Relating to a national emergency declared by the President on February 15, 2019.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want you to know it flatters both me and the gentlewoman from California that you have made it your habit to be down here during Rules Committee time. It is good to know that you respect what we do upstairs as much as the members of the committee do.

I always enjoy coming down for the Rules Committee debate, because it is the only debate on all of Capitol Hill where the Reading Clerk reads every single word of the bill that we are about to consider. Ordinarily, we waive that, but the rules don't let you waive it. You have to read the rule so folks will understand what is happening today.

I happened to time the Reading Clerk today. I didn't put him up to anything special. He read as he always does. It took him 1 minute and 6 seconds to read the resolution that is before us.

I heard my friend from California talk about the important constitutional questions that are here before us today. I heard my friend from California equate our President to discredited despots around the globe and how we must stand up to prevent that behavior here in America. I heard my colleagues who took to the floor this morning for 1 minutes be sanctioned by the Chair and advised to cease engaging in arguments of personality and attacks against our President.

One minute and 6 seconds it took to read the resolution before us today, Mr. Speaker, and that is 1 minute and 6 seconds longer than this resolution has been considered in total in every committee throughout this Capitol.

I want to say that again. You heard my colleague talk about how critically important this resolution of disapproval is as it relates to our constitutional powers. You heard it described as a power grab equivalent to those of discredited despots. And we haven't talked about it at all in this Chamber. In committees, not one witness has testified.

One minute and 6 seconds is how much we have invested in these nationally important matters.

I listened, Mr. Speaker, as you cautioned Member after Member to cease engaging in personal attacks on the President during their 1 minutes this morning. Mr. Speaker, I am concerned that that is exactly what we are doing here today.

If you want to have a debate about Article I and Article II powers and how we ought to retrieve the power that has slid down Pennsylvania Avenue through administration after administration after administration, I am not just your willing partner, I am your enthusiastic partner and passionate advocate. But that is not the bill we have before us today. It is not the debate we are going to have today.

This is another in a long string of measures that have been brought to the floor of this House that could have been brought in a bipartisan way. I don't mean one Republican; I don't mean two Republicans; I mean the majority of Democrats and the majority of Republicans standing together to speak with one voice on behalf of the American people. But time and time again, we are missing that opportunity.

This isn't a constitutional issue today, Mr. Speaker, though you would not know that, because we have not had any witnesses testify. This is a legislative issue before us today.

There is, in fact, a National Emergencies Act that allows the President to do extraordinary things if he or she decides there is a national emergency. That is not unconstitutional. Congress passed the National Emergencies Act; the President signed the National Emergencies Act. Perhaps the Supreme Court one day will decide that was an unconstitutional delegation of power by the Congress, but the Congress delegated that power in the National Emergencies Act.

The way we talk about this issue, Mr. Speaker, you would think this is the first time you and I have seen this in the few years we have been in Congress. Of course, you and I know that is nonsense.

There are 31 other national emergency declarations in effect today-- 31 other national emergency declarations. National emergency declarations from the Obama administration are still active today.

If we are so concerned about Article I and Article II power grabs, perhaps these emergency declarations that have been on the books since the last administration, Congress should deal with those affirmatively here on the floor.

There are national emergency declarations still in effect from the Bush administration. There are national emergencies still in effect from the Clinton administration. Mr. Speaker, there are national emergencies still in effect from the Carter administration. This House has made not a single effort to draw back that power from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Those are legitimate questions. Those are important questions. Those are things that bring us together as the people's representatives in this House, not bills designed just to poke a stick at a President who has real passion and real conviction about issues of real importance.

Do you know what is in this resolution today, Mr. Speaker, what is in this disapproval resolution today, that will make a difference on the border in terms of ending human trafficking? Not one thing.

Do you know what is in this resolution today that, if we come together to pass, will make a difference in terms of drug trafficking on the border? Not one thing.

What about if we come together to pass this resolution today for the very serious issue of weapons trafficking across our border? Do you know what we will do today to fix that? Not one thing.

Victims of sexual assault as they are being trafficked into this country, do you know what we are going to do to fix that today? Not one thing.

Do you know how many Dreamers are going to have their hopes realized today with a pathway to permanency here in the United States of America? Not one.

Man, we are good at bringing issues that are designed to poke each other in the eye. We are so good at bringing issues designed to try to embarrass one and boost another. But I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, we are not so great with actually solving real problems.

For the first time in my congressional career just last Congress, Mr. Speaker, we brought a bill to the floor that would have provided permanency

for our Dreamers and that would have provided solutions on our border for human trafficking, for weapons trafficking, and for drug trafficking. You know how many Democratic votes we got on that bill, Mr. Speaker? Not one.

Now, to be fair, it wasn't one bill; it was two bills. Folks said, hey, if this one is not the right one, let's bring another one. Maybe this is going to bring people together.

Do you know how many votes we got on the second bill, Mr. Speaker, from the other side of the aisle? Not one. The only bills that have come to the floor to provide a pathway for Dreamers in my 8 years in Congress, and we got not one vote from the other side the aisle.

Is that because the other side of the aisle doesn't believe in those solutions? No, that is not why. It is because the other side of the aisle, in its wisdom, deemed that to be a resolution not designed to support the Dreamers, but designed to divide. I disagree with that conclusion, but that is the conclusion that was made. Thus, the only opportunity in a decade we have had to support Dreamers, not one Democrat stood up and said yes.

I call that a failed opportunity, and I am not interested in figuring out who is to blame for that failed opportunity.

This is a failed opportunity today, too, Mr. Speaker. Sadly, it is another in a series of failed opportunities here in 2019.

I believe my colleagues are going to see through the divisiveness of this resolution, through the charade of constitutionalism right down to the very core of partisanism that underlies this resolution.

But just remember, 1 minute and 6 seconds, Mr. Speaker. Before I took to the microphone today, 1 minute and 6 seconds from the Reading Clerk is all the time this new Congress has dedicated to an issue that you are going to hear from my colleagues again and again is one of critical national importance, international importance, constitutional importance. How can those things be true?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Brooks).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), a member of the Rules Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up the text of H.R. 962, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, if we pass the resolution, as my friends on the other side of the aisle have presented it, we will save not one single life. If we defeat the previous question and move on to H.R. 962, we will, in fact, save lives.

Mr. Speaker, to speak to that issue, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner), my friend and a great leader in our conference.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), an appropriator and ranking member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reed), a member of the class of 2010.

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

Mr. Speaker, you just heard an impassioned plea from my friends on the other side of the aisle about the important constitutional questions that are before us today, about how the President's emergency declaration violated those sacred constitutional principles.

Candidly, I don't know if my colleagues are right or not because we have not had one legal expert come to talk about the National Emergencies Act. Most of us were not in Congress when it passed several decades ago, but it is a delegation of authority from Congress to the executive.

You just heard my friend from New York come to the well and say, listen, we have been working in a bipartisan way to offer a bill to rein in those authorities. I think that is important work. I think that is work that we ought to all be able to agree on. We should be doing that work first.

I told you earlier, Mr. Speaker, the sum total of all of the time this institution has spent working on these important constitutional questions is the 1 minute and 6 seconds our Reading Clerk Josef spent reading us the resolution today.

We will vote on this rule today. We will vote on the underlying disapproval today, having never had the committees of jurisdiction hold even a single hearing.

Now, lest you think there is just no time in the calendar, this resolution is referred to the Transportation Committee on which I sit. In fact, I had to leave a Transportation Committee hearing in order to come up here to do the rule today.

We are working on the Green New Deal in the Transportation Committee today. We are working on electric vehicles and how to reduce carbon emissions across the country. Now, I am not saying that is not important work, but I have not heard one of my colleagues talk about the dearth of electric vehicles and how that is threatening the future of our land.

I have heard my colleagues talk about this important constitutional question that this disapproval brings before us, and, yet, there was not one hearing on it.

Now, lest you think, Mr. Speaker, that if we deal with this today, we won't deal with it again. No. We are going to have some hearings on this resolution. When? Later in the week after it passes.

Now, I don't know if that is a pattern that we are going to get into. I hope that it is not. Having had no hearings and no witnesses testify on this issue, we are going to have an Appropriation Subcommittee hearing later this week to talk about exactly these issues, where the money is coming from, what the impact of that is, and whether or not it is wise.

