Floor Statements

Mr. President, it is no great secret that the American people do not have a great deal of confidence in their government. It is no secret that the American people think the Congress is way out of touch with their needs and aspirations. In fact, just confirming that point, a recent poll appeared in the Washington Post and ABC News, and it found that 58 percent of the American people believe that President Trump is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today; 62 percent of the American people believe that the Republican Party is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the United States; and 67 percent of the American people believe that the Democratic Party is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today. Those are numbers that should cause a great deal of concern to Members of the Senate and the House, to Democrats and Republicans, to everybody.

I think one of the reasons is that there is a world outside of Capitol Hill where people are in pain; where people are working longer hours for lower wages; where people are scared to death about facing retirement because they have, in many cases, no money in the bank; where people today are paying 40 percent, 50 percent of limited incomes for affordable housing; where single moms can't afford childcare for their kids; where young people can't afford to go to college; where other people are leaving college deeply in debt. And all of that is taking place within the context of almost all new wealth and income going to the top 1 percent.

We have the absurd situation today where the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and 52 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent. The middle class is shrinking. There are 43 million Americans living in poverty, and the very wealthy are getting wealthier.

In the midst of all that, my Republican colleagues and President Trump are desperately trying to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the top 1 percent and cut back on programs that working families desperately need, whether it is Pell grants to make it easier for kids to go to college, whether it is afterschool programs, whether it is the Meals on Wheels program, whether it is affordable housing, or whatnot--tax breaks for billionaires, cutbacks on programs that people desperately need.

The American people will not regain confidence in the U.S. Congress unless we keep promises that were made to them. Today I want to talk about promises that were made to coal miners. For decades, coal miners contributed to their pension funds with the promise that when they retired, they would receive a pension and retiree health benefits that would last for a lifetime. Those were the promises to the people who went underneath the ground, who worked incredibly difficult jobs, who died of black lung disease or a myriad of other diseases or injuries. Promises were made to those workers, and those promises were broken.

If Congress does not act by tomorrow, the retiree health benefits of more than 22,000 coal miners will be eliminated. We cannot allow that to happen. It is not only unfair to the retired coal miners and their families, it once again will tell the American people that they cannot trust their government. Promises were made, but they were not carried out.

My understanding is that an agreement to protect these retiree health benefits may be included in the continuing resolution to keep the government from shutting down. As I have walked the hallways here in the Senate, I have met with members, retirees of the United Mine Workers, who have been back here week after week after week, and I applaud them for their persistence.

Let us hope that, in fact, the continuing resolution does contain an agreement to protect those retiree health benefits. It is absolutely imperative that the agreement contain those benefits and that those promises be kept.

Even if we do put that provision in the CR, it still does not address another problem faced by retirees in the coal industry and retirees all over the country, and that is the fact that we are doing nothing to protect the pension benefits of coal miners and tens and thousands of other workers. This is an issue that is of major crisis proportions all across this country, and it is an issue that must be addressed. That is why I am a proud cosponsor of the Miners Protection Act. That is also why I will be introducing legislation on May 9 to protect the pensions of not only 90,000 coal miners throughout this country, but the retirement benefits of 10 million workers in multiemployer pension plans--10 million workers.

Over 40 years ago, the Federal Government made a solemn commitment to the workers of this country. If a retiree is promised a certain pension benefit after a lifetime of hard work, a company could not renege on that promise. Making that commitment 40 years ago was exactly the right thing to do. When someone works for their entire life, when they give up pay raises, when they work overtime, when they work weekends in order to make sure that he or she has a secure retirement, it is absolutely unacceptable to pull the plug from that worker's benefit.

Guarantees were made, and those guarantees must be kept. This is not the negotiating of wage increases. This is not the negotiating of overtime. This is a promise made to workers and paid for by workers, which simply cannot be nullified if people are to have any faith in our political system.

But more than 2 years ago behind closed doors, a provision was slipped into a must-pass spending bill that now makes it legal to cut the pension benefits of about 10 million workers and retirees in multiemployer pension plans. As a result, retirees all over this country are waking up to the unacceptable reality that the promises made to them could be broken and that the pension benefits they are receiving today may soon be cut by 30, 40 or even 65 percent. What this means is that retirees who are currently receiving a pension benefit of $18,000 a year are in danger of seeing their benefits cut by $3,843, a 21-percent cut. Retirees who are currently receiving a pension benefit of $36,000 a year could see their pension benefits cut by up to $21,000, a 60-percent cut.

In other words, tens of thousands of retirees all over this country who today are in the middle class, who worked hard their entire lives, who gave up on wage increases, who worked overtime in order to protect those pensions may be seeing significant reductions in what they anticipated. We are talking about retirees who will no longer be able to pay their mortgages. We are talking about retirees who will not be able to pay their utility bills. We are talking about families who may have to go on food stamps to feed their families after working their entire lives. That is unconscionable. We cannot allow that to happen.

In my view, we have to send a very loud and very clear message to the Republican leadership in Congress and to the President of the United States, and that is when a promise is made to the working people of this country with respect to their pensions and retiree health benefits, that promise must be kept.

Today, about 150 multiemployer pension plans are in trouble financially, but let's be clear. The retirees are not

the reason these pension plans are struggling financially. The reason many of these pension plans are in trouble is because of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street that drove this country into the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Let us never forget, when the largest financial institutions were on the verge of collapse 7 years ago, it was the taxpayers of this country who bailed them out. I didn't vote for it, but a majority of the Members of Congress did.

Congress gave Wall Street some $700 billion in financial assistance. The Federal Reserve provided $16 trillion in virtually zero-interest loans to every major financial institution in this country and to foreign banks throughout the world because they were, as we will all recall, too big to fail. If Congress can bail out Wall Street, if Congress can bail out foreign banks, we have to protect the pension benefits of American workers.

The legislation that I will be reintroducing on May 9 would prevent the retirement benefits of about 10 million workers and retirees from being cut by repealing the anti-pension rider that was included in an appropriations bill 2 years ago. It establishes an emergency fund within the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to make sure that multiemployer pension plans can continue to provide every pension benefit owed to every eligible American for decades to come.

It is fully paid for by closing two tax loopholes that allow the wealthiest Americans in this country to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Closing these loopholes will allow us to protect the earned pension benefits of every worker and retiree in multiemployer pension plans in this country.

At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when half of all older workers have no retirement savings at all, when 20 percent of seniors are living on less than $13,000 a year, we have to do everything we can to protect and expand the fine pension benefit plans in America.

I look forward to the support of my colleagues for this important legislation.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I would like to congratulate and honor a Vermont resident for his outstanding commitment to ensuring transparency between the Federal Government and the American public. Mark Schlefer of Putney, VT, played an integral role in the creation of the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, that came into effect in 1967. Since its incorporation, FOIA has given the American people the right to request to access records from any Federal agency and has required agencies to post certain categories of information and frequently requested records online.

Mr. Schlefer was inspired to join the legal group that drafted FOIA after working with a shipping client, Pacific Far East Line, which was denied tariff documentation to stop at the Mariana Islands by the Federal Maritime Commission. Mr. Schlefer was upset to find that the Federal Maritime Commission was not required to provide an explanation of the justification behind the rejection.

Along with two other lawyers who came across similar situations with government agencies, Mr. Schlefer helped to draft the legislation for FOIA. After years of working on the bill and convincing both Members of the House and the Senate to support the legislation, it was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 4, 1966.

FOIA helped pave the way for greater government transparency. Increased transparency restores faith in governance by holding government officials accountable to the American people. A truly transparent government roots out systemic waste, fraud, and abuse. It is clear that we need to maintain the transparency and accountability of government to the people it is meant to represent. I strongly believe that, as a democracy, we must strive to make our government as transparent as possible and that citizens should be able to obtain information from the government in a reasonable fashion.

Without FOIA, much of the U.S. Government would still be closed off to the American people. This legislation has been an inspiration to other governments and has served as a model throughout the world for opening government information to the public. Since FOIA was enacted nearly 50 years ago, similar Freedom of Information laws have been passed in all 50 States and 93 other nations.

Mark Shlefer has demonstrated an extraordinary level of commitment to ensuring the American people had access to more information throughout the Federal Government. Since its initial enactment, all three branches of the Federal Government have recognized the FOIA as a vital part of our democracy. I heartily applaud Mr. Schlefer for leading the way to a more transparent government. I have no doubt that his outstanding life work has had a significant and positive impact on people and their governments throughout the world.

Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of the United States. After meeting with Judge Gorsuch and having a long and pleasant conversation, after hearing his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, and after carefully reviewing his record, I have concluded that I cannot support a man with his views for a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court is the most important judicial body in this country. The decisions that it reaches, even on a 5-to-4 vote, have a profound impact on all Americans, on our environment, and on our way of life. As we decide this week as to how we are going to cast our votes regarding Judge Gorsuch, it is important to understand how that vote for Judge Gorsuch--for or against him--will impact the lives of the people of our country.

Let me give you just a few examples as to what is at stake. Seven years ago, in a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in a case called Citizens United, and in that case, by a 5-to-4 decision, the Court said that billionaires and corporations could spend as much money as they wanted on the political process. This decision, as all Americans know, opened the floodgates of corporate money, of money from the billionaire class, such that the wealthiest people in our country today can now elect candidates who represent their interests and not the interests of ordinary Americans.

