Floor Statements

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, small businesses play an integral role in Oklahoma's economy. They consist of over 52 percent of all employees in Oklahoma. Additionally, within Oklahoma, over 84 percent of all exports come from small businesses. Today I have the distinct honor of recognizing one of the many successful small businesses in my home State of Oklahoma for National Small Business Week. While there are many businesses worthy of recognition, I am particularly proud of Webco Industries.

Webco Industries, based in Sand Springs, OK, has proven themselves as a leader in the metal tubing industry. Their philosophy of ``continuously building'' is a testament to how they have grown since 1969 into the 1,000-employee company they are today. With seven manufacturing plants and two distribution facilities, they provide the widest variety of tubing in North America. With engineering, metallurgical, production, and QA staff averaging 20 years of experience, Webco delivers exceptional tubing products and service to their customers.

I want to congratulate and thank Webco founder, Bill Weber, and CEO Dana Weber of Webco for their outstanding and devoted work in creating a shining business model. The Weber's dedication to making these products in America should not only make Oklahomans proud, but all Americans. Webco's success should be an example for all businesses, and I am proud to recognize their hard work and dedication.

Mr. President, let me wholeheartedly agree with the Senator from Oklahoma on Mike Pompeo, as well as the comments he has made about Jim Bridenstine.

Will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of remarks by our leader, Mr. McConnell, I be recognized for 45 minutes.

I have no objection.

Mr. President, let me, first of all, join my friend from Illinois in this tribute he is making to Tammy and the baby. I do have to correct him on one thing, however. He talked about diaper bags. They don't use diaper bags anymore. They are disposable diapers. I know because I have 20 kids and grandkids. But I agree with the Senator's remarks wholeheartedly.

Mr. President, I know there is a lot of competition for the time right now, and I feel badly that I finally got to the point where, in order to get the message out--it is a message many people think is not significant, but I assure you that this is of grave importance not just to a country but to the entire continent of Africa.

The House of Representatives, just last week, passed H. Res. 128 to chastise one of our closest allies on the African continent, Ethiopia. Although the legislation claims to support Ethiopia, the reality is that the resolution is outdated. It was written years ago and was blindly passed without consideration for the current situation in Ethiopia. It was also passed under a voice vote so that no one member of Congress would have to carry the stigma of being on the record voting for it.

I know the House passed it because most of them have never been to Ethiopia and don't really know the miracle we have seen in that country. I know the transformation Ethiopia has made in economic and social development alongside their ongoing commitment to establishing security in the Horn of Africa.

Since 2005, I have visited Ethiopia 18 different times, engaging and developing relationships with Prime Ministers, with Cabinet Ministers, legislators, businessmen, aid workers, and everyone else in between. There isn't another Member of Congress who has traveled in Ethiopia, engaged with the Ethiopian Government and the Ethiopian people more than I have.

I say this for a reason. It is to show that I know something about Ethiopia. I know we have been here before. What happened last week has happened before. People don't even know it. So they passed a negative resolution on Ethiopia by voice vote. The resolution fails to understand the history of Ethiopia. I want to talk about that.

Ethiopia is the oldest independent country in all of Africa, but one that is newly democratic. It is all new to them.

There is also a Christian history to the nation, which nobody else has on the continent of Africa. Ethiopia is featured in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

In the New Testament, we hear about Philip. This is in Acts 8. Philip meets the Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Damascus. We find out later that the eunuch was actually the treasurer of the country of Ethiopia at that time. Philip told the eunuch about Jesus. He talked about the Old Testament and the Queen of Sheba and Solomon. There are over 50 of these mentions in the Bible. They had long conversations about Jesus.

Philip was making these comments. Before the conversation was over, he baptized the eunuch. The eunuch went off to Ethiopia and took the first word of Jesus to Ethiopia. That is very significant.

Coincidentally, while Addis Ababa is the capital of Ethiopia, there was a time when Aksum was the capital. That was many years ago. During the time of the Queen of Sheba, that was the capital of Ethiopia.

Coincidentally, I happened to be in Ethiopia when a farmer in a field ran into some old relics, and they started excavating. They found out that was the palace of the Queen of Sheba. There had been discussion as to whether or not the Queen of Sheba was from Yemen or Ethiopia, but that was concrete proof they had discovered that it was the case. The story goes on and on.

We all know about the Queen of Sheba and Solomon. Solomon had all the wealth in the world, and she wanted to meet Solomon. She went down to the Red Sea to see Solomon. Well, she got to Israel and she met Solomon. They were engaged very closely together. I think we all know that they ended up having a son who went back to his country.

By the way, the part of the Old Testament I am quoting right now is in 1 Kings 10:1. That is about the trip between Israel and Ethiopia. Sheba and Solomon had a boy. The boy was Menelik. He was a very smart person. As he was growing up in years, before returning to their home country in Ethiopia, he actually took the Ark of the Covenant back to Ethiopia, where it is today in Aksum.

A lot of people don't know that. If anyone questions what I am saying right now, there is a book written that was called ``The Sign and the Seal,'' by Graham Hancock. It is very well-documented. When you read that, you come to the conclusion that this is where the Ark of the Covenant is. I have been to the Ark of the Covenant with many Members of the Senate here--certainly, Senator Boozman from Arkansas, Senator Mike Enzi from Wyoming, Senator Mike Rounds from South Dakota, and many others. We have been up there and we have actually seen where this has taken place.

I say this because there is that very rich history. It is all documented in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The current controversy, and why we are here today, started back in the 1970s with a man named Mengistu. From 1974 to 1991, Mengistu was the leader of the communist Derg. This was the controlling party at that time. It is a communist party. They ran Ethiopia. It was a terrible time for Ethiopia. That was during one of the worst famines they had, which killed over a million people--perhaps the most significant famine in history in terms of deaths.

Many Ethiopians fled during that time and relocated in the United States. That is understandable. The communists were booted out. A lot of the people, during the time they were still in, came to the United States.

It is interesting because the Ethiopians are very outstanding people. They are the kind that get things done when other people don't. That makes them different from all the other countries in Africa.

