A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Labor, and Secretary of Health and Human Services relating to "Short-Term, Limited Duration Insurance".

Mr. President, the resolution by the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin is a resolution to say to the plumber who is making $60,000 a year in Wisconsin or Tennessee: We want to keep your insurance prices high. We don't want to reduce them by 70 percent, and we want to keep 1.7 million people, according to the Urban Institute, uninsured.

Let me say that again. If this resolution passes--if you vote yes-- you are saying to the plumber who makes $60,000 a year, who can't afford to buy ObamaCare because his insurance premium is $20,000: We are going to do everything we can to keep your insurance costs so high that you can't afford it, and we are going to do everything we can to keep 1.7 million Americans, according to the Urban Institute, from having the option this short-term rule allows.

Let's see what we are talking about. We just heard eloquent comments about preexisting conditions. This resolution has nothing to do with preexisting conditions. It doesn't change one single word in the Affordable Care Act, which guarantees that if you have a preexisting condition, you have a right to buy ObamaCare, and you can't be charged more because of it.

Let me say that again. This rule, which the Senator from Wisconsin seeks to overturn, not only keeps you from lowering your cost 70 percent, but it has nothing to do with preexisting conditions because it doesn't change one single word of the Affordable Care Act guarantee that if you have a preexisting condition you can buy insurance and you can't be charged more. A rule can't change a law. It couldn't if it tried. That is one thing.

The second thing is that the rule that the Senator from Wisconsin seeks to overturn is the same rule that was in effect during all of President Obama's term. President Obama's administration allowed 1 year of short-term plans for people who couldn't afford insurance, couldn't find it anywhere else, or who might be between jobs. Even after the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, President Obama and the Democratic Congress thought it was a good enough idea to allow these short-term plans to continue that they kept them in the law. The law supporting these plans has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act. It was passed in the 1990s for the purpose of giving people who need a short- term option, which might cost less because it has less coverage, the chance to buy insurance.

States can regulate these plans. States may decide what protections they should have. States may decide what the price should be, but, typically, in 2016, the difference between the cost of an ObamaCare plan was $393 a month for an unsubsidized ObamaCare plan and for a short-term plan it was $124. In other words, the short-term plan, which the Democrats and the Senator from Wisconsin seek to overturn, which was in existence all during the Obama administration and was authorized in the 1990s, would cut the plumber's insurance cost by 70 percent.

Now, why should we put up with that? Why should we put up with that? The Urban Institute, not known as a conservative organization, has said that up to 1.7 million Americans will take advantage of President Trump's short-term plan, which was the same as the Obama short-term plan, except that under the Trump rule, you may do it for as much as 3 years instead of just 1 year. It says that 1.7 million Americans will take advantage of that. That is a lot of people.

Eighty-three percent of Americans who buy ObamaCare have a subsidy to help them pay for it. It is the 17 percent who don't have a subsidy who are most likely to be helped by this. Many simply can't afford a $20,000 health insurance plan if they don't qualify for a subsidy, and this says: We understand that. You can buy a different sort of plan if your State permits it. You can pay less with less coverage and at least you will have some insurance. At least you will have some insurance.

But our Democratic friends say: Oh, no, we don't want to do anything that would lower the cost of health insurance.

Sometimes I think our Democratic friends have elevated to the level of the status of the 67th book of the Bible the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare. They will not even change parts of it that they agree with.

Earlier this year, Senator Murray and I, and then Senator Nelson and Senator Collins, all worked together with many Senators in a great bipartisan way to come up with a piece of legislation that would temporarily help with the high prices of health insurance. Make no mistake about it. In Tennessee, health insurance has gone up about 170 percent since ObamaCare was passed. That means the plumber or the farmer or the person making 50, 60, or $70,000 a year can't afford to pay the $20,000 premium they might be required to pay.

So we had this temporary Alexander-Murray-Collins-Nelson proposal. I can still see Senator Collins standing on the floor offering it saying, as she said: Oliver Wyman--the respected Oliver Wyman agency--says this will lower insurance premiums by 40 percent over 3 years for people in the individual market--people who don't get a subsidy, hardworking people who can't afford health insurance.

