Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize and congratulate Rev. Dr. Jonathan L. Weaver, pastor of the Greater Mt. Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church, on his 30th pastoral anniversary. Since 1988, Reverend Weaver has served with vision and distinction and has dedicated himself to empowering his parishioners and people throughout our community.

Reverend Weaver is an outstanding example of what it means to be engaged in a community. Under his leadership, the Greater Mt. Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church has initiated numerous innovative programs on critical issues, including domestic violence prevention, economic empowerment, and anti-hunger. In addition, Reverend Weaver's sense of community transcends the borders of the United States. He has led mission trips to Africa, engaging in medical mission projects in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Reverend Weaver currently serves as national president of the Collective Empowerment Group, Inc., CEG, an ecumenical association comprised of nearly 500 churches across the country. CEG engages in economic empowerment initiatives focused on financial literacy, education, healthcare, homeownership preservation, and public safety through partnerships with banks and other businesses in their communities.

In 2015, Reverend Weaver became board chairman of Industrial Bank, an organization that has been recognized for its contributions to the growth and development of the greater Washington, DC, metropolitan area since 1934. He holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and an MBA from Harvard University. Reverend Weaver has been married to Pamela Weaver for 30 years and has two children, Jamie Davis and Megan Holland, and four grandchildren.

Over the last 30 years, Reverend Weaver has personified the Greater Mt. Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church's traditions of service and leadership. I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing our deepest gratitude and appreciation to Reverend Weaver for his 30 years of service to the Greater Mt. Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church and to our community.

Mr. President, I wish to start by commending the Senator from New Mexico for his leadership on many issues but today for being on the floor to protect this vital, beautiful American treasure, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I thank the Senator.

I wish to speak about the budget as well. I hope everyone across the country will really pay attention to the debate we are having in the Senate over the next couple of days and over the coming weeks and months.

There is no doubt that when we look at the budget that is going to come to the floor of this Senate, it is stacked overwhelmingly in favor of the wealthiest Americans and powerful special interests, and the benefits that will go to the folks at the very top are paid for, in one way or another, by everyone and everything else.

I wish to be very clear. I think we need to reform our Tax Code. We need

to simplify our Tax Code. We need to reduce the tax burden on middle- class families throughout the country. We should do that in a transparent, accountable, and bipartisan fashion, but make no mistake, unfortunately, what we have received so far from the Trump administration is something that has been cooked up behind closed doors, and the more we look at it, the worse it gets, from the perspective of making sure the American public is protected in this process. At the end of the day, it is just another warmed-over version of what we know of as trickle-down economics.

What is trickle-down economics? It is the idea that if you give big tax breaks to the top 1 percent--the folks at the very top of the income scale, including big corporations--that somehow the benefits of that tax cut are going to trickle down through the economy and lift everybody up. The problem is, we already have a real-world example of how that whole theory failed, how it ran aground. We saw that in 2001 and in 2002 when we cut taxes in the United States. What went up? What went soaring up were the incomes of the top 1 percent. The other thing that went up were our deficits and national debt. Everybody else was left behind. So, yes, the yachts went up, but all the other boats kind of ran aground.

If we look at this chart, we will see it has been part of a pattern over a long period of time, where the incomes of the top 1 percent-- that is this red line--have risen steadily. They bounce up and down, usually with respect to some fluctuations in the financial markets, but right after the 2001-2002 tax cuts, we saw aftertax incomes of the top 1 percent shoot up. Did it really help the economy? It didn't help the economy overcome the financial crisis. So we saw some of those incomes come down during the financial crisis.

So when we look at the pattern, our tax policies and other policies have resulted in this huge and dramatic increase in the incomes of the top 1 percent, and everybody else has been kind of static. That is an average. Many of those American households are much worse off today than they were even 20 years ago, in terms of real income.

So a lot of people are on a treadmill, with millions falling behind. Why in the world we would then adopt a tax plan that actually increases this inequity without improving the economy is just another windfall tax break to the top 1 percent.

Let's just take a look first at the estate tax. It is a great example of how this Republican bill--this Trump bill--is stacked overwhelmingly in favor of the very wealthiest in the United States of America. Our Republican colleagues like to call this a death tax. There are 2.6 million deaths in the United States every year. Only about 5,000 American households pay the estate tax. This isn't a death tax; this is a tax to prevent the growth of dynasties in America. Teddy Roosevelt would be crawling in his grave as a Republican to hear about this Republican proposal because he thought America should be a place where we don't have an aristocracy, we don't have oligarchy. We don't just let people sit around and pass on billions of dollars--sure, we can pass on millions, but billions and billions of dollars--because, over time, what happens is that growing wealth inequality in the United States, instead of making sure people can sort of make it on their own in the country, which is what we thought America was all about.

Just to illustrate the point, if you are a couple and you have an estate of lower than $11 million--if your estate as a couple is below $11 million--you don't pay a penny in Federal estate tax, not one penny. If you are an individual who has an estate below $5.6 million, you don't pay a penny in estate taxes. That is why only 5,000 households--the very wealthiest households in the country--are the only ones that pay it. In fact, when we look at this chart, we can see these two little red dots out of all of these squares are the only households that are impacted.

So this Republican plan would give a $240 billion tax cut over 10 years to these wealthiest households in the United States of America. One day, Donald Trump's estate will benefit mightily from this, according to Bloomberg, and I think that is a trusted source around here. Yet we are going to give that $240 billion tax cut to the superwealthy and the rest of the country is going to have to pick up the bill.

So who is going to pay for that bill and how? Well, it really happens in two ways. One way is tens of millions of middle-class taxpayers are going to get socked by this tax plan. The other way is, under this bill, it green-lights deep cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, so we are going to see increased burdens on folks who are on Medicare--seniors.

