Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am happy to join my colleagues, Senator McCain and Senator Cardin, in urging the Senate to approve Montenegro's accession into NATO. It is long overdue, as they have both said. This is something that has been approved by the Foreign Relations Committee not once but twice--last year in the last Congress and again in January of this year. We have heard expert testimony from a whole bipartisan group of diplomats, national security experts, and former administration officials, urging quick action on Montenegro's accession. There is no reason for any further delay.

My colleagues here who have been such great leaders on the importance of responding to Russia's actions, of addressing their interference in our elections here in America, but also of addressing what they are doing in Europe, have said it very eloquently. We need to get this done; and 25 of the 28 member states have already ratified the protocol, according to their own procedures. The Senate must act.

One of the priorities of the NATO summit last year in Warsaw was bolstering NATO's resilience and its capacity to deter Russian aggression against NATO's eastern flank. At that summit, NATO invited Montenegro to become its 29th member.

As Senators McCain and Cardin have already said, Russia is opposed to Montenegro's accession into NATO. It has warned Montenegro of retaliation if it pursues NATO membership. Furthermore, we have seen what that retaliation looked like.

During Montenegro's general election last October, 20 people were arrested on suspicion of plotting, with support from Russia, to overthrow the government and assassinate the Prime Minister--all because he has supported NATO accession.

When we were in Munich for the security conference a couple of weeks ago, Senator McCain and I and the congressional delegation that was there heard from Montenegrin Prime Minister Djukanovic, who talked about what he experienced from the Russians and about the Russian effort to overthrow his government, a duly elected democracy.

Just last month, their chief special prosecutor announced that his government had evidence that Russia's Federal Security Service was involved in a failed coup.

Mr. President, I have two news articles about this story that I ask unanimous consent be printed in the Record so that everybody understands that it is very clear what is going on.

The best thing we can do in the United States in the Senate is to approve Montenegro's accession because that sends a very clear message to Russia that we are not going to put up with that kind of interference.

What I don't understand is why anybody in this body wants to prevent us from approving this accession. Are they supporting Russia in their activities? Are they opposed to NATO? What is the deal here? They need to come forward and tell us what their objections are. Why aren't they letting this go through? Why are they willing to stand up for Russia and not for Montenegro and not for Europe and not for the United States?

Those are the questions that I have, and I want whoever objects to come to the floor and tell us why they are objecting, because Montenegro and our NATO partners deserve at least that much.

It is now time to stand up strong for Montenegro, for their right to self-determination, for their right to join NATO, for the West and for NATO. I hope that we are going to be able to get this through this afternoon.

I will defer to my colleague from Arizona to make the unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, I just have to follow up on Senator McCain's comments. How disappointing it is that we saw the Senator from Kentucky come to the floor to object to something that is clearly in the national security interests of this country--to support Montenegro's accession to NATO. It is in Europe's interest, in Montenegro's interest, and it is in America's interest.

I have to agree with Senator McCain. He is working in support of Russia's interests in America or he is holding this hostage for something that is totally unrelated to what we are doing with Montenegro's accession into NATO. In either case, it is totally inappropriate.

When are people in the Senate going to stop holding hostage things that are totally unrelated to the work on the floor of the Senate and start acting like adults and doing what we ought to be doing in this body? It is so hard to understand why somebody is here doing that, and, you know, I am disappointed that he is not willing to come to the floor and say why he is holding this up. If he has a good reason, he should be here talking about that reason, and let's see if we can find a compromise. But if he is not willing to come to the floor and talk about it, what does that mean? What does that mean for the future of this kind of treaty? And what is Montenegro's right to self- determination and our national security interests? It is just unfathomable.

So I am going--I think we should all keep coming to the floor on a regular basis, and I am hopeful that if we do that, we will eventually be able to find out what Senator Paul's objection is and address that because we can't let this stay in limbo in perpetuity.

Mr. President, I just wanted to say how pleased I am to be able to join my colleague from New Hampshire on the floor for her official maiden address. It is so nice to see so many of our women colleagues here for this as well.

As she pointed out, I just wanted to echo the great work Senator Hassan has done, especially as Governor, in expanding the Medicaid Program in New Hampshire so that it provides treatment for so many people, especially when it comes to the heroin and opioid epidemic, and why we are so concerned about any efforts to roll that back--because that would kick thousands of people in New Hampshire off of treatment with nowhere else to go. I certainly plan to continue to join her as we fight for this effort, and I know our colleagues are going to help us in that. I believe that if we all work together, we can make progress, as she has so eloquently stated.

So congratulations to Senator Hassan for her first official maiden speech. I know it will be just one of many more to come.

(The remarks of Mrs. Shaheen pertaining to the submission of S. 630 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.)

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I come to the floor again today to speak about a program I have been working on that has had bipartisan support for a number of years; that is, the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Program. This program allows Afghans, including interpreters, who have supported the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and who face threats as a result of their service to apply for refuge in the United States. As I said, this has had strong bipartisan support. I have worked with Senators McCain, Tillis, Leahy, Graham, and so many others here in the Chamber to try to make sure we provide enough visas for those Afghans who are being threatened and who want to come to the United States.

I wish to point out that the Trump administration, even as it has sharply restricted immigration and refugee programs, has made exceptions for those who served alongside our soldiers and diplomats. In fact, when the administration's original Executive order on immigration was released, there was bipartisan anger that Iraqi interpreters were not protected because this program has served not just those in Afghanistan who have helped us but also those in Iraq. So the administration recognized its mistake and has made an exception for Iraqi SIV recipients, and now they have exempted Iraq from their Executive order.

It is really past time that we rally renewed support for the Afghan SIV Program. Last week, we learned that the State Department has stopped interviewing applicants for the Afghan program because there are more applicants in the final stages of the process than there are visas. Unless Congress acts, the final visas will be exhausted by the end of May. It is estimated that more than 10,000 applicants are still in some step of the process of obtaining these visas.

For these Afghans, it really is no exaggeration to say that this is a matter of life and death. Interpreters who served the U.S. mission are being systematically hunted down by the Taliban, and unless Congress acts, this program will lapse and we will abandon these Afghans to a harsh fate.

The United States promised to protect those Afghans who served our mission with great loyalty and at enormous risk, and it would be a stain on our national honor to break this promise. It would also carry profound strategic costs. U.S. forces and diplomats have always relied on local people to help us accomplish our missions. We continue to require this assistance in Afghanistan, and we will need this support in other places in the future where we face conflict. So we have to ask, if we don't keep our promise, why would anyone agree to help the United States if we abandon those who assist us? This is exactly why the former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, GEN David Petraeus, and his predecessor, GEN Stanley McChrystal, have pleaded with Congress to extend the Afghan SIV Program. In a letter to Congress last year, more than 30 additional prominent generals, including Gen. John Allen, the former commander in Afghanistan, GEN George Casey, the former commander in Iraq, and two former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also urged Congress to extend the program.

In addition, our soldiers and marines are keenly interested in protecting the interpreters who served with them in Afghanistan. Many of them owe their lives to the interpreters who went into combat with them. In recent years, I have gotten to know one of those servicemen, a former Army captain, Michael Breen, who is a Granite Stater. He served with the infantry in Iraq and led paratroopers in Afghanistan. He speaks with admiration about one interpreter in particular who was an Iraqi--part of the Iraqi program--a woman in her early twenties who was named Wissam.

On one occasion, Captain Breen and his soldiers were at a small forward operating base in Iraq. He said that a man approached, frantically pointing to his watch and indicating an explosion with his hands. The Americans didn't speak Arabic, so they couldn't tell if the man was trying to warn them or threaten them. Wissam hurried over toward Captain Breen to assist. Wissam was beloved by her American comrades, always cheerful and eager to help. She listened to the man and said that he was actually there warning of an improvised explosive device on the main road.

As Captain Breen later told me, ``A trusted interpreter can be the difference between a successful patrol and a body bag.'' He noted that every night, he and his fellow soldiers would hunker down in their heavily guarded perimeter, but Wissam would leave the compound and go home. One evening after she left the American compound, three gunmen ambushed her car. She was killed--one more interpreter who paid

the ultimate price for serving the American mission. As Captain Breen later said, one day there will be a granite monument with the names of all of the American servicemembers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wissam deserves to have her name on that monument, too, because she took great risks and she gave her life while serving the United States.

To be eligible for a visa through the Afghan SIV Program, new applicants must demonstrate at least 2 years of faithful and valuable service to the U.S. mission. To receive a visa, they must also clear a rigorous screening process that includes an independent verification of their service and then an intensive interagency review.

We know that the service of these individuals has been critical to our successes in Afghanistan.

Last month in Keene, NH, I met with a remarkable recent immigrant from Afghanistan named Patmana Rafiq Kunary. Patmana had worked closely with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Kabul. She went door to door, encouraging women to take out microloans to start their own businesses. Patmana eventually became vice president for operations at the USAID-sponsored Microloan Program.

In fact, just today I talked to a woman reporter from Afghanistan who wanted to know what message of hope I could provide to the women of Afghanistan. Well, I told her about Patmana, and I told her that one of the things that keep us in Afghanistan supporting our soldiers is concern about what is happening to the women in Afghanistan.

For Patmana, going door to door and working closely with Americans-- this was dangerous work. She drew unwelcome attention wherever she went, and she became a high-profile target for the Taliban and others. And then one day in 2013, she got a call at her USAID office. It was from the distraught wife of one of her USAID colleagues, another Afghan. The caller's husband had just been murdered, apparently in retaliation for his work with the Americans.

Realizing that her life was in danger, too, Patmana applied for a special immigrant visa. For 2 years, she and her husband were subjected to repeated interviews at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Her background was checked and rechecked before visas were finally granted. She told me that they would move frequently. They couldn't stay in one place very long because the Taliban would find them. And she said occasionally there was a knock on her relatives' door, saying ``We know where Patmana is,'' and that would be a signal to move.

She and her husband now live happily in Keene, NH. I am pleased to say her husband has found work as an auditor with a local financial company, and they have a 2-year-old daughter. They are welcomed as valued members of the Keene community and of our larger Granite State family.

The many contributions of these Afghans--both in Afghanistan and now as residents or citizens of the United States--those contributions help explain why senior U.S. commanders and diplomats have urged Congress to extend the Afghan SIV Program. Our Secretary of Defense, GEN James Mattis, during the confirmation process, said: ``Most of our units could not have accomplished their missions without the assistance, often at the risk of their lives, of these courageous men and women.''