What happened? Even though the Democratic leader said it contained provisions that every single Democrat could support, the Democrats pulled the rug out from under it at the last minute by insisting on a radical version of abortion funding that they had not required since 1976, except in the ObamaCare law.

In other words, they deliberately kept health insurance prices 40 percent higher than they otherwise would have been. Was it to have an issue in the Presidential election or in the election this year? I have no idea, but I could think of no reason why not to do that.

Then, there is another example. Secretary of Labor Acosta has come up with another very good idea that has been talked about a lot within this body before: Why not give employees of smaller companies the right to buy the same kind of insurance that employees of IBM or big companies buy?

About half of all of us who have insurance get it on the job. We are pretty happy with it. It has a lot of protections in it--not as many as ObamaCare but, apparently, Democrats thought those protections were sufficiently strong, including preexisting condition, and sufficiently strong not to tamper with it. So the idea was this: Let's let the people who work in the company with 10 or 15 or 20 employees in Alaska, Tennessee, or Wisconsin have the same opportunity to buy insurance as the employee of a big company has.

Democrats said absolutely not.

So we don't want to lower rates by 40 percent by a temporary proposal supported by President Trump, Speaker Ryan, Senator McConnell, and let the Democratic leaders say all Democrats could vote for that policy. We don't want to let employees of smaller companies have the same options that employees of big companies have that would lower their insurance and give them more choices. And now we are being asked to say you can't have a 70-percent reduction in your health insurance--the same kind of proposal you had all during the Obama years. Let me say that again. President Obama thought it was just fine to have short-term healthcare plans for up to 1 year during the entire Obama administration. They changed the rules 22 days before the end of his term and reduced it to 3 months that you could buy these plans, but that wasn't enforced until April.

So let's keep it simple. If you needed insurance, if you lost your job, if you couldn't afford insurance during the Obama years, if ObamaCare got too expensive for you during the Obama years, you could buy short-term insurance for up to 1 year if your State allowed it.

What the Democrats are saying is this: No, we are not even going to do what President Obama would do. So we are going to keep your insurance high today with a yes vote. We are going to

say to 1.7 million people who are uninsured: No, you can't buy this insurance because we know more than you do.

Some people who might know more than we do is the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Senate Democrats wrote to them asking them about these short-term plans and raising questions about them.

Here is what the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a bipartisan organization, wrote back:

Short-term, limited duration insurance meets the needs of

consumers for whom other types of coverage may not be

appropriate, affordable, or available.

State Insurance Commissioners say short-term limited duration insurance, the type that a ``yes'' vote today would ban--those are my words--meets the needs of consumers for whom other types of coverage may not be appropriate, affordable, or available.

I hope that across this country, as Americans look at this today, you would ask the Senator from Wisconsin and her Democratic colleagues: Why do you want to kill a rule that President Obama favored, that existed all during ObamaCare while he was there, that gave people who might lose their jobs or couldn't afford ObamaCare a chance to buy insurance that might be 70-percent cheaper? Why would you want to keep 1.7 million Americans who don't have insurance, according to the Urban Institute, from being able to afford this short-term rule? What do you have against lower cost insurance that doesn't change one word of the Affordable Care Act's protection guarantee of preexisting conditions?

In other words, with this rule, if you still want to buy ObamaCare and need preexisting insurance protection, you have it. This could not possibly change that because it is a rule, not a law.

I hope today that we vote no and that we affirm the Trump rule, which is the Obama rule, which is the rule that supports the Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Alaska plumber who makes $60,000 a year, can't afford $20,000-a-year ObamaCare, gets no government subsidy, and needs this in order to insure his family.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, just a little bit ago, a few hours ago, we had a matter before the Senate relating to S.J. Res. 63. This was a resolution of disapproval, which would have worked to disapprove of the rule that was issued jointly by the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services regarding these short-term, limited duration insurance plans.

