Disapproving the President's proposal to take an action relating to the application of certain sanctions with respect to the Russian Federation.

Mr. President, a couple of days ago I came to the floor to talk about the partial government shutdown, how it is impacting different parts of my State--the Great State of Alaska--and, in particular, how it is impacting the men and women in the U.S. Coast Guard.

I think we all recognize as we are trying to work through this partial government shutdown that a lot of Federal workers are being impacted, but let me talk about the Coast Guard because I think it is a little different than almost any other group of Federal workers.

On Tuesday, these brave men and women did not receive a paycheck. They didn't receive a paycheck, and they are the only branch of the U.S. military right now, out there around the world and around the globe, risking their lives for the American people, who are not getting paid. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines--we love them all. They are working hard. They are getting paid. The men and women of the Coast Guard are not getting paid. That is wrong. That is particularly wrong. They can't leave the Coast Guard. They would get court-martialed. They are working hard, saving lives in my State, certainly--in Alaska--all the time, and they are not getting paid when the other services are getting paid.

So what did we do? A number of us, Democrats and Republicans--almost one-quarter of the Members of the U.S. Senate--cosponsored a bill that says: Let's pay the Coast Guard. Let's pay the Coast Guard right now so they are treated fairly, like the other men and women serving in our military.

That was a good start. I was optimistic then. It has been a bit of a roller coaster ride, but, to be honest, I couldn't imagine that this bill wouldn't sail through. We are not going to be able to fix everything right now, but this is one we can start working on, on these individual issues, and there is a lot of talk of doing it.

Last week, I had the opportunity to raise this with the President and his administration and the Secretary of Homeland Security, and we continued to press this issue all week with the OMB Director, the Chief of Staff of the White House, and the President himself, and he said this week that he was going to support the bill. That is important. Now you have the executive branch, the President of the United States, and he will sign it. He said it. I was in a meeting with him yesterday, and he said he is 100 percent supportive of this bill. It is bipartisan. There are actually more Democrats than Republicans on the bill right now.

What we did, trying to move this quickly, is we said: All right, the President is going to sign it. We have a quarter of the Senate. It is a bipartisan bill. Let's move it.

We moved to hotline it. What does that mean? To try to get this bill to be moved through unanimous consent through the Senate, a hotline means you are going to try to move it real fast and everybody is going to vote on it. That started today. By noon, every Republican Member of the U.S. Senate said: Good to go--cleared, hot. Let's pay the men and women of the Coast Guard.

I had the opportunity to talk to a local public radio program in Kodiak, the largest Coast Guard station in the country. I had the opportunity to say to my fellow Alaskans that I am pretty optimistic. We have moved. We have a lot of cosponsors--25 percent of the Senate, Democrats and Republicans--and the President of the United States. Bingo, Republicans have said we are good to go on it. I have certainly started working with some of my Democratic colleagues who are also optimistic. Why would we block this? Why would we block this? Remember, they are the only men and women in the U.S. military not getting paid right now, and we have a solution.

So I come to the floor, and I hate to admit it because 2 hours ago I was pretty optimistic, but I am getting word that my colleagues--the Democrats and the minority leader--are now saying: Maybe we are just going to block this. I am not sure why. Nobody has come down here to say why. We are running the hotline on the Democratic side. So maybe that is just a rumor. I hope it is just a rumor. Why would you block it? Come on, my colleagues on the other side. Why would you block it? We are not going to fix everything tonight, but we could fix this tonight.

Let me talk a little bit about my State. Some of you have probably seen the ``Deadliest Catch'' and those kind of shows about Alaska. Look at the men and women who are out there keeping our fishermen--American fishermen--safe. On average, every month in the State of Alaska the Coast Guard saves 22 lives--in 1 month, on average, in one State--and it assists 53 people, reports and investigates 25 maritime casualties, conducts close to 20 security boardings and over 20 security patrols. If you are in trouble on the high seas in Alaska, which is a bad place to be, the seas are never too rough or the skies never too dismal for the Coast Guard to come out and rescue you. We have seen it time and again, but it is not just in Alaska. It is all over the country, and it is all over the world.

I talked to the Commandant of the Coast Guard just yesterday. I said: Mr. Commandant, Admiral, I think we are close. The President is good to go. I think most of the Senators are good to go. The bill has 25 cosponsors.