So a lot of these Ethiopians came to America, and they have made great, really remarkable contributions to America, building organizations and getting involved. Rightfully so, they were outspoken against the brutal regime, but they haven't changed their outspokenness to reflect the changing conditions in Ethiopia.

At the time that this took place, one person who was responsible, to a large extent, for getting rid of the communists and the communist threat in Ethiopia was a guy named Meles. He ran, he came from the bush, and he won. He ended up as Prime Minister. This is really the election that a lot of people don't like, and they forget about the fact that he was the Prime Minister who actually got rid of the communists in Ethiopia.

So he became a Prime Minister. He started to build democracy. He died in 2012. I got to know him quite well during that timeframe, and I saw the progress that he made and the advances they made.

He was then replaced by another Prime Minister, whose name is Hailemariam. Now, he became Prime Minister, and he continued to push for democracy. Hailemariam worked diligently to improve things.

Under his tenure, Ethiopia established the independent Ethiopian Human Rights Committee to report on violence and human rights problems and abuses. They didn't just establish

it; they acted on it. They came out with a report and acted on it to hold perpetrators accountable and to make the improvements that were being made. Our relationship wasn't just government to government; it was brother to brother.

In February of 2017, Prime Minister Hailemariam suggested that, since the provinces were all fighting at that time--there were nine provinces in Ethiopia. Each province has a Governor. We suggested on the phone, with the Members of the Senate here and the House at a Prayer Breakfast, that what we ought to do is that we ought to follow the recommendation of Eisenhower. He said--in fact, this is right after World War II: The problems of this world are so great that we will never resolve the problems until we learn to sit down and pray together. So we decided: Let's get all the Governors, the Prime Minister, the Members of the House, the Senate, and the rest together, and we will pray for them.

We did this. In fact, I had five Senators with me at that time, and we went over. The problem was only two Governors showed up. So 8 months later, we came back and put together the same thing and talked to them to let them know what this is all about. And it happened 8 months later. We were just talking about it just recently.

We had nine Governors who had been fighting. Hailemariam and we all prayed together.

Now, at the same time, there was a Congressman, Randy Hultgren, over at the House, who happened to be president of the House Prayer Breakfast. The time change worked perfectly. At the time we were praying there, if you took the 7-hour differential, they were meeting at the House Prayer Breakfast here in Washington. So he joined in. Now, I am not smart enough to figure out how they do this. It is some kind of thing called Skype, where you can get on TV and communicate. So they were praying over there with all of these House Members at the same time that we were praying. On top of that, we had a bunch of great pages, like the pages sitting right in front of me today, all praying at the same time. This was going on all over America.

So they all got together, and it worked--the same group of people who had just hated each other, who had never been in the same room before. The Prime Minister and all of us--Members of the Senate and others who were there--were all rejoicing and embracing each other.

That's really significant. The 9 governors had never been together before. The majority of Americans can't easily grasp this, but is different in Ethiopia. Most of the people don't live in cities, and that made this effort that much more difficult. That is the reverse of the rest of the world. The vast majority of people who live there are in rural communities, and that made this widespread change and development a longer and more difficult path.

In Ethiopia, the tribal factions also play a greater role. Anyone who has been there understands this. If you go from Province to Province, that used to be from tribe to tribe, and they historically have not gotten along until this time. So it made it more difficult because of the factions and all of that, but it worked. We unified them together, and that was unlike anything that has ever happened.

Earlier this month, Ethiopia took another step to showing their commitment to a free and fair democracy by selecting a new Prime Minister. And who is this? His name is Abiy Ahmed, a doctor.

In fact, it is kind of interesting, if you think about his credentials. Just listen to this. Abiy received his first degree, a bachelor's degree, in computer engineering from the Microlink Information Technology College in Addis. That was in 2001.

In 2005, Abiy earned a postgraduate certificate in cryptography in South Africa. He holds a master of arts in transformational leadership and change with merit, earned at the Business School in Greenwich University in London, in collaboration with the International Leadership Institute in Addis, in 2011. He holds a master of business administration from the Leadstar College of Management and Leadership in Addis, in partnership with Ashland University in Ohio.

In 2017, Abiy was awarded a Ph.D. from the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University.

Now, we haven't studied it all the way through, but what we did is we took a cursory look at that, and we believe he is the most highly educated Prime Minister in the history of the continent.

Here we are with this Dr. Abiy, who has been specially selected for his commitment to democracy, good governance, and the rule of law. I met Abiy for the first time in February of 2016 at a leader's breakfast, where he told the story of his journey of faith in Jesus. He is very, very articulate, someone who no one would forget about.

We met a year later, when we prayed and talked about how to unify the country in peace, not conflict. It is from these meetings that I know that Abiy is committed to democracy and the future of Ethiopia. He is showing that with his actions as well.

Last week, he specifically sought to engage the opposition party and its leaders. He said:

We want to work hand in hand with you. What we say and do

must match.

Since his inauguration, he has also restored the internet service all across the country, and he has released 11 high-profile dissidents. This is what we need to be encouraging, not delegitimizing his authority with a heavy handed resolution. After his first week in office, the first week in office, they passed this resolution--this hateful resolution over at the House.

He is also the youngest head of state in all of Africa. Abiy is just 41 years old. He shows an optimistic and engaged future for Ethiopia--a country where 70 percent of the population is less than 35 years old. He deserves a chance to enact the democratic reforms he called for during his inaugural address, before being slapped with a condemnation of his government by a House of Representatives resolution.

They have quite an opportunity. Ethiopia is one of the fastest growing economies in the region, and it has made great strides in lowering the poverty rate. But the resolution that passed last week wasn't about this. They didn't talk about everything that I just articulated.

Ethiopia is also an important partner for us in promoting regional peace and security. We have all recently seen how Islamic terrorists are pushing from the Middle East and regrouping and establishing themselves across Africa. This is the thing that he has inherited. That is what he is in right now.

Ethiopia has been an important partner for the United States in combating the spread of terrorism from Somalia and al-Qaida. He is our closest partner in this effort.

As terrorism grows through Djibouti and the Horn of Africa into northeastern Africa, this is a threat to global security. Ethiopia has been a critical partner for the United States in combating that spread of terrorism.