I had hoped, actually, to have an opportunity to speak to this prior to the vote but was not able to. I want to take just a couple of minutes this afternoon to weigh in on this issue from an Alaskan perspective. I think there have been some suggestions that with this rule in place, those of us who care about protecting those with preexisting conditions, somehow or another, are taking these protections away.

I have weighed this carefully. In fairness, I think some of the arguments that have been made are, perhaps, not quite as clear cut as would be suggested and, perhaps, certainly, in a State like mine, where we still have the highest healthcare costs in the country and some of the highest costs for coverage in the country.

I think Members here in the Senate know full well that while I have opposed many aspects of the Affordable Care Act, I have supported and have strongly supported certain parts of it as well. Again, one of those things that I feel very strongly about is the need to ensure that we protect those who have preexisting conditions. That is a debate that, I think, is ongoing in other places as well. Yet I want to make clear that, certainly, my vote this morning is in no way meant to erode or undermine where I am coming from when it comes to preexisting conditions.

Back to the situation that we face in Alaska, as I mentioned, we are the highest in terms of the cost of care and the highest in terms of the cost of coverage, and we are still one of those States that has but one insurer on the exchange in Alaska. So our options are, really, pretty limited. As I am speaking to individuals about what they are hoping for when it comes to coverage, they are looking for additional options, but they are looking for affordable options as well.

It is true--it is absolutely true--that these short-term plans do not offer as much or, certainly, may not offer as much in the way of coverage as those plans that are offered on the individual exchanges. I understand that, but I have had to come down on this issue on the side of more choice for consumers and more options being a good thing for consumers.

In Alaska, our population, as one knows, is relatively small. We have about 720,000 people in the whole State, but we are talking about 18,000 people, give or take, who are enrolled on the individual exchanges each year. The

universe here is 18,000 people when we are talking about the exchanges. In the year 2016, which was the most recent year about which the IRS can give us information, there were about 15,000 people who chose to pay the individual mandate penalty rather than to buy the insurance. Think about what that means. They are weighing this, and they are saying: I would rather pay a fine, pay that penalty. It is not that I don't want the insurance, but I cannot afford it.

So you had 18,000 people on the individual exchanges, and 15,000 people chose to pay the individual mandate penalty rather than buy the insurance. That is because, if an Alaskan does not get the subsidy--and a pretty heavy subsidy--the exchange plans just aren't affordable. Even though you want to have that coverage--you want that insurance--wanting it doesn't necessarily get it to you if you cannot afford it.

The average premium for plan year 2018--this is according to CMS data--is $804 per month. What am I getting from constituents, from folks who are writing in to me and calling me? They are telling me what they are paying for their plans. For a family of four, the premium was over $2,000 a month, with a $7,500 deductible. Think about what that actually means for this family, for folks with those kinds of bills, who, basically, only have catastrophic coverage, as it is. Again, you think about the number of folks on the individual exchanges, and you think about those who choose not to pay the fines. You look at the numbers of those who receive the subsidies in the State of Alaska, which is quite considerable.

We also have about 10,000 or so Alaskans--this is according to the State division of insurance--who have enrolled in healthcare sharing ministries. This is yet another option for people out there. A significant number has turned to these healthcare sharing ministries, and these folks have managed to avoid the penalty in prior years. In fairness, some of the ministry plans do not provide much in the way of coverage, but it is an indicator of what people feel they have to do in the face of just very, very high-cost plans.

I understand where those who oppose this rule are coming from, and I have had good, long conversations about this. I guess I would ask that they turn to the realities that we are facing in a State like Alaska and just appreciate where people are coming from when you think about the 15,000 Alaskans who have chosen not to buy insurance over these past few years because it has been too expensive, but they want to have something they can afford. These short-term plans, while not ideal--I am not suggesting that they are--are an option for them to consider.

What about the people who don't get subsidies and are paying over $50,000 per year before their insurance covers anything? That too is a situation in which they are looking for alternatives. So perhaps these short-term plans could be a viable option. For the 10,000-some-odd people who are currently using a sharing ministry, again, these types of plans could be an alternative. For the people who may choose to drop off the individual exchanges next year, these plans could be a path forward for some having some level of coverage.

