Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we are now 5 months into the new 116th Congress. During that 5-month period, the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has passed a series of bills on issues important to the overwhelming majority of the American public. They include legislation to reduce the death toll from gun violence by requiring universal criminal background checks and legislation to end the millions and millions of dollars of secret money flowing into elections and polluting our politics. The House legislation includes a bill to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work, and the House has also passed legislation to strengthen the protections under the Violence Against Women Act. Those are just some of the initiatives the House has passed in the last 5 months.

Here in the Senate, what has the Senate done on those important issues? What has the Senate done with the legislation that the House has passed and is now sitting in this body? We have done nothing--zip. We haven't taken up any of those bills. In fact, the Senate Republican leader has refused to allow this body to consider those important measures.

What are we doing instead? Instead, the Senate is consuming all of its time not on the matters most important to the public but on debating and confirming judicial and executive branch nominees. Here is the thing: If you look at these judicial nominees--let's just take the ones we are looking at this week--you will find a very dangerous pattern.

This week, in looking at the five nominees, the pattern is selecting judges who will strip away women's reproductive choices and who will strip

away and potentially eliminate the rights under Roe v. Wade. That is the clear pattern.

If you look at the records of these nominees, they indicate hostility toward a woman's right to choose and hostility to Roe v. Wade. Take, for example, Stephen Clark. He is the nominee for the Eastern District of Missouri. He drew the outrageous comparison between Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade, including Roe as bad law. He also opposed provisions in the Affordable Care Act that would expand access to contraception to help people avoid unintended pregnancies.

Then there is the nomination of Kenneth Bell to be a judge in the Western District of North Carolina. He has argued that abortion rights, the pro-choice position, is ``indefensible'' and went on to say that ``there is no middle ground'' on this issue. In other words, he is another judge who would deny women the right of reproductive choice, and the list goes on if you look at the list of judges who are before the Senate this week.

This would be alarming at any point in time, but the timing of these nominations is no coincidence. Just in the last couple of months, we have seen States around the country passing laws to take away a woman's right to choose.

Let's take a look at Alabama. In the case of Alabama, they passed a law that denies a woman's right to choose to have an abortion even in the case of rape or incest. Under the Alabama law, doctors who perform abortions could be locked up in prison for up to 99 years--a prison term longer than that of a rapist.

We also have Candidate Trump arguing that not only should doctors be punished but women who exercise their rights to reproductive choice should be punished too.

Meanwhile, in addition to Alabama, five other States have passed laws that would outlaw abortion at a very early stage--in fact, at a stage of pregnancy when many women do not realize they are yet pregnant, especially if the pregnancy is unplanned and unexpected.

I think people recognize how outrageous it is to see State legislators and other elected officials who normally take the position that the government has no place in regulating or being involved in any aspect of our lives, who then take the position that they want the government right between a woman and her most sensitive decisions with respect to reproductive choice.

We have legislators who say they don't want the government protecting people from air pollution. They don't want to pass any regulations to protect people from air pollution or water pollution. We have some legislators who say they don't want any legislation to protect consumers from predatory lending or other scams in the economy. They don't think the government has a role there, but, by God, when it comes to interfering with a woman's right to choose, they want the government smack in the middle of that decision. That is what Alabama has done. That is what the other five States have done.

Now we have judicial nominees coming before the Senate who are going to sign off potentially on those State laws.

It gets even more alarming because we also see a pattern from the judicial decisions that have been made and from the records of a lot of the nominees who are before us now of judges or people being appointed, who not only want to strip away a woman's right to reproductive choice but who actually want to go after programs that help provide family planning, programs that help prevent unwanted and unplanned pregnancies. So, on the one hand, States are passing these laws restricting a woman's right to choose, but at the same time they are saying that they want to get rid of or severely limit programs that prevent unintended pregnancies.

Looking at the figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--and they keep statistics on all sorts of health indicators--you will find that from 2006 to the year 2015, there was a 24-percent drop in the number of abortions in the United States. There was a 24-percent drop in the years between 2006 and 2015. Researchers who have looked into this have determined that the biggest driver behind this decline in abortion has been increased access to contraception and family planning. Yet the Trump administration is going after and targeting for elimination the very programs that help reduce unintended pregnancy and, therefore, also help reduce abortions. So this administration is trying to take a hatchet to title X. They want to essentially take Planned Parenthood out of the equation, even though Planned Parenthood provides family planning services to 4 in 10 women.

As we all know, Planned Parenthood is barred by law from spending any Federal dollars on abortion. They spend most of their time counseling their patients on family planning and helping people make decisions about contraception to avoid unplanned pregnancies.

This administration tried to target the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. I know that because it went after a program in Baltimore City that has been very successful in reducing teenage pregnancy.

In fact, if you look at Baltimore from a period during the year of 2000 to 2016, we saw a 61-percent decline in teen pregnancy. That was as a result of a number of programs, easier access to contraception, the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program that was targeted for elimination by the Trump administration, and, after the Affordable Care Act went into effect, the ability to access contraception as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

All of these measures to help prevent unplanned pregnancies have also helped to significantly reduce the number of abortions. Yet we have an administration that wants to go after those family planning programs, and we have a number of judges who would side with the administration. I will mention a couple of important family planning programs.

One is title X. This administration wanted to severely undermine title X. It has not been successful. Why not? Because it was taken to court. So far, the courts have stayed the administration's decision.

Let's look at the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, which I mentioned, that is so important in Baltimore. The administration wanted to eliminate it, and so we had to go to court. The judge said that it was an illegal action--an unauthorized action--by the Trump administration.

Let's look at the contraception provisions--the provisions on access to contraception--in the Affordable Care Act. This administration wants to wipe them out. The only reason they are still there is due to the courts. The courts have been very important not only in protecting a woman's right to choose but in protecting these important family planning programs that have prevented unintended pregnancies and, therefore, have also reduced the number of abortions.

Now we have a whole bunch of judges who are coming before the Senate who would rule differently in all of these cases. That is why I believe the American people need to really be alarmed about what is happening here. We are not acting on important measures that are coming out of the House that I mentioned earlier. What we are doing is spending the full time passing through judges--in a factory-like procedure here--who will undermine a woman's right to choose and go after important family planning programs. We have a lot to think about, and I hope all of our colleagues will recognize what is happening here.

I will go back to where I started.

Instead of churning out judges who are going to strip away the rights of women--and other nominees who side with big corporations against consumers--let's take up the legislation that is in front of us right now that has come over from the House.

We have before us H.R. 8. It is the Bipartisan Background Checks legislation. It was bipartisan because it came out of the House on a bipartisan vote.

It was bipartisan because, if you ask the public, 85 percent of the public is in favor of the simple idea that we should have criminal background checks and that the people who have committed crimes shouldn't be able to go to gun shows and purchase guns. If you have a record of posing a danger to the community, my goodness, why would we want to put a gun in your hand and endanger the community?

It is a pretty straightforward piece of legislation, and it has been in this Senate for 83 days now. For 83 days, it has been sitting right here in the Senate, but the Republican leader will not let us take it up to debate it or to vote on it.

I mentioned another bill that came over from the House that would get rid of secret money in politics. What do I mean by that?

