Apprenticeship and Jobs Training Act of 2017

Mr. President, let me return the compliment to Senator Corker.

Senator Corker announced in his opening remarks about the bipartisan vote in our committee on the Iran sanctions bill. In the last Congress, we were able to get a unanimous vote on the Iran bill. We, under the leadership of Senator Corker, fully recognized that particularly on foreign policy, our country is much stronger when we speak with a united voice, so bringing Democrats and Republicans together is in our national interest.

Senator Corker has listened to different views. He and I do have different views on many issues concerning foreign policy, but in almost every one of those cases, we have been able to reconcile those differences. That is true and it was very clear on the Iran sanctions and it is also very true on the Russia sanctions amendment that we will be voting on later today.

To Senator Corker, I just want my colleagues to know we have a leader on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who puts America's national interests first and has respected the rights of every Senator, not only in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but in the U.S. Senate, that can add to the richness of our discussions and debate. I think we are much stronger today because of that. This is a good example of that, and I am very proud to be supportive of all these efforts and supportive of how this came about because I think it is important for our colleagues and the American people to know about that.

Congressional Baseball Practice Shooting

Mr. President, Senator Corker and I both want to express, before we start our debate on this issue, our concerns for our colleagues who were victimized by the shooting that took place in Virginia--an outrageous event--and for our security people as well as the innocent bystanders who were struck by the gunfire. Our prayers are with those who are recovering. We hope they will have a complete recovery. We are committed to making sure we keep our Senate and congressional family safe, and we will do everything we can to make sure that takes place. We will continue to work to make sure we preserve the democratic ideals of this Nation and the free society we live in. We know there are rifts, and we know we can do service and stand by those democratic commitments but also keep America safe.

I think the work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had those goals in mind, and Senator Corker, through the Chair, I thank you for your attention to those details.

Mr. President, let me talk for a few minutes about S. 722, the Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act. This bill will impose new sanctions on Iran for its nonnuclear violations. I want to make that clear--nonnuclear violations. Their responsibilities on the nuclear side is now judged by the nuclear agreement that was entered into. We had a great debate about it last year, and we are not going to rehash that debate. I think every Member of this Chamber wants to make sure Iran complies with its nuclear obligations, but that is a separate debate.

The debate we have here is on the nonnuclear activities of Iran that violate international norms and international agreements. We saw, for example, ballistic missile tests that violated their U.N. obligations that took place in January and in March.

We have seen a significant increase in illicit arms shipments being done by Iran, causing destabilizing activities in many parts of the region. We see it in Bahrain. We see it in Yemen. We see it in Iraq. We know they are supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon. We see they are supporting Hamas in Gaza, and we know about their activities in support of the Assad regime in Syria. This all violates international norms.

Iran today has violated, in an incredible way, human rights issues that violate international norms. Yesterday we saw a part of the impact of that as we had a debate on the Saudi arms sale, and we can argue the Saudi's culpability with what is going on in Yemen, but there is no question about Iran's activities supporting the Houthis in Yemen causing atrocities in that country. They are clearly very actively engaged in violating internationally recognized human rights. We also see cyber attacks on the United States that have come from Iran, and they are detaining at least five U.S. citizens today illegally.

There are increased activities in Iran in relation to the nonnuclear side of their activities. For that reason, S. 722 looks at strengthening the sanctions regime so we can make it clear, yes, we will comply with the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement, but we need to have better activities--improvement on the nonnuclear side.

Basically, the bill increases the sanctions menus that are available for ballistic missile violations, for support of terrorism, for human rights violations, and for violating the arms embargo. Those who knowingly do those violations or materially assist will be subject to additional sanctions by the United States.

We codify the IRGC, that was done by Executive order, and we codify some of these other Executive orders as it relates to Iran. We coordinate. This is done in a way that it coordinates with what Europe is doing and making sure it is a consistent approach that we have taken in the past.

We ask the administration to develop a regional strategy so the Congress and the American people know our policies in the Middle East. That provision was drafted before the Trump administration. This is a desire by Congress to have a better articulated regional strategy, recognizing the dangers in that region. Iran is a major player in the region against U.S. interests, and we need to know what our strategy is in confronting those challenges. Quite frankly, with the Trump administration, we haven't heard that coordinated strategy, and this legislation will require that report be given not just to Congress on a regular basis but to the American people.

I want to underscore how this agreement is totally consistent with the nuclear agreement that was entered into 2 years ago--the JCPOA, as it is referred to. I want to go through quickly how this came about. Senator Corker talked a little bit about it.

Senator Corker is absolutely correct. Senator Menendez has been a leader on Iran sanctions way before this Congress. He was very much involved in the original sanctions legislation passed by Congress. That led to putting enough pressure on the international community to join us, which ultimately led to Iran having no choice but to negotiate. Senator Corker and Senator Menendez had introduced legislation that was out there, and we had a chance to review it, which is how the process should work. As a result of that review, both Senator Corker, Senator Menendez, and I--all three of us--reached out to interested groups to understand what the Congress has done. Many of the people we talked to were involved in the negotiations with Iran who had different views than we did on the final outcome of that agreement, but we wanted to make sure we weren't violating any of the provisions of the JCPOA so we sought their input. As a result, there was revised legislation that was offered known as Corker-Menendez-Cardin, which incorporated the ideas of all three of us, but really the outside groups working with us, to make sure it was totally consistent with the JCPOA and consistent with the intent of the original bill. I think that bill was well scrubbed. I think it did not violate the JCPOA, but we went through another process, another review, another opportunity for those who could perhaps see things we don't see quite as clearly when it comes to Iran and our European allies. We went through a second scrubbing, and we had a managers' amendment that was offered in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that tightened the bill up even more dealing with those issues.

I think I can state very confidently that there is nothing in the underlying bill that violates the U.S. commitment under the JCPOA nuclear agreement. It is my intent, and I think the intent of almost every member of this committee that the United States should comply with the JCPOA. Even though I didn't support it, I think it is important we comply with it today.

The other aspect I wanted to go through is that--and I don't want to give the wrong impression. There are people who are involved in the negotiations of the nuclear agreement who would state--some would say they oppose the bill, some might say it is not helpful, some might say Iran might take it the wrong way. Any one of those arguments aside, I do not think you will find anyone who says that it violates the JCPOA.

I want to give a little bit of history here because this was anticipated, that we would need this bill, when we acted on the JCPOA, by those of us who supported and opposed the nuclear agreement.

As the chairman will recall, shortly after the failure to reject the JCPOA--that action--I filed additional legislation that I thought was necessary, along with many of my colleagues, who voted for and voted against the JCPOA. I voted against it. Those who voted for it thought it was necessary. It included the regional strategy so that we would know what the administration was doing. We expedited procedures to deal with nonnuclear violations if Iran used the sanction relief they got under the nuclear agreement to increase their terrorist activities or ballistic missile activities or human rights violations. In fact, they have done that, and that is why we filed the bill right after the action on the nuclear agreement.

This is consistent with what we thought would be necessary. Yes, we had hoped Iran would change its activities, but we were not naive about it. We knew that this was going to be a long road. We knew that Iran did not respond to niceties and that we were going to have to keep the pressure up for them to be able to take the action that was needed.

I know many of us were encouraged when we saw the votes a couple of weeks ago in Iran whereby the Iranians voted for a more open society, a more transparent society. I must say that Iran has a wonderful history of very talented people who want democratic principles, and I am sure that is true among many of the people in Iran today. It is their leaders with whom we have an objection, not with the people of Iran. The people of Iran want a more open, democratic society. This legislation will help get to that point by making it clear to the leaders in Iran that they must change their behavior as it relates to terrorism, as it relates to human rights violations, as it relates to their other international obligations. That is the reason this bill has become so important.