That decision, Citizens United, is undermining American democracy, and in my view, it is moving us toward an oligarchic form of society in which a handful of the wealthiest people in this country--the Koch brothers and others--now have the power not only to control our economy but our political life as well. In my view, Citizens United must be overturned, and we must move back to a nation where our political system is based on one person, one vote, not on the ability of billionaires to buy elections.

Based on my conversation with Judge Gorsuch and a review of his record, do I believe that he will vote to overturn Citizens United? Absolutely not. Further, I suspect that he will vote to undermine our democracy even further by supporting the elimination of all restrictions on campaign finance, something which the Republican leadership in this body wants.

What the Republican leadership is striving toward is eliminating all campaign finance restrictions, such that billionaires can say to somebody: I am going to give you $500 million to run for the U.S. Senate from California, and you work for me--no independent expenditures. I will select your campaign manager, your speech writer, your media adviser, your pollster. You are my employee.

That is what the Republican leadership here wants. They want to undermine all campaign finance laws, and I believe that Judge Gorsuch will move this country in that way, a more and more undemocratic way.

Further, when we talk about the political process, it is important to point out that in 2013, again by a 5-to-4 vote, the Supreme Court gutted the 1965 historic Voting Rights Act, a law which was passed to combat racial discrimination in voting in a number of States. What the Court said, finally, is that in the United States, you have the right to vote no matter what the color of your skin is, a historic step forward in making this country the kind of country that it must become.

Well, as a result of that 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision in 2013 gutting the Voting Rights Act, literally days after, we had Republican Governors and Republican legislatures all over this country, under the guise of fighting voter fraud, passing laws--everybody knows this-- intentionally designed to make it harder for people of color, for poor people, for young people, for older people to vote in elections.

In America in the year 2017, it is not too much to ask that all of our people who are eligible to vote be able to vote without harassment, without roadblocks, without barriers being placed in front of them.

I know it is a radical idea, but it is called democracy. It is called democracy. It says that if you are eligible to vote, we want you to vote. We want you to participate. It says that in America, where we have one of the lowest voter turnout rates of any major country on Earth, we want more people to be participating in the political process, not fewer people. There is nothing I have seen in Judge Gorsuch's record or in his recent statements to suggest to me that he is prepared to overturn this disastrous decision on the Voting Rights Act.

In 1973, we all know, the Supreme Court decided Rowe v. Wade and declared that women have a constitutional right to control their own bodies. That decision has been subsequently affirmed by multiple cases as recently as last June.

In his confirmation hearings, Judge Gorsuch refused to state if he believed Roe v. Wade was good law and should be upheld. Based on his statements and general philosophy, I believe there is a strong likelihood that Judge Gorsuch would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and deny the women of this country the constitutional right to control their own bodies. This would be an outrage. I do not want to be a party to allowing that to happen.

In addition, under Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court has time and again voted in support of corporate interests and against the needs of the working people of our country. After reviewing Judge Gorsuch's record, I believe he will continue that trend.

In a case called TransAm Trucking, Judge Gorsuch argued that a trucker was properly fired by his employer for abandoning his cargo at the side of the road after his truck broke down and he nearly froze to death waiting for help. Judge Gorsuch literally believed that this man should have had to choose between his life and his job, and by choosing his life--not freezing to death--he deserved to lose his job.

In another case, Judge Gorsuch ruled that a university was correct to fire a professor battling cancer rather than grant her request to extend her sick leave. I find these decisions troubling.

At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when so many working people throughout this country feel powerless at the hands of the wealthy and the powerful and their employers, we need a Supreme Court Justice who will protect workers' rights and not just worry about corporate profits. I fear very much that Judge Gorsuch is not that person.

I listened carefully to what my friend, Senator Cornyn of Texas, had to say about this entire process. I have to say that in his remarks there was a whole lot of obfuscation because there is a simple reality that we are going to have to deal with in the Senate this week. Everybody knows, and Senator Cornyn made the point, that under Harry Reid, the former Democratic leader, the rules, in fact, were changed. They were changed because of an unprecedented level of Republican obstructionism, making it impossible for President Obama to get almost any of his nominees appointed.

Let's not forget that in the midst of that controversial decision-- and it was a controversial decision--the Democratic leader had the power also to say that we will waive the 60-vote rule regarding Supreme Court nominees. Democrats had the power, and they chose not to exercise that power in ending that rule--although, of course, they could have done that. I think the reason was that the Democratic leadership appropriately and correctly believed that on an issue of such magnitude, the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice, it is important that there be bipartisan support. But right now, it appears that the Republican leadership is going to do what the Democratic leadership did not do; that is, waive that rule and get their judge appointed with 51 votes.

So I would suggest to the Republican leader that instead of trying to push this nominee through with 50-some-odd votes, it might make more sense that, rather than changing the rule, change the nominee, and bring forth someone who, in fact, can get 60 votes.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Will my friend from Texas yield for a question?

Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute to a dear friend and tireless champion of justice for working people, Kimberly Lawson. Kim's dedication to workers and their families spanned more than 30 years.

A proud daughter of northwest Indiana--Gary--and the industrial working class, Kim grew up witnessing firsthand the destruction of the industrial Midwest as corporate greed destroyed the steel industry and manufacturing jobs and decimated good-paying union jobs that built the middle class. Daughter of a union factory worker, Kim attended Purdue University, where she met the love of her life, Will Kohr.

Upon graduation, Kim began her long career in the labor movement, moving to California in 1986 to work as a journalist and an organizer with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union, UFW.

Kim and Will moved to Upper Jay, NY, where their daughter Emma was born and raised. Six, often seven days a week, Kim, an International Representative for the fiercely independent and democratic United Radio, Electrical and Machine Workers of America, UE, would drive hours in every direction from her family's cabin in Upper Jay, NY, to help workers, often against great odds, form their own unions and bargain contracts.

For two decades, Kim has done the hardest and some of the most important work anyone can do. Because of her, thousands of people have gained the courage to stand up and speak for themselves and for what is right. Because of her, many, many thousands of people, in Vermont and across the country, live measurably better lives.

Kim Lawson led the effort to successfully organize workers at workplaces in Vermont, including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Counseling Services of Addison County, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, NHVAC, Berlin Health and Rehabilitation Center, Hunger Mountain Co-op, City Market Co-op, Northeast Kingdom Community Action, and the University of Vermont; and in New Hampshire, Grafton County New Hampshire Nursing Home and Public Employees, and the National Visa Center; and in New York, Adirondack Community Action Program. At a time when the wages and living standards of most people were under attack, Kim helped people organize collectively for a better life.

Kim was also a founder of the Vermont Workers Center and for years staffed the Workers Rights Hotline which, free of charge, has helped many thousands of workers learn and protect their rights under the law. She has trained, mentored, and led countless young organizers and workers who, inspired by her quiet, steadfast and relentless example, carry on her pursuit of justice.

In whatever task she set for herself, Kim worked with her whole heart and a deep sense of solidarity for her fellow humanity. I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Kimberly Lawson for her tireless work on behalf of our communities and citizens.

Mr. President, I had very serious concerns about the nomination of Attorney General Scott Pruitt for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and opposed his nomination. His record on the environment is abysmal. My office received a great number of comments from people in the State of Vermont, which takes environmental protection very seriously, as well as from all over the country. They fear that Mr. Pruitt is bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry and the protection of our environment is in serious jeopardy. Make no mistake, the nomination of Scott Pruitt was a nomination designed to protect the fossil fuel industry and not the environment.

In many ways, Scott Pruitt is the worst of the worst of all of Trump's nominees. Donald Trump was going to drain the swamp. He promised to ``break the cycle of corruption'' and ``give new voices a chance to go into government service.'' Well, guess who is running the swamp now: the same corporate cronies Trump promised to drain out of Washington.

Scott Pruitt wants to be the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, but he is no friend of the environment. He boasts on his website that he is a ``leading advocate'' against the EPA. He said, ``The agency's actions are at best incompetent, and at worst reprehensible.'' He testified to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology in May 2016 that ``the EPA was never intended to be our Nation's frontline environmental regulator.''

What is particularly troubling is his record as Oklahoma's attorney general--as Oklahoma's chief enforcer of clean air and water protections for his constituents--he sued the EPA 14 times and still has 8 active cases against the EPA. In all but one of these 14 cases Pruitt brought against the EPA, he was on the side of corporate interests. And in 13 of the 14, these companies or trade associations were also financial contributors to Mr. Pruitt's political causes.

Shockingly, Scott Pruitt disbanded the Environmental Protection Unit of the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office. He claims that he continued environmental protection, but the State budget shows that funding for ``environmental law'' in the attorney general's office fell from $486,000 in 2011 to 0 in 2014. In the State's 2016 budget, there was a line item for ``environmental law''--with $0. In fact, of the more than 700 press releases he issued as Oklahoma's top law enforcement official, not one touts an environmental enforcement case in Oklahoma. It seems clear that he abandoned all meaningful environmental protection. This is concerning because reports show that the Trump administration is considering eliminating the EPA's Office of Enforcement, which would mean that the Agency would no longer be able to independently enforce our Nation's antipollution laws.

At a time when we have to strengthen environmental protection, Mr. Pruitt will be working overtime to carry out President Trump's goal to destroy the EPA. Does this sound like someone who should be running the EPA? Not to me. More than 230 different environmental, health, and public interest groups agree that Pruitt is unqualified--so do former EPA employees. More than 770 of them from across the country all signed on to a letter that asked us to reject Pruitt as the next EPA Administrator. When hundreds of environmental groups and former EPA employees tell us that this guy is not qualified, maybe we should listen.

