Floor Statements

Mr. President, during this week, National Police Week, I honor all those who serve to keep us safe. I honor three Maryland officers who lost their lives in the line of duty in 2016. Corporal Jack Colson of Prince George's County Police Department, Senior Deputy Patrick Dailey, and Deputy First Class Mark Logsdon, both of Harford County Sheriff's office, all dedicated their lives to making Maryland safe. We thank them for their sacrifice, and we thank their families, friends, and fellow officers. They will never be forgotten, and they deserve to be honored not just this week, but every day.

Mr. President, I oppose Jeffrey Rosen's nomination to be Deputy Secretary of the Department of Transportation. Mr. Rosen has a troubling history of standing with industry over consumers and opposing common sense public health and environmental protections.

In both his time as general counsel at the Department of Transportation in the George W. Bush administration and his private sector work on behalf of industry, Mr. Rosen advocated for limits on the agency's authority to protect health and safety through the regulatory process. In one case when he was at the Department of Transportation, the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency proposed a weak standard for the required strength of vehicle roofs, which could collapse in rollovers. In addition to the weak standard, the rule would make it difficult for consumers who had been in accidents to seek damages from the companies responsible.

Mr. Rosen has also repeatedly questioned the necessity of limiting carbon emissions from vehicles. He opposed efforts to improve fuel economy standards that have spurred innovation, cut pollution, and saved consumers at the pump.

Mr. Rosen's ideological approach to regulation appears bent on minimizing rulemaking at any costs, regardless of the need. He has advocated for one-in, one-out regulatory schemes and ``regulatory budgeting'' that place arbitrary limits that would interfere with the ability of agencies to implement the law.

Agency leadership must focus on their mission and use the best available science and data to guide implementation of the law. Based on Mr. Rosen's history, I am concerned that he may politicize rulemaking, so I must oppose his nomination today.

Madam President, I support the nomination of Robert Lighthizer to be the United States Trade Representative.

Trade agreements should meet two tests: Does the agreement improve worker wages? And does the agreement add American jobs? For far too long, U.S. Trade Representatives have prioritized profits of large multinational organizations over the interests of the American people and our country as a whole.

The USTR should be someone who negotiates on behalf of the American worker and advances labor and environmental protections, and the USTR should be someone who works to enforce agreements. While I don't agree with everything in Mr. Lighthizer's resume, his record suggests that he will be a USTR who will approach trade policies in the ways I have outlined. I hope the approach he takes going forward will reflect the positions he has taken in the past. I expect him to ask: Does it improve worker wages? And does it add American jobs?

I believe that Mr. Lighthizer will bring fresh eyes to trade policy. I hope that he will focus on increasing transparency at the USTR. I hope that he will stand up for worker rights, both domestically and internationally. I hope that Mr. Lighthizer will work to enforce trade policies that protect the environment.

Mr. President, I oppose this blatant giveaway to the oil and gas industry at the expense of public health and the environment. We are now at the eleventh hour of expedited consideration of resolutions to overturn Obama-era rules, and the majority is bringing forward this legislation to overturn a Bureau of Land Management rule on methane waste.

The BLM methane rule is a reasonable, achievable way to limit emissions of methane--a particularly potent greenhouse gas--and save taxpayer money. The rule would prevent the oil and gas industry from excessive venting and flaring of methane into the air and ensure that they work more quickly to address methane leaks. As we have seen in Colorado, which has a similar rule, the technology to meet these requirements exists and is not prohibitively expensive.

The BLM rule is a tremendously effective way to address greenhouse gases. Simply limiting these methane emissions would be the equivalent of taking nearly 1 million cars off the roads. Reducing methane leaks also prevents the leak of volatile organic compounds and other pollutants that contribute to ground-level ozone and damage public health.

By overturning this rule, the Senate would not just have given the oil and gas industry the green light to keep polluting, it would essentially be paying them to do it. Right now, companies don't pay royalties on wasted gas from public lands. If we allow them to continue their inefficient practices, they will avoid more than $800 million in royalties over the next decade. Because States where operations are located get a large share of the royalties, western States like Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Montana would lose out on millions of dollars. Oil and gas companies will be taking public resources, wastefully venting them into the atmosphere, and avoiding any cost for that behavior.

Stakeholders like sportsmen, conservationists, tribal leaders, and consumer groups support the methane rule. The only voices asking for its repeal are the oil and gas industry and the Koch brothers. We should stand for our constituents and taxpayers instead.

Mr. President, I join my colleague in opposing the nomination of Dr. Gottlieb and thank him for laying out the case.

The FDA, of course, is an important part of our healthcare system, and just last week we saw the House of Representatives jam through a piece of legislation that would wreak havoc on the healthcare system. In fact, many people are appropriately calling what they did ``wealthcare'' because it represents a huge transfer of wealth away from caring for patients to the very wealthiest in our country, including many powerful special interests.

I think everybody understands--Republicans, Democrats, Independents alike--the Affordable Care Act is not perfect and specifically that we need to address the issues within the Affordable Care Act exchanges. We need to address those issues to lower the deductibles, lower the copays, and make it more affordable. There are some very straightforward ways of doing that.

One good idea is to create a public option within the Affordable Care Act exchanges, a Medicare-for-all-type choice. What will that do? It will create more competition. That will drive down the price of insurance within the Affordable Care Act exchanges, and it will ensure that you have a provider everywhere in the United States in every community of this country. Even better, the Congressional Budget Office, the last time they looked at it, concluded that it would save taxpayers $160 billion over 10 years, so it would reduce our deficit.

The House Republican wealthcare bill doesn't try to fix the exchanges. What it does is blow up the Affordable Care Act and in the process wreaks havoc on our entire healthcare system. You don't have to take my word for it. Just take a look at the long list of groups that have come out strongly opposed to the House bill, starting with patient advocacy groups, such as the American Lung Association, the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the list goes on. These aren't Democratic groups. They don't have only Democratic patients. They have patients who are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and people who aren't participating in the political process. These are groups that care about patients, they don't care about politics, and they are strongly opposed.