Let me give one more example on the consistency.

There are many provisions that we have changed. One is that we all acknowledge that the United States and

our partners are fully at liberty to take action against Iran for terrorist activities, which is not part of the nuclear agreement, but there is some confusion as to how that is done in relationship to the sanctions relief that is provided under the JCPOA. In listening to their concerns, we will set up an independent review process within the next 5 years that will resolve that issue before we hit the 8-year mark so that we are not jeopardizing thwarting a crisis in the future that might occur. I really just want to point that out because this bill is totally consistent with the obligations of the United States under the Iran nuclear agreement.

Amendment No. 232, as Modified

I talked briefly yesterday about the amendment that is pending. I want to spend just a moment, if I might, in underscoring some of the details of the amendment that is passing.

I am for S. 722, and I am for the amendment that was crafted in the same spirit as was the underlying bill--in a bipartisan agreement. It involved not just the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee because the jurisdictions on sanctions do overlap between the two committees.

As I said yesterday, I thank Senators Crapo and Brown--and Chairman Corker has already mentioned this--as they were extremely helpful in making sure that we tailored the financial sanctions in a way that is workable and consistent with that of our European partners so that we can make sure we have collective strength.

I am sure the Presiding Officer has been in meetings with our European friends and knows how they feel about Russia. He knows how they feel--that they are the direct bull's-eye with regard to what Russia is doing. They want the United States to be strong, and they want the United States to provide leadership, but we need to provide it in a manner that is consistent with their security interests. With regard to the way this bill has evolved, I think we have a better bill that is consistent with those concerns.

With Russia, we know their activities. We know their cyber activities against our democratic institutions. As we have said frequently, all countries collect cyber information, but the use of that cyber information to attack our democratic institutions is an attack on our country. That cannot go unchallenged. We have to protect ourselves and take action when we have been attacked. This bill does that.

We also know, not just recently but historically, that Russia has been very aggressive in its interfering with the sovereignty of other countries. Today, in Moldova and Georgia, you see the consequences of Russia's aggression. Of course, in Ukraine, with the annexation by Russia of Crimea and its continued activities in eastern Ukraine, Russia has violated every single commitment of the OSE's Helsinki Accords and has violated the sovereignty of other countries.

We also know about Russia's activities in support of the Assad regime in Syria and, by the way, in other countries in that region. It has assisted in horrible human rights violations--just terrible. We have seen some of the videos of the tragedies of innocent children as a result of Mr. Putin's support of the Assad regime.

In January of this year, Senator McCain and I introduced legislation that would have imposed new sanctions on Russia because of these activities. We wanted to make sure that this was bipartisan, so we had 18 Senators cosponsor the bill with us--10 Democrats, 10 Republicans-- to make it clear that this was not an attack on one administration but that this was America and that we had to be together in a strong message against the Putin regime. That bill included sanctions on cyber activities. It included sanctions on their Ukrainian activities. It included sanctions in regard to their Syrian activities. The legislation also incorporated what has been known as the Democracy Initiative, which provides ways in which we can provide a more unified front with our European allies in defending against the cyber attacks we have seen coming from Russia.

At the same time, Senator Graham filed a bill, with my cosponsorship, that would require congressional review before the President could give sanction relief to Russia. The review was patterned very similarly to the review we had under the Iran nuclear agreement.

So those two bills were pending, and there has been a lot of debate about them.

We then received a draft bill from Senators Crapo and Brown as it related to the sanctions. It was focused--I would not say exclusively but primarily--on the financial and energy sectors in order to make sure those sanctions were drafted in the proper way, and we went through considerable negotiations. Senator Corker, as I pointed out before, brought additional text to the discussion in an effort to try to bring this together.

Although I am mentioning Senators' names, we know it is the staff. Our staffs have been working around the clock to try to make sure we get this done right. So I thank the majority and minority staffs on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

There are many parts to the amendment that will be voted on at 2 p.m. One part codifies additional sanctions against Russia. I have already mentioned Senator Menendez's role in Iran. He was very instrumental as it relates to Russia. Senator Durbin has been very active. I must tell you that there has been no Member on the Democratic side who has been more vocal than Senator Shaheen on the need to take action against Russia. There are many Members on our side who were active on this. I thank my colleagues for their contribution.

We do codify the Executive orders that were issued that were related to both Ukraine and cyber attacks. With the adoption of this amendment, we would be codifying--giving congressional support for what took place by President Obama.

It expands the list of where sanctions can apply to the energy projects and foreign financial institutions that facilitate such projects. For actors who try to undermine cyber security, it provides for their being subject to sanctions, and it provides secondary sanctions for those who materially assist those actors in undermining our cyber security. It provides sanctions against suppliers of Russian arms to Syria. It goes after the actors who are involved in the corrupt privatization of Russia's governmental assets. We do not support those who are supporting Mr. Putin's corrupt regime. It deals with sanctions against Russia's activities on pipelines, the Russia railway, metals, mining, and shipping. So it is comprehensive, and most of these sanctions are mandatory. It is not ``may''; rather, it is that the President ``shall'' in most of these circumstances.

As is the tradition, the President also has the ability, if there is a significant national security issue, to weigh whether that sanction should be applied. Yet we use a different standard in most of these sanctions that requires the President to certify before he issues those waivers that there has been, basically, significant progress made by Russia in removing these sanctionable activities. So we have a pretty strong hand that we are giving President Trump in his negotiations with Mr. Putin.

In addition, this bill provides for congressional review. We talked about that--a bill that was originally introduced by Senator Graham and me. As I indicated, it is very similar to the Iran Review Act. I think this is very important in that it puts a lot of transparency into the negotiations between the Trump administration and the Putin administration.

As Senator Corker was talking about earlier as to how one President can do something by himself--and I hope that the amendment is adopted and that the bill passes the House and becomes law--the President cannot by himself remove a sanction until he has given Congress notice and an opportunity to review that. We can have congressional hearings. We can put a spotlight on it. Then we will have an expedited process whereby we could reject the President's decision to give relief, and all during that process the sanctions will remain in place.

It is a very strong congressional review, and it is our responsibility to do that, but it also brings in the American people and brings in a more transparent process. What we have found is

that, with that transparency, it is a much stronger hand that President Trump has in his negotiations, knowing that he has to go through this process at the end of the day in his negotiations with Russia.

Sometimes we call it the strength of our independent branches of government. The executive branch can say ``Look, we would like to move faster, but we have to do this with the legislative branch'' or ``We would like to do this, but we cannot get it through Congress.'' Use the independence of the Congress. We are certainly very strongly against what Russia is doing. Use that to increase the pressure on Russia to do the right thing. That is what this bill does. This is why it is helpful to the President of the United States to have this congressional review.

It would reply to anything from cyber sanctions that had been imposed under the Obama executive order to the attempt to return the compounds that are located in Maryland and New York. All of that would be subject to a congressional review before the action by the President could become effective.

I mentioned earlier that the bill does include the authorization of democracy funds, as I call it, that assist our allies in their fight against Russia's aggression, particularly in cyber. It authorizes $250 million, and it applies to our work with the EU member states, the NATO member States, as well as with candidate nations. It is a pretty strong opportunity for us to work together.

I have had many meetings with our European colleagues and friends. Yes, every country recognizes that it is vulnerable against Russia's attacks--believe me, they do--and they are doing everything they can to protect themselves. What I find disappointing is that there is not enough coordination. We know how they acted in the United States and how they acted in France and now how they are likely to act in Germany and what they did in Moldova. We know how they are likely to proceed, but do we have a common strategy to prevent this type of manipulation by Russia of our democratic institutions?

