Floor Statements

Madam President, I am pleased to join my colleague from Arkansas, the chairman of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee in presenting this bill for consideration before the full Senate. I thank him for his work to create a fair and bipartisan bill. I also thank the Appropriations Committee chairman and vice chairman for their leadership and commitment to an orderly process to bring these bills and all the appropriations bills to the floor. This is the first set of appropriations bills before the Senate this year. We are making good progress, and in the next few days, we are going to set the tone for the rest of our work this year on appropriations.

This bill builds on the progress we made in the omnibus by providing critical funding to support our veterans, servicemembers, and their families. It also funds military construction projects that are needed to continue our work to address years of budgetary risk-taking that have led to neglected facilities tied to military readiness.

In total, the bill provides the VA with nearly $5 billion more than last year's bill and adds more than $200 million for military construction.

I am particularly pleased that we were able to fund $500 million worth of unfunded military construction requirements. While increased funding must continue to be requested and sustained in future years, this funding makes progress to restore military readiness across the joint force, including, importantly, for the Army and Air National Guard that have served as an

operational reserve for nearly two decades of war.

The increased funding for the VA will go where it will do the most good for our veterans and their families, and that includes $400 million to combat the opioid epidemic, which is $18 million above the budget request; $365 million above the budget request for the caregivers program; nearly $500 million above the omnibus for mental health services; an additional $87 million to increase staffing to process veterans' disability claims appeals; and an additional $30 million to help deliver telehealth services to remote and rural areas.

We also add funding for VA medical care above the fiscal year 2019 advance appropriation that we provided in the omnibus. This includes an additional $750 million for VA in-house care and $1 billion to pay for privately provided care through VA's traditional community care programs.

We all agree that VA's community partners are essential to serving veterans and ensuring access, especially in rural areas, but privately provided care cannot come at the expense of VA's in-house medical services or other programs that are core to VA, and that is where the administration is trying to take us. Without budgetary relief, their efforts will leave a $38 billion hole at VA and undermine its ability to serve our veterans and their families.

I know that the chairman and vice chairman of the whole committee are continuing to work with the leadership and the chairman and ranking member of the authorizing committee to fix this issue so that we can fulfill our promises to veterans, and on that, they will have my full support.

Madam President, I again thank Chairman Boozman and his staff and my staff for their hard work and collaboration that went into crafting this bipartisan bill. I will have more to say as we move forward this week. In the meantime, I encourage any of our colleagues who may have amendments to file those as soon as possible so that we can ensure that we have sufficient time to review them.

Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Olivia Harris, Ramsay Eyre, Madeleine Granda, Brendon McGovern, and Jack Plunkett be granted floor privileges for the length of the current debate on H.R. 5895, an act making appropriations for Energy and Water Development, the Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs for fiscal year 2019.

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

Mr. President, in December, the FCC made a colossal mistake by rolling back net neutrality protections. Today, the Senate has an opportunity to begin the process of righting that wrong with an up-or-down vote to overturn the FCC's repeal and to restore the free and open internet.

This is a big deal. We just had a vote with all Democrats, Independents, and three Republicans, and we have another vote at around 3 o'clock. If we fail, the FCC will end net neutrality protections in early June. But if we succeed, then this fight will go on to the next step in the House of Representatives.

This vote is a no-brainer. Net neutrality is one of the most popular issues that the Senate will consider this year. There is no other issue that polls so decisively on one side. A survey by the University of Maryland found that 83 percent of people are in favor of net neutrality, and that includes 75 percent of Republicans, 89 percent of Democrats, and 86 percent of Independents.

When you think about people's experience with their ISP, it makes perfect sense. People are already frustrated with the limited competitive options for the providers they have. Then, once they sign up for service, they find there are hidden fees. They have to pay for the installation. They have to wait for the installation. They have to rent the cable box. Their bill suddenly goes up within a year of service, finding out they were only engaged in a promotional offer. In other words, many people don't like their internet service providers. They like the internet, but they don't like the lack of choice and all the hassle and expense that comes with getting on the internet.

So if you ask people if we should get rid of the rules that actually give consumers control over their internet access, if we should give broadband companies more power over our lives, they say no. Providers promise to be good to consumers. In fact, many of them have said that they don't need the FCC to

maintain a free and open internet because they are already officially committed to the idea. But without net neutrality, there is nothing in the law that prevents companies from treating content or websites differently.

In fact, many of these publicly traded companies--once the dust settles, once the politics of this net neutrality issue wanes--will be talking to their chief financial officers, and their board of directors will be asking: Why are you not maximizing revenue? Why are you not charging consumers more when you can?

If the answer is ``In the process of trying to prevent a piece of legislation from passing, we made a promise,'' the board of directors will say ``Well, change your mind.''

The only thing that can stop a corporation that provides broadband services to consumers from doing all the wrong things is a law. It is not a promise; it is a law.

So the question for the Senate is very simple: Whose side are you on? Are you for the consumers who are asking us to protect the internet or are you with the telecommunications companies?

I want to be really clear here. There is no constituency on the other side of this, other than the telecommunications companies. You don't go to a townhall meeting and see this thing evenly split. When we were debating the Iran deal or the Affordable Care Act or an infrastructure bill or the tax bill, even in a deep blue State like Hawaii or a deep red State like those of some of my colleagues, there are always people on both sides of the issue. I have not met one human being in Hawaii who is against net neutrality, and I challenge anyone out there to find someone who is against net neutrality. The only constituency for this is the people who would benefit from what the FCC has already done.

Some are pointing to a bill in the House that would take care of a few of the problems that come with getting rid of net neutrality. But when you dig a little deeper, it is clear that this is not a compromise. It doesn't offer close to the protection that net neutrality gives consumers and small businesses. In fact, it gives these ISPs the ability to charge small businesses and consumers more money for different types of content, and that is the crux of the issue. Again, go ask a consumer or a small business owner, and they will tell you that they are already frustrated with internet providers, and they expect Congress to do the right thing and look out for their interests.

This issue is incredibly important to young people. They have grown up on the internet. It is part of their lives, and they do not want Congress to stand by and do nothing as this FCC allows internet providers to change the way we access the internet.

It is clear to me that net neutrality is popular among everyone-- older people, young people, small business owners, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, red States, and blue States. It is also clear that the benefits of the ISPs do not come close to outweighing the benefits that students, businesses, schools, families, and others will get from a free and open internet.

With this vote, every Member of the Senate will be on the record for or against net neutrality. I hope every Member will choose to vote the way nearly all of America wants us to and restore net neutrality.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, in his confirmation hearing last January, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said there was evidence that climate change had actually leveled off over the past two decades.

In response to Mr. Pruitt's comments, an atmospheric scientist in California named Benjamin Santer pulled together some colleagues to study satellite data from around the world. They found that Mr. Pruitt was in fact wrong, and they prepared to publish their findings in Nature Scientific Reports.

Then something pretty weird happened. A few of the scientists came forward and said that they didn't want their names listed on the research. They were worried about their ability to get a green card in the United States. Mr. Santer told the New Yorker that this was the first time in his life that he had seen his colleagues fear putting their names on research because they were worried about the negative consequences for themselves and their families.

