hysterically, predicting that the internet, as we knew it, 
would disappear. Providers, they warned, would slow down internet 
speeds to a crawl and block access to desired content--except, of 
course, none of that has happened.
  Here is what actually has happened. Broadband investment has 
rebounded. In 2018, private broadband investment rose by $3 billion. 
Broadband access is expanding. The FCC reports that in 2018, 
``broadband providers, both small and large, deployed fiber networks to 
5.9 million new homes, the largest number ever recorded.''
  Internet speeds have increased.
  The Nation is poised for widespread adoption of the next generation 
of internet, which is 5G. All of this despite light-touch government 
regulation or, perhaps more accurately, because of light-touch 
government regulation.
  At a time when Democrats are pushing for government takeovers of 
everything from our healthcare to our energy choices, it is important 
to remember that a lot of times heavyhanded government involvement 
causes problems instead of solving them. Of course, there is a place 
for government regulations, but more government involvement does not 
automatically mean a better outcome. In fact, a lot of the time it 
means the opposite.
  Giving the Federal Government more power over the internet not only 
didn't help anything, it actually discouraged the investment needed to 
ensure that all Americans have access to reliable, high-speed internet 
service. Lifting the heavy hand of government regulation, on the other 
hand, encouraged broadband investment, which is resulting in better 
internet access for more Americans.
  If we want the internet to continue to thrive and serve as an engine 
of economic innovation and advancement, we should ensure that the 
Federal Government stays away from heavyhanded regulations.
  I have spent years calling for a bipartisan net neutrality bill that 
would address concerns about blocking while codifying a light-touch 
approach to internet regulation. I am still waiting for a Democratic 
partner on that legislation.
  While the current FCC has established a healthy approach to 
regulation, a different administration could return and, in the same 
way they did during the days of the Obama FCC, slow down internet 
advances like 5G and the expansion of broadband that is happening in 
rural communities across the country.
  I will continue to work for bipartisan net neutrality legislation 
that ensures that the government will not weigh down the internet with 
unnecessary and heavyhanded regulations. I hope my Democratic 
colleagues will join me.
  I yield the floor.
  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. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Coronavirus

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, yesterday the Senate passed my resolution 
to honor the life of Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who heroically 
tried to warn his fellow citizens and the world about the Wuhan 
coronavirus late last year. Dr. Li tragically fell victim to that very 
disease but not before he was victimized by his own government, the 
Chinese Communist Party. Li was 34 years old when he passed away of 
coronavirus on February 7. He had a wife, a young child, and another 
child on the way. His whole life was ahead of him, and now his wife is 
widowed, his child has no father, and his second child will never know 
his father.
  As Li knew, when you become a doctor, you pledge to care for the sick 
and the dying--whatever the hardships, whatever the cost, whatever the 
risks to yourself. So when patients with a severe pneumonia began 
appearing in Li's hospital late last year, he sounded the alarm to 
fellow doctors, and the Chinese Communist Party responded with 
lightning speed--not to contain this epidemic but to intimidate Dr. Li 
and attack his reputation.
  Local Communist goons paid him a visit a few days later, forcing him 
to retract his statements and apologize for so-called illegal behavior. 
China's state media piled on, denouncing Li and other whistleblowers as 
rumormongers who were spreading fear among the Chinese people.
  That has been the pattern of the Chinese Communist Party's response 
to the coronavirus from the very beginning--first coverup and then 
catastrophe.
  When Chinese internet users flooded social media with indignation 
following Dr. Li's death, their cries were

[[Page S1456]]

scrubbed from the internet by the Communist Party's army of censors.
  When a Chinese human rights activist called for Chairman Xi to step 
down, he was detained and then disappeared.
  When Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead wrote a 
bracing article about the Chinese Communist Party's failure to contain 
the coronavirus, the Chinese Communists kicked three of the paper's 
reporters out of the country.
  The Chinese Communist Party's deception has been so thorough that its 
rare moments of candor, however obviously helpful, have been quickly 
suppressed and punished.
  When the number of reported infections spiked upward due to an 
improvement in data reporting, the party purged local officials who 
were likely responsible.
  After Chinese scientists gave the world a headstart in developing a 
vaccine by publishing the disease's genome online, what happened? Were 
they given awards? Were they celebrated? No. Their lab was shut down 
the very next day. These scientists deserved awards. They deserved a 
medal. Instead, they were given a professional death sentence.
  The Chinese people have suffered greatly from this coronavirus. They 
are, in fact, the first and the worst victims of their own Communist 
government. But now the whole world is suffering with them. Just as the 
Bubonic plague spread to Europe via traders on the Silk Road, the Wuhan 
coronavirus is traveling China's new Silk Road. It turns out that the 
Belt and Road Initiative exports not just China's money and Chinese 
debt but China's viruses as well as its repression. It threatens not 
only economies around the world; it threatens peoples around the world.
  Right next door to China, Iran is suffering a devastating outbreak of 
the coronavirus. Birds of a feather flock together, I would have to 
add. The mullahs in Tehran have emulated the Chinese Communist Party's 
shameful response to coronavirus, first denying and then downplaying 
the outbreak until it was no longer possible to ignore the bodies 
stacking up in clinics, a mysterious sickness spreading through the 
Cabinet of Iran's Government itself.
  Remember the suffering people in these countries when you hear 
triumphant, self-congratulatory messages coming from Chinese propaganda 
rags like Global Times and China Daily--or even the World Health 
Organization, which, I have to say, seems more interested in protecting 
the feelings of the Chinese Communist Party than protecting the health 
of people around the world. China's propagandists are reportedly hard 
at work on a book exonerating Chairman Xi for his negligent response to 
this virus.
  The official line is that the coronavirus is contained and China is 
back to work, but don't believe it. Do not believe the hype. The 
Chinese Communist Party lied from the very beginning of this outbreak, 
and it is lying still. It is responsible for the scale of this virus 
outbreak around the world. This outbreak didn't happen in spite of the 
Chinese Communist Party's efforts to contain it; it happened because of 
the Communist system of government.
  Three months later, we still don't know how many people have been 
infected or killed by coronavirus on the Chinese mainland. All we have 
are bogus statistics that just so happen to track perfectly--
perfectly--with the Communist Party line day after day.
  I will cite just one example. Barron's, the financial publication, 
discovered that the official number of deaths could be predicted 
perfectly in advance--in advance--in China using a simple mathematical 
formula. This coronavirus isn't just contagious and deadly; it is good 
at math as well--if you believe the Chinese Communist Party. But that 
doesn't just happen in nature. They are obviously cooking their books. 
It is not hard to see why. China's economy has ground to a halt. The 
Chinese Communist Party is desperate to restart it and avoid the first 
contraction in the last 30 years, whatever it may cost in lives of the 
Chinese people. If China is truly back to work, as the Chinese 
Communists claim, it is only because it has employed Communist tactics 
that evoke the worst horrors of Soviet communism, from Stalin's 5-year 
plans to Leningrad in 1943.
  After shutting down almost half the country's factories to stop the 
spread of coronavirus, the Chinese Communist Party is opening them 
again, barely 1 month later. Investors around the world beware: That 
decision is motivated not by confidence but by desperation. It will 
almost certainly lead to more outbreaks as workers congregate on 
crowded subways and factory floors, all because the Chinese Communist 
Party mandarins, living safely behind armed guards and walls in 
Beijing, decided that hitting their growth target was more important 
than the peasants' lives.
  When I first called for travel restrictions on China back in late 
January, Dr. Li was still alive and the coronavirus was, thankfully, 
far from our shores. Tragically, it is now a global disease, and we 
have to do all we can to arrest its spread.
  The most vital thing China can do is still be fully open and 
transparent about the origins and extent of the coronavirus.
  I say to the Chinese Communist Party: Stop hiding behind your fake 
numbers and politically correct bureaucrats at the World Health 
Organization. Let truly independent experts into Wuhan to investigate 
this virus. The United States has offered repeatedly--repeatedly--to 
send a team and would do so tomorrow if you would just have the 
humanity to let them in and help save your own people.
  Finally, give those people the freedom to speak candidly about the 
disease that has devastated your nation. Do not stifle the next 
whistleblower, the next doctor or nurse who speaks up to save the lives 
not just of their own people but of the people around the world.
  Here in America, only time will tell how this virus will run its 
course. We have many advantages, though, to help us in this fight. We 
have the world's best doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals. As 
important, we live in a republic that protects the liberty of our 
citizens and gives every American the freedom to speak, to write, to 
dissent, to sound an alarm--loudly sound an alarm--when we see 
something that isn't right and we think we can make it right.
  Tragically, for himself, for his family, for the world, Dr. Li 
Wenliang enjoyed no such freedom. Yet he still spoke up to try to save 
his neighbors and to save the world. For that he was punished, and now 
he has passed.
  May he rest in peace, and may his memories inspire other selfless 
heroes who will speak truth and hold the Chinese Communist Party to 
account, no matter the cost.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Romney).
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                      Bipartisan Background Checks

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on average, we lose 100 Americans every 
single day to firearms.
  Last week marked 1 year since the House of Representatives passed 
H.R. 8. It was a bipartisan bill. Both Democrats and Republicans 
supported it. The bill stood for a very basic proposition, and the 
proposition is this: Whatever your constitutional rights or God-given 
rights--if you make that argument--to a firearm might be, we as a 
society cannot allow people who are convicted felons or who are shown 
to be mentally unstable to legally buy firearms in this country. We are 
supposed to have background checks to make sure this doesn't happen. It 
turns out that more than one out of five firearms are sold in America 
without there having been background checks on the purchasers.
  So H.R. 8, this bipartisan bill, passed the House to close the gaps 
in our background system. What kind of gaps are we talking about? We 
have terrible gun violence in the city of Chicago. Some of the critics 
of Chicago like to say: You have the toughest gun laws and the most gun 
deaths. Well, they don't tell you the whole story. Many of those guns 
start off not in Chicago and