Ethiopia is the top African contributor to U.N. peacekeeping troops and supplies about 8 percent of the global peacekeeping force. It is not the second or among the first. He was No. 1--the first one to be a contributor to the U.N. peacekeeping effort. Those are contributions they have made. Other countries have not done that, but they have.

More than that, Ethiopia's professional and capable military has also been a positive force in regional stability. When we had problems in parts of Africa--and Somalia comes to mind right now--when we call upon them to send troops, they are the first ones who respond, and they are the ones who send the most of their capable troops.

Ethiopia was a regional stabilizer during the crisis with Sudan and South Sudan. I think we all remember when Sudan was one unified country, and they had not always gotten along with South Sudan. South Sudan had been trying to get their independence for years and years, and, finally, they were successful, and right after that, it looked like it wasn't going to work.

But the resolution last week didn't consider any of the progress Ethiopia has made and the leadership they have provided.

Beyond just the government, more good things are happening in Ethiopia than I have ever seen. The people are not just like other people. There is not time, but I could give so many examples. I will single out just one family

who is really typical of what is going on in Ethiopia.

We have longtime friends there--Marta Gabre-Tsadick and her husband Demeke Tekle-Wold. I will refer to them as Marta and Demeke. They founded an organization called Project Mercy. This is kind of interesting. This wasn't government. This is what they have done and are trying to do in their country.

It is kind of interesting because Marta, as a very young girl, went to work for Haile Selassie. We all know Haile Selassie and what a hero he was before the communists came in in 1974 and murdered him and took over the country. Marta actually had worked for him at one time.

They received political asylum in the United States in the early 1970s, after the communist takeover in Ethiopia, only to return to the country to care for, as they say, the ``least of these.'' That is what they have been doing.

Marta wrote a book that should be required reading so people would know the sacrifices that people make to escape communism. The name of her book is ``Sheltered by the King.''

In fact, if any of you want a copy of it, I will give it to you.

It tells the story about the communist takeover when Haile Selassie was murdered. It was about their escape from the communists.

Throughout the years, I have partnered with Marta and Demeke on several occasions. In 2008, I worked with the USAID. At that time, we had a guy, who, unfortunately, wasn't able stay there very long. He was head of the USAID. At that time, they prioritized the shipment of 43 containers of Atmit. This is during the time of starvation. Amit is a nutritional supplement that was sent to young children, to those in the most severe stages of starvation.

Ethiopia was hit especially hard in the global economic crisis, and these containers equaled 600 tons of food to feed 27,000 severely malnourished children.

The story of Marta and Demeke is kind of interesting because they started out in Addis, the capital. They started out in a small house, getting three or four young men--boys--uneducated and taught them the Scriptures, taught them how to read and write, taught them all of these things, and then how to put together an economy and get these people so that they can go out on their own. They were successful.

That grew from 3 people to 6 people to 100 people. Then they went down to a part of Africa, a part of Ethiopia, that is really interesting. It is called Yetabon. Yetabon is interesting because that is an area where there wasn't any civilization. It was in the bush, on the side of a mountain.

I went down to Yetabon to see. This is some time ago. I was thrilled that Raj Shah, the Administrator of USAID, accepted my invitation to go down there to see Yetabon and to see what they have done down there. When you stopped and looked in that remote area, with the two of them alone, it is not just a matter of 10, 12, or 100 kids, but 1,700 kids were all lined up, K through 12, smiling with big smiles. Their lives had been changed, and all of that took place down there.

I remember that there was a terrible storm down there as we were leaving, and it was all muddy. I told Raj: Anyone under age 70, get out and push. I was the only one exempted, of course. Anyway, he saw the significance of the resource of the Ethiopian people and the progress the country had made in furthering democracy and stabilizing the region.

USAID is now headed up by another person who loves Africa, Mark Green. I remember Mark Green. He used to be the Ambassador to Tanzania. He is a close friend of mine. I actually served with him at one time back at the House.

Raj recognized the genius of the Ethiopian people. We are privileged to deliver a another program they put together, where they would crossbreed cows and start dairy farms in the area close to Addis. It has been a very successful program. Keep in mind that this is all as a result of one family.

I could give examples of this all over the country in Ethiopia. The technical assistance and training to improve the products that they have were done all by one family. All that was largely from Demeke.

There is another person who is set aside from other countries in Africa, and that is a doctor named Hamlin. She actually started the Hamlin Fistula Hospital. Fistula is a disease that people who are pregnant could have. It is fatal in many cases. It is very unique to that part of Africa. So they have an organization working alongside the Ethiopian Government to provide sustainable solutions to the Hamlin Fistula Hospital. It has been a haven for the care of women.

All of this one person started. This is the character of the people. They started treating women in Ethiopia's busy capital city of Addis since 1959. It has now grown to an additional five regional hospitals, a midwifery college, and a rehabilitation center for long-term patients.

I and my wife Kay visited the hospital along with Senator Enzi's wife, Diana, and Senator Boozman's wife, Cathy. We saw the miracle that is taking place there--all because of one woman. It is typical of the people you find in Ethiopia.

They saw the impact that the hospital is making to the lives of women throughout the country to be able to deliver their baby safely and be treated with dignity for childbirth injuries.

So much of this development and progress is due to the emergence of past and present African leaders such as the recently sworn in Prime Minister, Dr. Abiy Ahmed, who are investing in the lives of their people, and the realization by the United States of the strategic importance to Africa.

They are important. They have joined us in every effort--every military effort--that we have had, more than any other country. None of that was considered by the House last week when they passed this shortsighted resolution.

I tried to work with key sponsors of the resolution to make needed changes to reflect the fact of Ethiopia's progress, but my efforts were unsuccessful. They wouldn't listen to me. I still can't figure out why it is that a handful of people who probably have never, ever been to Ethiopia were doing this to that country. The resolution made a lot of claims that said that ``democratic space in Ethiopia has steadily diminished since the general elections of 2005'' and that the ruling party ``claimed 100 percent of the parliamentary seats'' in the 2015 elections--continued insults to our closest friends in Africa. But the democratic space in Ethiopia has never been more vibrant, as the numbers speak for themselves. There were more opposition candidates in the 2015 election than there have ever been in any election in the history of Ethiopia.

