Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, throughout the Presidential campaign, President Biden spoke often about the need to unify the country. He talked about the need for people across our great Nation to come together to empathize with one another and to mend the divisions that exist in our society. He echoed that same theme in his inaugural address, saying:

Without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.

No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state

of chaos.

I agree with President Biden that there is an imperative to restore unity and civility throughout our country, but for all of the talk of uniting, compromising, and working together, the early pages of this new chapter read quite differently.

For starters, there are the actions of our Democratic colleagues who are trying to eliminate the legislative filibuster. They have echoed and praised the President's call for unity and bipartisanship while threatening to tear down the very rules that force us to work together in a bipartisan way. We know that the filibuster, or the cloture requirement that requires 60 votes to close off debate, is designed to encourage a fulsome debate of the issues that confront 330 million Americans. It is what distinguishes the Senate from other legislative bodies. Unlike in the House of Representatives, where you need a simple majority in order to work your will, the Senate requires 60 votes to be in agreement in order to close off debate before a bill can be passed with 51 votes or more. It really forces us to do what sometimes we resist, which is to work together in a bipartisan way. The American people may believe that it is in our best interest for us to pass things on a partisan basis, but it is certainly not in their best interest. So the cloture requirement, or the filibuster rule, is designed to prevent either party from steamrolling the other, and that is a good thing

The new majority leader, the Senator from New York, has threatened to blow up the filibuster and clear a path for a sweeping, radical agenda--this despite the fact that our Democratic friends have themselves relied on the filibuster over the last 6 years as the minority party and that President Biden himself, based on his 36 years of experience in the U.S. Senate, has affirmed the importance of this 60-vote requirement. I am glad that two of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle--one from West Virginia and one from Arizona--have offered their assurances that they will not vote to end the legislative filibuster, but I am disappointed that only two of our Democratic colleagues have done that. This should not be controversial or newsworthy to begin with. So far, the majority of Senate Democrats has made no legitimate effort to pursue President Biden's call for unity or bipartisanship.

Unfortunately, it is not just the actions of our Democratic colleagues which have caused concern. President Biden himself has acted unilaterally, time and again, by issuing a lengthy list of Executive orders within hours of his inauguration. The policies that President Biden is addressing in his Executive orders should be addressed here in Congress with bipartisan legislation. One of those was a 100-day moratorium on enforcing bipartisan immigration laws, which was enjoined by a Federal judge in my State earlier today.

It would be better for the country if our Democratic colleagues tried to legislate instead of litigate these Executive orders in court. I think the experience with DACA, or the experience with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is instructive. President Obama, back in 2012, decided to take it upon himself to enact this new policy. It has been tied up in the courts for the ensuing 8, now going on 9 years. I support providing a permanent solution for DACA recipients, but it has to be done here on a bipartisan basis, not just ordered unilaterally from the Oval Office, or else we are going to see these bogged down in lawsuit, after lawsuit, after lawsuit, which, I think, will be satisfying to virtually no one.

On top of the DACA Program, President Biden has now been piling on additional immigration-related actions, and he is expected to issue more in the coming days, but some of the most aggressive and controversial moves we have seen so far have related to energy policy. Within hours of the inauguration, President Biden canceled the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline.

There is no question that one of the biggest losers from that decision is the energy worker who stood to benefit from the jobs being created by the pipeline construction, and lest anybody think this is going to stop the flow of oil from Canada to the United States, what is going to happen--and what previously happened--is that oil will be loaded into railroad car tankers and trucks and shipped to their destinations. So it is not really stopping the oil from flowing where it is needed for low-cost and reasonably cost energy. It is just providing a more expensive and, indeed, a more dangerous alternative. At a time when our energy industry is already suffering as a result of the pandemic, this project would have led to a positive, cascading economic impact. Good-paying jobs, tax revenues, and economic benefits to local communities will evaporate because of this move.

I would note that, in the Rio Grande Valley, right along the U.S. Texas border with Mexico, that President Trump performed surprisingly well among Hispanic voters. People wrongly assume that Hispanic voters only care about immigration laws. The truth is they care about jobs and their families and their ability to pursue the American dream, which is why they overperformed what they typically would and why President Biden underperformed what he typically would in a largely Democratic stronghold there in the Rio Grande Valley, but the buck doesn't stop there.

The same day, the Biden administration halted all new leasing permits on Federal lands and waters. Rather than harvest our natural resources, which is one of the greatest benefits that nature has conferred on our country, it appears the Biden administration is carrying out its campaign to transition from oil and gas. I am all for transitioning to cleaner forms of energy, but we have to deal with the reality--for example, the fact that there are 280 million cars with internal combustion engines on our roads. How are families going to get to work, take their kids to school or live their lives if, all of a sudden, the very natural resources they depend on for their cars is no longer available?