[[Page S1457]]

not in Illinois but at gun shows in Northwest Indiana, where they are 
sold sometimes in volume without there being any background checks made 
on the purchasers.
  It has been 1 year of nothing in the U.S. Senate in responding to 
this national crisis--not one thing. It is within the power of the 
majority leader, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, to at 
least let us address the issue and debate it.
  He has a majority. Nothing is going to pass here without Republican 
support. We know that. But don't the American people deserve a debate? 
One man, the Republican majority leader, says no. He styles himself as 
the Grim Reaper of the Senate. He takes pride in the fact that he has 
killed hundreds of bills passed by the House that will never, ever see 
the light of day in the U.S. Senate.
  Well, I can tell the Senator from Kentucky that after attending so 
many funerals, after giving heartbreaking sympathy to the families of 
those who have lost their children and loved ones, after hearing about 
so many mass shootings--mass shootings that should shock our 
conscience--aren't we shocked when people just go to a movie theater in 
Colorado and are gunned down as they watch a movie? Aren't we shocked 
when a crowd in Las Vegas just wants to enjoy a country western concert 
and they are gunned down? Weren't we shocked at a high school in 
Florida or a first grade classroom in Connecticut when mass shootings 
take place?
  What will it take, America? What will it take for this Senate, what 
will it take for this majority leader to realize enough is enough?
  I believe in Second Amendment rights to bear arms for those who buy 
them legally, use them and store them responsibly, whether it is for 
self-defense, sport, or hunting. But none of the people who come to me 
and argue this issue are arguing for convicted felons and mentally 
unstable people to buy a firearm. We need them to stand with us and to 
stand with law enforcement, who are often the victims of these 
firearms, to make this a safer nation.
  There are obvious gaps in the Federal gun laws that make it easy for 
felons, abusers, and mentally unstable people to get their hands on 
guns and hurt innocent people. Loopholes in the background check 
system, like the gun show loophole I mentioned and one I haven't 
mentioned--the loophole on the internet, where there is no real 
background check whatsoever--account for massive sales of firearms each 
year in the United States.
  The House-passed Bipartisan Background Checks Act would close these 
gaps in the background check system. Around 90 percent of Americans 
support the proposals in this bill--90 percent of them. It is good 
enough for America, but not good enough for the Senate.
  Obviously, the majority leader needs to be persuaded, and 90 percent 
of America is not enough. It is a commonsense, bipartisan step we 
should take, consistent with constitutional rights but consistent, as 
well, with common sense.
  I can't explain why the Senate Republicans will not take up a 
bipartisan, House-passed bill that is so overwhelmingly supported, even 
by Republicans. There are literally hundreds of bills, which have 
passed the House of Representatives, gathering dust on the Senate desk, 
and this is one of them. These bills deal with issues like reducing the 
cost of prescription drugs, protecting the pensions of working 
Americans and retired Americans, securing our elections from foreign 
interference, and, of course, reducing gun violence. They all wait on 
the desk of the Senator who styles himself the Grim Reaper.
  There have been too many excuses for inaction. There is plenty of 
time, as you can tell, on the Senate floor for us to roll up our 
sleeves and actually legislate, and when it comes to gun violence, the 
cost of inaction is devastating--100 Americans a day.
  It is time for Senator McConnell to call up H.R. 8, the Bipartisan 
Background Checks Act, and have this Senate actually debate an issue 
and actually vote on an issue that can make a real difference in 
America.


                                S. 2657

  Mr. President, I will commend the majority leader and Senator 
Murkowski of Alaska for doing something that is out of the ordinary. 
There is a bill pending before the Senate on the issue of American's 
energy policy. You see, last year on floor of the U.S. Senate--this 
deliberative body that has been honored throughout history for the 
great debates that have taken place here--last year, during the entire 
calendar year, the Senate considered only 22 amendments in the entire 
year.
  I have served here for a while. I can never remember a time when 
there was so little activity on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
  Well, I want to commend Senator Murkowski. She has started us off 
this year, I hope, with an indication that things might change.
  This Energy bill before us is going to be hotly debated. I am not 
going to agree with every provision, but that isn't required of it. 
What is required is to bring a measure forward, debate it, compromise 
where you can, and come up with the best product you can come up with.
  Congress has not passed major energy legislation since the year 2009. 
Over 10 years have passed. Has the energy picture in America changed in 
10 years? Of course. Has the environmental picture changed? We know it 
has.
  President Obama, in 2009, in a stimulus package, included critical 
tax credits for renewable energy like wind and solar. This week's 
debate marks an opportunity to tackle a decadelong legislative slump on 
these issues.
  The American Energy Innovation Act seeks to modernize our electrical 
grid, support research into advanced energy technology, and improve 
energy efficiency in buildings across America.
  Through significant bipartisan effort, my colleagues have constructed 
a package that starts to address one of America's most pressing 
issues--energy for our future.
  Although the bill contains provisions that support innovation and 
research at the Department of Energy, I have to say I think we can do 
more. We need more robust support for basic science research--the kind 
of research that costs too much and takes too long for private 
companies to undertake on their own.
  Time and again, whether it is new medicine, new medical devices, or 
new energy policy, the Federal Government has shown the real leadership 
in basic research.
  We are at risk of no longer leading the world in cutting-edge 
research because our generation is not adequately funding basic 
science. We are living off the achievements of previous generations. We 
are not leaving the world of our children and grandchildren better for 
the research we are doing today--at least not as much as we should. 
That is why I put forth an amendment to this bill to increase funding 
for the Department of Energy's Office of Science by 5 percent real 
growth--that is 5 percent over inflation--each year for the next 5 
years.
  This amendment will provide more than $43 billion over 5 years for 
basic research in energy technology and close a funding gap that has 
stunted some of DOE's most important projects.
  Think for a moment about electric vehicles. Commonly now, their range 
of mileage is 200 to 300 miles. What if we doubled or tripled that 
number? Would it change the attitude of the public about using electric 
vehicles and reducing pollution? I think there is no doubt that it 
would.
  This investment in research will pay off. It will strengthen the 
Energy bill and help move us into the 21st century in a leadership 
position where the United States should be.
  While my amendment addresses one priority to enhance the American 
Energy Innovation Act, a larger question remains. It is fundamental and 
basic: How does this bill on energy address the existential threat of 
climate change? We should ask that about every bill that comes across 
the floor--certainly a bill talking about the future of energy.
  My colleagues have worked to improve energy efficiency and fund 
innovation. I support both of those efforts. But this bill does not 
honestly and aggressively deal with climate change.
  Unfortunately, facing the global threat of warming will require more 
than just faith and technology. Climate change impacts every sector of

[[Page S1458]]

American life. It is well past time that we deal with solutions that 
can promise our kids and grandkids a habitable planet.
  According to the climatologist in my State of Illinois, as a result 
of climate change, Illinois faces higher temperatures and more 
frequent, intense rainfall than at any other time in our State's 
history. That is over 200 years.
  Our farmers have seen it. Last year, increased precipitation between 
April and June literally crippled our farmers when it came to planting 
and left them, many times, with fields that were not productive.
  We have seen it in the city of Chicago. In January, there were waves 
as high as 20 feet pummeling the Lake Michigan shoreline of Chicago and 
flooding our coastal communities.
  During the summer, record temperatures in Chicago last year 
threatened the elderly with heat stroke and kept many kids behind 
doors. Even the Trump administration has seen it. Despite the 
President's denial of climate change, people within his administration 
spoke up.
  In November of 2018, the ``Fourth National Climate Assessment'' 
reported that American economic losses could reach hundreds of billions 
of dollars by the end of the century as a result of climate change.
  For decades, scientists have warned us about this threat, and now we 
can see it in our lives almost every day.
  As the Senate considers energy legislation, we do the American people 
a great disservice by failing to seriously address climate change. That 
is why I have been working on an approach that I think has some 
promise.
  Let's look back at history, to the 1930s. The United States faced a 
different existential crisis called the Great Depression. At that time, 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Reconstruction Finance 
Corporation. This was an agency that issued low-interest loans and 
harnessed investment across the economy. The RFC, as it was known, 
became a critical lifeline for the U.S. economy, and its catch-all 
approach to investment spurred us into a recovery.
  Though climate change represents a different set of challenges than 
the Great Depression, the RFC model shows us an example of a broad 
strategy needed to combat existential threats to our Nation. We need to 
take immediate action to decrease greenhouse grass emissions and limit 
human-induced global warming.
  According to the EPA, in 2018, the United States emitted more than 
5.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide--a 3.2-percent increase over the 
previous year. We are moving in the wrong direction.
  Clearly, this administration's strategy of removing the United States 
from the Paris climate accord and skirting around climate change is one 
that is not helping us address this issue successfully and effectively. 
Tackling this issue requires an immediate reduction in carbon 
emissions, massive investments in resilience and clean energy 
technology, and a willingness to take this threat seriously.
  Climate change makes the normal disasters in America that much worse. 
It increases their frequency and their intensity, and it is devastating 
to the most vulnerable people and businesses in America.
  I support efforts like the bill before us--the American Energy 
Innovation Act--that take small steps toward addressing climate change, 
but this problem calls for a much larger commitment, not just by the 
Senate and the House and by the President, but certainly by the 
American people. We have it within our power, if we have the will, to 
deal with this challenge.
  Research, technology, and a willingness to make a sacrifice for 
future generations is all it takes. We can put that package together on 
a bipartisan basis.
  I yield the floor.
  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. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Coronavirus

