Tribal Employment and Jobs Protection Act

Mr. President, for the first time in 15 years, we are debating the congressional role in the declaration of war.

We have fought the longest war in U.S. history under an original authorization to go after the people who attacked us on 9/11. That war is long since over, the war has long since lost its purpose, and it is long past time that we have a debate in Congress about whether we should be at war.

It is the constitutional role of Congress. Interestingly, the folks you have heard on either side of the issue have said it is our job. It is what we should be doing. Yet we haven't done it for 16 years. Who in their right mind thinks that Congress is actually going to do their job without being forced to do their job?

My resolution is actually silent on whether we should still be at war. My resolution simply says that the resolutions we have previously passed will expire. I don't believe they have anything to do with the seven wars we are involved with currently, anyway, but if we were to force them to expire, we would then have a debate.

But for those who say: Yes, Congress should exert its authority; Congress should be involved in the initiation of war--they don't really believe that unless they are going to vote that way. What will happen is the continuation of the same--that we abdicate that role and let the President do whatever he wants.

It is worse than that. Let's say that we were to vote for my resolution and that the authorization to go to war after 9/11 expired. Do you think any of the wars would end? No. The neoconservatives and the neoliberals believe the President has unlimited authority. They call it article II authority for war. There is some authority given to the President--an enormous amount of authority--to execute the war but not to initiate the war. The sole duty of initiation of war was given specifically to Congress.

So if these authorities were to expire--the President already says: I have all the authority I want under the Constitution to do whatever I want. But that is not what our Founders wanted. Madison, if he were here, would vehemently disagree. Madison wrote that the executive branch is the branch most prone for war; therefore, the Constitution, with studied care, vested that power in the legislature. It was supposed to be difficult to go to war.

Some wrung their hands and said: Oh, the Senate can never agree on any authorization to go to war. How long did it take us after Pearl Harbor? Twenty-four hours, and we declared war on Japan. How long did it take us after 9/11? It took 3 days. We can come together as a body when we are attacked, when we are unified in purpose. But guess what--after 16 years, it is difficult to determine the purpose in Afghanistan.

Also, those who say: We need a new authorization, but it is going to authorize war anywhere, anytime, with no geographic limit and no time limit--basically they would be authorizing everything we are doing now and not putting any limitations on it. We are in Yemen. We are aiding and abetting the Saudi war in Yemen. Yet there has been no vote on it. Seventeen million people live on the edge of starvation because of the Saudi blockade and bombing campaign. We are aiding and abetting that. Yet there has been no vote here in Congress.

Look, we have problems here at home. These wars are costing trillions of dollars. They are unauthorized. We

have not voted on them. And I say, look, let's pay attention to some of the problems we have here at home. We are going to have a $150 billion tab for the Hurricane Harvey damage in Texas. Yet we continue with unauthorized, unconstitutional, undeclared war. I think it is time to think about the problems we have here at home. I think it is time to think about the $20 trillion debt we have. But we still have this wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, saying: What if Congress doesn't do its job? What if we allowed this authorization of force to expire and we didn't get another one?

The thing is, that is abdicating your constitutional duty. The duty is to do what is within your constitutional duty. It is not to say: Well, the other Congressmen won't do their job, so I am not going to do my job.

Our job is to enforce, obey, and execute the Constitution. The Constitution says Congress shall declare war. It doesn't say the President can go to war anytime, anywhere around the globe. It says Congress shall declare war. So for the first time in 15 years, we are debating whether Congress has a role in this.

Those who vote no against my resolution are basically voting--even though they will say otherwise, they are voting to say: Well, let's just let the status quo go on. The President can do what he wants. It is too emotional, it is too controversial to debate war. So we will keep letting the President do whatever he wants.

My vote is to grab power back. My vote is to say: The Senate has prerogative here. The Constitution gives the power to the legislature. That is what this vote is about. It is about grabbing back the power to declare war and saying this is a Senate prerogative. So the majority, in all likelihood, will say: No, we do not want to do that. We think that would risk some war somewhere, sometime.

That is the point. We should be debating where we should be at war. Should we be at war in Somalia? Should we be at war in Libya? Should we be at war in Yemen? Should we be at war in Iraq, in Syria, in Afghanistan?

Look, President Obama ran on ending the wars; yet he ended up taking the war and bombing campaign to seven countries without his having any authorization. Intriguingly, the left was relentless in criticizing George Bush; yet George Bush did come to Congress. We had a vote to go after those who attacked us on 9/11. We had an ill-fought campaign with regard to the Iraq war, but we did actually vote on it. We have not voted for a generation. Should one generation be able to bind another generation?

Realize that, if we do not force these authorizations to expire, this war could go on forever. This is 1984. This is George Orwell's saying that Oceania has always been at war with East Asia and then, a month later, his saying that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia-- because no one is stepping up to say no. That is what Congress is supposed to do. We are supposed to be a voice that debates and asks: Should we go to war? It is part of doing our job, but the only way to get Congress to do its job is to actually let these expire.

We should have a full-throated debate over who initiates war. There is no murkiness to the Constitution. The Constitution is explicit. The power of the initiation of war--the declaration of war--lies with Congress, but the war in Afghanistan has gone on for 16 years now. Our young men and women who will be fighting in the war in the next year or so were not yet born on 9/11. We have long since killed the people who perpetrated 9/11. With the killing of bin Laden, there is no person left in the leadership of al-Qaida or the Taliban who was around at that period of time. Yet we say: Well, it is still the Taliban. If you are going to say that we are going to fight until the end of time--that we are going to have a perpetual war until the end of time--and that we are going to kill every radical Islamist in the world, it is an impossibility.

I would say, at the very least, let's have a debate. If that is your purpose, if that is your goal, and if that is what you stand for, step forward, and let's have a debate. Let's debate the war in Yemen. Let's debate the war in Somalia. Let's debate whether we should be bombing people in Nigeria. Let's debate whether we should be in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan. Let's have a debate about all of these different wars. Let's not just muddle on and say: Oh, the President can do what he wants.

Realize that the people in this body who are for perpetual war do not even think we should have any role in it. They tell me quietly every day that the President can do whatever he wants under article II of the Constitution. That is absolutely false. Read the Federalist Papers. There is extensive debate over the war-making power. From Washington, to Adams, to Jefferson, to Madison, they all said very explicitly: We give this power to Congress because we fear the perpetual wars that we have seen in Europe. We fear the wars of brother fighting brother and brother fighting cousin within these royal disputes that went on endlessly in Europe. He set up our founding document to try to make war difficult, but when we have been attacked, it has been easy to come together. For 9/11, virtually unanimously, we came together within 3 days. For Pearl Harbor, it was within 24 hours.

What I would say to my colleagues is: Do your job. This is your constitutional role. Let's let these expire, and over the next 6 months, let's debate whether we should be at war and where.

I, for one, am one who says that we should oppose unauthorized, undeclared, unconstitutional war. At this particular time, there are no limits on war. The 9/11 proclamation has been interpreted so widely that it could mean anything. You have people who interpret it widely, but you also have people who say that the Constitution says that the President can do anything. This is not what our Founding Fathers intended.

I am proud to be a part of and an instigator of the debate. For the first time in 15 years, the full Senate will vote on whether we have a role in initiating war, whether we should continue to be at war, or whether we should even vote on whether we should continue to be at war.

I urge the Senate to adopt my amendment, which would be a 6-month moratorium--a 6-month sunset--on the 2001 and 2002 resolution so that we could then have the real debate. But mark my words: Those who will come out and say that they are for the real debate are not really for it unless they are willing to sunset it, because we have been going for 16 years without having a real debate. There will be no real debate on war unless we pass this resolution.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I join my colleague Senator Thune in talking about the Defense Authorization Act, which is the bill that is before the Senate right now.

The preamble to the Constitution says that one of the purposes of the founding of the government was to ``provide for the common defense.'' I believe that the No. 1 priority of the Federal Government is to do that job. There have been lots of arguments about what level of government can better do lots of other things, but I do not hear many arguments about what the job of defending the country is all about or who has to do that job.

When we send our troops into harm's way, it is our job to ensure that they have the tools they need and that they have the resources they need to carry out their missions. That is what Chairman McCain has done in this authorization bill that is before the Senate today.

