Floor Statements

Madam President, I rise to speak in opposition to the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to serve as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Let me begin by making clear my view that the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia was President Obama's to fill. In an act of unprecedented obstructionism that makes a filibuster pale in comparison, Senate Republicans broke with longstanding Senate tradition and refused to hold a vote or even a hearing on President Obama's nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.

As we now consider President Trump's nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, we cannot ignore or forget this hyperpartisan action. We also cannot ignore how President Trump came to nominate Judge Gorsuch. President Trump went to two of the most partisan, conservative organizations he could find--the Koch brothers-supported Heritage Foundation and the rightwing Federalist Society--and said to them: Who do you want on the Supreme Court? They compiled their dream team of 21 ultraconservative candidates. President Trump looked at the names on that list and asked himself which judge could pass the rightwing litmus tests he had articulated during the campaign. His choice was Judge Neil Gorsuch.

On the campaign trail, Candidate Donald Trump made clear that he was pro-life and would appoint pro-life judges to the Supreme Court. In one interview, he was asked about his pro-life position as follows:

So, how important is that issue to you now? When President

Trump picks Supreme Court justices, would there be a litmus

test?

Trump responded:

It is. It is.

During the second Presidential debate, Candidate Trump doubled down on this issue. He was asked specifically about Roe v. Wade, the longstanding Supreme Court precedent establishing a woman's right to choose. The question to Candidate Trump was ``Do you want the court, including the justices that you will name, to overturn Roe v. Wade?''

Trump responded that he would ``be appointing pro-life judges,'' adding, ``Well, if we put another two or perhaps three justices on . . . that will happen,'' meaning Roe v. Wade will be overturned.

We know from Donald Trump's own words that he had a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees on a woman's right to choose. That litmus test is that he will appoint only pro-life Justices who are committed to overturning Roe v. Wade.

What about a litmus test on guns? During the Presidential campaign, Candidate Trump repeatedly emphasized his pro-gun views, which are in lockstep with the National Rifle Association. He was asked about a litmus test for the Second Amendment--specifically, the precedent established in the 2008 Supreme Court case of District of Columbia v. Heller. In Heller, the Justices ruled 5 to 4 that a commonsense Washington, DC, law banning handguns and requiring other firearms to be stored unloaded or locked violated the Second Amendment.

Candidate Trump was asked: ``Will you make upholding the Heller decision a litmus test in Supreme Court nominees?''

Trump answered: ``Yes, I would.''

The followup question: ``So you won't nominate somebody to the Supreme

Court unless they agree with Scalia on the Heller decision?''

Trump responded: ``Correct.''

We know from Donald Trump's own words that he had a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees on guns--his judges must support the National Rifle Association's agenda and its unreasonable and dangerously broad view of the Second Amendment.

From that list of 21 names provided to him by the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society, President Trump chose Judge Neil Gorsuch, apparently convinced that he was the man who would pass these litmus tests.

The Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on Judge Gorsuch were an opportunity for him to dispel doubts about his independence that President Trump's selection process had raised. Unfortunately, Judge Gorsuch did nothing to address these concerns. In fact, his appearance before the Judiciary Committee raised more questions than it answered because Judge Gorsuch was positively sphinx-like before the Senators questioning him.

For example, when repeatedly asked about something as elementary as his judicial philosophy, Judge Gorsuch refused to answer. He declined to say whether he agreed with the Roe v. Wade decision, the District of Columbia v. Heller decision, or other controversial decisions, such as Citizens United, which opened the floodgates to unrestricted, secret money in electoral campaigns, or even the decision in Bush v. Gore, which decided the 2000 Presidential election.

Judge Gorsuch also refused to respond whether he agreed with other Supreme Court precedents on the right to privacy, the right to counsel in criminal proceedings, voting rights, or same-sex marriage. Contrast that to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who during her confirmation hearing explained that she fully understood the individual right to bear arms that the Supreme Court recognized in the Heller decision. Contrast that with Justice Anthony Kennedy, who during his hearing praised the Supreme Court's landmark 1963 decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, which established the right to counsel in criminal cases. Even contrast Judge Gorsuch with Chief Justice John Roberts, who at his hearing affirmed that privacy is part of the liberty interest protected by the due process clause. Instead, at his hearing, Judge Gorsuch repeatedly parroted that critical Supreme Court decisions were precedents of the Court ``that he would follow unless and until they are overturned.'' He shed no light on what he felt about those precedents or whether he would be inclined or disinclined to vote to overturn them.

Only after considerable prodding did Judge Gorsuch eventually agree that the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which did away with the doctrine of separate but equal and desegregated schools across our Nation, was correct. Having to pry out of Judge Gorsuch that concession does not inspire confidence in him.

His performance at the hearings left us with many troubling things that we don't know about Judge Gorsuch, but equally troubling about Judge Gorsuch are the things we do know about him.

We do know that Judge Gorsuch authored the Hobby Lobby decision in which he ruled that corporations are people whose religious beliefs are more important than the reproductive rights and health of women.

We do know that Judge Gorsuch has questioned the judicial doctrine of what is known as Chevron deference. That is the rule from the Supreme Court case of Chevron v. The Natural Resources Defense Council under which judges must generally defer to expert administrative agency interpretations of laws they are charged with administering. In a speech last year, Judge Gorsuch attacked the modern administrative state that has developed under Chevron, saying that it ``poses a grave threat to our values of personal liberty.''

What Judge Gorsuch is saying is not some abstract legal theorizing; he is attacking the fundamental rules that protect the health, safety, and welfare of all Americans that are put in place by agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the decades since Chevron was decided, it has been instrumental in courts upholding these agency rules that ensure that our air and drinking water are clean; rules that ensure that drugs and medicines are safe and effective; rules that ensure that our automobiles, workplaces, food, medicine, and children's toys are not dangerous; and rules that ensure our financial markets are fair and offer investors a level playing field.

Even Justice Scalia supported Chevron deference. But Judge Gorsuch has signaled that he would overturn it and instead allow pro-corporate judges to substitute their policy views for those of the agency experts. If threatening the destruction of the regulations that protect the health, safety, and welfare of Americans sounds familiar, it should. It is straight out of the alt-right, Steve Bannon playbook. And it is a fringe position that is not worthy of representation on our Nation's highest Court.

We also know that the Supreme Court just rejected Judge Gorsuch's harsh reasoning in a disabilities rights case. A few years ago, Judge Gorsuch wrote an opinion for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. That opinion held that schools across the country must provide educational benefits to students with disabilities that must be ``merely more than de minimis.'' But just last week, in an IDEA case, all eight Supreme Court Justices disagreed with Judge Gorsuch. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the IDEA--the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act-- is ``markedly more demanding than the `merely more than de minimis' test applied by the Tenth Circuit,'' and added that Judge Gorsuch's approach would effectively strip many disabled students of their right to an education.

We also know that Judge Gorsuch has consistently ruled against employees in cases involving claims of unsafe workplaces and sex discrimination, and he has repeatedly sided with insurance companies that sought to deny disability benefits to employees.

Here is something else we know. If the first 75 days of the Trump administration are a preview of coming attractions, one thing could not be more clear: The U.S. Supreme Court's rule defending the Constitution will be tested as never before: conflicts of interest, emoluments, Muslim bans, rescinding LGBTQ protections. The list of constitutional rights the Trump administration is violating gets longer every single day.

Now more than ever, we need a Supreme Court Justice who is independent and not beholden to ideology. Now more than ever, we need a Justice who will stand up for the rights of all Americans against big corporate interests. A Justice who would be to the right of Antonin Scalia on the issue of Chevron deference is not a mainstream Justice. A Justice who would be to the right of Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas by a substantial margin--as professors from Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin concluded after examining Judge Gorsuch's opinions on the Tenth Circuit, and the Supreme Court's decisions reviewing them--is not someone within the mainstream of American jurisprudence.

Everything we have seen so far--from Donald Trump's judicial litmus tests, to the visible hand of rightwing interest groups in the selection process, to Judge Gorsuch's reticence before the Judiciary Committee, to his pro-corporate bias in cases he has decided--leads me to the conclusion that he will be neither a Justice for all Americans, nor one on whom we can count to stand up to President Trump.

We cannot let Judge Neil Gorsuch become the crucial ninth vote on the Supreme Court. One Justice matters. The list of recent 5-to-4 decisions coming out of the Supreme Court shows that one judge's vote can forever alter history. Just remember that Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, District of Columbia v. Heller, and the Affordable Care Act, were all decided by 5-to-4 votes.

I will, therefore, oppose Judge Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court and support the filibuster, and I urge my colleagues to do so, as well. If Judge Gorsuch cannot muster 60 votes, the problem is not with the process, it is with the nominee. If Judge Gorsuch cannot get to the 60 votes historically required for confirmation to the Nation's highest Court, I urge President Trump to withdraw his nomination and

consult with a wide range of Senators--legal scholars and others who past Presidents have sought out before making a Supreme Court nomination--and put before us someone in the mold of Merrick Garland, who can enjoy bipartisan support and be within the broad mainstream of American jurisprudential history.

Otherwise, the consequences of forcing Judge Gorsuch's nomination through will fall squarely on the shoulders of President Trump and his Republican allies in the Senate, if they decide to exercise the nuclear option, forever changing the history of the United States Senate.

I urge a ``no'' vote on Judge Gorsuch.

I yield back to the Chair.

Mr. President, I was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of my dear friend David Culp in early February. As one of the leaders of the arms control community for decades, David was an indefatigable advocate for reducing the threat of catastrophic nuclear war and stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In particular, David's work was critical for Senate ratification of the New START Treaty, which established limits on the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia.

More recently, David worked closely with my staff on a number of arms control initiatives, including my efforts to scale back the Pentagon's trillion-dollar nuclear spending spree, restrain excessive and destabilizing missile defense systems, and cancel a new nuclear-armed cruise ``missile that would make Americans less safe.

I will miss David's wisdom, humor, and strategic insight, but I am comforted to know that his legacy lives on in the robust and committed arms control community he helped lead. I will continue to be inspired by David's memory, and I offer my deepest condolences to his friends and his family.

Mr. President, we are here today because Republicans' discrimination against women knows no boundaries. They think a woman's right to choose is still up for discussion. It is not.

Let me be clear. A woman's right to choose is a discussion for a woman and her doctor. That is it. A healthcare provider receiving Federal funds should be judged on their ability to serve a patient. That is it.

Today, Republicans are voting on a measure that would allow States to discriminate against family planning providers simply because they do not like the populations they treat or the services they provide. It would embolden a State to restrict Federal funding for only health centers that serve primarily minority populations or patients who identify as LGBTQ, and it would allow a State to strip away Federal investments in family planning

clinics that serve women's reproductive health needs.

These are not hypothetical concerns. Women's reproductive care is under attack by extreme rightwing Republicans across this country. State politicians introduced more than 500 bills restricting access to reproductive healthcare in 2016, enacting more than 60 new abortion restrictions last year.

Let's be clear. The result of today's vote means that there will be less access to care for women and families across this country. Health centers receiving title X funding provide basic primary and preventive healthcare services, such as HIV testing and contraception, to more than 4 million women and men at nearly 4,000 healthcare centers nationwide. It is because of the work done at these centers that we are now at a 30-year low in unintended pregnancies, a historic low in teen pregnancies, and we have the lowest rate of abortions since the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was legal in 1973. We are a healthier Nation because of family planning clinics that receive title X funding.

Now, more than ever, we need to stand and raise our voice against the Republican Party's agenda of discrimination. It is about fighting for the freedom to make decisions in our personal lives without the fear of interference from our own government. It is about the access to opportunity that comes from quality, affordable healthcare and making sure that access is never restricted, no matter what gender you are. But with Donald Trump as President and both Chambers of Congress now controlled by the GOP, national Republicans are in the best position in decades to enact a radical agenda that rolls back women's rights. Today is just one step in their massive plan to take women's rights right back to the 19th century.

I know they will not back down from enacting their radical agenda, but I also know that we who want to protect women's rights will not back down from this fight. It is a historic battle. This vote is a historic vote.

I urge all Members to vote no.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, today, we are truly in a historic fight, a fight to protect one of the most treasured and revered American values--our right to privacy. Make no mistake, our privacy has never been more in danger, and the American public knows it.

The American public knows its privacy is in danger when a smart TV can listen to its most intimate living room conversations--your conversations with your children, with your parents, with your spouse.

The American public knows its privacy is in danger when it seems that every day there is a hack on the databases of one of our country's largest companies--Yahoo!, Target, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase.

The American public knows its privacy is in danger when the Russian surveillance machine--firing on all cylinders--hacks the U.S. election, threatening to undermine our sacred democratic system.

The American public knows its privacy is in danger when both Chambers of Congress hold countless hearings, launch investigations, and receive briefings on the rapidly growing cybersecurity threat to our Nation and the impact both on our national security and to the public.

The American public wants us to do more to protect its privacy. The American public wants us to do more to protect its sensitive information. Yet what do the Republicans in Congress want to do today on the Senate floor? They want to make it easier for Americans' sensitive information to be used, shared, and sold without their permission.

Today, the Republicans are seeking a vote on a Congressional Review Act resolution that would allow Comcast, Verizon, Charter, AT&T, and other broadband companies to take control away from consumers and relentlessly collect and sell their sensitive information without the consent of that family.

That is sensitive information about your health, about your finances, even about your children. They want to track your location and draw a map of where you shop, where you work, where you eat, where your children go to school, and then sell that information to data brokers or anyone else who wants to make a profit off of you.

They want to document how many times you search online for heart disease, breast cancer, opioid addiction treatments, or AIDS treatment, and then sell that information to your insurance company. They want to know what games your teenagers play or shows they watch so they can then target ads to your family--and all of this done without your consent.

What the Republicans are bringing to the floor today is going to basically change the definition of ``ISP''--internet service provider-- to ``information sold for profit.'' It will stand for ``invading subscriber privacy.''

President Trump, himself, is outraged about fake violations of his own privacy, but we should all be alarmed by this very real violation of privacy that will occur today if the Senate decides to roll back these important consumer protections.

Here on the Senate floor, the Republicans are fighting to make it easier for your broadband provider to use and sell that same type of information--remarkably detailed and sensitive dossiers of information about you, your kids, your parents, your grandparents--320 million Americans.

The Republicans are trying to rescind the Federal Communications Commission's broadband privacy rules, which simply require your cable, wireless, or telephone company provider to obtain consumer consent before using or sharing subscribers' personal information; promote transparency by disclosing what they collect about internet and wireless users; and adopt data security protections and notify consumers if a breach occurs.

That is it. That is what this whole debate is all about--whether consumers, not the broadband providers, have control over their sensitive information.

The big broadband companies and their Republican allies say we need a light touch regulatory framework to protect Americans' broadband privacy--a light touch approach, like with the Federal Trade Commission, which does not prescribe actual privacy rules. The Federal Trade Commission only enforces the privacy policies companies create for themselves, and then they bring an enforcement action if a company violates its own very low standards, but if Comcast's or AT&T's or Verizon's policy is that you have no privacy, there is nothing for anyone to enforce. It would be impossible for the internet service provider to violate its own nonexistent or very low privacy protections.

Let's be clear here. When the broadband behemoths say ``light touch,'' they mean ``hands off.'' They mean hands off their ability to monetize captive consumers' sensitive information.

Let's be clear. When the big broadband barons and their Republican allies are firing their opening salvo in the war on net neutrality, they want broadband privacy protections to be the first victim.

When Republicans say we need to harmonize regulations, they really mean self-regulation. Self-regulation is the ultimate dream of the Republicans, who are beholden to those special interests. They really want to allow broadband companies to write their own privacy rules.

Is this really what the American public wants--a harmonized, light- touch approach to protecting their sensitive information from their broadband providers? Does the American public really want us to allow our broadband companies to ignore reasonable data security practices, making consumers' sensitive information more vulnerable to breaches and unauthorized access?

This resolution does just that. The internet service providers even oppose

following reasonable data security practices.

We should know better. The American public wants us to strengthen our privacy protections, not weaken them. The American people do not want their sensitive information collected, used, and sold by any third party, whether that be your broadband provider or a hacker.

At its core, this debate is about our values--our values as a people, our values as a society. While technology has certainly changed, our core values have not changed as a country. For generations, we have valued the right to choose whom we let into our homes, whom we communicate with, whom we share our most sensitive secrets with, but now the Republicans and the broadband industry are telling us that we must forgo those rights just because our homes are connected to the internet and our phones are connected to the internet.

With many Americans across the country having only a couple of broadband providers, at most, to choose from, they will not have the option of changing service providers if their privacy protections are not transparent or robust. And throughout it all, while the internet service providers monetize your personal information, the monthly bill will continue to show up for the service that is siphoning off your sensitive information.

My colleagues, we know the attack on the free and open internet is coming. Net neutrality is on the chopping block, and this is the first step in ensuring that the few and the powerful control the internet. We must stop this today, so I urge my colleagues to join with me.

