Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, every President since 1952 has signed a national declaration declaring a National Day of Prayer. It is bipartisan cooperation to recognize people who pray and who set aside time to spend time with God and pray for the Nation. Quite frankly, for us as a party and as a body and as a nation, it is a good thing to pause.

This year, on May 2, with the theme ``Love One Another,'' we will again have a National Day of Prayer. There is not a requirement for Americans to pray. There is not a requirement for people to direct themselves to pray by a certain method at a certain location. It is just a call to the Nation to say that we have great needs as a country.

As we watch the attacks on synagogues in our country, as we watch bombings of Christians in Sri Lanka, gun battles that have erupted in churches in the United States, mosques that have been attacked, people of faith being targeted simply because of their faith, it is reasonable for us as a nation to pause and say ``How are we doing?'' as this year's theme is ``Love One Another.''

We as a nation have a long history of prayer. Hanging in the Rotunda in this Capitol Building is a painting called the Embarkation of the Pilgrims. That painting depicts the beginning of America. It has been hanging in that same spot in the Rotunda since 1843. The painting is simply of a group of people on a deck of a ship leaving out from Europe and huddled around an open Bible and praying. The painting was designed and created to depict how America began in the 1600s--people on the deck of a ship, around an open Bible, praying.

That is still something I would encourage Americans of faith to stop and do, and it is still one of the most humbling experiences that I experience each time someone from my State of Oklahoma catches me, as someone did this morning, and says: Every day, my wife and I pray for you.

It is not a terrible thing to do as a nation--to love and pray for each other and for the future direction of our country.

If I can model for the Nation for just a moment in my own way and encourage the Nation on our National Day of

Prayer to pause and pray, I would simply say this:

Let us pray as a nation.

Father, guide us. We need Your help. The controversy, the division in our Nation, the anger, the struggle. Help us to be able to love one another. Help us to be able to see each other as You have created us and to respect You, Your wisdom, and Your guidance. Father, we admit that we do not know as much as You, so we need Your help. We need Your insight.

For our first responders and our military scattered around this Nation and around the world, we pray for Your protection for them. We pray that You would give them insight to help them to represent us well.

For members of our State Department, members in our government who are scattered around the Earth, members of our intelligence community and others who serve us every day, God, would You guide them and would You protect them in their tasks and give them the insight they need.

For Federal employees who serve our Nation each day and for members of our Nation who are finding ways to serve each other in our communities, would You help us this day to love one another and to be able to set the tone for a world that is watching us as a nation.

Help us represent well, You, who You have called us to be as individuals.

In the Name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Mr. President, I want to join several of my colleagues today who are noting that we are approaching tax day. It is not a day Americans look forward to, but it is part of our responsibilities. The old joke about the two things that are certain--death and taxes--is still certain for all of us.

This year, it is interesting to approach this tax season in the first year of everyone filing under the new tax law. It has been fascinating to read some of the stories about what some of the media--the national media in particular--is saying about the tax law. They are so desperate to find anything to criticize. It is fascinating to me to read the headlines versus the stories.

The headline in this story in particular is ``This is going to wipe us out,'' in reference to the new tax law. When you read through the story and find out who they say is going to get wiped out, here is their illustration of the person: a person moving from a $400,000 house this past year to one valued at $1.1 million. He concedes he has a first-world problem of his taxes going up, but he says that owing more in taxes is ``a little disheartening''--as he moves from a $400,000 house to a $1.1 million home. I am excited for him and his new home. I am sure it is beautiful. But that was their illustration of who is going to get hard hit by the tax changes.

This article from a national source said: ``Is a Tax Refund Ahead in Your 2019? Some Taxpayers Received a Tax Bill Instead.'' You go to the middle of the story, and they make this one little note: ``Only about 5% of taxpayers . . . are expected to pay more under the new law.'' In other words, 95 percent of Americans--even in this story that is a negative story about the taxes, they hide the simple fact that 95 percent of Americans will pay the same or less. The vast majority of those will pay less in their taxes for the next year.

How about this one. Here is another national story that came out. ``Small business owners struggling to understand Trump's new tax law.'' When you get down to literally the last line of the story, it ends like this, with the same small business owner:

I don't know [yet] if it's going to impact my cash flow,

the way I have to put money aside for this year, because I'm

not sure. I may even do better [under the tax law], I don't

know [yet].

That was their whole story to say that people are struggling under this tax law--it was just the uncertainty.

What am I finding in Oklahoma? I am finding more jobs and more opportunity across the State. This is not some accident of history; this is the direct result of a change in the tax law.

I am quite confident that my liberal colleagues have all been very excited to find something to complain about through this process, but they overlook the simple fact that this one story buries 95 percent of Americans who do the same or better under the tax law and that the vast majority of those are doing better under the tax law.

It was interesting. There was a Vox tweet that came out from a news source from one of the reporters who made this one comment this past week, saying: ``Nobody likes to give themselves credit for this kind of messaging success, but progressive groups did a really good job of convincing people that Trump raised their taxes when the facts say a clear majority got a tax cut.''

My favorite: The left-leaning Tax Policy Center had to begrudgingly study the tax cut and what is actually happening and say: Middle-class taxes actually went down. Families kept almost $1,000 more, which would have previously gone into government coffers.

What happened as a result of that, as a result of people keeping their own money and the withholding tables changing this past year so that each month, people are actually keeping more of their own money? Here is what happened: Our GDP grew at 3 percent a year--a dramatic increase from what we have had in the past; inflation-adjusted business investment has gone up 7 percent just since the tax cuts; and 215,000 new jobs have started on average every month since the tax cuts. Those are very strong numbers across the country. Unemployment has gone to 3.9 percent since the enactment of tax reform. Beginning in April of last year, the number of job openings in the national economy has exceeded the number of unemployed Americans--something that had not been recorded prior to April since records have been kept.

So starting this past year, there are literally more people searching to find other opportunities than there are opportunities out there because there are so many jobs open. So many companies are still trying to hire and are looking for people that people have the opportunity to stay at their same job, get better pay, or switch to a new job and get opportunities. That is providing more opportunities for more people to transition to a new job or make more money at their own job.

Well, what has happened on wages? As a result of what is happening in the economy, wages have gone up 2.9 percent just since the tax cut; that is, individual wages have gone up. What happened to income during that time period? Let me go back to the Obama time period. When President Obama was President, on average, income went up 1.8 percent; that is, total take-home. Since the tax reform, income has gone up 4 percent for each American. That is double the amount during the Obama administration. Again, this is not an accident of history; this is the result of the tax reform. This is what happens when people are allowed to keep more of their own money and spend it. More companies are doing better. There is more investment happening, more job opportunities, more opportunity to get a different job or to get a raise at your current job, and take-home pay has increased.

What has happened in people's taxes? Well, early on this year, the stories, as I referenced before, were all about how tax returns were down. They searched to find anyone who had tax returns that were down. All those stories disappeared in late February, when the IRS brought out the latest numbers, not from January and early February but from February and March, and said: Actually, tax returns are up this year from what they were in the previous year.

As of the latest number, April 5, tax returns for individuals almost are dead even, exactly as they were last year. So the stories have disappeared from headlines that their tax returns changed because the IRS continues to report the facts. Actually, the returns are almost exactly what they were from the previous time.

So what has happened to actually help people in their paying of their taxes? Well, I started asking some of my team in Oklahoma to just ask people. When you are traveling around the State and when you are visiting people, just ask them how their taxes have gone and what has happened because people are filing now--just find out what is going on.

One of the dry cleaners in Enid let our team know that he is doing better in his small business taxes this year, and he is actually going to be able to put a downpayment now on some brand new equipment at his dry cleaner in Enid.

With another one we talked to--he is in his early thirties, married, he and his wife both work. They said they saved enough on their taxes this year from last year that they are going to start paying off some of their student loans and start paying down their car loan faster.

We spoke to one other gentleman who is also in his late thirties. They have one child who was born this past year. They said they have saved enough in their taxes from the previous year that they are going to be able to take care of some healthcare costs they have, and they are going to start setting aside some money to allow his wife to start a Roth IRA account. Starting their savings for their retirement in their thirties, when you should start saving for your retirement, they are able do this year because of the change in the Tax Code.

With another gentleman we talked to who works in Oklahoma City, he reported that with his withholding changes that happened, he is now actually in a--he was in a 25-percent tax bracket and has now moved to the 22-percent tax bracket, and he is using his savings to take care of some of the issues he had in his own personal debt.

We have a married couple in Davis, OK, down in South-Central Oklahoma. Their income actually went up $4,000

this last year. When they finished all their tax payments, their tax actually decreased by $700 from one year to the next, even though their income went up.

Another couple down the street from Davis in Sulphur, OK, own a small farm. Their income went up $7,000 last year from the previous year, and they were panicked about what would happen with their taxes. Well, their taxes actually decreased $1,400 from the year before.

We have a police officer in Norman, OK, just south of Oklahoma City. He actually--he and his family, after they finished filing all their taxes, he said this:

I now bring home more in my check every 2 weeks because of

the change in the Tax Code. It is making things so much

simpler for us to be able to make ends meet.