This authorization and the funding--I thank Senator Graham and Senator Leahy for putting money into the fiscal year 2017 budget to start this process going forward. We have approved that, and that is now in the budget. It allows us to coordinate those efforts among the United States and our European friends to protect against what we know is going to be continued activity by Russia.

There are obviously investigations going on. Part of the investigation is to understand what Russia is doing, quite frankly, so that we can protect ourselves. I think that will be very helpful, this information, and the role of the United States in working with our European allies to protect against certain continued malicious activities by the Russian Federation.

There is a provision in this bill that deals with Ukraine. We make it clear that we will not recognize Crimea's annexation of Ukraine, that we will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine in regard to their sovereignty, and we ask for a plan to reduce Ukraine's dependence on Russia energy imports.

We know that Ukraine is vulnerable because of energy, and we know that we have to develop a plan to deal with that. There are many Members involved in that, and I wish to acknowledge my friend from Ohio, Senator Portman, for his work in regard to the Ukraine provisions.

There are new counterterrorism financing provisions, which are pretty comprehensive, so that we make sure that we have all the tools we need in order to track the financing of terrorism activities. That is in there.

So let me just tell my colleague how proud I am to be associated with the underlying bill as well as the amendment that we are going to vote on at 2 o'clock. Both the underlying bill and the amendment were developed in the best of the bipartisan manners of the U.S. Senate.

I wish to thank, again, all of those who were involved to give us this opportunity to speak with a strong, united voice against the activities that Iran is doing globally and that are destabilizing so many countries through their terrorism and ballistic missiles and human rights violations and arms embargo violations, and to make it clear to the Russian Federation that we are not going to let them attack our country, that we are going to stand up to that and work to be sure to keep our allies safe.

With that, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I was in Maine over the weekend, and people said: How do you feel about healthcare? What do you think we ought to be doing? I said: I like the President's plan. I think President Trump has it just right. He says we need healthcare that will cover everyone, low premiums and low deductibles, no preexisting conditions. That is the right formulation, and I hope that is what we can work toward, and that is what we should be working toward.

He also said yesterday that the bill that passed the House was mean. Well, a couple of weeks ago I said it was cruel, but I will accept mean; both mean the same thing. It is a terrible blow to literally millions of people across this country and thousands in my State of Maine.

By the way, the problem with the House bill is that it is so bad that some kind of compromise has developed here that is halfway, and it is still mean or cruel. Now people are talking about a ``soft landing.'' That is a euphemism for stretching out the crash. It is not a soft landing. Whether we take Medicaid and healthcare coverage away from people in 2 years, 4 years, or 7 years, it is still going to happen, and it is a crash. It is not a soft landing. That is just stretching it out into beyond the next couple of elections, but it doesn't really get to the core of the issue, which is taking healthcare and health insurance away from millions of people.

Congressional Baseball Practice Shooting

Mr. President, before I began, I meant to acknowledge what happened this morning to our colleagues across the way at the baseball practice--tragic, inexplicable, horrible, and just inexcusable. My heart goes out to the Capitol Police who, I understand, were incredibly brave and met their responsibilities admirably to Representative Scalise and to any others who were injured--a terrible incident and one that we hope we never see the likes of again.

Healthcare Legislation

Going back to healthcare, I think it is important for people to understand the big picture of what is going on with this issue that is now before both the House and the Senate.

What we are really talking about is a massive tax increase on middle- class and lower middle-class people and a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. It is as simple as that. It is a gigantic transfer of wealth--probably one of the greatest in a short time in recent American history--where we have millions of people across the country who have health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and are protected under Medicaid and Medicaid expansion, and we are taking that away. The Affordable Care Act exchange policies are a tax credit. So when you take that away, you are increasing people's taxes; you are increasing the taxes of people who are making between $15,000 and $45,000, $60,000, $70,000 a year, and you are decreasing taxes in a huge way only for people who make more than $200,000 a year.

The 400 highest taxpayers in the country will get a tax cut of $7 million apiece. That makes no sense. We are taking resources away from the people who need it--the middle class--and we are giving it to the people who don't need it. It is Robin Hood in reverse.

That is the fundamental point of this legislation. It is all about that big tax cut for the rich--for the really rich--and I just don't understand why we are even thinking about that, because the American people need help with the cost of healthcare. If you divide the total healthcare bill in this country by the number of people, you come up with about $8,500 a year per person, on average, or $35,000 a year for a family

of four. That is the cost of healthcare. That cost has to be paid, and I would argue that people who are in the middle income can't afford it. They can't afford to pay those costs, and they need some help, and that is what the Affordable Care Act does. But, instead, we are talking about repealing it--knocking those millions of people off.

In Maine we have 75,000 people on the exchanges. And then, of course, we have hundreds of thousands on Medicaid. We are talking about severely constricting their access to healthcare. That is just wrong, ethically, morally, and in any other way. We are taking healthcare away from people so we can give a massive tax cut to the people who don't really need it.

In Maine, if the House had taken a blank sheet of paper and said ``How can we design a healthcare plan that would really hammer the people of Maine?'' it would have been the AHCA--misnamed the American Healthcare Act; it ought to be the anti-healthcare act because that is what it is all about--taking healthcare away from people. It could not be more tailored to harm people in Maine.

We are the oldest State in the country. We have more people in the older age brackets--50 and up--than any other State in the United States as a percentage of our population. We also are a relatively low- income State. You put those things together, and you really get hurt. Also, in Maine, as in the Presiding Officer's home State, we have a lot of hazardous occupations--logging, agriculture, fishing, the iconic Maine lobsterman.

This is a guy named David Osgood from Vinalhaven, an incredibly beautiful island off the coast of Maine. Lobstering is an essential part of the Maine economy. It is a part of our way of life. Vinalhaven, where Dave lives, has a population of about 1,200. It is really hard work. It is all-weather, and it is dangerous. You have to haul tracks, repair them, be out on the water in the wintertime, which is no fun. David Osgood has been lobstering since he was 13, like his father and grandfather before him.

As of this spring, all three of David's and Elaine's children have finished college. That is amazing. That is a real achievement for any family, but fishing is challenging and tough.

The Osgoods are really thankful for the fact that they can get affordable health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Once, they weren't covered, and David had a back problem that required surgery. Like a lot of people in Maine, he paid it off, month by month by month. But the ACA, according to Elaine, has given them some comfort and peace of mind.

I don't think those of us who have pretty much had health insurance all of our lives realize the importance of that peace of mind, of not being anxious about a health problem that could wipe you out, make you lose your house--an illness or an injury. Elaine said: We will be OK.

The deductibles are a problem. They are too high. I agree. What we ought to be working on is how to get the deductibles down, how to work on the premiums, how to work on the cost of healthcare.

All of this debate about the Affordable Care Act and Medicare and Medicaid and a public option and single payer--all of that is about who pays, when a big part of the problem is how much we are all paying. We pay roughly twice as much per person for healthcare than anyone else in the industrialized world. That is a real problem that we have to start debating. We have to start talking about that because, whoever pays, whatever the insurance plan is, if the underlying cost is something that people just can't afford, then we are going to be arguing about who pays, how much, and what part. We have to get at that $8,500 per person.

People say: Yes, but we have the best healthcare system in the world. Yes, we do, for the people who can afford it. But for the millions of people who don't have health insurance, who get treated only in emergency rooms or more often don't want to get treated at all because they don't want to go in because they know they can't pay for it, the healthcare system does not deliver for them.

By all objective measures--longevity, infant mortality--we are not first in the world. We are like 20th in the world. We are way below our colleagues, and yet we are paying much more. We have to address high deductibles, high premiums, and high costs, but also, in the meantime, we have to keep people covered.