How about those who are providing care to those patients? Well, here is a partial list of the groups that are strongly opposed: the American Academy of Family Physicians; the American Medical Association, the doctors; the American Academy of Pediatrics, the folks who look after the care of our kids; the American Nurses' Association.

Let's look at the hospital groups. The American Hospital Association strongly opposes this; the Children's Hospital Association opposes this, and the list goes on. It is opposed by those who are spending all their time advocating for patients and opposed by those who provide care to patients.

Then you have a long list of senior groups, including AARP, that strongly oppose this because the House bill discriminates against older Americans--people over 50 years old--because it allows insurance companies to charge them a whole lot more for their healthcare than they currently have to pay.

These groups don't care about party. They don't care about politics. They care about patients in our healthcare system, and it should tell us all a lot that they are opposed and strongly opposed to this bill. Now, why is that?

This House bill is rotten at its core. Its foundation was rotten when the Congressional Budget Office first looked at it, and then they made it even worse. Let's look at the foundation of this, which the Congressional Budget Office did have a chance to look at. I do want to remind the Presiding Officer that the head of the Congressional Budget Office was selected by the chairman of the House Republican Budget Committee, the House Budget Committee, the Republican chairman, and the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, a Republican chairman. They took a look at that first foundation of the House bill, and here is what they concluded. This is right in their report; that 24 million Americans would lose their access to affordable healthcare. That is on page 2 of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report.

Why is that? It is because they take a wrecking ball to Medicaid and a wrecking ball to the exchanges. They don't make the exchanges better. They don't drive down the prices. They make the exchanges worse, and they take a big whack at Medicaid. In fact, they also take a cut at Medicare. In fact, if you go to the table in this CBO chart, I will just refer people to table 3. Sometimes you just have to dig deep in these reports to get to the bottom line. There is an $883 billion cut that consists of about $840 billion cuts to the Medicaid Program, $48 billion cut to the Medicare Program, and I should emphasize that will actually make the Medicare Program somewhat more insolvent. You add it up, you have $880 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid combined.

I remind people that the Medicaid funding not only went to provide more access to people for healthcare through expanding Medicaid, which many States have talked about and Governor Kasich has been talking about recently, but this bill also cuts the core Medicaid Program to the States, and two-thirds of that money goes to care for seniors in nursing homes and people with disabilities. So it puts all of them at risk. That is $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid and Medicare and people who need healthcare.

What is the other big number in the House bill? Well, $900 billion is the amount of the tax cuts in what is being described as a healthcare bill. That is why people are calling this a wealthcare bill because you are cutting $880 billion out of Medicaid and Medicare and transferring those dollars that are currently being spent to provide healthcare to tens of millions of Americans, transferring that money back primarily to the wealthiest people in this country and corporate special interests.

Under this $900 billion tax cut, if you are earning over $1 million a year, you are getting an average tax cut of $50,000 a year. If you are in the top one-tenth of 1 percent of income earners--we are talking about the wealthiest people in this country--you are getting an average annual tax cut of $200,000.

Do you know what they did for insurance companies? They used to say the bonuses that were paid to the CEOs of insurance companies would be taxed, but they took that away. So now insurance companies can essentially pay bonuses and deduct those. They can deduct those now from their bottom line, which drives up the profits of insurance companies by allowing the deduction of CEO bonuses. So we have $900 billion in tax cuts that primarily go to the wealthiest, and $880 billion in cuts to the Medicaid Program and Medicare that goes to care for people. That is why this bill is rotten at its core, because it is going to hurt our healthcare system, according to all those patient advocacy groups and all those patient provider groups, and for what? To give this windfall tax break to the wealthy and powerful interests.

That is why it is probably no surprise that when the American people were asked about that original House bill, only 17 percent said: Yes, that is a good idea. Everybody else said: Uh-uh, we don't like what we are seeing. That is the bill I was just describing.

Then the House took that rotten foundation and put even worse stuff on top of it. They added a provision that would eliminate the essential benefits package. These are the provisions that ensure that when you are buying an insurance policy, you are getting something that will be there when you need it rather than a junk policy--the policies people used to get, where they found out after they got sick, ``Uh-uh, we are not paying for that,'' said the insurance companies ``because look here at the back of page 100, last paragraph, fine print, you are not covered for that.'' That is why we had an essential benefits package for things like maternity care, mental health care, coverage for substance abuse.

I hear a lot of talk about the problems with the opioid epidemic. Those are real problems that are hurting families around the country. That was part of the essential health benefits--not there in the House bill.

Then, to add insult to injury, they took out the requirement that you have coverage for preexisting conditions in an affordable way. You know, people can play word games all they want. You can say that you have to provide coverage for someone with preexisting conditions, but if the policy you propose is $200,000 a year, $300,000 a year, we all know that is a false promise. That is a hoax. That is playing games with the American people. So you can write in any kind of requirement you want that preexisting conditions be covered, but if they are unaffordable, it is not real. That is why the Affordable Care Act put everybody into a pool together, to help reduce the costs so we could make sure we protected people with preexisting conditions--asthma, diabetes or whatever it may be. The House bill pulls the plug on that. Maybe that is why the House didn't want to wait for the next Congressional Budget Office report to tell them what their bill would do to the American people.

I have already read a little from the original Congressional Budget Office report that was based on the foundation of this House bill. That hasn't changed. That bill is rotten at its core, and as the Congressional Budget Office says, it is going to knock 24 million people off of affordable healthcare, going to apply big tax breaks to wealthy people, but then they added other provisions as well--getting rid of the essential health benefits, getting rid of protections for preexisting conditions. Then it was let's see no evil, let's hear no evil. We are not even going to wait for the next Congressional Budget Office report. I am looking forward to hearing what they have to say.

