Floor Statements

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Innofe).

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, next Friday marks an important deadline in funding the Federal Government. While we have been effective in passing appropriations bills that have funded 75 percent or so of the government, there is still a small but important portion left to be negotiated before we break for Christmas.

Part of the debate will be how we go about securing our border, especially as recently, several large caravans of men, women, and children have left their homes in Central America and made the long, dangerous trek to the United States via Mexico. The truth is that the caravans occur on a daily basis. Of course, most of that hadn't penetrated the consciousness of the American people because it took thousands of people en masse, in a big caravan, to actually get their attention and get the attention particularly of the President of the United States.

I bet it would surprise most Senators and most Members of the House to know that in 2017 alone, there were 396,000 people detained at our southern border--almost 400,000 people. These caravans, whether they are the large, massive caravans like we see in Tijuana or the minicaravans that occur daily in places like the McAllen sector for the Border Patrol--this is a big and important issue. But funding is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to border security and the migrant crisis.

I would like to say that I was encouraged by a story that I saw in the Washington Post dated November 24 entitled ``Deal with Mexico paves way for asylum overhaul at U.S. border.'' This article goes on to talk about a policy of ``Remain in Mexico,'' where the Mexican Government has actually provided work permits and offered asylum to Central Americans transiting Mexico. Some of them have taken the Government of Mexico up on those, but many of them want to come to the United States, understandably, and the problem is how to deal with these large numbers of asylum seekers. This development, if it proved to be accurate, I think represents an impressive change in policy on the part of the Government of Mexico in a very constructive sort of way.

I want to congratulate Secretary Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary Pompeo, and the entire Trump administration for undertaking this delicate and difficult negotiation because this really represents a sea change in the way the Government of Mexico regards the migrant crisis. In other words, it is not just our problem. They themselves regard it as part of the solution to this challenge.

But the truth is, we can't look at this issue like we are looking through a soda straw. I had reporters yesterday ask me ``Well, what about what is happening at the bridge in Tijuana,'' as if that were the whole story. We can't narrowly focus on just one part and refuse to see the full picture, and that is what I want to talk about here briefly.

We won't secure our borders and we won't solve the migrant crisis or improve our asylum system by simplistically looking at the problem. We need to look at this as symptoms of a far more serious problem. This is especially true as the issue of migrants illegally crossing our borders is not new. It has been happening for a long time. It is only recently that there has been no new net migration from Mexico because of improved economic conditions there, and we have seen the flood of people coming up from noncontiguous countries, like those in Central America. But of course it started with the softening of our borders and the disregard of our Nation's immigration laws, and it has continued with the rise of crime and corruption across countries in Central America.

We need to secure our borders, to be sure. You would not think that would be a controversial statement, but apparently some of our colleagues view our efforts to secure our borders with ridicule. They act as though this is not a problem, that this is something all about the midterm elections. Well, the midterm elections have passed, the problem persists, and we need to do something about it.

We do need to partner with Mexico, as I mentioned a moment ago, but also the Central American governments to fight against the cartels and the gangs who are terrorizing these countries and affecting ours in such a negative way, in a way that will help address this migrant crisis that we are seeing symptoms of at the ports of entry in Tijuana, for example.

In Tijuana, about 5,000 immigrants made their way there, and more are on their way. The truth is, every time someone successfully penetrates our border by exploiting gaps in our immigration law or by illegally entering the

United States, it is an encouragement for more people to do exactly the same. Anybody who thinks that a caravan of 5,000 migrants coming from Central America is the last caravan that will attempt to penetrate our borders is engaged in a flight of fantasy because human nature ought to tell us that if it is successful, there are going to be more right behind them. We need to deal with this. We need to deal with the crisis that the Tijuana mayor has called a humanitarian crisis. That reminds me of what President Obama called the crisis of unaccompanied minors coming from Central America a few years ago when he was President; he called it a humanitarian crisis as well. We need to work together to try to solve it.

