Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, this morning and throughout the night, the Senate has been considering the nomination of Betsy DeVos to be the next Secretary of Education. My colleagues have come down here to the floor, and I appreciate my colleague, who just completed his comments, for his knowledge and his insights on public education and his passion for a system of education that provides opportunity to every child in America.

We are down here speaking through the night to raise the issue of why the nominee for Secretary of Education is so completely inappropriate. We see the passion that has arisen across America, ordinary citizens calling us up on the phone, inundating our phones, thousands of phone calls--I had more phone calls in a single day than I normally get in a couple of weeks--inundating us with thousands of emails and letters.

Why is there so much public passion about this nomination? The short answer is that public education is a cherished institution in the United States of America. Public schools are a vital pathway through which our children have the opportunity to gain the knowledge that allows them to thrive in our society. We don't want to see that system of public education, that gateway for a successful life, destroyed by Betsy DeVos. That is why the American people are sending us so many letters and emails and making so many phone calls--because Betsy DeVos has no education experience, no public school experience.

Our students, teachers, communities, and our Nation deserve leadership that does have public education experience, someone who does have a passion for the success of every child, not someone who is simply dedicated to trying to tear down public schools so she can run private profit institutions and put money in the bank.

What do we really care about in the United States of America? Do we care about the education of our children or about an entrepreneur hijacking the public education system for personal profit? That is why the citizens of this country are so outraged by this nomination and outraged that Senators on this floor are planning to vote for her later today.

I had the chance to go to school starting in first grade down in Roseburg, OR. Roseburg is a timber town. My mother showed me the path that was somewhere between a quarter of a mile and half a mile long. I walked that path over to the first grade school. It had classrooms that did not have hallways; they opened to the outside. The school ground was a magical place for me to go in the first grade.

I still remember vividly Mrs. Matthews. Mrs. Matthews was a very stern public school teacher. She had probably about 20 people in her classroom, 20 little kids. She was determined that by the end of the first grade, we would all read at the third grade level. That was her mission in life. And we would do math at the third grade level. Thus, every moment in that classroom we were working.

She was a senior teacher. I thought of her as quite old at the time. I don't know if she was in her fifties or sixties. Suddenly that age doesn't seem so old to me now. She was very experienced, and she had her system of working with little kids. She would divide us into groups of about four to five kids, and we would work in different clusters around the schoolroom. She would travel from one cluster to another keeping us on track, making sure we were progressing as we were reading to each other, as we were doing our math problems. By the end of the school year, everybody read at the third-grade level. We were afraid of Mrs. Matthews because she was a very stern teacher, but we all thrived in that classroom because we had a person dedicated to the success of children.

One of the things that helped Mrs. Matthews was that there were 20 students in her classroom. When I went to my son's first grade classroom, there were 34 kids in that classroom. I don't know that Mrs. Matthews' strategy could have worked with 34 children. I don't know if she could have taken 34 kids and gotten them to the third grade level at the end of first grade.

It is unfortunate that we are not providing for our children the same quality of education that our parents provided for us. Yet we are living in a knowledge economy world where public education is much more important today for success than it was a generation ago. So it is more important, but we are funding it less. Certainly we have growing national wealth. Why aren't we making the investment in our public schools?

Along comes Betsy DeVos, who says: Here is an economic opportunity for me to make even more money and convert these public schools to private schools, private for-profit schools. That bothers me an enormous amount because I want to see the resources not go into the bank accounts of wealthy, ambitious entrepreneurs; I want to see those resources go into our public classrooms, which, quite frankly, don't have enough resources as it is.

For first grade, I went up to Portland. My family moved with the timber economy. The mill shut down outside of Roseburg, OR. We had been in Roseburg through first grade. By second grade, my father had taken a job as a mechanic up in Portland. We moved to the public schools of Portland and the following year bought a

house outside of Portland and moved to the David Douglas High School system, where I was from third grade through graduation. That grade school and high school system provided the foundation on which I could pursue virtually any path I put my mind to.

Isn't that the goal in America, that every child should have the opportunity to pursue their dreams, not to have that opportunity cut short by somebody who wants to drain the resources out of our public education system?

When I was in grade school, my father said to me: Son, if you go through the doors of that school and you work hard, you can do just about anything here in America.

I thought that was pretty cool because I lived in a blue-collar community. I knew there were fabulously more affluent communities in different parts of Portland, and our community was not one of them. We were a working-class community. The idea that if I went through those doors and worked hard, I could pursue just about anything was a really cool notion. It gave me a lot of pride in the United States of America, and it gave me a lot of pride in my parents' generation that they were providing public schools to enable every child to have this opportunity to thrive.

That is what we want to have--not a system for the elite, not a system in which the rich get their education over here and they are therefore destined to seize the best jobs in society and generationally build wealth upon wealth upon wealth while the rest of our Nation is left out in the cold--no, a system where every child has the opportunity to thrive. That is the great foundation for a nation that says we are going to dedicate our resources so that all families are lifted up. But that is not the vision of Betsy DeVos. That is why I am on the floor today at 5 a.m. speaking about my concerns about her nomination and what it represents for public schools.

We need, plain and simple, an Education Secretary who actually has experience with public education. Betsy DeVos has none. She did not attend public school. She did not send her children to a public school. She did not volunteer in a public school. She did not get a degree and teach in a public school. I don't know if she has ever set foot in a public school.

The process--the journey of becoming a teacher--is one that requires substantial education so you are prepared to convey and to find the pathway with which children can learn, absorb knowledge, move forward, and be inspired. But Betsy DeVos likes the idea of schools in which there is no accountability for the preparation of the teachers.

Why undermine the success of our children for personal profit? For a moment, think about the type of backgrounds previous Secretaries of Education have had. They have been prepared to understand our school systems and issues before, here in America.

John King was our 10th U.S. Secretary of Education from March of 2016 through January of 2017, just recently. He had a J.D. and a Doctor of Education from Columbia University. He taught in the Massachusetts school system. He had been Commissioner of Education in the State of New York from June 2011 until January 2015. He had been the Deputy Secretary of Education for a little more than a year. He had a lifetime of study about our public education system, a lifetime of dedication to that system, a lifetime of experience in that system brought to bear to make that system work for our children.

How about Arne Duncan, who preceded him? He was the ninth U.S. Secretary of Education, serving from the time President Obama came into the office through December 2015. Arne Duncan graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in sociology. He was deputy chief of staff to the Chicago superintendent from 1999 through 2001. He was superintendent of Chicago Public Schools for 8 years--or almost 8 years--from June 2001 to January 2009. He also brought to bear substantial, extensive experience and an understanding of the issues and how to address them in America.

Let's go back to a Republican administration and Margaret Spellings, our eighth U.S. Secretary of Education, serving for 4 years, from January 2005 through January 2009. She worked on the Education Reform Commission under Texas Governor William Clements. She was executive director for the Texas Association of School Boards.

We can keep going back and see the type of experience that has been brought to bear on this important position. Rod Paige was a son of public school educators. Rod Paige was our seventh U.S. Secretary of Education. Rod Paige taught at Texas Southern University. He was Dean of the College of Education of Texas Southern University. He was a trustee of the board of education of the Houston Independent School District. He was a superintendent of the Houston Independent School District. In other words, as we work backward through his career, he was involved in education in one role after another.

Betsy DeVos has none of that background. She has a background, and she certainly has things she knows well and is very good at, but education--public education--is not one of them. She was chairwoman of the Windquest Group, a private technology and manufacturing investment firm. She was a Republican National Committee member for Michigan from 1992 through 1997. She worked at that point to divert children from our public education system and to divert resources from that system.

Michigan's charter school system, which she has backed, has most of them run by private for-profit companies--80 percent, the largest percentage of the country--companies driven by making a buck and squeezing every dollar out of the system they can rather than squeezing every ability into our children.

Public education being converted into a private profit company is the experience that she brings. She likes the idea of those schools having no accountability because if you have no accountability, you don't have to spend as much money on the kids, and you make more money for yourself.

That sort of self-serving, for-profit depletion of our public schools should not be represented or advocated for by the Secretary of Education.

She has other experience. That experience has to do with being very involved in one party of the United States--the Republican Party-- serving as the Michigan Republican Party chairwoman from 1996 through 2000 and 2003 through 2005. Serving as a party chair is different than gaining experience in public education.

She wanted to further press the case to convert public schools over to for-profit, a strategy that she was benefiting from so much. She worked on a 2000 ballot measure, and the people of Michigan rejected it. She also put a lot of money into a PAC but, again, putting money into an advocacy group--an advocacy group dedicated to depleting our public schools--is not a foundation for running public schools. It is a foundation for not running public schools.

During her confirmation hearing, it became so incredibly evident that she knows nothing about public schools. It makes sense that she has no background because she didn't attend public schools. It makes sense that she didn't learn anything about public schools by teaching; she didn't teach. Or volunteering in ones--she didn't volunteer. It makes sense that she didn't learn about public schools from her children going to public schools because they didn't go to public schools.

You might have thought for all her dedication to converting our public schools over to for-profit schools, she might have learned something along the way, but we found out during her confirmation hearing that she knows literally nothing about public schools.

If she knew she was going to have a confirmation hearing, you would think she would have prepared for this experience. One of the major questions that we wrestled with in public schools is how to use assessment tools and whether they should be used in the context of measuring students' growth or students' proficiency and how that reflects on the teacher.

When asked by Senator Franken about her views in this dialogue on proficiency versus growth as a tool of measurement, Betsy DeVos said: I think if I am understanding your question correctly about proficiency, I would also correlate it to competency and mastery so that each student is

measured according to the advancement they are making in each subject area.

Franken said: That is growth. That is not proficiency. I am talking about the debate between proficiency and growth, and what are your thoughts on that?

She was unable to respond to that question because she was unfamiliar with the issue. That is a fundamental debate that is going on as we try to make sure that we have accountability in our public schools. Perhaps she was not familiar with the issue because she opposes accountability in her for-profit operations, because the less you spend on a student, the more you can put in the bank.

That is a very sad point of view--to put profit over people, and those people are children. Another major issue in our school system is how to address the education of students with disabilities. We have an act called IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. She was asked by Senator Kaine about IDEA and said that is a matter best left to the States.

Her response worries educators and those with disabled family members because before IDEA passed in 1975--so it has been with us for 42 years now--only one in five students with disabilities received a public education.

I will put it differently. Four out of five or 80 percent of students with disabilities were left out in the cold. They didn't get the benefit of a public education. Our goal from 1975 forward as a nation has been to make sure students with disabilities also receive the best education that their circumstances enable them to have.

Before 1975, many States had laws on the books that specifically excluded disabled students. That began to change with a series of court cases and the eventual passage of IDEA, a vision in which we said: Let's embrace our students with disabilities and give them a pathway to the maximum opportunity they might be able to have in life.

IDEA gives such students the right to a free and appropriate public education. That is the wording of the law--free and public education, and the right that this education should take place in ``the least restrictive environment'' possible.

A right to free and appropriate public education and that it should take place in the least restrictive environment has meant so much to millions of our students who have some disability in life because we haven't said to them we are setting you aside. We have said: We are going to empower you to seize all the opportunities you can possibly seize by making sure you have an education, an appropriate education in the least restrictive environment.

When Betsy DeVos responded to the issue about IDEA and said it is a matter best left to the States, people across the Nation envisioned how States used to operate, which they basically said: Disabled child, there is no pathway to a successful life.

That is not the way we should treat our children with disabilities.

To facilitate these rights, each student under IDEA receives an individualized education program, referred to as an IEP, a legal document that lays out how public education will be tailored to their needs. Once a year, the family, the student, the school officials, and experts gather around a table to update the IEP, the individualized education program, for that particular student, based on that student's abilities and disabilities.

The IEP lays out the accommodations the student may get in the classroom and any related services the school will pay for, such as occupational therapy or speech pathology and services. IEP can even be used to pay for certain kinds of private school education in the event a family requests it and the IEP determines that it is in the best interests of the child.

Betsy DeVos would throw all this out the window and say: Let's not as a nation guarantee an opportunity for these children. Let's not require accountability for our States to provide an education to these children. Let's not provide a pathway. Let's leave it to a State. Maybe they will get an opportunity, maybe not, and that is OK with her.

It is not OK with me. It is not OK to the parents of the thousands of children who wrestle with a disability in my home State of Oregon. It is not OK to the parents across this Nation that their children be tossed aside in the vision of Betsy DeVos.

Betsy DeVos had little constructive or helpful things to say on how she would protect students in our schools and on college campuses if she became Secretary of Education. Sexual assault on campuses is a very significant issue. It is estimated that roughly one-fifth of women on campuses are victimized by sexual assault, and many of them know the offender; that of every 1,000 women attending a college or university, there are 35 incidents of rape each academic year. Only a small portion of those are reported to law enforcement.

So Senator Casey asked her if she will commit to maintaining President Obama's attempts to curtail sexual assaults, and the answer didn't leave confidence with the Senator or the committee that she would be dedicated to that issue or understood that issue.

Senator Murphy asked Betsy DeVos whether guns have a place in and around our schools, and again she seemed unfamiliar with the national debate. She said: ``I think that is best left for locales and States to decide.'' And referring to a school in Wyoming, she said: ``I think probably there, I imagine you need a gun in school to protect against grizzlies.''

Senator Murphy asked whether she would support President Trump's proposal to ban gun-free school zones, and she responded that she would.

There are many challenges in the details of this debate, but Betsy DeVos didn't seem prepared to understand and be able to articulate those issues.

It remains very clear for many of us all that has occurred in America since 2013. There have been 210 school shootings. There were 64 school shootings in 2015. In Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT--the Senator from Connecticut was speaking during the previous hour--there was an assault that killed 20 first grade children and killed 6 adults. And this question of how to create a secure environment is one that any nominee for public education should have a deep understanding of.

Betsy DeVos has a questionable history in terms of her interest and concern about LGBTQ rights for students, so that is a concern as well.

She does have this history of this war against public schools in Michigan, and if we had a department for a war against public schools, maybe she would be the right person to lead it. It would be a mission I would disagree with because I am here to tell you that this vision of public schools--every child has the opportunity to thrive is a vision we have embraced in America and should continue to embrace.

If we believe in the American dream, if we believe in opportunity for all, then we should not have millionaire Senators voting to confirm a billionaire Secretary who knows nothing about public education and the struggle for education among working Americans and Americans with modest means. That is the concern--Senators living in a bubble confirming a Secretary who lives in an ultra-rich bubble and knows nothing about our public schools.

We can take a look at some of the schools that Betsy DeVos has promoted with her vision of no accountability. Seventy-nine percent of Michigan charter schools are located in Detroit. Very few perform in the top tier of schools.

There is a school in Brightmoor, a charter boasting more than a decade of abysmal test scores--not good test scores, not outstanding test scores, but terrible test scores.

That school is not alone. Another charter school, Hope Academy-- serving the community around Ground River for 20 years--test scores have been among the lowest in the State throughout those two decades. In 2013, the school ranked in the first percentile. That means out of 100 schools, it was the worst. But its charter was renewed under this vision of no accountability.

How about Woodward Academy? It is a charter that has bumped along at the bottom of school achievement since 1998, while its operator, despite running an abysmal school, a terrible school, was allowed to expand and run other schools.

How about the idea of outstanding schools, not terrible schools? How about the idea of resources invested in the success of the school, not an entrepreneurial for-profit strategy designed

to squeeze as much money out of that school as you possibly can at the expense of our children?