In this country, scientists should not work in fear. They should not worry about their work being politicized. But this is where we are, and it is a moment that has been carefully planned by a small group of people who do not want the United States to act on climate. Because of these groups, the United States is home to the only major political party that opposes climate action. Because of these groups, Scott Pruitt--a man who denies that climate change is real and that it is caused by humans--is running the Federal Agency charged with dealing with climate change.

For too long, these groups have gone unchallenged, their web of deceit untouched. So I am joining with my colleagues to shine a light on these groups and how they have warped our ability to make good choices.

The Heartland Institute was started in 1984, ostensibly by a group of Libertarians. Each of their positions boils down to the idea that the government has no role--not to work on ending tobacco use or to define what health insurance should look like. But they are especially focused on keeping the government from doing anything about climate change.

The Heartland Institute denies that climate change is happening, and I disagree with them. Ninety-seven percent of all climate scientists disagree with them. But they are not playing by the average think tank rules because they are not your normal think tank. Over the years, the Heartland Institute has gained a reputation for, as one website put it, being a mouthpiece for the corporations who fund it, and their funders are very, very hard to track because Heartland keeps its donations secret. But we know that donors like the Koch brothers, ExxonMobil, and the Mercers are some of Heartland's biggest funders, and these donors just so happen to benefit from American inaction on climate.

If the government does what Heartland wants and stops protecting the environment, these people will profit. It is almost as if the Heartland Institute exists to promote the interests of its donors.

Last year, they mailed a package to hundreds of thousands of science teachers. It had pamphlets, a DVD, and a book called ``Why Scientists Disagree about Global Warming.'' The mass mailing was an effort to disseminate fossil fuel industry talking points as curriculum for science teachers. They tried to send it to every middle school, high school, and college teacher in the country.

The institute has also done everything it can to defend Mr. Pruitt, who is being investigated for a historic number of ethical lapses. Heartland wrote a letter to the White House just recently that called on the President to continue supporting Mr. Pruitt. The letter said the 10 ethical investigations into Mr. Pruitt amount to ``an orchestrated political campaign by [the President's] enemies.''

Heartland also supports a new proposed EPA rule, and--get this one-- it is a new EPA rule that will restrict the use of scientific studies in EPA decision making. It will restrict the use of science in EPA decision making.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Lung Association, and the National Council for Science and the Environment are some of the 50 science organizations and higher education institutions that have opposed the new rule. But the Heartland Institute is for this rule.

I want to be really clear about this. This isn't about someone having a conservative ideology or different view from mine about what our energy future ought to be. There is no leftwing equivalent of the institute that acts like this. Brookings, the Center for American Progress, and other left-leaning think tanks all have dissent within their ranks, and even on the right, AEI and many others have legitimate academic discussions within the context of their political philosophy. That is not what this is. These other think tanks do not ignore scientific facts because they are real think tanks. But Heartland is not a think tank in any true sense of the word. Their work is focused not on promoting analysis based on science but on trashing analysis based on science. If you don't know that, then you can easily think they are legitimate.

For example, the Heartland Institute sends a monthly newsletter about climate issues to every legislator in the country--State and Federal. It is actually a pretty good-looking product. This is a copy of it. It is actually really well done and well laid out in color, so it is not immediately obvious that this isn't even analysis. It looks like a publication from a scientific institution.

The people they quote or rely on for data are almost always from industry-supported think tanks funded by the same people. This month, they highlighted one of their own policy analysts who said that Oklahoma should not subsidize wind power because the industry can't survive without subsidies. They claim that wind energy is far less reliable and far more expensive than the power derived from fossil fuel. Who benefits from that analysis?

The fact is that wind energy is now the largest source of reliable electricity-generating capacity in the United States. In Oklahoma alone at least 30 percent of all power consumption comes from wind farms, and subsidies for fossil fuels are 40 times those for clean energy.

Also in their April newsletter, Heartland claims that natural gas has little effect on global temperatures. But recent evidence shows that methane emissions from oil and gas are vastly undercounted.

The temperature data on the back cover of this newsletter is from a climate denier at the University of Alabama whose data is considered unreliable and biased by the vast majority of the scientific community. This is not normal intellectual dissent within the scientific community. This is not normal political dissent about what our energy future should be. These people are propagating propaganda. This is not the work of a legitimate think tank. A legitimate think tank does not ignore facts and evidence. It does not publish data from a climate denier who is known in the science community for publishing work loaded with errors.

They are pushing us away from science and from doing the hard work of protecting and preserving our country's clean air and water so that a few of their donors can continue to make as much money as possible.

I was pleased with President Macron's speech today. There was so much he reminded us that we had in common, not just between America and France but between Democrats and Republicans. As he reminded us of our great history together, as he reminded us of our cultural exchange, as he reminded us of our military cooperation, he also reminded us that our great democracies believe in science. We have to believe in science. We have to believe in expertise. It is absolutely appropriate.

The Presiding Officer and I do not share the same political philosophy, but we have to share the same set of facts. That is what is so damaging about a so-called think tank like Heartland. They are not like AEI; they are not like CAP; they are not like Brookings. They are not like any other

think tank in Washington, DC, that on the level, from the standpoint of their own political philosophy and their own objectives, tries to get the right answer. That is an absolutely appropriate function for an institution to serve in this city, but what these guys do is not that.

I think it is very important that we draw a distinction between those who are relying upon facts and science, and those who are not. That is why I wanted to point out what Heartland is all about.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, NASA is a science agency. Its mission is to advance science, technology, aeronautics, and space exploration and enhance knowledge, education, innovation, economic vitality, and stewardship of the mission. That is the mission. That is why past NASA Administrators have been accomplished leaders in the fields of government, aviation, and science.

The NASA Administrator in President Obama's administration was Charles Bolden. He has a master of science degree. He was an astronaut and commanding general in the U.S. Air Force. President George W. Bush had two Administrators during his Presidency. Michael Griffin was a physicist and aerospace engineer who helped to design missile defense technology satellites early in his career. Sean O'Keefe was an engineer in the Navy who worked on nuclear submarines. Before leading NASA, he served as Deputy Director of OMB, Secretary of the Navy, and Comptroller for the Department of Defense. Daniel Golden was a mechanical engineer who previously had been a vice president at a space and technology company. He was nominated by President George H.W. Bush and also served under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Richard Truly served as vice admiral in the Navy before he became the first former astronaut to head the space agency under George H.W. Bush.

The reason we are having a robust debate about Mr. James Bridenstine to lead NASA is that this is the first time in history we have someone without similar qualifications to run such an important agency.

Jim Bridenstine, the nominee we are considering, served as a Navy pilot, and I thank him for his service, but that does not qualify him to run NASA. Just because you know how to fly a plane does not mean you have the skills and experience to lead the Federal Government's space agency.

I am not alone in that opinion. A NASA consultant wrote that Mr. Bridenstine does not have ``significant knowledge and experience with how NASA works'' or ``deep technical knowledge in aerospace systems.''

There are a lot of things a NASA Administrator has to do. Most of it is governed by law, and I expect anybody who is confirmed will follow the law, but the most solemn and serious responsibility that the NASA Administrator has is final launch authority. A launch is a culmination of work by thousands of people over many years. If something goes wrong, we could lose a payload that is worth millions of dollars or is, in fact, irreplaceable. People could die. That is why this job requires someone with good judgment and an understanding of all of the elements that go into a space launch. That is why we have always had NASA administrators who have demonstrable expertise in these fields. It is downright dangerous to have someone without this expertise with this kind of authority. Frankly, it is even more frightening to have a leader who has made a career out of ignoring scientific expertise.