Another couple in Maine, Jonathan Edwards and Jennifer Schroth, live in Hancock County. It is another coastal county. They are farmers, and they raise vegetables.

Here is a great Maine story. I have known Jen's mother for about 40 years. I just met Jen at a healthcare forum in Bangor a few weeks ago, but I knew her mother way back. Everybody in Maine knows everybody else. I suspect it is like in Alaska. We are a big small town with very long roads.

Jonathan and Jennifer own and operate a farm. By the way, this farm is in a town called Brooklin, but this is the real Brooklin--Brooklin, ME. They grow potatoes, vegetables, strawberries, raspberries, and asparagus. They make maple syrup. They could never afford healthcare until the ACA came along because they were essentially a small business, but they were not a big enough business to have a group plan. They didn't have employer-based health insurance. They just didn't have it.

They are both in their fifties, and one of the changes made under the Affordable Care Act was that the ratio between the premiums for younger people and older people can't be more than three times. It reflects the reality that older people have more healthcare needs and cost the system more. So there is a reflection. It is allowed to be a three- times basis. The House bill changes that to five times. That is a huge shift directly toward people in their fifties and early sixties.

When Jen was pregnant with each of their two boys, they had no insurance. They paid the hospital. Just like my friend David Osgood, they paid the hospital. That is what Maine people do. But what if there had been complications? They were pretty straightforward births, but what if there had been complications? They would have been wiped out because they had no health insurance. Jen says she doesn't feel it is responsible to go without health insurance, especially when you have a family.

It is critical to them that the ACA is affordable, and it is because of the tax credits. They also appreciate that they have real insurance that really covers things. There are no exclusions. People say: Well, I have this really cheap insurance policy, but it doesn't cover anything. It may not even cover hospitalization or it doesn't cover doctor visits or it doesn't cover drugs. It doesn't cover what you really need. That is not insurance. That is illusory. But now, Jen says, they have peace of mind because they have coverage. She told me that face-to-face not long ago.

Running a small business is tough. It is tough because you generally can't get group policies. Sometimes you can join a small business association, but generally you can't. This is a way to have coverage that people can afford.

Imagine if somebody came to this body and said: I have a great idea for a bill. I am going to raise taxes on the middle class and give a great big break to hedge fund managers. We wouldn't even think about it. It wouldn't even get out of committee. Yet that is essentially what this is all about.

How much of a tax increase is it on somebody? Well, in Hancock County, where these folks live, for a 60-year-old making $40,000 a year--these are real numbers from the Kaiser Family Foundation--under the Affordable Care Act the premium is $4,080 a year, about 10 percent of your income. That is still substantial. But under the bill passed by the House, that would go to $17,090 on a $40,000 gross income. It is ridiculous to go from $4,000 to $17,000.

Where does that difference come from? It is going back to the people who don't need it. It is going back to the people who make $200,000, $400,000, $800,000, $1 million, $5 million a year--a 300-percent increase in out-of-pocket costs for healthcare. In Knox County--I think David is younger than 60, but if he were 60--his premium goes from $4,080 to $10,590, more than doubled.

This just doesn't make sense to me. This whole discussion doesn't make sense to me. I agree that we need to talk about healthcare, and I agree that we need to do something about it, but we are doing the wrong thing. We are making it worse.

There are two problems with healthcare in this country. We can boil it down to two issues--cost and access. The Affordable Care Act, although it dealt somewhat with cost, was mostly about access--allowing people who don't have health insurance to get it, whether through Medicaid expansion or through the exchanges.

Cost is a bigger issue, and it is one that we also have to deal with. But that is not what is on the floor now, or will be soon, and it is not what is being considered in Congress. But I would argue that we really have to pay attention to that issue as well.

So all of this and taking coverage away from my friend David or Jen and John and thousands--we know the number from the House bill, 23 million people in America--to give a massive tax break so a guy making a couple million dollars a year can buy an extra Maserati just doesn't pass the straight-face test for good public policy.

I am the first to agree that the Affordable Care Act is not perfect. I think there are things about it that need to be fixed and adjusted, and we need to work on how we do the deductibles, how we improve that, and how we broaden the coverage and maybe make it more of a sliding scale. All of those things are things we can discuss and work on, and I am absolutely willing to do it--but the idea of repealing it just to check a box to meet a campaign promise and to be so divergent from what the President has said over and over in the campaign and since that time--that he wants coverage for everyone, no preexisting conditions, and lower premiums and deductibles. I am for it. But what we are doing is the exact opposite--the exact 180-degree opposite.

So let's take a breath. There is no deadline here of next week or the July 4th recess. Let's take a break and back off and start talking about it as Senators and Representatives from all over the country and all parties. I think we ought to be able to come to some agreement here.

Now, if there are people who are just hell-bent to provide a tax cut to multimillionaires, then, there isn't an agreement to be had. If that has to be part of the deal, include me out. But if we can start talking reasonably about how we can improve the Affordable Care Act--I don't care if we improve it, change it, tinker with it, and call it TrumpCare or McConnellCare or RyanCare. Call it what you want, but let's provide health insurance, which is so important to the American people.

I have told this story a couple of times, but I am going to conclude with why I am so passionate about this. Forty years ago, I worked here. I was a staff member, and I had insurance. For the first time in my young life, I think, I had health insurance. Part of the health insurance was a provision for preventive care, which is also required under the Affordable Care Act. So you could have a free physical. I was 28, 29 years old and immortal. We all were at that age. But I said: What the heck; it is free. I guess I will have a physical.

So I went in and had a physical. The doctor looked me over, looked at my eyes, and down my throat. But he happened to notice that on my black I had a black mole. He said: I don't like the looks of that. That ought to be taken off.

I didn't even notice it. I didn't even know it was there. He took it off, and it turned out to be something called malignant melanoma, which is one of the most virulent and serious forms of cancer. The thing about malignant melanoma is that, if you catch it in time, you are good. Here I am, 40 years later. If you don't, you are gone. I have had friends in Maine and in other parts of the country who have died of melanoma. It has always haunted me to this day that the only reason I caught it and my life was saved was because I had health insurance, and somewhere in this country there was a young man who also had a mole on his back or on his arm or on his neck and who didn't have health insurance, didn't have preventive care, didn't go to the doctor, and he is gone. That is not fair. That is not right. In a country as advanced and wealthy as this is, it is not right that that guy died and I am here.

So don't ever tell me that health insurance doesn't save lives because it does. There is no doubt that it does. That is why it is so important for us to get this right and not just cavalierly and blithely rip health insurance away from people--many of whom have gotten it for the first time, many of whom are small business people--the very people we all talk about wanting to help.

We can't do it. It is a dereliction of our duty to serve the American people.

We need to figure out how to do it right. We need to figure out how to do it effectively and efficiently. In the end, we are here to help our fellow citizens. I am here for Maine, and I can't let my people suffer under a law that would take something away which they have come to depend upon and that has saved lives and means so much to them. We can do better. I am sure of it.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I have some remarks to make with respect to healthcare that I will offer in a moment.

First, I want to address the events of this morning. The shooting that took place in Alexandria today was a horrendous, despicable act of violence. The victims--including Congressman Scalise, two Capitol police officers, and two others--are still undergoing treatment. There is much that is still not known about what happened.

There are a few things that are known. First, it is thanks to the extraordinary heroics of the Capitol Police and first responders on the scene that this shooting did not become a massacre. Each and every one of us who comes to work in these buildings every day is profoundly grateful for our Capitol Police, our first responders, and the incredible service and protection they provide.