In 2015, the African Union observers--they were the ones who were observing the election, and they concluded that the elections had been free, peaceful, and credible and had provided an opportunity for the Ethiopian people to express their choices at the polls. Overall, the AU observers offered conclusions and recommendations to the government, the electoral board, the political parties, and to the media to strengthen that process, and that has been successful.

The resolution inaccurately stated that the ruling party claimed to have won 100 percent of the parliamentary seats. That is not true at all. There is no truth at all in that. In fact, that is not a ruling party. The EPRDF is not one party; it is a coalition of four major political parties with proportional representation from four regions; namely, from Oromia, Amhara, and some of the other southern nations.

The resolution also claimed that peaceful protests were often hijacked by violent events.

Last year, there were protests and demonstrations in part of Oromia and Amhara, in that region, and it did grow violent.

Ethiopia has a duty to ensure law and order like any other country, and that is exactly what they did. They openly acknowledged that people have legitimate grievances and expressed their willingness to address those. They are making strides. The second National Human Rights Action Plan--the current ruling party has embarked on a dialogue with 222 opposition parties. The United States should allow this dialogue to continue free of interference.

This resolution wasn't new. The House of Representatives did this in 2007 also. By the way, they also did this by voice vote then because no one wanted to be tied to something that they had to vote on without really knowing what it was all about. So they did it in 2007. I don't think the outcome of that was ever discussed, so I am going to tell the story now.

The 2007 resolution claimed that its purpose was to ``encourage and facilitate the consolidation of peace and security in Ethiopia,'' but in reality, it focused only on the shortcomings while blatantly ignoring the unprecedented progress the country had made.

I went to Ethiopia 3 weeks after the House voted in 2007. The resolution was reported widely for weeks in the Ethiopian press as the United States sharply criticizing Ethiopians, the same as they did last week. It caused great confusion and anger with the Ethiopian people, who were emerging from Communist rule. You could argue that at the time this happened, the people were protesting the administration under Prime Minister Meles. Probably they were saying that they prefer the Communists because this is something he was responsible for changing at that time.

So they had that resolution. It was reported that it hurt them and hurt their reputation around the world, caused great confusion and anger with the Ethiopian people, who were emerging from a Communist rule and working with democracy.

I met with Prime Minister Meles on that trip, and he said that the House vote really hurt our relationship with Ethiopia. I remember exactly what he said to me. He said: Our survival depends on democratization.

He was also open and honest about the problems they had in the 2005 election. He acknowledged the riots and that better training could have prevented the deaths of some seven policemen. That is not the story we hear. We hear about hundreds of people dying, but that is simply not the case.

Prime Minister Meles also noted that they were being singled out for criticism and sanctions when Eritrea--an autocratic government that openly gave refuge to terrorists--faced no such condemnation. He stated that he felt insulted by the bill, as well he should have.

When I was visiting with Azeb, Meles's wife--by the way, Azeb and Meles fought together in the feud that took over the country from communism, in the bush. When she asked me how the United States could attack our friends in this way, I didn't have an answer for that. Remember, we are friends. Ethiopia has been a partner on the global War on Terror and has contributed troops to peacekeeping missions and supports regional security efforts.

We also met with a group of Ethiopian citizens in Addis who had returned to Ethiopia to rebuild the nation. They had returned in the mid-2000s because it was the first time they had confidence in the government to return. They were very frustrated and disappointed by the resolution.

Today I am sure that Prime Minister Abiy and the Ethiopian people are also confused and frustrated by this resolution. I want to speak now to our friends in Ethiopia who may be feeling abandoned by the United States and questioning our partnership and friendship in such a critical part of the world.

This resolution, while offensive to you, does not change your friendship with the United States.

I want to repeat that. I want to make sure people know that the resolution, while it is offensive to you, doesn't change your friendship with the United States.

We have a long history of economic and military cooperation that will continue, and Ethiopia is only gaining momentum as a nation. This is apparent when you look at Ethiopia's economy, their military, and the U.S.-Ethiopia trade relationship that they are now building with our country. Ethiopia ranks among the fastest growing economies in the world. This is significant: Despite the recent drought, the IMF estimates that Ethiopia will have an average GDP growth rate of 7.4 percent from 2017 to 2020.

This is what I would have said yesterday, but something happened yesterday that I didn't know was going to happen. Yesterday, in the latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF announced that Ghana had lost its position as the fastest growing economy in Africa, and they lost it to Ethiopia. Ethiopia now has the fastest growth--8.5 percent. We in the United States would love to have an 8.5-percent economic growth rate.

Total U.S. direct investment, including partnerships, stands at more than $567 million, with more than $65 million originating solely from the United States.

The United States has a positive trade balance with Ethiopia, particularly in manufacturing, energy, and agricultural processing.

Over the past 70 years, Ethiopian Airlines has purchased more than 100 U.S.-origin aircraft.

In 2016 alone, Ethiopia utilized over $149 million worth of U.S. agricultural products, including wheat, coffee, and oil seeds.

The United States continues to provide assistance to support Ethiopia's agricultural development. Through the USDA, the 3-year, $13 million Food for Progress Program--known as the FEED project--helps to improve yields of milk, meat, eggs, and other products by increasing the availability and quality of livestock feed.

The U.S. International Military Education and Training Program--by the way, that is called IMET--the IMET Program was put together many years ago so that when our troops go into other areas, they mingle with the troops there, and then we invite the troops from the various countries to come into the United States and get their training here. We found out that once the training takes place in this country, we have their allegiance for the rest of the time they are there. They have been working to train future leaders here in the United States and create a rapport between the United States and the Ethiopian military. They had over 600 members from 2010 to 2015--one of our most successful IMET programs, working military to military.

Along with their own successes, Ethiopia has established itself as a world player. Ethiopia and the United States belong to a number of the same organizations, including the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. The nation is an observer to the World Trade Organization and is currently serving on the United Nations Security Council as a nonpermanent member.