There was a teacher in an elementary school. She noted, as simple as this may sound, that she has received $10 more every single time a paycheck came out, and that made a difference for her as a first-year teacher just getting started.

There is a farmer with two kids. He was able to use the new child tax credits, and although his income was higher than the year before, his tax burden was $3,000.

There is a pilot married to a nurse in our State. Their income actually increased in the past year as well, but he said with the lower tax rates and the child tax credits, their tax burden also decreased by $1,000 from the year before.

All these are real-life stories of what is really going on in the State. As I hear all the different stories that come out, people lose track of the fact of what is really happening. While some of my colleagues have been so focused on trying to find some way to be able to damage the effect of tax cuts, families in my State know the difference.

One of the families we encountered this past week made a comment that they had a child born in 2018. That child was born in 2018 but actually very premature. Their medical bills racked up pretty quickly because the child was in the ICU. Then they started filing their taxes this year as their medical bills were coming in--by the way, their child is doing well and healthy. As they started filling out all their forms and were thinking about some of their bills, being able to cover their deductible, their tax bill came back in, and they saw their taxes are lower, and they are using their higher return this year to offset the medical costs from the early delivery of their child.

This is what tax reform looks like. Some of my colleagues try to spend all of their time saying tax reform is all about big corporations and Wall Street. Interestingly enough, most of the high-income folks in my State have said, actually, their taxes went up a little bit this year, not down. They are part of that 5 percent of Americans who didn't end up with a tax change. For the vast majority of Americans who are working and putting ends together and taking care of their family, in my State and in other States, they are finding that tax reform is not some theory to them. It was a real help to their family in paying off debt, starting retirement, taking care of medical costs, taking care of their family, getting going on with life, and as the police officer in Norman said, ``just making things a little simpler.''

Tax reform is determined to help our economy, to get us growing, to get us going as a nation and provide more opportunities, and I am grateful, even in all the complexity of filling out tax forms, it is showing a real result in pragmatic ways to Americans.

This past weekend, I stopped and filled out my tax information--going through all the details and gathering all the forms and filling everything out. It is still a pain, and it is still not the most pleasant experience in all of life filling out your tax forms, but at the end of it, I reflected on some of these direct stories and realized there are people who really do feel the real effects of what is going on. Understanding all the frustration of filling out taxes, which is a pain for everybody, there is some real benefit this year versus the year before and I hope for the years to come.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, Republicans believe, regardless of who the President is, they should be able to hire their staff. I can say we not only believe that, we practice that.

In 2013, there was an ongoing debate over nominations with President Obama. Democrats and Republicans came together to resolve the time issue for nominations under President Obama. Democrats asked Republicans to join them to say: Let's fix the problem we have with the length of time on

nominations because it is taking too long, and so they made a proposal. It was 2 hours, equally divided--so it would actually be 1 hour--for district court judges, 8 hours for other nominees, which again equally divided would actually be 4 hours total for other lower nominees, 30 hours for circuit court, Supreme Court, Cabinet officers.

Republicans joined with Democrats in 2013 and with 78 votes at the beginning of President Obama's second term--and may I remind this body, Republicans were not excited about President Obama's second term-- Republicans joined with Democrats on this one principle: Every President should be able to hire their own staff and their staff not be blocked. When the American people vote for a President, this body should respect the vote of the American people and allow that President to hire their staff. Now, when President Trump was elected, Democrats have 128 times blocked President Trump from getting his nominees--128 times.

I have, for now 2 years, met with my Democratic colleagues, and I have asked, let's put back into place exactly what Republicans voted with Democrats to do. I am asking Democrats to now vote with Republicans to do that. They have said no for 2 years.

So I simplified the proposal and said: Let's just make it straightforward and simple, taken from the same principles Harry Reid put forward under President Obama. Let's make that permanent, no matter who the President is now or in the future. Let's make it consistent and straightforward.

I was told no by every single Democrat, with this one exception. I will vote for that proposal as long as it starts in January of 2021. I am glad you Republicans joined with Democrats, they would say, to help President Obama get nominees, but we will not help President Trump and will block him all the way through. Now, if you want to open this up for 2021, we will be glad to be able to help.

I want to reiterate that Republicans believe whoever the President is, when the American people select a President, they should be able to hire their staff. I wish my Democratic colleagues believed the same thing. Because of that, we are making a change today. I have worked for months, meeting with Democratic colleagues, trying to find some way we could come to an agreement as was done in 2013, where Republicans and Democrats came together to resolve this. I have been rebuffed for 2 years. Not a single Democrat has been willing to join us in this, not a single one. That is unfortunate.

At the end of the day, we will try to restore this body back to how it used to function for two centuries, when every President was allowed to get a hearing for their nominees and get a vote in the Senate. For two centuries, we functioned that way. I think it is not unreasonable to function that way again in this body.

I look forward to this dialogue, and I look forward to the day we can get this issue resolved so we can get back to the work of legislation because we can't even get to legislation right now because we are blocked on nominations. So let's get the nomination issue resolved, as we have for two centuries, and then let's get on to legislation and finish the task.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, the Senate is in a bad spot. In the first 2 years of President Trump's Presidency, there were 128 times that the President sent over a nomination and the minority party has said: We want additional time to be able to debate those folks.

These are individuals who have already gone through vetting at the White House. They have already gone through FBI checks. They have already come to the committee. They have done full vetting at the staff level, then had a full hearing at the Member level, and then had questions for the Record. They passed out of the committee, then had a lapse of time, and then a majority vote was set up to be able to move them. At that time, there was a request for additional time 128 times.

Just to do a quick comparison of how common that is--because folks say this is normal and this is the way the Senate functions all the time--for President Obama, in his first 2 years, that happened 12 times. For President Bush, that happened a total of 4 times. For President Clinton, that happened a total of 8 times. But for President Trump, it happened a total of 128 times.

This is a new way of operation for the Senate, and I really should say it is a new way of not operating for the Senate. It is an issue that has to change. It is not just about President Trump. It is about this body, who we are going to be, and how we are going to operate.

In the past, when there was a nomination from a President, there was the assumption that the President was elected and they could hire their staff. Now the resistance has stepped up and said: The President is elected, but we will not let you hire a staff, and we will not let you put your policies in place because we want to prevent you from getting any people into a spot.

Guess what. As soon as there is a Democratic President elected--and at some point in the future, there will be--Republicans will retaliate back to that and say: We will do the same thing. You can't hire your staff.

This is a new precedent that has been set. If we don't correct it, it is damaging to our Republic. A President should be able to hire their staff. All of the Agencies need Senate-confirmed individuals to be able to actually conduct their business. We need judges to be able to execute across the country. Those are basic things that need to occur.

I have heard folks say: Well, there has been no problem getting judges through. In fact, Republicans have bragged about the total number of judges coming through.

Let me give you a comparison. If we stay on the same pace right now with judges--just for the district court judges, which are the most common judges across our country--and President Trump is in office for 8 years, he will have put in 193 judges. President Obama put in 272 judges. It is factually not true that we are able to ram through all of these judges to be able to work through the process. We are not on an epic pace.

There has been a higher number for circuit court judges, which is correct, because this Senate has prioritized working on circuit court judges, but that is to the detriment of everything else because you can't do all of it because there is this constant request for additional time at the end of it.

Again, I have heard folks say that two hours is not enough time to be able to debate. That would be true only if 2 hours was the only thing that was allocated for debate. These individuals have already been through vetting at the White House and vetting in committee. They have gone through the process and have been approved. This is not 2 hours of time. It is actually 26 hours of time because people are conveniently leaving out the fact that there is an intervening day required. We are talking about nominees moving from 54 hours of floor debate time to 26 hours of floor debate time. It is just convenient to leave out that extra day that happens to be in there, if you want to make the argument.

Our simple conversation is this: How can we get the Senate back to work again? In 2013, Harry Reid led a movement, which 78 Senators approved of, to be able to say that for 2 years--2013 and 2014--we would fix the nominations process in the Senate. There was wide agreement to be able to do that. At the time, Harry Reid stood on the floor and said: Now, let me make this clear. We shouldn't have all of these nominees go through postcloture and all the debate on the floor anyway. Most of these passed through committee. They should be done by voice vote. In the rare exception that someone has to come to the floor, let's limit the floor time because it is not really used anyway. It is just a tactic to delay.

If you need evidence of that, there is all of the conversation that has recently been held on this floor about debate and about how we need to have all of this additional time for debate because these are lifetime appointees, these are essential people, and so they need to have a debate on the floor about them. Let me tell you what that really looks like in real life. That sounds very sanctimonious here on the floor.

In real life it looks like this. Here are the circuit court judges we have confirmed this session of Congress so far. These are for the circuit court. This is the appellate court. These are very important folks in the process. These folks currently have 30 hours, and for all of these folks, there was a demand to get 30 hours of extra debate time on the floor because they were so important.

