Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn to then convene for pro forma sessions only, with no business being conducted, on the following dates and times and that following each pro forma session, the Senate adjourn until the next pro forma session: Friday, August 3, at 10:30 a.m.; Tuesday, August 7, at 10 a.m.; Friday, August 10, at 10:30 a.m.; Tuesday, August 14, at 1 p.m. I further ask that when the Senate adjourns on Tuesday, August 14, it next convene at 12 noon on Wednesday, August 15, and that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Quattlebaum nomination; further, that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, the cloture motions filed during today's session ripen at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, August 15; finally, that the Senate recess, following the resumption of the Quattlebaum nomination, until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, the Land and Water Conservation Fund is one of the Nation's premier conservation programs. In fact, I believe it is the crown jewel of our conservation programs. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has been an incredible program across the country, saving land for future generations to enjoy, saving land that otherwise might be lost and neglected for future generations--parts of our park systems, our trail systems, parts of our communities.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund has been around for many years. Yet it is set to expire on September 30.

The challenge we have in this Chamber is that it never seems to be the right time to debate permanent authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Again, it is a program that has incredible bipartisan support. The Land and Water Conservation Fund expires September 30. We need to not only reauthorize the program but to permanently authorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Yet it is still not the right time to debate it. It is not the right issue, not the right bill, not the right moment.

I hope we can find a way to do exactly what we need to for our great outdoors, for our economy, and for our environment to continue the incredible work of this crown jewel of conservation programs. That is why I have authored a bill with a number of my colleagues around the country, including Senator Burr, who has been a longtime champion of the Land and Water Conservation Fund--permanent authorization, full funding for the Land and

Water Conservation Fund. That is why we put together an amendment to do exactly what the American people want us to do, and that is permanent authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

I would ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment No. 3424. I further ask that there be up to 1 hour of debate equally divided in the usual form on the amendment and that following the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on the amendment with no intervening action or debate.

Before I enter that request formally, I would like to yield to Senator Burr for a few comments.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from North Carolina, who has been a true champion of the Land and Water Conservation Fund for years. You can hear his passion, and you can sense the passion, and you absolutely have an idea of his commitment. I am right along with him in this effort to make sure that we do our job here and let the American people's voices be heard for their support of this program and through our action, which is moving forward with the permanent authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Every corner of this country has benefited from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. There were 330 million park visits in 2017. Every State and many countries around the world have benefited from this conservation program--from what this means to our country, what this means to our economy, and what this means to conservation and to the protection of our environment.

I look forward to fighting alongside Senator Burr as we move this most important piece of conservation programs forward in the permanent authorization and funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment No. 3424. I further ask that on the amendment there be up to 1 hour of debate, equally divided in the usual form, and that following the use or yielding back of that time the Senate vote on the amendment with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, this weekend, Colorado will be celebrating the opening of our new Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in Aurora. I am incredibly proud that we will be reaching this milestone this weekend after more than a decade of work and some significant hurdles, trials, and tribulations along the way. I commend my colleagues for the work they did funding this project.

The Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center will be the crown jewel of the VA system. It wasn't easy to get here. A lot of people had to do a lot of work to make it happen, including the veterans, the leadership organizations in Colorado, our colleagues across the aisle, Congressman Coffman, Congressman Perlmutter, Senator Bennet--in fact, the entire congressional delegation for a number of years--Senator Salazar, Senator Udall, Senator Allard. They have all done incredible work to make this weekend a possibility.

Hundreds of millions of tax dollars were used for this facility. It did run over budget. It certainly ran over time. But we have learned a lot as a result of this facility, and the Army Corps of Engineers will now be taking over major construction projects like this. As a result of this facility, we have made changes on how designs are being made. It was a learning experience and unfortunately a costly one at that, but it doesn't change the fact that this will be a crown jewel in the VA system.

This is not the end of a project, it is the beginning of a promise to be fulfilled--a promise to our veterans on the care they will receive, a place where they will find healing, where they will find support, and where they will find a return to good health.

To our men and women in uniform who currently serve, know that you have a place in Colorado where you will find incredible care.

To those who have served our country, who live in Colorado, know that with great pride, we open this facility this weekend.

But we have more work to do. We have work to do to make sure that it is easier to hire doctors and fill the positions at the hospital that have remained open for months around the VA system. It takes too long to onboard medical professionals. We should cut down that time, figure out how to cut through the redtape and the bureaucracy. If you are qualified to practice medicine at Swedish Hospital in Denver, or any of our other great facilities, why can't you just go to work at the VA hospital as well? So these are things that we can do to do a better job.

On Monday, I met with the Secretary nominee, Robert Wilkie, President Trump's nominee to be the new VA Secretary, and I talked to him about the work we have to continue to do to make sure that veterans receive the best care possible. This Congress has passed legislation, such as the Choice Act. We have made great reforms over the last several months to reduce wait times and wait lists and to eliminate them and make sure that we can provide that promise of care.

This weekend in Colorado there will be a great celebration as we open this facility. So many people put in tireless years upon years of work, from the leadership of the State to the leadership of Congress. I am grateful that this weekend we celebrate as we open a facility that begins to fulfill the promise made a decade ago for veterans in the region.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I stand here today to honor the distinguished veterans of the Northern Colorado Honor Flight who have made the 21st trip to Washington, DC. Over 120 distinguished veterans from World War II, the Korean war, and the Vietname war made the trip to visit our national memorials that were built in their honor.

Military service is an exceptional duty to country. Few words can describe the sacrifice that these men and woman have made for our country. They have helped to preserve our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Without reservation or fear, when our country has been threatened, our veterans have stepped up and have answered our country's call.

Twice a year, veterans are able to travel to our Nation's Capital, where we get to recognize their selflessness, fortitude, and bravery. In 2005 the Honor Flight Program was formed to honor veterans that served in World War II. Now, 13 years later, the program spans across our country and recognizes veterans from every generation, who are able to travel to Washington, DC, free of charge.