This industry, according to one study, directly or indirectly supports one in six jobs in my State and is a pillar of our State's economy. Through higher tax revenue, high-paying jobs, and downstream economic gains, communities across my State reap the benefits of our thriving oil and gas industry every day. It is also what happens to finance higher education in Texas from a dedicated, permanent university fund. If, in fact, our ability to produce this oil and gas from the ground is going to be curtailed, that is going to have dramatic, unintended consequences, too.

This also makes sure that folks across the country who don't produce this energy can get access to affordable and reliable energy. In November of 2019, for the first time on record, the United States exported more crude oil and fuel than we imported; that is, rather than being dependent on other countries, we exported more than we imported.

Beyond the obvious economic benefits, this provides a serious boost to our national security and that of our allies. There is a reason we have been engaged in the Middle East for a long time. Ever since Winston Churchill, as the Lord of the Navy in Britain, decided to move from coal to oil to power the British Navy, we have been dependent on sources of oil and gas primarily from the Middle East. So this has not only economic consequences; it also has national security consequences.

It also allows us to provide our friends and allies around the world with a dependable alternative. They no longer have to rely solely on the tender mercies of Vladimir Putin, for example, for their energy supplies, which can, obviously, be used as a weapon in and of itself. All of these gains are possible because of the hard-working men and women who work in the field and in the refineries in energy-producing States like Texas.

While COVID-19 has had an impact on American energy producers because demand has dropped precipitously, we don't expect that downtick to last forever. Indeed, it is coming back already as the economy continues to open up and now that more and more people are being vaccinated for COVID-19. We have hope that, later this year, people will resume their daily commutes to work; that the lights in their office buildings will flicker back on; that nonessential travel will pick back up; and that energy producers will be running at full speed once again.

Rather than laying the foundation for a strong recovery, the Biden administration is issuing Executive orders that will harm American energy and send more business to our international competitors.

And the administration is carrying out these changes without any input from Congress.

I understand the President's desire to bolster renewable energy, and I think he would find that if he explored energy policies with us in Congress, he would meet more friends than foes.

I support the effort to drive down emissions, and, in fact, natural gas that transitions from coal-fired powerplants to natural gas has been a big driver of the progress we have made in doing just that. But we shouldn't stop there. We need to continue to invest in new clean energy technologies that will reduce emissions while providing low-cost access to electricity that the American people need to live and to work.

The United States' energy-related emissions dropped by almost 3 percent in 2019, largely due to the use of natural gas for power generation.

But I am a strong supporter of renewable energy too. We truly, in my State, believe in an ``all of the above'' energy policy. We are the No. 1 producer of electricity from wind turbines in the country. We produce one-quarter of all wind energy in the United States, and if Texas were a country, we would be the fifth largest wind energy producer in the world.

But even the strongest supporters of renewable sources of energy can tell you that, right now, renewables alone are not feasible to fuel our economy. After all, there are some times when the Sun doesn't shine and when the wind doesn't blow, so we need a backup or baseload source of energy.

Last year, renewables accounted for less than 18 percent of our total electricity generation, and I am all for having that number grow. For comparison, natural gas, though, currently accounts for double that.

While the development and expansion of renewable sources like wind energy are important, we can't shut out our key sources of energy that we need today. We have been supporters of an ``all of the above'' energy strategy, like I said. My State, I think, is proof positive that you can support the oil and gas energy that is so important for our economy and for people's livelihoods; you can support renewables; and you can support innovative technologies that lower emissions, all while creating high-paying jobs and providing affordable and reliable energy.

I would like to work with the administration and our Democratic colleagues in the Senate, as I have in the past, to enact lasting policies and deliver reliable energy to the American people and our friends and allies around the world while prioritizing conservation.

This is not the time to implement unilateral, heavyhanded, shortsighted regulations. Our energy industry is still reeling from the effects of the pandemic, and the administration and Congress need to take action to support its recovery, not stand in its way.

I agree with President Biden's call for unity, and I hope that the next 4 years will be filled with more bipartisan cooperation than the first days of this new administration have been.

We have learned, time and time again, that the legislative process, which forces us to work together in a consensus-building exercise is far more durable--far better--than unilateral Executive actions. I admit that both parties, when they are in the White House, have used Executive actions, but, frankly, I would think as an institution, we here in Congress would be

leery of encouraging more Executive action. That means most of the power here in Washington is exercised out of the White House and not done here in the people's House, here in Congress.

I encourage the administration to lead by example and encourage all of us to do the same--to try to work together for our shared priorities and create real and lasting change for our country.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, last week, the country and the world watched as our Nation carried out one of its most sacred traditions-- the peaceful transfer of power, which is the hallmark of American democracy, that has defined our country since its earliest days. Between the pandemic and heightened security concerns, this inauguration looked far different than those of former Presidents, but the will of the people was carried out just as it has been following every Presidential election throughout our Nation's history.

President Biden, in his inaugural address, stressed the importance of unifying our country. I agree, and I hope that the President and our Democratic colleagues in Congress lead by example.