The scariest thing about Scott Pruitt being the Administrator of the EPA is that our EPA should be working nonstop to address the most pressing environmental issue of our time--the global crisis of climate change. In 2009, the EPA Administrator found that the carbon pollution causing climate change threatens the public health and welfare of current and future generations; yet President Trump has called climate change a ``hoax.'' In November 2012, he tweeted: ``The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.''

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Mr. Pruitt takes the same page from President Trump. Pruitt said in March 2016, ``Reasonable minds can disagree about the science behind global warming, and disagree they do.'' He also said ``The debate about climate change is just that, a debate. There are scientists that agree, there are scientists that don't agree, to the extent of man's contribution and whether it is even harmful at this point,'' he added ``We've had ebb and flow, we've had obviously climate conditions change throughout our history and that is scientific fact. It gets cooler. It gets hotter. And we do not know the trajectory is on an unsustainable course. Nor do we know, the extent by which the burning of fossil fuels, and man's contribution to that, is making it far worse than it is.''

When I questioned Mr. Pruitt in his confirmation hearing on January 18, he said: ``I believe . . . the degree of human activity's impact on the climate is subject to more debate on whether the climate is changing or whether human activity contributes to it.'' He even told me that he thinks that his opinion on climate change is

immaterial to his role as EPA Administrator. This is ludicrous. It is not immaterial--it is in fact essential--that we have an EPA Administrator who agrees with the scientific data and is willing to lead the fight against climate change. Yet, in his answers, he stated, ``there is a diverse range of views regarding the key drivers of our changing climate among scientists. I believe that these differences should be the subject of robust and open debate free from intimidation. If confirmed, I will continue to encourage an honest debate on our changing climate, the role of human activity, our ability to measure the degree and extent of human activity, and what to do about it.''

Almost all--97 percent--of scientists have concluded that climate change is real. It is caused by human activity. And it is already causing devastating problems in our country and around the world. If we do not move aggressively to transition our energy system away from fossil fuels toward sustainable energy like solar, wind, and geothermal, the problem will become much worse.

Just this month, a report in the peer-reviewed journal The Anthropocene Review, researchers found that humans are causing the climate to change 170 times faster than natural forces. This is just another reason why it is unacceptable for Mr. Pruitt to say that he ``believe[s] the ability to measure with precision, the degree of human activity's impact on the climate is subject to more debate on whether the climate is changing or whether human activity contributes to it.''

For 200 years, we have been burning increasing amounts of fossil fuels to heat our buildings, generate electricity, and power our vehicles. When we burn fossil fuels, we release significant amounts of carbon pollution into the atmosphere. In fact, today, humans release more than 35 billion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere every year. According to NASA, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has never exceeded 300 parts per million in the past 650,000 years. In 2013, CO2 levels reached 400 parts per million for the first time.

So it should not come as a surprise to hear that the planet is warming at an alarming rate: 2016 was the hottest year on record, and 16 of the 17 hottest years have occurred since 2000. Nor should it come as a surprise that we are already seeing devastating effects of climate change all across the United States and around the globe: more intense wildfires, heatwaves, drought, extreme storms, flooding, rising sea levels, and more. Americans are worried. A study released last month shows that more than 6 in 10 Americans say that they worried about global warming.

But climate change is not the only area that makes Americans worried about Pruitt being the EPA Administrator. They are worried about Pruitt's inaction in the face of a growing number of earthquakes in Oklahoma. In the past few years, Oklahoma has been plagued by thousands of earthquakes, which the U.S. Geological Survey said are tied to fracking wastewater injection. Oklahoma's current earthquake rate is now 600 times higher than its prefracking rate. Oklahoma now has more earthquakes on a regular basis than California.

In 2011 in Prague, OK, The Oklahoman newspaper reported a 5.6 earthquake, stating that scientists ``believe the earthquake was caused by injection wells in the area.'' To put that in perspective, an earthquake in the magnitude 5 range, like the one reported, releases as much energy as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. But, before 2009, there were, on average, two earthquakes a year in Oklahoma that were magnitude 3 or greater. By 2013, there were 109 magnitude 3 or greater earthquakes; by 2014, that had grown to 585 magnitude 3 or greater earthquakes; and by 2015, there were 907 magnitude 3 or greater earthquakes.

The damage was extensive; 40 to 50 buildings in Cushing, OK, were substantially damaged in a November 2016 earthquake. In reaction to the then-largest earthquake in September 2015, the Pawnee Nation passed a resolution against fracking activities after suffering damage to seven historic tribal buildings. The Ponca Nation also passed has a moratorium on fracking because the earthquakes have caused damage to their crumbling water infrastructure and buildings. Scientists say that Oklahoma is ``almost certain'' to have more earthquakes, with heightened risks of a large quake probable to endure for a decade.

The Attorneys General in my State of Vermont, California, and New York have all frequently acted quickly to address environmental problems; yet, during Mr. Pruitt's hearing, he told me he did nothing to help folks in Oklahoma who had been hurt by earthquakes caused by fracking in Oklahoma. Pruitt's sole response to my questions during his hearing about what he had done to address the earthquake problem in his State was to say he has ``acknowledged that he is concerned.'' That is it. ``He's concerned.'' He did not stand up and say he will do everything he can to stop future earthquakes as a result of fracking. He did not sue the corporations who were causing the earthquakes on behalf of the people of Oklahoma. He did not hold a press conference. He did nothing.

These earthquakes are so concerning because the EPA ``regulates the construction, operation, permitting, and closure of injection wells used to place fluids underground for storage or disposal'' as part of its role in preventing contamination of drinking water. So, if we let Pruitt will nor lead the EPA, there is nothing to say he will not abandon efforts to regulate waste fracking water injection to protect the American people from earthquakes. If his past record is any indication, it is very questionable that he will take action to protect communities from harmful effects like these.

Maybe the reason so many are concerned he will abandon efforts to enforce environmental laws and why he was willing to abandon Oklahomans when they needed him is because he is in the pocket of corporate industry. Pruitt received more than $350,000 in contributions from the fossil fuel industry. Pruitt raised huge amounts for his two Federal PAC--known as Liberty 2.0 and Oklahoma Strong. According to Politico, Liberty 2.0 has raised more than $168,000 from energy interests, and Oklahoma Strong leadership has raised $72,000.

In 2014, in a Pulitzer Prize winning investigation, the New York Times exposed that Pruitt and numerous other Republican attorneys general had formed secret alliances with energy corporations. The New York Times also exposed the Defense Fund, which is a dark money offshoot of the Republican Attorneys General Association. The Defense Fund received $175,000 in 2014 from Freedom Partners, which coordinates the Koch brothers' political activities. The New York Times also detailed how, in 2011, Pruitt wrote a letter to the EPA Administrator claiming that Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his State. Pruitt did not write the letter on behalf of Oklahoma residents; he did it on behalf of one of Oklahoma's biggest oil and gas companies, Devon Energy. As he fought for corporate donors, the American Lung Association named three urban regions in Oklahoma as having the 25 most heavily polluted air regions in the United States.

These examples of Pruitt's corrupt relationship with corporate polluters are so shocking and dangerous because he wants to lead the EPA, an Agency which is most responsible for protecting our kids and grandkids from the very polluters he has protected for so long. For the sake of our children and grandchildren and the future of this planet, were there none of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who would speak out to say that Mr. Pruitt should not be confirmed as head of the EPA?

The last time I checked, no one voted to pollute the environment in the last election. The majority of Americans do not agree that we should be dismantling protections that ensure clean air and clean water. In fact, according to Gallup, more than 7 in 10 Americans worry about drinking water pollution and air pollution. That is why we cannot allow Scott Pruitt to drive the EPA into the ground. He has shown that he wants to dismantle basic air, water, and climate protections.

We cannot rollback decades of progress. In fact, we are in desperate need of strong laws and regulations to

protect the environment and fight climate change. Do not be fooled. Scott Pruitt is not for protecting American citizens and the environment, but for protecting giant polluting corporations. With a record like his, we cannot expect Pruitt to safeguard our drinking water and air from pollution. With Pruitt, the environment will be auctioned off to the highest corporate bidder no matter the cost to the American public. It was for all these reasons that I strongly opposed Mr. Pruitt's nomination, and I urged my colleagues to join me in voting no.

Mr. President, as the ranking member of the Budget Committee, I rise in strong opposition to the nomination of Congressman Mick Mulvaney to be the next Director of the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB.

Like many of President Trump's other nominees, my opposition to Congressman Mulvaney has less to do with his extreme rightwing economic views than it has to do with the hypocrisy and the dishonesty of President Trump. The simple truth is that Congressman Mulvaney's record, in many respects, is the exact opposite of the rhetoric that then-Candidate Trump used in order to get votes from senior citizens and working families. Now, if Candidate Trump had run his campaign by saying: I am going to cut your Social Security benefits if elected President, well, you know what, Congressman Mulvaney would have been the exact person that he should bring forth as OMB Director. If President Trump had said: I am going to privatize your Medicare; vote for me because I am going to privatize your Medicare--if that is what he had campaigned on, then Congressman Mulvaney would have been exactly the right choice for OMB Director. If Candidate Trump had said: I want to devastate Medicare, I want to make it harder for poor people to get the healthcare they need, and I want to threaten the nursing home care of millions of senior citizens--if that is what Candidate Trump had said, Mick Mulvaney would have been exactly the right and appropriate leader for the job.