  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, the American people are apprehensive about 
the spread of the coronavirus in the United States and abroad, as we 
can always remember. Global financial markets are on edge. Both are 
resilient, but vigorous action, I believe, is needed to calm nerves, 
stabilize the situation, and get our arms around this crisis. I believe 
Congress must marshal the resources necessary for an aggressive, 
comprehensive, and swift response.
  I am pleased to report to my colleagues this afternoon that we, with 
the House and leadership on both sides, have reached a bipartisan, 
bicameral agreement on an emergency supplemental appropriations package 
to do just that. The agreement provides a surge in funding at every 
level, as I have advocated for--local, State, Federal, and 
international--to meet the growing challenge that we face.
  The total amount included in the package is $7.76 billion, a little 
under $8 billion. We arrived at that figure by going back to the 
agencies--the NIH, the Centers for Disease Control, and so forth. We 
asked: What do you need? What do you think you would need if this virus 
really spreads? We wanted to make sure that they had the tools and the 
resources and that we would not shortchange the American people in any 
way.
  So the $7.76 billion, we have been told by the people who know, 
should be sufficient. We hope it is. Nearly 85 percent of this funding 
will be spent right here in the United States--85 percent. And $2.2 
billion is for the Centers for Disease Control, which the Presiding 
Officer is very familiar with because it is located in Atlanta, GA, 
including, no less than $950 million--just short of a billion--to help 
States and local governments prevent and combat the spread of the 
virus.
  Now, $836 million will go to the National Institutes of Health to, 
among other things, train healthcare workers on the frontlines and to 
develop diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines related to the virus. 
And $61 million will support the Food and Drug Administration's role in 
approving such products for the American people.
  Now, $3.1 billion of this package is for the Public Health and Social 
Services Emergency Fund, among other things, to supplement the 
Strategic National Stockpile here; to develop and purchase diagnostics, 
therapeutics, and vaccines; to provide resources for community health 
centers; and to help hospitals and help systems adapt and respond if 
this crisis grows.
  Another $300 million is made available for the purchase of additional 
diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines, should further need arise--in 
other words, a contingency.
  Finally, to fight the spread of the virus abroad, which we have to 
do, $1.25 billion is provided to the State Department and USAID to 
continue their work with our international partners.
  We have listened carefully to the agencies and the experts on the 
frontlines in crafting this package. Vice President Pence has also been 
very helpful in this effort, and I appreciate President Trump's 
eagerness to sign this legislation.
  I also take a moment to thank Leaders McConnell and Schumer, Vice 
Chairman Leahy of the Appropriations Committee, Chairwoman Lowey, chair 
of the House Appropriations Committee, and Ranking Member Granger for 
all of us coming together to do the right thing for the American 
people.
  We face this crisis together. We are fighting it together. 
Ultimately, I believe we will prevail together, but now is the time for 
action. The House will act first. All indications are they will pass it 
swiftly--this package. I hope so.
  When this package arrives in the Senate, I would urge my colleagues 
to do the same so we can get help to those who need it and ease some of 
the anxiety stemming from this outbreak. I think we owe it to the 
American people to do no less.
  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. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Loeffler). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                              Coronavirus

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, Chairman Shelby just spoke. He and I

[[Page S1459]]

have worked so hard together on the Appropriations Committee on the 
emergency coronavirus supplemental request. I have always enjoyed 
working with Chairman Shelby, and I am pleased we can announce that we 
have reached a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on an emergency 
supplemental to address the spread of the novel coronavirus and protect 
the health and safety of the American people. So I thank my friend 
Chairman Shelby, Chairwoman Lowey of the other body, and Ranking Member 
Granger for their cooperation.
  I think one of the things I found during my time on the 
Appropriations Committee is that we tend to leave our labels at the 
door. We worked together. We did not see each other as Republicans and 
Democrats. We looked at each other as Members of the House and the 
Senate trying to get this done. I urge both the majority leader and the 
Democratic leader to move as quickly as possible, once the House acts 
today, to get this agreement to the President's desk.
  As I said last weekend, there is no reason why we cannot and should 
not finish this bill this week and get it down to the President for 
signing. If we have to work Friday or even Saturday, let's get it done 
and get it done now.
  Now, what the House of Representatives is debating today is vastly 
different from the $1.25 billion grossly inadequate proposal from the 
Trump administration that was sent to Congress just 9 days ago. This 
was so poorly thought out that both Republicans and Democrats said it 
made no sense.
  Where President Trump's proposal would rob Peter to pay Paul by 
stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from funds meant to contain an 
ongoing Ebola crisis and take money from programs the American people 
rely on, like the low-income heating assistance program, LIHEAP, our 
agreement provides $7.8 billion in new emergency funding to address 
this crisis without raiding these important programs. We cannot just 
turn our backs on funding to address the ongoing Ebola crisis.
  And millions of Amricans rely on programs like LIHEAP. I would invite 
any of those from the White House who think we do not need this heating 
assistance in places like my home state of Vermont, where just a few 
days ago it was 10 below zero.
  Our agreement does not rob Peter to pay Paul. We are not stealing 
hundreds of millions of dollars from funds meant to contain an ongoing 
Ebola crisis but simply providing $7.8 billion in new emergency funding 
to address this crisis without raiding those important programs.
  We also include a $500 million authorization to enhance the 
availability of telehealth services--something that could be so helpful 
in virtually every one of our States.
  We also reject the President's extreme ``America First'' mantra that 
would include nothing for USAID to help contain the spread of the 
coronvirus abroad. Let's be realistic. At a time when communicable 
diseases are only an airplane flight away, that is a recipe for 
failure. If we can stop this before it gets to our borders, why 
shouldn't we work with other countries to do that? So, we instead 
provide $1.25 billion in new resources for the global health response, 
provide humanitarian assistance, and secure funding for emergency 
evacuations of U.S. citizens, if needed.
  We provide $2.2 billion to support Federal, State, and local public 
health agencies to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the 
coronavirus. The funds will support laboratory testing and monitoring, 
infection control, and public health preparedness. Again, we are taking 
this completely out of politics and going to where our best people are 
who need the resources to address this crisis. I talked about some of 
the need for help with the Governor of our State, who is a Republican, 
and we worked very, very closely together. I applaud what he has been 
doing to prepare for this virus.
  Our agreement is going to provide more than $3 billion for research 
and development of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics to prevent 
or treat the effects of coronavirus. We are going to include provisions 
to ensure that vaccines developed with the support of Federal dollars--
our tax dollars--remain affordable to those most in need. The taxpayers 
pay for it. They should not have to pay for it a second time because a 
large company wants to make a huge profit. In fact, we provide nearly 
$1 billion for healthcare preparedness, the procurement of 
pharmaceuticals and medical supplies and funding to support community 
health centers, which provide healthcare to so many in our underserved 
urban areas and rural communities.
  We provide $61 million to the Food and Drug Administration to 
facilitate the development of new therapies and vaccines to combat the 
coronavirus but also to mitigate the potential medical supply chain 
interruptions.
  Importantly, this agreement includes $7 billion in small business 
disaster loans. What is happening can really hit the small businesses, 
which are the backbone of America's economy. We have this money, the 
small business disaster loans, to help mitigate the economic impact of 
the spread of the coronavirus in the United States.
  When we confront this widening crisis, it is important to remember 
that we are not doing it as Republicans or Democrats seeking to score 
political points in addressing this threat. It is not something for the 
Republican Party or the Democratic Party to deal with. We should deal 
with it as who we are. We are Americans, and we are U.S. Senators. One 
hundred of us have to speak to our own conscience. At times of crisis 
in our Nation's history, the Senate has proven its ability to be the 
conscience of the Nation and a steady guiding hand. That is what we 
have to do now.
  I am pleased that the House measure does not include legislation 
related to extending FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. 
We have had months to deal with that controversial legislation. It has 
no place on urgent funding legislation to combat the current health 
situation.
  I am confident we can, once again, put aside partisan squabbles and 
help to lead our Nation forward. Taking up this agreement as soon as 
possible is the first step.
  I will work with Chairman Shelby. The two of us will work together to 
shepherd this bipartisan, bicameral agreement through the Senate and to 
the President.
  I would note--and I will speak further on this later on--that there 
are an awful lot of members of our staffs, both Republican and 
Democratic, who have worked and worked and worked late nights, worked 
weekends, and worked on days off to get us here. I applaud the men and 
women who have done that.
  I see my distinguished colleague on the floor, so I will yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


              America's Transportation Infrastructure Act

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today to address 
America's aging roads and bridges.
  Our highways are in need of repair all across the country. In some 
places, we actually need to rebuild new roads. That is why I, along 
with Senators Carper, Capito, and Cardin, have introduced America's 
Infrastructure Act.
  This bipartisan legislation is going to make a significant investment 
in our roads, in our bridges, and in our tunnels. It will fund our 
highways at historic levels.
  These investments are critical, but just as critical is speeding up 
government's approvals for important road projects.
  Last Congress, the Environment and Public Works Committee, which I 
chair, heard testimony about a highway project in my home State of 
Wyoming. The project took a decade--a full 10 years--to get the 
required permits--one after another after another--but then it only 
took a couple of months to get the project done. It is a project that 
is going to make our roads safer and more efficient, which was the 
whole desired effect of this project. It was held up because of 10 
years of waiting for Washington permits. A decade to permit, months to 
build--any American with common sense knows that is absurd. America's 
Transportation Infrastructure Act cuts through Washington redtape so 
projects can get done faster, better, cheaper, and smarter. That is 
key.

  We used President Trump's One Federal Decision policy as a model. It 
is a great plan, a great policy put forward by the President. Under the 
policy, the President has set a goal for his administration of 
completing environmental

[[Page S1460]]

reviews within 2 years. It is a goal I absolutely applaud. Our 
legislation will codify key elements of that policy into law.
  The bill will streamline duplicative requirements by many different 
Federal agencies on the same project. The permitting process will be 
simplified and will occur faster.
  Our bill also gives States increased flexibility--something States 
want. So Federal approvals can get moving and the project construction 
can get started sooner. It reduces the amount of paperwork needed from 
States to complete the projects. It is unacceptable that the Federal 
Government would hold up State projects and put drivers at risk. 
Washington should never prioritize paperwork, which is what Washington 
tends to do--prioritize paperwork over people's safety.
  America's Transportation Infrastructure Act cuts redtape. It makes 
safety a top priority.
  Our legislation is bipartisan, passing the Environment and Public 
Works Committee unanimously, 21 to 0.
  President Trump called on Congress to pass the bill. He did it during 
his State of the Union Address last month.
  This legislation is a win for the entire country. The time is now to 
pass America's Transportation Infrastructure Act so we can reduce the 
punishing and costly regulations and then do the important work of 
improving highway projects so that they can get built.
  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. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 8