The fundamental principle here is that every person should have the knowledge that information is being gathered about their families when they use the internet; second, that they have notice from the company that that information is going to be resold to a third party, to someone else, not to the broadband company; and third, that you have the right to say no, that you do not want that information about your family member to be resold.

When we were all younger and the salesman came to the front door and knocked, your mother told you to tell the salesman that they could not come into the house because the privacy of your family did not warrant allowing a stranger into your home. The broadband companies now say: Well, we are in your home, and we are wired in every room, and we now have the right to take all of the information of your family and sell it. What sites do your children go on? What sites do you go on to look for help for the disease that someone in your family might have?

Now the broadband companies say they are coming right through the front door. They are going into every room in your house. The American people have the right to say what they have always said: No, you cannot take those secrets of our family. You cannot take how we use that information.

So this vote that we are about to take in the next couple of hours on the Senate floor goes right to the heart of who we are.

We now hear more about the Russians, and we hear more about companies whose information has been hacked. Then the Republicans are crying their crocodile tears about the compromise of privacy of people in our country, and then they come to the floor and take all of the information online in the family and allow it to be sold as a product. That is just fundamentally wrong. It goes contrary to the values of our country.

I urge very strongly a ``no'' vote from the Members of the Senate. Just remember: This is the privacy vote of all time on the Senate floor--of all time--because there has never been anything like the internet going into our homes. No one should be allowed to take all of that information and just sell it without getting their permission.

Mr. President, I urge a ``no'' vote on this resolution.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to speak again today about the epidemic of deadly, illicit fentanyl plaguing our Nation and how, through bipartisan legislation I have introduced today, we can help to stop this dangerous opioid from flowing into our country from abroad.

I want to start by providing some basic information about fentanyl. What

is fentanyl? Well, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine. Although pharmaceutical fentanyl can be misused, the current fentanyl epidemic in our country is being fueled by illicitly manufactured fentanyl and illicit versions of chemically similar compounds known as fentanyl analogs.

Fentanyl, in its powder form, is often mixed with other illegal drugs like heroin or it is disguised in pill form to resemble an opioid painkiller like OxyContin. Many drug users overdose on fentanyl because they have no idea it is cut into whatever substance they are injecting or whatever pills they are swallowing. They simply do not realize just how deadly fentanyl is.

In fact, just a few salt-size grains of fentanyl can kill an adult. Where does illicit fentanyl come from? According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Mexico is the primary source for illicit fentanyl trafficked into the United States. Distributors in China are the principal source of the precursor chemicals, the chemical building blocks used to manufacture fentanyl in Mexico and elsewhere.

China is also a source of finished product illicit fentanyl coming into the United States. Why is illicit fentanyl trafficking increasing? Well, we are in the midst of an opioid epidemic that has begun with the overprescription and resulting abuse of prescription opioids like OxyContin. When users found those pills too expensive to sustain their addiction, they turned to cheaper heroin.

Now they are turning to even cheaper and more powerful fentanyl, which has become an extremely lucrative product for drug dealers and drug cartels. According to the DEA, a kilogram of heroin can be purchased from Colombia for about $6,000 and then sold on the wholesale drug market for $80,000--purchased for 6,000, sold for $80,000. By comparison, a kilogram of pure fentanyl can be purchased from China for less than $5,000 and then sold on the market for $80,000 as well.

Because it is so potent that 1 kilogram of fentanyl can be cut with agents like talcum powder or caffeine, resulting in 24 kilograms of product to be sold, that means that one $5,000 kilogram of fentanyl actually reaps a whopping profit in the neighborhood of $1.6 million.

What has been the impact of the fentanyl epidemic on the United States? Well, the DEA is so concerned about fentanyl that in March of 2015, it issued a nationwide alert that highlighted the drug as a threat to health and public safety. Between 2014 and 2015, overdose deaths in the United States from synthetic opioids, principally illicit fentanyl, increased 72 percent.

In 2015, there were more than 9,500 such overdose deaths in the United States. Last year, it is estimated that my home State of Massachusetts suffered more than 2,000 opioid-related overdose deaths, largely fueled by the deadly rise of illicit fentanyl. In fact, Massachusetts ranked second notionally per capita in synthetic opioid deaths, which includes fentanyl, with the number of deaths between 2014 and 2015 increasing by 109 percent.

Massachusetts authorities are now finding fentanyl in 74 percent of the State's opioid overdose deaths. If those figures hold up, that means last year there will have been roughly 1,500 fentanyl-related deaths in Massachusetts in 2016. If the fentanyl epidemic were to hit the entire Nation as hard as it is hitting Massachusetts, the country would lose almost 75,000 people each year to fentanyl. Think about that. Those are more deaths than the United States suffered in the entire Vietnam war.

Fentanyl is the Godzilla of opioids. It will overrun communities and lay them to waste, unless we take action now to stop it. So how do we stop it? There is no easy solution to a crisis caused by a drug that is so small, so powerful, so profitable that those who traffic in it just want to make money, but we know we must act.

First, we need to raise awareness of the dire threat fentanyl poses to our Nation. We need to educate the public about it. We need to elevate the issues to the highest levels of our government and the governments of the countries from which it comes. To help with that effort, last week, the Senate adopted a bipartisan sense of the Senate resolution on fentanyl trafficking that I introduced with Senator Rubio from Florida. I thank him for his partnership on that resolution. I thank Senators Toomey, Shaheen, King, Johnson, and Nelson for adding their support.

The resolution calls on our government to use its broad diplomatic and law enforcement resources in partnership with Mexico and China to disrupt the trafficking of fentanyl. We are seeing the signs of some progress. In October of 2015, China added 116 synthetic chemicals, including 6 fentanyl products, to its list of controlled chemical substances. In February of 2017, China agreed to make carfentanil, a powerful fentanyl analogue, and three other fentanyl analogues illegal.

Earlier this month, I led a group of 10 Senators in urging Secretary of State Tillerson to secure the votes of the 53 member nations of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in favor of the scheduling of the fentanyl precursors. Last week, the Commission voted unanimously in favor of controlling these substances. This international cooperation is expected to yield meaningful dividends in the fight against illicit fentanyl.

Fentanyl will require us to build bridges to our international partners, not walls. Indeed, I recently visited Mexico, where I met with law enforcement officials at the border, on the front lines of the smuggling and trafficking of narcotics into the United States. That is why today, Senators Rubio, Brown, Capito, and I introduced legislation to help this front line of drug detection at the border. It is called the INTERDICT Act. It provides badly needed high-tech equipment and other resources to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to help it detect and interdict illicit fentanyl being trafficked into the United States.

Here is how it works. There are two principal ways drugs like fentanyl are trafficked into the United States. First, coming from Mexico, they are smuggled across the southwest border of the United States. They are hidden in vehicles, beneath false floors, behind hidden compartments, and elsewhere. The drugs are also carried into the United States by people, sometimes hidden in the hollowed-out heels of their shoes.

Second, illegal fentanyl is also purchased online from overseas vendors in China and elsewhere--often on the dark web--and then shipped to Mexico or directly to the United States through the mail or express consignment carriers.

Fentanyl shipped this way is often concealed inside legitimate goods, with fentanyl suppliers using various methods to mislabel shipments. For example, some conceal the powder in those small silica packages that say ``do not eat'' placed alongside everyday items. Others gift wrap shipments or label them as household products like laundry detergent to avoid detection.

Customs and Border Protection has many different methods it uses to find contraband being smuggled into the United States at the border or through the mail. These include drug-sniffing dogs, various kinds of scanners, fiber-optic scopes, and physical searches. When Customs and Border Protection finds a suspicious substance using those and other methods, it has had success identifying it as an illicit drug like fentanyl with the help of high-tech, handheld chemical screening devices.

So anytime Customs and Border Protection finds a suspicious powder, pill, or liquid, it can use a handheld device--really something that looks and feels like a Nintendo Game Boy--to conduct a test, in the field, with real-time results. That means narcotics like illicit fentanyl can be detected, identified, and seized quickly and on the spot. Those rapid results provide vital information for law enforcement officers to continue their investigation and, if appropriate, proceed with seizure and arrest. Not only does the use of this technology disrupt the flow of the drugs into the country, it protects the health and safety of law enforcement officials from exposure to dangerous substances like illicit fentanyl.

Often, Border Patrol agents don't know what the powdery substance they have uncovered is and whether it poses a threat to them. That is especially alarming with illicit fentanyl, given its strength.

Exposure to a small amount by contact with the skin or through inhalation can be fatal. Increased use of these high-tech devices will provide important protections for our law enforcement officers on the front lines. The INTERDICT Act also provides for additional equipment back in Customs and Border Protection laboratories, including more scientists who analyze and interpret test results.

The INTERDICT Act ensures that Customs and Border Patrol will have hundreds of additional portable chemical screening devices available at international ports of entry and mail and express consignment facilities and additional equipment and personnel available in their laboratories so that they can provide support during all operational hours.

Again, I thank Senator Rubio, Senator Brown, and Senator Capito for working together on a bipartisan basis so we can give these additional tools to fight this fentanyl epidemic. I urge all my colleagues to support this bill to fight the scourge of illicit drugs. It knows no political, geographic, or socioeconomic boundaries. It is the epidemic of our time.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to speak again today about the epidemic of deadly, illicit fentanyl plaguing our Nation and how, through bipartisan legislation I have introduced today, we can help to stop this dangerous opioid from flowing into our country from abroad.

I want to start by providing some basic information about fentanyl. What

is fentanyl? Well, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine. Although pharmaceutical fentanyl can be misused, the current fentanyl epidemic in our country is being fueled by illicitly manufactured fentanyl and illicit versions of chemically similar compounds known as fentanyl analogs.

Fentanyl, in its powder form, is often mixed with other illegal drugs like heroin or it is disguised in pill form to resemble an opioid painkiller like OxyContin. Many drug users overdose on fentanyl because they have no idea it is cut into whatever substance they are injecting or whatever pills they are swallowing. They simply do not realize just how deadly fentanyl is.

In fact, just a few salt-size grains of fentanyl can kill an adult. Where does illicit fentanyl come from? According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Mexico is the primary source for illicit fentanyl trafficked into the United States. Distributors in China are the principal source of the precursor chemicals, the chemical building blocks used to manufacture fentanyl in Mexico and elsewhere.

China is also a source of finished product illicit fentanyl coming into the United States. Why is illicit fentanyl trafficking increasing? Well, we are in the midst of an opioid epidemic that has begun with the overprescription and resulting abuse of prescription opioids like OxyContin. When users found those pills too expensive to sustain their addiction, they turned to cheaper heroin.

Now they are turning to even cheaper and more powerful fentanyl, which has become an extremely lucrative product for drug dealers and drug cartels. According to the DEA, a kilogram of heroin can be purchased from Colombia for about $6,000 and then sold on the wholesale drug market for $80,000--purchased for 6,000, sold for $80,000. By comparison, a kilogram of pure fentanyl can be purchased from China for less than $5,000 and then sold on the market for $80,000 as well.

Because it is so potent that 1 kilogram of fentanyl can be cut with agents like talcum powder or caffeine, resulting in 24 kilograms of product to be sold, that means that one $5,000 kilogram of fentanyl actually reaps a whopping profit in the neighborhood of $1.6 million.

What has been the impact of the fentanyl epidemic on the United States? Well, the DEA is so concerned about fentanyl that in March of 2015, it issued a nationwide alert that highlighted the drug as a threat to health and public safety. Between 2014 and 2015, overdose deaths in the United States from synthetic opioids, principally illicit fentanyl, increased 72 percent.

In 2015, there were more than 9,500 such overdose deaths in the United States. Last year, it is estimated that my home State of Massachusetts suffered more than 2,000 opioid-related overdose deaths, largely fueled by the deadly rise of illicit fentanyl. In fact, Massachusetts ranked second notionally per capita in synthetic opioid deaths, which includes fentanyl, with the number of deaths between 2014 and 2015 increasing by 109 percent.

Massachusetts authorities are now finding fentanyl in 74 percent of the State's opioid overdose deaths. If those figures hold up, that means last year there will have been roughly 1,500 fentanyl-related deaths in Massachusetts in 2016. If the fentanyl epidemic were to hit the entire Nation as hard as it is hitting Massachusetts, the country would lose almost 75,000 people each year to fentanyl. Think about that. Those are more deaths than the United States suffered in the entire Vietnam war.

Fentanyl is the Godzilla of opioids. It will overrun communities and lay them to waste, unless we take action now to stop it. So how do we stop it? There is no easy solution to a crisis caused by a drug that is so small, so powerful, so profitable that those who traffic in it just want to make money, but we know we must act.

First, we need to raise awareness of the dire threat fentanyl poses to our Nation. We need to educate the public about it. We need to elevate the issues to the highest levels of our government and the governments of the countries from which it comes. To help with that effort, last week, the Senate adopted a bipartisan sense of the Senate resolution on fentanyl trafficking that I introduced with Senator Rubio from Florida. I thank him for his partnership on that resolution. I thank Senators Toomey, Shaheen, King, Johnson, and Nelson for adding their support.

The resolution calls on our government to use its broad diplomatic and law enforcement resources in partnership with Mexico and China to disrupt the trafficking of fentanyl. We are seeing the signs of some progress. In October of 2015, China added 116 synthetic chemicals, including 6 fentanyl products, to its list of controlled chemical substances. In February of 2017, China agreed to make carfentanil, a powerful fentanyl analogue, and three other fentanyl analogues illegal.

Earlier this month, I led a group of 10 Senators in urging Secretary of State Tillerson to secure the votes of the 53 member nations of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in favor of the scheduling of the fentanyl precursors. Last week, the Commission voted unanimously in favor of controlling these substances. This international cooperation is expected to yield meaningful dividends in the fight against illicit fentanyl.

Fentanyl will require us to build bridges to our international partners, not walls. Indeed, I recently visited Mexico, where I met with law enforcement officials at the border, on the front lines of the smuggling and trafficking of narcotics into the United States. That is why today, Senators Rubio, Brown, Capito, and I introduced legislation to help this front line of drug detection at the border. It is called the INTERDICT Act. It provides badly needed high-tech equipment and other resources to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to help it detect and interdict illicit fentanyl being trafficked into the United States.

Here is how it works. There are two principal ways drugs like fentanyl are trafficked into the United States. First, coming from Mexico, they are smuggled across the southwest border of the United States. They are hidden in vehicles, beneath false floors, behind hidden compartments, and elsewhere. The drugs are also carried into the United States by people, sometimes hidden in the hollowed-out heels of their shoes.

Second, illegal fentanyl is also purchased online from overseas vendors in China and elsewhere--often on the dark web--and then shipped to Mexico or directly to the United States through the mail or express consignment carriers.

Fentanyl shipped this way is often concealed inside legitimate goods, with fentanyl suppliers using various methods to mislabel shipments. For example, some conceal the powder in those small silica packages that say ``do not eat'' placed alongside everyday items. Others gift wrap shipments or label them as household products like laundry detergent to avoid detection.

Customs and Border Protection has many different methods it uses to find contraband being smuggled into the United States at the border or through the mail. These include drug-sniffing dogs, various kinds of scanners, fiber-optic scopes, and physical searches. When Customs and Border Protection finds a suspicious substance using those and other methods, it has had success identifying it as an illicit drug like fentanyl with the help of high-tech, handheld chemical screening devices.

So anytime Customs and Border Protection finds a suspicious powder, pill, or liquid, it can use a handheld device--really something that looks and feels like a Nintendo Game Boy--to conduct a test, in the field, with real-time results. That means narcotics like illicit fentanyl can be detected, identified, and seized quickly and on the spot. Those rapid results provide vital information for law enforcement officers to continue their investigation and, if appropriate, proceed with seizure and arrest. Not only does the use of this technology disrupt the flow of the drugs into the country, it protects the health and safety of law enforcement officials from exposure to dangerous substances like illicit fentanyl.

Often, Border Patrol agents don't know what the powdery substance they have uncovered is and whether it poses a threat to them. That is especially alarming with illicit fentanyl, given its strength.

Exposure to a small amount by contact with the skin or through inhalation can be fatal. Increased use of these high-tech devices will provide important protections for our law enforcement officers on the front lines. The INTERDICT Act also provides for additional equipment back in Customs and Border Protection laboratories, including more scientists who analyze and interpret test results.

The INTERDICT Act ensures that Customs and Border Patrol will have hundreds of additional portable chemical screening devices available at international ports of entry and mail and express consignment facilities and additional equipment and personnel available in their laboratories so that they can provide support during all operational hours.

Again, I thank Senator Rubio, Senator Brown, and Senator Capito for working together on a bipartisan basis so we can give these additional tools to fight this fentanyl epidemic. I urge all my colleagues to support this bill to fight the scourge of illicit drugs. It knows no political, geographic, or socioeconomic boundaries. It is the epidemic of our time.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President.