He reminded me that he has men and women in the Coast Guard deployed in the Persian Gulf doing anti-piracy operations alongside U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy personnel--right now, in the Persian Gulf, Marines, Coast Guard, and Navy--and guess who is not getting paid. Does anyone think that should be a tolerated situation? The answer is no. The answer is no.

Again, I hope this is a rumor, and that the hotline is happening right now on the Democratic side. We have cleared it--good to go. Every Republican has signed off on this. I hope that this is just a rumor-- that tonight the Democrats will clear this and we will get it to the House. The Coast Guard said they can start cutting checks again within 24 hours. The President will sign this. So there should be no reason not to do this.

The partial government shutdown is negatively impacting Federal workers. The President's request, in my view, for border security is imminently reasonable. I hope the Speaker will view it that way. A lot of her members are. We are all working for this. We are all working for a solution. Senator Johnson put out a bill that I joined as a cosponsor that would immediately pay all workers who are currently working without pay. This would expand the idea of what we are doing with the Coast Guard bill. I think it is a good idea. That is a start, but the Coast Guard bill right now has momentum. It has momentum.

We could get this done in 24 hours. It is not a complete solution, but we have the White House, and it should be the Senate and, hopefully, the House getting ready to find a solution for at least for some of the men and women in the Federal workforce.

But as I like to emphasize, they are not just any Federal workers. All of

them are important--there is no doubt--but when you are the only members of the military not getting paid for risking your lives for your country and we can fix it here tonight in the Senate, that is what we should be doing.

I certainly hope this bill isn't being blocked unreasonably. As I mentioned, it is not a complete solution, but it is the start of a solution. For the life of me, I can't understand why this bill would be blocked.

More importantly, the men and women of the Coast Guard will not understand why this bill is being blocked. Communities that support and depend on the Coast Guard--like Kodiak, AK--will not understand why this bill is being blocked. These young men and women, who love their country and have chosen to serve and protect us, are not going to understand why this bill is being blocked tonight.

I don't want to use the word plead, but I am asking my colleagues on the Democratic side to do the right thing and pass this bill tonight. Every single American who is aware of this situation knows that it is inequitable when the other members of the military--who are out there risking their lives just like the men and women of the Coast Guard--are getting paid and the men and women of the Coast Guard aren't.

We are on the verge of a solution. Passing this bill will take care of at least one issue that we are all trying to resolve. Again, I urge my Democratic colleagues--because all of my Republican colleagues have already passed this bill in the hotline. I urge my colleagues to take up this bill, do the right thing, and support the men and women of the Coast Guard, who are not being treated equal to their brothers and sisters in the other branches of the military.

Until then, I am going to continue to fight for this. I am going to continue to raise the issue. We have made a lot of progress, including getting the White House and the President on board and getting all of our Members here on the Republican side of the Senate on board. I am hopeful, with more advocacy and more reasoning with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, that we will also get there, move this to the House quickly, and get the men and women of the Coast Guard the paychecks they are needing.

I yield the floor.

Senator Kaine is yielding to me to talk about the Interior Department in the bill. Let me just thank him for his vigilance. When we have 800,000 Federal employees across this country and their families hurting, he has been vigilant with this. I know that in the Commonwealth of Virginia he and Senator Warner are very concerned, as are Senator Heinrich and myself about what is happening in New Mexico. I want to speak a little bit about the Interior Department bill, where I am the ranking Democrat.

I rise today to call on this body to take action and immediately end the shutdown that is causing tragic consequences in the lives of Americans. We are on day 27 of the shutdown, the longest in our Nation's history.

Every day my constituents in New Mexico are asking me what are we doing to end this senseless shutdown. So I am here on the Senate floor demanding that we open the government, demanding that we do our jobs as a coequal branch of government, demanding that we pass bipartisan appropriations bills.

I have the privilege of serving as the ranking member of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, and I know how critical the Interior bill is, particularly to my home State of New Mexico and to States across the West and across the country. The Interior bill funds basic services like healthcare and public safety for 2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives through the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

This bill keeps our air and water clean through the work of the Environmental Protection Agency. This bill protects and preserves national parks and other treasured public lands and helps to support small businesses that depend on them. The Agencies in this bill fund science, wildlife protection, energy development, and arts and cultural programs in every State, and they employ tens of thousands of Americans. There is no reason why they should be shuttered. They are simply too important.