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am coming to the floor today as we have 
just passed the 1-year mark since H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background 
Checks Act, passed the House of Representatives. This is a piece of 
legislation supported by 90 percent of the American public. It is hard 
for anything to enjoy 90 percent support in this country these days.
  The data shows us that this is a piece of legislation that, if 
enacted, would save lives. We have begged and pleaded for this piece of 
legislation to come before the Senate. I understand that there may not 
be 60 votes in the Senate to pass the exact piece of legislation 
supported by the House, but we could engage in a process of amendment, 
a process of compromise, and that could end up saving lives and getting 
a piece of legislation passed that is supported, as I mentioned, by 9 
out of 10 Americans.
  I have some remarks after what I expect will be an objection to my 
motion from the majority party.
  I will ask unanimous consent of my colleagues that the Senate proceed 
to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 29, H.R. 8, the 
Bipartisan Background Checks Act; I further ask that the bill be 
considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider 
be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action 
or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, if this 
unanimous consent were passed without a vote or even debate, that would 
become law. Passage of this request could infringe on the 
constitutional right of my constituents and many others across the 
United States. I believe firmly that would be the case and could even 
result in criminal charges against law-abiding firearms owners. So I 
object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. I am sorry to hear the objection. It is obviously not 
surprising. We have been waiting for a year for this body to act on the 
issue of gun violence. And though there are a range of measures that 
may actually be controversial, this is not one of them. This is not one 
of them.
  It is really hard to find folks in America who object to the idea 
that somebody should have to prove that they are not a criminal, that 
they don't have a history of serious mental illness, before they 
purchase a firearm.
  The fact is, the longer we wait, the more people die. There is no 
piece of legislation that is going to eliminate every single gun death 
in this country. In my State of Connecticut, when we passed the 
universal background checks law, we saw an immediate 40-percent 
reduction in gun homicides.
  In Missouri, when they repealed their universal background checks 
law, they saw an immediate 25-percent increase.
  That is the short-term immediate rate of return--both on the upside 
and the downside--you get when you take steps to ensure that criminals 
don't get guns or you take steps to make it easy for criminals to get 
guns.
  Senator Blumenthal is on the floor with me as well, and he will make 
remarks. I have been unable to persuade my colleagues, based on the 
data, that we should pass background checks--the data being the broad 
public support for the measure, the data being about the impact on 
people's lives that this piece of legislation would have.
  I want to make the case that, just from the simple standpoint of 
humanity, we should care about listening to the American public and 
passing legislation that will reduce these numbers. This is 
heartbreaking. Some 39,000 people a year are dying from gunshot wounds, 
with 3,011 on average a month and 100 a day.
  The majority of these are suicides, but the data tells us that by 
making it harder for people to buy guns who shouldn't have them because 
of a serious history of mental illness or because of their criminal 
background, you will have less suicides. Many of these are homicides, 
and many of these are accidental shootings. All of them are preventable 
by better policy.
  Remember, this happens in the United States and nowhere else in the 
advanced-income world. It is not because we have more mental illness in 
the United States. There is no evidence of that. It is not because our 
kids play more video games in the United States. There is no evidence 
of that. It is not because we spend less money on law enforcement. 
There is no evidence of that. It is because this country is awash in 
illegal and dangerous guns. It is because we have made a choice to make 
it a lot easier for some to find a way to a lethal firearm to commit an 
act of violence.
  Every single one of the 100 persons who die every day is attached to 
families and friends and neighbors. The data suggests that for 
everybody who is killed in a gun homicide, there are 20 other people 
who experience some kind of life-altering, diagnosable trauma because 
of it.
  I want to tell you a few of these stories today--stories of people 
who over the last year have been among this statistic--40,000 people 
who died from gunshot wounds. In March 2019, 1 month after H.R. 8 got 
to the Senate, Shelby Verderosa was home with her 6-month-old daughter 
when she was shot and killed in Phoenix, AZ. As a new mom, Shelby ``was 
doing everything she possibly could to make sure her daughter had the 
best life,'' said her cousin. One month after H.R. 8 passed the Senate, 
she was shot and killed when she was home with her 6-month-old 
daughter.

  Lamar Sharp was at a picnic in Kansas City in April--2 months after 
H.R. 8 got here to the Senate--when he heard gunshots. Instead of 
running away from the gunshots toward safety, he ran to save his 
friend's 2-year-old grandson, and he was shot three times. He died 5 
days before his 32nd birthday, 2 months after H.R. 8 got to the Senate 
floor.
  In May, 3 months after the background checks bill got to the Senate, 
three LGBTQ+ young people were shot in Detroit. Alunte Davis, Timothy 
Blancher, and Paris Cameron were known for being funny. They were known 
for being wildly charismatic. Police believe their sexual orientation 
and gender identity were factors in their murders.
  A month later, 4 months after H.R. 8 got here to the Senate, Durelle 
Moxley was killed on Father's Day when a shooting broke out in his 
neighborhood. Durelle and his wife had three young children. His 
friends said:

       He was really proud to be a father. He was pumped and he 
     was really celebrating Father's Day.

  In July, 5 months after H.R. 8 got to the Senate, 5 months after 
sitting on

[[Page S1461]]

Mitch McConnell's desk, awaiting action, Julianna Carr was killed by 
her brother in a murder-suicide at a housewarming party in Katy, TX. 
She left behind a husband and two children whom she called her 
``greatest loves.''
  Jurnee Thompson was 8 years old when she was shot in August, 6 months 
after the Senate got H.R. 8--6 months of doing nothing on a bill with 
90 percent public support. Jurnee was the 14th child to be shot and 
killed in St. Louis alone last summer. Her dad says losing her was 
``one of the biggest fears of my life and now I'm living it as a 
reality.''
  In September, 7 months after H.R. 8 showed up in the Senate and the 
Senate did nothing with it, Usher Hanns was 17 years old when he was 
shot and killed. He was a senior at Weaver High School in Connecticut. 
He was a member of Hartford's Proud Drill, Drum, and Dance Corp. His 
mom said he was ``a good son. He always made me smile. He's a joyful 
kid.''
  Deirdre Zaccardi was murdered by her husband Joseph in Abington, PA, 
in October, 8 months after H.R. 8 got to the Senate. He also shot their 
three children, Alexis, Nathaniel, and Kathryn, before turning the gun 
on himself. The Abington police chief said their deaths were ``a 
horrific event no one should ever see.''
  Nine months after H.R. 8 got here in November, Gracie Ann Muehlberger 
was shot by a classmate with a semiautomatic, untraceable ``ghost gun'' 
in Santa Clarita, CA. Hundreds attended Gracie's memorial service. Her 
friends described her as an ``independent spirit.''
  In December, 10 months after the House passed H.R. 8--10 months of 
doing nothing with it here in the Senate--Sergeant Chris Brewster was 
responding to a domestic violence call in Houston. When he got there, 
he was shot by a suspect fleeing the scene. He was a devoted husband 
who loved making people laugh. Friends described him as ``wonderfully 
weird.''
  In January, 11 months after H.R. 8 got to the Senate, Gregory Rieves 
was killed. He had retired after 22 years as a State trooper, a career 
that he called his dream job. He was killed in Illinois. His friends 
described him as ``the most gentle, kind-hearted person you could ever 
know.''
  In February of this year, two sisters, Abbaney and Deja Matts, were 
shot by Abbaney's ex-boyfriend in a dormitory in Commerce, TX. ``I just 
want people to know they were fun,'' said their mom.
  Just last week in Milwaukee, almost exactly a year since H.R. 8 came 
to the Senate, five people were shot on the campus of Molson Coors. 
People who went to work on a normal Wednesday and whose families will 
never get to hug them or tell them goodbye or hear their voices again 
were shot and killed in a workplace shooting.
  Senator Blumenthal and I are not going to give up. We are not going 
to give up because of what we have been through in Connecticut, having 
experienced and lived through the aftermath of the horrific shooting in 
Sandy Hook, but also because of what we see happening every single day 
in places we represent--murders that happen in Hartford and Bridgeport 
and New Haven, murders that happen in rural areas of our State, as 
well--accidental shootings, homicides, suicides. Nowhere else, other 
than in the United States, does this epidemic of carnage happen at this 
rate. It happens because we have made a choice. We have made a choice 
to let the gun industry run Washington, DC, to give them veto power 
over gun policy that has helped their bottom line, that has made gun 
company executives rich. But it has resulted in 40,000 people a year 
dying--100 a day.
  I will continue to come to the floor and tell the stories of those 
who have been lost. I am deeply sorry that when we try to bring up 
unanimous consent requests to the Senate to have a debate or a vote on 
H.R. 8, we keep hearing objections.
  We don't run the Senate. Democrats are not in charge. We don't get to 
set the agenda. Mitch McConnell, Senator McConnell, does; Republicans 
who are part of leadership do. All you have to do is bring this bill to 
the floor. Let's have a debate on an expanded background checks 
proposal.
  I get that the version of the bill that passed the House might not 
have 60 votes here, but why don't we try to find common ground? Why 
don't we sit down and do what the Senate used to do and find compromise 
that makes the country a better place? The fact that we aren't even 
trying to find bipartisan agreement on a background checks proposal is 
absolutely heartbreaking, not just to me or to Senator Blumenthal; it 
is heartbreaking to the survivors and the family members of the folks 
who aren't with us any longer. It is an insult to them that we are not 
even lifting a finger to try to make this country a safer place.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am honored to join my colleague and 
friend, Senator Murphy.
  First, let me thank him for his leadership. We have worked together 
as a team. We have been partners in this effort from the very first 
days of our elections, and we were together at Sandy Hook on the 
afternoon of December 14, 2012, when we saw and met many of the 
families who suffered that absolutely unspeakable loss in an 
unimaginable tragedy that haunts us both to this day.
  Just this morning, as a matter of fact, I was with one of the dads, 
Mark Barden, who has turned his grief into tremendously positive work 
in our schools, forming an organization called Sandy Hook Promise, one 
of the numerous grassroots organizations that has grown in the wake of 
that tragedy. Of course, Brady existed before Sandy Hook, but 
afterward, there was Sandy Hook Promise and Newtown Action Alliance. 
Connecticut Against Gun Violence expanded, Moms Demand Action, Students 
Demand Action, Everytown for Gun Safety, Gifford--the list reflects the 
outrage and fear of the American public against this epidemic.
  I am here to talk about an epidemic, a public health menace. Of 
course, we must do something to take effective action and do it 
promptly against coronavirus, COVID-19, which also reflects a threat to 
our health and safety. It has already killed Americans. It threatens to 
spread. There is a need for preparedness and honesty and truthfulness 
to the American public about the extent of the threat and about the 
need for action.
  Gun violence today in America--just today and every day in America--
kills more than 100 people. That number reflects only the fatalities. 
It is no measure of the people who are injured, sometimes crippled for 
life, and often emotionally damaged. It fails to reflect the families 
who suffer those losses and the trauma that affects children who are 
truly innocent bystanders to the drive-by shootings in downtown 
Hartford or Bridgeport or New Haven.
  Literally, no community in America is immune from this public health 
epidemic, this menace that afflicts America unlike any other country in 
the world. Globalization has affected many public health threats, as we 
are learning about coronavirus. But America is unique in the magnitude 
of its gun violence epidemic, as my colleague Senator Murphy has said 
so well.
  The costs are not just in human lives and emotion. Even if you care 
nothing about the human condition, think about the dollars and cents--
the costs, the medical care, and, of course, the talent and energy, the 
intelligence, the productivity that is lost literally every day in 
those 100 lives. There is no vaccine. There is no panacea. There is no 
magic cure for this epidemic.
  The bill that brings us here today is just one piece of legislation, 
one tool that is vitally necessary, but it is only one step. It will 
not solve all of the problems of gun violence, but we know it will save 
lives. We know it from our experience in Connecticut. We know this 
enforcement mechanism will keep guns out of the hands of dangerous 
people.
  It adds no new prohibitions. It imposes no new categories of people 
who are prohibited from buying guns. Those categories and those 
prohibitions are already in the Federal law. This background check 
expansion to all sales--not just federally licensed deals but private 
sales, sales on the internet--is simply a way to enforce the existing 
prohibitions, which were supported, by the way, by the NRA when they 
were passed decades of ago. It simply makes those prohibitions real.
  I know, from my experience as a prosecutor over decades and as a 
State