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

Mr. President, last Friday I joined the Vice President of the United States and a number of our colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee for a trip to the Rio Grande Valley and, specifically, to McAllen, TX.

The Rio Grande Valley Sector, headquartered in McAllen, is ground zero for the humanitarian crisis on our southern border. I know some of our colleagues refused to acknowledge that this was indeed a humanitarian crisis on our border, but that seems to have waned in recent days in light of the overwhelming evidence. In fact, in 2014 President Obama himself called it a humanitarian and security crisis, and it has gotten nothing but worse.

Of all the sectors, it is head and shoulders above the rest in terms of apprehensions of people trying to enter the country illegally. In fact, 46 percent of all apprehensions along the southern border last month occurred in the Rio Grande Valley Sector. Across

the entire border, 68 percent of those apprehended in June were unaccompanied children or part of a family unit. In the Rio Grande Valley, that figure shot up to a whopping 79 percent.

People may be asking themselves: Why are unaccompanied children and families--that is, an adult with a child--the ones predominantly coming across the border? It is because human smugglers know our laws better than we do, and they are exploiting the vulnerabilities in our asylum laws in order to make a lot of money. They charge roughly $5,000 to $10,000 per person whom they deliver across the border from Central America or from anywhere around the world. As a matter of fact, the Border Patrol told us on Friday, when we were in McAllen, that just in the last year they had detained people from 60--six-zero--different countries coming across the border at the Rio Grande Valley Sector. That is because these human smuggling networks are really worldwide. If you want to come from Bangladesh or Syria or Iran or Russia, all you have to do is make your way to Central America, hire one of these human smuggling networks, and they will work your way up across the border into the United States. This is a national security as well as a humanitarian crisis.

As of July 1, the Rio Grande Valley Sector had 8,000 migrants in custody. They are overwhelmed, to be sure. This is placing a huge strain on our resources. Our Border Patrol stations were never designed to hold that many people.

The men and women who apprehend and care for these migrants have been unfairly criticized and mischaracterized as bad guys, but last week I got to see once again that they aren't the real villain in this scenario. In fact, they are the heroes.

The Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley, and those along the entire border, are pulling double duty as law enforcement officers and caregivers. They are hired to be law enforcement officers, but they have had to basically end up handing out juice boxes and diapers to unaccompanied children or family units because that is what we are seeing flood across our borders. One minute they are stopping fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine from coming across the border and they are stopping dangerous criminals from entering our country, and the next they are comforting crying babies and providing sustenance to children.

Balancing an overcrowded facility and a constantly growing list of responsibilities is no easy task, but it is not their fault. It is Congress's fault because only Congress has the authority to provide the change in the laws necessary to stop this endless flood of humanity and this overwhelming of our resources, both human and infrastructure. These dedicated agents handle these demands with professionalism and compassion.

My colleagues and I had the opportunity to hear from several of these agents, including Chief Patrol Agent Rudy Karisch. Chief Karisch talked about the work his agents do to provide quality care to those in custody, particularly medical care. In his sector alone, that equates to an average of 32 hospital runs each day--32 hospital runs each day-- to ensure that migrants receive the care they need.

As these agents know too well, many of the people who cross the border do so because they are deeply familiar with the loopholes in our immigration laws, and they are eager to exploit them, as I described a moment ago.

One of those loopholes is something called the Flores Settlement Agreement, which was created as a way to ensure that unaccompanied children don't remain in Border Patrol custody for long periods of time. It was expanded in, I believe, an unintended and unnecessary sort of way to effectively expand this protection for unaccompanied children to families as well.

As a result, we can't detain those families for more than 20 days, the adults in particular. As a result, we see the dramatic increase in the number of families arriving at the border. Why not? What is to discourage them or dissuade them?

As we learned during our visit, many of these migrants coming across the border are not families at all. Tim Tubbs is a deputy special agent in charge for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations, HSI. He discussed the rise in fraudulent families. In other words, by that I mean adults claiming to be the parent or family member of a child when, in fact, they are not related at all.

In April, ICE HSI sent more than 400 employees to the southern border to investigate these fraudulent claims of family units. In the roughly 90 days since, more than 352 fraudulent families were discovered across the southern border.

He described one case of a Honduran man that illustrates why leaving these loopholes untouched is so dangerous. Again, only Congress can change that. He mentioned the fact that a 51-year-old man negotiated with a pregnant Honduran woman to purchase--to buy--her baby when it was born. For the equivalent of about 80 U.S. dollars, this man purchased her child and then traveled with human smugglers into the United States. If you have a child with you, it is a ticket to entering the United States and exploiting those gaps in our immigration laws.

Deputy Agent Tubbs said HSI also uncovered an organization that recycled--recycled--approximately 69 children in order to smuggle people into the United States. In other words, once you successfully get to the United States, these children are sent back and used over and over again in an endless loop to smuggle more adults into the United States under the guise of being a family.