Senate passage of this bill would mark the 56th year in a row that Congress has passed the National Defense Authorization Act. It should give one some indication of how serious that job is. There are very few things the Congress manages to do every year, but as for the authorization of how we do what we do, this authorization bill provides the authorities that the military needs for it to defend the Nation.

The world is a rapidly changing place. Our responsibility to defend freedom in that world and the freedom of Americans is something that, every year, needs to be carefully looked at and recalculated and recalibrated, which is what Chairman McCain and his committee have done with this bill.

I support the bill, and I want to talk about some of the key provisions in the bill.

First of all, Senator Thune just mentioned a pay raise of 2.1 percent for our troops. It is a pay raise they rightfully deserve. It is a pay raise because of the demands on the military today--the time spent and what we expect our military to do with fewer resources and fewer people. We expect them to do a bigger job, and I want to talk about that a little later. A 2.1-percent pay raise is a pay raise that is richly deserved by those who defend us.

The bill enhances the capability of our military to defeat ISIS, to defeat al-Qaida, and to defeat other enemies. Even though this is 16 years after 9/11, we still have a hard time fully understanding the emerging threat of these enemies--the nontraditional threat, the nontraditional combatant. These are things we need to continue to look at carefully, to adjust to, to understand their prowess on social media and other places and to understand what could happen there.

This bill focuses on terrorism, cyber warfare, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

By the way, on cyber, the Missouri National Guard has one of the leading cyber defense units anywhere in the country. As I have said about this program before, this is a place at which the Reserves and National Guard can particularly do a great job because they go in and out of a different environment every day--going to work defending the utility grid, defending the financial grid--and know what those attacks are like as they step up and do their work as reservists or guardsmen.

This bill ensures that our men and women in uniform have the equipment they need to succeed, including looking at the growing capacity of our enemies. We never want people who are defending us to be in a fair fight. We always want them to be in an unfair fight, and we want any advantage that could possibly be given to be on the side of those who defend our country and defend freedom.

I am glad that this bill projects some of the vital things that happen in our State and, of course, in the Presiding Officer's State. Lots of things happen in Alaska, as they do in Missouri.

This bill further advances the need to replace the national geospatial facility in St. Louis, where 30-plus percent of the people work who monitor our defense posture from the air. They are looking to see what is happening, when it is happening, and how it is happening. It is fully redundant with the facility in Springfield, VA. If one of those does not work for whatever reason, the other one becomes the 100- percent provider of our geospatial activity that goes on all of the time.

There is a new hospital at Fort Leonard Wood in this bill. It has been the No. 1 medical priority for the Defense Department for about a decade. This funds the first phase of the replacement of that facility.

There is an Air National Guard training facility at Rosecrans in St. Joseph where our NATO allies go to learn. In recent times, 19 countries have come and learned the lift capacity--how to use those C-130s in the most effective and efficient way. That is recognized in this bill.

The AVCRAD, which is the aviation repair facility in Springfield, MO, is where a $34 million investment would return $62 million in the first year. They are saving about $111 million at that facility every year now, but phase 3 in that facility would return $62 million the first year. I do not know that I have ever talked about a government investment before from which in the first 6 months you get all of the money back in a week or so.

The bill also provides robust funding for A-10 maintenance. That A-10 Reserve unit at Whiteman is where the Secretary of the Air Force just was, and when you are talking to troops on the ground, they would always like the A-10 in the air, supporting them on the ground.

There is money here for Super Hornets to go on our aircraft carriers. It does not matter how many aircraft carriers you have if you do not have the planes to put on the aircraft carriers, and this bill recognizes that.

Something that I have worked for for some time--and I know the Presiding Officer understands so well--is the Military Family Stability Act. It is in this bill, and it was in the Senate bill last year. It was not able to be in the final bill, but it will be in the final bill that the House and Senate pass this year, I am confident. The Secretary of Defense supports it; all of the Joint Chiefs support it; and our House colleagues have supported it. This is the bill that I filed with Senator Gillibrand about 3 years ago, which simply provides more flexibility for our military families.

The strength of the military is in the military family structure. This allows the family to either move early or stay longer at these assignments. Normally, they are 2-year to 3-year assignments. Lots can happen in 2 or 3 years, but not everything else perfectly works out in 2 or 3 years. So for employment reasons or for education reasons, if a family decides it is to their advantage to use the family support the military provides, with housing and other benefits, and they stay another 2 months to finish school, for a teaching contract to end, or for some other spouse activity to come to a reasonable conclusion or, frankly, to do just the opposite--to go to the new assignment that you know you already have, but to do that just a little bit earlier so that it works better for the family--to start school on time, to start a job on time, a job that just has to start when that job has to start--they can do that. As we have more dual-career families in the military, this is one of the things we can do.

So this allows up to 6 months for the person in the service to determine where they would like their family benefit to be used, and then they become responsible for their own upkeep while they have either gone early or stayed late. But usually that is available. Bachelor officers' quarters are available at barracks on the base. Because of that, there is no cost to the Defense Department in doing the right thing.

I want to thank Chairman McCain for the work he has done on this particular addition to the bill, as well as Samantha Clark on his staff, who has worked hard to see to it that this could be not only workable but easily understandable by the military. I also want

to thank Congressman Joe Wilson and Congresswoman Susan Davis, who were key to including these provisions in the House National Defense Authorization Act. So families will see something--an opportunity here for them that they haven't seen in the past.

This year's Defense authorization takes the steps necessary to rebuild our military, but we still have more work ahead of us.

Sadly, this summer, we lost more than 40 servicemembers in accidents related to readiness challenges that are impacting the military. Sailors were killed aboard the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain. Marines were killed after a C-130 aircraft crashed in Mississippi and an MV-22 Osprey crashed off the coast of Australia. Soldiers have been lost in helicopter accidents in Hawaii and Yemen.

Just last week, Mackenzie Eaglen with AEI wrote: ``Troops are now more likely to die in `peacetime' incidents than active hostilities or combat.''

That is absolutely and totally unacceptable.

Total casualties in Afghanistan, for example, in 2015 were 22, in 2016 were 14, and in 2017 were 11. They were all respected, and it is regrettable that those lives were lost. In those same years, the Department of the Navy lost 28 people, 22 people, and this year--not even over yet--43 people in accidents. We cannot let this continue.

We have asked the military to do too much with too little for too long, and this bill addresses that.

So there are numerous threats to our Nation, and it is critical that we not waste any more time in working to resolve our budget issues. We need to pass this legislation and come up with the appropriations that then support the authorizing bill and go back to the No. 1 priority of the Federal Government, which is to defend the country.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I come this morning to talk about the impending passage of a very failed healthcare bill in the House of Representatives and to remind my colleagues that this legislation moving through the House of Representatives is the first time in the 50-plus years of the Medicaid Program that they are going to pass legislation to cap and cost-shift Medicaid costs to States.

This is an $839 billion cost shift from the Federal government to States and a one-quarter cut to the Federal Medicaid investment over a period of ten

years. Some 14 million Americans will lose Medicaid coverage. These draconian and arbitrary budget caps will leave States with impossible choices to cut people from care, cut provider reimbursements, or reduce benefits. Overall, 24 million Americans will lose their health insurance. That is according to a recent Congressional Budget Office analysis.

Why do I say this is a broken promise? Because it was very clear that, when President Trump was a candidate, he said he was not going to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid.

Why is that important? Because these are trusted programs that have worked cost effectively for so many Americans in giving them access to care. Now is not the time, as we have seen a Medicaid expansion, to now cost-shift Medicaid to the States by breaking this promise and putting in it, for the first time in 50 years, a substantial change to the way Medicaid works. It does represent, in my opinion, a war on Medicaid-- one that we cannot afford to wage.

Communities that have benefited from Medicaid expansion have seen the value of coverage and a healthy population. All you have to do is to talk to healthcare providers, hospitals, chambers of commerce, and others to get them to say that, yes, having more people with healthcare coverage in our community has helped us in raising the standard of living.

Why is that? First of all, uncompensated care is no longer put at the hospital's doorstep. Secondly, the population with healthcare coverage is healthier, getting treatment in advance as opposed to waiting for a crisis. It represents an investment in the community that allows a community to stabilize.

These are important issues for us to discuss. I hope my colleagues in the Senate will not fall for this ploy or that they will not go back on promises made by this administration not to cut Medicaid.

