Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the nomination of Dr. Mark Esper to serve as the next Secretary of the Army. The Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on his nomination on November 2, and he was voted out of committee shortly thereafter.

Dr. Esper is a proud graduate of the U.S. Military Academy. Following his graduation from West Point, Dr. Esper served as a rifle platoon leader and subsequently deployed with the 101st Airborne Division during the 1991 Gulf war. He went on to command an airborne rifle company that supported a NATO rapid reaction force. As such, Dr. Esper has learned the trade of a soldier from the very basics, leading other young Americans in combat. To me, that is probably the best training one could have to be a Secretary of any service.

Following Dr. Esper's active duty service, he transferred to the Virginia National Guard. He ultimately retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

In addition to Dr. Esper's military career, he also has a wealth of public policy service, having worked on Capitol Hill as Majority Leader Bill Frist's national security adviser, as well as serving in the Department of Defense during President George W. Bush's administration.

Finally, for the past 7 years, Dr. Esper has worked at Raytheon, where he rose to the senior echelons of the company to serve as the vice president for Government Relations.

The U.S. Army is one of our greatest institutions, and if Dr. Esper is confirmed today, he will be leading an organization at a time in which it is facing many challenges. Most urgently, the Army must continue to improve full spectrum readiness while, at the same time, deploy soldiers around the world.

The Army also continues to grapple with modernizing the force, to include how best to make targeted investments in programs and canceling those efforts that are underperforming or are cost prohibitive.

Based on Dr. Esper's qualifications and experience, as well as his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, I will vote in favor of his nomination to be the next Secretary of the Army.

Dr. Esper's unique perspective will enable him to tackle many challenges facing the Army head-on, and I trust that as the next Secretary of the Army, he will do his best to lead the men and women, and their families, who serve this Nation so ably and courageously.

Once again, I would like to say that with his experience as an infantry platoon leader at the front, with soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, he knows--as few people do--the real cost of our national security and the real challenge of being in our Army. It is keeping faith with those men and women and it is doing everything they can and we can to protect this Nation. With that experience, I am very confident that he will be an extraordinary Secretary of the Army.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Steven G. Bradbury to be General Counsel of the Department of Transportation.

Typically, the Department of Transportation has been a bastion of bipartisan cooperation. As former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said: ``There are no Democratic or Republican highways, no such thing as Democratic or Republican traffic congestion.'' Similarly, it has been the overwhelming position of the U.S. Senate that torture is disqualifying for high office. Mr. Bradbury's nomination threatens both of these traditions.

Based on his role in the approval of enhanced interrogation techniques during the Bush administration, I believe Mr. Bradbury has failed to demonstrate the judgment that would merit the Senate to advise and consent on his nomination to any post. In addition, I am deeply troubled by his failure to commit to recuse himself from all matters related to his former client, the now-bankrupt airbag manufacturer, Takata, whose products are responsible for at least 16 deaths and 180 injuries.

From 2005 to 2009, Mr. Bradbury was the acting head of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel and was responsible for coauthoring numerous legal memos that authorize torture. During that period, enhanced interrogation techniques approved by the Office of Legal Counsel included techniques that constituted torture or cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment. We would not accept such techniques being used on our servicemen and women held in captivity by our enemies. Yet Mr. Bradbury approved those techniques and, in doing so, endangered our men and women in uniform, and that danger still exists today.

Mr. Bradbury authored four separate memos authorizing the harshest form of detainee abuse, including waterboarding and other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Not only did these legal memos authorize techniques that have been deemed abusive, they provided a green light for those willing to abuse enemy combatants in U.S. custody.

Following the revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, the Senate, led by Senator John McCain, passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 by a vote of 90 to 9. That law prohibited detainee abuse by the military and other agencies.

However, legal opinions by Mr. Bradbury sought to provide a legal cover for the continued use of techniques that ran counter to the intent of that law. Our most respected military leaders have spoken out against the use of these unlawful interrogation techniques. A letter signed by 176 retired senior military leaders opposed the kind of torture techniques approved by Mr. Bradbury's Office of Legal Counsel.

Having had the privilege to serve in the Army of the United States, I believe they did this because they understood if we did it, our enemies would do it with even more gusto to our men and women, and it would be unconscionable to give them even a shred of credibility to point to and say: We are simply doing what you did to others.

Retired Marine Gen. Charles Krulak wrote in opposition to the Bradbury nomination, saying that the use of techniques approved by Mr. Bradbury ``not only violated well-established law and military doctrine, but also endangered U.S. troops and personnel, hindered the war effort, and betrayed the country's values, damaging the United States' stature around the world as a beacon of human rights and the rule of law.''

That is the voice of one marine, speaking from years of experience in combat, not simply to defend our ideals but to defend those men and women who serve today in uniform.

Secretary of Defense Mattis has expressed his full support for the Army Field Manual as the single standard for all U.S. military interrogations and has advised President Trump that such enhanced interrogation techniques are not needed to keep our country safe.

Under Mr. Bradbury's direction, DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel approved opinions on enhanced interrogation techniques that appear intended to meet the political inclinations of the White House rather than the intent of U.S. laws against such cruelty. Someone who has justified the use of torture, in spite of an act of Congress, should not be allowed to hold a position of responsibility in the U.S. Government. Indeed, it is for that reason that this body refused to approve Mr. Bradbury as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in 2008.

If approved as the General Counsel of the Department of Transportation, Mr. Bradbury would again be called upon to render legal opinions that require sound and independent judgment. Even forgetting for a moment his history of bending to the political desires of a strong-willed White House, his refusal to completely recuse himself from matters relating to his former client, Takata, means he would enter this office with a cloud of potential conflicts around him.

Public service is not an entitlement but a privilege. For Mr. Bradbury, the revolving door should swing shut. His lack of judgment at a critical time in the Nation's history has disqualified him from the privilege of holding high office in the current or any future administration.

Surely the American people deserve someone who reflects our national values and has demonstrated much better judgment than Mr. Bradbury.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, a few weeks ago, I traveled to South Korea to better understand the threat posed by North Korea. I would like to share my impressions from the trip and how I believe we should be positioning ourselves to better deal with this current crisis.

I want to recommend to my colleagues and the administration that the time for debate on this issue is now, before the crisis comes to a head. We need to have a clear strategy and increased cooperation with South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia to contain and to deter the nuclear threat posed by North Korea. I have significant concerns that we are not doing everything we can right now to improve our bargaining position with North Korea. I am convinced we must try to find a diplomatic solution to this problem because the alternatives are extraordinarily costly. While we should always remain prepared to go to war and never take that option off the table, I believe as long as there is a possible diplomatic solution to this crisis, we must make every effort to make it a reality.

I would like to spend some time talking about the threat posed by North Korea and then review the history of our diplomatic negotiations since the early nineties.

North Korea voluntarily joined the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, NPT, in 1985. It was clear only a few years later that it was in violation of the NPT.

Our first crisis occurred when Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader, refused inspections required under the treaty in 1993. Since then, North Korea has engaged in the illegal production of fissile material and nuclear devices, and has conducted six nuclear weapons tests. The latest test occurred just last month on September 3.

The threat we face from North Korea is not just a nuclear weapon aimed at New York City or Washington, DC. This regime has proven over and over again that it will not hesitate to proliferate weapons of mass destruction for financial gain. The proliferation threat is a global one. We can all imagine the consequences of a nuclear weapon in the hands of al-Qaida or ISIS that can be deployed anywhere in the world.

North Korea poses not only a nuclear threat to the globe but also a conventional one. In 2010, the regime torpedoed and sank a South Korean warship, and 46 South Korean sailors lost their lives. Later that year, the regime killed four South Korean citizens when it shelled Yeonpyeong Island. Once this regime achieves its goal of developing a nuclear weapon that can hit the continental United States, we may see increased kinetic attacks against South Korea and Japan and possibly other countries in the region.

North Korea has repeatedly engaged in cyber attacks over the last decade and uses them as an asymmetric weapon against companies and governments alike. It has been attributed with sweeping attacks against the financial industry's Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication or SWIFT protocol to enrich itself to the tune of millions of dollars. This SWIFT protocol is the backbone of the world financial system.

It orchestrated the DarkSeoul cyber attacks in 2013, attacking South Korean news stations and financial institutions, and it was responsible for the destructive and coercive attacks against Sony Pictures, a successful American entertainment company, because it didn't like a movie's depiction of the current leader.

Let us not forget that North Korea engages in horrific human rights violations against its own people. It maintains a system of brutal prison camps that incarcerate thousands of men, women, and children who live in atrocious living conditions under the constant fear of rape, torture, and arbitrary execution. It keeps its civilian population isolated from the rest of the world without access to current news and information that would undermine its propaganda to brainwash its population into believing in and revering their leader and demonizing the Western ideals of freedom and democracy.