Please join me in honoring William Behrns, Leila Morrison, Gail Wares, Melvin Cook, Eldred Cooley, Eugene Curry, Bead Dennison, James Dewey, Tito Garcia Jr., Karl Gruber, Manuel Jimenez, Donald Johnson, Myron Kapperman, Roger Lindgren, Bobby Lewis, John Mansfield, Thomas Mathias Jr., Dale Mikkelson, Mary Miller, Robert Murphy, Howard Nornes, James Onorato, Wilbur Smith, Sigvard Stenlund, Bruce Abel, Gary Allen, Russell Ayer, Roger Baker, John Ballenski, Phillip Ballenski, Robert Beckman, Delmar Benkendorf, Joseph Bicek, Ivan Birdsall, Roger Booker, James Boyle, Ronnie Brown, Robert Buchanan, Ronald Byers, Wesley Carter, Timothy Casseday, Everett Collins, David Cordova, John Cordova, Keith Cross, Terry Curry, Terry Dack, Scott Dallman, James Ehrlich, Rodney Enriques, Gary Evans, Brian Finkle, Lewis Finch, Rudolph Gallegos, Pete Gomez, Clayton Goss, Stanley Graffis, John Haddick, Michael Hadwick, William Hamlin, Arthur Harris, Michelle Herdengen, Charles Hill, Richard Hill, William Hilgenberg, Ronald Hoagland, Robert Johnson, Ronald Klug, Terry Kramer, Lonnie Kruise, Darrel Kyger, Bertram Langeberg, Gerald Lauer, Jay Lee, James Lichty, Anthony Lucas, Thomas Mannix, Juan Martinez, Modesto Martinez, James McDaniel, Kenneth McDonald, Ronald McDuff, Phyllis Minch, Alfred Montoya, Thomas Moreno, Donald Morris, Stephen Morris, Dennis Moss, Joseph Muzy, Emery Patrick, Joseph Plummer, Steven Prater, Benjamin Prieb, Ronald Rains, Donald Ratliff, Richard Regan, Fredrick Reiter, Thomas Robb, Bonnie Rohn, Fernando Romero Jr., Charles Rossi, Janice Schilling, Dennis Seitz, William Sladek, Michael Smith, Stephen Smith, Edward Snider Jr., John Tallman, Bruce Tibboel, Gary Todd, Gary Trippel, Billy Trobee, David Valdez, Wesley Van Pelt, Louis Velasquez, Stuart Veltkamp, Paul Wallace, Bryan Warwick, Tom Wasmer, Robert Watters, Steven Wilson, John Yost, and William Young.

Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about fires that Colorado faces right now--some of the most devastating fires in Colorado history. As of the writing of our comments this morning, there were 40 fires so far in 2018. This is one of them. I think this is the 416 fire, which I had the opportunity to visit just a couple of weeks ago.

This past week I was in Colorado, where we were able to see the Sugarloaf fire. I drove by the Weston Pass fire. This is some distance away from the Lake Christine fire, and obviously, the Spring Creek fire in Colorado. As a result of these fires, over 355,000 acres in Colorado have burned. That is simply devastating right now.

Congress has not been inattentive to the needs of our forests. Over the past several months, we passed legislation that would fix the fire borrowing crisis that had gripped the Forest Service. That was something that was forcing them to cannibalize dollars that could be used to reduce the next year's forest fires on this year's forest fires. We fixed that. We put fixes in place for that.

We also passed legislation to give our land managers more tools to help address dead trees and insect- and disease-ridden forests so we could have healthier forests. I hope the work we do on healthy forest policies, which we have already made progress on, will continue in this Congress. These fires are certainly devastating.

These communities remain open. No matter where you are in the country, if you have a summer vacation in Colorado, I hope you will still come. These communities need you now more than ever. They need your dollars. They need your resources. They want you to come and visit.

In the meantime, we have to make sure that we provide our firefighters--the great men and women on the frontlines of these fires--the tools they need to protect our communities and the tools our land managers need to make sure they can prevent these fires from happening.

In this Congress we have also considered policies addressing categorical exclusions. That is a fancy way of saying that it gives line managers tools to reduce the fire risks in certain areas. We have helped to provide tools in fire regimes I, II, and III. There are five fire regimes: fire regimes I, II, III, IV, and V. They are defined by how likely they are to burn and how frequently they are to burn in certain conditions. Much of the West, though, is what is called fire regimes IV and V. You can see the colors of fire regimes IV and V, the orange and reddish color, and the purple color. The green, the light green, the yellowish colors are I, II, III.

We have been able to provide new tools for fire regimes I, II, and III, but we haven't provided as many tools in fire regimes IV and V. That happens to be a significant portion of the West. That is where most of the beetle and other insect kill has occurred in Colorado. When a tree is killed by an insect, it creates a significant fire hazard.

We have also been able to provide the amendments that we filed in the farm bill. Unfortunately, they didn't succeed. I hope we can get them through to provide help in these high-risk areas of disease and insect- ridden forests.

Past management practices have created conditions where we may have monoculture forests, where you a forest with the same age of trees. You have the same conditions that allow them to be susceptible to the same insects and the same diseases, and you end up with thousands of acres that are susceptible to catastrophic wildfire.

Where a lot of Colorado's beetle kill and insect kill can be found is also where the headwaters of some of our Nation's most significant water sources are. Colorado is the only State in the country where all water flows out of and no water flows into. I know the Presiding Officer is a beneficiary of Colorado water as well--probably not enough of it, she would say. But it is important to Nebraska that we protect Colorado forests because the headwaters of the Platte River are in Colorado--the North Platte and the South Platte.

There is work we have to be doing to make sure that we protect these watersheds, because what happens when a forest burns is that you end up with hydrophobic soil conditions and that runoff from a rainstorm goes directly into the water. It destroys the watershed. If you have a forest that has four or five times the undergrowth that it should, then that takes more water out of what would naturally go to the waterway and the watershed, meaning there is less water available for other uses downstream.

I want to talk more about forest management. We had another fire in Colorado called the Buffalo fire in Summit, CO. If you have ever driven up I-70 through the Eisenhower Tunnel, toward Breckenridge, you go by a town called Silverthorne. You can see in

Summit County that the Buffalo fire threatened 1,400 homes. So 1,400 homes were evacuated as a result of this fire. The fire was 91 acres. It is about 95 percent containment, but this risk it posed was significant because there was a very densely populated area of the mountains, a community of homeowners. There were 1,400 homeowners who had to evacuate.