After the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, we had two things happen. One was that just a flood of corporate money flew into elections because, before that decision, corporations could not spend money directly to try to elect public officials. The Congress had previously passed a law to prevent that, and previous Supreme Courts had upheld that ban on corporate spending to try to elect public officials. In Citizens United, they decided, well, corporations are people, too, for the purpose of spending money in elections. So they got rid of that law.

If you read that opinion, even those who voted to overturn those laws said that what is going to protect the system will be the public's knowing who will be spending all of that money. They said: All right, we are going to let corporations spend all of that money. We are going to let 501(c)(4)s spend all of that money. Do you know what? The public will know, and that will serve as a check on the system. That will provide transparency, and the transparency will provide accountability.

Guess what. It didn't happen. In fact, the Senate's Republican leader has been one of the arch opponents of any kind of transparency and disclosure. I have had a long-running back-and-forth with him on this issue because, even if you look at the proponents of the terrible Citizens United decision, as I said, those Justices said: Well, transparency will take care of it. The reality is that people spend millions and millions of dollars in secret money in elections.

Let me just tell people that it may be secret to the public, but it is not a big secret to the candidates who are running. It is not a big secret to them who is spending millions of dollars to try to get them elected or to defeat them. That is a farce. Years ago, when I was in the House, I authored something called the DISCLOSE Act. It passed the House. It died here by one vote. We got 59 votes on an almost identical bill. It didn't get 60. So we still have secret money in politics today.

My view is that voters have a right to know who is spending millions of dollars to try to influence their decisions, and that is a big part of the bill that came over from the House 74 days ago. It is called the For the People Act. It has a lot of other important provisions in it to protect our elections and important provisions to make sure that we uphold the right to vote.

Among the important provisions is the DISCLOSE Act--to get rid of secret money in politics. That is sitting over here and has been for 74 days.

What else has the House sent over? It sent over the Equal Pay Act, which has a pretty straightforward idea, and I think most Americans agree with it. In fact, public surveys show that people agree that if you put in an equal day's work--if you put in the sweat equity, if you do the job--and if a woman does the job just like the man does the job, by God, obviously, she should get paid the same amount. It is a pretty simple concept. That came over from the House. In fact, it came over from the House just 55 days ago. For 55 days, it has been sitting here.

Another bill that has come over from the House also relates to making sure that we address issues that are important to all of us, but it has specifically dealt with the Violence Against Women Act. What we say within the Violence Against Women Act, in the House bill, is that if you have someone who is abusing you in a relationship--it doesn't have to be your spouse; it could be someone else who is abusing you in a relationship--they shouldn't be able to go out and buy a gun. What we have seen from the sad statistics is that those kinds of situations often escalate into somebody's getting killed when someone is in a relationship in which one of the people in that relationship is abusing the other.

Just as we prevent the sale of guns to spouses who have records of domestic violence and domestic abuse, we should extend that prohibition on running out and getting guns to other abusive relationships. That was the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, and it passed out of the House 47 days ago. So, 47 days ago, the House passed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

It passed the Paycheck Fairness Act--equal pay for equal work--55 days ago.

It passed the For the People Act 74 days ago, which includes the provision to get rid of secret money in politics.

It also passed the Bipartisan Background Checks Act--to reduce the death toll from gun violence in our country--83 days ago.

All of those bills are sitting right here in the Senate. We could be debating them today if the Republican leader would allow them to come up. Instead of taking up that important work, we are here, acting like those in a factory who churn out more judges who have records of stripping women of their right to reproductive choice. It is a very, very dark time in the Senate, and I hope that we will get about the business of the American people and stop stripping women of their constitutional rights.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am honored to recognize one of my constituents, F. Anthony ``Tony'' Clifford, who is retiring on June 22, 2019, after 50 years of Federal service as an engineer at the National Institutes of Health.

Tony has dedicated his career to helping advance NIH's mission: seeking fundamental knowledge about the nature of living systems and applying that knowledge to advance the health of all people. He has done this by working to ensure that NIH's buildings and facilities create a world-class environment for conducting biomedical research.

Throughout his service as an engineer with NIH, Tony has been committed to creating state-of-the-art research facilities. In 1969, he started his work as an NIH staff engineer. Beginning in 1992, he led the NIH facility program as director of engineering services until becoming chief engineer in the Office of the Director in 2003.

Tony holds a bachelors of mechanical engineering degree from the University of Maryland at College Park, which presented him in 2016 with the Golden Terp Award from the University's Clark School of Engineering for his 50 years of engineering practice. His numerous other awards include multiple NIH Directors and Merit Awards, the Federal Energy Award, Vice President Gore's Hammer Award, and Special Recognition by the Society of American Military Engineers.

In addition to his work in the field, Tony was instrumental in recruiting engineering interns by representing NIH at career fairs and STEM events. In this way, his impact on scientific discovery will last for years to come, as he has inspired young scientists to

pursue science and engineering employment opportunities in the government.

I ask my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to Tony Clifford for his distinguished service to our country and to wish him all the best in the coming years as he enjoys his well-earned retirement.

Mr. President, I opposed the confirmation of Janet Dhillon to Chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC is an independent Federal agency with an absolutely vital mission: enforcing Federal laws against employment discrimination. But Ms. Dhillon has spent her career protecting corporations that are accused of discrimination by their workers.

As a leader of the Retail Litigation Center, she advocated legal positions designed to undermine workplace protections, especially low- income women and women of color.

The Retail Litigation Center helped defend Walmart against wage discrimination claims filed by 1.6 million women who worked at Walmart. In doing so, they managed to convince the Supreme Court to raise the legal barriers for all workers to bring discrimination claims.

In a different case, this one involving racial harassment against an African-American woman, the Retail Litigation Center convinced the Supreme Court to narrow the legal definition of a supervisor. This means that workers are now less able to hold their employers accountable for workplace harassment.

Both of these were 5-4 decisions that were supported by only the Republican Justices on the Supreme Court.

All workers need an EEOC that is looking out for them, but Ms. Dhillon's nomination to Chair the EEOC is yet another way that the Trump administration keeps rigging the system for

their corporate allies and stacking the deck against working people.

Mr. President, back in 1876, Ann Reeves Jarvis was teaching her Sunday school class about notable mothers in the Bible. She ended that class with this prayer:

I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a

memorial mother's day commemorating her for the matchless

service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She

is entitled to it.

That was the prayer of Ann Reeves Jarvis. Her 12-year-old daughter Anna, who was then a student in the class, took that prayer to heart and went on to help establish Mother's Day in the United States in 1914.

As we approach Mother's Day this upcoming Sunday, I am gathered with many of my Senate colleagues to urge our Republican friends here in the Senate to reject many of the policies coming down from the Trump administration that put women's health and well-being at risk. Americans need access to family planning services. An investment in family planning is money well spent because it helps families cope with reproductive health planning and can help prevent health crises. This is a win-win for those who receive these services and for all Americans who, in the long run, must pay for health services that are the inevitable result of neglect and failure to provide resources for family planning.

While the Trump administration would have you believe that their efforts are solely focused on eliminating access to abortion, the reality is their actions are harmful to a broad array of family planning services. For example, just in 2017, the administration tried to eliminate the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grants more than a year early. I want to point out that the city of Baltimore had one of those grants, and with the help of programming from the Teen Pregnancy and Prevention Program, Baltimore saw a 61-percent drop in teen pregnancy between the years 2000 and 2016. The good news is that the city of Baltimore and other grantees prevailed in Federal court, so that money was restored.