Again, I am not saying that this is perfect, and I am not saying that this is ideal. I am saying it offers a limited option in a place in which we have very few affordable options to turn to.

Another reason these shorter term plans are helpful for us and why I have heard from so many Alaskans on this is that we are a State in which our employment base is very, very seasonal.

You have a construction industry, but it is not like it is back here. Construction is, maybe, 6 months out of the year--longer in some parts of the State and shorter in other parts of the State. Yet you have a seasonal job.

Our fishing industry is a great example. If you are working in the processing end of fishing, it may be 3 months. If you are working as a crabber, it may be 2\1/2\ months. If you are working on a tender up in Bristol Bay, it may be a very truncated 2 months.

Then we have the tourist season. Again, we would like to think that we can entice you all to come up year round, but quite honestly, it too is very, very seasonal. So we need to have some level of flexibility for those many, many Alaskans who move between many of these seasonal employment opportunities.

Under the prior rule, a short-term insurance plan could only last for 3 months. That is not going to help out, say, those in the fishing or in the tourism industry or, again, in so many of these areas in which you need longer term coverage but you don't need a full year. So flexibility is something that people have been asking for as well. Where that sweet spot is, I am not sure. I am telling you that, for us, 3 months doesn't make it. Maybe 3 years is too long. Maybe we do need to look at that. I happen to think that we do, but that is an area that is open for review.

The last point I would make is that I think we have to have some trust in both our States as regulators and in individuals, the consumers. The rule that we were speaking about this morning really does allow States to have a great deal of leeway in regulating at the local level. We are seeing that among many of the States. I had a long conversation with our director of insurance up in the State of Alaska. We talked about where our State might take this and looked again at, perhaps, the length of these short-term, limited duration plans and how they might be regulated.

Also, there is the transparency side of this, and this is something that concerns me. Some of the things we have heard are that people have bought these less expensive plans, these shorter term plans, and then, when they need them the most, they realize the coverage doesn't take care of them. That is also not a place we want anyone to be. Making sure that there is a level of transparency, that there is a level of disclosure that is real and not just the tiny boilerplate that nobody can understand--it has to be, again, transparent in that way.

I think this is one of those areas where trusting in our laboratories of democracy, which are our States, to tailor plans that fit a State well should not be an action that we here in the Senate are so unwilling to take.

As we look to how we do more in this Congress and how we do more to help those for whom healthcare--the cost of healthcare and access to healthcare--is still their No. 1 issue, still the No. 1 subject of discussion, I have come to speak on this particular issue today because there are maybe 25,000 people in my State who could see some benefit from these types of plans being available and also because I believe that trusting the regulators, certainly in my State, to handle the plans intelligently is an important part of how we move forward as well.

I wanted to put that on the record today following the discussion from earlier this morning and the vote at noon.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of S.J. Res. 63, a resolution of disapproval on the Trump administration's final rule allowing the expansion of short-term junk health insurance plans.

My home State of California recently passed a law prohibiting these short-term plans to protect consumers because these plans do not offer real coverage and are allowed to only take healthy consumers.

One hundred thirty million non-elderly Americans have a preexisting condition, including 16 million in California. Among the most important provisions in the Affordable Care Act are the consumer protection requirements for health insurance plans that ensure preexisting conditions no longer dictate access to health coverage and essential benefits that ensure coverage is meaningful and comprehensive.

It does a cancer patient little good to have health insurance that doesn't cover chemotherapy, just as coverage without maternal care is meaningless to an expectant mother. In fact, before the Affordable Care Act was passed, three out of four plans on the individual market did not cover labor and delivery.

An analysis by Kaiser Family Foundation just this last April found that of the more than 600 short-term plans offered through two major insurance websites, eHealth and Agile Health Insurance, across 45 States, none included maternity care. It gets worse: 71 percent offered no prescription drug coverage, and 43 percent of these plans didn't cover mental healthcare services.