We would never leave an American warrior behind on the battlefield. Likewise, we must not leave behind the Afghan interpreters who served side by side with our warriors and diplomats.

We made a solemn promise to these brave people, and I am going to do everything I can to ensure that we keep this promise. I know there is a lot of bipartisan support in this body to do that. So today I am introducing the Keep Our Promise to Our Afghan Allies Act with Senators McCain, Reed, and Tillis. This legislation would authorize additional special immigrant visas and would help ensure that the program does not lapse and leave behind thousands of Afghans who helped us with the threat by the Taliban.

In addition, I intend to work closely with Senators who are negotiating legislation to fund the Federal Government in order to ensure that additional visas are included. I urge my colleagues to join me. Let's keep the promise we made to our Afghan allies and support these efforts.

Mr. President, I come to the floor again today to speak about a program I have been working on that has had bipartisan support for a number of years; that is, the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Program. This program allows Afghans, including interpreters, who have supported the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and who face threats as a result of their service to apply for refuge in the United States. As I said, this has had strong bipartisan support. I have worked with Senators McCain, Tillis, Leahy, Graham, and so many others here in the Chamber to try to make sure we provide enough visas for those Afghans who are being threatened and who want to come to the United States.

I wish to point out that the Trump administration, even as it has sharply restricted immigration and refugee programs, has made exceptions for those who served alongside our soldiers and diplomats. In fact, when the administration's original Executive order on immigration was released, there was bipartisan anger that Iraqi interpreters were not protected because this program has served not just those in Afghanistan who have helped us but also those in Iraq. So the administration recognized its mistake and has made an exception for Iraqi SIV recipients, and now they have exempted Iraq from their Executive order.

It is really past time that we rally renewed support for the Afghan SIV Program. Last week, we learned that the State Department has stopped interviewing applicants for the Afghan program because there are more applicants in the final stages of the process than there are visas. Unless Congress acts, the final visas will be exhausted by the end of May. It is estimated that more than 10,000 applicants are still in some step of the process of obtaining these visas.

For these Afghans, it really is no exaggeration to say that this is a matter of life and death. Interpreters who served the U.S. mission are being systematically hunted down by the Taliban, and unless Congress acts, this program will lapse and we will abandon these Afghans to a harsh fate.

The United States promised to protect those Afghans who served our mission with great loyalty and at enormous risk, and it would be a stain on our national honor to break this promise. It would also carry profound strategic costs. U.S. forces and diplomats have always relied on local people to help us accomplish our missions. We continue to require this assistance in Afghanistan, and we will need this support in other places in the future where we face conflict. So we have to ask, if we don't keep our promise, why would anyone agree to help the United States if we abandon those who assist us? This is exactly why the former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, GEN David Petraeus, and his predecessor, GEN Stanley McChrystal, have pleaded with Congress to extend the Afghan SIV Program. In a letter to Congress last year, more than 30 additional prominent generals, including Gen. John Allen, the former commander in Afghanistan, GEN George Casey, the former commander in Iraq, and two former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also urged Congress to extend the program.

In addition, our soldiers and marines are keenly interested in protecting the interpreters who served with them in Afghanistan. Many of them owe their lives to the interpreters who went into combat with them. In recent years, I have gotten to know one of those servicemen, a former Army captain, Michael Breen, who is a Granite Stater. He served with the infantry in Iraq and led paratroopers in Afghanistan. He speaks with admiration about one interpreter in particular who was an Iraqi--part of the Iraqi program--a woman in her early twenties who was named Wissam.

On one occasion, Captain Breen and his soldiers were at a small forward operating base in Iraq. He said that a man approached, frantically pointing to his watch and indicating an explosion with his hands. The Americans didn't speak Arabic, so they couldn't tell if the man was trying to warn them or threaten them. Wissam hurried over toward Captain Breen to assist. Wissam was beloved by her American comrades, always cheerful and eager to help. She listened to the man and said that he was actually there warning of an improvised explosive device on the main road.

As Captain Breen later told me, ``A trusted interpreter can be the difference between a successful patrol and a body bag.'' He noted that every night, he and his fellow soldiers would hunker down in their heavily guarded perimeter, but Wissam would leave the compound and go home. One evening after she left the American compound, three gunmen ambushed her car. She was killed--one more interpreter who paid

the ultimate price for serving the American mission. As Captain Breen later said, one day there will be a granite monument with the names of all of the American servicemembers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wissam deserves to have her name on that monument, too, because she took great risks and she gave her life while serving the United States.

To be eligible for a visa through the Afghan SIV Program, new applicants must demonstrate at least 2 years of faithful and valuable service to the U.S. mission. To receive a visa, they must also clear a rigorous screening process that includes an independent verification of their service and then an intensive interagency review.

We know that the service of these individuals has been critical to our successes in Afghanistan.

Last month in Keene, NH, I met with a remarkable recent immigrant from Afghanistan named Patmana Rafiq Kunary. Patmana had worked closely with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Kabul. She went door to door, encouraging women to take out microloans to start their own businesses. Patmana eventually became vice president for operations at the USAID-sponsored Microloan Program.

In fact, just today I talked to a woman reporter from Afghanistan who wanted to know what message of hope I could provide to the women of Afghanistan. Well, I told her about Patmana, and I told her that one of the things that keep us in Afghanistan supporting our soldiers is concern about what is happening to the women in Afghanistan.

For Patmana, going door to door and working closely with Americans-- this was dangerous work. She drew unwelcome attention wherever she went, and she became a high-profile target for the Taliban and others. And then one day in 2013, she got a call at her USAID office. It was from the distraught wife of one of her USAID colleagues, another Afghan. The caller's husband had just been murdered, apparently in retaliation for his work with the Americans.

Realizing that her life was in danger, too, Patmana applied for a special immigrant visa. For 2 years, she and her husband were subjected to repeated interviews at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Her background was checked and rechecked before visas were finally granted. She told me that they would move frequently. They couldn't stay in one place very long because the Taliban would find them. And she said occasionally there was a knock on her relatives' door, saying ``We know where Patmana is,'' and that would be a signal to move.

She and her husband now live happily in Keene, NH. I am pleased to say her husband has found work as an auditor with a local financial company, and they have a 2-year-old daughter. They are welcomed as valued members of the Keene community and of our larger Granite State family.

The many contributions of these Afghans--both in Afghanistan and now as residents or citizens of the United States--those contributions help explain why senior U.S. commanders and diplomats have urged Congress to extend the Afghan SIV Program. Our Secretary of Defense, GEN James Mattis, during the confirmation process, said: ``Most of our units could not have accomplished their missions without the assistance, often at the risk of their lives, of these courageous men and women.''

We would never leave an American warrior behind on the battlefield. Likewise, we must not leave behind the Afghan interpreters who served side by side with our warriors and diplomats.

We made a solemn promise to these brave people, and I am going to do everything I can to ensure that we keep this promise. I know there is a lot of bipartisan support in this body to do that. So today I am introducing the Keep Our Promise to Our Afghan Allies Act with Senators McCain, Reed, and Tillis. This legislation would authorize additional special immigrant visas and would help ensure that the program does not lapse and leave behind thousands of Afghans who helped us with the threat by the Taliban.

In addition, I intend to work closely with Senators who are negotiating legislation to fund the Federal Government in order to ensure that additional visas are included. I urge my colleagues to join me. Let's keep the promise we made to our Afghan allies and support these efforts.

Mr. President, before my colleague from Oregon leaves, I want to ask him a question.

I am reminded, in 2009 and 2010, as we were working on the Affordable Care Act, that the HELP Committee held 14 bipartisan roundtables, 13 bipartisan hearings, 20 bipartisan walkthroughs on healthcare reform. The HELP Committee then considered nearly 300 amendments and accepted more than 160 Republican amendments, and the Finance Committee--where my colleague is the ranking member--held 17 roundtables, summits, and hearings on the topic. The Finance Committee also held 13 member meetings and walkthroughs, 38 meetings and negotiations, for a total of 53 meetings on

healthcare reform. During its process, the Finance Committee adopted 11 Republican amendments.

Don't you find it particularly ironic that we are seeing this TrumpCare legislation being pushed through on the House side--and what we are hearing, the rumors about what is going to happen in the Senate is it is not going to have any hearings and it is going to be brought to the floor and we are expected to vote on it without having a chance for the public to know what is in it.

Right.

I appreciate the eloquent comments from the Senator from Oregon and all of his efforts to make sure we don't take away healthcare for so many people who desperately need it.

That is why I came to the floor today, because I spent the week we were back home--not last week but the week before--talking to constituents in New Hampshire and listening to what their concerns were.

What I heard was that people were deeply, deeply concerned and very upset by the efforts here to repeal the Affordable Care Act, when they didn't know what the replacement meant for them. In dozens of conversations and roundtable discussions at a townhall forum, Granite Staters shared stories of how the Affordable Care Act has been a lifeline for them. I heard from people who say their lives have been saved by the law.

In fact, we can see what is at risk in the State of New Hampshire, where we have almost 600,000 Granite Staters who have preexisting conditions. We have 118,000 people who could lose coverage. We have 50,000 Granite Staters with marketplace plans who are in the exchange, 42,000 who are enrolled in Medicaid, and 31,000 who have tax credits that lower the cost of healthcare for them. If that is taken away, so many of those people have no option for getting healthcare.

What we know now, after we have finally seen the plan Republican leaders are talking about, we know those fears were well founded that they were worried they were going to lose their healthcare. What we have seen is legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act that would have catastrophic consequences not only for people in New Hampshire but for people across this country.

It is especially distressing that TrumpCare--as it has been introduced by the Republicans--would roll back expansion of the Medicaid Program, which has, in New Hampshire and across this country, been an indispensable tool in our efforts to combat the opioid epidemic. In addition, we are seeing, as the Senator from Oregon pointed out, that TrumpCare would terminate healthcare subsidies for the middle class and for other working Americans, and it would replace those subsidies with totally inadequate tax credits--as low as $2,000, which doesn't begin to pay for healthcare coverage for an individual, much less a family. This means as many as 20 million Americans could lose their healthcare coverage.

Even as the bill makes devastating cuts to the middle class, it gives the wealthiest Americans a new tax break worth several hundred thousand dollars per taxpayer. I think this proposed legislation is totally out of touch with the lives of millions of working Americans, people whose health and financial situation would be turned upside down by the bill.