Here is the actual problem. When that 30 hours of debate time was done and was blocked off, and that was respected, the first of the circuit court nominees actually got on the floor 1 hour and 16 minutes of actual debate, not 30 hours. People actually coming to the floor and debating that nominee was 1 hour and 16 minutes. The next nominee had 18 minutes and 57 seconds total of debate on this floor, although 30 hours of debate was blocked off, which meant most of the time the floor was empty, waiting for someone to actually debate. The next nominee was 1 hour 23 minutes.

Then, there is one my favorites. A circuit court judge had 4 minutes and

22 seconds of actual debate when 30 hours of debate was demanded for this lifetime appointment. The next circuit court judge was 23 minutes and 6 seconds.

The next one for the DC Circuit was actually very controversial. There was lots of noise about this nominee: 47 minutes and 28 seconds.

It is one thing for folks to say these are lifetime appointments so we need to make sure we block off a significant period of time on the floor. It is another thing to actually see the facts. These folks have gone through committee and we all know it. They have gone through background checks and we all know it. Every one of these individuals has been cleared and we know the outcome of all of these. We should respect each other and acknowledge that if this body is going to do legislation and personnel, no one can lock up the body and demand 30 hours of time on a nominee when we actually use 4 minutes and 22 seconds.

If we want to shift it off of judges and shift it onto executive nominees, recently we had a demand for 30 hours of additional debate time from our Democratic colleagues for the Bureau of Labor Statistics nominee. They demanded extra time because they were so controversial. On this floor, there was exactly zero minutes and zero seconds of debate on that nominee.

You see, this is not about actually debating whether people are qualified or not qualified. This is about preventing President Trump from getting nominees by locking up the floor and making sure he can't actually hire staff or can't actually put people on the court.

This will be reciprocated in the days ahead for every Democrat, and it will be done to every Republican President in the future if we don't fix this now. We had 2 years and 3 months of bad muscle memory on a process that should not be like this and has not been like this in the past. We can fix this.

When there was a Democratic President and a divided city, led by Democrats at the time, Republicans joined Democrats to be able to fix that nomination process for a Democrat President. The mistake we made was to do it only for a 2-year time period. We should learn from our mistake, and we should fix this from here on out. This is doable.

To give an example, in the last session of Congress, 386 nominees were never heard on this floor. They were sent back at the end of Congress and told: You have to start all over again. Those are folks who quit their job, went through FBI background checks, went through reviews, went through hearings, and confronted all the questions that were brought at them, and 386 of them were then stalled out and never heard. They were sent back to the White House.

That means that in the future we will have less opportunity to get more people who are qualified to be able to apply for this. We want the best of the best to actually come and serve in our government. We will not get that if people have to quit their jobs to go through the nomination process, wait a year or 2 years, and then get sent back and told: You have to start all over again to go through the process.

Who will want to go through that process in the days ahead? We need to fix this both for the nominees who are going through the process and the Senate, which needs to have a better process of actually expediting nominees through. Quite frankly, we need to fix it for the country.

It is a simple process. It is not trying to gain partisan advantage. Regardless of who is in the White House, it is trying to fix it for the long term. Let's fix it this week. We have talked about this for 2 years. We have floated different proposals. Let's fix it this week and, from here on out, have a better process in the Senate.

Why in the world are we arguing about our rules of the Senate when we should be worrying about the issues the American people face? Of all places, of all people, we should have fair rules in the Senate to actually have a debate, have a vote, finish, and then move on to the next thing. There is more to be done.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I have 11 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

committee on armed services

The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: General Tod D. Wolters, USAF, for reappointment to the grade of general and to be Commander, United States European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and General Stephen J. Townsend, USA, for reappointment to the grade of general and to be Commander, United States Africa Command.

committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs

The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

committee on energy and natural resources

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled, ``The President's Fiscal year 2020 budget for Department Energy.''

committee on environment and public works

The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

committee on foreign relations

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 2:15 p.m., to conduct a hearing on NATO.

committee on health, education, labor, and pensions

The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

committee on homeland security and governmental affairs

The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Ron A. Bloom, of New York, to be a Governor of the United States Postal Service, and James A. Crowell IV, and Jason Park, both of the District of Columbia, both to be an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

committee on the judiciary

The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

select committee on intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 2.30 p.m., to conduct a closed hearing.

special committee on aging

The Special Committee on Aging is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

subcommittee on airland

The Subcommittee on Airland of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 3 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Mr. President, I want to be able to talk about a couple of subjects today, but I want to be able to set the context on these with the recognition of Women's History Month. A lot of fairly remarkable ladies in Oklahoma have set American history and world history into a different pace based on what they have done in the past.

I can't help, when I am talking about Women's History Month, to be able to talk about my own mom, who is a pacesetter in her own leadership. She was a student, librarian, and mom. She went through elementary school librarian and high school librarian and then became the director of libraries for a very large school district.

She led the way for our family and community. She even led the American Association of School Librarians around the country. She was a pacesetter there.

There are other pacesetters that I would highlight who are Oklahoma pacesetters. The first is Claire Luper. Born in Okfuskee County, OK, in 1923, Claire Luper was the first African-American student to enroll in the History Department at the University of Oklahoma. She was a civil rights leader. She led Americans at lunch counters in 1958 as she was seated there and helped to train youth to be seated at lunch counters to break through the racism that was existing in Oklahoma City and in Oklahoma.

Claire Luper herself was arrested 26 times for just eating lunch--for just

leading for the rights of what every single human being should be allowed to do in our great country.

After 26 arrests and the breakthrough leadership that she experienced, she now has been recognized with over 500 different awards and honors in her lifetime. She taught in the Oklahoma City area for 41 years, was a senior adviser for the NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma City, and is now a member of the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.

Another great leader from Oklahoma is Shannon Lucid. She was raised in Bethany, OK. In 1979 she became an astronaut in a time period when ladies did not become astronauts. She set the pace. She was the chief scientist at NASA from 2002 to 2003. She served as the capsule communicator for numerous space missions. She was the first woman to receive the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

Jeane Kirkpatrick is another Oklahoman. Born in 1926, she was the first woman appointed to serve as a Permanent Representative to the United States for the United Nations. She served from 1981 to 1985. She served on President Ronald Reagan's Cabinet, was a political science professor at Georgetown University, and was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. She made Oklahoma proud.

Let me tell you about a current one now. LaRita Aragon. LaRita Aragon was born in Shawnee, OK, but she was raised in the big town of Dale, just outside of Shawnee. She became the first woman to hold the rank of brigadier general in the Oklahoma Air National Guard and the first female commander of the Air National Guard.

Before her military career, she was an elementary school teacher and a principal. After retirement from the military, she returned to education. She served as the director of advanced programs in the University of Oklahoma College of Continuing Education. Then, in January 2011, she started serving as secretary of veterans affairs for the State of Oklahoma. She is a remarkable military leader from our State and a tremendous role model for people in our State--boys and girls.

Maria Tallchief was born in 1925 in Fairfax, OK. She was a member of the Osage Nation. At age 17, she did a crazy thing. She moved to New York City to pursue her dream of becoming a dancer. As her career began to take off, people tried to persuade Maria Tallchief to change her last name so that she wouldn't face the prejudice of being Native American. She refused to do that. She continued to work and to prove herself. In 1947 she became the first American to dance with the Paris Opera Ballet. She led the way, and she set the pace.

Oklahomans are proud of these ladies and many, many others who have done great work and made remarkable advances. We are proud of them.

Long-Term Budget Planning

Mr. President, from recognizing Women's History Month, let me make a comment on something currently happening in the Senate. Right now in the Senate, the Senate Budget Committee is continuing to work on a budget.

The President turns in a budget. As many people know, since 1974, the President's budget has been just a document of ideas. The Senate and the House agree together on a budget, set a number, and then do appropriations bills. That is how we actually do the spending for the Federal taxpayers' dollars. Since 1974, it has typically begun with a budget document from the Senate and from the House.

They are working on that budget document right now in the Budget Committee, but here is the difficult thing. In all likelihood, that budget document that will come out of committee will never come to this floor and will never be voted on because of the difficulty we face right now in our deficit and the challenges the budget will have in order for it to move through the process. In all likelihood, this body will deem a budget number, where there will be no real plan. It will just set a budget number and then move on and start heading toward appropriations.

Layer upon layer of debt and deficit will be added to where we are as a nation. Our simple challenge is, how do we get around this?

Last year, 16 Members met--eight Senators, eight House Members; eight Republicans, eight Democrats--to try to strategize how we could change the budget process. Though I commend Chairman Enzi of the Budget Committee and his remarkable work, thought, and incredible staff, once again that document will not make a difference on this floor, and once again it will not set us on a long-term path to getting back to solvency. We have to change the process of what we do.

These 16 Members met all last year to establish a set of ideas of how we could change the process, but it failed in December. I am challenging this body to step up to it again and to reengage on some simple sets of ideas of how we can get our budget back in balance and how we can do better planning. Though we do budgets and though we will do the deeming of a budget number, there is no real plan for how things can get better. We have to get better at planning, so let me give you some simple ideas that were birthed out of the conversation last year.

We hold debt ceiling votes, which are supposedly to limit our debt, but they never do. They did decades ago, but they have not for decades. We will have 12 appropriations bills in some form and in some way so as to actually do the spending in the next several months, but there will be no bill to deal with how we can reduce spending.