[[Page S1462]]

attorney general, that the best laws on the books are dead letter if 
they are unenforced. That is really why 98 percent of the American 
people, the vast majority of gun owners, and even NRA members support 
this legislation. It is a simple, commonsense way to enforce existing 
prohibitions that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. It is 
the least we can do for those victims of gun violence whose images and 
voices and faces are with their families still and many of them with us 
every day.
  We should be very clear--because this measure should not be 
oversold--that it will not alone solve the problem of gun violence. 
There are a variety of other measures. I have introduced the emergency 
risk protection order legislation that would enable law enforcement--
local police or State and Federal law enforcement--to take guns away 
from people who are dangerous to themselves or others. That legislation 
would require a warrant, and it would enable the warrant to be 
eventually challenged in a court proceeding. It would provide due 
process, which would be particularly important in domestic disputes 
when an estranged intimate partner may have a gun or when there is 
suicide and self-harm is threatened. This has worked in Florida 
thousands of times, where it was passed most recently, and in 
Connecticut. Connecticut was the first in the Nation to adopt an 
emergency risk protection order, and it has worked.

  Along with that law are safe storage measures. There is Ethan's Law, 
which was named after Ethan Song, who was lost to his wonderful 
parents, Kristin and Michael Song. Ethan was visiting a friend whose 
parents failed to store their gun safely, and in that unimaginable 
tragedy, he was lost.
  Of course, there are also other measures, like eliminating sweetheart 
deals that provide unique and virtually absolute immunity to gun 
manufacturers. The Sandy Hook surviving families are seeking redress 
against the manufacturer of the gun that killed their 20 children and 6 
great educators. They are overcoming the obstacles imposed by the law 
that provides that immunity to the gun manufacturers.
  Assault weapons bans, ammunition background checks, and high-capacity 
magazines are a series of measures that we should consider. It is not 
that every one of them is necessary, but every one of them can help to 
save lives. Not one of them alone will prevent all of these fatalities.
  The least we can do is debate H.R. 8, which has been language on the 
Senate floor now for a year without its being called for a vote. That 
is really unconscionable. I know we use that word ``unconscionable'' so 
frequently that perhaps it has lost its meaning, but if we have a 
conscience and if we have a belief and a conviction in the democratic 
process, we should at least give a vote to this measure that is 
lifesaving, that is supported by almost all of the American people, and 
that is opposed only by the NRA and a gun lobby that is diminishing in 
power. In fact, the NRA is crumbling from within because of a financial 
scandal and on the outside because its extreme, inflexible positions 
are untenable to an American public that sees the public health 
epidemic before us as a result of gun violence and says: Enough is 
enough.
  There is a movement that will eventually prevail. Whether it will win 
in this session--because we have been blocked again from unanimous 
consent by our Republican colleagues--I don't know. I do know with 
certainty that it will prevail because these grassroots have grown and 
have created a movement. The students of Parkland have created a 
movement. The Sandy Hook Promise, the Newtown Action Alliance, Brady, 
Giffords, and others have created a movement. Like many movements and 
social causes in this country--the civil rights movement being the best 
example--this is fuel and power and is led by young people who are 
saying with the most passion of all: Enough is enough.
  Every one of them and every one of us knows someone--a family member, 
a coworker, a co-student, a colleague--who has been affected by gun 
violence. Almost two-thirds of those 100 deaths every day are from 
suicide, so we know mental health has to be addressed and that we need 
to invest more in mental health diagnoses and treatments.
  Again, mental health diagnoses and treatments alone are not a 
solution. I have long spearheaded and advocated for mental health 
parity--more treatment, more insurance coverage--but they alone will 
not solve the gun violence epidemic in this country.
  The fact is that the States that have universal background checks, 
according to a recent study, have had 52 percent fewer mass shootings 
than the States that have lacked them. It makes sense. Background check 
laws mean that 80 percent of the firearms acquired for criminal 
purposes can be stopped from being sold by unlicensed sellers.
  We in Connecticut have one of the strongest universal background 
checks on the books anywhere in the country. Yet we know guns have, 
really, no respect for State borders. They cross State borders with 
impunity. They cause deaths in Connecticut even if they have been 
manufactured elsewhere or have been sold in the South and have come via 
the Iron Pipeline to Connecticut or to New York or to New Jersey, which 
also has strong gun laws. This national public health epidemic demands 
a national--Federal--solution that protects our Nation.
  The Odessa shooting just this past August serves as a tragic reminder 
of the steep price that inaction exacts. The Odessa shooter failed a 
background check, but then he turned right around after he failed that 
background check from a licensed dealer and bought an assault-style 
rifle in a private sale. That private sale was not covered by a 
background check, and seven more innocent people are dead as a result.
  On December 14, 2012, I promised the parents who lost loved ones at 
Sandy Hook and other families that I would fight and do everything I 
could to make sure that no more parents would have to bury their 
children. I have worked tirelessly, along with others, like my 
colleague Senator Murphy and many of us on this side of the aisle, on 
public health and safety measures that would stop gun violence. I have 
also worked with Senator Graham on an emergency risk protection order 
proposal that has shown very serious signs of acceptance on that side 
of the aisle and even by the White House. So far, inaction has been the 
result.
  Since that day, December 14, 2012, there have been 2,389 mass 
shootings, not counting the individual lives lost in Hartford or in the 
suburbs or in the rural areas. It is an equal opportunity public health 
epidemic. Like any epidemic, no one is immune. Over 2,000 times, 
families have had to wait, like the parents of Newtown, to see whether 
that morning's kiss goodbye would be the last. They have had to wait to 
see whether that last wave at the school door would be the final one. 
That really is unconscionable in the greatest country in the history of 
the world.
  When I stood here in the months after 2012--in fact, in 2013--when we 
last voted on a universal background check bill, it was supported by a 
majority of my colleagues. There were 54 who voted for it, but it was 
not enough to reach the 60-vote threshold.
  From the Galleries, I heard one of those parents shout ``Shame.'' He 
was right. Shame on my Republican colleagues then, and shame on them 
now if they defy common sense and the will of the American people by 
preventing a vote--simply a vote. That is what we are asking for--a 
vote on H.R. 8. A year has passed since the House voted and approved 
this bill. Shame on them--my Republican colleagues--if they stand in 
the way of saving lives. Shame on them if they allow the carnage to 
continue on our streets, in our neighborhoods, and in our communities, 
crippling families and tearing apart those communities.
  The vicelike grip of the gun lobby is breaking, and there will be 
bipartisan collaboration. It will be the result of not my persuasion 
from speeches given on the floor but of the American people at the 
polls, because the ultimate court is the court of public opinion and 
because the ultimate voice here is that of the American people.
  In the military, there is a saying: ``The enemy has a vote.'' Here, 
the enemies are the shooters, and the enemies are the opposers of these 
commonsense measures. We cannot allow them to have a vote. It is the 
American people who will vote, and they will hold accountable those 
colleagues who fail to be on the right side of this issue and on the 
right side of history.

[[Page S1463]]

  I urge my Republican colleagues to rethink, to revisit, to reconsider 
their staunch, unyielding, inflexible opposition to even having a vote. 
To them, I say: Do your job. We are here to vote and save lives.
  I yield the floor.
  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. WICKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Young). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                            Broadband Access