James Bridenstine is a climate denier with no scientific background who has made a career out of ignoring science. Now I also don't have a scientific background, but I defer to scientists. I rely on the scientific consensus, and the scientific consensus is not what Mr. Bridenstine says, which is that it is sort of difficult to tell how much climate change is attributable to human activity. The scientific consensus is that climate change is caused primarily by human activity, and Jim Bridenstine doesn't say that is true, and that is terrifying. Forget our views for the moment about what kind of energy picture we think America should pursue. This is about whether you are going to rely upon people who actually know things or you are going to rely upon your own politics and ideology. When you have final launch authority, you better rely on science.

During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Bridenstine testified that he did not know about the scientific consensus on climate change. He suggested there were other contributing factors that played more of a role, but the fact is this. Almost every climate scientist--97 percent of all climate scientists, to be exact--have concluded that humans are the primary cause of climate change. So there are two explanations for his answer. Either Mr. Bridenstine has not bothered to read up on the scientific consensus on the most pressing scientific issue of our generation or he does not agree with that scientific consensus. Either explanation makes him unqualified to run NASA.

I want to end by reading a few quotes from one of my Republican colleagues. My colleague said that NASA is ``the one federal mission which has largely been free of politics, and it's at a critical juncture in its history.'' He also said any NASA Administrator would need to have the ``respect of the people who work there from a leadership and even a scientific perspective.'' He also said Mr. Bridenstine would add to the politicization of NASA and that NASA, at this critical stage in its history, can't afford that.

I agree with my Republican colleague. I urge every Member of the Senate to give NASA the leader it needs and to vote no on this confirmation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am here to give some brief remarks about what we are on right now, which is a Congressional Review Act vehicle to reconsider agency guidance. There is nothing that sounds more arcane and wonky than that.

The issue at hand has to do with disparate treatment of people when they go in to get a car. There is plenty of evidence that Black and Brown people are taken advantage of and treated more poorly in the credit context than White people. So the CFPB went to collect data and to require that people be treated fairly.

I will be voting against this CRA vehicle, but I actually think there is a bigger, broader, more concerning issue. I am going to try to work with the Parliamentarian's office and with the leadership of both parties to try to address it. Although it is arcane, it is very worrisome for the Senate itself.

The Congressional Review Act passed in 1996. The idea was straightforward: All rules have to have some authority beyond the desire for the agency to want to promulgate rules. It is subject to review by the Congress. In other words, if you don't like what an agency is doing, now there is a pathway called privileged, which allows the Congress to go ahead and overturn that rule. In the Senate, it is especially important because it is not subject to a 60-vote threshold. This is a big deal. This allows Congress to say any time there is a rule made: We are going to overturn it with a bare majority threshold. That was the will of the Congress, and that is Federal law.

Here is how the statute works. The rule gets submitted to GAO and Congress, and then a clock starts and a bunch of statutory triggers go. I dug into this over the last 10 weeks. Suffice it to say it is very complicated. There is a strict timeline, and there are 60 legislative days to take action. And because we are the legislative branch of the Federal Government, legislative days are not actual days; it ends up taking four times that long.

The important part is that there is a process that is prescribed for that, and there is a timeframe that is prescribed for that. That is the authority the Congress gave itself in 1996. That authority is very clear about two things:

First, it is meant to apply to rules, which are binding, and it is meant to have legal force. The CRA gives the Congress a way to weigh in when an agency's interpretation of the law conflicts with the legislative intentions.

Second, it only applies to rules that were recently promulgated. In other words, they specifically envisioned that a clock would run. The rule gets submitted to Congress, the clock runs, and if the Congress likes the rule or if there is not sufficient will to overturn the rule, then the rule stands. If the Congress doesn't like the rule, then a Member can introduce a CRA resolution of disapproval, and we act on it.

This is why what is happening right now is totally nuts. What is happening right now is not what we have normally done with CRAs. What is happening right now is that we are submitting agency guidance--not a rule but agency guidance--which has no legal force, to the same procedures as the rules under the Congressional Review Act. The guidance in question is implementing guidance for a statute that is 50 years old. The guidance came out 5 years ago. The law that it is implementing is 50 years old. It is a piece of guidance. It is literally interpretation of an existing law for the public. And now we are going to overturn the interpretation of an existing law from an executive agency. We are not overturning a rulemaking.

When you go through the rulemaking process in the executive branch, it takes anywhere from 12 to 36 months. There is a rigorous process. It is sort of quasi-judicial, and you have to really check all the boxes and do it right. Otherwise, you get sued under the Administrative Procedure Act. None of that happened. This was just guidance.

So now, if the Parliamentarian and the GAO and everyone else decides that the CRA applies to guidance, then the time limits on CRA don't matter at all, and the interpretation of this statute is rendered absurd.

I will point out that this is not the most well-crafted Federal law on the books. It is very difficult to interpret this Federal law, so I sympathize with the Parliamentarian and GAO and the leadership of both parties, who are trying to make sense of a statute that is unclear in some places. But when a statute is unclear, you are supposed to interpret the statute in a way that the statute functions. Right now, what we are doing is we are rendering the statute essentially absurd because if it is a rule, you have a strict time limit. If it is guidance--and I am not sure, if it is guidance, why that wouldn't also apply to an agency circular or an executive memorandum for the Under Secretary. All of this could be subject to tens of thousands of pieces of guidance and rules and views, and whatever is considered policymaking could be subjected to a Congressional Review Act action. I think that is completely bananas.

We are going down a path where Congress can take an administrative action that has been done in the last 22 years and subject it to the CRA, and you will not need 60 votes. This is bad for our institution. I can't stress that enough. I understand that this is not the kind of thing that people across the country are going to be deeply passionate about and march on the streets about and be motivated to vote on, but we are in the Senate, and we have an obligation to safeguard the way this institution operates.

I am deeply afraid that if we subject every piece of administration guidance--and remember, the door swings both ways in Washington. We will have a Democratic Senate. Who knows when, but we will have a Democratic Senate and we will have a Democratic House, and we can scour everything that every Republican administration has done since 1996 pursuant to any law made at any time in our American history and subject it to a majority vote.

I think the last thing this institution needs is a new opportunity to go down new rabbit holes on partisan issues and a new opportunity to fight on small things and not deal with the biggest challenges of our time.

I am going to oppose this on the merits, but I am more worried about what we are doing to our institution. Right now, the Senate is not functioning at a high level. We have not had any open amendment process except vote-arama, which I think 100 Senators would agree is a useless process. So the regular order, which was called for by the then- minority leader when he was criticizing Majority Leader Reid, is nowhere to be found. I am not blaming him. I am not blaming anyone in particular. But I am saying that when there is an opportunity to at least prevent this institution from falling further, we should take that opportunity.

I understand we are not going to be able to intervene in this moment and stop this CRA, but let the record reflect that I do not accept that a precedent is being set. This has not been refereed yet. We have not fully had a conversation with the Parliamentarian and GAO about what exactly CRA is supposed to mean and how it is supposed to operate. If it is supposed to operate in an absurd way, I think we have a lot of work to do.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank Senator Hirono for her poignant remarks, and I want to offer my condolences to the family.