I wish to talk for a minute about the increase in middle-class taxes under this Trump administration plan.

First, under their plan, taxpayers will no longer be able to deduct their property taxes and their State and local taxes. We hear a lot from our Republican colleagues about double taxation when it comes to corporations. Yet their plan proposes a double taxation on tens of millions of middle-class taxpayers around the country. On that dollar, they pay their State and local taxes, and then they will be taxed on what they pay to their State and local governments and what they pay on property taxes. That is why this plan is opposed by the National Governors Association. It is why it is opposed by the United States Conference of Mayors.

If we look at IRS data, we will find that 40 percent of taxpayers making between $50,000 and $75,000 of annual income--just that small band--take the deduction for State and local taxes, and they are going to increase their taxes under this plan. That is almost 8 million Americans right there.

There is another provision in this Republican plan which says that the bigger your family is, the bigger the tax you are going to pay. If you have three, four, five kids, you are going to be paying more taxes than you are today because what they give with one hand on the standard deduction, they take away on the personal exemptions.

Low-income seniors are going to see their taxes go up because the bottom rate is increased from 10 percent to 12 percent, and the deductions many seniors get, especially if they are disabled, are eliminated. They are going to see their taxes go up.

Finally, I really hope Members will begin to focus on this. The National Association of Realtors hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to do an analysis of the Republican plan. This is from the National Association of Realtors: ``Homeowners with adjusted gross incomes between $50,000 and $200,000 will see an average tax increase of $815 a year.'' Because of the interaction of what you do with respect to the home mortgage deduction and the fact that it is not as big a benefit and the inability to deduct your local property taxes--and I want to read this very deliberately--``Home prices in the short run will fall by an overall average of 10.2 percent.'' Let me say that again: Home prices in the United States will fall by an average of 10.2 percent. That is by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

They may recover at some point, they say, but if you are a senior and you have all of your savings in your house and the value of your house drops by 10 percent, you are in a world of hurt, and that is what the National Association of Realtors tells us this bill will do.

That is on the tax side. That is not the only way seniors are going to be hit. Middle-income families are going to be hit on the tax side; their taxes are going to go up. But they will also be hit because, in order to pay for those estate tax breaks for the superwealthy--the 5,000 households in the country that each year benefit from that--this budget also green-lights cutting Medicare by $473 billion, and it green-lights cutting Medicaid by over $1 trillion. So not only does the middle-class take it through increased tax burdens--tens of millions of them--but folks on Medicare are going to see that program cut and a $1 trillion cut in Medicaid.

We just went through a big debate here in the United States Senate, and a majority rejected the idea that we should cut Medicaid by $1 trillion, especially in the middle of an opioid epidemic and all the other health challenges we face around the country. Yet that is what this Republican budget green-lights.

The bottom line is that they have big tax cuts for the superwealthy paid for by increasing the tax burden on tens of millions of middle- class Americans,

paid for by cutting Medicare and Medicaid. Then, at the end of all of that, this budget is actually designed to increase the national debt by $1.5 trillion. It is written right into this budget bill.

I served for many years on the House Budget Committee. I was the ranking Democrat. The chairman of that committee for many years was Paul Ryan, now Speaker of the House. Every year, Congressman Ryan--now Speaker Ryan--would come up with what he called the ``Path to Prosperity,'' a 59-page document, and it repeatedly referred to ``the crushing burden of debt.'' It was mentioned 12 times in that one budget document.

I happen to believe that we need to be serious about reducing our long-term deficits and debt, and our Republican colleagues used to say they cared about that too. But this budget actually calls for a $1.5 trillion increase in our national debt. What happened to the fiscal conservatives? What happened to the budget hawks on the other side of the aisle?

It turns out that when it comes to cutting Medicare and Medicaid, a lot of our Republican colleagues have been all in for that. But when it comes to tax cuts--tax cuts for the very wealthy--somehow deficits and debt don't matter anymore because this budget actually calls for a $1.5 trillion increase in the national debt.

I really hope we will get to regular order. Let's have a full bipartisan discussion. The only time there has been successful tax reform is when it has been done in a bipartisan, transparent way. Yet what this bill is doing is setting up a vehicle to try and jam something through on a partisan basis, something that will help the most powerful and the most wealthy in this country at the expense of everyone else. Let's not go in that direction.

Mr. President, I rise tonight to join my House colleagues, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and Congressman Andy Harris, to celebrate the passage of H.R. 2989, a bill to create a commission to honor Frederick Douglass in 2018, in the bicentennial of his birth.

Frederick Douglass was enslaved at birth on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1818; yet he learned to read and write. He escaped from Maryland and moved to New York. In 1845, he published his first autobiography, ``The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave.''

He later escaped to Great Britain to avoid being returned to slavery. British Quakers paid for his freedom, which enabled him to return to United States, settling in Baltimore, MD, in 1847; yet he continued to be a strong abolitionist who campaigned against slavery and in favor of the right to vote throughout the east and midwest. In 1850, he oversaw the Underground Railroad in Rochester, NY.

Douglass made four trips back to the place of his birth in Talbot County, MD. He reconciled with Captain Thomas Auld, who had enslaved him in the past. He made a pilgrimage to Tappers Corner in search of his grandmother's cabin and his birthplace. Moreover, he invested in the African-American community in Maryland through housing developments in his old neighborhood in Fells Point, now named Douglass Place, and at Highland Beach, a summer resort community outside of Annapolis.

Among his many accomplishments, he served as an adviser to President Lincoln. Moreover, he received several appointments in the District of Columbia: legislative council, U.S. Marshal, and recorder of deeds. He was subsequently appointed Ambassador to Haiti from 1889 to 1891.