I think it is important for us to remember the long and torturous diplomatic path we have walked with North Korea for the last 25 years and recognize the wasted opportunities by past administrations that could have prevented or reduced the threat we face today.

After we realized that North Korea had failed to meet its obligations under the NPT in the mid-nineties, we almost reached a crisis point in the late spring of 1994, as the Clinton administration considered striking the Yongbyon nuclear facility. The crisis was resolved when former President Carter traveled to Pyongyang that summer and brokered the outlines of a deal. North Korea would freeze its plutonium production program in exchange for a light-water nuclear reactor. A final deal was brokered later that year called the Agreed Framework, under which North Korea agreed to freeze its plutonium production programs and to eventually dismantle them in exchange for two nuclear reactors and the prospect of normalization of economic and diplomatic relations.

How did we get from that agreement to today? For starters, in 1998, North Korea tested its first long-range ballistic missile, and that began to unravel the deal. The Clinton administration attempted to salvage the Agreed Framework by negotiating additional terms to stop its missile program but was unable to conclude arrangements before President Clinton left office. After President Bush took office in 2001, the new administration wanted to distance itself from Clinton's policies and stopped negotiating the Agreed Framework in earnest. North Korea, reacting to the Bush administration's new hostile tone, also stepped away from the talks.

For example, in January 2002, President Bush delivered his ``axis of evil'' State of the Union speech that identified North Korea as a regime ``arming [itself] with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.'' In April of that year, President Bush issued a memorandum stating he would not certify North Korea's

compliance with the Agreed Framework. Rumors also abounded at this time about North Korea's pursuit of a uranium-based nuclear weapon, which were confirmed in October of 2002. By the end of 2002, diplomatic efforts having stalled, North Korea expelled inspectors from the country, withdrew from the NPT in early 2003, and turned fuel rods that the United States had helped to store safely under the Agreed Framework into weapons-grade plutonium. It was a lost opportunity to go back to the drawing board, reengage with the North Korean regime, and attempt to find a comprehensive deal that would include both its plutonium and uranium programs, as well as the missile program.

After North Korea admitted in April 2003 that it possessed nuclear weapons but was willing to get rid of its program in exchange for something ``considerable'' from the United States, the so-called Six- Party Talks started in August of that year and eventually reached an agreement in September of 2005, in which North Korea committed to the other five parties that it would abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.

At this point, North Korea's nuclear program had made significant progress, and forcing the North Korean regime to implement the agreement and stop its program would have required a significant diplomatic investment by the United States, but at that time we were fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and did not see North Korea as the highest priority.

After North Korea tested a nuclear device in 2006, we had a moment when the other parties to the Six-Party Talks were even more resolved to work together. The Six-Party Talks did produce two additional agreements in which North Korea froze the plutonium program, turned over operating records, and dismantled the cooling tower, but they again faltered and then failed over verification measures. It is possible that with consistent pressure and cooperation with the other parties, we could have convinced North Korea to follow through on its verification commitments. Then the North Korean leader suffered a stroke in 2008, and President Bush left office in January 2009, complicating matters even more. North Korea greeted the newly elected Obama administration with a ballistic missile test in April 2009 and a nuclear test in May.

After Kim Jong Un took control of North Korea in 2011, the situation became even more challenging when it became clear that there was a new and concerted effort to advance their nuclear program. The Obama administration struck the so-called Leap Day Deal--both countries separately announced an agreement to suspend operations at its Yongbyon uranium enrichment plant and invited the International Atomic Energy Agency or IAEA inspectors to monitor the suspension and implement moratoriums on nuclear long-range missile tests. In exchange, we offered a generous food aid package. It was an attempt to begin the process of denuclearization but was short-lived since North Korea announced its plans to launch a satellite in violation of U.N. resolutions only 2 weeks after the agreement was announced. Yet, again, it was a lost opportunity to really challenge the current leader before he had consolidated power within North Korea over a provocation that did not need to derail negotiations.

My purpose in reviewing this history is to note that there were opportunities, especially under the Agreed Framework and later during the Six-Party Talks, to reengage the North Korean Government and find a comprehensive diplomatic solution.

We missed those opportunities and deferred this problem and now we are in a much worse negotiating position than in any time in history. Of course, we cannot ignore that the biggest problem has always been North Korea's failure to stand by its commitments and its covert development of programs despite repeated assurances during negotiations. That is why I believe we need to make sure any deal includes stringent verification measures, with snapback sanctions and economic measures that will cripple the North Korean economy and starve it of any resources it can use for a nuclear program. While I understand the risks inherent in any deal with North Korea, I believe the alternatives are much riskier.

I would like to be very clear. While we will prevail in a war against North Korea, it will not look like winning. I want to paint for you the very stark and grim reality we will be facing in a conflict against North Korea. First, it would and should not be lost on anyone that the United States has never fought against a nuclear-armed state. Even if we were to engage in a preemptive war with North Korea now, it currently has the capability to hit both South Korea and Japan, our main staging areas and where the majority of our troops would be located, with a nuclear weapon. The irony is that by striking first to prevent a nuclear strike against the United States, we would be significantly increasing the likelihood of a nuclear strike against ourselves or our allies.

Even if North Korea does not hit South Korea or Japan with a nuclear weapon, a conventional war would be devastating. Within the first weeks, we would see tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of civilian casualties from the long-range artillery strategically aimed at the 25 million citizens of Seoul. There are some 250,000 American citizens living in South Korea who would need to be evacuated, mostly from Seoul, while the city is under siege. The United States has never conducted a noncombatant evacuation operation of this scale. It is likely that most U.S. citizens would not be able to be evacuated within the first week of hostilities, resulting in massive U.S. civilian casualties in addition to the thousands of our Korean friends who would also lose their lives.

Moreover, either in anticipation of hostilities or in response to a preemptive attack, North Korea will engage in significant cyber operations that will strike at infrastructure throughout the world, including the United States. Further complicating the scenario is the fact that North Korean cyber operations are conducted outside of its territory, principally in China. Without any prior agreement with these countries, we would be faced with the difficult decision of how to stop these remote North Korean operations.

Let us also not discount the cascading economic effects of war. The South Korean economy would be in ruins, and shortly thereafter, the Asian markets and the global market would begin to see the effects. As noted by Emerging Asia Economics Focus by Capital Economics with regard to the potential economic impacts of such a war, South Korea accounts for around 2 percent of global economic output. If South Korea's GDP fell only by half, that would result in a 1-percent decrease in global GDP, not to mention a huge disruption to global supply chains. The U.S. Federal debt would go up considerably. Collectively, this war could cost us billions, in addition to the actual financial and military resources that we would need to expend.

To those who think we will have a quick and certain military victory, I would say that our assumptions of a quick victory have been proven wrong many times in our history. We will not be viewed as liberators by the majority of the North Korean population, who have been taught from birth that the United States initiated the hostilities that led to the Korean war and is determined to destroy their country. The Korean war, during which the North Koreans suffered massive casualties and a constant bombing campaign that reportedly killed almost 20 percent of its population, is within the living memory of older North Koreans.

Add to that the incredibly risky missions of locating, isolating, and neutralizing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapon sites and the thousands of underground facilities in North Korea and we are looking at a month-long kinetic campaign with a years-long stabilization effort, not to mention the decades it will take not only to reconstruct North Korea but to bring its infrastructure and population forward to the 21st century.

We also cannot underestimate the reactions of the global community, especially China, if we act prematurely. China has a defense treaty with North Korea, and although it has publicly stated that it will not aid North Korea if North Korea attacks first, we cannot gauge what China's reaction will be if it determines that we were the initial aggressors.

Again, we will prevail after a long, bloody, and costly fight, but it will not look like winning. We must do everything we can now to set the theater to win the war, and then do everything in our power to avoid it. To that end, we should exhaust every single diplomatic avenue for peace before considering other options. We have an obligation to our men and women in uniform to vigorously seek a diplomatic solution before using military force. We also need to convince our allies, especially South Korea and Japan, that we are serious about their security and have made every effort to avoid conflict. We will undermine our own credibility and our standing in the world if we rush to war without demonstrating our commitment to peace.

Finally, even if diplomacy fails--and I fear that our likelihood of success is low, given the history I have laid out above--there are certain advantages to being secured solely through the process of negotiating that will be significant achievements in their own right.