We now see repeated steps by the Trump administration through its recent title X Federal rulemaking that represent another attempt to restrict access to quality, affordable reproductive healthcare and prevent women from receiving the information they need to make informed decisions for themselves about their healthcare. It would jeopardize the entire title X health network.

Specifically, the rule would block the availability of Federal funds to family planning providers, even if those family planning providers separately offer access to abortion services. In other words, despite the fact that Federal law is already crystal clear about no public funds being used to pay for abortion, the administration policy would ignore that reality.

Under the status quo, title X-funded clinics that provide abortion must keep those services financially separate from their title X activities. So this rule would interfere with the ability of women throughout America to get that unbiased family planning service and counseling. The rule would specifically prohibit any referral for abortion services and end the longstanding guarantee that pregnant title X patients receive comprehensive, unbiased counseling.

A primary goal of this regulation--and there has been no secret about this--is to prevent Federal funds from going to comprehensive family planning providers, like Planned Parenthood, with little or no regard for the impact this has on women throughout the country--and men and families. In fact, Planned Parenthood provides health services to 4 in 10 women in America. For many women and men, Planned Parenthood is the only source of care in their community.

I want to recount a couple of stories I have received from my Maryland constituents. One is from Caitlyn. She lives in Severna Park. She shared with me the impact that Planned Parenthood had in her life. She says that while growing up, she did not have a basic education when it came to reproductive health services and options. She writes:

I knew I wasn't getting the whole story and I decided [to]

do my own research. Planned Parenthood had the answers to my

questions with no agenda, just facts.

She went on to share a different firsthand experience she had with Planned Parenthood as a patient.

I needed services that were quick, affordable, and

compassionate, and that's exactly what I received. When it

came time to pay my bill, I was surprised to find that they

just asked for a small donation. This donation-for-services

is possible through Title X. Because of Title X, patients

like me and more than 30,000 other Marylanders can access

care, no matter what, regardless of our ability to pay.

That was Caitlyn.

I also heard from Tamara from Takoma Park, MD. She moved back to Maryland to care for her aging mother and accepted her dream job. Her dream job was directing a training and education fund for healthcare workers. She hesitated to accept her dream job because the employer- provided insurance plan was grandfathered into pre-Affordable Care Act regulations, meaning that her preferred form of birth control wasn't covered. Her prescription would cost her $125 a month, something she could not afford. Through her local Planned Parenthood, she was able to get the prescription for $20 a month. She wrote to me saying:

Without my local Title X-funded community clinic, I--a

graduate of Wellesley College, a Master's Degree holder, an

engaged community member, a daughter, a passionate person on

a meaningful career path--would be unable to afford my

prescription, leaving me in the uncomfortable and, quite

frankly, unfair position of having to choose between my

health or quality of life.

If you look at these stories, you will find that the proposed regulations coming down from the Trump administration prioritize ideology over patient health and safety and fiction over healthcare facts. So that is something about title X.

I want to say a word about the Affordable Care Act, as well, and the important protections it provides for people throughout our country, but I want to focus for a minute on the protections it provides to women.

It became the law of the land 9 years ago. I don't think any of us expected we would still be fighting as hard as we are to try to protect those essential healthcare protections. Despite the failure in this body and this Senate just last year to overturn the Affordable Care Act, we still see a constant effort from the administration, both through nonstop, harmful, regulatory efforts and a wholesale effort through the Federal courts. So I think it is important to remind all of us about what the consequences of stripping away all those protections would be. With respect to women's healthcare, it would do away with the provision that requires coverage of maternity care as an essential health benefit. It would reverse the provisions that ended gender discrimination, which previously allowed insurance companies to charge women higher premiums than men for their healthcare. It also would eliminate the requirement to provide coverage for preventive health services

like mammograms, screenings for cervical cancer, prenatal care, and regular well-baby and well-child visits with no cost-sharing.

So it is important, as we look at the ongoing efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act in pieces or get rid of it wholesale, that the consequences of getting rid of that for women's health would be devastating.

I heard from a constituent at that time; her name was Pamela. She had aged off her parents' insurance in college and became uninsured and, therefore, put off her medical care until she ended up in the emergency room, had to declare bankruptcy to get out from under her medical bills. She wrote me during that debate over the Affordable Care Act, as follows:

Today my asthma medicine is covered with a nominal copay. I

can see my doctor before a case of bronchitis becomes

something worse, and I do not need to go to the ER for

treatment. Now I have a twenty year old in college who has

pre-existing conditions, unlike me she is still covered under

our health insurance and her prescriptions are affordable.

What happens to me, my daughter, and my husband who all have

pre-existing conditions if our insurance is allowed to go

back to the old days of charging more for our coverage? What

happens to my daughter if she can no longer be on our policy?

Like many of us, I have other stories I have received from Marylanders who are either worried about losing their access to healthcare through title X or worried about losing coverage under the Affordable Care Act. I hope, as we reflect on all of the challenges we are facing and as we honor mothers on Mother's Day, we don't support actions that would actually degrade their access to important quality healthcare.

I will close by urging my colleagues to reflect on the words of Ann Reeves Jarvis, who I mentioned earlier was the one who had uttered that prayer that led to the establishment of Mother's Day. What she also said was that we need to honor the ``matchless service'' that mothers and other women in this country ``render to humanity in every field of life.''

I believe it is our obligation to make sure we provide access to quality healthcare and choices for all of our constituents and for every American. As we reflect on Mother's Day, be very aware of the impact our actions will have on women throughout the United States.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank my colleague for his comments in support of NATO and the alliance, one that we share on a bipartisan basis here in the Senate.

Remembering Richard Lugar

Madam President, I wish to take a few moments to honor former Senator Richard Lugar, who passed away on April 28.

Richard Lugar's leadership as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was a model of statesmanship--someone who put country over party and principle over politics.

I did not have the privilege of serving as a Senator with Richard Lugar, but I did have an opportunity to see him in action when I served as a Senate staff member, working on national security issues for another great Senator and statesman, Senator Mac Mathias, who also served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

During that time, I witnessed Richard Lugar's work on a bipartisan basis to achieve major foreign policy successes. He had the vision to remain true to American values, and in a complex world, he took the long view of what was best for our country. Those traits produced the landmark law to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation, known as the Nunn-Lugar Act, after its chief authors. The program has led to the elimination of more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, more than 1,000 ICBMs, and almost 40,000 tons of chemical agents that had been scattered across the former Soviet Union.

I was especially inspired by Senator Lugar's work to end the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. At the time, the Reagan administration was pursuing a policy of so-called ``constructive engagement'' with that apartheid regime. The Reagan administration was opposed to imposing sanctions on South Africa to help free Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned, and to bring about an end to apartheid rule. Senator Lugar understood that continued engagement with that regime undermined America's values and our interests. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he led the efforts to pass the legislation to impose sanctions on South Africa, and when President Reagan vetoed that bill, Senator Lugar lead the bipartisan effort to overturn the veto of the President of his own party. That override was successful. Richard Lugar spurned partisanship in order to do the right thing for America.