Two hundred years after Douglass's birth provides an opportunity to reflect upon his legacy. He stated, ``We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.'' I look forward to working

with my colleagues to commemorate his bicentennial by retracing his steps and promoting his guiding principles of freedom and justice for all.

Mr. President, I do not believe Chairman Pai should have been confirmed to serve a full 5-year term as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, FCC. Since assuming the leadership role at the Commission, Chairman Pai has systematically advanced policies that advance corporate interests at the expense of American consumers.

Chairman Pai's decision to open an NPRM that will eventually reverse the 2015 open internet order is an egregious example of his misplaced priorities. In 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit confirmed that the open internet order was a lawful exercise of the Commission's regulatory authority. Broadband service providers must provide fair and equal access to all users, regardless of socioeconomic status. Over 18 million Americans submitted comments urging the Commission to maintain regulations that impose transparency and prevent ISPs from throttling or discriminating against certain data. Numerous polls have shown that Americans, across the political spectrum, overwhelmingly support regulations that would prevent broadband companies from discriminating against certain data.

Chairman Pai claims that the 2015 order caused a decrease in broadband investment, but the evidence suggests otherwise. I wrote to Chairman Pai about the evidence that he frequently cites to support his allegations of depressed investment--evidence, which I believe, is incomplete and inconclusive. As technology develops and consumers become even more dependent upon internet access, it is imperative that the FCC ensures that the internet is not divided between the have and the have-nots.

I was also disappointed by Chairman Pai's support for Congress's actions to repeal the Federal Communications Commission's broadband privacy rules. These rules are especially important in light of recent data breaches. Every website we visit and every link we click leaves an unintended trail that tells a story about our lives. ISPs can collect information about our location, children, sensitive information, family status, financial information, Social Security Numbers, web browsing history, and even the content of communications. ISPs sell this highly sensitive and highly personal data to the highest bidder without consumer's consent or knowledge. The Commission's rules empowered consumers and gave them tools to protect their privacy though transparency, choice, and data security. In supporting the rule's repeal, Chairman Pai demonstrated that he does not believe that Americans should have control over their data.

The rise of the internet of things, telehealth, and smart agriculture means that American consumers need an FCC that is on watch and committed to protecting their interests. I hope that Chairman Pai will reverse course and will stop putting the interests of big corporations ahead of the interests of American consumers.

Mr. President, this week my constituent Caroline Burkhart of Baltimore, MD, is on a historic trip to Japan of remembrance and reconciliation. A guest of the Japanese Government, she will follow the journey of her father, Thomas F. Burkhart, who was a prisoner of war of imperial Japan 75 years ago. Her trip will include a visit to the site of the camp in which her father was held as a POW.

At the start of WWII, Lieutenant Burkhart served in the Philippines with the Headquarters Company of the 45th Infantry, Philippine Scouts, an elite U.S. Army unit composed of American officers and Filipino enlisted men. After Japan's December 8, 1941, invasion of the Philippines, his battalion helped defend the withdrawal of American forces on Luzon to the Bataan Peninsula. Barely a month after being promoted to first lieutenant, on January 24, 1942, Lieutenant Burkhart earned a Silver Star for ``Gallantry in Action'' at the Battle of Abucay Hacienda, January 15 to 25, 1942, which maintained the first battle position on Bataan.

Sick with malaria, Lieutenant Burkhart was in the open-air general hospital No. 1 near the tip of Bataan when Major General Edward King surrendered the peninsula to Japanese forces on April 9, 1942. Soon thereafter, the patients were taken by truck, boxcar, and foot up to Camp O'Donnell, an overcrowded, makeshift POW camp. In early June, the Japanese, fearing the deaths of the prisoners from the horrific conditions in the camp, began to release their Filipino POWs and transfer the others to a new facility at Cabanatuan. It is estimated that 1,550 Americans and 22,000 Filipinos died at Camp O'Donnell, the overwhelming majority within the first 8 weeks.

On November 6, 1942, Lieutenant Burkhart was among 1,500 prisoners packed into the coal bunker of the unmarked ``hell ship'' Nagato Maru to Japan. It took three torturous weeks for the ship to make its way from the tropics to the cold of Northeast Asia. Lieutenant Burkhart, nearly blind from malnutrition, was used as a slave laborer for the construction company Toshima Group--today's Tobishima Corporation. He was soon moved to the Hiroshima No. 1-B Zentsuji POW Camp on the island of Shikoku. The enlisted men at Zentsuji were slave stevedores for Nippon Express Co.--Nippon Tsuun--at Sakaide Rail Yards and the Port of Takamatsu. As an officer, Lieutenant Burkhart worked in the camp garden. On June 23, 1945, he and 334 officers were transferred to POW Camp 11-B Rokuroshi, deep in the Japanese Alps. Food was scarce, conditions were overcrowded, and winter clothes were unavailable, leading many to fear that they would not survive the harsh winter. Lieutenant Burkhart was liberated from this camp in early September.

Lieutenant Burkhart remained in the Army and had a distinguished career with the quartermaster corps, retiring in 1957 as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. Throughout his life, he was plagued by health problems most likely caused by the illnesses and hardships of being a POW. In 1972, at age 57, he passed away and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Thomas Burkhart's daughter Caroline has honored his memory by working tirelessly to preserve the history of the POW experience and to teach its lessons of American perseverance and grit. Ms. Burkhart is an active member of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society. In this year, the 75th anniversary of the fall of the Philippines, we appreciate the effort by Japan to reach out to Ms. Burkhart and the American POWs in the spirit of reconciliation and healing.

I ask my colleagues to join me in wishing Caroline Burkhart a safe and meaningful journey and in expressing our gratitude and appreciation to Thomas F. Burkhart and all veterans of the war in the Pacific for their heroic service and sacrifice.

