Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a common sense piece of legislation that will expand the ability of the Small Business Administration (SBA) to nurture innovative and high-growth small businesses in Maryland and across the country.

Let me first say, I recently returned to the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship as the Ranking Member. I look forward to continuing the important work of helping America's 29 million small businesses--the job creating engine of the country--access the essential capital to grow, to earn their fair share of Federal contracts, and to take advantage of SBA's counseling and mentoring programs that help entrepreneurs market and manage their businesses.

The Small Business Investment Opportunity Act is straightforward. It

modifies SBA's Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program by increasing the amount of capital that SBICs with a single fund can invest in qualifying small businesses.

The SBIC program stimulates investment in America's high-growth small businesses. SBICs are privately-owned and managed investment funds that use their own capital--plus funds borrowed with an SBA guaranty--to capitalize small businesses.

Last year, SBICs made 36 investments totaling $61.3 million in 12 innovative Maryland firms. Over the past five years, the program has channeled more than $21 billion of capital to 6,400 American small businesses across a variety of industries.

The program operates at no expense to taxpayers. Instead, the cost of the program is covered by fees paid by SBICs and their portfolio companies.

Consider this: since the program launched in 1958, SBIC has:

Deployed more than $67 billion of capital;

Made more than 166,000 investments in American small businesses; and

Licensed more than 2,100 investment funds.

Some of America's most iconic brands have received investment capital from SBICs, including Apple, Tesla, Whole Foods, Staples, Intel, FedEx and Costco, among others.

Under current law, SBA can guarantee up to $150 million of an SBIC investment fund. Our legislation increases that cap to $175 million and unlocks additional capital for small businesses with high-growth potential. The cap has not been raised since 2009.

Raising this cap would simply keep up with inflation and maximize the amount of capital SBICs can direct to innovative small businesses that hire our workers, support our communities, drive innovation and help our country maintain its competitive edge.

This bill also builds upon a change that Senator Risch, Senator Shaheen and I passed in 2015 to increase the maximum amount of leverage to SBICs with more than one fund. As some of my colleagues will recall, those types of SBICs are known as ``Family of Funds.''

As with the bill in 2015, the legislation we are introducing today is also bipartisan and bicameral. I am pleased the Small Business Investment Opportunity Act has the support of our Chairman, Senator Risch, as well as Senators Shaheen and Kennedy. An identical bill passed the House last year, and the legislation is endorsed by the Small Business Investor Alliance.

Thank you, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, on Friday, I visited Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, which is located in Howard County, MD, between Washington and Baltimore. I wanted to talk to students about the tragic Valentine's Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, FL, which left 17 students and faculty members dead. This is the deadliest high school shooting in American history. I went to Wilde Lake because one of their own teachers, Laura Wallen, was shot to death in September 2017, and her former boyfriend is now on trial for her murder.

I was extremely impressed by the passion of these students. They had a great deal of interest in the subject matter; they were extremely articulate; and they asked great questions. I found it extremely encouraging for the future of Howard County, MD, and this Nation. These students are rightfully concerned about their safety and the safety of their classmates. It has been 2 weeks since a disturbed young man invaded Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The reaction seems to be like clockwork after each shooting. There is bipartisan shock, anger, and horror. Predictably, the question comes out: Will this time be different? The answer for the Republican leaders in Congress has always been ``no'' as the outrage and call to act quickly falls back to NRA talking points versus reality. This time, the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and the students in Maryland and across the country are not taking ``no'' as the final word. This time, the survivors are leading the way and are speaking out in a forceful way like we have not heard before.

Students like Ryan Deitsch, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, want to know why these students--the children--need to be the ones to speak out ``just to save innocent lives,'' he said. He wants to know why the adults cannot be the adults and do what is necessary to protect children.

I think the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have had a clear, articulate message that this carnage needs to stop. They want to feel safe in their schools again. Armed with their cell phones and their stories, they have taken up the banner of hashtag ``never again'' and are changing the face of this debate to make this country safer from gun violence.

Alex Wind, another survivor from Stoneman Douglas, laid out the larger problem of why students are mobilizing:

We're marching because it's not just schools. It's movie

theaters, it's concerts, it's nightclubs. This kind of stuff

can't just happen. You know, we are marching for our lives,

we're marching for the 17 lives we lost. And we're marching

for our children's lives and our children's children and

their children.

So what can we do?

There are several pieces of legislation that are ready to go. The Democrats and some Republicans have been willing and ready to act. Leader McConnell could move any one of these bills right now. Let's start by making it clear that weapons of war are not needed by civilians of any age. I have cosponsored S. 2095, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2017, offered by Senator Feinstein.

This legislation would, one, ban the sale, manufacture, transfer, and importation of military style assault weapons; two, ban any assault weapon that accepts a detachable ammunition magazine and has one or more military characteristics; three, ban magazines and other ammunition feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, which allow shooters to quickly fire many rounds without needing to reload.

The bill also requires a background check on any future sale, trade, or gifting of an assault weapon that is covered by the bill, and it prohibits the transfer of high-capacity ammunition magazines. It also bans bump fire stocks and other devices that allow semiautomatic weapons to fire at fully automatic rates. Congress should also pass the Background Check Expansion Act, S. 2009, which I have cosponsored and has been offered by Senator Murphy.

This bill would expand Federal background check requirements to include the sale or transfer of all firearms by private sellers, just as licensed dealers are required to conduct checks for sales under the existing Brady Law. The bill requires background checks for the sales or transfers of all firearms from one private party to another even if either party is not a federally licensed dealer. This requirement extends to all unlicensed sellers whether they do business online, at gun shows, or out of their homes.

According to a recent poll, a record 97 percent of those surveyed said that they support requiring background checks for gun buyers--97 percent. Why can't we get this done? It is not a heavy lift. Americans are with us on this. We need to recognize that saving children's lives is more important than the National Rifle Association.

Congress also should ease restrictions on gun violence research and prevention efforts by removing onerous restrictions on the Centers for Disease Control research. We can improve States' sharing of information with Federal databases that screen gun buyers.

At a townhall last week, Senator Rubio, when questioned by an audience of students and parents from Stoneman Douglas, said that ``the problems we are facing here today cannot be solved by gun laws alone.'' With that, I agree, but these gun laws will make a difference. Yes, there is no single solution, but we should be united in our willingness to do what we can to save lives.

I agree with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that we must devote more resources to mental health priorities to identify young people who may be about to cause harm to themselves or others.

Let's attack this problem from multiple directions. We cannot raise our hands in the air and give up because there is no one law that can solve the problem. Sitting on the sidelines is not an option when our children are being killed, sometimes by other children, and surrendering to the false logic that the problem is too big to address falls well short of what the American people deserve. We were sent here to our Nation's Capitol to make the tough decisions and to do the right thing.

I agree with Alex Wind that this problem we need to tackle is larger than simply school safety, but I would like to talk about that specifically for one moment.

In an effort to turn the conversation away from an assault weapons ban or closing loopholes in background checks, the President decided to latch on to this idea that we should arm teachers and educators in our schools. We do not need, as President Trump has suggested, more guns in the schools, and we do not need teachers carrying guns. We do know that teachers are hired to teach, not to be security guards.

Let's listen to our educators and say no to this proposal. The answer to keeping guns and gun violence out of our schools is not to bring more guns into the school. The students I talked to at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, MD, understood that adding more guns would not help the situation and could lead to more problems in the schools themselves. They certainly want to see their buildings more secure, but we can do that through infrastructure improvements, technology, and school resource officers.

Why are these things happening in the United States with such alarming frequency and not elsewhere around the world? Gun-related deaths unfold in tragic circumstances across this country daily, with more than 1,800 people killed by guns this year alone, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit group. Mass shootings often shine the spotlight on the United States and its position as a global outlier.

The number of firearms available to American civilians is estimated to be around 310 million, according to the 2009 National Institute of Justice report.

According to the Small Arms Survey, the exact number of civilian- owned firearms is impossible to pinpoint because of a variety of factors, including arms that go unregistered due to illegal trade and global conflict. Estimates indicate that Americans own nearly half of the 650 million civilian-owned guns in the world today, which is nearly one gun for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Our Nation is well armed. India is home to the second-largest civilian firearm stockpile, estimated at 46 million.

Americans own the most guns per person in the world, with about 4 in 10 saying they either own a gun or live in a home where there is a gun, according to the 2017 Pew Center study. Forty-eight percent of Americans said they grew up in a house with guns. According to the survey, a majority--66 percent--of U.S. gun owners own multiple firearms. The No. 2 country in the world for the largest number of guns per capita is Yemen--a country that is in the throes of a 3-year-old civil war. They trail significantly behind us. They have 54 guns per 100 in Yemen; we have 88 guns per 100 in the United States.

