Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 30 seconds.

Madam President, last week, I held a hearing on foreign threats to taxpayer-funded research, and a classified briefing was held on the very same subject. We learned a great deal of information regarding the very real and ongoing threat from foreign governments to U.S. research.

Congress must continue its oversight to ensure that the Federal Government has the right mix of authorities as well as focus to protect our research and intellectual property. The government spends billions and billions of dollars a year on research. Congress and the executive branch have a responsibility to the taxpayers to get the job done.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, for nearly 2 years Special Counsel Mueller's investigation captivated Washington. Most of the media reporting focused on speculation and false allegations of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. This reporting was fueled by critics eager to all but guarantee the President's guilt. After a very exhaustive investigation--and, of course, millions and millions of taxpayer dollars being spent by the Mueller investigation-- many of those same critics still can't accept that Mueller and his investigative team of Democratic donors found no collusion or crime.

The continuing political noise over the last 2 years, however, risks drowning out critical siren warnings of another real threat--self- interested and surreptitious foreign influence in our political discourse. Mueller's team indicted dozens of Russians for a scheme to sow discord in American politics through our social media and the release of hacked emails. However, not enough attention has been paid to foreign interests secretly enlisting American cutouts to directly influence our laws, our public policies, and, most importantly, public opinion to destroy our social cohesion.

This is a very serious problem that should send shivers down the spine of anyone in government who meets with lobbyists. If lobbyists or public relations firms are pushing policy preferences at the behest of foreign powers and foreign interests, we ought to know about it.

This week I introduced legislation to strengthen and also fine-tune enforcement authorities to better expose clandestine foreign influence campaigns. My bipartisan bill, the Foreign Agents Disclosure and Registration Enhancement Act, will encourage greater compliance with a very often ignored requirement for lobbyists working on behalf of foreign entities to tell the U.S. people who they are working for. It accomplishes this by creating critical updates to one of our Nation's oldest lobbying disclosure laws.

Way back in 1938, Congress first passed a bill to accomplish a way to expose this foreign influence in America, particularly within our government. That bill passed in 1938 is called the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The bill was meant to unmask Nazi propaganda and identify foreign attempts to influence Congress and the American public. Until recently, however, this Foreign Agents Registration Act has been seldom used.

Now--get this--only 15 violators of this act have been criminally prosecuted since 1966, and 1966 was the date when this law was last updated. Of course, now I am trying to update it again. About half of these prosecutions, of the 15, stem from the work of Special Counsel Mueller's investigation, though that is not due to the lack of foreign influence efforts to affect our Federal decision making.

As part of my oversight efforts, I first raised concerns about the shoddy Foreign Agent Registration Act enforcement in 2015. Now, I did this before Donald Trump launched his Presidential campaign. I did it when a former Clinton White House staffer and a lawyer for a Georgian political party failed to register as foreign agents.

I also raised concerns about work for Ukranians by Paul Manafort and the Podesta Group, and about reports that the Democratic National Committee worked with Ukraine to undermine the Trump campaign. I raised concerns when the firm behind the discredited Steele dossier failed to register for its lobbying work to repeal U.S. sanctions against Russia.

Now, as it turned out, that is the same lobbying effort that was behind the bait and switch at the Trump Tower in June of 2016. I don't have to go into details about that Trump Tower meeting. That is a very famous and well documented meeting.

I even subpoenaed Manafort to testify at the Judiciary Committee hearing on lax Foreign Agents Registration Act enforcement, and I praised Mueller for dusting off the law that had been ignored by lobbyists and prosecutors for so long because they really didn't want the American public to know that they were working for a foreign country.

Now, that may sound like that is something illegal. What is illegal is that you don't tell the American people whom you are working for. It is not, as far as I know, illegal to work for the interests of another country, as they might have some legitimate interest in our policymaking, but the point is that the public ought to know whom they are working for.

Now, I talked about subpoenaing Manafort, and in the end Manafort, his colleague Rick Gates, and former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig were among those indicted for violating this Foreign Agents Registration Act.

My Foreign Agents Registration Act oversight activities have been done without regard to power, party, or privilege. I happen to have a reputation as an equal-opportunity overseer to see that the laws are faithfully enforced, and I believe that this very act of registration of foreign agents ought to be better enforced and enforced equally.

Now, all of this talk about this law may have started as a creative tactic by an aggressive team of investigators to pressure Manafort into spilling nonexistent details on the Trump campaign, but Mueller's probe had the positive effect of shining a light on the Justice Department's registration unit on the enforcement of this law of 1938, and it also has shown light, as well, on a legion of lobbyists who work for foreign agents who had flown under the radar for very many years.

Now, because of all this transparency, the charges spurred a rush on K Street. New foreign agent registrations increased by 50 percent from 2016 to 2017. Now, I can't believe a single one of those people registering of that 50 percent increase in registration didn't realize this law existed, but they probably thought they could get away with something that most people have been getting away with for decades.