First, we will have a much better sense of what the current regime's strategic interests are. It was clear Kim Il Sung, the present leader's grandfather, had three strategic priorities: to use the nuclear program to blackmail the rest of the world for economic concessions; to appeal to the North Korean populace, who had been told that nuclear weapons were a mantle of legitimacy; and to scapegoat the United States with North Korea's economic problems, arguing that the sacrifices made by the North Korean people were necessary to fend off U.S. imperial aggression.

It is less clear where the current regime's interests lie. It is possible that Kim Jong Un is interested only in regime survival and will be willing to agree to a deal that will freeze its programs and instead focus its attention on developing its infrastructure and improving its economic growth in exchange for guarantees that we will not seek regime change.

Despite our strongest sanctions programme to date, the North Korean economy is growing, albeit from a remarkably low starting point. Kim Jong Un has taken a page from the Chinese economic plan of the 1980s and 1990s and significantly increased the economic prosperity of his people. While maintaining strict social and political control, he has opened the economy through decollectivization, the reduction of market restrictions, and allowing small private enterprises to flourish. The North Korean economy grew more than 3 percent last year. It is clear that Kim Jong Un is interested in allowing his economy to develop and in providing greater economic opportunity to his people.

But it is also possible that Kim Jong Un has more aggressive ambitions and seeks to finish his grandfather's goal of reuniting the peninsula under North Korean rule. I believe we should spend the time to try to understand Kim Jong Un's ultimate goals and whether peace is really on the table.

Second, we will have the moral authority to go to war having demonstrated to the world that we negotiated in good faith and that the North Korean regime is not interested in peace. It will also give us an opportunity to better understand and coordinate on China's strategic interests. While China is also quite concerned and alarmed by the nuclear programs, it has a considerable interest in maintaining stability on the peninsula to avoid regime collapse, to avoid a humanitarian crisis triggered by millions of refugees flowing across its southern border, and to avoid the possibility of a biological or chemical weapon attack or a nuclear attack so close to its territory.

Diplomacy may offer the opportunity to find common ground with China on these issues--issues that concern us as well--and to coordinate our responses in the event of a contingency. We should discuss end states with China that take into account their vital national interests.

Finally, we should be able to receive some commitments from other countries, especially China, with regard to the enforcement of sanctions as an aid to the diplomatic process. To date China has been unwilling to exert the type of pressure necessary to cause real economic pressure on the North Korean regime. I believe we should push for an agreement with China and Russia on even stronger sanctions that will be immediately enforced during the negotiation process and will continue to be enforced if the negotiations fail.

We should be expending every possible resource now to set the right conditions for diplomacy and to improve our negotiation position. This administration has not created the right conditions to date, and there are four areas that I believe we need to focus on today: consistent and clear messaging to North Korea and the world; increasing our diplomatic and military capacity; improving international cooperation and coordination; and increasing pressure on the North Korean regime through better sanctions enforcement, military pressure, and information operations.

There has been a marked failure to consistently message to the North Koreans, our allies in the region, other global players like Russia and China, and the rest of the world. Secretary Tillerson has repeatedly made public statements regarding our intentions to pursue a diplomatic solution with North Korea and has been consistently undercut by the President's commentary that we are not really interested in diplomacy. While I understand the President's intent might be to demonstrate that we can and will use military force if necessary, there are certainly more artful ways of making that message clear than tweeting that the Secretary of State is ``wasting his time trying to negotiate with Rocket Man.''

This is not a time for incoherence or confusion. We need to be as precise and clear as possible with regard to the administration's avowed strong preference for diplomacy.

Likewise, President Trump's speech at the United Nations General Assembly sent exactly the wrong message to North Korea and to our ally South Korea. Threatening to destroy North Korea, a country of 25 million people, may send a deterrence message, but it also plays into the regime's narrative that we are out to destroy them. We should not be feeding into Kim Jong Un's propaganda machine by reaffirming their mistaken belief that we are interested in annihilating their country, and we should not be signaling to South Korea that this administration does not take its security seriously.

I sincerely hope that the President does not repeat his tone-deaf messaging during his upcoming speech to the Korean National Assembly. The Government of Korea needs to hear a clear commitment to diplomacy and a clear commitment to protect the Republic of Korea as is required by our alliance.

In this regard, it is disturbing to hear of reports that officials responsible for executing our diplomacy with regard to North Korea are, as reported in an October 25 Foreign Policy situation report, ``frustrated by an inability to communicate the urgency of the situation to the White House.'' Unless there is consistency in our message and constant and acute attention from the White House, we are on a path to disaster.

In addition to consistent messaging, we need to drastically improve our capacity, both diplomatic and military, to position ourselves for any negotiation with North Korea. It is diplomatic malpractice that there is no U.S. Ambassador to South Korea. The President is heading there in a few days. There is insufficient time, even if an Ambassador were to be named tomorrow, to confirm that individual before the President's trip. We have a key diplomatic post that has been empty for 8 months. There is also no Assistant Secretary of State for Asia in the State Department or in the Department of Defense. While we have Acting Assistant Secretaries, that is no substitute for the political appointees who will be able to operate with far greater freedom and support from the administration. I urge this administration to fill these positions immediately.

Since sanctions are our most important diplomatic tool, it is also astounding that Secretary Tillerson is eliminating the State Department's Coordinator for Sanction Policy office, ``which has been led by a veteran ambassador-rank diplomat with at least five staff'' as reported in an October 26 Foreign Policy article. He will reportedly entrust this critical task to one individual in his Policy Planning Office.

One of the most important elements to strengthening our bargaining position is demonstrating that we are prepared to fight if necessary. When I was in South Korea, I spoke at great length with our military commanders, including General Brooks, about our readiness. I was very impressed by not only how prepared we are to go to war but also how integrated our operations are with the Republic of Korea's.

Even so, I believe there are some additional measures that should be taken now. Specifically, I believe we need to increase our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations, our strike capabilities, and strengthen our missile defense capabilities in the region with more Patriot, THAAD, and SM-3 interceptors, as well as increase our critical munitions stocks to ensure that we are providing credible military options on the Korean Peninsula. We should be providing U.S. Forces Korea with every tool they may need to prosecute a possible war. However, even this increased readiness would not overcome the massive casualties and possible use of nuclear weapons that I outlined before.

As we have learned time and time again, the multilateral approach is the best path to a successful outcome, whether in diplomacy or war. There are a number of countries whose national security interests are touched by the North Korean threat, although I would submit that North Korea poses a global challenge because of the risk created by its nuclear weapons and human rights violations.

First and foremost, we need to better coordinate our messaging and strategy with our allies, South Korea and Japan. It will be nearly impossible to initiate any unilateral action against North Korea without the commitment and cooperation of South Korea and Japan. The majority of our forces are either stationed or flowing through those two countries. They are indispensable and equal partners in the crisis and should be treated as such.

We cannot assume that South Korea and Japan have identical interests to us or that they are in complete agreement on all aspects of our strategy. Through constant diplomacy, we can ensure that we enter into negotiations with the same objectives and understand our partners' interests and their tolerance for risk. We also need to push our partners to work better together. For example, at the end of last year, South Korea and Japan entered into a General Security of Military Information Agreement to share sensitive information on North Korea's missile and nuclear activities. However, this agreement has yet to be implemented, to the detriment of the security of South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Our allies must learn to work in concert to ensure we are in the best position to deal with the threat we all face.

Second, we should be seriously considering some combination of multiparty talks with the relevant stakeholders, including China and Russia, to first establish some basic redlines that can be conveyed to the North Korean Government: No atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons, no electromagnetic pulse attacks, and no missile attacks on the United States, its allies, or any country. These talks should be also geared toward getting additional commitments on sanctions, especially from China and Russia, that have to date failed to fully implement sanctions against North Korea.

If we can come to some agreement among ourselves about the path forward and show a unified, diplomatic front to North Korea, I believe we will be much more successful in any negotiations.

It is also critical that we increase the pressure on North Korea and create less operating space for the regime to pursue its ballistic missile and nuclear ambitions.

We are not at the maximum level of sanctions that can be imposed on North Korea. There are financial institutions that are conducting transactions with North Korea that have not yet been subjected to sanctions. We should be pursuing sanctions against every institution, no matter how large or small, that conducts even a single transaction with this regime. There are significant authorities that have been created, both through the United Nations and by other authorities, to go after companies and individuals who are doing business with North Korea. The issue, as I see it, is enforcement. Our Treasury Department, in cooperation with the State Department, must act faster to target these bad actors. Time is not on our side. Every day that passes is a day that Kim Jong Un is closer to the goal of achieving an intercontinental ballistic missile that can hit the eastern seaboard of the United States with a nuclear weapon.

In addition to financial institutions, we must starve the regime of the resources it needs to support its elites and the military--whether through coal or overseas labor, every avenue of revenue must be cut off.