When it comes to gun massacres, the United States is an anomaly. There are more public mass shootings in America than in any other country in the world. The United States makes up less than 5 percent of the world's population but holds 31 percent of global mass shooters. In Australia, for example, four mass shootings occurred between 1987 and 1996. After those instances, public opinion turned against gun violence, and Parliament passed stricter gun safety laws. Australia hasn't had a mass shooting since.

Gun safety laws work. The public demands that we take action to make our communities safer.

Gun homicide rates are about 25 times higher in the United States than in other developed countries. The United States has one of the highest rates of death by firearms in the developed world, according to World Health Organization data. The calculations based on OECD data from 2010 show that Americans are 51 times more likely to be killed by gunfire than people in the UK.

Most American gun owners say that a major reason they own a gun is for personal protection, according to the Pew study. However, the majority of firearms-related deaths are attributable to self-harm. Gun- related suicides are eight times higher in the United States than in other high-income nations.

Thinking of Stoneman Douglas High School, we all wonder out loud, what drove this young man to kill indiscriminantly? There is no one single reason, but that is no excuse for Congress and lawmakers in all of our States to remain frozen and fail to act to try to stop a future shooting from happening. If anything, it should be the impetus for us to move forward on many fronts and to take many actions to support our children and support our communities so more lives are not lost in such a violent way.

We cannot allow the story of this shooting to end like all the others in recent history. We should have taken action after three students were killed and five wounded in December 1997 at a high school in West Paducah, KY. We should have taken action after two students opened fire on April 20, 1999, in Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others. We should have taken action after a gunman fatally shot 32 people in a dorm and classrooms at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA, on April 16, 2007.

Columbine, Virginia Tech--for a period, these names became a code for some of the worst killings in our history. Nearly 5 years later, it happened again. Three students were killed and two wounded in a shooting on February 27, 2012, that started in a school cafeteria in Chardon, OH, as students waited for buses to other schools. Then there was Sandy Hook. I know we all remember a 20-year-old gunman, in December of 2012, killing 20 first grade children and 6 educators inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT--elementary school students. These were first graders, for goodness' sake, young children who should clearly have moved us to action. But no. The killings continued because the Republican leadership has been unwilling to budge from the NRA-approved message.

We have had bipartisan support for some of this legislation, as we do today, but too many are so afraid of the NRA response that they lose sight of the fact that children are being killed right before our eyes.

On September 8, 2016, a 14-year-old girl died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after shooting and killing another female student at Alpine High School in West Texas.

Just 20 days later, on September 28, a 6-year-old boy was fatally shot on the playground of Townville Elementary School in South Carolina by a 14-year-old boy who had just killed his father. Another child and a teacher were struck by bullets but survived.

I know some of you are thinking: I haven't heard about these shootings. That is a problem in and of itself. School shootings have become so commonplace and so much a part of our lives that children dying in our schools may not make it into the paper. We might miss it. We cannot let this become commonplace. It cannot be the new norm.

Another incident you may not have heard of happened last April. A gunman opened fire in the special education classroom of his estranged wife at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, CA, killing her and an 8-year-old boy and wounding another child.

In September of last year, in Rockford, WA, a 15-year-old boy was killed at Freeman High School and three female students were wounded when authorities say another 15-year-old boy opened fire with a handgun.

In December of last year, two students at Aztec High School in New Mexico were killed by a gunman disguised as a student.

Barely a month ago, in January, 2 students were killed and 14 wounded by gunfire when a student opened fire before classes began at Marshall County High School in West Kentucky. A 15-year-old--a 15-year-old--is being charged for this crime.

This time, the survivors are speaking out in a forceful way like we have not

heard before. I think the students speaking out have had a clear, articulate message that this carnage needs to stop. I am not sure I know any lawmaker or American who would disagree with the idea that our students need to be safe in their schools. It means that we need to act--really act this time.

Setting aside the outrageous idea of arming teachers, it has been heartening to see the President move in the direction of legislative solutions, such as expanding background checks and banning bump stocks. The devil is always in the details, and we will see how far the President is willing to stray from the NRA and whether the Republican leadership will back the President or remain on the sidelines of protecting the American people and especially our children.

On that Valentine's Day, February 14, when I heard about the shooting in Parkland, FL, my immediate reaction was horror, pain, and outrage. How could we allow this to happen yet again? Schools should be a safe harbor for our children, not a place of killing and terror. I was in my office thinking about how tragic this is, not only for those who were killed but for all the children who were there. I am as frustrated as the people across this country. I want to pass commonsense gun safety legislation. Why shouldn't we get these military-style weapons off the streets?

It is hard to know what will motivate the congressional leadership to bring up this issue, what will jar them to action. I want action. We may not solve the problem entirely, but we need to try. We need to do something.

A new CNN poll released just this Sunday finds that 70 percent of Americans now back tougher gun laws. This is a huge jump from 52 percent after the tragic, horrific October shootings in Las Vegas. This number includes 49 percent of Republicans, which I think is encouraging. Saving lives should not be a partisan issue. Commonsense gun safety legislation should not be a partisan issue.

Public opinion polls may not be perfect, but they are generally helpful to show trends. Americans are getting it. It is time that we do. This trend toward protecting the American people, and especially our children, is moving in the right direction. The American people are letting their voices be heard on this issue.

Thoughts and prayers might console the grieving for a moment, but action speaks louder and will have a lasting impact. From my hometown of Baltimore to the many towns across America that have had their names in the headlines because of gun-related tragedies or mass shootings, people are calling upon Congress to act.

I don't care what the reasons are for a change of heart, but let's get bills on the floor. What we are proposing are logical next steps to address the deadly problem that has been festering in this country for too long. Too many young lives have been lost. Will this time be different?

Mr. President, in honor of the victims of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, I ask unanimous consent that their names be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, to all the victims of gun violence who have preceded them, let's make the answer a resounding yes.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish briefly to note that Saturday, February 17th, marked the 10th anniversary of the independence of Kosovo. I want to congratulate the people of Kosovo on reaching their aspirations for statehood 10 years ago and to support their current aspirations to be part of a democratic, integrated, and peaceful Europe. I urge the government and people of Kosovo to use this anniversary as an occasion to strengthen their commitments to democracy and human rights, to seek reconciliation with their neighbors, and to undertake and fully implement the reforms necessary to move forward in these areas.

In 1998, the situation in Kosovo was markedly different. Still a province of Serbia, with its autonomy unilaterally revoked and its ethnic Albanian majority harshly repressed, Kosovo erupted in conflict. After years of passive resistance to Serbian rule, the people of Kosovo had enough and began to clamor for their rights. Early international efforts to restore peace were unsustainable, and with U.S. leadership, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, Alliance was compelled to intervene militarily the following year, placing Kosovo under the administration of the United Nations, UN, and opening the question of its status.

The violent chaos of 1998 and 1999--marked by horrific war crimes, massive displacement of populations, and ultimately the death of an estimated 12,000 or more people--made subsequent efforts to reach agreement on Kosovo's status a challenge, and only in February 2008 could Kosovo assert independent statehood based on a plan developed by the respected Finnish politician, Martti Ahtisaari.

This last decade has seen continued challenges as Kosovo has tried to achieve greater recognition of its independence abroad and to develop its democratic political institutions and economy at home. Perhaps the most important and positive development has been the direct dialogue since 2012 between Serbian and Kosovo officials in Brussels, under European Union, EU, auspices. These talks have sought to normalize relations between Belgrade and Pristina and to achieve practical progress that would improve the lives and protect the rights of the people in and from Kosovo. Some agreements have been reached, but implementation has been difficult. This work continues.

As a Member of Congress, both House and Senate, I have been a witness to Kosovo's history. As a member of the U.S. Helsinki Commission for more than two decades and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since coming to this Chamber in 2007, I have visited Kosovo and participated in numerous hearings on developments there. I have met with its leaders, as well as those of Serbia and other neighbors, and engaged in critical debates on issues ranging from military intervention and peacekeeping operations to diplomatic recognition and bilateral support for the country's democratic and economic development.

As Kosovo moves into a second decade of statehood, I urge those countries that have not yet recognized its independence to do so now, particularly those in the European Union. Kosovo's independence is a reality, and full EU recognition will help pave the way to Kosovo's European integration as it continues to take the necessary steps to strengthen its democratic institutions, respect human rights, and adhere to the rule of law. Progress in these areas is desperately needed and something we should all want. Withholding recognition accomplishes nothing.

While I make this call urging Kosovo's recognition, I want also to urge Kosovo's political leaders not to wait for outside incentives, but to see progress as in Kosovo's own interest and to make this progress now. Nothing will strengthen support for Kosovo and its integration into Europe in the years to come more than its efforts to take responsibility now for doing the right thing.

In this regard, I encourage the Kosovo Government to make clear its commitment to democracy. The political turmoil in the country has raised questions about the strength of this commitment.