For the American people, I think the greatest danger is that here in the Senate we are going to hear from a lot of Senators that they don't like the House bill just as it is; yes, we are going to have to make some changes. What I would say to the American people is to beware of people who say they are going to make a change that is meaningful to the Affordable Care Act that the House bill passed--their version of the bill. Beware of people who say they are making a change that is meaningful when it is really only a cosmetic change, when it is really only a small change that then provides some kind of rationale or excuse for supporting a House bill that is rotten at its core.

For example, someone may say: Well, let's do a little more by way of covering opioid addiction. That would be a good idea. But that doesn't salvage a bill that is fundamentally flawed. That doesn't salvage a bill that at its core cuts $880 billion from Medicaid and Medicare to provide a tax cut of over $900 billion, most of which goes to wealthy people and corporate special interests.

I would say to all the other people who are on employer-provided healthcare, which are the majority of Americans: Beware, because that House bill will affect you too.

I just want to read a portion from something that appeared in TheUpshot public health section of the New York Times--``G.O.P. Bill Could Affect Employer Health Coverage, Too.'' They write:

About half of all Americans get health coverage through

work. The bill would make it easier for employers to increase

the amount that employees could be asked to pay in premiums,

or to stop offering coverage entirely. It also has the

potential to weaken rules against capping worker's benefits

or limiting how much employees can be asked to pay in

deductibles or co-payments.

So for someone who is getting coverage through their employer, beware because this is going to have harmful effects on you.

I want to close with one of the many stories that I have received-- and I

know many of us have received from our constituents--about how that House bill would wreak havoc in their lives. Here is one that I received:

I'm 29 years old and was just diagnosed Feb. 24th with

breast cancer. . . . I buy insurance myself, and did so with

the assistance from the ACA. Without that program in place, I

might not have gone in when I felt this lump. I might have

waited much longer, just to be told that it was too late.

Without this program, I would be bankrupted by the screenings

alone just to find out I am dying. . . . Someone told me not

to make this political--but this is my life. It will

literally be life or death for so many of us.

This is a life-or-death issue for tens of millions of our fellow Americans. I urge the Senate to flatly reject the House healthcare- wealthcare bill, which is rotten to its core.

Let's focus on fixing the issues in the exchanges. We can do that if people of good faith want to work from scratch to address that issue, but let's not blow up the Affordable Care Act and hurt our constituents and tens of millions of other Americans in the process.

I yield the remainder of my time.

Madam President, Heather Wilson was one of the first women to graduate from the U.S. Air Force Academy and the third generation of her family to serve in the Air Force. She was one of the pioneers of gender integration of the modern Air Force. Even so, her track record in public service and the private sector after her Air Force career raises concerns.

While serving as the Representative from New Mexico's First District, Ms. Wilson admitted to telephoning the U.S. Attorney in Albuquerque to pressure him on an ongoing corruption investigation of State Democrats, in violation of House ethics rules.

Ms. Wilson was paid $450,000 between 2009 and 2013 through a Lockheed Martin subsidiary for consulting work for Sandia National Laboratory. The Government Accountability Office criticized the lab for not having adequate documentation of the work that she performed, and Lockheed Martin ultimately paid $4.7 million to settle charges that it had paid a lobbyist with taxpayer funds. Ethics laws prohibited Ms. Wilson from lobbying within a year of serving in Congress. Ms. Wilson failed to list her business relationship with Sandia Labs in her financial disclosure filings. In spite of this, she claims that she did nothing wrong.

During her unsuccessful run for the Senate, Ms. Wilson claimed that legislation intended to reduce bullying of LGBTQ children was a violation of religious freedom. She argued that the correct response was not to punish bullies, but to ``strengthen our children to be more comfortable with themselves.'' She has steadfastly refused to support Federal nondiscrimination protections for the LGBTQ community.

The core values of the Air Force are, integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do. In spite of her career as an Air Force officer, Ms. Wilson has not demonstrated the unflinching commitment to integrity that we

demand of our men and women in uniform. She has compromised ethics rules in Congress, accepted pay for questionable work that was ill- defined and can't be fully documented, and failed to show that she is willing to stand up for all serving in uniform, regardless of their sexual orientation.

For these reasons, I cannot support Ms. Wilson's nomination to be 24th Secretary of the Air Force.

Mr. President, I support the Omnibus appropriations bill before us today. While this bill is not perfect, it is a strong statement of priorities, especially in light of the misguided and dangerous cuts that President Trump proposed for fiscal year 2018.

As a new member of the Appropriations Committee, I thank the chairman and vice chairman and their staffs for their thoughtful work on this bill and their careful consideration of Senators' requests and priorities.

This bill contains many critical investments for my home State of Maryland, including maintenance for the Port of Baltimore, millions for the Chesapeake Bay Program and other programs that support Bay clean- up, a $6 million increase for the Appalachian Regional Commission, $125 million for the Purple Line, and full funding for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. The bill also contains a critical down payment for the consolidation of the FBI headquarters and a commitment to full funding in fiscal year 2018. Prince George's County, MD, is home to two of the sites in contention to house the headquarters and the FBI's nearly 11,000 employees.

While President Trump as proposed cuts to medical research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, this omnibus bill increases funding by $2 billion to find new cures and treatments. The bill continues critical NASA missions that are being worked on in Maryland, including the PACE Program, earth science, and the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. While the bill cuts the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it does so less than what the Trump administration has proposed, and it continues funding for the Joint Polar Satellite System weather satellite program and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite Program, which will help improve weather forecasting and warn about natural disasters. There is also important funding for oceanic and atmospheric research and the Sea Grant program, which has been a partner in Chesapeake Bay restoration. The bill slightly increases National Science Foundation funding and supports critical energy research at the Department of Energy. While funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology received a small cut, the final funding level is higher than what the House of Representatives initially proposed, and the bill includes support for the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation.