This shutdown is particularly devastating for Indian Country. Every day the President continues to treat Tribal programs like hostages for political gain. By his action he endangers families across Indian Country. Multiple health clinics that serve urban Indians have closed their doors, forced to turn hundreds of patients away. Tribal court programs are in jeopardy. Food distribution and social service programs are on the chopping block. Law enforcement services are stretched to the breaking point. Thousands of Tribal members are furloughed--all to devastating effect.

Indian Country is paying the price for every day that the President's reckless shutdown continues. These are people's lives and livelihoods on the line. Our government is completely failing to uphold its trust and treaty obligations to Native Americans, and all for what? A wildly expensive and ineffective wall that this Nation doesn't want and a vanity project for a President who is not putting the best interests of this country first. It doesn't make any sense.

We need to pass the Interior appropriations bill so we can reopen the entire National Park System, along with other public lands, and do so safely. Already, we have heard about the tragic impacts of the shutdown on our parks, including thousand-year-old Joshua trees cut down in California, and fossils that have been looted at Carlsbad Caverns in my home State of New Mexico. We can't let this kind of damage happen to our most treasured places, and we must ensure that small businesses that depend on our public lands--from fishing guides to gas stations and hotels--are able to thrive and keep our economy strong.

Across the board, this shutdown is hurting businesses, contractors, and Federal workers. Even the President's own Council of Economic Advisers has released figures doubling the expected impacts to the economy. Think about that. The President's own aides admit this shutdown is worse than they anticipated. This is totally unacceptable, but it is not too late to change the situation.

We can end this shutdown today. All it takes is for enough of my Republican colleagues and friends to find the courage to join us to pass these appropriations bills and to send a message to the White House that we need to reopen the government. I want to say to them, let's join together to make sure that Tribal health clinics are open and Tribal law enforcement officers are on patrol.

Let's work side by side to reopen the entire National Park System and other public lands and ensure that there are enough staff members on the ground to protect our Nation's most cherished national and cultural resources. Let's pass these bipartisan appropriations bills without delay.

I don't understand how this Chamber can stand by and watch the devastating effects of this shutdown on our Nation. In New Mexico alone, we estimate that there are at least 10,800 Federal workers who are working without pay or are furloughed outright. Nationwide, there are an estimated 800,000 Federal workers and as many as 2 million Federal contractors who may be affected. We are talking about millions of people's paychecks being held hostage for a border wall that the American public doesn't support.

Yesterday I stood on this floor and talked about the impacts this shutdown is having on the Ornelas family of Carlsbad, NM. They are depending on a paycheck from the Department of Interior to help keep their family afloat as they deal with a disabled son who had two brain surgeries. The Ornelas family was already dealing with one of the worst crises a family can go through, and now they have to worry about how to pay for basic necessities. They are just one example of the lives at stake.

It is not just Federal workers and Federal contractors. Every single American relies on the Federal Government for essential public safety and security. The Food and Drug Administration shut down--contaminated food can kill thousands. TSA agents and FAA air traffic controllers we rely on to keep air traffic safe are unpaid. In a massive irony, President Trump's shutdown means the Department of Homeland Security is unpaid. There are an estimated 2,000 New Mexicans we rely on for border security, international trade, and immigration work who are unpaid. This really truly is madness. For their sake and for the sake of all Americans who are affected by this tragic situation, we need to end this shutdown now. The consequences of inaction are too great.

Once again, let me thank Senator Kaine for his passion on this issue, for his vigilance in terms of bringing this issue, and fighting with all of us on the floor.

I yield to Senator Kaine.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 30) disapproving the President's proposal to take an action relating to the application of certain sanctions with respect to the Russian Federation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5

legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 30, disapproving the President's proposal on certain sanctions on the Russian Federation, under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is regrettable that we are in this situation. It is the result of the Trump administration, again, trying to make an end run around Congress on an issue as important as Russia sanctions.

On December 19 of last year, the Treasury Department notified Congress of its intention to relax sanctions against three corporations tied to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch and close associate of Vladimir Putin. The Trump administration may have a perfectly legitimate reason for easing those sanctions. But the reason we are on the floor today is that we just don't know. And, under the law, we have very little time left to get the answers we need.

The sanctions we are dealing with today were imposed under CAATSA-- the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act--the bill we passed 1\1/2\ years ago to, among other things, slap sanctions on Vladimir Putin's cronies.

The law is written so that Congress would be able to step in if we thought any administration could be making a mistake in waiving or easing sanctions. The Republican majority at the time wrote strict and complex provisions for exercising that oversight, allowing only 30 days to pass a measure that could reverse such a decision.