Second, I think all of us know that this violence has visited too many of our communities. It has cost and ruined too many lives.

Finally, we know that the game our colleagues were practicing for--a charity game between rival parties that is held to benefit disadvantaged kids--is going to go on as planned. The game is

a show of friendship. It is a show of bipartisanship. It is an indication that, as there are strong differences of opinion on the policies that we debate on the floor of the Senate, we still come together at urgent times like this. The game, which shows our commitment to friendship and bipartisanship, has never been needed more than it will be tomorrow.

Our thoughts are now with those who are injured. It seems that everyone you run into at the Capitol has said they are praying and they are rooting for a full and speedy recovery. It is one of those moments when people understand that there is legislation here--their bills, their amendments. Sometimes there is a lot of process--an amendment to the amendment to the amendment, as my wife calls it. Then there are other times like this morning, which are life and death.

As we reflect on those who did so much to keep it from being even worse--a massacre--we have our prayers for those who are injured. Once again, it puts into perspective what is so very important.

Healthcare Legislation

Mr. President, to the topic at hand, there have, obviously, been dramatic headlines in the news pertaining to ties of the President with Russia. I want to be sure that what is happening here in the Senate with respect to healthcare doesn't get drowned out.

The fact is that here in the Senate, behind closed doors, 13 Senators--all from the same party, all of them men--are updating the Republican healthcare plan. The House passed its TrumpCare bill by the slimmest of margins just a few weeks ago.

The public has seen it, and, based on everything I can tell, it has gone over about as well as a prolonged root canal surgery. I have heard about every imaginable concern about that House bill from Oregonians. I have had 46 townhall meetings thus far this year, including 4 over this past weekend.

When the bill came to the Senate, my colleagues on the other side got out in the press, tamped down expectations, and claimed that everything would be starting over. They are starting from scratch. Now the public knows, because it is what Members of the majority party have said, that the Senate version isn't going to be all that different from what barely made it from the House this spring.

When the bill is finalized, we know it is going to be rushed to the floor, and it will not be long before debate is cut off and final votes are cast. It is a plan that relies on speed, forcing a devastating blow to American healthcare through the Senate before our citizens can actually catch on to what is happening.

This political process on this bill makes what the House has been up to look positively transparent. The basic framework of the Republican healthcare plan isn't going to change. Millions and millions of Americans will lose their health coverage. It is not my view. It is the view of the independent Congressional Budget Office. Costs are going to go up, especially for those who are elderly and sicker, and those who are the fortunate few are going to get an enormous tax break.

The basic framework isn't changing, and what that means is that the social safety net--led by Medicaid, which is a lifeline for kids and seniors and the disabled--is going to be under attack. The public health system in America has stood on two twin pillars since 1965. Those pillars are Medicare and Medicaid. The Republican majority has a plan to knock one of them out beginning this year.

Today, Medicaid comes with a guarantee that if you are sick, if you are injured or if you spend every day walking an economic tightrope, you are going to be able to get care when you need it. You will not be denied benefits. But TrumpCare ends that guarantee.

The plan Republicans have on offer would dismantle Medicaid as it is known today, putting hard dollar limits on the program. That puts caps on care. That is what it means--that there will be caps on care. It is a scheme that puts Medicaid in a vise, squeezing its funding year after year fix. The plan makes budget targets a bigger priority than real- world healthcare needs for some of the most vulnerable people in our country.

Seventy-four million Americans have health coverage through Medicaid. That includes 37 million children. It provides comprehensive care to millions of pregnant women. It is a leader in the fight against the opioid epidemic, and there is treatment for those who are dealing with mental health and substance abuse disorders.

Medicaid is a lifeline when it comes to helping kids and adults with disabilities. Then there is the nursing home benefit, something I know from my years as codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers. This is a benefit that is a bedrock protection, built into Medicaid to help pick up the tab for two out of three nursing home beds in America. If you roll that benefit back, I don't see how seniors across this country are going to avoid living in squalor. Maybe their kids can take them in, but the kids of the parents I am talking about have told me they are working on an economic tightrope, trying to balance food against the fuel cost, the fuel cost against the rent cost.

So my guess is, if you squeeze the Medicaid Program tighter and tighter and States are forced to cut benefits and access to care, as will be inevitable under TrumpCare, I just don't see where you can ensure that seniors in nursing homes are going to be protected.

My own view--and this goes back to the days when I worked with seniors--the challenges with older people have evolved over the years. Back then, you had Part A. That was hospitals. Part B was doctors. That is not Medicare any more. Today, more than 90 percent of the spending deals with chronic illness--cancer, diabetes, heart disease, strokes. It is a very different program, but we are still going to need nursing home care for so many of our older people who have done everything right in life. They are our mothers, our fathers, our grandparents, our friends. They fought our wars. They started families. They built careers. They raised kids. They scrimped. They saved. They never went on that special vacation. They never bought the boat they would have loved to have, and they did it because they always wanted to pay for essentials and see if maybe they could set aside what they could for schooling for their kids and retirement for themselves.

But, as I have said, what I have seen over the years since those Gray Panther days is that growing old in America just keeps getting more expensive for so many older people. The bills don't stop coming when you retire. And most older people still live on a limited, fixed income. I saw that with my full-time work at the legal aid office for older people and the Gray Panthers, and I saw those seniors having to stretch every last penny, and even then, it was a struggle to cover the basics. So what happens--and I am afraid we are going to see a lot more of it--is seniors eventually spend down their savings. When they face challenges, they spend down their funds.

Today, when it comes time to pay for long-term care like nursing homes and home-based care, Medicaid steps up. It is the backstop, a guaranteed backstop to protect our senior citizens. I don't want to undersell how much that means to people in my State and across the land. Medicaid is the barrier that keeps millions of seniors from falling into isolation and utter destitution.

There was a time in our country when seniors were cast aside. They were sent to poor farms, what were called almshouses. The wealthiest Nation on Earth said goodbye to those poor farms with the creation of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Under the Republican healthcare plan, unfortunately, Medicaid would be slashed so deeply, States are going to be forced into cutting benefits. Seniors could be nickel-and-dimed for basic everyday services. Nursing homes could be shuttered. Home-based care that allows seniors to live independently could be no more. I think you are going to have lots of seniors living in squalor, and some could be out on the street.

So in my view, the people of our country are owed answers to key questions about this Republican plan.

First, how are families supposed to support their loved ones if they lose the guarantee of Medicaid?

One year in a nursing home costs more than $90,000 on average. That is two or three times the cost of a year of college tuition. Are families going to be forced into choosing between educating their kids and supporting their

elderly parents? Is it going to be a fact of life for working Americans that they have to cram two or three or four generations of one family into the same house simply because they can't afford nursing home care?

Second, what is the backup plan for vulnerable, isolated seniors, particularly those who live in rural areas?

I recently held a series of eight healthcare roundtables in rural communities across Oregon just over the last few days, in Pendleton and Condon. The message I heard from healthcare providers again this past weekend throughout rural Oregon was that TrumpCare cuts could hit seniors in rural America especially hard.

Seniors in rural communities have higher rates of chronic illness, like heart disease and diabetes. The healthcare they need requires more attention and more services. They count on getting top-notch care in nursing homes and from home-based providers. Losing these benefits could mean being alone in a home that is unsafe, cut off from the care and the connections they need.

Colleagues, in the last few weeks of this debate, I heard Members flatly deny that gutting Medicaid by more than $800 billion will mean anybody loses access to healthcare services. That is just untrue. Anybody who says that they can slash our healthcare programs by close to $1 trillion without having a negative impact on access to healthcare services is just plain wrong.