I hope to see steps in Kosovo to boost respect for human and property rights of members of minority communities, whether Serb, Roma, Turk, Bosniak, or any of the others who live in Kosovo. This has been one area where progress has been sadly lacking with regard to what we would expect.

I also urge the Kosovo Government to make progress on justice for past atrocities by supporting the work of the special court established for that purpose and respecting its decisions and judgements. Upholding the rule of law for crimes that individuals in Kosovo have committed will boost Kosovo as a nation and contribute to a

sustainable peace and prosperous future.

With its young and enthusiastic population, I personally have little to question about Kosovo's future being bright, but the job of Kosovo's leaders today is to erase all doubts at home and abroad through accelerated progress on the democratic and human rights values we all hold dear. By doing so, Kosovo will make an even stronger claim to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe--OSCE--NATO, and EU memberships it deserves in the years to come.

Let me conclude, by expressing my support for continued U.S. leadership in the Western Balkans, a leadership that ended a decade of regional conflict, helped bring Kosovo to where it is today, and can make a difference still. With Russian and other outside influences seeking to undermine the progress we have made, it is in our interest to engage more actively and offer a positive alternative to a difficult past. It is in our interest to see Kosovo and the entire region stable and secure, reconciled and integrated, and--above all--prosperous. Let this be a time where we not only celebrate the progress we have made in the past decade, but also commit to more rapid progress in the decade to come.

Congratulations, Kosovo, on your 10 years of independence. You can count on the continued support of your friends in the United States.

Mr. President, I rise today to celebrate Black History Month, when we declare that Black History is American history, and that our Nation is a better, fairer, and more perfect union thanks to the Black Americans who helped forge it.

Fifty years ago, in 1968, a crowd of 25,000 people gathered outside Bishop Charles Mason Temple in Memphis, TN. They congregated there in support of the city's 1,300 Black sanitation workers--men who were being underpaid and subjected to abusive and unsafe working conditions--all of whom had been protesting those conditions, day after day, for months. The sanitation workers had organized, unionized, and exercised their right to peaceful protest; yet the mayor of Memphis refused to heed their calls for justice and change.

So they gathered there, alongside thousands of supporters, outside a church in Memphis, waiting for someone to tell them--to show them-- their path forward.

One man spoke to the crowd, saying, ``You are reminding not only Memphis, but the nation, that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages.'' He went on, ``You are here tonight to demand that Memphis do something about the conditions our brothers face, as they work day in and day out for the well-being of the total community. You are here to demand that Memphis will see the poor.'' The speaker encouraged the sanitation workers to continue their fight and vowed to stand by them. He showed them their path forward.

The speaker who addressed the crowd that day was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His voice boomed from behind the podium to the crowd-- and to all Americans--about the intersection of racial and economic equality. Dr. King argued that fair pay and basic dignity and safety in the workplace should be extended to all people, regardless of their race or profession.

Dr. King addressed the crowd on March 18, 1968. On April 3, 1968, Dr. King addressed another crowd at Mason Temple, declaring, ``I've been to the mountain top'' and continuing, ``Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!''

Dr. King was assassinated the next day. Four days later, 42,000 people marched to honor Dr. King and support the strike, which was resolved 2 weeks after Dr. King's death when the Memphis City Council voted to recognize the sanitation workers' union. Finally, after months of turmoil and violence, the sanitation workers were promised the higher wages and more equitable treatment they deserved. On April 29,

2011, the Memphis sanitation workers were inducted into the Department of Labor's Labor Hall of Honor.

Senator Alexander has introduced a resolution--S. Res. 404--to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Memphis sanitation workers' strike, and I am honored to be an original cosponsor of the measure.

Every February, we celebrate Black History Month because stories like this one are too often lost or overlooked. Every child in America learns about the greatness of our country: the democratic principles that birthed us; our victories in battle throughout two World Wars; the American ingenuity that led to the invention of the automobile, the plane, the personal computer. But how often do our children learn about the difficult and dark periods of our history, wherein Thomas Jefferson's proclamation that ``all men are created equal'' was reserved only for those with White skin? How often do they learn about the sacrifices of those who demanded that we actually live up to the ideals on which we were founded? How often do they learn that greatness, equality, and justice has always come with a price in this country--and that price has often been paid disproportionately by men and women of color?

Black History Month is a solemn reminder of these truths. This month is a reminder of what the Black community has long understood--that, in the words of Frederick Douglass, ``if there is no struggle, there is no progress.'' And it is a reminder that we all have a responsibility, to our country and to each other, to be part of the struggle, and through it, part of the progress.

We must rise to honor that struggle. Doing so begins with celebrating the Americans who shouldered its burden, and Frederick Douglass is, in fact, a tremendous example.

Frederick Douglass was born in Maryland around 1818. He learned to read and write in Baltimore before escaping slavery. Despite unknowable hardship and systemic discrimination, he went on to become one of the most influential writers, orators, and abolitionists of his time. Though Douglass fiercely and vocally opposed slavery, he would want us to remember that he stood for the rights of all Americans regardless of race, color, religion, gender, or national origin. These views-- revolutionary for the time--earned him increasing prominence, leading to 1872, when Victoria Woodhull chose him as her Vice Presidential nominee. Frederick Douglass was the first Black American ever to hold such a title.

We also celebrate Harriet Tubman who, with sheer grit and courage, not only escaped slavery, but dedicated her life to saving countless men, women, and children from it. ``I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to: liberty or death,'' she famously said. ``If I could not have one, I would have the other.''

As one of the Underground Railroad's most effective conductors, Harriet Tubman was given the nickname ``Moses'' for how dogged and devoted she was to shepherding her people to safety. Tubman went on to become a Union spy during the Civil War and an iconic suffragist thereafter.

We celebrate scientists and inventors like Baltimore's own Benjamin Banneker, a self-taught mathematician and astronomer, and author of several groundbreaking almanacs; or Dr. Shirley Jackson, whose discoveries in the field of theoretical physics paved the way for the invention of the touch-tone telephone, solar panel cells, and fiber- optic cable; or Marie Van Brittan Brown, a nurse by profession, who invented the first home security system; or George Carruthers, a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, who invented the ultraviolet camera, allowing scientists at the National Aeronautics & Space Administration, NASA, to observe more of the universe, forever changing our perception and understanding of it.

We also celebrate the countless men and women whose names and heroism will never grace the history books, such as the Memphis sanitation workers. Throughout the American Revolution and the Civil War, from Reconstruction to today, for every civil rights leader or scientist we can name, there have been thousands we could not name.

In our eagerness to validate the importance of this month, let us not reduce Black history to stories about individuals--as important as they are--and forget the broader truth, that the Black community, as a whole, deserves to have its collective story told, not just this month, but every month. Let our history books reflect the experiences of all those who suffered discrimination in silence, who endured civil rights abuses without recognition, who sat in and stood up to oppression without accolade.

Such individuals would be the first to tell us that there is a lot of work left to do. Systemic prejudice is a specter that haunts us still today through practices like racial profiling. I have introduced a bill, S. 411--the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act--which would eliminate this harmful practice and offer resources for more police training, mandate greater accountability, and provide legal recourse for Americans who have been unduly profiled; yet this bill remains in the Judiciary Committee, with no hearing held on it so far, while too many African Americans and other people of color continue to be unjustly targeted.

The Voting Rights Act, which safeguarded every citizen's fundamental right to vote, was upended by the Supreme Court's decision in 2013's Shelby v. Holder. It is up to Congress to remedy that decision with a new, updated law, and it is up to the people of this country to hold this body accountable for passing it. For my part, I will do everything in my power to make that a greater priority.

Fifty years after the Memphis sanitation workers' strike, the Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC, has released a deeply troubling report, ``Teaching Hard History: American Slavery,'' which traces today's persistent racial tensions to the failure of our schools to teach students properly about the great stain of slavery in America. According to the SPLC, ``Schools are not adequately teaching the history of American slavery, educators are not sufficiently prepared to teach it, textbooks do not have enough material about it, and--as a result--students lack a basic knowledge of the important role it played in shaping the United States and the impact it continues to have on race relations in America.''

So, yes, we still have much work to do, even 155 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 50 years after the Memphis sanitation workers' strike; yet Dr. King believed in us. Despite all of our faults and shortcomings and all the hardship Dr. King witnessed and endured, he believed in this country. We should, too. This Black History Month, we vow not to let him--or the countless others whose names we will never know--down. We will march forward together, united, just as those sanitation workers and their supporters did 50 years ago, compelled by a shared desire to see justice ``roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,'' as the Prophet Amos put it, Amos 5:24. We will pause to reflect on the legacy of the civil rights hero who showed us all the path forward, the man who pointed all Americans in the direction of the Promised Land. It is up to us to reach it.

Mr. President, I want to share with my colleagues a concern I have about a group of people who are legally in this country and have a similar problem as the DACA registrant Dreamers who we need to pay attention to. I am strongly in support of passing legislation to protect DACA and Dreamers. I will talk a little bit about that also.