Last week, in his response to President Trump's address to Congress, former Gov. Steve Beshear of Kentucky said something that really resonated with me. He reminded us that people who have access to healthcare thanks to ObamaCare are ``not aliens from some other planet.'' As he described, ``They are our friends and neighbors. . . . We sit on the bleachers with them on Friday night. We worship in the pews with them on Sunday morning. They're farmers, restaurant workers, part-time teachers, nurses' aides, construction workers, entrepreneurs,'' and often minimum wage workers. ``And before the Affordable Care Act, they woke up every morning and went to work, just hoping and praying they wouldn't get sick, because they knew they were just one bad diagnosis away from bankruptcy.''

To understand why people in New Hampshire are so upset and fearful about efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, we have to look again at this chart because some 120,000 Granite Staters could lose their health insurance. That is nearly 1 in every 10 people in the State of New Hampshire.

In particular, repeal of the Affordable Care Act would very literally have life-or-death consequences for thousands of people who are fighting opioid addiction, who have been able to access lifesaving treatment thanks to the expansion of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

Sadly, one of the statistics we are not happy about in New Hampshire is that we have the second highest rate of per capita drug overdose deaths in the country. We trail only West Virginia. The chief medical examiner in New Hampshire projects that there were 470 drug-related deaths in 2016, including a sharp increase in overdose deaths among those who were 19 years old or younger. For a small State like New Hampshire, this is a tragedy of staggering proportions, affecting not just those who overdose but their families and entire communities.

I am happy to say, in the last couple of years, we made real progress in combating this epidemic because we had the Affordable Care Act and its expansion of Medicaid, which has given thousands of Granite Staters access to lifesaving treatment. Over the past year, I had a chance to visit treatment centers all across New Hampshire. I met with individuals who are struggling with substance use disorders and providers who are trying to make sure they get the treatment they need.

Last month, at a center in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire, I had an amazing private meeting with more than 30 people in recovery from substance use disorders. They are putting their lives back together, hoping to reclaim their jobs, to get back with their families, and they are able to do that largely because of treatment that is made possible by the Affordable Care Act.

One patient shared her story with me. As with so many others in treatment, her story is one of making mistakes, of falling into dependency, of struggling with all her might to escape her addiction. She is in recovery for the second time, and she said that this time for her is a life-or-death situation. She has no family support. She worries that she will be homeless when she leaves the treatment program, but she is grateful for the Affordable Care Act because it has given her one more shot at getting sober and the chance for a positive future.

At a forum in Manchester--New Hampshire's largest city--a courageous woman named Ashley Hurteau said

that access to healthcare as an enrollee in Medicaid expansion was critical to her addiction recovery. She had been arrested following the overdose death of her husband. Ashley said an understanding police officer and a drug court were key to her recovery. She added this:

I am living proof that, by giving individuals suffering

with substance use disorder access to health insurance, we,

as a society, are giving people like me the chance to be who

we really are again.

Without that access to treatment, where would Ashley be?

Several weeks ago I received a letter from Nansie Feeny, who lives in Concord, the capital of New Hampshire. She told me the Affordable Care Act had saved her son's life. This is what she wrote:

[My son] Benjamin went to Keene State College with the same

hopes and dreams many have when building their American

dream. While there he tried heroin. Addiction overcame him

but did not stop him from graduating. After graduation he

suffered a long road of near death existence. After a couple

of episodes where he had to be revived (fentanyl) he chose

recovery. And it was due to ObamaCare that we were able to

get him insured so he could get the proper help he needed and

[into] a suboxone program that assisted him with staying

``clean.''

In April--

She wrote, and you could read between the lines how relieved she was--

it will be a year for Ben in his recovery. Without

ObamaCare, this would not have been possible. . . . I can't

find the words to define my gratitude to President Obama. I

believe my son would not be alive today if it were not for

this plan that provided the means he needed to get the help

he needed at the time he needed it. Ben still has a long road

ahead of him but I will see to it that he never walks it

alone.

I also want to share a powerfully moving letter from Melissa Davis, an attorney in Plymouth, NH. Ms. Davis writes:

I am a lawyer who frequently works on behalf of clients who

are suffering from substance use disorder, mental health

conditions, or a combination of both. I have been working

with these clients for over 10 years and I can tell you that

access to health insurance has always been the biggest

obstacle in obtaining quality and consistent treatment. Since

passage of the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of

Medicaid, my clients are actually able to access real

treatment in ways they never were before. Before the ACA,

there were far too many times where my clients were unable to

afford private substance use disorder treatment, wait lists

at community mental health agencies were extremely long, and

AA and NA were not enough. Without treatment, these clients

often ended up in jail or worse, dead. I still have clients

who face obstacles to obtaining quality treatment, but the

ability to get insurance removes a huge obstacle.

Ms. Davis concludes with this warning:

I am sincerely afraid for what will happen to my clients

and my community if access to quality substance use disorder

and mental health treatment is taken away from those people

who need it most because they are unable to get insurance.

Please do everything you can to save the ACA.

In dozens of visits to New Hampshire during the campaign, President Trump pledged aggressive action to combat the opioid crisis. In his address to Congress last week, he once again promised action to expand treatment and end the opioid crisis. But despite these bold words and big promises, the President's actions have sent a totally different signal. His actions threaten an abrupt retreat in the fight against the opioid epidemic.

By embracing the House Republican leadership's plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Trump has broken his promise to the people of New Hampshire. This misguided bill would roll back the expansion of Medicaid, and it could terminate treatment for hundreds of thousands of people in New Hampshire and across America who are recovering from substance use disorders.

Meanwhile, the President's nominee to serve as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, has been an outspoken advocate of deep cuts to Federal funding for Medicaid. As we have seen with so many of the Trump administration nominees, Ms. Verma has an underlying hostility to the core mission of the agency that she has been asked to lead.

Seema Verma is currently a health policy consultant who has called for less Federal oversight of the Medicaid Program and advocated for policies expressly designed to discourage patients from seeking care-- for instance, by imposing cost-sharing burdens on Medicaid recipients. In addition, she is a staunch advocate of block-granting Medicaid and turning it into a per capita cap system. Over time, this would lead to profound cuts to Medicaid, forcing States to raise eligibility requirements and terminate coverage for millions of recipients.

Let's be clear as to who these recipients are. In 2015, the 97 million Americans covered by Medicaid included 33 million children, 6 million seniors, and 10 million people with disabilities. Seniors, including nursing home costs, account for nearly half of all Medicaid expenditures.

These are some of the most vulnerable people in our society, and they will be the targets of Ms. Verma's determined efforts to cut funding for Medicaid and terminate coverage for millions of current recipients.

I also have deep concerns about this nominee's commitment to protecting women's healthcare. During her confirmation hearing in the Finance Committee, Ms. Verma was asked if women should get access to prenatal care and maternity coverage as afforded under the Affordable Care Act or whether insurance companies should get to choose whether to cover this for women.

Ms. Verma tried to clarify when she met with me that she hadn't really meant what she said. But what she said was that maternity coverage should be optional, that women should pay extra for it if they want it. Of course, the problem with this position is that it takes us backward to the days before the ACA, when only 12 percent of policies on the individual insurance market offered maternity coverage.

In the State of New Hampshire, before the Affordable Care Act, you could not buy an individual policy that covered maternity benefits. They were not written. Insurers who offered coverage charged exorbitant rates with high deductibles, plus benefit caps of only a few thousand dollars. This is a major reason why, before the Affordable Care Act, women were systematically charged more for health insurance than men. In the eyes of insurance companies, being a woman was seen as a preexisting condition, and they charged us more accordingly.

Well, the American people don't want drastic cuts to Medicaid, cuts that will threaten coverage for children, for seniors, for people with disabilities, and for those receiving treatment for substance use disorders. That is why I intend to vote against the confirmation of Seema Verma to head CMS.

In recent years, we have made impressive gains, securing health coverage for millions of Americans and significantly improving the health of the American people. I can't support a nominee who wants to reverse these gains.

In recent weeks, all of our offices have been flooded with calls, with emails, with letters opposing the Trump administration's plans to repeal ObamaCare and undermine both the Medicare and Medicaid Programs. We need to listen to these voices. We need to keep the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid.

There are things we can do to make it better, and we should work together to do that. But we have heard from people loud and clear across this country. It is time now to respect their wishes, to come together to fix this landmark law, and to ensure that it works even better for all Americans.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Absolutely.

That is absolutely correct.

I remember meeting one young man early in the fall, in the middle of the campaign early last year. He came up to me in Manchester and said: I am so worried about what is going to happen in this election because I am in recovery; I am an addict. He said: I am worried that whoever gets elected is not going to continue to make sure that I can get the treatment I need. He said: I am worried about Mr. Trump.

As my colleague pointed out, Donald Trump, when he was campaigning in New Hampshire, made a lot of promises about how he was going to address the heroin and opioid epidemic, how he was going to make sure that people could get treatment, treatment at a cost they could afford.

Well, thanks to the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid and the great work by our Republican legislature and our Democratic Governor--then-Governor Hassan, who is now in the Senate--we passed a plan to make sure that people who had substance use disorders could get treatment.

Last year we had 48,000 applications submitted under the expansion of Medicaid for treatment of substance use disorders. If we pulled the plug on that Medicaid expansion so that people couldn't get that treatment, they wouldn't have anywhere to go.

That is what I heard when I was at Phoenix House in Dublin, in the western part of New Hampshire, a couple of weeks ago. I was sitting around with about 30 people in recovery, people who are hopeful for the first time in a long time because they are in treatment and they can see they can put their lives back together.

I said to them: What happens if we no longer have the Medicaid Program?

They said: We don't have any other options. We don't have treatment.

What we heard from President Trump is that he was going to introduce a healthcare plan that was going to cover more people for less money and better quality. Well, that is not what we are seeing.

The TrumpCare that was introduced in the House this week that they marked up and that is going to be coming to the Senate doesn't do that. It reduces coverage under the Medicaid Program. It would throw thousands of people off of their treatment for substance use disorders, and there is nowhere else for them to go.

This is not an acceptable plan. This does not do what the President promised he was going to do. It is not what he promised in New Hampshire, it is not what he promised in the campaign, and it is not what he has promised since he became President.