To be frank, these plans are junk insurance. The major protections in the Affordable Care Act are basically tossed out the window, and we are reminded of why health reform was needed so badly in the first place. These plans can include annual and lifetime limits on care, meaning that, if you need an expensive medical treatment, you may be out of luck, even after paying your premiums. Women can once again be charged more than men for the same plan.

Insurance companies don't have to comply with medical loss ratio rules that limit administrative costs. In fact, short-term plans covering 80 percent of the market in 2016 only spent half of premium dollars on actual medical care.

Short-term plans have traditionally been used by some consumers for what the name implies, to bridge short gaps between long-term coverage for a matter of months. The final rule changes this to years. Given the severe shortfalls these plans have and significant consumer risk, they are simply not meant to be a substitute for real health insurance.

I urge my colleagues to support this resolution to protect consumers and look forward to working together to improve health coverage, not make it worse.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the pending bill, America's Water Infrastructure Act.

I congratulate Chairman Barrasso and Ranking Member Carper of the Environment and Public Works Committee for completing this vitally important bill on time. It is critical that we reauthorize Army Corps projects and other water financing authorities every 2 years, as they have done.

The bill before us authorizes construction of 12 new water resource development projects and 65 studies.

America's Water Infrastructure Act also includes a number of provisions that will benefit California.

The bill includes a provision I authored that will require EPA and the Bureau of Reclamation to enter into an agreement within a year. The agreement must specify how the two agencies will jointly administer a Treasury-rate loan program for storage, water recycling, groundwater recharge, and other water supply projects.

This provision builds off EPA's success using Treasury-rate loans to fund projects under the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, WIFIA. The idea is to extend these Treasury-rate loans to water supply projects.

There are three significant ways WIFIA loans will lower costs for local agencies wanting to build storage, water recycling, groundwater recharge, or other water supply projects:

No. 1, they will pay only 3.2 percent interest rate on their loans based on today's rates, versus 4 percent or greater rates for municipal bond financing;

No. 2, the districts would not need to start paying interest until 5 years after substantial completion of the project; and No. 3, loans are for 35 rather than 30 years, lowering annual debt service costs.

The combination of these benefits could reduce the costs of building a project by as much as 25 percent. For example, if a consortium of water districts takes out a loan to build Sites Reservoir, they would pay only $512/acre-foot instead of $682/acre-foot, a 25 percent saving.

These water district savings of up to 25 percent are a highly cost- effective use of taxpayer dollars because they can be obtained by appropriations of only 1-1.5 percent of the cost of the loan, as validated by OMB.

OMB has approved loans of $5 billion backed only by appropriations of only 1 percent of that amount, or $50 million for WIFIA, because there is a virtually nonexistent default rate for water projects.

Only four in a thousand water infrastructure projects default, based on a study conducted by Fitch credit rating agency.

Moreover, WIFIA loans include substantial taxpayer protections. Private sector loans have to cover at least 51 percent of the project cost, and the Federal loans would have senior status in the event of any default. These provisions protect the taxpayer in the event of any default.

The provision in the bill before us is a compromise, different in some significant ways from the provision I included in the Senate bill. Like the Senate bill, the bill before us requires EPA and the Bureau of Reclamation to enter into an agreement within a year on how they would jointly administer a Treasury-rate loan program for water supply projects.

However, the House was unwilling to allow the Bureau of Reclamation to recommend water supply projects for loans within EPA's existing WIFIA authority. As a result, additional legislation will be needed to authorize Reclamation loans for water supply projects once EPA and Reclamation reach their agreement.

While further legislation will be needed, the legislation before us today provides an important step forward. EPA has developed expertise in processing and administering water supply loans, so it is more efficient if Reclamation can recommend the loans and EPA can administer them. Without the legislation before us, EPA and Reclamation would not reach an agreement on how they would jointly administer these water supply loans.

Now that we know that Reclamation and EPA will reach this agreement within a year, Congress can shortly thereafter move legislation with both agencies' support to extend the successful and cost-effective WIFIA loan program to water supply projects. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this additional legislation.