S.J. Res. 7

Madam President, that brings us to the vote we will have today-- whether or not to override President Trump's veto of the bipartisan legislation to end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's brutal actions in the catastrophic war in Yemen.

I see Senator Murphy, a colleague from Connecticut, on the floor. I thank him for his leadership in this area.

I urge the Senate to stand up together for American values and for our long-term interests and to vote today to overturn President Trump's veto.

Whether it is Saudi Arabia's conduct in the war in Yemen, their grizzly murder of American resident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, their imprisonment of U.S. citizens, or their gross violations of basic human rights, the United States must reevaluate and reshape our relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Let's look at Yemen. The Crown Prince has recklessly directed a brutal war in Yemen for 5 years. That war has resulted in the world's largest humanitarian catastrophe. More than 100,000 civilians have been killed, and millions more are on the brink of starvation. More than 100 children die every day from extreme hunger there.

In fact, the United Nations has called the war in Yemen one of the ``greatest preventable disasters facing humanity.'' Even after waging this brutal war, the result has been that the Iranian-backed Houthis are more entrenched and more militarily sophisticated today than they were at the start of this catastrophe, and Iranian influence in the region has expanded.

In short, the Crown Prince's and Saudi Arabia's military adventurism has been a major strategic blunder. So rather than vetoing the bipartisan legislation from Congress, the President's administration should be working overtime to help resolve the conflict and bring a negotiated end to that catastrophe.

I mentioned the vile and brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, who was a U.S. resident and a Washington Post columnist. Yet President Trump threw his own intelligence community under the bus when it came to the question of whether the Crown Prince had been complicit in the murder of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. It was the assessment of CIA Director Gina Haspel and others who said that the Crown Prince had been complicit in that murder. Yet President Trump said: ``Maybe he did and maybe he didn't,'' and dismissed the whole thing. When the United States dismisses a CIA determination that the Crown Prince is responsible for the brutal killing and murder of an American resident, and we do nothing, that sends an awful signal around the world that puts Americans everywhere in danger.

Then, of course, we have seen just recently the terrible crackdown with respect to human rights violations in Saudi Arabia. In fact, just a week ago, Saudi Arabia beheaded 37 citizens, most of them minority Shiites, in mass executions across the country for alleged terrorism- related crimes, which Amnesty International pointed out were nothing more than sham trials that relied on confessions extracted through torture. Among those put to death was a young man convicted for reportedly attending a pro-democracy rally during the Arab Spring when he was just a teenager.

I have here a headline report: ``Young Man Set to Attend Western Michigan University was Beheaded in Saudi Arabia.'' This was a man who was a teenager, was part of a democracy movement, and was imprisoned by the Saudi authorities. He had been intending to attend one of our American universities, and yet he was beheaded. You also find that the Saudis are detaining a number of American citizens, dual nationals, for their activism on human rights. They were seeking greater freedom for women in Saudi Arabia.

So rather than holding the Saudi regime accountable, this administration instead seems determined to move forward, in a very secret way, with providing nuclear assistance to the Saudi Government. They have talked about providing the authority for U.S. companies to engage in these conversations, even though Saudi leaders have openly talked about acquiring nuclear weapons and have raised the possibility of dumping spent nuclear fuel from their reactors on the border of neighboring countries.

Instead of helping the Saudis with their nuclear program and instead of vetoing bipartisan legislation to hold the Saudi Government and the Crown Prince accountable, the President should be actually reaching out on behalf of American interests, but he chose not to. He vetoed the bill. It is now our duty, in a bipartisan way, to stand up for American values and American interests, and I urge this Senate to vote to override the veto of President Trump.

Mr. President, today we say farewell to a member of our Senate family: Julianna Albowicz. For more than 20 years, Julianna has served the U.S. Senate and the residents of Maryland.

Julianna started her career in the U.S. Senate working for my friend, Senator Barbara Mikulski. After her retirement, Senator Mikulski let me know that Julianna was the ``real deal'' in western Maryland and that Julianna knew everyone and everyone knew Julianna. Senator Mikulski was right. I was delighted that Julianna signed on as my western Maryland regional director after my election to the U.S. Senate in 2016.

Julianna started her Federal service in 1965 as a supply clerk at the U.S. Naval Station in Keflavik, Iceland, where her husband Bill was stationed. When she returned stateside, she worked at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, as a purchasing agent until 1970.

Julianna and her husband owned and operated Hoff, Inc., a family retail business, for 31 years in the town of Clear Spring, MD, while serving in various elective offices for the town, first as councilwoman and then as vice mayor. When her husband died in 2002, Julianna sold the business. With her children grown, she decided to learn computer skills and eventually landed what she referred to as her ``dream job,'' working for an elected official.

Let me tell you, Julianna has been a dream to work with. I could always count on Julianna to be everywhere serving our constituents in western Maryland. Whether it was representing me at Fort Detrick in Frederick County or crossing over the western Maryland ``Alps'' to Garrett County, Julianna performed her duties with dedication, diligence, and professionalism. I don't think there is a firehall, a family business, or a nonprofit organization that hasn't met Julianna or hasn't had a Senate citation presented on my behalf by Julianna. Fittingly, Julianna was recognized for her accomplishments recently when she was named a Woman of Achievement by the Hagerstown Business and Professional Women.

We wish Julianna well as she turns the page into a new chapter of her life, which will enable her to spend well-deserved time with her beloved children: Vincent, a police officer in Boulder City, NV; Kay, who worked for the National Association of Secretaries of State; Marc, a first class deputy for the Washington County, MD, sheriff's department; and Nikole, who works at the U.S. Treasury Department. Most importantly, she will have more time to dote on her eight grandchildren: William, Dillon, Carter, Wyatt, Julia, Dalton, Claire, and Vivien.

I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing our deepest gratitude to Julianna Albowicz for all that she has done for the residents of Maryland and the U.S. Senate and in wishing her well in the years to come.

Mr. President, President Trump has nominated David Bernhardt to be Secretary of the Interior.

The Department of the Interior has broad management responsibilities over our public lands and waters, wildlife, and is also responsible for maintaining the trust responsibilities on behalf of the United States with Indian Country. They also have over 70,000 Federal employees.

There have been significant questions raised about Mr. Bernhardt's decisions and priorities in his position as Deputy Secretary and Acting Secretary that have directly benefitted his former clients, while harming our public lands and wildlife.

There are a number of troubling issues with Mr. Bernhardt's record on the critical issues before the Department of the Interior, but there are two that are of particular concern to me.

First, I am particularly concerned about Mr. Bernhardt's role in the Solicitor's Opinion, M-37050, on the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, MBTA. The Solicitor's Opinion, or M-Opinion, on the MBTA was released on December 22, 2017, without any public or scientific input or environmental analysis, abruptly removing longstanding protections for migratory birds. These protections have been implemented in a bipartisan manner from every administration since the early 1970s. It is likely that millions of birds have been saved thanks to this law and the leadership of the Department. The MBTA has significantly reduced the number of birds killed from oil waste pits and other threats, and it has provided accountability and recovery funds after oil spills such as Deepwater Horizon. This change has been opposed by 17 former Interior officials from every Republican and Democratic administration since the early 1970s, as well as Flyway Councils representing nearly every State wildlife agency in the country.