Senator Daniel Kahikina Akaka died on Friday at the age of 93, leaving behind a legacy of integrity, kindness, and service to Hawaii and to the Nation.

In Washington, Senator Akaka was an ambassador of ``aloha.'' He showed people kindness, respect, and hospitality rarely seen in this town. He didn't just represent Hawaii's interests in the Congress; he showed the world what Hawaii represents; in the words of President Kennedy, ``all that we are and all that we hope to be.''

He started that service as a welder in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He fought in World War II in the Pacific arena, traveling to places like Tinian and Saipan. When World War II ended, he took advantage of the GI bill to attend the University of Hawaii to become a teacher--an occupation he never fully left behind.

Senator Akaka served for 36 years in Congress--14 years in the House and 22 in the U.S. Senate. He was loved by colleagues in both parties because he was kind to everyone. In fact, he never said a bad word about anyone, not even in private. The foundation for his kindness came from his faith, which he learned from his mother Annie.

He was a faithful attendee of the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, where he would lead Members singing hymns. He always began with the history of each song--a tradition he passed on to our own Chaplain, Chaplain Black, who continues it today.

Danny Akaka was also very humble. There were times he didn't get credit for the work he did here because he didn't care about the credit. He cared about the work, about making a difference for people, especially those whom he represented.

He was deeply convinced that the government could improve people's lives because he had seen that in his own life as a beneficiary of the GI bill. He would become the Senator who modernized that bill, bringing it into the 21st century. He always fought hard for veterans--for their benefits and their recognition, no matter the color of their skin or their country of origin. When someone once challenged him on the cost of benefits for veterans, he answered by saying: ``The price has already been paid, many times over, by the service of the brave men and women who wore our nation's uniform.''

Senator Akaka never forgot the costs of war on our country, and he did everything he could to make sure his colleagues didn't either. He voted against the Iraq war and advocated for peace and nuclear nonproliferation throughout his career.

He was unrelenting when it came to the causes that were most important to him. As the only Native Hawaiian to ever serve in the U.S. Senate, he never stopped working to see Native Hawaiians recognized in a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

In his years on the Indian Affairs Committee, including as the chairman, he successfully sponsored the apology resolution, which recognized that the overthrow of the Queen--the only monarch in the United States--was illegal and facilitated by agents of our own Federal Government.

This was the theme of Senator Akaka's career--to advocate for people who did not have power and for people who were vulnerable. He was a champion for the Federal Government employees who, to this day, continue to be a punching bag for some. He sponsored the 2012 Whistleblower Protection Act, which ensures that Federal workers cannot be retaliated against if they report waste, fraud, and abuse. That was just one of the many things he did to make the Federal Government a better employer.

Senator Akaka also fought for consumers. He helped people who were trying to get out of credit card debt. He made sure investors had an advocate at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and he protected people who sent remittances around the world so they aren't swindled out of their hard-earned money.

Every morning he would begin his day by meeting visitors from Hawaii. Those connections to his constituents--to home--drove his work and kept him focused on helping Hawaii.

Much of his work was possible because of the bipartisanship relationships he built with other Senators. Some of his best friends in the body--Senators Inhofe, Cochran, and Barrasso--were people with whom he did not agree very often. Every Member of this body--those who knew Senator Akaka and those who didn't--can learn from his legacy--a legacy of quiet leadership, of treating others the way you want to be treated, and focusing on the things that matter to the people we are here to represent.

I want to end with a few words from Chaplain Black. This is what he had to say about Senator Akaka:

There's something called ethical congruence--it refers to

when your actions back up your rhetoric. And most of us

struggle with that, because it's very easy to say something

but much more difficult to live it. There's a verse in

Scripture that says, we are living letters, so our lives

should be something that people should be able to read.

Francis of Assisi said: preach the gospel everywhere you go;

when necessary, use words. Senator Akaka preached the gospel

everywhere he went, and very rarely had to use words. That's

the kind of ethical congruence that he had.

The U.S. Senate and our country would be better off if there were more leaders like Danny. He fought for the vulnerable, promoted peace, and looked for common ground. Most of all, he embodied the ``aloha'' spirit and showed us all what it means to have a pure heart and be a true public servant.

Our thoughts are with the family of Senator Akaka today, with Millie, his children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, and his staff. He will be remembered and greatly missed.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the news about climate change certainly feels daunting. In the United States, we have historic wildfires, hurricanes, storms, and floods. Severe weather has upended people's lives, destroyed businesses and homes, and is now costing the economy tens of billions of dollars every year. Around the world, it can sometimes seem even bleaker. Cities are running out of water, and drought has distressed entire regions and pushed people out of their homes and fueled conflict.

Meanwhile, here in Washington, DC, the Trump administration is actively undermining our ability to address climate change. At the EPA in particular, Scott Pruitt is allowing polluters to violate the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. He plans to eliminate limits on methane emissions and protections that keep toxic chemicals from polluting our waterways. He is rolling back the Clean Power Plan and fuel efficiency standards that keep too much carbon from polluting the air. He has cut the number of fines for polluters by more than half, and he has reduced the EPA's staff so that it is down to the same level that it was in 1984. There are 700 EPA employees, including 200 scientists, who have left since the beginning of the Trump administration. In other words, this administration is not just ignoring climate change and its impacts, it is actually throwing fuel on the fire.

So is there any reason for hope? Let me give you three reasons to actually be hopeful.

First, the rest of the world is going to move forward with or without leadership. Every single nation in the world is working to lower its emissions and meet its commitments as part of the Paris Agreement. Experts said that even without the United States, the Paris Agreement can succeed if nations follow through, and there are some promising signs that this is happening.

In China, experts predicted that coal consumption would peak between the years 2020 and 2040, but Brookings reported earlier this year that the country's consumption of coal has already peaked. One-third of global investments in renewable energy today come from China. In 2018, they will likely make up half of the entire global market for new solar installations.

China is not the only one making progress here. The world is in a race for clean energy. A coalition of 22 countries and the EU is investing more than $30 billion a year in clean energy research and development.

That brings us to the second reason to have hope on climate change, and that is economics. Here in the United States, financial incentives remain the law regardless of what Scott Pruitt wants the law to be. We still have the investment tax credit and the production tax credit for solar and wind, and they are pushing us toward clean energy. Last year, more than half of the

new energy generation that came online in the United States was that of wind and solar--more than coal and natural gas combined.

The fact is that clean energy is now cheaper than dirty energy. In 2009, coal cost $111 per megawatt hour, natural gas $83, wind $135. Utility-scale solar cost a whopping $359--about 3\1/2\ times the cost of coal. By 2017--listen to these numbers--it was $102 for coal, $60 for natural gas, $45 for wind, and $50 for utility-scale solar. Now wind and solar are 20 percent cheaper, on average, and coal is twice as expensive as clean energy.

Even the fossil fuel industry understands that we are moving toward a low-carbon economy. That is why their investors are demanding accountability. Last year, a majority of shareholders forced ExxonMobil to start reporting on how the fight against climate change will impact the oil company, which is the largest oil company in the world. TransCanada canceled its plans to build an oil pipeline that would have carried 1.1 million barrels of oil a day because of the changing economic and political calculations.