But those are not the words, that is not the rhetoric, and those are not the ideas that Candidate Trump raised during his Presidential race. In fact, Candidate Trump said exactly the opposite on May 7, 2015. We are all familiar with Mr. Trump's tweets. Here is a tweet that he made on May 7, 2015:

I was the first and only potential GOP candidate to state

there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare and

Medicaid. Huckabee copied me.

So you have Candidate Trump making it very clear that there would be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

On August 10, 2015, Trump said:

[I will] save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

without cuts. [We] have to do it. . . . People have been

paying in for years, and now many of these candidates want to

cut it.

On November 3, 2015, Mr. Trump said:

I will save Social Security. I'll save medicare. . . .

People love Medicare. . . . I'm not going to cut it.

On March 10, 2016, Mr. Trump said:

I will do everything within my power not to touch Social

Security, to leave it the way it is . . . it's my absolute

intention to leave Social Security the way it is. Not

increase the age and to leave it as is.

It is my absolute intention to leave Social Security the

way it is. Not increase the age and to leave it as is.

It can't be much clearer than that.

On May 21, 2015, Mr. Trump tweeted:

I am going to save Social Security without any cuts. I know

where to get the money from. Nobody else does.

On January 24, 2015, Mr. Trump said:

I'm not a cutter. I will probably be the only Republican

that doesn't want to cut Social Security.

Those are pretty strong statements. What he just told you, in no uncertain terms, can't be clearer than that. He doesn't want to cut Social Security. He doesn't want to cut Medicare and doesn't want to cut Medicaid. And you know what, millions of people actually believed what he said. They actually thought that Candidate Trump was telling the truth.

But now that the election is over, President Trump has nominated a budget director, Mr. Mulvaney, who would cut Social Security, would cut Medicare, would cut Medicaid, and would threaten the entire security of millions of Americans.

We just heard the exact quotes coming from candidate Donald Trump. Let's now hear the exact quotes coming from Congressman Mick Mulvaney about his views on these very same issues.

On May 15, 2011, Congressman Mulvaney said on FOX Business News:

We have to end Medicare as we know it.

On April 28, 2011, Congressman Mulvaney said:

Medicare as it exists today is finished.

On August 1, 2011, Congressman Mulvaney said:

You have to raise the retirement age, lower a pay-out,

change the reimbursement system. You simply cannot leave

[Social Security] the way it is.

On May 17, 2011, Congressman Mulvaney said: ``I honestly don't think we went far enough with the Ryan plan'' because it did not cut Social Security and Medicare ``rapidly enough.''

Just 2 years ago, Congressman Mulvaney voted against the budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price and House Speaker Paul Ryan, opting instead to vote in favor of an even more extreme budget by the Republican Study Committee. The budget that Congressman Mulvaney supported would have cut Medicare by $69 billion more than the Price-Ryan budget. It would have cut Social Security by $184 billion more, and it would have cut Medicaid by $255 billion more than the budget proposed by Chairman Price and House Speaker Ryan.

In fact, Congressman Mulvaney made it clear during his confirmation hearing in the Budget Committee that he would advise President Trump to break his promises not to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. During that hearing, Senator Corker called President Trump's campaign promises ``totally unrealistic'' and said that they ``make no sense whatsoever.''

When Senator Corker asked Congressman Mulvaney if he would advise the President not to follow through on the campaign promises he made to seniors, this is what Congressman Mulvaney said:

I have to imagine that the President knew what he was

getting when he asked me to fill this role. . . . I'd like to

think it is why he hired me.

Whoa, what we have been discussing is precisely why so many people have contempt for what goes on here in Congress and what goes on in Washington, in general. What is going on here is that a candidate for President of the United States says one thing in order to get votes, but the day after he is elected, his tune dramatically changes, and he nominates a number of people to his Cabinet and to high-level positions within his administration who intend to do exactly the opposite of what he campaigned on. Once again, Congressman Mulvaney--and I believe he is exactly right--said:

I have to imagine that the President knew what he was

getting when he asked me to fill this role. . . . I'd like to

think it is why he hired me.

So the President hires somebody who has been one of the most vigorous proponents of cutting Social Security, cutting Medicare, and of cutting Medicaid after he ran his entire campaign telling the American people he would not cut Social Security, cut Medicare, and cut Medicaid.

Outside of Capitol Hill, where real people live, it turns out, not surprisingly, that the overwhelming majority of Americans--be they Democrats, Republicans, or Independents--are opposed to cutting Social Security. In fact, according to an October 2016 survey by Public Policy Polling, 72 percent of the American people, including 51 percent of Republicans, ``support increasing, not cutting, Social Security benefits by asking millionaires and billionaires to pay more into the system.''

As it happens, that is exactly the heart and soul of the legislation that I will soon be offering. Legislation that I will be offering will expand Social Security benefits, not cut them. It will do so by asking the top 2 percent to pay more in taxes, which, it turns out, is not only the right thing to do, but it is precisely what the American people want us to do. Various other polls have reached similar results. The people of our country--once you get outside the Congress and outside of the Republican caucus, in particular--the American people know that when millions of seniors, disabled veterans, and people with disabilities are trying to get by on $13, $14, $15,000 a year, you do not cut their benefits, while at the same time give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent. That is not what the American people want.

In my view, we don't need a budget director like Congressman Mulvaney, who believes that Social Security is a ``Ponzi scheme.'' We don't need a budget director who once voted to declare Social Security, Medicaid, and the U.S. Department of Education unconstitutional. He was in, I believe, the South Carolina State Legislature, State Senate. He actually voted on a vote--which got very few votes--in the South Carolina State Senate. He voted to declare Social Security, Medicaid, and the U.S. Department of Education unconstitutional. This is the person whom President Trump has nominated to become the head of OMB.

So if you believe Social Security is unconstitutional, if you believe it is a good idea to cut benefits for people who will be living on $13,000 or $14,000 a year, I guess Mr. Mulvaney is your choice. If that is whom my Republican colleagues want to vote for, that is their business, but my job and the job of everybody is to make it clear to the American people that the Republicans are far more interested in cutting Social Security and in giving huge tax breaks to billionaires than they are in taking care of the needs of the American people.

We need a budget director who understands that we have a retirement crisis in America today. Today, more than half of older Americans have no retirement savings. That is just an extraordinary reality. Over half of older workers in this country have zero in the bank. Think about what they are feeling when they hear people like Congressman Mulvaney saying: Hey, you got nothing now. You are going to try to get by on $12,000, $13,000 a year in Social Security, and we are going to cut those benefits.

Today, more than half of older Americans have no retirement savings. More than one-third of senior citizens depend on Social Security for all of their income. One out of five senior citizens is trying to make ends meet on income of less than $13,000 a year. I will tell you, I hope people are able to sleep well, people who think it is appropriate to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut benefits for people who are trying to get by on Social Security checks of $13,000 a year.

In my view, we don't need a budget director who believes that ``we have to end Medicare as we know it,'' nor do we need a budget director who has said that ``Medicare as it exists today is finished.'' Let's remember for a moment what things were like before Medicare was signed into law back in 1965. At that point, about half of all seniors were uninsured and millions more were underinsured. Today, thanks to Medicare, about 45 million seniors have health insurance, and the senior poverty rate has plummeted. Seniors are living healthier, longer lives. Thank you, Medicare.

In my view, we do not need a budget director who supports cutting Medicaid by more than $1 trillion, threatening not only the healthcare of low-income people but also the nursing home care of millions of vulnerable senior citizens and persons with disabilities. There are millions of not just low-income families but middle-class families who today are getting help with the nursing home payments for their parents through Medicaid. If you make devastating cuts in Medicaid, you are not only going to take away health insurance from low-income Americans, you are going to put enormous economic stress on middle-class families who will now have to pay the full tab for the nursing home care of their parents.

Finally, there is another issue; that is, Mr. Mulvaney's taxes. After Congressman Mulvaney was nominated to become the next OMB Director, it was revealed that he failed to pay over $15,000 in taxes for a nanny he employed from the year 2000 through 2004. Here is what Congressman Mulvaney wrote in response to a question I asked him on January 11:

I have come to learn during the confirmation review process

that I failed to pay FICA and Federal and State unemployment

taxes on a household employee for the years 2000 through

2004. Upon discovery of that shortfall, I paid the Federal

taxes. The amount in question for Federal FICA and

unemployment was $15,583.60, exclusive of penalties and

interest which are not yet determined. The State amounts are

not yet determined.

This is a very serious issue. As you will recall, 8 years ago Senator Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services after it was discovered that he failed to pay taxes for one of his domestic workers.

On this issue, I agree wholeheartedly with Minority Leader Schumer, who said:

When other previous Cabinet nominees failed to pay their

fair share in taxes, Senate Republicans forced those nominees

to withdraw from consideration. If failure to pay taxes was

disqualifying for Democratic nominees, then the same should

be true for Republican nominees.

Mr. President, here is the irony: Over and over again, Congressman Mulvaney has sponsored and cosponsored legislation designed to prohibit people from serving in the government if they fail to pay their taxes. In 2015, Congressman Mulvaney voted for a bill in the House that stated: ``Any individual who has a seriously delinquent tax debt should be ineligible to be appointed or to continue serving as an employee'' of the Federal Government. Congressman Mulvaney cosponsored three bills when he was in the South Carolina State Senate that would have prohibited tax cheats from serving in the South Carolina State government. In other words, it looks like there is one set of rules for Congressman Mulvaney and another set of rules for everyone else.