We are going to have a hearing later this week in the Judiciary Committee talking about the National Emergencies Act, and whether or not it permits this kind of activity, and what kind of changes ought to be made.

This resolution will have already been considered. This vote will have already been taken, but we will eventually get around to having thoughtful conversation about this.

Mr. Speaker, I close where I began. There is more that unites us as Americans than divides us. And even in politics, there is more that unites this institution than divides us. Making sure that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue only is exercising those authorities delegated to it by either the Constitution or this Congress, is a shared value.

But if you listen to the debate here on the floor, from the Speaker's chair, you had to caution our colleagues against engaging in attacks of personality against the President. We heard debate, not of thoughtful constitutional principles, but of hateful administration policies.

Mr. Speaker, I will tell my friends, I don't believe those words, those actions, or those efforts are going to bring us one bit closer to the shared values that we have in this institution.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject the rule today and vote against the previous question so that we can bring up a bill that will save lives. This bill will save not one life; will prevent not one drug trafficker from coming into the country; will protect not one migrant family. It will do nothing, Mr. Speaker, to solve real problems that face this country.

If we defeat the previous question, we can at least take a commonsense step toward doing exactly that. Vote ``no'' on this rule, vote ``no'' on the previous question, and let's commit ourselves to finding a way to come together.

If you believe there is more that divides us than unites us, these first 45 days of this session have been just perfect for you. But if you believe, as I do, that we can do better, let today be the end of the partisan attacks. Let today be the end of bringing bills to the floor designed to make a point instead of make a difference, and let's make tomorrow better.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Madam President, I thank my colleague and friend from Tennessee for deferring.

First, on Donald Stewart, I know Leader McConnell talked about him. Everyone is going to miss him here in the Senate. He was truly somebody whom everyone liked. He always had a great sense of humor and a big smile. He served his boss, Mitch McConnell, extremely well, but he never let that get in the way of being friendly and working with the other side. He is somebody we will all miss. I enjoyed my interactions with him a great deal. I think that is probably true of just about every Member here.

We wish Stew the best and thank him for serving this body so long and so well.

H.J. Res. 46

Today, Madam President, the Senate will vote on the resolution to terminate the President's declaration of a national emergency. This is not a normal vote. What we are doing here today--this is not a normal day. It is not your typical vote on an appropriations or authorization bill. It doesn't concern a nomination or an appointment. This will be a vote about the very nature of our Constitution, the separation of powers, and how this government functions henceforth.

The Framers gave Congress the power of the purse in article I of the Constitution. It is probably our greatest power. Now the President is claiming that power for himself under a guise of an emergency declaration to get around a Congress that repeatedly would not authorize his demand for a border wall.

The President has not justified the emergency declaration. You would think in a moment like this, when there is not a war, when there is not an immediate disease, or when there is not a disaster--that is when we had other declarations. They don't need an elaboration, but this one would. But the President hasn't done that. He simply said he ``didn't need to do this.'' That is amazing, folks, my colleagues. The President said he didn't need to do this, and yet he is declaring an emergency. It is a direct contradiction of his own words.

Everyone here knows the truth. Democrats and Republicans know the sad truth. The President did not declare an emergency because there is one; he declared an emergency because he lost in Congress and wants to get around it. He is obsessed with showing strength. He couldn't just abandon his pursuit of the border wall, so he had to trample on the Constitution to continue his fight. That is not how this democracy is supposed to function. That is not how this democracy has functioned. I have never seen it, where, out of anger and out of a desire to win the fight regardless of the consequences, a President would do this.

The President has not laid out where he plans to divert funds from, though we know it is going to be from our military--from the men and women serving us and from the things they need.

Senators who vote against this resolution this afternoon may be voting to gut funding for a military installation in their State or for a cut to military pay and military pensions. How could they do that?

Most importantly, President Trump has shown zero understanding of what his emergency portends for the separation of powers in our democracy. The President seems to regard the government, not just the Justice Department, as his own personal tool to do whatever he wants, whether it is in the private sector or the public sector. We have never had a President like this.

We have had lots of Presidents with lots of foibles, but none of them seem to equate their own ego with the entire functioning of the government of the United States, except this one.

We can't succumb to that. It is our job here, in Congress, to limit executive overreach, to defend our core powers, to prevent a President--any President--from ignoring the will of Congress every time it fails to align with the will of the President. That is what the balance of powers is. That is what checks and balances is. That is what every one of us learned in second grade civics class.

All that teaching in the second grade civics class seems to be lost on so many of my Republican colleagues in blind obeisance to this President, no matter what the consequences.

This is not an issue of the wall. It goes way beyond that. We have had our fights and disputes on the wall for several years here. However you feel about our policy on the southern border and however you feel about the President, Senators should vote yes on the resolution to terminate the emergency declaration.

This resolution is about more than this President. It is about the Presidency now and on into the future.

It should not be difficult for any of my Republican colleagues to take this vote. Conservative principles would demand it, and some of the true conservatives, like Mr. Lee, yesterday, understood that logic. Conservatives have always feared an agglomeration of power in any branch of government, but particularly in the executive branch. The conservative movement has been designed to reduce the powers of the Federal Government. That is why they are for lowering taxes so much.

All of a sudden, again, because President Trump simply wants it, they say: Let's abandon those principles and vote to change, fundamentally, the way the balance of power works--shame.

If conservatism today is to mean anything, self-branded conservatives should vote to terminate the resolution. Deep-seated principles like that shouldn't take a back seat to the politics of the moment. They should not be abandoned just because the President shares the same party.

Now, let me speak from the heart to my Republican colleagues. I know that President Trump is extremely popular among Republicans for many reasons. I know he commands the vast majority of the Republican Party, and I know that the President never shies away from threatening, bullying, or publicly castigating members of his own party if they refuse to do what he wants.

So, I realize this. It is a much more difficult vote for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to take than for those of us who are Democrats. I would say to them, and I would say to every Republican: There are times when loyalty to America, to our Constitution, to our principles, and to what has made this country great should lead Members to rise above and rise to the occasion.

I hope and I pray that this moment is one of those times when Members choose country over party and when Members rise above politics for the sake of fidelity to our constitutional principles and to this great United States of America.

In conclusion, on this issue, this is not an everyday moment. This is not just about going along with this President or that one. This is a red-letter day in the history of how the U.S. Government functions. The judgment of our Founding Fathers and the judgment of history weighs upon this vote.

Tariffs

Madam President, the trade negotiations with China are moving forward, and I continue to have concerns that President Trump will accept a weak deal for the sake of a headline. Apparently, I am not alone. President Trump's former top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, told a podcast that the President is ``desperate'' to reach a trade deal. He also expressed deep skepticism that the administration would be able to stop the Chinese from stealing intellectual property and hold the Chinese accountable.

I hope Gary Cohn is wrong. The President, to his credit, was not desperate for a deal in North Korea and stood up to Kim Jong Un and looked strong for that. I hope he realizes that, as he negotiates with someone with even more consequences at stake for the long run of America--President Xi--and with a country that can do far more harm to our country, ultimately, in the long run.

Ambassador Lighthizer has said that there are still major issues left to be resolved. If that is the case, President Trump should not be pressing for a quick solution. The Chinese are more desperate for a solution than we are, although, obviously, some harm has been created to bring the Chinese to the table with tariffs.

The Chinese are desperate, and it is like they are ahead in the seventh inning, and then you say: I quit the ball game; I lose.

Don't do that, Mr. President. The tariffs you have imposed, at some political cost, have brought China to the table and given us the first opportunity in decades--in decades--to make the Chinese reform so they don't take total advantage of American workers and know-how. Soybean purchases and promises to import more American goods are not sufficient if we don't win concrete concessions on major issues.

If President Trump caves to China for the sake of soybean purchases, he would be trading America's future, literally, for a hill of beans. We want to help the soybean farmers. We want to help everybody else, but not at the expense of the future viability of jobs and wealth in America.

My message to President Trump is the same one I mentioned to him and I gave to him before he met with Kim Jong Un: Don't back down.

The President should be proud that he stood up to North Korea and walked away. He will be proud if he does the same with China, unless President Xi makes enduring, verifiable reforms of China's economic and trade policies, because the odds are high that if the President walks away from a weak deal, he will be able to get a much better deal down the road.