There are other aspects of the bill coming over from the House of Representatives, obviously, dealing with preexisting conditions, and we know from our own experience in the State of Washington that high-risk pools have covered only a tiny portion of people with preexisting conditions and are inadequate unless properly funded. As an article from the Seattle Times, from 2009, entitled ``Dozens of patients cut from state's high-risk insurance pool'' stated: ``with premiums that can top $20,000 a year, patients don't exactly clamor to join the state's high-risk health-insurance pool--a public insurer of last resort for patients with cancer, AIDS and other serious diseases . . . ,'' and ``the premiums cover only about 30 percent of the patients' medical and prescription expenses.''

There are many things that are working in the Affordable Care Act. We have done great things on rebalancing; that is, to rebalance people from nursing home care to community-based care.

This chart shows how many States in the United States of America are doing this. This is in the Affordable Care Act. We wrote a provision encouraging States to try to rebalance their population, not encouraging so much nursing home care because it is so expensive, and instead, trying to deliver the long-term care people need in their individual communities.

The great success of this is that many States in the Affordable Care Act took us up on it--States like Nevada, Iowa, Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine. I saw in our own State, over a 15-year period of time, that we saved roughly $2.7 billion. That is $2.7 billion of cost. Instead of paying for a Medicaid population in expensive nursing home settings, we instead innovated and put them into what was a cost-effective delivery system in which people love to stay in their home as they age as opposed to the notion of expensive nursing home care.

I mention that because that $2.7 billion could be the kind of savings we would see in these States. So I tell my colleagues from the House: Innovate; don't capitate. Don't try to say that you have an ingenious idea on how to take care of healthcare costs by simply capitating, for the first time in 50-plus years, the Medicaid Program and then leaving the States to pick up the bill.

It won't work. Follow the ideas and strategies that are much better in helping us cut costs for an aging population that is living longer, and look for fixes that are already there in the Affordable Care Act to do so.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I note, too, that we are going to be moving today, before we leave here, to what is the Omnibus resolution to keep the government open.

I wanted to mention an important aspect of the legislation we are going to be voting on. Pursuant to provisions in the Customs bill, we are now going to put funding into trade enforcement--a very important aspect of our trade agenda.

We know that more than 96 percent of the world's customers live outside the United States. By some estimates, at least 70 percent of the world's purchasing power is outside the United States. That means that we need to keep working hard to reach these new markets and these customers. The growing middle class has great purchasing power.

In 2015, the global middle class spent $33 trillion. By some estimates, the middle class could surpass 4 billion people by the year 2021, making it a majority of the world's population.

Approximately one in three jobs in the State of Washington are tied to international trade. Washington State exported approximately $80 billion in goods in 2016--from airplanes and coffee to apples and software. I know this about our State: we understand that we are in a global economy and that we have great products to sell in international markets.

Agriculture exports are very important to our State. Agriculture adds about $51 billion a year to our State's GDP, and the agricultural sector makes up more than 13 percent of our State's economy. In 2016, Washington exported $15 billion worth of food and agriculture products with $7 billion being of Washington origin. We are No. 1 in the nation in production of apples, hops, spearmint oil, wrinkled seed peas, concord grapes, sweet cherries, pears, green peas, raspberries for processing, blueberries and aquaculture. We are No. 2 in production of potatoes, certain kinds of grapes, nectarines, apricots, prunes, plums, sweet corn for processing, and a variety of other things.

This is to say that in the State of Washington, we grow a lot for overseas markets. Why am I talking about this important aspect of this bill that is passing to keep our government open today? Because in our State and across our country, we need to encourage more small businesses to export. And we need to make sure we have enforcement of a level playing field so that U.S. companies of all sizes and U.S. workers are protected as they compete in that global economy.

That is why, in the previously passed Customs bill, I created a Trade Enforcement Trust Fund at the Office of U.S. Trade Representative. Now, with this legislation passing today, we are putting $15 million toward that trust fund to be spent exclusively on enforcing trade agreements. We need to enforce the agreements and make sure Washington and businesses around the country get a fair deal as we work on trade. And $15 million in the fund would help us fight trade issues we have seen all over the globe.

For example, sometimes people try to sell their products by taking the great labels we have on Washington apples and putting them on foreign apples making them seem like Washington apples, when in reality they are not. This bill gives us money for trade enforcement to address these challenges.

Sometimes we have intellectual property that is hijacked or stolen from companies in our State. This bill puts more enforcement in place to fight those crimes and to make sure we are enforcing our trade agreements. The trust fund gives the framework and workforce to enforce trade laws governing exports to that burgeoning,

as I said, growing middle class outside the United States. We must make sure our products are sold and sold correctly and any disputes that are happening are resolved and resolved quickly so our trade with those countries can be cost-effective to our growers, to our manufacturers, and to the workforce within our State.

I am sure every Member here who has companies that have done trade in this global economy can tell you stories of how the lack of trade enforcement has cost them business. This fund is a very positive shot in the arm to our U.S. trade office, so they have the resources to do more enforcement and make sure our products are winning in the overseas markets.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided.

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

Mr. President, I think it is clear to people all across America that the U.S. healthcare system needs reform. Premiums for health insurance are going up by double digits across the country. People living in almost half of the country only have one company selling ObamaCare plans. Millions of people are struggling. They are struggling to get coverage they can afford so they can get the care they need. I will state that it is all because of the healthcare law that the Democrats wrote and passed in Congress and inflicted upon the American people,

which raised the costs for people all across the country and limited their choices.

Today the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Sanders, and other Democrats said they want to take this failing healthcare system even further. They call their plan ``Medicare for all.'' Don't be fooled. They want to take a plan that has government much more involved in the healthcare of the American people and go much further. I don't believe it is actually a serious plan to help fix the challenges we are facing in this country, but it is now the new litmus test for the liberal left. If this idea were ever to become law, it would mean worse care and it would be outrageously expensive.

The plan the Democrats are talking about would amount to complete Washington control over the healthcare of every man, woman, and child in America, and taxpayers would have to pick up the tab.

Supporters of putting the Federal Government in Washington, DC, in charge of personal healthcare decisions like to claim that this is the way that other countries do it as well. They like to cite as an example the United Kingdom. Well, a lot of people in the United Kingdom see their system of nationalized healthcare entering a death spiral, and it looks a lot like what has happened to ObamaCare.

The waiting lines in England have recently gotten a lot longer for people waiting to get care. They are actually setting new records for how long you have to wait in line to get care in England. For emergency care, they have more people waiting in line in the emergency room for 12 hours or longer. Those numbers have gone up--12 hours or longer--and it has gotten worse.

Let's say you have a chronic condition, a long-term medical condition. To start treatment for long-term medical conditions, the number of people having to wait 18 weeks or longer has gone up. If Democrats get their way, the American people will have the same kinds of delays. It is inevitable. The problem isn't just the delays. If Washington pays all of the bills, Washington will want much tighter control over care.

The Democrats' new scheme will come with a much more powerful rationing board. You can see it coming. In England, the rationing of healthcare means that certain medications are not allowed. There are limits on things like knee and hip operations. The same thing is true in Canada. Medical boards in some parts of the country have banned surgeries for people who are obese or who are smokers. How do you think that would work in the United States? Close to 40 percent of Americans are now considered obese. Would they all be blocked from getting operations that would help improve their health and quality of life? It is only if the rationing board were to say so.

The British have to ration healthcare partly because of the enormous cost of so-called free medical care. They also have a shortage of people who actually provide the care. Since 2016, there has been a net loss of more than 5,000 nurses and midwives across the British healthcare system. More than a quarter of the nurses who quit cited disillusionment over the quality of care provided to patients. Nurses are quitting because of the poor quality of care provided to patients. It is a great concern.

The United Kingdom ranks 20th out of 24th among Western countries for breast cancer survival. For survival, the United States is first. If you are a woman with breast cancer or a man with prostate cancer, your chances of survival and successful treatment are much, much greater in the United States than they are in Great Britain. It is not that the doctors in this country are that much smarter. It is that people get care sooner. There are not all these long waiting lines. But that will happen if the plan endorsed by 15 Democrats in the Senate and the majority of the Democrats in the House were to ever become law.

Let's talk about stroke. For the most common kind of stroke, the United Kingdom is 25th out of 30 countries in terms of recovery, solutions, and success. The United States is fourth.