A simple idea that came out of that conversation last year was this: How do we add a 13th bill?

As simple as I can say it, we have 12 spending bills. In every single Congress, the 13th bill would be set aside for how we will reduce our deficit. We have a structure with which to do that. It is the reconciliation process. It will certainly take work to reform this. We have a process in place right now that we could use but that we don't. What if we mandate it each year? We would have our 12 spending bills in whatever form they would take, but in every single session of Congress, we would have to have some conversation about what we would do to reduce spending or to fix our deficit. It is not an unreasonable proposal. It is an opportunity for us to sit and plan, to actually think about things, and to work things out.

Senator Maggie Hassan and I also have another idea for working through the process. How do we end government shutdowns? How do we stop the perpetual cliffs of budgeting issues? There is a simple way to do that.

The simple way to do that, as odd as it may sound, is for Members of Congress and our staffs, as well as for members of the staff within the Office of Management and Budget from the White House, to not travel if you get to the end of a budget year and the budget is not done. You can't leave until the work is done, is as simple as I can say it. That may sound overly simplistic, but I guarantee you, if this body has to work through 2 weeks, no one would have the opportunity to travel. Everyone would have to be here days and weekends. There would be no official travel. There would be no opportunity to head back and see your family. There would be no codels or staffdels or any kind of other opportunity to leave. Each day, we would also have to have a quorum call and be here until the work gets done. Then we would solve this.

Last December, we had this protracted shutdown that began when Members of Congress left for Christmas. They just left with there being an unresolved budget issue here. If Senator Hassan's and my idea were to pass, we would have finished that work last December, and Americans would never have experienced that protracted government shutdown.

We have differences of opinion. It is who we are as Americans, and that is what we represent in the U.S. Senate, but we should not punish Federal workers and the American people because we have not worked out our differences here. We should stay until the work is done, and we should keep negotiating until we are finished. That is a simple, straightforward way to resolve this.

With our adding a 13th bill to enable our having to plan for how we will actually deal with debt and deficit, there will be some moment created every year to compel us to actually be here until our work is done as well as having a more systematic structure of how we are going to do budgeting. All of these are simple ideas, but they are ideas that will help us get on top of a $22 trillion debt and an approaching $1

trillion yearly deficit. It is as if we have lost the importance of this, and we cannot.

My challenge to this body is to make the budget mean something again. Let's actually do long-term planning, and let's figure out how to make a process work for the taxpayers. We can figure this out, and we can work together to do it.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, during the recent government shutdown, there were a lot of budget issues that were negotiated. It was a wide- ranging bill of over 1,000 pages, when it was all said and done, but the most contentious number in all of the negotiations circled around a barrier on our southern border in the highest drug trafficking corridor in the country.

The President requested $5.7 billion to build a barrier fence in 10 locations that the Customs and Border Patrol had identified as the top 10 points of illegal drugs entering our country. That study had been requested by Congress before they fulfilled that study of identifying the highest profiled drug trafficking corridors. They brought that back to Congress. The President then requested funding to build fencing in those areas of the highest trafficking areas.

His request was not for a 2,000-mile-long wall. It was only to replace some of the sections of the 650-mile-long barrier that already exists--areas that were old and ineffective--or to put new fencing in high drug trafficking areas.

In a highly partisan debate, Congress eventually appropriated $1.375 billion to DHS for the construction of additional barriers. It is not even close to what the President and what Customs and Border Patrol said they needed to protect the Nation and members of law enforcement.

During those negotiations, the President announced he would declare a national emergency if he didn't get the funds needed to secure the Nation. At that point, there were two options for people who don't want the President to secure our border. One was to include language in that appropriations bill before it was passed to prevent the President from declaring an emergency action and using any of the funds for that. The second one was to wait until after the bill was passed and declare a disapproval resolution to stop the President after the bill had already passed.

Those who oppose border security chose the second option--to fight the President after passage, which brings us to today.

After signing the funding bill to reopen the government, to deal with the humanitarian crisis, and the flow of illegal narcotics coming into our country, the President declared a national emergency in two areas. He has over 100 authorities; he declared it in two.

One was this. He wanted to replace some of the National Guard members with members of the Reserve. You have to declare a national emergency to call up the Reserve members. So his first request was to call up some of the Reserves to swap out some of the Guard members who were already serving at the border.

The second one was that in one of the accounts that deal with military construction, if needed, he wanted to tap into some of those funds. He was also very clear. There are four accounts

they would have access to. Three of them don't need an emergency declaration. Let me run through those.

The first is the $1.375 billion Congress allocated in the government shutdown, ending debate. There is no question that $1.375 billion has been approved by Congress.

There is a second fund where there is $600 million. It is in the Treasury Asset Forfeiture Fund. That fund specifically notes that those funds can be used for any reason for Federal law enforcement. It is very clear. It has wide discretion--any use for Federal law enforcement. There is no legal question that it can be used by Customs and Border Patrol or to do construction of any kind of barrier.

There is a third fund that already exists within the Department of Defense. There are $4 billion set aside in this fund, and it can be used for wide-ranging issues dealing with counternarcotics. There is no question the President can act on anything dealing with counternarcotics with that fund.

In fact, in that fund itself, there is specific language already included in that--and this is up to $4 billion--saying it can be used for construction of roads, fences, and installation of lighting to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States.

Let me run through this. There is up to $4 billion the President can ask for that he doesn't have to ask for emergency authority at all on. That is counternarcotics, counterdrug smuggling. There are $600 million that have been allocated that the President can use because it deals with law enforcement. There is $1.375 billion that Congress also allocated. There is no legal question on any of those.

At the tail end of that, the White House has also said, after all three of those funds are expended--which, by the way, those three funds exceed the $5.7 billion the President says he needs--the President's request is, if we go through all of those, and we are not able to close that section down, at some future point, he wants to be able to access this other fund.

They have also made it very clear it would be past October. That would not even be in this fiscal year. So really the debate about funding is next year's issue, what is called the 2808 funding on military construction.

That leads us again to this. An emergency declaration really has two questions in it. Is it an emergency, and does the President have statutory authority to take this action? Those are the only two questions on the table.

Is it an emergency is in dispute. There are some folks who would say: I don't think what is going on at the border is an emergency. There are some folks--some in this Chamber and some in the other Chamber--who want to abolish ICE, dismantle a wall, and open the borders. Thankfully, that is a small group of people who do not see our national security as important.

For the vast majority of people, they do see an importance in Congress working on national security and securing our borders. Then we have the argument about how serious is this.

I have had folks who have said to me: It is really not that bad because we have individuals coming but not as high of a number as what it used to be. Twenty years ago, we even had more people crossing the border illegally.

That is not the question that is in front of us. The request from Customs and Border Patrol is specifically for the 10 areas with the highest drug trafficking along all of our southern border. That is the request.

The question is, Do we have an emergency dealing with illegal drugs crossing our border after the Customs and Border Patrol has said to us that we need barriers to slow down the flow of illegal drugs? Are they right or are they wrong?

Among those areas, right now the Rio Grande Valley sector is the highest area for movement of illegal drugs crossing into our country. It is 16 percent of the border miles, but it is 40 percent of the illegal border and illegal drug trafficking coming in.

Last year, just in that one sector, 550 pounds of methamphetamine were seized. This is not at the port of entry. This is between ports of entry, in that open area that doesn't have a fence. There were 550 pounds of methamphetamine seized. There were 1,500 pounds of cocaine and 64,000 pounds of marijuana that were seized in that one section without a fence.

The question is, Is that an emergency?

Last year, 70,000 Americans died from overdoses from drugs that came from and through Mexico--70,000. If we had any--any--issue in America where 70,000 people died, I can assure you this Congress would stand up and say we have an emergency, but, for some reason, there is a dispute on whether it is important we stop the flow of illegal drugs coming from Mexico into the United States. I don't think that should be in dispute.

To give an example of how fast this is changing and how much of an emergency this is, people would say: This has been going on for years. Why is it different now? Just in the last 2 years, between ports of entry--again, not at the ports of entry but in that open area where there is no barrier. Last year, our Customs and Border Patrol seized 388 pounds of fentanyl. That may not sound like much, but only a couple of grains of it--as in a couple of grains of sand--is enough to kill a person.

Fentanyl is highly addictive and an exceptionally powerful drug. It is 100 times more powerful than morphine. It is being laced into heroin and laced into cocaine. It is a mass killer.

Last year, almost 25,000 people in the country died from an overdose of fentanyl. Knowing it only takes two or three grains to be too much to kill a person, 388 pounds of it were seized between ports of entry along our border.

To tell you how it has accelerated, in 2 years, that is a 269-percent increase of fentanyl being captured between ports of entry.

Yes, we have an emergency. Yes, we have people dying in this country due to overdoses from fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine, and the problem is not static. The problem is accelerating.

Last year, we had one of the highest--highest--rates of cocaine being picked up between ports of entry that has ever existed in our country.

Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol seized a total of 11,000 pounds of methamphetamine coming across that border. That is the highest year ever of that drug coming across our border.

Undeniably, there is an emergency. The question is, Do we agree or disagree that when the statute says a President has the ability to do a construction, it means he can also construct a barrier? I believe it does.

We have those two questions. Is it an emergency, and does the statutory authority exist?

Interestingly enough, there are some of my friends who are adding a third question. Should the President have that authority?

That is a different question, and I understand that question. Interestingly enough, just a few hours ago, the President of the United States tweeted out--as he is infamous for doing--if Congress wants to discuss should a President have this authority in the future, I am open to discussing that, but that is not pertaining to today.

I think that is an interesting question we should address as a nation--what and how broad should an Executive authority be for a President--but the debate we have today is plain and simple. Is it an emergency, and, under current law, does the President have statutory authority?

My answer to both of those questions is yes.

I hope we continue to do drug interdiction, continue to work through the issues that need to be addressed, continue to do recovery, and continue to help people who are fighting through addiction because we need a healthy nation and also a secure Nation.

For those 10 areas that are the highest drug trafficking areas in the entire country, I hope we close those doors, and I hope we protect lives in the days ahead.

I am going to choose to oppose a resolution of disapproval today that says the President doesn't have the authority to protect the American people.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, China is no doubt a Communist country. It also has the largest population on Earth, which means it has the largest consumer market on Earth. It is a growing economy, although it has had a significant slowdown in the previous couple of years. It is a $400 billion market for the United States currently, in our trade, and it is a significant place of trade when dealing with agriculture in particular.

We have a lot of issues and differences with China, but we should be able to work out those differences long term, as we do with every other nation. We have to resolve some of these things.

I am proud that the administration is full force taking on the issue of China. Over the past couple of decades, every administration has tried to work out some kind of ongoing conversation with China on trade, and all of them have been somewhat successful, but significant issues are still prevailing. This administration has had a singular focus on trade in dealing with China and trying to resolve those issues with them, and I hope it is successful long term. I hope that we will be very specific in how we actually handle that strategy and that at the end of it, we will still be openly trading and reducing some of those barriers.

It is a Communist country. It doesn't always play by the rules. It also uses some of the rules to its own advantage in ways unlike any other country. For instance, when they joined the WTO--the World Trade Organization--they self-declared themselves as a ``developing nation.'' Developing nations are able to waive a lot of the World Trade Organization rules because they are developing. May I remind this body that China is the second largest economy in the world--second only to ours? They are not a developing nation. They have used the rules of WTO to call themselves developing so they do not have to live up to the international standard of basic trade.

On March 22, 2018, President Trump signed a Memorandum on Actions by the United States related to what is called a 301 investigation. They are targeting what the White House calls ``economic aggression'' from China. Let me give some specifics on that.

China uses joint venture requirements on any foreign investment. They want to have ownership in those companies actually doing business there. They put pressure on technology firms to transfer their technology to China if they are going to actually sell to China. The result of that is that they may not take the product that is manufactured there, that those original companies sell back to the United States, but they will take that information and then actually sell to other parts of the world from that stolen information from a technology transfer.

Akin to that, China maintains unfair licensing practices. Typically, in other parts of the world, our intellectual property that we have is guarded by that nation, or we actually have a licensing agreement with them that is fair market value. Not so with China. They put pressure on entities and actually cheat and steal our intellectual property at times. That doesn't happen with every company but especially certain types of firms, where, long term, China wants to produce it on their own rather than buy it from other countries. If that production is done in China, China will take the intellectual property, and the plan is clearly to then take that intellectual property and use it for themselves in the days ahead.

China is notorious for supporting cyber intrusions to take the information that they can't get, especially from American companies or Western companies. If there is a design they are interested in, whether that be an airplane or 3D printing or whatever it may be that is designed somewhere else, they reach in and try to hack and steal it. This is not recent; this has been going on for quite a while. In 2014, the Department of Justice indicted five Chinese military actors for cyber espionage against multiple U.S. corporations. Recently, in 2017, the Department of Justice charged three Chinese nationals with hacking and theft of trade secrets. And it goes on and on.

Just in the past couple of weeks, the World Trade Organization has agreed with the United States in our complaint against China and how they handle agriculture subsidies. Agriculture subsidies from any country are limited in that country, but China uses large ag subsidies through their farmers and ag companies to subsidize those products with state taxes. Let me give an example of that. Thirty-two percent of the return for rice in China is a government subsidy back to rice farmers.

I have heard folks say: Well, in the United States, we also have a farm program. We have a farm bill. We provide subsidies as well.

That is true, but our rice farmers have a 2-percent subsidy. Chinese rice farmers have a 32-percent subsidy.

The World Trade Organization agreed with us on this, and they have determined that China is in violation and the United States can retaliate on that.

China is using that policy and abusing that policy on subsidizing. It is not only causing problems in China and with trade with China and their pricing, what they sell for, it is also causing uncertainty worldwide. Let me give a for-instance. Cotton farming. Oklahoma is big in cotton farming, but China has oversubsidized cotton for years through its cotton farmers, and so they are overproducing what they need or what they can sell. Currently,

60 percent of the world's cotton supplies are stacked up in China, just in piles, not being used anywhere, but because China is subsidizing people to produce it, they are overproducing it in mass quantities. They have nowhere to send it, and they are just stacking cotton up in piles. The same thing with wheat. Forty percent of the world's wheat supplies are currently piled up in stacks in China. That destabilizes worldwide wheat prices and worldwide cotton prices because no one knows what China is going to do with that massive stack. WTO has considered them to be in violation for that, and we are allowed to reach back and retaliate.

The United States is not the only one watching China's trade policies and how they actually interact and the subsidies they give; the rest of the world sees this same issue with China. They would engage with us more to cooperate and push back on China, but currently, we have so many steel and aluminum tariffs on our friends around the world that they are not engaging with us to the level they could be to have a clear focus against China.

We need to not isolate our friends but gather friends and say that China and their policies are clearly a worldwide issue, and it needs to be resolved. Worldwide collaboration is going to be the only way that we are going to really isolate an economy as large as China.

I encourage our administration to resolve trade issues worldwide and resolve tariff issues with our friends worldwide. Instead of saying it is a national security threat with Canada and Mexico and others, and so we need to have steel and aluminum tariffs, see the real national security threat that we have from China, and gather a cooperative group and focus on that one area.

One of those areas is those 301 tariffs that I mentioned before. Any tariffs that go into place must first and foremost not hurt American consumers, American companies, and American workers. My concern is that 301 tariffs--as they have grown--will hurt and are currently hurting American consumers, American employees, and American companies.

The 301 tariffs--these are products that are manufactured in China. They are often designed so the engineering, the marketing, all of those things, the design of those--the intellectual property is here in the United States. Companies in the United States look for manufacturing expertise. They find expertise in certain types of products, like electronics, lighting, and other things, where there is a lot of that manufacturing and expertise--in China. It is a natural thing to say: There is a large body of groups and individuals and technology that is already there to do it. Let's do the manufacturing there and the design and engineering here.

It makes sense just on the supply chain function.

This administration has laid down tariffs--so far, three different tiers of tariffs.

The first tier. Every American company was allowed to say ``Is there any other place that can do it?'' and to ask for exclusions through that process. If they could find exclusions, they could petition the government and get out of it.

The second tier. They were also allowed to ask for exclusions through the process, to ask for basically a waiver, to say: This is the best place to do it. There is no other competition. There is no one pressuring us not to do it here.

But when the third and largest tier came out--$200 billion in products--no exclusion process was given for these American companies. A 10-percent tariff was laid down on these companies. Here is what that means. If you are a company that produces a consumer electronic or lighting or one of the other resources that is manufactured in China, most of the people you are selling it to--you made a contract a year or two ago on what the price would be.

Whether selling to Lowe's or Home Depot or Walmart or Best Buy or whatever it may be, you made a deal about how much you are going to sell that product for and how much you are going to sell. With a 10- percent tariff laid down, who pays that tariff? It is not going to be the end user initially because the contract has already been made. It is not going to be the Chinese manufacturing location. It is going to be the companies doing the production in the United States. The American workers and the American companies pay the brunt of all of those, and, by the way, there is no way to file an exemption on this group. For $200 billion worth of products, Americans are actually facing the brunt of that.

So far, Americans have paid $12 billion in tariffs. It is not punishing the Chinese; it is punishing us. By the end of the year, if this continues, those contracts will have run out, and they will be repricing consumer electronics products all over the country, and the American consumer will be the one to pay higher prices on this. So 301 tariffs disproportionately hurt those in the middle class and those in poverty who have fixed incomes. This needs to be resolved.

First and foremost, there needs to be a way to have a waiver process. As we have done in the first two sections, there is no opportunity to get it out of the third and largest group. It is a reasonable thing for American companies to say: How can we actually produce this?

I have partnered with Senator Coons in the Senate and Representatives Kind and Walorski in the House, and we put together a basic bill dealing with import tax relief, dealing with this 301, laying down for the first time how we would actually manage tariffs in the days ahead and what exclusion process there would be and has to be.

