VETERAN Act

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 1 hour of debate on my amendment, No. 2366, equally divided between the opponents and proponents, and that following the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on the amendment.

Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague's opinions, the Senator from South Carolina. I would like to respond for a moment and speak for a few minutes about a bipartisan compromise that I have introduced, along with the senior Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein.

The legislation I am referring to is called the Due Process Guarantee Act, which Senator Feinstein and I have introduced. It has also been offered up as an amendment to the legislation now before this body, to the National Defense Authorization Act.

Alexander Hamilton, in his writing of Federalist No. 84, called arbitrary imprisonment one of the ``favorite and most formidable instruments'' of tyrants and with good reason. The Constitution includes safeguards against this form of tyranny, including the writ of habeas corpus and the guarantee that American citizens will not be ``deprived of life, liberty, or property'' by the government ``without due process of law.'' If you are going to take away people's life or liberty or property, you have to give them due process. You can't do it without that. That is by mandate of the Constitution. It is made applicable to the Federal Government through the Fifth Amendment, and it is made applicable to the States through the 14th Amendment.

Our commitment to these rights has, of course, been tested in times of crisis. This is what happens to our rights when crises erupt. Sadly, tragically, I would add, we as Americans have not always passed these tests. We have not always emerged unscathed from the temptation to dip into the well of deprivation of due process in times of crisis.

During the Second World War, for example, President Franklin Roosevelt unilaterally authorized the internment of over 100,000 Japanese Americans for fear that they would spy against the United States--100,000 Americans just based on the fear that they might spy against the United States. To be sure, the government did not--neither President Roosevelt nor anyone in his administration--present any kind of evidence that these Americans--the 100,000 Americans who were imprisoned at that time--posed any kind of threat to our country. There was not one piece of evidence--not one shred, not one scintilla-- presented to that effect. In fact, most of these Americans were themselves native-born citizens. They were eligible, in that respect, to run for President of the United States. Many had never visited Japan in their entire lives. Many didn't speak the language spoken in Japan.

That episode in our Nation's history was tragic, and it remains a blight on our record to this very day. It is also an example that is, sadly, personal to the State I represent. You see, the U.S. Government unjustly detained thousands of Japanese Americans in Utah at the Topaz War Relocation Center. Japanese-American internment is, perhaps, the most dramatic and shameful instance of this kind of detention in our Nation's history. Unfortunately, it is not the only instance.

In 1950, in a climate of intense fear about Communist infiltration of the government, Congress enacted the McCarran Internal Security Act and did so over President Harry Truman's veto. That law contained an emergency provision that allowed the President of the United States to detain any person he thought might spy on the United States.

Think for a minute about what that means--that one person was then vested with this authority to delve most deeply into someone's due process rights without providing him with any due process at all. That is scary. That is the very kind of thing that the Constitution was designed to protect against. There is the due process clause, certainly, but the whole point of having a Constitution in the first place is to protect the people from the dangers that are inevitably presented by the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few.

Then more recently, in the post-9/11 era, there has been, of course, some renewed pressure to diminish our constitutional protections--our liberty--in the name of security. Lawmakers from both parties have authorized the detention of Americans who have been suspected of terrorism--their detention indefinitely without charge, without trial, and without meeting the evidentiary standard that is required for every other crime--potentially, for the rest of their lives.

You see, this happened just a few years ago in this very Chamber. If I had not been here at the time, I might have accused whoever was describing this of engaging in some sort of paranoid fantasy, in some sort of odd hyperbole, for the purpose of making a point. No. This actually happened in the National Defense Authorization Act that President Obama signed into law for fiscal year 2012. Congress authorized the indefinite military detention of suspected terrorists, including of American citizens, who are apprehended on U.S. soil.

These episodes--the Japanese-American internment, the McCarran Internal Security Act, and the 2012 NDAA--are significant. They are teachable moments, if you will. In all three cases, the United States faced real threats from formidable foes--foes that were hostile to our very core values as a nation, foes that were not comfortable with the idea that we as Americans share in common--the belief in the fundamental, inherent dignity of the human soul. Instead of defying our foes by holding fast to those core values, we jettisoned them in a panic. Fear and secrecy won out. The Constitution lost. Liberty lost.

Thankfully, that is not the whole story. There have also been times when Americans have stood up to the Constitution even in the face of threats, especially in the face of threats, thus, sending a really strong message to the totalitarian forces arrayed against us. For instance, in 1971, Congress passed the Non-Detention Act, stating, ``No citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an act of Congress.''

Congress can make another stand for the Constitution by allowing a vote on this amendment, by allowing a vote on the Due Process Guarantee Act amendment to the NDAA.

What, you might ask, is the Due Process Guarantee Act?

In short, this bill presented as an amendment would raise the bar that the government has to clear in order to claim and assert the right to detain indefinitely American citizens and lawful permanent residents who are apprehended on U.S. soil. It would forbid the

government from justifying such detentions by using general authorizations of military force, such as the 2001 AUMF against the 9/ 11 plotters.

Why, you might ask, would this even be necessary? Why would we even need to consider doing this?

That is a very good question. It is a question that should be directed toward those who inserted this language into the 2012 NDAA.

Under this legislation, under this amendment as it has been proposed, the government would have to obtain the explicit written authorization--statutory authorization--of Congress, which is the branch of government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals, before approving the detention of Americans--without charge, that is--if they are captured in the United States.

This isn't too much to ask. Some would say this is far too little to ask. It is something that is required both by the letter and by the spirit of our Constitution, by the very concept of liberty, and by the very concept alluded to earlier that each human soul has inherent dignity that needs to be respected by our government. So the Due Process Guarantee Act is based on a very simple premise: If the government wants to take the extraordinary step of apprehending Americans on U.S. soil without charge or trial, it should get extraordinary permission from Congress.