They had a lot of high-risk fuels, but what this community had done was something we should brag about all over the West. They actually had collaborative efforts with State and local governments in this area. They developed fuel treatments to help moderate fire activity.

This was a challenging fire. We have extreme fire behavior in Colorado this year, but because of the collaborative work they had done, that helped to reduce the risk, to thin forests, to reduce the fuel, and to create the fire breaks. They were able to keep this fire from reaching those homes. The fire treatment worked. This is an example of a process we ought to be spreading and looking at to help reduce hazardous fuels around the West to make sure we don't lose our communities when we have these devastating fires. This was just west of Silverthorne. These fuel reduction projects helped to create fire breaks, and they prescribed burns which contain a fire with extreme behavior that could have been devastating. This wasn't too far away from the Dillon Reservoir, a key source of water for Colorado.

I also want to talk about some of the language we have in the farm bill. We have language in the farm bill that addresses vegetation management. This picture shows what happened after a forest fire. This is a power line, obviously. You can see the power lines going through it.

We have risks to our forests, our communities, our homes, and risks to our watersheds. We also have risks to our power supply systems. You can see that this pole has been simply disintegrated as a result of the fire. This has cost at least one utility over $10 million in the Basalt area, as a result of the fire.

We are working on language dealing with vegetation management. Senator Bennet and I sponsored language that would allow utilities to do work on their own dime outside of the rights of way to prevent this fire from impacting our electricity and energy system. The Lake Christine fire, which is near Basalt, put a lot of different types of electric infrastructure out of commission. This utility, as I mentioned, is estimating that it will be millions of dollars for them to repair. It makes sense for us to give tools to these utilities on their own dime to prevent this kind of damage, because they would be creating fire breaks. They would be creating more resilient systems that would allow our communities a little bit more security, I guess, in knowing that their electricity systems would be protected and safe.

These kinds of bills that we have been able to produce have had and will have great impact on how we can prevent and how we respond to catastrophic wildfires. Certainly, a $10 million cost from one fire, as well as other costs, will increase rates. It has the potential to increase rates dramatically if we can't get a handle on the right kinds of policies.

Finally, I want to turn to another disturbing aspect of what we have seen in Colorado with these forest fires. We have seen an uptick of drones flying over active forest fires and firefighting areas. If you fly a drone and do that without interfering with the firefighter-- following all the rules--then I don't think anybody has a problem with it. If you are flying a drone and violating the rules and you are flying it over an active fire, stop it. I talked to far too many incident commanders who had to call off air tankers because there was a drone in the area. There is a video on YouTube where you can see footage from the drone taking a picture of the forest, while you see the shadow of a tanker on the ground because the tanker went right over it.

The pilots of that tanker were asked: Did you see the drone?

They said: No.

What would have happened if that drone had hit that plane, perhaps causing an accident, perhaps costing lives, perhaps starting a new fire because the plane could have crashed as a result?

If you call off an air tanker already in the air, that tanker can't land with the slurry that it has onboard already. So the air tanker gets called off. It then has to dump the slurry somewhere else. That could be $10,000 worth of slurry at a time wasted because they got called off because somebody decided they would rather fly their drone and get videos that they can post on YouTube, instead of allowing firefighters to do their job.

This is what the Forest Service put out: ``If you fly, we can't.''

You have a 110,000-acre fire in the Spring Creek fire right now. Over 200 homes are lost. An hour a day without supertankers--without air tankers--is a big problem for those communities and the men and women putting their lives at risk trying to defend and protect our forests and our communities. I hope people will use a little bit of common sense and not fly their drones over an active firefighting.

I introduced legislation with Senator Bennet and Congressman Tipton to make it a felony to interfere with a firefighter operation over a forest fire if you are flying a drone illegally.

We met with individuals from Oregon and from all over the West when I visited the fire at the incident command center in Southern Colorado when we visited the Spring Creek fire. We talked to fire men and women who spent their Fourth of July not watching fireworks or picnicking with their family but defending and protecting our communities in Colorado. We thank them for their work. We thank them for their tireless efforts and sacrifice.

It is dangerous. In fact, just last week, as we were at the fire on Friday, we commemorated and recognized the anniversary of the Storm King Mountain fire and the 14 persons who were killed near Glenwood Springs about 24 years before. This is a very serious fire season. Thankfully, we have serious policies in place that are addressing it. There is more work we can do.

I thank my colleagues.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Thank you, Madam President.

I know the Presiding Officer is a cattle farmer, as I think they are referred to in Mississippi. It is an honor to be

here on the floor with you to talk about important work for Mississippi.

Colorado is an incredibly diverse State. When it comes to our economy, we are the--if you look at jobs per capita, we have more aerospace jobs per capita than any other State in the country. We have the second highest number of jobs outright, second only to California. Our tourism industry is world renowned--our first-class ski resorts, our gold medal trout fishing streams. It is incredible, all that we have. We are also one of the country's biggest agricultural producers. In fact, the ag economy in Colorado remains the fundamental foundational building block of our economy.

I grew up in a part of Colorado that looks more like Kansas. Most people think it is in Kansas instead of Colorado. This is my backyard. This is where I live. I live in town. This is a farm, a pivot irrigation system that I grew up with. In fact, our family sells farm equipment. I have told stories about that to everybody here--everybody who will listen--so many times that they have probably stopped listening. I grew up selling farm equipment.

I can remember, when I first ran for office, going around eastern Colorado and introducing myself to farmers. I would introduce myself. I would say: Hi, I am Cory Gardner, and I am running for the State legislature. I have met most of you at the implement dealership. I have sold half of you the wrong parts. I quit using that line when everybody would shake their head--yes, you have. So I grew up knowing a lot of great people in agriculture through that business.