Furthermore, I think it is time to recognize what the end goal of this debate appears to be. My Republican colleagues haven't put forward a proposal to protect seniors who can't get the Medicaid nursing home care they need or kids with disabilities who lose the services they depend on. What Republicans have on offer is not a plan that swaps one vision of healthcare for another.

These massive cuts to Medicaid and other health programs are going to pay for equally massive tax breaks for the fortunate few. Members of this body are going to have to decide whether it is worth gutting Medicaid and endangering essential care, like nursing home care and important home-based services, to pay for these big tax breaks for the fortunate. In my view, it should be an easy choice.

My colleagues on the other side ought to drop this partisan approach--what is called reconciliation--that it seems the Senate is headed toward. At a minimum, the majority party ought to bring this process out from behind closed doors and give it a little bit of sunlight. There ought to be hearings convened in the Finance Committee and the other committees of jurisdiction, as there were again and again in 2008 and 2009.

When you are talking about one-sixth of the American economy and what is the premier issue and always will be, which is people and their loved ones having their health, I don't see how you make an argument for not having a debate out in the open. There has to be a public debate. The legislation ought to be written in the light of day, and then our people ought to have ample time to review it before it goes up for a single vote, either in committee or here on the floor.

I am going to close with something that I think about especially today--the big challenges of our time. You have to deal with them in a bipartisan fashion in order to, one, get them right, and two, make them sustainable. The Presiding Officer of the Senate knows this. He and I spent many months working on key economic issues and recently put together a bipartisan bill on infrastructure. Healthcare is particularly important because when you are talking about providing care for over 300 million Americans, you have to really think through what the consequences are. Often, when you take a step over here, it ripples over there. That is why it seems to me that it is so important that the Republican majority set aside this partisan ``our way or the highway'' approach and get back to working together to find common ground.

I had a piece of legislation when we were debating healthcare in 2008 and 2009--eight Democratic Senators and eight Republican Senators. That was the first time in the history of this body that we had that. There are Republicans and Democrats who continue to serve in this body who are cosponsors of that legislation. It is called the Healthy Americans Act.

We got some of what we thought was important into the Affordable Care Act--in particular, a provision that I think the American people really want to think about in the days ahead, and that is, in our bill with the 16 Senators, we had airtight, loophole-free protection for those with preexisting conditions. There wasn't any way to hit them with extra costs or discriminate against them because they had a preexisting condition. We said that we wouldn't stand for that because if you allow discrimination against those with preexisting conditions, you take America back to the days when healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy. If you are healthy, you don't have a preexisting condition, and if you are wealthy, you can pay for care. We can't go back there. But the House bill basically allows States to get waivers so they can start unraveling that and punch big holes into that guarantee of airtight protection for those with preexisting conditions.

If the majority will set aside this partisan-only, ``we are doing it our way'' kind of approach, what you heard from colleagues on my side is that there is very significant interest in working together to deal with the key challenges. One of them, obviously, is more competition in the insurance markets, particularly as it relates to individual insurance. You do that, and you will take the insurers off this roller coaster so they have some certainty and predictability. You can stabilize the private insurance market.

We ought to work together on bringing down prescription drug prices. Our people tell us every time we are home that these prescription drug price increases are hitting them like a wrecking ball. I have introduced approaches that I think can get bipartisan support, and there are others who have as well. But that is how to do it right. That is how you find common ground: You take time to take each other's good ideas.

Bipartisanship isn't about taking each other's lousy ideas. Bipartisanship is about taking each other's good ideas, and there are good ideas on both sides of the aisle to stabilize the private insurance market, to hold down prescription drug prices. But this idea of reconciliation, where we are all just going to do it our way--that is the Republican approach, the partisan approach, and featured in that approach are devastating cuts to Medicaid. That is a nonstarter.

So I come to the floor this afternoon, particularly given years of interest in trying to find bipartisan common ground on healthcare, to urge my colleagues to abandon this approach that is being pursued behind closed doors, that nobody knows anything about, and that really seems unprecedented in terms of dealing with one-sixth of the economy. I urge my colleagues to abandon the partisan approach of reconciliation and work with colleagues on this side on a bipartisan basis.

I will close simply by way of saying that I wanted to come to the floor today, and I will try to be back tomorrow to outline other challenges ahead in healthcare. I urge the American people across this country, in every corner of our Nation, to make their voices heard.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I understand Senator McCain has come to the floor. I will yield to him as the chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Madam President, I appreciate my colleague's sense of humor.

Transparency in Business Ownership

Madam President, the United States of America has suffered an unprecedented intrusion into our American Presidential elections. In January, our intelligence agencies disclosed that agents of Russia, on the orders of President Vladimir Putin, engaged in a massive election influence campaign throughout 2016.

This effort strikes at the very heart of our representative democracy. All Americans should take this attack deadly seriously. Congress had to act against such interference decisively. By strengthening economic sanctions against the Russian gangster state, we hit them where it hurts, right in the oligarch. I am glad to see that Republican and Democratic Senators came together to do this.

Now the question will shift to the White House. Last July, as evidence of Russian election meddling began to emerge, then-candidate for Vice President Mike Pence said: ``If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties in the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences.''

Well, it is Russia, and they were interfering, but there has been little sign of consequences so far from the Trump White House.

Michael Flynn, as adviser to the President-elect, had illicit communications with the Russian Ambassador, about which he then lied. Trump appointees at the State Department alarmed career officials with their rush to craft a pro-Russia program. President Trump held an unprecedented, cozy meeting with Russian envoys--all smiles in the Oval Office--a meeting for which Putin says he has a transcript. In Europe, Trump, dropping the assurances about article 5 protections from his NATO speech, gave the Russians joy.

The Trump administration has been reportedly trying to return two compounds used by Russian intelligence to Russian control--compounds here in the United States. Former FBI Director James Comey told the Senate last week that President Trump never spoke to him, not even once, about defending against Russia's acts of aggression.

Well, the threat from Russia is severe. Chairman Graham and I held hearings in our Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, exploring the Russian toolbox for interference in democracies across the globe--how Russia exploits the dark shadows of other countries' political and economic systems.

One tool is campaign money. Russia is reported to have funneled money to French far-right party Presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, for instance, as part of a reward for her support of Russia's actions in Crimea. Ken Wainstein, Homeland Security Advisor to George W. Bush, cited Russia as a threat of that kind of foreign financial infiltration here in the United States. ``It is critical that we effectively enforce the campaign finance laws that would prevent this type of financial influence by foreign actors,'' Wainstein told our subcommittee. But that task proves difficult in a system like ours that permits the free flow of dark money.

Since the Citizens United decision, we have seen unprecedented dark money flow into our elections from anonymous dark money organizations, groups that we allow to hide the identities of their big donors. We don't know who is behind that dark money or what they are demanding in return. Despite this risk, Congress has been unwilling to push back against the tide of dark money. Too many are too in tow to the big American dark money emperors, like the Koch brothers, but once you permit big money to flow through dark money channels, cash from Vladimir Putin is no more traceable than cash from Charles and David Koch.

``The Kremlin's Trojan Horses'' is a study of Russian influence in Western Europe done by the Atlantic Council. Russia takes advantage of nontransparency in campaign financing and financial transactions, the report says, to build political alliances with ideologically friendly political groups and individuals, as well as to establish pro-Russian organizations in civil society, creating a shadowy web of political networks which help to propagate the regime's point of view.

Corruption is the grid on which the electrons of Russian influence flow. In

the foreword to the ``Kremlin's Trojan Horses'' report, Radoslaw Sikorski, former Foreign Minister of Poland, who has seen a lot of this up close, described what he called ``the financial networks that allow authoritarian regimes to export corruption to the West.'' He warns:

Electoral rules should be amended, so that publically

funded political groups, primarily political parties, should

at the very least be required to report the sources of their

funding.