Third and finally, the United States may not have the President's leadership on climate change, but when it comes to the Paris Agreement, corporations, States, and cities have stood up and declared: We are still in. Thousands of mayors, Governors, CEOs, Tribal leaders, and average Americans are working to meet our commitment to the Paris Agreement. Here is one example at the State level. More than half of the States have clean energy policies in place, and many have capped emissions. In Hawaii, we will transition to 100 percent clean energy by the year 2045, and analysts are optimistic that we may reach our goal sooner than that. These efforts are making a difference. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon found that the United States can meet our original commitment to the Paris Agreement regardless of what Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump, and Scott Pruitt want. Even if the EPA undermines our effort, we are still on track.

George Washington once said that ``perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.'' He also said that ``it is infinitely better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones.'' By these two measures, there is even hope in Congress. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse will be remembered in history as the epitome of perseverance and spirit when it comes to climate change. He understands the moral urgency of this moment. When we look at the Senators joining him on the floor this evening, it is clear that we have more than a few good men and women working on this issue.

We will continue to shine a light on the many ways that this administration is failing the American people by ignoring climate change. We will also continue to hope because the absence of leadership from this President has not stopped the rest of the country or the rest of the world from acting on climate, and it will not stop us from moving forward.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, I was going to give some prepared remarks, but I want to be a little quicker because I see the Senator from Virginia here, and I know how devastating a government shutdown is for the State of Virginia. It is terrible for Hawaii--for our shipyards and our Federal workers.

I do want to respond to my friend from Alaska. He is my friend. We overuse that word in the U.S. Senate; that is true. Dan Sullivan is my friend, but he is wrong on this.

First of all, a small point: The NFL Network is back up and running on the Armed Forces Network. That was fixed on Saturday.

Second of all, there were unanimous consent requests on Friday night to make sure that we pay the military. On Friday night, a unanimous consent request was made to pay the military. It was objected to by the majority leader. And then we tried again yesterday, and it was objected to by the majority leader.

So when the junior Senator from Alaska alleges that we are emerging with slick talking points about the need to support our military servicemembers and civilian DOD employees, I take personal offense. I agree, it should not be slick talking points. This should not be a bludgeon that one party or one Member of one party uses against the other party. But let's just get our facts straight about what happened. I am not excusing what a government shutdown does to people--civilian, DOD, servicemembers, other government employees, essential, nonessential, the people who depend--not just the workers but the people who get services from the workers. I am not defending this shutdown, but let the facts be clear.

On the night of the beginning of the shutdown, a Democratic Senator tried to ensure that at least we minimize the harm for our servicemembers, and then we did it again yesterday, and both times it was objected to by the majority leader.

With that, I will deliver my other remarks later and yield the floor to the Senator from Virginia.

Regular order, please.

Mr. President, will the Senator from North Carolina yield for a question?

It sounds like you want to stay here all night and get this done.

Would you be willing to work on a unanimous consent request to effectuate that?

Regular order, please.

Mr. President, regular order.

Mr. President, I thought I heard the Senator from North Carolina suggest that we stay in and get this done tonight. I think we still have a chance to get this done before 1 a.m.

I still have the floor.

And if we don't get this done by 1 a.m., I personally don't think we should adjourn. I think this should be personally uncomfortable and physically uncomfortable. I think we should be embarrassed by this. I think you make a very good point. I think we should stay in until we get this done.

It is disappointing to me, when I hear all of that. Yet when I ask you if you would be willing to work on a unanimous consent request to effectuate what you have just said, the answer is no.

Mr. President, so here is the state of play. There is a group of 19 to 22 U.S. Senators, a bipartisan group that is trying to find a pathway forward. Senators Schumer and McConnell had a meeting. We don't know exactly how that went. There are some reasons to be encouraged. I think there are not that many reasons to be overly optimistic, but there is a pathway out of this. We can get out of this mess. I think lots of us understand, a lot of us having served in the legislature or at the executive level, actually at the county level as well. We all understand how insane this is to do four CRs in a row, and we all understand that we work very hard to get to the U.S. Senate. I am looking at all of you and thinking about how difficult everybody's race was just to arrive at the world's greatest deliberative body.

Forgetting, for the moment, someone's calculus about who has a temporary or even long-term partisan advantage in light of this shutdown, we all know shutdowns make this institution weaker, and we all know shutdowns make Senators weaker. We don't fight tooth and nail and go through that awful process--there are some joyful moments in a campaign, but nobody necessarily looks forward to it. It is a tough thing. You don't go through that so you can diminish the body in which you serve, and we are diminished by this process. General Mattis may have put it best when he said no enemy has done more harm to the readiness of the military than the combined impact of spending caps in 9 of the last 10 years operating under a CR.

Nobody wants to do this anymore. We can't do CRs forever, but right now we need one to keep everyone at the table without hurting the American people. That is the purpose of the Brown UC and the Murphy UC, which is to say: Whatever our disagreements are, we have an opportunity, by unanimous consent, to make sure we don't punish the American people for our inability to agree with each other. Why not keep the government open for 24 or 48 or 72 hours?

From my standpoint, looking at my constituents in the State of Hawaii, we have extraordinary National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration workers; we have an incredible presence of the Department of Defense, civilian DOD employees as well as servicemembers; we have National Park Service people who do extraordinary work. We have lots of government employees, and it is not their fault. It is not their fault.

So I have a very simple unanimous consent request. It is a little different than the others. The others were to try to avoid this cataclysm, but should we be unable to avoid this cataclysm, I think we should keep our government workers whole because they didn't do this to us. We are doing this to them. So my UC request does a very simple thing. It just makes sure that whatever idiocy happens over the next 6 hours or 6 days or 6 weeks, that they are held harmless.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 290, S. 2274, to provide for compensation to Federal employees affected by lapses in appropriations; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I just want to briefly respond to the Senator from North Carolina.

I actually agree it would be a half measure to open the government for 24 hours; it would be a half measure to pass just CHIP; it would be a half measure to open the government for 72 hours, but the alternative is that we are doing nothing.

Sure, it is a little goofy to keep the government open for 24 hours as we negotiate. It is absolutely goofy. It is embarrassing. It is less embarrassing than actually shutting down the government while we negotiate.

Opening the government for 72 hours, a little strange--not our highest watermark in terms of our legislative prowess. It is pretty embarrassing. What is more embarrassing? Shutting the government down. Passing CHIP after it has expired by consent, awful--not the world's greatest deliberative body's greatest moment. What is worse? Objecting to doing that.

We want to make sure our Federal employees are made whole. I agree with the Senator from North Carolina, this is a half measure, but do you know what? If I am a Federal employee, I will take a half measure because right now we are giving them nothing.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have one last unanimous consent request, and I appreciate the participation from the Senator from North Carolina. I appreciate our dialogue here. I think this is constructive and productive.

This last UC request is very simple. It is the same one, with a small modification that Senator McCaskill made on Friday night, and that is very simple. Every time we have done a shutdown--I have been involved in one. It was the ``Green Eggs and Ham'' Affordable Care Act shutdown. It was the worst period of time I ever spent in the Senate.

Sherrod Brown always says: No whining on the yacht. Don't feel sorry for yourself for serving in the U.S. Senate. It is a privilege. It is a great job.