Of course, all of what the Democrats are proposing will not come cheap. Democrats in California had their own scheme earlier this year. When the group that looks at what the cost is going to be reviewed it-- and I was in the State senate in Wyoming, and in any key piece of legislation, we would have to do a fiscal note, which is what it is going to cost--in California what they proposed would cost about $400 billion a year. So how much does the entire State of California pay to run the whole State over the course of a year? What is their budget for the year? It is less than half that amount. So what they are proposing on healthcare is double what they pay for everything that the State of California does.

Last year, Senator Sanders gave a rough sketch of his plan as part of his Presidential campaign. It would have raised Washington's total healthcare expenditures by $32 trillion over just the first 10 years. To pay for it, he wanted to raise taxes, including higher payroll taxes on workers. The problem was that all of these new taxes would pay for less than half of the government's new spending. The legislation written and cosponsored by Democrats in the House says that it would be paid for by things like--and this is in their words--``a modest tax on unearned income'' and a ``small tax on stock and bond transactions.''

Remember how President Obama promised that his healthcare law wouldn't raise taxes on middle-class families--in his words--by a single dime? It turns out that the law included dozens of taxes on American working families, certainly including middle-class Americans all across the country.

Democrats say that total Washington control over healthcare would make things so efficient, that it would save a whole lot of money. Does anyone believe that is ever going to happen?

A lot of people have the stress of dealing between their doctor and their insurance company, and there are a lot of problems out there. Nothing in the Democrats' takeover of healthcare changes any of that. It just means that the people will be caught in the middle between a fight with their government and a bunch of unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington, DC. How is that better? Where will we see savings from that? The Democrats have no real answers, just empty promises.

You can tell that it is not a real plan because when Democrats had a chance to actually vote on this idea in the Senate, they took a pass. In July, the Senate voted on a bill written by House Democrats. We brought it to the floor of the Senate during the healthcare debate and put it up for a vote. As to the bill that half of the Democrats in the House had cosponsored, they said: Let's give the Senators an opportunity. Every Republican voted against it, and 43 Democrats voted present. Democrats had a chance to stand up and vote for the idea that they love to talk about, but not a single Senator voted for it, including Senator Sanders.

Now some of us suspected that this was where the debate over ObamaCare was headed all along. The healthcare law, as passed years ago, was so obviously flawed that there was no way it would work the way the Democrats promised. You had to wonder if Democrats actually wanted it to fail so they could push for more Washington control, more government control over your healthcare.

You can call it the old Potomac two-step. When we were debating ObamaCare in 2009, Senator Sanders came to the floor of the Senate and said that a full Washington takeover of healthcare was the way to go. Today he is taking his shot. The ObamaCare markets are in shambles. There is no denying that ObamaCare failed to keep its promises. The American people are paying a very steep price for the failures of the law.

The promises that Democrats are making about their new healthcare scheme are even more outlandish. When it fails, the damage will be catastrophic. We cannot allow that to happen to the American people.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. Speaker, I thank our distinguished ranking member for her recognition and her leadership on this legislation that we have the opportunity to vote on. So I thank Ranking Member Nita Lowey.

I thank the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey, Chairman Frelinghuysen, for his leadership as well. And I commend his staff, Nancy Fox, and others for their hard work on this; and to Ranking Member Lowey, Shalanda Young, Chris Bigelow, my own staff Richard Meltzer, and House and Senate staff members for getting us to this very important place.

The omnibus reflects significant progress defeating some dangerous riders, which I think are dangerous, and securing key victories.

Here is the thing: I spent many years in the Appropriations Committee. And I know, left to your own devices, the Appropriations Committee can find your common ground. You appreciate each other, you grant each other your positions on issues, and you understand the art of negotiating in a successful way.

There were some items that were suggested other than from the committee. From the White House, for example, a border wall, deportation force, things like that, 160 poison pills, which were ranging from undermining a woman's right to choose to dismantling Dodd- Frank, et cetera. But you all worked together to balance the equities and come up with a bill that will have, I believe, broad support in the Congress, certainly bipartisan support in the Congress.

But just not to speak about what we didn't like about the bill, there are some very positive aspects of it that I want to recognize--some nondefense increases in spending, which will save lives and create jobs.

Coal miners' health. We were so proud to secure more than $1 billion to deliver permanent health benefits to thousands of coal miners and their families who stood to lose their health benefits this month. God bless them for their advocacy. It was so important to our discussion.

Opioid epidemic. An additional $600 million for fighting the opioid epidemic.

Protecting EPA. There was going to be a huge cut, and now just a 1 percent cut in the EPA. We see that as a success.

Year-round Pell grants. So important.

Science funding. The omnibus increases funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy, the Department of Energy Office of Science, and ARPA-E, all initiatives that some wanted to cut but were happy had survived that interest in cutting.

Our colleague, Congresswoman Velazquez, has led us on the Puerto Rico issue. The omnibus includes vital funds to stabilize Puerto Rico's underfunded Medicaid program, which threatened so many of our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico.

Democrats are very happy and give credit to, in a bipartisan way, led by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, securing nearly $1 billion in humanitarian assistance to alleviate famine resulting from more drought and displacement in Africa and the Middle East, saving countless lives around the world. Left without assistance, maybe 1.5 million children would die of malnutrition in the next 6 months in Africa.

And then it takes us to biomedical research. I served with Mrs. Lowey and others on the Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee for many years. And the National Institutes of Health is this place that has the Biblical power to cure. It has scientific opportunity. And where there is scientific opportunity, we want to place additional resources. Lives depend on it.

So in stark contrast to the skinny budget that came out earlier, this legislation increases funding for the National Institutes of Health by $2 billion. And I want to say on that, as we relish that $2 billion and what it could mean to the good health of the American people, we have to protect our investments.

As we invest in new treatments and cures, we must also ensure that all Americans have access to them. That is why it is curious to me that on the same day that we vote on this omnibus bill and increase funding for the National Institutes of Health, increase funding for our veterans, and all the rest of that, Republicans are working furiously to advance TrumpCare's devastating impact on America's health care. No matter what anybody says to you about activities they are having today to tweak one piece of the bill, it will still be a bill that has higher costs, forcing families to pay higher premiums and deductibles and out- of-pocket costs. This will block some people from access to the lifesaving cures that we are investing in the National Institutes of Health to create.

Less coverage will take coverage from 24 million hardworking Americans.

Higher costs.

Fewer people covered.

Veterans tax. TrumpCare will deny tax credits for health care to 7 million military veterans.

TrumpCare destroys protections for preexisting conditions. So many of the investments at the National Institutes of Health that we are talking about are to find cures and to find preventions. But when we are trying to find cures, that means that the people we are trying to cure have a preexisting medical condition. This would destroy the guarantee protection for a preexisting medical condition and gut the essential health benefits in the Affordable Care Act.

There is a crushing age tax. If you are 50 to 64, you will pay five times higher than others pay for health care.

It undermines our investments in Medicare.

So I mention this because I have always thought, when I sat on that committee year in and year out, day in and day out, hour on hour, listening to the challenges facing America's families for illnesses that they were suffering, a diagnosis that they were frightened by, that what they wanted us to do was to invest in a cure, but that meant access to that cure.

So they are trying to say: Well, we are going to help with high-risk pools, and that is going to neutralize everything I said about higher costs, lower coverage, et cetera. But the conservative Mercatus Center said: ``The amendment at hand focuses on high-risk pools, but the $8 billion amount is a pittance.''

And said: ``Spread over 5 years, it's a fifth of a pittance.''

That was Robert Graboyes, a healthcare expert at the conservative Mercatus Center.

Karen Pollitz, a healthcare expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said that the additional $8 billion would likely not be enough to make the high-risk pools workable. She said that would be enough money to cover costs for only 1 percent of the individual market.

So, again, let us protect the investment that we are making. Let us elevate it with pride and say $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health.

But what does that mean to you, the average American, if you can't have access to that in a way that is affordable?

Again, 51 years ago, Dr. King said, and I say again, because I say this all of the time: ``Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.''

So, again, this appropriations bill is a way for us to help meet the needs of the American people. This Appropriations Committee did an excellent job in resolving differences and putting forth a balance of equities as we go forward.

But let us not give with one hand and take away with the other as we, in the same 24-hour period, say: Aren't we wonderful. $2 billion for medical research.

Under the Republican's healthcare plan, it will most likely benefit the privileged few at the expense of America's working families.