There is a group of individuals who have been in this country for a long time--similar to the Dreamers--who know no other country but the United States of America. They are legally here. They also have a date on their back as a result of the Trump administration, in some cases, not renewing what is known as temporary protected status; in other cases, it has deferred that decision making on the extension of temporary protected status.

In 1990, Congress passed legislation that authorized the creation of the TPS program. We recognized that there were times in which armed conflict or environmental disasters or other extraordinary circumstances would present itself where individuals would not be safe in their home country, and they would be permitted to legally come to the United States under this protected status. I would like to call it ``humanitarian protected status'' because these conditions have continued in many of these countries for decades.

Many of these people have been here for decades because the circumstances in their home country have not changed. Administration after administration has renewed their protected status, and they have been permitted to live here legally, to be able to work and go to school. They serve in our military. They have served our Nation very, very well.

The numbers are smaller than those of the Dreamers. The total number is approximately 437,000. The largest country by far is El Salvador, which is 195,000; Honduras, about 57,000; and Haiti, about 50,000.

I think Members of Congress are fully aware of the circumstances in Central America and recognize the fact that, for many families, it was not safe for them to stay in their countries because, if they had, their children would have either ended up in gangs or have been murdered and that the economic circumstances in these countries had not allowed for economic opportunities for their families. As a result, the United States welcomed them here in a protected status, and they have become part of our economy.

For the State of Maryland, this number is actually larger than the Dreamer category. We have 22,500 who are in the TPS status--97 percent from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti. It has been estimated that this group has contributed $1.2 billion to Maryland's GDP. They have been in our country for decades. The young people particularly know no other country than the United States of America. It would not be safe for them to return to their countries.

We have information about that, and I call it to my colleagues' attention. The process in going forward on extending the TPS status is that we first get the recommendation from our Embassy in the country itself. In this case, I had a chance to review the recommendations from the Embassy, and it is clear that our experts on the ground in the country felt that these families should be able to remain in the United States. There are many reasons for that.

One is the bilateral relationship with the country itself, in which the country has asked us not to return these individuals to the country because it cannot handle this population's returning to the country. They don't have jobs, and the infrastructure in the country will not handle that. I think we are all familiar with Haiti and how devastated it has been by storms. It literally does not have the capacity to be able to handle the return of the Haitians. It would be an incredible burden on the country of Haiti, and there are no jobs available for these individuals.

I think all are familiar with what happened with the returning of certain individuals to Central America. If we force deportation, make no mistake about it, the individuals who have been law-abiding here in the United States, who have been adding to our economy, who are part of our social fabric, and who believe that they are Americans will be returned to an environment in which they are going to be vulnerable to the intimidation of gangs, and they will be without employment. Many will have no choice but to choose to either join a gang or be subjected to the type of intimidation and violence that one's standing up to the gang brings not only to oneself but to the members of one's family. That is something that we should not be allowing.

There are also economic reasons for which there have been recommendations to continue this program. The challenge is that they now have dates on their backs because of the decision in some of these countries not to extend the TPS status by the Trump administration.

These are very similar circumstances to those of the Dreamers, but it doesn't quite have the same amount of attention around the Nation. These individuals are legally in this country. They came here legally, but they have been here for the same length of time, and they are part of our fabric, which is the same as the Dreamers. It is for that reason that the right result is to protect their legal status here in the United States and to give them a pathway to citizenship so that they can become legal citizens of the country they know as home.

S. 2144, the SECURE Act, was introduced by me, Senator Van Hollen, Senator Feinstein, and others in order to accomplish that. I hope that, during the debate that we are having here, we will find a way to incorporate protection for these 437,000 people who are legally here so that they know their futures are here and that they are protected in the workforce.

As I said, it is very similar to the Dreamer issue. We know that the Dreamer issue--the crisis, the March date that we are facing--was created by the President of the United States. The DACA Program was created by President Obama on June 15, 2012. Since that day, we have had about 800,000 people who have been registered under the DACA Program. They are now legally working, attending schools, and are able to operate motor vehicles. They are, clearly, our future teachers, our doctors, our engineers, and our entrepreneurs. They are very much a part of our economy. In Maryland we have 10,000 who have registered under the DACA Program. They have contributed $500 million to Maryland's GDP.

For so many reasons, it would just be common sense for us--I would think without too much controversy--to pass a bill that would say to, I believe it is, a total of 1.8 million: We know that you know of no other home but America. We welcome you. We are going to pass legislation that protects your status and gives you a pathway to citizenship.

We do that because America doesn't tear families apart. We don't say to people who know no other home but America that we don't want them to stay here. That is what we stand for as a nation. These are the values that make America the strong nation that it is. By the way, these individuals are contributing to the growth of our economy, and all of us benefit.

Over the last several months--over a longer period than that--I have been in the company of many of the Dreamers and many of the people holding TPS status. I have been at roundtable discussions during which we have had opportunities to listen to their stories about how they view America as their home.

One said that the best birthday present she ever received was when President Obama passed the DACA Executive order--when she knew that she had a future in America. Others have told us stories: Without the protection under the DACA Program, one never could have gotten a driver's license and, therefore, never would have had an opportunity to advance in our economy. Others have attended our colleges.

The interesting thing is that I have been in many meetings on college campuses in which, for the first time, students have recognized that their fellow student had been a Dreamer. They hadn't known that. They had just known him as one of their classmates in school. I have been in businesses when, for the first time, employees had discovered that one of their colleagues happened to be a Dreamer. They hadn't known that. They had just known him as a fellow employee.

This is widely supported. It is important for our economy and important for our values to keep the families together, and the American people support us on this. Poll after poll shows that Americans believe that those Dreamers should be protected here in the United States.

I include statements that I have received from Prince George's, Anne Arundel, Howard, and Montgomery Counties and Baltimore City school superintendents.

They wrote:

Maryland is a national leader in providing students with a

world-class education. Essential to our success is our

commitment to providing children in our schools with a safe

and welcoming environment to learn. Termination of DACA will

have direct and damaging effects on the Maryland students who

are current beneficiaries.

It is a direct threat to Maryland's economic stability and

safety, as it will strip students of their ability to work

and drive legally, pay taxes, and pursue post-secondary

opportunities. Parents who lose work authorizations will face

deportation or be moved into a dangerous underground economy,

causing financial uncertainty for their families and harmful

stress on their children--our students. In addition the DACA

decision could impact our ability to motivate our youth to

remain committed to their education and pursuing college or

careers, and will lead to worsening economic hardships of our

DACA community.

I have seen many letters of support and many testimonies from both-- those with TPS and the Dreamers--but I emphasize the one letter that I received from the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force, which is cochaired by the Montgomery County police chief, Tom Manger. What he said, I think, is very important. There are a lot of reasons we should be protecting TPS recipients and DACA recipients, but he wrote:

We are concerned that, absent action by Congress, the

Dreamer population will be driven back into the shadows and

be hesitant to report crimes or cooperate with

investigations. Such an outcome would risk undermining

community safety.

We are not safe by people going into the shadows. This is the United States of America. Why would we want people to try to hide from us? That is not the country we are. We do not create fear in the hearts of law-abiding citizens. These are law-abiding citizens. They have sisters and brothers who are U.S. citizens. They have other family members, some of whom are TPS recipients, some of whom are Dreamers, and some of whom are U.S. citizens. We don't tell families that we are going to tear them apart. That is not what America believes in. These are all individuals who have gone through security checks. These are people who have been law-abiding--complying with our laws--working, serving in our military, building this country.

I know that the first order of business is to make sure that the Dreamers are protected. I strongly support that and would vote for a bill on the floor right now, tonight, which has been introduced by some of our colleagues, that protects the Dreamers, in and of itself, with nothing else connected to it. We should do it, and it shouldn't be controversial. I also urge us to make sure that we take care of those who are in TPS status. It is a smaller group, and it doesn't have the same degree of national attention, but this is about the same values and the same economic concerns, the same families and the same issues.

I hope we can find a way in which we can include both the Dreamers and TPS recipients in protecting their status here in America and giving them

pathways to citizenship because it is the right thing for them, the right thing for their families, the right thing for our Nation, and the right thing for our economy.

I know that my colleague from Maryland is on the floor. He has been one of the great leaders on this issue. I know he has met with many from the community who are in both the Dreamer and the TPS status. I have joined him at meetings around Maryland in which we have talked to the families. Through the Presiding Officer, I personally thank my colleague for all of the work he has done in order to bring this issue to the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, I want to thank Senator Markey and concur in his comments in regard to the Dreamers. Yes, we are pleased that we have a bipartisan agreement today. I am still in the process of reading all the details before making a final judgment, but it is certainly good news that the Democrats and Republicans--

the leadership--have come together in an agreement.