We have a historic debate going on here in Congress. Yes, there is a lot of discussion about the Russians cracking into our elections using electronic technologies. We have a President of the United States who is contending that his predecessor in the White House wiretapped his apartment in the Trump Tower. We have stories about the compromise of websites all across America--this company, that company, millions of healthcare records, people's privacy compromised, front page, above the fold. This is huge. What is going on in our country when this new technology allows for such an invasion into the privacy of the President of the United States, of citizens all across our country?

These hearings are going on right now in rooms all across Capitol Hill. Everyone is concerned. Everyone is cross-examining witnesses, saying: How can this happen in our country? And then they are told: Oh, it is this new electronic technology which is out there. It allows for the ability to be able to crack into the privacy of Presidents and ordinary citizens. It makes it possible to make television sets that are purchased and then can be turned, from a remote distance, into a monitoring device just looking at you in your living room. How can this happen? What are the rules? Is there going to be any protection for the American people? So night after night, story after story, look at the compromise of the privacy, the security in our country, but out here on the Senate floor tonight we have the Republican response. The Republicans are saying to the American consuming public: You have no privacy. If you are at home, if you have Comcast or Verizon, if you have AT&T, and they are gathering all this information about you as your broadband provider, every site you go to, everything you are doing, everything your children are doing, what they are saying as of tonight, no privacy, no privacy if you have bandwidth. Everything is out there to be captured by these big broadband barons, and then they can sell it. They can sell it.

What is the Republicans' answer?

They say: Well, the internet thrives because of a light touch--a light touch. No, ladies and gentlemen, that is not what created what we have here today. We had to pass new regulations in 1996. I know, I was there. I was the Democrat on the committee in the House. There was no broadband--not one home in America had broadband in 1996. Can I say that again? Not one home in America in 1996 had broadband.

Today, for a 12-year-old, a 50-inch screen plugged into broadband, that is a constitutional right. It didn't exist in 1996 anywhere. Was it because it hadn't been invented, that people hadn't thought through broadband, they hadn't thought through what was possible? No. It was because these companies decided, because they were pretty much all monopolies, that they weren't going to deploy it. So we had to change the rules in order to unleash this revolution.

Now they are saying: Yes, but a light touch says no privacy protections. That would be bad. People don't really want privacy protections. That is not how I remember it when I was growing up.

When I was growing up, when the salesman knocked on the front door, you know what my mother would say? Don't answer the front door. We don't want the salesman in our living room. That is what my mom said. Now, is it different today? Is everyone saying: Yes, come on in. Come into the kitchen. Come into the living room. Come into the bedroom. Come look at the kids who are sick. Come look at Grandma who is sick. We want you to see our house. We want you to know everything about us, Mr. Salesman.

Now the broadband provider knocks on the front door. The broadband provider says: I want to provide this great new service with a light touch. Let us go into the key rooms into your house--in your living room, in your bedroom--let us put in this broadband technology, but we are also going to gather all this information about every member of your family--your mother, your father, your children--and we are just going to gather it all, and then we are going to sell it to anybody we feel like selling it to.

Let me ask you this. Have the values of the American people changed in one generation or are they the same? Do people want total strangers to know everything about you, and you have no right to say no? None? Because that is what this debate is about tonight, ladies and gentlemen. It is all about whether the Republicans are going to take away the rights of people to protect their children, to protect their families from having all of this information which the broadband providers encourage people to put online to be then sold as a product. Did you go to a healthcare website to find out something about a disease a child in your family has? Well, that is now a product to be sold. There are plenty of insurance companies that would love to know all the people who have gone to that website to find out about that disease. Do you really want that? That is what this debate is all about. How much privacy are people entitled to in this country?

Are we going to give it to the broadband companies to determine that? That is what we are voting for tonight. They are saying: We need harmonization, meaning we need a standard which is voluntary-- voluntary. The broadband companies decide what the level of privacy is. You subscribe to that company. You now have that level of privacy protection. What does that mean? That means if they don't want to provide any privacy protection, that is the standard. They are saying: Well,

that law could then be enforced because they promised you no privacy. Now, if they violate that policy in any way, we could go after them. That really is what the Republican Party thinks about the private, most intimate information that ordinary families put online because there is only one company that knows everything, and that is the broadband provider, that is Verizon, Comcast, AT&T. Every other one of the thousands of websites, they know what is on their websites. They don't know what is on the other websites. Only one company, your broadband provider, knows everything--has all of your information. Now what is the standard? What is the standard? The Republicans say: No standard. Don't worry about it.

Yes, the Federal Communications Commission put a new rule on the books. Yes, the Federal Communications Commission says that if they want to gather this information about your children, they have to get your permission in order to sell that information to somebody else. That is the rule right now. They gather information about your children. They have it. If they want to sell it, they have to get your permission. You have to check a box. Yes, take all of the information on my child's computer, and sell it. Sell it to people out there who want to know about my child.

That is the rule today. What they will say, as we vote tomorrow at noontime, is no more permission from the parents--none, zero, zilch.

You are on your own, kids.

Sorry, parents. The Republican Senate decided you don't keep those protections. Why? Because it is a light touch. People really do not care about privacy in the modern era. It is kind of like--privacy? Get over it. You don't have any. Get over it. Get over it, say the Republicans. You don't have any privacy.

Now we are going to hear them shedding crocodile tears about all of the electronic hacking that goes on in the United States. But do you know that all of that combined is not even a thimble compared to the compromise of the privacy of 320 million Americans that is going to be possible after this rule is repealed tomorrow? It is the rule that gives American families the right to say: No, I don't want you gathering that information about my children. No, I don't want you to sell information about my children. That is gone. That is the vote the Republicans will cast tomorrow. The die is cast. They are all going to do it.

It is unbelievable to me that, in one generation, we have gone from people not letting the salesman into the living room to allowing one company to come in and gather every bit of information about every member of the family who is online all day long. It is amazing to me.

Do you want to know what I believe? I believe I have the same values that my grandmother had. I believe I have the same values as my mother had. I don't want anyone coming into my living room. My mother didn't want anyone coming into the living room. My grandmother didn't want anyone coming into the living room, and I am sure my great-grandmother in Ireland didn't want anyone coming into the living room to whom they did not give permission to come into the living room, especially when the kids were at home, but that is not the Republican view. The Republican view is: Oh, the big broadband barons don't like it? That is great. That is fine.

What is next? Think about it. They can get the information about when all of your family members are online, where they went, who they were talking to, who they emailed. All of it is available to the broadband company. It is just a product to be sold to the highest bidder.

Who wants this information out there? You can make billions of dollars by selling this information to other companies that would love to data mine your family so that they can profile your kids, profile grandma--profile anybody in your family--just so they can start to send in information and try to sell you stuff.

Do we really want people to be able to sell this as a product? The privacy of America is for sale. Is that what we have reached--that we are monetizing privacy?

We are saying: Hey, we are just getting in the way of the entrepreneurial spirit of America. Do you know what? For our whole history, we have gotten in the way of the entrepreneurial spirit of America. The salesman knocks on the door, and you tell the salesman: Go away. You are not getting into our living room, Mr. Entrepreneur. We don't want you in our living room.

So there are two sides to this. Yes, you want the entrepreneurial spirit to thrive, but, simultaneously, you should have a right to say: No, Mr. Entrepreneur. I don't want your product. I don't want you in my living room. I don't want you to have access to all of the information of my children. Sorry, Mr. Entrepreneur. I am sure you could have made a fortune, but the fortune comes at too high of a price.

Ultimately, the founding principles of our society are that, yes, we are capitalists, but we are capitalists with a conscience. We understand that there should be limits to how far you can go in making a buck. There should be a limitation.

What the Grand Old Party wants to do is to roll back the broadband privacy rules that give you an ability, if you want, to say yes. You can just click and say yes to all of these companies. Take all of my information. Take all of grandma's information. Take all of the kids' information. You can just check that and say yes. That is in the law. Do you want to give up all of your privacy? Push ``yes.'' Yet, under the existing law, you can also push ``no.'' I don't want to give up my privacy. It should be the consumer's choice. It shouldn't be Big Congress's and Big Government's.

Big Government is now deciding you have no privacy. The government is moving in. Replacing Big Mother and Big Father is Big Government. Big Government is siding with Big Business and Big Broadband. That is what is happening here today, and it is leaving behind Big Mother and Big Father, who care about their kids. They are taking away the authority that parents have had since the beginning of time up until now.

The broadband revolution now makes it possible to monetize privacy-- to make money, to give entrepreneurs a chance through light touch regulation--which will create more jobs out there. Jobs for whom? Jobs for people who are learning about your kids, jobs for people who are learning about how to make money off of your kids, jobs for people who do not care about your kids. They care only about making a few more bucks.

How hard is this? Which business school do you have to go to to have a 3-by-5 card to figure this out? It is pretty simple, huh?

What is the job of the Senate? The job of the Senate is to ensure that we animate these technologies with human values, that we say to the inventor, to the entrepreneur: Oh, I love that whole idea of an automobile; that is fantastic. But do you know what? Why don't you build in some brakes? We are going to put up speed limits. We are going to have seatbelts. We are not going to allow you just to put it out on the road and just endanger the public or the passengers. We are going to have some rules.

It is great. Yes, invent that new medicine, but we are also going to say to you: Hey, do you know what? We are going to have a child's safety cap on top of that medicine so a kid cannot get access to it.

We balance it. We animate each new technology with the values that our parents had and that our grandparents brought from the old country. It does not change. It is always the same. The polling is 80 percent-- Democrat, Republican, Independent, every ethnic group, every income group.

Do you know who does not like the rules? Entrepreneurs--entrepreneurs who want to monetize your privacy.

But it is always going to be at 80 percent, because what is, really, the differentiating issue? Why would a Republican mother want her kids to have their privacy compromised? You know that she does not. You know she does not. She doesn't even know that this debate is going on. She doesn't even know that, after they repeal this rule, it will be the Wild West.

So there are real rules. Again, it is the most important set of rules because it is the broadband provider. They get every bit of information. This is not just: Oh, I subscribed to this newspaper, and I am reading this newspaper. Oh, I am at Google. Oh, I am

over here at ESPN sports. Oh, oh, oh. There are hundreds of thousands of websites, and that website knows only about what you did on that website. No, that is not what the broadband company knows. They know everything. They know everywhere you went. That is why they want this repealed. Just think of how valuable that is. Just think of how much money they can make by selling all of that information about you and your family.

That is what we are debating tonight. We are debating a fundamental change in our country. Is it a heavy touch as opposed to a light touch to say that people's privacy--that the security of their families-- should be protected? Then let's just shut down these hearings we are having and all of the crocodile tears being shed about what is happening in our society.

How can all of this happen?

We go into top secret briefings. We get told: Oh, they tapped into this. They cracked into that. People--Senators--sit there, and they ``tsk, tsk'' as to how terrible it is. Then, simultaneously, up here on the Senate floor, they say: Oh, by the way, we are just going to take away the right of a mother and father to say, ``No, you cannot crack into the information that our family is putting online.'' Oh, sure. You don't want to get into the way of an entrepreneur who can figure out how to make money off of that. Why would we care about that?

The absurdity of it all--the total absurdity of it all--is that all of these people who are ``entrepreneurs'' can get fabulously rich without compromising children's privacy, grandma's privacy.

For somebody in the family who has a disease and just wants to go to that website and find out about that disease all by himself and who does not want anybody else in the family to know, why can't he do that without wondering whether everyone else who went that website is now going to have that information sold? The phone company or the cable company will say: Oh, great. Let's go find the insurance company that is in this region that would want to know that that person might have that disease. You might not want to give him insurance, especially after the Affordable Care Act is repealed by the Republicans.

Who cares about that, right? You have no privacy. Get over it, say the Republicans. Get over it.

Just think if we applied that to phone calls. What if people said the phone company should be able to sell the number of the person and the name of the person whom you called? How would you feel about that? Would you like that to be a product? You called this person at this time for a half an hour. Then you called that person back again another half an hour later. Then you called him again at night. Would you like people to know that--just as a product--and get the name, the number, the time, and how long the call lasted? We have laws against that.

Would you like people to know which channels you are switching to? Say you have a satellite dish and are switching from channel to channel, and at 11 o'clock at night, you are just going to stop on this channel. They know which channel you stopped on.

I passed a law back in 1999 that prohibits that information of which channel you stop on from ever being made public. You cannot sell that information. I am proud of that. Whose business is that? But it is there. They have it. They have that information.

Now we have reached a broadband revolution. Oh, isn't this great? Isn't this a fantastic revolution? Didn't it occur because there was a light touch? No, there was not a light touch. You see, we deregulated the telephone industry and the cable industry so that we could have the broadband revolution beginning in 1996.

But here is the paradox of deregulation. The paradox of deregulation is that you need more regulations in order to make sure that the competing companies can gain access to the capital markets to raise the money so as to finally put pressure on the telephone and cable companies to deploy broadband. That is the paradox of deregulation. You need more, so you open it up to more competitors who then wind up forcing these companies to finally deploy broadband even though they had it decades beforehand. Interesting, isn't it? It is the paradox of deregulation. You need more.

Even as we did that, we knew that we were going to need privacy laws because this aggregation of information is something that goes right to the heart of this kind of tension that exists in a capitalist society.

Some people say: No rules. You are interfering with my ability to make money.

That is what the car company said about airbags, and that is what the car company said about seatbelts: Do not mandate to have us put it in as it is going to undermine our product.

But, over time, mothers and fathers finally said: No, no, no. You cannot do that. I don't want the kids in the front seat with no seatbelts. I don't want people in our family in the backseat with no seatbelts.

The same thing is true with safety device after safety device. So privacy plays that role when we are talking about information.

Now, if the first step is broadband, no privacy, then, logically, they should support the whole idea that if you are on your iPhone and you have called 50 people today, it is a product. So all of those people you called should be information the telephone company can sell. What would the argument be from the other side? The other side would say, that is a light touch. That is a light touch. It is going to make it possible for the phone company to make more money. And believe me, they would make a lot of money if they could sell the information about who every American called all day long.

Well, they don't want to touch that because phones are still kind of sensitive. They don't want to go there. But broadband, that is different. Websites, that is different. For some reason, that is different because what you are doing on the website, what you are doing with your email in the modern era is what you do on your phone every day, right? It is what you do on your phone. So the goal has to be that we have the accountability for the Republicans as we do this, this evening.

President Trump is constantly railing about the fake violations of his privacy--totally fake violations of his privacy. You would think that a crime had been committed, but there wasn't. It never happened. But the way he yells about it, it is almost un-American for anyone to compromise the privacy of him or anybody else. But these are going to be very real compromises of the privacy of ordinary people in our country.

So I am just going to give to my colleagues the little Constitution that is now on the books to provide protections for all Americans. It is very simple. It requires the broadband company to, No. 1, get consumer consent before using or sharing subscribers' personal information--get your consent--No. 2, promote transparency by saying to the broadband company that they have to tell each consumer that they are actually collecting this information about them. They have to constantly be telling you that. No. 3 is to ensure that the broadband companies adopt data security protections and notify consumers if a breach occurs; that is, if all of this information is now wide open for God knows who--some hacker who has gained information--they have to put in the toughest possible security. Then, if it does get compromised, they have to tell the consumers immediately. They can't delay a month because it might be bad PR, 2 months because they are afraid it is going to affect their bottom line. They have to let people know that their personal information has been compromised.

So that is it. That is what is bugging them. That is what is bugging the Republicans. They want to make sure you don't keep these protections.

So what does that mean? Well, after we vote tomorrow, after the Republicans take these rules, these protections off the books, after the internet service providers, or the ISPs, get what they want, ISP will no longer stand for ``internet service provider.'' It is going to stand for ``information sold for profit.'' It is going to stand for ``invading subscriber privacy.'' That is what ISP will stand for after tomorrow at noontime, high noon--the end of privacy online, except for a light touch where it is voluntary. And we know these broadband companies are definitely voluntarily going to give the highest possible protections to American families. We know that. Because if they wanted the highest possible protections, they have them right now. They

want them off the books so they don't have to do anything. It will be voluntary.

So these broadband behemoths want to take control away from the subscribers and relentlessly collect and sell your sensitive information without permission. It could be about your health, about your finances, about your children. It can track your location, draw a map of where you shop, where you work, where you eat, where your children go to school, and then sell that information to data brokers.

That is going to be an incredibly profitable industry that the Republicans are opening up this week. Right now, they are drafting up their business plans, just a 3-by-5 card all across the country. They have already basically decided that the Republicans are going to have these votes; so let's get on with these new rules.