Shutdowns are miserable. But during that shutdown and during every other shutdown that I am aware of, we always took care of our servicemembers. Senator McCaskill on Friday night put that UC in so that we made sure everyone who is serving in harm's way or prepared to serve in harm's way, supports our military, gets paid.

Frankly, in the heat of the moment on Friday night, when there was still a lack of clarity whether we were going to get through it without a shutdown, I understand nobody wanted to allow a UC request of any sort to go through. But then Friday came, and it was is not at all clear that we were going to move on this. And now we are into Sunday, and I don't know where we are with this, but I am getting increasingly worried. So it is really hard for me to understand why we wouldn't unanimously consent to pay our servicemembers.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 36, H.R. 1301; that the amendment at the desk, providing for continuing appropriations for pay and death benefits for members of the armed services, be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am a member of the Defense Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. As the Senator from North Carolina knows, the way that we do Defense appropriations is with great care. We have markups. We find out what each service branch needs in terms of personnel, in terms of bases and installation, in terms of new acquisitions, and that process takes a fair amount of time. That markup is not done.

I would love to move on Defense appropriations, but from the standpoint of responsibly spending hundreds of billions of dollars, we are not there yet, and so, therefore, I object.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, here is what is happening. Last night, Senate Democrats asked to do a 1-day continuing resolution. They also asked to do a 3-day continuing resolution. What

does that mean? That means we were at an impasse because the House- passed continuing resolution was 4 weeks, and that was not acceptable to enough U.S. Senators to pass. If you subject it to a vote, and it doesn't get cloture, it fails.

Under normal circumstances, then you try to find out what might be able to get cloture, but we were so close to the deadline that we needed something called a unanimous consent request. In other words, we needed every single U.S. Senator to accede to the idea that we should vote on something.

It is not unusual for a unanimous consent request to be granted. A lot of times it is just perfunctory stuff, everyday stuff to kind of move something in a schedule, allow someone to have 10 more minutes to speak, or whatever it may be, but on big things, you don't always grant consent. I get that.

Think about where we were. We were on the precipice of the government shutdown, and Senator Nelson from Florida asked for unanimous consent-- in other words, all 100 U.S. Senators agreeing--to bring up a measure that would have kept the government open; the idea being that is better than a shutdown; the idea being that everybody on the Senate floor was actually behaving like a Senator last night who did not want to shut down the government.

There were lots of very interesting, constructive, and productive bipartisan conversations. We were close. We weren't that close--we weren't 10 minutes away--but we weren't so far apart that it wasn't worth trying. That is why Senator Nelson said: Why don't we buy ourselves another 24 hours and not shut down the government.

The majority leader objected. It was the majority leader's prerogative to allow it to be voted on. Had that been subjected to a vote, I doubt there would have been more than a handful of people voting against it. Nobody wants a government shutdown. Senator Nelson provided the opportunity for us to avoid this.

Then Senator Tester said: OK. Maybe 1 day is too short. Maybe we can't get this done in 20. My view was we should have 12-hour CRs. We should have absolute, burning pressure on ourselves. It should be physically miserable. We should be here. We should be working. We should be negotiating. That is my view. I think we should be on 12-hour CRs.

Listen, I can't go home, right? I live pretty far away, but even for those who live on the Eastern Seaboard, I don't think anybody should be comfortable this weekend--politically, physically, mentally. To understand what is happening to the country, you should not be comfortable. You should be embarrassed. I think we should be on 12-hour CRs. OK. A 24-hour CR, I was fine with that. That got rejected. How about a 3-day CR? That is what President Trump wanted to do to try to close the deal, but those were rejected.

No one can explain to the public why we can't keep the government open for a few days to negotiate without punishing the whole country. Nobody wins during a shutdown. We were so close to an agreement.

The overarching reason we didn't reach an agreement is, we have an erratic White House. I have been trying to dial down my rhetoric in this context. I am looking at the Presiding Officer, who is a Republican, with whom I have a constructive working relationship. If we are going to get out of this, we have to get out of this together. So I am trying to watch my tone because we are going to have to vote on something together at some point. The simple fact is, the White House has been erratic and inconsistent in this process.

There was at least a framework for a deal on January 11, and it got blown up in that very famous meeting with the expletives. Then there was at least a framework for a deal yesterday, and it got--now very famously--blown up by a subsequent meeting and a subsequent phone call. Here we are with four continuing resolutions in 4 months.

We haven't actually been able to work on the appropriations process. We haven't done great with appropriations in the past 5 years since I have been here, but, occasionally we will get an omnibus done. Occasionally, we will have proper markups. Occasionally, we will look at each executive agency and do our job properly.

It is not the regular order like it used to be with my predecessor and many of the people of the Senate of old. It was not as bad as this. A CR month by month, week by week--enough is enough.

Instead of trying to deal with this, the White House is failing to address these baseline issues and then creates new crises. This was a manufactured crisis on DACA. They didn't need to create this crisis, but now we have one.

Instead of using the Executive's authority to solve problems, they are focusing on the wrong things. They are punishing children who were brought to this country through no fault of their own and now are as American as anyone in Congress, except in the eyes of the law, but there is a level of inconsistency, as a euphemism, that we have had to deal with in these negotiations. The White House told the Republicans to fund CHIP as part of a 30-day spending bill, and then the President tweeted we should only fund CHIP if it is part of a long-term solution.

We had a deal on the table to help Dreamers in exchange for border funding only to have the White House change its mind. That happened once when the deal was blown up a couple weeks ago and then yesterday.

Senate Republicans may feel comfortable; they may feel uncomfortable. I don't know. I think it probably depends on the Member, but they are in a holding pattern waiting for Presidential leadership, and they don't know what the White House wants. They don't want to move on legislation without the White House's approval, but trying to get clarity from the administration on this or any other issue is a fool's errand because it changes by the hour and certainly by the day. That is why we are in this position.

It is not unusual for Congress to have disagreements between the parties, within the political parties, between the House and the Senate. That is the way the legislative process works. It is a messy process, but the way an executive is supposed to play that role, they are supposed to wield that authority, that power. Whether it is a Governor or a mayor or a President, when it gets close--and we are close--the executive is supposed to close the deal. This Executive does the opposite.

This Executive has blown up every deal every time. Sometimes we are far apart, and it gets worse. Sometimes we are vanishingly close, and it gets blown up, but what an executive is supposed to do is play that role, play that adult in the room. Right now, we are a ship without a captain.

That is why we are marking the 1-year anniversary of this administration with a government shutdown. That is why hundreds of thousands of people across the country are marching to say they are dissatisfied with the direction of this country.

The year 2017 in this U.S. Senate, it was a unique year. That is because we had basically no bipartisanship on the Senate floor. There were a few things that went by unanimous consent. The process of the U.S. Senate is supposed to be that you submit a bill on the floor, and it takes a week or two. Everybody offers amendments. There is lots of haggling. It is kind of messy. People talk too long, people argue, but in the end, you move a piece of legislation. It is a bipartisan process by construct.

We are supposed to be different than the House. We are not a majoritarian institution. We are supposed to be a moderating force on the country. We are supposed to be the adults in the room. The way you do that is through an open amendment process.