In letters exchanged between me and the Department of the Interior, they have admitted that due to the M-Opinion on the MBTA, they will no longer be able to secure fines or penalties for violations of the MBTA from companies responsible for an oil spill that non-intentionally kills migratory birds similar to the British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010, which killed an estimated 1,000,000 migratory birds.

Furthermore, despite the MBTA's strong record in saving birds through reasonable enforcement, one of Mr. Bernhardt's former clients, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, IPAA, urged the Department of the Interior to gut the MBTA and remove protections for birds and any requirements to take actions to minimize impacts to birds from their activities.

Just this week, we learned that there have been at least three oil spills recently that appear to have killed migratory birds, in which the Department of the Interior admitted in internal emails they can't respond to due to the MBTA M-Opinion.

So in the case of the MBTA, we see a dramatic change in the Department of the Interior's legal interpretation of a key wildlife law that appears to have benefited a former client of Mr. Bernhardt.

The second issue of critical concern to me is offshore drilling. I hail from a coastal State and a State that is firmly opposed to any oil and gas drilling off of our coastline. Mr. Bernhardt has overseen the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's, BOEM, development of an oil and gas leasing plan that dramatically expands risky offshore drilling and that has prompted bipartisan criticism at all levels of government. The Department of the Interior, under Mr. Bernhardt's leadership, has simultaneously been working to weaken offshore drilling safety standards put in place in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and at the recommendation of a bipartisan commission that investigated the disaster.

I have serious questions about whether Mr. Bernhardt can do his job without confronting conflicts of interest at every turn, and I fear that he will put powerful special interests before the public interest.

For these reasons, I opposed David Bernhardt's nomination as Secretary of the Interior.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each prior to the recess: Van Hollen, Cardin, Stabenow, Schatz, Markey, and Heinrich.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I am on the floor today with a very simple question: What is the Republican agenda for tackling many of the major challenges we face today in the United States of America?

We know what our Republican colleagues are against. In fact, just yesterday, the Trump administration asked a Federal court of appeals to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act, which would eliminate affordable healthcare for tens of millions of Americans and strip away protections for people with preexisting conditions.

So that is what Republicans are against, the Affordable Care Act. What are they for? Since January of this year, the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has already passed major legislation on some important issues for our country. They passed a major bill to protect and strengthen the integrity of our election system and the health of our democracy. It includes lots of provisions, including one to get rid of secret money in politics, because, like the American public, we believe that Americans have a right to know who is spending tens of millions of dollars to try to influence their votes.

Why not get rid of secret money and dark money in politics? That is what the House bill does. That bill is right here in the Senate now, but are we going to get a chance to vote on that? We are asking the majority leader for a vote on that bill that is sitting right here in the Senate.

The House also passed sweeping legislation to address gun safety issues. Specifically, the legislation calls for a universal criminal background check to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. This is overwhelmingly supported by the American public. Why would we want to keep a big loophole in the law that allows dangerous people to get guns and commit violent acts with those guns? That bill is also here in the Senate, but there is no sign that we are going to vote on that bill.

Instead, the Republican leader is bringing up the nonbinding resolution--the Green New Deal resolution--which calls for ambitious goals to tackle climate change, which has created a lot of important momentum in our country to address this issue. Yet our Republican colleagues are not bringing up this bill because they want to do something about climate change; they are bringing it up with the express purpose of defeating it and playing political games.

It is a very simple question. We know what you are against. You are against the Green New Deal resolution. But what are you for when it comes to addressing climate change? The science is overwhelming. It mounts every day. Americans can see what is happening with their own eyes in the form of extreme weather events.

Former Senator Bob Kerrey from Nebraska just wrote over the weekend:

The disastrous flooding this month in Nebraska and much of

the upper Midwest is a reminder of several important truths.

First, weather and climate are not the same thing. Climate

affects weather, not the other way around.

If our Republican colleagues don't agree with our own American scientists at NASA and NOAA, scientists throughout the country and around the world, my goodness, I would hope they would believe our military leaders who just last year put out a report. I am reading from a release that says: ``New Pentagon Survey: Climate Change-Related Risks to 50% of Military Infrastructure.''

The folks at the Pentagon seem to recognize the costs and harm of climate change. Yet our Republican colleagues do nothing but play games with this issue.

Ironically, this week we are going to be taking up a disaster relief bill. I think the pricetag for that bill is $13 billion to $14 billion. This is just one of many disaster relief bills we will handle.

We all know that we will always have natural disasters, but we also know from the science that they are more intense, more extreme, and more costly because of climate change, and they happen more often because of climate change.

Our Republican colleagues are happy to ask taxpayers to shell out more and more money to pay for the harm and damage of climate change through extreme weather events, but they are not willing to consider any legislation on this floor to actually do something about it and stop the rising costs, harm, and damage.

If you don't like the nonbinding resolution of the Green New Deal, why not support another nonbinding resolution put forth by Senator Carper and every Democrat? It is very simple. No. 1, climate change is real; No. 2, human activity is the dominant cause; and No. 3, Congress should take immediate action to do something about it. That must be a really radical proposal for our Republican colleagues, but only one Republican Senator has signed on, which just shows the incredible hypocrisy of this entire exercise.

The Republican leader is bringing up a measure that calls for ambitious goals. I think those are good goals. I support it, but he wants to defeat it. Yet he has not a single idea of his own to address this issue.

This week, I intend, along with Congressman Don Beyer in the House, to reintroduce a bill called the cap and dividend bill. It is very simple: The polluter pays, just as we have handled environmental issues in the past. We will put a price on carbon pollution, and by doing so, we will create more incentives for investment in clean energy technology, renewable energy technology, energy efficiency. We propose to take the proceeds from that ``polluter pays'' fee and rebate the entire thing to the American people. As a result, according to the studies of the University of Massachusetts, 80 percent of the American people, at the end of the day, will actually see more money in their pocket than before, and we will begin to address the ravages of climate change.

I urge my colleagues to actually do something when it comes to climate change.

I yield the floor to Senator Stabenow from Michigan, who has been a leader on this issue.

Thank you, Madam President. I want to start by thanking my friend, the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Whitehouse, for his leadership on addressing the climate issue for many, many years, taking to the floor of the Senate time and again to raise the alarm about the dangers of climate change and what it means to communities throughout this country and people throughout the world, and, much more than that, putting forward very specific ideas--constructive ideas--on how we can address this issue together. I am proud to join the legislation that he referenced, along with Senator Barrasso, to look at carbon capture technologies and to incentivize those technologies, as Mr. Whitehouse indicated. It is a small measure but maybe a first baby step that we can work on here together.

Like the Senator from Rhode Island, I have been listening carefully to the floor discussion over the last couple of weeks. I have heard many of our Republican colleagues come to the floor. They have come to criticize the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal, of course, is a very ambitious set of goals to address the crisis of global climate change and to put out some ideas for how we address this generational challenge.