That is not what we are supposed to be doing here. That is what we are taking pride in. What we are taking pride in is of the great possibilities, but let's make those possibilities available.

And I say that as one who served for many years on the Appropriations Committee, one whose goal in life was to sit on the Labor-HHS Subcommittee and to increase the funding of the National Institutes of Health, but to do it for the purpose of all Americans having access.

Having said that, getting back to this omnibus bill, again, I am very proud of the work of Nita Lowey, of the ranking members of the subcommittees, and of the staff who worked so hard. I am especially proud of the work, also, of our distinguished chairman, Mr. Frelinghuysen. I join him in recognizing the work of his subcommittee chairs on all of this. It is a product to be proud of. I thank Mr. Frelinghuysen and Mrs. Lowey.

I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak about Senate Amendment to H.R. 244, ``Making Consolidated Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2017.''

The legislation before us is an imperfect vehicle for appropriations for FY 2017, but this Omnibus Appropriations package contains new funding for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2017 for federal agencies under the eleven remaining Appropriations subcommittees.

The Omnibus Budget Agreement appropriates $1.070 trillion in base discretionary budget authority, allocating $551 billion for defense and $519 billion for nondefense in line with the Budget Control Act's statutory discretionary spending caps, as well as $93.5 billion in additional funding designated for Overseas Contingency Operations(OCO).

Mr. Speaker, this budget agreement is far from perfect, but it is a positive step since it ensures that funding for appropriated entitlements will continue at a rate maintaining program levels under current law and prevents congressional Republicans from shutting down the government again and manufacturing a crisis that only harms our economy, destroys jobs, and weakens our middle class.

The government shutdown of 2013, which was manufactured by the Republican majority lasted 16 days and cost taxpayers $24 billion.

The enormous harm and disruption of the lives of federal employees and the people they serve, however, was irreparable.

As I stated, Mr. Speaker, this Omnibus Budget Agreement is a product of goodwill and realism, and averts a shutdown of government operations and the disruption a shutdown causes to the lives of millions of Americans who depend upon federal programs to do their jobs, educate their kids, care for their parents, and contribute to their communities.

Our constituents look to the Congress and the President to make responsible choices and decisions to keep the nation safe, the economy prosperous, and to make necessary and prudent investments in education, healthcare and research, transportation and infrastructure, economic development, science, the arts and humanities, and the environment.

This is, after all, just another way of saying that the American people expect their leaders in Washington be guided by the Constitution's Preamble and pursue policies and provide the resources that will:

``establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.''

The funding priorities that have been floated by the Trump Administration fail this essential test of leadership because they are irresponsible, impracticable, unrealistic, and, in many respects, insensitive or indifferent to the deleterious impact they will have on the lives of real people living in the real world.

They do not command majority support in the Congress or of the public and have been rejected in this budget.

Instead, in a stinging defeat for the Trump, the Omnibus Budget Agreement does not fund the immoral and unwise border wall or create a cruel new deportation force.

Also eliminated are more than 160 Republican poison pill riders, ranging from undermining a woman's right to reproductive health to dismantling Dodd-Frank's vital Wall Street consumer protections.

Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased that we succeeded in securing Democratic policy priorities and funding increases for critical nondefense items.

This will save lives and create jobs.

Mr. Speaker, let me identify some of the important policy and funding priorities included in this budget agreement:

Fully funds community development block grants and low income housing programs in urban and rural communities.

$2 billion for Medical Research: the budget rejects President Trump's dangerous plans to steal billions from lifesaving medical research;

$221 million overall for Community Oriented Policing (COPS) and $137 million for the COPS hiring program;

$1 billion for Coal Miners' Health: Democrats secured funding to deliver permanent health benefits for the thousands of coal miners and their families who stood to lose their health benefits this month;

$600 million to combat and respond to the Opioid Epidemic;

Provides level funding for the Environmental Protection Agency despite Republicans' hopes to gut it;

Year-Round Pell Grants: Democrats insisted on, and won an increase of $105 in the maximum Pell Grant award and succeeded in restoring access to year-round Pell Grants which will make a huge difference in the lives of hard-working students;

Science Funding: the omnibus budget increases funding for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Department of Energy Office of Science and ARPA-E, all initiatives President Trump wanted cut;

Puerto Rico's Medicaid: the omnibus budget includes vital funds to stabilize Puerto Rico's underfunded Medicaid program, which threatened so many of our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico;

$1 billion for Emergency Famine Relief to alleviate famine resulting from war, drought and displacement in Africa and the Middle East, saving countless lives around the world;

Mr. Speaker, I support the omnibus budget agreement before us because it achieves the following goals and objectives that I laid out last week:

``To establish justice'' and ``To promote the general welfare'':

1. Funding for the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights so that they have funds needed to enforce laws protecting civil rights, voting rights, and prosecuting hate crimes.

2. Fully funds community development block grants and low income housing programs in urban and rural communities.

3. Fully funds the Legal Services Corporation so that working and low-income persons who lack an army of lobbyists to represent them in Washington will at least have the assistance of counsel to defend their legal rights in courts of law.

4. Fully funds programs providing food assistance to housebound seniors, such as Meals on Wheels.

5. Fully funds programs that provide students from low and moderate- income families access to affordable access to higher education and provides students with special needs the support needed to receive the free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE) guaranteed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA Act).

6. Funds before and after school programs and other student enrichment programs that help students succeed.

7. Fully funds programs that make federal housing safer through energy efficient healing and cooling systems.

8. Preserves tax credit programs that help revitalize low income communities.

9. Fully funds the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy programs developing the next generation of clean energy and transportation technologies.

``Provide for the common defense'':

1. Provides robust funding for the Department of State and USAID to advance national security interests in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and to end violent conflicts in trouble spots which could threaten the security interests of the United States.

2. Provides adequate funding for United Nations peacekeeping missions throughout the world and distribution of food aid to people in developing and famine stricken countries, such as South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and Nigeria.

``To ensure domestic tranquility'':

1. Fully funds cost-sharing reduction subsidies, or CSRs, to compensate insurers for reducing deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums for low-income customers on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.

2. Protects the adequacy, solvency, and integrity of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which provide health sustaining support for 70 million Americans.

3. Fully funds the National Institutes of Health research programs so that patient access to lifesaving treatments is not delayed.

4. Does not convert funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into block grants which would hindering the nation's ability to respond swiftly and effectively to public health crises like Ebola, Zika, and HIV/AIDS.

Mr. Speaker, working together the House and Senate has reached an agreement on an appropriate budget framework that invests in the American people, preserves our national security, and keeps faith with the values that have served our nation well and made the United States the leading nation on earth.

Mr. President, I congratulate Senator Young on his first major speech in the Senate. It was truly inspirational. Our colleagues who are here on the floor have had an opportunity to listen to a very important speech.

I also acknowledge a former Senator who is with us in the Chamber, Richard Lugar of Indiana, who also was an extraordinary representative of the people of Indiana.

I congratulate Senator Young.

Mr. President, the Senate will soon vote on the government funding bill the House passed yesterday, and with it, critical resources to address a number of issues facing our country.

As I have noted over the course of this week, the bill includes a number of provisions that are important to our country, and today I would like to take a closer look at the positive impact they can make in the lives of the men and women we represent.

Our country is suffering from a terrible epidemic. Heroin and prescription opioid abuse is destroying families and communities all across our Nation. On average, overdoses from these drugs claim 91 lives every day--91 lives every day. Drug addiction can even devastate the lives of babies before they are born.

States like mine have been hit particularly hard by this epidemic. I have heard countless stories from Kentuckians who have experienced the heartbreak of addiction firsthand.

Here is one story that a grandmother from Independence, KY, shared with my office: ``[M]y granddaughter is growing up without a father due to this evil drug,'' she wrote. ``Our children are the future of this country and deserve all the help and support we can give them.''

Unfortunately, her story is similar to thousands more all across the land. Grandparents and other family members are increasingly taking care of children when parents fall into addiction. As too many families have experienced, addiction can have long-lasting and damaging effects on children and can be financially challenging for the caregivers.

A mom in Florence, KY, contacted my office about her son who is battling

addiction and frequently runs into trouble with the law. ``There are so many lives lost and so many more headed in that direction,'' she said. ``It's an epidemic, not a crime spree.''

We took decisive action against heroin and opioid abuse last year with the passage of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act and the 21st Century Cures Act. This bill before us, when we pass it, will provide significant new resources to combat this crisis as well.