Stephen Henderson, an editor at the Detroit Free Press, summed up the carnage in Michigan--Betsy DeVos's destructive results in Michigan--as the following: ``Largely as a result of the DeVos lobbying, Michigan tolerates more low-performing charter schools than just about any other State, and it lacks any effective mechanism for shutting down or even improving failing charters.'' That is a powerful statement, that DeVos's assault on public schools--converting them to charters with no mechanism for shutting down poorly run charter schools, no mechanism for improving failing charter schools--Betsy DeVos's vision of zero accountability--producing failing schools--is an assault on the opportunity for the success of our children. And it should not be entertained, and she should not be within a thousand miles of the Department of Education.

A columnist, an editor with the Detroit Free Press, went on to summarize that ``as a result of DeVos's interference and destruction of the schools in Michigan, we are a laughingstock in national educational circles, and a pariah among reputable charter school operators, who have not opened schools in Detroit because of the wild West nature of the educational landscape here.''

Often what we see with this strategy from the very rich who want to masquerade as helping our children and challenging communities is what they really want: They want the government to pay for their elite education in private schools. Take the money out of the public system and help the wealthy in America be even wealthier by subsidizing or paying for their children to go to elite schools.

The strategies that Betsy DeVos implements results in this failing system in Michigan that has become ``a laughingstock in national educational circles, with no accountability for improving the schools, and no accountability for shutting them down.''

If anyone was running a private business with no accountability, that business would fail. But when it comes to squeezing money out of the public system, there are opportunists who say: Here is something. Don't care much about public education, but I sure see an opportunity. I smell an opportunity for profit right here. I can squeeze that school, and I can make a lot of money.

That person belongs nowhere near our public education system.

There are other things that concern folks. In 1983, Betsy DeVos's family funded the creation of the Family Research Council. FRC is known for its incendiary anti-LGBT agenda. It is known for its promotion of junk science, claiming a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. The FRC thanks on its Web site the DeVos and Prince families of Michigan for establishing its DC base. And FRC advocates for conversion or reparative therapy.

Well, in all those ways, it sends a message that as the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos is not going to watch out for LGBTQ students, who have plenty of difficulty figuring out life and a pathway to life in a world in which they don't necessarily find support in many places. And their concern is amplified by her opposition to nondiscrimination protections for the LGBTQ community. In fact she has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat marriage equality--an opportunity for opportunity in our Nation. Funding these anti-LGBTQ causes is plenty of concern for students and their parents across America.

Well, why is she nominated to be Secretary of Education? I think an objective observer would say that she has been a massive donor to the party of the President, and that objective observer would be right. Some $200 million was donated to the President's party.

When discussing her contributions in 1997, DeVos said the following: ``I have decided to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now, I simply concede the point.'' She continued: ``They are right. We do expect something in return.'' She concluded: ``We expect a return on our investment.'' Well, she is seeking a return on her investment by seeking the nomination and receiving the nomination to Secretary of Education, but pay-to-play politics has no place in our public schools. Let me repeat that once more. Pay-to-play politics has no place in our public schools. Our children's education is not for sale. That is why we are here tonight on the floor of the Senate conveying our passionate dissent against this nomination.

The Secretaries in the Cabinet--their position--should not be sold to the highest political bidder, and certainly one should have a small modicum of experience to bring to the post, particularly when it comes to the education of our children. Throw on top of that this pay-to-play politics. Throw on top of that a determination to destroy our public schools and to turn them into for-profit operations for the benefit of the rich, to squeeze profits out of these schools that are investing in our children, and this person is uniquely unqualified, the most unqualified individual to be considered for a post of this nature probably in the history of the United States of America.

I was home in Oregon last week. I attended a rally of folks who wanted to share their thoughts about Betsy DeVos's confirmation. CREDO helped organize the rally, an organization that fights for progressive change, for opportunity for every child, opportunity for every family to thrive.

In a short period of time, 1.4 million Americans had signed the CREDO petition for her nomination to be blocked. Just yesterday, I was at a rally outside the Russell Senate Office Building, just a few yards from here, where hundreds of activists came out to rally against her confirmation.

The phones in my office have been ringing off the hook for weeks, with folks calling in opposed to this nomination. We have received 19,667 letters and emails from constituents--that is the last count-- who are writing in opposition to her nomination--opposition to potential confirmation by the Senate.

These letters, these phone calls, they are coming from teachers and administrators, they are coming from parents, they are coming from concerned citizens who know what powerful role public education has played in the opportunity for our children. Now, this vote today has been laid out as something that virtually equally divides the Senate; that there may be 50 votes for her nomination, maybe 50 votes against.

Half of the Senate saying no is a rather spectacular rejection of this individual, but we need another Senator. We need a 51st Senator who values our children over for-profit destruction of our public schools. Is there not one more Senator who will stand up and fight for our children here in the Senate?

We need a Secretary of Education who knows about education policy, a Secretary who has experience as a teacher, who has experience as an administrator, and who wants to fight for our schools to thrive, not for our schools to be exploited, but we don't have that nominee today. So that is when this body needs to stand up and say no to the President; say, no, Mr. President. We know you were pushed to do this because this individual donated massive amounts of money to your party, but that is not a qualification for serving as Secretary of Education.

We need for the Senate to reject this and the principle it represents, the principle that experience matters, that the heart for our children matters, not how much money you pump into the President's party. I think it might be helpful to look at some of the writings that have been put forward. Let me read an op-ed from an Oregon paper, the Register-Guard, our Eugene paper. This article is by Belicia Castellano. She writes the following: After having donated $9.5 million to Donald Trump's Presidential campaign, President-Elect Trump selected Betsy DeVos as his Secretary of Education. This decision has been widely viewed as controversial. With Trump's decision, it is apparent that education policy will focus on the privatization of public education. DeVos is not a suitable candidate for this position and much more consideration should be taken into who has offered such a significant role in our government and society. DeVos would not be actively supporting our public schools, and would not commit to advocating for only public schools. We need a Secretary of Education advocate of all teachers, principals, staff, students, and families within different

types of schools. DeVos never worked in a public school and will struggle to empathize with public school students and teachers. In order to hold the position of Secretary of Education, an individual should have a teaching license or have some experience working within the field of education.

I guess that is kind of the point here, is someone should have some experience working within the field of education. This Register-Guard editorial said:

The morning after Election Day, a Register-Guard editor

asked University of Oregon President Michael Schill what he

knew about President-elect Donald Trump's views on higher

education. Schill's answer: hardly anything.

It goes on to say: DeVos is a long-time advocate of charter schools and school vouchers, but the Chronicle of Higher Education and other publications have turned up few grains of information after sifting through her positions on issues affecting colleges and universities. DeVos's home State of Michigan has more charter schools run by private companies than any other State, she is expected to be friendly to for profit colleges. Maybe, maybe not--who knows.

So the point is that the Secretary of Education should also have experience related to higher education. Let me speak a little bit to that. Our public K-12 system, which has now become sometimes a preschool through community college system, or a K-20 system, has expanded vision.

We have started to understand that just as we said at some point that the equivalent of a high school education is essential for a pathway for opportunity in our country, so now is the ability for many visions of what you will do with your life, to attend school after high school; that is, higher education. Now there are many pathways to success through apprenticeship programs and other routes that we should publicize and honor, many trades that need more people in them, very successful pathways to stable family finances, a foundation for raising your children.

But much of our economy does require the experience of gaining a higher education through our community and 4-year universities. The cost of this pathway has exploded. There was a chart a couple of years ago in the New York Times that showed the cost of different products over a 10-year period. Over that period, the product that had increased the most in price was the cost of a university. University education tuition, that was the very top curve. The bottom curve--the things that had decreased the most in price--was large flat-screen TVs. Now, you don't need a large flat-screen TV to thrive in life, but for many opportunities in our economy, you do need a 4-year education at a university. So the thing we need, our students need, for many pathways had increased the most in price. That cost effectively creates a massive barrier. If you are a millionaire or you live in a bubble community, a gated community, you don't really see this because parents just write a check.

But in my community, in a blue-collar community, people worry about this all the time. Parents worry about whether they can save a little money to help their child go to college. Then they look at that savings in the context of the cost of college and realize it is not enough and that their children will have to take on a lot of debt to be able to attend even a public 4-year school.

So back a couple of years ago, I held a whole series of meetings with students on different campuses in Oregon. The students brought balloons that said on the balloon what their debt was or their anticipated debt would be at the time of their graduation from college. Some of them said, $22,000, some said $14,000, but a lot of those balloons said $55,000 or $85,000. Some students had gone from undergraduate to graduate school, and their numbers started to get to three figures: $112,000.

It is in light of that debt in the higher education system that parents start to wonder whether college makes sense because with that kind of debt, that is half the price of a home in my community. You can buy a two- or three-bedroom house for $250,000 in my community, although the price has been going up.

So you are saddling a child with a debt the size of a home mortgage or at least a good portion of a home mortgage. The fear is, what happens if you graduate with that debt and you actually can't get a job to pay off that debt. That concern has many folks saying to their children in middle school and in high school that they are not sure their child should follow that pathway.

When a child hears from their parents that they are not sure that pathway makes sense, that affects and reverberates back to the way they treat junior high and the way they treat high school because they see it as a pathway that has been paved for them by society so they can thrive. And if they will be able to afford public education on through college, that is more inspiring and more powerful and can persuade a person to work hard in junior high and high school than the message that, no, it is so expensive we don't think that you are going to be successful going that route and it is going to be a trap. That message hurts our public schools. But Betsy DeVos has none of this understanding, how the high cost of college then reverberates back into junior high and high school.

How about the issue of STEM education--science, technology, education, mathematics--and the role that plays in our schools. You know, I feel particularly lucky in life. I am the first in my family to have gone to college. My mother and father came from very, very modest backgrounds. Yet thanks to the economy after World War II, they were able to buy a home on my father's blue-collar income. They were able to provide a foundation for the family to thrive.

My father told my sister and me: We didn't go to college, but we hope you will. We are saving some money to help that be possible. Even though I had no understanding of what college was all about, the message from my parents, that they were encouraging my sister and me to aspire to that pathway and that they were going to help us, just sent a message: It is a feasible pathway.

So I always assumed, not knowing the details of what college cost or what scholarships might be available, I just always assumed it would be possible to go. We need a system of higher education in which people can afford to go to college without massive debt. What is important to understand is this affects not only the opportunity after high school, it affects how children feel about schools when they are in school.

We see this, for example, in the DREAMS Program, where children are sponsored from grade school, and they are told: Listen, you have been the beneficiary of an individual who is going to pay your college expenses and for a program for you to get extra mentoring during your K-12 years of school. Those children thrive at a whole different level in public schools than the children in an adjacent classroom who don't have that sponsor and don't have that vision laid out for them that there is an affordable college awaiting them.

So that is an issue we need to have an advocate for, as Secretary of Education, as well as an advocate for our K-12 system, and we don't have that in Betsy DeVos. She doesn't bring her personal experience in life to bear with that.

I am going to wrap up my part of this conversation by noting that this is a potential turning point in our history. If we hand over the reins of our education system to a person who wants to see it as one more corporation, one more opportunity for profit, we will destroy a system that is the foundation of the American dream, the foundation of the vision for every child to thrive. We are a society to make sure that the pathway of opportunity is there for each and every child, including children who are English language learners, including children who have disabilities, including children who come from blue collar communities, as I do. Every child. That is the vision we are fighting for that is about to be deeply damaged.

Should the reins of public education be handed over to an individual who wants to destroy it?

That is why I am encouraging our colleagues to search their hearts, step aside from party politics and pay-to-play politics, and fight for the children of the United States of America.

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

Mr. President, will the Senator from Washington yield for a question?

I appreciate your point and the belief that the son or daughter of a millwright, a mill worker as I was, should have the same opportunity as the son or daughter of a CEO in a big company. That is embedded in the notion of quality public schools.

What I was really struck by was that DeVos wants to divert all these public funds from our schools to for-profit schools, and if it is for- profit, you squeeze down the services in the school to maximize the profit, and that is just exactly the type of attack on our children that we can't tolerate, but I was also struck about how she imposes the accountability for these alternative schools. The columnist Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press said:

Largely as a result of DeVos's lobby, Michigan tolerates

more low-performing charter schools than just about any other

State. It lacks any effective mechanism for shutting down or

even improving failing charters.

He goes on to say:

We are a laughingstock in national education circles and a

pariah among reputable charter school operators who have not

opened schools in Detroit because of the wild west nature of

the educational landscape here.

Do you share the concern about the complete lack of accountability of these for-profit schools that are pulling the funds out of our public schools in Michigan?

I thank the Senator from Washington for her answer. So often I have heard speeches about accountability from across the aisle. This is a case where accountability matters a tremendous amount because it determines whether our children have a fair shot at driving America. So I thank the Senator from Washington for elucidating us in regard to that issue.

A parliamentary inquiry.

If a Member of the Senate is being considered for nomination, and we are exercising our advice and consent power, and if there is factual conduct in that individual's background that is presented on the floor that is uncomplimentary, would presenting the facts of that conduct in the process of debating an individual be considered in violation of rule XIX?

Mr. President, just to make sure I understand that clearly, if we are considering a nominee who happens to be a Senator and we state factual elements of their background, for example, the conviction of a crime that is inappropriate conduct in the past, stating the factual record about an individual would be considered in violation of rule XIX?

Just to clarify, if I could, therefore, the point is that something could be absolutely true, as, perhaps, a point that was made earlier--a statement can be true in a letter that is presented-- but even if it is true and accurate for a person under consideration for a nomination, it would still be in violation. In other words, the fact that an individual is found in violation of rule XIX doesn't mean that the statement had to be false. It could have been a true statement?

Thank you.

Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. SCHUMER addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, I will be speaking later tonight, perhaps about 2 o'clock, possibly on through 4 o'clock, but I wanted to take a few moments now and share some of the letter that was discussed earlier and share it in a fashion that is appropriate under our rules. I would like to thank very much my colleague from New Jersey for yielding a few minutes in order to do so.

I think it is important for us to understand the context of what this letter was all about. This letter was a statement of Coretta Scott King, and it was dated Thursday, March 13, 1986. She noted: ``My longstanding commitment which I shared with my husband Martin''--of course that is Martin Luther King--``to protect and enhance the rights of black Americans, rights which include equal access to the Democratic process, tells me to testify today.'' Then in her letter she goes on to essentially present an essay about the essential role of voting rights in our country, and so I will continue to read in that regard. She says:

The Voting Rights Act was and still is vitally important to

the future of democracy in the United States. I was

privileged to join Martin and many others during the Selma to

Montgomery march for voting rights in 1965. Martin was

particularly impressed by the determination to get the

franchise of blacks in Selma and neighboring Perry County. As

he wrote--

Now she is quoting Martin Luther King--

``Certainly no community in the history of the negro

struggle has responded with the enthusiasm of Selma and her

neighboring

town of Marion. Where Birmingham depended largely upon

students and unemployed adults to participate in nonviolent

protests of the denial of the franchise, Selma has involved

fully 10 percent of the negro population in active

demonstrations and at least half the negro population of

Marion was arrested on 1 day.''

That was the end of the quote from her husband. She continued writing:

Martin was referring, of course, to a group that included

the defendants recently prosecuted for assisting elderly and

illiterate blacks to exercise that franchise.

Each time she refers to franchise, she is referring to this fundamental right to vote under our Constitution.

And she continued:

In fact, Martin anticipated from the depth of their

commitment 20 years ago, that a united political organization

would remain in Perry County long after the other marchers

had left. This organization, the Perry County Civic League,

started by Mr. Turner, Mr. Hogue, and others, as Martin

predicted, continued ``to direct the drive for votes and

other rights.''