The broadband industry says that they are an unnecessary burden, but, in fact, this whole area is one that actually goes to the heart of who we are as Americans. I think that whether you are a very conservative person or a very liberal person, there should be a small core number of American values that brings us together, and I would put privacy in that group. We can fight over the Affordable Care Act. We can fight over how many new nuclear weapons we need. We can fight over gay marriage. We can fight over many, many issues--some of them religious, some of them just strategic in terms of what is best for our country moving forward--but how can we fight over your family's privacy? I don't understand the ideological differentiation that is artificially being created by the broadband companies' insisting that the Republicans repeal those privacy laws because all of this is now going to be done without your consent, without your permission.

If they wanted to document now how many times you search online for heart disease, breast cancer, opioid addiction treatments, and then sell that information to an insurance company, they are going to be able to do that. You are giving them permission just by subscribing. And you know what they say: Oh, the marketplace will work; you can just go to the other broadband providers in town. Oh, there is no other broadband provider in town? You are in rural America? Oh, sorry, you have to use our company. Oh, there are no rules if you want to use our company--no rules.

They will say: Well, let the marketplace sort it out. What marketplace? Maximum, in most places, there are two companies you can have broadband service from, and they are both going to say privacy protection is voluntary. So there is no privacy. It is all going to happen without your consent, and they will just say: Oh, it is just so we can harmonize the rules. Yes, they are going to harmonize the rules. They are going to harmonize them so it is very efficient. You have the same nonexistent voluntary guidelines that the broadband companies are going to put on the books.

So you should want to choose, yourself, what information Verizon--if it discloses information about your family--gets to disclose. You should decide that, not Verizon. You should decide that. What they really want is to allow AT&T to choose whether it protects consumers' sensitive information from breaches and unauthorized use, and guess what the broadband barons' choice is going to be? They are going to choose to pocket their profits and throw your privacy out the door.

Republicans want to sideline the Federal Communications Commission-- our broadband privacy cop on the beat--and create an unregulated Wild West where internet providers can do whatever they want with your private information. They want to allow broadband companies to write their own privacy rules. That is like asking a burglar to program your security system. It makes no sense. Oh, come on in, Mr. Burglar, program my security system, and then you can do whatever you want in my living room when I am gone on vacation this weekend. Just take anything you want--any of my private information, any of my private furniture, anything you like in the house.

So we know the broadband industry--your wireless, your cable, your telecommunications provider. They can't self-regulate themselves. These same companies struggle to show up on time to install or to fix your service. You might have to wait all day to have the cable guy come and fix your cable system. They give you a range that goes like this: Well, we will be there between 9 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon; right? And now they are saying: You can trust us. We are going to protect your privacy. You know we are the cable company. You know we are the broadband company. You can trust us.

Do we really trust the broadband industry to determine what privacy protections they give to their customers? Strong broadband privacy rules mean that we don't have to do anything. That is their definition. Let's be clear. The big broadband barons want to monetize this. The subscribers have already given them money. It costs a lot of money to subscribe to broadband service so the kids can have a 50-inch screen that is plugged in to be able to see all of these things that are on the incredible multidimensional, multifunctional screens. We are already paying a fortune for it. But they say that is not enough. That is not enough. We need, say the broadband companies, to ensure that we can also make more money, and then taking all that information by invading your privacy and selling it. Broadband providers want to do more than simply provide Americans access to the internet. They want to sell that privacy information to the highest bidder.

This brings us to the great divide between ISPs and those who wish to protect the free and the open internet. The 21st century broadband internet is not a luxury. It is an essential telecommunications service, just like telephone service. Just as telephone companies cannot sell information about Americans' phone calls, an internet service provider should not be allowed to sell sensitive consumer information without affirmative consent of that family.

In fact, by putting the broadband privacy rules on the books, the FCC did harmonize privacy protections. They harmonized broadband privacy protections with the privacy framework that has prevented telephone companies from mining and selling information about our phone conversations for decades. Yes, that is what they did at the FCC. They said: the same protections for broadband information as we have for phone company information when you are dialing the numbers of people all day long. That is how they harmonized it. They said that in the 21st century, broadband is the essential service that the phone was in the 20th century, and the information on both should be given the same level of protection. That is harmonization. That is a reflection of the revolution that took place in telecommunications in the 1996 Telecommunications Act. That is what they are trying to take off the books--the harmonization of the standards that go back to grandma and grandpa. They made sure in 1934, when the Communications Act was written, that those protections were there. But, somehow or other, in 2017, it is no longer important that people don't know whom you called, that people don't know whom you are online interacting with.

So why did they do it? Well, they did it because broadband and telephone services are essential telecommunications services that Americans rely upon to thrive in the modern economy. The Federal Communications Commission, last year, under Barack Obama, just made sure that you got the same privacy protections. Broadband and telephone companies should not be allowed to exploit their privileged positions as telecom gatekeepers to use, to share, to sell sensitive information about Americans' online activities or phone calls. Yet, here we are, chipping away fundamental broadband privacy protections from the American public.

Now, all of this begs the question: What other privacy protections are the Republicans now going to put on the chopping block? Do they now oppose the FCC's rules preventing telephone companies from collecting, using, and selling sensitive information about Americans' phone calls? They certainly oppose the FCC's rules for preventing broadband companies from partaking in similar interests and practices.

Now, the broadband industry will tell us that these rules are unfair because they are different from the privacy

rules for websites--Google, Facebook. Why should there be different rules? Well, every person out there knows what the difference between Google and the broadband provider is. Google is one app; it is not thousands of apps. So the whole argument is fallacious from the get-go. When you use Google, you understand what your relationship is with Google. When you use ESPN.com, you know what the relationship is with ESPN.com. But when you are using every service, now you are talking about the broadband companies. They are the only ones that know everything about you, what you are doing online, all day long, every single day. That is under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission, following along their supervision of the telephone industry, which they have had rules on the books to ensure that information can't be sold without your permission.

Why is this so important? It is important because in the 21st century, having broadband service is like having oxygen in your lungs. Everyone uses it. Everyone is using it all day long. Everyone's information is in the hands of these companies. People might as well stop breathing as to disconnect from their broadband provider. That is why we need strong rules--not self-regulation--to prevent the internet service providers from mining and selling our data without consent.

This is, for me, a historic fight to defend America's fundamental right to privacy. The broadband industry will say that if we don't take these rules off the books, subscribers will be confused. There will be one set of standards for the individual website and another set of standards for the entire broadband internet service provider industry. Frankly, consumers are only more confused about why we aren't doing more to tackle these important privacy issues. Consumers are confused about why we are spending time on the Senate floor taking away privacy protections. Consumers are confused about why we would allow broadband companies to sell their sensitive information to banks, to insurance companies, to advertisers, to anyone else willing to pay top dollar for your personal information without your consent. They are confused about why we would rescind the rules ensuring broadband providers adhere to the best data security practices protecting subscribers' sensitive information from breaches and unauthorized use, when we know there are unauthorized hacks every single day. We are in a historic fight to defend America's fundamental right to privacy online, a fight to allow consumers, innovators, entrepreneurs, the millions of Americans all across this country who rely upon the internet to control their own information.

Instead of protecting our healthcare, instead of protecting our environment and protecting our privacy, Republicans want to give it all away to their friends and allies and big corporations. Those corporations don't care about consumer rights. They have one concern, and one concern only, and that is their bottom line. That is making money.

The cornerstone of our country is capitalism with a conscience--with a conscience. Massachusetts' unemployment rate is 3.2 percent. We are proud of that. We are a capitalist State. Massachusetts is proud to have one of the lowest unemployment rates in our country. We believe in capitalism, but we also believe we can have capitalism with a conscience. In this instance, it means the protection of the privacy of people online, from having that family's sacred, secret information compromised for a profit, with no ability--no ability, no right, none-- for a family to say no. Take the broadband service or leave it. If you take it, you have no privacy.

The only people in this country who can protect those families are 100 Senators who will be voting tomorrow. I ask the Republican Senators, why would they strip this privacy protection from ordinary families? Why would they deny the right? All I can say is, overnight, all we can really say is we tried. We really tried to protect the privacy of Americans. That vote tomorrow will represent that showdown moment.

If we lose, please, out of good conscience, Republicans, just stop all this public concern about the compromise, the privacy, the President, the national security apparatus in our country. Believe me, the ordinary American is going to be made far more vulnerable tomorrow than anything any Russian entity is ever going to do. It is going to be what we did to ourselves, what we allowed to happen to our own citizens at the hands of their own United States Senate that is going to be a far greater threat to every ordinary family in our country.

I urge a ``no'' vote from my fellow colleagues on the Senate floor tomorrow. This goes right to the heart of whether we understand technology, we understand the responsibility we have for the American people, to protect them from the worst aspects of it.

There is a Dickensian quality to the internet: It is the best of technologies, and it is the worst of technologies, simultaneously. This technology can enable. It can ennoble. We want that to be extracted from the internet. But it can also degrade. It can also debase. It is the job of the U.S. Senate to protect the American people from that aspect of the internet. Tomorrow, if the Republicans have their way, they will remove the protections of the privacy of Americans and allow for an expansion of the degrading and the debasing of the privacy that ordinary Americans are entitled to in our country.

I thank the Presiding Officer for giving me the opportunity to be here.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, here we go again, debating the nomination of a Trump candidate who is both unqualified and reflects an extreme ideology for the Department she will hope to lead. In this case it is Seema Verma, and the Department is the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, or CMS, as it is often called.

Why is CMS, an acronym for a department that most Americans don't even know about, so important that its nominee would make it to the floor of the U.S. Senate for debate? Because 100 million Americans receive health insurance coverage under one of our Federal insurance programs--Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the health insurance marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act, all of which are under the jurisdiction of CMS.

CMS is the traffic cop of our Federal Government healthcare system. It makes sure that Americans have access to affordable, quality healthcare by administering and overseeing all aspects of our Federal health program. It promotes healthcare innovation and works to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse throughout our healthcare system.

Under the Trump administration and Republican leadership, which has vowed to repeal ObamaCare and get rid of Medicaid as we know it, the leader of CMS will be the person responsible for reducing Federal spending on public insurance programs, particularly for the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. Seema Verma is President Trump's nominee to try to meet that misguided and heartless challenge.

Republicans have an ancient animosity toward Medicaid, and it would seem that Ms. Verma shares that prejudice. Ms. Verma is most well known for proposals that penalize and create roadblocks to coverage for low- income Americans. She supports changes to Medicaid that would make it harder for those who need Medicaid to access it. This stance is fundamentally antithetical to the core principle of Medicaid, which is providing coverage for those who cannot afford it. For the most part, we are talking about poor people in the United States of America in 2017.

Despite the fact that research shows the onerous premiums or cost sharing for low-income individuals served as barriers to enrolling in and obtaining care, Ms. Verma supported a plan to require Medicaid enrollees to pay premiums through monthly contributions to a health savings account. Guess what. People who are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid rarely have enough money to dedicate to savings accounts of any kind. They are living day to day, week to week, month to month.

She also supports putting in place restrictions that put more burdens on low-income Americans than even private insurance. It will be Grandma and Grandpa who will pay the highest price.

Medicaid isn't just a line in our healthcare budget; it is a lifeline for millions of seniors in every State of the country. Here are the facts about the importance of Medicaid to our seniors. It is anticipated that by 2060, there will be more than 98 million Americans over the age of 65. The number of individuals over the age of 85 is expected to reach 14.6 million in 2040--triple the number in 2014. Of this population, 70 percent will likely use long-term services and supports, of which Medicaid is the primary player. Medicaid spent $152 billion on long-term support services like nursing home care in 2014.

Let me say that again. The entire defense budget is about $550 billion. We spent as a nation $152 billion--a little less than one- third of the defense budget--to take care of Grandma and Grandpa in nursing homes in 2014. They may have Alzheimer's, they may have other diseases, but, unfortunately, most families can't save $50, $60, $70,000 for year after year of nursing home coverage; that is Grandma and Grandpa.

The anticipated growth rate for Medicaid beneficiaries over the age of 65 is four times the rate of growth for all Medicaid beneficiaries. The only thing growing faster than the need for Medicaid is the number of people who are opposed to repealing the Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare. Medicaid pays for nearly two-thirds of individuals living in nursing homes.

Can I say that again? Medicaid pays for two-thirds of individuals living in nursing homes in our country. So if you know a family member who is in a nursing home who has Alzheimer's or some other disease, you can just assume that Medicaid is helping that family to ensure that Grandma or Grandpa is getting the care they deserve for what they did to build this great country.

Fundamentally restructuring Medicaid will place additional strain on already strapped State budgets because nursing facility care is a mandated Medicaid benefit. States may offset the increased costs in covering this service by further cutting payments to providers or removing benefits that seniors want and need, like home- and community- based services. It also puts more strain on working-class families because if Medicaid isn't picking up the cost of putting your grandma in a nursing home, that comes out of the pockets of other contributors to the family.

Unfortunately, Republicans want to undermine the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, which is benefiting millions of seniors. They want to force seniors to pay more out-of-pocket for healthcare or forgo coverage because they cannot afford it.

What Republicans refuse to accept is that the Affordable Care Act is the most important program we have put in place for seniors since Medicare. The uninsured rate for Americans aged 50 to 64 dropped by nearly half after the passage of the ACA. The uninsured rate for this older population living in Medicaid expansion States was 4.6 percent while the uninsured rate for the same population living in a non- Medicaid expansion State was 8.7 percent--almost double.

Not only does the Republican proposal amount to an age tax by substantially increasing the amount an insurance company can charge for an older person, but it provides older Americans with fewer resources than what is available under ObamaCare to help cover their increased costs for care.

Unfortunately, as Republicans attempt to repeal ObamaCare, CMS is authorized by President Trump's Executive order to ``minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens'' of ObamaCare. In simple terms, that means undoing and privatizing vital provisions of the Affordable Care Act as soon as possible under the law.

CMS has also picked up a sledgehammer. It has already proposed new rules of slashing open enrollment times for the exchanges by over a month. It has proposed rules to relax the minimum standards for what qualifying health plans sold on the exchanges have to cover.

Now, more than ever, we need a leader at CMS who understands and respects the fundamental need for healthcare for our seniors, and for so many of them, that need is met by Medicaid. Ms. Verma's disdain for Medicaid is simply an insurmountable problem for the millions of older Americans in this country who rely upon this fundamental program.

Given her lack of experience and extreme views, several major groups that represent millions of working-class Americans have voiced strong opposition to her confirmation.

This is what the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees of the AFL-CIO said:

``Leading CMS is too important a role to be held by an individual who is committed to policies so radical they would jeopardize the health and lives of ordinary Americans.''

I could not agree more.

Seema Verma is the wrong person to run CMS at a time when millions of Americans are relying on the dignity and coverage that Medicare and Medicaid provide.

Instead of cutting funding for defense, Donald Trump wants to cut programs for the defenseless. The Trump administration would rather bestow billions more to the Pentagon to pay for new nuclear weapons, which we do not need and cannot afford, all the while supporting cuts to Medicaid and senior health. We should be cutting Minuteman missiles instead of Medicaid. We should be cutting gravity bombs instead of Grandma's prescriptions.

The Trump administration's plan for Medicaid and our overall healthcare system would be a nightmare for Grandma and Grandpa and millions of middle-class Americans.

I am opposed to Seema Verma's nomination, and I call on my colleagues to join me in voting no on her nomination when it is presented on the Senate floor.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

When Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee asked Scott Pruitt for critical information on his environmental record as attorney general of Oklahoma, Scott Pruitt said no to the Environment and Public Works Committee.

When Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee asked our fellow Republicans to delay Mr. Pruitt's vote until he got that important information, the Republican leadership here said: No, we won't wait for that critical information so that all Senators and the American people can understand who is being nominated.

When I asked Scott Pruitt if he would recuse himself from all issues relating to the cases that he has brought against the EPA as Oklahoma attorney general, Scott Pruitt said no to me.

Today we are here to respond to these very serious issues that are being raised about his ability to be an impartial Administrator of the EPA because the question before the American people and the Senate is whether Scott Pruitt should be the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and that answer is no.

The EPA is our cop on the beat, protecting the American people and our environment from harmful pollution, hazardous waste, and the impacts of climate change. But as attorney general of Oklahoma, Scott Pruitt has tried to undermine the clean water rule and the Clean Air Act, putting the public health of millions of Americans at risk.

Scott Pruitt questions the science of climate change. Scott Pruitt has accused the EPA of overestimating air pollution from drilling of natural gas wells in Oklahoma. Scott Pruitt has argued against President Obama's Clean Power Plan, which the EPA is supposed to implement. Scott Pruitt has sued to block the EPA from restricting mercury, a toxin that causes brain damage in children in the United States.

The only thing that Scott Pruitt is certain of is that he wants to represent the interests of the fossil fuel industry. He wants to change the environmental watchdog into a polluter lapdog. And today we are drawing a line out here on the Senate floor because it is critical that the American people understand the moral implications for the water Americans drink, for the air they breathe, for the mercury that could go into the blood systems of children in our country, for the amount of smog that is allowed to be sent into the air, the amount of haze that is created across our country, and why the nomination of Scott Pruitt leads inevitably, inexplicably toward more pollution, more unhealthy air, and more unhealthy water going into the systems of our families across our country.