We were also able to preserve funding in this bill that communities across Maryland use to support economic development, affordable housing, and safety. That includes the Community Development Block Grant, TIGER transportation grants, housing vouchers and housing capital funds, the HOME Partnership Program, Community Oriented Policing grants, and SAFER and FIRE grants for firefighters. I am pleased that this bill includes investments to improve relationships between communities and police, which will be helpful as Baltimore works to implement its consent decree. We also included critical funding for afterschool programs and community schools, preserved funding for workforce training and Pell grants, and will finally allow students to access Pell year-round so that they can finish school more quickly.

As with any compromise, this bill is not perfect. As this is the first appropriations bill since the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, I would have liked it to include greater investments in funding for title I, special education, teacher professional development, and student support and academic enrichment grants. The bill also continues a few riders that interfere in the District of Columbia's ability to use its funds as it sees fit.

Finally, the bill is notable for the things that it does not include. Congress has rejected draconian cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department. There is important funding for border security, but not for a wasteful and ineffective border wall. In addition, Democrats successfully blocked many poison-pill riders from the bill that would have harmed our environment, banned funding for Planned Parenthood and other women's health programs, and rolled back important consumer protections. With the passage of the omnibus bill, we will avoid a dangerous government shutdown. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. President, I come to the floor with a simple question for my colleagues, especially my Republican colleagues: Why is it that this Senate is working to pass a law which will deny millions of our fellow Americans access to the kind of retirement saving plans which we have access to as U.S. Senators? Why are we doing that?

I know all of us recognize that we have a retirement savings crisis in this country. Too many Americans are saving too little for their retirement years. We should be making it easier for people to put aside some savings for their retirement rather than making it harder. Yet this legislation will indisputably make it harder for millions of Americans to put aside the kind of savings for their retirement that Members of the U.S. Senate enjoy.

All of us know there are really about three legs to the retirement stool. The fundamental basic piece is the Social Security savings. That is the bedrock of the retirement system, but we all know that living off of a Social Security retirement benefit by itself is very difficult. After all, the average monthly Social Security benefit as of January of this year was $1,360 a month. That is the average. That means there are a lot below it and a lot above it. I can tell you, $1,360 a month and below is really difficult for somebody to get by on in terms of housing costs, medical costs, and other costs people are facing today. That is why we need to strengthen Social Security, not weaken it.

The second leg of the retirement stool for most Americans for much of our history in the postwar period was a defined benefit plan through our employers, where employers--especially

large employers--would provide their employees a retirement benefit of a set amount over a fixed period of time during retirement. So that was something people could rely on. As we all know, we have seen that leg of the three-legged stool be dramatically cut down. It is not the practice of most businesses today to offer defined benefit plans.

The third leg of that stool has been personal savings, the ability of people to put aside a little money for their future. Just a few years ago, we had a big wake-up call from the General Accountability Office, where they looked at retirement around the country and concluded that almost 50 percent of households of age 55 and older have no retirement savings in vehicles such as 401(k) plans and IRAs. That same GAO report found that 57 percent of workers' entire household savings and investments was less than $25,000. More striking was that almost one- third of American workers had less than $1,000 in total savings. One- third of American workers had less than $1,000 in total savings.

We also know that 55 million Americans today do not have access to tax-benefited, tax-incentive retirement plans like 401(k)s enjoyed by those who work for major businesses. In fact, as all of us know, Members and employees of the U.S. Senate have access to 401(k) plans. If you work for a large business or a corporation of the United States, chances are you are going to get a 401(k)-type plan which allows you to deduct immediately through your paycheck funds for the purposes of your retirement savings. Of course, many businesses also have some matching and incentive for those savings.

So when we have a situation where 55 million Americans don't have access to those kind of savings plans--which are an increasingly important part of retirement security because of the fact that defined benefit retirement has gone down so dramatically--most people would ask: How do we incentivize? How do we incentivize more savings? One innovative solution is in a growing number of States, as of now, five States, including the State of Maryland. What the State of Maryland and other States determined was that it is not that small employers or medium-sized employers don't want to provide their employees with access to these plans. They do. They want to be able to offer that kind of benefit, but there is a cost, an infrastructure cost. There is a burden to providing those kind of tax-preferred vehicles for retirement savings to their employees. That is why they are not provided.

So what the States have done is, they have developed platforms which allow those small businesses or medium-sized businesses, on a totally voluntary basis, to sign up so their employees can benefit from these tax-preferred savings vehicles--just like Members of the U.S. Senate, just like most people who work for large corporations. In Maryland, we have hundreds of thousands of Marylanders who were signing up for these--a lot of people work for small businesses, a lot of people work for startups, a lot of younger workers who are mobile and going from one place to another--because this allows them, no matter which employer they go to, to make sure they can access that vehicle. All it requires is the employers to sign up for this platform which makes this retirement savings easier.

What is really strange here is that in Maryland, this has been a totally bipartisan exercise--totally bipartisan. We had Republican State senators, Democratic State senators, members of our house of delegates, our Republican Governor signing the bill because everyone recognized that this was kind of a good thing to encourage these savings opportunities to more Marylanders.

So why in the world would we, in the U.S. Senate, be passing a resolution which knocks down the ability of States to provide these kind of savings platforms? I have to say I have not heard an answer on the floor of the Senate. In fact, I have heard very few Senators coming to defend the vote we are apparently going to take at 5 o'clock.

I know for sure that Candidate Donald Trump did not campaign on the idea of making it more difficult for hard-working Americans to save for their retirement. That was not something he talked about on the campaign trail. In fact, I thought a lot of his campaign message was how he was identifying with struggling working families and wanted to make life easier for those working families. That is what States like Maryland are trying to do--make it easier for people who work for small businesses and medium-sized businesses to put aside a little bit of their savings for their retirement because, as I indicated, right now, if you look at the different pillars of retirement, you have Social Security and you have very little or a dwindling amount through a defined benefit. Really, what we are left with are personal savings.