Now, to be very clear, if my colleagues want to grant the government this power, that power over their own constituents, their own voters, the very people who elected them into office, then by all means let's have that debate and let's have that discussion. If they want to do that, let them authorize it themselves. I hope I never see the day that happens, but I hope we all agree that Congress should have to agree before any such step is taken. Members of Congress should not simply hide behind vague, broad authorizations so the voting public will not or can't know what they are doing.

I am offering this amendment because of my faith in our law enforcement officers and our judges who have successfully apprehended and prosecuted and overseen the prosecutions of hundreds of homegrown terrorists. Their example proves that our security is not dependent upon a supercharged government and a correspondingly weakened Constitution. We can secure the homeland without using the formidable instruments of tyrants. Not only can we, but we must. This, after all, is our constitutional imperative.

Each one of us, upon taking office, was required to take an oath to uphold and defend this document, the U.S. Constitution. I hope, I think, I expect, and in fact I am quite confident that the overwhelming majority of our constituents and voters in every State in this country, regardless of where they fit on the political continuum, where they identify themselves on the political spectrum, agree it is not too much to ask that if the government is going to arrest someone and detain them, putting them into a position of incarceration indefinitely without charge, without trial, is extraordinary. That kind of extraordinary remedy perhaps ought never be approached, but, certainly, if it is going to happen at all, it ought not ever happen without the explicit statutory authorization from Congress.

All of this relates back to section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which purports to authorize the government to just indefinitely detain without trial American citizens and lawful permanent residents--both of whom would be protected by my amendment-- who are captured in the United States.

Look, it is easy to look at this and to separate yourself from this if you think this measure could apply only to bad people--maybe only to bad people who don't look like people we ordinarily associate with. Perhaps they don't look like they came from our neighborhood. Perhaps they don't look like the kinds of people who ought to have protection, but this is the very folly we should always seek to avoid. Either due process is a thing or it is not. Either due process is a constitutional imperative that we should be very reluctant to depart from ever or it is not. Section 1021 of the 2012 NDAA represented a departure from that.

Think of it this way. Your rights as an American citizen to be charged in a certain way, to have access to a speedy trial, to have access to counsel, your right to a whole host of constitutional protections generally does not, and ought not ever be, something that should be dependent upon how you are charged. If all the government has to do is alter the way in which you were charged to allege that you have been involved in some type of offense that can be characterized as terrorist activity or the aiding and abetting of those who planned the 9/11 attack, if that is all that has to happen, then you are entrusting an enormous amount of discretionary power to government, to a very small handful of decisionmakers who themselves can deprive you of everything that is dear to you--deprive you of those you love, of the place you call home, and subject you to indefinite incarceration, indefinite detention, without access to trial, without access to the ability to confront your accusers in front of a jury of your peers.

This is a problem. It is a problem that would sound extreme if it weren't true because it is, in fact, extreme.

We have gone now, for the last 6 or 7 years after this was passed into law, without it getting a whole lot of attention. I think this is unfortunate because this ought to be concerning to every single American. If you exist on U.S. soil lawfully or if you are a citizen or lawful permanent resident, this should concern you. Even if you are not, even if you reside outside the United States or are here temporarily--perhaps on a temporary visa of some sort--this should worry you. If you believe in the American dream, if you believe in the fundamental dignity of the human soul, this should bother you. The extent to which you are bothered by this should grow even more severe by virtue of the fact that we have this discussion this afternoon in our Nation's Capitol, within the halls of what purports to be the world's greatest deliberative legislative body, not in the context of being on the precipice of casting a vote on this--no. We are having this discussion of a simple request to vote up or down, yes or no, yea or nay, on whether we should require Congress to state explicitly when it is going to invoke this kind of extraordinary remedy. It defies reason, it defies logic, it defies the rules, the customs, and traditions of this great legislative body for us to refuse to cast a vote on this.

By the way, about 5 years ago, a nearly identical version of the same amendment passed through this body with 67 votes. Not only is that more than a majority, but it is also more than the standard required to close debate, and it is also a standard that is consistent with what is required to overcome a Presidential veto. Yet somehow that measure didn't make it into the final product. Somehow it didn't survive the process of negotiation between the House and Senate. It didn't survive the final bill as produced by the conference committee. So 5 years go by, and we have been trying to get a vote on it ever since then. We have been unsuccessful in doing so.

We are not asking for every Member to agree right now to support this. What we are asking for is for them to weigh in and allow us to cast a vote on this. You see, we have this quaint idea in this country that being governed requires a certain amount of consent from those being governed; that when the government does something, especially something that could so deeply impact the lives of individual Americans, it ought to be done with the consent of the governed through their elected Senators and Representatives.

We have two people here from every State in the Union. I could say, with a high degree of confidence, that if you polled not just the American people at large, not just people within every State, but I would add to that people within every demographic, people within every political party, at least every political party that I know anything about, people, regardless of race, sex, national origin, religious affiliation, belief, or unbelief--I would bet an overwhelming majority of people in every single category in every State of the Union would say this is really troubling.

The fact that you would have a government that would be so bold in the first instance as to claim the right,

which it did in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, to detain indefinitely citizens of this country apprehended on U.S. soil without charge, without trial, without access to counsel--and after having done that a few years ago, this same body would refuse even to allow a vote on whether future votes should be cast on whether this is appropriate.

The Senate, I am told, used to be a place--in fact, the history books made clear it was, in fact, a place where extended debate and discussion could be heard because we as a people tend to believe more debate is preferable to less, more input is preferable to less input, and that whenever government makes a decision, especially a profound decision like the one we are talking about, that the people's elected representatives ought to have some say in it.