Water is the lifeblood of our area. Agriculture is the lifeblood of our area. There is an old saying that sometimes if there is a downturn in agriculture, then our community will feel it next week. Well, that is not true anymore. If we have a downturn in agriculture, our community feels it that day. That is how connected we are to global commodity prices and what it means for us.

I am fifth-generation Coloradoan. Our entire family has been all agriculture. It is the heart and soul of who we are as a country, and that is why this farm bill debate is so important.

In Colorado, we have tremendous crop opportunities, livestock opportunities. We have some of the best hay operations in America. In fact, several of our counties--Yuma County, which is the county I am from, over the years has been ranked and rated one of the top corn- producing counties in the Nation. We are a leading wheat exporter. Eighty-seven percent of the wheat that is produced in the 4th Congressional District--my old 4th Congressional District in Colorado-- gets exported overseas.

The research we are doing out in eastern Colorado on dryland cropping systems is pretty remarkable--the Akron research station there.

The San Luis Valley is known nationally and around the world for our high-quality San Luis Valley potatoes, purple potatoes that you can get from the San Luis Valley. We have sorghum and barley. A lot of people are familiar with our Banquet beer in Colorado. We have great beef. We have pintos and potatoes. We have it all. And, of course, who could forget our world-renowned Palisade peaches? It is that time of year now when we are starting to see peaches in the farmers markets and in the stands all around. I challenge anybody from South Carolina or Georgia to compare their peaches to our peaches because we know we have the best. We are coming up on the Peach Festival, as well, in the Western Slope of Colorado. We certainly have sugar beets.

We have an incredibly diverse economy. We have a diverse economy that represents a lot of export opportunities. Some of our best exports and some of our largest exports are beef. Frozen beef, fresh beef--you name it; we have a lot of beef. That is why trade is so critically important to our economy. We are going to get our ag economy growing.

By the way, ag is kind of facing a tough time right now. Farm receipts are down about 35 percent from what they were in 2013. If you look at some of the golden years of agriculture not too long ago, we are probably down even further than that. When commodity prices drop, when exports drop, these communities that I grew up in--these agricultural communities in the Western Slope of Colorado and in the Eastern Plains--they feel that impact not next week, not the week after, they feel it immediately. That is why trade is so important.

Let me give an example of this field right here. If you had an irrigated cornfield in Colorado--let's say that you had a good year. Let's say that you raised 225 bushels an acre of corn. Let's say that in May the price of corn was $4.05. I looked it up yesterday, and it was about $3.55. That 50-cent drop in commodity price on 160 acres--if you take 160 acres a quarter, if you look at the farmable land, the irrigated land, that is probably around 120, 140 acres, somewhere in between that. If you just raise that corn crop on 120 acres of land, 225 bushels an acre, and that price drops 50 cents per bushel, that is about a $12,000 or $13,000 impact--loss of income--per quarter.

The average farm size in Colorado is--let's say a corn farmer--let's just say they have 1,000 acres of corn, irrigated corn. If that price drops 50 cents, that is a $100,000-plus loss of income. If we start seeing the impacts of a trade war that lowers the price of these commodities, we will see that impact not tomorrow but today. These low commodity prices have already affected the health of our rural communities. We don't need any more downward pressure.

Beef alone accounts for $675 million worth of these exports. We should be pursuing free-trade opportunities. Colorado-grown potatoes account for over 50 percent of all U.S. potato exports to Mexico. NAFTA is incredibly important for this country, what we are doing with all of our agriculture products and how we are getting them to market.

We know rural development is key, and agriculture is key and trade is key to that rural development. So the farm bill represents a great opportunity for us to focus on rural development--what we can do to help start young farmers, help them get a start and help them afford the operation, because it is incredibly expensive. A quarter of irrigated ground in Colorado at one point was approaching $1 million a quarter. A tractor could cost around $250,000 if you had to buy a new one, a big one.

All of this means that we have an obligation to provide certainty in policy. That is what this debate is doing with the farm bill--providing our farmers, folks involved in agriculture, with the certainty they need to plan, to be able to go to the bank to talk about next year's operation loan, this year's operation loan, how they are going to get the receipts to allow them to continue that generational business of agriculture in Colorado and beyond.

We know economic times have also resulted in significant economic stress and significant mental stress. I am very pleased to have worked with a number of my colleagues to introduce the FARMERS FIRST Act earlier this year. This is a bill that helps address some of the mental health concerns we have seen in agriculture.

In agriculture, per 100,000 population--we have about 5 times the number of suicides in agriculture than the broader group of Americans-- 5 times higher suicide rate. This bill starts to address that.

In Colorado, Don Brown, our agriculture commissioner--I grew up with him. He is from the same town I am from. They have restarted the suicide hotline in Colorado to address the mental health needs because of the challenges we face in agriculture today. I thank Commissioner Brown for that work.

I thank my colleagues for the work we have been able to do together on the FARMERS FIRST Act to make sure we can help provide some of that relief.

In this farm bill, we have also made great strides on conservation. I was able to get the EQIP amendment included in the farm bill. That addresses agricultural drought concerns to make sure that the farm bill more adequately addresses the critically important conservation title work as it relates to drought.

I thank Senators Feinstein, Wyden, Udall, Moran, Bennet, and Harris for their support in allowing me to work with them on this amendment and to have it included in the substitute. If you look at the drought that is gripping the Western United States in particular, you have Arizona, 100 percent drought; California, 69 percent of the

land in a drought; Colorado, 79 percent of the State in a drought; Kansas, 79 percent in a drought; Oklahoma, 80 percent; Utah, 100 percent; North Dakota, 81 percent. These are areas that this EQIP language that was included will help address as we work toward solving this ongoing drought condition.

Water is the lifeblood of the West. Colorado is the only State in the country where all water flows out of it and none flows into it, so we have to make sure we get this right. As you can see, this is a picture of the Colorado River. That is an example of a bloodline of water that goes from Colorado down to California and all the States in between that rely on this river. As we see, as that water in the river decreases, it puts more pressure on the upstream States. If we ever have a problem in the river, that is going to be a significant challenge between the upper basin States and the lower basin States. That is why the tools that we have helped provide in the farm bill will help us manage this river, will help us manage the land, will help us address conservation needs to use less water so that we can keep more water in the systems, keep more water on the land, and prevent the dry- up of agriculture.