We need to make a concerted effort through our diplomatic channels to cut off North Korea's access to hard currency. Every country that continues to employ North Korean labor and allow North Korean business to operate within its borders needs to know that there will be economic and diplomatic consequences for its behavior. To those who argue that we would be punishing everyday North Koreans with these measures, I would note that the vast majority of funds are remitted to the regime to use for its nefarious purposes.

We should be engaging every single country with a North Korean Embassy that has not yet been closed to follow Spain and Mexico's example and order them closed. It has been reported for years that these Embassies operate as fronts for North Korea's illicit activities, including trading in counterfeit currency, arms smuggling, and circumventing sanctions by selling prohibited goods.

China needs to be convinced not only to cut off the fuel supply to North Korea but also to clamp down on the regime's use of its financial institutions. Russia employs thousands of workers and stands ready to sell fuel to North Korea, acting opportunistically instead of as the global leader it makes itself out to be.

The United States withheld nearly $300 million in military assistance to Egypt after we discovered that the military had purchased 30,000 North Korean rocket-propelled grenades.

I believe it is our failure to exact severe consequences on the countries that do business with North Korea that has allowed the regime to spread its workers and exports across the globe and reap billions of dollars from the global economy.

North Korea needs to realize that its reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons has left it with no allies, no friends, and no financial resources. This is one reason why the devastating cuts to the State Department and the failure to adequately staff our diplomatic corps is such a wasted opportunity to increase our diplomatic capacity to spread this message to all the countries that work with North Korea.

We need to increase the military pressure on North Korea. This requires flying close surveillance missions and continuing our exercises and posture on the peninsula. We need to make it clear to Pyongyang that while we prefer diplomacy, we will not hesitate to use military force if necessary. To that end, we should be doing everything to set the military theater on the peninsula in our favor.

Finally, we have not sufficiently countered the propaganda that has brainwashed the North Korean people into believing that we are their enemies and that we seek to destroy their country. We should be increasing the budgeting for Radio Free Asia and other organizations that everyday North Koreans can access. We should also be exposing the North Korean people, through every avenue available, to real information about the world and the deplorable conditions that their leadership has created within their country.

I believe it was a mistake to do away with the position of Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights. We need more diplomats fully engaged and working on improving the human rights conditions for millions of North Korean citizens, helping North Korean refugees, and increasing efforts to educate them.

We should be just as concerned with internal pressure on the regime as we are with external pressure. The Soviet Union collapsed because everyday Soviet citizens saw how far behind their Western counterparts the USSR's policies had left them. Everyday North Koreans want the same things: security,

stability, and the ability to educate and raise their children in peace and prosperity. That is the message we should be promoting in North Korea.

I wish I could stand here and say that I am confident we can negotiate a deal with the North Koreans to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. This may have been possible in the late 1990s under the Agreed Framework, but it will be very challenging now. The price of peace has risen dramatically since that time. Administration after administration kicked the can down the road, and now we are left with a North Korean regime that is very close to developing a nuclear-armed ICBM that can hit the United States and a North Korean leader who observed the fates of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadhafi and has decided that his regime will only survive if he has a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States.

We may need to be willing to accept a deal short of denuclearization that includes a verifiable freeze on the development and testing of nuclear weapons and missile programs. We will likely need to have some interim confidence-building agreements over a period of months or years short of this goal to build momentum. Obtaining the necessary agreements regarding verification and inspections will be the most challenging aspects of the deal and I worry may derail our best efforts at negotiation.

There will likely be discussion of reducing our military presence on the peninsula and curtailing our joint military exercises with the Republic of Korea. I believe we should not agree to any reduction of joint exercises in exchange for a freeze, but I do think we should carefully consider whether there should be a step down in military exercises on both sides to reduce tensions and build confidence.

Any agreement will need to contain strict prohibitions on proliferation and an international observation organization to ensure that North Korea is not selling its nuclear or missile technology to other countries or nonstate actors.

It is important that we all recognize that we are not faced with the binary options that many people are fond of promoting--denuclearization or war. There are diplomatic options short of denuclearization that we may be forced to consider. If diplomacy fails, our only alternative is not a kinetic one. There is the same option we chose when Russia and China became nuclear states--accept the risks and mitigate it through isolation, containment, and deterrence.

I would like to note that the costs associated with this path are very high but still likely less than the cost of war. There is a significantly lower risk of the loss of life.

For example, we will need to invest even more heavily in our missile defense, and even after investing millions of dollars, we are left in a position where we won't have confidence that we can shoot down every single missile pointed at Washington, DC, or New York. That is where we were with the Soviet Union and still are with the Russians today.

We will also need to increase our funding for overhead intelligence to make sure we have the most accurate information, minute by minute, about developments within North Korea.

Additionally, we will need to maintain a strictly enforced sanctions regime for years to come, and we will need to work diligently to overcome the inevitable sanctions fatigue.

We will also need to invest even more heavily in our agencies that prosecute sanctions. We will need a nimble Treasury, State Department, and intelligence community that can identify and quickly target bad actors. The North Korean regime has proven itself quite able to engage in illegal and illicit activities as varied as cyber crime, arms sales, currency, counterfeiting, narcotics, and wildlife trafficking. Empowering our State, Treasury, and intelligence Departments to identify and target these illicit activities and schemes will be expensive, both in manpower and diplomatic negotiations with countries that stand to profit from these arrangements.

We will also need to work hard to prevent a nuclear arms race in the Asia-Pacific region. There are already elements in South Korea that are agitating for the return of tactical nuclear weapons. As North Korea's nuclear program grows more robust, these elements will only get stronger. Even nuclear-adverse Japan may reconsider its position as it feels more pressure from its neighbor to the west. The risks of proliferation in Asia and the rest of the world are high. Let us remember that proliferation is not the solution, it is the problem.

We need to be clear-eyed about the threat we face from North Korea. Years of indecision have left us with a number of imperfect and expensive options. North Korea's aggressive behavior has led us to the brink of war. We are in a time of uncertain peace.

I would urge this administration and my colleagues to consider the costs of war that I have outlined and for all of us, Republicans and Democrats, to work toward a peaceful and diplomatic solution to this crisis now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we all recognize that a postsecondary education is required for most family-sustaining, middle-class jobs, and that an educated workforce is essential to a modern, productive economy. A report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that college-level intensive business services have replaced manufacturing as the largest sector in the U.S. economy, and that while college-educated workers make up only 32 percent of the workforce, they now produce more than 50 percent of the Nation's economic output, up from 13 percent in 1967. A college degree also pays off, as median annual earnings for bachelor's degree holders were $23,000 higher compared to high school graduates in 2014.

Yet just as there is growing recognition that postsecondary education is indispensable in the modern economy, families are being required to shoulder growing debt burdens that threaten access to college.

According to an analysis of student loan debt by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, between 2004 and 2014, there was an 89 percent increase in the number of student loan borrowers and a 77 percent increase in the average balance size. Today, over 40 million Americans have student loan debt.

This is a growing drag on our economy. As student loan debt has grown, young adults have put off buying homes or cars, starting a family, saving for retirement, or launching new businesses. They have literally mortgaged their economic future.

We know that student loan borrowers are struggling. A recent Department of Education analysis of outcomes for student loan borrowers who began their studies in 1995-96 and 2003-04 found that only 38 percent of the 1995-96 cohort had paid off their loans without default after 20 years, and only 24 percent after 12 years. For the 2003-04 cohort, only 20 percent had repaid their loans without defaulting after 12 years. Worse, 52 percent of students who attended for-profit institutions had defaulted on a student loan within 12 years. Roughly, 8.5 million borrowers currently have a loan in default.

We have seen the costs to students and taxpayers when institutions are not held accountable. Corthinian Colleges and ITT are two examples of institutions that failed their students while benefitting from Federal student aid. Their fraudulent business practices eventually led to their demise, but not before leaving their students and taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars in student loan debt.

We cannot wait until an institution is catastrophically failing its students before taking action. Institutions need greater financial incentives to act before default rates rise. Simply put, we cannot tackle the student loan debt crisis without States and institutions stepping up and taking greater responsibility for college costs and student borrowing.

That is why I am pleased to introduce the Protect Student Borrowers Act with Senators Durbin, Warren, and Murphy. Our legislation seeks to ensure there is more skin in the game when it comes to student loan debt by setting stronger market incentives for colleges and universities to provide better and more affordable education to students, which should in turn help put the brakes on rising student loan defaults.