It is reasonable to have a predictable level to benefit the American consumer, especially those in poverty and with fixed incomes, and to benefit American workers. We can't have tariffs on a foreign country that actually hurt American workers. That is an issue we still have to resolve. I am glad to have a partnership with Senator Coons to work on that, and we hope to get that done this year to guard workers for the future.

Along with that, in any trade negotiations, we have what is called trade promotion authority. We have basic standards. An example would be environmental concerns. We don't want to work with another country that is ignoring environmental concerns. We are concerned about where we are in the environment--the air we breathe and the water we drink. That is important to us as Americans because we want to protect our families. We understand it pushes up the cost of some products, but the long-term benefit is greater, and we are very careful in evaluating our regulations. When we overregulate and it drives up costs, we push back on that, saying that we don't want to overregulate and drive up costs, but we want to have clean air and water.

For the Chinese, that is not so. In many areas of China, you can't breathe, and on a regular daily basis people wear masks over their faces because of the exhaust, the fumes, and the toxic air they breathe, based on their limitations on the environmental quality of the air. It is becoming a worldwide issue because of the amount of trash the Chinese are allowing to go into the Pacific Ocean, filling the Pacific Ocean with plastic and trash.

Part of our trade promotion authority and one of the agreements we have is to lean in and have dialogue with individuals we trade with, saying that we want to resolve trade issues, but we also want to protect our environment, and we think it is a reasonable thing to do.

It is reasonable, as Americans, to place a high value on religious liberty and human rights. It is part of our trade promotion authority and, in fact, an area I worked very hard to get implemented as a part of our trade promotion authority--that when we negotiate trade issues with countries, we also deal with the basic issue of human rights and freedom of religion.

We, as Americans, believe that our religious belief is our most precious private property, and no government should be able to step in and steal private property. Your most private possession is your faith. Every individual should have the right to have any faith they choose, be able to change their faith, or have no faith at all. That should be their choice, but that is not so in China right now.

In fact, in 1999, the State Department designated China as what is called ``a country of particular concern.'' This

deals with the issue of religious freedom in their country and China's aggressive move to limit religious freedom in their country. Recently, President Xi has worked toward secularization of religion to try to make everything in the country--every area--equal and the same, stripping away religious symbols from buildings of all types, stripping away religious practice that is not approved by the Government of China. This discrimination has impacted Tibetan Buddhists, Muslims, Catholics, and Falun Gong practitioners. It has led to the destruction of houses of worship, demolition of religious educational institutions, restrictions in the practice and study of faith by people of whatever culture or language, restrictions on religious attire, religious rituals, and imprisonment of religious leaders and followers.

In fact, right now we are tracking the imprisonment of a pastor named Pastor Cao. Pastor Cao and his wife are American citizens, and his children are American citizens. He is allowed to have legal residency in the United States, but 2 years ago as of this month, he was imprisoned in China.

Pastor Cao has a hearing coming up on the 22nd of this month, and we hope for Pastor Cao and for his family that hearing happens. It has been postponed again and again.

On the 22nd of March, we anticipate the Chinese Government will have his hearing and will give him a moment to have this finally resolved. There is no reason for Pastor Cao to be in prison right now.

We don't want to see, in China, forced reeducation facilities, intimidation, lack of medical attention for people of faith. Let's see for the people of China what people worldwide have the opportunity to have--freedom of religion. In our trade conversations we think it is highly advisable to engage in that type of dialogue for people like Pastor Cao, whose children are looking forward to holding him in their arms again and for him to be released.

China is an important part of the worldwide conversation. They are a powerful nation. We should be able to work together on key issues. The Chinese Government needs to determine how they are going to trade and if they are a developing country or if they are really a worldwide leader.

We need to determine how we are going to do fair trade with them, and we need to determine who they are going to be on the world stage, dealing with human rights and dignity. It is not all about sameness of a world; this is about the power of the individual within the country.

I am sure the people of China are very proud of their country. We would love to engage with the people of China, and we appreciate their engagement with us as we receive thousands of Chinese students and visitors every single year.

This is a point where we should resolve the trade issues that have been lingering for decades now, and we hope we can get to an agreement that is right, from our administration being attentive so that the tariffs don't hurt our own citizens to the Chinese economy that is slowing down due to the ongoing trade conversation. Let's work toward the benefit of all of our people to see if we can't resolve trade issues together.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the number 22 trillion should matter to us. That is our current debt in the United States. Not to be confused, we have debts, and we have deficits. You will hear those names get thrown around together. Deficit is the amount of overspending in a single year--1 year of overspending--and debt is the collection of all of those deficits.

As a nation, our current debt is $22 trillion. To give some perspective on 22 trillion, if you were to take the total distance of 22 trillion miles, you would have to fly from Earth to Pluto and back 3,081 times to get to 22 trillion miles. This is heavy debt.

We are used to hearing about debts and deficits in relationship to things like home mortgages. Many of us think about taking 30 years to pay off our mortgage. Well, for us to pay off our national mortgage, this $22 trillion--if we were to balance our budget, which is way out of balance right now, and then have a $100 billion surplus--so let's say that by next year, we have a balanced budget and a $100 billion surplus. That would be a very large surplus for us. How many years of $100 billion surpluses in total revenue would it take to pay off $22 trillion? The quick math on that is 220 years. That is approximately as long as we have been a republic. If we had a $100 billion surplus every single year for the next 220 years, we could pay off our mortgage. Does anyone think that every single year over the next 220 years, we are going to both balance our budget and have a $100 billion surplus?

The issue we face as a nation is that we have fumbled a lot in our past. We fumbled our spending. We fumbled our handling of Federal tax dollars. We have to work our way out of this. Climbing out of this is not going to be a 1-year deal. This is not a short-term fix; this is an intentionally long-term fix.

There are two things we have to have. We have to have economic growth. If our economy is stagnant, we never catch up. The reason for that is, when the economy is stagnant, more people in our Nation need assistance. They need housing support. They need food support. They need other things to help them in those scarce times. Unemployment benefits go up significantly during the time period that our economy is down because people can't find jobs and our safety net kicks in larger amounts.

When we have economic growth, fewer people need housing assistance, fewer people need food assistance, and fewer people receive unemployment benefits. The economy itself grows. As more people have jobs and make money, more people pay taxes. So economic growth is essential to the growth of our economy and to working our way out of debt. That is why the tax reform bill was so incredibly important to us--to get a growing economy again. Our economy had been stagnant for a decade. We would literally have never gotten out of it if we had stayed in a stagnant economy.

Folks called me and said: When the tax revenue changed, when the tax reform bill happened, it also blew a hole in the budget. I have had folks throw all kinds of numbers around and say this is the giant hole that is in the budget.

Interestingly enough, we are now a fiscal year through. Our revenue for fiscal year 2017--the year before the tax reform--was $3.315 trillion. Our revenue after the tax cut and the tax reform, for fiscal year 2018, is $3.329 trillion. If you are doing the math in your head, that is $14 billion more in revenue after the tax cuts. That means our revenue went up the next year.

Contrary to all the myths that were out there early on saying we were going to have this giant hole in the budget, our revenue went up after the tax cuts went into place. Why? More people had more money to invest. More people invested. As they invested, as they engaged in the economy, as they had more money in their pockets, they bought more products, and that stimulated more profits. That meant people got paid more. In this past year of our economy, wages have gone up--especially wages for the lowest income Americans. Their wages have gone up. Unemployment has come down. More people have a job. There are more opportunities to get a different job.

All those things are great benefits, but that doesn't solve $22 trillion in debt. We need to have economic growth, but economic growth by itself is never going to solve the issue. We also have to deal with our spending and our plans.

Each year for the last 4 years, my office has released something we call ``Federal Fumbles.'' It is ways we believe the Federal Government has dropped the ball. Each year, we take on different areas. Over the last 4 years, we identified over $800 billion in ways that we could save Federal tax dollars. For the specific problems we laid out, there is a solution. If we want to try to start attacking some of these things, here is a proposal. Our goal from our office is very simple: We believe all 100 offices should be looking for ways to save Federal tax dollars. We believe everyone should look for ways to be more efficient. What we are doing is not unique to our team; every team can do it. In fact, we believe that everyone wants to see the debt and deficit go down, but now there is the next step of actually identifying how to do it.

In the last 4 years, we have identified $800 billion in ways to save Federal tax dollars. That is a start. That is a beginning point of how to actually get us there. That would get us back to balancing our budget, but we still have a ways to go to get to a surplus and paying off our debt and deficit.

We just released our ``Federal Fumbles'' report. It is actually out today online. People from any office or anyplace can go to lankford.senate.gov and download the free report. This report is a little bit different for us. We want to identify the major problems we have not only in overspending and blowing our deficit, but we want to identify ways that we are actually being inefficient in how we operate. We begin by talking about government shutdowns, as I think we should begin with. We just experienced the longest government shutdown in American history. It is not the first by far. People have short memories when they forget the government shutdowns that happened during the Carter administration, the three times Tip O'Neill shut down the government on President Reagan in the 1980s, or the multiple shutdowns that occurred on almost every Presidency in the modern day. But that is not solving the problems we have.