While I heard a lot of criticism, as Senator Whitehouse said, I didn't hear a single--not one--idea about how we can work together to significantly address this challenge, which is why Democrats have asked our Republican colleagues to join us in supporting S. J. Res. 9, which was introduced by Senator Carper, along with the Democrats and, I am pleased to say, one Republican. The question, of course, is where are the other 52 Republicans when this is the language? I am going to read it because it is very straightforward, and I think the American public will ask themselves why we don't have 100 Senators on this piece of legislation:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the

United States of America in Congress assembled, That it is

the sense of Congress that--

(1) climate change is real;

(2) human activity during the last century is the dominant

cause of climate crisis; and

(3) the United States and Congress should take immediate

action to address the challenge of climate change.

It is simple, straightforward. I want to just take these very quickly, one at a time.

``Climate change is real.'' Look, we all know that there are a few greenhouse gases. You have methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas. But the most prevalent one, of course, is carbon dioxide. It is a greenhouse gas, and you can measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. You can go out and take samples and measure it.

In doing that, we find that we have seen huge increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere over the last 100 years.

I am proud to represent the State of Maryland, which is home to NASA Goddard, where they do a lot of climate science, and home to NOAA, or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I am holding the latest measurement they did in January 2019. It shows the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 411 ppm. That is a jump just from 2006, when it was at about 380 ppm. If you look at that over time, you see a big jump in concentration. These are greenhouse gases, and that is why you see, of course, the increasing temperatures.

I am now holding in my hand something from NASA that just came out on February 6 of this year, headlined ``2018 fourth warmest year in continued warming trend, according to NASA, NOAA.'' It points out that globally 2018 temperatures ranked behind those of 2016, 2017 and 2015, and it goes on to say that the past 5 years are collectively the warmest years in modern record.

So there are large concentrations of CO2 and rising temperatures. I hope our Republican colleagues will agree with us on that point in the resolution.

No. 2 is that it is caused by ``human activity.'' There is no doubt that if you look at how fossil fuels that were in our Earth for millions of years have been released during the Industrial Revolution in the last century--be it from coal-fired powerplants, oil, or gas-- all of a sudden you saw this carbon which had been trapped in the Earth released into the atmosphere through human activity, and that also is measurable.

So I hope our Republican colleagues will agree with us on those two points, and if they agree with us on those points, then I hope they will agree with us that we should all do something about it, because the consequences of climate change are very real, and we can see them all around us.

Senator Whitehouse mentioned a recent study that showed that the probability that the scientists were wrong was .001 percent-- negligible.

We just saw last Thanksgiving--this last year at Thanksgiving time-- that 300 U.S. scientists issued the Fourth National Climate Assessment. I have a copy of part of that in my hand right here, and they make it very clear--these are U.S. scientists--that the impact of these growing temperatures is real and, of course, we see them all around us in the form of much more extreme and frequent droughts. We see it in the form of more forest fires. We see it in the form of flooding and sea level rise. We see it all over our country in every community and all over the world. The costs of doing nothing are mounting by the day.

If you look at this report that was issued around Thanksgiving, they also talk about the regional impact of disruption and of the impacts of climate change. They look at different regions around the country, including the Northeast. Of course, Senator Whitehouse represents Rhode Island, and I have the honor of representing Maryland. It says these areas, these regions, will get hot faster than many other areas.

It also talks about the impact of climate change on the Chesapeake Bay, which is a national treasure and is very important to Maryland's economy. They predict stronger and more frequent storms and an increase in rain, which will lead to more pollution in the bay, increased water temperatures, and sea level rise. By the way, one island has already disappeared in the Chesapeake Bay, and a couple more look like they will be going under in the coming years because of sea level rise.

If you go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis and you talk to folks there, they will tell you that they are already experiencing the negative impact of flooding and sea level rise right there at the Naval Academy. Of course, our military has warned for years about the consequences of climate change.

I just want to give a very simple analogy since I mentioned the Chesapeake Bay. Like many of us, we have worked hard to protect water bodies in this country, and the Chesapeake Bay is an incredible natural estuary. Years ago, everyone recognized that the bay was dying. We saw more sewer overflows into the bay because we didn't have enough sewage treatment plants. We saw runoff from suburban roads and highways. We saw nutrient runoff from farms in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The bay was on its way down fast. Of course, with all of those nutrients in the watershed, you lose the oysters, the crabs, and the seafood industry. You lose the Chesapeake Bay.

The same thing is, of course, happening to our planet. Just like with the Chesapeake Bay, there is a limit to how much carbon pollution you can put on our planet. We have all seen those amazing photographs of the Earth from outer space. The Earth is telling us that there is a limit as to how much carbon pollution we can spew into it, and it is telling us by its screaming out with these extreme weather events. So the real question is, What are we going to do about it?

As Senator Whitehouse said, there are many things we should be doing. I will close my remarks by mentioning one that also involves putting a price on carbon because, among the array of tools we need to deploy, that really needs to be one of them. It is really based on the simple idea we have pursued in this country to fight pollution, which is that the polluter pays, right? The folks--the industries--who are causing the pollution that is impacting our communities in harmful ways should pay. How do you make them pay? You put a price on the carbon pollution that is being emitted. When you put a price on the carbon pollution that is being emitted, there is an incentive to emit less of it, and there is an incentive for others to find innovative ways to generate energy without there being carbon pollution.

That is why, for many years, I proposed what is called the cap and dividend bill, which looks at the science and says: OK, if we want to make sure to avoid these huge costs to our communities, we have to limit the amount of carbon pollution that is being emitted.

We base that cap on science, and that generates a price for carbon. That means, as Senator Whitehouse said, that in order to avoid that price, people will look for ways to reduce carbon emissions. We take the funds generated from putting a price on carbon, and we rebate those funds to the American people. A study by an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that if you do that--if you rebate the funds you generate by putting a price on carbon and making polluters pay and if you rebate that to American households--80 percent of American households will actually have more money in their pockets at the end of the day than they started with. That doesn't even count the additional benefits from there being a cleaner environment and fewer storms and severe weather events. It also doesn't include the incredible economic opportunities that would be unleashed by having more people invest in clean energy technology and energy efficiency.

So it is really a pleasure to be here with my friend Senator Whitehouse because that is one tool among others, including the need to invest in more research. The Senator said you have to put some resources behind research and innovation. It doesn't just happen by magic. We can have clean energy portfolio standards, we can do a lot of things, but we need to start with something real. That is why we are here, because that is the final part of that resolution. It is a very simple resolution that says that climate change is real, that it is caused by human activity, and that the U.S. Congress should take immediate action to address the challenge.

It is time for our colleagues to stop criticizing everybody else's ideas and to put their own ideas on the table. We are ready to work with our colleagues on a bipartisan basis to address this most pressing of issues that face our country and the world.

Madam President, if I might, that is why it is always interesting to hear some of the critics of climate change say: Do you know what? Carbon dioxide has been around since the beginning of the planet, so it can't possibly be harmful.

Of course it has been around forever, but, as Senator Whitehouse pointed out, it has been around for hundreds of thousands and millions of years at a certain concentration. If you look at all of the evidence from NASA scientists and others, you will see that level of concentration bumped up and down within a certain range for all of those millennia that the Senator talked about. Yet, in the last 150 years, especially the last century, it shot straight through the roof. It is an excellent example of the phrase ``everything in moderation.''