I join Senator Markey and am pleased that the majority leader is going to bring before the floor of the Senate in a fair manner next week the immigration issue to protect Dreamers. I would also add that those in temporary protective status, TPS, should also be considered.

We have a process, and I hope that the spirit that we have seen on the budget agreement will continue next week as the Senate works, as it should, in a bipartisan manner to protect the Dreamers and do what is right. I also want to acknowledge that there is no such commitment from the Republican leadership in the House. I join with Leader Pelosi in urging Speaker Ryan to set up a similar process in the House so that we can get a bill to the President and signed into law to protect the Dreamers. The President created this problem by putting a date on their backs, and it is our responsibility to respond in a timely way. I am glad to see that the Senate is prepared to take action.

Prudent Layperson Standard

Mr. President, I took this time because I want to talk about one specific provision in healthcare that was passed by Congress in the nineties, but let me just preface that by saying that in this budget agreement, I am pleased to see there are bipartisan agreements on advancing healthcare in America. A bill that I have worked on since we imposed the therapy caps way back in the nineties, which made no sense at all, will finally correct that mistake permanently and allow those who are in need of the most severe therapy services--those who are stroke victims or in similar situations--to be able to get that care without a cap as to the amount of services they need.

I am also pleased to see that we are going to be dealing with telemedicine--an issue I have worked on and many Members have worked on--improving dialysis treatment. Some of the issues we have all worked on include community health centers, the 10-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program, and rural healthcare. There are a lot of good things in this bipartisan agreement to advance healthcare, and I am pleased about them.

I just want to remind my colleagues that if we are successful in getting that enacted into law, we still have to make sure it is implemented in the manner in which we intended. I give as an example the prudent layperson standard on emergency medical treatment. I was involved in that process in the 1990s. The reason this came to our attention is that insurance practices in the 1990s were such that it was not unusual for an insurance company to deny payment for emergency services. An individual would have the classic symptoms, for example, of a heart attack--the pain, the sweating--and then did what a prudent layperson would do, which is go to the nearest emergency room to get treatment. Well, after the examination was complete, if they found out the person did not have a heart attack, the person would be discharged from the hospital and go home. A few days later they would get the bill for that visit and then almost have a heart attack when the insurance company would not pay the bill. We recognized that as not being right, so we took action to change that.

In response to these dangerous and unfair requirements, Maryland enacted the prudent layperson standard in 1992. If it was prudent to go to the emergency room for care, the insurance company had to reimburse it. Later, in 1997, I led the national effort to extend the prudent layperson standard to all Medicare plans and Medicaid managed care plans as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. I worked with President Clinton, who eventually signed an Executive order in 1998 to have the standard apply to all government insurance programs.

Then I fought to have my patient's bill of rights amendment, which included the prudent layperson standard, enacted as part the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for individual and group health plans. So now it is effective for all plans in this country. There is a definition of what an emergency medical condition is and when it is prudent to do that. It is spelled out in the statute dealing with the seriousness of the symptoms, as it could deal with bodily harm, et cetera.

Despite the Federal law, private insurers are, once again, using tactics to prevent people from seeking care in an emergency room. Several newspapers, from the Los Angeles Times to the Columbus Dispatch, have reported that Anthem--one of the Nation's largest insurers--has implemented an avoidable emergency room program to reduce what it deems as unnecessary ER visits and address rising healthcare costs. This program has been rolled out in several States, including Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, and New Hampshire.

According to these news reports, patients who believe they have emergency symptoms go to the ER for emergency medical care. After several tests, the physicians and nurses determine there is no emergency medical condition. The patient returns home, relieved to be OK. A few weeks later, they receive a letter from the insurance company refusing to cover the care received in the hospital. This is wrong. We said it was wrong in the 1990s, and we took steps to change that. We now have laws that make it very clear.

The Anthem avoidable ER policy forces people who are in some sort of acute distress to determine, before they even leave their homes, if their symptoms are really serious enough to go to an emergency room. What we had back in the 1990s was preauthorization for emergency care. Can you imagine trying to make a phone call before you go to an emergency room to talk to somebody as to whether you should go there or not, wasting valuable time, or being told to go to a hospital different from the closest hospital, again, causing really serious jeopardy? That is what we had. People should not be forced to act as their own doctor and second-guess themselves when they truly believe they are having a medical emergency.

A wrong decision based upon economic considerations--the ability to pay the bill--could be deadly. We should not discourage people from seeking necessary medical treatment, and we should not allow insurance companies to return to the time when they could callously refuse to cover emergency care provided to individuals who genuinely and reasonably believe they need it.

As we will be considering shortly additional improvements in our healthcare system to eliminate the cap that we have on therapy caps, to make it clear that we want to make telemedicine more available, to help dialysis patients, to deal with our children in the Children's Health Insurance Program, to deal with rural healthcare, let us also make sure that we set up the ability to make sure that our policies, in fact, are carried out. We should not allow an insurance company such as Anthem to act as if what Congress did does not exist. I think that is our responsibility.

I look forward to working with our colleagues in a bipartisan way to improve healthcare and access for all Americans.

With that, I yield the floor.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, first, I thank Senator Whitehouse for bringing this issue to the attention of our colleagues and the American people. As Senator Whitehouse points out, we have seen from the White House, from the President, an effort to try to undermine the credibility of the independent investigation being done by the Department of Justice under Mr. Mueller. These are very serious issues, and I hope every Member of this Chamber will support the independence of that investigation and speak loudly against any interference, wherever it may come from.

Then, Senator Whitehouse has brought up the second issue; that is, Mr. Putin has been extremely active in regard to activities against U.S. interests. I appreciate Senator Whitehouse referencing a report that was released on January 10 of this year. It was as a result of a full year's operation by the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to document Mr. Putin's reckless assault against democratic institutions, universal values, and the rule of law--the asymmetric arsenal he uses to accomplish that attack against democratic institutions, which includes cyber attacks, disinformation, support for fringe political groups, weaponization of energy resources, organized crime, corruption, and, yes, military aggression. He has used every one of those tools to compromise democratic institutions in Europe and, yes, in the United States.

Mr. Putin was extremely active in the 2016 election. That has now been verified without any question. A report I authored goes through 19 European countries in which Mr. Putin has been active against democratic institutions.

I share with my colleagues that the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly was in town today. He is meeting with government officials. He knows firsthand Mr. Putin's aggression because there are Russian troops in Georgia today affecting its sovereignty, as there are Russian troops in Moldova, as there are Russian troops in Ukraine. The people of Montenegro saw the hand of Mr. Putin when he held a coup against their authority. The people of the United Kingdom saw Mr. Putin's efforts as he got involved in the Brexit referendum. The people of France and Germany saw Mr. Putin's aggression as he tried to interfere with their free elections.

Countries have stepped up. They said: Enough is enough. We have seen, with strong leadership, that you can counter the activities successfully of what Russia is trying to do. The right mixture of political will, of defense and deterrence can work, and, yes, as Senator Whitehouse pointed out, we in Congress acted. We recognized the threat of Russia. We passed the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, the CAATS Act. It was a bipartisan effort that tightened some of the sanctions under the Obama-era Executive order on Ukraine and passed new mandatory sanctions against Russia because of its activities.

There were sanctions imposed in regard to the Russian Federation's undermining cybersecurity. There were sanctions related to Russia's crude oil products. There were sanctions authorized with respect to Russian and other foreign financial institutions. There were sanctions imposed against Russia for significant corruption in the Russian Federation. There were sanctions with respect to certain transactions with foreign sanctions evaders and serious human rights abusers in the Russian Federation. There were mandatory sanctions with respect to persons who engaged in transactions with the intelligence and defense sectors of the Government of the Russian Federation.

Why? Because they were interfering in our elections.

There were sanctions with respect to investment in or in the facilitation of the privatization of state-owned assets by the Russian Federation.

Why? Because that helped finance Mr. Putin's activities.

There were sanctions with respect to the transfer of arms and related materiel to Syria.

Each one of those sanctions gave new authority to the President of the United States to impose sanctions against Russia for its activities.

I said earlier that, where countries have shown leadership, it has been effective in countering Mr. Putin's activities. With President Trump, there have been no sanctions. Not one has been brought forward under the law passed by the Congress of the United States. By 98, 99 percent, the House and Senate approved the sanctions. The Trump administration has imposed zero.

Mr. Trump has failed to acknowledge that Mr. Putin has even been engaged in our 2016 elections. He said: I talked to Mr. Putin. He seemed like he was telling me the truth when he said he wasn't involved--even though it was the unanimous view of our intelligence community and the facts had very clearly been laid out to the American people that Mr. Putin had been actively engaged in the 2016 elections.

Yes, we have seen, very recently, Russia's engagement in the Czech election. We have seen this movie before where the candidate, in his advocating for stronger ties to European institutions, is targeted by a barrage of fake news stories that spreads across online platforms, which he alleges have been directed by Russian security services

and entities tied to them--a direct assault against the Czech Republic's democratic institutions.