Mr. President, the United States is facing an urgent nuclear crisis with North Korea. President Trump should not trigger another nuclear crisis with Iran.

North Korea's nuclear program presents a clear and direct threat to the United States. Our top military official, General Dunford, testified last month that North Korea has the capability to strike the U.S. mainland with an intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea has ramped up the pace of its ballistic missile tests, firing two ICBMs over Japan in recent months. Just last month, North Korea conducted its sixth test of a nuclear weapon, the largest yet.

Meanwhile, President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are engaged in nuclear brinkmanship. Trump has threatened to ``totally destroy'' North Korea, has tweeted that North Korea ``might not be around much longer,'' and has rebuked his own Secretary of State for attempting to find a diplomatic solution. With each reckless pronouncement, Trump's threats could bring the United States closer to a war that would put at risk millions of lives, including tens of thousands of American soldiers.

Confronted with the North Korean nuclear threat, President Trump is seeking to provoke another nuclear crisis, this time in the turbulent Middle East. He has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the agreement that the United States and the international community forged to prohibit Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He has called the Iran deal an ``embarrassment,'' ``the worst deal ever,'' and has vowed to ``rip up'' the agreement. In making those threats, Trump is putting our security and credibility at risk.

The Iran deal is working. It has verifiably shut off Iran's pathways to a nuclear bomb, imposed tough constraints on Iran's nuclear program, and subjected Iran to the most comprehensive inspection and monitoring regime ever negotiated. How do we know? We know from Donald Trump himself.

Just 2 weeks ago, President Trump found Iran in compliance and waived nuclear-related sanctions on Iran. In fact, the Trump administration has twice certified Iran's compliance with the deal, acknowledging that adherence to the agreement is in the vital national security interests of the United States. Our State Department, our Defense Department, and our intelligence community have all assessed that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear agreement. Most importantly, President Trump has presented no evidence to Congress, as he is required to do by law, of any potential Iranian breach of the deal. In fact, the administration has yet to brief the Senate on its strategy for Iran, despite weekly requests from my colleagues.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Trump has suggested that he will refuse to certify Iran's compliance with the deal by October 15, the next deadline. This will effectively kick the deal's fate to Congress, which will then have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose the nuclear-related sanctions on Iran waived under the deal.

Make no mistake: Trump's reasons for not certifying Iran's compliance are based on politics, not national security. He wants to tear up an agreement that has prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, simply because it was negotiated by a democratic administration. Trump has threatened to do this without offering any alternative plan to block Iran from getting a nuclear bomb.

In the absence of any evidence of an Iranian violation, Trump and his team are manufacturing reasons not to certify the deal, citing issues not addressed in the nuclear agreement, such as Iran's sponsorship of regional terrorism, its ballistic missile tests, and its human rights violations.

Iran is subject to sanctions for those malign activities. Since the Iran deal has been implemented, the United States had designated over 100 individuals and entities for sanctions. Congress passed a new law this July, that I cosponsored, sanctioning Iran for these aggressions. It is worth underscoring this point: Donald Trump has yet to issue instructions to his administration on how to implement that sanctions law.

In short, the Iran deal has not prevented the United States from taking measures to hold Iran accountable for its destabilizing actions elsewhere. It has, however, prevented Iran from conducting those same actions with a nuclear weapon. That is where our focus should continue to be. A nuclear-armed Iran would be a far greater menace in the region than a nonnuclear Iran.

The truth is, if the United States had tried to expand the nuclear agreement to also address Iran's ballistic missile tests and its regional terrorism, there would simply be no deal. Russia and China would not have agreed to its terms. Preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was the only point on which all parties were united. Critics of the deal who argue otherwise are not being straight with the American people.

In a world of alternative facts, that point is worth reiterating. No deal, including this one, contains everything we want. That is the nature of a negotiation. Unilaterally withdrawing from the agreement will not produce a better deal today. In fact, we have much less negotiating leverage today. The United States does not have the backing of our allies and partners around the world for withdrawal. Our partners have been crystal clear. They will not renegotiate the deal while it is working. Without that international backing, we have no leverage with Iran.

This brings to bear another, equally important, point. This administration

is already putting American credibility at risk; if we manufacture a specious excuse for abandoning the Iran agreement, our word will mean little. That will make it nearly impossible to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis in North Korea, already an extremely challenging prospect. Put simply, our allies, partners, and adversaries would have no reason to trust the United States.

That is why Secretary of Defense Mattis, when asked whether it was in the national security interest of the United States to stay in the Iran deal, said, ``Yes, Senator, I do.''

I want to end by outlining the choice we face right now. The choice we face right now is between a deal or no deal. It is between cutting off Iran's pathways to a bomb or allowing Iran to push forward with its nuclear weapons program. It is between maintaining U.S. leadership in the world or empowering our adversaries. It is a choice between diplomacy or heading down a path toward war.

For these reasons, I urge President Trump to certify Iran's compliance with the nuclear agreement by October 15. If he fails to do so, I urge my colleagues in the Senate to preserve the deal.

Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute to a Marylander, John Gabriel ``Gabe'' Smith, whose courage not only broke barriers for himself but whose courage advanced the cause of the betterment of humanity.

On October 14, he will be recognized at the Gonzaga High School homecoming by the Gonzaga Onyx, a group of African-American alumni of Gonzaga, due to his achievement of being the very first African- American to graduate from Washington, DC's Gonzaga College Preparatory High School with the class of 1954.

He was born in the turbulent times of the early 40s in St. Mary's County, MD, where he and his two sisters grew up. His parents relied on hard work and diligence to pursue excellence and committed their children to a Catholic education and religious fellowship at St. Peter Claver, a church with a predominantly African-American parish in rural Ridge, MD. As an eighth grader, Gabe decided to serve as an altar boy; little did he know, it would change his life and place him in the annals of American history.