Obviously, carbon dioxide has been part of our planet's gases all along, but the fact is that we have unleashed that carbon dioxide, in the form of fossil fuels, that has been trapped in the Earth for millions and millions of years. We have somehow just let it out within the last 100, and that is what is creating harmful, poisonous levels of carbon dioxide that are poisonous for the planet. Just like with a human being, when you put poison in the body, the body lets you know. The Earth is screaming out in all of these different ways to let us know that it has reached its limit when it comes to carbon dioxide pollution. That is why we have to do something about it.

There you go.

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

Madam President, I come to the floor to oppose the nomination of Chad Readler to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and to urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to oppose this nomination as well.

We have learned that both Senators from Ohio--one a Democrat and one a Republican--had previously proposed mutually agreeable candidates to fill the Sixth Circuit Court position, but despite that prior support, the Trump administration instead nominated somebody who did not have the support from both Senators, which is a device we use to try to encourage nominations that are not way out of the mainstream. We want judicial nominees who are not on the far right nor on any other extreme. Yet this administration decided to ignore that bipartisan support and nominated Mr. Readler for the position on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. Readler, unfortunately, has a record that falls well out of the judicial mainstream. I am very concerned about the kind of judicial reasoning and findings he will make as a member of the Sixth Circuit, if he is confirmed.

He has been the Trump administration's point man at the Department of Justice to try to destroy the Affordable Care Act and eliminate the protections the Affordable Care Act has brought to tens of millions of Americans, including protections for people with preexisting health conditions--whether it

be a child with asthma, or somebody with diabetes, or anybody who has a preexisting condition health condition. Before the Affordable Care Act was passed, insurance companies would say either we are not going to insure you because you are going to be too expensive to treat or we will provide coverage but only at this price, and then they would quote a price the person couldn't possibly afford.

The Affordable Care Act did away with that discrimination based on preexisting conditions. Yet at the Department of Justice, this nominee, Mr. Readler, was the point person in trying to reimpose discrimination based on preexisting conditions.

Why do we say that? Because over the last couple of years there was a lawsuit filed in the State of Texas. It was filed by the attorney general of the State of Texas and a number of other attorneys general from other States around the country--Republican attorneys general-- that went after the Affordable Care Act. They argued that once the Congress passed legislation eliminating the penalties for the mandates, all the rest of the law collapsed. It is a position most legal scholars from all sides of the political spectrum think is an absurd legal conclusion that will not stand the test of time or the test of the courts in the long run.

Despite the fact that the conclusion was way out of the mainstream and directed more out of a political charge to try to undo the Affordable Care Act, nevertheless, Mr. Readler filed the case on behalf of the Justice Department--not in support of the Affordable Care Act, which would be the usual practice of the Department of Justice in protecting the laws of the United States, but deciding, first of all, not to protect it and, secondly, to actively go after the Affordable Care Act and side mainly with the positions of Republican attorneys general who were trying to destroy the law.

This was a very unusual position to take, and many of the career attorneys at the Department of Justice decided not to sign their names to the brief that was filed. They did not want to be associated with a brief that they thought was more a political document than a legal document. In fact, one very respected career attorney at the Department of Justice resigned in protest.

Even our colleague, Senator Lamar Alexander, said this about the brief that was filed by the Justice Department: It is ``as far-fetched as any I've ever heard.''

Despite the fact that this was a legal position far out of the mainstream--authored by Mr. Readler from his post at the Department of Justice--nevertheless, he went ahead and filed that brief. It is totally inconsistent with the position others claimed they were taking with respect to protecting people with preexisting health conditions. In fact, President Trump tweeted repeatedly that he wanted to protect people with preexisting health conditions.

Many of our Republican colleagues in this Chamber in the Senate, and in the House, said they don't like some parts of the Affordable Care Act, but they want to protect people with preexisting conditions from discrimination by insurance companies. Yet the Texas lawsuit dismantles the Affordable Care Act top to bottom, including getting rid of provisions that protect people with preexisting conditions.

I think it is important to remind people what that means because it means children with expensive, chronic medical conditions will no longer be able to get that kind of coverage.

We also know that before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies had arbitrary annual caps early in each year. So if a child had a chronic condition and the costs of helping that child, providing medical attention to that child, began to build up, they would sometimes hit that cap before their fifth birthday, and then the family would be on its own. People were paying health plans for coverage and services they needed, only to discover in the fine print that coverage really wasn't there for them when they needed it, and women who became pregnant found that their insurance plans would not cover any of their prenatal care or deliveries. Many of our fellow Americans were diagnosed with cancer only to discover that their plans did not cover chemotherapy.

When the Texas attorney general, with a cohort of other Republican attorneys general, filed that lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, they filed a lawsuit that put a dagger in the heart of the consumer protections and patient protections we had in the Affordable Care Act. It was Mr. Readler who didn't come to the defense of the law for the Department of Justice but in fact went after the Affordable Care Act and sided with the attorneys general in Texas.

Indeed, there was a U.S. district court judge in Texas who went along with these legal arguments. What that means is, the case is now traveling through the Federal court system. It will go to the circuit courts and may end up at the Supreme Court. So I would hope our colleagues on both sides of the aisle who say they want judges who are going to do the right thing and call the balls and strikes as they see them and who have also said they support protections for people with preexisting health conditions would be nervous about putting someone on the court who says the law requires them to take the opposite position of what our colleagues say they support right now.

As we approach this vote, make no mistake, in many ways, this is a vote on the future of protections for people with preexisting health conditions.

Unfortunately, Mr. Readler has also taken a position on discrimination issues that is very troublesome on other fronts, specifically with respect to LGBT rights. Under his leadership, in his office, the Department of Justice submitted a brief in the case of Zarda v. Altitude Express. In that case, Zarda, who was an employee, alleged that his company had fired him because of his sexual orientation, and the Department of Justice did not take the side against the right of employers to discriminate based on sexual orientation. What they argued was that title VII of the Civil Rights Act does not cover discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Fortunately, in a rare en banc decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that the LGBT community is protected as a class under the Civil Rights Act, but, unfortunately, because of a circuit split surrounding this issue, it is likely to go up through the court system and find its way to the Supreme Court. The position he took on behalf of the Trump Justice Department is a telltale sign of where Mr. Readler stands on questions of whether the law protects people who have been discriminated against.

I should say this is not a new issue. For many of us, there have been efforts in Congress to address this issue. In my State of Maryland, in 2001, we passed an anti-discrimination act that says it is illegal to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation in housing, in employment, and in public accommodations. I recall that the bill was filibustered late into the evening by Republican State legislators, but fortunately for Marylanders it passed.

I am also concerned about Mr. Readler's record in taking the side of tobacco companies during his time as a partner at Jones Day, specifically R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Like many of us here, I have worked for many years--first, in the Maryland State Legislature and since then in the U.S. Congress--to curb tobacco use, especially among young people. I hope we all agree we don't want young people to get hooked on tobacco products or to get hooked on nicotine, which we know is very bad for their health and could very likely kill them in the long run. Yet Mr. Readler took the position of the tobacco companies, defining this issue simply as one of the need to have somebody who would stick up for special interests even when it was against the public health interests of the American people.