I yield the floor.

We have 1 minute remaining, I think. I ask unanimous consent to speak in leader time.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Today, the Senate will vote on the resolution to terminate the President's declaration of a national emergency.

Let me begin with a quotation.

Revelations of how power has been abused by high government

officials must give rise to concern about the potential

exercise, unchecked by the Congress or the American people,

of this extraordinary power. The National Emergencies Act

would end this threat and ensure that the powers now in the

hands of the Executive will be utilized only in a time of

genuine emergency and then only under safeguards providing

for congressional review.

Let me repeat that. ``[T]he powers now in the hands of the Executive will be utilized only in a time of genuine emergency.'' That is from the special committee report on the National Emergencies Act, which was passed decades ago.

The bottom line is very simple. We all know the other arguments--that this is not an emergency. The President himself said so. He said he didn't have to do this if he didn't want to. In previous emergencies, it was either apparent, like 9/11, or it was a disease or some other immediate disaster, and there was a long explanation as to why. We have gotten no explanation as to why this is an emergency.

The second reason, of course, is the money that might be taken away from the military--our brave men and women in uniform not getting the dollars they need--for this wall.

The third, of course, is that the President couldn't get his way through Congress even when we had 2 years of Republican leadership in the House, Senate, and White House, couldn't get his way this time, and is now simply going around Congress to declare an emergency.

But those reasons pale for the most important reason. This is a momentous day. The balance of power that the Founding Fathers put in place, so exquisitely designed, has served this Nation extremely well for over two centuries. That balance of power was in large part motivated by the fear of an overreaching Executive. The patriots had just fought King George. They knew what it was like to have an Executive who would go too far, and they put in precautions to make sure that didn't happen.

Today, we are being asked, in a way that we haven't been asked in decades, maybe even longer, to change that balance of power. And make no mistake about it--it will set an awful precedent for the future, no matter who is President. It will change it. If a President can invoke an emergency because he didn't get his way or she didn't get her way, without real cause, without a real emergency, woe is our Republic in many ways--the ways the Founding Fathers feared.

I know this is a very difficult vote for my friends on the other side of the

aisle--much more difficult than ours. We all know that the President is extremely popular in the Republican Party for maybe a few good reasons--I would say mostly bad, but he is. We know that he has been vindictive, contemptuous, calling out people who oppose him. So it is not an easy vote. I take my hat off to those Members on the other side of the aisle who have let principle rise above party, who understand what the Constitution requires this afternoon and have agreed to vote against this emergency.

I would plead with those others who haven't made up their minds to look at this moment in history. This is not an immediate moment. You can be for the wall or against the wall, you can think that what we are doing at the southern border is inadequate, but that issue pales before the issue before us; that is, how far an Executive can reach when Congress does not want to do what that Executive wants.

This is a crucial moment. This is a moment historians will look back on. This could be a moment that changes the fundamental balance of power in our government. So I would ask my colleagues--I would really plead with my colleagues. I understand the politics are difficult--much harder for you than for me--but our Nation, our Constitution, the beauty of this government demands that we rise to the occasion this afternoon. Please join us in rejecting this emergency and keeping our government with the same balance of power that has served us so well for two centuries.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, last week, I announced my intention to vote in favor of H.J. Res. 46. This is a resolution expressing disapproval of the President's February 15 proclamation of a national emergency. At that same time, I joined with my colleague, the Senator from New Mexico, along with the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, and the Senator from New Hampshire, Mrs. Shaheen, in the introduction of the Senate companion, S.J. Res. 10.

I want to take just a few moments this afternoon and speak to my rationale not only for my statements but for my support for terminating the national emergency. It is, certainly, not based on disagreement over the issue of border security on our southern border. I recognize full well, along with, I believe, all of our colleagues here, the situation on the border and the humanitarian issues that face us. The issue that faces us with the level of those coming across our borders is not a sustainable situation, and, certainly, the influx of drugs that we are seeing in this community must be addressed.

Rather, my concern is, really, about the institution of the Congress and the constitutional balance of powers that, I think, are just fundamental to our democracy. In my view, it really comes down to article I of the Constitution. Article I, section 7, clause 8 reads: ``No

Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of Appropriation.''

This provision and the necessary and proper clause of article I, section 8, clause 18 and the taxing and spending clauses--article VIII, clause 1--are just generally regarded as the basis for the notion that the power to spend resides in the Congress. We say it around here--that the power of the purse rests with the Congress.

Of all of these three clauses that I have just articulated, the admonition that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriation is probably the clearest expression of the Framers' view that the executive has no power to spend money in a manner that is inconsistent with the intentions of the Congress.

Justice Story, in his 1883 Commentaries on the Constitution, characterized that clause as an important means of self-protection for the legislative department.

He went on to write:

The [legislature] has, and must have, a controlling

influence over the executive power, since it holds at its

command all of the resources by which the executive could

make himself formidable. It possesses the power of the purse

of the nation and the property of the people.

Again, he just very clearly articulates where these lanes of authority--these lanes of jurisdiction--reside.

This past weekend, on Sunday, a local newspaper, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, published an editorial. In that editorial, it was argued that our colleagues here in the Senate should vote for the resolution of disapproval. The editorial is entitled: ``A dangerous course: Congress shouldn't cede power to president in border funding dispute.''

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the editorial be printed in the Record.

Madam President, in support of the argument outlined in that headline, the News-Miner's editorial board wrote the following:

Encroachment by one branch on another and the consolidating

of power in one branch worried some of the Founders as they

crafted our system of independent yet interlocking government

branches. The Federalist Papers . . . contain references to

that concern.

The editorial board goes on to refer to Federalist No. 51, which reads:

The great security against a gradual concentration of the

several powers in the same department, consists in giving to

those who administer each department the necessary

constitutional means and personal motives to resist

encroachments of others. . . . Ambition must be made to

counteract ambition.

When you translate that into just plain old English, it basically means Congress is a coequal branch of government, and, as such, Congress should stand up for itself. That really is the reason--the root--of why I have announced my support for this resolution of disapproval. I think it is fair to say that we all have disagreements around here about all sorts of things that are part of the appropriations process, and, certainly, the issue of border funding or just border security is no exception.

Even if the fiscal year 2019 appropriations process had run smoothly, which it certainly did not, think about how we got to where we are right now. The President submitted his budget last year. He requested money for barriers on the border and other aspects of border security. The request went through the appropriations process. I serve on that subcommittee. In the Senate subcommittee, we advanced out of the committee the President's request. After 3 months of continuing resolutions, we ended up in a stalemate with the other body last year, calendar year 2018. In January, control of the other body changed. The stalemate continued until the lengthy negotiations concluded, which allowed both bodies to pass and for the President to agree to sign an appropriations package just several weeks ago in February.

Again, that appropriations package was, I think it is probably fair to say, the result of a great deal of back-and-forth between the House, the Senate, and the White House, but it was clearly something that did help to advance the priorities that the President had outlined with regard to the southern border.

I am quoting from a White House fact sheet here, which reads: ``Secured a number of significant legislative victories that further the President's effort to secure the Southern Border and protect our country.'' Chief among those victories was ``the bill provides $1.375 billion for approximately 55 miles of border barrier in highly dangerous and drug smuggling areas in the Rio Grande Valley, where it is desperately needed.''

So we are where we were on February 15 when the administration recognized that significant gains had been made, but I think we all know that the President believes very, very strongly that there is more that should be done, that must be done, and that will be done to address that.

Clearly, there was a disagreement between the Congress and the President about how much could be spent on border security in 2019. I think, in fairness, sticking up for Congress's power of the purse doesn't necessarily mean that it comes at the expense of border security. I believe very strongly we can

address the President's concerns--the very, very real and legitimate concerns that need to be addressed--but that we don't have to do it at the expense of ceding that authority, of ceding that power of the purse, of ceding that article I power that we have here.

There are ways that the President can advance his issues, and he has done so. He, certainly, has the prerogative to ask for supplemental appropriations. He has identified additional funding that is outside of the national emergency designation, or declaration, if you will.

He has identified additional funding--close to $3 billion--from other statutory authorities. These are the authorities under 10 U.S.C. 284(b), which is the counterdrug account, counterdrug funds. That will require a level of reprogramming through the appropriating committees, but that can be done outside of the national emergency. The other source of funding is the Treasury Forfeiture Fund through the Secretary of the Treasury under 31 U.S.C. 9705. So I think it is clear that there are avenues to enhance the funding opportunities to address the situation at the border.