As Senator Whitehouse pointed out, when asked in an interview if Russia would try to influence the midterm elections of the United States, our CIA Director, Michael Pompeo, replied: ``Of course. I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that.''

So where is the Trump administration in its taking action to protect our democratic institutions?

This is not a partisan issue. There is a long tradition of Republicans and Democrats working together in Congress to counter Russian Government aggression abroad and abuse against its own citizens, our allies, and democratic institutions. The sanctions bill that passed in 2017 had near-unanimous support. It was crafted and developed by Democrats and Republicans who worked together.

The strength and durability of our political system relies on such bipartisan solutions to our national security challenges. There is a series of recommendations that were in the report I referred to earlier, those of working with our allies to develop cybersecurity issues, to working with NATO to understand what the article V response should be to cyber attacks, to finding alternative ways to stop Russia from using energy as a weapon. It starts with Presidential leadership.

We must take care to point out that there is a distinction between Mr. Putin's corrupt regime and the people of Russia, who have been some of his most frequent and long-suffering victims. Many Russian citizens, like Sergei Magnitsky, strive for a transparent, accountable government that operates under the democratic rule of law, and we hope for better relations in the future with a Russian Government that reflects these imperatives.

In the meantime, the United States must work with our allies to build defenses against Mr. Putin's asymmetric arsenal and strengthen our international norms and values to deter such behavior by Russia or any other country. It starts with leadership from the White House, and it starts with imposing the sanctions that were approved by Congress.

Madam President, I rise today to express my opposition to the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This blatant attempt to ban later abortion undermines decades of legal precedent and directly challenges the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court made clear that women in this country have a constitutional right to autonomy over their individual health and well-being. If passed, this bill would impose burdensome and medically unnecessary limitations on women, particularly those in low-income, medically underserved areas.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly 99 percent of abortions are performed before 21 weeks of pregnancy. Many of the abortions that are performed after 20 weeks are medically necessary because the mother's health is at risk or because of a fetal anomaly. This bill has no exception to protect a woman's health and no exception for cases where there is a fetal anomaly.

This bill harms women who are victims of sexual assault and minors who are the victims of incest. It requires rape victims to provide written proof that the victim obtained counseling or medical treatment from a specified list of locations, and it requires the minor to provide written proof that she reported the crime to law enforcement or a government agency.

These provisions are designed to perpetuate a culture of not believing women and trying to discredit the victims of sexual assault.

To make matters even worse, this bill punishes doctors by threatening them with 5 years of jail time for violating the ban. This bill, if passed, will take women back to the days of back-alley abortions, where doctors were in fear of providing lifesaving, medically necessary procedures to women and where women were forced to take drastic and dangerous measures in order to have the procedure performed.

Many of my Republican colleagues talk about keeping Big Government out of people's lives, but when it comes to one of the hardest and most intimate decisions a woman can make--a decision that she wishes to make between herself, her family, and her doctor--these same colleagues believe that the government, and not the woman, knows better. They believe that the government, and not the woman, should dictate what a woman should do with her body. They believe that the government should have the power to force a woman to forgo a medically necessary procedure. They believe that a woman should be stripped of that power, stripped of the choice of what is best for herself.

Empowering women is one of the most important things we can do for the future of our country. Core to women's constitutional liberties is autonomy over their own health and well-being. In order to truly support women, we need to safeguard and improve, not limit, access to comprehensive healthcare, including abortion.

For all of these reasons, I will be opposing S. 2311.

Mr. President, I would like to bring the Senate's attention to the bipartisan Preserving Teacher Loan Forgiveness for Military Spouses Act of 2018, which I am introducing with the Senior Senator from Texas today. This legislation eliminates a barrier for teachers in military families to earn Federal student loan forgiveness for their years of public service.

The Department of Education's Teacher Loan Forgiveness program incentivizes teachers to commit to students in our lowest income school districts in exchange for up to $17,500 in Federal Student loan forgiveness. Teachers qualify for the program once they have taught full-time for at least 5 consecutive years at a low income school or educational service agency. Teachers who are forced to move in the middle of the school year to follow their spouse lose eligibility for the program and must restart their 5 years of service under current law.

Last summer, a Maryland constituent brought to my attention the barriers her daughter faced when seeking Federal student loan forgiveness despite her commitment to public service. Her daughter, a teacher married to a member of the military, was in the middle of her fifth consecutive year teaching at one of Maryland's lower income schools. As any military spouse knows, relocation or reassignment orders can come at any time, upending the lives of the service member and their family. Rather than being able to complete a 5th year of teaching in a Maryland school, this family had to relocate with 3 months left in the school year. Despite this family's double commitment to service for our military and our schoolchildren, this military spouse missed the opportunity to have a portion of her Federal student loans

forgiven. No military spouse should be punished for following his or her spouse's relocation or reassignment.

The legislation that the Senior Senator from Texas and I have introduced is a common sense proposal to allow military spouses to earn the benefits that they have dutifully worked towards and continue to incentivize individuals to teach our hardest to educate children. Our legislation provides a waiver from the Department of Education's Teacher Loan Forgiveness program's 5 consecutive years of service requirement for qualified military spouses if their spouse is relocated during the school year pursuant to military orders from the Armed Forces. This waiver will allow individuals to remain eligible for the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program should they resume teaching full-time at a qualifying low-income school district within one year of their relocation. In addition, this legislation requires the Department of Education to provide a report to Congress every two years on the number of military spouses who remained eligible for Teacher Loan Forgiveness due to this legislation.

I urge my colleagues to join in this effort to help families who are wholly committed to public service by supporting the Preserving Teacher Loan Forgiveness for Military Spouses Act. No family in service of our Nation should lose out on earned benefits due to a technicality.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I would like to bring the Senate's attention to the bipartisan Preserving Teacher Loan Forgiveness for Military Spouses Act of 2018, which I am introducing with the Senior Senator from Texas today. This legislation eliminates a barrier for teachers in military families to earn Federal student loan forgiveness for their years of public service.

The Department of Education's Teacher Loan Forgiveness program incentivizes teachers to commit to students in our lowest income school districts in exchange for up to $17,500 in Federal Student loan forgiveness. Teachers qualify for the program once they have taught full-time for at least 5 consecutive years at a low income school or educational service agency. Teachers who are forced to move in the middle of the school year to follow their spouse lose eligibility for the program and must restart their 5 years of service under current law.

Last summer, a Maryland constituent brought to my attention the barriers her daughter faced when seeking Federal student loan forgiveness despite her commitment to public service. Her daughter, a teacher married to a member of the military, was in the middle of her fifth consecutive year teaching at one of Maryland's lower income schools. As any military spouse knows, relocation or reassignment orders can come at any time, upending the lives of the service member and their family. Rather than being able to complete a 5th year of teaching in a Maryland school, this family had to relocate with 3 months left in the school year. Despite this family's double commitment to service for our military and our schoolchildren, this military spouse missed the opportunity to have a portion of her Federal student loans

forgiven. No military spouse should be punished for following his or her spouse's relocation or reassignment.

The legislation that the Senior Senator from Texas and I have introduced is a common sense proposal to allow military spouses to earn the benefits that they have dutifully worked towards and continue to incentivize individuals to teach our hardest to educate children. Our legislation provides a waiver from the Department of Education's Teacher Loan Forgiveness program's 5 consecutive years of service requirement for qualified military spouses if their spouse is relocated during the school year pursuant to military orders from the Armed Forces. This waiver will allow individuals to remain eligible for the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program should they resume teaching full-time at a qualifying low-income school district within one year of their relocation. In addition, this legislation requires the Department of Education to provide a report to Congress every two years on the number of military spouses who remained eligible for Teacher Loan Forgiveness due to this legislation.

I urge my colleagues to join in this effort to help families who are wholly committed to public service by supporting the Preserving Teacher Loan Forgiveness for Military Spouses Act. No family in service of our Nation should lose out on earned benefits due to a technicality.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor to reflect on the troubling foreign policy 1 year into President Donald Trump's administration.

A recent poll out from Gallup showed a dramatic reduction in global public opinion toward the United States. Confidence in the United States by the global community has plummeted to 30 percent under President Trump. A low public opinion of our great country, among other nations, is not a good thing, and it is not something to celebrate. In fact, it makes the world less safe for America and Americans. It limits our economic opportunities, and it undermines our ability to promote our values of portraying President Reagan's vision of a city on a hill. In just 1 year, the Trump administration has betrayed America's values, abandoned our allies, and appeased our enemies.

America's alliances, for example, with the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization keep our country safe and prosperous while they also build a more secure world, but President Trump has repeatedly questioned the worthiness of both organizations and has attacked leading members of each body--almost always key American allies.