He listened to Father McKenna describe the ways that people had traveled to find God and become a priest. Interested in pursuing this vocation, he asked Father McKenna how he, too, could achieve it and was surprised when Father McKenna told him that he would, at a minimum, need to know Latin.

Unfortunately, there were no schools in St. Mary's or the surrounding areas that taught Latin, let alone the tools necessary to launch his vocation, so Father McKenna told him about a school in Washington, DC, where he could learn Latin and all the other requisites. That school was Gonzaga College High.

Several years before the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 to end segregation, Archbishop O'Boyle ordered the integration of all Catholic schools and churches in the Archdiocese of Washington. Thus, in 1951, he entered the halls of Gonzaga.

Fortunately, during his time at Gonzaga, his classmates stood with him in the face of adversity and strife when they walked outside the school walls. As a member of the Gonzaga Purple Eagle football team, he encountered additional support from Coach Joe Kozik who stood by him, along with his teammates. Whenever the Eagles would play an opponent that vehemently rejected the idea of teams with African-American players, Coach Kozik and his teammates always stuck together like a family to overcome hate and ignorance.

In 1954, he completed his education at Gonzaga College High School as the first African-American graduate. Poised with his education and command of Latin, he entered Howard University and graduated with a degree in pharmacy, where he commanded his field for over 40 years, just retiring this past spring of 2017. He is now spending time with his wife and children.

Gabe says that ``he had angels who helped him through and they continue to be with him today.'' He will forever leave an outstanding legacy for the State of Maryland and the halls of Gonzaga College High School. He was the first African American at Gonzaga, paving the way for over 1,100 esteemed African-American alumni to follow in his footsteps.

Mr. President, I wish to support the confirmation of U.S. district judge Ralph Erickson to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Mr. Erickson received the support of both of his home State Senators, Democrat Heidi Heitkamp and Republican John Hoeven. Both Hoeven and Heitkamp submitted their blue slips for Mr. Erickson, and the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to advance his nomination to the full Senate.

I hope Mr. Erickson's confirmation reinforces the importance of bipartisanship and the importance of maintaining the blue slip process. The Judiciary Committee has used the blue slip process since at least 1917, and the process is integral to maintaining the bipartisan nature of the Senate. Under both Presidents Obama and George W. Bush, even when a party had unified control of the Presidency and the Senate, if a home State Senator objected to a nominee, the nomination did not proceed. There have been recent discussions to suspend the blue slip tradition in order to force nominations through the Judiciary Committee. I encourage my colleagues to reject any such measures and to continue in the blue slip tradition.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor the people and leaders of Taiwan on their National Day to take place on October 10. The United States and Taiwan have a long history of mutual trade and friendship that has promoted prosperity and security on both sides of the Pacific. The United States-Taiwan bilateral relationship continues to grow based on our shared democratic values and common strategic interests.

I urge my colleagues to join me in congratulating the people of Taiwan on their success and thanking them for their continued efforts to work with the United States on economic growth and security cooperation. The people of both the United States and Taiwan have much to celebrate.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Patrice Gordon in honor of her retirement this week after 29 years of exceptional service to the Congress at the Congressional Budget Office. She began her congressional career in CBO's Natural Resources and Commerce Division in 1988 after receiving her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Maryland.

Since that time, Patrice has been recognized as one of CBO's best when it comes to focusing on details, ensuring analyses are thorough and correct, and questioning any gaps in reasoning. She is a critical thinker with an encyclopedic mind for details. Throughout her career, she has balanced her keen analytic approach with humility and kindness, becoming a mentor to many young analysts and helping them hone their quantitative skills. She is a valued colleague to everyone who has worked closely with her.

In the mid-1990s, Patrice and a few other colleagues at CBO took on the task of implementing requirements of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, and soon she would end up supervising all of CBO's work on private-sector mandates. Throughout her tenure, she helped distill the principles that guide CBO's analyses of Federal mandates, ensuring that the agency's work was consistent with the previsions of UMRA. During that time, she also reviewed virtually every bill reported by a congressional committee, including bills that regulate the transportation of snakes on airplanes to healthcare reform and bankruptcy regulation. Patrice has probably read more than 10,000 bills during her time at the Congressional Budget Office.

In short, over the past 29 years, the Congressional Budget Office and Congress have been fortunate to enjoy the dedication and insight that Patrice has brought to her work. I understand she is looking forward to playing more competitive bridge and perhaps even tuning up a clarinet and saxophone to jazz up her time away from cost estimates and mandate analyses. I know my Senate colleagues join me in extending our appreciation to Patrice for her service to our Nation and our very best wishes for a happy and productive retirement.

Mr. President, I want to start by saying a few words about what is happening in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands where, in front of our eyes on the television sets, we see a growing humanitarian crisis that needs our urgent attention.

Hurricane Maria has left unimaginable devastation. Less than half of the population of Puerto Rico has potable water. Cell service is out on 95 percent of the island, making it difficult to contact loved ones and call emergency services, and only 5 percent of the power grid in Puerto Rico is working.

My office has been fielding hundreds of calls from across the State of Maryland, some from constituents who are eager and desperate to reach their loved ones, others from fellow Americans who are watching the devastation and who are asking us to act quickly.

We all know that in the runups to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, Texas and Florida braced for impact. We here in the Senate quickly organized to promise we would deliver the resources they would need to rebuild. We provided an emergency downpayment, and we gave them assurances that we would also stand ready to provide assistance when it comes to rebuilding.

We need to make that same urgent commitment to the people of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, our fellow Americans. The administration needs to bring to bear its full resources from the military, to the Army Corps, to FEMA to deliver critical supplies and access to people in all parts of those areas.