The concern that many of us have raised is the designation in this third account--the designation of a national emergency--that would tap into funds that have already been designated for military construction projects, important construction projects that have been designated around the country. We certainly have many in my State of Alaska. We haven't seen the list that would perhaps outline with greater articulation where the Secretary of Defense might think it would be appropriate to delay some of these projects. But, again, I would just remind--these are projects that have perhaps already been delayed because of the Budget Control Act that has been in place for several years, so I think further delay for many of these projects would cause most concern.

So I come to the National Emergencies Act. I think there is a recognition that when this was adopted, was put into law, it was initially intended to rein in the President's ability to declare emergencies. But at the same time it authorized the President to declare national emergencies, it didn't ever clearly define the extent of that power. So that is an issue that I think we are dealing with right now. Implicit in this grant is the trust that the power will be used sparingly. I think that if you look back over the history, the 59 previous times these powers have been utilized, you can say they have been used sparingly. But also explicit is the authority for the Congress to terminate an emergency if the Congress believes it was imprudently declared, and that is basically where we are today.

Because Congress did not explicitly constrain the President's power to declare an emergency, many of the constitutional scholars--those who are trying to game this out--believe the President will ultimately prevail in the litigation that we are entirely certain will be seen in the courts.

The question for us to consider in this body is not whether the President could have declared an emergency but whether he should have and, again, the question relating to the redirection of military construction funds from our bases around the country to the southern border. These are the questions we are currently debating. But in the final analysis, I look at the issue we have in front of us, and this is really a very challenging place for us as a Congress, to be debating the constitutional powers of the Congress against a legislative agenda--a strong legislative agenda and an important one that the President has. But I have come to be quite concerned about where we are when it comes to precedent and the precedent that we may see unleashed. In many ways, I view this as an expansion of Executive powers by legislative acquiescence.

If we fail to weigh in, if we fail to acknowledge that this designation has gone beyond that which has previously been considered, if we go around, effectively, the will of Congress, where will it take us next? I think we need to think about that because it is so easy to get focused on where we are in the here and now and the situation we are dealing with today, but when we are pushing out those lanes of congressional authority, I think we need to be thinking clearly about what that may mean for future administrations and for future Congresses.

As the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, my focus is very often on the energy sector, on the energy space, and so I have asked, if we were in a situation with a new President, what could be invoked if a new President should decide to exercise his or her emergency authorities as they relate to energy? It is entirely possible that a future President could declare a national emergency related to global climate change, speaking to a humanitarian crisis and what it might mean for national security. In fact, one of our colleagues from Massachusetts has already said as much--that a national emergency could be declared as relates to global climate change.

You have to ask the question. What would stop a future President from declaring an emergency and then directing the military to spend billions of dollars on renewable projects or refugee assistance? What is to stop a future President from targeting the Nation's oil and gas supply by cutting off exports and shutting down production on the Outer Continental Shelf?

I think we would all say: Well, we don't need to worry about that happening with our current President; he is not going to do any of those things. But the authorities technically would exist for all of them, and so it is concerning. It is concerning to me that a future President could use that to drive their agenda--again, without the consent of the Congress.

So I repeat--I am concerned that, as a Congress, as a legislative body, we would stand back and we would acquiesce in the use of a national emergency to resolve a disagreement between the executive and the legislative branches over the appropriate level of funding for a situation that likely exceeds what can be spent in our current fiscal year.

I know there will be continued discussion not only here in the Senate, in the Congress, but certainly around the country about these matters. I know some of my colleagues are interested in revisiting the scope of the National Emergencies Act, and that is clearly worth considering. But I firmly believe that one can be strongly for border security and at the same time question whether the administration has overreached in using the National Emergencies Act in the way that it has, and I find myself in that camp. That is why it is with great resolve that I support the adoption of the resolutions of disapproval.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, when President Trump declared a national emergency over the crisis along our southern border, it was immediately met with expressions of concern--some, in my view, illegitimate; others, quite legitimate.

As I have said in the past, I will repeat again that this--what we are doing here today--is no one's first choice, but it is useful to recall how we find ourselves at this point today.

Of course, when it comes to funding, when it comes to appropriations, Congress holds the purse. That is why,

each year, the Congress receives the President's budget request for the upcoming fiscal year, just as we did earlier this week.

Even though, in the President's budget, he outlines his priorities, my experience in the Senate is that most Presidential budgets, while they are an expression of the President's priorities, are dead on arrival. It then falls to us, in the Senate and the House, to look at his request and to work on a compromise budget and appropriations process and fund the operations of the Federal Government.

This process is arduous, it is time-consuming, and it is often frustrating, but it is the way the system is supposed to work. As all Americans can attest, what we have seen over the last few months looks like something very different. The refusal of Democrats in the House and the Senate to engage in negotiations on border security funding led us to a 35-day government shutdown.

Despite the clear message from border security experts, despite seeing the humanitarian crisis at the border, described by President Obama in 2014, get many times worse, our Democratic colleagues decided to play politics instead of dealing with the problem.

We heard the Speaker of the House call border barriers immoral. The minority leader here in the Senate said that there would be no additional money for physical barriers along the border. They know, just as I know, that back in 2006 and 2008, the Secure Fence Act was passed with broad bipartisan support, including support from then- Senator Barack Obama, then-Senator Hillary Clinton, and Senator Chuck Schumer, currently the Democratic leader in the Senate, who now feels that this President should not get any additional money to fund border security measures that the President believes are an important response to the crisis we see at the border.

My preference would be for the normal appropriations process to be used, but when your negotiating partners refuse to take a seat at the table, normal goes out the window. Our colleagues across the aisle left the President with few options to fund what he believed was so important for the Nation's security, and that is what led us to this situation.

Enter the 1976 legislation, the National Emergencies Act. What the President did is ask his lawyers to look at what other authority, under congressionally passed laws signed by previous Presidents, might he have to access additional funds, and his lawyers pointed to the 1976 National Emergencies Act, which has granted Presidents, since that time, broad powers to reprogram funding previously appropriated by Congress.

This idea that somehow this is an unconstitutional act by this President is simply wrong. Congress has given the President this authority. They may regret it today or they may disagree that this is an emergency or they may disagree with the way the President wants to spend the money to secure the border, but, clearly, the President is using authorities the Congress has previously granted, not just to him but to all Presidents since 1976.

My father liked to remind me growing up--one of the things he always told me is that hindsight is always 20-20. Our predecessors did not anticipate the fights we would be having today, which are largely contrived and unnecessary. We should be working together to solve these problems, not engaged in a zero-sum game of political brinkmanship. That is what brought us to where we are today.

I think it is appropriate to look at what Congress did in 1976, and in a prospective sort of way, ask ourselves: Have we delegated too much authority to Presidents since that time? There are literally 123 statutory authorizations that could be invoked under the National Emergencies Act--123 times that Congress has said a President, upon the declaration of a national emergency, can reprogram money that Congress has appropriated--123 times. That was a shock not only to me but, I dare say, to virtually all of our colleagues here in the Senate.

Many of these statutory grants of authority are exceedingly broad. They cover everything from the military to public health to Federal pay schedules. With these broad authorities already part of the law, the emergency powers provision could be viewed as a fail-safe for an agenda that the administration--an administration alone--is pushing. Let's say, hypothetically, that a future President decides there is a need to declare a national emergency over climate change. Maybe they decide this is a way to enact the Green New Deal being pushed by some of our colleagues across the aisle.

Considering the potential scope and scale in which these powers could be abused in the future and this overdelegation of authority that Congress has done 123 times, I believe we should take a look at the National Emergencies Act, once we vote today, and have a fulsome debate and discussion about whether this is really the sort of delegation of powers that the Founding Fathers intended when they said that distinct separated power should be given to each branch of the government: the legislative, the judicial, and the executive branch.

It is clear that the President is operating within the authority Congress has given to him. You don't have to like it. You don't have to agree with it, but it is clear the President is operating within the authority Congress delegated to him. Rather than talking in circles and debating that fact, I think our discussion should focus on the structure of emergency powers moving forward.