We can point the finger of blame at the Border Patrol for being overwhelmed for not having facilities that were designed to handle the influx of this number of people, but that would be a terrible miscarriage of justice. The fact is, Congress needs to look in the mirror. The only people who can change the laws under our Constitution is the U.S. Congress and the President. The President has called time and again for Congress to fix these loopholes in our immigration laws to begin to stem the tide of humanity coming across our border.

Our broken laws are fueling this behavior. Unless we take action to close those loopholes that invite more people to illegally enter into our country, the problem will only continue to grow.

Amid calls from many of the so-called progressive Democrats running for President to do things that make illegally crossing the border legal--in other words, rather than protecting the sovereignty of our country, securing our borders, they want to actually make entry into the United States legal--the work being done by our Border Patrol and our Health and Human Services and other nongovernmental organizations at the border to keep our country safe and care for migrants in their custody cannot be overstated.

The key to solving this crisis isn't opening the door to more illegal immigration; it is removing the pull factors that encourage people to come here in the first place. Of course, you can imagine, if the door were wide open, how many people would come from other countries into the United States at will. They would flood our country. That is part of what is happening now because they don't see any limits or any order or any rules being applied to who enters our country.

We are a proud nation of immigrants. We naturalize almost 1 million people a year. This isn't about being anti-immigrant. Immigrants have made our country stronger. Legal immigration is the key distinction.

Our friends across the aisle seem to be the champions of illegal immigration. We want our legal, orderly, lawful, rules-based immigration system to work so it can be fair to everybody, rather than let people who have been waiting in line for years to come into the country legally see people jump in line ahead of them and enter the country illegally. That is not fair to them, and that is not a rules- based and lawful and orderly system of immigration.

I have introduced legislation that will take major steps to achieve filling those gaps, plugging those holes in our asylum and immigration laws. It is called the HUMANE Act. This bill would close the Flores loophole, streamline the processing of migrants, improve standards of care, which we all want to do for individuals in our custody, and require additional training of customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees who work with children.

This bill is, to my knowledge, the only bipartisan, bicameral solution that has been offered. It is bicameral. My friend and colleague in the House, Henry Cuellar, from Laredo, TX, and I have cosponsored this bill--bipartisan, bicameral.

As we consider this and other legislative proposals, I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will finally get serious about taking the required action.

Chairman Graham of the Judiciary Committee tried to organize a bipartisan trip to the border, believing that would be an important step in helping us witness together the facts on the ground and then hopefully work together to try to solve the problem.

I am disappointed that none of our Democratic colleagues accepted his invitation. I hope this is not an indication of what our immigration reform discussions will look like moving forward: no desire to help, no desire to solve the problem, no desire to work together on a bipartisan basis. I hope that is not where we are, but I am fearful that is exactly where we are.

I appreciate the Vice President taking the time to visit Texas once again and getting a chance to see the frontline challenges our officers and agents are facing. I would thank Mrs. Pence as well for accompanying the Vice President.

Despite the challenges this humanitarian crisis has brought, the Rio Grande Valley remains a wonderful region, characterized by a thriving economy and a vibrant culture. You would be hard-pressed to find more generous people. They have been extraordinarily generous to the migrants who found their way to our front doorstep and are trying to take care of them in a compassionate sort of way, but, frankly, they are overwhelmed too.

I thank the men and women of the Border Patrol, as well as local officials, businesses, and members of the border communities who continue to assist with this humanitarian crisis. It would be nice if Congress, on a bipartisan basis, would lift a finger to help.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, tomorrow I will join some of my colleagues from the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as the Vice President, for a trip to McAllen, TX. It is a beautiful city, nestled in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley.

This region is home to a lot of history, a vibrant culture, and people whose generosity has made national headlines over the last period of time as they have worked to manage the humanitarian crisis that has ended up on their doorstep.

For each of the past 4 months, more than 100,000 migrants have crossed our southern border and presented themselves to the Border Patrol. This has placed an unbelievable strain on Federal, State, and local law enforcement, as well as the cities, the counties, and nongovernmental organizations that have tried to step in to help.

After 10 weeks from the point when it was requested by the President, Congress finally passed a bipartisan bill to provide funding for the Federal departments and agencies working to manage this crisis and make $30 million available as reimbursement to local governments for paying bills that legitimately and fairly should be those of the Federal Government. This is an important step to help manage this humanitarian crisis, but it is far from a permanent solution. You can say we are really dealing with the effects and not the causes. The truth is, we need to pass legislation in Congress that makes lasting changes to our immigration system, particularly our system whereby people apply for and receive asylum, so we can prevent this humanitarian crisis from becoming the norm.