The Protect Student Borrowers Act would hold colleges and universities accountable for student loan defaults by requiring them to repay a percentage of defaulted loans. Only institutions that have one- third or more of their students borrow would be included in the bill's risk-sharing requirements based on their cohort default rate. Risk- sharing requirements would kick in when the default rate exceeds 15 percent. As the institution's default rate rises, so too will the institution's risk-share payment.

The Protect Student Borrowers Act also provides incentives for institutions to take proactive steps to ease student loan debt burdens and reduce default rates. Colleges and universities can reduce or eliminate their payments if they implement a comprehensive student loan management plan. The Secretary may waive or reduce the payments for institutions whose mission is to serve low-income and minority students, such as community colleges, Historically Black Institutions, or Hispanic-Serving Institutions--provided that they are making progress in their student loan management plans.

The risk-sharing payments would be invested in helping struggling borrowers, preventing future default and delinquency, and increasing Pell Grants at institutions that enroll a high percentage of Pell Grant recipients and have low default rates.

With the stakes so high for students and taxpayers, it is only fair that institutions bear some of the risk in the student loan program.

We need to tackle student loan debt and college affordability from multiple angles. And we need all stakeholders in the system to do their part. With the Protect Student Borrowers Act, we are providing the incentives and resources for institutions to take more responsibility to address college affordability and student loan debt and improve student outcomes. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this bill and look forward to working with them to include it and other key reforms in the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

Mr. President, as Americans, we take inspiration from those who have answered the call to serve, whether in defense of our Nation abroad or to strengthen our communities at home. This willingness to make common cause with our fellow citizens and serve a purpose greater than ourselves is a hallmark of our Nation. We should ensure that every American who wants to serve has the opportunity to do so. To that end, I am introducing the America's Call to Improving Opportunities Now (ACTION) for National Service Act with Senators Coons and Blumenthal. Our legislation calls for elevating the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to a cabinet-level agency and supporting up to one million national service positions annually.

Since 1994, over one million individuals have served through the AmeriCorps program. Additionally, roughly 245,000 seniors over the age of 55 volunteer annually through the Senior Corps programs. These individuals have addressed critical community needs in education, economic development, health, and many other areas. They have come to their fellow citizens' aid in times of national disaster, including thousands who have been deployed in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Unfortunately, we have not created the capacity to support all those who want to serve.

Rhode Island has embraced service. Providence is one of the top AmeriCorps cities in the nation. Across our State, nearly 4,200 AmeriCorps and Senior Corps volunteers are helping students succeed in school, ensuring veterans get access to the services they need, supporting seniors in their communities, protecting the environment, and addressing other critical needs. With additional resources and support, Rhode Island volunteers could accomplish so much more.

We strive to honor those who serve. Even more importantly, we invest in the education and professional development of those who have sacrificed and given so much to our Nation. Developing the talents of our most committed citizens pays life-long dividends. Our investment in the GI Bill not only honors our service members, but also enriches our Nation. Similarly, the education awards for those who have served through CNCS programs have economic impacts beyond the individuals who earn them. Just as we came together on a bipartisan basis to expand and enhance the GI Bill benefits, now is the time to increase the education award for those who serve at

home. The ACTION for National Service Act will ensure that national service volunteers who complete two full terms of service earn an education award equivalent to four years of in-State tuition at a public university. Those who are willing to serve should not have to carry a heavy burden of student loan debt to achieve their educational goals.

Today, as our communities face challenges in a host of areas, we need more people to participate in national service, and we need more partners to support them. As such, the ACTION for National Service Act will establish a National Service Foundation to encourage private sector and philanthropic investment in expanding national service opportunities.

All AmeriCorps members take a pledge to get things done for Americans, to make communities safer, smarter and healthier, and to bring us together. Today, I ask my colleagues to join us in pledging to ensure that all who want to answer the call to serve can do so by cosponsoring the ACTION for National Service Act.

Mr. President, we all recognize that a postsecondary education is required for most family-sustaining, middle-class jobs, and that an educated workforce is essential to a modern, productive economy. A report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that college-level intensive business services have replaced manufacturing as the largest sector in the U.S. economy, and that while college-educated workers make up only 32 percent of the workforce, they now produce more than 50 percent of the Nation's economic output, up from 13 percent in 1967. A college degree also pays off, as median annual earnings for bachelor's degree holders were $23,000 higher compared to high school graduates in 2014.

Yet just as there is growing recognition that postsecondary education is indispensable in the modern economy, families are being required to shoulder growing debt burdens that threaten access to college.

According to an analysis of student loan debt by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, between 2004 and 2014, there was an 89 percent increase in the number of student loan borrowers and a 77 percent increase in the average balance size. Today, over 40 million Americans have student loan debt.

This is a growing drag on our economy. As student loan debt has grown, young adults have put off buying homes or cars, starting a family, saving for retirement, or launching new businesses. They have literally mortgaged their economic future.

We know that student loan borrowers are struggling. A recent Department of Education analysis of outcomes for student loan borrowers who began their studies in 1995-96 and 2003-04 found that only 38 percent of the 1995-96 cohort had paid off their loans without default after 20 years, and only 24 percent after 12 years. For the 2003-04 cohort, only 20 percent had repaid their loans without defaulting after 12 years. Worse, 52 percent of students who attended for-profit institutions had defaulted on a student loan within 12 years. Roughly, 8.5 million borrowers currently have a loan in default.

We have seen the costs to students and taxpayers when institutions are not held accountable. Corthinian Colleges and ITT are two examples of institutions that failed their students while benefitting from Federal student aid. Their fraudulent business practices eventually led to their demise, but not before leaving their students and taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars in student loan debt.

We cannot wait until an institution is catastrophically failing its students before taking action. Institutions need greater financial incentives to act before default rates rise. Simply put, we cannot tackle the student loan debt crisis without States and institutions stepping up and taking greater responsibility for college costs and student borrowing.

That is why I am pleased to introduce the Protect Student Borrowers Act with Senators Durbin, Warren, and Murphy. Our legislation seeks to ensure there is more skin in the game when it comes to student loan debt by setting stronger market incentives for colleges and universities to provide better and more affordable education to students, which should in turn help put the brakes on rising student loan defaults.

The Protect Student Borrowers Act would hold colleges and universities accountable for student loan defaults by requiring them to repay a percentage of defaulted loans. Only institutions that have one- third or more of their students borrow would be included in the bill's risk-sharing requirements based on their cohort default rate. Risk- sharing requirements would kick in when the default rate exceeds 15 percent. As the institution's default rate rises, so too will the institution's risk-share payment.

The Protect Student Borrowers Act also provides incentives for institutions to take proactive steps to ease student loan debt burdens and reduce default rates. Colleges and universities can reduce or eliminate their payments if they implement a comprehensive student loan management plan. The Secretary may waive or reduce the payments for institutions whose mission is to serve low-income and minority students, such as community colleges, Historically Black Institutions, or Hispanic-Serving Institutions--provided that they are making progress in their student loan management plans.

The risk-sharing payments would be invested in helping struggling borrowers, preventing future default and delinquency, and increasing Pell Grants at institutions that enroll a high percentage of Pell Grant recipients and have low default rates.

With the stakes so high for students and taxpayers, it is only fair that institutions bear some of the risk in the student loan program.

We need to tackle student loan debt and college affordability from multiple angles. And we need all stakeholders in the system to do their part. With the Protect Student Borrowers Act, we are providing the incentives and resources for institutions to take more responsibility to address college affordability and student loan debt and improve student outcomes. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this bill and look forward to working with them to include it and other key reforms in the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

Mr. President, as Americans, we take inspiration from those who have answered the call to serve, whether in defense of our Nation abroad or to strengthen our communities at home. This willingness to make common cause with our fellow citizens and serve a purpose greater than ourselves is a hallmark of our Nation. We should ensure that every American who wants to serve has the opportunity to do so. To that end, I am introducing the America's Call to Improving Opportunities Now (ACTION) for National Service Act with Senators Coons and Blumenthal. Our legislation calls for elevating the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to a cabinet-level agency and supporting up to one million national service positions annually.

Since 1994, over one million individuals have served through the AmeriCorps program. Additionally, roughly 245,000 seniors over the age of 55 volunteer annually through the Senior Corps programs. These individuals have addressed critical community needs in education, economic development, health, and many other areas. They have come to their fellow citizens' aid in times of national disaster, including thousands who have been deployed in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Unfortunately, we have not created the capacity to support all those who want to serve.

Rhode Island has embraced service. Providence is one of the top AmeriCorps cities in the nation. Across our State, nearly 4,200 AmeriCorps and Senior Corps volunteers are helping students succeed in school, ensuring veterans get access to the services they need, supporting seniors in their communities, protecting the environment, and addressing other critical needs. With additional resources and support, Rhode Island volunteers could accomplish so much more.