That is a quote from her husband. And then she continued. In this letter, she says:

In the years since the Voting Rights Act was passed, Black

Americans in Marion, Selma, and elsewhere have made important

strides in their struggle to participate actively in the

electoral process. The number of Blacks registered to vote in

key Southern states has doubled [she said] since 1965. This

would not have been possible without the Voting Rights Act.

She continues in her essay. She says:

However, Blacks still fall far short of having equal

participation in the electoral process. Particularly in the

South, efforts continue to be made to deny Blacks access to

the polls, even where Blacks constitute the majority of the

voters. It has been a long up-hill struggle to keep alive the

vital legislation that protects the most fundamental right to

vote. A person who has exhibited so much hostility to the

enforcement of those laws, and thus, to the exercise of those

rights by Black people should not be elevated to the federal

bench.

She continues in her letter to note:

Twenty years ago, when we marched from Selma to Montgomery,

the fear of voting was real, as the broken bones and bloody

heads in Selma and Marion bore witness. As my husband wrote

at the time, ``it was not just a sick imagination that

conjured up the vision of a public official sworn to uphold

the law, who forced an inhuman march upon hundreds of Negro

children; who ordered the Rev. James Bevel to be chained to

his sickbed; who clubbed a Negro woman registrant, and who

callously inflicted repeated brutalities and indignities upon

nonviolent Negroes peacefully petitioning for their

constitutional right to vote.

This is what Martin Luther King is referring to was the specific actions of sheriffs in the South who were representing the law. And then Coretta Scott King continued:

Free exercise of voting rights is so fundamental to

American democracy that we cannot tolerate any form of

infringement of those rights. Of all the groups who have been

disenfranchised in our nation's history, none has struggled

longer or suffered more in the attempt to win the vote than

Black citizens. No group has had access to the ballot box

denied so persistently and intently.

Over the past century, a broad array of schemes have been

used in attempts to block the Black vote. The range of

techniques developed with the purpose of repressing black

voting rights run the gamut from the straightforward

application of brutality against black citizens who tried to

vote, to such legalized frauds as ``grandfather clause''

exclusions and rigged literacy tests.

Now she proceeds to note that other techniques were used to intimidate Black voters and that included investigations into the absentee voting process, and this concerned her a great deal. And she notes that Whites have been using the absentee process to their advantage for years without incident. Then, when Blacks, realizing its strength, began to use it with success, criminal investigations were begun.

Then she proceeds to address that there were occasions where individuals with legal authority chose to initiate cases specifically against African Americans while ignoring allegations of similar behavior by Whites, ``choosing instead to chill the exercise of the franchise by Blacks by his misguided investigation.''

Let me continue later in the letter. She addresses her concern over the prosecution illegally withholding from the defense critical statements made by witnesses and that witnesses who did testify were pressured and intimidated into submitting the ``correct'' testimony. That is incorrect testimony.

Many elderly Blacks were visited multiple times by the FBI

who then hauled them over 180 miles by bus to a grand jury in

Mobile when they could have more easily testified at a grand

jury twenty miles away in Selma. These voters, and others,

have announced they are now never going to vote again.

She obviously is addressing issue after issue that affected the Black franchise, the franchise of African Americans, the ability to vote, and then she returns to her essay about how important this is.

The exercise of the franchise is an essential means by

which our citizens ensure that those who are governing will

be responsible. My husband called it the number one civil

right. The denial of access to the ballot box ultimately

results in the denial of other fundamental rights. For, it is

only when the poor and disadvantaged are empowered that they

are able to participate actively in the solutions to their

own problems.

Coretta Scott King continues:

We still have a long way to go before we can say that

minorities no longer need to be concerned about

discrimination at the polls. Blacks, Hispanics, Native

Americans and Asian Americans are grossly underrepresented at

every level of government in America. If we are going to make

our timeless dream of justice through democracy a reality, we

must take every possible step to ensure that the spirit and

intent of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fifteenth

Amendment of the Constitution is honored.

The federal courts hold a unique position in our

constitutional system, ensuring that minorities and other

citizens without political power have a forum in which to

vindicate their rights. Because of this unique role, it is

essential that the people selected to be federal judges

respect the basic tenets of our legal system: respect for

individual rights and a commitment to equal justice for all.

The integrity of the Courts, and thus the rights they

protect, can only be maintained if citizens feel confident

that those selected as federal judges will be able to judge

with fairness others holding differing views.

And she concludes her letter having examined a number of incidents in the historical record with this conclusion:

I do not believe Jefferson Sessions possesses the requisite

judgment, competence, and sensitivity to the rights

guaranteed by the federal civil rights laws to qualify for

appointment to the federal district court.

And that is the context of her letter; that voting rights matter a tremendous amount. I applaud the efforts of my colleague from Massachusetts to make this point and share this essay with the body of the Senate earlier this evening.

I yield.

Well, the answer is that it does have a date, and that is Thursday, March 13, 1986.

I am.

That occasion was a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the potential appointment of the individual to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.

I do not know if it was made a matter of record.

My impression initially was that she had read this letter at the hearing, but I am not sure if it was presented in person or as a document submitted to the committee.

I believe that is probably correct.

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

Mr. President, I am rising to speak this morning about the nomination of our colleague, Senator Jeff Sessions from Alabama, to become the 84th Attorney General of the United States. As the highest law enforcement officer in the land, it is the responsibility of the Attorney General to ensure that all Americans receive the equal justice under the law they are entitled to as American citizens.

A commitment to that equal justice has rarely been more necessary than it is today. We need an Attorney General wholly committed to serving the people of the Nation, and we need an Attorney General who fights to expand American's civil rights, not to restrict them, hobble them, or eliminate them, or to eliminate the Justice Department's Office of Civil Rights.

We need an Attorney General who will stand up to the President when he tries to put an illegal and unconstitutional policy in place. So it has been part of our journey, the story of America, that we have strived to form a more perfect union. We have worked over time--like Martin Luther King said, the long arc of history bends toward justice.

But we have worked to bend toward justice. Our vision of opportunity was incomplete at the founding of our Nation. It was not extended to all genders and all ethnicities and all races. We have worked hard to change that, but here we are at this point in time, still not at the end of that journey.

Part of the question is, How does any given individual fit into the position of Attorney General in that fight for that more perfect vision of our Nation?

So I thought I would share a little bit about that. Hillary Shelton, the Director of NAACP's Washington office, told the New Republic that Senator Sessions has ``consistently opposed the bread and butter civil rights agenda.'' When the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 2013 with Shelby v. Holder, Senator Sessions celebrated the decision saying: If you go to Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, people are not denied a vote because of the color of their skin.

Well, indeed, part of this--the point is, when the Voting Rights Act was in place, it prevented many activities that would have otherwise denied the vote. We have seen the resurgence of all kinds of measures since the Voting Rights Act was modified by the Supreme Court, which it eliminated key provisions.

We have seen the ``almost surgical precision'' of North Carolina's voter ID law that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down because they were created specifically to reduce the vote of African Americans. We are living in times that it just feels like our Nation is a bit under siege.

During the campaign of last year, we had so many divisive attacks as part of the Presidential primaries. Even during the general election, very divisive rhetoric passed from the man who would then become our President, President Trump--attacks on women, attacks on minorities, attacks on African Americans, attacks on Hispanics, attacks on people with disabilities.

Yet, against that, we have a vision of a system of law that treats everyone equally, impartially. We learned when we were children that Lady Liberty wears a blindfold with the scales of justice in her hand. We need an Attorney General who has at their core that vision of impartial justice, justice for every American, justice regardless of skin color, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of geography. That is essential, and we need it now particularly in a powerful way to help address the divisive rhetoric of the last year, which has left many people doubting that their government is willing to fight for them, that they will receive this form of impartial justice.

We have seen what has happened with the strong work of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division under President Obama. For more than half a century, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division fought for and enforced laws that uphold the basic rights of all Americans, steadily expanding opportunities.

The work of that division was stifled, restricted in many ways during George W. Bush's administration. But under President Obama, the Civil Rights Division has worked hard to apply, in a powerful way, civil rights for all Americans. In just the last few weeks of the Obama administration, they won the first hate crime case involving a transgender victim, they sued two cities that were blocking mosques from opening, they settled lending discrimination charges with two banks and sued a third, they filed legal briefs on behalf of New York teenagers held in solitary confinement, and they accused a business in Louisiana of moving mental patients into nursing homes. They were actively, aggressively fighting for the rights of all Americans.

Many wonder now, under the new administration, whether we will have a powerful Civil Rights Division fighting for those whom others would choose to exploit. Senator Sessions has downplayed the need for the Justice Department to prosecute crimes against women and members of the LGBTQ community, saying: I am not sure women or people with different sexual orientations face discrimination. I just don't see it, he said.

Well, if you talk to LGBTQ Americans, they will tell you their stories of harassment and discrimination. So it is very hard not to be aware of the extraordinary amount of discrimination they experience, unless you are determined not to see it. To those who say we don't see discrimination, if you ask, you will hear the stories of discrimination. You will hear the stories of profiling, individual young African-American men picked out time and time again to be stopped and questioned at a rate that someone of a different skin color would not experience, but you do not see it unless you open your eyes to see it. At his confirmation hearing, Senator Sessions said: These lawsuits undermine respect for police officers. He was referring to the investigation of two dozen police agencies, knowing that the Civil Rights Division reached consent decrees with 14 of them.

He said: These lawsuits undermine the respect of police officers and create an impression that the entire department is not doing their work consistent with fidelity to law and fairness. Well, let me explain that the reason the departments were investigated is because there were a lot of reports that in fact they were not doing their work consistent with fidelity to the law. It was not an impression; it was a report about failure to do that.

Don't we want an Attorney General who rather than relegating the complaint to, well, don't pursue them because it creates an impression they are

not doing work, instead says: These are complaints we must investigate and remedy that situation. That is the responsibility of the Civil Rights Division, to investigate and to remedy, and that is what this division did under President Obama. They didn't turn a blind eye. They didn't say that would be embarrassing to the Department, but my colleague had a different take, saying: We need to be careful before we do that because it might create an impression that they are not doing their work well. Just think if we take that attitude.

We anticipate to have hearings for a labor commissioner. The nominee for Labor runs a company that has a tremendous number of Hardee's and Carl's Jr. outlets, and those outlets have a horrendous record of labor rights abuses, but we wouldn't know about those abuses if the investigator said: We won't investigate because it might create an impression that they are doing something wrong.

So I am very concerned about the attitude that you don't investigate because you might embarrass someone.

When there are reports of injustice, that is the point, that it gets investigated. And it not only gets investigated in order that the problems will get remedied but also so it will send a message to others to operate within the bounds of the law.

Our next Attorney General needs to make civil rights a priority, fighting for them, ensuring them, securing them as the North Star of the Justice Department--not something that can simply be left to the States, not something that can be ignored, not something that will be allowed to slip backward.

Communities of color aren't the only ones watching Senator Sessions' confirmation process with some anxiety. Over the last 8 years, the rights of the LGBTQ community have leapt forward in incredible ways, from the greater acceptance of gay and lesbian Americans and transgender Americans. And certainly we cannot forget the historic milestone of the legalization of same-sex marriage a year and a half ago. But so many of these long-fought-for and hard-won rights are so new that the community is terrified that President Trump's administration will work to restrict those rights or roll those rights back. But it is the duty of the Attorney General to protect those rights, to fight for those rights.

So it is of some concern--for me, it is a substantial concern--that the nominee voted against the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This act was passed on October 22, 2009, and signed by President Obama 6 days later. It was part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2010, and it expands the 1969 U.S. Federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

The bill removes the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity, like voting or going to schools. It is much, much broader. It gives Federal authorities a greater ability to engage in hate crimes investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue.

It provided funding for fiscal years 2010 to 2012 to help State and local agencies pay for investigations and prosecuting hate crimes.

It requires the FBI--the Federal Bureau of Investigation--to track statistics of hate crimes based on gender and gender identity. Hate crimes for other groups were already being tracked.

It was named after Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a student, was tied to a fence, tortured, and left to die in Laramie, WY, because of his sexuality. In that same year, James Byrd, an African-American man, was tied to a truck by two White supremacists. He was dragged behind it and was decapitated in Jasper, TX. At the time, Wyoming hate crime laws did not recognize homosexuals as a subset class, and Texas had no hate crimes laws at all.

Supporters of an expansion in hate crimes laws argue that hate crimes are worse than regular crimes without a prejudice motivation from a psychological perspective. The time it takes to mentally recover from a hate crime is almost twice as long as it is for a regular crime. And LGBTQ people feel as if they are being punished for their sexuality, which leads to a higher incidence of depression, anxiety, and post- traumatic stress disorder.

In short, in multiple ways, in ways I have enumerated, this law more aggressively pursued justice. I was pleased to be here as a first-year Senator to be able to support that law. Hate crimes tear at our collective spirit. They are based on divisions in our society, divisions that some choose to amplify and inflame, divisions that victimize people for being who they are as individuals.

I was proud of this Chamber, of this Senate, that we passed a bill that would give State and local law enforcement the necessary tools to prevent and prosecute these types of crimes and move our Nation down a path toward equality--equality under the law and freedom from persecution. But my colleague, the nominee, voted against this pursuit of greater justice for a persecuted group within our society, and that certainly bothers me substantially. It is my understanding that he didn't feel that people actually faced discrimination, but the fact is, they do.

LGBTQ individuals, especially transgender women of color, are more likely than any other group to be targets of discrimination and hate crimes. Across the category, and more so in some, look at the 49 people killed, the 53 more injured at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando last summer. The attacker purposely targeted a gay nightclub for his attack. LGBTQ people are twice as likely as African Americans to be targets of hate crimes. Nearly one-fifth of the 5,462 so-called single-bias hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2014 were because of the person's sexuality or perceived orientation.

Another issue was raised in 2010 when the proposal was put forward to repeal a discriminatory law in the military, the don't ask, don't tell law, which barred openly gay and lesbian individuals from serving in our armed services. My colleague, our nominee, said that gay servicemembers would have a corrosive effect on morale, essentially saying discrimination is justified because of the prejudices of others who serve. But it is not justified, and the prejudices have taken a bit of movement along that journey toward justice.

More than 14,500 people were discharged from the military during the 18 years of don't ask, don't tell. An estimated 66,000 lesbian, gay, and bisexual servicemembers were in the military at the time the ban was lifted. But here is what happened after that 2010 change--a change that our nominee opposed. The military family embraced the LGBTQ community, and instead of having a corrosive effect, repealing don't ask, don't tell has strengthened the military family. In fact, in 2016, just last year, the first openly gay Army Secretary was confirmed, Eric Fanning. Last year, the Navy named a ship after Harvey Milk, the gay politician and former member of the Navy who was assassinated in 1978.

So a robust pursuit of equality would have been to voice principled opposition to this discrimination in armed services that was actually robbing our armed services of a tremendous amount of talent and experience and was damaging the lives of those who were expelled from the military. That would have been a principled pursuit of justice, but that is not the path my colleague, our nominee, chose to travel. Instead, it was a path of justifying discrimination, justifying injustice.

During the confirmation hearing, my colleague, our nominee, softened his stance on LGBTQ issues, and he said he would uphold the statute protecting LGBT people's safety and ensure that the community's civil rights are enforced. Well, I wish we had more statutes that protected LGBT people's safety. Promising to uphold them when they largely don't exist is somewhat of an empty promise. It sounds good, but it lacks punch.