That really goes to what the moral duty is of the Senate, the moral duty we have to ordinary families across the country. Do Americans really think the air we are breathing is too clean? Do people really believe the water we drink is too clean? Do people really want to water down those standards? Do they want to reduce the safeguards we have put in place?

One hundred years ago, life expectancy in the United States was about 48 years of age. In other words, we had gone from the Garden of Eden all the way to about 100 years ago, and we had increased life expectancy to about 48 years of age--not much progress. Now, it was always good for the Methuselah family. The wealthy always did pretty well. They could protect themselves from the things that would affect ordinary families, poorer families, from the Bible to 100 years ago. But then what happened? All of a sudden there was an awakening in our country that we had to make sure the sewage systems in our country were not going to be able to pollute families across our society. Then step by step, beginning with sewage and water, we in our Nation came to understand that we had to remove the majority of pollutants that were out there that were damaging the lives of ordinary Americans. That was a change that transformed not just the United States but, over time, the whole rest of the world.

Now, 100 years later, life expectancy goes out to age 80. In other words, we have added 32 years of bonus life to the average American over the last 100 years. And what did it? Well, it is no

secret formula; it is just that we looked around and we saw the things we had to put in place in order to protect families, and we took a moral responsibility to make sure that those industries, especially those that were not providing protections, were forced to provide protections for those ordinary people.

Here we are now considering Scott Pruitt as the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Here is what Mr. Pruitt has done as the attorney general of Oklahoma: He has sued the national Environmental Protection Agency for the State of Oklahoma 19 times, and the issues on which he has sued are almost a litany of the things that go right to the heart of the protections the American people want for their families.

There are still eight cases that he brought pending before the EPA.

I said to Scott Pruitt in the confirmation hearing: Attorney General Pruitt, will you recuse yourself from consideration of any of those eight pending cases during the time you are Administrator of the EPA if you are confirmed? And Mr. Pruitt said no. Well, as I said to him in the hearing, if you do not recuse yourself, Mr. Pruitt, that turns you into the plaintiff, the defendant, the judge, and the jury for all of those cases, and that is just an unconscionable conflict of interest. As a result, he would never be seen as an impartial Administrator at the EPA as he moved forward trying to repeal or weaken environmental protections through regulations that he originally sought to accomplish through litigation.

We all know that across our country, overwhelmingly, the American people want--in the highest possible polling numbers, Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative--they want the EPA to protect clean air, clean water, public health. They don't want children unnecessarily being exposed to pollutants in the atmosphere that can cause asthma. Those numbers are going up. The goal in America is to see the numbers go down, but that will not be the agenda Scott Pruitt brings to the EPA if he is, in fact, confirmed.

This question of his fitness for this job also goes to the question of climate change. The science of climate change is now well established.

Pope Francis came to the Capitol a year and a half ago to deliver his sermon on the hill to us, and what Pope Francis said to us is very simple: No. 1, that the planet is dangerously warming and that it is something which is being caused by human activity largely and that those who are going to be most adversely affected are the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. As the Pope said, we have a moral responsibility to do something about it as the most powerful country in the world and, along with China, the leading polluter in the world. This is Pope Francis talking to us about climate change.

What does Scott Pruitt say about climate science? He says he is not quite certain any actions really have to be taken in order to deal with that issue. Well, we have a Pope who actually taught high school chemistry and who delivered a science and morality lesson to the Congress. He told us that science is certain, and he told us that our moral obligation is unavoidable.

If we had a nominee for the Environmental Protection Agency who embraced that science and morality, I would be voting for him, but that is not who Scott Pruitt is. He is ignoring the impact the fossil fuel industry is having, and he is unwilling to commit to taking steps that can reduce that danger for our planet and for the most vulnerable on the planet.

So I stand in opposition to his nomination, as I will be standing out here all day and into the night. I don't think that we are going to have a more important discussion than the direction of the health of our planet and the health of the children in our country. I think it is something that the American people have to hear all day and through the night.

With that, I see the arrival of the Senator from Ohio. I know that he has time to speak on the Senate floor. So I yield back my time so that my good friend Senator Portman can be recognized.

Mr. President, I just want to follow up on what Senator Booker has been talking about.

This is a historic nomination tonight. This reminds the country so much of James Watt being nominated in 1981 to be the Secretary of the Interior. That turned out disastrously. He had to resign. This reminds the Nation of the nomination of Anne Gorsuch, in 1981, as the head of the EPA. That ended disastrously. She had to resign.

We are just repeating history here today as we are going through the very same stages of an administration--a radical rightwing, anti- environmental administration--that is trying to dismantle environmental laws across our country. It did not end well back then, and this will not end well. Scott Pruitt, as attorney general of the State of Oklahoma, has not demonstrated the qualities that are going to be necessary in order to protect the environment of our country.

Today, many of us recognized a day without an immigrants. Businesses across the country closed, students did not attend classes, and workers did not head to their jobs--in protest. In my own home State of Massachusetts, the museum at Wellesley College took down all of the works of art that were created and donated by immigrants. Bare walls, empty desks, shuttered restaurants--all of these things--show us just how essential, how fundamental immigrants are to our economy and to the very fabric of our Nation.

Now imagine if tomorrow we recognized a day without the Environmental Protection Agency. Imagine that--with no Environmental Protection Agency; no Clean Air Act enforcement; no clean water rule enforcement; no one to clean up abandoned Superfund and toxic waste sites; more climate change; more kids with asthma; more rivers with toxins running through them; more families with cancer; more environmental injustice for communities of color because it is those communities, the most vulnerable communities, that will suffer the worst consequences on a day without the EPA.

If Scott Pruitt has his way, it won't just be a day without the EPA. It could be a nation without the EPA. That is what Scott Pruitt wants. That is what congressional Republicans want. That is what Donald Trump wants--no more clean air and water protections, no more pollution controls, no more environmental justice. That is Scott Pruitt's favorite day. That is Scott Pruitt's EPA.

That is why we are out here tonight. We are out here tonight to begin this warning to the country that there is trouble brewing if Scott Pruitt is, in fact, confirmed as the next head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

What is it that we can look forward to?

The oil, the gas, the coal industries opposed many of the Obama administration's commonsense protections for our air, for our water, for our climate.

One by one, Republicans in Congress are working to legislatively overturn many of those protections. They now have twice deployed a very rarely used procedural tool known as the Congressional Review Act to benefit the coal, the oil, the gas industries by rolling back environmental protections. Republicans are planning to use the Congressional Review Act to hand out even more giveaways to the fossil fuel industries in the coming weeks.

You can pick any industry you want--coal, oil, mining, timber, grazing. You go through, and no matter how you spin it on the Republican ``Wheel of Giveaways,'' some industry gets a big giveaway. They are trying to decide right now what is the next one they will bring out here that waters down the protections that the American people need in each and every one of these areas. But don't question for a second if that is what this whole year is going to be about. Just take oil. There will be big tax breaks for oil coming very, very soon-- like they need it. The same thing is going to be true in area after area. We have our helpful tool here, the GOP ``Wheel of Giveaways,'' to help viewers at home keep track of which industries the Republicans are making the weekly winners.

Now, by nominating Scott Pruitt to head the EPA, President Trump and Senate Republicans have found their new host for this great Republican show--the ``Wheel of Giveaways''--and that will be Scott Pruitt, attorney general of Oklahoma, because Scott Pruitt has already made a career of handing out prizes to the fossil fuel industry in our country.

As attorney general of Oklahoma, he sued to block the EPA from restricting toxic mercury pollution from powerplants in order to benefit the coal industry--that is right--blocking protections from mercury that could affect the lungs of children in his own State and, ultimately, across the whole country.

Then, as attorney general of Oklahoma, he questioned the EPA's estimate of air pollution from new natural gas wells in Oklahoma. By doing that, he took natural gas and oil, and he made sure that would, as well, be something that wasn't subject to the types of regulations that were necessary in order to protect the public health and safety.

Then he moved on, as attorney general of Oklahoma, to push for a rollback of protections of our Nation's waterways to the benefit of corporate polluters. Corporate polluters love to use the waterways of our country as one big sewer. Why do you have to store that dirty water? Why do you have to make sure that it is just not put in some safe place when you can just use rivers? Just dump all of that garbage right in the river. Put all of that pollution right in the river. Who cares what impact it has upon families? Who cares what impact it has upon children?

So, again, this ``Wheel of Giveaways'' is really a way to ensure that the polluting industries don't have to pay to clean up the messes they create, just pass it on to innocent families, because with Scott Pruitt as the new host of the Republican ``Wheel of Giveaways,'' we know who will always win every time, every week, during all 4 years of the Trump administration. It will always be the oil industry, the natural gas industry, the coal industry, the polluters of all stripes that otherwise the EPA would be regulating and protecting the public health and safety of our country.

It is going to ultimately be those American families who are left to lose protections which for generations we have fought to put on the books in order to ensure that we increase life expectancy and reduce exposure to asthma and other diseases that otherwise, because of these polluting companies, are going to be visited upon hundreds of thousands and millions of families within our country.

When we think about this whole issue of the environment, many times we say: Well, the Republicans--the coal industry, they say there is a War on Coal in the United States of America, an absolute war, a war out there to destroy the industry. However, upon closer examination, it turns out that it is the free market that has been working to replace coal with other sources of energy.

A decade ago--here are the numbers--50 percent of all electricity in the United States came from coal; now it is down to 30 percent of all electricity in our country. What has replaced coal? Well, the free market has actually substituted natural gas, which has grown from a little over 20 percent of U.S. electrical generation a decade ago to 35 percent of all electricity in our country right now. And coal has been replaced by clean energy--by wind, which has grown to 5 to 6 percent of our generation from almost nothing, and solar, which is up to 1 percent of all of our electrical generation. And between wind and solar, there are additions of 1.5 percent every single year between those two sources, to renewable electrical generation capacity in our country. So we can see that every year that goes by--over a 15-year period, for example, that would be 22 percent of all electricity would be wind and solar if we just keep on the current pace.

From the coal industry's perspective, that is terrible. That is a War on Coal, what natural gas is doing, what wind and solar are doing. But the reality is that they are losing it in the marketplace. Adam Smith is spinning in his grave--so quickly, by the way, that he would actually probably qualify as a new source of energy. So the Republican complaint is that the free market is killing coal; it is a war. It is capitalism, actually, and it is working. So the only way they can stop it, the only way they can slow it down, is to get somebody like Scott Pruitt to be the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency. This isn't a conspiracy; it is actually a competition, and the competition for those clean energy jobs is global.

Back in the 1990s, I was the author of a law that moved over 200 megahertz of spectrum. In 1993 in America, the average phone that was wireless was the size of a brick. It looked like the phone Gordon Gekko had in the movie ``Wall Street.'' People didn't have one. It cost 50 cents a minute. But I was able to move over 200 megahertz of spectrum in 1993, and four new companies were able to compete. They both went digital, and by 1996, this is what people had in their pocket--under 10 cents a minute, and all of a sudden everyone had this phone. It just killed that phone that was the size of a brick.

But then another remarkable thing happened. Within 8 or 10 more years, there was a guy out in Silicon Valley, and he came up with an idea for an iPhone, and that revolution just kept moving because we had opened it up to competition.

You can imagine there were devotees to the black rotary dial phone who kept saying: Oh my goodness, it is a war on the black rotary dial phone, all of these new devices. But it wasn't. It was just technology. It was a revolution. It was capitalism, and it had finally been opened to that competition after 100 years.

Well, that is what has happened in electrical generation. We finally have passed laws that open it up to competition. It is not a secret. And the only way to shut it down is to have someone like Scott Pruitt as the head of the EPA because then, all of a sudden, you can have an EPA chief who says: We are not going to have any new rules on climate change. We are not going to have any more rules that reduce the amount of pollution that goes up into the atmosphere. We are not going to have any more rules that ensure that President Obama's Clean Power Plan is implemented in our country, which would again telescope the timeframe that it would take in order to deploy these massive amounts of new renewable electricity sources in our country and expedite the pace at which natural gas resources get deployed in our country.

So that is really what this is all about. It is a special interest giveaway--pick your industry. How do we protect it? How do we make sure we don't move beyond the 20th century? How do we not have this incredible green generation be able to invent the new energy technologies of this century, the same way that they invented the new telecommunications technologies at the end of the 20th century? How do we stop them? Well, you have to really find people who are willfully committed to it.

Let's go to Scott Pruitt. Scott Pruitt, as the attorney general of Oklahoma, unbelievably sued the EPA 19 times. Now, what attorney general sues the EPA 19 times? Well, let's look at the subjects he sued on--clean air, clean water, soot, mercury, haze. It is almost like a laundry list of the dirtiest issues that America would want us to have an Environmental Protection Agency working on. And he sued over and over and over again. And even as he is being considered for confirmation, after I questioned him in the hearing, saying: Will you recuse yourself from any consideration of any issue that you have already sued the agency on that is still pending, he said he would not recuse himself.

So I said to Mr. Pruitt in that hearing: Well, if you don't recuse yourself and you still have eight pending cases, that will make you the plaintiff, the defendant, the judge, and the jury on these matters that are at the heart of the clean air, clean water agenda that the American people want to see implemented in the 21st century.

What was he doing in Oklahoma? What was he trying to accomplish? Well, I decided to ask Mr. Pruitt some questions.

Question No. 1: I asked Mr. Pruitt to describe the actions he took as Oklahoma's attorney general to enforce the State's environmental laws. His response: He told me to go file an open records request.

Secondly, I asked Mr. Pruitt how much of the budget he controlled as attorney general did he devote to Oklahoma's Office of Environmental Enforcement. Do you know what he told me? He said: Go file an open records request.

No. 3: I asked Mr. Pruitt how many individuals he employed in the Office of Environmental Enforcement. Do you know what his answer was? You are asking for too much information. Go file an open records request.

No. 4: I learned that Mr. Pruitt had hired one of his campaign contributors to sue the EPA, so I asked him to show me the contract. And do you know what he told me? You are right. You guessed it. He told me to go file an open records request.

So his answer to me over and over again was go FOIA yourself. But that is not a sufficient answer to a Member of Congress because we actually get the right to ask for critical information on the environmental records of those who are applying for the job of chief environmental protector of our country. And if you are looking for evidence to convict Scott Pruitt on the charge of protecting public health and the environment, he is unwilling to give it to you.

During his confirmation hearing, we heard a lot about Scott Pruitt respecting States' rights. Scott Pruitt's record shows that he is in favor of States' rights but only when it is good for the State of Oklahoma and the oil industry of Oklahoma. When I asked him about protecting the rights of States like California and Massachusetts to do more to protect their environment, he declined to support their rights to do that for their States.

So under Scott Pruitt, EPA is going to turn into Every Polluter's Ally. He won't be there as the cop on the beat to ensure that those protections are in place to ensure that every American--all 320 million--is given the protections they need. No. It will no longer be an Agency that is a watchdog for the environment; this is an Agency that is going to be a lap dog for polluters across our country. And if that is the case, then we are going to see a rollback in the health, the safety of those protections that all Americans have come to expect in the area of the environment.

When we raised the issues of his conflict of interest in the committee, we received unsatisfactory answers. When we raised the issues of providing us the information we were going to need in order to fully understand his complete record, we were not given the answers we need.

Now let me once again come back to 1981 and 1982. What did James Watt do at the Department of Interior? Well, he wound up selling off for bargain-basement prices the coal resources in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. It was a scandal of massive proportion. It led to his resignation. It was avoidable but predictable because he made very clear what his attitude was about all of these resources.

The same thing was true over at the EPA with Anne Gorsuch. It was an Agency that the Reagan administration, in actual reports, said that the goal of the EPA Administrator would be to bring the Agency to its knees--to its knees--and that became the goal during the Gorsuch time at the EPA. So another resignation.

We have here with Scott Pruitt someone who has the same agenda, the same goals, and the same unfortunate allies to accomplish those goals.

So I am going to continue, along with my colleagues, for the rest of the evening to bring this case to the American people. We believe this is a preview of coming attractions. We want America to know who Scott Pruitt is because when he begins to take action in March, in April, and in May, if he is confirmed, then they will know who he is very simply because everything we are saying tonight is going to be a preview of those coming attractions.

So at this point, I reserve the remainder of my time.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, earlier today I spoke on the floor about Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt and his nomination to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Since that time, an Oklahoma judge has now ruled that Scott Pruitt must comply with a 2-year-old request to release email correspondence between the attorney general's office and fossil fuel companies, like oil company Devon Energy and coal company Murray Energy.