It is pretty alarming to see people in this Senate charging ahead to try to eliminate the ability of States to do this. A few weeks ago, this Senate voted to deny municipalities the ability to do this. That was a very bad decision. Let's not compound a bad decision by taking this right away from the States. After all, I hear from my colleagues all the time that States are the laboratory of democracy. This is where experimentation should take place. This has been a successful experiment. It has been a successful experiment in five States. It also doesn't cost the Federal taxpayer one dime--not one dime. It is a very low-cost option for the States that enact these through their own democratic process in the States. As I said, this has been a bipartisan process in these States.

I really hope people will take a deeper look at what we are going to be voting on at 5 o'clock today because I have heard a lot of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle justifiably talk about the retirement crisis we have in this country. Yet this Senate is poised to vote on a piece of legislation that will make saving for retirement more difficult for tens of millions of Americans.

So exactly what is it we are going to vote on? Well, the Obama administration wanted to make it clear that States had the authority to establish these platforms to help with savings because there was some ambiguity under Federal retirement law whether States could do it. They adopted a rule that made it clear that States would have this option, and States have moved ahead. Now this Senate is talking about undoing the rule that provided clarity so the States could move forward and offer these retirement platforms.

I really hope this Senate will not vote today to take away this ability of States to help millions of our fellow Americans provide more money for their retirement savings.

I will close where I started. How can any Member of this Senate look their constituents in the face and say to their constituents that they voted to take away a retirement savings option from their constituents when they have that savings option here as Senators? In the U.S. Senate, like a lot of other large organizations, we have retirement savings plans and we have 401(k) plans. So it is difficult to understand how in good conscience Senators who enjoy the benefit of that kind of plan can pull the plug on the ability of States to offer that same kind of savings plan--in fact, not even as good, but at least that savings platform to millions of our fellow citizens and say to small- and medium-sized businesses that want to offer this benefit but find it a little too costly--to deny them the option of signing up for these State plans.

So I hope every Senator will examine his or her conscience on this and make the decision that they want to make sure their constituents can have access to at least some kind of the same benefit they have as a U.S. Senator.

I urge my colleagues to vote against the resolution.

Mr. President, I oppose the confirmation of Jay Clayton to be a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, public confidence in the markets plummeted as well. Investors large and small lost their life's savings. Congress responded with laws to help rebuild public faith in the markets. Thus in the wake of the Great Depression, Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission to protect investors and maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets.

Congress designed the SEC to see that investors and the markets have reliable information and clear rules for honest dealing. The SEC's job is to make sure that brokers, dealers, and exchanges put investors' interests first. The SEC ensures that companies offering securities for investment tell the public the truth about their businesses, the securities they are selling, and the risks involved.

Congress took pains to create the SEC to have some distance from Wall Street. The law provides that no Commissioner can engage in any business or employment other than serving as Commissioner. The law prohibits any Commissioner from participating in any stock transactions of a type that the Commission regulates.

Mr. Clayton has extensive experience working in capital markets. He has represented a long list of financial firms. His numerous conflicts may make him captive to the industry that President Trump nominated him to police. One of his better-known clients is Goldman Sachs. The Department of Justice found that Goldman Sachs falsely assured investors that sound

mortgages backed securities that Goldman sold, when Goldman knew that these securities were full of mortgages that were likely to fail.

During his confirmation hearing, I asked Mr. Clayton about Goldman Sachs' $5 billion settlement with the Department of Justice. I asked Mr. Clayton if he felt that Goldman Sachs had been engaged in shady practices, but Mr. Clayton said only that he felt the case stood on its own. I cannot comprehend why Mr. Clayton demurred on this topic. We should all be able to agree that if a firm pays $5 billion in a settlement, it was engaged in shady practices, to say the least.

Duriing Mr. Clayton's confirmation hearing, he said that he is ``100 percent committed to rooting out any fraud and shady practices in our financial system.'' If he is confirmed, I hope he stands by that pledge.

The SEC, investors, and the American people need an independent voice. They need a politically independent voice, as well as a voice that can be independent enough to make tough enforcement decisions about the financial firms it regulates. I have serious doubts that Mr. Clayton can be that voice; thus I oppose his nomination.

Mr. President, I oppose the nomination of Alexander Acosta to be Secretary of the Department of Labor.

Our Nation's Labor Secretary has a responsibility to protect the safety and legal rights of the American workforce. From prosecuting civil rights violations to monitoring workplace safety, the Department of Labor ensures fair treatment. The Labor Secretary must also evaluate our economy and advocate for fair and equal pay and benefits for American workers. The Department provides the data and expertise for policymakers, employers, and workers to make economic decisions.

Unfortunately, Mr. Acosta's testimony on these points at his confirmation hearing was disappointing. He would not commit to support updating overtime rules to make sure that employees get fair pay for the hours they work. He would not commit to prioritize closing the gender pay gap. He would not commit to keeping workplace safety inspectors on the job.

Moreover, when Mr. Acosta led the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice during the George W. Bush Administration, the GAO reported that there was a ``significant drop in the enforcement of several major antidiscrimination and voting rights laws.'' The Secretary of Labor must be a vigilant defender of the rights of workers.

In a Cabinet where too many department heads are looking out for millionaires and billionaires, we need a Secretary of Labor who will look out for the American worker. I am not convinced that Mr. Acosta will do that job.

Mr. President, I supported Rod Rosenstein's nomination to become Deputy Attorney General. Throughout his 27-year career, Mr. Rosenstein has earned a reputation as a fair and focused administrator of justice. He has served in Maryland in both Republican and Democratic administrations and has earned the distinction of being the longest serving U.S. attorney in the country.

I had the honor to introduce Mr. Rosenstein to the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearing. He has aggressively prosecuted not only dangerous gangs and criminals in Maryland but also elected officials who violated the people's trust. He has shown impartiality in these investigations, and his successful prosecutions have led to ethics reforms that increased transparency and public confidence in Maryland.