These concerns were made much worse when, early in the administration, Secretary Tillerson said that America's interests would no longer be dictated by our values. It was almost unfathomable to hear the Nation's top diplomat speak in such a narrow, myopic way. Also, the games the administration has played with the mission statements of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development have been clear attempts to depart from the values that define who we are-- support for democracy, human rights, transparency, and good governance.

President Trump has praised strongmen leaders in Russia, China, Turkey, Egypt, and the Philippines even as they imprison, torture, or kill their own citizens. If support for world leaders who lack almost all of our values is not bad enough, President Trump's attacks on some of America's closest friends have undermined the credibility of America's word and America's commitment to its values. Launching verbal broadsides against the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Korea--the latter during the ongoing standoff with North Korea--are deeply regrettable and completely counterproductive.

Speaking of verbal mistakes, you cannot conduct high stakes diplomacy through the use of Twitter. We should never normalize such conduct by a President of the United States. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson conceded last week that he, essentially, learns about the President's foreign policy statements--or even of his positions--because his staff at Foggy Bottom prints off the President's tweets for him. That should give everyone a moment for pause.

Besides the nuclear crisis with North Korea, nowhere have the President's statements been more damaging than in the tenuous relationship between Washington and Moscow. Frankly, the President's words and actions send a clear signal to Mr. Putin that he can continue to attack democratic institutions and values with impunity. Each time Mr. Putin denies to Mr. Trump that the Kremlin was involved in attempting to influence the 2016 election--a bald-faced lie--the American President races to say that he believes him. Never before in history has such a clear threat to our national security been so clearly ignored by a President of the United States.

Last week, I released a report through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that documented Mr. Putin's pattern of 20 years of attacks against democratic institutions in Europe. In order to best understand what he did here in the United States in 2016--a matter still under investigation--as well as to protect ourselves in 2018, 2020, and beyond, we need to understand the big picture and respond accordingly. We will never be fully protected or have a robust enough response with the President's repeated public appeasement of Mr. Putin.

We have seen again this week how that has been playing out in a matter that is being debated in Congress. The Russian Government continues to interfere in our political debates here in the United States. There are reports that Russian internet bots and trolls are working to support Congressman Nunes's efforts to produce and release a Republican staff report on the investigation into Russia's interference in our 2016 elections. We know that Russian bots and trolls are vigorously promoting these attacks and corroding our political institutions and norms of behavior, seeking to paralyze our government and undermine our democracy. This sort of behavior carries a possible grave risk to our democratic system and our very way of life.

I am not surprised to find that Russian services are attacking us, as a recent report that we released made it clear that it was part of their strategy, but I do hope that all of us--Democrats and Republicans--will stand up for our democratic institutions and speak out against Russia's interference in our political system.

The President refers to his foreign policy strategy as ``America first.'' ``America first'' is a risky and chaotic proposition and will, certainly, lead to America alone. The Muslim ban, hastily handed down not 1 week into his administration, was the early defining moment of President Trump's tenure--the clearest sign yet he would actively work to denigrate our values and isolate us from the rest of the world.

President Trump's rhetoric has made a multifaceted conflict with China more likely at a time when we need to work with the Chinese on stronger diplomatic ties between our nations to improve regional stability in East Asia.

The President's decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement--an accord that every nation on Earth is a member of and which the majority of the President's senior advisers recommended against--is a gross abdication of American leadership and a narrow- minded rejection of basic science and fact.

I and other Members of this body are engaged in an attempt to prevent the President from withdrawing without reason from another major international agreement--the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal. The President has jeopardized the agreement by not certifying Iran's compliance and without his producing any evidence that Iran is in violation of the agreement. He has now made a number of aggressive demands of Congress and of our European allies, once again demonstrating that he is no negotiator.

America first, supposedly, but as communities in Maryland and across the country struggle with a nationwide epidemic of opioids, heroin, and fentanyl overdoses, President Trump's budget has proposed a 27-percent reduction in America's global counternarcotics efforts, which will directly weaken our ability to work with international partners to stem the illegal flow of drugs that are entering our country.

The President sought to slash $1 billion from America's global efforts to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. Thanks to bipartisan American leadership, we have made enormous strides against this disease. We should not turn back from that progress. This kind of fear, insecurity, and even xenophobia are damaging our reputation abroad and corroding our core identity as Americans here at home.

The President has doubled down on the disastrous wall rhetoric and continues to belittle Mexico, one of our closest friends and partners in the world. Even the White House Chief of Staff's attempt to clean up the President's wall position ended embarrassingly for him.

President Trump's campaign to undermine American values resulted in slashing refugee resettlement into the United States, while asking other countries to do more. His policies damage our moral leadership, condone other countries' rejection of refugees on their borders, and strengthen the

hand of those who wish to do us harm through recruitment and radicalization. U.S. leadership on this issue is key to our counterterrorism strategy.

President Ronald Reagan admitted 140,000 refugees in just 1 year of his Presidency. By contrast, at a time of extraordinary international need--far greater than when President Reagan was in office--President Trump capped refugee resettlement at 45,000 this fiscal year. Since he announced that policy, refugee admissions in this country have fallen to a level unseen in modern history. At the current rate, the United States may grant entry to fewer than 20,000 refugees--the lowest number since the program was established in 1980. The President's stealth attack on refugee resettlement is a war on a program that has embodied America's compassion and global leadership.

Much attention has been drawn to the despicable uncertainty that President Trump has injected into the lives of hundreds of thousands of Dreamers, preparing to deport young people who are essentially American citizens to countries they have never known. But equally as troubling is the President's denial of temporary protected status, or TPS, for hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti and El Salvador. Many more from Honduras and Syria sit in the President's crosshairs. These people have lived in our country, sometimes for decades, contribute to our economy, and many have American citizen children. Sending them back to their home nations at this time--countries that are already destabilized to various degrees--will exacerbate local and regional problems.

I am proud of the legislation I have written with Senators Feinstein and Van Hollen that is supported by numerous colleagues to create a legal pathway to residency for TPS recipients who only seek a better life for themselves and their families, enriching our country and all that it stands for in the process.

The U.S. military is the finest in the world, but increasingly, President Trump wants our men and women in uniform to do what should be the responsibility of our diplomatic and development corps--our forces for peace. And it is not just a slow and steady transfer of responsibilities from Foggy Bottom to the Pentagon; President Trump has failed to fill critical national security jobs and is gutting our development and diplomatic institutions.

It infuriates me when the President or his team dares to accuse the Senate of failing to do its constitutional responsibilities regarding nominations. Of 163 Senate-confirmed positions across the State Department and USAID, the administration does not have nominees for 72 of those jobs--just under 50 percent--1 year into office of this administration.

The administration has proposed an illogical and ideological cut of over 30 percent to the State Department and USAID budgets, attempting to disembowel critical national security tools. Secretary Tillerson has maintained an unexplained hiring freeze at the Department and Agency. Diplomats are leaving the government in large numbers, and his attempt to reorganize the Department many view as a solution in search of a problem. The President has little interest in how diplomacy advances our interests, promotes our values, and makes us safer and more prosperous.

To make matters worse, the President and his family continue to conduct themselves in a manner that promotes their business interests, making our foreign policy more difficult. In his dealings with China alone, the writing is on the wall. Candidate Trump said that on day one of his Presidency, he would declare China a currency manipulator. American businesses are still waiting. Did he sacrifice the American worker in order to appease the Chinese banker who paid him rent at Trump Tower? Or perhaps it was so he could secure those long sought after business trademarks with China--38 in all.

The American people should not lose sight of the fact that the President has refused to divest himself from the Trump Organization, ignoring decades of ethical norms and precedent. The President of the United States is engaged in foreign policy while maintaining unprecedented business interests in about 20 countries. Today, the President has a financial stake in real estate projects in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and elsewhere--developments that require approval and intervention from governments, financing from banks, and cooperation from local partners. He continues to earn royalties from properties located throughout the world, from Panama to the United Arab Emirates.

Reaping a financial profit while serving as President begs the question of whether he is working in his own best interest or the Nation's best interest--exactly why the Constitution's emoluments clause exists and of which I believe he is in violation. President Trump could easily rectify this by cutting his financial ties and leaving no doubt that his first and foremost priority is serving the Nation's interests.

In closing, let me say that American foreign policy led by our values, support for our allies, and a desire to make the world a better place, keeps us safe at home and advances our country's prosperity and security. President Trump has not put the strategies in place to deal with the complicated national security crises facing our country. Instead, he has made international security challenges more difficult to solve, including the crisis with Iran, the nuclear weapons dilemma with North Korea, and the Kremlin activities sowing discord in our country and throughout the world. President Trump has been unwilling to engage in the delicate diplomacy and tough national security decisions that are required to keep this country safe and maintain our global leadership.

The role of Congress in shaping and advancing U.S. foreign policy has never been more important, and I will continue to advance legislation, conduct oversight, and speak out about these important issues in the name of the American people and the values and norms that define us and our place in this complicated world. I am proud that there are many Members on both sides of the aisle who share these concerns, and we will work together for America's national security interests.