We had a debate in this Chamber about the Employment Non- Discrimination Act. This act was specifically about anti-discrimination in the process of job hiring in America, and I was deeply involved in this effort.

Back in Oregon, when I became speaker, I worked to end discrimination for our LGBT community--discrimination in hiring, discrimination in public accommodations, discrimination on a whole spectrum of aspects of our society. And we passed a very strong law in the State of Oregon to end that discrimination, and a piece of

it--a big piece of it--was to end employment discrimination. How can we claim, as a nation, that we are the land of opportunity if we slam shut the door to opportunity on a large number of our fellow Americans by allowing discrimination in employment?

Well, because of that work I did in Oregon--when I came here to the Senate, Senator Kennedy was ill. Senator Kennedy would champion this legislation. Senator Kennedy, who had been here--he had been on the floor, I believe it was 1998 or 1996. And that bill had only failed by one vote back before the turn of the century. It was a 50-to-49 vote. The individual who was not here probably have voted for it. The Vice President breaking a tie probably would have passed it. It would have been adopted. It would have been signed.

Fast-forward to 2013, and here we were on the floor debating this issue, and I was very pleased to see it on the floor because Senator Kennedy and his team had asked me to carry the torch on the bill and work to see it passed. I had worked for us to hold hearings, and I had advocated with our leadership that it was time to put this issue on the floor, that we couldn't allow this discrimination to continue without at least working to address it. We might fail on the floor to pass this bill, but we should at least put it before the body, make the case, have the argument, fight to end this discrimination.

Here on the floor, we no longer have to get 50 votes and the President because the habits of the Senate changed, and now it is almost always required to get a supermajority to close debate. So we had to get 60 votes, not 51, but we did get 60 votes. We did close debate and go to a final vote. But one of the individuals who placed himself directly in the path to obstruct success on the bill, to obstruct the end of discrimination--job discrimination for LGBTQ communities--was our colleague and our nominee for Attorney General. I would hope to have a voice in the office that was seasoned through tough battles and stood up in difficult times to fight any discrimination, not to perpetuate discrimination. So that concerns me-- substantially concerns me.

In 2013, the Senate voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, often referred to as VAWA, after Congress passed it. That was an important effort because a woman should never be a victim of violence in her own home. Nobody should be a victim of violence, but particularly to address the challenges that we see. And the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control notes that women in the United States experience roughly 4.8 million assaults and rapes per year from their intimate partner, and they are afraid to seek medical treatment. Less than 20 percent of battered women sought medical treatment.

The National Crime Victimization Survey--the statistics that I have here from 2006, so quite a while ago--says that over the course of the year, 33,000 women were sexually assaulted, more than 600 women every day. Women ages 20 to 24 are at greatest risk of nonfatal domestic violence, and women age 20 and higher suffer from the highest rates of rape.

The Justice Department estimates that one in five women will experience rape or attempted rape during her college years--just during those college years--and that less than 5 percent of these rapes will be reported.

Income is a factor. The poorer the household, the higher the rate of domestic violence. Women in the lowest income category experience more than six times the rate of intimate partner violence as compared to women in the highest income category. African-American women face the highest rates of violence. American-Indian women are victimized at a rate double that of women of other races.

The impact of these kinds of violence is huge and long-lasting. According to the Family and Violence Prevention Fund, growing up in a violent home may be terrifying, a traumatic experience that can effect every aspect of a child's life, growth, and development. Children who have been exposed to family violence suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, such as bed-wetting and nightmares, and were at greater risk than their peers of having allergies, asthma, gastrointestinal problems, headaches, and flu. In addition, women who experience physical abuse as children are at greater risk of victimization as adults.

Well, I go through all these statistics to note what a substantial issue this is in terms of crime and violence and the impact both on the victims and on the children in homes--an impact that damages children's ability to pursue a full, healthy path toward thriving as an adult, an impact that creates a cycle of violence.

In 2011, during one 24-hour period, 1,600 Oregon victims were served by domestic violence services. What are those services? Emergency shelter, children's support, transitional housing, support for teen victims of dating violence, therapy or counseling for children, advocacy related to cyber stalking. Additionally, during the same 24- hour period, Oregon domestic violence programs answered more than 27 hotline calls every hour.

VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act, has been a powerful tool in fighting these kinds of abuse, these kinds of violence in our community, and it has proven to dramatically reduce domestic violence. Among other things, in 2013 the VAWA reauthorization included measures to ensure that LGBTQ men and women cannot be turned away from domestic violence shelters. It addressed threats of violence against women in transgender communities, who face rates of domestic violence and sexual assault at much higher rates, as I noted before, than those faced by the general population. It provides tools and encourages best practices, which have proven to be effective to prevent domestic violence homicides by training law enforcement, victims service providers, and court personnel to identify and connect high-risk victims with crisis intervention services--all of this in the interest of preventing violence against women, and when such violence occurs, to get the treatment to be as robust and available as possible to assist those women.

I would hope to have the champion in this fight to decrease violence against women in the position of Attorney General of the United States of America, but my colleague, our nominee for Attorney General, voted against these practices for decreasing violence, voted against these efforts to provide greater support when the violence did occur, and that, for me, is a very substantial concern. This turned many women's advocacy groups into a position of opposing this confirmation.

And another factor came into play. In October of this last year when our nominee for Attorney General was asked his opinion about a 2005 audio recording which then-Candidate Trump was--well, he wasn't yet a candidate at the time of the audio recording--but he was heard bragging about inappropriately groping women. The nominee said he didn't think the behavior that was described was sexual assault. Senator Sessions said: ``I don't characterize that as sexual assault. I think that is a stretch,'' he said.

I couldn't more profoundly disagree. When someone grabs the intimate parts of an individual, that is an assault. How can one reach any other conclusion? Envision that your loved one is the one who is groped--your wife, your sister, your mother, or your daughter. You don't believe that is a sexual assault? I would like to have as our Attorney General an individual who would understand in the core of his or her being that this is an assault and wrong. The law makes it an assault. Morality makes it an assault. So that bothers me a great deal.

I do want to note that in a confirmation hearing, my colleague Senator Sessions changed his opinion on this and he noted what we would expect one to note. He said that yes, activity such as was noted on the recording of our now President, when asked whether it was an assault, he said clearly it would be. I appreciate that evolution, but the initial reaction before the confirmation hearing still disturbs me.

Earlier this month, the National Task Force to End Sexual Violence issued an open letter opposing his confirmation based on the record. In the letter, they stated, when referring to the nominee, that ``his history leads us to question whether he will vigorously seek to ensure all victims and survivors of gender-based violence, particularly vulnerable populations and those at the margins of society, have access to vitally needed services and legal protections.''

This goal to champion justice for all--perhaps it is easy to champion justice for the groups one most closely identifies with, but the role is to fight for justice for everyone throughout our society, and that is why this is of substantial concern.

The letter went on to say: ``Selective application of the law and outward hostility towards victims of sexual and domestic violence in historically marginalized populations has a chilling effect on their willingness and ability to seek services and protection. It then noted that the Attorney General of the United States must be an individual committed to protecting the inalienable rights of equal protection under the law to all--to all within the jurisdiction of the United States.

Let me say it again. We need an Attorney General who fights for equal justice for all.

Another issue we face--set of issues, really--is related to immigration. As we know, President Trump recently signed an Executive order barring travel by those from seven Muslim countries and also barring refugees into our country and having a longer ban on refugees specifically from Syria. And the first ban, the Muslim ban, came out as Rudy Giuliani told us of instructions to create a Muslim ban that would be changed enough to make it legal under the law.

There are many reasons to be concerned about this ban based on religion. We have a tradition of freedom of religion in our country. It is a freedom enshrined in our Constitution. We have a tradition of religious tolerance. If we are a nation with religious freedom, religious tolerance goes hand in hand with that, but we have heard over the course of President Trump's campaign statement after statement that essentially presented a war on Islam, the Nation is at war with Islam-- the opposite of religious freedom, the opposite of religious tolerance.

The worst aspect of this--and there are many bad aspects to it--is that it endangers our national security because of the recruiting strategy of ISIS. Our President says he wants to diminish and extinguish. Their recruiting strategy is to claim that the United States is conducting a war on Islam, so this ban and this campaign feed right into that recruiting strategy. It has been pointed out by security expert after security expert after security expert that this makes us less safe.

Sally Yates, the Acting Attorney General, refused to defend this order in court because she believed it was illegal and unconstitutional. That is a principled stance, that despite that the head of the executive branch put something forward, the Attorney General said: No, that is wrong. That is not constitutional.

Well, she was fired shortly thereafter, for taking that stand, by President Trump. But then, two attorneys general from Washington State and Minnesota took the case to court, pointing out that they had substantial harm in their States as a result of this, giving them standing to challenge it--harmed because of professors trapped overseas, harmed from students trapped overseas, harmed from citizens in the States of Washington and Minnesota whose family members were trapped overseas. They put it to a district court judge, James Robart, a judge who was appointed by George W. Bush. The judge put a restraining order on the Executive order. To do that, one has to reach the standard that the case has merit and is likely to prevail.

So a judge, given this issue, the design of this issue, and the facts surrounding these orders, struck them down. And then it went to the Ninth Circuit Court, and the Ninth Circuit didn't find that there was enough information to change the decision of the district judge, but they asked for additional briefs, and they are expected to rule later this week. We will find out of course then how they weigh the issues.

Part of what is being taken into account are the facts on the ground, including was this designed around national security, and part of that debate recognizes that individuals from those seven countries have not come to America and killed Americans.

Now, individuals from other countries have come to America and killed Americans, but not from those seven countries. Then there is the question of whether it was based on religion, and they will be taking into account and looking at the fact that Rudy Giuliani said he was instructed to develop a Muslim ban but to make it look legal. So, clearly, there is evidence that the real intent of this wasn't national security but was religious discrimination.

Then there is the fact that the Executive order itself has a clause that says we will discriminate based on religion, letting in Christians while closing out Muslims. They will consider all of that. We will see what they say.

There is considerable power in the executive branch and the Presidency for making rules related to immigration. There is considerable power to take actions related to national security, but the design of this suggests serious constitutional problems, and two very capable lawyers--one, the acting AG for the United States of America and, second, a district court judge--have found it fails the test.

I would like for us to have a nominee for Attorney General who would have the courage and convictions to stand up to a President when the President goes off track in violating the Constitution, and I am concerned that our nominee wouldn't reach the same courageous point of view that Sally Yates found or James Robart found. Even while noting that the courts are yet to ultimately decide, there are certainly heavy concerns that should be weighed intensely in this consideration, and I am not sure that would happen.

In 2015, Senator Sessions, my colleague, our nominee, authored a bill that would automatically cut off Federal funding to sanctuary cities that refused to have their police officers act as agents of our immigration force, as ICE agents. Just today, I had the sheriff of Multnomah County in Oregon come and speak to me. He was formerly the police chief of our largest city--the city of Portland. What he conveyed was that if you have police officers pursue each person they interact with on the basis of immigration, pretty soon people in the community will not work with you to solve crimes, and you actually create enormous public safety risks for the citizens in Multnomah County. Numerous mayors have pointed this out; that if you see your police force as one that is continuously trying to be an immigration agent rather than a police officer and you are pursuing folks with profiling--stopping everyone in the Hispanic community--that pretty soon the Hispanic community folks don't want to talk to you. They will not help you solve the crimes that occur. The community becomes less safe.

So this assault on public safety is a profound concern across this country.

I am disturbed that our nominee authored a bill to penalize cities and States that are seeking to reduce public violence and enhance public safety. That seems the opposite of what an Attorney General should do.

During his nomination hearing, Senator Sessions advocated for ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, or DACA. This is a program on which one needs to understand it by meeting individuals who are childhood arrivals. There are folks who have crossed the border into our country who have brought with them a baby in their arms, or a toddler, or a 4-year-old. Those individuals--those children, those babies--grow up in America. They speak English. They only know America. Most of the time--I will not say most of the time, but in many cases they don't know they were even born outside the country.

So these children were put into a position of saying: If you disclose your status and fill out all this paperwork, we will not send you back to a country you don't even know, that speaks a language you don't even know because you have grown up in America and you are going to contribute to America, if we embrace you. And you will just be a lost citizen--a citizen without a country--if you are sent out of the country to somewhere that would be totally unfamiliar to you.

In this position that our nominee took, that he thinks we should end this program, it means that those children would now be eligible for deportation. There is a substantial concern here because they were promised that their information would not be used, would not be turned over for their deportation when they signed up. They trusted that when the United States of America

made this promise to them, that promise would be kept, but it appears we have a nominee who wants to end that program and, therefore, place all of these children at risk of deportation.

The nominee had no answer for what to do with the 800,000 children who have come out of the shadows because of that program.

In December 2015, Senator Sessions voted against Senator Leahy's sense-of-the-Senate resolution that affirmed that the United States must not bar people from another country because of their religion. Our nominee spoke for 30 minutes against the resolution. This takes me back to the echoes of this issue of the Muslim ban and discrimination based on religion that is so alien to the United States of America.

This resolution that affirmed that the United States would not bar people from our Nation because of their religion had the support of 96 Senators. Four Senators voted against the resolution, essentially saying it is OK to discriminate based on religion. Our nominee was one of those four Senators who conveyed through their vote that it would be OK to use a religious test for those entering the United States.

According to Bloomberg News, our nominee was one of the few lawmakers to defend President Trump's effort to propose a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States, in this report of November 18, 2016. He told CNN's Dana Bash last June: Well, all I can tell you is, the public data we have had indicated that there are quite a number of countries that have sent a large number of people here who have become terrorists.

During his nomination hearing, our nominee tried to walk back his support for the Muslim ban. He said he would not back a complete and total shutdown of all Muslims entering the United States. So he evolved from a position he took in December of 2015 and was more moderate during the nomination hearing. But still I am concerned about the position he put forward at that debate in December of 2015, when he spoke for 30 minutes and was one of four Senators to refuse to support a resolution saying that the United States should not discriminate based on religion.

This Muslim ban and the vote on the December 2015 resolution leaves Muslim Americans wondering if our nominee would fully defend and advocate for them; whether our nominee, the President's nominee for Attorney General, would fight for equal justice for Muslims after supporting the position that it is OK to discriminate against Muslims entering our country. That concerns me because that is not the position I would like to see represented in the President's nominee for this office.

My office has been receiving an enormous number of phone calls, emails, and letters about a whole host of nominees, and I think it is appropriate to share some of those as well as to note that a group of 1,424 law school professors nationwide sent a letter to Congress urging us to vote no on this nomination, representing 180 law schools in 49 States.

I am not going to share all of the letter because I want to stay within the bounds of the debate. So I will just note this: They lay out a whole number of concerns about positions taken in the past.

I will summarize it with a final paragraph: As law faculty who work every day to better the understanding of the law and to teach it to our students, we are convinced that the President's nominee will not fairly enforce our Nation's laws and promote justice and equality in the United States.

That is 1,424 law school professors from 180 law schools looking at the record of the President's nominee.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Human Rights gives our nominee a zero-percent score. The Human Rights Campaign, which fights for justice for the LGBT community, gives the President's nominee a zero-percent score. The NAACP has repeatedly given grades of F to the nominee. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the ACLU have voiced vigorous opposition.

I will share some of the letter from back home. Cobin from Portland, an assistant professor, writes: I am writing today to state my strong dissent for the nominee to be U.S. Attorney General. While this should be self-evident given his record, in light of this past week's events, it is all the more critical we have an Attorney General willing to fight for our Constitution. Protecting our fundamental values as Americans is priceless.