He represented the tobacco giants in a number of cases--product liability cases and commercial speech cases. In one example, the city of Buffalo, up in New York, passed a ban on tobacco ads within 1,000 feet of facilities frequented by children, like schools, playgrounds, and daycare centers. The purpose of that local ordinance was, of course, to prevent kids from seeing these ads and saying: Hey, that looks like something I want to do. Let's try this tobacco product. Maybe it is a candy-flavored tobacco product, maybe it is another tobacco product. The whole point of the ordinance was to protect the health of kids. Yet Mr. Readler fought against that local ordinance.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which is an organization that rarely, if ever, gets involved in judicial nominations, has found the position Mr. Readler took on behalf of these tobacco companies so far out and so extreme that they have taken the position of opposing the nomination.

So whether it is fighting to dismantle protections for people with preexisting conditions, as Mr. Readler did from his perch in the Trump Department of Justice, or whether it is the positions he took as a lawyer for the tobacco industry, trying to knock down local ordinances and other laws to protect kids from tobacco and getting addicted to nicotine, or the position he has taken not to prevent discrimination but to say our laws do not protect people against basic forms of discrimination, in my view, Mr. Readler is disqualified from taking a position on a court where the goal of every justice, regardless of who appoints them, should be justice itself and making sure everybody who comes before that court gets a fair shake. They should not be positions based on the power of a special interest like the tobacco lobby, and it should not be a decision based on political slogans or political promises. Rather, it should be based on the law itself. So I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination.

Even among nominees who are very far to the right and who take a very restricted view of our rights and liberties, this is a nominee who finds himself way outside the mainstream.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the nomination of Mr. Readler.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, today I wish to recognize Ann Mitchell for her 20 years of outstanding dedication and visionary leadership as president and CEO of Montgomery Hospice. I am grateful to Ann for her tireless efforts to provide quality and compassionate end- of-life care and services to residents of Montgomery County, MD.

Ann understands that the experience of people who are dying is extremely personal and that each of us has a cultural identity that is part of our character. When people are in their final weeks of life, Ann believes that it is paramount that each of us is cared for with a deep respect for our cultural identity.

Ann considers herself a global citizen, as she grew up in seven countries around the world. She celebrates diversity and recognizes the value that a multicultural team brings to end-of-life care. Ann has worked diligently to make Montgomery Hospice diverse at all levels, including in senior management, and firmly supports inclusion and equity initiatives.

Montgomery Hospice is well-known for its inpatient hospice, ``Casey House''; its comprehensive ``Hospice at Home'' service; and its compassionate ``Bereavement Care'' service. All Montgomery Hospice services support its mission ``To Gentle the Journey'' for the dying residents of Montgomery County, MD.

A trustee of Smith College, Ann graduated with a major in economics from Smith. She earned a master's in public health at Yale University. For the past 20 years, Ann has led Montgomery Hospice strategically in service to its patients, employees, and volunteers.

I have known Ann for over 20 years, and I can personally attest to the dedication and compassion she has brought to her job. It has been an honor to support her efforts as she enlisted many in our community in her important work. She has been totally committed to her mission of ensuring that every individual in her care is treated with the utmost respect and dignity, and our community is stronger and better because of her work.

I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing all that Ann Mitchell has done to make a difference in the lives of others.

Mr. President, I start by associating myself with the remarks of my friend, the senior Senator from the State of Maryland, Mr. Cardin, both with respect to the vital importance of moving forward on climate change legislation here in the Senate and with respect to my opposition to the nomination of Mr. Wheeler. I think we need somebody at the head of the EPA who is going to make the issue of climate change and other vital environmental issues a priority.

Mr. President, I rise to vote against William Barr's nomination to serve as Attorney General. Although Mr. Barr has served as Attorney General in the past, I do not believe he is the right candidate to lead the Department of Justice at this time.

Americans are facing unprecedented times. The President fired former FBI Director James Comey to circumvent and frustrate a Federal investigation. Former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe confirmed today that he opened an investigation into the President himself regarding his potential ties to Russia after Comey's firing. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating President Trump and his campaign for collusion and Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential elections. Some of the President's close confidants have been indicted, pled guilty and are cooperating with the Special Counsel. Yesterday, a judge ruled that President Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, lied to Federal investigators about his interactions with Russians during the campaign.

During this tumultuous time, Americans need an Attorney General who values transparency, who is independent, and who can stand up to a President who has shown repeatedly that he believes that the Attorney General of the United States is his personal attorney and not the attorney of the American people. After closely following Barr's nomination hearing and analyzing his record, I do not believe he will stand up to the President and effectively lead the Department.

Before Barr was formally nominated to be Attorney General, he wrote and distributed a 19-page memo where he characterized the Mueller investigation as ``fatally misconceived'' with ``potentially disastrous implications not just for the Presidency, but for the Executive branch as a whole and for the Department in particular.'' Barr wrote this memo well aware that his knowledge of the facts surrounding the Mueller probe is severely limited to public reporting.

Nevertheless, Barr concluded that Trump's publicly reported interactions with former FBI Director James Comey could not constitute obstruction of justice and sent the memo to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney General Steve Engel, the Solicitor General, White House Special Counsel, Jared Kushner's attorney, and Donald Trump's personal attorneys. He made certain that everyone in Trump's orbit knew his name and knew about this memo.

This behavior should alarm not only Senators but every American. Former

FBI Director Comey testified under oath that President Trump said to him, ``I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.'' President Trump publicly railed against former Attorney General Sessions for following the guidance of Department of Justice ethics officials and recusing himself from anything pertaining to the Russia investigation. During his confirmation hearing, Barr would not commit to following the advice of career ethics officials at DOJ if they recommend that he recuse himself from the Russia investigation to avoid any appearance of conflicts of interest. Instead, he said that he would rely on his own judgment. Mr. Barr is essentially asking Senators to trust him and his judgment. Why should Senators trust his judgment when there are systems and processes in place that were created for this exact circumstance? Mr. Barr cannot call himself an institutionalist concerned with maintaining the rule of law while seemingly being unwilling to submit to the rule of law when it applies to him.

It is not surprising that the President would select as his next Attorney General someone who not only refuses to recuse himself from the investigation but also believes that elements of Mueller's probe are ``fatally misconceived.''

Finally, during his confirmation hearing, Barr was repeatedly pressed by Republicans and Democrats on whether or not he would agree to release the final Mueller report in its entirety. Barr would not commit to do so. I believe that the report should be made available not only to Members of Congress but to all Americans so that they can see the evidence for themselves and reach their own conclusions. If we want Americans to trust their judicial system, we must insist on transparency and honesty.

Beyond those issues, I am concerned about Mr. Barr's commitment to civil rights. During his confirmation hearing, he seemed ignorant about the disparate treatment between Whites and Blacks in our criminal justice system. When he served as Attorney General under President George W. Bush, he advocated for policies that have in turn led to mass incarceration of nonviolent offenders. In 2015, he publicly opposed the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, bipartisan legislation that would have reduced Federal mandatory minimums, and required the Bureau of Prisons to provide more rehabilitative programming to prisoners.

Last year, Congress passed the First Step Act with broad bipartisan support. The First Step Act included similar provisions to the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act. The First Step Act will not be successful without direction from the Attorney General. I intend to use my position on the Appropriations Committee to hold Barr accountable and to make sure he is proactively implementing this law.

Americans deserve to have an Attorney General who is loyal to the office and not to the President. I do not believe Mr. Barr is that Attorney General.