I think that is a huge problem. New Hampshire has a population that is one of the fastest aging in the country. As Senator Wyden points out, not only does the TrumpCare legislation change how people on Medicare are charged for their health insurance, but it also would change the other aspects of the Affordable Care Act that have been beneficial, such as preventive care under Medicare.

It would also change the effort to close the doughnut hole--the cost of the prescription drugs that seniors buy. That has been a huge benefit to people in New Hampshire over the last few years because they are beginning to see their costs for prescription drugs affected positively. So it will have a huge impact on seniors in New Hampshire.

The other issue that will have an impact not only on seniors but on everybody is what will happen to our rural hospitals. In New Hampshire, because we have a lot of rural areas in the State, we have a lot of small towns. Most of our hospitals are small and rural. They have benefitted significantly under the Affordable Care Act because they have been able to get paid for people who come to the emergency room for treatment. We have gotten a lot of people out of emergency rooms and into primary care. Most hospitals have seen about a 40-percent decline in people using emergency rooms for their healthcare. That has been a huge, important benefit to our rural hospitals that are operating on very thin margins that we need to keep open, not just because of the healthcare they provide but because of the jobs they provide. In most of our small communities, those hospitals are among the biggest employers.

There are huge impacts if we repeal the Affordable Care Act and we put in place this TrumpCare policy that doesn't cover as many people. It is going to cost more, it is going to reduce the help people are getting

through their healthcare coverage, and it is going to have a detrimental impact on people in the State of New Hampshire and across this country.

I thank the Senator, and thank the Senator for his fight to help as we try to prevent people across this country from losing their healthcare.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon following my colleagues, Senator McCain and Senator Cardin, to speak to the legislation that I am cosponsoring and that they have introduced to ramp up sanctions on Russia. I think it is important to emphasize that this is a strongly bipartisan legislative effort.

Indeed, for more than seven decades, Congress has stood strong on a bipartisan basis, first against the Soviet Union and now against Russian threats against the United States and our European allies. Working across the aisle in Congress, we have supported the NATO alliance. Beginning after World War II with the Marshall Plan and continuing to this day with the European Reassurance Initiative, we have helped to build the richest economies and the most robust democracies the world has ever seen, protected in large part in Western Europe by NATO.

Today we face new and unprecedented threats from an increasingly aggressive Russia. Russia continues to illegally occupy territory in Georgia and Ukraine. It is on the march in Syria, and it is building up its military presence and making threatening moves toward the Baltic States and in the Balkans.

There is growing evidence that it is actively interfering to spread disinformation and manipulate the outcome of elections this year in France, Germany, and across Europe. In fact there is evidence to suggest that they were involved in the Brexit vote and in the Dutch referendum last year.

Right here in our own country, Russia has used brazen cyber attacks and other measures to aggressively interfere in our Presidential election last fall. This was an attack on our sovereignty, on our democracy, and on the American people, and it was unprecedented. It requires the strongest possible response, short of armed force, to demonstrate to Vladimir Putin that this behavior will not be tolerated and it must not happen again. That is exactly the purpose of these comprehensive sanctions.

I agree with Senator Cardin, the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, that the Foreign Relations Committee should play a pivotal leadership role in both our legislative and oversight capacities in pushing back against Russia's aggression in all its forms. By all means, this includes making the case that the skills and experience of our State Department and USAID professionals are more important than ever.

In Eastern Europe, in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, and all across the world, they are working to increase the resilience of our allies by strengthening democratic institutions, fostering the rule of law, and fighting corruption. These initiatives have played an indispensable role in helping the United States prevail in the Cold War, and they are every bit as important today as we oppose Russian aggression.

We had the opportunity in the Armed Services Committee to hear from an expert talking about Russia and about Russia's strategy. One of the things he pointed out is that, just as Russia is building up its military might, just as it is expanding its propaganda initiatives through television broadcasts like ``Russia Today'' and ``Sputnik,'' it is also looking at how it can undermine Western democracies as a way to interrupt the transatlantic alliance--the alliance between the United States and Europe that has been so important to stability in the world for the last 70 years.

That is Russia's real goal. They want to undermine Europe. They want to undermine the West and the United States. One of the ways they are trying to do that is by disrupting our elections. We can't allow this kind of aggression to go unpunished. If we do, we will surely face further attacks from an emboldened Russia looking to disrupt our democracy. Indeed, I think this attack should be answered with the most punishing economic and financial sanctions that we can muster, and we need to work even harder to

shore up our European allies who are facing Russian aggression and interference.

As we look at the upcoming French and German elections, there is no doubt that Russia is trying to interfere with those elections, as well, with the goal of undermining our democracy. When one begins to mess around with our elections, they strike at the heart of a democracy that is the foundation of this country.

I commend Senator McCain and Senator Cardin for introducing this bipartisan sanctions legislation, and I hope that Senators on both sides of the aisle will join us in passing these comprehensive sanctions against Russia.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, on this International Women's Day, we celebrate the remarkable social, economic, and political achievements of women around the world, but we also take stock of the barriers that continue to prevent hundreds of millions of women from contributing their talents as equal members of the human family.

As in years past, this year I am again joining with Senator Susan Collins in submitting a bipartisan resolution commemorating International Women's Day and highlighting its goal of advancing the equality and empowerment of women all across the globe. I especially appreciate Senator Collins'

unwavering support in working with me on this resolution.

It has been said that no nation can get ahead if it leaves half of its people behind, and in the 21st century, wherever women are respected and treated as equals, we excel, as the Presiding Officer knows, as legislators, as scientists, as entrepreneurs, artists, inventors, warriors, and in every other field. But the harsh reality remains that women make up some 51 percent of the world's population, yet we account for an estimated 70 percent of those living in poverty and two-thirds of those denied even a basic education.

So on this International Women's Day, we celebrate women's achievements, and we rededicate ourselves to achieving an equal voice, equal participation, and equal rights for all women. We also acknowledge that we still have much difficult work ahead of us.

Research tells us that women and girls' equality can be transformational for their communities and for entire countries, yet in some of the poorest parts of the world--and even in some wealthier countries--women and girls continue to be held back by injustices such as child marriage, sexual and domestic violence, denial of education, and lack of access to contraception and maternal healthcare.

In recent years, we have learned more about the intersection of so many of these issues that affect women. When girls are forced into early marriage, when women are denied contraception and have children at a very young age, this typically ends any chance to gain an education and income-earning employment. This lack of economic influence means that women remain powerless within their families and, too often, within their communities. And this, in turn, can lead to violence against women and the denial of women's most basic human and civil rights.

The good news is that this same interconnectedness can work to empower women and to lift up communities. When women and girls' rights are respected, when we have access to education and family planning services, this unleashes women's ability to participate equally in the community, in the workplace, and even in the political arena.

Indeed, we can now quantify so many of the positive ripple effects. For example, each additional year of education increases a woman's income by 25 percent. We know that children born to educated mothers are twice as likely to survive past the age of 5. By mobilizing the talents of the previously neglected half of the population--in too many places--we create more stable societies and more rapid economic development.

For decades, the United States has been a world leader in advancing and protecting the rights of women and girls around the world, including their access to contraception and family planning. In particular, I want to applaud the excellent work of the State Department's Office of Global Women's Issues. I am sponsoring legislation in this session to give this office permanent authorization, with an ambassador leading it.

However, on this International Women's Day, we must also acknowledge actions to abdicate America's leadership role in advancing women's rights. Indeed, both at home and abroad, the Trump administration has exhibited a dangerous obsession with rolling back women's reproductive rights. President Trump has promised to nominate Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade. He has joined with some of the Republican leaders in Congress in pledging to terminate funding for Planned Parenthood.

In one of his first official acts, the President signed an Executive order reinstating and expanding the Mexico City policy, also known as the global gag rule. This rule prohibits U.S. financial aid to many international organizations that offer contraception and comprehensive family planning services to women.

As if the reinstatement of this policy weren't bad enough, the administration's Executive order dramatically expanded the policy to apply to all U.S.-funded global health programs--so not just family planning and counseling programs. But we believe that this expansion will include our HIV/AIDS program, known as PEPFAR, which has been so positive in saving so many lives in Africa. It was started by George W. Bush. We also think it will affect initiatives that fund the fights against the Ebola and Zika outbreaks, and this puts at risk 15 times more funding and millions more women and their families around the world.

Taken together, all of these actions by the new administration I believe amount to an assault on the safety and well-being of women and girls across the globe.

I have joined with Senator Susan Collins, Senator Lisa Murkowski, and 45 other Senators in introducing bipartisan legislation to permanently repeal the global gag rule. I believe--and it is well documented--that this is a misguided policy that ignores decades of research.

We shouldn't allow extreme ideology to triumph over the urgent practical needs of women across the world. The facts make clear that when family planning services are accessible and contraceptives are affordable, rates of unplanned pregnancies and abortions go down.

According to the World Health Organization, there is an estimated 225 million women in the world who would like access to family planning services, and we know that makes a difference. Here in the United States, the abortion rate has dropped to the lowest level since 1943, a success that is directly attributable to the reduced cost sharing for contraception under the Affordable Care Act. I can attest to that because in New Hampshire, we have one of the lowest incidences of teen pregnancy in the country.

In January, we saw millions of women, men, and children, turn out for marches in Washington, New York, London, Nairobi, Tokyo, in my home capital of Concord, NH, and in dozens of other cities across the country and around the world. I think we can look at that as an early celebration of International Women's Day because what we heard from those marching was that we were marching in defense of the rights of American women, of Muslim women, of women of color, and of all women and girls across the globe.

The world heard our message loudly and clearly. We will not allow our reproductive rights and our human rights to be taken away. We will not allow women to be targeted for discrimination. We will not be taken backward.

That was our message in January, and it is our message on this International Women's Day. We have fought long and hard for equal rights and equal treatment here in the United States.

We are also celebrating women here in the United States. We have many women who have taken the day off to recognize the role that women play that is so significant in our society, and many of us are also wearing red to demonstrate that. So on this day of celebration and solidarity, we are determined to go forward to build on the progress of recent decades, and we rededicate ourselves to achieving respect, equality, and justice for every woman in every community and every country across the globe.

Mr. President, I came to the floor to join my colleague and friend Senator Murray to say that I, too, am ready for this fight to oppose S.J. Res. 13, which would allow the discrimination against Title X family planning providers. This is a misguided measure that would leave millions of women and families with fewer healthcare options. It would drastically decrease women's access to basic primary and preventative health services, including lifesaving cancer screenings and HIV testing.