We have heard that we might get an emergency request for appropriations in a week or two. We need to move much more quickly, given the urgency of the situation; 3.5 million of our fellow Americans should not be left to languish without water or power. That is not who we are. We need all hands on deck, and we need them now, so I hope we will move on to that.

Mr. President, we had some good news--or I should say the American public had some good news today in the announcement from the Republican leader that the Senate will not be proceeding to debate what is known as the Graham-Cassidy legislation, the latest version of TrumpCare, which would have had a devastating impact on our healthcare system and created harm throughout the country and in my State of Maryland. In fact, I know millions of Marylanders will be breathing a sigh of relief as a result of this decision.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the personal testimonials of Marylanders who, in the last few days, have sent to me their very powerful stories about how the Graham- Cassidy legislation would have harmed their loved ones.

Now that we have decided not to vote on that legislation, it is essential that this Senate move forward expeditiously to take up bipartisan legislation that has been in the works through Senator Alexander and Senator Murray. Those conversations were bearing fruit. They were productive until the Senate decided to veer off, once again, to try to pass legislation that would have destroyed the Affordable Care Act. But now that we have decided not to go down that path, we have to quickly come back to those bipartisan talks and adopt some commonsense measures to strengthen the insurance system in a smart and targeted way.

There were many commonsense ideas that are part of those discussions, including making more permanent the so-called cost-sharing provisions, which help to lower the costs of healthcare and help to reduce the premiums, the copays, and the deductibles, and the reinsurance provisions that also have that effect, as well as discussions about how we might be able to streamline waivers within the Medicaid system without sacrificing or jeopardizing the important principles and protections that Medicaid provides on a national level.

We know we have to move quickly on this front because insurance companies all over the country have already started or are on the brink of starting the process of announcing their premiums. Unless this Senate takes action, we are going to see many high premiums. So we have to move quickly. As we do, the White House needs to stop their efforts to undermine and sabotage the Affordable Care Act.

On day one of his Presidency, President Trump adopted an Executive order that began to sabotage that program. We are already seeing the impact when it comes to some of the early premium announcements we have seen from insurance companies that offer insurance in the exchanges. That decision--that early Executive order--has created a big spike. So the President needs to act right away to assure the folks who provide healthcare throughout the country that he is going to stop the sabotage and begin to make sure that we stabilize those markets. It is under his control to say today, if he wanted, that he will continue those cost- sharing payments until the Senate and the House adopt permanent legislation to address those issues.

So it is really important that the Trump administration take those actions now to avert increasing premiums in the exchanges in the days to come. It is also essential that the Senate move forward on that legislation.

I hope we will also move forward with the continuation and some strengthening and modifications of the Children's Health Insurance Program. Again, there is bipartisan agreement on that proposal. We need to move forward right away with the support for community health centers because that authority will also expire.

I hope we will then get on with the business of putting into law the agreement in principle that was reached by President Trump and the Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate to provide protections for the Dreamers. As we all know, the President lit the 6-month fuse on these young people who were brought here through no fault of their own, and it is incumbent on all of us to make sure that these young people, who have grown up knowing only America as their country and who have grown up pledging allegiance to the flag, not face the threat of deportation 6 months from now. That is what they are facing as of this moment. The Senate should act quickly to pass the bipartisan Dream Act.

I hope we will also move forward in a bipartisan way on the important issue of tax reform because I think all of us agree that our Tax Code could be simplified. There is a lot of junk in our Tax Code that has been put there by powerful special interests who were able to hire high-priced lobbyists to exempt themselves from certain tax provisions that all other Americans have to pay. We need to clear out that underbrush and make other important reforms, and we can simplify the Tax Code.

As we do that, I was very much hoping that we would take the advice of our colleague, Senator McCain, who said we need to get back to the regular order. We need to get back to the Senate conducting its business in a transparent manner. We need to have hearings. We need to bring witnesses from all different perspectives and points of view to testify as to the impact of tax reform proposals.

We short-circuited that process when it came to healthcare, and the result was a healthcare bill that the overwhelming majority of the American people rejected, including every single patient advocacy organization that weighed in on that bill--from the American Cancer Society to the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association. We have seen that very long list, with all of the healthcare providers, from the nurses to the doctors to the hospitals. Hospitals in rural areas, suburban areas, and urban areas all said that the healthcare bill that did not go through the regular process and did not go through the regular order was deeply flawed and would hurt America.

We should learn a lesson from that. The lesson we should learn is that tax reform, which also has an incredibly wide-reaching impact on our economy and on our country, should go through the regular order of debate. It is very alarming to see that, as of now, it appears that the process on tax reform is going to go through the same short-circuited effort as we saw with respect to healthcare, because what we have seen is that the Senate Budget Committee, on which I am proud to serve, will soon--maybe as early as next week--be taking up a budget bill that will include what are known as budget reconciliation instructions, which would provide for a tax cut that would be deficit-financed. What does that mean? It means that we would be cutting taxes and not paying for them. We would be cutting taxes and putting it on the American credit card and, as a result, dramatically increasing our debt. In fact, the reports indicate that the proposal will actually green-light a $1.5 trillion increase in the Federal deficit.

Now, I have heard our Republican colleagues in the House and in the Senate for years talk about the fact that the debt is a huge burden overhanging on our economy. The debt is a big problem, and we need to deal with it. In fact, a few months ago, Leader McConnell said that any tax overhaul plan would ``have to be revenue-neutral'' because of the ``alarming $20 trillion Federal debt.'' Yet, just months after that statement, we are told that we are probably going to get a proposal that would actually green-light--open the door--to increasing the Federal debt by $1.5 trillion in order to provide a tax cut.