When Mr. Rosenstein and I met recently, I asked him if he supported the consent decree negotiated between the Obama administration and the city of Baltimore. He assured me that, if the court formally entered the consent decree, he would support its implementation. Attorney General Sessions, however, has frequently expressed skepticism about consent decrees. Baltimore is the only city to invite the Justice Department to conduct a thorough, methodical analysis of its police department in order to foster transparency and increase trust between police officers and Baltimore city residents. As the former U.S. attorney in Maryland, Mr. Rosenstein is well acquainted with the challenges that the city faces. He has prosecuted corruption charges against Baltimore city police officers and should recognize the importance of reform and effective community policing. I trust Mr. Rosenstein will keep his promise to support the consent decree.

In addition to being a top-notch lawyer, Mr. Rosenstein is known for the professional manner in which he runs his current office. In his letter of support, Maryland's Attorney General Brian Frosh notes that Mr. Rosenstein ``inherited an office in turmoil'' when he became Maryland's U.S. attorney, but with a ``steady hand and superb management,'' created a department that is now universally respected. Those skills will be put to the test immediately. Mr. Rosenstein will assume the office of Deputy Attorney General at a tumultuous time for the Justice Department. His job will be to serve justice, not political leaders.

As Mr. Rosenstein and I discussed, the question for him is the same that then-Senator Sessions posed to Sally Yates during her hearing to become Deputy Attorney General. Senator Sessions said: ``You have to watch out because people will be asking you to do things you just need to say no about.'' Senator Sessions then asked: ``Do you think the Attorney General has the responsibility to say no to the President if he asks for something that's improper?'' Like Sally Yates, Mr. Rosenstein said that he would be willing to put his job on the line to uphold the integrity of the Department of Justice.

I believe that any investigation into the ties between the Trump administration and Russian interference in our elections will require the appointment of an independent special counsel, and I have also joined my fellow Senators in calling for a nonpartisan commission.

I also made clear to Mr. Rosenstein that, if the FBI Director did, in fact, request that the Justice Department deny President Trump's unsubstantiated claims that the Obama administration wiretapped Trump Tower, then the Justice Department has a duty to immediately let the public know the truth.

It is vitally important that the American public have faith that our laws apply equally to all Americans, regardless of rank or position. Rod Rosenstein has applied that principle faithfully during his time as U.S. attorney in Maryland. It is essential that he apply the same principle at the Department of Justice.

Madam President, I support the nomination of George Sonny Perdue to be the next Secretary of Agriculture. While I have reservations about some of his record and views, particularly about climate change, Governor Perdue has expressed the collaborative spirit that I believe will make him an effective Secretary and partner to Congress in our effort to support America's farmers and rural communities.

During his confirmation hearing, Governor Perdue committed to support issues of great importance to Maryland: the Chesapeake Bay, conservation programs, agricultural research, and rural development. Governor Perdue recognized the Chesapeake Bay as a national priority. He acknowledged that it is essential for USDA to work with State and local governments, as well as landowners, on conservation and bay protection. He agreed to work with Congress and the States to dedicate appropriate resources to nutrient reduction and water quality improvements in the bay. I also encouraged him to work with me to support small- and medium-sized farms and to keep our 1,890 Historically Black Colleges and Universities strong, and he committed to do so.

Governor Perdue voiced support for the critical Federal assistance that the Department's rural development agency provides to rural communities in Maryland and the Nation as a whole. He also committed to working with Congress to improve broadband and telecommunications infrastructure in rural America.

Governor Perdue faces a budget that cuts the Department 21 percent, completely eliminates the Water and wastewater loan program and reduces staffing at USDA service center agencies. The budget's $17.9 billion cut would harm those the Department serves and the people who work there. I expect Governor Perdue to keep his word to be a forceful advocate for his Department.

I have concerns about ethics controversies during Mr. Perdue's tenure as Governor of Georgia and his climate change skepticism. If the Senate confirms Governor Perdue, I will pay close attention to his actions as Secretary. Governor Perdue has made a number of commitments to support agriculture and environmental conservation in Maryland, and I intend to hold him to them.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about one of the most important responsibilities we have here in the U.S. Senate: considering the President's nominee to the Supreme Court.

It is a vote with consequences that will far outlast this Presidential administration. It is a vote with implications that will outlast all of our time here in the Senate. It will certainly be one of the most consequential decisions each one of us makes.

That is because any one of the nine individuals named to the Supreme Court with a lifetime appointment can change the course of our Nation. In just the past few years, we have seen that. We have witnessed a series of 5-to-4 decisions that changed the trajectory of our society-- decisions that gutted section 4 of the Voting Rights Act and resulted in numerous States enacting discriminatory laws designed to limit access to the ballot box, especially for African-American and minority voters.

The 5-to-4 Citizens United decision overturned the law of the land and Supreme Court precedent in order to empower corporations to spend unlimited sums of money in support of candidates for public office, corroding the fabric of our democracy. There were decisions that limit a woman's access to safe and affordable birth control and reaffirm the legal fiction that for-profit corporations should have the same rights as real people. There was a decision that upheld the Affordable Care Act, and a decision that--with a single vote--gave every American the right to marry the person they love.

The decision of a single Supreme Court Justice can indeed change the trajectory of our judiciary and of our society for generations.

Now my Republican colleagues rightly note that this weighty decision begins with the President. They have routinely said it is the President's right to choose his judicial nominees, and that is true. I have one question for them: Where were they last year when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court of the United States? They were AWOL.

Shortly after Justice Scalia passed away and before President Obama even named his nominee, the Senate Republican leader announced that he would leave the seat open--and he did--for an unprecedented 293 days. For 293 days, one of the most qualified and mainstream nominees in our history languished without even a hearing. Many Senators refused even to meet with him. For 293 days, Democrats in this Chamber and people from all over the country called upon this Senate to do its job and consider the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland. The response? Nothing--a total abdication of this Senate's constitutional responsibility of advice and consent.

But, unfortunately, this Chamber's failure to live up to its responsibility to consider the Garland nomination is just one piece of a larger assault on the independence of our judiciary.