We can run, but we cannot hide from the fact that only Congress can solve this problem. To that end, I have introduced bipartisan legislation called the HUMANE Act, with my friend and colleague in the House, Henry Cuellar, that would make significant progress in doing exactly that. This is the only bipartisan, bicameral bill that I believe would help staunch the flow of humanity across the border and deal with the underlying causes. Our bill would close a major loophole that is being exploited by the human smugglers that serves as a pull factor for those who want to come to the United States illegally. It would also ensure that migrants in our custody receive the proper care and streamline the processing of those who cross our border. It is an important step to address this crisis at its source as well as to provide relief for folks along the entire U.S.-Mexico border who have been impacted. We need to pass this bill and pass it quickly and get it to the President's desk for his signature.

While the compassionate response of our local communities has become national news in recent months, Texans

have long known they have been the ones left alone to step up to assist migrants who arrived in poor health, many times with nothing but the clothing on their back. They provide warm meals, a safe place to sleep, and some of the basic necessities of life before these individuals head off to communities across the United States where they await their court dates with immigration judges.

Sadly, those of us who live in border States have also seen the toll this treacherous journey takes on migrants, and we have had to face the dark reality that many don't survive the journey from Central America across Mexico into the United States. Migrants travel with human smugglers known as ``coyotes,'' who are all too willing to leave their customers for dead if they become sick or injured. I have seen photos and, of course, heard heartbreaking stories from the Border Patrol, as well as local officials and ranchers, about finding the remains on ranches or open terrain along the border of those who died in the desert trying to make their way to the United States.

I have been to Sacred Heart Cemetery in Brooks County, TX, near the Falfurrias checkpoint, where I saw graves of these unknown who are labeled with terms like ``skull case,'' ``bones,'' and ``unknown female.''

Here is a chart of a photograph depicting one of those graves. As you can see, it is marked ``unknown male.'' Literally, the remains are identified not by the name but, in this case, by the sex, obviously listing the fact that they are unknown.

This is not a rare occurrence. While exact figures are hard to find, there is no question that thousands of migrants have died while attempting to enter the United States illegally. It is one of the toughest parts of the job for Border Patrol, and it takes a toll on communities as well that are obligated to do what is right to ensure the dignity of the deceased.

The process of identifying these remains is expensive, and it also often falls on local taxpayers, like the taxpayers of Brooks County, TX. Frankly, they don't have the tax base and can't afford to deal with this without our help. We know they have limited staff and budgets, and it puts serious strain on local resources. It is an issue I have worked on for a number of years.

I will soon be reintroducing a bill I authored last year to provide some relief. It is called the Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains Act. It will provide local jurisdictions with the resources they need to identify the remains of those who died along the border and solve missing persons cases. This bill will expand the eligibility for jurisdictions to receive grants through Jennifer's Law and make desperately needed funds available. With this expansion, State and local governments, forensic labs, medical examiners, nonprofits, and others will be eligible to receive funding to support their work. They will be able to use these grant funds to support transportation, processing, identification, and reporting.

These funds can also be used to hire additional analysts, technicians, and examiners to support identification as well as purchase the necessary state-of-the-art equipment.

This legislation would take steps to improve the recording and reporting of missing persons and unidentified remains, which is a major challenge, particularly when it comes to notifying family members.

I have the great honor of representing more than 28 million Texans. I know that in order to do my job--as all of us attempt to do--we need to listen to our constituents and act on suggestions they make to us. The Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains Act is a prime example of that. Border communities have borne the brunt of the humanitarian and security crisis at the border, and they are often forced to do the job of the Federal Government without any help from the Federal Government.

This bill would go a long way helping to defray some of those costs. It would provide additional resources to local communities working to identify those who have gone missing as well as process unidentified remains and invest in the forensic equipment needed to provide closure to families in the United States and abroad.

I appreciate the feedback of the folks who live and work in our border communities, and I look forward to heading to the Rio Grande Valley tomorrow with the Vice President and a number of my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to hear more about the challenges they are facing.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have 5 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

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

Committee on Armed Services

The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 11, 2019, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the nominations of General Mark A. Milley, for reappointment to the grade of General, and to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States Army.

Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 11, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 11, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on the Judiciary

The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 11, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Douglas Russell Cole, and Matthew Walden McFarland, both to be a United States District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, Robert Anthony Molloy, to be Judge for the District Court of the Virgin Islands, Kea Whetzal Riggs, to be United States District Judge for the District of New Mexico, and Monica David Morris, of Florida, to be a Commissioner of the United States Parole Commission.

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 11, 2019, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the previously scheduled vote at 11 o'clock, I be allowed to complete my remarks before that vote occurs.

Mr. President, throughout my career, dating back to my days as Texas attorney general, I have long been a proud advocate for crime victims' rights. I believe we all have a responsibility to provide men and women impacted by such traumatic events the resources and care they need when they need it.

Right now the Congress has an opportunity to pass two separate pieces of legislation to support victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Sadly, both bills have been caught in the crosshairs of political jockeying in the House, with Democrats using a tit-for-tat strategy that has frozen both bills.