He continues:

The Kremlin's blatant attempts to influence and disrupt the

U.S. Presidential election should serve as an inspiration for

a democratic push back.

Well, we should certainly push back by requiring political entities in this country to report their sources of funding.

Another of our witnesses, Heather Conley at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote about ``The Kremlin Playbook.'' The CSIS report, ``The Kremlin Playbook,'' calls corruption ``the common thread'' among these various drivers of Russian influence. It is, the authors write, ``the lubricant on which this system operates.'' She testified just today in the Helsinki Commission that ``corruption is a systemic weakness within a country that is exploited and influenced by adversaries and from which no country is immune, including the United States.''

Where Russia can work in darkness, Russian agents systemically exploit democratic institutions to acquire influence over politicians and political systems using corruption. Russia has done this in the former Soviet Union and in Europe for decades, and we should be prepared in the United States, Ms. Conley says, for them to keep doing it here.

``The Kremlin Playbook'' warns that to fight the corruption that gives Russia this channel of influence, ``enhancing transparency and the effectiveness of the Western democratic tools, instruments, and institutions is critical to resilience against Russian influence.''

Ms. Conley echoed the widespread warnings that the United States is particularly susceptible to Russian influence via dark money channels in our politics. That is widely agreed.

She and others have warned of a second vulnerability: lax incorporation laws that hide the true owners of shell corporations. In the same way that dark money channels can hide the hand of foreign influence, so can shell corporations, which obscure the hand of the entity behind the corporate screen. Interestingly, USA TODAY just reported: ``Since President Trump won the Republican nomination, the majority of his companies' real estate sales are to secretive shell companies that obscure the buyers' identities.''

Our lax incorporation laws have made the United States a destination for drug traffickers, terrorists, corrupt foreign officials, tax cheats, and other criminals from around the world. Former FBI Director Comey testified before the Judiciary Committee that the United States is becoming the last big haven for shell corporations--sickening but true. These crooks come here to America to form shell companies to hide assets and obscure illegal activities. For added safety, a foreign gangster or a crooked despot or an agent of Putin could put a shell corporation behind a shell corporation with another shell corporation behind that.

There are few safeguards in place to prevent foreign actors from funneling money into our elections through faceless shell companies. We actually already see shell companies used to hide the identities behind big political spending. This is not a potential. This is happening now. We just don't know whether foreign influence is behind it. Nothing prevents agents of Putin from being behind those hidden entities.

Part of the Kremlin's playbook is to use shell corporations and other devices to establish illicit financial relationships with prominent local figures. The shell entities allow Russian money to flow anonymously into crooked deals. The crooked deals give rise to corrupt relationships, and these corrupt relationships give Russia leverage, either through the carrot of continued bribery of the prominent local figure or the stick of threatened disclosure of the crooked deal imperiling the prominent local figure. The prominent local figure in the crooked deal is well and truly on the Russian hook. For what it is worth, Donald Trump is the very model of the Russian mark in this sort of scheme.

To close this avenue of foreign political influence, Ms. Conley told us: ``Building and strengthening financial transparency requirements and beneficial ownership will go an extraordinary way to prevent these corrupt practices to further Russia's influence.''

We really ought to be able to agree that we need to prevent these corrupt practices to further Russia's influence.

The answer to the problem of shell corporations is simple: Have each state track the actual owners of companies they charter and make that information available to Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies through proper process. That is what Ms. Conley means by that phrase she used, ``beneficial ownership.'' It is the term of art for a simple concept, knowing who the real owner is.

The True Incorporation Transparency for Law Enforcement, or TITLE, Act, which Chairman Grassley and I will reintroduce soon, would require States to identify the actual human beings who own the company they incorporate. The bill would provide funding to support the maintenance and retrieval of this information, which would be available to law enforcement officers who present valid, court-ordered subpoenas or search warrants. The bill has bipartisan support and has received strong endorsement from the law enforcement community, banks, and anti- trafficking organizations.

Transparency in business ownership is ever more vital around the world. The European Union understands very well the shadow of Russian influence that has been cast over it, and every member of the European Union has committed to ensuring incorporation transparency. The United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Italy, and France have already enacted incorporation transparency laws. The light of corporate transparency is about to shine throughout Europe to help defend them from Russian influence. This means that money from those shell companies and schemes committed through those shell companies will be looking for new, dark homes, likely in American shell corporations. Again, we are supposed to be an example to the world. We are supposed to be the ``City upon a Hill,'' not the place where the world's most corrupt and criminal evildoers come to hide their cash and their assets.

We know the Russian playbook for election interference exploits opaque incorporation laws. We know criminals and even terrorists view the United States as a haven to hide illegal activity and its proceeds. We even know, weirdly, that lax incorporation laws are affecting our real estate market. Some American cities are so loaded with real estate held by shell corporations that it is actually driving up the prices for real American home buyers. Of course, there are not a lot of people in the corner store when the property is held for a foreign owner as the safeguard for his illicit gains.

We must take commonsense steps to stop these activities and bring wrongdoers into the light. The measures that we will take against Russia are welcome and, as Senator McCain has said, even overdue, but we must remember that this is an ongoing battle and we have systemic weaknesses that have already been clearly identified to us over and over by bipartisan experts in this field and renowned think tanks and study groups here in Washington. To quote Ms. Conley again, ``the battle of Western democracies to defeat corruption'' must be seen as ``a matter of national security.''

Testifying before our Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper agreed and urged Congress to act. He said:

I believe [the Russians] are now emboldened to continue

such activities in the future both here and around the world,

and to do so even more intensely. If there has ever been a

clarion call for vigilance and action against a threat to the

very foundation of our democratic political system, this

episode is it.

I hope the American people recognize the severity of this

threat and that we collectively counter it before it further

erodes the fabric of our democracy.

This week the Senate takes strong steps to punish Russia for its disruptive meddling in the past, but we must do more. Dark money and the shell corporations that allow Russian influence are identified known vulnerabilities in the future. Every warning is that the Russians are not going away and that future elections will be marked by Russian mischief. We have to close both avenues of foreign influence and corruption: dark money and shell corporations. They are no good in any event. They are no good in any event, and now they bring the added contamination of Russian election manipulation. I hope we can work together to remedy that contamination.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank my colleague for yielding.

When Senator Coons and I came to the Senate about 6 years ago, it was about the time we formed the Law Enforcement Caucus. Over that 6 years, we have been continually reminded of how those who run toward danger when others run away protect us. They don't know on any given day what they may be dealing with that day, and their family doesn't know either. They are here to protect those who might be the victims of crime.

What we saw today was a horrific and cowardly attack at baseball practice--someone who takes a weapon and decides they are going to harm people they don't know for whatever cowardly reason that person had.

Of course, we continue to pray for the swift recovery of those who were injured and for the caregivers who are helping them right now.

Every day, when I come to the Capitol grounds, the first person I see is almost always a member of the Capitol Police. No matter how late it is when I leave at night, the last person I see is almost always a member of the Capitol Police. They have a hard job to do. They do it with the highest level of professionalism and dedication. Their families see them leave for work at whatever time of the day their assignments have them leaving for work and are hopeful that those they love will come home. That accounts for all of our law enforcement officers all over the country--the law enforcement officers and other first responders--who rush into dangerous situations not knowing what could be there.