From Southern Oregon, Karen of Jackson County writes: I am strongly opposed to the nomination of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. His support of President Trump's views regarding immigration and voting rights are unacceptable and make him unacceptable to be the Nation's chief law enforcer.

Letter after letter expresses concerns about the record.

Earlier tonight, my colleague from Massachusetts was sharing testimony Coretta Scott King presented on March 13, 1986, to the Senate Judiciary Committee when my colleague was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. The Senate at that point in time rejected the nomination. They did so after examining a whole series of events which had transpired under his leadership. I can't read those events under the rules of the Senate because they would constitute a critique of a fellow Senator. So I am just summarizing that her letter laid them out, and the Senate Judiciary Committee fully explored the issues presented by Coretta Scott King, and by many others, and decided there wasn't the judicial vision appropriate for someone to serve as a judge in the United States of America.

If that series of events led to the unusual outcome of the Senate deciding that an individual's background--a background related to efforts to prevent African Americans from voting, weighed it incorrectly, not right that an individual be serving as a judge, that same background should be weighed by all of us here this morning, in this debate, over whether a nominee has the judicial heart of Lady Liberty to judge everyone without discrimination, to fight equally for everyone without discrimination. The answer years ago by this Chamber was no.

After I have weighed the many positions presented tonight which are deeply troubling, and the history that led this Chamber to make the decision it did back in 1986, I will have to join those who say and vote no on this nomination.

Mr. President, yesterday I had the chance to come to the floor and talk about the changes I have seen in the streams and rivers in my home State of Oregon as we worked to clean them up, restore them for wildlife, restore them for swimming, restore them for boating, and restore them for drinking water, and how terrific it was to see this occur.

We are now considering a parallel provision--a provision designed really to protect the streams near intense mining zones. I had a chance yesterday to go through the details of the regulation and how it made, for example, the coal slurry ponds more secure so they wouldn't rupture. As I pointed out, one ruptured and killed over 100 people and injured more than 1,000 people, not to mention the damage it did to the ecosystem for an extended length downstream. I talked about the toxic chemicals that are leaching out of improperly developed piles, as they are called. Today I want to share a few more of the stories of folks who live in the area and how important it is for them.

Sam Needham, who lives near Appalachia, VA, talks about the changes he has seen in rivers near his home since he moved there in 1978. Sam said that when they first moved there, ``Callahan Creek that runs near our house . . . was full of different kinds of fish. Now I don't see any fish in the water. I wish it could be like it was in the 70's and 80's, but with all the runoff from sediment ponds and mines, I don't think it will ever be like that again.'' Sam supports the stream protection rule. He said: ``I would like to see regulations to protect our waters and maybe one day be able to fish in Callahan Creek again.'' He is not asking for a tremendous amount.

Chad Cordell of Charleston, WV, said that he has ``been concerned about the impacts of mountaintop removal since learning the beautiful valleys and streams of my home state were being buried under hundreds of feet of rubble.'' He said he wants ``strong, science-based protections for the creeks, streams, and rivers that are the lifeblood of our state,'' and he noted that ``attacking the Stream Protection Rule isn't the way to build strong, healthy, resilient communities or a strong, stable economy.''

John Kinney of Birmingham, AL, said:

I have lived most of my life in Jefferson County, Alabama,

enjoying the outdoors, particularly canoeing and fishing on

the Black Warrior and Cahaba River.

While it seems that many folks in regulatory agencies don't

consider Alabama to be part of Appalachia, and don't

understand the extent of coal mining in our state, I have

seen the devastating impact of coal mining in our state . . .

first hand.

He goes on:

I have seen lakes turned gray downstream of mines. I have

seen streams turned bright orange downstream of coal

preparation plants. I have seen sloughs that once formed deep

channels (perfect spots for largemouth bass) filled in with

sediment.

John wants to see Federal protections ``that help protect water quality for all uses downstream of coal mines and associated industries'' and wants to see the stream protection rule stay where it is.

Here is a final story. It is from Chuck Nelson, a fourth-generation coal miner from West Virginia who dug coal underground for 30 years. He became an advocate for environmental rules like the stream protection rule after a coal processing plant was built near his home. Thick, black coal dust was always coating his home inside and out. His wife developed very bad asthma problems, and his kids couldn't use the swimming pool because of a thick black skin always on the top of the water. He decided to make his voice heard, and he came to DC from West Virginia 25 times to talk to lawmakers and regulators. He was a regular citizen. He saw a problem impacting his wife, and he wanted us to work to fix it. He finally succeeded when the stream protection rule was finalized in December.

It amounts to this: The way that one conducts mountaintop coal mining has a huge impact, just as it does with other industries. Having basic rules about how that work is done ensures sustainability of the nearby streams. This was done with a tremendous amount of involvement of stakeholders, tremendous number of meetings, 6 years of coordination, trying to find a way that doesn't paralyze coal mining but does protect the streams. That is the balance which was being searched for, discovered, and implemented with this rule, and we should leave it in place. We shouldn't destroy these years of work to protect our beautiful streams with just a few hours of debate, with no public notice or awareness of what is going on. If we want to review this thoughtfully and seriously, let's have it done in committee, where the public can participate and Senators can take a deliberate stand and not destroy this work to protect these thousands of miles of streams in a blink of an eye.

Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague from Hawaii, both on the substance of the issue and on the Congressional Review Act and how it is an unsuitable tool in a situation like this because of how it bars the door for a simple way to replace or modify a regulation.

I am coming to the floor tonight to share my concerns about a basic challenge we have in the world. This basic challenge is that when you get a ruler of a country who is corrupt, they forge contractual relationships, particularly if they are rich in minerals or oil, and they pocket the money and they spread the corruption. It makes it virtually impossible for the interests of the people of that country to be represented by their government because whatever governing body they have keeps making decisions based on those corrupt payments.

Now, we are a nation that values government by the people--of, by, and for the people. That is the vision of our Nation, but that vision would not be fulfilled if the Members of this body were being paid by foreign companies to serve the interests of the foreign companies instead of the interests of the people. We can understand from our own perspective our own desire to have a government that serves our citizens and that other nations want to have a government that serves their citizens. That is what this particular bill and the regulation that flows from it were all about. It was section 504 of Dodd-Frank, the resource extraction rule, that was passed now 7 years ago.

It took quite a while to get the regulation into place. The first version came out in 2012, after a tremendous amount of consultation was struck down in court because it was challenged by one of the companies that did not want to have transparency in international payments. Then folks went to work again and produced a rule that went into effect this last year. Unfortunately, we are about to strike that down.

I was thinking about how one of the champions for this was Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana. I was so impressed by his thoughtfulness when I came to the Senate. He had been here quite a while, and he worked to really understand issues, and he worked to solve problems. He didn't work to obstruct an administration because it was of a different party. He didn't work to sabotage the work of this body because one party or the other was in the majority. He worked to solve problems. He had really a deep understanding of the challenges in the world.

He could see this from his considerable experience. He was on foreign relations for a very long time, and he served as its chair. He knew from his own work in that committee, from his own studies, from his own travels, and his own conversations--overseas conversations with foreign governments and conversations with our State Department and our Defense Department--that we had a significant issue in which contracts with large companies are used to defeat government of, by, and for the people in nations around the world. He wanted to do something about it. He had partnerships, and Members of our own body who are still serving here today were deeply involved in this.

It was a tremendous provision, but the American Petroleum Institute wasn't happy about it because it has worked really well for oil companies to not disclose and to make deals with ruling dictators and ruling families or ruling governing groups, whether they be in a so- called elected form or unelected form.

Well, finally, last year the rule was completed in June. They crafted a rule that, for the most part, made various stakeholders happy and it won broad international support. Dozens of other countries--including Canada, Norway, and countries of the European Union--followed American leadership. They adopted similar laws. So our particular law made it clear that if a company was listed on our stock exchange--on any of our exchanges--and it made a significant payment--$100,000 or more--it had to disclose that payment. That wasn't just U.S. companies. It wouldn't just have been U.S. companies. It was any company listed on our exchange, no matter where it was based. Other companies followed suit. So companies based in other countries were affected. So, basically, it was a vision that in short order took over the entire world, with developed countries coming together and saying that we are going to stop this process that destroys governments for the people in so much of the world.

It isn't just kind of a theoretical question of some liberal vision of how governments work. We are talking about the difference between the decisions of dictators to stash billions of dollars overseas or build health care clinics. We are talking about the difference between dictators buying hundreds of the world's most expensive sports cars or developing an education system in their countries. We are talking about the fundamental quality of life for millions and millions of people around the world. This provision, this resource extraction rule, went in an enormous direction in terms of making the world a better place. Shouldn't that be what we are about?

This challenge of foreign contracts with money diverted into the pockets of the dictators and the ruling class--the money that should go to the development of the country--is particularly a problem in resource rich countries with weak institutions. They have weak courts. They have weak investigative branches to find corruption. They have courts that essentially exorcise the ability to try people for which there is evidence, who should be charged and should be convicted. So the same corruption that affects the decisions that are made protects those who make those decisions. This means that if you have someone who grows up in this country and says: We have hundreds of billions of dollars of resources and nothing to show for it; so let's change that system; let's change that system and enable the people of this country to benefit from schools and health care and transportation; let's develop our nation, they are stymied by this complex web of undisclosed corruption. So that is what this bill is all about, and that is what this rule stemming from the section of the bill is all about.

Let's take, for example, a poster child for this resource curse. In many countries, it is known as the oil curse. Oil is a particularly prominent case. But the Democratic Republic of the Congo has not just some oil but a lot of minerals. It is a significant producer of the world's cobalt, diamonds, tin, gold, and other minerals. This problem of a corrupt dictator goes way back to decades ago. His name was well known around the world: Mobutu Sese Seko. He ruled from 1965 to 1997, so 32 years, three decades. It is estimated that he diverted from the country $4 billion to $15 billion. That is a lot of roads being built in a poor country. That is a lot of food for people who are near starvation. That is a lot of public school education. That is a lot of health care clinics. So one very rich man was stashing money in Swiss bank accounts rather than that money going to the government to do fundamental responsibilities for the people. The country has an estimated $24 trillion in mineral deposits. When we think about that, the $4 billion to $15 billion doesn't sound like very much.

Often, the way it works is these corrupt payments enable companies to get contracts far below cost, which is not a good thing, obviously, for these impoverished nations, to be essentially giving away their money because they are being bribed to do so.

So that is extremely disturbing to me, this particular issue being done here late in the evening, with very few of my colleagues here-- mostly colleagues who are trying to fight this rule. Those who are supporting the multilateral corporations, the multinational corporations that don't like to have disclosure, they are not here to talk about how this is damaging the lives of millions of people in the poorest countries around the world. Maybe we need to have a rule in the Senate that if you are going to damage the lives of millions of people, you have to actually be here to hear the debate.

This debate is limited to just 10 hours, 5 hours on either side. If one side gives back their time, it is just 5 hours. There are not a whole lot of conversations. Maybe we could limit the conversation to 20 minutes a person or 10 minutes a person so we get a lot of voices in.

Before we go about the process of destroying the lives of millions of people all around the world, maybe, instead of just listening to the lobbyists for a multinational bank in your office, you should be here on the floor to have a conversation about the damage you are contemplating doing. Maybe then we would have an actual debate here in the U.S. Senate--a place that used to be a place where people did come and listen to each other debate issues. Perhaps there are good arguments to the contrary that I haven't heard because my colleagues aren't here presenting them. And maybe out of that mutual exchange, we would find a path to do something other than using this crude and destructive tool to strike down this very important provision.

There are three groups who benefit from this disclosure rule. The first group who benefits is the investors in a company who want to invest in companies that have responsible practices. The disclosure gives them the ability to have that information.

The second group who benefits is consumers who want to buy products from companies that engage in responsible practices, and disclosure enables them to do that.

The third group, though, really is the most important group, and that is a group of citizens in the country who are being corrupted by these payments because when they hear that a company has a contract and has paid X amount of billion dollars for that contract, then the newspapers of that country and the citizens of that country can try to get additional information: Did you take the percentage of that that was supposed to go to the regional government and actually get it disbursed to the regional government? Did you take the percentage of that that was supposed to go to the local city or province and did it get there? They can start to see that there is this lump of money that is supposed to be serving the citizens, and they can ask questions about how it serves the citizens. What bank account did it go into--so they can follow the money and track the money. But they have no ability to do that if these payments are hidden. That is what this is about.

So it is about investors who want to do the right thing, consumers who want to use their marketing and purchasing power to do the right thing, but it is really about the citizens of that country not having their resources diverted when they desperately need the fundamental things, such as transportation and education and health care.

Well, Senator Lugar said recently that if we allow this rule to be repealed, it would be ``a real tragedy for democracy and human rights.''

I agreed with Senator Lugar when he said, ``It is hard to believe that this would be such a high priority right now.'' We have a lot of issues in the world that we are challenged by, including security issues. We have a lot of nominations to address and debate. Why is it such a high priority at this moment to tear down a provision that improves the quality of life for millions of people in some of the poorest countries in the world? Why is it so important at this moment to tear down a law that reduces corruption in governments around the world? Why is it so important right now to destroy this provision that helps create an opportunity for ``we the people,'' a government that we profess to believe in?

It is well known that the CEO of ExxonMobil traveled to Washington to personally lobby Senator Lugar on this section. He wanted this provision scrapped, and that individual is now our Secretary of State. That certainly disturbs me, that the day after he became Secretary of State, the provision he lobbied for as an oil executive is being accomplished here on the floor.

Because of his testimony in committee, there was some hope that he would stand up and fight for the fundamental visions of our country, the fundamental values and principles of our country, and if so, he would be sending out information right now saying: Stop what you are doing because I know how this works around the world and how it destroys ``we the people'' governments, and we shouldn't be doing it; that is, we should keep the provision we have right now.

Nigeria is another nation that has had a resource curse or oil curse. Last year, a deal was struck between ExxonMobil and the Nigerian Government--or it came under investigation last year by that country's anti-corruption and law enforcement agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. The investigation surrounds a 2009 agreement where an Exxon subsidiary and the Nigerian Government agreed to renew a 40- percent share in three new oil licenses. Exxon reached a deal to pay $600 million for those licenses, and it built a powerplant at a cost of $900 million, so it made a $1.5 billion investment. So a $1.5 billion investment--that sounds like a pretty high sum for a contract.

However, an outside group who was investigating corruption found that the Nigerian Government had valued those contracts at $2.15 billion--in other words, $1 billion more than what Exxon was paying. Furthermore, they found that wasn't just in theory because another bidder offered $3.75 billion, and that is more than twice what Exxon paid. But the Exxon deal was chosen.

Isn't there some sense that something is wrong when a government rejects a payment that is $2.25 billion more than the offer that was accepted? That is what happens with corrupt payments between powerful companies and dictators. That is what destroys government of, by, and for the people around the world.

It is estimated that over time--that is, since 1960, so after the last 57 years--$400 billion of Nigerian oil revenues have disappeared due to corruption--$400 billion disappeared. What would $400 billion do to improve the lives of Nigerians?

That is why transparency in these payments is so important. It affects impoverished people all over the world. We can have all of our aid programs, we can have our Food for Peace Program, we can have our Millennium Corporation, but this type of deal does so much more damage than all the good we do through our programs that we budget for and put money into.

If we enable, if we promote corruption around the world, we do enormous damage. That is why a bipartisan group of Senators, including Dick Lugar leading it, took this on.