Now, Attorney General Barr also recently pledged to prioritize enforcement of that law as he heads up the Justice Department, and, of course, we all ought to be pleased to hear that from the Attorney General.

However, even though the 1938 law is finally being taken more seriously, that law still lacks key enforcement authorities needed to investigate and hold accountable covert conveyors of foreign interests.

The 1938 law also includes a broad exemption for anyone already registered with Congress as a lobbyist. It is time that we ask whether this exemption continues to serve the public interest and operates as intended.

Moreover, even those registered under the 1938 law aren't required to clearly disclose that they are working on behalf of a foreign government or entity if they happen to be meeting with Capitol Hill or administration officials. Policymakers need to know when these meetings are driven by foreign interests.

Now, getting back to the legislation I am introducing, this bipartisan bill, based on my oversight work, grants Federal investigators a lot of new tools, such as civil investigative demand authority to help the Justice Department gain access to material needed to identify covert foreign influence and improve the act's compliance. This bill strengthens the Justice Department's hand in rooting out those who attempt to shield their operation from the American people and policymakers.

We have to ensure accountability, and to accomplish that goal, my bill provides key controls on who in the Justice Department can use the new authority, and it provides due process protection. This authority will also sunset after 5 years, requiring the Justice Department to demonstrate that the law has been appropriately used if Congress is to reauthorize it.

In addition, the bill requires a review of the new authority by the Justice Department's inspector general.

This bipartisan bill also improves deterrence by strengthening the penalties that scofflaws face for violating the law's registration and disclosure requirements.

It also requires foreign agents to immediately disclose their clients. That way, policymakers--including those of us in the Senate-- can evaluate their positions in light of those associations.

Even my own office has, in the past, been targeted by secretive lobbying efforts orchestrated by foreign powers, whose policy interests were diametrically opposed to those of our great country. I saw through the ploy, but anyone in government should have full awareness into who they are meeting with and why those meetings are taking place.

The bill requires the Justice Department to craft a comprehensive enforcement strategy for the law to better coordinate agency efforts, to analyze the law's current exemptions and fee structure, and to promote transparency by ensuring the ongoing proactive release of the law's advisory opinions.

Finally, it establishes a review of the Lobbying Disclosure Act exemptions to determine whether and to what extent it has been abused to conceal foreign influence.

Legitimate interests engaging in legitimate conduct shouldn't bear an unnecessary burden. Hopefully, in the way we have written this law, that unnecessary burden is avoided. But, at the same time, we must also be certain that this exemption hasn't created an opportunity for abuse by those who wish to operate in the dark. With this increase in registration under the 1938 law, we find that a lot of people must have been operating in the dark.

This bill is a product of my years-long oversight into the 1938 law as well as bipartisan cooperation. It reflects a consensus that the curtain over foreign influence has to be peeled back.

This year, compared to the bill I introduced last year--and we had competition with other bills last year--we have been able to find a bipartisan effort that combines what other Members' thinking is on the subject. So I am happy to announce that Senators Feinstein, Cornyn, Shaheen, Rubio, and Young are cosponsors at the time of this introduction, and I hope that other Members will join us as well.

The Mueller investigation might not have brought the legal charges that many of the President's critics were hoping for. They were hoping for an excuse to get President Trump out of office. But at least that investigation by Mueller was a powerful indictment of our government's lax enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and also of our willingness to take the bait of foreign powers seeking to wreak havoc on our civic discourse.

In the wake of the Mueller investigation, it is on us, right here in the Congress, to keep our eye on the ball. It is on us to strengthen our defenses against hidden foreign influence and preserve the voice of the American people. I believe with the introduction of the bipartisan Foreign Agents Disclosure and Registration Enhancement Act that we will accomplish these ends.

Again, I welcome a lot of additional cosponsorship of my colleagues. This is definitely a good government piece of legislation.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask to speak as in morning business for 1 minute.

Madam President, Iowa continues to flood and in some cases reflood. Since March, Iowa has been inundated with water on both the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and their tributaries. In the past several weeks, there have been multiple tornadoes causing havoc as well.

I am pleased that Congress passed a supplemental bill that will provide some additional funds for recovery. However, I know we have many challenges ahead of us, both for the people living in Iowa and those who represent Iowa. Also, it would not surprise me if, after the final tallies of the disaster that has been done through floods and other natural disasters, we will need additional appropriations before the end of the fiscal year.

I look forward to continuing to work with individuals, communities, the State of Iowa, and the Federal Government to find ways to help Iowa recover and come back stronger than ever and, of course, that will help not only Iowa but other areas of the country that are likewise hit.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 1 minute.