  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I call the Senate's attention this 
afternoon to a pair of bills that are critical to the deployment of 
broadband access across the United States and the worldwide race to 5G, 
which we, of course, hope to win and will win.
  The first of these measures will ensure that telecommunications 
networks are safe and secure from foreign intrusion. The second bill, 
which I hope the Senate will take up and pass even today by unanimous 
consent, would help create highly accurate broadband coverage data that 
will help expand access to high-speed internet. Both of these measures 
are Commerce Committee priorities and are the result of extensive 
negotiations and work on a bipartisan and bicameral basis.
  Our economic and national security depend on nationwide access to 
high-speed internet that is safe and secure. The threat of foreign 
espionage through our broadband infrastructure is real, and it stems 
directly from the Chinese tech firms, like Huawei and ZTE.
  These companies are pawns of the Chinese Government. As a matter of 
fact, for all practical purposes, they are wholly owned entities of the 
Chinese Government, and they are putting on a full-court press to 
establish their footprint in wireless networks around the world and 
right here in the United States.
  Huawei and ZTE receive massive subsidies each year from the Chinese 
Government, and it is really beyond dispute that they are doing the 
bidding of the Chinese Communist Party.
  Some of our allies have come to realize this threat and have taken 
decisive action. I want to commend Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. 
They have all banned Huawei technologies from their networks.
  I am grateful that the Trump administration has shown strong 
leadership on this issue.
  Last year, the Department of Commerce placed Huawei on its Entity 
List, severely limiting its ability to do business with U.S. companies. 
That was a bold step, but, unfortunately, some of our networks had 
already been compromised by Huawei by the time the Commerce Department 
took action.
  So last week, the Senate took a major step toward removing the 
Chinese threat by passing the Secure and Trusted Communications 
Networks Act.
  This bill, which some refer to as the ``rip and replace'' bill, would 
rip out the Huawei equipment and replace it with reliable equipment 
that will not engage in espionage.
  This legislation will lay the foundation to give strong financial 
incentives to U.S. firms to strip out their Huawei and ZTE technology 
and replace it with secure alternatives. It will also help small, rural 
telecom providers transition away from firms that are controlled by 
Beijing.
  That bill is now on the President's desk, awaiting his signature, and 
it may be that he is going to wait until it can be joined by the 
Broadband DATA Act, which, again, I say can be passed by this body as 
early as this evening, when we adjourn.
  In December, the Senate unanimously passed the measure, but because 
the House passed a slightly amended version of the bill yesterday, we 
need to act again today to get this bill across the finish line and on 
to the White House.
  The Broadband DATA Act addresses the Federal Communication 
Commission's flawed maps, which the Presiding Officer and I have been 
so concerned about. Every year, the FCC spends billions of dollars to 
promote deployment of broadband across the United States. This funding 
is especially important for America's rural communication, which so 
often lags behind in broadband development. We have done a lot to close 
the digital divide, but an estimated 20 million Americans still lack 
access to broadband.
  For years, Members from both parties have noted that the FCC's maps 
have overstated broadband coverage, thereby understating the problem. 
For example, for Mississippi, the FCC map claims that we have a 98-
percent mobile broadband coverage--something anybody can say from 
experience is not true. It is far from true. Without accurate maps, the 
FCC cannot direct support to areas most in need.
  The Broadband DATA Act will fix this problem by creating a new 
database of areas in need of service, requiring providers to submit 
precise data, establishing specific standards for data collection, and 
allowing crowd sourcing to encourage public participation in the 
process.
  As a result, the Broadband DATA Act will also help target Federal 
funds toward those areas most in need of assistance. These steps will 
pave the way for more Americans across the heartland to exercise and to 
access high-speed broadband and to enjoy the economic opportunities 
that come with that.
  Coupled with last week's passage of the ``rip and replace'' 
legislation, Congress has achieved an important victory for our country 
and national security.
  In conclusion, I want to recognize the excellent work of my staff on 
the Commerce Committee, both the majority and the minority.
  I want to thank my friend and ranking member, Senator Cantwell, as 
well as Chairman Pallone and Ranking Member Walden of the House of 
Representatives on the Energy and Commerce Committee, as well as the 
members of their staff. Their efforts have gotten us to this point, 
ready for the President to put a signature on these two very important 
bills.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hyde-Smith). The clerk will call the 
roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BRAUN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2590

  Mr. BRAUN. Madam President, the discovery of thousands of fetal 
remains in Indiana at an abortionist's home last year horrified us all 
and highlighted a disturbing trend that Indiana has taken the lead in 
rectifying.
  This bill is our chance to fix the problem nationally. I believe all 
human life deserves a dignified burial, and fetal remains deserve to be 
treated with respect, not as medical waste. Sadly, irreverence toward 
fetal remains, like Dr. Klopfer's grotesque collection, in our case, is 
not an isolated incident. For example, in 2015, a Minnesota hospital 
threw out the body of a stillborn baby with dirty laundry.
  Indiana has led the way. Governor Mike Pence signed a law in 2016 
protecting the dignity of fetal remains, upheld by the Supreme Court 
last year in Box v. Planned Parenthood.
  This legislation, the Dignity for Aborted Children Act, builds on 
Indiana's success and provides guidelines for handling fetal remains 
and penalties for failing to respect the sanctity of human life, and it 
ensures that crimes like Dr. Klopfer's have consequences.
  The bill would require abortion providers to dispose of the remains 
of unborn children just as any other human remains or to release the 
remains to the family, should the family wish to receive them. This 
bill does not tell anyone what to do with their body. It only holds 
human fetuses to a higher standard of dignity than medical waste.
  Last week, this body could not agree to ban abortions after science 
tells us fetuses are capable of feeling pain. This body could not agree 
to ensure that babies born alive after botched abortions should receive 
the same standard of care as a baby born in a hospital.
  At the very least, we should be able to agree to treat the remains of 
unborn children with the reverence befitting a

[[Page S1464]]

human life rather than as medical waste.
  Given this, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration 
of S. 2590 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.
  I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time 
and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and 
laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, reserving the right to object, we have 
a serious public health crisis on our hands right now, and we expect it 
to get much worse. Right now, families across this country are actually 
looking to Congress to put partisanship aside and put their needs first 
and are counting on us to listen to experts and make decisions that are 
guided by science, not by ideology.
  They need to know that our No. 1 priority and what we should be 
talking about is public health today.
  Instead of discussing this harmful bill that will gut reproductive 
rights, put unnecessary restrictions on medical providers, and 
undermine medical research, which is an absolute nonstarter and the 
absolute last thing we should be doing right now, I think we should be 
focused on what families actually need us to be focused on, which is 
the coronavirus outbreak and what it means for them and what we are 
doing about it.
  The news of this virus is spreading throughout the country. The 
deaths, the illness, and the confusion it has caused in my home State 
of Washington and elsewhere are beyond alarming. The Trump 
administration has fallen far short of its responsibilities to 
Washington State and to communities nationwide.
  I am pleased Democrats and Republicans in Congress were able to put 
partisanship aside to hammer out the robust emergency supplemental 
funding agreement that was announced earlier today. It is an agreement 
that goes well beyond President Trump's totally inadequate request in 
order to actually meet the needs we are hearing about from the 
officials on the frontlines of this crisis, like reimbursing States and 
local governments that have shouldered the cost of this response so far 
or the need to support research so we can develop new treatments and 
diagnostic tests and vaccines and the need to make sure those are 
available to everyone.
  This agreement helps us prepare for what is next by providing funding 
to shore up our store of medical supplies, support medical community 
health centers in underserved areas, and bolster global health and 
public health preparedness programs.
  I am working to make sure we get that bill signed into law as soon as 
possible, and I will continue to follow it closely because experts have 
already made it very clear this is not going to be over soon.
  While the funding is a great first step, we need to make sure it is 
not the last one. It is very critical that we continue listening to our 
health experts, providing needed resources, and preparing for what is 
next, including what this will mean for families' day-to-day lives and 
for people who can't take a day off work without losing a paycheck or 
don't have affordable childcare if a school closes or don't have health 
insurance or are experiencing homelessness.
  I hope my Republican colleagues will think long and hard about what 
their priorities are in the midst of this and choose to refocus their 
energy on working with us to address the urgent issues of the day 
instead of distracting us from serious work and wasting time we don't 
have.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. BRAUN. Madam President, I think if we continue to make the 
argument with women's healthcare that it is mutually exclusive to 
consider that, and you define what we are talking about here--banning 
abortions where there is pain-felt capability or not trying to preserve 
the life of a baby born through a botched abortion--adding this as 
well: not treating the fetal remains with the dignity that they 
deserve--I think it is increasingly difficult to make the argument that 
we constantly hear about women's healthcare. They are not mutually 
exclusive. This is something that shouldn't be put into the category 
that it would impact any of that by putting this into effect.
  I yield floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3259

  Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign 
Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3259 
and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask 
that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the 
motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I am 
disappointed that my colleague would try to codify a policy that has 
been proven to cause extensive harm to the most vulnerable women and 
families around the world.
  In the past 3 years, we have seen the global impact of this policy. 
Health clinics have closed, access to care has decreased, and lives are 
needlessly put at risk. When women in developing countries and other 
parts of the world don't have access to family planning and information 
they need for women's reproductive health, abortions actually increase 
rather than decrease. Research shows that by decreasing access to 
information about modern contraceptive options, abortion rates 
increase. This policy doesn't stop abortions; it only limits the 
resources that are available that prevent women from having unwanted 
pregnancies.
  My Republican colleagues can call it whatever they want--the 
Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy, the Mexico City 
Policy--I call it dangerous and deadly. In fact, instead of protecting 
life, the global gag rule erects new barriers to critical health 
services, including reproductive health services, for people and 
communities who already have limited access to affordable, high quality 
healthcare.
  Across U.S. global health assistance, we are seeing a breakdown in 
systems of health care provisions which disproportionately impacts the 
most vulnerable, hard-to-reach populations. In Uganda, mobile health 
teams that go into communities and provide sometimes the only health 
care available are being cut.
  ABBEF, the International Planned Parenthood Federation member in 
Burkina Faso, was forced in 2017 to prematurely end its U.S.-supported 
pilot initiative to distribute contraceptives in secondary schools 
where there is a huge family planning need.
  Marie Stopes International, MSI, received 17% of its donor income 
from USAID at the time the global gag rule was reinstated. These funds 
were exclusively used for voluntary contraception services and the loss 
of funding has impacted work with poor and marginalized communities 
most in need of accessing services.
  Marie Stopes Ethiopia, with expertise in reaching remote communities, 
ended its U.S.-funded program providing vasectomies and tubal ligations 
to rural populations. No other organization has the technical skills 
and expertise to provide the same quality of service and choice.
  Clearly this policy decreases care, increases abortions, and risks 
the lives of women around the world. And this is not about abortion, 
this is about controlling a woman's body and limiting her choices.
  If we are actually going to get serious about improving women's 
health, we should be working to end the global gag rule.
  Given the negative impact this policy has already had on so many 
women and families around the world, codifying it would just exacerbate 
those issues, so I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Madam President, it is disappointing that when we take a 
look at something that is controversial like abortion and we peel it 
back a layer further, we make it noncontroversial