Now, the Democrats have put forward some principles for tax reform that I believe reflect the views of the American public. What we have said is this. No. 1, tax reform should be there to help the middle class and working families with some relief, and we should not be providing millionaires in the top 1 percent with yet another tax cut windfall. That should not be the priority of the country. In fact, Secretary Mnuchin, when he was testifying during his confirmation hearings, put forward something that we called the Mnuchin rule, which said that there should be no net tax cut for the very wealthy. So we have adopted that as one of our principles for tax reform.

We have also said what Leader McConnell said a few months ago, that tax reform should not add to the deficit and debt. We shouldn't pass that burden on to taxpayers and future generations to pay the interest on that debt.

Finally, we have said that it should go through the regular order, as Senator McCain indicated, where we have that debate in an open forum so that everybody can understand the impact and have their say before people try to rush it through the Senate in a short period of time. So I hope that is what we will do. These reports that we are talking about short-circuiting the process are alarming.

Then, we just heard within the last few days that, in addition to creating a process that would fast-track tax cuts that could go overwhelmingly to the wealthy and add to our deficit, this reconciliation bill will be written in a way that might allow us to try to fast-track the destruction of the Affordable Care Act again. We have finished this debate for this fiscal year, but suggestions are that it will open the door to destroying the Affordable Care Act through that fast-track, so-called reconciliation process in the months ahead.

So we would have in one piece of legislation a proposal that says: Let's cut taxes for very wealthy people, and it will add to the deficit, but we are also going to try to reduce the deficit a little bit by cutting healthcare for millions of Americans.

We thought we just had that debate, and we thought the American public just weighed in on that debate. The result of the American public's weighing in was very clear, and that is why we are not voting on that this week in the Senate. We should not open the door again to that kind of fast-track process that could do such grave harm to the healthcare of the American people.

So I hope that when it comes to tax reform, we will take a different path. As I indicated, there are things we can and should do to simplify our Tax Code. What we should not do is what we have seen in the past. What we saw in the past in the early 2000s was this fast-track procedure used to pass tax cuts that went overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans. In fact, after that tax cut was put in place, what went up was the income of the top 1 percent. What went up was the deficit and the debt, and everybody else was left flat or sinking. So that would be a terrible mistake.

For example, we are told that part of this will be eliminating entirely the so-called estate tax. Right now, the estate tax only applies to estates over $11 million, for couples--over $11 million. So 0.2 percent of Americans are impacted by the estate tax, and they are the wealthiest of the very wealthy. Yet this proposal says we are going to actually increase the debt by $1.5 trillion in order to make room for tax cuts that benefit the top two-tenths of 1 percent of the American public.

That is heading in the wrong direction. I am pretty confident that, at least, in my State of Maryland, the overwhelming majority of our citizens would be very much opposed to that effort. What always happens is that, when it comes to cutting taxes for the very wealthy or for powerful special interests, many of our Republican colleagues here forget about all the talk about the importance of the deficit and debt. It is OK to run up a $1.5 trillion debt on top of our already high debt in order to provide tax cuts. But then, when those debts go up, always the conversation comes around to cutting--cutting our investments in education; cutting Medicare, turning it into a voucher program, as various Republican budgets in the House and Senate have proposed over the years; cutting Medicaid, which is what the Graham-Cassidy bill would have done and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it is over a $1 trillion cut, and that is before it went over a total cliff in the outyears.

So let's, please, colleagues, learn the lesson from how this healthcare fiasco unfolded. When it comes to things like tax reform, let's proceed in a bipartisan way. Let's begin in the coming week to get back to the bipartisan discussions on healthcare, so that as we head into the fall, people are not going to experience wounds that are inflicted by the lack of action by this Congress--by this Senate and this House.

I thank you, Mr. President. I hope we can get back to regular order at some point in time and really do the people's work the way it is intended to be done--in an open, transparent, and bipartisan way.

Mr. President, I could not support Noel Francisco's confirmation to serve as the 47th Solicitor General of the United States. I do not believe Mr. Francisco can serve as a check on this administration and this President.

Created in 1870 and colloquially referred to as the ``10th Supreme Court Justice,'' the Solicitor General represents the U.S. Government before the Supreme Court. The Solicitor General culls through thousands of cases a year and selects which cases the Department of Justice will appeal. Although the Solicitor General is the third highest ranked office in the Department of Justice, it is the Solicitor General alone who selects and approves every appeal. This heavy responsibility requires that the Solicitor General use sound legal judgment and resist pressure from and maintain independence from the President and Cabinet- level members.

History contains examples of Solicitors General who deferred to the President while constructing legal strategy and Presidents who were directly involved with shaping legal arguments. President Eisenhower personally wrote handwritten notes on his Solicitor General's briefs before they were submitted to the Supreme Court. President Eisenhower's notes softened the Solicitor General's tone regarding the expediency of desegregation after the seminal Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education.

At this unique time in history, we cannot have a Solicitor General who will serve as a rubberstamp for this administration's policies. President Trump has shown a disregard and contempt for not only the rule of law but also for our constitutional separation of powers.

Frederick William Lehmann, Solicitor General during the Taft administration said that ``the Government wins its point when justice is done in its courts.'' As acting-Solicitor General, Mr. Francisco defended the President's travel ban before the Ninth Circuit, in which he argued that Presidential authority regarding immigration is ``largely immune from judicial control.''

Mr. Francisco's lead in defending President Trump's Executive orders are deeply concerning. We need a Solicitor General that can say no to the President and resist positions advocated by the administration's hardliners when they fall outside of defensible legal boundaries. I do not believe Mr. Francisco can act as an independent check, and I could not support his confirmation.

Madam President, I first thank the Democratic leader for his efforts to work and reach out to the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, as we move forward to try to take some sensible steps to improve our healthcare system, not try to blow up the entire healthcare system.