I believe there is a need to rein back in some of the authority that Congress has delegated to presidents just as a constitutional concern, as a constitutional matter, which is why I am cosponsoring a bill which has been introduced by our colleague Senator Lee which gives Congress a stronger voice in processes under the National Emergencies Act.

That bill will now be referred to the Homeland Security Committee. Chairman Johnson has said he will give that bill a hearing and then a markup. Then I would expect, at some point, that legislation will make its way to the Senate floor where we will have a debate and a vote.

The proposal would allow the President to maintain his statutory powers to declare an emergency, but that declaration would end after 30 days unless Congress affirmatively votes to extend it. This would maintain a President's ability to provide funding during national emergencies while restoring Congress's proper authority under article I of the Constitution. I think this is an honest and important effort to hopefully prevent us from ending up in this predicament in the future.

The real cause of where we are today is just politics--Ms. Pelosi's deciding that building any border barrier was immoral, after Democrats and Republicans had not made that a particularly political decision in the past. In fact, it had been bipartisan that we did support it as one tool in the toolbox for Border Patrol, in addition to technology and personnel, some physical barriers.

Rather than scolding the President of the United States for exercising statutory authority that Congress has already given, we should try to work together to solve these problems rather than engaging in the kind of political brinksmanship that brings us here today. We should fix--should it be the will of Congress--this massive delegation of authority not just to this President but to any President since 1976.

I have to disagree with our colleague from Colorado and others who suggest that what is happening at the border is not serious. By the way, I haven't heard any of them suggest any alternative solutions. Perhaps instead of Border Patrol securing the border we ought to have police officers at the border directing traffic, waving people through to their chosen destination. I think that would be a terrible mistake, but that seems to be the only alternative our friends across the aisle are offering to this humanitarian crisis and emergency at the border.

Last month, 76,000 people illegally crossed the border and were apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, making this an 11- year high. So rather than 76,000 people in 1 month, which our Democratic colleagues don't seem to think is a problem, let's say next month it is 150,000 or 300,000 or 600,000. As long as we have this attraction for people from other countries to come to the United States, and if they pay the fee to the criminal organizations that transport them

here, they will successfully make their way into the United States. They are going to keep coming.

It is clear this problem isn't going away, and it is overwhelming the communities along the border as well as the Federal Government's ability to deal with it.

I remember what the Director of Customs and Border Protection said. He said: When the Border Patrol is handing out diapers and juice boxes to children coming across the border, the drug cartels will exploit that and move their poison into the United States. I will just remind my colleagues that more than 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year alone. A substantial amount of it was synthetic opioids in the form of fentanyl, but a lot of it had to do with heroin that had made its way from Mexico into the United States because 90 percent of the heroin that comes into the United States comes from Mexico. So while the Border Patrol is handing out diapers and juice boxes, the drug cartels are moving in heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamine across the border into our Nation and getting rich in the process.

We know border security is complicated, and that it is not just about security, it is about facilitating legitimate trade, travel, and commerce. Last year alone, there was $300 billion worth of commerce that took place just at Texas ports of entry with Mexico--$300 billion. That supports an awful lot of American jobs.

The terrain in the 1,200-mile border between Texas and Mexico varies significantly. What works well in one sector does not work well in another. What I continue to hear from my constituents, including elected officials at the border, is that if this is the Border Patrol telling us what they need in order to succeed to do the job we have asked them to do, we are all in, but if this is just politics and elected officials in Washington trying to micromanage the solution along the border, we are skeptical. This is what they tell me, and I don't blame them.

I think we need to take action to adequately fund our border security missions, and I hope our discussions in the coming months will be more productive than they will be this year.

I will vote against the resolution of disapproval today and encourage my colleagues to instead ask my colleagues to focus their energy on reforming the legislation that got us into this situation to begin with.

Mr. President, during the recent government shutdown, there were a lot of budget issues that were negotiated. It was a wide- ranging bill of over 1,000 pages, when it was all said and done, but the most contentious number in all of the negotiations circled around a barrier on our southern border in the highest drug trafficking corridor in the country.

The President requested $5.7 billion to build a barrier fence in 10 locations that the Customs and Border Patrol had identified as the top 10 points of illegal drugs entering our country. That study had been requested by Congress before they fulfilled that study of identifying the highest profiled drug trafficking corridors. They brought that back to Congress. The President then requested funding to build fencing in those areas of the highest trafficking areas.

His request was not for a 2,000-mile-long wall. It was only to replace some of the sections of the 650-mile-long barrier that already exists--areas that were old and ineffective--or to put new fencing in high drug trafficking areas.

In a highly partisan debate, Congress eventually appropriated $1.375 billion to DHS for the construction of additional barriers. It is not even close to what the President and what Customs and Border Patrol said they needed to protect the Nation and members of law enforcement.

During those negotiations, the President announced he would declare a national emergency if he didn't get the funds needed to secure the Nation. At that point, there were two options for people who don't want the President to secure our border. One was to include language in that appropriations bill before it was passed to prevent the President from declaring an emergency action and using any of the funds for that. The second one was to wait until after the bill was passed and declare a disapproval resolution to stop the President after the bill had already passed.

Those who oppose border security chose the second option--to fight the President after passage, which brings us to today.

After signing the funding bill to reopen the government, to deal with the humanitarian crisis, and the flow of illegal narcotics coming into our country, the President declared a national emergency in two areas. He has over 100 authorities; he declared it in two.

One was this. He wanted to replace some of the National Guard members with members of the Reserve. You have to declare a national emergency to call up the Reserve members. So his first request was to call up some of the Reserves to swap out some of the Guard members who were already serving at the border.

The second one was that in one of the accounts that deal with military construction, if needed, he wanted to tap into some of those funds. He was also very clear. There are four accounts

they would have access to. Three of them don't need an emergency declaration. Let me run through those.

The first is the $1.375 billion Congress allocated in the government shutdown, ending debate. There is no question that $1.375 billion has been approved by Congress.

There is a second fund where there is $600 million. It is in the Treasury Asset Forfeiture Fund. That fund specifically notes that those funds can be used for any reason for Federal law enforcement. It is very clear. It has wide discretion--any use for Federal law enforcement. There is no legal question that it can be used by Customs and Border Patrol or to do construction of any kind of barrier.

There is a third fund that already exists within the Department of Defense. There are $4 billion set aside in this fund, and it can be used for wide-ranging issues dealing with counternarcotics. There is no question the President can act on anything dealing with counternarcotics with that fund.

In fact, in that fund itself, there is specific language already included in that--and this is up to $4 billion--saying it can be used for construction of roads, fences, and installation of lighting to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States.

Let me run through this. There is up to $4 billion the President can ask for that he doesn't have to ask for emergency authority at all on. That is counternarcotics, counterdrug smuggling. There are $600 million that have been allocated that the President can use because it deals with law enforcement. There is $1.375 billion that Congress also allocated. There is no legal question on any of those.

At the tail end of that, the White House has also said, after all three of those funds are expended--which, by the way, those three funds exceed the $5.7 billion the President says he needs--the President's request is, if we go through all of those, and we are not able to close that section down, at some future point, he wants to be able to access this other fund.

They have also made it very clear it would be past October. That would not even be in this fiscal year. So really the debate about funding is next year's issue, what is called the 2808 funding on military construction.

That leads us again to this. An emergency declaration really has two questions in it. Is it an emergency, and does the President have statutory authority to take this action? Those are the only two questions on the table.

Is it an emergency is in dispute. There are some folks who would say: I don't think what is going on at the border is an emergency. There are some folks--some in this Chamber and some in the other Chamber--who want to abolish ICE, dismantle a wall, and open the borders. Thankfully, that is a small group of people who do not see our national security as important.

For the vast majority of people, they do see an importance in Congress working on national security and securing our borders. Then we have the argument about how serious is this.

I have had folks who have said to me: It is really not that bad because we have individuals coming but not as high of a number as what it used to be. Twenty years ago, we even had more people crossing the border illegally.

That is not the question that is in front of us. The request from Customs and Border Patrol is specifically for the 10 areas with the highest drug trafficking along all of our southern border. That is the request.

The question is, Do we have an emergency dealing with illegal drugs crossing our border after the Customs and Border Patrol has said to us that we need barriers to slow down the flow of illegal drugs? Are they right or are they wrong?