Madam President, I would like to take a minute to explain why Medicare for All is a prescription for Medicare for None. Some folks are pitching this wild, misguided idea that one-size-fits- all government insurance is a cure-all for what ails the patients and the people of the United States of America. This conversation needs a strong dose of reality medicine.

Let's look at what is really being proposed--Medicare for None. Here is what it would do. It would dump 181 million Americans off their private health insurance plans, double your income taxes, and put patients with preexisting conditions and chronic diseases on long waiting lists for medical care. It would unravel the current health safety net for seniors and people with disabilities, make the government the gatekeeper between Americans and their doctors, and, finally, put every single American who works for private health insurance out of business and out of a job.

The politics behind the proposal is simple: free healthcare. Let me remind my fellow Americans that if it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

Medicare for All is a catchy slogan. When you hear it on the campaign trail, remember it really boils down to government-run healthcare.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I come to the floor today, on June 4, to take a look back at a very historic vote by the U.S. Senate. This vote changed the course of political history in America. It strengthened the social fabric and constitutional framework of our Republic.

One hundred years ago today, lawmakers in this body cast a vote for liberty and equality under the law. The Senate approved Federal suffrage legislation. At the time it was passed, it was known as the Susan B. Anthony amendment. Today it is better known as the 19th Amendment to our U.S. Constitution.

Section 1 of the 19th Amendment reads: ``The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.''

By adopting the measure, the 66th U.S. Congress paved the way for women's suffrage from sea to shining sea. At the time, more than a dozen States and Territories allowed full suffrage, led by the Western States of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho.

In 1919 both Chambers of Congress were led by Republican majorities. The House of Representatives adopted this constitutional amendment 304 to 89 on May 21. Two weeks later the Republican Senate voted 56 to 25 in favor of women suffrage. That was two votes more than the necessary two-thirds vote required under our Constitution.

Both U.S. Senators from my State of Iowa voted for passage. Senator William Kenyon, then the junior Senator from Iowa, later went on to serve as a Federal judge for the Eighth Circuit.

The other aye vote from Iowa was cast by my predecessor, meaning he was the only other Senator from Iowa to serve in the position I now serve in as President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate. That senior Republican Senator from Iowa was a former Governor of Iowa, Albert Baird Cummins.

To a full Gallery packed with suffragists, Senator Cummins, as President pro tempore, announced final passage of the suffrage amendment. It was reported on June 5 in the New York Times that Iowa Senator Cummins, presiding over the U.S. Senate, allowed visitors in the Gallery to celebrate with ``deafening applause,'' and he made no effort to stop the celebration.

As President pro tempore, Senator Cummins from Iowa was present at the enrollment ceremony, watching over the shoulder of Vice President Thomas Marshall, who signed this historic bill.

After the Senate passed it, it was then sent to the States for ratification. In a special session of the Iowa General Assembly, my State became the tenth State to ratify the 19th amendment on July 2, 1919, less than a month after the U.S. Senate had approved it.

Suffragists and supporters continued the campaign they started in the Hawkeye State prior to World War I. They mobilized support among farmers to pave the way to the ballot box for women. The future Secretary of Agriculture under President Harding championed women's rights to vote in his widely circulated farm journal. Henry C. Wallace of Des Moines wrote:

I do not know how we can have a government of the people,

for the people and by the people, until women have an equal

voice with men. They are fully as competent as men to use

that ballot wisely.

Now, others invoked the patriotism, service, and sacrifice of women during

World War I. Another compelling argument reminded Americans that, without the ballot, women suffered taxation without representation. All Americans will recall that the battle cry of taxation without representation also paved the way to America's road to independence from Great Britain, declared in July of 1776.

Two days after Iowa ratified the 19th amendment, Americans celebrated our Nation's 143rd year of independence on the Fourth of July. One hundred years later, we are 1 month away from celebrating our Nation's 243rd year of independence. Wow, what a difference a century can make.

The historic passage of the 19th amendment pulled back the curtain to the voting booth and cracked open the glass ceiling for women to serve in public office. Today one-fourth of the U.S. Senate are women, including my colleague from Iowa, Senator Joni Ernst. She is also the first female combat veteran elected to serve in the U.S. Senate.

In the 116th Congress, 102 women are now serving in the House of Representatives, including two women from Iowa, Representative Abby Finkenauer and Cindy Axne.

In the last election, Iowans elected our first female Governor, Kim Reynolds, one of nine women now serving as chief executive of their respective States.

Today I pay tribute to all those who blazed the trail to the ballot box and helped secure women's right to vote.

At long last, the sacred right of franchise became a reality for all Americans. It had been sought by women since the American Revolution. Through the decades, it gained momentum through relentless advocacy at the grassroots.