So I say to my colleagues in the Senate, I would like to remind you that with the passing of resolution 128, we are repeating the past. That is exactly what they did a few years ago. That doesn't mean we have to do it again in the future. Ethiopia is a key friend, and Prime Minister Abiy--just keep in mind, here is a guy who is the highest educated Prime Minister we think in the entire history of the entire continent of Africa. He deserves a chance for a strong start.

I will continue to fight for that strong friendship in Congress, and I urge the United States to give them the chance they have rightly earned. Clearly, resolution 128 does not reflect America's relationship with Ethiopia, one of our most valued allies in all of Africa.

``Are you listening?'' I asked my brother. Prime Minister Abiy, America is with you. America is with you.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I am delighted the Senate has decided to take up S. 140, a bill to amend the White Mountain Apache Tribe Water Rights Quantification Act of 2010 to clarify the use of amounts in the WMAT Settlement Fund which, in part, includes a bill I have cosponsored, S. 63, the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act of 2017.

S. 63 is a much needed reform measure aimed at correcting excessive government overreach by the National Labor Relations Board, NLRB. In 2004, the NLRB overturned longstanding precedent by asserting its authority over Native American Tribes. The NLRB never should have expanded its authority to Indian Tribes located on Tribal land. This decision has caused tremendous legal confusion and stagnation of Indian business development. Fortunately, with passage of S. 140, the Congress is acting to address bureaucratic overreach by the NLRB. I urge my colleagues to support its passage.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for the great remarks he made about Andrew Wheeler. You know, it is awfully hard to find anyone who knows him well who will say anything bad about him. I guess the only thing you can criticize him for is that he worked for me for 14 years.

But I will tell you, during that timeframe, over a 14-year period, I don't remember anyone ever accusing him of being unfair, of being negative in any way at all. But a couple of things were said, and I think I need to correct the record. I need to be the one to correct it because I am the guy he worked for over a long period of time--both in my personal office and in my capacity as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Because I know him so well, I have to correct the record on his behalf.

One allegation made against Andrew in a news article is that he retaliated against a witness at an EPW--that is Environment and Public Works--Senate hearing in 2005 because we were unhappy with the witness's testimony. Nothing in the news article was true or accurate. This was an article that came out just the other day.

The witness in question and the major source of the article was Mr. Bill Becker. He was then the president of STAPPA, the Association of State Air Directors. These are the State directors who are becoming more prominent in what they are able to get through.

Mr. Becker charged at that time that in retaliation for his January 2005 testimony, the committee launched an investigation into his organization's finances.

In reality, the investigation was actually launched almost a year before Mr. Becker appeared before the committee. That is a huge difference. The article cannot be true.

Prior to the hearing, my staff notified the minority staff of the committee that he was currently under investigation, and we recommended against calling Mr. Becker as a witness.

I still have a copy of the memo my staff prepared for me before the hearing in 2005, noting that they had notified the minority staff about the investigation. This is the memo, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Unfortunately, facts don't seem to matter when a Trump nomination is at stake. The story that isn't being told is about his character and integrity. People don't remember that the Bush EPA told minority members of the EPW Committee, the Democrats, that they wouldn't respond to their letters.

Well, it was Andrew Wheeler who made it clear to the EPA that they would answer any questions the minority had or, as chairman, I would submit their questions for them. No one is telling that story, but they are spreading other allegations.

Another negative story making the rounds is that Andrew hosted fundraisers for Senator Barrasso and me while it was known he was going to be nominated as Deputy Administrator of the EPA.

Well, the fact of the matter is that Andrew hosted these fundraisers long before even being interviewed by the White House for this nomination. All the dates are there. The facts are there.

After dispensing with the falsehood surrounding Andrew, the rest of the opposition to him comes down to two things and two things only: He doesn't have the correct view on environmental policy, and he worked for the wrong people, including me. Now, those things are actually stated on the Senate floor, and I understand that. If they consider that to be an opposition or something that needs to be corrected, I believe they are wrong because he was an excellent, excellent employee during that time and all the other times. The fact that he had a choice of someone to support when he had not even been notified that he might be considered for this nomination is significant.

The extreme environmentalists were given free rein under the Obama administration for 8 years, including writing the EPA's regulations, and they can't handle the fact that the American people have said ``enough.'' Trump and Scott Pruitt have been delivering relief for the American people and the economy since they have been in office. Andrew Wheeler will be a great help to Administrator Pruitt in continuing to implement President Trump's vision of returning EPA to an agency of the people, subject to the rule of law. He has worked in EPA before, even winning awards from EPA, and he will be a good steward for the environment.

It is always difficult when you know someone personally and you know their character and you have a personal love for them and for their career and you have played an integral part to hear things of a negative nature said about them. As to a lot of the things they are grouping together, maybe they don't like philosophically Scott Pruitt. I do. I spent 20 years in business, and I know what overregulation

is, and I know that our economy was suffering during the 8 years that we had others in charge. In fact, the proof of that is that the average increase in our economy for 8 years was 1.5 percent. Now, just because of this President and this administration getting rid of some of the overregulations, it is now well in excess of 3 percent.

Now, people ask: How are you going to pay for the road program and rebuilding the military that was torn down during the last administration? They forget about the fact--and no one disagrees with this--that for every 1 percent increase in the economic activity or GDP, that equates to additional revenue to the Federal Government of $1.9 trillion over a 10-year period. That is the reason we now are in a position to do some of the things we need to be doing in terms of infrastructure and other things and certainly for our military and other areas. So that is significant. That is something that Andrew Wheeler knows well, because we have gone through this in the past.

Andrew Wheeler is a wonderful guy, and I would defy anyone who knows him well to say there is any fault in his character. He is going to do a great job, and they need his help. I appreciate the fact that I believe he is going to be confirmed to that position.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I have 7 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 10, 2018, at 9:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, at 2:15 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and the Use and Abuse of Data.''

Committee on the Judiciary

The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, at 2:15 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and Use and Abuse of Data''.

Committee Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

The Committee Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing on the nomination of Sharon Fast Gustafson, of Virginia, to be General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety

The Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety of the Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Cooperative Federalism Under the Clean Air Act: State Perspectives.''

Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian

Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues

The Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues of the Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, at 2 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Summit of the Americas: A Regional Strategy for Democratic Governance Against Corruption in the Hemisphere.''