We were able to streamline EQIP contracting, increase cost share for nutrient reduction practices, and increase the authority of USDA to enter into drought-related Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program agreements. This will help areas like the Republican River in Colorado and beyond.

These are important inclusions in the farm bill. We have other things that should be highlighted, though, that will also address some of our water concerns.

We know that forest fires are a significant challenge to Colorado. If there is a massive forest fire, all those watersheds that those forests are in result in debris flows and contamination of those water systems, those waterways, and that hurts our ability to have access to that water.

In the omnibus that we passed earlier this year, we were able to include certain language addressing categorical exclusions, building upon insect and disease--efforts to combat them in certain areas of the forest. The challenge we have in Colorado is that the categorical exclusions only apply to fire regime groups 1, 2, and 3, but in Colorado, we have about 24 percent of our zones of concern in Colorado that are in a different category, not in 1, 2, or 3, which means we can't use the categorical exclusion to address insect and disease concerns under that provision. Yet we know a significant area of these forests have insects. This is where a lot of the insect infestation has occurred.

Insects have devastated our forests. It results in dead trees, and then the drought doubles the pressure on that, creating historic fire conditions, and then you end up imperiling the watersheds.

We have offered an amendment to try to address that, to extend the categorical exclusion so that we can have better management opportunities to prevent the next disaster from occurring and to make sure that we can help manage our forests in a more responsible way.

I am also excited that we were able to include work addressing the Akron research station in Akron, CO, in eastern Colorado, a dry land facility. We have an amendment that is incorporated in the substitute that authorizes research and extension grants to study the utilization of big data for more precise management of dryland farming agriculture systems. This goes into how much water we need and how we could better manage dryland cropping alternatives. If we have a drought that continues, we are going to have to have more tools and data to help manage farming practices so that we can do a better job of creating high yields in a low-moisture environment.

These are all important issues that we worked on.

Crop insurance is incredibly vital to our Main Streets in rural Colorado and across this country. That is why we have to continue to strengthen the Crop Insurance Program. That is why I am glad the farm bill makes sure that it does just that. The conservation title is important to Colorado as well.

There are a lot of issues this farm bills addresses. I thank Chairman Roberts for his work on this legislation. He is our neighbor in Kansas. I don't think he included a provision in the farm bill to thank Colorado for the water that we send to Kansas, but they have better lawyers than us, so I will not push that too far when it comes to some of the water conflicts that we have had. I say that jokingly, of course.

What I don't say jokingly, of course, though, is what agriculture means to all of us. It is that bond that we share in our communities. It is the foundation of Colorado's economy and this country's economy. There are so few people today in agriculture, that those of us who are involved in agriculture, who are in agricultural communities, have to be strong advocates. I hope the work this Senate is doing when it comes to agriculture will be that ambassadorial effort that we need to be good stewards of our land, to continue to promote small farms, new farmers, and young farmers to make sure that we keep generations of farmers and ranchers on the land and that we don't have a buy-out and dry-out history because we mismanaged our water resources.

This farm bill helps address some of our biggest challenges. Let's get our other policies like trade right, continue to work together in a bipartisan fashion, and we can make our farmers and ranchers proud of the work we do every day.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize John Barker, an exemplary citizen in my hometown of Yuma, CO. As a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, VFW, Post 3378, Mr. Barker has selflessly volunteered his time and energy toward providing invaluable services to veterans and their families. As a result, he has been honored by the Colorado VFW with the Salute to Service Award.

Mr. Barker goes above and beyond to help veterans in our community. This includes regular visits to veterans admitted to hospitals and nursing homes and ensuring that announcements of events hosted by Post 3378 are widely circulated in local media. Whether it is working to expand the local Veteran's Memorial Park or tracking down stories from veterans and their families to be published, he ensures that these veterans receive the recognition they deserve.

On a more solemn note, Mr. Barker visits veterans who have entered hospice care and presents them with a plaque commemorating their service; in their last moments, these veterans know how grateful our community is to them. Furthermore, Mr. Barker attends their funerals and performs military honors as a member of Post 3378's color guard.

Indeed, Mr. Barker's volunteerism is not limited to veterans. He has worked with local Boy Scouts, encouraging them to finish their Eagle Scout projects, volunteered as Santa Claus at a local event, and worked with the Colorado Department of Fish and Wildlife to make sure there were fish to catch for the kids at Yuma's ``Huck Finn'' Day.

Mr. Barker's dedication to his community and his VFW post is unparalleled. His VFW commander, Adam Beauprez, had no hesitation nominating him for the Salute to Service Award and it is little wonder that the Colorado VFW followed suit by honoring him with this recognition.

Mr. Barker, thank you for your service. Thank you for your friendship and your family's friendship. You make Colorado proud.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Bennet for his work on this and the opportunity to work with him to make sure we continue to honor our veterans and armed servicemembers.

Our veterans have served and our armed servicemembers proudly serve this country in Active Duty. When they come home, though, one of the obligations we have as a society and country to thank them for this incredible service is to make sure they have the skills, education, and training to integrate back into the civilian workforce. They obviously have incredible skills which they have acquired during their military service, and we can put them to use here at home.

This amendment simply says the Department of Defense and the Secretary of Energy will evaluate military installations to determine which ones are ripe for opportunities to work with community colleges, institutions of higher education, and others so they can enter into agreements to help train veterans--armed servicemembers, members of the Armed Forces, to transition them into civilian life--to help work in the cyber security fields, energy fields, artificial intelligence workforce.

In Colorado alone, we have 13,000 job openings in cyber security-- 13,000 job openings in cyber security alone. This gives us a chance to continue our service in thanking our veterans for the work they have done in service to our country.

I thank my colleague from Colorado, Senator Bennet.

I yield the floor and urge my colleagues to vote yes.

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

Mr. President, last year, Colorado had a great snowpack in many areas of the State. In fact, the moisture, rain, and snowpack in many areas of Colorado led to a lot of growth, a lot of great spring grass, and a lot of undergrowth that came in. The problem is, when you have a wet year followed by a dry year, that same growth then turns into tinder during a drought.