Among those areas, right now the Rio Grande Valley sector is the highest area for movement of illegal drugs crossing into our country. It is 16 percent of the border miles, but it is 40 percent of the illegal border and illegal drug trafficking coming in.

Last year, just in that one sector, 550 pounds of methamphetamine were seized. This is not at the port of entry. This is between ports of entry, in that open area that doesn't have a fence. There were 550 pounds of methamphetamine seized. There were 1,500 pounds of cocaine and 64,000 pounds of marijuana that were seized in that one section without a fence.

The question is, Is that an emergency?

Last year, 70,000 Americans died from overdoses from drugs that came from and through Mexico--70,000. If we had any--any--issue in America where 70,000 people died, I can assure you this Congress would stand up and say we have an emergency, but, for some reason, there is a dispute on whether it is important we stop the flow of illegal drugs coming from Mexico into the United States. I don't think that should be in dispute.

To give an example of how fast this is changing and how much of an emergency this is, people would say: This has been going on for years. Why is it different now? Just in the last 2 years, between ports of entry--again, not at the ports of entry but in that open area where there is no barrier. Last year, our Customs and Border Patrol seized 388 pounds of fentanyl. That may not sound like much, but only a couple of grains of it--as in a couple of grains of sand--is enough to kill a person.

Fentanyl is highly addictive and an exceptionally powerful drug. It is 100 times more powerful than morphine. It is being laced into heroin and laced into cocaine. It is a mass killer.

Last year, almost 25,000 people in the country died from an overdose of fentanyl. Knowing it only takes two or three grains to be too much to kill a person, 388 pounds of it were seized between ports of entry along our border.

To tell you how it has accelerated, in 2 years, that is a 269-percent increase of fentanyl being captured between ports of entry.

Yes, we have an emergency. Yes, we have people dying in this country due to overdoses from fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine, and the problem is not static. The problem is accelerating.

Last year, we had one of the highest--highest--rates of cocaine being picked up between ports of entry that has ever existed in our country.

Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol seized a total of 11,000 pounds of methamphetamine coming across that border. That is the highest year ever of that drug coming across our border.

Undeniably, there is an emergency. The question is, Do we agree or disagree that when the statute says a President has the ability to do a construction, it means he can also construct a barrier? I believe it does.

We have those two questions. Is it an emergency, and does the statutory authority exist?

Interestingly enough, there are some of my friends who are adding a third question. Should the President have that authority?

That is a different question, and I understand that question. Interestingly enough, just a few hours ago, the President of the United States tweeted out--as he is infamous for doing--if Congress wants to discuss should a President have this authority in the future, I am open to discussing that, but that is not pertaining to today.

I think that is an interesting question we should address as a nation--what and how broad should an Executive authority be for a President--but the debate we have today is plain and simple. Is it an emergency, and, under current law, does the President have statutory authority?

My answer to both of those questions is yes.

I hope we continue to do drug interdiction, continue to work through the issues that need to be addressed, continue to do recovery, and continue to help people who are fighting through addiction because we need a healthy nation and also a secure Nation.

For those 10 areas that are the highest drug trafficking areas in the entire country, I hope we close those doors, and I hope we protect lives in the days ahead.

I am going to choose to oppose a resolution of disapproval today that says the President doesn't have the authority to protect the American people.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The only crisis is the constitutional crisis that has been created by the President of the United States by his direct and ill-conceived abuse of power which is noted in the Constitution as a violation of the Constitution.

It is sad that the President has declared a national emergency for the purpose of misappropriating funds from previously designated and important uses to build a wall, uses that would be dealt with in a national emergency in case of war that would then call for the building of direct materials and buildings necessary for troops engaging in war.

The only response to my good friend who has come back from the border and saw people going over the border is to engage more Border Patrol agents and train them to do the job that they are designated to do. We, as Democrats, support that.

Illegal border crossings are at a near 40-year low. Sixty national security personnel, ambassadors, CIA, DNI, and others have indicated that this is wrongheaded. It is wrong.

The President's declaration clearly violates Congress' exclusive power of the purse, and if unchecked, would fundamentally alter the balance of powers, violating our Founder's vision for America. That is unconstitutional.

To quote Thomas Paine in ``Common Sense,'' it says, `` . . . in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king.'' This is the abuse, the declaration, and we should vote for the underlying resolution to restore constitutional order.

Let me also indicate that as a member of the Homeland Security Committee, the numbers of Mexicans from Mexico has decreased.

The numbers coming now are what we call OTMs, other than Mexican. They are coming and fleeing bloodshed in countries where they are being threatened with a decapitation of their head.

Mothers are being told that if you stay, we know you are pregnant, you can have the baby, and we will kill you after the birth. These are the stories that those of us who visited the border are hearing over and over again.

If there is a crisis, it is a humanitarian crisis. We, as Democrats, have no problem with funding the resources necessary for the border, including, as indicated, the increase in personnel, technology, and transportation equipment.

I have been to the border when the need for night goggles and other types of equipment were rendered important. Let us do the right thing. Vote on this resolution, and do the constitutional point of restoring order to this government.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of our Constitution and in defense of our republic and urge all members to join me in voting for H.J. Res. 46, which terminates the phony declaration of emergency issued by the President on February 15, 2019.

The reason this resolution is before us today is because of the petulant intransigence of a single person, the current President of the United States.

As a senior member of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Homeland Security, I have visited the southern border on numerous occasions in recent weeks and months and can state confidently that there is no national emergency or national security crisis that justifies the President's reckless and unconstitutional decision or compels the Congress to abdicate its responsibilities under Article I to check and balance the Executive Branch.

The President is only pursuing this tactic of declaring a national emergency after realizing that Speaker Nancy Pelosi was absolutely correct when she informed him that he did not have the support in Congress to require the taxpayers to pay for his broken promise that ``Mexico would pay for the wall, 100 percent!''

In fact, according to the latest Marist Poll, the most recent polling data available, Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of the President's national emergency declaration by a 61 percent-36 percent margin.

The President's decision is opposed by both men and women in every region of the country, by every income group and education category.

National security experts across the political spectrum are unanimous in their assessment that the situation on the southern border does not constitute a national emergency, an assessment echoed by leading former Republican senators and Members of Congress.

They understand that after failing to convince the American people or Congress to pay

for his ineffective, wasteful, and immoral multibillion dollar concrete wall, the President has now embarked on a course of conduct that is deeply corrosive of the constitutional system of checks and balances wisely established by the Framers and which has served this nation and the world so well for nearly 250 years.

Having failed miserably to achieve his objective in the constitutional legislative process, the President is trying a desperate 11th hour end-run around Congress with an unlawful emergency declaration that contravenes the will of the American people and negates the awesome power of the purse vested exclusively in the Congress of the United States.

The Congress will not tolerate this.

Despite being repeatedly admonished and in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the President continues to propagate false information regarding the state of our southern border.

Mr. Speaker, these are the facts.

Net migration from Mexico is now zero or slightly below (more people leaving than coming) because of a growing Mexican economy, an aging population and dropping fertility rates that have led to a dramatic decrease in unauthorized migration from Mexico.

Migrant apprehensions continue to be near an all-time low with only a slight increase from 2017.

The combined 521,090 apprehensions for Border Patrol and Customs agents in fiscal year 2018 were 32,288 apprehensions fewer than the 553,378 apprehensions in 2016.

To put this in perspective, on average, each of the 19,437 Border Patrol agents nationwide apprehended a total of only 19 migrants in 2018, which amounts to fewer than 2 apprehensions per month.

In the last few years, an increased proportion of apprehensions are parents seeking to protect their children from the violence and extreme poverty in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

But even with more Central Americans arriving to our southern border seeking protection, total apprehension rates are still at their lowest since the 1970s.

The absence of a massive wall on the southern border will not solve the drug smuggling problem because, as all law enforcement experts agree, the major source of drugs coming into the United States are smuggled through legal ports of entry.

The southern border region is home to about 15 million people living in border counties in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

These communities, which include cities such as San Diego, Douglas, Las Cruces, and El Paso, are among the safest in the country.

Congress has devoted more U.S. taxpayer dollars to immigration enforcement agencies (more than $21 billion now) than all other enforcement agencies combined, including the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, and Secret Service.

The bulk of this money goes to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), with a budget of $14.4 billion in fiscal year 2018 and more than 59,000 personnel.