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for such time as I may consume.

Mr. President, this is going to be kind of a strange statement to make. I have great regret that I am going to have to vote for this bill when it comes up--and I am talking about the spending bill--and I don't like it.

I went through a lot of years as being--in fact, since I have been here, I have been ranked with the three most conservative Members every year--more times than anybody else has. I am looking at this right now, and I was listening to some of my colleagues who are concerned about the spending, and no one is more concerned than I am about the spending. We have a problem, though, that a lot of people don't understand.

I have been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for 24 years in the Senate, and I was on the same committee in the House before that, and I have never seen anything like this. We went through things back in the Carter administration where we had a hollow force, and then Ronald Reagan came along in 1980, and we rebuilt our military. Everybody knows that. They knew what was happening. A hollow force is not good. A hollow force means we can't really fight a war. Certainly we can't do two contingencies simultaneously, as has been our policy for a long period of time. And that is what we got into back then. Now, this hasn't happened since 1980.

I chair one of the subcommittees, and we had the vices in--this was at the end of the Obama administration--and the four vices of the services all said the same thing: We are in a position now where we have a hollow force like we had back in the late seventies.

The public doesn't know this, and our press doesn't talk very much about this. They talk about all the problems that ring the bells and sell the newspapers and all of that, but they don't want to talk about the military. This is the reality of what we are faced with right now.

General Dunford is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said that we are losing our qualitative and quantitative edge in America. That means we have two great forces out there--one Russia and one China--and they are passing us up. Right now, both China and Russia, with the artillery pieces they have on tanks, can fire eight rounds a minute. Do you know how many rounds we can fire with ours? Four rounds a minute.

We got ourselves into a position where we had our ground brigades of the U.S. Army--this was at the end of the last administration--of our ground brigades, only 30 percent of them could be deployed.

I don't like to sound like I am being partisan when I talk about Barack Obama. I respect him in one area, and that is, he was admittedly a very proud

liberal, and proud liberals don't care that much about a defense system. They think that if all countries will stand in a circle and hold hands and unilaterally disarm, all threats will go away. So we went through that, and people didn't seem to care.

There is this myth out there that somehow we are stronger than everybody else, that the equipment we have is better than anybody else's. During that same timeframe, our air brigades--only 30 percent of those were working. The marines who use the F-18s--62 percent of the F-18s couldn't fly. One of the things that happen when the military goes down--the first thing that goes down is maintenance, and then, of course, you have modernization, and that is where we got way down behind.

Don't take my word for it. Right now, we have 27 Members on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and they understand this. They know where we are on this, but a lot of the other people don't. They have their interests. If they had a strong interest, they would probably be on the committee, and they are not.

Secretary Mattis said:

Our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of

warfare--air, land, sea, space, cyberspace--and is

continually eroding. America has no pre-ordained right to

victory in the battlefield.

That is Secretary Mattis, who is the Secretary of Defense.

Army General Allyn said:

We've had most of our modernization programs on life

support for the last several years. Currently, our

modernization is 50 percent of what it was in 2009.

This is a good quote, too. This is from Navy Admiral Moran. So this is not just me saying this; this is where I got the information about the Hornet fleet. The Hornet is the F-18. He said:

For our entire Hornet fleet . . . we have 62 percent that

are not flyable. More than half. We're double where we should

be in non-flyable aircraft.

General Walters said:

I can tell you today we cannot [fight two conflicts]

simultaneously.

That is supposed to be our policy, that at a minimum--ever since World War II--we would be able to and have the capability of fighting on two fronts simultaneously. We can't do it.

General Wilson:

We're at about 50 percent readiness today, across the Air

Force. We [were] . . . the smallest Air Force ever in 2016,

when we bottomed out at 310,000.

I could go on and spend a lot of time talking about this, but I can't find anyone in the military who disagrees. That should be a foregone conclusion if our own military--they are the ones who are responsible for protecting my 20 kids and grandkids from enemies.

I just got back from the South China Sea. We have a lot of really good allies there. We have the Philippines, South Korea, Guam, Japan, and Taiwan. They have been our top allies, but do you know what is happening in the South China Sea? China is out there doing something totally illegal. They say that they are reclaiming land. They are not reclaiming it because they don't have it to start with. They are creating land that is out there in the seaways that we need to defend America and to keep our commerce going, and they are building islands. Right now they are up to over 3,000 acres of islands. This is China we are talking about. What are they doing over there? They have runways. They have rockets. They have military equipment. There is nothing there except military equipment. It is almost as if they are preparing for world war III.

So where are our allies? We talked to our allies. They are embarrassed because they are not sure whose side they are going to be on. In fact, it is almost as if they put this in on purpose, where you would have the Secretary of Defense or the Minister of Defense, in whichever of these countries I mentioned, on one side saying ``Well, you know, the threat is not all that great,'' and the other one is saying ``Yes, you have to do something because the world is coming to end.'' Well, they are on both sides of this issue.

It is fascinating. It is almost as if they got together, and they are doing it by design. Has this ever happened since World War II in our country? No, it hasn't. That is where we are right now.

We have problems that are facing our military; they are very real. This is something that has to be fixed. This bill corrects a lot of these things. We have defense now up to $700 billion. I am going from memory here, but I think the last request that came from President Obama was $548 billion. This is $700 billion. We are rebuilding. We are trying to address the threats from both Russia and China.

By the way, I want to mention that there is one other threat in that same area where we were, in North Korea. I am sure everyone knows who Kim Jong Un is. He is the head guy of North Korea. Something happened on November 28. On November 28, he fired a rocket that had a range that could reach the United States of America. It could certainly reach where we are today. Some people say that can't be true. All they can say is--they fall into two areas of disagreement. They say: Yes, he has the range to reach us, but he couldn't carry a payload. We have no idea what payload was on this rocket that he sent. Let's assume there is no payload at all. It would be a matter of days before they make that up. Then they said that he couldn't reenter. Reentry is always a problem because to reenter you have to come in and have some level of accuracy. So you can't reenter there without accuracy.

Well, what difference does it make if they have a weapon that could take out a city the size of St. Louis? It doesn't really matter where it lands, so that is a hollow argument. The power is right there.