After an over 2-year struggle, these communications will finally come to light starting next Tuesday, but the Senate is due to vote on Scott Pruitt's nomination tomorrow afternoon, Friday, at 1 p.m. Now, that smells to the high heavens. The American people in the Senate have a right to know what is in all of those emails that have finally been ordered to be released by a court. Instead, what the Republican leadership is going to do is rush to judgment, forcing Members of the Senate to vote on this confirmation without knowing what is in all of these emails that have been subject to litigation for the last 2 years.

Now, it is a little bit fishy because Republicans have been obsessed with emails for over 2 years. They have spent millions of dollars on attempts to gain access to emails during the Presidential campaign, but now they are denying the Senate and the American public the right to examine Scott Pruitt's emails. That, again, is not OK. The only thing Senate Republicans seem to want to deny more than climate change is the right of Senators to review these 3,000 emails. That, again, is not OK. So we are going to be in a very funny situation at 1 tomorrow afternoon. The emails are on the way. We are going to find out what was in all of those emails. We are going to find out what kind of correspondence Attorney General Pruitt had with all of these different entities with which he was communicating, but the Senators will not have it for a basis of casting a vote.

Now, maybe it is benign, but maybe it is not. Maybe that is why this vote is being rushed. It is being rushed so the Senators don't know what is in there; that they are blind as they vote. Then, as each email becomes public, as each new revelation becomes public in the weeks and months ahead, people are going to look back at this body and they are going to say: Why could you not wait just another week so Senators could know what was in those emails? I think there is a reason why many people have arched eyebrows that are going up so high that it would hit the roof a ceiling. There is a reason to be skeptical that something is happening here that is meant to be a rush to judgment to avoid all of the evidence being placed in front of the Senators and the American people in terms of his nomination.

Members of the faith community are weighing in as well. They have opposed Mr. Pruitt's nomination. I want to read portions of a letter that the bishops of the Episcopal Church of Massachusetts sent to President Trump:

The Episcopal Church stands strongly for the protection of

the environment. We respect the facts of science. We support

the laws and policies that address the reality of climate

change.

Our respect for our government leaders and our reverence

for the earth as God's creation impel us to write you to

express our dismay about your selection of Scott Pruitt to

head the Environmental Protection Agency.

These are the bishops of the Episcopal Church of Massachusetts. They continue:

We wonder why a person who has consistently and adamantly

opposed all laws and policies that provide even minimal

``protection'' to the environment should be entrusted with

leading such an agency.

President-elect Trump, you have promised economic

development. Like you, we value a stable and prosperous

economy. However, a thriving economy depends on a healthy

environment. The more we weaken and dismantle the E.P.A.'s

vital protections of our natural world, the more we threaten

the common good.

You have also promised to strengthen our national defense.

Like you, we value national security. However, our country's

top military intelligence have concluded that climate change

is a ``threat multiplier'' that is already creating

instability around the world and will likely create

significant security challenges in the years ahead. If

someone who casts doubt on the reality of climate change

becomes the head of the E.P.A., our national security will be

compromised.

As citizens of this beloved country, we intend to write our

members of Congress, urging them to block the nomination of

Scott Pruitt to lead the E.P.A. We will pray for a better

choice.

The letter is signed by the following faith leaders: Right Reverend Douglas J. Fisher, Bishop Diocesan of Western Massachusetts; the Right Reverend Alan M. Gates, Bishop Diocesan of Massachusetts; the Right Reverend Gayle Harris, Bishop Suffragan of Massachusetts; the Right Reverend Barbara C. Harris, Bishop Suffragan of Massachusetts; the Right Reverend Roy F. Cederholm, Bishop Suffragan of Massachusetts.

The reality is, this is not just a question of these Episcopal bishops, but Pope Francis came to the Congress just last year and preached a sermon on the Hill, saying the planet is dangerously warming, human activity is causing it, and we have a moral responsibility to take action as Americans, as the House and Senate, a moral responsibility to protect this planet that God created and those who are the poorest and most vulnerable who will be most exposed.

This is a moral issue of the highest magnitude. The leaders of religions all across our country are praying for us, begging us to do something in order to protect this planet. Scott Pruitt does not intend on taking those actions.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I want to continue on the subject that I was just referencing. This is a story from Oklahoma that is on the wires right now across the country.

Headline: ``Judge orders Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to release emails related to fossil fuel industry.''

Let me read a little bit of this news story. This is Oklahoma City.

A judge has ruled that Americans have a right to know how

much of a relationship Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt

has with oil and gas leaders before becoming the head of the

Environmental Protection Agency.

For years, Pruitt has been an outspoken adversary of the

EPA and is currently suing the agency.

In December, President Donald Trump selected Pruitt to lead

the agency despite concerns from lawmakers.

A 2014 New York Times report claimed that Pruitt's ties to

Devon Energy Corporation directly influenced decisions he

made while in office in Oklahoma.

Through open records requests, the New York Times obtained

a letter written by Devon's attorneys, which was then taken

to Pruitt.

The article states, ``The attorney general's staff had

taken Devon's draft, copied it onto state government

stationery with only a few word changes, and sent it to

Washington with the attorney general's signature.''

In 2014, KFOR asked for a comment to the allegations, but

received a statement focusing on the benefits of the oil

industry. . . . Six Senators from the Senate Environment and

Public Works Committee asked Pruitt to list his connections

to energy companies so they can decide whether those

interactions will affect how he will run the EPA. . . . The

Center for Media and Democracy filed nine open records

requests with the AG's office, beginning in January 2015.

``Probably the largest request we have is for

communication: emails, phone calls, [and] scheduling related

to his involvement with various energy companies, as well as

his involvement with the republican attorney general's

association,'' attorney Blake Lawrence said.

The group alleges that Pruitt received nearly $350,000 in

campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry. They

want his dealings with those in the industry made public--and

soon.

``Just last week our office contacted the Center for Media

and Democracy to notify them that release of their request

was imminent. The fact that they have now filed suit despite

our ongoing communications demonstrates that this is nothing

more than political theater,'' AG spokesman Lincoln Ferguson

said in a statement.

According to the Hill, Democrats asked Pruitt for the

documents as part of his confirmation hearing, but he

declined. Instead, he told them to file public records

requests themselves.

Now, a judge has ordered the Oklahoma Attorney General's

Office to turn over close to 3,000 documents related to

Pruitt's communications with oil, gas, and coal companies,

according to E&E News.

Pruitt's office has until Tuesday to release the emails,

but his confirmation vote was originally believed to be held

Friday, Feb. 17.

Meaning today, in 5 more minutes.

``Scott Pruitt and Senate Republicans have made a mockery

of the confirmation process, permitting the nominee to escape

scrutiny and hide his deep ties to the fossil fuel industry.

What is he hiding in all of these emails? The vote to confirm

Pruitt must now be delayed until every senator can see just

who Pruitt is and what he will do if permitted to run the

EPA,'' a statement from the Sierra Club read.

That is where we are right now, ladies and gentlemen. We are 6 minutes to midnight on Thursday night. The vote is now scheduled in 13 hours 5 minutes here on the Senate floor.

These emails are going to be released next Tuesday so there can be a public examination of them, to finally determine what is the relationship between Scott Pruitt and these industries that he will be given responsibility to regulate.

What are they hiding? Why are they rushing? Why will they not give the American people the ability to find out what is inside these emails before there is a vote on the Senate floor? Because once that vote takes place, he will be the head of EPA, and then we will find out what conflicts may exist, what relationships may exist, what decisions had been made. But, no, the Senate leadership will not give the American people the respect they deserve to ensure that all of that information is out for public viewing so they can make an informed judgment as to the exact nature of the relationships between this nominee for the EPA and industries that he has had responsibility for regulating in Oklahoma and he will have responsibility for regulating as the head of the national Environmental Protection Agency.

It is an absolutely unacceptable policy to know that critical information that makes it possible for the public and the Senate to understand a candidate for such a powerful office is to be available and yet not in fact considered as part of this historic decision.

For me, it is a ``March of Folly.'' It is just another example of how the Republican Party, the GOP, has become the gas and oil party. That is really what it stands for now, just committed to ensuring that they cover up what is in these emails. They don't give the public the chance to be able to understand what these potentially explosive relationships may be so the Senate can deliberate fully on whether Mr. Pruitt does in fact qualify to be an impartial head of the Environmental Protection Agency of our country and ultimately of the world because the world looks to us to determine where climate change is going, where environmental protections are going, not just for our own citizens but for theirs as well. What we do is replicated inevitably, inextricably in the rest of the world.

This man will have one of the most powerful positions on the planet. Emails are available right now if we just wait to help us in our deliberation. It is really a tragedy. It is a sad commentary upon this institution that rather than just delaying, examining, and then giving the public the information they need in the Senate, instead we rush to judgment. We rush to judgment, but ultimately the judgment of history is going to be on us if it is determined, through these emails, that Mr. Pruitt is unqualified for this position; that the conflicts which he has had disqualify him for this position; that the emails disclosed to us the conflicts of interest that are going to ultimately impair his ability to be impartial in his regulation of clean air and clean water and mercury and haze and soot and smog and this whole litany of issues that go right to the public health and safety of every American.

From my perspective, it is a sad day in the Senate when the information is now available, a brief delay would make it possible for each Senator to be able to make an informed decision, and yet the Senate moves on, not waiting, not listening, not willing to give the American public the information they will need to make an informed decision that they can then give to their Senators to make a wise decision that could lead to much stronger protections that they can receive from this critical Agency that is the overseer of the environment in our country.

Again, I oppose Mr. Pruitt's nomination. I would ask for a delay. I know it is not going to happen. I understand why, but it is a sad day in the history of the Senate.

Mr. President, I wish to reclaim the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Andrew Falacci, an intern in my office, be granted floor privileges for the duration of debate on the Pruitt nomination.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from Missouri, and the Senate, for giving me this opportunity to speak. I rise to speak in opposition to the nomination of Representative Mick Mulvaney to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Congressman Mulvaney represents the latest of President Trump's broken promises to the American people. In this case, it is President Trump's campaign promise to protect Social Security, and Congressman Mulvaney is the man who will lead the charge. The Office of Management and Budget, OMB, as it is called, is like that group of scientists in the movie ``Apollo 13'' who have to figure out how to bring the spacecraft home with only a few items found in a couple of boxes. In the movie, they describe it as fitting a square peg in a round hole. In government, we call it the Federal budget.

The crucial role of OMB and the development of the Federal budget means that the Director often has the final word on the priorities of our Federal agencies. The Director must be someone who will approach the enormity of the Federal Government in a thoughtful and deliberative manner. They must be able to consider how the budget will impact the everyday lives of all Americans. Representative Mulvaney's support for reckless, across-the-board cuts demonstrates that he is not up to this challenge.

Donald Trump campaigned on the promise that he would make no cuts to the Social Security safety net. That means no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Congressman Mulvaney's nomination shows that, despite what candidate Trump may have said, President Trump intends to do just the opposite. This is not what millions of people voted for. Mick Mulvaney's nomination has Americans across the country fearful for their futures, and they have every right to be scared.

Congressman Mulvaney represents an immediate threat to Social Security. He represents a threat to the 1.2 million seniors in Massachusetts who currently rely on Social Security. He represents a threat to the millions more who expect the program to be

there when they retire in coming years.

Mick Mulvaney has attempted to declare Social Security unconstitutional and has referred to the program as a Ponzi scheme. Well, Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme. Social Security is not a handout. Social Security is a promise we make to America's seniors after decades of hard work. It is the commitment we made to those who built this Nation, fought in wars, and provided for their families. Seniors pay into the system throughout their working lives, and they expect it to be there for them when they retire. We need to keep that promise.

Social Security is not just a line in the budget. It is a lifeline for millions of Americans.

In Massachusetts, the program keeps 295,000 people above the poverty line. Across the country, more than 15 million elderly Americans are able to live out their lives and not be driven into poverty because they have a Social Security check. That is what it does for 15 million Americans. Seniors will have nowhere to turn if President Trump and Representative Mulvaney have their way and Social Security ceases to exist. Congressman Mulvaney has repeatedly suggested raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 years old. Let me repeat that. Mick Mulvaney wants grandma and grandpa to wait until they are 70 years old--that is 4 years older than the current retirement age--before they can call upon the benefits they deserve.

Not only does Mick Mulvaney want to make it so Americans have to work longer, he wants them to receive less when they finally do retire. At his Budget Committee hearing, Mick Mulvaney said that he himself was willing to be subject to these new rules, since they might require him to work a couple of extra months before retirement and require his children to work until they are 70.

Nothing could be more out of touch with working-class, blue-collar workers across our country. I have no doubt that Mick Mulvaney would be able to work a few extra years in his current role as a Congressman or Director of OMB or a great job that he would get after those responsibilities, but what about millions of construction workers, carpenters, waitresses, gardeners, busdrivers, and others with physically demanding jobs? My father, a milkman--how many years can you work being a milkman? You have to go until you are 70 to receive a Social Security benefit in this country in the future? That is the challenge we have. We ask milkmen, we ask 69-year-old construction workers to lay cement in blistering summer heat because Social Security is no longer there when it is promised. Do we expect a 68-year-old window washer to climb the scaffolding every day when they cannot afford to retire without their Social Security benefits? We should not balance the budget on their backs. That is just plain wrong.

Raising the Social Security retirement age is just one of many of President Trump's broken promises. He also wants to cut Medicare and the health care of millions of Americans. Congressman Mulvaney looks ready to do the President's bidding as well.

Congressman Mulvaney has said we need to end Medicare as we know it and supported House Speaker Paul Ryan's destructive ideas to turn Medicare into a voucher program. Congressman Mulvaney went even further saying that those efforts did not go far enough. Those kinds of cuts to Medicare would be nothing short of a disaster for the 55 million Americans enrolled in the program, including the more than 1 million individuals in Massachusetts who rely on Medicare for their health care needs.

Seniors deserve an OMB Director who will protect their health care, not put it on the chopping block. We know Congressman Mulvaney is deeply committed to these misguided ideas because we have seen how far he is willing to go to support them. He was one of the few key cheerleaders of the Republican government shutdown in 2013. He was willing to put millions of American families, businesses, and services at risk in order to defund the Affordable Care Act.

That shutdown cost the United States more than $24 billion. At that time, Congressman Mulvaney said it was good policy. He said it was all worth it in order to prove a point. That simply is irresponsible. That kind of recklessness has no place in the Office of Management and Budget. Congressman Mulvaney also does not believe in raising the debt limit.

Back in 2011, he put the economy at risk when Republicans held our debt limit hostage. He put the full faith and credit of the United States in danger by his willingness to allow the Treasury to default. That would have wreaked havoc on the financial markets and could have destabilized our entire economy, but Congressman Mulvaney dismissed these concerns and called the potential breach of the debt limit a fabricated crisis. Nothing could be more fiscally irresponsible and further from the truth.

Congressman Mulvaney is not the type of leadership Americans expect in their government, and he is not the type of leadership needed to direct the Office of Management and Budget. Strong leadership is especially crucial at the Office of Management and Budget, where responsible oversight of the regulatory process is a requirement of the Director's job. The individual in charge must be willing to make fair determinations based on facts and evidence.

Congressman Mulvaney's record gives me no confidence that he will meet this standard. Congressman Mulvaney also dismisses accepted science and rejects established facts. He has stated global warming is based on questionable science and has outright dismissed the threat that climate change imposes on the planet. OMB oversees agencies' use of the social cost of carbon, the Federal metric that assigns a dollar value for future damages to each ton of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. We need an OMB Director who accepts the consequences of climate change because it will be the most vulnerable in our society who will pay the highest price if we ignore climate science and the danger it poses, not only to our own country but to the rest of the planet.

Our country faces serious challenges that require the careful and nonpartisan allocation of resources. We need a Director of the Office of Management and Budget who will hear the concerns of all Americans, not promote dangerous fiscal ideologies. Congressman Mulvaney has indicated that he will approach our budget with an ax, and it will be our seniors who will be first on the chopping block. I do not believe he is qualified to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

I do so remembering 1981 and 1982. Ronald Reagan arrived, and Ronald Reagan had a very simple plan for America. He was going to do three things fundamentally; No. 1, massive tax cuts for the wealthiest and biggest corporations in America; No. 2, simultaneously increasing defense spending massively; No. 3, to simultaneously pledge that he was going to balance the budget while unleashing massive economic growth in our country.

What he did then was to put together a team that had a remarkable ability to harness voluminous amounts of information to defend that knowingly erroneous premise. You cannot say you are heading toward balancing the budget if you are simultaneously saying: I am going to give massive tax breaks to those who need them the least and massive defense increases, which are going to further lead to Federal expenditures, because then you have to turn and you have to cut programs. You have to cut Medicare. You have to cut Social Security. You have to cut the EPA. You have to cut Head Start. You have to cut food stamps. You have to cut programs for the poorest. You have to cut all of those investments in science in the future. You have to cut and cut and cut.