It is an act of cowardice that we as a body would refuse to have votes on something like this. So I say to my colleagues who object to us even being able to cast a vote on this, what are you afraid of? What is it that you fear so much about the American people that you are unwilling to have a provision like this explored, examined, and get voted on by the U.S. Senate? This doesn't have to take a long time. We could easily have done it today. We could have done it in a matter of hours, perhaps a matter of minutes. Is that really too much of a sacrifice to ask for a few hours or a few minutes of our precious time to vote on whether the U.S. Government should have the power to indefinitely detain without charge, without trial, without counsel American citizens on U.S. soil? I think not.

I inform my colleagues, with all the energy I am capable of communicating, to please reconsider. Look in the mirror. Examine your conscience. You decide whether you want to stand accountable to God and the American people one day if and when this power is abused.

One thing we know about power is that when excessively accumulated in the hands of a few, bad things happen. Human beings are flawed. They are redeemable, but they are also flawed. That is why we have a Constitution. That is why we are here. We are here to cast votes and to stand accountable to the American people. I urge my colleagues to allow a vote on this amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, one of the great honors in this body is to bring a contrasting point of view to the topic of the day. I hope to do that today.

Many colleagues in this body have voiced concerns on both sides of the aisle, frankly, about President Trump--what President Trump is doing to try to create a more level playing field for our workers and businesses. They are nervous about his negotiating style, about things he says, what he is trying to do with our allies, our adversaries, and all around the world. People in this body worry sometimes it is going to create a trade war.

Colleagues, I have worked in the trade environment internationally most of my career. I have sourced products all over the world. I shipped products all over the world. I can tell you, for a fact, that for the last 40 years we have been in a trade war.

In that time, America has helped develop the Third World and reduce poverty largely because of an imbalanced trade agreement that we made with pretty much each country around the world, and we did that intentionally, not by accident. It was out of our good will that we set up trade deals that granted access to our markets while denying access to other markets around the world.

Why did we do that? When China was a $1 trillion economy, that made sense. We wanted to help them develop economically. Now that they are a $12 trillion economy, it no longer makes sense. When Japan was rebuilding after World War II, of course we wanted to help them rebuild. We spent billions of dollars behind the Marshall Plan to do just that with Japan and all of East Asia. We set up trade deals that we knew would help their economy grow, and that made sense then.

It no longer makes sense to have an unlevel playing field with the rest of the world just so they can develop. Let me give you a reason why. One of the reasons is, because of the American consumer and taxpayer, global poverty over the last 50 years has been reduced dramatically; by some estimates, over 60 percent. Let me say that again. Global poverty, because of the American taxpayer and the American worker, has been reduced over 60 percent. Unfortunately, during that same period of time, American poverty since 1965, when the Great Society was signed into law and when the great War on Poverty was initiated, we spent $67 trillion trying to eradicate poverty in America.

Unfortunately, today we know poverty is basically the same as it was in 1965. So this imbalance we have lived with for the last half decade that partially helped the development of the Third World, pulling hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, begins to not make sense when it damages our well-being here at home.

Like me, President Trump is an outsider to this political process. He is just a business guy who spent his career successfully negotiating deals all over the world. For years, he has seen how America has often been treated unfairly when it comes to trade. He has also seen how previous administrations repeatedly failed to contain the growing threat of rogue regimes with nuclear ambitions, like North Korea and Iran.

Since taking office, President Trump has put America back in a position of power and strength when it comes to our standing with the rest of the world. This comes after a decade where America withdrew. We had redlines drawn. We had a Russia reset. The world was questioning what our position was. Were we going to be the leader of the free world? Were we going to stand up for individual sovereignty, for individual liberty, self-determination? I think he has made that very clear and that we have turned a corner.

President Trump has, no doubt, an unconventional negotiating style-- an outsider style, if you will. Do you know what? As we have seen in his Presidential career just in the last 15 months--NATO, South Korea, and just last night, a historic summit in North Korea--President Trump's methodology, indeed, works.

Remember when he was running for office? He said: Well, if NATO doesn't increase their military spending, we just might back out. Everybody panicked: Oh my goodness, it will upset the balance with our allies over there. This is not the time to be doing that.

Guess what. NATO stepped up. I just met with a major ambassador from one of the countries in that region, and I am delighted to tell my colleagues tonight that we all know, basically, NATO is doubling the amount of money they are spending for their own national security, which is exactly what the President wanted.

President Trump is working to fix problems that others would not address. He is moving with a sense of urgency to deliver those results. I am tired of Members of this body trying to undercut him at every turn, especially in the middle of the negotiation process.

One of the things you learn when you deal internationally is that you have to have the respect of the person you are negotiating with across the table. President Trump has earned that. What we are beginning to do in this body is undercut that. I understand the article II, article I debate. I get that. But we are in the middle of processes now that are so critical. You cannot deal with trade in a one-dimensional fashion. It is part of the bigger geopolitical complex calculus that President Trump is trying to negotiate. We need a unified voice, there is no doubt. Right now, this body is sending mixed signals. It is time to put aside political self-interests and focus on what is best for the United States of America. As a business guy, I would think this is something my colleagues--especially those who come from the business community-- would understand. That is what we have to do all the time in the real world.

Last year, President Trump said that job 1 was to grow the economy. As a body, we all focused on regulations, energy, and taxes. As a result, the economy has begun to turn a corner.

Just this year, we passed a moderate bill that modifies Dodd-Frank and frees up onerous regulations on small and

community banks and regional banks--freeing up some $6 trillion all in between regulations and taxes and the work in Dodd-Frank. That $6 trillion is potentially coming back into the economy. That affects people who work for a living, not just the people who own the businesses.