That is, unfortunately, what we have seen in parts of Colorado this year. Many parts of Colorado are experiencing some of the driest conditions they have seen in 70 or 80 years.

On June 1, the 416 fire in Southwest Colorado was started. It started burning, and now about 35,000 acres of land have been gobbled up by this wildfire. There are also a number of other fires across Colorado: the Burro fire, the Buffalo Mountain fire, and there was a fire between Redvale and Montrose, CO.

I come to the floor to bring attention to some of the actions we have taken, though, that have helped with fighting these fires and to talk about policies we need to put in place that can do a better job giving more tools to fight these fires and what we can do to help make firefighters do their jobs in a better, safer way.

If you look at what we did these past years--a couple of months ago, we passed a bill that fixed the fire-borrowing crisis, which had consumed our wildfire fighting budget each and every year. What happened is that Congress would fund firefighting based on a 10-year rolling average, and then they would exceed that cost of the firefighting budget and consume other parts of the Forest Service budget, cannibalizing other parts that would go toward mitigation to prevent next year's forest fires just to fund the firefighting efforts of this year's fires. So we have never really caught up with the cycle. Over half of the budget of the Forest Service--at least prior to this fix--was being consumed on fighting forest fires.

This Congress did a great job with a bipartisan fix that now actually allows us to treat it more like a normal, traditional disaster instead of cannibalizing other funds within the Forest Service.

I asked one of the Forest Service representatives, employees, at the fire: Are you able to make better decisions knowing now that you have a budget fix in place? The answer was yes. So we are actually able to fight fires.

We have a map right here. The city of Durango, CO, is basically right here. This fire is moving, and we are able to fight this fire better, knowing that we have the funding, the resources necessary, to adequately supply these firefighting efforts.

At least as of a day ago, we haven't lost a home from this 35,000- acre fire, even though nearly 2,000 homes have been evacuated. I think that is a remarkable feat, an accomplishment. Great credit needs to go to the 1,300 firefighter personnel who are on this fire and the Burro fires 10 miles over the mountain. They have not lost a structure as a result of their efforts and the tools that we have helped to give them.

To the personnel: Thank you for the work that you continue to do.

To the people of Colorado who may have scheduled a vacation or planned a vacation in Durango and Silverton, CO: Know that these towns remain open, that you can still go to Durango, CO, that you can still go down the river, and that you can have an incredible time with your family.

I encourage people across this country not to cancel their vacations, not to cancel their plans, but to go ahead and visit. This town, this State, needs you now more than ever. I encourage people to recognize that, yes, there may be a fire in the forest, but it is not in the town. It is perfectly safe to go visit, to be there, and I hope they will because both Silverton and Durango need you now more than ever.

We also know that our land managers can use better policies in terms of reducing fuel loads and making sure they can get into the forest to reduce the potential for a serious conflagration--the types of which we have seen more and more of recently--to help give them better tools to cut through litigation and the analysis paralysis that has tied our decision makers' hands when it comes to fighting fires.

One of the things I have heard at other fires in Colorado, outside of the 416 fire, is the concern about drones. I hope every person listening to speeches and the news reports will take to heart that when you fly a drone, when you fly a UAV over a fire because you think it would be neat to get pictures of it, understand that you are putting people's lives at risk, and you are stopping--you are putting a halt-- to significant elements of the firefighting effort.

What do I mean by that? One drone will shut down the air tanker program--no more slurry efforts, no retardant flying in, no more helicopters flying in, no more airplanes flying in and dropping retardant that can stop the spread of the fire. Please, please, stop interfering with active firefighting efforts.

Scott Tipton and I will be introducing legislation that will increase penalties on people who are interfering with firefighting efforts by flying a drone over a wildfire. It has to stop. It is putting people's lives at risk, and it is certainly allowing these fires to spread because they have to shut down their firefighting efforts.

We can't fight these fires at night with tankers. We are working on that. We have other legislation that will allow night vision goggle research to be done to help make this effort happen, to be able to help fight these fires, but we can't do it now. So when you take out an hour or 2 or more of the day, that means those tankers can't get in, that means more acres are burned, and that means more lives are put at risk. Stop it. You are hurting people.

This is something for which we have to give more tools to our decision makers and land managers to help reduce the fuel, cut through the litigation, the

redtape, and reduce the number of lawsuits that are preventing these forests from being managed in a healthy manner. Let's do that. Then we have to make sure we continue with other policies to get more dollars on the ground for fuel-reduction efforts.

Long-term consequences of this fire, though, will remain because long after the smoke is gone, the effects will be felt. When there is a rainstorm, we will have hydrophobic soil conditions that will create debris flows that go into the river, causing conduits to be impacted, perhaps wiped out, and the viaducts that are going to be affected, the water conduits that will be affected through debris flows, the drinking water systems that could be impacted throughout, and the flooding potential that dramatically increases. Those effects will have to be dealt with, but there are other effects too.

When you are dealing with businesses here that rely on the use of the forest, particularly in the summer, those seasonal businesses are impacted right now and are going to need help, and the Small Business Administration, the Department of Commerce, and others could help provide disaster relief to these businesses. If you are relying on a forest for your business during the summer and that forest has been closed, obviously your business is greatly impacted. That is something this Congress will have to continue to work through as we address the impacts on seasonal businesses throughout Colorado--and around the West, for that matter--that have been affected by these wildfires.

To this Congress: Thank you for the work you did to fix the practice of firebombing, for putting an end to it, and for allowing us to budget regularly for wildfires, making sure we have the dollars necessary to do this without impacting forest programs that would have reduced next year's fires.

Let's stop dangerous activities. Stop flying drones, interfering with wildfires. Let's work on policies that we can innovate to bring new science, new expertise, new research to allow us to do a better job of fighting fires.

I hope people will remember that Durango and Silverton remain open; all of Colorado remains open. Come visit, and spend your time. There are great memories you could make with your families in our forests, in our incredible and beautiful environment of Colorado and the West.