Make no mistake, as Senator Murray said, the primary target of this legislation is Planned Parenthood. For years now, Republican leaders in Congress have tried to keep women from choosing Planned Parenthood as their healthcare provider--this at a time when Planned Parenthood serves millions of women nationwide, including nearly 12,000 women in New Hampshire, my home State. Most of the women in New Hampshire have incomes below or near the poverty line. Many of those women live in rural areas where they don't have other options for healthcare coverage.

The sad irony of this attack on Planned Parenthood is that study after study has shown that cutting back access to birth control and to other family planning methods actually increases the number of abortions. So I understand that opponents are interested in supporting this legislation because they think Planned Parenthood provides abortions, but the coverage Planned Parenthood is providing to women in New Hampshire and across this country with Federal dollars does not allow for abortions. So what we are doing is taking away women's access to contraception and to other family planning services and saying: You have no choice now.

More than ever right now, facts matter. Research matters. Talking away women's access to birth control and family planning will lead to more abortions, not fewer abortions. Yet this legislation is part and parcel of a broader national campaign against Planned Parenthood, whose clinics have been the target of vilification, of threats, and of violence. In October of last year, the Planned Parenthood clinic in Claremont, NH, was vandalized not once but twice. The second attack, a breaking-and-entering incident, caused extensive damage. It forced the clinic to close for 5 weeks.

I have great admiration for the courage of doctors and other healthcare providers at the Claremont clinic. Despite threats and attacks, they are determined to continue serving women across the Connecticut River Valley, many of whom have no alternative to the Claremont clinic. They are typical of the dedicated healthcare professionals at Planned Parenthood clinics all across our country.

The good news is that, according to poll after poll, the American people across the political spectrum--from Independents, to Libertarians, to Democrats, to Republicans--strongly support Planned Parenthood and oppose efforts to take away women's ability to choose Planned Parenthood as their healthcare provider.

At last night's Presidential address to Congress, I was honored to have as my guest Jennifer Frizzell of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. Jen knows exactly what is at stake for women if President Trump and Republican leaders succeed in closing hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics across the United States.

So let's be clear again: Supporting family planning clinics is not about abortion, which by law is never funded by taxpayer dollars-- something that I think is often misrepresented by some of our colleagues here in Congress. What this is about is ensuring that American women have access to the basic healthcare they need. For 40 percent of women, their visits to a family planning center is the only care they receive annually. In 2015 alone, Title X provided basic primary and preventive healthcare services, such as Pap tests, breast exams, birth control, and HIV testing, to more than 4 million women and men at nearly 4,000 health centers.

I am sure that every one of our colleagues is receiving letters and emails and phone calls from constituents on this issue. They are pleading with us not to take away their access to Planned Parenthood and the healthcare they trust and depend on.

I received this message from Caitlin Parnell of Hampstead, NH. She said:

As a young mother of a 2-year-old, my husband and I knew we

wanted to wait to have more children. We were both working

full time but barely making ends meet. The companies we

worked for offered health insurance, but they were small

companies, and the monthly cost was well more than we could

afford. So we went without. With no insurance, I turned to

Planned Parenthood for birth control. With the sliding pay

scale, I was able to get exams and birth control within my

budget. We were able to decide the best time to have more

children, which also allowed us to responsibly manage our

finances as well. An unplanned pregnancy at that point would

have destroyed the little financial stability we had. I don't

know where our family would be without Planned Parenthood.

Karla Canderhoof is a stay-at-home mother in Newfields, NH. She wrote this:

After being diagnosed with ovarian cyst issues that caused

debilitating pain, I turned to Planned Parenthood for

treatment. In my case, the treatment for ovarian cysts was

birth control. At the time (during my college years) I could

not afford the cost of birth control due to my lack of

insurance. But Planned Parenthood gave me birth control free

of charge.

Amanda Arel of Rochester, NH, sent this message:

During the ages of 22 to 25, I utilized Planned Parenthood

for my annual exams and birth control. As I did not have

insurance and was in college, I was not able to afford most

medical care. Planned Parenthood not only provided me with

essential care, they made it very comfortable for me and were

very knowledgeable and answered any questions I had. They

provided birth control for me that, if it wasn't for them,

I would not have been able to get, at a cost I could

afford.

I still support Planned Parenthood because they provide safe, affordable healthcare for all, and that is so important.

We need to listen to our constituents, those who are speaking out in passionate support of Planned Parenthood and other family planning clinics.

As Senator Murray said so eloquently, this is about respecting women's access to healthcare services, including those millions of vulnerable women who have nowhere else to turn for essential care. This is also about respecting women's constitutionally protected right to make our own reproductive choices. We must not allow Congress to strip away Federal investments in family planning clinics by allowing States to discriminate against providers like Planned Parenthood.

I urge our Republican colleagues, don't bring S.J. Res. 13 to the floor. If it does come to the floor, I certainly intend to join in the fight with my colleagues--Senator Murray, Senator Blumenthal, and so many other Democrats and, I believe, Republicans--to defeat this legislation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I came to the floor today to oppose the nomination of Scott Pruitt to serve as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. I thank my colleague from Delaware, whom I had the honor to serve with when we were both Governors, for his good work to point out why Scott Pruitt is the wrong person to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA was created by a Republican President in 1970, Richard Nixon. I remember very clearly when he did that. Across subsequent decades, support for this Agency and for its important mission has been a strongly bipartisan endeavor. Our Nation has benefited from the service of dedicated, highly effective EPA Administrators from both parties, but I am deeply concerned that Scott Pruitt is a radical break from this bipartisan tradition.

After reviewing Mr. Pruitt's environmental record, I have to ask: Why was he nominated for this critically important position? He rejects the core missions of the Environmental Protection Agency at every turn. He has sued the EPA to block protections for clean air and clean water; he is an outspoken climate change denier; he seeks to dismantle the EPA's Clean Power Plan, which was put in place to address climate change; and he opposes other efforts to slow the warming of this planet. Time and again, he has put private interests and their profits ahead of public interests and public health.

As attorney general of Oklahoma, he has sided with oil and gas companies, and he has failed to protect the people of his State from some of the worst impacts of hydraulic fracturing. He has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from fossil fuel industries, and he zealously advocated for their freedom to pollute our air and water.

So again I ask: Why was Scott Pruitt nominated to serve as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency? Well, I think it is clear Mr. Pruitt was nominated not to lead the EPA forward but to prevent it from carrying out its mission. Make no mistake, Mr. Pruitt and his extreme agenda are a threat to the environment, to the planet, and to our public health.

Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican Governor of New Jersey and whom I also had the honor of serving with when I was Governor-- Senator Carper, Christie Whitman, and I all served as Governors together. She also was EPA Administrator during George W. Bush's administration. What she said about Pruitt I think is worth listening to. This is a Republican talking about Scott Pruitt: ``I don't recall ever having seen an appointment of someone who is so disdainful of the agency and the science behind what the agency does.''

People in the State of New Hampshire have no doubt about the reality of climate change. In the Granite State we see it. We experience it all the time. The steady increase in yearly temperatures and the rise in annual precipitation are already affecting New Hampshire's tourism and our outdoor recreation economy, which accounts for more than $4 billion a year and employs over 50,000 people. Each year, hundreds of thousands of sportsmen and wildlife watchers come to New Hampshire to enjoy our beautiful mountains, our lakes, our other natural resources, and our 18 miles of coastline, which we are very proud of. As I said, hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation contribute more than $4 billion to New Hampshire's economy each year, but much of this is now threatened by the warming of our planet. Rising temperatures are shortening our fall foliage season, they are negatively affecting our snow- and ice-related winter recreation activities, including skiing, snowboarding, and snowmobiling. An estimated 17,000 Granite Staters are directly employed by the ski industry in New Hampshire, and the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services warns that those jobs are threatened by climate change.

Likewise, New Hampshire's and indeed all of New England's brilliant fall foliage is at risk. I wish to quote from a report by New Hampshire Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions. They say: ``Current modeling forecasts predict that maple sugar trees eventually will be completely eliminated as a regionally important species in the northeastern United States.''

Climate modeling by the Union of Concerned Scientists projects that by the end of this century, New Hampshire summers will feel like present-day summers in North Carolina, 700 miles to our south. We have a map that shows what is going to happen to our red maples and the maple sugaring industry. We can see everything here that is in red, these are all those sugar maples. It is projected that by 2070 or 2100, they are gone. They are gone from New England, from the Northeast, and from most of the Eastern part of this country. If we fail to act on climate change, this could mean a steep loss of jobs. It could mean a loss of revenue. It will destroy our maple sugaring industry and will damage our outdoor recreation industry.

Maple sugar production is entirely dependent on weather conditions, and changes--no matter how modest--can throw off production and endanger this industry. Maple trees require warm days and freezing nights to create the optimal sugar content in sap production. The changing climate is putting more and more stress on sugar maples. As this map shows so well, it is already significantly affecting syrup production. If we fail to act on climate change, this could destroy our maple syrup industry. If you haven't done maple sugaring in the springtime, there is nothing like maple syrup over snow. There is nothing else like it. To lose that and to lose the jobs that are there is a real change to one of the recreational activities we love in New Hampshire.

Climate change is also threatening our wildlife species and their habitats. The moose is an iconic feature of New Hampshire's culture and identity, but as the results of climate change, we have seen a 40- percent decline in New Hampshire's moose population. We can see clearly from these pictures why we are losing our moose: Because of milder winters, ticks don't die off. It is really very tragic. The ticks multiply on a moose, they ravage it, and they eventually kill it. I don't know if people can see, but what look like little balls on the end of that moose's tail are ticks. This moose probably has brain worm, which is another problem the moose have because of winters that aren't cold enough to kill off those parasites. Ticks multiply on a moose, they ravage it, and they eventually kill it.

We have seen modeling from the University of New Hampshire which suggests that by 2030, moose will be gone--not only from northern New Hampshire but from much of the northern part of this country.