[[Page S1465]]

by making the discussion about something that most Americans--the 
overwhelming majority of Americans--agree about, which is, regardless 
of how you feel about abortion, you don't necessarily want your 
government taking your taxpayer dollars and the taxpayer dollars of a 
whole lot of people who have very strong feelings against abortion and 
using those to fund organizations that either perform abortions or that 
engage in promoting or lobbying or counseling or referring in order to 
encourage abortions. The overwhelming majority of Americans don't want 
that regardless of how they feel about life.
  This shouldn't be a controversial issue. It is a non sequitur. It is 
a straw man argument to suggest that this somehow limits anyone's 
options. It doesn't. In fact, it expands options of individuals by 
saying: We are not going to take your money at the point of a gun, 
which is what governments do at the end of the day when they take 
money, in order to spend it on something that--depending on how you 
phrase the question and which pollster you are talking to, it is either 
a sizable majority or a bare majority of Americans who find that 
morally problematic. But an overwhelming majority of Americans say 
that, no matter what, you shouldn't be taking all taxpayer money and 
then using that to fund abortion or abortion-related advocacy.
  Last week, the Senate had a chance to adopt some measures that would 
protect the dignity of human life--not just unborn human life but also 
born human life, including babies who had been born alive following a 
failed abortion attempt. Unfortunately, due to a minority of this body, 
we lost the opportunity to enact those reforms.
  Those colleagues opposed to these measures did so largely on the 
claims that they were, as they put them, anti-woman or anti-healthcare. 
They claim somehow that these measures interfered with what should be 
considered personal--the personal nature of healthcare between women 
and their doctors.
  I could not agree more that healthcare is personal. It is, after all, 
about healing, preserving, and prolonging the life of a human being, 
the life of a person. In the case of a pregnant woman, it is about two 
persons, sometimes three. If it is a woman who is pregnant with a 
single baby, it is two persons with two beating hearts, two distinct 
sets of DNA, and two unique and eternally valuable, unrepeatable 
souls--two persons with equal dignity and worth. We ought to value both 
of them and provide opportunity and care and rights and protection to 
both.
  In the spirit of our founding, we ought to affirm through our laws 
and through our taxpayer dollars the truth that every member of our 
society--every woman, every man, every unborn child--is entitled to the 
right to life and to the full protection of that right under the laws 
of the United States. Our healthcare ought to heal, preserve, and 
protect those lives. Unfortunately, many of our laws themselves permit 
and subsidize exactly the opposite of life in our country and even, 
tragically, abroad.
  Congress allows and helps fund the most radical abortion policy in 
the Western world, enabling procedures that impose barbaric violence 
upon women and unborn children and ending the lives of hundreds of 
thousands of innocent babies in our Nation every single year. It allows 
our foreign aid money to go to organizations that fund and promote 
abortions overseas, taking the lives of thousands of innocent babies 
across the globe--especially, by the way, baby girls.
  In some of these countries, abortions happen in much higher numbers 
to female babies precisely because they are female. Abortion is, in 
many cases, the knife's edge of sexism--the exact tool they use to 
denigrate women's equal dignity and value and worth and right to 
breathe.
  In some of these countries, women don't even want the abortions. In 
some cases, these organizations force their own so-called enlightened 
values on them, pressuring these women to take their own children's 
lives whether or not they really want to. This form of cultural and 
imperialism is not pro-woman, it is not pro-child, and it is certainly 
not pro-healthcare. It is pro-sexism and pro-violence. And we must end 
it. Today, we can, through the passage of the Protecting Life in 
Foreign Assistance Act. This bill would permanently stop the use of our 
foreign aid money for funding or promoting abortions overseas.
  We ought to uphold the equal dignity of women, whether born or 
unborn, in America and across the world, and we should treat their 
bodies with reverence and dignity and respect, the respect they 
deserve, not because any government decided to confer that respect upon 
them but because they exist. Today, we can choose that, too, through 
Senator Braun's bill, the Dignity for Aborted Children Act. That 
measure, as Senator Braun has explained, will ensure that aborted 
children's bodies are not treated simply as medical waste to be crudely 
disposed of and that they should instead receive a proper burial or 
cremation, just as we accord to all other human beings.
  We have to support and value women and babies everywhere. In our laws 
and for our lives, we ought to uphold the dignity of each and every 
human person, regardless of race, sex, appearance, abilities, or age. 
The measures before us today--those I have outlined and those that have 
been proposed by Senator Braun--do just that, and we should support 
them for the very same reasons that we should pass them. They shouldn't 
be objectionable.
  It is tragic that they have drawn an objection today. It is tragic 
that any American, much less any Member of the Senate, which calls 
itself the world's greatest deliberative legislative body, would object 
to these measures. After all, it is difficult to fathom how someone 
wouldn't want to protect babies. It is difficult to fathom why someone 
wouldn't be in favor of something at least protecting the conscience 
rights of U.S. taxpayers who don't want to see their hard-earned 
taxpayer dollars going to fund an operation, a procedure that they know 
is designed to end a human life--a human life that in many cases is 
deliberately ended because of the sex of the person whose life is being 
taken. This is tragic, it is unacceptable, and it shouldn't happen--not 
here, not on this soil, not on our watch.
  We are not going to give up. The fact that we have endured these 
setbacks today, the fact that these well-conceived, non-objectionable 
pieces of legislation have drawn an objection today, doesn't mean this 
issue is going to go away. It doesn't mean these proposals are going to 
go away.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I want to talk to the Senate for a few 
minutes about refrigerators and air conditioners. Thank the Lord for 
both of them. They make our lives so much better, especially in the 
Presiding Officer's home State of Mississippi and, certainly, in my 
home State of Louisiana.
  Refrigerators and air conditioners and the like are able to keep 
people and things cold by using coolants or refrigerants, I think some 
people call them. I am going to call them coolants. Basically, I will 
not go into the chemistry and/or the physics, but when a coolant in 
liquid form is converted to a gas, it is called phase conversion. It 
absorbs heat. That is why you will hear people, including but not 
limited to repair women and repair men, talking about coolant for an 
air conditioner or coolant for a refrigerator. It is that coolant that 
keeps us and our food cool.
  Years ago, we used to use a coolant called Freon. You probably have 
heard that term. It is seldom used today. There are some small 
occasions when it is used, but for the most part, we have decided Freon 
is not a good coolant, not because it doesn't work but because it is 
very, very harmful to our environment. So a number of years ago, people 
the world over, including the U.S. Government, said: OK, we are not 
going to use Freon anymore. We are going to use another coolant, which 
we generally refer to as hydrofluorocarbons. If you hear me use the 
expression HFC or the acronym HFC, that is what I mean.
  So we went along and, instead of using Freon, we started using HFCs, 
hydrofluorocarbons. Then we discovered--and by ``we'' I mean that most 
of the scientists throughout the world came to realize that

[[Page S1466]]

hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs are not very good for the environment 
either. The people who made this decision, many of whom were American 
scientists, decided we need to develop a third type of coolant other 
than Freon and other than HFCs to run our air conditioners and run our 
refrigerators and protect our environment at the same time.
  A few years ago, most of the countries throughout the world made this 
decision. The representatives of these countries got together and said: 
OK, you remember we decided to stop using Freon, and now we have been 
using these HFCs. Yet we have discovered these HFCs are also harmful, 
so we are going to agree--all of these countries said--to develop a 
third type of coolant that is not as harmful to our environment.
  That is the direction in which the world is headed. Within 5, 10, 15 
years, not only will Freon be eliminated, but so will 
hydrofluorocarbons because the rest of the world is going to be using a 
third type of coolant, which has been developed and is being developed 
as we speak.
  There is just one problem. The United States has not agreed with 
those other countries. That is OK. That is our right to do it our way. 
But that presents yet another problem because in 5 or 10 or 15 years, 
we are going to look up, and we are going to be the odd person out. The 
rest of the world is going to be using this new technology, and we are 
still going to be using hydrofluorocarbons. We are going to be 
isolated, and it is going to cost our business community a lot of 
business, and it is going to hurt us.

  I and Senator Tom Carper--a fine American and a good man--have a 
bill. It is called the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act--the 
Senator and I call it the AIM Act--and we have a lot of support. At 
last count, we had 32 cosponsors--half Republican, half Democrat--and 
that number is rising as we speak. That is a third of the U.S. Senate. 
You can't get a third of the U.S. Senate to agree on much of anything 
except that they like ice cream, but for this august body, having 32 
cosponsors is a big deal.
  Let me also say that we have a lot of support from the business 
community. For example--and I will not read all of the groups that are 
supporting it--the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration 
Institute is supporting this bill. It is in charge of our refrigerators 
and air conditioners, and it is saying: Yes, we want to do this. The 
environmental community supports this bill. It is rare that we get both 
the environmental community and the business community on the same 
page, but mainly through Senator Carper's intellect and charm, we have 
been able to do that.
  As you know, we are in the process of considering an energy bill, and 
that energy bill is really an amalgamation of a lot of other bills that 
deal with energy that are going to be put together in one bill, ably 
handled by Senator Murkowski. Senator Carper and I want to take our 
bill--the AIM Act, the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, which 
is supported overwhelmingly by the business community and by the 
environmental community--and add it to Senator Murkowski's bill as an 
amendment, and that amendment has already been submitted. We have a lot 
of support for the amendment. The last time I looked, we had 28 
cosponsors to the amendment, and once again, the business community and 
the environmental community are supporting it.
  The Presiding Officer is probably thinking, OK, Kennedy. What is the 
problem? This is interesting, but what is the problem here?
  How can I put this? The problem is the way we operate. One person in 
the Senate can stop the entire Senate from ever voting on something, as 
we all know, and I am not going to go into the details. In some cases, 
that is not necessarily a bad thing. Our Founders intended the Senate 
to move carefully and slowly, but it is a bad thing, in my judgment, 
when it is used routinely to keep the Senate from having an up-or-down 
vote on something that is important to the American people.
  I mean, the logical approach would be, OK, you don't agree with the 
amendment. That is why God made rollcall votes. Let's vote. You can 
vote yea or you can vote nay or you can jump the rail, but everybody 
gets to weigh in. That is why I was sent up here. My people sent me up 
here to debate and decide. They didn't send me up here to participate 
and delay in stultification. So that is my message today: Let my people 
vote.
  Once again, I understand there are rare occasions on which a Senator 
feels so strongly about something that he or she can and should 
exercise his or her right to prevent the whole body from considering 
something, but it has become a routine political weapon. That is one of 
the reasons, in my judgment, that we don't get more done in the Senate.
  I am not criticizing anybody. I am part of this body. If I am 
criticizing this body, I am criticizing myself. But doing nothing is 
hard because you never know when you are finished. We can do a lot more 
in this body, and I think we all understand that, and I think we can 
all agree with that. I think one of the reasons the Senate polls right 
up there with skim milk among the American people is that we don't get 
more done, and one of the reasons we don't get more done is that we are 
not allowed to vote.
  Once again, I am not telling anybody how to vote, for our votes are 
sacred, but you can vote yea on my ideas and Senator Carper's ideas, or 
you can vote nay, or you can not vote at all--you can jump the rail--
but please let us vote.
  I am not criticizing anybody. I am really not. I know we are together 
a lot, as the Presiding Officer knows, and we all know each other, and 
I can honestly say I like and respect every one of my colleagues in 
this body. I truly do. I may not agree with them, but I like and 
respect them, so my criticism is not personal. Yet our process here is 
a problem, which is my plea today to my colleagues: Please don't object 
to this amendment. Please. It doesn't mean you have to vote for it--you 
can vote against it--but please let the entire body have a vote because 
that is what democracy is supposed to be all about.
  I yield the floor to my friend Senator Carper.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I commend the Senator from Louisiana for 
his leadership and for his courage in not just helping to develop this 
proposal that we have offered in a legislative forum but in trying to 
make sure that it gets the debate it needs and the vote it needs on 
this floor.
  For a couple of centuries, Members of the Senate would introduce 
legislation, and that legislation would be debated. Democrats and 
Republicans would have the opportunity to offer amendments to that 
legislation and to get votes on that legislation and on their 
amendments. We would hammer out a compromise in the Senate and 
eventually with the House and with whoever was President.
  The Presiding Officer may remember an old movie called ``The Way We 
Were.'' That is the way we were, and we need desperately to get back to 
the way we were when we were the world's greatest deliberative body. A 
good way to get started on that path is by supporting the legislation 
that my friend from Louisiana and I have coauthored with the support of 
a broad coalition of Senators and with the support of the business 
community and the environmental community as well.
  Our amendment, as Senator Kennedy has described today, is identical 
to legislation called the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act. I 
am not a really big one for acronyms, but the acronym that the Senator 
has used is AIM, the AIM Act. It is currently supported by a bipartisan 
group of 32 Senators--16 Republicans and 16 Democrats. I would describe 
this as Noah's Ark, whereby, for every Republican, we add a Democrat 
and on and on and on. Even today, we are continuing to add sponsors and 
cosponsors to our bill and to this amendment.
  This amendment, like the stand-alone bill, would save consumers 
money; it would create jobs; it would support economic growth; and it 
would help us to address the climate crisis. This amendment would 
authorize the EPA to implement a phase-down of the production and 
consumption of something called hydrofluorocarbons, known as HFCs, over 
the next 15 years. HFCs are used as coolants in refrigerators and air 
conditioners. They are