Today, small business optimism hit a 30-year high. Some 31\1/2\ million jobs have been created, and 870 regulations have been reversed. Over 1,500 people in the Veterans' Administration have been let go because they were not concerned and did not perform their jobs properly.

This year, it is all about continuing to grow the economy by focusing on immigration, infrastructure, and trade. Trade is a very complex matrix of countries and industries; it is not just a very simple thing of back-and-forth. I understand that the President is trying to do it in a bilateral way. I personally would prefer the TPP approach. But that is just two individuals. We are committed to this bilateral path, and I fully support that now. Of course, how we deal with each one should be thoughtful and strategic, and we need to be in a hurry to get that done. We need a holistic approach to trade, not the ad hoc approach we have seen in the past.

Do you know what. If you want meaningful results in trade, you have to have the courage to have serious, tough conversations with other countries, regardless of how many headaches it may cause for some folks here in Washington. That includes some of our allies, by the way.

The imbalance we have in trade is not just with China; it is with pretty much every one of our allies. The solutions are not controversial. They can be dealt with the right way.

When it comes to trade, including trade with some of our closest allies, America isn't being treated fairly. We covered that already. We have been in this position for some time. It is really by our own making. We did this intentionally.

President Trump is working to begin to fix this by negotiating better trade deals for American businesses, products, and workers. Make no mistake--the beneficiaries of these trade negotiations are American consumers and American workers. Trump is doing this from a position of strength, I believe. He is leveraging that strength to get a better deal. It is not about pending alliances; it is about telling other countries: We aren't going to stand for anything less than a level playing field. I think that is only fair when we are dealing with our allies or our adversaries.

President Trump has the attention of the world and momentum to pull off better trade deals, so why are Members of this body trying to confuse and complicate the process by undermining the President's efforts?

Furthermore, we cannot discuss trade in a vacuum. The credibility of the negotiator is all-important when dealing with certain parts of the world. We need to take that into consideration when we are considering things that we have been debating here in the last 24 hours on this floor. We need to talk about trade from an economic and national security standpoint. It is, in fact, a full-blown, complex geopolitical issue.

To that point, we should all share the priority of denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula. President Trump is also working from a position of strength on that topic. This President and his team have the momentum to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Imagine what progress would be achieved compared to just 6 months ago when the worst was being contemplated.

Just as President Trump has brought China to the trade table, he has secured their cooperation on North Korea. I can tell you personally, having just visited there recently, we would not be in these negotiations with North Korea without the help of President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people. President Trump's leadership on this maximum- pressure campaign led to China's cooperation on tough sanctions, which helped bring North Korea to the table in the first place.

The President made a personal commitment to another foreign leader about how to deal with ZTE. He should be able to follow through on his word. This agreement may be tied to other elements of this administration's national security agenda that we don't know about in full detail, and we need to give them the benefit of the doubt and stop undercutting the negotiating power of our Commander in Chief.

This ZTE amendment, which has been thrown into the NDAA at the last minute and before the Commerce Department made its full ruling, could threaten China's cooperation in dealing with North Korea. It is remarkably shortsighted for politicians in this body to complicate the situation with the ZTE amendment, in my opinion. I believe it will undercut our ability to negotiate, and I think it jeopardizes our negotiator's credibility.

Of course, Congress has an important role to play on all free trade agreements and certainly treaties. The advice-and-consent principle that is built into our format is absolutely critical. I am not trying to undermine that in the least. However, we should not be trying to undercut our chief negotiator in the middle of a negotiating process.

I personally have survived some of those in my career. I understand that the credibility of the person doing the negotiating is absolutely critical. However, in our situation, in dealing with any foreign leader, the full breadth of the responsibility of the legislative branch has to be explained up front. I am fully supportive of that.

To those who say this President is picking winners and losers, going back to the ZTE issue, let me say that the only winner President Trump is trying to pick today is America. I think it is refreshing that we have somebody finally standing up and fighting for us for a change, after decades of making sure that the Third World was developed.

This is about making sure that America is treated fairly and that it is the best place to do business in the world. It is about making America more competitive and secure. It is about making sure that the people who take showers after work and not before work get treated fairly in dealing with the rest of the world. This is about making America more competitive. It is about making America more secure. It is about ensuring our economic and national security for the next 100 years.

This body should put aside self-interest and focus on the national interest and give this President the room he needs to negotiate on everything from better trade to denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula. Stop the hysteria, in my opinion. This is about a much bigger picture. In the much bigger picture, we talk about the rise of China and the impact on the world.

Let me highlight a couple of things from this past weekend. President Trump issued a statement that offered an olive branch to Russia on the G7. He felt he would support their reentering the G7. What did Putin say? He said: Well, no, thank you. I am more interested in other things, like the SCO.

Most people in this body aren't familiar with the SCO. It is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. It is basically China, Russia, Uzbekistan, and a few countries in that area. But India and Pakistan just attended their first meeting. I think this is an extremely dangerous development for the future of self-determining people.

I think it is time for this body to get behind a unified approach with regard to what we are trying to do with trade and North Korea and tell the rest of the world: We want to be the strongest ally you have ever seen, just like we have been for the last 200 years. It is time, as the President said in Davos, to take care of our business so we can help you take care of your business.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield my time.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on the NDAA bill that is before us today.

I think most people know that we have been engaged in some tariff discussions with other countries through the administration. We have a trade act of 1974 and one of 1962 that have laid out provisions as to how we would go about dealing with tariffs. In section 232 there is a place which states that the President of the United States can declare something a national security issue. When he does that, it keeps him from having to go through the normal process that one goes through in dealing with tariffs.

Typically, when the President chooses a section of the trade act, he has to go through a process. When he decides that he wants to put a tariff in place on another country, he has to go to the ITC or some other entity to show that, somehow or another, the United States has been harmed as the reason that he would be putting tariffs in place.