That really was not the goal because ultimately Ronald Reagan just retreated from the cuts because the pressure came from across America, but he had accomplished his principal goal, which was the massive defense increases and the tax cuts for the wealthy because that was the real agenda all along.

So there is a great book, ``The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed,'' by David Stockman. He was the head of OMB for Ronald Reagan back in the early 1980s. He wrote a book in 1986 about his experiences with this failed economic philosophy. It is a blistering, scalding indictment of what they tried to do in 1981

and 1982. He wrote this as a warning to the future, about why we should not try to repeat what Reagan tried to do in 1981 and 1982.

What he talks about in the book is this. The same kind of made-up numbers to put a Panglossian--rose-colored glasses--the most optimistic projection on what would happen to our economy if we had these massive tax cuts and increases in defense spending, while pretending that we were going to do all of these other things, which actually never did occur.

So he said, because the numbers did not add up, they had to engage in a lot of fiscal chicanery. What he did was he constructed two little separate categories. No. 1, he called it the magic asterisk. The magic asterisk was this attempt to avoid ever specifically having to itemize all of the budget cuts that would cause a revolution in America because they knew they could not put that list out.

So they called it a magic asterisk--cuts to be named later, programs to be cut later. We all know the names of those programs--Medicare, Medicaid, education, Environmental Protection Agency, Head Start, all the way down the line--but we will just hide the ball on that.

Secondly, he constructed another idea, he said, which was also fraudulent, which was called ``rosy scenario.'' What they would do is, they would put together a group of economists who would then, using completely bogus projections for the future, project massive economic growth. That is what Donald Trump talks about now: Oh, we will see growth that you have never seen before in the history of mankind--rosy scenario.

There is no economic data to back it up, but that is just how much Trump is trying to model himself after this attempt in 1981 and 1982 to sell the exact same bill of goods, which collapsed, by the way. They collapsed like a house of cards economically because it did not add up. You cannot have a magic asterisk for all of these cuts that are never going to happen because ultimately the Democrats are going to back down the Republicans.

We are going to back them down on cutting Medicare. We are going to back them down on cutting education. We are going to back them down on cutting the budget for all of these great programs. We are going to have this battle. They already know it, but it is not going to stop them in terms of the first two programs, the tax cuts and the defense increases. They are going to still try to ram them through. That just creates bigger and bigger and bigger deficits.

The only way they can get away with it is if they can project massive economic growth in our country, which is the ``rosy scenario.'' Then you have a bunch of economists who are kind of supply-siders who kind of look back at the 1980s and ask: Can't we go back to the Reagan era again and repeat that?

You don't want to repeat it. The guy who put the program together said: Please don't do that again. Please don't do that again. He said here: Ronald Reagan chose not to be a leader but a politician, and in doing so, showed why passion and imperfection, not reason and doctrine, rule the world. ``His obstinacy,'' said David Stockman, ``was destined to keep America's economy hostage to the errors of his advisers for a long, long time.''

Mark Twain used to say that ``history doesn't repeat itself, but it does tend to rhyme.'' So, yes, this isn't exactly like Ronald Reagan in 1981 and 1982, but it rhymes with 1981 and 1982. It rhymes with it. They are trying to argue economics like lawyers, right? Politicians, PR people. Sell the bill of goods. Donald Trump calls it ``truthful hyperbole,'' like when he is selling a piece of property. Well, the United States is not a piece of property. The American economy is not a piece of property. It is the central organizing principle for all of the hopes and all of the dreams of every person who lives in our country.

You cannot allow for knowingly false premises to be advanced, and that is what Congressman Mulvaney will represent in this entire process if he is confirmed as the new head of the Office of Management and Budget. He represents someone who is going to reach back into time to this era which has already been shown to have completely failed and repeat the exact same experiment again. The American people just can't run the risk because ultimately the economic catastrophe--the impact on ordinary families--would be so great that ultimately we would look back and say that this Senate failed, that we did not discharge our responsibilities to those families.

So from my perspective, I stand out here knowing that once again we are faced with this prospect of repeating David Stockman's book ``The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed'' and knowing that when Donald Trump said: Oh, don't worry, I am going to take care of you, ordinary Americans; you are going to get the biggest tax breaks--they are not. That is not his plan.

Oh, don't worry. I am going to give you better healthcare. I am going to give you more coverage for your families.

That is not going to happen. That is not his plan.

I am going to give you cleaner air and cleaner water. It is going to be the best. It is going to be the greatest.

That is not going to happen.

It is the triumph of politics. It is the triumph of the special interests, of the oil and gas industry, of the defense establishment that wants bigger and more contracts, of the wealthiest who want big tax breaks. It is the triumph of politics--the politics of the most powerful, of the wealthiest, of the most entrenched. That is what this Trump administration is already about, and they are going to continue to say: Don't worry. Your healthcare will be better. Your air will be cleaner. Your children will be safer. Social Security will be protected.

But then who gets named to run the Office of Management and Budget? Somebody who wants to raise the retirement age to 70; someone who wants to fundamentally change Medicare as we know it; somebody who has an agenda that looks a lot like 1981 and 1982 in the Reagan years, very much like it.

So is there anything new here? No. Is this just a sales job, a con job? Yes. Because when you pull back the covers and you look at what is about to unfold, it is something that is going to be very destructive of our economy. It is going to further income inequality across our country. It is going to reduce opportunity for every child in our country. Rather than democratizing access to opportunity through healthcare and education, they are going to work systematically to undermine those opportunities, to reduce the chances that they can maximize their God-given abilities.

That is why this nomination is so important, because the OMB controls the Federal budget. That is all the hopes and all the dreams. That is where the money goes. Who gets it? What are the incentives?

Right now, once again, Donald Trump is embracing Ronald Reagan's trickle-down economics: the more money you give to the people who are already rich, the more it will trickle down to ordinary folks.

We don't hear him saying: Oh, don't worry, the overwhelming majority of these tax breaks are going to go to the blue-collar people in our country. You are not going to hear him say that. And when you look at all the proposals they have made, it always goes to the corporations, it always goes to the upper 1 or 2 percentile.

Those promises he made are just the same as David Stockman's and Ronald Reagan's back in 1981 and 1982--identical almost down to the final detail--and are just as guaranteed to fail.

We have Congressman Mulvaney who has been nominated. And give him credit--he is actually honest about what he believes. He is actually very clear in his explanation of what the goals are going to be for our country if he is confirmed and can partner with Donald Trump to implement this agenda. We give him credit for his honesty, but it is only honesty in saying that he is going to defend a set of economic assumptions that are completely and totally fallacious and have already been disproved in the marketplace--the political marketplace.

So all I can say here is that it would be reckless of the Senate to deliver over to the American people once again someone whose intent is to try to take this formula which gathers voluminous amounts of information to defend knowingly erroneous premises.

You cannot have massive tax cuts and massive increases in defense spending and balance the budget without killing all of these programs that almost every American family relies on, beginning with Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, education programs, all the way down. We can't do it.

So that is why we are fighting out here. We are fighting to make sure we don't repeat the same history we have already lived through.

By the time Reagan reached near the end of his career, guess what he did. He changed and began to acclimate himself to reality. He began to accept, through a group of new advisers, the actual impact his initial policies were having. And that is all we are trying to do right now. We are trying to start out where we are going to be forced to wind up anyway. Why not do that since we have already learned the lesson? Why not have those lessons of the past be implemented? But no. They are committed to a repetition syndrome, a reenactment of what has already occurred, rather than a reconciliation with history, learning from it and then trying to move forward in a way which is wise, protective of every American.

I stand here to oppose Congressman Mulvaney's nomination for the Office of Management and Budget. I do not believe it would be a good thing for our country, for our economy. This is just too dangerous a roll of the dice with our entire Nation. So I say to the Senate, please vote to reject this nomination, and ask the President to nominate someone who does reflect the best economic values that our country has.

With that, I yield to the Senator from Washington State, Mrs. Murray.

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

Mr. President, it is Valentine's Day, and Senate Republicans and President Trump want to deliver a love letter to their sweetheart, the National Rifle Association. To the Republicans and President Trump, nothing says ``I love you'' like ``let's weaken background checks on gun sales'' because that is exactly the issue before us today.

Today, Republicans in Congress and President Trump want to gut a commonsense safety measure that would help keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them. After the tragedy in Newtown, CT, the Obama administration undertook a comprehensive review of Federal law to identify ``potentially dangerous individuals'' who should not be trusted with firearms.

The Social Security Administration was required to identify and report to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System those people who received Social Security benefits due to severe mental impairment and who require a fiduciary representative to manage those benefits.

That is a sensible policy. If you can't manage your disability benefits because of a mental impairment, you probably shouldn't be trying to manage a gun. Indeed, current law prohibits individuals from purchasing a firearm if a court, a board, a commission, or other lawful authority has determined that a mental health issue makes them a danger to themselves or to others or that they lack the mental capacity to contract or manage their own affairs.

The purpose of the rule is, simply, to include in the Federal background check system information from the Social Security Administration that it already has about beneficiaries whom current law already prohibits from possessing a firearm. Even this fair, reasonable, and commonsense limitation on gun purchasing is too much for the NRA and its Republican congressional allies. So they have turned, this afternoon, to the Congressional Review Act to roll back this rule. By doing so, they would block the Social Security Administration from issuing a similar rule on this subject in the future. This is shortsighted on the one hand and very dangerous on the other for a long, long time in our country because it is these loopholes in the background check system that have already allowed people to obtain guns, despite being judged a danger to themselves or to others, especially family members.

Loopholes in the system allowed the Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora, and Newtown shooters to obtain guns. We need to close loopholes like the ones that allow people who are mentally impaired from buying guns. Repealing this rule only keeps the loophole open.

Recent polls show that 92 percent of Americans support background checks for all gun buyers--including 87 percent of Republicans in our country support background checks on who is, in fact, purchasing a gun in our country--but not the National Rifle Association. The National Rifle Association sent an action alert to its membership on this current attempt to repeal the background check rule stating: ``The first pro-gun legislative act of the Trump era and Congress is on the verge of success, but it needs your help to get it over the line.'' That is all you need to know.

So on this Valentine's Day, the U.S. Senate should show some real love and compassion. Let us open our hearts to the American people who overwhelmingly are demanding commonsense gun control efforts like the one this rule puts in place. Let us defeat this ill-advised effort to roll back this rule which keeps guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.

This is the job of the Congress. This is the carnage we see in America. It is the indiscriminate issuing of licenses for guns to people who have not gone through the background checks that ensure they are qualified for the handling of a weapon within our society. Everyone else can get the weapon. Everyone else who goes through the check gets the weapon but not people who should not have them.

So this is a big moment here. It, unfortunately, gives an insight into what the Republican agenda is going to be this year. It is a radical agenda. It is an agenda which says to the National Rifle Association: We are going to pass your agenda, no matter how radical, out here on the floor of the Senate. What the American people are saying is they want the NRA to stand for ``not relevant anymore'' in American politics. That is what they want it to say, especially with the polling so overwhelmingly bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans, in terms of commonsense

background checks that are in the law to protect innocent families in our country.

All I can say is this isn't anything that is radical, this regulation. It is something that is common sense. It is something that protects American families, and I urge strongly that the U.S. Senate reject the removal of this regulation from the statutes of our country.

Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, tonight I am here to speak in opposition to the nomination of Tom Price to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and I am standing here this evening in solidarity with millions of Americans across this country who, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, have health insurance, some for the very first time in their lives--not just access to coverage but actual health insurance for themselves and for their families, coverage that provides preventive care without copays, coverage despite preexisting conditions, coverage supported by subsidies for those who need it to help make health insurance affordable for their families.

Tom Price's position on health care is contrary to everything those millions of Americans rely upon, and it is against everything that my State of Massachusetts stands for.

So let's take a look at Tom Price's formula for health care for America. First, Congressman Price wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He wants to bring back discrimination against those with preexisting conditions. He wants to kick 32 million Americans off their health coverage. He wants to deprive women of reproductive health choices, and all of this, ultimately, is going to raise prices of insurance, of health care coverage for everyone who has insurance right now, which is 80 percent of America who gets their private coverage.

Second, Tom Price wants to end Medicare as we know it. He would increase the Medicare eligibility age and create a voucher system that pushes the cost of the program directly onto seniors. Finally, he wants to slash Medicaid, which provides health care to disabled and poor families across this country.

So that is his plan. This is the Tom Price health care plan for America in the 21st century: No. 1, repeal the Affordable Care Act; No. 2, end Medicare as we know it; and, No. 3, gut Medicaid and raise premiums for everyone else in our country. No one with any sense believes this is a winning formula.

Voting for the Affordable Care Act was the best vote of my entire political career, and that is because I agreed with Senator Ted Kennedy that health care is a right and not a privilege and that everyone in our country is entitled to health care coverage and that that health care is the solid foundation for our entire country to build their lives on.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: ``The first wealth is health.'' Without health, you have nothing. That is what the Affordable Care Act is all about--to give every American the first wealth, the most important one, the access to the health care which they need. That is the promise that all Americans were made with the Affordable Care Act, and it is a promise that we still must keep.

Before Tom Price and his Republican allies came up with their blueprint to dismantle the ACA and put their big health insurance companies back in charge of your health, there was a Massachusetts blueprint that helped to create that historic health care law. Many of those core fundamentals were from Massachusetts and were then just built right into the Affordable Care Act: creating a marketplace so that insurance companies compete for customers, expanding Medicare to cover more low-income residents in our State, helping lower and middle- income people buy insurance with tax subsidies, encouraging people and businesses to buy in so we are all splitting the cost and sharing the benefits, and a employer-responsibility requirement for all large employers to offer coverage to their workers.

In Massachusetts, we call this RomneyCare, a good Republican program from my Republican Governor--RomneyCare. Then on a national level, they called it ObamaCare. In Massachusetts, we just called it successful. It worked. It is a good plan.

Right now in Massachusetts, 98 percent of all adults have health care insurance; 99 percent of all children have health insurance. The Massachusetts unemployment rate is 2.8 percent. We are No. 1 in math, verbal, and science at the fourth, eighth, and tenth grades out of all 50 States. We have the cleanest environment in the United States. We have health care for all children and all adults, and our unemployment rate, again, is 2.8 percent.

It is not a choice. In fact, it is a business plan for the State. It works--the healthiest families, the most educated children in the Nation, the lowest unemployment rate. It all comes together. It is a plan.

Now, to listen to the critics of this idea--that everyone is entitled to health care--you would think that it would destroy our economy, and they are still waiting for it to happen, as our unemployment rate continues to go down and down and down.

What is up? I will tell you what is up. Cancer screenings are up. Preventive care visits are up. Diabetes treatments have gone up. Health disparities among women and minorities are down. That is who we are. We can do this. It is a plan. It is a plan. It actually ensures that every child in America, every family in America really doesn't have to worry about something happening, some bankruptcy taking place because they can't afford the health care that one of their family members needs. That is what was happening before the Affordable Care Act passed.

So what makes Massachusetts one of the healthiest places in the world to live is in jeopardy with the nomination of Tom Price. He is coming for this plan. He doesn't think it works. He doesn't understand what has happened in Massachusetts or across our country.

In fact, in the State of Kentucky, the Democratic Governor, Governor Beshear, has instituted this plan in his red State, and he took the total number of people up to 95 percent of total coverage for Kentucky--hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people.

If we did that across the whole country, then we would essentially have the Affordable Care Act of Massachusetts in the whole country, but there has been strong resistance from States that are ideologically opposed to having this kind of a plan be put in place. So they are coming for it. That is what Tom Price is doing.

Let me give you an idea as to what Tom Price's plan does for Massachusetts and ultimately for the rest of the country that has adopted the plan. In Massachusetts alone, there will be an average per person loss of $2,280 in tax credits, and 83,000 seniors and people with disabilities may lose $1,000 per year in saved prescription drug costs. We could lose an estimated 57,000 jobs just in Massachusetts with all these services just being eliminated. We would have the loss of $1.85 billion in Medicaid expansion funding and the loss of more than $700 million in Federal premium tax credits and cost sharing reduction payments for middle-income families.

We also have to consider the Affordable Care Act's prevention and public health fund. Here is what went wrong with our health care system in the 20th century: We were running a sick care system, not a health care system. So what the Affordable Care Act did was it began to shift the emphasis towards prevention. How do you stop people from getting sick in the first place? That is the way we should be viewing disease in our country. The Affordable Care Act is our government's single largest investment in prevention.

Since enactment of the ACA, the prevention fund has provided more than $5 billion to States and communities across the country to support community-based prevention programs. Nationally, the prevention fund also funneled hundreds of millions into the preventive health services block grant. These grants have been critical in Massachusetts, for example, helping our communities respond to the heroin, prescription drug, and fentanyl crises.