Other newly invasive insects are harming wildlife species as well as trees. Of course, people are also suffering from the impacts of climate change. Rising temperatures increase the number of air pollution action days. They increase pollen and mold levels, outdoors as well as allergen levels inside, and all of these things are dangerous to sensitive populations with asthma, allergies, and chronic respiratory conditions. In fact, New Hampshire has one of the highest rates of childhood asthma in the country because we are the tailpipe. All of New England is the tailpipe for the rest of the country. Pollution blows across this country from the Midwest and exits through New Hampshire and New England.

Rising temperatures facilitate the spread of insect-borne illnesses such as Lyme disease. We could see on that moose what the impact is. Those ticks aren't just multiplying on the moose, they are multiplying in a way that affects people as well.

Fortunately, because we have seen the impact of climate change, New Hampshire and the other New England States are taking the lead in reducing carbon emissions and transitioning to a more energy-efficient, clean energy economy. We are one of nine Northeastern States participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative called RGGI. It is essentially a cap-and-trade system in the Northeast. New Hampshire has already reduced its power sector carbon pollution by 49 percent since 2008. That is a 49-percent reduction in less than a decade. Thanks to efforts by State and local communities, New Hampshire is on track to meet the Clean Power Plan's carbon reduction goals 10 years early. In addition, we are using proceeds from emissions permits sold at RGGI auctions to finance clean energy and energy efficiency investments.

Unfortunately, Scott Pruitt seems to believe that reducing pollution and investing in a clean environment are somehow bad for the economy. He is just wrong about that. Our efforts in New Hampshire and across New England to fight climate change and promote clean energy have been a major boost to economic growth. We have seen jobs added as a result. During its first 3 years, RGGI produced $1.6 billion in net economic value and created more than 16,000 jobs in our region. Nationwide, employment in the fossil fuel sector is falling dramatically, but job creation in the clean energy and energy efficiency sectors is exploding. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, more than 2 million jobs have been created in the energy efficiency sector alone and--if we can ever get Congress to move the energy efficiency legislation Senator Portman and I have introduced--would create, by 2030, another 200,000 jobs, just on energy efficiency. Across New England, we are demonstrating that smart energy choices can benefit the environment and strengthen job creation and the economy overall.

So, again, we have to ask: Why does Scott Pruitt deny the science of climate change? Why has he urged States to refuse to comply with the Clean Power Plan? Why has he filed lawsuit after lawsuit to block enforcement of the Clean Air Act? Why does he deny

something as nearly universally recognized as the dangers of mercury pollution?

The bottom line, I believe, is that Scott Pruitt is first and foremost a fierce defender of the oil and gas industry. If scientists point to carbon emissions as the main cause of climate change, then he has to deny that science. If science and common sense point to hydraulic fracking as the cause of thousands of earthquakes in the State of Oklahoma, then he must deny that too. If the EPA's mission is to protect clean air and clean water from pollution caused by fossil fuels, then he has to sue the EPA and try to cripple it.

Scott Pruitt's nomination is not about shaking things up in Washington. It is about turning over control of the EPA to the fossil fuel industry and turning back the clock on half a century of bipartisan efforts--in Democratic and Republican administrations alike--to protect clean air and clean water and to pass on to our children a livable environment and an Earth that they can inhabit from future generations.

My office has been flooded with calls, emails, and letters from Granite Staters. They not only oppose Mr. Pruitt's nomination, they are genuinely afraid of the consequences of putting him in charge of the

Mr. President, unfortunately I don't share the enthusiasm of my colleague from Arkansas for Mick Mulvaney to serve as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. In fact, I have great concerns about this nominee's views on a whole range of issues.

Because those views are far outside the mainstream of this country, I intend to vote against his confirmation. First and foremost, I am concerned about Mick Mulvaney's repeated votes against raising the debt ceiling and his reckless willingness to shut down the government in order to advance his extreme views.

It is Representative Mulvaney's longstanding position that failure to raise the debt ceiling would not precipitate a crisis. He said: ``I have yet to meet someone who can articulate the negative consequences.'' Well, let me articulate the consequences in very simple terms. If we refuse to raise the debt ceiling, we would default on the national debt, destroy the credit worthiness of the U.S. Government, and trigger a global financial crisis.

As the Governor of New Hampshire, I worked very hard with our State treasurer and with the legislature, through some very challenging fiscal times, to maintain New Hampshire's State bond rating. We did that because we knew that lowering the State's bond rating would mean an increase in costs for businesses trying to borrow money, for the government trying to borrow money, for taxpayers because they would have to pay those increased costs, and it would have a ripple effect across the economy that would have a real impact on the people of New Hampshire.

Representative Mulvaney does not seem to appreciate what would happen if the Federal Government defaulted on our debt. He has argued that the Treasury Secretary could avoid such a crisis by prioritizing interest payments; in other words, paying foreign holders of U.S. debt but not Social Security beneficiaries or the men and women of our Armed Forces, but there is no legal authority to do this. It is impractical, and recent Treasury Secretaries have denounced the idea. We got a foretaste of the consequences of default in 2011, when Representative Mulvaney and others blocked legislation to raise the debt ceiling, a crisis that took nearly 3 months to resolve.

That manufactured crisis shook financial markets, caused a spike in interest rates on U.S. securities, and it lead Standard and Poor's to take away America's AAA credit rating, and it cost $18.9 billion. Who does Mick Mulvaney think paid those $18.9 billion? It was the people of this country. Representative Mulvaney has repeatedly threatened to shut down the Federal Government.

He helped lead the charge in shutting down the government in October of 2013 in a failed and misguided attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. In 2015, he threatened to shut down the government again in order to defund Planned Parenthood. Both of those programs are critically important to the people of New Hampshire. Nearly 1 out of 10 Granite Staters have health insurance thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Planned Parenthood provides accessible, affordable healthcare to women all across the State of New Hampshire, women who, in most cases, could not get their healthcare any other way.

As Senator Durbin pointed out earlier, 97 percent of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are services that have nothing to do with abortion; they have to do with access to mammograms, to cancer screenings, to STD testing, the whole range of healthcare services that women need.

Unfortunately, the 16-day shutdown in 2013 created havoc across the economy, leading to the loss of an estimated 120,000 jobs. Millions of small businesses faced significant disruptions, many employees were laid off, and some businesses could not make payroll. But Representative Mulvaney is unrepentant. He insists that the shutdown was worth it. Well, tell that to some of the businesses in New Hampshire that took a huge hit. His brand of government by temper tantrum is reckless, it is irresponsible, and it should not be rewarded with a nomination to be the chief budget officer for the country.

Representative Mulvaney's disdain for true fiscal conservatism and his unbalanced budget priorities should also give us pause. He supports budgets that would provide massive tax cuts for corporations, for those at the top, and he would pair those with deep budget cuts for the middle class and the most vulnerable people in our society, including seniors and people with disabilities.

Representative Mulvaney advocates for radical cuts to Social Security and to Medicare and Medicaid. He has promised to end Medicare as we know it, privatizing it and converting it to a voucher program that shifts costs to seniors.

He advocates raising the retirement age to 70 for Social Security and 67 for Medicare. Imagine telling construction workers and others who perform heavy labor that they have to work until age 70 before they can retire with the security of a Social Security check.

He also advocates shifting costs to States by block-granting Medicaid. Essentially what block grants do is give the money to States and allow them to administer those dollars. As a former Governor, I think States can administer those dollars, but when you want to cut as much as $1 trillion from healthcare services, which is what Mick Mulvaney wants to do, then you can administer them as well as possible, but you are still not going to be able to make up to the seniors and to disabled Americans and others in nursing homes for the cuts that are going to come when you block-grant those dollars to States.

Unfortunately, that is not the end of his extreme budget ideas. He advocates taking a meat-ax to the whole range of programs that bolster the middle class, everything from cancer research, to Pell grants, to healthcare.

Representative Mulvaney has even questioned the appropriateness of Federal funding for scientific research. In a Facebook post questioning the scientific consensus linking the Zika virus to microcephaly, he wrote: ``What might be the best question: Do we really need government funded research at all?'' Think about that.

Senator Durbin was very eloquent in talking about the difference that research has made in ending polio and addressing so many other diseases, such as HIV, that have affected Americans and people across the world. Well, the President's choice--Mick Mulvaney--to draft his annual budget, to be the head of his budget office, openly doubts that the government should be involved in addressing public

health threats, such as Zika. So how deeply does he plan to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control, for the National Institutes of Health, for our National Laboratories, and for federally funded extramural research? We don't know the answer to that, but we can assume from his statements that it is going to be significant.

Federally funded R&D is critical not only to addressing threats to public health but also to developing new technologies that enhance our national security and protect the environment. These technologies are essential to growing our economy and maintaining America's global leadership in technology and biomedical sciences.

In New Hampshire, the most dynamic sector of our economy is high-tech manufacturing and innovation. For our economy to grow, we need to stay ahead of global competition. But that doesn't happen on its own; it requires sustained investment in basic research--often research that the private sector considers too risky to do on its own.

As ranking member of the Senate Small Business Committee, I have seen this vividly demonstrated by the very successful Small Business Innovation Research Program, or SBIR. SBIR works by harnessing the creativity and ingenuity of America's small businesses to meet the R&D missions of our Federal agencies, while also supporting the growth of small, high-tech companies that create good jobs in local communities across this country.

One recent study found that every dollar awarded by the Air Force to SBIR firms generated $12 in economic growth. That growth happens because small businesses develop technologies and then commercialize those technologies, creating good jobs in each of our States.

Many of these technologies are developed for our Armed Forces to better protect the homeland. A great example of that, which I have seen firsthand, is a company based in Hanover, NH, called Creare. Creare is working with the Navy to develop an innovative clothes dryer that dramatically reduces the risk of fires on submarines, and that is just one example of why the SBIR Program is the envy of the world.

I want to quote Dr. Charles Wessner, who led the National Academy of Sciences study of the SBIR Program. In describing that program, he said: ``The rest of the world thinks this is the greatest thing since sliced bread.''

Well, make no mistake, this successful program is in serious jeopardy if Representative Mulvaney puts Federal R&D investments on the chopping block.

It is truly shocking that the President has nominated a budget director who questions the value of Federal funding for R&D. We need to invest in science. We need to invest in our small businesses, which create two out of every three jobs in this economy.

The OMB Director is one of the most senior economic advisers to the President of the United States, with enormous influence on policy matters.

Representative Mulvaney has been a zealous advocate for radical cuts to Social Security, to Medicaid, to the whole range of programs that support the middle class in this country. In addition, his willful failure to pay required Federal taxes has raised serious concerns about his integrity, which we all know is essential for every Cabinet officer.