Last year, eight Republicans and eight Democrats met almost the entire year and talked about how to reform the budget process. I am a firm believer that we will never solve the problem with our budgeting until we solve the problem with how we do budgeting. We don't budget in a way that actually determines more efficient spending. We determine how to spend more but not how to spend less. That is an issue we have to solve.

The 1974 Budget Act has only worked four times since it was written in 1974. It is not gospel. It is not the Constitution. It needs to be redone. There are proposals we put into place specifically on how we can fix the budgeting process. Again, until we get a better budget process, we will never get a better budget product. We identified some simple things--how we can do a 2-year budgeting system; how we can avoid government shutdowns. There are simple solutions we put into place that I think would actually be effective.

We released a bipartisan bill in the last couple of days on ending government shutdowns that I hope we can actually get momentum toward and solve the issue of government shutdowns.

We deal with the issue of the President's budget--not just this President's but every President's budgets. It has been a problem. There has never been a time since the 1974 Budget Act that the President's budget has ever been implemented. It is an informational document. Let's turn it into what it should be.

Let's figure out how we can start reducing our deficit. We have 12 bills we put out every single year for spending. There is no mandatory bill for savings. As simple as this sounds, why don't we add a 13th bill to our appropriations process? There would be 12 bills that are designed for spending and 1 that is designed for savings. For every single Congress, there would have to be a savings bill. Now, that Congress can choose how much it wants to save, but every single Congress would have a mandatory savings bill to figure out what it is going to do to actually pull our deficits back. With our being $22 trillion in debt, I don't anticipate anytime soon that we are not going to need that 13th bill.

We could do this. We could fix the way we actually make the law regarding the budget, which currently is not law but is a suggestion made by Congress that has been blown past every single year. There are all kinds of budget games that are out there that make the budget actually look better than it is. Some of them are great, cute names, like CHIMPS, or Changes in Mandatory Program Spending. They sound adorable, but what they actually do is to make the budget look like it is closer to balancing when it is actually even further from balancing but has a budget gimmick. We need to end some of those.

We lay out proposals on how to resolve the debt ceiling. Process reforms will make a big difference in our being able to get on top of the big issue. They may not be exciting and they may not be headline- grabbing, but until we fix these things as a body, they are never going to get better.

We deal with Senate rules on how we are actually going to work together to solve these issues. The Senate has stopped working together on a lot of these things. So we lay out some of the internal aspects as to how to solve them. We lay out some bills that are out there that we have proposed. One is called the Taxpayers Right-To-Know Act.

We don't have great transparency in our spending. If taxpayers wanted to find out how many government programs there were that were similar in function, they couldn't find out. The hard part is, as Congress, we can't find out either. The only way that we can get a programmatic list or get the details of different programs from different Agencies is to make the request through an entity called the GAO. Usually, between 12 and 18 months later, it will give us back a report just to say what programs are out there and what those programs do.

I have met multiple times with the director of the GAO regarding a bill proposal called the Taxpayers Right-To-Know Act, a bill that passed unanimously in the House of Representatives during the last session. Then it came to the Senate and stalled. This bill does something very simple. It tells lawmakers and taxpayers what their government actually does. It is not trying to hide anything. It is trying to list every program that we have and how much we spend on that program. If it is evaluated, how is it evaluated? How many employees are dedicated to it? There is no gimmick to it. It is just that simple. It is transparency. The great gift to our democracy is transparency in how we spend dollars.

Just this basic bill would allow every single person in the country to ask questions of its government. Why do we have four programs that seem to do the same thing? Why do we have 18 programs in another area and 16 different entities that seem to do something similar? Why can't we combine that? Why can't we crowd-source ideas? The reason is that we don't put transparent information out. We could crowd-source the ideas of how to fix our government if only we allowed the taxpayers to see their government. The Taxpayers Right-To-Know Act allows us to do that.

We deal with our grant reforms. It is one of the areas in which we have pushed pretty hard in the last several ``Federal Fumbles'' books, but we lay out a set of ideas. There is a bill called the GREAT Act, which passed in the last House of Representatives overwhelmingly. By the way, the House of Representatives in this session, led by the Democrats, has also passed the GREAT Act and has sent it over to us in order to reform the grant process and how that information gets out. Now, it is a first step in getting information. I think there are more, but it is a great first step for that.

Grants always seem to be our issue. Some $600 billion a year is spent by the Federal Government just on grants. There is a great need for greater transparency in that. Some grants are very large, and some of them are small. We can't figure out why we do some of them at all as Federal taxpayers. For instance, last year, the National Endowment for the Humanities gave a grant to a California professor to use Federal tax dollars to study Soviet winemaking--not current Russian winemaking with Federal grant dollars but historic Soviet winemaking.

Now, I can kind of understand why California winemakers may want to do a study of Soviet winemaking for some reason, but why are Federal taxpayers being asked to pay for a study on Soviet winemaking? Yet we did.

Since 2001, we have given a Federal grant for a mariachi program in California. Now, I kind of understand how a successful mariachi program that works with children and youths may be something we would do for a couple of years to get it started as a community program. That makes total sense. Yet we have done it every year since 2001. At some point, shouldn't the local entities pick that up? Why is that a Federal program that has to be done year after year after year?

The grant issues don't have a lot of transparency, and there is a reason for that. It is that people don't want to be seen. They don't want anyone to know that the program is out there. We want just to ask a simple question. Let's do the grants, but let's make sure they line up with Federal priorities. Let's make sure they actually line up with strategic things that actually help our economy and help expand our Nation and protect our national security.

There are basic things that we can do, and we lay some of those things out. We lay out some questions that we think are practical questions on renewable fuel and, in particular, on ethanol. The ethanol program was designed to reduce emissions, but when it was designed to reduce emissions, it also grandfathered in all of the entities at that time that had produced ethanol, and none of those were required to reduce emissions--only new ones.

What has happened? Practically no new ones have come on board because it is a lot more expensive to limit emissions than it is to be an old facility that doesn't limit emissions. You can't be competitive in limiting emissions. So really what the ethanol mandate does is to protect the old ethanol companies to make sure they never get competition. As a Congress, why aren't we looking at that?

If you are not in the Midwest, you pay more at the gas pump every time you fill up because of the ethanol. If you are in the Midwest, it may be a little cheaper for you, but if you are on the east or the west coast, your gas prices are higher because of the ethanol mandate. Are you happy with that? As a government, we need to look at that. We think it is a legitimate question to ask about not only our debt and deficit but just about basic consumer spending for our GDP and the growth of our economy.

We deal with a lot of issues with regard to the Federal workforce. We deal with regulatory reform. We walk through some of the hardest issues about how we are taking care of our veterans and what is happening with regard to taking care of things like healthcare and transitioning them into vocational work. We feel it is important.

We have dug into small programs--for instance, an IT development program for veterans in Muskogee, OK--because if you are in the veterans service center in Muskogee, which is one of the largest veteran service centers in the country, you handle a lot of different documents. As you go through

that process for those great employees who are there--and there are really some solid people who are there--they have to log in multiple times and use a whole list of workarounds in their system, which gets bogged down. Each employee there spends 45 minutes a day just going through the logistics of logging in and changing around the system to make it work. There are 45 minutes a day of lost productivity for every single person there.

The good news is that Congress allocated $30 million to fix the IT problems there. The bad news is that the problems are still there. So we are asking the simple question: Where did that money go? How come the problem wasn't fixed?

We can go on and on with regard to these issues. In page after page, we have tried to lay out sets of solutions--things that we see as problems and inefficiencies in the way our government is working and in the way our Congress is working--and establish what can be done. Our goal is simple. Laying out ``Federal Fumbles'' is a to-do list for us. This is what we are working on right now along with a lot of other issues.

We encourage every office to glance through it. Ask your staff members to glance through and see the things that they are working on in their offices, and see if we are not laying out some ideas. Let's find ways to work together. Of all of the things to agree on, we should be able to agree that our $22 trillion of debt needs to be addressed. Let's strategize as to how we are going to solve it. Let's find ways that our government is inefficient and find ways to fix it.

Let me give you one more number.

We met in a bipartisan group last year--eight Republicans and eight Democrats--and tried to solve this issue on budgeting. Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful. Those with the Congressional Budget Office visited with us, and we asked them a very specific question as to our current level of debt. If we were to just try to stay at our current level of debt--not grow any more, not get any worse--how much would we have to tax or cut? Their response was $400 billion a year, every year, for the next 30 years. To just not make the problem worse, we have to either tax more or cut $400 billion a year, every year, for the next 30 years to keep it from getting worse. That is because, as the CBO stated, Federal outlays, which is how we are spending, are projected to climb from 20.8 percent of the GDP in 2019 to 23 percent by 2029.

The aging of the population and the rising healthcare costs contribute significantly to the growth of spending for the major benefit programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, and the rising debt and higher interest rates drive up the Federal Government's net interest cost.