Just last month, the overwhelming majority of the American people sighed a great sigh of relief when this Senate voted down the earlier TrumpCare proposal that would have destroyed the Affordable Care Act and which would have had a devastating impact on the entire American healthcare system.

We all recall, at that point in time, Senator McCain gave a powerful and impassioned speech on this floor about the importance of the Senate going through the regular order, about working in a transparent way, in a bipartisan way, to improve and strengthen our healthcare system--not another cynical, partisan effort to ram through a piece of legislation that impacts hundreds of millions of our fellow Americans. For a time, it seemed we were making headway on that front. Senator Lamar Alexander and Senator Patty Murray and the HELP Committee are working together, holding hearings, bringing people from all points of view in front of that committee to testify about how we can improve and strengthen our current system.

Now, instead of heading down that bipartisan path, we are seeing another last-ditch effort to destroy the Affordable Care Act and, in the process, wreak incredible damage to our entire healthcare system. The latest incarnation of TrumpCare is the Graham-Cassidy legislation. Make no mistake, in many ways, this is far worse than the earlier proposals we have seen.

It would end the Medicaid expansion program, which in my State of Maryland actually has provided more affordable care to more Marylanders than the exchanges that were established under the Affordable Care Act. It will dramatically cut the funds under the Medicaid Program through a block grant proposal that gives very little, given the huge responsibilities that the State has.

It will give a green light to States throughout the country to eliminate the really important patient protections, protections against discrimination based on preexisting conditions like diabetes or asthma or whatever it may be, and it will give a blank check to those who want to eliminate the important essential benefit provisions that provide important coverage guarantees for women's health and so many other important areas like mental health and substance abuse.

Doctors in this country take a very simple oath, the Hippocratic oath, which says: First, do no harm.

This piece of legislation--this latest incarnation of TrumpCare--will do devastating harm to our healthcare system, and you don't have to take my word for it. As more and more groups learn about this piece of legislation--and they are just looking at the details--they are beginning to phone into our offices and to send us emails and texts. I can assure you that Members will see the same outpouring of opposition to this bill that they saw to the earlier ones.

Already we have seen strong statements of opposition from the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, and the list goes on and on, and it just started.

It is important for us to remember that these are not Republican groups. They are not Democratic groups. They have no partisan affiliation at all. Their only interest is to protect patients in this country, and we should have the same interest in protecting the health of our constituents.

It is not just the patient advocacy groups that are already strongly opposed to this. Those who provide healthcare in our system to our loved ones--to our parents, to our children--are coming out strongly opposed to this already.

Here is what the Children's Hospital Association has to say about the Graham-Cassidy provision:

Their legislation would slash funding for Medicaid, the

nation's largest health care program for children, by one-

third, reducing access and coverage for more than 30 million

children in the program. Furthermore, the legislation weakens

important consumer safeguards, and as a result, millions of

children in working families would no longer be assured that

their private insurance covers the most basic of services

without annual and lifetime limits. . . .

And they go on. That is the Children's Hospital Association. Those are the hospitals that every day are caring for kids throughout this country, and they are not alone in already opposing this legislation.

The American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, the American Nurses Association--in short, all of those organizations representing all those people out there who are providing healthcare to our fellow Americans, to our constituents--are opposed to this bill.

AARP, which, of course, represents millions--in fact, tens of millions--of older Americans is strongly opposed to this bill because, once again, it opens the door toward age discrimination in the amount of the premiums that are charged. Older Americans and elderly Americans will see their premiums go through the roof under this proposal, and that is why AARP is also strongly opposed.

So just when we thought we were at a point where we were going to focus on a bipartisan basis on improving our healthcare system, which has a whole lot of room for improvement, just when we began to see bipartisan hearings and legislation possibly emerge from the HELP Committee, we now see this last-ditch effort on the floor of the Senate to do what other bills had tried to do but in an even worse fashion.

We are hearing already from Americans--not with political hats on, not with Republican hats on or Democratic hats on or Independent hats on, not with political hats on at all, just people who care about the healthcare of the people of this country--and they are resoundingly opposed to this. So let's not try and ram something

through here in the next 2 weeks to try to meet an artificial clock that has been set by the rules of the Senate. There has been ample time to debate this, and we have debated the earlier versions. Let's not allow this final sneak attack on the American healthcare system to get through this body. It would be a very sad day for the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I would like to discuss the importance of ensuring that federally funded infrastructure projects are built to withstand flood damage.

As we work to provide Federal support to the people of Texas, Florida, and the Gulf Coast, Congress should consider how we can ensure that our roads, bridges, and other critical infrastructure are better equipped to withstand future flooding.

In 2015, President Obama signed an executive order to reinforce and expand existing policy regarding Federal action in a floodplain, directing agencies to use a higher vertical flood elevation and horizontal floodplain for federally funded projects. This was a common- sense step to improve our resilience in the face of increased flood risk.

Then last month, President Trump signed an executive order to reverse his predecessor's action. Despite support from groups ranging from environmentalists to the insurance industry, the President has decided to undo what a former director of public affairs at FEMA called ``the most significant action taken in a generation to safeguard U.S. infrastructure.''

We must prepare our Nation's critical infrastructure to deal with flooding. That is why I am I, along with Senators Schatz and Booker, am introducing the Flood Risk Management Act of 2017. This bill will codify common-sense flood standards and ensure that federally funded infrastructure projects are built to withstand flood damage. The legislation is supported by the Smarter Safer Coalition, a diverse group of organizations ranging from insurance groups, environmental organizations to taxpayer advocates.

If we fail to invest when our roads and bridges are being built, we risk the lives of American families and ultimately spend more taxpayer dollars to repair them after floods occur. Now is the time to prepare for the next disaster--not after it occurs.