CBP is the largest law enforcement agency in the country, and more than 85 percent of the agency's Border Patrol agents (i.e., 16,605 of 19,437) are concentrated on the southern border.

Expanded deployment of the military to the border to include active- duty troops could cost between $200 and $300 million in addition to the estimated $182 million for the earlier deployment by the President of National Guard to the border.

Mr. Speaker, having been soundly defeated legislatively by Congress, a co-equal branch of government, the President wants to finance border wall vanity project by diverting funds that the Congress has appropriated for disaster recovery and military construction.

The funds the President wants to steal were appropriated by Congress to help Americans devastated by natural disasters, like Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, or for other purposes like military construction.

Congress did not, has not, and will not, approve of any diversion of these funds to construct a border wall that the President repeatedly and derisively boasted that Mexico would pay for.

In fact, the President has admitted he ``didn't have to do this,'' but has opted to do so because ``I want to see it built faster.''

Mr. Speaker, just yesterday a bipartisan group of nearly 60 national security officials including former secretaries of state, defense secretaries, CIA directors, and ambassadors to the UN issued a statement declaring that ``there is no factual basis'' justifying the President's emergency declaration.

Instead of protecting our national security, the President's declaration makes America less safe.

The President is stealing billions from high-priority military construction projects that ensure our troops have the essential training, readiness and quality of life necessary to keep the American people safe, directly undermining America's national security.

The President's declaration clearly violates the Congress's exclusive power of the purse, and, if unchecked, would fundamentally alter the balance of powers, violating our Founders' vision for America.

Opposing the President's reckless and anti-American decision transcends partisan politics and partisanship; it is about patriotism, constitutional fidelity, and putting country first.

That is why nearly two dozen distinguished former Republican Members of Congress are urging Republicans in Congress to vote for H.J.R. 46 and uphold ``the authority of the first branch of government to resist efforts to surrender'' our constitutional powers to an overreaching president.

To quote Thomas Paine's Common Sense: ``In absolute governments, the King is law; so in free countries, the law ought to be King.''

Mr. Speaker, I urge all members to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution, and reject the President's power grab; I urge a resounding Yes vote on H.J. Res. 46.

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

Mr. President, the Senate will soon vote on the President's declaration of a national emergency. We have reached a moment of crisis, but it is not a constitutional crisis; it is a crisis on the border, a crisis of American sovereignty. When hundreds of thousands of foreigners arrive at the southern border and demand entry, that is not migration; that is an emergency and a threat to our sovereignty. The stories speak for themselves.

Last Thursday, an American citizen named Rocio Alderete was shot to death on a bridge over the Mexican border near McAllen, TX. Early reports suggest Rocio was caught in a shoot-out between cartel gunmen and the Mexican police, but whatever the case turns out to be, Rocio has perished--the latest American victim of lawlessness at our southern border.

Since last October, Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 260,000 illegal aliens at the border, which is a surge of 90 percent-- almost double from the previous year. For the most part, these aren't young men who are coming for work, as has been so often the case in the past; rather, they are Central Americans who are gaming our generous asylum laws. Instead of running away from the Border Patrol, these illegal aliens run to it so they can be captured and released into the country, with notice to appear in court, which they hardly ever do. Thanks to stupid laws and activist judges, illegal aliens are even using little kids as legal force fields because being detained with minors increases their odds of being held in America rather than to be turned around and sent home.

As a result, we see all of the horrors of the human smuggling trade at the border today. Women and girls are sexually assaulted at horrific rates. Hundreds die in the desert each year of thirst and exhaustion. Infectious diseases we had all but eradicated with vaccines are appearing again in border communities. ICE health officials have found 236 confirmed or probable cases of mumps among detainees in the past year after having reported zero cases for the previous 2 years.

This surge of illegal aliens is swamping law enforcement's ability to do its job. ``Overwhelmed'' is the word we hear so often from agents. Border Patrol Commissioner Kevin McAleenan says: ``This is clearly both a border security and humanitarian crisis.''

The consequences of this crisis stretch far beyond the border. Sometimes it stretches thousands of miles away. An American--1 of 192 every day--dies of a drug overdose. The poison in his veins flows across the Mexican border. A brave police officer and father, Corporal Ronil Singh, of California, was shot dead the day after Christmas after his killer snuck into the country illegally. We have failed to protect our border, as any sovereign nation must, and our people are dying because of it.

The President has declared a national emergency because of this crisis. Yet the administration's sensible, long overdue efforts to secure the border have been met only by howls of outrage from the Democratic Party and its media wing. Judging from their reaction, you would think the real emergency was not our lawless border but any genuine effort to secure it. The minority leader called the President's emergency declaration a ``lawless act'' that showed ``naked contempt for the rule of law.'' Other members of the self-styled resistance have compared the President to Hitler.

These are curious, overheated claims, I have to say. To be lawless, after all, one must act outside the law. Yet the President's critics don't even bother making that case, probably because they don't have much of one to make.

The President isn't purporting to invoke his inherent Executive powers under article II of our Constitution. He does not even claim to defend his constitutional prerogatives from legislative encroachment. On the contrary, he is only exercising the statutory authority that has been delegated to him by us, by this very body--the U.S. Congress. More than half of the $8.1 billion the President is using to build the wall and secure the border comes from nonemergency statutes that have been passed by Congress. The remainder comes from an explicit delegation of various powers to the President in the event of a national emergency, just like the one the President has declared, which we also delegated him the authority to do. I should add, the National Emergencies Act passed nearly unanimously, with only five ``no'' votes in the House.

I am sympathetic to arguments that the National Emergencies Act is too broad and gives the executive branch too much power. That is a reasonable debate to have. Believe me, Congress has ceded too much power to the Executive for more than a century and has expanded an administrative state that increasingly deprives our people of having a meaningful say in their government, so I invite my Democratic colleagues to reconsider the wisdom of this path.

Maybe we can also reform the EPA. Perhaps we can require up-or-down votes in Congress in order to approve big regulations so politicians around here can show some accountability for once. I am ready to have those debates. Believe me, I am ready. In the meantime, don't pretend we didn't delegate all of these powers or that it is lawless for the Executive to use the laws we have passed just because you deplore him.

If you want to see lawless Executive action, by the way, you can look, instead, to the last administration. President Obama purportedly gave millions of illegal aliens legal status and work permits, which was in clear violation of statutes that had been passed by this Congress. He also expressly defied our ban on bailout payments from the ObamaCare slush fund to big health insurance companies. It is strange how I don't recall the self-styled resistance manning the ramparts and rushing to the Ninth Circuit back then. In fact, I only recall a lot of congressional fanboys of the President's using the pen and phone to encroach on our constitutional prerogatives.

I have also heard from some Senators who admit the President is acting lawfully but who worry about the slippery slope of Executive power. I respect this

view. Our system of separated powers calls on each branch to jealously protect its own powers, but one can ski to the bottom of a slippery slope pretty fast. A Republican declares a national emergency today on the border. A Democrat--or who knows these days, maybe a socialist-- will tomorrow declare a gun violence emergency to confiscate guns or will declare a climate change emergency to shut down coal-fired powerplants.

I acknowledge it doesn't take much to imagine such abuses by a future liberal President, especially with the gang they have running today, but that is precisely what such actions would be--abuses. What the law says matters here. We have delegated to the Executive the power to enforce the Nation's immigration laws, including by an emergency declaration. We have not delegated to the Executive the power to confiscate guns, to close powerplants or any of the other common entrants in the parade of horribles on the slippery slope. That is the difference between lawful and lawless government, and that is the case here.

Still, others claim the crisis on the border isn't bad enough to call a national emergency. Some have gone so far as to deride it as a fake emergency. If killings, caravans, and cartels at the border are fake emergencies, I would really hate to see a genuine emergency.

Let's suppose we take their claim seriously. We at least ought to compare the crisis at the border to past national emergencies to see how they all stack up. Right now, there are 32 national emergencies in effect--32 national emergencies. Among them is a national emergency related to election fraud in Belarus. Another is in response to the breakdown of the rule of law in Lebanon. A third is in response to a failed coup in Burundi.

I don't deny that those are all genuine problems or that an American response may well be warranted--far from it. Yet I doubt many Americans would put them ahead of a serial violation of our sovereign border by millions of foreigners. If the Belarusians warrant an emergency declaration, then surely Americans do, too, when we face a crisis at our southern border.