I am also pleased that this bill authorizes construction and studies and provides other needed modifications for many important water infrastructure projects in California.

One such project that received a construction authorization is the Lower San Joaquin River project, which provides critical flood control to the Stockton metropolitan area.

Additionally, this bill doubles Federal funding for the Harbor South Bay water recycling project, authorizing up to $70 million in Federal funds.

This increase in Federal funding will meaningfully expand this project's capability to provide recycled water to surrounding communities. I am pleased to see Army Corps funding utilized for water recycling, which is truly a key for sustainability and water security in drought-prone California.

Other key California projects in this bill include authorization for a flood risk management, navigation, and ecosystem restoration project in the San Diego River and directing the Army Corps to expedite flood risk management, water conservation and ecosystem restoration studies at the Coyote Valley Dam, Lower Cache Creek, Lower San Joaquin River, South San Francisco, Tijuana River, Westminster-East Garden Grove, and San Luis Rey River.

Lastly, I would like to mention the two other very important provisions for California as well as the Nation that I strongly support.

This bill increases funding for the Army Corps' dam rehabilitation program for structures built before 1940 from $10 million to $40 million until fiscal year 2026. The United States is facing many challenges due to aging infrastructure, and in California, we saw the serious ramifications of that with the Oroville Dam disaster.

Additionally, this legislation reauthorizes and expands the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund for the first time in 22 years to address aging or damaged drinking water infrastructure in communities across the country.

For all these reasons, I support the America's Water Infrastructure Act before us today. Thank you.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 627, S.J. Res. 63.

Mr. President, just over a year ago in this Chamber, three brave Republican colleagues--Senator John McCain, Senator Susan Collins, and Senator Lisa Murkowski--joined all Democrats in voting against healthcare repeal legislation. They listened to the families of their States.

I, too, voted against that repeal legislation because the people of Wisconsin did not send me to Washington to take away their healthcare. When congressional Republicans tried to pass repeal plans that would allow insurance companies to charge more for preexisting conditions, families across our country fought back.

When the Republican majority tried to charge older Americans an age tax and make people pay more for less care, people let their voices be heard and sent a loud message to Washington: Protect our care. They sent us all a clear message that they want us to work across party lines to protect the healthcare guarantees they depend on and to stand up for those with preexisting health conditions. Yet defeating the legislative efforts that would have made things worse for families didn't end the threat to the American people.

The Trump administration has been trying to do what congressional Republicans couldn't. They have been sabotaging our healthcare system and rewriting the rules on guaranteed health protections and access to affordable care that millions of Americans have today. This sabotage has created instability in the healthcare market, contributing to widespread premium spikes in 2018.

This administration ended the critical cost-sharing reduction payments that made healthcare more affordable for almost 90,000 Wisconsinites. The Trump administration again slashed funding for outreach efforts to help people sign up for healthcare.

Trusted navigator programs like those in Wisconsin have had their funding cut by nearly 90 percent in the past 2 years. This will mean fewer people in rural Wisconsin will receive the support they need to obtain affordable coverage this year.

It doesn't stop there. The Trump administration has even joined Wisconsin's Governor and Wisconsin's attorney general and other States in going to court to support a lawsuit that would take away guaranteed protections for people with preexisting conditions. If they succeed, insurance companies will again be able to deny coverage or charge higher premiums for the more than 130 million Americans with a preexisting health condition. In fact, if the Affordable Care Act's protections for people with preexisting conditions are struck down in court, Wisconsin is among the States that has the most to lose.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, one out of every four Wisconsinites has some sort of preexisting health condition, and they simply cannot afford to have the healthcare they depend on threatened with higher costs or coverage denials.

The Trump administration has expanded junk insurance plans. These plans are cheap for a reason; they do not have to provide essential health benefits like hospitalization, prescription drugs, and maternity care.