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

Mr. President, let me tell you how pleased I am for the people in Maryland that we are now in the process of ending this government shutdown.

A government shutdown does not benefit anyone. It certainly doesn't benefit the Federal workers who live in Maryland and the Federal workers around the Nation. There is the uncertainty that a shutdown brings. Those who are exempted are asked to work without knowing when they will get a paycheck. Those who are on furlough don't know whether they will ever get a paycheck or not. It is not in the interest of our Federal workforce. It is certainly not in the interest of Federal contractors, who depend upon contracts that have been put on suspension. It is not in the interest of the public, who depends upon governmental services. It ends up costing taxpayers more money.

I am pleased to see that we are on a path to end this shutdown and to get the government back up and with a path forward. I also am pleased that we have at least accelerated the deadline for getting a budget done by 2 weeks.

Many of us have expressed major concern about continuing to operate under a continuing resolution. That makes no sense. We heard from the Department of Defense that they cannot keep our country safe on continuing resolutions. We know that agencies, when they are trying to plan their mission, cannot operate on continuing resolutions.

For the public, continuing resolutions state that we are going to operate on last year's budget. It doesn't reflect this year's priorities, and that is what we should be doing every year.

So in this case, the Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. We would think that a budget could have been done by October 1 of last year, which is when the fiscal year began. We are now approaching 4 months under the fiscal year 2018 budget, and we still don't have a budget.

One of the parts I am pleased about is that, as we move forward, we have had really positive discussions that by February 8 it is realistic to expect that we are going to be able to enact budget numbers so that the Appropriations Committee can recommend to the full Chamber, and we can pass, appropriations bills or a CRomnibus or an omnibus that will allow our agencies to have the remainder of this year's appropriations.

I certainly hope it will include fiscal year 2019--that would certainly be the best--and that it will be balanced between the needs of the Department of Defense and the nondefense agencies.

We have critical functions that require to have a full year of appropriations, which include our national defense, the Department of Defense, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, the work that is done in the National Institutes of Health, food safety and the Food and Drug Administration, and the ability of the Social Security Administration to deliver checks to our seniors and to take care of our healthcare needs. All

that requires that we have the predictability of a budget.

I wasn't pleased we had a shutdown, but I am pleased that during this debate, we had great discussions among Democrats and Republicans that we are committed to bringing out a budget by February 8 so that we can give that type of predictability to the people of this country. That was one of the principal frustrations, that many of us didn't want to go for another continuing resolution without knowing how we were going to deal with the budget.

There are some special needs that we have paid particular attention to that we really also need to get done by no later than February 8.

One of those is the opioid funding. It is in our national interest to recognize that we have a national crisis. Every community in the country is suffering from the opioid crisis, and we need to make sure we have the wherewithal for the Federal Government to be a strong partner in dealing with this crisis.

Many of my colleagues have talked about disaster relief. We certainly need to help the communities of Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and deal with the wildfires in the West. We know we have to get that done now. We can't wait another month. Let's make sure that by no later than February 8, we have also dealt with those issues.

In the legislation we are considering now, I am pleased that we will deal with the Children's Health Insurance Program. I wish it were permanent. Rather than putting another deadline on the program, we should try to make it permanent. It has been a bipartisan success in all of our States, and the Children's Health Insurance Program needs further attention for permanency.

However, the legislation we are in the process of passing does not deal with community health centers. We know that most of our children and their parents who are using the CHIP program are going to be using health centers. We need to extend the program for our health centers.

There are a lot of extenders out there on which we need to act. Just to mention one, the one that I have been interested in and have authored legislation on deals with the therapy cap. A therapy cap means that those who have the most serious need for therapy services--those suffering from strokes and those types of injuries--are not able to get the full services or are at least threatened to not get the services because of a therapy cap. We have extended it ever since we put it into law. The cap should never have been put into law. We also need to pay attention to it in this budget debate. That also needs to be dealt with by February 8.

My colleagues brought up the serious pension issues that affect the workers of this country. That needs to be addressed.

There is reason to say that I am pleased that the government is back up--or will be back up shortly--but we really need to negotiate and not operate under continuing resolutions.

I think that because of the amount of spotlight that has been put on these issues, we have a much better chance to get these budget issues resolved through an appropriations or a CRomnibus or an omnibus rather than a continuing resolution.

Then there is the issue of the Dreamers that I have talked about numerous times on the floor of the Senate. The Dreamer issue is urgent. It is urgent. Many Dreamers' lives have already been affected, and their lives have been changed as a result of President Trump's announcement last September that he was putting a 6-month time limit on when the Dreamers would be subject to deportation. That deadline occurs in early March.

In the meantime, those who are up for renewal status--there has been uncertainty as to whether they will be able to continue to reside here in America, whether they will be able to continue to have a driver's license or to work. They feel like they have--and they do have--a sign on their backs saying that they expire on a particular date. That anxiety needs to end. It should never have been started under President Trump's edict in September, but we need to respond to that in an urgent way.

I was very pleased that we have a commitment from the majority leader that by no later than February 8, if we have not passed the bipartisan DACA protection, Dreamer protection bill, we will have that bill on the floor of the Senate in a manner in which the Senate can speak on the issue.

I am very confident that because of the compromise that has been negotiated with Senator Graham and Senator Durbin, we will be able to pass that bill that will protect the Dreamers. What it does is it allows them to maintain their Dreamer status, and it puts them on a pathway so they can have permanent citizenship here in the United States, and they will know their future is here in America. After all, it is the only country most of them know. That is certainly a very encouraging sign.

I was also very pleased to hear in the negotiations that took place that this legislation would also provide the protection for those who are here in temporary protected status. In some of the cases, President Trump has extended dates and said: This is the last extension. That could expire within the next 18 months. In some cases, he has deferred making that decision for some countries.

What we know about those in temporary protected status is that they are very similar to the Dreamers. Many know no country but the United States as their home, and it is important that we protect their status here in the United States and provide them a pathway for permanency and citizenship here in the United States. They are part of America, and they are part of our economy.

In the meantime, I would hope that there would be consensus here and support from the White House that the enforcement procedures that are being used against the immigrant community be mindful of the efforts being made here to provide them a permanent status and that the priorities on enforcement that we have heard mentioned many times-- which, quite frankly, are very confusing to the immigrant community-- that those priorities would not be aimed at those who are going to be protected under the legislation we will be considering in the next few weeks.

We all are pleased that we are now able to move forward to keep the government open, that we have a commitment to deal with the budget of our country by February 8 and the Dreamer issue by that date. We have made real progress.

As Senator Durbin observed--and I must tell you, I think each of us did also--during this very difficult time, the conversations we have had among our colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been very encouraging. I think the Members of this body want to return to the great traditions of the Senate where we listen to each other, where we work together, where we compromise, and where we are able to come to successful completion of our work. Virtually no work has been done, but too much is on the table right now that needs to get finished. Let's take advantage of these next few weeks to show the American people that indeed we will work together in the best interest of our country, putting partisan politics aside, dealing with our budget issues, dealing with our immigration issues, dealing with our healthcare issues, and dealing with our pension issues.

We can do the people's work. Let's get that done, and let's start right now getting that work completed.

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

Mr. President, I take this time to propound a unanimous consent request concerning our Federal workforce. The reason for doing this is we have gone through shutdowns before. It has been our view that our Federal workforce should receive their pay. That has been a bipartisan effort after each of the shutdowns.

I can tell my colleagues our Federal workforce is concerned. They are concerned as to those who are on furlough, whether they will receive their paychecks when the government opens up again. I was pleased to see a comment come out of the White House, where the White House said they support the pay for our Federal workforce. I think it is important we give them that assurance.

I understand there is disagreement as to what has happened to date and how we are going to reopen government, but let's not make our Federal workforce have anxiety where they should not have it. Our Federal workforce has suffered long enough under furloughs and CRs and pay raises that have been less than cost of living and shutdowns, et cetera.

So I would hope, on a bipartisan basis, that we could do what we have done every shutdown; that is, to tell our Federal workforce that when we resolve these issues, we will make sure they are paid if they are furloughed today.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 290, S. 2274; I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, if I might, what Democrats and, I hope, Republicans have been trying to do is to get a budget for this country. That is what we have been saying. Let's stay here and negotiate the budget. Let's pass a very short-term CR. Let's get these budget numbers done so that not only on defense but on nondefense we can provide the support they need.

I came to the floor to make sure our Federal workforce knows we are behind them and to make sure they understand that whether they are furloughed or not, they are going to be paid for their services. That is what we have always done together.

I take this time because I want to get a budget for the entire country. We are not going to be able to divide the issue and say we are going to take care of some but not all. That was not the purpose of my unanimous consent request.

Therefore, for those reasons, I object.