These critical funds will go to prevention, treatment, and enforcement programs that can help our communities heal from this scourge and help keep more families from ever knowing the suffering associated with this epidemic.

Look, there is still more work to do to get the opioid crisis under control, but this funding legislation will take another critical step in the right direction. That is why substance abuse treatment organizations support it, including one local group that recently contacted my office in support of the bill. This legislation, in their words, will help ``[enhance] the ability of front lines providers to more effectively deploy resources and tackle this epidemic within our communities.''

That is making a positive and meaningful impact in the lives of the men and women we represent.

Healthcare benefits for thousands of retired coal miners were set to expire across the country at the end of this week. Men and women who dedicated their lives to providing an affordable and reliable source of energy to this Nation would have lost their healthcare, many of them when they needed it most.

I have met with retired coal miners numerous times in my office about this issue, including one retiree from Georgetown, KY, who worked as an underground miner for 10 years. He suffers from diabetes and heart disease, and his wife is a breast cancer survivor. ``There is no question whether or not we need our health insurance to continue,'' he said. ``Without it, we would probably lose our home, [which] would be catastrophic not to mention what might happen to our health because we could not afford to get coverage or our medicine.''

These coal miner retirees clearly needed our help, which is why I have been fighting for their healthcare at every step of the way. Today I am proud that this funding legislation includes my proposal to permanently extend healthcare benefits for thousands of retirees across the Nation and in Kentucky. These coal miners and their families can live with the peace of mind they have been looking for. That is making a positive and meaningful impact in the lives of the men and women we represent.

For too long, Federal bureaucrats in Washington imposed one-size- fits-all education policies on our children. Distant bureaucrats dictated nationwide policies, even though the needs of a student in Kentucky are different from of a student in Maine or California. For this reason, we enacted the Every Student Succeeds Act education reform law last Congress, which sends power back to the States, parents, and teachers, and this funding bill will support its implementation, giving our schools the resources they need to prepare our students.

This funding legislation also supports school choice through reauthorization of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program and through increased Federal funding for charter schools. Both of these school choice provisions will help expand opportunities for parents to send their children to the school that best meets their needs.

In my home State of Kentucky, the increased support for charter schools will be very important, as the new Republican majority in Frankfort recently passed a charter schools law.

Yesterday I met with State Representative Carney and charter school advocates who were key to shepherding this legislation into law down in Kentucky. I thank them for their efforts on behalf of Kentucky's students and families, and I look forward to working with them to support charter schools in Kentucky going forward.

By funding the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act and supporting school choice across the country, this legislation will help parents and students achieve strong educational outcomes. That is making a positive and meaningful impact in the lives of the men and women we represent.

Of course, this bill contains other important wins for the country as well. It includes the largest border security funding increase in a decade, allowing our country to better support border security agents, enhance technology, and update critical infrastructure down at the border. It includes important resources to help us begin rebuilding our military, allowing our country to give servicemembers more of the tools that they need, and fund a much needed raise for our men and women in uniform.

On military funding, we broke out of the years-long insistence by our colleagues on the other side that every increase in defense had to be met by an increase on the domestic side. That is no longer the law.

As I have outlined several times this week, this legislation includes other conservative priorities as well. Importantly, it achieves these things while conforming to spending caps and reducing bureaucracy, even consolidating, eliminating, or rescinding funds for over 150 government programs and initiatives.

Because of hard work from both Chambers and both sides of the aisle, we have a funding bill before us that can make many important and positive impacts in the lives of the people we represent. I know I will be supporting it, and I urge colleagues to do the same.

I look forward to its passage so we can send the agreement to President Trump for his signature.

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 ask unanimous consent that the time until 1:45 p.m. today be equally divided in the usual form and that at 1:45 p.m., the motion to refer with amendment be withdrawn, the motion to concur with amendment be withdrawn, and the Senate vote on the motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 244.

Mr. President, thank you for the opportunity to speak on the floor.

The images and stories we have witnessed in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma are devastating. I want to thank every American and every Montanan who has pitched in,

who has volunteered, who has donated to help the recovery efforts in Texas and Florida.

I rise today to remind the country there is another devastating and ongoing natural disaster that is impacting thousands of families, costing taxpayers billions of dollars, and draining local economies. As the eyes of the Nation were on Florida this weekend--and rightfully so--Montana wildfires consumed another 150,000 acres.

To date, we have seen over 1.1 million acres burned in Montana this summer. This is more than three times the 10-year average and nearly the size of the State of Delaware. The impact is widespread.

The wildfires have burned farming and grazing land that is used to help feed this country and valuable timber that sustains good jobs in mills across the State. The 1.1 million acres we lost includes world- class hunting, fishing, and hiking land, where families can escape and grandparents can take their grandkids to their favorite fishing hole. The fires have consumed favorite hiking trails and public access sites that help drive our outdoor economy in our State, which sustains over 70,000 jobs a year in Montana alone. The smoke from these fires has put our health at risk--the health of our kids and our neighbors exposed to the smoke that covers the State of Montana.

In addition to burning nearly 2,000 square miles, these fires are burning a hole in our budget. As of this morning, taxpayers have paid nearly $350 million to fight the wildfires of Montana alone. Across the West, that number is well over $2 billion. To make matters worse, the Forest Service is borrowing $300 million from other accounts to help fight wildfires. The Forest Service is forced to rob Peter to pay Paul--money that should be used to prevent fire seasons, maintain and improve forest trails and roads, research and development for better forest management policies, and to fund the work that must get done to make our forests more resilient--I am talking about thinning, cutting, removing debris. The Forest Service is also spending money that should be used to mitigate wildfire risk to fight fire.

Yes, you heard me correctly. We have again entered into a vicious cycle, where we take money from wildfire mitigation and the preparedness accounts in order to pay for the fighting of wildfires that exist today. Each year, we spend more money to fight wildfires, which leaves less money to prevent wildfires. Now, this is nothing new. Fire borrowing is a trend we have seen for the last 20 years. With each passing year, as fire seasons get longer and more intense, our fire borrowing practice leaves an entire agency with almost no budget certainty or flexibility to complete its core mission. Congress has already paid the Forest Service more than 300 million additional dollars to fight fire, but I think we are going to blow well past that number. That might be enough for Montana alone, but we also need to be able to help the firefighters in California, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and across the West.

In the meantime, forest management on the ground is hamstrung, and we have no long-term fix for this problem. As a result, we are investing less in active forest management, which then leaves our forests even more vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires. Frankly, the Forest Service is becoming a firefighting agency, not a forest management agency.

When the fire season ends, our restorative work begins but only if there is money in the bank to do that restorative work. I am concerned that without immediate action from Congress, the Forest Service's hollowed-out budget will not provide adequate resources to restore streams and prepare for spring runoffs. If the Forest Service budget leaves Forest Service employees handcuffed this fall, our clean water, along with our blue-ribbon trout streams, will be put at risk, but that isn't all. The impact of this fire season has been felt far beyond our forests.

This devastating fire season has undercut Montana's employees and put jobs at risk. I have heard from small business owners who have seen their bottom line slashed during this fire season. A bad fire launches a ripple effect in the region that results in empty booths at the family restaurants and vacant rooms at local motels.

Wildfires have left our air quality so hazardous that school recesses have been canceled, high school football and soccer games have been moved hundreds of miles away, and folks wear breathing masks when they go pick up their mail.

Farmers and ranchers have lost infrastructure to fire, and extreme drought transformed a very promising spring into an underwhelming harvest. These impacts are real, and unfortunately they are not temporary. Folks in Montana will be dealing with the impacts of this recordbreaking fire season for many months and, in some cases, many years to come.

As Congress works again to get Florida and Texas the help they deserve, I am here to ensure that Montanans get the resources they need too. Here is what this Senate and Congress must do.

The Forest Service must be fully reimbursed for every dime they remove from maintenance, mitigation, and restoration accounts to fight wildfires. To repeat, the Forest Service must be fully reimbursed for every dime that was removed from maintenance, mitigation, and restoration accounts to fight wildfires. Why? We cannot leave the Forest Service with a hollowed-out budget. It is critical they have the resources they need to help communities recover from catastrophic wildfires. The Forest Service must have the tools to go through a public process so we can cut more trees and remove the dead and dying debris that fueled these fires.