In light of this information and in light of Congressman Mulvaney's extreme rightwing record of attacking the needs of the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor, I would urge all of my colleagues to vote no on this nomination.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to the nomination of Congressman Tom Price to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services. My opposition to Mr. Price has less to do with his well-known, extreme, rightwing economic views than it has to do with the hypocrisy and dishonesty of President Trump.

The simple truth is, Congressman Price's record is the exact opposite of what President Trump promised to working families and for senior citizens all over this country. If President Trump had run his campaign for President by saying: OK, Americans, I am going to cut Social Security, and I am going to cut Medicare, and I am going to cut Medicaid, and I am going to put together a Cabinet that will do just that, I think Congressman Price would have been the perfect candidate for Secretary of HHS, but that is not the kind of campaign Donald Trump ran.

He ran a campaign in which he said over and over again: I am a different type of Republican. I am not going to cut Social Security, I am not going to cut Medicare, and I am not going to cut Medicaid. Yet he has nominated individuals like Congressman Price, who have spent their entire career doing the exact opposite of what Donald Trump promised the American people he would do.

If Mr. Trump had said: I want to prevent the American people from getting low-cost prescription drugs from Canada, and I want to continue to prohibit Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices, Congressman Price would have been a great choice, but that is not what Donald Trump said during his campaign.

This is what President Trump said. During the campaign on May 7, 2015, Mr. Trump tweeted:

I was the first and only GOP candidate to state there will

be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

On August 10, 2015, Mr. Trump said:

[I will] save Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security

without cuts.

Without cuts.

[We] have to do it. . . . People have been paying in for

years, and now many of these candidates want to cut it.

On November 3, 2015, Mr. Trump said:

I'll save Social Security. I'll save Medicare. . . . People

love Medicare. . . . I am not going to cut it.

On May 21, 2015, Mr. Trump tweeted:

I am going to save Social Security without any cuts. I know

where to get the money from. Nobody else does.

On January 24, 2015, Mr. Trump said:

I'm not a cutter. I'll probably be the only Republican that

doesn't want to cut Social Security.

Mr. Trump did not make these statements in the middle of the night. It wasn't an ambush interview with some reporter who caught him off- guard. This was one of the centerpieces of his campaign for President. And I think whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or Independent or whatever you are, you will acknowledge that Mr. Trump said: I am not a conventional Republican. I am going to do it differently. Everybody else, all the Republicans, they want to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And he is absolutely right. They do. But he made a promise to the American people that he would be different, that he would not cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

President Trump sends out tweets every single day, but the American people are waiting, are still waiting for that one tweet which says: I will keep my promise. I will not cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and if Republicans give me legislation to do that, I will veto that legislation.

In fact, the President could save us all a whole lot of time if he would get on the phone now with the Republicans in the House and some here in the Senate and say: Hey, save your efforts. Don't waste your time because if you bring me legislation that will cut Social Security, cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, I am going to veto it.

If President Trump sent that tweet, it would save us all a whole lot of time but, more importantly, it would tell millions of seniors who today cannot make it on $13, $14, $15,000 a year in Social Security that he will not make their lives more difficult. He will tell seniors who are struggling with difficult, painful, costly illnesses that he is not going to devastate Medicare.

He will tell low-income people who are trying to survive on minimum incomes that he will not take away the health insurance they have through Medicaid, and he will tell middle-class families and working- class families that, no, they do not have to worry that their parents can remain in nursing homes and have those bills paid by Medicaid.

What I think the American people are worried about is not just that Mr. Trump has not yet sent out that tweet. We did get a tweet about Arnold Schwarzenegger and how well he is doing on his TV show--we got several tweets about that--but we did not get the tweet that tells seniors and working people they do not have to worry about their future; that this President was not lying but was telling the truth when he said he will not cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

The problem is, President Trump has nominated people like Congressman Price whose views are absolutely contradictory to what he campaigned on. So why would you appoint somebody whose views run exactly opposite to what you told the American people during your campaign?

The truth is, in the House of Representatives, Congressman Price has led the effort to end Medicare as we know it by giving seniors inadequate vouchers to purchase private health insurance.

In 2009, Congressman Price said, and I quote--and I hope people listen to this quote and try to ask yourselves: How could somebody who ran on a campaign of not cutting Medicare appoint this gentleman to be Secretary of Health and Human Services? This is what Congressman Price said:

Nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery

of health care than the Federal Government's intrusion into

medicine through Medicare. . . . We will not rest until we

make certain that government-run health care is ended.

Now, how does that tally with Candidate Donald Trump saying: I will not cut Medicare and Medicaid.

We don't need an HHS Secretary who will end Medicare as we know it. We need an HHS Secretary who will protect and expand Medicare. The idea of this voucher program, of ending Medicare as we know it, as a defined benefit plan and converting it into a voucher plan, not only contradicts what Candidate Donald Trump said, but it will be a disaster for millions of seniors.

Right now, if you are a senior and you are diagnosed with a serious and costly illness, you have the comfort of knowing that Medicare will be there throughout your illness. It will pay your bills.

The Republican plan, led by Congressman Paul Ryan, has a very different approach, and what that plan is about is a voucher plan which says that we will end Medicare as we know it. We will give seniors a voucher of an undetermined amount--the last number I heard was $8,000; it may go up, it may be lower--and give that check to a senior who then goes out into the private insurance market looking for the best policy that he or she can get.

I would like the American people to think for a moment what kind of policy an 80-year-old person who is struggling with cancer and who has a check for $8,000 can get. The answer is, when you go into a private insurance company.

Also, if the Republicans are successful in doing away with the Affordable Care Act and the patient protections within the Affordable Care Act, including a ban on the insurance companies' ability not to insure you if you have a preexisting condition--now let's assume they got rid of that.

Now you are 80 years old. You walk into an insurance company, and you say: I have been diagnosed with cancer, and here is my check for $8,000.

The insurance agent looks at you and says: Are you kidding? Don't be absurd. Why would we cover you? What do you think we are going to give you for $8,000 when you are about to run up some enormous health care costs related to cancer? You are going to be in the hospital. You are going to undergo all kinds of treatment. You are going to need expensive drugs, and you expect us to take you with an $8,000

check. How are we going to make any money out of you? Because that is what our job is. We are an insurance company. We don't care about health care. We care about making money. That is our function. We don't make money on $8,000 for taking care of somebody who is 80 years of age who has cancer. Furthermore, because the Republicans got rid of the law protecting people with preexisting conditions, we don't even have to take you. Or maybe we will take you, but you are going to have to add another $10,000 on top of that $8,000 because that is the only way we make money.

Oh, by the way, also, so there is no confusion, they want to raise the retirement age to make sure you keep working until 67 years of age.

So not only is that a disaster, but maybe in a deeper sense, if we take democracy seriously, if we think candidates should run for office based on what they really believe, all of that stuff is a direct contradiction to what Candidate Donald Trump talked about.

I have heard many Republicans say: Look, what he was talking about was really absurd. It was ridiculous. Of course we are not going to do that.

Well, then, that takes us to a whole other discussion: What does it mean if you have a candidate who runs for office who simply lies to the American people and really doesn't mean anything he says?

I have no problems getting up and debating or disagreeing with my colleagues who have a very conservative point of view. That is their point of view. This is a democracy, and we have different perspectives. And many of those candidates ran on positions. They were honest enough to say: Hey, if you elect me, I think we have to cut Social Security, and they gave their reasons. I think we have to cut Medicare; they gave their reasons. I think we have to cut Medicaid; they gave their reasons. I think we have to give huge tax breaks to billionaire; they gave their reasons.

Well, for some reason or another, the people in their State elected them. That is fine. It is called democracy.

But that is not what Donald Trump did as a candidate. So I rise in opposition to Congressman Price becoming Secretary of HHS because his appointment would go in diametrical opposition to what Candidate Donald Trump told the American people. I think that is a bad thing for democracy. If you run for office, keep your word, you know? Do what you told the American people you would do. The profound disgust so many millions of people feel for the American political process is not just of what we believe, it is that we don't keep our word, the promises we make to them, and this is exactly where Donald Trump is today.

Let me touch on another area where I think President Trump has not been clear with the American people, and that is, we pay today by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. One out of five Americans between 18 and 65 cannot afford to fill the prescriptions that their doctors write for them. The numbers go down after 65 because of Medicare Part D. But can you imagine living in a nation where one out of five people cannot afford to fill the prescriptions their doctors write?

Mr. Trump campaigned on taking on the pharmaceutical industry. Well, the record of Congressman Price is very different from the rhetoric that Candidate Donald Trump used during his campaign.

So I eagerly await Mr. Trump's statement--he can do it through a tweet; that would be fine with me--that says he will support concrete legislation that some of us are going to be offering very shortly which does two fundamental things that will substantially lower prescription drug costs in America today.

No. 1, at a time when you can buy many medicines for far less cost in Canada or in many other countries around the world, at a time when we have free trade agreements so that the lettuce and tomatoes you are having dinner can come from Mexico or Latin America or anyplace all over the world, the fish you eat can come from anyplace all over the world, we will introduce legislation that says that individuals, pharmacists, and prescription drug distributors will be able to purchase lower cost medicine in Canada and eventually in other countries around the world.

Mr. Trump--President Trump had talked during his campaign about taking on the pharmaceutical industry. I hope very much that he will at least keep his word on that issue and that he will join us in supporting legislation to allow for the reimportation of brand-name prescription drugs from Canada and many other countries around the world. If he is prepared to do that, we will pass it. We will pass it because there are a number of Republicans who support it, and the vast majority of Democrats support it. We have the votes to pass it, and if President Trump signs that bill, we will go a long way in ending the burden that so many elderly people and working people and people with chronic illnesses are facing today, and that is the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs.