One of those bills is called the Debbie Smith Act. The namesake of this legislation is a woman whom I have had the honor of working with many times over the years. She is a fierce advocate for victims of sexual assault.

Like so many victims, her advocacy was born from a personal experience. In 1989, she was abducted from her home and raped in a wooded area. She reported the crime to police and went to the emergency room for a forensic examination, but there were no immediate answers. Though exact numbers are difficult to estimate, some experts believe that there are hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits that remain across the United States.

For 6\1/2\ years the DNA evidence of Debbie's attacker sat on a shelf in an evidence locker while she constantly wondered who her attacker was and when he would appear again. Channeling that fear and frustration, Debbie made it her mission in life to eliminate the rape kit backlog. I have no doubt that because of her and the important legislation this Congress has passed for the past 15 years, we were making some pretty incredible progress toward her goal.

In 2004, the Debbie Smith Act was signed into law to provide State and local crime labs with the resources to end the backlog of unsolved crimes. More than $1 billion has been provided to these forensic labs because of this law, and the legislation passed by the Senate in May will provide even greater resources for the program.

While the original purpose of the legislation was to reduce the rape kit backlog, this DNA evidence serves multiple purposes. It enables law enforcement to identify and convict people who commit other violent crimes and takes more criminals off the street. It also has a corresponding benefit for the wrongfully accused. It can actually exclude people based on the DNA test results in the forensic rape kit.

Because of the Debbie Smith Act, more than 860,000 DNA cases have been

processed, and 360,000 DNA profiles have been uploaded into the FBI's database. This accounts for 43 percent of all forensic profiles in the FBI's DNA database. The benefits of this law cannot be overstated. That is why the Debbie Smith Act was easily reauthorized in both 2008 and 2014.

Now it is time once again to reauthorize this important legislation. Earlier this year, Senator Feinstein and I introduced the Debbie Smith Act of 2019, which reauthorizes the important funding that supports the testing of this DNA evidence. Things like training for law enforcement, correctional officers, training for forensic nurses and other professionals who assist victims of sexual assault are also included in this bill. When the Senate voted in May, not a single Senator voted against it--not one. It was unanimous. But here we are nearly 2 months later and the House of Representatives hasn't lifted a finger.

The bill isn't partisan. It is not divisive. It is not controversial. So why do they refuse to bring the bill up for a vote? Well, they are not holding this bill up because they are working on a different version or because they disagree with any of the provisions or because they simply don't like it. No, they are actually holding it hostage to try to force a vote on their ultrapartisan version of the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, the second piece of legislation they are stopping. Actually, Democrats allowed the current Violence Against Women Act to expire over Republican objections so that they could maintain this leverage to pass their ultrapartisan version of VAWA sometime later.

Folks on both sides of the aisle can agree it is time to make some important improvements in VAWA, and our colleague Senator Ernst from Iowa has been working very hard to try to come up with a good bipartisan bill. It deserves to be reauthorized and strengthened to ensure victims have access to the services and protections they need.

Going through the regular order is something I support, and it is an effort that has been led by, as I said, Senator Ernst from Iowa. But the version of the bill that has passed in the House is a far cry from any kind of consensus legislation. It includes provisions that would never pass in the Senate, and that is why it passed the House, in order to create that conflict and that obstacle.

It is not fair to Debbie Smith and other victims of sexual assault for House Democrats to hold them hostage over a separate bill that is still being negotiated in good faith by Members on both sides of the aisle.

Despite repeated requests from advocates and victims' rights groups to pass the Debbie Smith Act freestanding, the House has, once again, chosen to play politics.

I understand Debbie has requested to meet with leadership in the House, and I strongly encourage them to take the time to talk to Debbie and hear her perspective on why this legislation is so critical and why it must be passed now. House Democrats refuse to pass the Debbie Smith Act and help crime labs eliminate the rape kit backlog. They refuse to negotiate in good faith on VAWA, Violence Against Women Act, reauthorization and what that might look like. Unfortunately, they have succumbed to the temptation of playing partisan politics with pretty important legislation and hurting a lot of innocent people in the meantime. I find that absolutely unacceptable.

I would urge our colleague Speaker Pelosi to bring the Debbie Smith Act up for a vote and quit using sexual assault victims as a bargaining chip.

I yield the floor.

nomination of t. kent wetherell ii

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

Mr. President, today I ask unanimous consent that a resolution passed by the senate of the State of Texas be printed into the Congressional Record. Senate Resolution No. 816 was adopted by the Texas Senate on May 24, 2019, by a vote of 31-0 and urges the U.S. Congress to consolidate disaster recovery housing funding for Hurricane Harvey.