I want everybody to know we had a couple of situations where Democrats were allowed to offer amendments, but that was in something called vote-arama. I know the Presiding Officer hates vote-arama. I know most people in the U.S. Senate hate vote-arama. Why? Because it is a farce. It is worse than student council. Everyone is just doing stuff to position themselves back home. None of the things we vote on in the vote-arama process has any force of law or is going to be enacted. There is nothing meaningful that happens in vote-arama.

Other than that, not one single, solitary Democratic amendment was considered on the U.S. Senate floor. No Democratic Senator had their amendment considered on the Senate floor except inside of the process called vote-

arama, which we all know is a farce. So we haven't had bipartisanship.

I was so encouraged when the majority leader, early this year--I think the first week of the year right before convening--said he wants to do things on the basis of 60 votes, which is the way the Senate has always worked. I know he considers himself an institutionalist.

I understand they felt it imperative to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act and do their tax cuts via the reconciliation process, which is a 51-vote threshold, but he basically announced: We are going to do bipartisan stuff this year. But what we have is an erratic administration that changes its position every hour, and so it is very difficult to get to 60. They lack the clarity, they lack the capacity, and it appears they lack the desire to govern in a bipartisan fashion.

So I just want to be very clear. Democrats are ready and eager to talk. We are here to find a way forward, but that does require Presidential leadership.

I don't understand why we couldn't have a 1-day CR, a 2-day CR, or a 5-day CR. I don't understand why we can't negotiate with the government open. When Bill Nelson comes to the floor and says: Why don't we buy ourselves another 24 hours so that civilian DOD employees can get paid, so people at the Pearl Harbor Shipyard can get paid, so people who work for the Federal Government can get paid, so some of the people who work in the U.S. Congress, in security and elsewhere, parking--all of these wonderful civil servants are not going to get paid. All of these services are going to get shut down tomorrow--not tomorrow but Monday morning--because nobody is even going to allow Bill Nelson's proposal to even get a vote.

If you guys don't want to do a 24-hour CR, vote against it, but at least allow us to keep the government open and keep these negotiations open.

Now is the time for Congress to conduct itself as the article I branch--as a separate, coequal branch of government. And we are not--I understand the politics. We just had 8 years of President Obama, and obviously Democrats were very eager to understand the administration's position so we could calibrate and coordinate. We didn't always do the same thing, but you have to keep an open ear to what a President of your party desires to do. But when a President of your party is either totally unclear or changes his mind every 12 hours, then you have to make a judgment that you are going to exercise your constitutional obligation and get the job done with his participation or over his objections. That is what we need to do on a bipartisan basis.

I yield the floor.

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

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I want to cover what I think are the seven worst aspects of this tax bill.

The first thing is that this is not a middle-class tax cut. Credible, independent analysis of this bill found that the richest 1 percent of the United States will get $85 billion of the benefits in the year 2019. These Americans will get a tax cut of more than $55,000 per person while taxpayers who fall in the middle of the road will get a couple of hundred bucks. Many in the middle class will pay more because of this bill.

People making $30,000 or less will see a tax increase of about 10 percent. Even foreign investors will do better than the middle class in this bill. What do I mean by foreign investors? I mean foreign investors. I mean people who don't live in the United States but who own stock or are investors in American companies. In 2019, they will get a $48 billion tax benefit. That is a bigger benefit than more than half of the rest of the country will get from this bill. You have to work hard to design a tax plan that helps the middle class less than this one does. In fact, the Washington Post looked at this plan a few weeks ago and found that it is the worst tax plan for the middle class in 50 years. Here is the thing. It shouldn't be that hard to do a middle-class tax cut; you just do a middle-class tax cut.

The No. 2 reason this bill is horrible is it is primarily written for special interests. Republicans couldn't give the middle class a bigger tax break because they needed all of that money for special interests. Real estate firms will see an immediate 16 percent decrease in taxes next year. For families who own multimillion-dollar hotels, that makes this a great bill.

Big banks and financial firms also win. Over the next 10 years, financial firms will save $250 billion. Over the next 10 years, financial firms will save $250 billion.

The biggest single beneficiary is Wells Fargo. What I remember from the last election was that the lesson the voters were teaching us across America was a populous lesson, that

they were sick of financial institutions and the very powerful politically and the very powerful economically running us. Here we are giving a massive tax break to Wells Fargo, an estimated 18-percent boost in earnings just for Wells Fargo. This is not a bank that has been a good player recently. They were mired in scandal after they bilked customers into buying auto insurance and created thousands of fake credit card and bank accounts.

People are not getting a tax cut. Corporations are getting a tax cut, and no one knows how we are going to pay for all of this.

This brings me to No. 3. If passed, this bill will increase the Federal deficit by a minimum of $1.5 trillion. With $1.5 trillion, we can pay down every single student loan in the country and still have enough money left over for middle-class tax cuts. Instead, we are going to make sure that Wells Fargo investors have another banner year.

There was an entire group of Republicans elected to the Congress on the premise that the Federal debt and deficit were too high and that we needed fiscal discipline and fiscal responsibility, and now they are adding $1.5 trillion to the deficit.

No. 4, this bill is just bad economic policy. It is premised on the idea that if you provide a tax cut for corporations, they will share it, essentially; that if you give money to a corporation and they take that money and they reinvest it in their physical plant, they make additional developments--maybe they build a new factory, or maybe they pay their people more. That sounds great. Here is the problem: The corporate sector is sitting on an unprecedented amount of cash already. The corporate sector has lots of cash already. So we have a lesson in what they will do with extra cash, right? If they were going to use extra cash to pay their people more or invest more in physical infrastructure or expand their businesses, they would already be doing that because they are already sitting on record amounts of capital. But they are not doing that. What they are doing is stock buybacks and dividends. In other words, they are paying off their shareholders.

When a group of American CEOs was asked what they were going to do with the windfall money they are about to receive, they did not say they are going to pay their people more; they did not say they are going to invest more in expanding their businesses; they indicated that they are going to do what they have been doing with their record amounts of cash, which is pour it back into stock buybacks and dividends.

This is bad economic policy. Forget the moral part for a moment. Even at the macroeconomic level, this is not smart.

No. 5, this is bad policy because it is a bad process. This bill was written in secret. It was rushed, and it was 100 percent partisan. We know it didn't have to be that way.

One of the things I said to some of my colleagues with whom I have a strong relationship is, listen, why don't we try to do this subject to a 60-vote threshold? Why don't we try to find bipartisan agreement? And then, listen, if you find that we are operating with you in bad faith, if you find that there is no room for compromise, drop the threshold down and do it with a 51-vote margin, but at least you will have exhausted the possibility of bipartisanship.

They started with 51 votes. What does that mean? That means they never wanted to listen to Democrats. That is why this process is so flawed. And now the House just sent over a bill that is so messed up, they are going to have to vote again tomorrow. To fix the garbage they sent over this afternoon, they are already talking about an additional technical fixes bill to do next year. This is the product that you get when you don't have public hearings, when you don't have bipartisanship, and when you don't take your time.

No. 6, this bill is bad for healthcare. People's premiums are going to skyrocket, and 13 million Americans are going to go without health insurance.