By the way, this huge increase in prescription drug costs takes place at a time when, in 2015, the five largest pharmaceutical companies in this country made $50 billion in profit--$50 billion in profit in 2015--yet one out of five Americans under 65 cannot afford the medicine they need. The top 10 CEOs or executives in the pharmaceutical industry that year made over $300 million in salary.

Passing reimportation is one mechanism to lower the cost of prescription drugs, but it is not the only one. We have a totally insane prescription drug pricing system in America right now. If you are Kaiser Permanente, you will pay a certain amount for a drug. And by the way, of course, we don't know what that amount is that you are paying; that is secret. If you are Medicare, you will pay a different amount. If you are the Veterans' Administration, you will pay a different amount than Medicare. And if you are Medicaid, you will pay a different amount than Medicare or the Veterans' Administration. We have a situation today where by law the Veterans' Administration is able to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. Today we have a situation where Medicaid, by law, is guaranteed a significant rebate over list price. But in terms of Medicare, which spends over $4 billion a year for prescription drugs, a number of years ago Republicans insisted that Medicare would not be able to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry.

President Trump has indicated in vague language that perhaps he would support the ability of Medicare to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical industry. Given all of the tweets he has sent out on so many subjects, I would hope that he has the time to send out a very simple tweet which says: If Congress passes legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry, I will sign that bill. That tweet will have a profound impact on taxpayers because we can save very substantial sums of money, and it will also result in lowering the cost of prescription drugs.

Unfortunately, once again Congressman Price is coming from a different place than Candidate Trump came from--again, that contradiction of a President appointing somebody whose views are diametrically opposed to the views he raised during the campaign.

I think the American people are growing increasingly concerned about the contradictions in general, not just on health care, of what Candidate Trump said and what President Trump is doing. During the course of his campaign, not only did Candidate Trump say he would not cut Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, he also said that he thought Wall Street was causing all kinds of problems and that you can't clean up the swamp by bringing people in who are a part of the swamp, in so many words. You can't bring people in to clean up the problem who have caused the problem in the first place. And you know what, he is exactly right. He is exactly right. You can't bring in people whose greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street caused us the worst economic downturn in modern history of this country. You can't bring those people in and then say: We are going to solve the problem that Wall Street caused.

But in an exactly similar way to what he has done with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, he is bringing in top Wall Street executives. His main financial adviser comes from Goldman Sachs, one of the largest financial institutions in this country, a

financial institution that required a multibillion-dollar bailout from the taxpayers, an institution whose illegal behavior caused them to have to pay a $5 billion fine to the Federal Government. Those are the people he is bringing in to regulate, to take on Wall Street. He is bringing Wall Street executives who caused the worst financial crisis in modern history of this country to take on Wall Street. Well, I don't think most Americans believe that.

So, Mr. President, let me close by saying that I hope that tonight the Senate stands up for the American people, demands that President Trump keep the campaign promises he made, and that we reject the nomination of Congressman Price to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I strongly opposed the Republicans' efforts to gut the SEC rule regarding transparency for oil and mining industry payments to foreign governments.

I hope the American people are paying attention. One of the first substantive legislative matters that Republicans are trying to send to the President is a measure that makes it easier for oil companies to corrupt foreign governments and undermine U.S. foreign policy goals.

This bill seeks to unravel human rights and transparency protections implemented by the Obama administration. The rule requires oil and mining companies to tell the SEC how much money they pay to foreign governments to extract natural resources. It is a simple, common-sense requirement to improve transparency and combat corruption in some of the most corrupt and dysfunctional countries in the world. In fact, dozens of other countries require that their companies report payments to foreign governments.

Time and again, we have seen oil and mining companies go into other nations that are poor and lack basic democratic institutions and pay huge sums of money to autocratic corrupt regimes. According to a recent article in Foreign Affairs, when Rex Tillerson led Exxon as its chairman and CEO, Exxon ``cut lucrative deals with dictators in oil- rich pockets of Africa, extending the lifespans of autocratic regimes in places such as Angola, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Equatorial Guinea.'' Thanks to their countries' oil reserves, the leaders of these poor countries have been able to remain in power for decades.

Yet the rule is dogged by many myths and falsehoods spurred by the fossil fuels lobby. More than $200 million was spent by opponents of the rule--the oil and gas industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--on political lobbying and campaign contributions. According to a report in POLITICO, when our newly confirmed Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was the CEO of Exxon Mobil, he personally lobbied vigorously against transparency and disclosure, saying that if other people knew how much his company paid foreign governments, it would be bad for his business. In fact, Rex Tillerson said that there was one country in particular where this rule would be hard for Exxon--Russia.

Another Republican myth is that U.S. companies are at a competitive

disadvantage because non-U.S. companies do not have to make the same disclosures and the rule applies only to public companies--not true. The U.S. law covers all oil, gas, and mining companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges--not simply companies based in the United States. This includes BP, Shell, and Total, as well as leading state-owned oil companies from China and Brazil, such as PetroChina and Petrobras.

Republicans also claim that this rule increases prices at the pump-- again, not true. Corruption costs oil and mining companies millions of dollars every year from instability and fragility in resource-rich countries, which contributes to increased operating risks, waste, inefficiency, and delays.

When leaders tap a country's oil revenues to keep themselves in power, it is called petro-authoritarianism. When the United States allows companies to secretly pay authoritarian governments for rights to their petroleum and mineral resources, we become implicit in the resulting human poverty and rights abuses. We cannot let that stand, which is why we have this SEC reporting requirement.

I urged my colleagues to vote no on this effort to kill the important protections provided by the SEC rule regarding transparency for extractive industry payments to foreign governments. We should be putting human rights interests ahead of the financial interests of a few powerful oil companies. That is why I urged my colleagues to vote against putting the profits of industry above the interests of our Nation and lesser developed nations all over the world.

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

Mr. President, I want to say a few words about the Sessions nomination for Attorney General, but I also want to express my very strong opposition to Senator McConnell's effort to deny Senator Elizabeth Warren the opportunity to express her point of view.

There are two separate issues. No. 1, this is the Senate. The American people expect from us a vigorous debate on the important issues facing this country. I think all of us are aware that issues of civil rights, issues of voter suppression, issues of criminal justice reform are enormous issues that people from one end of this country feel very strongly about. Those are issues that the next Attorney General of the United States will be dealing with.

So clearly we need a vigorous discussion regarding the qualifications of President Trump's nominee, Jeff Sessions, to be Attorney General. We need to hear all points of view. The idea that a letter and a statement made by Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., a letter that she wrote, could not be presented and spoken about on the floor of the Senate is, to me, incomprehensible.

It comes at a time when we have a President who has initiated, and I hope it will not stand, a ban on Muslims entering the United States of America. We have a President who refers to a judge who issues a ruling in opposition to the President as a so-called judge, which tells every judge in America that they will be insulted and marginalized by this President if they dare to disagree with him.

I was under the impression we had three separate branches of government: Congress, the President, and the Judiciary, equal branches, not to be insulted because one branch disagrees with another branch.

Here we are now on the floor of the Senate and one of our outstanding Senators, Ms. Warren of Massachusetts, brings forth a statement made by one of the heroines, one of the great leaders of the civil rights of the United States of America, a statement that she made before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 13, 1986.

Anyone who knows anything about Coretta Scott King understands, this is not a vicious woman; this is not a woman who is engaged in personal attacks. This is a woman who stood up and fought for civil rights, for dignity, for justice for her whole life. Yet when Senator Warren read her statement, she was told that she could no longer participate in this debate over Senator Sessions' nomination, which I regard as an outrage.

I want the American people to make a decision on whether we should be able to look at Senator Sessions' record and hear from one of the heroines of the civil rights movement.

This is the statement of Coretta Scott King on the nomination of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions for the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Alabama, made before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, March 13, 1986, and this is what the statement is about. Let the American people judge.

This is from Coretta Scott King:

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to express my

strong opposition to the nomination of Jefferson Sessions for

a

federal district judgeship for the Southern District of

Alabama. My longstanding commitment which I shared with my

husband, Martin, to protect and enhance the rights of Black

Americans, rights which include equal access to the

democratic process, compels me to testify today.

Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert

Turner, have fought long and hard to achieve free and

unfettered access to the ballot box. Mr. Sessions has used

the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of

the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to

serve as a federal judge. This simply cannot be allowed to

happen. Mr. Sessions' conduct as U.S. Attorney, from his

politically-motivated voting fraud prosecutions to his

indifference toward criminal violations of civil rights laws,

indicates that he lacks the temperament, fairness, and

judgment to be a federal judge.