What our President has chosen to do in recent times is to declare that almost everything that he is dealing with relative to tariffs is a national security issue. When he does that, it means that he does not have to lay down grounds for having done that. He can just determine that it is in our national security interests to put in place tariffs on other countries, whether it is automobiles, whether it is steel, whether it is aluminum, or whether it is some other issue. He can just wake up one morning, without going through

any of those processes, and decide that, on national security grounds, he is going to put tariffs in place.

Article I of the Constitution declares that Congress is the determiner on tariffs. Congress, per the Constitution, has been charged with the ability--actually, the responsibility--to deal with tariffs and to deal with revenues. It is the responsibility of the Congress.

Because I have been somewhat concerned that we are using this national security issue just as an ordinary course of business, I have offered an amendment to deal with that, since this is a national security bill, which says that the President can continue to deal with these other countries and he can continue to try to work through trade agreements, but, at the end of the day, if he actually decides to put tariffs in place, he would have to come to Congress to get an up-or- down vote.

Because we don't want to slow the administration's ability down too much in this regard, we have actually put in this amendment an expedited process so the President would know that we are not going to drag this out forever, so that when he comes to a conclusion, we will have acted on it in a timely fashion.

I have done this for another reason; that is, if we as a country begin claiming that every single item is a national security issue, other countries will do the same. What they can then do is to avoid the processes that take place generally in international organizations to have to prove that, somehow or another, their country has been damaged. If we use the national security issue to put tariffs on automobiles, for instance, then, all of a sudden, another country can do the same.

My amendment, by the way, is supported by 17 Senators. It is supported by Senators on both sides of the aisle. Taking myself out of it, these are Senators who are very well respected, with a wide range of ideologies. As a matter of fact, this probably is the most cosponsored amendment that has been put forward.

I have been really proud to be able to work with Senators who care deeply about the Nation. They care about us economically. They just want to make sure that we as a Congress perform our appropriate roles, making sure that if a tariff is going to be put in place under this very unusual waiver--which has never in the history of our country been used as it is now being used by this current President--then we have the ability to at least have a say in this.

It is not unlike the President going to Singapore and meeting with Kim Jong Un. What they have told us is that they are going to negotiate through a process that, hopefully, will cause them to be denuclearized. But when they complete that process, they plan to bring that to the U.S. Senate to have us ratify a treaty. They have been very clear about it. So it is exactly that same kind of process, except in this case it is even more our responsibility to make sure that if we are going to tariff people under this unusual section, we vote up or down.

So I am going to call up this amendment. I appreciate the way the chairman of the committee has worked with me. I know there has been a lot of resistance to our having a vote on this amendment. I don't know why that is the case.

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 2372

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 301, H.R. 2372; that the text of H.R. 5515, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, be offered as an amendment, considered, and agreed to; that H.R. 2372, as amended, be considered original text for the purpose of further amendment; that the text of Inhofe-McCain No. 2282, as modified, be made pending as a substitute to the text of H.R. 2372, as amended; that McConnell-Toomey No. 2700 be made pending to Inhofe- McCain No. 2282, as modified; that Reed-Warren No. 2756 be made pending as an amendment to Toomey No. 2700 and that Toomey No. 2700 be set aside; that Corker amendment No. 2381, as modified with changes at the desk, be made pending to amendment No. 2282; that Lee No. 2366 be made pending as an amendment to the language proposed to be stricken by Inhofe-McCain No. 2282; and that the Senate vote on the Corker amendment at 4 p.m. today.

Mr. President, I am going to make a few comments here.

I thank Senator Inhofe through the Presiding Officer for working with me. I realize there is a lot happening here, and I know he is conducting to the best of his ability the progression of this bill. I will just leave it at that.

Mr. President, I was asked to find a solution to this blue-slip issue, and I found one that is used as customarily as waking up in the morning and drinking a cup of coffee. It happens all the time. This in no way has any effect on our ability to pass the NDAA in a timely fashion, but I am in no way countering the person who just spoke. I am not, and he knows I am not.

I am going to speak to a larger issue, but before I do, I want to point out that the NDAA usually passes each year in November or December. It usually doesn't pass in June. So even if there were something that needed to be worked out, we would be way ahead of schedule in dealing with this as we are between now and August.

But if I could, the germaneness of these bills has nothing whatsoever to do with our ability to offer amendments--nothing. That is something that happens postcloture.

For the last year and a half, under Leader McConnell, we have had one amendment vote--one amendment vote--and that amendment wasn't even really an amendment. It was a chairman who was controlling his own bill and asking if he could substitute his own amendment. So it really wasn't even a real amendment vote.

We have been here a year and a half, and because Senators--U.S. Senators who are elected by the people in their States--don't want to cast a tough vote, they block everybody from voting. I have no idea why Rand Paul cannot get a vote on his amendment. It is ridiculous. He has been trying to get a vote on it for years--years--and we have blocked it. Why is that?

For the record, I want to say that I have held amendments this morning until we could work out the solution. I am not holding any amendments--none, zero. I am holding no one's amendment. But we, as Senators, are worried somehow that, gosh almighty--I heard the senior Senator from Texas saying the other day: Gosh, we might upset the President. We might upset the President of the United States before the midterms. Gosh, we can't vote on the Corker amendment because we are taking--rightly so--the responsibilities that we have to deal with tariffs and revenues; we can't do that because we would be upsetting the President of the United States. I can't believe it.

I would bet that 95 percent of the people on this side of the aisle intellectually support this amendment. I would bet that. I would bet it is higher than 95 percent, and a lot of them would vote for it if it came to a vote. But, no, no, no, gosh, we might poke the bear. That is the language I have been hearing in the hallways. We might poke the bear. The President might get upset with us, as U.S. Senators, if we vote on the Corker amendment, so we are going to do everything we can to block it.