A lot of credit is due to organizers of a convention called the Seneca Falls Convention in New York State in the summer of 1848. Just think how long that was before the 19th amendment was finally adopted. In 1848 this convention lit a flame that became inextinguishable. They launched a civic movement for the ages with enough oxygen to become a grassroots prairie fire.

For more than half a century, this organization of mostly women organized with petitions, parades, and protests, building momentum and constituencies at the State and Federal level. These early suffragists succeeded in laying a cornerstone of equality for generations to come. One of the most fundamental rights of self-government is the right to vote, and ratification of the 19th amendment enshrined their sacred civic duty into our founding charter of freedom.

I often say that the ballot box holds elected Members of Congress to account for the decisions we make on behalf of those we represent. Our institutions of government, civic organizations, system of free enterprise, places of work, schools, communities, and, most importantly, families are stronger thanks to the suffragists of our history.

The road to ratification came down to a tie-breaking vote in Nashville, TN. A young member of the State legislature broke a deadlocked vote that otherwise would have tabled the measure. His name was Harry Burn, a 24-year-old Republican from East Tennessee.

The morning of the vote, he received a note from his mother. She invoked the name of a famous suffragist with long ties to my home State of Iowa. You hear it along with Susan B. Anthony, but not as often. The name of that Iowa woman is Carrie Chapman Catt. If you want to visit her historic farm home, you can go to Charles City, IA, and visit where she grew up and lived.

Mrs. Burns, the mother of that young Tennessee State legislator, implored her son to ``be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the `rat' in ratification.''

Representative Burns credited his tie-breaking vote to the influence of his mother, to justice, and for the legacy of the Republican Party. In a statement explaining his vote, Representative Burn wrote:

I appreciated the fact that an opportunity such as seldom

comes to a mortal man to free seventeen million women from

political slavery was mine. . . . I desired that my party in

both State and nation might say that it was a republican from

the East mountains of Tennessee . . . who made national woman

suffrage possible. . . .

On August 18, 1920, the Volunteer State became the 36th State to ratify the amendment, securing the three-fourths of the States required under the U.S. Constitution.

When the U.S. Secretary of State certified the results 8 days later, the 19th amendment became the law of the land. It ensured men and women in America would share equal rights to this fundamental civic right.

Like Harry Burn, I have a personal story about my mother. My mother influenced my interest in government. For as long as I can remember, she sowed the seeds of my quest for public office and a commitment to public service.

For years, she taught students in a one-room schoolhouse about the three R's--reading, writing, and arithmetic--as well as lifelong lessons of civic responsibility. At home, she taught the Grassley kids around the kitchen table to stand up for our beliefs. Those teachings were to choose right over wrong, to waste not, want not, and to value hard work and the value of hard-earned money. She practiced what she preached, putting honesty and integrity first and foremost.

This photo I have beside me today was published in the Des Moines Register on August 30, 1920. Approximately 8 or 10 days after Tennessee ratified it but only 1 day after the secretary of State of the State of Iowa said women could now vote, we have this photo of my mother voting. It sets the scene of a historic day near my family farm.

A local woman named Mrs. Jens G. Theusen, of Fairfield Township, located in Grundy County, IA--I live just across the county line in Butler County--submitted her ballot in a country school in what I think was a school election.

She was one of the first women to vote after the newly ratified 19th Amendment.

My own mother, Ruth Corwin Grassley--referred to here as Mrs. L. A. Grassley, after Louis Arthur Grassley, my dad--also cast a history- making vote that day in a local election.

This picture says this is my mother here, but this is my mother right here. So the Des Moines Register was wrong in identifying this person, when this person is my mother. The Waterloo Courier got it right that this was Ruth Grassley, but instead of with two s's, the Waterloo Courier spelled it with one s.

The Waterloo Times Tribune was present at this vote and reported that ``Black Hawk and Grundy County women gained fame Friday by being the first in the state and probably the first in the nation to take advantage of the privilege of equal suffrage.'' That is from the Waterloo paper.

You would think that I would have known about this while my mother was living. I didn't know anything about it. I have since learned that this photo was widely distributed in newspapers across the country, illustrating the historic victory of women's suffrage.

This election in Iowa was held just 29 hours after the official announcement of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

This photo of my mother also immortalized her vote for posterity. She did so without any fanfare. She never bragged about anything, including her history-making vote in the local election. In fact, it wasn't until after she had passed away by maybe 20 years that I learned that my mother, Ruth Grassley, was one of the very first women in Iowa to cast her vote.

While I was growing up, I didn't realize what a trailblazer she was from the standpoint of women's suffrage. I knew she was a trailblazer in many other ways. Many suffragists wore their mission as a badge of honor for all to see. With 50 years of fighting to get it, I sure don't blame them for doing that. Others, like my mother, were equally as proud to carry out their newfound right and civic duty in anonymity. I am not surprised I never knew this story about my mother. My mother cast her vote to make her voice count, perhaps not even realizing she was making history at that moment.