The Voting Rights Act was, and still is, vitally important

to the future of democracy in the United States. I was

privileged to join Martin and many others during the Selma to

Montgomery march for voting rights in 1965. Martin was

particularly impressed by the determination to get the

franchise of blacks in Selma and neighboring Perry County. As

he wrote, ``Certainly no community in the history of the

Negro struggle has responded with the enthusiasm of Selma and

her neighboring town of Marion. Where Birmingham depended

largely upon students and unemployed adults to participate in

nonviolent protest of the denial of the franchise, Selma has

involved fully 10 per cent of the Negro population in active

demonstrations, and at least half the Negro population of

Marion was arrested on one day.'' Martin was referring of

course to a group that included the defendants recently

prosecuted for assisting elderly and illiterate blacks to

exercise that franchise. In fact, Martin anticipated from the

depth of their commitment 20 years ago, that a united

political organization would remain in Perry County long

after other marchers had left. This organization, the Perry

County Civil League, started by Mr. Turner, Mr. Hogue, and

others, as Martin predicted, continued ``to direct the drive

for votes and other rights.'' In the years since the Voting

Rights Act was passed, Black Americans in Marion, Selma, and

elsewhere have made important strides in their struggle to

participate actively in the electoral process. The number of

Blacks registered to vote in key Southern states has doubled

since 1965. This would not have been possible without the

Voting Rights Act.

However, Blacks still fall far short of having equal

participation in the electoral process. Particularly in the

South, efforts continue to be made to deny Blacks access to

the polls, even where Blacks constitute the majority of the

voters. It has been a long up-hill struggle to keep alive the

vital legislation that protects the most fundamental right to

vote. A person who has exhibited so much hostility to the

enforcement of those laws, and thus, to the exercise of those

rights by Black people should not be elevated to the federal

bench.

The irony of Mr. Sessions' nomination is that, if

confirmed, he will be given life tenure for doing with a

federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished

twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods. Twenty years

ago, when we marched from Selma to Montgomery, the fear of

voting was real, as the broken bones and bloody heads in

Selma and Marion bore witness. As my husband wrote at the

time, ``it was not just a sick imagination that conjured up

the vision of a public official, sworn to uphold the law, who

forced an inhuman march upon hundreds of Negro children; who

ordered the Rev. James Bevel to be chained to his sickbed;

who clubbed a Negro woman registrant, and who callously

inflicted repeated brutalities and indignities upon

nonviolent Negroes, peacefully petitions for their

constitutional right to vote.''

Free exercise of voting rights is so fundamental to

American democracy that we cannot tolerate any form of

infringement of those rights. Of all the groups who have been

disenfranchised in our nation's history, none has struggled

longer or suffered more in the attempt to win the vote than

Black citizens. No group has had access to the ballot box

denied so persistently and intently. Over the past century, a

broad array of schemes have been used in attempts to block

the Black vote. The range of techniques developed with the

purpose of repressing black voting rights run the gamut from

the straightforward application of brutality against black

citizens who tried to vote to such legalized frauds as

``grandfather clause'' exclusions and rigged literacy tests.

The actions taken by Mr. Sessions in regard to the 1984

voting fraud prosecutions represent just one more technique

used to intimidate Black voters and thus deny them this most

precious franchise. The investigations into the absentee

voting process were conducted only in the Black Belt

counties where blacks had finally achieved political power

in the local government. Whites had been using the

absentee process to their advantage for years without

incident. Then, when Blacks; realizing its strength, began

to use it with success, criminal investigations were

begun.

In these investigations, Mr. Sessions, as U.S. Attorney,

exhibited an eagerness to bring to trial and convict three

leaders of the Perry County Civil League including Albert

Turner despite evidence clearly demonstrating their innocence

of any wrongdoing. Furthermore, in initiating the case, Mr.

Sessions ignored allegations of similar behavior by whites,

choosing instead to chill the exercise of the franchise by

blacks by his misguided investigation. In fact, Mr. Sessions

sought to punish older black civil rights activists,

advisors, and colleagues of my husband, who had been key

figures in the civil rights movement in the 1960's. These

were persons who, realizing the potential of the absentee

vote among Blacks, had learned to use the process within the

bounds of the legality and had taught others to do the same.

The only sin they committed was being too successful in

gaining votes.

The scope and character of the investigations conducted by

Mr. Sessions also warrant grave concern. Witnesses were

selectively chosen in accordance with the favorability of

their testimony to the government's case. Also, the

prosecution illegally withheld from the defense critical

statements made by witnesses. Witnesses who did testify were

pressured and intimidated into submitting the ``correct''

testimony. Many elderly blacks were visited multiple times by

the FBI who then hauled them over 180 miles by bus to a grand

jury in Mobile when they could more easily have testified at

a grand jury twenty miles away in Selma. These voters, and

others, have announced they are now never going to vote

again.

I urge you to consider carefully Mr. Sessions' conduct in

these matters. Such a review, I believe, raises serious

questions about his commitment to the protection of the

voting rights of all American citizens and consequently his

fair and unbiased judgment regarding this fundamental right.

When the circumstances and facts surrounding the indictments

of Al Turner, his wife, Evelyn, and Spencer Hogue are

analyzed, it becomes clear that the motivation was political,

and the result frightening--the wide-scale chill of the

exercise of the ballot for blacks, who suffered so much to

receive that right in the first place. Therefore, it is my

strongly-held view that the appointment of Jefferson Sessions

to the Federal bench would irreparably damage the work of my

husband, Al Turner, and countless others who risked their

lives and freedom over the past twenty years to ensure equal

participation in our democratic system.

The exercise of the franchise is an essential means by

which our citizens ensure that those who are governing will

be responsible. My husband called it the number one civil

right. The denial of access to the ballot box ultimately

results in the denial of other fundamental rights. For, it is

only when the poor and disadvantaged are empowered that they

are able to participate actively in the solutions to their

own problems.

We still have a long way to go before we can say that

minorities no longer need to be concerned about

discrimination at the polls. Blacks, Hispanics, Native

Americans and Asian Americans are grossly underrepresented at

every level of government in America. If we are going to make

our timeless dream of justice through democracy a reality, we

must take every possible step to ensure that the spirit and

intent of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fifteenth

Amendment of the Constitution is honored.

The federal courts hold a unique position in our

constitutional system, ensuring that minorities and other

citizens without political power have a forum in which to

vindicate their rights. Because of this unique role, it is

essential that the people selected to be Federal judges

respect the basic tenets of our legal system: respect for

individual rights and a commitment to equal justice for all.

The integrity of the Courts, and thus the rights they

protect, can only be maintained if citizens feel confident

that those selected as federal judges will be able to judge

with fairness others holding differing views.

I do not believe Jefferson Sessions possesses the requisite

judgment, competence, and sensitivity to the rights

guaranteed by the Federal civil rights laws to qualify for

appointment to the federal district court. Based on his

record, I believe his confirmation would have a devastating

effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also

on the progress we have made everywhere toward fulfilling my

husband's dream that he envisioned over twenty years ago. I

therefore urge the Senate Judiciary Committee to deny his

confirmation.

I thank you for allowing me to share my views.

That is the letter of Coretta Scott King, one of the great leaders of our civil rights movement, who, along with her husband and many others, finally managed to get passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

That is it. That is the letter Senator Elizabeth Warren wanted to communicate to other Members of the Senate as part of the discussion as to whether Jeff Sessions should become our next Attorney General.

Let me say that I will vote against Jeff Sessions for a number of reasons, but the idea that in the United States Senate, the same exact letter that I just read and the American people have heard it--was there some kind of vicious personal attack?

This is a letter written by one of the leaders of the civil rights movement, expressing strong concerns about Jeff Sessions before the Judiciary Committee in 1986, opposing his nomination

to be a Federal judge. Yet Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of our leading Senators, was denied the right to read that letter to inform fellow Senators and the American people.

I think Leader McConnell owes Senator Warren an apology, and I believe it is unconscionable and outrageous that Senator Warren not be allowed to participate in the discussion about whether Jeff Sessions becomes our next Attorney General.

There is a great fear in this country right now, starting at the White House, where we have a President who has issued a ban on Muslim visitors coming into this country. There is a fear that we have a President who denigrates a judge as a ``so-called judge'' because this judge issued an opinion in disagreement with the President, that we are moving in a direction which is un-American, which is moving us toward an authoritarian society.

We pride ourselves as a nation because when we have differences of opinion, we debate those differences and we tolerate differences of opinion. That is what democracy is about in our country, that is what freedom of speech is about, and that is what debate is about here in the U.S. Senate.

So I am going to vote against Jeff Sessions to become our next Attorney General, but I am even more alarmed about the decision of the majority leader here in the Senate to deny one of our leading Senators the right to voice her opinion, the right to put into the Congressional Record what I have just said. And if Mr. McConnell or anybody else wants to deny me the right to debate Jeff Sessions' qualifications, go for it. But I am here. I will participate in the debate. I will oppose Jeff Sessions. And I think Senator Warren is owed an apology.

With that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the statement of Coretta Scott King.

Thank you very much.

Mr. President, I think many millions of Americans perceive, as I do, that these are not normal times.

We have had a new President of the United States who called a judge a ``so-called judge'' because he dared to disagree with President Trump's decision on the ban of Muslims coming into this country.

We have a President who attacks the media in this country as fake news; everything they are saying is a lie. We have a President who goes before the troops--men and women in the American military--and starts talking about politics. It is very clear to me that we have a new President who really does not understand the Constitution of the United States of America, who does not understand the separation of powers in the Constitution, and in that context, we need an Attorney General who will have the courage to tell the President of the United States when he is acting in a dangerous, authoritarian, or unconstitutional way.

I have known Jeff Sessions for a number of years, and personally, I like Jeff Sessions. But I do not believe at this moment in history, when we need people around this President to explain the Constitution to him, that Jeff Sessions will be the Attorney General to do that.

I am deeply concerned about voter suppression in this country. I am deeply concerned that, as a result of the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act, we have, in State after State after State, Governors and legislatures that are working overtime to make it harder for poor people, people of color, older people, young people to participate in the political process.