We strive to honor those who serve. Even more importantly, we invest in the education and professional development of those who have sacrificed and given so much to our Nation. Developing the talents of our most committed citizens pays life-long dividends. Our investment in the GI Bill not only honors our service members, but also enriches our Nation. Similarly, the education awards for those who have served through CNCS programs have economic impacts beyond the individuals who earn them. Just as we came together on a bipartisan basis to expand and enhance the GI Bill benefits, now is the time to increase the education award for those who serve at

home. The ACTION for National Service Act will ensure that national service volunteers who complete two full terms of service earn an education award equivalent to four years of in-State tuition at a public university. Those who are willing to serve should not have to carry a heavy burden of student loan debt to achieve their educational goals.

Today, as our communities face challenges in a host of areas, we need more people to participate in national service, and we need more partners to support them. As such, the ACTION for National Service Act will establish a National Service Foundation to encourage private sector and philanthropic investment in expanding national service opportunities.

All AmeriCorps members take a pledge to get things done for Americans, to make communities safer, smarter and healthier, and to bring us together. Today, I ask my colleagues to join us in pledging to ensure that all who want to answer the call to serve can do so by cosponsoring the ACTION for National Service Act.

Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the Congressional Review Act resolution repealing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's forced arbitration rule. At a time when millions of Americans are suffering the consequences of abusive practices by major financial institutions--including the massive consumer fraud by Wells

Fargo and the exposure of up to half of the national population's personal information due to inadequate cyber security by Equifax--it is simply wrong to give immunity to bad corporate actors against lawsuits by the very customers they harmed.

I urge my colleagues to think about the millions of Americans who still don't know all the facts about whether they are victims of one of these or other major banking scandals. They deserve the chance to gather the facts and hold the responsible parties accountable. This anticonsumer resolution strips away those victims' constitutional first line of defense against lending fraud and permits corporations more opportunities to take advantage of consumers.

We have known for years that forced arbitration clauses harm the financial security of those who are most vulnerable to lending scams. Companies slip these clauses into the fine print of contracts for everything from loan applications to purchases on a smartphone. Let's be clear. Even if every American had the time to read and understand the fine print of every contract they sign, most of these contracts by major financial institutions are one-sided, and the consumer has no power to bargain the terms in the fine print.

With these in place, consumers who learn their bank or lender has overcharged or defrauded them also learn quickly that they have signed away their right to take the corporation to court. Instead, they must choose between dropping their claim or going it alone in an arbitration process that is clearly and notoriously stacked in favor of the corporation.

Forced arbitration makes it easier for predatory lenders to avoid the consequences for taking advantage of consumers. This reality is even more outrageous when we consider the fact that predatory lenders view servicemembers, military families, and veterans as prime targets for financial scams. The CFPB has noted that servicemembers are attractive targets because, among other things, they are required to maintain good finances, their pay is consistent, they often relocate, and many are just starting to make significant financial decisions. The Department of Defense is also well aware that military bases draw predatory lenders selling bad or illegal loans, which is one reason why the Department of Defense recently issued new rules banning forced arbitration for many loans covered by the Military Lending Act. But these rules still don't cover the full range of financial products that may be used to take advantage of military consumers and their families. That is why I have worked for years with Senator Lindsey Graham on legislation to ban forced arbitration clauses that waive or limit rights under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. The CFPB rule bans many of these and other forced arbitration clauses that disproportionately harm servicemembers and their families.

While the CFPB has provided data to support the arbitration rule's positive effects for servicemembers, we should also listen to the servicemember community. Their strong support for this rule speaks volumes. The CFPB rule's supporters include the Military Coalition, which consists of 32 military advocacy groups, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and associations representing the interests of members of the Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps. Moreover, in August, the National Convention of the American Legion adopted a resolution opposing legislation to repeal the CFPB forced arbitration rule because, among other reasons, it ``is extremely unfair to bar servicemembers, veterans, and other consumers from joining together to enforce statutory and constitutional protections in court.'' Simply put, servicemembers and veterans don't want this CRA, and they are watching this vote closely.

Mr. President, forced arbitration is the prime example of a rigged system whereby powerful corporations and interests play by different sets of rules than average Americans. When a normal person defrauds another person, that person is entitled to seek a resolution in court. It is wrong for us to allow major corporations to create their own justice system that serves their own interests at the expense of American consumers, families, servicemembers, and veterans.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution and to permit the CFPB arbitration rule to go into effect.

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 rise in strong opposition to the budget resolution for fiscal year 2018.

Let me say that consideration of this budget resolution seems surreal, not only because of the timing--coming, as it does, 3 weeks into the fiscal year--but also because of the real challenges the United States faces today.

We have important work to do. At this moment, three States and two U.S. territories are struggling to recover after experiencing significant natural disasters. The resources we are providing are simply not sufficient.

In addition, sadly and tragically, Las Vegas just experienced the worst mass shooting in American history, breaking the record that was set only last year in the tragic mass shooting in Orlando, but there is no serious bipartisan and comprehensive effort to address gun violence.

After President Trump's reckless efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, Congress needs to act to stabilize private insurance exchanges. I think that we were all pleased, as I was, to see Senator Alexander and Senator Murray take strong steps to do that over the last few days. It appears, however, that they are once again being undermined by the President.

Next week, the President is officially going to declare the opioid crisis as a national emergency, which is what we all have recognized over several years, but declarations mean nothing without there being the resources to help. This is an emergency, and we need to provide those resources now, but given this budget resolution before us, those resources will not be available.

States are already taking steps to reduce healthcare coverage for kids under the Children's Health Insurance Program and services through community health centers because we have not been able to act in time to reauthorize these critical initiatives.

We face international crises in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, which are inflamed, unfortunately, every time the President tweets or comments about these issues.

Before December 8, the President and Congress need to come to an agreement to provide relief from sequester funding caps for defense and non-defense priorities.

The President and Congress need to act immediately to undo the crisis that has been created by the President's Executive order on DACA, which will put thousands of Dreamers at risk of deportation and have an adverse impact on our economy.

This budget addresses none of these challenges. In fact, it so weights tax cuts to the rich and deficits that we will not have the resources with which to deal with any one of these issues. Instead, a week after the President took steps that will cause millions to lose their private health insurance, this budget will pave the way for trillions of dollars in cuts to healthcare offered under Medicare and Medicaid.

Last week, the President basically tried to strangle the Affordable Care Act. Now the goal is to undo Medicare and Medicaid, and that is astounding. The real goal behind that is not just to undo these critical programs for every American; the real goal is to provide trillions more in tax cuts that will overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest.

The majority will say that the budget only lays out a broad fiscal plan and that none of the details have been set, but we have seen this play before. It starts with tax cuts for all, but it will end with nothing short of a historic transfer of wealth from low- and middle- income Americans to those who are

prospering the most in this country. It starts with the promise of a balanced budget, but it will end with greater deficits. It will start this time when, after a long and difficult recovery from the economic crash of the Bush administration, the economy is finally moving forward with stock market highs, low employment, and low interest rates.

Nothing about our current economic situation demands massive, deficit-busting tax cuts, particularly to the wealthiest Americans. Indeed, it is instructive to look back to the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts. These tax plans were also paid for with trillions of dollars of debt because the Nation was newly at war. These plans also overwhelmingly favored the top 1 percent of Americans. We were told then that the tax benefits would trickle down to the working class and pay for themselves. I opposed these tax plans because I didn't believe that would occur, and, in fact, it didn't occur. Despite the substantial benefits for those at the top, overall economic growth from 2001 to 2007 was weaker than average. Median household income fell 2.7 percent while prices and poverty continued to rise. With weak regulation and oversight, this fiscal policy ushered us into the great recession. Now the GOP is poised to do the same thing yet again.

Just for contrast, in the early 1990s, under President Clinton, Democrats took tough votes to raise revenue and rein in spending. Despite predictions to the contrary, the economy took off in one of the biggest economic booms in history, and at the same time we turned budget deficits into the first surplus in a generation.

There are lessons in that experience. There are no shortcuts to restoring fiscal order. Tax cuts do not pay for themselves, and you can't balance the budget while cutting revenue. So how does the majority promise to turn straw into gold this time? By pairing $5.8 trillion in cuts from basic services, including Medicare and Medicaid, with massive deficits and rosy revenue assumptions. With these in place, the GOP says that it can balance the budget and cut taxes by $1.5 trillion. Never mind the fact that the Republican tax cuts to the wealthy will likely cost more than $1.5 trillion, and never mind that this budget assumes absurd cuts to nondefense programs and leaves spending for defense at sequester levels, which we all recognize are inadequate. But even if the numbers are phony and built on loose, unrealistic assumptions, won't most Americans be getting a substantial tax windfall under this plan? Sadly, no.