How about Equatorial Guinea. It is one of Sub-Saharan Africa's largest oil producers, and it, like many other oil countries, has the oil curse. President Obiang has been in power since he ousted his uncle in a military coup in 1979 and declared himself President for life. Let's just say what he is: He is a dictator. His government has been known to detain arbitrarily and torture critics, to disregard elections. It has been prosecuted for using oil profits for financial gain of the President's family. The result is, although this country is one of the wealthiest African nations per capita, the majority of the Nation's citizens survive on less than $2 a day. Let me clarify that. It is one of the richest African nations per capita, but a large percent of the citizens survive on less than $2 a day because President Obiang and his extended network--his extended corrupt network--are stealing the resources of the country, and they are doing it often through contracts with oil companies like Exxon, which happens to be a major partner in exploiting the resources of Equatorial Guinea.

Less than half of Equatorial Guinea has access to clean drinking water, a fundamental need and a fundamental factor in health. Twenty percent--that is one out of every five children--die before reaching the age of 5. This is because of the corruption that is facilitated by undisclosed sums, reinforcing a dictator--a dictator whose family owns fleets of fancy sports cars, luxury yachts, private jets, massive properties in Europe, massive properties in Brazil, and properties right here in the United States. But one-fifth of the children die before age 5. That is why this is so important.

Let me conclude by saying that what we are doing here tonight in putting this forward with no real debate because my colleagues are not here--a few colleagues are here to give speeches like I am giving to say ``Stop, this is wrong,'' but our colleagues are not here to hear us. What is happening tonight is an enormous travesty. It is an enormous blight on the United States, which led the world in taking on this problem and now is abandoning not just that leadership but is abandoning the principle. The world is worse off for it.

I hope that my colleagues will somehow come to an inspiration or a revelation, that those who are not here listening to this will come to an understanding that something is wrong with this and will oppose this effort to repeal this very important provision. But I know that the heavy hand of corporate lobbying is behind the fact that this is on the floor tonight, and I am not optimistic. That saddens me a great deal.

Let us strive to have a process that honors the importance of the issues before us. This short debate, with virtually no one present, does not honor it and does enormous damage, and it is just wrong.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my team member, Patrick Drupp, be granted privileges of the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments just delivered by my colleague from Washington State. Our two States are roughly the same size. They have similar amounts of coastline. We have citizens who share a lot of perspective on the country and that may be apparent in the comments I am about to make.

Mr. President, from our earliest days, long before the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia to declare that 13 disparate colonies were united and ``absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown'' and long before they sought to ``form a more perfect Union,'' our streams, our rivers, and our lakes have been the economic lifeblood of our Nation. They have supported commerce and trade, fishing and agriculture. They have facilitated the ability to travel the vastness of this continent. They have sustained our growing communities and served as critical resources for public health.

It is no wonder, then, that generations of Americans have worked incredibly hard to protect these natural resources to keep them clean and safe. That is why here, in the Senate and in the House, in 1972, we passed the Clean Water Act that formed the foundation for our Nation's water regulations. It is why, 2 years later, the House and Senate developed and passed the Safe Drinking Water Act, to make sure that public drinking water supplies are safe throughout the Nation.

I recall the impact of these acts in my home State of Oregon. The Klamath River was considered extraordinarily polluted. You could boat down it and see pipes dumping into it at regular intervals. Then, over time, as the State worked hard to identify those pipes, remove those pipes, and make sure that all pollution went through water treatment, the river got better. It got healthier.

Now, it is not without its problems. Its problems still exist. There is still nonpoint pollution that affects life in the stream. But it is a far more beautiful and far healthier river than it was before we passed the Clean Water Act.

We have proceeded to be fairly fierce about our enforcement. We have prosecuted polluters who have bypassed the law and dumped the results of their processes directly into our streams and our waterways. We have worked to protect wetlands, and we have worked to protect estuaries, understanding more and more about the role these various bodies of water play in our economy and play in our natural system and making sure they can continue to play that role so that we have a sustainable environment, one that is not at war with our economy.

We have made the two work very well together, and we have accomplished all this through the debate and dialogue that we have had in the Senate and in the House and that the experts have brought to bear in our committee hearing rooms. We have accomplished it through the testimony of concerned citizens across the Nation who have identified one particular problem or another problem and have brought those challenges to us here in this body, and we have worked to address them. If you have ever visited a nation that didn't have this kind of process and seen the intense, incredible pollution of its waterways, then you know what a difference it makes to have this public process. I invite you to visit China and see what happens when there is no public process for taking into account and rectifying the challenges when industrial waste is simply dumped into our waterways.

We take a lot of pride in protecting our streams, our rivers, and our lakes. That process has continued over these past years at the Department of the Interior, where the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement was working on the stream protection rule.

I am going to show a picture to give some scale to the type of mining that the Department of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement was trying to address. We see here the little tiny tractor. This is actually a massive tractor dwarfed by the scale of this massive mine. Indeed, in many cases, the entire top of the mountain is blown off to get at the coal seams underneath. In the process, a tremendous amount of rock debris is created and a tremendous amount of fracturing that can lead to water that moves through the water table eventually finds its way into streams.

The goal has been to find a way that this type of mining can be done in respectful balance with the streams that are further down the mountainside. That is the challenge, and it wasn't easy to address. That is why this rule has been under development for 7 years, from 2009 right up through December of 2016--virtually the entire length of the Obama administration. During this period of consideration, there have been multiple reiterations of what the rule could look like and

what actually works in the real world, with stakeholder after stakeholder after stakeholder saying: This is what you have to do to make it work. The goal was that this type of mining would be done, but not in a fashion which would destroy the streams. That is why it took so much hard work to do this.

There were hundreds of hours of meetings, responses to over 114,000 comments on the rule. But here we are in the evening, with little attention being paid by the vast bulk of Senators spending just a couple hours and planning to undo this work.

Under the Senate rules under the Congressional Review Act, we have just 10 hours of debate. Some of that can be yielded back by one side or the other, so maybe it will only be a few hours of debate. In those few hours, we hold in our hands the fate of the streams downstream from this mining. This is the premise: Will they conduct this mining in a fashion and followup with restoration to protect the streams that will otherwise be devastatingly impacted?

I am going to say yes. Let's take to heart the 100,000-plus hours of work or the 114,000 comments and the multitude of meetings over 6 years, the work of professionals who talked to every stakeholder. Let's take to heart their work and not undo it in just an hour or two here on the floor.

The Senate works in a way now that, even with something that has such a profound impact, Senators aren't here listening to each other; thus, we are not sharing our thoughts back and forth the way the old Senate used to debate. It is almost in silence that we are undoing or potentially undoing all of this work. Shouldn't we be celebrating that so many folks came together to craft a strategy that would not cause this type of mining to destroy the down-mountain streams?

Let me show an example of what a down-mountain stream looks like. This is a stream that probably ran blue not too long ago. It now runs orange. It is full of toxic metals and who knows what. I rather doubt that any Member of the Senate would volunteer to go and take a cup of water from this stream and drink it. We can just look at it and know it is deadly.

So we are trying to keep in place a rule carefully crafted so this stream--which not so long ago ran blue or ran turquoise or deep green because it was a natural stream without this devastating pollution-- will stay in that natural state. That is the goal. That is the point of this rule.

I want to be very clear that the stream protection rule is designed to enable mining and stream sustainability to go hand-in-hand. Coal mining is changing in America. It has adopted a number of practices that have made it safer. Machinery has also gotten bigger in ways that mean far fewer people are employed in it. It is also changing because the economies of the energy market are changing. We see that natural gas prices have dropped so low that many utilities are shutting down their coal plants and they are opening up natural gas plants or they are investing in wind or solar renewables. But we need to recognize that for 150 years coal mining families have worked incredibly hard, at great personal risk to their health, to put meals on their tables and to provide power to our Nation. So let's have this conversation about protecting our streams with a full respect for the mining economy and the families that have put their lives at stake and worked to put food on the table.

There is no reason we can't do what we have done in so many other parts of our economy to make the industrial process or the manufacturing process or the mining process be one that works in harmony with our environment, instead of at odds with the environment. That is the goal of the stream protection rule. It updates our 30-year- old coal mining regulations to better reflect the industry as it is today, in 2017.

The fact is, we know a great deal more about the impacts of various coal mining processes on both the people and communities and environment--much more now than we did when most of the regulations were put together decades ago. We know that when we use explosives to blast the summit of a mountain as is done in mountaintop removal, everything gets blasted up into the air and pushed down into the valleys where it ends up in rivers and streams. What is the result of that? If that newly blasted rock doesn't block the flow of the river and streams entirely, it is still in constant contact with them, leaching out pollutants into the water, and those pollutants include things like heavy metals and other toxics that pose enormous threats to the region's fish and to the plants and to the animals and, yes, even to the people who live downstream. There are pollutants like selenium, a metalloid that is toxic to fish even at a very low level, causing deformities, causing reproductive failures, causing death.

One way to tell the health of a stream is that it has life in it, but I doubt anyone would come out and say: Last year, I fished here when this was a blue-green stream, but this year I am not because with one glance at this stream, you know all the fish are dead.

There are other pollutants like cadmium, a pollutant that is not safe at any level and has been tied to cancer in humans. So as cadmium goes down into water, flows into the streams and cities and small towns further down, it adds to the health risks of the folks living in the areas.

Waste dumps called valley fills are left in place even when the mining is completed and the company moves on. We know that the rubble from mountaintop mining is impacting our streams and waterways because we have measured it. According to the Environmental Protection Agency's statistics, valley fills from mountaintop removal are responsible for burying 2,000 miles of vital Appalachian headwater streams. Now, 2,000 miles is a lot of streams. Picture 2,000 miles of a blue-green stream reduced not just to a toxic red stream but to no stream at all because it has been completely covered and eliminated. That is a lot of fishing holes that are gone forever.

In addition to that, we know the fish populations downstream have been reduced by two-thirds from the places where mountaintop removal is occurring.

We know that communities nearby are contending with contaminated drinking water and that babies are being born with higher rates of birth defects. I think about the birth of my two children. Like every parent, we pray and hope that the child is going to be born free of birth defects.

So this rule is about something very close to our hearts. For some, it is the beauty of natural streams. For some, it is the opportunity to fish and see wonderful natural places. But for others, it comes straight to the question of whether their children are going to be born with birth defects. At the other end of life, we see downstream elevated levels of lung cancer, elevated levels of heart disease, elevated levels of kidney disease, elevated levels of hypertension.

So I ask: Is it right that here, in the dark of night, with just a few hours of discussion and virtually no one here in the Senate Chamber, we are going to undo 7 years of work designed to reduce birth defects, reduce lung cancer, reduce heart disease, reduce kidney disease, reduce hypertension, reduce contaminated drinking water?

In just a few short hours, we will be making a decision that will result in an impact on thousands of people, as well as thousands of miles of streams. The stream protection rule is pretty straightforward in its design. I will give a few details about what it is intended to do.

One is that it improves construction standards for waste piles. What is a waste pile? Well, it is pretty much what it sounds like. It is a pile built from accumulated rock waste that is removed when you do mountaintop mining. Why do we need to improve their construction? Because these piles grow to enormous size. They can involve millions and millions of tons of rock and debris. Over time, erosion in the soil around them can create dangerous, unstable slopes that can eventually produce landslides. So how you design it matters. These coal piles can have high levels of coal dust or hydrocarbons. And then there is the acid rock drainage. As water comes down in rain and it percolates down through these, it ends up seeping out into the groundwater or into the stream and poisoning the groundwater or poisoning the stream.

That is why it matters how you have a construction standard for a waste pile. Isn't it smart to have such a standard in place and one that has been developed over hundreds of meetings over 6 years so that mining is much more compatible with clean streams and healthy people?

Another thing this rule does is it enhances restoration by strengthening bonding requirements. It is not unknown, unfortunately, that coal miners would just abandon the mine once their operations were finished, leaving all sorts of undone business that adds to the enormous contamination that even a small amount of mining can do.

In 1977, Congress passed a law saying that miners needed to restore the land after their mining operation was completed and that they needed to provide a bond up front to pay for the cleanup cost just in case the company decided it didn't want to follow through on the cleanup after it completed extracting the coal. Strengthening that and making sure the bonding process actually works right, that the bond is actually there to do the cleanup, makes a lot of sense.

Years ago, I was immersed in first developing housing with Habitat for Humanity and then building affordable multiplexes for a nonprofit, Human Solutions. Companies that were being paid to do their work had a construction bond. The bond made sure that if the company somehow disappeared in the middle of the night, the work was going to get done. That bond was very important to the nonprofit, that what they were investing in--the payments they made were actually going to result in what was contracted to be delivered. That is the same thing here. A company that comes in and says: We got permission to mine--it is saying to the public, with a good bonding system, yes, you can be confident that the cleanup work will be done. That needed to be strengthened because often it is not done. That is another piece of this puzzle.

Then there is another piece that is related to coal slurry and reducing the odds of coal slurry causing a lot of damage. Coal slurry is liquid waste generated when mined coal is washed off. You have a lot of water that is thickened with debris from washing the coal, and it can be held in a basin, but if the walls of that basin fail and that coal slurry gets into the streams, it does massive damage.

That transpired in Martin County, KY, 16 years ago. An estimated 306 million gallons of slurry spilled into two tributaries of the Tug Fork River. How much is 306 million gallons? It is a lot of swimming pools, almost more than you can imagine. Another way to look at it is it is 30 times larger than the Exxon Valdez oilspill, one of the worst environmental disasters ever.

There it is. It was a big, massive pond that spilled into the forests and into the rivers in that situation in Martin County. Overnight, one of the tributaries, the Coldwater Fork, a 10-foot-wide stream, became 100 yards of slurry. In some places, the spill was over 5 feet deep. It spread out and covered people's yards on the banks. Hundreds of miles of the Big Sandy River were polluted as a result as the stuff washed down the stream. The Ohio River was polluted. The water supply for 27,000 people was contaminated.

It is not that it has just happened once; it has happened other times. It happened in Buffalo Creek Hollow, WV, in 1972. In that case, it was 132 million gallons of slurry. That is about a third of the size of the other spills, so I guess you could say that instead of being 30 times Exxon Valdez, it was only 10 times Exxon Valdez. But it did a lot of damage. It created a wave going downstream that was 30 feet high. Can you imagine how much material is required to create a wave of--a flash flood of coal slurry 30 feet high? This didn't happen away from human civilization; this wave of coal slurry killed 125 people. This wave of toxic coal slurry hit and injured over 1,000 more people--1,121 more people. It left 4,000 people homeless, wiped out their homes and their towns.

That is the type of damage that can occur, so why not have a rule that has looked at how these ponds are created and said, here is a standard so that the pond is not overloaded or overtopped or the wall does not collapse and cause a tidal wave that will kill more than 100 people or injure more than 1,000 or leave 4,000 people homeless. Having a standard is the logical thing to do. It helps the companies because then they know exactly what they need to do to make that pond safe.

Those are some examples of what is in this rule.

I think it is important to understand another factor. This rule requires careful mapping before the mining is done so that the restoration process can be held accountable to restore the contours that existed previously, or as close as you can get. Without an understanding of what the land looked like beforehand, it is hard to say what it should look like when it is restored.

Those are commonsense measures. That is it. Common sense. Common standards for safety, for protection of the streams and the wildlife and the people. Isn't that what we should be all about? Shouldn't we not be undoing that, as we will be in a couple of hours, in a deserted Senate Chamber in the middle of the night? That is wrong.