Again: the Trump administration announced its plans to ease these sanctions on December 19, 30 days ago, in the middle of the holidays, just before the President shut the government down, at the end of the last Congress, and before committees in this Congress have had a chance to organize and look into this very serious issue. This timing leads me to believe that the administration was trying to jam this decision through so Congress would not be able to act.

We ask the administration to explain this decision. Their answers were, frankly, inadequate. We asked the administration to pump the brakes on easing these sanctions so we could review the decision further. They simply wouldn't.

So, with that 30-day window closing, we are now forced to bring this measure to the floor to try to block the decision. It is too bad, really. I would rather the administration respected Congress enough to allow us the time to address our concerns. And, again, the rules for this were put into effect by the Republican majority in the last Congress, and they are good rules. I would rather they hadn't dropped this announcement when they did--that is the White House--so that our committees could hold hearings and do our work the way we want to.

But with the threat that Russia poses to the United States, to our friends and allies, to democracy around the world, Congress cannot just look the other way when the administration rushes a decision like this. There are too many open questions about whether Deripaska will still control the companies that these sanctions address.

So, we need to move this resolution of disapproval before the clock runs out, and I ask all Members on both sides of the aisle to support it today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), who is a valued member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and my classmate in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff), the chairman of the important Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) the chair of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), who is our majority leader and the author of this joint resolution.

Mr. Speaker, might I inquire of the gentleman from Texas if he is prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, let me first say to Mr. McCaul that I am very happy to hear those words come out of his mouth. As you know, we have had a tradition of bipartisanship on the Foreign Affairs Committee with Chairman Royce and myself, and now with me as chairman and Mr. McCaul. So I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for speaking out forcefully and saying the right thing.

That is why Congress overwhelmingly passed sanctions on Russia in 2017, because Members of both parties understand the threat that Russia and Putin pose. From the illegal annexation of Crimea to the war in eastern Ukraine to the support to Bashar al Assad to the attack on our own democracy in 2016, Russia is clearly a major adversary that needs to be dealt with strongly.

So when we see the administration--and I would say this about any administration, Democrat or Republican--when the administration appears to go easy on one of Putin's closest pals, we understandably have serious questions. We need to see the whole picture, and right now we are not.

Congress cannot be left out of decisions this important. That is something I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle understand, and I hope we can send the administration a strong bipartisan message to that effect. This resolution represents Congress doing our job, exercising oversight and using checks and balances provided in the Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 5, H.R. 21, making appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I would like to speak on the preceding motion, but before I do, I would like to yield my time to my colleague from New Mexico.

I will briefly conclude my comments recognizing my colleague from Indiana is also on the floor.

I thank the Senator from New Mexico for his words. He spoke about the

motion I just made. I will be on the floor tomorrow and Saturday and next week--Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday--to share stories that have been shared with me and are being shared with me every day by Virginians affected and the Agencies the Senator from New Mexico discussed and others.

Just to clarify, the motion that I made earlier was to pass a House bill that is pending before us. It is an appropriation for the remainder of the fiscal year for the following Departments and Agencies: Department of Interior; Environmental Protection Agency; Forest Service; Department of Treasury, including the IRS; Judiciary; Executive Office of the President--we are trying to fund the Executive Office of the President; the District of Columbia; Department of Agriculture, including the Food Stamp Program; the Food and Drug Administration; Department of Transportation; Department of Housing and Urban Development; Department of Commerce; Department of Justice, including the FBI; science-related Agencies, including NASA; the Department of State and several related and independent Agencies.

That was the motion that I made that was objected to by the majority leader.

Three items quickly. There are three levels of surreal illogic to the position we are in. The first is, we are having a legitimate debate between Congress and the President on border security and immigration reform. That is a very legitimate debate, in which there are intellectually respectable differences of opinion. If we are having a debate about that, why would we punish the workers who are charged with administering the Food Stamp Program? Why punish workers in the National Forest and National Parks? Why punish the citizens who need those services? The first level of illogic to the position we are in is we are punishing both workers and the citizens who need services completely unconnected with the border and immigration reform issue.

Surreal illogic No. 2. If we are having a debate about safety and security on the border, why would we demand Customs and Border Patrol folks work without pay? Those who are affected and who are part of the Agencies dealing with the dispute are, by all accounts, the frontline people who are dealing with this--immigration judges, Custom and Border Patrol folks, ICE agents, DEA agents, the Coast Guard, which interdicts drugs, FBI, U.S. marshals, BATF agents--why would we make their lives harder when they are the safety and security professionals who are charged with dealing with the issue we are trying to figure out?