We have reached a tipping point in interest. Last year, our interest payments were $325 billion just in the interest on our debt. The CBO estimates that within 10 years our interest payments alone will be $928 billion. We have crossed over that tipping point we talked about before. Now, just to stay at the status quo, because of the rising interest rates and interest payments, we have to find $400 billion a year, every year, in new taxes or new cuts.

We are fumbling on the biggest issue that Americans have handed us. It affects our national security. It affects the future of our children. It affects how we take care of those who are in poverty. It affects those who are in the most vulnerable moments of life. It affects those with disabilities, and it affects our transportation.

We have to have a real dialogue about this. We are doing our part. We are trying to get the word out. Let's have a dialogue and together figure out what we can do next in order to solve this because none of us have plans for a $400 billion cut next year. That means that next year it will again get worse, and it will keep getting worse until we solve it.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, 2 years ago, I came to this floor of the Senate to talk about the rules process and nominations in particular because, even 2 years ago, we were experiencing the beginning of what I saw to be a trend.

When elected to office, every President has about 1,200 nominations that have to come through the Senate for what is called advice and consent. Those individuals go through background checks at the White House, they go through interviews through the White House, and they go through the extensive review of references. Then they are recommended to the respective committees here, where they again go through background checks, have conversations, interviews, public hearings, questions for the record after the hearings are over, and go through any followup from any individual American who wants to give input whether that input be from outside groups here or from anywhere else in the country. Then they come to the floor of the Senate.

In the past, those individuals moved through quickly because there were 1,200 of them, but the minority has always had the right to have one last, little slowdown when they have gotten to the floor. They can make what is called a cloture vote request. The minority--any individual--could always make a request for a cloture vote to say: I know they have gone through all of these extensive checks, that they have already passed the committee, that they have gone through all of the process, but at the end, I want an additional 30 hours of debate on these people. Yet it is not just 30 hours of debate; it is actually what is called a full intervening day. After that, there is an additional 30 hours of debate for that person.

That has been done in the past but very rarely in the first 2 years of a Presidency because there are so many nominations that have to go through the process. If we go back to President Clinton, there were eight of those requests. For President Bush, there were four of those. For President Obama, there were 12 of those. For President Trump, there have been 128 of those.

Two years ago, I saw the trend of where this was heading. This was a new structure for the beginning of a Presidency. I was concerned at that time, but I have an even greater concern now. It is the trend of where we are headed as a Senate. Is this going to be the new normal? This used to be what was normal: Occasional nominees would come through if they were very controversial. Yet most of these nominees were not really all that controversial. In fact, 48 percent of those nominees who had the additional cloture time then got more than 60 votes. In fact, 37 percent of them got more than 70 votes. These were not controversial individuals coming through; it was just an intentional slowing down of the process.

I have heard folks say: There are so many of these judges who are coming through at the district court level that they become very controversial.

Quite frankly, every single judge who comes through has to be approved by the two Senators from that State through what is called the blue-slip process. This is for all of those district court judges. It is a process that has been honored by previous administrations and by this administration. This Senate has honored those same blue slips for all of the district court judges. If the judges are from a Democratic State, both of those Democratic Senators have to approve of them before they come. If the judges are from a State that has one Democrat and one Republican, it has to be split. If there are two Republicans, they both have to agree to it. This is for all of the district court judges. Yet they are still being slowed down. They have gone through the background checks, and they have been approved by their home State Senators regardless of party; yet they are slowed down.

So whether they are executive nominees or whether they are judicial nominees, these 128 individuals being slowed down has created a new slowdown in the Senate.

Two years ago, I made a proposal to go back to something that Harry Reid proposed and was passed by this Senate in 2013, which was long before I was here. It was a 2-year agreement to just say: Here is how we are going to deal with what is called postcloture debate time. If there is a controversial nominee, here is how we will handle it.

I went to my colleagues and said: Let's revive that rule. Instead of making it for 2 years, which was the Harry Reid rule, let's just make it from here on out. I made that proposal in the last Senate. We took that to the Rules Committee. It passed the Rules Committee, but it could not pass on this floor.

I thought it was eminently kind and bipartisan to say that I would go back and grab Harry Reid's rule and that if it was good for the Democrats when they were in the leadership, it should be good for everybody regardless of whether it is the Republicans or the Democrats. It did not pass.

I have once again come back and made a proposal to say let's fix this and to not just fix this for now but to fix this from here on out. Whether there will be a Democratic President or a Republican President in the future, let's have a simple rule: If we get to a nominee who has gone through the background checks of the White House, has gone through the committee and passed the committee, and has gone through additional questions for the record--all of that--if people still want additional time, they can still request the intervening day, but then instead of 30 hours after that full day, it would be just 2 hours of additional time.

Quite frankly, during most of the time that we have had the 30 hours of debate, there hasn't really been debate on the floor for 30 hours; there has been debate on the floor for, say, 15 or 20 minutes. For the rest of the time, the floor has sat empty or we have debated other things other than the nominee.

So we would set aside 2 additional hours. We would do this for district court judges, and we would do this for most of the nominees for the executive branch, but we would still hold that 30 hours for things like nominees for the circuit court, the Supreme Court, and those at the Cabinet level. For those types of positions, sure, keep the 30 hours, but for the other 1,000-plus nominees who are to be the Deputy Secretaries or assistants of whatever it may be, allow them to go through the normal process and not slow it down.

The Chief Counsel for the IRS has not been confirmed. He went through the last Congress, but he didn't get there. He passed 25 to 2 out of committee. He passed 26 to 2 out of committee this time; yet there is a requirement of 30 additional hours of debate on the floor. He will probably pass overwhelmingly, but it is just a tactic to slow down this floor.

We have a lot of business to do. Let's make a rule that is fair, and let's make it work for everyone. My concern is, long-term for the Senate, this will be the new trend, and the next time there is a Democratic President, this is what Republicans will do to Democratic Presidents, and this will be the new way that we operate.

This isn't helpful for any President; this isn't helpful for the Senate; and this is something we need to fix.

We have 2 years of muscle memory on this now--of doing it over and over

and over. I don't think this gets better because I think the political pressure will be there just to keep doing this and slowing things down for everybody.

So we put a rule out there. It has gone through the Rules Committee. I have encouraged my Democratic colleagues to join in with this because there will be a Democratic President someday in the future, and they will not want this coming back at them and will say this is unfair, and I will agree. But it will happen, so let's fix it now. Let's resolve this in this Senate in this time from here on out--not a short-term rule but long-term, permanent--to take us back to this being the norm, when we could work better together.

I love hearing everyone say that we should be more bipartisan as a body. I would love to get this body working again. That is this proposal. This proposal is not a partisan proposal. It is not trying to get leverage on anybody. It is trying to get this body back to working again, and I hope in the weeks ahead, when this rule actually comes to the floor of the Senate, we can get overwhelming bipartisan support for it so that we can get back to working together.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have 10 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during he session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 27, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Policy principles for a Federal data privacy framework in the United States.

Committee on Environment and Public Works

The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 27, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Foreign Relations

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 27, 2019, at 10:15 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 27, 2019, at 12:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: William Beach, of Kansas, to be Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Scott A. Mugno, of Pennsylvania, and John P. Pallasch, of Kentucky, both to be an Assistant Secretary, Cheryl Marie Stanton, of South Carolina, to be Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, and John Lowry III, of Illinois, to be Assistant Secretary for Veterans' Employment and Training, all of the Department of Labor, Robert L. King, of Kentucky, to be Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education, Department of Education, Janet Dhillon, of Pennsylvania, to be a Member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Mary Anne Carter, of Tennessee, to be Chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts, Marco M. Rajkovich, Jr., of Kentucky, William I. Althen, of Virginia, and Arthur R. Traynor III, of the District of Columbia, each to be a Member of the Federal Mine Safety

and Health Review Commission, and other pending nominations.

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 27, 2019, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Perspective on protecting the electric grid form an electromagnetic pulse or geomagnetic disturbance.''

Committee on Indian Affairs

The Committee on Indian Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 27, 2019, at 2:30 p.m , to conduct a hearing entitled ``The 45th anniversary of the Native American Programs Act and the establishment of the Administration for Native Americans.''

Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship

The Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 27, 2019, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Made in China 2025 and the Future of America Industry.''

Committee on Veterans' Affairs

The Committee on Veterans' Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 27, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Cybersecurity

The Subcommittee on Cybersecurity of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 27, 2019, at 2.30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Personnel

The Subcommittee on Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 27, 2019, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

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

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have 8 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Committee on Armed Services

The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 9.30 a.m., to conduct a hearing ``United States Strategic Command and United States Northern Command in review of the Defense Authorization Request for fiscal year 2020 and the Future Years Defense Program.''

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Finance

The Committee on Finance is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 10:15 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Drug Pricing in America: A prescription for change, Part II.''

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 3:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Opportunity to SOAR: 15 years of school choice in DC.''

Committee on Veterans' Affairs

The Committee on Veterans' Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Airland

The Subcommittee on Airland of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 3 p.m., to conduct a closed hearing.

Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine

Infrastructure, Safety and Security

The Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safely and Security of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining intermodal connections across our surface transportation network.''

Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights

The Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining the 2019 annual intellectual property report to Congress.''