According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center's analysis of the available information on the GOP tax plan, about 80 percent of the tax cuts will go to the top 1 percent, increasing their after-tax income by about 9 percent. Nearly half of that money will go to the top one-tenth of 1 percent. Meanwhile, the bottom 80 percent of American wage earners will get only 13 percent of the tax cuts, and many hard-working families with children could actually see their taxes go up.

Based on the Tax Policy Center's analysis, most Rhode Islanders who get a tax cut will receive only $190 or less out of this deal. That is less than the cost of a week's worth of groceries for a family of four. Yet most Rhode Islanders and most Americans stand to lose much, much more due to the inevitable cuts in investments like Medicaid, Pell grants, Title I, health research, and public infrastructure. Most middle-class families in my State depend on programs like these. To send their children to school, they need Pell grants; to make sure that their elderly mother or father is well cared for, they need the assistance of Medicaid for nursing homes. So that $190 tax cut will be nothing compared to the losses they will incur in the cost of college for their children, the cost of healthcare for their parents who are just struggling to get by.

On the other hand, people on the top end of the bracket will get a tax cut large enough to buy a new Mercedes. If the recent past is any indication, they will pocket that money, invest it, or send it overseas. That money doesn't trickle down, and working Americans at the losing end of the tax bill will not see it in their paychecks.

The American people deserve a better deal than this budget resolution offers. I know President Trump and the leadership on the other side of the aisle are desperate for a legislative win. They have spent an entire year trying to ram through the partisan TrumpCare healthcare bill that would upend our entire healthcare system, kick over 30 million Americans off of their insurance, and make massive cuts to Medicaid, harming our most vulnerable citizens, including seniors, children, and people with disabilities. The process, the tactics, and the product alienated even Members of their own party and Americans across the political spectrum.

After having failed with TrumpCare and with all of the other challenges we face, the majority leadership has set in this budget blueprint a deadline of November 13 for committees to produce tax cut legislation. All the other business we need to do must wait until we cut taxes for the wealthy.

I know there is room for compromise and that there are Members of good will on both sides who are actively working to address many of the real challenges I mentioned earlier, but tax cuts for the rich shouldn't be on our to-do list, let alone at the top of the list, as it is today.

One of the things we should be standing up for is our men and women in uniform by providing the revenue we need to support them. But when it comes to providing that revenue, this resolution takes a knee and gives revenue away to millionaires and billionaires.

This is a truly rigged process. Its only purpose is to fast-track tax cuts for the rich and cut funding to healthcare and other key initiatives that most Americans count on. For that reason, I will oppose this budget resolution, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today, I am introducing the Corporate Management Accountability Act, which request each publicly traded company to disclose its policies on whether senior executives or shareholders bear the costs of paying the company's fines and penalties.

In 2014, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley, gave a speech on Enhancing Financial Stability by Improving Culture in the Financial Services Industry. In this speech, President Dudley said, ``in recent years, there have been ongoing occurrences of serious professional misbehavior, ethical lapses and compliance failures at financial institutions. This has resulted in a long list of large fines and penalties, and, to a lesser degree than I would have desired employee dismissals and punishment. . . . The pattern of bad behavior did not end with the financial crisis, but continued despite the considerable public sector intervention that was necessary to stabilize the financial system. As a consequence, the financial industry has largely lost the public trust.''

Since 2008, ``banks globally have paid $321 billion in fines . . . for an abundance of regulatory failings from money laundering to market manipulation and terrorist financing, according to data from Boston Consulting Group.'' Unfortunately, despite these fines, we continue to see disappointing behavior at our financial institutions, whether it is Wells Fargo betraying the trust of its customers by opening unauthorized accounts or it is Equifax endangering millions of consumers by compromising critical personal information. Indeed, in my home State of Rhode Island, nearly half the State may have been affected by the cybersecurity breach at Equifax. Given these and other breaches and lapses, it is clear that many financial institutions have a long way to go in rebuilding the trust of Rhode Islanders and the American people.

At the same time, it is also clear that more must be done than simply fining and penalizing financial institutions at the corporate level. Senior executives, many of whom are all too eager to take credit for a company's good news, must also take more responsibility for the bad news, especially if it is true that the buck stops with them. For example, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission concluded ``the financial crisis reached cataclysmic proportions with the collapse of Lehman Brothers,'' and yet, according to the Congressional Research Service, not a single senior executive officer at Lehman Brothers at the Federal level was charged, went to jail, or personally paid a Federal fine or penalty for the damage caused at Lehman Brothers that rippled through our economy in 2008.

According to Professor Peter J. Henning, who also writes for the New York Times in its White Collar Watch column, ``a problem in holding individuals accountable for misconduct in an organization is the disconnect between the actual decisions and those charged with overseeing the company, so that executives and corporate boards usually plead ignorance about an issue until it is too late.''

The Corporate Management Accountability Act I am introducing today is one attempt at helping to solve this problem. The bill asks publicly traded companies to disclose whether they expect senior executives or shareholders to pay the cost of corporate fines or penalties. This approach is supported by University of Minnesota Law School Professors Claire Hill and Richard Painter, who also served as President George W. Bush's chief ethics lawyer, as well as U.S. PIRG, Public Citizen, and Americans for Financial Reform.

Companies must do a better job of aligning executive incentives so that they are motivated to put their shareholders, and not themselves, first. I urge all my colleagues to join this legislative effort to hold senior executives accountable for their actions.

Mr. President, today, I am introducing the Corporate Management Accountability Act, which request each publicly traded company to disclose its policies on whether senior executives or shareholders bear the costs of paying the company's fines and penalties.

In 2014, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley, gave a speech on Enhancing Financial Stability by Improving Culture in the Financial Services Industry. In this speech, President Dudley said, ``in recent years, there have been ongoing occurrences of serious professional misbehavior, ethical lapses and compliance failures at financial institutions. This has resulted in a long list of large fines and penalties, and, to a lesser degree than I would have desired employee dismissals and punishment. . . . The pattern of bad behavior did not end with the financial crisis, but continued despite the considerable public sector intervention that was necessary to stabilize the financial system. As a consequence, the financial industry has largely lost the public trust.''

Since 2008, ``banks globally have paid $321 billion in fines . . . for an abundance of regulatory failings from money laundering to market manipulation and terrorist financing, according to data from Boston Consulting Group.'' Unfortunately, despite these fines, we continue to see disappointing behavior at our financial institutions, whether it is Wells Fargo betraying the trust of its customers by opening unauthorized accounts or it is Equifax endangering millions of consumers by compromising critical personal information. Indeed, in my home State of Rhode Island, nearly half the State may have been affected by the cybersecurity breach at Equifax. Given these and other breaches and lapses, it is clear that many financial institutions have a long way to go in rebuilding the trust of Rhode Islanders and the American people.

At the same time, it is also clear that more must be done than simply fining and penalizing financial institutions at the corporate level. Senior executives, many of whom are all too eager to take credit for a company's good news, must also take more responsibility for the bad news, especially if it is true that the buck stops with them. For example, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission concluded ``the financial crisis reached cataclysmic proportions with the collapse of Lehman Brothers,'' and yet, according to the Congressional Research Service, not a single senior executive officer at Lehman Brothers at the Federal level was charged, went to jail, or personally paid a Federal fine or penalty for the damage caused at Lehman Brothers that rippled through our economy in 2008.

According to Professor Peter J. Henning, who also writes for the New York Times in its White Collar Watch column, ``a problem in holding individuals accountable for misconduct in an organization is the disconnect between the actual decisions and those charged with overseeing the company, so that executives and corporate boards usually plead ignorance about an issue until it is too late.''

The Corporate Management Accountability Act I am introducing today is one attempt at helping to solve this problem. The bill asks publicly traded companies to disclose whether they expect senior executives or shareholders to pay the cost of corporate fines or penalties. This approach is supported by University of Minnesota Law School Professors Claire Hill and Richard Painter, who also served as President George W. Bush's chief ethics lawyer, as well as U.S. PIRG, Public Citizen, and Americans for Financial Reform.

Companies must do a better job of aligning executive incentives so that they are motivated to put their shareholders, and not themselves, first. I urge all my colleagues to join this legislative effort to hold senior executives accountable for their actions.

Mr. President, I wish to talk about the latest attempt from my

colleagues on the other side of the aisle to upend our health care system. They have been trying to sell this as a new and better health care bill, but in fact they somehow have managed to come up with something even worse than the previous TrumpCare bills. It would repeal the Affordable Care Act, gutting key protections for people with preexisting conditions and ending Medicaid as we know it.