Today, at this moment, I stand here as an Iowa farm boy, a proud son of a very early voter in Iowa--one of the first four, according to the Des Moines Register--and a U.S. Senator from Iowa because I want to share her story on the centennial anniversary marking Senate passage of the 19th Amendment.

As Americans, we celebrate the Founding Fathers who enshrined the

principles of limited government, free enterprise, and personal responsibility in our Constitution. Let us also pay tribute, then, to our founding mothers who fought and who secured these cherished blessings of freedom and liberty for their daughters and granddaughters yet to come in the same document. Today, we remember their legacy. Let's respect their legacy.

A century after the Senate voted in favor of the 19th Amendment--on this very day 100 years ago--I encourage all Americans to treasure their right to vote. The suffragists of yesterday helped shape the course of history to ensure all Americans today and for sure in the future will carry the torch of freedom, liberty, justice, and opportunity for all for generations to come.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I am here to discuss with my colleagues issues dealing with the work of the Senate Finance Committee and possible legislation that hopefully will come up this summer to keep healthcare costs down, particularly prescription drugs.

In the process of doing that, I want to set the record straight on an issue that affects every American who is eligible for Medicare. More specifically, I am here to talk about efforts to reduce the rising cost of prescription medicine.

Prescription drugs save lives. Millions of Americans like myself wake up every morning and take their daily medication, but there is something that has become a very tough pill to swallow for an increasing number of Americans, and that is paying for the rising cost of prescription drugs.

I applaud President Trump for turning up the volume on this issue last summer. That is when the President announced his administration's blueprint to lower drug costs for all Americans. He found out--and we all found out--that is a goal that has widespread support that includes Republicans and Democrats, as well as urban and rural Americans.

Of course, the President can only do so much--whatever law passed by Congress allows the President to do and that doesn't solve all the issues. So even though I applaud the President, that doesn't mean I exclude in any way the responsibility of Congress to take action.

There are many good ideas to build upon that share broad, bipartisan, bicameral support. There is one policy, however, that some Members are talking about that I don't agree with, and that is repealing what is the noninterference clause in Medicare Part D. I would like to explain why Congress kept the government out of the business of negotiating drug prices in the Medicare program. Some 16 years ago, when I was formerly chairman of the Finance Committee, I was a principal architect of the Medicare Part D program.

For the first time ever, Congress, in 2003, added an outpatient prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program. Maybe I ought to explain for my colleagues why it took between 1965 and 2003 to include drug benefits in the Medicare program. Remember, in 1965, prescription drugs or drugs generally didn't play a very big role in the delivery of medicine like they do today, but over time, they have become more important.

That is why great support at the grassroots, both bipartisan and bicameral, evolved into what we call the Medicare Part D program, adopted in that year, 2003. So we came to the conclusion that adding the prescription drug benefits for seniors was the right thing to do, but it needed to be done in the right way--right for seniors and right for the American taxpayers. By that, I mean allowing the forces of free enterprise and competition to drive costs down and drive value up.

For the first time ever, Medicare recipients in every State had the voluntary decision to choose a prescription drug plan that fit their pocketbooks and their healthcare needs.

The Part D program has worked. Beneficiary enrollment and satisfaction are robust. The Part D marketplace offers consumers better choice, better coverage, and better value; yet here we are again. It has been 13 years since Part D was implemented, and once again, I am hearing the same calls to put the government back into the driver's seat of making decisions on what you can take in the way of pills or what your doctor might be able to prescribe to you based upon what a formulary might be. We want the private sector to decide the formulary, not the

government. So these people happen to be the same backseat drivers who think that centralized government knows everything and knows best.

As the Senator who, once again, chairs the committee with jurisdiction over Medicare policy, I am not going to let Congress unravel what is right about Medicare Part D. Remember, I was a Republican leading the charge to add a new benefit to a government program. A lot of people think that is very uncharacteristic of a Republican, but I told you why I did that: because medicine was becoming an increasing part of the delivery of quality healthcare. So you heard me correctly, I was a Republican chairman working with my Democratic ranking member, Max Baucus, to accomplish Part D. We negotiated an agreement to add prescription drug coverage for seniors.

For me and other Republicans--namely President George W. Bush--there were a few key caveats. First, it must be voluntary. Second, beneficiaries would share the cost with the taxpayer because having skin in the game keeps check on spending and on utilization. Third, we must allow competition--not government mandates--to drive innovation, curb costs, expand coverage, and improve outcomes. It wouldn't work if the Federal Government interfered with delivery of medicine and dictate which drugs would and would not be covered. That is why we wrote a noninterference clause in the law.