No. 7, this bill increases income inequality. This bill changes our tax system to reward wealth over work. For me, American capitalism is about, you work hard, you have a good idea, and you are rewarded. It is not about, your dad was rich, he passed the money down, and you are rewarded. American capitalism is about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. But what we are doing with the Tax Code is unprecedented-- except for during the gilded age. What we are doing with the Tax Code right now is saying: We value already being rich more than we value someone who is climbing that mountain.

That is a foundational moral question--do we value work, or do we value wealth? The problem with this bill--and we can go through process and policy and politics, but the foundational problem with this bill is that, through this document, we are declaring that we value people's wealth that already exists. We value passive income more than we value earned income. And that is not good for the United States of America. That is the problem with this bill. We are telling people that we value people who already have money more than people who are climbing that hill. That is why I oppose this bill so strongly, and I think that is why people across America--for the very first time, at least in recent history but maybe in American history, we have a tax cut bill that is so deeply unpopular because people understand what a rotten piece of legislation this is. I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, the Senate has, actually, already considered Bill Wehrum to be the Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation at the Environmental Protection Agency, who is the person in charge of the rules to administer the Clean Air Act at the EPA. This person has already been considered, and the Senate decided that he was not right for the job.

Over 10 years ago, President Bush nominated Mr. Wehrum to head the Office of Air and Radiation at the EPA. He was rejected because his 6- year record as an employee at the EPA told the Senators all that they needed to know. As the ranking member, Jim Jeffords, put it at the time: ``Mr. Wehrum's disdain for the Clean Air Act is alarming.'' If you disagree with the foundational Federal law that we use to keep our air clean, then it is hard to believe that you can competently lead the EPA's efforts when it comes to protecting our right to clean air. A decade later, nothing has changed. Mr. Wehrum has done nothing that should change our minds about his ability to lead the EPA.

This, of course, is part of a pattern. This administration continues to nominate anti-science, pro-pollution, climate-denying people to lead the U.S. agencies that are in charge of science and climate.

Scott Pruitt has denied a century's worth of established science and basic facts that say that climate change is real, urgent, and caused by humans. He now leads the No. 1 Federal Agency that is charged with working on climate change.

Then there is Jim Bridenstine, who hopes to lead NASA, which is one of our Nation's top science agencies. He, too, is still on the fence about climate change.

Meanwhile, 13 Federal agencies, including the EPA and NASA, just published a dire report that reads that greenhouse gases released by human activity are to blame for rising temperatures and severe weather throughout the world.

This is why Mr. Wehrum should not go any further. It is really very simple. Our own government scientists say that climate change is real, urgent, and caused by humans.

If you do not want to take their word for it, here in the United States in this year alone, a record number of category 4 hurricanes killed dozens of people and destroyed or damaged entire communities in the southern United States and Puerto Rico. Wildfires killed dozens of people and burned more than 8.4 million acres in the Northwest. Droughts lasting for months wiped out farmers' crops and forced ranchers to sell livestock in the Midwest. The city of Seattle had soot on cars from the wildfires. For a period, the State of Montana, depending on where you were, looked like it was literally on fire.

The U.S. Forest Service's budget is soon to be more than 50 percent firefighting. This is supposed to be the Forest Service for the conservation and management of our forests, and now it is the Federal firefighting of our forests. There have been 15 severe weather events this year that have resulted in losses exceeding $1 billion. That is what insurance companies and reinsurance companies consider to be the threshold. They consider a big event--a catastrophic event--from an insurance standpoint to be a $1 billion event. We had 15 of them this year in the United States. In the past 10 years, the U.S. Government has spent more than $350 billion in helping communities recover from severe weather, and that is before our getting through with the various and necessary disaster supplemental budget requests that are coming down for Florida, Houston, and Puerto Rico.

Look, severe weather is a reality or whatever you want to call it. If you feel uncomfortable politically calling it ``climate change,'' fine, but severe weather is actually already happening. It is now a moral issue, and it is a fiscal issue. It has taken a huge toll on our economy, on the American taxpayer, and on local communities. For the most part, we do not budget for

these costs because we have decided that these are one-time events, but they just happen to be one-time events that are occurring more and more frequently and that are costing more and more.

Because of the leadership vacuum that Scott Pruitt and Donald Trump have created, States and cities and the private sector have been stepping up so that the United States can stay on track to cut carbon emissions and fight climate change. Yet the Federal Government still has a responsibility here, not just a moral responsibility but a legal one, for the climate will keep changing, the costs will keep rising, and more and more people will feel the effects. Instead of stepping up so that our Federal debt does not balloon and our coastlines do not erode and our security is not threatened, this administration keeps nominating people like Mr. Wehrum to deny that climate is an issue and that the government ought to act.

Throughout his career, Mr. Wehrum has demonstrated antipathy for the very laws that he is now going to be tasked with upholding. When he held this position in an acting capacity in the 2000s--in other words, he was filling in until he was confirmed but was never confirmed--he was sued dozens of times for not doing his job. Time and again, the courts found that, in fact, he was putting special interests over science and over the public good. This is not just a rhetorical statement. These are 27 times that Mr. Wehrum lost in court for exceeding his authorities under the law.

Here is where he kept getting specifically into trouble. Mr. Wehrum is a former lawyer for the very industries that the EPA regulates-- chemical companies, utility companies, the auto industry. This is the experience that he relied on while he worked at the EPA, which is fair enough so far, but when the Agency started working on a rule that regulated pollution from powerplants, Mr. Wehrum took language from his former law firm--again, which represented powerplants--and gave it to the EPA to put into the rule. In other words, the EPA did not look to experts and scientists to decide how best to regulate powerplants; it looked to the powerplants' lawyers.

Mr. Wehrum's job was to protect clean air and public health, and he failed at that job by siding with special interests over that mission. The courts actually stepped in 27 times, and he lost 27 times. One case went all the way to the Supreme Court under Mr. Wehrum. The EPA said that it did not have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide from automobiles, but under U.S. law, the EPA must regulate all emissions that are damaging to human health and welfare, and the Supreme Court has acknowledged that carbon pollution fits that description.

Just to be clear, under the EPA's responsibility to administer the Clean Air Act, the EPA does not just have the authority to regulate carbon emissions; it has the obligation to regulate carbon emissions. In other words, anything that is airborne that causes harm to people, to public health, must be regulated. The EPA does not simply decide which of these airborne pollutants must be regulated; it has to regulate all of those pollutants that cause damage to public health. Clearly, carbon fits that category on a commonsense level, but the Supreme Court also decided that. There have been more intense storms, as we have seen from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, and others, that are certainly bad for human health and well-being, and the Supreme Court has agreed. The EPA has the authority and the obligation to regulate these greenhouse gases.

We do not need to go through this again. Mr. Wehrum has already shown that he is not the right leader for the EPA. He will not commit to taking the necessary steps to address severe weather. He will not fight for clean air. He will fight for his former clients. This is not an accusation. It is based on exactly what he did when he was in the same position. It is the reason the Senate rejected him 10 years ago.

With this kind of information in front of us, there is no way we can put Mr. Wehrum back in charge of the office that is tasked with regulating carbon pollution, not when we are facing a planetary emergency, not when the fiscal and human costs of inaction are so clear. The EPA needs leadership that understands the crisis we are facing and that understands and is willing to do everything in its power to address it. Mr. Wehrum has clearly demonstrated that he is not the right person for this job. I will vote no on this nominee, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.