Mr. President, I thank you. This is one more important thing to remind us that we are all in this together, and I thank this Congress for the work they have done.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, as the eyes of the world are fixed on Singapore, I rise today to discuss another important development in our Nation's diplomatic efforts in the Indo-Pacific.

Tomorrow, we will open a new chapter in the relationship between the United States and our longstanding friend and ally Taiwan by opening the new complex of the American Institute in Taiwan, or AIT, which serves as a de facto U.S. Embassy in Taiwan. You can see the ``Strong Foundation, Bright Future''--this incredible new facility in Taiwan to replace the existing facility we have. I am pleased that Marie Royce, the Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, will attend the ceremony on behalf of the United States. Along with my colleagues, Senators Rubio, Inhofe, and Cornyn, I sent a letter and called for a Cabinet-level official to attend the ceremony as well. There are a lot of things going on in Asia on June 12.

The opening of this state-of-the-art complex comes at a most opportune time as a demonstration of strong U.S. support for the people of Taiwan. I join my colleagues in Congress in welcoming this new facility and thanking the men and women of our Foreign Service in Taipei and around the world for their service to our Nation.

The new AIT facility will cultivate the relationship between the United States and Taiwan and further demonstrate the commitment of the United States to bolster its friendship and commercial and defensive partnership with Taiwan.

Today, I also announce that I will be introducing a resolution welcoming the new AIT complex. I encourage my colleagues to cosponsor this resolution to express our support and excitement for this new facility.

Taiwan is a free, democratic, and prosperous nation of 23 million people and an important contributor to peace and stability around the world. In many ways, Taiwan should serve as the model for a free and open Indo-Pacific.

The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which governs our unofficial relations with Taiwan, calls ``to preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people of Taiwan.'' The Taiwan Relations Act also unequivocally states that it is the policy of the United States ``to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.''

Since the election of President Tsai in 2016, Taiwan has been under unrelenting pressure from Beijing in a shameful and dangerous effort to deprive Taiwan of international legitimacy and to undermine the fragile status quo between Beijing and Taipei. In the last month alone, Taiwan lost

two diplomatic allies--the Dominican Republic and Burkina Faso. Taipei has also once again been shut out of the World Health Assembly due to pressure from Beijing. Despite this decision, despite this treatment, Taiwan has nevertheless made a very generous donation of $1 million to the World Health Organization for Ebola-related relief efforts.

It is time for the United States to aggressively push back against Beijing's effort to undermine a free Taiwan. Two weeks ago, I had an opportunity to visit Taipei and meet with President Tsai and personally thank her for her friendship and Taiwan's valuable contributions to global peace and stability. I think that friendship can be seen in this new AIT facility.

I have also introduced two bipartisan bills in the Senate that will enhance U.S. relations with Taiwan and send a very strong message to Beijing that the United States will never--the United States will never--abandon our friends in Taipei.

The first bill is the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, or ARIA, which is a bill that presents a new, comprehensive policy framework for U.S. policy toward the Indo-Pacific.

We introduced ARIA on April 24, 2018, with a group of bipartisan cosponsors, including Senators Markey, Cardin, Rubio, and Young. Senators Sullivan and Perdue, with whom I traveled to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last week, have also joined in this effort.

ARIA recognizes that Taiwan should be front and center in our Indo- Pacific strategy. ARIA states that it is the policy of the United States to faithfully enforce all existing U.S. commitments to Taiwan, as enshrined in the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 and the six assurances offered by President Ronald Reagan in 1982.

ARIA also authorizes the sale of advanced weapons, weapon parts, and upgrades to Taiwan, consistent with U.S. law, and urges the President to regularize the arms sales consultation process with Congress.

Finally, it authorizes high-level military and diplomatic contacts with Taipei, consistent with the Taiwan Travel Act, which was signed into law by President Trump on March 16, 2018.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal editorial board endorsed ARIA, including writing that the bill ``notably encourages regular weapons sales to Taipei.''

I ask unanimous consent that the Wall Street Journal editorial, titled ``China's Military Escalation,'' dated June 4, 2018, be printed in the Record.

On May 24, 2018, I also filed the Taiwan International Participation Act, or TIPA, with Senator Markey. This bipartisan effort establishes that it should be the policy of the United States to support Taiwan's participation in appropriate international organizations, to instruct U.S. representatives in international organizations to use the voice and vote of the United States to support Taiwan's inclusion in appropriate international organizations around the globe, and to direct the President and his representatives to raise Taiwan's participation in appropriate international organizations during relevant bilateral engagements with the government of the PRC.

I call on my colleagues to support both of these important pieces of legislation, which are efforts to show our strong support for the people of Taiwan. There is much more we can do and we should do to enhance our relationship with Taiwan, and I call on the administration to undertake all efforts allowable under U.S. law to enhance our relationship with Taipei.

The opening of this new facility tomorrow, this new AIT complex--in fact, just a few hours from now--is a great sign of friendship and commitment from the United States, and I congratulate all those who have made this possible.

I know Senator Rubio is on the floor today to talk about this and the important support the United States continues to show for Taiwan, but I will finish on this before I yield the floor.

In my conversation with President Tsai, I talked about how Taiwan is really a great leader from whom we should learn and recognize and value their leadership around the globe. I think the million-dollar contribution they made to combat Ebola issues is just one small signal that they have an important role to play on the world stage, and I hope our allies around the globe will continue to engage Taiwan, as appropriate, and make sure they have that strong international voice that they sometimes feel to be lacking today.

I encourage my colleagues to stand up to support Taiwan. I congratulate AIT on this new facility and certainly look forward to engaging Taiwan even more as we move forward.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to speak for one minute.

Mr. President, I rise today to recommend and urge my colleagues to vote for Jim Bridenstine as Administrator of NASA. We will be voting on his nomination momentarily.

Jim Bridenstine has incredible experience, an incredible resume, and an incredible understanding of the mission before NASA. We need somebody with a vision. We need somebody who actually has an idea of where we should take our great space mission--somebody who has commercial experience, somebody who has government experience, somebody who has management experience, and, yes, somebody who has experience within the industry itself, and that person is Jim Bridenstine.