After careful study of his record, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come together to reject this nominee. Putting Mick Mulvaney in charge of OMB is not just letting the fox guard the hen house; it is giving him a gun to kill the chickens, a pot to boil those chickens in, and a knife to eviscerate them when they are done.

Let's give President Trump the opportunity to put forward a qualified candidate with mainstream views to protect the middle class and to honor this Nation's financial obligations.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak on the Republican time for up to 10 minutes, with 5 minutes reserved for Senator Risch, on the nomination of Linda McMahon to serve as Administrator of the Small Business Administration.

Mr. President, today, in just a few minutes, the Senate will be voting on the nomination of Linda McMahon to serve as Administrator of, I believe, one of the very important agencies within the Federal Government that sometimes doesn't get the recognition it deserves; that is, the Small Business Administration.

Before I begin my remarks, I wish to take a minute to acknowledge the good work of two previous SBA Administrators, Karen Mills and Maria Contreras-Sweet. Both served in this very important role during the Obama administration and, particularly during the financial crisis, really served as a lifeline for so many of our small businesses. So I thank these two leaders for their tireless work.

When I was first elected to the Senate in 2008, one of the reasons I joined the Small Business Committee was its reputation as a place where you could work across the aisle to get things done in a bipartisan way because supporting small businesses is not a Republican or a Democratic issue; it is an American issue.

That dynamic was on display at Mrs. McMahon's confirmation hearing, where not one but two of her former rivals introduced her. Senators Blumenthal and Murphy, both of whom ran very spirited campaigns against Ms. McMahon--and both of whom defeated her--actually testified to her passion for small business and her qualifications for this new responsibility. After the hearing, the Small Business Committee favorably reported her nomination to the Senate by a vote of 18 to 1. I thank my colleague Chairman Risch for working with me during this process and ensuring that the nomination was thoroughly vetted.

While I have opposed a number of President Trump's nominees, I want to take a few minutes to explain why I will support Linda McMahon for this important position.

My home State of New Hampshire is a small business State. More than 96 percent of our employers are considered small businesses, according to the SBA's Office of Advocacy.

But small businesses aren't just important in New Hampshire. They are really the engine that drives our national economy. Small businesses create two out of every three new jobs in the United States. They are also leaders when it comes to innovation, producing 14 times more patents than large businesses.

Unfortunately, like so many of our larger businesses, many of our small businesses still have not fully recovered from the great recession. For our

economy to continue to improve, we need to level the playing field for small businesses and unleash their potential. That is why the SBA and its programs are so critical. Last year alone, the SBA backed more than 70,000 loans to small businesses, supporting $29 billion in lending and nearly 700,000 jobs. The SBA also helped small businesses win more than $90 billion in Federal contracts, provided counseling to more than 1 million entrepreneurs, and helped many small businesses reach foreign markets.

I was in the New Hampshire State Senate in the early nineties when we experienced a recession that closed five of the State's seven largest banks and put so many of our small businesses into bankruptcy. The one Federal agency that helped keep our small businesses going in New Hampshire during those very dark years was the SBA. I have seen very directly what a difference SBA makes to businesses in New Hampshire and across this country.

As part of the confirmation process, I was able to work with my colleagues on the Small Business Committee to look into Mrs. McMahon's background as a successful entrepreneur, as well as her vision for the SBA. I was pleased to learn that Mrs. McMahon shares my vision for a strong SBA that will support America's entrepreneurs. I was particularly pleased to learn, unlike some previous reports, that she opposes efforts to merge the SBA into another agency, so she does not believe it should be part of the Department of Commerce. Maintaining the SBA's independence and keeping the Administrator of the SBA as a Cabinet-level position is essential to ensuring that the voices of small businesses are heard in Washington.

We also need to make sure the SBA programs are valued in this administration. We have seen what can happen when SBA does not receive the respect it deserves from the White House. The George W. Bush administration cut the SBA's budget dramatically, by 32 percent--more than any other agency during those years. We can't afford to repeat that mistake. Entrepreneurs across this country, from rural communities to inner cities, rely on the SBA and its programs.

I could cite countless success stories, but let me just note one example I recently heard in New Hampshire from Julie Lapham, who is founder and chief sales officer of a startup in Dover, NH, called Popzup.

Popzup is a family-owned business that provides a new popcorn product for health-conscious consumers. Julie's inspiration for her business was her mother, who is diabetic and had started to eat popcorn every day because of the food's low glycemic index. Julie wanted to give her mother more options than the microwave popcorn you see in the grocery store, so she created a convenient product that doesn't use chemicals, plastic, or silicone. Her company's popcorn is environmentally friendly and sourced from American farms that don't use GMO products.

As a startup, Julie faces a lot of challenges: getting funding to expand her business, keeping the books, figuring out how to market her products. Large companies have the resources to figure these things out, but Julie needs a level playing field to compete, and that is where the SBA and its resource partners come in.

Julie wrote:

We often feel vulnerable because we are self-funded and

need to master all aspects of running our business;

marketing, manufacture, selling, and accounting.

Julie has been working with advisers at the New Hampshire Small Business Development Center, SBDC. They operate in every State, and they are resource partners who provided counseling to Julie and also provide counseling to small businesses like Julie's across the country.

I don't think there is a week that goes by when we are not

stopping by each other's offices, emailing, and talking on

the phone. I can honestly state that we would not have a

chance at success without their ongoing support and

encouragement.

I am sure my colleagues in the Senate are aware of similar SBA success stories in their own States.

We all know this agency plays a vital role in our economy, but there is more that can be done. For our economy to thrive, we need to focus on ways to further strengthen the SBA so that it can increase opportunities for entrepreneurs to start new ventures and help existing small businesses grow. That is especially important in largely rural States like New Hampshire where it can be harder to get a loan or counseling. Entrepreneurs like Julie need a strong Administrator who understands the value of programs like the Small Business Development Centers. They need someone who will be their voice in Washington and bring out the best in the SBA. During the confirmation process, Mrs. McMahon pledged that she shares this view and wants to strengthen the role SBA plays in assisting our Nation's small businesses. In fact, she said she was passionate about small business.

For these reasons, I intend to support her confirmation today. I look forward to continuing to work with Chairman Risch as we support SBA in the coming years.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I come to the floor this afternoon to announce I will be voting against Congressman Price to be the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Despite some of the remarks people have expressed, I feel passionately about the fact that he is the wrong person to serve in that job. I have heard from a remarkable number of my constituents who also believe he is the wrong person for the job.

Congressman Price is an outspoken advocate for repealing the Affordable Care Act, which would cause up to 30 million Americans to lose their health insurance and put at risk the lives of thousands of people in New Hampshire and across America who rely on the Affordable Care Act--or ObamaCare--for treatment of substance abuse disorders. He is a rampant supporter of defunding Planned Parenthood and denying women our reproductive rights. If he defunds Planned Parenthood, it would mean that women would lose access to contraceptive services and cancer screenings.

In New Hampshire we have thousands of women who rely on Planned Parenthood as their only source of health care. Congressman Price is determined to make billions of dollars in cuts to the Medicaid program, which would jeopardize the health of some of our most vulnerable citizens, including millions of children living in poverty and millions of seniors living in nursing home care.

I am especially troubled by the threat that Representative Price poses to women's health. I urge my colleagues to listen to the millions of women across America who marched last month in opposition to the policies of the Trump administration and Congressman Price. Those of us who marched on that day had a simple and powerful message: We will not be dragged backward. We will not allow the Trump administration to take away our constitutional rights and to interfere with our deeply personal health care choices. Yet Dr. Price's extreme policies would do exactly that. They would drastically undermine women's access to health care, and they would turn back the clock on women's reproductive health and rights.

Representative Price has spent his entire congressional career authoring, sponsoring, and voting for legislation that would put women's health at risk. He cosponsored and voted 10 times--10--to defund Planned Parenthood, repeatedly championing slashing funding and access for family planning services. If we want to cut down on unintended pregnancies and abortions in this country, we need to give families access to family planning services.

If Congressman Price succeeds in making good on this threat as Secretary of Health and Human Services, it would result in 1.5 million Medicaid patients losing the ability to see the family planning provider of their choice.

As Senator Peters said, Congressman Price does not support the Affordable Care Act and the requirement in the Affordable Care Act that women have access to FDA-approved methods of contraception with no out- of-pocket costs. Indeed, he rejects the very idea that women should obtain birth control with no out-of-pocket costs. He said:

Bring me one woman who has been left behind. Bring me one.

There's not one.

Well, that statement is not only wrong, but it is arrogant, and it is gravely out of touch with reality.

Throughout his career in Congress, Dr. Price has been a zealous advocate of restricting women's access to contraception and abolishing our constitutionally protected reproductive rights. He has cosponsored an ``extreme personhood'' bill--so-called--that would establish that life begins at conception, and he supported a bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks, despite the Supreme Court's rulings that similar bills are unconstitutional. He even voted for a bill that would alter the recommended medical training for obstetrics and gynecology by preventing grant funding from being used to train medical students on how to safely perform the abortion procedure.

The policies advocated by Representative Price would have profoundly negative impacts on the health and well-being of the people in my State of New Hampshire. Repeal of the Affordable Care Act would have devastating effects on people in New Hampshire. Some 120,000 Granite Staters--nearly 1 in 10 people in New Hampshire--have enrolled in health care coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act, thanks to ObamaCare. That is an enormous step forward for the health and well- being of the people of my State. Yet Dr. Price is determined to destroy that progress. Indeed, he seems to have no higher priority than to terminate health coverage for millions of people across this country.

Make no mistake. Repeal of the Affordable Care Act would destroy much of the progress we have made in New Hampshire and in other States to fight the heroin and opioid epidemic. Across this country, more people are now killed by drug overdoses than by traffic accidents. There were more than 52,000 overdose deaths in 2015. But statistics can't fully capture the profound human toll. It is not only the thousands of individual lives that have been destroyed. Entire communities are being devastated.

In dozens of visits to New Hampshire during his campaign, President Trump pledged aggressive action to combat the opioid crisis. Keeping that promise is a matter of life and death. Make no mistake. Representative Price's determination to repeal the Affordable Care Act has put millions of Americans at risk.