My friend, Senator Wyden, the current Democratic ranking member of the Finance Committee, voted for final passage in 2003. By the way, we are having very good bipartisan cooperation in our Finance Committee on, hopefully, legislation to be debated in our committee in June in regard to lowering drug costs.

The noninterference provision expressly prohibits Medicare from, one, negotiating drug prices; two, setting drug prices; and, three, establishing a one-size-fits-all list of covered drugs. That list is called a formulary. I remember that many of my friends on the other side of the aisle voted for this policy; yet some are now pushing for repeal of that provision.

Here is a list of Democrat leaders who supported and voted to ban Medicare from negotiating drug prices: when he was in the Senate, Senator Biden; Senator Kennedy; Senator Baucus; Senator Reid, the former majority leader; Senator Schumer now in the Senate; Leahy; Durbin; Stabenow; Cantwell. On the other side of the Capitol, the list included Speaker Pelosi and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Chairman Neal.

There is something else that I have learned in all my years talking healthcare policy with Iowans at my annual 99 county meetings where I enjoy a Q and A with whatever agenda my constituents call upon me to discuss with them.

At the end of the day, Iowans don't want the government prescribing lifesaving medications. Iowans want to make those decisions with a physician who is treating them. Last year, 43 million out of 60 million Medicare recipients were enrolled in the Medicare Part D program. That is the vast majority of Medicare beneficiaries nationwide that don't have coverage through a past employer or similar coverage from another source.

Plan sponsors design different plan choices and compete for beneficiaries based on what those plans cover and what they cost. Beneficiaries can pick from many options, with over 3,000 plans offered across 34 geographic areas. In other words, you don't have one plan dictated by the government. Most beneficiaries were covered by a prescription drug plan, and a growing number were covered by a Medicare advantage prescription drug plan.

The Part D base premium amount is low and has remained stable over many years. Looking back to our negotiations in 2003 to get this bill to the President of the United States, we wondered how high these premiums would go, and we were fearful they would just go out of the atmosphere and that they would not be stable like they have been over a long period of time. So the noninterference clause ensures that plan sponsors create plan options that respond to what the beneficiaries-- not the government--says it should be.

The nonpartisan congressional scorekeeper, the Congressional Budget Office, has repeatedly stated that repealing this noninterference clause would not save money, unless there was a restricted formulary. As I stated, we wrote this bill in 2003 so the government wouldn't get between you and your doctor on what you ought to have in the way of prescription drugs. So in regard to the cost, I asked CBO to update, and they did. CBO sent me a letter stating the same thing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the May 10, 2019, letter from the CBO.

Mr. President, repealing the noninterference clause means a restricted formulary, which places limits on the drugs that are available to seniors, maybe excluding some drugs that your doctor wants to prescribe for you. I don't believe that Medicare beneficiaries want the government interfering in that process.

Then, as policymakers, we must keep in mind that we are making decisions that affect healthcare choices for the people whom we are elected to represent.

Let's all remember to first do no harm. Repealing the noninterference clause may sound good, but not even a spoonful of sugar will help that bad dose of policy medicine go down.

I come to the floor today to hope that I can put this issue to rest and, as we try to work in a bicameral and bipartisan way to reduce drug costs, that we don't get held up by people who want to do something different by having the government more involved, when it isn't going to save any money and will restrict formularies. It will get the government between you and your doctor.

In other words, I am trying to save Part D. It has been a great success. It is accepted by the people. Let's keep drug costs down without having this issue interfere with our process.

We need to preserve the foundation of private enterprise on which Part D is based--in other words, the marketplace working. We need to get to the real work of reducing prescription drug costs.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about two different subjects. One of them will be just 1 minute, and that deals with the fact that May is National Foster Care Month. I want to mention a couple of things about foster care because of my work in that area for the last 25 years.

I have often heard from young people that they wish someone had helped their parents so that they could have stayed together as a family. We can work in Congress to improve the foster care system, but, ultimately, kids need a family.

That is why I was proud to support the Family First Prevention Services Act. This bill will help families to stay together by funding proven services and support for parents. As the implementation process continues on this new piece of legislation, I will work to ensure that this legislation succeeds for families across the country, because for two-and-a-half decades I have been hearing from these young people in foster care: I would like to have a home, and I would like to have a mom and dad.

Mr. President, besides May being National Foster Care Month, it is also Mental Health Awareness Month. This month of May gives us an opportunity to increase public awareness about the challenges faced by those struggling with mental illness. It also encourages us to consider reforms to policies that affect these individuals as well as their friends and family members.

Almost one in five adults in the United States copes with mental illness in any given year, and roughly 20 million Americans struggle with substance abuse disorder, and less than half will get the treatment that they need.

In the 114th Congress, the previous one, I cosponsored and led the Judiciary Committee in approving legislation to update and extend the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act. Up to half of our Nation's prison population may suffer from mental illness. Jails and prisons hold 10 times as many people with mental illness than hospitals do, according to the National Sheriffs' Association.