The Democrats used to take border security seriously, but in elite society these days, ``border security'' are bad words, and ``wall'' is practically a four-letter word unless they are the walls that protect the rich and the powerful and the politically connected from a dangerous world. Look in the news. The Democrats' newest Presidential aspirant, Robert Francis O'Rourke--a former Congressman and failed Senate candidate--has gone so far as to suggest the tearing down of existing barriers at the southern border, which I am sure has thrilled all of the good people in El Paso who don't live in a world of private planes and security details.

Regrettably, the Democrats' hostility to border security couldn't come at a worse time for our country because there is, indeed, a crisis at the border, and we ought to be addressing it.

We could be spending this valuable legislative time tightening up our asylum laws or cracking down on employers who exploit illegal aliens instead of hiring American workers or ramping up drug enforcement. Instead, we are debating whether a crisis at our southern border can be called an emergency. Instead of solving a problem, we are trying to spin it.

So I have a simple suggestion for my colleagues: If you are genuinely alarmed by the President's invocation of the very emergency powers we delegated to him, instead of furrowing your brows and tugging your chins and gravely citing Youngstown Sheet, let's tackle this emergency declaration by making it unnecessary. Let's get to the root of the problem and secure our border once and for all. No more border crisis, no more emergency--it is as simple as that.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, significant, the very first clause of the very first section of the very first article of the Constitution consists of the words ``all

legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and the House of Representatives.''

The Founding Fathers wasted no time in getting right to the heart of the matter, which is to say that the legislative powers within the Federal Government--that is, the power to make law within that Federal system--would themselves be exercised only by the branch of that government most accountable to the people at the most regular routine intervals.

This system of government, of course, involved three branches--one that would make the law, one that would enforce the law, and one that would interpret the law. That system of government relied, necessarily, and quite appropriately, on the fact that each branch of government would operate within its domain and would jealously guard the powers reserved to it, neither exceeding the powers granted it, nor accepting a diminution of those powers.

It is with that topic in mind that I rise today, reluctantly, in support of the resolution before us. When I speak--and some of my colleagues might even say nag--about our constitutional framework, when I insist that every word, every clause, and every principle does, in fact, matter, that we take oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States--we do so, in fact, right here on these very steps in this very Chamber when we start each term of office--we are dutybound to adhere both to the letter and to the spirit of that document, and we should do everything we can to avoid straying from it.

When I say some of these things, I am sometimes accused by some of naivete. I am told the old ``Schoolhouse Rock'' version of how a bill becomes a law works in theory, sounds nice in theory, but it is somehow passe in a vast, diverse, continental nation including about 230 million people today. I am told that given the responsibilities of the United States as now a vast, global, and economic power and Congress's inability to get things done, we have no choice but to accept and even encourage a system of government in which we are relegated to the backseat, to the backseat of the very things we were supposed to be doing in the first place, which is passing law, which is setting policy within the Federal Government.

This faux sophisticated analysis gets things exactly backward. It is the advocates of Executive overreach and judicial supremacy who are naive. They believe that given our Nation's size and diversity, only centralized government can rise above partisan, ideological, regional, practical differences, and unite us behind one policy, but this function now strangling this city and strangling this body, toxifying our political discourse, is directly related to this relentless march toward centralization. We think, somehow, that by pulling power into Washington and within Washington to the less-accountable branches of the government--that is, to the other two branches that are not this branch--we are governing. No, that is not governing. It is ruling.

With centralization, we empower and enrich the political and corporate classes at the expense of the working and middle classes. Centralization is not unity. It is surrender--surrender to exactly the kind of monarchical and abusive sort of government our Founding Fathers were trying to protect us from.

Political elites often reassure us and reassure each other that these deviations from constitutional norms are somehow victimless endeavors. No one cares about the process, they insist, but the Constitution is all process. That is the whole point is process. The Constitution doesn't resolve our political differences. It lays out the processes by which we are to resolve them. Brushing that process aside does not override our disagreement. It intensifies them. It escalates them-- ratcheting up our politics into an all-consuming war of outrage and contempt.

My Democratic colleagues, some of them, at least, would have us believe this vote is about President Trump and President Trump alone. It is not. It is about much more than him. It is about much more than them. It is liberal elites' cult-like zeal for centralized power and their furious entitlement to wielding it that has led us to this very vote.

Now, I am not sure the Democratic Party cares immensely, as an institution, about Presidential overreach. I will leave that to them to decide and to exhibit. Some simply believe that abuse of constitutional power should be a one-way street.

In many instances, we have had Members of this body support previous Presidents of both political parties in engaging in acts of overreach. The real source of outrage here is not constitutionally mandated procedure but simply that we, as an institution, have voluntarily surrendered--we have relinquished our legislative power.

In this instance, this happens to be an exercise of power in an area in which many on the other side of the political aisle happen to disagree. To make clear, a border fence--a border barrier is a policy I support wholeheartedly and unequivocally. I agree with the need to secure our border. I agree with the President that there is a crisis unfolding on our border endangering men and women and children and endangering many of those who were most affected by the communities who are themselves in the direct path of these caravans. I support a border wall, and I encourage full congressional funding for it.

I think it is a tragedy and really something of an outrage that we haven't done that as a Congress. I support workplace enforcement of immigration laws. I support a biometric entry-exit system. I support the President's new ``Remain in Mexico'' policy that would keep asylum seekers south of the border while they await processing if they come from a noncontiguous country. I support the President's calling up military Reservists to support border agents in their dangerous and underappreciated work.

I support the President's invocation of 10 USC section 284(b)(7), which unequivocally authorizes him, in certain instances, relevant here and present here, to authorize funding for the construction of a fence along international boundaries as a means of combating the illegal international drug trade.

I support the President's use of up to $601 million from the Treasury Forfeiture Fund and $2.5 billion from the 284 fund I mentioned a minute ago, and I support the administration's work, on a diplomatic level, with Mexico to reduce the flow of migrants to the United States. I have supported all of these things in this administration, and I have for years--during this administration and prior to that--and I will continue to support these policies.

An emergency declaration, in accordance with the National Emergencies Act, in this instance, is different. The White House is asserting authority to spend money on projects and priorities in a manner not themselves directly authorized by Congress. Congress directly refused a request to appropriate the specific amount of funds we are dealing with.

At the end of the day, it is not the White House, it is not this President, it is not other Presidents who are at fault for this; it is, in fact, Congress. Congress was the institution that chose voluntarily to relinquish this power. Congress, as an institution, adopted and enacted legislation that was so broad as to take basically all the guardrails off the legislative process.

Congress, as an institution, in 1976, adopted the National Emergencies Act and said the President may declare an emergency with almost no standards, and then, once a President declares an emergency, there are some estimated 128 different provisions of law that can be looped in and made effective as a result of the declaration of that emergency.

At the time Congress did this, Congress left its foot in the door, saying that Congress unilaterally could veto the President's actions by passing a concurrent resolution not itself subject to Presidential veto. For reasons having to do with a subsequent Supreme Court ruling that occurred 7 years after the enactment of the National Emergencies Act in 1983, a case called INS v. Chadha--a case, coincidentally, argued by my late father. If he were here today, perhaps I would half- jokingly acknowledge that maybe he is in some ways to blame for this.

After the Supreme Court concluded in INS v. Chadha that the legislative veto was unconstitutional, Congress

went through and systematically removed, from about 450 statutes, the legislative veto provisions, replaced them with resolutions of disapproval, replaced them with a procedural mechanism whereby Congress may signal its disapproval, but that disapproval is still subject to signature or veto by the President.

This is where we have a problem because that converts, effectively, legislative power by handing it over to the Executive and then leaves the Congress without an opportunity to signal how it feels about this beyond adopting a resolution of disapproval, which is itself subject to a Presidential veto.

That is why I am concerned about this. I have concerns about this legal framework. This is not about the President. This is not about my disagreement with or disapproval of the President or his approach to border security or his desire to build a barrier along our southern border. I think all those things need to happen.

This law is wrong. It is not President Trump's fault. It is Congress's. We need to change it. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reform the National Emergencies Act. We need to get this done. This is an issue that is neither Republican nor Democratic, neither liberal nor conservative. It is simply an American issue.

I yield the floor.