If people don't like it, they can vote up or down. But, no, the U.S. Senate right now, on June 12, is becoming a body that says: Well, we will do what we can do, but, my gosh, if the President gets upset with us, then we might not be in the majority. So let's not do anything that might upset the President.

Look, I am in no way upset with my friend from Oklahoma. I am not. I understand he is doing his job, and he is actually filling in, in a wonderful way, for Senator McCain, who happens to be ill at home-- someone we all love.

Look, I know there is not going to be a vote on this amendment. I know it. I am not about to hold up somebody else's amendment from being voted on. I know every ounce of power possible is going to be used to keep from voting on this amendment because, well, my gosh, the President might not like it; therefore, we as Senators might be offending someone, by the way, just by voting on an amendment--voting on an amendment, up or down, and deciding whether we, in fact, want to assert some responsibility over a process of tariffing, where we wake up, ready, fire, aim. Well, let's change this. Ready, fire, aim--that is the process that is under way on these tariffs.

I haven't heard of a single Senator on our side who hasn't expressed concern to the President directly about what is happening with tariffs. Our farm folks are worried about NAFTA. Our auto manufacturers are worried about Canada and Mexico and what is happening in Europe. Our steel and aluminum folks are concerned. I haven't heard of a person who hasn't had some degree of concern. All my amendment would do is say: Look, Mr. President, you go negotiate, but when you are finished, come back, and as Senators and as House Members, let us vote up or down.

I understand what is happening. If I came up with another solution, there would be some objection, and my friend knows that. There is going to be an objection. Hell, if we named this--no matter what, there is going to be an objection to this vote because people are concerned on this side of the aisle--some people, not everybody. We have some great cosponsors who want to assume our responsibilities. We have a lot of great cosponsors who understand that we are abdicating our responsibilities if we let the President of the United States use a national security section 232 on every single tariff he is putting in place and not have to think about why he is doing it and not have to justify why he is doing it. They know that is a problem, and some of the most respected Senators we have on both sides of the aisle have signed on, but I know there is a minority of people here who do not want us to take up issues of debate and responsibility in the U.S. Senate.

I know that no matter what I do, this is going to be objected to. I am not going to object to Rand Paul having an amendment, Mike Lee having an amendment, Toomey having an amendment, or people on the other side of the aisle.

I am disappointed at where we are in the U.S. Senate today. We have had one amendment vote in a year and a half because this same cycle occurs every time someone wants to bring something up. I in no way take this out on my friend from Oklahoma. I realize he is doing a job; I realize he has been asked to block this.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, a crash takes place in a system when conditions in that system reach a tipping point and the system rapidly destabilizes.

Climate change promises a lot of tipping points in the Earth's natural systems--ocean acidification, for instance, reaching a tipping point where foundational species, such as the pteropod, have trouble forming their shells, and populations of those foundation species crash, taking down the trophic levels above them; polar warming, for instance, releasing trapped frozen methane from Arctic tundra and hyperaccelerating the greenhouse effect. At the more local level, seasonally linked species, reacting to changing seasons, can get out of phase with one another, so the feeder and its food source no longer overlap in time, and then they have a crash.

In what Pope Francis has called ``the mysterious network of relations between things,'' climate change promises natural disruptions, large and small.

Of course, the same kind of disruption can occur in economics. Because we are ignoring climate change, we are hurtling toward natural disruptions like the kinds I mentioned. On top of that, recent warnings indicate that we are also hurtling toward economic disruptions-- crashes, if you will--which we could avoid or moderate if we prepared. But since the fossil fuel overlords of the present Congress won't let that preparation happen, we need to

expect these economic crashes. What are these economic crashes? The first one I will discuss is the effect of sea level rise on coastal real estate values.

Sea level rise can hit you economically long before the ocean actually laps against your doorstep. When the prospect of coastal flooding begins to creep into the 30-year mortgage horizon or when the prospect of coastal flooding begins to darken property insurance horizons, there will be an effect.

Long before your house is actually flooded, its value can crash if the house becomes uninsurable or if it becomes unmortgageable to the next buyer. Freddie Mac has described the effect of this property value crash on America's coastal regions as follows: ``The economic losses and social disruption may happen gradually, but they are likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and Great Recession.'' Those of us who lived through the great recession of 2008 and forward know how serious that warning is.

It is not just Freddie Mac; the insurance industry shares this exact concern. Here is what the editor of the trade publication Risk & Insurance had to say: ``Continually rising seas will damage coastal residential and commercial property values to the point that property owners will flee those markets in droves, thus precipitating a mortgage value collapse that could equal or exceed the mortgage crisis that rocked the global economy in 2008.'' So from government-backed housing corporations to private insurance industry representatives, the warning is clear.

The leading edge of this predicted effect may already actually be upon us, as we have recently seen coastal property values begin to lag inland property values in a way that experts think may reflect this emerging coastal economic hazard. When talking about matching the damage done to the economy by the 2008 recession, that is a serious risk.

The second economic crash we are warned of is the effect of a so- called carbon bubble--a carbon bubble in fossil fuel companies. This carbon bubble collapse happens when fossil fuel reserves now claimed as assets by the fossil fuel companies turn out to be not actually developable and thus become what are called stranded assets. A recent publication by economists in the journal Nature Climate Change has described the following estimated asset reductions in fossil fuel reserves: ``The magnitude of . . . stranded assets of fossil fuel companies (in a 2 degrees C economy) has been estimated to be around 82% of global coal reserves, 49% of global gas reserves, and 33% of global oil reserves.''

That would be 82 percent of global coal reserves gone, wiped off the balance sheets; 49 percent of global gas reserves gone; and 33 percent of global oil reserves gone.