In the 115th Congress, I introduced and led the Senate in adopting reforms to tackle substance abuse, mental health, and other issues that may drive children and teenagers into the juvenile justice system. These reforms, which recently were enacted as part of the Juvenile Justice Reform Act, encourages States to devote Federal grants to improving treatment of juvenile offenders with mental illness and substance abuse. The enactment of these two measures is very important, but even saying that, we still have lots of work to do in the area of substance abuse and mental illness.

First, lack of mental health resources poses a huge challenge. Now I am chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. I intend to be committed to this area and explore new options for increasing access to quality mental healthcare.

Second, we still have a long way to go to promote parity in mental health

and substance abuse treatment. I am committed to building upon existing efforts and finding new ways to end the stigma attached to mental health diseases.

Third, experts tell us that it is important to standardize care for behavioral health and addiction medicines.

Fourth, we may need to equip doctors with more tools to respond to the opioid epidemic that has gripped the Nation and takes the lives of 130 Americans every day. For example, Federal regulations prevent a patient's doctor from reviewing that patient's substance abuse records. This policy is intended, appropriately, to protect patient privacy, and that is a very important goal, but if it hinders coordination of care, we may have reasons to be concerned. In some cases, doctors must have access to a patient's entire medical history in order to adequately recognize, respond to, and treat the symptoms of addiction.

I hope my colleagues in the Senate will join me in identifying bipartisan solutions to these issues. Doing so will help to improve the lives of many Americans who struggle with mental health and substance abuse disorders.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 83, S. 1208.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendment be agreed to and the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time.

Madam President, I know of no further debate on the bill, as amended.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, some time ago, specifically February 28, I came to the Senate to visit with my colleagues about the more than two dozen tax provisions that expired at the end of 2017. That same day, I joined with Finance Committee Ranking Member Wyden of Oregon to introduce a bill entitled ``Tax Extender Disaster Relief Act of 2019'' to extend these two dozen tax provisions through 2019.

I very much thank Ranking Member Wyden for his cooperation on this effort. Actually, we have a lot of cooperation on a lot of different subjects within the Finance Committee.

Now, unfortunately, we are still waiting on House Democrats to send us a tax bill that includes those provisions so taxpayers who have relied on them can finish their 2018 tax returns. I have had some discussions with the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and I don't have any reason to believe he doesn't believe some of these extenders should be extended. I suppose because they are new to run the House of Representatives, and they have dissension within their own caucus, it takes a while to get an active group of people pushing for this particular legislation, but it ought to be easy to happen because these tax provisions have traditionally been extended every 2 or 3 years over the last 20 years--maybe longer than that in some cases.

I remind my colleagues in the House of Representatives that taxpayers have all but run out of time. Part of my purpose in introducing the Tax Extender and Disaster Relief Act way back in February was to provide additional certainty for the current year for those businesses that have made use of these tax credits in the past.

I noted that in most cases, Congress enacted those provisions to provide an incentive for taxpayers to engage in certain actions like investment and job creation.

In February, I also reminded my colleagues that those incentives are most effective when taxpayers can rely on them during the tax year. For the most part, over the last three decades, they have had that certainty by the renewal of these tax provisions.

Regrettably, we are now one-third of the way through 2019 with no certainty for affected taxpayers in sight. I also said, in my February remarks, that my broader objective of including an extension through 2019 was so we could have some maneuvering room to examine the temporary provisions overall and try to identify longer term solutions. Through efforts in the last Congress, we identified potential long-term solutions for two of them--the short-line railroad tax credit and the biodiesel tax credit--but we have the opportunity now to do more.

While we continue to try to help taxpayers who still need to resolve their 2018 tax returns, we need to press ahead on more permanent solutions so we can end Congress's continual bad habit of waiting until the eleventh hour or months after to extend temporary tax policy.

Accordingly, today, I am announcing, along with Ranking Member Wyden, that the Finance Committee will form several bipartisan task forces to examine the temporary tax policies. These task forces will consist of members of the Finance Committee and will focus on provisions that expired or will expire between December 31, 2017, and December 31 of this year. That is a total of 42 expiring tax provisions.

Each task force will be charged with examining temporary tax policies within one of five identified issue areas. These issue areas are: workforce and community development, health taxes, energy, business cost recovery, and a combined group consisting of individual, excise taxes, and other temporary policies.

We will ask the task forces to work with the stakeholders, other Senate offices, and interested parties to consider the original purposes of the policies and whether the need for the provisions continues today. If so, we will ask the task force to identify possible solutions that would provide long-term certainty in these areas. That may mean the credit or deduction phases out over a period of years to provide an affected

industry a glide path to self-sufficiency. In other cases, it may mean the provision could be scaled back while still providing a sufficient benefit for the affected industry or taxpayers in exchange for long- term certainty. If there is little or no case for continuing the temporary policy, the task force should consider whether the provision should be eliminated.