Jim has bipartisan support and support from the House. My fellow colleague, Democratic Congressman Ed Perlmutter from Colorado, along with a dozen other Democratic Members from the House of Representatives, said that Jim Bridenstine will be an excellent NASA Administrator. He has the understanding, background, capability, and, more importantly, the drive and desire to do an excellent and outstanding job at NASA. I urge my colleagues to vote yes.

You just heard our colleague Richard Burr talk about Director Pompeo's nomination as Secretary of State. Blind bipartisanship cannot be the only reason that drives votes in this Chamber. Whether it is for the Secretary of State or the Director of NASA, I urge my colleagues to vote yes, put partisanship aside, and start moving these nominations and doing what is right for this country. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on Jim Bridenstine.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, Ambassador Ware was a true light of poise and patriotism, strength and dignity, her presence firm and her personality embracing, warm, and loving. Her politics she did well, but the policy achievements delivered through her politics and philanthropy will be her lasting legacy.

Starting at the grassroots, she began her political career in Pennsylvania serving as a county chairperson eventually rising to chair Governor Tom Ridge's two successful gubernatorial campaigns. In 2002, President George Bush asked her to serve on the National Critical Infrastructure Advisory Council, a position she held until she was named the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Finland in 2005. She was an outstanding diplomat and a great representative of the United States.

I recall telling Ambassador Ware about one of my favorite duties as a Member of Congress--the opportunity to call students to tell them they had received an appointment to a service academy. She smiled fondly as I told

my story, and then she told me her own. As ambassador, she was deeply impressed with an officer in the U.S. military with whom she had been working. She asked if she could call the officer's parents to express, as ambassador, her gratitude and that of the Nation, for the outstanding work the officer had been doing. Ambassador Ware reached the officer's father. During the discussion, the father asked again what the ambassador's name was and if Marilyn was the daughter of Congressman John Ware. Ambassador Ware replied yes. The father went on to explain how it was Congressman Ware who had given his son his academy nomination many years before. Her story highlighted the full circle of a family committed to public service--a cherished trait that continues in her family today.

There are so many causes that Ambassador Ware championed, so many to talk about: AEI, her work with sustainable clean water, caring for children with learning disabilities at the Janus School, and the Clinic for Special Children, and of course, The Phoenix, which you can't think about without seeing that twinkle in her eye, along with countless others.

She made our country a better, stronger place. Ambassador Ware will not only be remembered by her friends and family but by those whose lives she bettered along the way. I will miss her leadership and guidance and will always remember the amazing work Ambassador Ware did for our community and our country.

Ambassador Ware, and to her family, we are forever grateful.

Mr. President, over the past 24 hours we have learned of a high-level meeting between Director Pompeo--Mike Pompeo, the President's nominee to become Secretary of State--and Kim Jong Un, the leader--the tyrant leader--of North Korea, who has threatened to use nuclear weapons not only against our allies but against the United States and has a growing capability in his efforts to do just that.

We have also seen incredible partisan obstruction threatened on his nomination. The absurd levels of partisanship in this Chamber are a stain on our institution. We see it at every level of nominations, from ambassadorships to commissions to boards. Now we see it at the level of the Secretary of State, a position that will be instrumental in denuclearizing the North Korean regime.

Director Pompeo had his confirmation hearing last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We now know that his testimony at this committee hearing took place after he had visited Kim Jong Un, and in this committee hearing, he made it very clear that our goal remains the complete and verifiable irreversible denuclearization. That is the stated goal, confirmed by Director Pompeo: the complete and verifiable irreversible denuclearization of North Korea. Yet we now have people threatening to stop this nomination at a critical time when we face a nuclear threat that is the greatest this country has seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would decide to deny this country its top State Department diplomat.

Let me describe what some of our colleagues have said who have claimed now that they are going to vote against Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State but who, just a few months back, voted to confirm Mike Pompeo. One of my colleagues who is voting against Director Pompeo for Secretary of State has admitted that Director Pompeo has been a ``solid manager'' of the CIA, saying:

I voted for him to head the CIA and don't wish I had that

vote back. I think he has a background in intel and has been

a solid manager there.

Another colleague, who tried to criticize Director Pompeo's diversity policies at the CIA, was met with this response from Director Pompeo, who explained at the hearing that those types of complaints decreased under his leadership. Mike Pompeo stated: ``The number of--we call them `no fear complaints'--the statutory requirement decreased from 2016 to 2017 by 40 percent.''

Director Pompeo further explained: ``I'm proud of the record . . . the work that my team has done on this.''

So concerns about diversity policies was refuted at the committee hearing.

Another Senator seems worried that Mike Pompeo is conducting diplomacy and said: ``Pompeo is the wrong person to be engaging in diplomacy.''

The nominee to be Secretary of State is the wrong person to be conducting diplomacy? Perhaps we need somebody working at the Department of Transportation. Maybe that is the person they want to conduct diplomacy. Building interstates--maybe that is who they think should be conducting diplomacy. I would rather have somebody who has been nominated to be Secretary of State to be conducting diplomacy-- somebody who has an outstanding background in the military, somebody who stood in Europe during the height of the Cold War, standing on the iron wall.

This is a time when we ought to be doing everything we can to confirm a Secretary of State--somebody who has had meetings already with Kim Jong Un, who has an understanding of what has to happen to achieve what Kim Jong Un has said--denuclearization--to achieve what is the goal of this country, the stated goal that is already enshrined in law: complete and verifiable irreversible denuclearization.

To simply oppose his nomination for partisan purposes is wrong. We have seen it time and again. What we have is a simple partisan effort to derail the top diplomat, who is already engaged in top-level negotiations about denuclearization with the most significant threat this country has seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This country deserves better. Certainly this institution can do better.

We have somebody in Mike Pompeo with a solid background, an understanding of diplomacy and, clearly, the intelligence background through his time at the CIA, and now he would be denied this opportunity simply because of his political affiliation.

This country deserves better.

I urge my colleagues to stop this absurd obstruction and confirm Mike Pompeo, and let's get to work achieving what could be lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. That time is now, and I urge my colleagues to take the opportunity for peace.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.