I have to compliment our President. I hesitate doing it this way because a lot of people don't understand. Remember when Kim Jong Un made the statement in which he said: Ah-ha, on November 28 I showed that I could reach the United States of America, and therefore I have a button I can press, and I could take out an American city--or words to that effect.

Instead of the policy of appeasement that we had for 8 years prior to this President coming in, this President said: Yes, and I have a button. It is bigger than yours. Ours works, yours doesn't, and we will blow you off the face of this Earth. That doesn't sound diplomatic does it? It is not. That is what is good about this President. He is not afraid to stand up and be strong. The policy of appeasement hasn't worked. It has never worked.

So what happened? Hours after he made that statement to Kim Jong Un, Un called South Korea and said: You know, we have changed our mind. We are going to send people to the Winter Olympics.

Wow, that is a major change. I can remember saying that in one of our own committee hearings, and even our own Intelligence Committee said: Well, he didn't really mean it. It was just a matter of days after that when he called and said: We want to negotiate, sit down and talk to President Trump, and we will even put things on the table, like denuclearizing. This is going to happen.

That is another threat. What I am trying to get across is that those threats are there. In my opinion, that is something that is actually working.

In this bill, we have $700 billion. We have $61 billion over the enacted levels of fiscal year 2017. We have a 2.4-percent pay raise for our kids out there. We have $11.5 billion for missile defense.

One of the areas where I was most critical of the last budget that was put together by President Obama was missile defense. If there is ever any time in the history of this country where we have to have missile defense, this is it. They are out there right now. They have the capability; they have missiles that will reach us. We need missile defense.

We have ground-based interceptors. I was just in Alaska the other day. They now have 44 ground-based interceptors up there. What is really interesting about that is we had 44, and then the last President came in, and he knocked that down to 32, I think it was. Then, as soon as this President came in and looked at it, he went back to 44. Now we are looking at 20 more.

Is that going to give us the redundancy to protect my 20 kids and grandkids from somebody coming in? Well, it is a lot better than it was, and we are getting all kinds of new equipment in order to try to knock down--the big mistake we made in this country was when we were planning to put ground-based interceptors in Poland, in

the Czech Republic, and a radar there that would protect the eastern half of the United States and Western Europe. That was already started when Obama came into office. In his first year, he pulled that program down.

One of the persons whom I have always liked over there is Vaclav Klaus. He was the President. When I was over there, I could remember so well saying: We have to have your cooperation, the Czech Republic, to protect America.

He said: Are you sure? If I do this and I outrage Russia, they are going to be angry and take every step against us they can. You will not pull the rug out from under us?

I said: Absolutely, we are not going to pull the rug out from under you.

That is the first thing Obama did when he got into office. That is a problem we shouldn't have.

The threat is there. We are trying to meet the threat. This bill meets that threat. It gets us back to the amount of money that should have been left in missile defense. It is in there right now.

We have another $11.5 billion for missile defense, and it is a 44- percent increase from 2017. The O&M budget right now is increased. The total budget is going to be $238 billion. That is to offset the losses today that the O&M budget has created.

This budget that we are going to be voting on is a big budget. Those of us who are going to be voting for it are getting criticized. I will say this: The liberals all like it. They like to spend money. Conservatives don't. I don't like to do it.

That is all in this bill--57,100 troops over Obama's 2017 cut. We were not going to have--anyway, this is why we absolutely have to do this.

I look and I see that it would be nice if we had the comfort of believing that America is still the strongest out there, that we have everything we need, but we don't.

So let's look at what we are going to be doing. The Army, from a high point of 566,000 soldiers during the surge in 2007--Obama reduced it to just over 460,000. Thirty-three percent of the brigade combat teams didn't work. The aviation combat teams didn't work. We are on the road to recovery on this because we did a supplemental. We all remember that. But it is this budget that is going to bring us back, and we will end up having our military in the position that the American people think it is in right now.

I was on a TV show just a few minutes ago, and they said: Well, you know, with all this debt that is coming with this, and you are talking about the military--isn't that a good tradeoff?

I said: You can't trade off something when you see the threat that is out there, which is unprecedented in the history of this country, and you have 20 kids and grandkids to protect. No, that is not a good tradeoff.

I am hoping that those individuals who are conservatives--and I can't imagine that anyone on the Senate Armed Services Committee who deals with these issues on a daily basis would not want to get in there and make America strong again. We can do it, but if you don't vote for this, it is not going to be done. That is the great fear that I have.

I hope the conservatives out there--I know for a lot of us, ratings always happen. You cast a vote, and they say: Ah, that is spending a lot of money. We are going to rate against you. Again, it is a tradeoff. It is defending America. That is the one thing we should be doing.

I would give anything if we could just pull that element--all that we are doing for the military--out of this budget and do it individually. Let me stand up here and read the riot act about what is happening in this country, the debt that is accumulating, but, unfortunately, I don't have that option today.

We have one vote where we can do it. That is going to be the vote that we do, hopefully, tonight. I am not sure when it is going to be. I just ask my colleagues to understand the threat facing our country--in my opinion, the greatest threat we have ever had.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, I am going to talk about something different than anyone else has talked about here, and there is a very good reason for it.

First of all, to try to establish some credibility here, I have had occasion to spend quite a bit of time working on issues in Africa. In fact, I have had occasion over the last 23 years to make 156 African country visits. That is a lot of African country visits. We have friends there. I personally have friends there, intimate friends. We have worked on a lot of the military concerns they have, but this is an area where we have very close friends. So I am going to be singling out one close friend--but not to the detriment of the rest of them because we have many close friends, certainly as many as 32 country Presidents and Prime Ministers to whom we have been very close. But there is a reason for singling out one particular individual, who is Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda--two reasons. First, he is going to be coming in as the Chairman or President of the African Union in the next few months. He has already been elected. Second, he survived the Rwanda genocide, which arguably could be the greatest genocide of all time. On January 28, he will become the President or Chairman of the African Union. This is really nothing short of a miracle. Rwanda is a miracle, and we have Paul Kagame and the people of Rwanda to thank for it.