According to the fine print of one of the plans sold in several States, including my home State of Wisconsin--marketed by the Golden Rule Company--the plan doesn't even have to cover hospital care on a Friday or Saturday. It will be just your bad luck if you happen to get sick and need healthcare on the weekend. The very first exclusion states that it provides no benefits for a preexisting health condition. The fine print also notes if you are pregnant, that will be considered a preexisting health condition.

These junk insurance plans can deny healthcare coverage to people with preexisting conditions when they need it the most, and that is why I am leading this effort in the U.S. Senate to take action and stop this sabotage.

This is personal to me. When I was 9 years old, I got sick. I was really sick. I was in the hospital for 3 months. I eventually recovered. When it came to health insurance, it was as if I had some sort of scarlet letter. My grandparents, who raised me, couldn't find a policy at any price that would cover me--not from any insurer--all because I was a childhood branded with those words: ``preexisting condition.''

This is also personal for Chelsey from Seymour, WI, whose daughter was born with a congenital heart defect. Right now, Zoe is guaranteed access to coverage without being denied or charged more because of her preexisting condition.

Chelsey wrote me during that debate last year: ``I'm pleading to you as a mother to fight for the kids in Wisconsin with pre-existing conditions that are counting on you to protect that right.''

No parent or grandparent should have to lie awake at night wondering if the healthcare they have today for themselves and their families will be there tomorrow. With the expansion of these junk plans, that fear could become a new reality for far too many families as healthy people leave the market, increasing premiums for everyone.

Children like Zoe may not be able to find any plan that her parents can afford or that will cover the care she needs. No family should be forced to choose between helping a loved one get better or going bankrupt.

Before the Affordable Care Act, too many families had to make that choice. Before the healthcare law, I heard from Sue from Beloit, WI. Sue's husband was diagnosed with lung cancer. They quickly found out their insurance plan had a $13,000 limit on radiation and chemotherapy. That covered about one round of chemotherapy. When they needed to continue treatment, Sue and her family used all of their savings, and then they maxed out all of their credit cards. When they were facing insurmountable credit card debt, she told me: ``I had no choice but to file bankruptcy.'' Sue's husband later died.

We can't go back to the days when insurance companies wrote the rules, just as we cannot allow the Trump administration to rewrite the rules on guaranteed healthcare protections that millions of Americans depend on.

More than 20 of the leading healthcare organizations in America, representing our Nation's physicians, patients, medical students, and other health experts, are supporting this resolution to overturn the Trump administration's expansion of junk insurance plans. They are doing so because these junk plans will reduce access to quality coverage for millions and increase costs.

These junk plans will charge people more for coverage based on their preexisting conditions or deny them coverage outright. These junk plans will leave cancer patients and survivors with higher premiums and fewer insurance options. These junk plans will force premium increases on older Americans.

I have heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say that they are committed to protecting people with preexisting conditions. Now is your chance to prove it. Anyone who says they support coverage for people with

preexisting conditions should support this resolution to overturn the Trump administration's expansion of these junk insurance plans.

This is an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to come together to protect people's access to quality, affordable healthcare when they need it the most. Let us join in seizing the opportunity to do what is right by the American people.

I yield.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following documents concerning the rule submitted by the Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Labor, and Secretary of Health and Human Services relating to short-term, limited duration insurance be entered into the Record: a letter to Congress from 113 health organizations expressing concerns with the rule, a letter from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners requesting a delay in implementation of the rule, a short-term medical plan brochure from the Golden Rule Insurance Company outlining the policy's coverage exclusions, and a news article from 2014 illustrating the lack of consumer protections in short-term limited duration plans.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be acknowledged to speak for 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I don't think that is necessary because I think I was scheduled to do that anyway.

What we are going to be addressing here in just a few minutes is a very significant piece of legislation. We do a

lot of things around here that some people think are important, but this is something that really is important. It is something that has a long history behind it.

America's water infrastructure bill, known as the WRDA bill, was started about 20 years ago, and we made a commitment at that time that we would actually have a WRDA bill every 2 years. We didn't do that up until 2014. In 2014, we had gone since 2007 since we had had one, and this needs to be done to keep our water infrastructure going and the things that we are supposed to be doing. So we did it in 2014 and 2016, and now we will do the 2018 bill. That is what we are supposed to be doing.