President Trump has made it clear that he sees our Nation's judges not as a separate and coequal branch, but an unwelcome challenge to his power. He has called the courts broken and political. When he faced trial for scamming thousands of students at Trump University, he charged that the Federal judge overseeing that case could not be impartial. Why? Because, he said, he was Hispanic--a charge that was, in the words of the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the ``textbook definition'' of racism.

When the Trump administration first tried to impose its Muslim ban, only to be blocked by a Federal court, did President Trump display respect for the rule of law? No. He fired his acting Attorney General, Sally Yates and accused her of having ``betrayed'' the Department of Justice. He went on to say that if any future harm occurs, it is the fault of the courts, and called them obstructionists for not bending to his will. They are not supposed to bend to the will of the Executive.

President Trump's disdain for the courts makes it all the more important that the open seat on the Supreme Court be filled by somebody who is

seen as an impartial administrator of justice--someone who does not have a set political ideology.

Unfortunately, Neil Gorsuch does not meet that important test.

His record and his testimony shows that he applies a very cramped reading of the law and consistently--time and again--sides with powerful corporate interests against the rights of workers, consumers, and individuals. When he had an opportunity during the hearings to explain that bias, he chose instead to evade the questions and answer with platitudes, not substance. While he is undoubtedly a skilled lawyer, his record reveals that he is outside of the judicial mainstream. His decisions have closed the doors of justice to working people, to people with disabilities, and to individuals seeking to protect their rights.

In one opinion, Judge Gorsuch was the only judge who thought that TransAm Trucking company was right when they fired a driver whose only offense was finding safety when the heat in his truck broke down in subzero temperatures, and he began to show signs of hypothermia. The driver said he could not feel his lower body, his fingers were becoming numb, and he experienced slurred speech while waiting for hours for help from his company. Judge Gorsuch was the only judge who thought that Federal regulations protected the trucking company and not the truckdriver trying to avoid freezing to death. It makes me doubt that Judge Gorsuch considers the real-world consequences of this ruling.

Judge Gorsuch also sided against working people and defended powerful corporations. In his opinion in Hobby Lobby, he came down on the side of corporate power against the rights of workers. He argued that not only do corporations have rights to religious liberty, but those rights can supersede--can trump--the rights of ordinary working Americans. He was the architect of an opinion that severely limited a woman's access to basic reproductive healthcare.

In yet another ruling, Judge Gorsuch prevented an autistic child from getting a proper public school education. His opinion on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act severely limited the options for parents of children with disabilities and the quality of public school education they could receive. His reasoning in that case was overturned by the Supreme Court literally as he was testifying in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Not merely was his decision overturned, it was overturned unanimously--eight to nothing. According to the justices that Judge Gorsuch hopes to serve with, his standard would have cut children with disabilities out of high-quality education.

As the Supreme Court said in that case: ``For children with disabilities, receiving instruction that aims so low would be tantamount to sitting idly, awaiting the time when they were old enough to drop out.''

That is what the Court said. Fortunately for children with disabilities and their families, and for the sake of justice, they did not adopt the Gorsuch reasoning.

Finally, Judge Gorsuch has spent his career arguing against the so- called Chevron standard. In essence, this means that when it comes to Federal rules designed to protect the public health and safety, he believes that the opinions of judges like himself should outweigh the opinions of experts in these subjects in our civil service. This view was rejected by none other than Judge Scalia. It is much more in line with the thinking of Steve Bannon, a man whose stated goal is to deconstruct the Federal rules that protect the health and safety of the American people. Again, Judge Gorsuch is not in the mainstream.

And let's make no mistake, he was never intended to be a mainstream nominee. Candidate Trump established several litmus tests. He said he wanted a nominee who was opposed to a woman's right to reproductive choice and someone who would have the support of the NRA. Donald Trump then subcontracted out the nomination process to rightwing conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. He asked them to compile a list of nominees who they liked. Neil Gorsuch was on that list.

So it should be no surprise that an analysis that appeared in the New York Times concluded that Neil Gorsuch would be the second most conservative member of the current Supreme Court, and an analysis in the Washington Post concluded he would be the most rightwing member of the Court.

And once President Trump selected Neil Gorsuch, the rightwing money machine went into action. Since that moment, money has flooded our airwaves, with more than $10 million spent in support of this nomination. Never before has our country witnessed a multimillion dollar campaign for the Supreme Court.

When pressed, Judge Gorsuch said he had no idea who or why anybody would spend that much money to make sure he sits on the highest Court. I think we know why from looking at his record. They want someone who consistently rules in favor of large corporate special interests against the rest of us.

There is a better way. Typically, the White House will consult with Members of both parties, Republicans and Democrats, before settling on a nominee. This time that courtesy was not extended to Democrats. If it had been, we could be talking today about a bipartisan nominee--someone who would uphold equal justice under the law for every American. The rules do not need to change; the nominee needs to be changed.

Our Nation's independent judiciary is under attack. Our President demonizes judges whenever he feels challenged, and now special interest groups have begun funding millions of dollars into a campaign, reducing our solemn constitutional duty to a set of slick campaign ads. That is why we need a new nominee--one who has the support of 60 members of this Chamber.

I will oppose this nomination and insist that this nominee be held to the 60-vote standard to show he can get a consensus of this body.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the majority is continuing its assault on women's reproductive healthcare rights, this time using the Congressional Review Act to reverse a rule and tear a hole in our safety net for access to family planning and preventative healthcare. The resolution before us would overturn the Department of Health and Human Services' rule, which reinforces regulations that prevent States from denying title X funds to health clinics like Planned Parenthood, even though none of these funds are used for abortions. Repealing this rule would limit access to healthcare, which would harm public health in communities that rely on this funding.