There may also be provisions that the task force identifies that should be extended without reform. For these provisions, the task force will have to consider whether a continued short-term extension is sufficient to achieve the policy goals, whether a longer term extension is desirable to force a future Congress to reevaluate the provision down the road, or if permanency is warranted.

This is particularly relevant for the temporary tax policies relating to healthcare. For these, we will ask the task force to focus on whether the tax policy should be extended and for what duration. Of course, we will leave the evaluation of the underlying healthcare policy to the health experts.

In all, the task forces will work to identify reform proposals, like those identified for the short-line railroad tax credit and the biodiesel tax credit last year, so we can end the policy of having Congress always kick the can down the road each time, or, as is the case with 2018, an even worse policy of doing the kicking months after the year has ended.

If Congress is going to use temporary tax policy, taxpayers should be able to count on it for the intended period. Moreover, the intended policy should be clear so that taxpayers do not fall into the trap of relying on a provision simply because Congress has created the expectation that the provisions will be consistently extended even well after the fact.

Taxpayers who have been relying on these provisions have been doing what Congress has wanted them to do. That happens to be free-market investing in certain types of property, hiring new employees, or taking other types of action. We shouldn't punish them for doing what Congress intended with these tax provisions.

Additionally, we will have a sixth task force to examine the related issue of temporary disaster tax relief. It will consider whether we should have a core set of permanent proposals so taxpayers who have suffered through devastating disasters--like with the floods, most recently, in my home State of Iowa--don't have to wait for Congress to act before they can start rebuilding their lives, their small businesses, or their farms.

We have asked the task forces to begin their work right away, and we expect them to complete their efforts by the end of June. This should provide adequate time to identify possible long-term solutions that could be enacted this year to end the annual extenders drama and provide certainty to the taxpayers who utilize those provisions.

We will continue to work with the House of Representatives to resolve the situation with respect to the 2018 temporary policies and to provide relief for all of those affected by the disasters of 2018 and so far this year, but we shouldn't wait any longer to start laying the groundwork to deal with all of these temporary tax policies as permanently as possible.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am placing a hold on the nomination of David M. Satterfield, who has been nominated to serve as Ambassador to Turkey. My objection comes down to one increasingly irrefutable point: the State Department's, through Ambassador Satterfield, consistent efforts to protect the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization from liability and thereby undermine the rights of American victims of Palestinian terrorism. This stands in sharp contrast to the intent of Congress.

Last year, I introduced the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act, ATCA, in response to recent court decisions that gutted the jurisdictional reach of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1992, which I also authored. These decisions made it substantially more difficult for American victims to hold sponsors of international terrorism accountable in our nation's courts.

The ATCA expressed a clear principle: If you accept taxpayer-backed assistance or maintain a presence in the United States, then you should be answerable in our courts if you are alleged to have supported terrorism that harmed or killed Americans.

The bipartisan bill was considered through regular order, with markups in both Chambers, as a standalone bill, passed Congress without objection, and was signed into law by President Trump in October. Never once did the State Department or the administration raise a single concern.

Yet, 2 months later, at the end of the 115th Congress, the State Department began directly lobbying Congress for a ``fix'' to the ATCA to remove certain forms of assistance from the statute, thereby allowing defendants like the Palestinian Authority to enjoy such benefits without risk of liability. Ambassador Satterfield led the State Department team, with whom my staff attempted to negotiate in good faith over several weeks at the end of 2018 and early this year.

I offered numerous compromise proposals to the State Department, including delays of the foreign assistance provisions, a rule of construction to aid victims, and even a complete strike from the ATCA of the assistance that State Department deems so valuable. Never once, however, did State or Ambassador Satterfield demonstrate interest in supporting language that would tangibly benefit victims. Rather, my bill seemed an annoyance to State's priorities, and Ambassador Satterfield on several occasions vocalized his concern about the law's impact on the Palestinian Authority, who have been found liable in U.S. courts for supporting terrorist attacks against Americans.

When my staff asked for any alternative ideas they would support to help victims, State's team came back empty-handed, and after I found bipartisan support for a compromise proposal, the State Department made clear to other offices that it would not support the compromise unless and until Congress expressly protects the Palestinian Authority's presence in the United States.

I refuse to assist the State Department in silencing any litigation arguments of U.S. victims of terrorism.

I also understand that recent efforts in the House of Representatives have proved futile in finding language that both benefits American victims and gets support from the State Department. I am tired of our State Department putting the interests of alleged sponsors of terrorism over those of our own citizens. The State Department should work in good faith with Congress and victims by unambiguously demonstrating its support for restoring jurisdiction over sponsors of terrorism.