This asset collapse ahead would explain why fossil fuel companies have fought so hard against shareholders who sought honest reporting of this risk, and it could explain why such reports as have been produced look like exercises in ``cooking the books'' to avoid actually acknowledging a risk of this scale.

More recently, a group of economic analysts published a separate review of what the bursting of this carbon bubble would look like for fossil fuel companies. The report's analysis is pretty stark. It estimates that a potential $12 trillion--$12 trillion--of financial value ``could vanish off their balance sheets globally in the form of stranded assets.'' The report notes that this is over 15 percent of global GDP.

This economic report posits a market scenario in which lower cost producers unload their fossil fuel reserves while they still can into this collapsing market--``selling out'' their assets, in the language of the report--unloading their fossil fuel assets even at fire-sale prices to get what value they can while they still can.

In this analysis, the report says, ``regions with higher marginal costs . . . lose almost their entire oil and gas industry (for example . . . the United States).''

In this environment in which there is a rapid crash in fossil fuel prices, as sellers saturate the market at whatever low price they can get to get some money for their reserves before they evaporate and get wiped off their balance sheets, the market moves rapidly and regions like ours--like the United States, with higher marginal costs--lose almost their entire oil and gas industry.

Obviously, for the United States to rapidly lose almost its entire oil and gas industry would create a dramatic economic shock, spilling over into other industries and into the economy at large, making this what the authors of this report call a ``systemic'' economic risk.

There is a recommended solution to avoid this shock in asset prices, and that is for the United States to begin decarbonizing, to invest more in renewables, and to broaden our national energy portfolio away from this asset collapse risk and into renewable energy. The paper concludes that ``an exposed country can mitigate the impact of stranding by divesting from fossil fuels as an insurance policy,'' and it goes on to say specifically about the United States of America that ``the United States is worse off if it continues to promote fossil fuel production and consumption than if it moves away from them.''

Let me revert to the earlier economic piece I mentioned because it concludes with very similar advice. I quote from the first article:

If climate policies are implemented early on and in a

stable and credible framework, market participants are able

to smoothly anticipate the effects. In this case there would

not be any large shock in asset prices and there would be no

systemic risk. In contrast, in a scenario in which the

implementation of climate policy is uncertain, delayed, and

sudden . . . this might entail a systemic risk because price

adjustments are abrupt and portfolio losses from the fossil-

fuel sector and fossil-based utilities do not have time to be

compensated by the increase in value of renewable-based

utilities.

Both economic analyses agree that transitioning to renewables is a hedge against this fossil fuel asset collapse risk, but this earlier paper also notes something else. It also notes that this transition to renewables, away from the asset collapse risk, need not be a painful transition. To quote the report, ``a transition to a low-carbon economy could also have net positive aggregate effects.'' On one side, you have the risk of a major fossil fuel asset collapse creating a sufficient economic shock for there to be systemic risk to the economy. On the other side, you have the prospect of net positive aggregate effects. Who in their right mind would not turn toward net positive aggregate effects? A large and sudden economic shock affecting 15 percent of global GDP and precipitating systemic economic risks will, of course, be very painful.

This is stark advice. Whether we can actually heed this advice depends on the Congress of the United States being able to put the interests of the United States first over the interests of the fossil fuel industry. Given that Congress's fossil fuel industry overlords will likely object and given that we seem incapable in Congress of either seeing through their massive conflict of interest or ever telling them no, it is not presently likely that Congress will heed these warnings or take these precautions.

After all, the warnings of natural crashes ahead have so far been completely ignored due to fossil fuel industry pressure. So why expect that we would heed the warnings of economic crashes ahead?

In the days when war loomed over Europe but England would not prepare, Winston Churchill quoted a poem. The poem's image is of a train bound for destruction, rushing through the night, and the conductor is asleep at the controls. The poem begins:

Who is in charge of the clattering train?

The axles creak, and the couplings strain.

Inside the train cars, the poem describes the occupants of the doomed train:

Lull[ed into] confident drowsiness.

But then comes the end:

[T]he pace is hot, and the points are near,

And Sleep hath deadened the driver's ear;

And signals flash through the night in vain.

Death is in charge of the clattering train!

That is how the poem ends. Let us hope that we wake up before our collision, that the many warning signals nature is flashing at us do not flash through the night in vain, and that we do not hurtle into these foreseen collisions with our fossil fuel industry overlords having deadened the driver's ear with their money and their power.

We have been lulled into confident drowsiness, and it is time to wake up.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we just heard a very lengthy explanation of an amendment that no one had seen until about an hour ago--at least I don't know of anyone who has.

I think the Senator from Tennessee has every right to do what he can to get his amendment heard, and there are opportunities other than the Defense Authorization bill. One of the problems--and I have worked on these Defense authorization bills for years and years--decades--is that they know it is going to pass. It has passed for 57 consecutive years. So a lot of people who want to put in things that are nongermane and very often controversial want to put them on that because they know it is going to pass.

Senator Corker's is not the only amendment that is a problem amendment for this. There are two other nongermane amendments, one by Senator Lee and one by Senator Paul. They say: If I don't get a vote on my amendment, then I am going to stop all other amendments from coming up, so nobody gets to have an amendment.

At the same time that they are saying that about the Paul amendment and the Lee amendment, we have other Members, such as Senator Grassley and Senator Graham, who are both saying: We are going to make sure you don't get a vote on that. So, whatever the case is, you have opposing parties saying: If you get a vote on something I disagree with, I am going to stop all amendments from coming forth. In a way, they can do that, and I can see that happening right now.

I would ask my friend--because I am going to object; I am going to object not just because of the underlying bill but because it is an amendment that changes the underlying bill.