Congress created the Title X Family Planning Program with bipartisan support in 1970 to help provide comprehensive basic primary, family planning, and preventative services to uninsured and low-income people. It continues to be the only Federal grant dedicated to providing family planning and preventive service. Recipients of the grants use the program's funding to provide basic healthcare, such as cancer screenings, HIV testing, and family planning counseling to 4 million women and men. Both public and private entities run title X service sites. These sites broaden access to healthcare services in rural parts of our country. Often, they are the only option for the populations they serve. About 40 percent of women who use title X service sites say that they are their primary healthcare service provider.

Despite the benefits of the funding, States have taken actions that discriminate against family planning clinics. Texas, for example, slashed its family planning budget by 65 percent. As a result, Texas forced a quarter of its family planning providers to close their doors to patients in need.

To ensure that States do not discriminate against family planning providers, the Obama administration issued a rule that forbids States from withholding title X funding for family planning providers for any reason other than being unable to deliver effective services. This rule prevents States like Texas from attempting to defund needed providers like Planned Parenthood. This rule protects access to vital preventive services that provide a safety net for our country's most vulnerable patients.

All people should have a right to affordable, high-quality healthcare. Reversing this rule will deny critical healthcare services to women, men, and their families. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. President, I was just listening to my friend, the Senator from Tennessee, and I think there are things we can do to improve the healthcare system and the Affordable Care Act. I am glad that the House soundly defeated the so-called TrumpCare bill, RyanCare, whatever you want to call it, but many of us have called for more competition in the exchanges through things like a public option. Also, I think all of us can agree that we need to reduce the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs, and I think there are other things we can do. I welcome that discussion.

Mr. President, I am here now to talk about something else that is currently being done to help millions of Americans save for their retirement, to provide for a secure retirement. I know all of us have been involved over the years in debates about how we can strengthen our retirement security program for all Americans. We really have a three- legged stool here. One is Social Security. That is a bedrock of our retirement system. We need to make sure that we strengthen it, and we need to make sure that it is there for all future generations.

Second, many Americans have the opportunity to have a retirement plan through their employer where their employer guarantees them a certain defined benefit, a certain income stream when they retire.

And the third leg of this stool has been Americans' private savings, and we want to encourage more Americans to put aside those funds so that they can care for themselves and their families when they are no longer working.

That is what brings me to the floor today. Many big employers-- including, I should say, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, and the government--provide their employees with things like 401(k) plans. These are ways that people can put aside some of their income as they earn it, but put it aside tax-free for their retirement. And many millions of Americans--again, especially those who work for large employers--have that benefit. But if you work for a smaller employer or even a midsized employer, there is a very good chance that you do not have easy access to those 401(k) plans, to those retirement vehicles that are so essential to saving for retirement. In fact, there are about 55 million Americans, according to studies by both the AARP as well as the Brookings Institution--about 55 million of our fellow Americans who do not have access to those 401(k) vehicles and other kinds of savings vehicles through their employers.

So in response to this problem, a number of States--five States, to be specific so far, including the State of Maryland--and some municipalities have come up with creative solutions that allow small- and medium-sized employers--those who are not currently offering those retirement vehicles directly--these State plans allow their employees to put aside a little money for their retirement and get the same tax- preferred benefits as people who work for big companies.

The reason small and medium-sized companies don't always provide the

same retirement savings accounts as big companies is that it can impose a burden and costs on those small employers. So States have developed these other creative platforms to do it.

In my State of Maryland, this was an incredibly bipartisan process. Republican State legislators and Democratic State legislators came together and put together this State plan. The Republican Governor of Maryland, Governor Hogan, signed the legislation.

Today, about 1 million Marylanders--including a lot of young people who work for startups and other small businesses that don't have the wherewithal to provide these retirement savings platform--are benefiting by platforms which have been created to put money aside for their retirement. People are taking personal responsibility for their retirement. People who didn't have that opportunity before through their employers now have this vehicle to do it. It doesn't cost the Federal Government one penny. Taxpayers at the Federal level don't have to put anything in it. It is relatively low cost for the States and municipalities as well. They have to just create a platform, and they have people from across their States or municipalities benefiting from them.

In order for States to do that, they needed one small change in Federal law. Under the administration of President Obama, the Department of Labor made this fix to the Federal law which allowed these States and municipalities to develop these platforms that helped millions of Americans benefit from these tax savings accounts--just like, I would point out, every Senator in this body has access to those kind of savings accounts.

So I have a very simple question: Why in the world is it somehow a priority for this Senate to take away the access States have given to their residents and deny them that opportunity to take personal responsibility to put aside funds--tax-preferred funds--in these savings accounts to plan for their future? Why would we come down and say we are not going to allow this to happen anymore? I thought this was the kind of experimentation we want to see at the State level and this is the kind of savings that we want people to do to take responsibility for their own retirement. Yet here we are about to come down with a big foot and say: No, you can't do that.

I am trying to figure out who is opposing this. I have been looking in my office for letters from people who are actually going to take responsibility for coming forward to say they want to deny this opportunity to save for millions of Americans--an opportunity that every Senator here has. It is easy for us. We are part of a big employer, the U.S. Government. We have 401(k) accounts, and so do people who work for big corporations. We need to extend that same opportunity to people who work for small employers and midsized employers that don't have the capacity and wherewithal to take that upon themselves, but they want their employees to benefit from these vehicles. So they have worked with States and municipalities to allow it to happen. Why would we ever want to pull the plug on that and deny our fellow Americans those opportunities to save for their future?

I can't figure out for the life of me how this somehow became a partisan issue here in the Congress. It wasn't partisan in the State of Maryland. Everybody got together and worked this out. Everyone agreed this was good for the people of Maryland.

So I ask our colleagues here to look at this as an opportunity to help encourage activities in our States that allow people to take the personal responsibility for their future that we are asking them to do. I ask all of our colleagues, really, to take a close look at this and to try to figure out why it is a bad idea to encourage States and municipalities, working with local employers--both small and medium- sized employers--to do what we have done in Maryland, what other States are doing, and what States can do going forward if we don't come down and slam the brakes on this innovative idea to help more Americans put aside money for their retirement.

Thank you, Mr. President.