The final level of surreal illogic, as I yield to my colleague from Indiana, is this. I want to thank all my colleagues because a week ago, by unanimous consent, we passed a backpay bill that the President signed yesterday. Now we have guaranteed that the Federal Treasury will write a check for the paychecks for all of these workers. It is actually probably going to be more because to close and restart actually costs a little bit more. We agreed to pay backpay in this and any future shutdown to these workers.

So if we are going to pay them anyway, why wouldn't we want them to be serving Americans instead of being furloughed? If we are going to pay them anyway--if the Federal Treasury is going to write that check-- wouldn't it be better if they are in their offices answering phones, processing food stamp applications, and serving their fellow Americans than locked out of their offices?

We bar Federal workers from striking because of the need for continuous government operations, but we are locking them out of their offices while we have agreed to give them full payment for the work they would have been doing had we not locked them out. That is not fiscally smart.

I yield the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding, and I thank the ranking member for his leadership as well.

Mr. Speaker, I join Mr. Himes in saying this is not a partisan issue. This is an issue of America and whether or not we are going to hold accountable those who would threaten and undermine the interests of the United States.

I thank Mr. McCaul for his principled leadership on this issue, and I thank Chairman Engel for his continuing focus on making America secure.

Mr. Speaker, I am offering this joint resolution today because it is deeply concerning that the Treasury Department would terminate sanctions on companies owned by Oleg Deripaska.

Mr. Deripaska is a Russian oligarch--meaning essential is very, very wealthy--and is a very close associate of President Vladimir Putin.

The businesses he controls were sanctioned under the Russian sanctions legislation the Congress enacted through bipartisan action in 2017. As I have sponsored numerous bills with Mr. McCarthy when he was the majority leader to make sure that the Congress was on record and had policies which would staunch the attacks on our country and on our security by the Russians.

I was deeply disappointed that the Republican Senate rejected a similar resolution yesterday. When I say they rejected it, the majority of the Members of the Senate--57 to be exact--supported this resolution.

I talked to Secretary Mnuchin yesterday and the day before, and I asked Secretary Mnuchin: Given the concerns about this legislation, about this withdrawing of sanctions on RUSAL, that they give us until February 28 to have hearings to reflect upon and have further discussions with the administration and make a determination whether we thought this action was in the best interests of our country.

Unfortunately, when the Senate failed to get the 60 votes they needed to bring cloture so that they could get to final consideration of the bill, the Treasury Department decided to go forward.

It is crucial that the Congress, however, make clear that the allies of Vladimir Putin, no matter how wealthy or how powerful they are, face appropriate consequences for their actions against America's security and democratic institutions. That is what this is about.

As Mr. Himes said, it is not a partisan vote. As a matter of fact, in my view, if Barack Obama were President of the United States today, this resolution would receive unanimous support from my Republican colleagues and overwhelming, if not unanimous, support from my Democratic colleagues.

Now, I understand the Treasury Department's goal in this instance. It is trying to remove Mr. Deripaska from control of these companies. That is a good objective. I am also sensitive to the economic concerns of our European partners who are dependent on aluminum manufactured by RUSAL, which is the Russian aluminum company, one of the largest in the world and almost, maybe not a monopoly, but an overwhelming share of the aluminum market internationally.

However, I do not have confidence that this specific deal accomplishes that objective. I believe many of the Members of this House on both sides of the aisle share this lack of confidence. There are way too many remaining questions for Congress not to act on this resolution.

For example, I am not convinced that Mr. Deripaska would fully relinquish his control of RUSAL under this deal--as a matter of fact, I think it is doubtful that he would do so--or that the Treasury Department used its full leverage in this negotiation.

I am also concerned, Mr. Speaker, that Mr. Deripaska would receive massive financial benefit from this deal--this is supposed to be a sanction--massive financial benefit, nearly unprecedented for a sanctioned entity.

Mr. Speaker, I hope our action today will force the Treasury Department to engage more thoroughly with Congress on explaining its actions on this deal and to seek a better one. I think their intent was an honest intent. I am doubtful they achieved it. I therefore urge my colleagues to join me and, hopefully, in a bipartisan way supporting this resolution and I call on the Senate to reconsider its position.