I have had occasion to talk to two Members of the House who will be part of our conference committee, who strenuously object, not so much to the content of the amendment but to the fact that this is being put on. It will force the House to go back in and reconsider their bill, according to our friend who just advised us of that. So I don't want to do anything that is going to either jeopardize or delay the passage of the Defense authorization bill.

I just got back from Afghanistan, Kuwait, and places all over the world where our troops are, and they all know that this is the week that help is on its way.

We have suffered in this Chamber for the last 10 years. During the Obama administration--I don't say this in a negative way about him, but I will say that he didn't have a strong national defense as a top priority, and he had a policy in which he said: We can't do anything about sequestration in defense unless we do the same thing for the nondefense programs.

What does that tell you? It tells you there is no priority for defending America. That is not what our Constitution says. That should be a priority.

As a result, we have a lot of systems that have gone down. As General Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: We are losing our competitive edge. We are losing it. Actually, he said that 2 years ago, so we have lost it in some areas.

Artillery is a good example. Right now, artillery is measured by two means--one by rapid fire and one by range. Both China and Russia now have better artillery than we have in the United States. Most people don't believe that. They don't know what has happened to our military.

Hypersonic is the new weapon that operates at five times the speed of sound. This is something we have been working on. We are racing against our peer competitors--China and Russia--and they are ahead of us. They are ahead of us in the area of the nuclear triad. We haven't done anything to our nuclear program in the last 10 years, and they are ahead of us.

So all these things are happening. The troops know it is out there. They know their pay raise is in this bill. They know their benefits are in this bill. They know it is a good bill. It should pass unanimously in the U.S. Senate. But if you start putting something on it that, No. 1, doesn't belong on it in terms of germaneness, and, No. 2, is going to cause a pause that could be detrimental to our fighting troops

and for getting the bill done, then I wouldn't want to do that.

So I would like to join Senator Corker in finding another bill. I will do all I can to help him to get that on as an amendment, but not to the Defense authorization bill. I think this would cause a lot of damage. The House agrees with this. I can't let that happen. For that reason, I object.

Mr. President, first of all, I appreciate the comments by the Senator from South Dakota. I think the point is, this is the most important bill of the year.

I want to make only a couple of comments, and I was hoping to make these comments while the Senator from Tennessee was still here. One is that I have a disagreement because he mentioned that this bill--the most important bill of the year--is very often not considered until November or December. The absolute deadline is the end of December. I can remember getting within 2 or 3 days of that deadline in the past, and, if that happened, then our flyers wouldn't get flight pay or there would no longer be any hazard pay. There were a lot of things we would have to give up that we couldn't afford to give up.

We made a commitment--and it wasn't just me by myself; it was with the Senator from Rhode Island, who is handling the bill on the Democratic side--that we wanted to have amendments. We preferred not to have nongermane amendments, and that would be my goal, if I am around here next year when we do this, to lay groundwork so that we don't have nongermane amendments. As I said, this is a bill that will pass. Normally, for things that don't pass any other way, if they can get them on as amendments, they can get them passed.

We have the same situation happening right now, not just with Senator Corker but also with Senator Rand Paul and the Senator from Utah. That wasn't going to work either way. The problem I had with Senator Corker's change was it was a very long change that changed the underlying bill, and, as was pointed out by the Senator from South Dakota, that would mean we would have to go back over to the House. I don't feel comfortable doing that when we have all of those kids out there who are looking at pay raises and wondering what is really happening in Washington. Is there really not the support we anticipated that they all had?

I am sincere when I say this; he isn't here now, but I said it when he was here. If Senator Corker wants to get this done, and I know he does, I will help him. We have a lot of time to find another bill that might be more germane, but it would not be on this bill that we really can't afford to jeopardize. I feel strongly about that. We were attempting to help him get a vote initially, and then, when he changed the underlying bill, that meant we would have to go back to everyone. He mentioned his coauthors, and we don't know how many of those coauthors would still be supporting his amendment if they knew it was changing the underlying bill.

Those are the problems we have here, and I think we want to get on with, as rapidly as possible, getting these amendments opened up so that people can vote on the amendments and hopefully get the bill done this week. I don't know if it will be this week or not.

Senator Corker was also implying we are doing something for this President with this amendment, and I wish to remind everyone of the fact that there are several things the President--our new President-- had in mind. He wanted to privatize air traffic control. I almost singlehandedly stopped that, and that was one of his main objectives. Also, he wanted to have a BRAC round in this bill that is on the floor now, and we stopped that. Many of the provisions that he wanted we have taken out of the bill.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first of all, let me state how much I appreciate the passion the Senator from New York has on this issue. She has been so outspoken on this in committee, and I think most of us agree that there are problems out there that need to be addressed.

In 2014, a congressionally mandated, independent panel of experts determined that there is no evidence that removing the authority to convene courts martial from commanders would reduce the incidence of sexual assault, increase reporting of sexual assaults, or improve the quality of investigations and prosecutions in sexual assault cases in the Armed Forces.

The Department of Defense opposes this amendment on the grounds that doing so will endanger military readiness and combat effectiveness without promoting the goal of eliminating sexual assault.

I don't know what the intentions of the Senator from New York are on this amendment, but in all fairness, I have to state that I will be opposing it. We did consider this in committee, and I have never seen a stronger advocate for a cause or an amendment than the Senator from New York. For some of us who have been in military service--I do have a problem with taking away the authority that has always historically been with the commander and feel that would not be to the benefit of the overall system.

Two years ago, Congress passed extensive military justice reform, which will come into effect next year. I think that is correct. Rather than imposing additional reforms, I think we ought to allow the DOD to work on implementing the previous legislation to see if that resolves some of the problems that are articulated very effectively by the Senator from New York.

I yield the floor.