I want to recognize some of my colleagues, however, on the other side of the aisle who already stood up to this effort, because no matter how many changes have been made to gain the support of Senators, this bill would be devastating to every State, including my home State of Rhode Island.

Senate Republicans are trying to hide the impact of the bill, potentially forcing a vote before the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is even able to publish a full score and analysis of the bill, including estimates for how many people would lose coverage and how healthcare costs would be affected.

Late yesterday, we received a preliminary estimate from CBO saying that, similar to previous TrumpCare bills, this proposal would leave millions more Americans without health insurance because of massive cuts to Medicaid. We will not see a more detailed score for weeks. Yet the majority is attempting to rush this through in order to use budget rules that expire on Saturday that enable passage of this bill with just 51 votes.

Fortunately, a number of nonpartisan organizations are publishing data on the latest bill, and they all agree that this bill would have a similar impact as the previous TrumpCare bills. Tens of millions of Americans would lose coverage, State budgets would be decimated, and costs would increase--especially for those with preexisting conditions, who would be priced out of the market entirely. According to one of these organizations, Avalere, Rhode Island is slated to lose $3 billion by 2027, and the cuts only get worse from there. Medicaid would be cut drastically, meaning our most vulnerable citizens would lose access to health care, including children, people with disabilities, and seniors.

Over 60 percent of nursing home residents in Rhode Island access care through Medicaid, and half of Medicaid spending is on these long-term care services.

It would become impossible to protect these programs from the cuts projected under this bill. In fact, States would be forced to cut not only health care but also education and infrastructure and other priorities to make up or try to make up--and I think ``try to make up'' are better words to use--the difference. This would be nothing short of a crisis in every State in this country.

We have already spent so much time this year having this fight--time we could have spent working across the aisle to improve health care, to end sequestration, and to ensure a stable Federal budget to improve our economy.

In fact, after the efforts to pass TrumpCare failed just 2 months ago, Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee joined together in a bipartisan fashion to come up with a bill that would improve our healthcare system and lower costs for everyone. Significant progress on this effort has been made.

However, by resurrecting this TrumpCare debate, we are again on the brink of voting on whether to kick millions of Americans off of their health insurance. With this effort, Republicans are taking our health care system hostage again, as deadlines approach this week for finalizing insurance rates for the next year. Health insurance commissioners and other experts have already said that the instability in Washington has caused rates to increase. Yet my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue down this destructive path.

What is especially egregious is that in addition to the jettisoned ACA stabilization efforts, we also need to extend funding for other critical bipartisan health care priorities, such as the Children's Health Insurance Program and the community health centers, whose Federal funding expires in just a couple of days. In fact, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee had come to a bipartisan agreement to extend funding for CHIP for 5 years, providing stability and assurances for States and families across the country. However, that work is now on hold, just like the critical ACA stabilization effort.

We must continue to make our voices heard and show the majority that this is not what the American people want. They want us to work together to strengthen health care, increase access, and keep costs down. The enormous outpouring of citizen opposition and health care experts criticizing TrumpCare over the summer was a very powerful statement about what the American people--my constituents and people across the country--believe should be the path forward on health care.

As my colleagues work to make last-minute changes to the bill and conceal the real impacts by refusing to hold substantive hearings and rushing new versions of the bill to the floor with little or no warning, my constituents are not fooled. They continue to write to me, urging me to keep up the opposition to TrumpCare.

Just a week or two ago, I heard from Barbara in Middletown, RI. Her mother has Alzheimer's diseases and relies on Medicaid for long-term care. Her sister has Down syndrome and has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease as well. She also relies on Medicaid for her health care. This new proposal, just like the previous proposals, would be devastating to Barbara and her family.

I urge my colleagues to really think about who would be impacted by this legislation. Whether or not you like ObamaCare or voted for it 7 years ago, this latest TrumpCare bill is not the solution.

I will continue to oppose these efforts and hope to work with my colleagues to improve our health care system and lower costs for everybody.

I yield the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President. As we approach the final vote on

the fiscal year 2018 national defense authorization bill, I would like to make a few closing comments.

When we began considering this bill last week, Senator McCain and I were interested in returning to regular order and having debate and votes on any amendment that needed a vote. We actually started off very well.

While I disagreed with Senator Paul's amendment to sunset the current authorization for the use of military force, I am pleased we were able to follow regular order on his amendment and have a debate. It is my hope that we can use this as a step to restore regular order going forward and work together, along with Senator Paul, in drafting a new AUMF that more precisely addresses the threats we face and resolves the issue, which is very critical, that Senator Paul has raised; that is, updating the AUMF.

After the Paul amendment, however, we were unable to come to an agreement on further votes. As a result, several issues that are important to both sides were not fully considered. On the Democratic side, Senators Baldwin, Stabenow, and Donnelly had very important amendments that would have ensured important protection for American workers and that our servicemembers receive high-quality, domestically produced equipment.

In addition, Senator Durbin had an important amendment that supports the world-class medical research DOD conducts and has a profound impact on the health of our servicemembers and citizens alike. Senator Warren would have liked a discussion on the INF Treaty, and Senator Gillibrand was interested in a full debate on protections for military personnel who are transgender.

As I indicated, I also know there are Members on the other side of the aisle who also had important issues they wanted to debate. I regret we were not able to have those debates and votes.

I am pleased, however, that we are able to include several dozen agreed-upon amendments in this bill from both Democrats and Republicans which will strengthen the legislation. In the end, this bill represents a strong bipartisan effort to provide the military with the resources they need and the support they deserve.

Moving forward, more work needs to be done. It is clear we need to find a sustainable, equitable path forward that will end sequestration and provide the additional resources needed for our current readiness shortfalls. I look forward to working together to continue to address the needs of the Department and our servicemembers.

I would like to close by thanking Senator McCain in my remarks about the NDAA for his leadership in guiding this bill through our committee markup process and the floor. I believe this bill truly exemplifies Senator McCain's unrivaled dedication to the men and women of our Armed Forces. His firm hand and unwavering resolve for a bipartisan approach were invaluable in achieving a bill that reflects the priorities of many Members on both sides of the aisle.

Additionally, I would like to thank the committee staff who worked tirelessly over many weeks to make this bill a reality. I thank the majority staff director, Chris Brose, and his staff for their hard work and commitment to a bipartisan process. I would also like to thank my staff for their expertise and dedication to creating the best bill possible--Jody Bennett, Carolyn Chuhta, Jon Clark, Jonathan Epstein, Jorie Feldman, Jon Green, Creighton Greene, Ozge Guzelsu, Gary Leeling, Kirk McConnell, Maggie McNamara, Bill Monahan, Mike Noblet, John Quirk, Arun Seraphin, and Elizabeth King. Finally, I would like to thank the floor staff, without whom none of this could be accomplished.

I must say, having completed a truly bipartisan process using regular order, I am disappointed to hear that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to bring back the partisan efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and its protections for people with preexisting conditions and decimate Medicare as we know it.

We have already spent so much time this year having this fight--time we could have spent working on a bipartisan basis to improve our health care system and lower costs. We voted decisively in July to reject the partisan bill. With these votes, Senators on both sides of the aisle decided we would return to regular order and work toward bipartisan health care solutions that could get at least 60 votes in this body.

As I have highlighted, this kind of bipartisan approach is why we have been successful in bringing the NDAA to the floor each year, and Senators Alexander and Murray have been doing just that with respect to the HELP Committee. They have had four hearings over the last two weeks, with witnesses from both parties, from Governors to health insurance commissioners, to leaders in the industry. I have great confidence in my colleagues and their ability to craft a bipartisan bill to improve the ACA that a majority of Senators could support. This is a bipartisan, inclusive process, and I should note, it is undertaken by one of the two committees that have jurisdiction for health care.

So for my Republican colleagues to now decide, after this critical work is already underway, that we are going to scratch those efforts and return instead to a partisan process, in which not even Republican Senators have had the opportunity to fully review the bill, make changes or even get analysis of the bill, I think that process is wrong. Let's not be fooled by the new effort. The legislation would have the same effects as the other versions of TrumpCare we saw rejected.

We have heard the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on the latest version of TrumpCare. This is not the right process. It is not representative of the legislative process.

I would urge my colleagues to reject this approach and, rather, follow the example I think we have tried to set in NDAA--a bipartisan, regular process, in which amendments are offered by both sides, in which debate is undertaken, in which we come to a conclusion based on 60 votes and move forward to improve the country, particularly to protect the men and women in the armed services.

With that, I yield the floor.