If you want to change these standards--and I say this to my colleagues, and I know many do care a great deal about the environment--then have the courage to do it in daylight. Have the courage to do it in a committee. Have the courage to invite the public in to testify. But here we are tonight, hiding from the population across America, undoing this important work for the safety of our people. That is wrong.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my science fellow, Christy Veeder, be allowed the privileges of the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague's contributions and his insights, representing Virginia and representing the United States.

I must say that all of us were quite frustrated by the hearing we held with Rex Tillerson. We know that America needs a strong and capable Secretary of State. We have many great power issues to wrestle with--certainly with Russia, certainly with China. We know we have many emerging powers around the globe that will raise issues relevant to the security of the United States and the economy of the United States. We know the Secretary of State plays a key role in shaping our policy toward impoverished nations and how we might facilitate their growth and enhance our Nation's relationship with them. Nuclear strategy is always an extremely important role.

This position is perhaps the most important position in the administration, second to the Presidency, and it is for that reason that we are weighing with such intense attention.

Already we have challenges that have been raised by the conduct of our President over the last 12 days. We have, in 12 days, seen actions by President Trump that have diminished our Nation's standing in the world, that have offended many of our international neighbors and allies, that have weakened the security of our country. So we need a capable Secretary of State. We need that person soon.

Certainly one piece of the pattern we have seen is a new low in the relationship with the leadership of Mexico on our southern border, but we also have seen actions that have offended over a billion people in the world through the Friday night Executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations along with an order affecting refugees fleeing the ravages and devastation of war in many places, but Syria is specifically singled out for a longer period of time.

The President said, well, this is not, in fact, a Muslim ban and that it is about the security of the United States of America, but he is certainly wrong on both counts. All the nations singled out are Muslim- majority countries. Not a single immigrant from any of those countries has killed an American in a terrorist attack, and the President

made a very specific point, saying there would be exceptions for Christians, meaning there would not be exceptions for Muslims.

One of his advisers, Rudy Giuliani, even said explicitly that the President had wanted to do a Muslim ban and asked him how to do it legally. So the intent is crystal clear that this is a ban founded in religious discrimination, and a policy based on religious discrimination has no place in our Nation. It is completely incompatible with our traditions and our principles of religious liberty.

We are a nation built by immigrants, founded by men and women seeking safety from religious persecution, adding to the sense that this position is wrong and abhorrent. It goes against the fundamental building blocks of our Nation and everything we stand for.

If our history and our fundamental values aren't enough, then we need to consider the danger this ban represents for our national security. Much of our efforts in the Middle East involve close partnership, close teamwork with the leaders of Muslim nations.

Taking on ISIS involves close coordination and close teamwork with the leadership of Muslim nations. In fact, we should be very aware that ISIS uses as its recruiting tool that the United States is conducting a war on Islam, and the President's actions feed directly in and serve the ISIS recruiting strategy.

The world has reacted with furor. Over the weekend, more than 4,000 Oregonians attended a pair of my townhall meetings. The first meeting was in a room about this size, and I was astounded to see 600 people just jammed in, just crowding it. It was the largest townhall I had ever had. I do 36 townhalls a year, open forum. People can come and ask anything they want.

Then I went to my second townhall, and it wasn't 600 folks. It was 3,700 people who turned out just because they heard that a Senator was holding a townhall, and they wanted to make their voices heard about how wrong they thought it was, the direction that President Trump is headed. A key piece of that was certainly his ban on Muslims entering our Nation.

Protests erupted at airports all across our country. I went out on Sunday to the Portland Airport. It had been informally organized, the protest at 2 o'clock, and I got out there about 2:15. People were pouring in. There may have been somewhere around 1,000 people by the time I could get out onto the upper level deck of the two levels of the airport--the level at which people are arriving for their flights--to be able to speak to people.

The condemnation and opposition didn't just come from the grassroots across America. It didn't just come from the spontaneous voices of American citizens who value religious liberty, value our traditions, value their understanding of our Constitution and wanting to send a message to President Trump that he was violating each and every one of those things, that opposition came loud and clear from international leaders as well.

Our Canadian neighbors made sure the world knew they welcomed the immigrants and refugees that America had slammed the door on.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the President to remind him of our Nation's responsibilities, as signatories to the Geneva Convention, to take in refugees. It is quite embarrassing that a European leader has to call an American President to educate him about the Geneva Convention.

France's President Francois Hollande has called for a firm European response to this ban; the United Kingdom, whose Prime Minister Theresa May just met with President Trump last week, came out against the order; and more than a million Britons signed a petition to have the British Government rescind its invitation to President Trump to travel to London for a state visit.

Iraq, Iran, Brussels, Scotland, Norway, nation after nation have come out to protest this terrible, dangerous policy.

It is going to be up to our next Secretary of State to repair and rebuild these relationships and the reputation of the United States of America. So much damage has been done in just 12 days.

My colleagues Senator McCain and Senator Graham said in a statement this weekend: ``This Executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country,'' and indeed it does.

So is Rex Tillerson the right individual to set our Nation back on a firm and steady course? Is he the right person to guide us through this volatile international landscape, where we need to rebuild alliances and restore leadership?

In short, the answer is that Rex Tillerson is not the right man to do it.

Forty years in the oil and gas market, 40 years in an oil company are good preparations for leading an oil company but not good preparation for leading the United States of America in international relations, not good preparation for serving as our top diplomat, putting out fires, calming fears, communicating our policies to the world in this volatile moment in history.

During the hearing, there were a series of questions really related to one's moral compass in leading the foreign policy of the United States of America. One of the questions I asked about was Exxon's effort to set up a subsidiary to evade American sanctions on Iran and what did he feel about that as a leader of Exxon. He responded by saying: I don't have any memory of this. Really? The top management of Exxon decides to set up a subsidiary to circumvent American sanctions on Iran with a great deal of national security at stake, and he has no memory? Well, that was certainly a disappointing comment and an unbelievable statement.

How about when we asked him about Exxon lobbying against U.S. sanctions on Russia because of its annexation of Crimea and the holding of territory in the eastern part of Ukraine? He said: Oh, Exxon didn't lobby on this. Yet the lobbying reports were right there. We have transparency on this. Millions of dollars were spent lobbying on this issue, and they certainly weren't lobbying for U.S. sanctions. This was a second extraordinary statement by the nominee.

I then asked the nominee about Exxon's pattern of working with dictators to take the royalties for oil and funnel them to the dictator's family rather than to the treasury. This is particularly true in Equatorial Guinea where President Obiang has declared himself President for life. His response was simply: But Senator, we weren't successfully prosecuted for violating the law. That is not a statement related to moral compass and understanding. Certainly, when a company takes a nation's treasure and diverts it into the pockets of a dictator, you are affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Certainly, the people of Equatorial Guinea are a poor people who could use those resources for health care, for transportation systems. The President of Equatorial Guinea is famous for filling a plane with fancy sports cars from Europe and flying them to Equatorial Guinea. And how does he do that? Because Exxon steered the royalties for that nation's oil into the pockets of the dictator, but we didn't get any sense that there was any concern about the impact that it had on the people of that nation.

Members of the committee asked him about the extrajudicial killings by police officers in the Philippines--the extrajudicial killings ordered by President Duterte. Young men were shot down in the street. I think at last count an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 young men were assassinated in the street, and he simply said: I need to get more information. This is not something that has been hidden on the back pages of the newspaper; this is something fundamentally contrary to the principles of due process and justice that our Nation stands for. Couldn't the nominee have expressed that this is completely in violation of our core principles? But he had no ability to do so.

We come then to global warming, an impact that is occurring right now on the ground in my State. The burning of coal, oil, and natural gas, causing an accumulation of carbon dioxide and an accumulation of methane, is resulting in the acidification of the ocean. That is causing oysters to have difficulty reproducing because it affects the formation of their shells at the beginning of their life. The higher acidity makes it harder to form shells.

We see global warming in Oregon in terms of a longer fire season with more

intense fires. It is burning more forest there than ever before. We see it in terms of a lower average snowpack on the Cascades that is causing significant drought and smaller and warmer trout streams. This isn't some strange phenomenon that we imagine might happen in the future; it is happening at this moment. We have high tides that are now covering the sidewalks of cities on sunny days. We have moose dying of ticks because it is not cold enough to kill the ticks in the winter. We have lobsters off Maine traveling further into Canada while they start to get fish from the Carolinas. It is everywhere we look. It impacts the economy of our country, particularly our rural economy of fishing, forestry, and farming. His response was simply: We need to keep talking to people about it. He says it is an issue, not particularly urgent, not necessitating American leadership, but just something we should be at the table for--not at the table to urge others, just be at the table. That certainly misses the size of this challenge to our planet.

Here we are, 12 days into the Presidency with major international problems occurring, and we have a nominee who, on issue after issue after issue, lacked a moral compass or insight about the complexity of issues, about the principles of our Nation. So for these reasons, I am voting against the nominee.

I may well be back to extend my remarks at another moment, but I am delighted to yield to my colleague from New Mexico who is standing by to make his remarks.

Mr. President, citizens across the country are very concerned. In fact, they are more than concerned; they are terrified that our President is degrading the fundamental values on which our Nation was founded: religious tolerance, freedom of religion, the ability to worship as you please, and a fundamental principle that we would be welcoming to refugees, that we would be a nation that embraces immigrants.

Tonight Lady Liberty is crying. She said, ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,'' but our President has slammed the door on the tired and the poor and the huddled masses. It is an action the citizens in my home State have come out to protest. They have gone to the airport in Portland en masse 2 days in a row to say that we are welcoming to the world, that we are not going to slam the door shut on refugees, that we are not going to single out Muslim nations and say: We do not want you here.

Indeed, I held two townhalls over the weekend. The first was in a gymnasium about this size. There were 600 people jammed into it. They are very upset and angry that our fundamental values are being disregarded by the President of the United States. Then I went to my second townhall. I thought 600 was a lot; there were 3,700 Oregonians who came out to my second townhall. Every one of them is wanting to send a message to President Trump: You are taking us on the wrong road--a road that hurts people around the world, a road that hurts our fundamental values, and a road that decreases our security.

This Executive order, this Executive action from the President has had an

immediate and painful impact--hundreds of people en route to our country detained at airports although they were legally traveling here. Many of them have been vetted on extended periods, some of them going through several years of vetting, and finally they have in their hand that visa that says, yes, I am going to have a country, and it is going to be the United States of America. And the President crushed that hope.

Chaos and confusion abounded. Lawyers and protesters and advocates descended on airports everywhere across this country to tell the administration that there is no mandate, no public will for this path that is so destructive to our values. They came out to say: Mr. President, when you tear down women in America, we stand with the women of America. Mr. President, when you tear down the disabled, we stand with the disabled of America. Mr. President, when you tear down African Americans and Hispanics, we stand with African Americans and Hispanics. And, Mr. President, when you tear down Muslims, we stand with our Muslim brothers and sisters because this is the United States of America, where we value religious freedom, where we value religious tolerance. This is a nation of immigrants. If you are not 100 percent Native American, then you are either an immigrant yourself or you are the child or the grandchild or the great-grandchild of an immigrant. Most of us can track members of our family who came from the ravages of war or the ravages of drought or the ravages of oppression to come here to this soil, this land of freedom. James Madison remarked: ``America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and for her prosperity.'' This remains just as true today as it was in Madison's day.

Here we stand, but the President of the United States has denied access to our Nation to a group of people based on nothing more than religious beliefs, betraying our values of religious tolerance and shutting the doors on refugees. The President has said this is not a ban on those of the Muslim faith, but of course it is a ban on those of Muslim faith because it is a ban on seven nations that are Muslim nations, with an exception made for individuals who are Christians so it is nothing more than a ban on Muslims.

The President says this is about protecting our citizens, but let us be very clear about that. Numerous refugees have come to our land, numerous immigrants, and there have been zero fatal terror attacks carried out by the immigrants from the seven countries listed in the order. Zero. We have been attacked by individuals from other countries which are not listed in the order, from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon. Those nations aren't listed on this order. What we do know is that this ban does not make our Nation safer. National security experts recognize that it does exactly the opposite. By signing this Executive order, the President has betrayed our most fundamental values and principles, antagonizing 1.6 billion citizens of the world, and given our enemies ammunition for their false narrative that America is at war with Islam because that is exactly what they have used to recruit. That is exactly what they have used to increase and pour fuel on the fire to persuade people to attack Americans. The President has basically handed them this argument--this false narrative--and put our Nation at risk.

Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said to National Public Radio this morning, ``In fact, what we're doing now has probably made us less safe today than we were Friday morning before this happened, because we are now living the worst jihadist narrative possible, that there is undying enmity between Islam and the West.''

I share the value of Daniel Benjamin, the former Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department, who said this: ``It sends an unmistakable message to the American Muslim community that they are facing discrimination and isolation,'' and that message, he said, will ``feed the jihadist narrative that the United States is at war with Islam, potentially encouraging a few more Muslims to plot violence.''

This is the wrong move in every possible way. It is ill-considered, it is hasty, it is dangerous, it is wrongheaded, it puts American citizens at risk, and it helps our enemies. Benjamin Franklin once said: ``Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.'' In this case, President Trump's Executive order has degraded both our liberty and our security--both our liberty and our safety.

We have turned our backs on friends and allies who are helping us in the war against ISIS. The President has made it clear that he wants to take on ISIS as we had been, but he wants to amplify it, and he has sabotaged that effort with this Executive order.

There are individuals like Hameed Khalid Darweesh, who worked for more than a decade for the United States as an interpreter in Iraq. Our interpreters place their lives at risk to assist our soldiers. They place the lives of their families at risk to assist the United States of America. This man risked his life for more than 10 years for us, and how is he greeted when he arrives here in our country? He is greeted with handcuffs. Muslim Iraqi interpreters like Mr. Darweesh have earned the right to come to America. They risked their lives and their family's lives. They assisted us in multitudinous ways.

What about this ban on refugees? Refugees are the most thoroughly vetted of all those who come to the United States. If a terrorist wants to come to the United States, a terrorist wouldn't attempt to come as a refugee. It would be 1 to 2 years of waiting in miserable conditions in a refugee camp, with all kinds of vetting, and they might never get permission to come. If you want intense vetting, then look to how we vet refugees. Blocking women and children and interpreters from coming to our country who have been the most thoroughly vetted of all potential immigrants is simply wrong. In fact, the model for vetting refugees is intense. Women and orphans are just searching for a safe haven, but we have turned our back and we have slammed the door.

America is better than this. For centuries we have been a beacon of hope to the world. We have been a beacon of justice, a beacon of compassion, and we must restore our Nation as a beacon of hope, justice, liberty, and compassion.

Millions of Americans are coming out in the snow and the rain and in some places in good weather. They are coming out in any possible conditions to speak out and say: This is not America. This is not us. Change paths. Tear down this ban. Tear down this ban that has slammed the door on refugees. Tear down this ban which has placed our Nation at risk.

Let us together put our Nation back on track. Let us together fight for the values that made America great for the last two centuries. Let us together fight for the richness of our culture and our community, the strength of our society that comes from being a nation of immigrants. We need to act and act urgently.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Less than 10 minutes.

Mr. President, we have a longstanding tradition in our country of civilian control of government and civilian control of the military. This was first symbolized by George Washington through his act of resigning as Commander in Chief for all of the Continental Army on December 23, 1783. It is a tradition, or a moment in time, that is preserved on the walls of the Rotunda where a mural depicts Washington's noble and selfless act.