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

Mr. President, yesterday our friend from New York, the minority leader, spoke on the Senate floor about the latest challenge to ObamaCare--the Affordable Care Act--which is being considered by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals this week. Also, if you can believe the press, he is also going to have a press conference with the Speaker and other notable Democrats to talk about the danger of a court decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. As one might imagine, he painted a pretty grim picture of what would happen if the court were to strike down the Affordable Care Act, affirming the judgment of the trial court. Of course, he tried to place the blame squarely on those of us on this side of the aisle. It is strange to me because blaming Republicans in Congress for a yet-to-be-decided court case doesn't make a lot of sense, but it is pretty consistent with the message we have heard from our Democratic friends.

If the minority leader is going to pick a bone with anyone, then I guess his complaint is really about the Constitution itself. Court cases are decided on a case-by-case basis based on what the law is, and, of course, the Constitution is the fundamental law of the United States. So if a court ultimately holds an act of Congress to be unconstitutional, it is because the Constitution prohibits it. And a consensus among all Americans is that the Constitution shall be inviolable, dating back to the early 19th century. The Supreme Court has made clear that is ultimately their job--not to decide what the policy should be but whether the policy enacted by Congress is consistent with the requirements of the Constitution.

So I find it pretty bizarre that in about an hour, the Democratic leader will join Speaker Pelosi for a news conference to talk about coverage for preexisting conditions, and I have no doubt that once again they will try to blame Republicans as the bad guys and somehow perpetuate this myth that Republicans are opposed to covering people for preexisting conditions in their health insurance policies. They know that is false. They know that is a bald-faced misrepresentation of what our policy choices are in this body and in Congress as a whole. There is one thing that I think there is a consensus on in Congress with respect to healthcare, and that is that preexisting conditions should be covered. In fact, there are pieces of legislation that I have cosponsored in the Senate that do that expressly. The illogical fallacy of their argument is that the only way one can do that is through the Affordable Care Act.

As we know, the Affordable Care Act has been a Trojan horse for a whole lot of other policies that, frankly, are not particularly popular because they have resulted in high deductibles and high premiums and have made it harder and harder for people to afford coverage. It has also precluded individuals from picking the kind of coverage that best suits their family's needs at a price they can afford.

I think it is important for the American people to understand what we all understand--including the Democratic leader and the Speaker--which is that what they are saying about preexisting conditions is false. They know it, we know it, and it can be demonstrated. Yet they persist in saying it because they believe that people are either uninformed, naive, or so partisan that they will not be guided by the facts but, rather, by the partisan rhetoric.

Here is the other strange thing in all of this. Most progressive Democrats--we used to call them liberals; now they call themselves progressives--have embraced Medicare for All as a solution to our Nation's healthcare challenges. As the Presiding Officer knows, Medicare for All would be a recipe to bankrupt Medicare, which has traditionally, legally, and historically been a benefit earned and contributed to by seniors in order to cover their healthcare when they are 65 or older. So dumping 180 million or so additional people into Medicare who have private health insurance is really a recipe for bankrupting it, thus undermining the benefit that seniors thought they were buying into during their entire lives.

Here is the other irony I find. When he was trying to sell the Affordable Care Act, we heard that President Obama said, if you like your existing healthcare policy, you can keep it. That is what he said. It didn't end up being the case, but that is what he said. Yet now our Democratic colleagues have become so radicalized on healthcare that they are essentially saying, if you have private health insurance you like, you can't keep it. You can't keep it.

This is a very strange place to work sometimes because people say things they know are not true, but they hope they can capitalize on people's ignorance or on their partisanship. Yet, as many have said before, facts are stubborn things, and those are the facts; that there are other ways to cover preexisting conditions other than with the Affordable Care Act. For a party that has embraced this idea of Medicare for All and that wants to destroy privately held health insurance, it seems pretty rich for them to then blame this side of the aisle for wanting to destroy private health insurance that covers preexisting conditions.

A January Gallup poll found that 7 in 10 Americans have a negative view of our healthcare system and have described it as being in a state of crisis or as having major problems, which is to say that ObamaCare is not working as well as the advocates thought. As we know and as I have said, it is not the only way to protect patients who have preexisting conditions.

Earlier this year, I cosponsored a bill that was introduced by our friend from North Carolina, Senator Tillis, called the PROTECT Act, which would ensure that no American would ever be denied health coverage because of one's having a preexisting condition. Now, the Democratic leader and the Speaker know that. Yet, presumably, today, at 12:30, when they hold their press conferences, they will say all Republicans are opposed to covering preexisting conditions because of this court case in the Fifth Circuit that has yet to be decided. They are just gleeful that this will provide, they think, some way for them to argue what they know is not true--that the Republicans are opposed to covering people's preexisting conditions.

I believe health coverage for these patients shouldn't hang in the balance of a court decision because, ultimately, it is our decision. If we pass the PROTECT Act, it would finally codify what I hope every Member of this body would agree on--that Americans deserve access to healthcare coverage. The PROTECT Act is just one example of the countless healthcare bills that are working their way through the Senate right now.