[[Page S1467]]

substances that help to make sure our air conditioners work and our 
freezers work and our refrigerators work, among other things, and that 
our chillers work.
  Unfortunately, what came before the HFCs was bad for our ozone and 
our planet, and it created a big hole in the ozone layer of our planet. 
We figured out that it was not good. It turned out to be the 
refrigerants that we were using that were causing it. Scientists came 
along and said: Let's replace them. Let's get rid of those CFCs and 
replace them with something that doesn't give us a hole in the ozone 
layer.
  Guess what. HFCs work. They do. They do a really good job at that. 
That is the good news. The bad news is these hydrofluorocarbons are 
1,000 times worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas--1,000 times 
worse. So they are good on the one hand and are bad on the other hand.
  So the scientists go to work again. Scientists in this country and 
businesses in this country go to work and ask: What can we do about 
this? They have come up with a replacement to replace the HFCs--1,000 
times worse as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
  We also have the opportunity, in using American technology, to put 
Americans to work in selling these products not just in America but 
around the world. American companies have invested literally billions 
of dollars to produce and sell the next-generation technology to 
replace HFCs. Our amendment protects those investments.
  Again, the amendment is good for consumers, and I will explain why. 
The amendment drives the deployment of more efficient air-conditioning 
and refrigeration products and equipment. It reduces energy and upkeep 
costs as well. How much? What is it worth in terms of saving money for 
consumers? Apparently, the EPA has calculated it through its own 
economic analysis, and it has come up with a number that says that over 
the next 15 years, our legislation would save consumers $3.7 billion--
not millions but billions of dollars.
  Our amendment is good for American jobs. The chamber of commerce 
expects our legislation to result in the creation of 150,000 additional 
direct and indirect jobs in this country in the years to come--150,000 
additional, good-paying jobs. Our amendment is good for our economy.
  Our legislation is expected to improve the trade imbalance in 
chemicals and equipment by $12.5 billion, which is something we need to 
do, and it is expected to increase manufacturing output close to $39 
billion over the next 7 years.
  Oh, by the way--P.S.--our amendment is good for the planet we live on 
and the people who inhabit it. We will end up joining the rest of the 
world to phase out HFCs, which will help to avoid an increase of up to 
a half a degree Celsius in our climate, in our temperature on this 
planet.
  All of these are win-wins. They are all win-wins. They are the reason 
that our legislation has such broad support from stakeholders. Our 
legislation is supported by an unlikely coalition. As Senator Kennedy 
said, it is not every day that you find the lamb and the lion lying 
down together in their finding a common cause. Yet, in this case, there 
is a whole host of environmental groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 
the National Association of Manufacturers, and other business groups, a 
lot of Democrats, a lot of Republicans, and maybe one or two 
Independents. I mean, it is a great coalition, and it is one that I am 
proud of in my having worked with Senator Kennedy to create. We do all 
of this with the broad support of this unlikely coalition.
  Our legislation doesn't preempt the roles of States. With that said, 
I know that some of our colleagues have called for adding to this 
amendment new preemption authorities that would prevent States from 
addressing HFCs. My response to them is that there are reasons this is 
not an issue to be addressed at this time.
  And as we have seen with TSCA and the California waiver for vehicle 
standards, this administration doesn't seem keen on following the law, 
and there is no guarantee that if we require EPA to phase out HFCs that 
the Trump EPA will do so in a timely manner or in a legally defensible 
way.
  Allowing the States to act helps hold the Federal Government 
accountable. However, once a strong Federal program is in place, States 
will not need to act and will spend their resources elsewhere. We have 
seen this happen before with programs similar to the one this amendment 
would create.
  I would like to add that many of my colleagues in this Chamber have 
stated that they support innovation to help achieve our climate and 
clean energy goals.
  The Federal Government has many tools to drive innovation--many tools 
to drive innovation--Federal funding, Federal procurement, and also 
regulation.
  There is a reason we have broad support from the business community. 
Businesses know that regulation will further drive innovation and U.S. 
investments. Without the regulations that would be created if this 
amendment were adopted, the United States will continue to lose global 
leadership in the production of HFC alternative technologies.
  And let me just add a P.S. I know some people think climate change is 
a hoax; it is not real. My wife and some of her colleagues from the 
DuPont Company that she worked with for years traveled to Antarctica 
earlier this year. They spent a couple weeks down there, an incredible 
trip, learned a lot, and they came back and I said: How warm was it 
down there? She said it was in the thirties--rarely below, not above.
  She came back about 5, 6 weeks ago. In the weeks since then, the 
record-high temperature in Antarctica, South Pole, hit 63 degrees. That 
record lasted for about a week, and it was replaced by a new record, 
65. That lasted for about another week or two. That was broken by 
another record. I think it was 67 or 68 degrees--like that.
  A piece of Antarctica about the size of the District of Columbia fell 
off into the ocean. Something is happening here. Something is happening 
here, and I think what it is, is getting to be pretty clear.
  Here is the good news. The good news is we can address that concern, 
that problem, which is not a hoax, and we can do so in ways that create 
tens of thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in exports, all kinds of 
economic opportunity, innovation, and technology that we would 
celebrate, and we should celebrate.
  We need to support this amendment. I just want to again thank my 
colleague for his leadership, for allowing me to be his wingman in this 
effort, and I look forward to garnering the support of a broad 
coalition of our colleagues. It is the right thing do. Let's do it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                                Abortion

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor tonight to briefly 
discuss a message from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Chief 
Justice John Roberts.
  As you know, Chief Justice Roberts recently sat in the very chair, 
Madam President, in which you are sitting right now as he ably oversaw 
the impeachment trial.
  In a very rare admonition, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 
this afternoon released a statement in response to statements made by 
the minority leader of the U.S. Senate, Chuck Schumer.
  The Senator, speaking outside the Court, across the street from this 
building, was at a protest while arguments were being heard inside the 
Court, and the comments made by Senator Schumer certainly appeared to 
threaten members of the Supreme Court.
  The video clip shows Senator Schumer saying this. He said:

       I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh.

  These are members of the Supreme Court, confirmed by the Senate. He 
said:

       I want to tell you. . . . You have released the whirlwind, 
     and you will pay the price.

  ``You will pay the price.''
  Well, it can't be a political price because Justices serve for life. 
Either they die in office or they can resign, step down. There is no 
political price to be paid.
  To me, this sounds like he is talking about a physical price, 
violence.

[[Page S1468]]

  Now, Schumer told abortion rights advocates who were outside the 
Court these very things:

       I [will] tell you, Gorsuch. I [will] tell you, Kavanaugh. 
     You have released a whirlwind, and you will pay the price.

  He goes on to say:

       You won't know what hit you. . . .

  You, members of the Supreme Court. He, the minority leader of the 
U.S. Senate, saying:

       You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these 
     awful decisions.

  I believe these statements are outrageous; they are uncalled for; 
they are out of bounds; and on their face, they appear to invite 
violence against members of the U.S. Supreme Court.
  Let me just read to you what the Chief Justice said today in his 
release. Chief Justice Roberts responded:

       This morning, Sen. Schumer spoke at a rally in front of the 
     Supreme Court while a case was being argued inside.

  He goes on to say:

       Sen. Schumer referred to two Members of the Court by name 
     and said he wanted to tell them that ``you have released the 
     whirlwind! And you will pay the price! You won't know what 
     hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.''

  The Chief Justice continued:

       Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but 
     threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels 
     of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.

  He concludes by saying:

       All Members of the Court will continue to do their job, 
     without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.

  That is the statement of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 
referring to the actions by the minority leader, the Senator from New 
York, Chuck Schumer.
  We cannot tolerate political violence or threats of harassment. We as 
a body, as a community, as a country should be looking to elevate our 
debates rather than lower them, which is what, in my opinion, the 
minority leader did today.
  I hope the minority leader will think twice about comments like these 
in the future.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Braun). The majority leader.

                          ____________________