Unfortunately for all of us, Tom Price's assault on health care wouldn't stop there. Congressman Price's march on the Affordable Care Act would slash Medicaid--and listen to this number--which pays for $1 out of every $5 in America for substance use disorder treatment.

The repeal of Medicaid expansion would rip coverage from 1.6 million Americans, newly insured Americans who have substance use disorders. We have an opioid crisis in America, a fentanyl crisis, a prescription drug crisis. People are dying in record numbers. What Tom Price is proposing is going to take 1.6 million of these Americans who are receiving treatment right now and just strip them of this health care benefit.

What happens to them? We know what happens if you don't have treatment. We know what happens if you don't have prevention when you have a drug problem. It leads, inextricably, inevitably, toward a conclusion that is now affecting tens of thousands of people in America every single year, and that is death. You tell these 1.6 million people they no longer have coverage, and you are sentencing them to consequences that, I don't think, our country wants to see.

I have served in Congress for nearly 40 years, and I have never seen anything like this opioid epidemic, never.

In Massachusetts, 2,000 people died last year. We are only 2 percent of America's population. If the whole country was dying at our rate, that would be 100,000 people a year dying from drug overdoses. That is two Vietnam wars every single year.

What Tom Price is saying is that he is going to rip away the Affordable Care Act funding for those who have substance abuse. Nationally, opioids have now killed more people than gun violence, auto accidents. Many people who have substance use disorders benefit from protections under the ACA. It is guaranteed. The funding is there for it. So this is for me just one perfect example of many, many examples which I can use in order to kind of just give people insight as to the horrors that are going to be done to vulnerable families all around the country.

Donald Trump is bragging today that he is going to provide a big league tax cut for businesses in America, big league tax breaks for the wealthiest people in our country. That is a commitment. The wealthiest can get a big tax break, businesses can get a big tax break.

Where will that money come from? Well, in order to pay for the Affordable Care Act, hospitals across the country kicked in about $500 billion over 10 years in order to help with the costs, but the hospitals received something in return. Because of the Medicaid subsidies for patients, they would now have insurance, and when they showed up at the hospitals, they would actually have insurance coverage. So that would help the hospitals have the revenue they need in order to take care of business. Since many fewer people were now going to arrive at the emergency room, the uncompensated care--that is the funding which the hospitals just had to provide for patients who just walked into an emergency room--would now be dramatically reduced because the patients would have insurance through the Affordable Care Act. The $500 billion they had promised to the Federal Government that would not be an expenditure, that would be the tradeoff.

Then you say to yourself, what is the Republican plan now? What they are saying is, they are going to kill these subsidies that have reduced the number of people who do not have insurance going into emergency rooms, and they are going to strip that away. They don't have a plan. This is the Tom Price plan--nothing. But they are also saying they are not going to give back the money to the hospitals which had been used in order to deal with the uncompensated care. So it is a con job. The President says you have a big tax break to the wealthiest in our country, big tax break to the businesses in our country. Where is the money coming from? Where is the piggy bank? Here is the piggy bank. The piggy bank is the money that was being used to give insurance for people to go to hospitals with their families. That is being taken away, and they will use it to give tax breaks to the businesses. You are taking it from the people who need it the most, for health care, preventive services, and families and you give it to the people who need it the least, the wealthiest and the businesses in the country. It is a con job--take the money and hand it over to the largest constituency in the Republican Party. And who is the architect? Tom Price.

Is that why he would destroy this health care system? Is that why you would cut back Medicare? Is that why you would gut Medicaid? You do it so you can give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest in our society? That is an unacceptable plan, and it makes him an unacceptable candidate to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services in our country.

We have a raging epidemic of opioids. We have all kinds of problems that can be dealt with if people had the insurance coverage and they knew they could go in order to get the help they need.

Now let's focus on the Medicare Program because they want to save money there too. How are they going to accomplish that? Well, there were doom-

and-gloom prospects about the Medicare programs that came from the Republicans, Tom Price himself, but just the opposite happened. The Medicare Program since the Affordable Care Act went into place has resulted in the lowest per member rate of spending growth in its 50- year history for Medicare. Premiums paid by enrollees in Medicare Part B and Part D have gone down against all the predictions of its opponents, and perhaps more importantly, the savings have helped America's seniors by ensuring that Medicare will continue to be there for them.

Here is a big number for you. Medicare had previously faced a projected insolvency that could have occurred this year--this year. Medicare insolvent. However, because of the Affordable Care Act, it extended the insolvency date of the Medicare trust by 12 years. Good news for seniors. Repealing the law jeopardizes Medicare for a generation of Americans.

But Tom Price doesn't just want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the second part of the health care assault is to transform Medicare into a voucher program and increase the Medicare eligibility age. After a lifetime of hard work, Congressman Price would make seniors wait longer for the benefits they earned.

My father was a milkman for the Hood Milk Company. His arms were the size of my legs. Milk men work hard. Blue-collar people work hard across our country. Working-class people work hard. Should they have to wait until they are 66, 67, 68, 69 to receive a Medicare benefit? They work hard. That makes no sense whatsoever. That is Tom Price. How do you increase the age when people can receive Medicare coverage for their health when they are old in order to save money--for what purpose? To then have a tax break for the wealthiest who already have the money they need in order to take care of the health care of their families. That is one thing you never have to worry about. The wealthy in America have all the money they need for their families.

Do you want to know another thing? The higher your income, the more likely you are going to live longer than people who don't have money. You don't have to worry about wealthy people. They are fine. Their health is fine. Their children are fine. Any problems in their family are fine.

Well, how about other families in our country? That is what this plan does. They want to lose that plan in order to give more money to the people who already have enough for the rest of their lives. So that would wind up increasing premiums for grandma and grandpa by hundreds of dollars, making them pay more out-of-pocket for less care. What Tom Price essentially wants to do is get us into the Wayback Machine and return us to a time when corporate insurance companies were calling the shots in our country, back to a time when a person could go bankrupt because of medical bills, back in time to when Americans had to choose between paying for the rent or paying for a lifesaving medical treatment.

The Affordable Care Act moved our country from being a sick care system to a health care system, but Congressman Price wants to undo all of that progress and get rid of all of those protections.

Here is Tom Price's bottom line: repeal the Affordable Care Act, which results in fewer insured patients, and that means more patients in the emergency room and higher premiums for everyone else. That formula is as bogus as a degree from Trump University. It doesn't add up.

The people who have to pay for it are everyone else's insurance policies that are going to go up. Because you better believe the hospitals and insurance companies, when that money is not there in the Affordable Care Act, insurance policies for those people, and you don't get back the $300 to $500 billion that the hospitals have now committed back to the Federal Government, somebody is going to have to pay. Somebody is going to pay, and you don't have to be Dick Tracy to figure this out. The people who are going to pay will be every other American who has an insurance policy. It will just go up 5, 10, 15 percent, everybody else's insurance policies. The hospitals are getting their dough; the insurance companies are getting their dough.

When people go to an emergency room, they are not going to be turned away. Somebody is going to have to pay. Where is the payment going to come from? Everybody else's insurance policies, which are going up, and the money that had been saved is going to the Federal Government for tax breaks to the Trump administration. He said today big league tax breaks for the wealthy, big league tax breaks for businesses. Great. This is the plan that if you kicked it in the heart you would break your toe. What about ordinary people? What about the people who need help?

Martin Luther King, Jr., said: Of all forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking. You cannot work if you are ill, you cannot learn if you are sick, you cannot be secure if you are constantly worried that medical bills can wipe out your entire savings. These clearly are not concerns for Tom Price, who has a legislative history that has repeatedly favored wealthy individuals and corporations over the health of the majority of Americans.

Congressman Tom Price championed legislation that would eliminate young adults' ability to stay on their parents plan until age 26. Congressman Price trumpeted a plan that would let insurance reinstate lifetime and annual limits on coverage and charge women more because of their gender.

Tom Price would rip away the Affordable Care Act income-based subsidies and instead offer inadequate tax credits that can be given to a billionaire, not the middle-class, working-class, blue-collar American.

If Tom Price had his way, he would implement a plan that would cause health care premiums in individual markets to skyrocket, increasing premiums for average Americans by 25 percent immediately and doubling over the next 10 years. He wants to strip Planned Parenthood of all its resources, and 2.5 million people would lose access to care in those community clinics. If that happens, fewer mammograms, fewer prenatal exams, fewer cancer screenings, and loss of all those vital services would hit women of color and low-income women hardest. It would increase health inequity and health disparity in our communities of color.

Tom Price's assault on women's health doesn't end there. He has proposed legislation that would allow health insurance companies to charge women more than men. He has repeatedly cut and limited access to family planning services. He does not believe that women should get birth control with no out-of-pocket costs. He is an outspoken and virulent opponent of reproductive health and would push women's reproductive rights back to the 18th century. Good physical health and reproductive freedom are critical to supporting women as productive members of their households and our economy. We cannot allow Tom Price to turn back the clock.

So this is the challenge. We have an administration committed to increasing defense spending big time, increasing tax breaks to the wealthiest and to corporations big time, and then promising to cut the Federal budget by $10 trillion over the next 10 years. Well, where is the money going to come from?

We know what they are targeting. They are targeting all these programs that help those who need the help the most in our society. So I urge my colleagues to vote no on this nomination of Congressman Price. He is the wrong man at the wrong time for the wrong job. It just doesn't match up, not with a 21st century strategy that we need to have the healthiest population in the world to compete against our economic rivals across the planet, and if for no other reason, just the moral obligation we have to make sure families are not desperate when their loved ones are hurting.

I thank you for giving me the opportunity to come out here at this time, and I urge my colleagues to vote no on Congressman Price's nomination.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I am here this afternoon to stand up to one of the most dangerous nominees in President Trump's Cabinet of Big Oil, big banks and big billionaires who are going to be populating the Cabinet of the United States.

The Secretary of Education is responsible for a budget that includes $36 billion for elementary and secondary education, $150 billion for higher education each year. On top of that, the Secretary of Education is responsible for more than $1.2 trillion in outstanding Federal loans.

This nominee, Betsy DeVos, would shape the policies and programs that affect more than 50 million students across our country. Young people may be 16 percent of our population, but young people represent 100 percent of the future of the United States.

We need a Secretary of Education who believes that all children deserve access to a quality public education, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, neighborhood, or disability status. Betsy DeVos does not share this commitment to equal opportunity, and she is unqualified to serve as Secretary of Education.

Betsy DeVos has a long and well-documented record of opposing public school systems. She has implemented school choice voucher programs. She has simultaneously expanded and deregulated charter schools. In Massachusetts, we recognize that education is a passport to the job opportunities of the 21st century. Massachusetts students at the 4th, 8th, and 10th grades are No. 1 in America in math, verbal, and science. We are No. 1 in math, verbal, and science, 4th, 8th, and 10th grades. If Massachusetts were a country, we would be second behind Singapore in reading for the whole planet. That is Massachusetts.

We have a very high percentage of our students who are minorities in our home State. I live in Malden. Malden is a city of 60,000 people. Malden High School, 2016 graduation class, 28 percent White, 25 percent Asian, 24 percent Latino, 23 percent Black, 1 percent Pacific Islander. What is our goal? Our goal in Malden--our goal in Massachusetts--is to be No. 1. No. 1, not just in the United States but No. 1 in the world. We know you can do it if you make a commitment to these kids.

It is not just our traditional public schools. It is our public charter schools, our private schools, our preparatory schools that are enormously successful. Many of them are world famous, these high schools. People send their children from around the country to go to a school in Massachusetts.

The success of our public charter schools is largely due to very strong accountability measures brought about through State regulations and rigorous oversight. That is the key to our charter school system. It is accountability. It is oversight. It should not be draining money out of the charter school system for profits for private corporations. It has to be invested in the kids, but Betsy DeVos wants charter schools to have less accountability and has fought to keep charter schools unregulated across Michigan.

When the Michigan State Legislature introduced a bipartisan bill that would have expanded oversight of charter schools, Betsy DeVos stepped in. She and her family donated $1.45 million to State legislators in order to strip the helpful oversight accountability language out of the bill. That works out to $25,000 a day over the 7-week period the bill was being debated. Betsy DeVos and her unlimited funding ultimately succeeded in blocking the commonsense accountability legislation. The students and families of Detroit were denied the key protections in oversight that their schools needed.

Betsy DeVos's school choice priorities go beyond expanding and deregulating charter schools. She has pushed for voucher programs that would use taxpayer money, your money, to pay for a child's private school tuition. Under a national voucher system, the funding that would normally go to local school districts would instead be diverted away from public schools toward for-profit, private institutions. In addition to the private schools that benefit from a voucher system, 80 percent of the charter schools in Michigan are run by for-profit companies, a much higher percentage than any other State. These companies are focused first and foremost on making money. We don't allow this to happen in Massachusetts. We have only one goal, and that is to be No. 1.

That money must stay in the school system, especially if you are trying to educate a minority population, which is the future workforce of our country. That is key. They don't come from the traditional backgrounds in many circumstances. The Secretary of Education must fight for all children and families, not promote companies seeking to profit off the backs of our students. Not even Michigan--the State where DeVos and her family money have tried to exert the most influence over education policy--has implemented a statewide voucher system. Despite spending $5.6 million on a campaign to promote school vouchers, the DeVos family failed to amend the Michigan State constitution. If Betsy DeVos is allowed to expand her school choice policies across the United States, it would be devastating for our students and for the future of our country. Her ideas are too extreme. They will not work for our students or for school districts in our Nation.

I also share serious doubts that Betsy DeVos will support all students in America. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is the primary Federal law that ensures that all students in every State have access to a free and appropriate public education, regardless of physical or mental handicaps, learning or attention disorders. This law covers students who are blind, deaf, vocally or mobility impaired, and those with autism or ADHD. Congress passed the original form of IDEA in 1975. It is a bedrock law in our country. Yet when Betsy DeVos was asked about it during her nomination hearing before the HELP Committee, she stated that States should be responsible for determining how, and even if, to enforce IDEA.

Remember, IDEA goes right to the heart of what we are going to do for those kids with disabilities. That is a bedrock law in our Nation. States must abide by it. We need a Secretary of Education who understands longstanding Federal education law and will commit to protecting every student in America because every student deserves the guarantee that they can and they will receive a free and appropriate public education that is promised and protected by law.

If this laundry list of efforts to undermine public education wasn't enough to cause skepticism about Betsy DeVos's qualifications to be Secretary of Education, in her confirmation hearing, Betsy DeVos would not commit to keeping guns out of our schools. Her response when asked about the issue was: ``I think that is best left to locals and States to decide.'' Guns do not belong anywhere near our schools or our students and teachers, not in public or private schools, not in elementary schools, and

not in our high schools. I am proud to have stood with Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal on the floor of the Senate for 15 hours calling for congressional action on commonsense gun safety legislation. As a Senator, the safety and security of Massachusetts' schools, neighborhoods, and communities are my top priority.

Our Secretary of Education has the safety of every student in every State in his or her hands, and I do not believe Betsy DeVos is up to that job. I do not stand alone in this conclusion that Betsy DeVos is unfit to be Secretary of Education. I received tens of thousands of letters and phone calls from constituents all across Massachusetts urging me to reject her nomination. These come from teachers and administrators, the people who work on these issues every day. I have a letter here from Todd Simendinger, the principal of Rockport Elementary School in Rockport, MA.

He wrote to me last week and said:

Senator Markey, as a strong supporter of public education,

I ask that you oppose the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as

Secretary of Education. We must have a secretary who can

commit to supporting every student in all public schools and

provide leadership that will help our neighborhood schools

succeed. Betsy DeVos's record in education and her

performance at the recent confirmation hearing prove that she

is the wrong candidate for the job. As a principal, I have

spoken with teachers, parents, students, and community

members who agree that America's future depends on a strong

investment in our Nation's public schools.

The offices of so many of my colleagues who have spoken on the floor already have, like me, received these kinds of letters and messages literally on a minute-by-minute basis from our constituents. Their passion is born of a deep commitment to ensuring that the very best education for all of the children of the Commonwealth can only be provided if the standard for that education is high. I commend them, and I agree with their concerns. All children deserve that standard.

So, from my perspective, you cannot have a more fundamental issue before us, this privatization of the public school system in America, the voucherization of our public school system in America. There is a model. It is Massachusetts. We do it right now. We are No. 1 in the country. We look over our shoulders at those who are behind us. But it is a standard that basically says: We are going to invest in the public schools and the charter schools. We are going to make sure they have the highest possible standards.

That is a recipe for ensuring that every child, regardless of their national nationality or their income, gets the education they need for a portable passport to a global economy for the rest of their lives. That has to be our goal. What is happening using the philosophy of Betsy DeVos is a failure. It is a proven failure. We already see the results. What is happening in Massachusetts, what happens in implementing the standards of the laws that we already have on the books across our country--it points us in the correct direction.

So with that, I urge a ``no'' vote on Betsy DeVos and her nomination as Secretary of the Education Department.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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