Our early days were full of the warnings of a standing Army and of ongoing military control at high levels, and those ideas came from Thomas Jefferson and from Alexander Hamilton and from Samuel Adams. When we came to the point in our history where we realized that a continuing military force was necessary, we preserved the importance of civilian control.

We did so for a host of important reasons, which others have pointed out on this floor but I think are worth restating. It is important to have a Secretary of Defense who brings a broad world view that includes a civilian perspective to the position.

Second, it is important not to politicize our officer ranks and have them essentially competing to position themselves to hold this position of Secretary of Defense.

Third, we do not want the services competing against each other in order to hold this position. This is why the Joint Chiefs of Staff position is rotated on a specific schedule. And if we have a Secretary of Defense come from one military service, then another branch of service is going to say: Next time it should be our turn. The Marine Corps today, the Air Force tomorrow, the Army after that, and then the Navy. That is not the position we want to end up in.

We also know that across the world, countries wrestle with preserving civilian control; that is, preserving democratic republics in the face of the power of military machinery in their country, military organizations, and we see military coups and we see massive military influence.

It has been the desire of our country to model a republic that is of the people, by the people, and for the people, not a nation that becomes controlled by a massive concentration of power in the military. Now my colleagues--many of whom are very learned in the history of our country--have arisen to say that there is a set of special circumstances, a unique set of circumstances, that merit an exception, and they note that there was an exception once before in our history. That exception was the appointment of George C. Marshall to become Secretary of Defense in the time following

World War II. But think about how many circumstances we face in the world that can be put forward to be an exceptional time. It was exceptional when terrorists used planes to attack the Twin Towers in New York City and our Pentagon, and had not one plane gone down, the additional target may have been the Capitol or the White House. That was an exceptional moment. It is an exceptional moment when we are fighting Al Qaeda. It is an exceptional moment when we are fighting ISIS. It is an exceptional moment when Russia invades Ukraine and takes over Crimea. There is an exceptional moment almost continuously in the face of a complex and changing world.

So I stand on the side of maintaining the principle of civilian control. Each time we violate this principle, it is easier next time to say: It has been done before. But the conversation will not be ``We did it once half a century ago, and so we should do it again,'' it will be ``We did it twice, once quite recently when we weren't facing a world crisis. Nobody had invaded the United States. We had not just lost a couple hundred thousand folks fighting for our country in a world war.'' So the conversation will get easier and more fragile, and that is not the direction we should go.

It was Eisenhower who warned about the overreach of a military enterprise--the ``military industrial complex,'' as he referred to it. But one piece of our structure of government that has held back is to maintain that principle of civilian control. Can anyone in this room rise up and say that out of the thousands of experienced individuals who have both national security experience and civilian experience, there isn't one who currently meets either the 10- or 7-year standard of separation? I am sure there are hundreds who could meet that standard.

So here we are. If we could send a message to the President-elect: We reject your effort to eviscerate civilian control. Send us someone who is qualified. And if we feel that person is so far out of the reach of reason--which is what I have been hearing from my colleagues in private conversation, terrified that this President-elect will nominate somebody who basically is unhinged, that we have to seize on this moment to take this individual because this body won't have the courage to turn down and reject an unhinged individual nominated by this President-elect. That is a sad commentary on the leadership of this body. It is a sad commentary on what has become of the U.S. Senate that we wouldn't have the courage under our advice and consent power to turn down someone we saw as unfit. That is, in fact, how we are charged under this Constitution, under the advice and consent clause. It was Hamilton who laid out that it is our responsibility to determine whether an individual is of fit character or unfit character, and we would retain that power for any nomination that, in the collective judgment of this body, did not meet that standard.

So let's sustain the principle of civilian control and reject this change.

I ask my colleague from Arizona if he will yield for a question.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I agreed----

Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, I believe I have the floor.

I reserve the right to object.

I reserve the right to object.

Mr. President, I was very gracious in agreeing to a unanimous consent request that would grant me 10 minutes. That was cut short by the filibuster of my colleague, who repeatedly brought me into the conversation and refused to yield for my question. So I ask unanimous to have 2 minutes to close.

I object.

I object.

Madam Clerk, how am I recorded?

Because repeal and run will hurt hundreds of thousands of Oregonians--

--I vote no.

Mr. President, the Hippocratic Oath that guides health care practitioners begins with these powerful words: ``First, do no harm.'' This is certainly good guidance for our doctors and other health care practitioners, but isn't it good guidance also for those who are in the realm of health care policy, for those who are health care policy practitioners, as well as the doctors themselves? ``First, do no harm.''

Those powerful first words of the Hippocratic Oath, very relevant to this discussion, are being ignored by my colleagues across the aisle, by the Republicans who have come to power and said: We are going to dismantle health care across this Nation for millions of Americans, and we don't know what we are going to do next. We are going to repeal this plan, and we are going to run away, and in a few years we might figure out how to replace these health care provisions. This is an irresponsible perspective. We hold in our hands the health care challenges of America, and to repeal and run will do a tremendous amount of harm.

The irresponsibility of it is terrifying families across America. They are scared of what the future holds, of the uncertainty that awaits them under this strategy of making America sick again. Folks are afraid that if they have ever been sick or injured they will soon be denied coverage because they have a preexisting condition. They are afraid that they may be one of the more than 20 million Americans who will lose insurance, having gained insurance and access to affordable quality health care through the ACA. They are scared that premium hikes will make health care unaffordable to lower and middle-income Americans. They are afraid of an unforeseen emergency wiping them out financially, driving them into bankruptcy.

Our seniors are afraid as well. They remember the situation that existed before they reached 65 or if they had health care needs and didn't have insurance, they had to wrestle between paying for their prescriptions or paying their heating bills. They don't want to be in that position again. They know how much progress we have made by filling the doughnut hole that paid for prescriptions throughout the continuum, and they don't want us to go backward.

From so many different directions, Americans are terrified of the Republican repeal-and-run strategy threatening to do harm to their lives. How do I know this? I know this because they are writing to me and to my colleagues, and we are sharing those stories tonight.

The letter I have from a young woman in Portland starts out:

I must implore you to protect the ACA. Its existence saves

the lives of millions, including mine. I was born in full

renal failure. I currently maintain Stage 3 renal function

with the help of prescription medication. If I am unable to

afford my medication, I will enter end-stage renal function,

i.e., kidney failure. I will die.

She ended her message by saying:

I am so scared. . . . I am only 26, I have so much more to

do.

Cameron of Beaver Creek writes:

My wife and daughter both have chronic health conditions,

and the ACA has allowed us to have them covered by health

insurance despite having preexisting conditions. If the ACA

is repealed, we will lose this protection and I don't know

how we could afford to pay for their medical costs directly.

Lisa in Wilsonville wrote to me about the impact that repealing the ACA will have on her special needs daughter. Lisa says: ``If the ACA is repealed, we lose funding that directly impacts her programs, her respite care, her Medicaid, and I will no longer get support to take care of my daughter.''

Just before Christmas I got a message from Nick in Portland. Nick wrote to share his story of a recent medical emergency that threatened his life. He said:

Without notice this past March, my heart suffered a

debilitating viral infection which resulted in congestive

heart failure. As things stand, I require a new heart, and

await that occurrence with patience and resolve. Thanks to

the ACA, I was able to purchase health insurance the month

prior to that diagnosis. Without it, I don't know how I could

have paid for my initial three-week hospitalization. . . .

Without it, my ability to obtain a replacement organ would be

uncertain. And without it, I envision a bankruptcy filing as

the only viable financial option.

Those individuals are writing about their challenges as patients, but doctors are also writing to share their observations as folks who see hundreds of patients in the course of a year.

Meg writes:

I have practiced both before and after the Affordable Care

Act, and witness the sense of hope and relief the expansion

of Medicaid in Oregon brought to my patients who are facing

serious illnesses. We have been able to participate in

community and state level innovations to help transform

health care delivery, lowering costs, improving outcomes, and

making people's lives better.

Isn't that what we should be about? Not a strategy of doing harm to millions of Americans but a strategy to make these people's lives better.

A physician from Roseburg, a hand surgeon, wrote about the challenges that he and his wife face, the serious medical challenges, and says:

Prior to the Affordable Care Act, we were uninsurable due

to these preexisting conditions. It seems clear that the ACA

will be repealed, and we, among millions of other Americans,

will again be uninsurable. This will not simply be a matter

of insurance being expensive; it will be a matter of the

insurance not being available at any cost.

And he continues:

So I am pleading to you to enact legislation prohibiting

insurers from denying the ability to sell policies to

individuals with prior medical conditions. The health of

millions of Americans rests on your shoulders.

And I might add that the health of millions of Americans rests on the debate and the discussion and the decision of the U.S. Senate.

Angela, another doctor in Portland, wrote about her work with the LGBTQ community, saying:

The loss of the affordable care act will be devastating to

my community. We have only just won the right for patients to

access medical care, hormones and surgery in the last year. I

have seen a great improvement in my patients' well-being and

mental health over the last year with these new privileges.

With the loss of the affordable care act many of my patients

will be devastated. There is a 50 percent suicide rate in the

transgender community already. Please help me prevent any

further suicides by protecting the affordable care act.

There is message after message after message saying ``first, do no harm.'' That means we as a body need to come together and move away from this reckless repeal-and-run strategy being proposed by the Republicans. People are writing to express their fears and frustrations and they are calling on us to do the right thing--folks like Meg and Nick and Cameron and Lisa and Douglas. Their lives are better because we enacted the Affordable Care Act.

These folks are writing because they are among the millions of people who are affected by the changes in this law--the millions who gained insurance coverage because of the law or they are among those who gained coverage because of the extension of Medicaid or they gained coverage because tax credits made health care affordable to lower and middle-income families or they are among the 27 million Americans who live with preexisting conditions who couldn't get insurance on the private market or they are among those who lost coverage because of annual or lifetime limits before the ACA. These stories are powerful because these individuals are on the frontline, and health care is essential to their quality of life, not just in America but in any location on this globe.

There is enormous stress connected with a faulty health care system, and what we have achieved with the Affordable Care Act is peace of mind for millions of Americans--peace of mind that there will be the care in place when they need it, that they will be able to afford it and they won't be bankrupt, that their loved ones will be able to have their health care challenges addressed.

Folks used to come to my townhalls and say: Senator, I am just trying to stay alive till I reach 65 because I have a preexisting condition and I can't get medical care. Can you imagine the stress involved with that? Folks would say: I would love to get insurance and address the health care issues I have, but I can't because I can't afford it. And now they can afford it because of the subsidies provided through the

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

Mr. President, I rise tonight to urge Congress to quit playing political games with our national security. It is time to have a clean Homeland Security funding bill on the floor of the Senate to be debated.

We are only days away from a potential shutdown of the Homeland Security Department, and it is very clear that the reason is that Members of the House on Capitol Hill have decided they want to make a clear statement about certain policy statements. They want to have a policy rider that says young children who came to this country and know no other country need to be prioritized for deportation. Why? Well, I think that is just wrong.

But if Members of this body want to put that into a bill and want to put that on the floor of the House and want to put it on the floor of the Senate, I am quite ready to have that debate.

Yet another policy rider says that the President must no longer prioritize the deportation of those with criminal backgrounds. Now, I happen to think we should prioritize deportation of any individuals who have conducted criminal acts. If some of my colleagues want to have that policy debate, I am fine with that. Put it in a bill, bring it to the floor of the Senate, and let us have that debate. A vote will then be very clearly on that specific policy and people can have some accountability. The American people will have some transparency about what is being voted on. But do not put these policy riders into the middle of the funding bill and work to shut down Homeland Security. That is no way to run a country.

We live in a dangerous world. We lack for many things, but one thing we don't lack is security threats. It was less than 2 years ago that terrorists attacked us at the Boston Marathon. It was just weeks ago that we saw a horrific series of terrorist attacks on our friends in Paris. ISIL is a fierce and growing threat determined to wreak havoc. It is exactly at a time such as this that we should be working together on a bipartisan basis to fund and strengthen Homeland Security, not playing political games with the Nation's security, but here we are.

Is it more important, I ask my colleagues, to have a debate about deporting DREAMers than it is to protect Americans against terrorist threats? If someone feels it is more important, not only do I feel they are wrong, but I invite them to have that debate. Put that into a separate policy bill and have the courage to put it on the floor of the Senate as a separate policy bill. Do not compromise our national security by trying to shut down Homeland Security.

This is a misguided strategy, and the resulting fallout isn't just to national security. There are FEMA grants to disaster-stricken areas that will be stopped, local fire departments will be hampered, and thousands of essential public servants from Homeland Security to FEMA, to our terrific men and women in the Coast Guard will be forced to work without pay.

Just last week I visited a Coast Guard installation in Newport, OR. It is an installation that has advanced rescue helicopters. They have five helicopters that work in rotation to make sure one is in the Newport area and a second ready to back it up if it has troubles.

This is a port that has so much sea traffic. It is a deepwater port. It has commercial fishing, it has sports fishing, it has tourists who play on the rocks of the beach and get trapped by the tide, and it has recreational swimmers who get swept out by riptides. There is every kind of possible ocean-front disaster one could look for and so that rescue helicopter is very important.

One of the young men I was speaking to is a rescue swimmer, an extraordinary individual who does some of the scariest, most courageous work in the world. These folks are not paid very much. They have bills to meet, similar to all the rest of us. Is this any way to run a country, to say you have to keep coming to work, but we are not going to send you a paycheck? To say to the thousands and thousands of young Americans who are working for our country in national security, ``you are so important that you have to come to work whether or not we pay you,'' is just wrong--wrong that we should be so disorganized, so partisan as to compromise our national security.

Our folks who work in national security will be asked to continue working. They work in dangerous conditions that many of us could hardly imagine. They make sure our safety is improved. At a minimum, can't we just have a debate on the funding bill without these political games? They do their work and they feel a sense of duty. Let's have a sense of duty in doing our work. Let's put the Homeland Security appropriations bill on this floor and let's do so without partisan political riders. That game does no honor to our Nation nor to this institution. The public's opinion of this Chamber has fallen due to exactly these types of games. So let's end them.

There is bipartisan support for ending these types of political theatrics. One of my colleagues from Arizona said, ``To attempt to use a spending bill in order to poke a finger in the President's eye is not a good move in my view.''

My colleague from Illinois, who serves across the aisle in this Chamber, said:

The American people are pretty alarmed, as they should be,

about security . . . the way to go forward is just fund the

DHS. We ought to strip the bill of extraneous issues and make

it about homeland security.

That is a sentiment I think virtually every citizen feels at this moment. Let's make it about homeland security. Let's make it about us having the honor to do our duty. Our job on this floor is to consider this appropriations bill and not to load it down with favorite policy riders and political theatrics.

Every day that goes by puts us closer to this shutdown. There is no logic in careening from crisis to crisis, but some crises come about due to uncontrollable factors. This one is entirely under our control. This one is entirely under the control of the leadership of the House and the leadership of the Senate.

Earlier this evening I was on a phone call with many folks back home who serve in police departments and fire departments, in rural departments, rural emergency departments, and they were relaying the different types of grants they get that are so important to their communities. Some of them are search and rescue, some of them are disaster preparation, some are grants to fund the fire departments, and some for funding personnel. Nobody on the phone could understand why this Chamber is afraid to have a simple budget debate and an appropriations debate, a spending debate. They see no reason to load it down with politics that can be debated in separate policy bills.

So I say to the leadership of this Chamber: Let's get our act together. Put policy into policy bills and let's put the spending bill before this body in a clean fashion and proceed to protect our Nation's security, as we are charged to do.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.