Congress must pass legislation to end the broken way we fund wildfires so we can treat wildfire funding just like the natural disaster it is.

The third thing is, every small business and family farm or ranch in Montana that has suffered loss related to wildfires must have urgent access to the available resources at the Small Business Administration and at the USDA. I have personally contacted the administration to ensure that resources remain available for Montanans because our needs don't end after the wildfires are put out.

The fourth thing is, the Senate must fast-track legislation that provides local governments the additional resources and mitigation efforts they need to recover from these wildfires. I am working on a bill with other western Senators to ensure States like Montana and other States impacted by devastating wildfires have access to adequate recovery resources.

Finally, after a month of recordbreaking hurricanes and historic drought and wildfires, it is long past time for the Senate to have an honest debate about climate change. Back home in Montana, we are in the middle of September and there are still 21 priority fires burning and there are still many Montanans who need help.

So over the coming weeks and months, as we take steps to recover from other natural disasters around the country, we need to work together to not only help those in desperate need but also move forward with long- term solutions, solutions that will help us deal with the catastrophes, whether it is floods, hurricanes, droughts, or wildfires. If we are able to work together and get that done, we will indeed have done our job in the U.S. Senate.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, many, many thanks to the leader for his kind remarks.

The final bill was negotiated by the big four--the two leaders in the Senate and the two leaders in the House. It was not going to happen this way unless the leaders all agreed, so my profound thanks on behalf of the explorers and the adventurers of the United States--the ``can do'' little agency, NASA, that is now on its way to Mars.

On behalf of all of the NASA family, I thank the leaders and especially the Democratic leader. A personal thanks for his very kind comments.

Mr. President, we have approached the NASA bill in a bipartisan way. As a matter of fact, I give great credit to both the chairs and the ranking members on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, as well as on the subcommittee on appropriations in the House that handles NASA appropriations. All of those leaders were absolutely key.

Of course, the same thing is true here in the Senate. As the ranking member, I have the privilege of sharing the leadership with our chairman, John Thune, on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. It is that subcommittee's chairman and ranking member, as well as the chairman and ranking member from the subcommittee on the Appropriations Committee, from whom we will hear momentarily--to all of them, I am very grateful.

What it says is that NASA--America's civilian space program--should not be a partisan subject. What it says is that the leaders of NASA should not be partisans. As a matter of fact, they should even be more than bipartisans--they should be nonpartisans. That has been the tradition of NASA's, so like that of the Secretary of Defense. One considers that appointment to be a nonpartisan. So, too, we consider the Administrator of NASA to be a nonpartisan. I think, in this interim, with the Acting Administrator of NASA, that they are conducting themselves in a very significant way in keeping all of the advancements that they have done but that are now to be accelerated with this appropriations bill.

I congratulate the whole NASA team. It has been my argument to the Vice President and to the President that in the selection of the next leader of NASA, they need to do it in a nonpartisan way so that we can keep going for this human mission that is going to the planet Mars in the decade of the 2030s.

With the increase in NASA funding, we now stand on the precipice of a new golden age of exploration and discovery. In March of this year, several of us were at the White House when the President signed the NASA authorization bill. What we have worked on for the better part of 2 years keeps NASA on a steady course, with a balanced and ambitious mix of science, technology, and exploration initiatives. Let's not forget that the first ``A'' in ``NASA'' is ``aeronautics.'' It keeps all of that moving forward.

This additional $368 million of funding for NASA gives that little agency the ability to build off of the momentum that is already there. For example, in the White House, the Vice President--and I have commended him both privately and publicly--is bringing about the reestablishment of the National Space Council. I shared with him that all of us look forward to working with him and the Council to develop and carry out the ambitious civil, commercial, and national security space agenda for this country.

The $19.65 billion appropriation for NASA, coupled with the NASA authorization bill that we already passed a month or two ago, demonstrates our firm commitment to one day putting humans on Mars and permanently expanding our civilization out into the cosmos. We will soon have a regular cadence of missions that will be launching into deep space using the Space Launch System--the largest rocket ever, a third more powerful than the Saturn V rocket that took us to the Moon. Its spacecraft--the Orion--and other systems will be assembled and launched, and a lot of that is being done at Florida's Space Coast. The first rockets and spacecraft that will start the journey are being assembled right now at various sites across the country. Right now, the Space Launch System--the SLS rocket, the Orion spacecraft that sits on top of it--and the launch infrastructure at Cape Canaveral or, more specifically, the Kennedy Space Center, are all in the most challenging stages of their development.

These complex systems are all very intertwined, and it is vital that we make sure that NASA has the funding flexibility that it needs to address issues as they come up so that they can bring these systems together for the launch in early 2019 of the largest rocket ever.

We have asked NASA to look for new ways to expand commercial space activities in Earth's orbit, and we are providing NASA with the tools and the direction it needs to expand our commercial space activity. We are right on track to begin launching astronauts to the International Space Station on American rockets, commercially made, and that is going to start next year.

People do not realize--they thought the space shuttle was being shut down in 2011. They thought that was the end of the space program. No. No. All of this is being developed aside from the robotic missions that there have been with the rovers on Mars and all of the pictures of the cosmos. I mean, it is just unbelievable. Next year we are going to replace the Hubble Space Telescope, which has peered back into the beginning of time. We are going to look back almost to the beginning of time with the James Webb Space Telescope.

All of this is strengthening a flourishing U.S. space industry, especially in the areas in which NASA centers are located around the country. What is happening at the Kennedy Space Center is that it is being transformed into a commercial as well as a government spaceport-- into a busy civil, military, and commercial spaceport.

This appropriations budget allows us to continue all of this going on at the same time. We are going to put up gee-whiz things like the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, as well as additional Mars rovers. The rovers that are up there show that Mars, at one point, was warm and wet. We are going to find out whether there was life there. If there were, was it developed? If there were, was it civilized? If there were, what happened? These are lingering questions as we peer up into the night sky. The funding included in this budget deal moves us ever closer to answering that burning question: Are we alone in the universe? This budget helps us better understand our own planet by funding NASA's Earth Science Program, as well as funding aeronautics and education programs for our youth.

The investments that we as a country make in our space program pay immediate dividends to our quality of life

right here on Earth. Of course, the space program creates thousands and thousands of jobs for skilled workers to build machines that help us explore the heavens and jobs for the researchers to understand and interpret what we discover and jobs for the engineers and the entrepreneurs to develop new technologies. These public investments also stimulate complementary investments of private capital and the thousands of jobs that follow from that, and those are companies that will partner with NASA.

Again, I thank our colleagues in both the House and the Senate for their continued support of our space program. In this time when we find ourselves far too divided in our politics, the exploration of space continues to be a powerful force that brings us together into our search as we explore the universe.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, earlier this week, we commemorated the 16th anniversary of the attack on our country on September 11. It was a day that I think none of us will ever forget. We were attacked, and we wanted to take all necessary action to protect our country and go after those who perpetrated this attack against America.

I was part of the Congress at that time and was part of the Congress that passed the 2001 authorization for the use of military force that was targeted toward Afghanistan, and I was part of the Congress that when we took up the 2002 authorization for use of military force against Iraq, I voted against that authorization.

It has now been 14 years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the end of the Saddam Hussein regime. Yet we still have the authority for the use of military force against Iraq, and it is still being used. It is time for that authorization to end. I take this time to support Senator Paul's efforts to put a termination date on the 2002 authorization and to put a termination date on the 2001 authorization.

The 2001 authorization was the first we passed. It was done virtually unanimously. There was some objection, but very few, because we wanted our country to hold those responsible in Afghanistan for the attack against America. That authorization is now 16 years

old. Let me read for my colleagues exactly what that authorization said, what we passed 16 years ago:

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and

appropriate force against those Nations, organizations, or

persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or

aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11,

2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to

prevent any future acts of international terrorism against

the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

That is the authorization. It is pretty specific. It is pretty specific to go after those who were responsible for the attack against the United States that was centered in Afghanistan, and it was used for that purpose. Our military took action against Afghanistan as a result of the attack against our country, and that was authorized by Congress.

It is hard to understand how you can get from the reading of this authorization of the use of military force today as congressionally authorized against ISIS in the Middle East, in Africa, or anywhere in the world, but that is the interpretation that has been given to the action of Congress in 2001. I think that interpretation cannot be defended.