Today in the United States, we have, compared to the rest of the world, a low voter turnout. Only about 60 percent of eligible voters in America cast a ballot. Our job--whether you are conservative, Republican, Progressive, Independent, Democrat--whatever you are, if you believe in democracy, what you should believe in is bringing more people into the political process, increasing our voter turnout, not working as hard as you can to suppress the vote.

I want an Attorney General of the United States of America to tell those Governors, to tell those attorneys general all over this country that as Attorney General of the United States, he will fight them tooth and nail in every way legally possible to stop the suppression of the vote in State after State throughout this country.

We have the dubious distinction in this country of having more people in jail than any other nation on Earth. We have about 2.2 million Americans. We are spending about $80 billion a year locking them up, and the people who are disproportionately in jail are African American, Latino, Native American.

I want an Attorney General who understands that the current criminal justice system is failing, that we have to figure out ways to keep people from getting into jail by investing in education, in jobs, and that incarceration and more jails are not the answers to the crisis we face within criminal justice. I honestly do not believe that Jeff Sessions is that person.

In recent years, we have made significant progress in allowing people--regardless of their sexual orientation--to get married and to have the full rights of American citizenship. I do not believe that Jeff Sessions will be the Attorney General who will be supportive of LGBT rights.

We have some 11 million undocumented people in this country. I believe that most Americans see the solution as comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship.

Today we have some 700,000 people who are DACA recipients, who have come out of the shadows and trusted the Federal Government to protect them. We need an Attorney General who is sensitive to the needs of DACA recipients, who will pursue humane immigration policies, and advocate for the need of comprehensive immigration reform. I do not believe that Jeff Sessions will be that Attorney General.

So, Mr. President, for all of those reasons and more, I will be voting against Jeff Sessions to become the next Attorney General of the United States.

Mr. President, I oppose the Republicans' current efforts to gut environmental protections that put industry profits before public health. In repealing the EPA stream protection rule, Republicans are again choosing to put the health and well-being of average Americans in jeopardy in favor of the interests of the Big Coal industry.

This bill seeks to unravel clean drinking water protections implemented by the Obama administration. The last time I checked, no one voted to pollute the environment in the last election. The majority of Americans do not agree that we should be dismantling protections that ensure clean air and clean water.

The stream protection rule shields communities from toxic pollution from coal mining, updating regulations that are more than 30 years old. These protections bolster those in the Clean Water Act and establish a long-overdue monitoring requirement for water pollutants--including lead, arsenic, and selenium--known to cause birth defects and other severe human health impacts. The rule was updated to better protect public health and the environment from the adverse effects of surface and underground coal mining.

This rule would protect or restore about 6,000 miles of streams and 52,000 acres of forest over two decades. It would prevent water pollution by authorizing approval of mountaintop removal mining operations only when natural waterways will not be destroyed, requiring protection or restoration of streams and related resources, such as threatened or endangered species. It gives communities in coal country much needed information about toxic water pollution caused by nearby mining operations. Long-term, the rule would ensure that premining land use capabilities are restored and guarantee treatment of unanticipated water pollution discharges.

Mountaintop mining destroys communities. Let's be clear. This rule helps protect communities from the pollution caused by mountaintop removal coal mining. In Appalachia, mountaintop removal coal mining has been responsible for the destruction of 2,000 miles of streams and 2.5 million acres of the region's ancient forests. States have issued advisories that people should not eat the fish in mined areas because of chemical contamination. In dozens of peer-reviewed studies, mountaintop removal mining has been linked to cancer, birth defects, and other serious health problems among residents living near these sites. According to Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, the public health costs of pollution from coal operations in Appalachia are $75 billion every year.

According to a 2011 study in the Journal of Community Health, in counties where mountaintop removal occurs, cancer rates are almost twice than those nearby where there is none. As many as 60,000 additional cases of cancer are linked to the practice within those 1.2 million Americans who live in these areas.

In addition, a 2011 study in the scientific peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research found that, even after accounting for socioeconomic risks, birth defects were significantly higher in mountaintop mining areas compared to non-mining areas.

Likewise, a 2011 study in the Journal of Rural Health found that areas in Appalachia with mountaintop removal have significantly higher death rates from heart disease than other areas with similar socioeconomic conditions. Researchers in the same Rural Health study estimated that more than 700 additional deaths occur annually.

Yet the rule is dogged by many myths and falsehoods spurred by the fossil fuels lobby. Almost a quarter of a billion dollars have been spent by opponents of the rule--the coal mining industry, electric utilities, National Association of Manufacturers, railroads, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--on political lobbying and campaign donations. They--and Republicans--claim that implementing this rule will kill coal production--not true. Coal production is impacted by many factors, including low natural gas prices. The CEO of the coal company Murray Energy even said, ``I've asked President-elect Trump to temper his comments about . . . bringing coal back. It will not happen.''

In comparison, this rule could actually create jobs. Many of the jobs created by the rule will be construction-type jobs easily conducted by former coal miners.

Another myth is that the rule is a huge economic burden on industry-- not true. The economic impacts of implementing this rule are small relative to the size of the coal industry. Industry compliance costs are estimated to average only 0.3 percent or less of the coal industry's $31.2 billion 2015 estimated annual revenues. Conversely, the costs of repealing the rule are borne by Appalachian families and small businesses. Families in these communities will be the ones to endure significant health impacts. Businesses like restaurants, farms, and the outdoor recreation industry rely on clean water and are jeopardized by coal contamination in their community's streams.

I urge my colleagues to vote no on this effort to kill the important protections provided by the stream protection rule. We must reject efforts to put the interests of the Big Coal industry above the health and well-being of the American people.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor Elizabeth Howard Swain. Elizabeth was a lifelong champion of community health care centers, as well as the people they serve, and a wonderful colleague, mother, and friend.

After graduating from Boston University with a B.A. in sociology and a master's degree in political economics, Elizabeth moved with her family to Seattle, WA. In 1981, she began working at Seattle's 45th Street Clinic, a Federally Qualified Health Center, FQHC, and eventually became the executive director, a position she held for 10 years. Elizabeth founded the Community Health Plan of Washington and worked as the regional health officer at Public Health of Seattle and King County, as well as the assistant vice president for public policy for the Community Health Network of Washington.

In 2005, Elizabeth was recruited to be CEO of the Community Health Care Association of New York State, an advocacy organization that supports more than 65 FQHCs. In Albany, she was a strong advocate for community-based primary care and was known for her ability to bring rival forces together and create partners out of adversaries.

Elizabeth also championed FQHC's and the importance of community- based primary care in the American health system in regular meetings with members and staff of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee. While Elizabeth was grateful that I secured significant funding for FQHCs through the Affordable Care Act, as a strong supporter of universal health care, she was disappointed that neither the ``public option'' provision, much less a single-payer Medicare for all plan, were part of the ACA. Elizabeth remained true to her commitment to provide quality health care for all Americans, and she did all of this with tremendous energy and compassion for the most vulnerable and medically underserved populations.

Elizabeth understood the need to move health care dollars into the front end of the system, where they could be used more efficiently to prevent illness, through patient care management, case management and nutrition, and by keeping people out of expensive hospital settings. She also recognized the critical need for all-inclusive and integrated health care, including dental care and mental health services, in both urban and rural communities served by FQHC's.

Elizabeth will be sorely missed. She is survived by her sisters Julia, Cynthia, and Judith and children Kalil, Carmen, and Alexis.

Mr. President, I ask to have printed in the Record some of the finalist essays written by Vermont high school students as part of the seventh annual State of the Union essay contest conducted by my office.

The material follows:

At 12:02 p.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered by Mrs. Cole, one of its reading clerks, announced that the House has passed the following bills, in which it requests the concurrence of the Senate:

H.R. 46. An act to authorize the Secretary of the Interior

to conduct a special resource study of Fort Ontario in the

State of New York.

H.R. 339. An act to amend Public Law 94-241 with respect to

the Northern Mariana Islands.

H.R. 374. An act to remove the sunset provision of section

203 of Public Law 105-384, and for other purposes.

H.R. 381. An act to designate a mountain in the John Muir

Wilderness of the Sierra National Forest as ``Sky Point''.

H.R. 538. An act to redesignate Ocmulgee National Monument

in the State of Georgia and revise its boundary, and for

other purposes.

H.R. 558. An act to adjust the boundary of the Kennesaw

Mountain National Battlefield Park to include the Wallis

House and Harriston Hill, and for other purposes.

H.R. 560. An act to amend the Delaware Water Gap National

Recreation Area Improvement Act to provide access to certain

vehicles serving residents of municipalities adjacent to the

Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, and for other

purposes.

The message further announced that pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 1928a, and the order of the House of January 3, 2017, the Speaker appoints the following Members of the House of Representatives to the United States Group of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly: Mr. Connolly of Virginia and Ms. Frankel of Florida.

The message also announced that pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 2903, and the order of the House of January 3, 2017, the Speaker appoints the following Member of the House of Representatives to the Japan-United States Friendship Commission: Mr. Takano of California.

The message further announced that pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 2761, and the order of the House of January 3, 2017, the Speaker appoints the following Member of the House of Representatives to the British- American Interparliamentary Group: Mr. Cicilline of Rhode Island.

The message also announced that pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 3003, and the order of the House of January 3, 2017, the Speaker appoints the following Members of the House of Representatives to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe: Mr. Hastings of Florida and Mr. Cohen of Tennessee.