In addition, in the Senate Finance Committee, we are considering a package of bills to reduce prescription drug prices, just as we have in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and in the Judiciary Committee. The HELP Committee overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill to reduce healthcare costs, to increase transparency, and to eliminate surprise

medical bills. Last week, the Judiciary Committee unanimously reported out legislation that would keep pharmaceutical companies from gaming the patent system. Our colleagues--or political candidates--can go on TV and try to spin the ObamaCare system all they want, but we are going to continue to work hard to make real meaningful changes to make our healthcare system better.

Mr. President, the 116th Congress, so far, has just talked about the humanitarian crisis at the border. Most of our Democratic colleagues have claimed up to this point that there is no crisis or emergency at the border.

We will recall that we started out the year with a government shutdown because of the battle over border security, and our Democratic friends made one thing perfectly clear: They would oppose any effort to fund our security mission at the border. That resulted in the 35-day shutdown.

The Speaker of the House at the time called the situation ``a fake crisis at the border,'' and the minority leader here in the Senate referred it to as ``a crisis that does not exist.'' Well, they weren't the only ones. Throughout the Halls of the Capitol, Democrats in Congress used terms like ``phony,'' ``imaginary,'' and ``make-believe'' to describe the challenges our frontline officers and agents were facing every day.

While our Democratic colleagues have reflexively denied the existence of a crisis at the border, the problems have grown only bigger each day. Of course, it was 2014, I will remind my friends across the aisle, when Barack Obama, then President of the United States, declared a humanitarian and security crisis at the border. So it seemed very odd to me that, in 2019, they decided--when the numbers kept getting bigger and bigger and conditions worse and worse--all of a sudden that the humanitarian and security crisis had gone away.

The fact is, over the last 3 months, the number of illegal crossings across the southwestern border have hit six figures, something we haven't seen since 2006. We surpassed the number of unaccompanied children apprehended at the height of the 2014 crisis that President Obama was speaking about.

This mass migration has nearly depleted our Federal resources, causing the President to request $4\1/2\ billion for humanitarian assistance and border operations. That request came almost 2 months ago--almost 2 months ago, and Congress has not acted.

Now, it seems, our Democratic colleagues have finally accepted the facts. There is a very real and very urgent humanitarian crisis on our southern border. The bill they passed earlier this week meets the dollar amount requested by the President, but the substance of the bill shows that House Democrats don't want to send funding where it is actually needed the most.

Unlike the Senate's bipartisan bill, the original House bill excluded funding for the Department of Defense, immigration judge teams, and underfunded both Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. This morning, they made a last-ditch effort to inject some of their deeply partisan provisions back into our Senate bipartisan bill. While the House Democrats did increase needed funding in some areas, the newly amended version still includes divisive provisions and reduces funding in areas that the Senate overwhelmingly rejected yesterday.

Here is just one example. Democrats in the House cut the Senate bill's appropriation of $21 million for ICE Homeland Security investigations to conduct--get this--human trafficking investigations. So the House wanted to cut $21 million in the Senate appropriations bill that was dedicated to investigating human trafficking. This is just the latest example of their fundamental lack of interest in sending money where it is needed most--only where it is politically convenient.

It is unfortunately not much of a surprise. Our Democratic friends are trying to keep up with their candidates running for President, whose positions on immigration and border security get more extreme each day. Now, more than one Democrat running for the nomination for President actually supports making entering the country illegally legal--in other words, no orderly immigration system at all--a free- for-all, where it is easier for human traffickers and drug smugglers to come and go as they please. And, of course, there is this: no consideration given for those would-be immigrants who are trying to wait patiently in line and do things exactly the right way and no consideration of the unfairness of those who would jump ahead of the line and enter the country illegally before those who are trying to do it the right way.

The House bill stands in stark contrast to the bipartisan agreement we passed here in the Senate, which funds a range of programs at the Federal departments and agencies working to manage the crisis, and, importantly, it is the only bill in town that has the support of the President. It is, after all, important to get the President's signature on legislation for it to become law.

The Senate Appropriations Committee overwhelmingly supported this bill, and it passed the committee by a vote of 30 to 1. When the full Senate voted on it yesterday, only eight Members of the Senate voted no.

We have simply waited long enough. We waited too long, in my view, for Democrats to acknowledge this real humanitarian crisis. The House bill is inadequate and mostly a partisan effort.

Our Democratic colleagues have resisted acting for far too long already, making this humanitarian crisis worse. They circulate the very tragic pictures of a father with his young child face down in the waters of the Rio Grande River, and they somehow fail to acknowledge their own complicity in failing to act to provide the sorts of fixes to our asylum laws that would deter, if not prevent, that sort of thing from occurring in the first place. They really do need to look in the mirror.

We need to take action now, and I hope we don't have to wait any longer for our colleagues in the House to pass the Senate's bipartisan bill.