It is a great way to keep up the productive momentum that we have seen in Congress leading up to the midterm election and delivering on President Trump's promises.

The WRDA bill is another great example of what can happen when we work with our friends across the aisle on issues that affect every State of our Nation.

I was privileged to chair the Environment and Public Works Committee during that timeframe, when we went back to every other year, and it is something that has worked very well. People can depend on the resources being there when the time comes. So I think right now it is a bill that is sponsored by ourselves, along with the ranking members and the Senators of that committee, the EPW Committee, and the Transportation Subcommittee.

I want to take a moment to thank the members I just mentioned and their staffs. The staffs are the ones who do the heavy lifting because without our willingness to work together on this legislation, we wouldn't be able to discuss it here on the floor today, and I appreciate that dedication. It is going to happen today.

There are a lot of provisions in the bill that advance our Nation's infrastructure priorities. In addition, the State of Oklahoma would benefit in many ways as well.

One of the big secrets around the world and around America is that Oklahoma is actually navigable. We have a navigation way that goes from the Mississippi River all the way up to my hometown of Tulsa, with the Port of Catoosa.

I can remember many years ago, when I was in the State legislature, and some people came to me who were World War II veterans--one of the groups that was doing a very good job--and they said: We would like to be able to show and to demonstrate that we are navigable in Oklahoma. If you will get us a submarine, we will take it all the way up to Oklahoma.

So I went down to Orange, TX, and found the USS Batfish. This is a World War II submarine. They were able to do it without any help at all--without any help from government. They had to get on there, and they had to reduce it to get under bridges and lift it up in shallow places. All of my adversaries were saying: We will sink Inhofe and his submarine. But we did it, and it is there today.

So we do have the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. We have some items in there under this to protect that resource from what they call the Three Rivers report, which provides a permanent solution for the situation we are experiencing near the mouth of the system, where the White River and the Arkansas River are trying to merge. If left alone, they would merge. That would destroy everything that goes up from that area in Arkansas. It includes language for Bartlesville to navigate the murky waters of water supply contracts and to change those contracts with everyone to get away from the idea that the Army Corps of Engineers is going to be able to do something that would be prohibitive cost-wise to the communities like Bartlesville, OK.

We support our Nation's economic competitiveness by increasing access to water storage and supply, providing protection from dangerous flood waters, deepening the nationally significant ports, and maintaining navigability in the inland waterways.

Since hurricane season is upon us, we have recently seen the cruel aftermath of these storms and the flooding that followed Hurricane Harvey, Irma, Florence, and now Michael. Right now they are preparing down there to evacuate as we speak. It could become a mandatory evacuation. This is something that is happening. Events like this show why it is utterly critical to maintain flood control and be able to protect against the floodwaters as much as possible.

That is what this bill we will be considering in a few minutes is all about. It will also further address the need for repairing our aging drinking water, wastewater and irrigation systems, improving conditions all across the United States in homes, farms, and businesses.

We have reauthorized WIFIA and authorized a new tool by including Senator Boozman's SRF WIN Act, of which I am a very proud cosponsor. These provisions, along with technical assistance for our small and rural systems, will provide more help to our communities struggling to finance and upgrade our hidden infrastructure needs.

Maintaining critical infrastructure is one of the most important constitutionally required duties we have as Members of Congress. I sometimes have to remind people who often disregard a document called the Constitution that this is what we are supposed to be doing and what we are carrying out with the bill we are about to pass in the next few minutes.

I look forward to passing this legislation and sending it to the President to sign into law. It is another win for America.

I have to say, the committee has done so well. People are criticizing the Senate all the time, saying nothing is being done. Our Environment and Public Works Committee gets things done--the FAST Act, the chemical act, the last WRDA bill, and now the 2018 WRDA bill. It is what we are supposed to be doing here, and it is a very significant vote.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.