Congress has a responsibility to act. We have a responsibility to specifically authorize the new threats that we have against our country and what military force is appropriate. That is our responsibility. This is a different threat than we saw 16 years ago. It is our responsibility to give congressional authorization for the use of military force. Some say it cannot be done. Well, if it can't be done, then we don't agree on the authorization of force.

Let me just remind my colleagues that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, over 3 years ago, passed an authorization for the use of military force. We came together in our committee, and I know Senator Kaine and Senator Flake have worked on a proposal that is certainly much more focused toward the current circumstances. Some of us may have amendments to that, some of us may disagree with it, but that is the debate we should be having. There should be no debate that the 2001 authorization does not apply to our current circumstances.

We should pass an authorization that is tailored to allow the President to effectively go after the direct threats to the United States. That is our responsibility. We owe it to the American people and we owe it to the men and women who serve in our military to give them clear authority from Congress in their military operations. There clearly needs to be direction given by Congress. We have seen an abuse of the 2001 authorization, so we need to be pretty clear.

I must tell you that I have heard over and over again from our generals that there is no military-only victory against ISIS. We can't win this by a military victory alone. We need to make sure that there are leaders in countries that protect their citizens, not only their physical security but good governance in their human rights.

We have new challenges we need to deal with--cyber threats against the United States. We are concerned about a physical caliphate; now we are concerned about a virtual caliphate as we take more and more of the territory away from the ISIS forces. So that is what we need to do.

Senator Paul's amendment gives us that opportunity by saying quite clearly that the 2001 and 2002 authorizations need to end--need to end--that we don't today have clear authorization from Congress to pursue the military campaign against ISIS, and we need to have that.

There are some who say: Well, what happens if we don't meet that deadline? Well, let me tell you something. The President has plenty of authority. Read article 2 of the Constitution. He has the inherent power to protect our country and our national security, and he can take action in order to do that.

I was particularly struck as to why we need the Paul amendment when I received a letter in my capacity on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from Secretary Mattis and Secretary Tillerson. You see, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was having meetings, trying to figure out how to proceed on the authorization for the use of military force. During one of those meetings, we had the opportunity to have Secretary Mattis and Secretary Tillerson before us, and we had a candid discussion about what type of authorization would make sense. It was done in a closed setting so we could have a candid discussion, and I am not going to reveal the specifics because I thought that is what we should be doing. But I can tell you, I left with the impression that there was room for Congress to work with the administration on the authorization of force, and I was hopeful that we were going to have an open hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the committee of jurisdiction, on the AUMF.

We had similar discussions under the Obama administration. As a result of those discussions, President Obama submitted to Congress what he believed would be an appropriate authorization for the use of military force. That authorization was never taken up, but he asked for it.

Well, just recently, we received notice from Secretary Tillerson and Secretary Mattis that the President does not want Congress to adjust the authorizations because he has adequate authority to do what he wants to do. I understand that. If you take their interpretation--it is not just this administration; it is prior administrations' interpretation of the AUMF--they have a blank check. But that is not our responsibility being carried out.

We are the ones who are responsible for the authorization of force, not the President of the United States, and according to this President, he has blank-check authorization from Congress.

So it is our responsibility to make sure that when our men and women are sent into harm's way, they have direct authorization from the Congress of the United States unless, by the way, there is an urgent situation that requires the President to act, which he can do under article 2.

So I urge my colleagues that we have a chance to start this debate right here and now by supporting the Paul amendment, and I intend to do that.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if I may speak on the bill before the Senate, yesterday the House of Representatives passed the Omnibus appropriations bill. Of course, this is the legislation that keeps the Congress and the government up and running through the end of the fiscal year, the end of September. It actually represents the first demonstration of Republicans and Democrats in both Houses of Congress working with the White House in order to pass an important piece of legislation and keep the government up and running through the end of the fiscal year.

Over the last few weeks, we have had many productive conversations and debates about how best to establish our priorities, how much we should spend--particularly my concern about underfunding our military and our national security funding but also to update our priorities because that is one of the things that happens in an appropriations bill. When programs are obsolete or ineffective, there is no way to eliminate them while operating under a continuing resolution. It takes a positive piece of legislation like an appropriations bill--like this appropriations bill--to eliminate those obsolete or no longer effective programs.

I am hopeful that once we pass this bill and after the President signs it, we will continue to plot a course toward a long-term strategic budget that reflects the priorities of the American people. I firmly believe we were elected to govern, not to shut down the government. In my view, that is an abdication of our responsibilities. I hope we will continue to follow on now after we have been able to accomplish this bipartisan, bicameral negotiation with the White House, and we will continue to govern and to demonstrate our sense of responsibility to the American people for doing just that.

This omnibus package includes a good blueprint for how we can order our priorities and take care of our country.

Yesterday I mentioned the increases in resources to better shore up border security. This is the largest increase in border security funding in 10 years. That is a significant accomplishment. This funding will help the Department of Homeland Security hire more Border Patrol agents and Customs officials to improve the infrastructure at our ports of entry and checkpoints and hire more immigration judges to process more immigration cases.

It also creates funding for our troops fighting abroad and for our military in general and includes a pay raise for our men and women in the military, which is very important as well, particularly in an All- Volunteer military and one that has been stressed by 15 years of continuous conflict around the world.

This bill also takes a more strategic look at the threats we are facing, including resources to shore up technology and equipment that will help our military stay No. 1. After years of putting military improvements and readiness on the back burner, actually cutting defense spending by 20 percent during the two terms of President Obama, this bill is a solid first step toward regaining our readiness and maintaining a capable and modern military.

While I never will doubt the American people responding or our military responding to the needs or the threats to our security, we don't want to be roused out of our complacency by a crisis occurring somewhere in the world, whether it is North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, Crimea, or elsewhere. We want to be ready on day one. Some of that readiness has seriously been called into question by some of our lack of prioritizing defense spending and military readiness generally.

In addition to those two important topics, many across the country have been impacted by severe weather, including violent storms and tornadoes. Of course, Texas has been a part of that sad story. Several in Texas have lost their lives due to these storms and the flooding caused by them. Of course we mourn for those who have lost loved ones and those who have been injured, but we have to do more than just grieve for them--we have to help them as well. This omnibus bill includes funding for previously approved disaster relief, which will help communities in Texas and throughout the country rebuild and recover following a natural disaster.

This legislation also includes money to help reduce the rape kit backlog. This is a topic which most people are not all that familiar with, but years ago we passed something called the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Reduction Act, named for a heroic woman, Debbie Smith, who championed the use of forensic evidence and the tracing of DNA samples in order to solve sexual assault cases.

The amazing thing about this great technology and DNA testing is that it is enormously powerful. Even as long as 20 years later, we have had rape kits taken out of evidence lockers at law enforcement agencies and tested and come up with a hit on the FBI's database, which is the purpose of the testing. It also has the power to exonerate people who are perhaps falsely accused by excluding them scientifically from the possibility of being the assailant in a given case.

It is very important for us to fund important programs like the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Reduction Act. I know at one point there was an estimate that there were 400,000 untested rape kits in America. The problem was that we didn't really know how many there were because some of them were sitting, as I indicated earlier, in police evidence lockers, and others were sitting in the laboratory and not tested.

The question arose, when the identity of the assailant was known, what purpose could be served by testing the rape kit, which is not inexpensive? What we found is that the assailant, even if identified in the present case, is very likely to have been engaged in a course of conduct or serial assaults, and it helps us solve not only the present case but also other cases as well. Some of them are very old. That is important so that criminals can be brought to justice.

This bill also funds the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA. It funds a Federal study for a Gulf Coast protection project and active-shooter training for first responders-- all priorities important to my home State of Texas.

This legislation also represents changes in Washington since November. It is the first major piece of bipartisan legislation negotiated with the new Trump administration. Instead of pushing more regulations and rules that cripple our economy and disregarding the needs of our military and the stark realities of the border, this legislation begins to steer our country in a better direction.

I know that no piece of legislation is perfect, and perhaps the best definition of a negotiation is that both sides are dissatisfied because nobody gets everything they want. I look forward to voting for this legislation because I believe we were elected last November 8 to govern, not to abdicate those responsibilities or somehow engage in a shutdown narrative, which I don't think serves anyone well, certainly not the American people. I look forward to voting on this legislation and encourage all of our colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson) and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Sasse).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson) would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Sasse) would have voted ``nay.''