In 1994, one of the most atrocious genocides ever perpetrated occurred in this small East African country. In a period of about 100 days, nearly 1 million Rwandans were slaughtered. As is always the case, the seeds of genocide were planted many decades before, but when it finally started in April of 1994, many thousands of Hutus used machetes and clubs to slaughter Tutsis. Those are two tribes people are very familiar with. In most cases, it was neighbors killing neighbors, even some family members.

The horror was unimaginable. Fathers and mothers were forced to watch their children being hacked to death. One man was forced to beat his wife to death in order to spare their seven children from being tortured to death.

Many Rwandans were lucky to survive and remember watching their parents and siblings being murdered. One individual whose name is Immaculee wrote a book, ``Left to Tell,'' which gives you an idea of what happened, the fact that there were people in her own community trying to kill her. They killed 70 percent--70 percent--of the entire tribe at that time.

The world just watched as this slaughter took place. They did nothing. The United Nations had peacekeepers stationed in Rwanda, and they were ordered to withdraw and leave all the genocide to take place.

The President of the United States was Bill Clinton. He did nothing. The world just stood by and watched. The horror was stopped only because of one man. That one man was Paul Kagame. In October 1990, Paul Kagame led a group of young Rwandan refugees from Uganda whose parents had fled the country's mass violence three decades before.

You have to keep in mind that the President of Uganda is President Museveni. President Museveni and President Paul Kagame, both, came from the bush. They were good friends. He went there to try to save Rwandans at that time because he saw the genocide coming.

What is even more amazing about Rwanda is their leader and what happened after that. Rwanda had two very different paths it could have taken. They could have taken revenge. Paul Kagame could have taken the strength he had--the new power that he had--and he could have gone after the other tribe that was there, the Hutus, and he could have started another genocide of his own. That could have happened. The other thing he could have done was the path of forgiveness and reconciliation. This is the path of hard work, where the Tutsis who survived the genocide would have to learn how to forgive and live alongside the same Hutus who killed their family members. This is the path of rebuilding a nation from the ground up so that together they could have a common future.

We now know which path Rwanda chose. President Kagame led them down the path of reconciliation. There are a lot of people who helped to make this happen. One of the individuals, who I happen to be personally fond of, who is deceased now, was Chuck Colson. Do you remember him? He spent time in prison. He started a fellowship and was very actively involved in the reconciliation process. In many cases, the Hutus who committed genocide against the Tutsi families would seek forgiveness from that family and then achieve reconciliation by building a home together for the Tutsi survivors who lived through this. It may seem like a small gesture, but it allowed the healing and forgiveness process to work. Together, the Hutus and the Tutsis are rebuilding their nation as Rwandans working together.

I had one experience that I watched after this happened. My wife called this to my attention. In Rwanda, they build a certain kind of basket that is different from that in any other country. After the reconciliation, there they were--the Hutu and the Tutsi young women-- making these baskets. Then, Paul Kagame worked out a deal with several department store marketing areas in the United States. Macy's was one of them. They started selling the baskets. It was a great boon for them. But, anyway, Paul Kagame should be credited for this amazing transformation of the nation to a thriving, successful country. This is paying great dividends.

I was in Rwanda most recently in October. I have been there eight times. Each time I go, I am surprised by what I see. Let me mention five things that are unique to Rwanda. First, there is not a piece of litter anywhere in Rwanda. There is nothing. You can't find any litter. In fact, the last Saturday of every month, they have a program where everybody joins together and they pick up every bit of trash and everything else. That doesn't sound like very much, but you notice the difference when you are there.

The second thing that is different about them is their infrastructure. Rwanda is known as the Land of a Thousand Hills. They don't have any level areas in Rwanda. Not long ago, I remember going for an hour and a half, between the hill area and the mountain area, on a road that was perfectly paved. That is one thing you would expect to see in the United States. There are no potholes--nothing. It was a highway that you would expect to find anywhere except in Africa. They are known for this.

Third, the people are hard workers. I mentioned that there aren't any flat areas there. Every square foot in Rwanda is used to grow something, from the bottom of the peaks. Everything is there. They are hard workers. They grow tea, coffee, potatoes, and other crops. They are all being cultivated across the entire country, and it is all hilly country. There is no place else where that is actually taking place. It is hard work. You do it mostly by hand. They are able to feed themselves and export more valuable crops abroad.

Fourth, it is safe. You wouldn't expect a country that has gone through the most devastating genocide--maybe in history--to be a safe place to walk around. Yet it is. You can walk there at nighttime. It is safer than Washington, DC.

The fifth thing that is unusual about this is that the economy is booming. Everywhere you look in Rwanda, construction is happening. In just the last few years, they built new hotels and a convention center, and they are now working on a new airport to facilitate all the growth and tourism that is coming there.

These are my observations, but President Kagame's leadership is not just resulting in visible changes. Numbers back up what I have seen. Since he became President in 2000, Rwanda has experienced a GDP growth of 8 percent.

This is interesting because we are, through our tax bill, going to be increasing our GDP in this country. There is a formula that no one disagrees with, and that is that for each 1 percent increase in growth in the GDP, that develops into $1 trillion over a period of 10 years of increased revenue. That is some of the revenue we are going to be using as a result of that.

This is not the United States. This is in Africa. It is an 8-percent

Mr. President, I have 7 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, January 23, 2018, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a closed hearing on Nuclear Posture Review and pending nominations.

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, January 23, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Jelena McWilliams, of Ohio, to be Chairperson of the Board of Directors, and to be a Member of the Board of Directors, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Marvin Goodfriend, of Pennsylvania, to be a Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and Thomas E. Workman, of New York, to be a Member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council.

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, January 23, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examine the performance of the electric power system in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic during recent winter weather events, including the bomb cyclone.''

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pension

The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pension is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, January 23, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Facing 21st Century Public Health Threats: Our Nation's Preparedness and Response Capabilities, Part 2.''

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, January 23, 2018 at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a closed 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 Tuesday, January 23, 2018, at 3:30 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, Safety and Security of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, January 23, 2018, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Steven Davies, a Coast Guard fellow, and Paul Bankston, a military fellow in the office of Senator Thad Cochran, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the year.