I am especially concerned that repeal would abruptly end treatment for thousands of Granite Staters fighting addiction. The Affordable Care Act, and Medicaid expansion in particular--what we call in New Hampshire our New Hampshire Health Protection Plan--which has bipartisan support from then-Governor, now-Senator Maggie Hassan and the Republican legislature, has been a critical tool in combating the opioid epidemic. More than 48,000 Medicaid claims were submitted in New Hampshire for substance use disorder services in 2015.

Having traveled across our State in the past year, visiting treatment centers and meeting with individuals struggling with substance use disorders, I am convinced that Tom Price's plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act would mean that thousands of Granite Staters would lose access to treatment, with devastating consequences because right now, even as we are beginning to ramp up treatment, we have the second highest overdose rate in the country.

We need a Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services

who will respect women's health care choices and our constitutional rights and who will defend the enormous progress we have made, thanks to the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid. Representative Price is the wrong person for this critically important position in our Federal Government, and I will vote against his confirmation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to oppose the nomination of Betsy DeVos, President Trump's choice to be Secretary of Education. I fundamentally disagree with my colleague from Texas who said earlier that this is a fight about power and who maintains power, whether it is going to stay in Washington or whether it is going to be in our State and local communities.

In New Hampshire, we believe in local control of education. It is a bedrock principle of our public education system. This fight, today, is not about power in Washington versus power in the States; this is a fight about whether we are going to continue to support our public school system and our system of public higher education, or are we going to take the money out, the support out, and divert it into private and religious schools, and gut the public education system in this country?

My parents were part of the ``greatest generation,'' and they raised me in post-World War II America. They understood that the best way for my sisters and me to have opportunities for the future was to make sure we had a solid education. I benefited by going to great public schools in the State of Missouri and in the State of Pennsylvania, and I was also able to receive a quality public higher education. Without the opportunity to attend public universities in Pennsylvania and later in West Virginia and in the State of Mississippi, I would not have been able to get a college education because my parents wouldn't have been able to afford to send me to a private college or university, just like they wouldn't have been able to afford to send me to private K-12 schools.

I am grateful for the public schools I attended and proud of the support my parents and so many other parents have given to public schools across America. My children and grandchildren have benefited from the great public schools in New Hampshire.

As Governor, I was proud to work with the Republican legislature to improve the public schools in the State of New Hampshire. We expanded public kindergarten in our State because at the time I became Governor, we didn't have public kindergarten for all students. We were able to open the door for an additional 25,000 kids to go to public kindergarten. We were able to increase funding for schools in New Hampshire during my time as Governor. I learned during those experiences and also as a teacher--I taught in public schools in Dover, New Hampshire and also in Mississippi--the close connection between quality public education and a strong, growing economy.

I taught in Mississippi in 1970. At that time, there was no requirement for all young people to attend school. So if you didn't want to go to school, you didn't have to. We saw the negative impact that had on economic indicators in the State of Mississippi. Since then, the State has adopted compulsory education for students in Mississippi. But it was a great lesson to me to see how important good schools are and how they contribute to a strong economy in this country.

As Governor, when I talked to businesses in the State of New Hampshire, one of the things they told me that they needed in order for their businesses to succeed was a skilled workforce, young people who had a good education, who could learn advanced skills on the job. They looked to locate in communities where there was a strong system of public education.

I value public schools as one of our Nation's bedrock civic and democratic institutions because they provide the best opportunity for kids from all walks of life to get a quality education. They pass on to each new generation, including the children of immigrants, America's shared ideals and values.

Regrettably, after careful study of Mrs. DeVos's record as an activist, I have concluded that she doesn't agree with this view of our public schools. She has no relevant experience as a teacher or as a leader in public schools. She has never attended a public school, and she has not sent any of her children to a public school. To the contrary, she has spent her entire career

and countless millions of dollars of her personal fortune working not to improve public schools but to privatize them, to weaken them by diverting public funds to private and religious schools. Given her past record, it makes no sense to put Mrs. DeVos in charge of the Department of Education unless the aim is to devalue, defund, and perhaps eventually destroy our public schools. I think that is unacceptable.

In my State of New Hampshire, support for our public schools is bipartisan and it is passionate. In rural communities and small towns and our cities across the State, public schools are institutions that have strong support within our communities. They are a big part of our communities' identities and shared experiences. Across centuries and generations in the Granite State, public schools have been at the heart of our common civic life.

I think it is not surprising that my office has been inundated with letters, emails, and phone calls strongly opposing the DeVos nomination. My office has received more than 4,000 letters and emails from Granite Staters. That may not seem like a lot to somebody from the State of California, but from the State of New Hampshire, to have 4,000 letters and emails on a nomination is unheard of. And almost all of them oppose this nomination. In addition, we have received 1,405 telephone calls in opposition and only 3 in support. I am impressed not only by the volume of constituent messages but by the intensity of their opposition.

Megan is a social studies teacher in New Hampshire. She writes:

Mrs. DeVos clearly lacks even a basic understanding of

Federal education policy, laws and instructional practices.

She has no relevant experience. There is just no way I would

ever be certified to instruct students in New Hampshire if I

lacked as much knowledge and experience in my field. But she

gets to be the nation's chief educator? How is this good for

kids?

Roger is a retired public school teacher from the central part of my State, and he writes:

Please reject DeVos because she is anti-public education in

word and in practice, lacking the understanding of the public

education system and having no understanding of the dreamers

sitting in public schools this morning, creating their own

American dreams, learning of the promise and justice that is

America.

Sam from our Seacoast region writes:

It is important that we maintain a strong public school

system. This is not a partisan issue. Any person, regardless

of party, can see that Miss DeVos is unqualified to fill the

position. You need to vote ``no'' to save our education

system.

Mike from one of our university towns writes:

I am really concerned that we might have someone with so

little experience in education and with seemingly anti-public

education views as our next education leader. I fear that a

DeVos confirmation will only exacerbate the already

segregated school experiences that children have in our

country. I want all students to have a fair shake at a high-

quality school experience, not just those who live in wealthy

communities or who have parents savvy enough to advocate on

their behalf.

Many of the letters I have received are from parents who are outraged by Mrs. DeVos's comments on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which is one of the landmark civil rights laws of the 20th century. In response to a question from my colleague, Senator Hassan, Mrs. DeVos made it clear that she was unaware that that law was a Federal law and that it governs all our public schools in the United States.

IDEA ensures that children with disabilities have the opportunity to receive a free appropriate public education and that they are accommodated in our schools and classrooms, just like all other children. In her testimony, Mrs. DeVos said that decisions about how to treat students with disabilities should be left to the States. Can you imagine? What would happen in States that decide they don't want to make sure that those students can go to school?

I received this message from Marilyn, who lives in the western part of New Hampshire. She says:

Thank you for opposing the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as

Education Secretary. She is a dangerous, unqualified choice.

As the parent of a daughter with Down syndrome, I fear for

the future of IDEA if DeVos is in charge.

Ashley Preston, who was the Teacher of the Year in New Hampshire in 2016, wrote this to me:

If our Secretary of Education does not understand and value

the importance of Federal laws such as IDEA, how can we

expect states and local school districts to do that? These

are the elements crucial to ensuring the best chance for our

future.

Mr. President, the Department of Education has oversight not only of K-12 public schools but also higher education, including a portfolio of more than $1.2 trillion in Federal student loans. I have had the opportunity not only to teach in our K-12 schools but to work in public universities in New Hampshire and in private universities. Listening to Mrs. DeVos's testimony, I was appalled by her lack of understanding of higher education policy. She acknowledged that neither she nor her children had ever received a Federal loan or Pell grant. And this is the worst part: When asked to commit to enforcing rules that ensure students are not cheated and end up with no degree but a mountain of student debt--in other words, the predicament of students who went to Trump University and so many other for-profit colleges--she refused to do that. She refused to say that this is something that we should support as a policy in America.

I am also deeply concerned by her support for charter schools that are not accountable and her reputation as ``the four-star general of the voucher movement.'' I believe there is a role for charter schools. I think as we try to improve our public system of higher education, we need to look at a number of models. I voted for New Hampshire's charter school law, but we should hold them accountable just as we hold our public schools accountable. We should ensure that they do not drain resources from public schools.

There was a report that came out in 2013 that was done by a working group under the auspices of the Annenberg Institute for Social Reform. They uncovered similar challenges across charter schools. They found that there was uneven academic performance; that some of them had overly harsh discipline practices; that funding sometimes destabilized traditional schools; that there was a lack of transparency and oversight that led to conflicts of interest and, in some cases, fraud; and that many of them practiced policies that kept students out for various reasons.

Mrs. DeVos was one of the architects of Michigan's first charter school law in 1993. It has been widely criticized for lacking accountability and safeguards for students. In her confirmation hearing, Mrs. DeVos refused to agree that for-profit charter schools should be held to the same standards as public schools. Just as disturbing is her support for school vouchers, which would siphon funding from public schools and divert it to private and religious schools.

Advocates of vouchers like to call it school choice, but, in practice, parents have learned that choice is not a reality. Florida, under Governor Jeb Bush, was the first State to enact a statewide voucher system, and nearly 93 percent of private and parochial schools in Florida--after that law--refused to accept any voucher students.

In New Hampshire, we have parts of the State where, if we don't have public schools, there are no other choices for our students. I don't care whether you have a voucher or not. You can't drive 3 or 4 hours to get to the closest private school.

So let's be clear: Vouchers and other privatization schemes advocated by Mrs. DeVos are not about pedagogy; they are about ideology. They are all about disdain for what many voucher advocates like to call government schools. Well, what they call government schools are our public schools. They are schools that our communities have created and control locally for the education of their kids.

What Mrs. DeVos fails to understand is that quality education has nothing do with whether a school is public or private. We have public schools in New Hampshire that can do better, and we have public schools that are world class. The same can be said about our private schools in New Hampshire. But what counts in public and private schools alike are high-quality teachers, support from parents and communities, facilities where kids can learn and be safe, rigorous academic standards, and the resources to make sure that children get the instruction they need, including individualized assistance for

kids with special needs. What counts is the political and budgetary commitment to create high-quality schools in every neighborhood, regardless of ZIP Code. Because Betsy DeVos does not understand these basic truths about education in America, because she is driven by an ideological hostility to our public schools, she is the wrong person to serve as our Secretary of Education.

I intend to vote no on the nomination of Mrs. DeVos, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in rejecting this unqualified nominee.

I yield the floor.