We were very fortunate today. Our Members of Congress were there-- Members of the House, Members of the Senate--and the people who were volunteering to make that game work the way it needs to work in order to have a bipartisan annual event to look forward to and to use that event to raise money for charity. There were staff who were there, supporting. Fortunately for all of them, Steve Scalise, who is the majority whip in the House, was there, which meant that there were Capitol Police and security people there with him. It is hard to imagine what might have happened if they had not been there. The Alexandria police would have done a great job and gotten there as quickly as they could, but we have these people who are committed to providing for the safety of Members of Congress, people who are visiting the Capitol, and people who are in the area of the Capitol when anything might happen. Over and over again, Senator Coons and I and others have seen the Capitol Police have to step forward.

I hope we will all remember to not only be grateful every day for those who are willing to serve but will also continue to pray today for the families of the people who were impacted today--the families who sent their sons and daughters here to be Members of Congress as well as to be staffers in the Congress. The first news they heard this morning was of some senseless attack that appeared to be an attack because people were Members of Congress.

No act of violence, no matter how evil or senseless, will ever come close to shaking the foundations of our democracy, but in moments like this, we are always brought back to the important recognition that we are Americans first. That is why our country will always be a beacon of freedom.

The things we debate every day are not nearly as big or powerful as the things that unite us every day, and moments like this bring that sense of unity and concern and commitment of maintaining a society that is free and secure and bring a greater appreciation for those who spend all day, every working day, with that as their principal obligation. We owe them a great debt of gratitude.

Today, we owe the Capitol Police, followed up by the Alexandria police, because of the countless lives that might have been taken if the Capitol Police had not been there at the instance this cowardly attack started.

Once again, Senator Coons and I are reminded of how important it is that the Law Enforcement Caucus really, truly respect those who serve and the families of those who serve.

Senator, I am glad to yield back to you for a final comment.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I am here today to urge support for the act that counters Iran's devastating and destabilizing activities. I am proud to be a cosponsor of the bill. This bill would expand sanctions on individuals who are contributing to Iran's ballistic missile program, supporting international terrorism, or violating the arms embargo against Iran.

Iran is one of the key principal state sponsors of terrorism in the world. In fact, the Obama administration said it was the No. 1 sponsor of state terrorism in the world. It is a destabilizing force for its neighbors, and it is

a destabilizing force for a more peaceful world. The Iranians provide financial and material support to groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, militias in Iraq, and a host of other terrorist groups. They have threatened to wipe out our closest ally in the Middle East, Israel. They said they would wipe them ``off the map.'' They continue to violate international restrictions by advancing their ballistic missile program.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, when he testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee in February of 2016, said: ``Iran's ballistic missiles are inherently capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction, and Tehran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East.''

By one estimate, Iran may have conducted as many as 14 missile tests since the Obama administration's nuclear agreement, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, went into effect. Apparently, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action meant that Iran could take any action it wanted, if you look at what Iran is doing today. They have violated multiple legally binding arms embargoes established by the U.N. Security Council.

On a trip to Saudi Arabia in April, Defense Secretary James Mattis noted that Iran continues to violate multiple arms embargoes, saying: ``We see Iranian-supplied missiles being fired by the Houthis into Saudi Arabia.'' I think that, at one point, Secretary Mattis said that anywhere you look in the disrupted Middle East, Iran is there. This action and others directly violate what Iran agreed not to do when they agreed to the behavior that they said would be their future behavior.

As to their ongoing support of international terrorist organizations, the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, testified in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in an open hearing on May 11, 2017. Just to double down on what his predecessor said, Director Coats said: ``Iran continues to be the foremost state sponsor of terrorism.''

If Iran is the principal state sponsor of terrorism--the foremost sponsor of state terrorism--certainly, we should take some action. This bill does that. Whether it is action supporting the rebels in Yemen or the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Iran is clearly there and clearly a force for bad, not good.

The legislation the Senate is considering this week would go a long way toward holding Iran accountable. The Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act codifies sanctions that are directed at all three categories of illicit activities and behavior that we should condemn from Iran--ballistic missile tests, arms embargo violations, and support of terrorism, as well as Iran's own systemic abuse of human rights in its own country. There is no way to criticize that government without fear of abuse or worse.

Specifically, the bill directs the President to impose sanctions on any person who knowingly engages in any activity that materially contributes to the Iranian ballistic missile program activities or to any other program for which a system to deliver weapons of mass destruction is involved or any person who contributes to the transfer of certain arms to or from Iran. The bill also directs the Secretary of State to submit to the appropriate congressional committees a list of people the State Department has determined to be responsible for gross human rights violations against individuals who seek to promote human rights. The bill further provides that the President may block any property these human rights abusers have in the United States.

This measure also addresses Iran's continued support for terrorism. Executive order 13224, issued soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, sanctions entities determined to be supporting international terrorism.

Let me remind the Presiding Officer that the last two Directors of National Intelligence have both said that the No. 1 supporter of international terrorism is Iran. Several Iran-related entities have already been sanctioned under that order, but not, surprisingly, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. This bill makes a finding that that corps is responsible for supporting terrorism and requires that the sanctions of the Executive order that I mentioned be applied.

This bill does not violate the nuclear agreement with Iran. As the Obama administration said repeatedly, the nuclear agreement was about providing Iran ``relief from nuclear-related sanctions.'' I may come back to that later, but this nuclear agreement does not require the United States to look the other way as Iran continues to violate international norms on ballistic missile testing and violates the arms embargo.

Let me also say that the Iran nuclear agreement was just an agreement between the leaders of the two governments. It isn't a treaty. The President never tried to defend it as a treaty. The Congress didn't approve it as a treaty. It is no more of a binding treaty than anything else that the President on his own would decide they would enter into, hoping that the next President would also agree with their decision.

Secretary of State John Kerry, in the final days of his service as Secretary of State said: ``We still have serious differences with the Government of Iran, and will continue to push back on its support of terrorism, disregard for human rights, and destabilizing regional activities.''

This bill delivers the pushback that Secretary of State John Kerry called for.

Despite the hopes that the previous administration had for moderation--remember that debate about how, once we entered into this agreement, it would strengthen the forces of moderation in Iran?--Iran has increased its destructive activities since the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Strengthening sanctions on Iran is an appropriate response in Iran's continued aggression. Again, because these sanctions are directed only at actions outside of the nuclear sphere, the legislation in no way violates the letter or spirit of that agreement. The Iran sanctions regime is the best tool we have to hold Iran accountable and one that we should continue to keep at the forefront of our policy.

In April, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent to Congress, as required by the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, the latest certification that Iran is implementing the nuclear agreement. In his message, Secretary Tillerson pointed out that ``Iran remains a leading state sponsor of terror.''

How could we ever have put a leading state sponsor of terror on a path to having a nuclear weapon? All the things we are concerned about in North Korea we have guaranteed in Iran, unless some future President--President Trump or some future President--decides that this is not the direction in which we can continue.

Secretary Tillerson also said that President Trump has ordered an interagency review to evaluate whether suspension of sanctions related to Iran, pursuant to the JCPOA agreement, is vital to the national security interests of the United States.

He concluded by saying that, when this review is complete, ``the administration looks forward to working with Congress on this issue.''

This is a positive step. That review need not constrain the use of sanctions to hold Iran accountable for its other bad behavior.

I would just like to remind everyone that under President Obama's nuclear agreement, Iran has already gained access to more than $100 billion in sanctions relief, some of which is likely to be fueled to terrorists aligned with Iran. Remember the delivery of cash to Iran and where our government said that some of that cash would likely go--what an outrageous thing for us to be a part of.

The No. 1 sponsor of terrorism in the world deserves to be sanctioned. Individuals who are part of those activities deserve to be specifically sanctioned. This bill will do that. I urge my colleagues to support the bill and the amendment that was voted on today, and look forward to that action being taken later this week.

I yield the floor.