We know that this group of migrants isn't entirely made up of innocent asylum seekers fleeing poverty or violence in their home countries. The truth is, we haven't really been able to vet the people in the caravan. And that, of course, is one of the goals of our legal immigration system--being able to look at people as individuals and determine: Do you have a criminal record? Have you been deported previously for illegally entering the United States? It is true--I am confident that this mass of people does include people like criminals and other migrants who intend to exploit gaps in our immigration laws and some who have already been deported one or more times from the United States for violating our immigration laws.

I believe the United States is the most generous country in the world when it comes to legal immigration. We naturalize almost a million people a year, and we are the better for it. We have always considered ourselves to be a nation of immigrants but not uncontrolled illegal immigration. That is a recipe for chaos and danger. We have always been a nation that believed in some order, and the rule of law was important when it came to naturalizing people and becoming part of the great American family. We have always provided refuge to those who fled their countries based on persecution because of their religion or their race or their political orientation or their nationality or because they belong to a particular group. We expect those who enter our country to respect our sovereignty and the rules and laws of the U.S. Government. There is a process for coming into the country legally, and that is the process that should be followed here.

I might say that when a mob of migrants tries to break through the border barriers in Tijuana, it is fundamentally--in addition to everything else I said--unfair to the people who stood in line and tried to enter the country legally and waited their turn for them to break to the head of the line and try to enter by force.

Unfortunately, there are organizations that exploit our generosity and use our borders as a transit corridor for all sorts of illegal activity, including drugs and human trafficking. Believe me, if you look at the trial that is occurring in Manhattan today, El Chapo, you can learn a little bit about the complex, big, lucrative business that being head of a drug cartel entails.

Unfortunately, transnational criminal organizations--another word for cartels--have overrun some of the legitimate governments in Central America, and it is no wonder that people are fleeing. Therein lies the root of the current problem. The cartels and the gangs have figured out that it is quite lucrative to traffic migrants to the United States. Based on what I have read, maybe $6,000 to $8,000 is paid to a drug cartel--one of these transnational criminal organizations--to transport a person from Central America to the United States. That is a pretty good, lucrative business. Unfortunately, it is illegal and dangerous too.

This is exactly the same business model that is used to transport drugs into the United States. Last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control, 72,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in the United States. About 50,000 of those were opioid-related. Some of those were fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. Some of those were prescription opioids. But a significant portion of those were heroin, and 90 percent of the heroin that makes its way into the United States comes from Mexico.

This is the dirty business of the cartels, these transnational criminal organizations--trafficking migrants and children and women for sex and illegal drugs. They are commodity agnostic--whatever will make them money, they will engage in, no matter how vile, how cruel, or how dangerous. They have no morality whatsoever and no regard for life at all. The cartels know we are a generous country and take full advantage of our gaps in border security and immigration laws. As long as we fail to address this issue, we are complicit in making these cartels richer. By our own inaction, we are facilitating their illegal and dangerous enterprise.

This is not just a problem with immigration or drugs or smuggling; it is about all of these issues combined. It starts with the reign of the cartels and gangs in countries like Mexico and countries in Central America. Gangs like MS-13 and Barrio 18 in Central America threaten the safety and stability of the people who live in those countries. They fill an endless circle of supply and demand and operate in a vacuum of power with impunity. But their terror does not stop at their border or our border. Like the mob we have seen on TV, they are crashing through borders and threatening our border communities. They are interrupting legitimate trade and commerce through the ports of entry.

We saw that the port at San Ysidro was shut down because it couldn't accommodate the mob of asylum seekers and conduct legitimate trade and traffic at the same time. So it has a very real prospect of threatening to disrupt not only the U.S. economy and jobs but that of our Mexican colleagues as well. I think that is part of what has gotten the attention of the Government of Mexico. Their life blood is trade with the United States. If that is prevented because of the mobs of people coming across, trying to break through barricades and enter our country illegally, then that threatens that life blood and their economy.

My home State of Texas shares a 1,200-mile common border with Mexico, and about 40 percent of my constituents are of Hispanic origin. The communities along the Texas border are vibrant, and they rely upon the millions of dollars of legitimate trade that pours through our ports of entry. Texas is home to 29 air, land, and sea ports of entry. That is more than any other State in the Nation. About half of the U.S.-Mexico trade moves through a Texas port of entry.

As the volume of commerce that crosses our borders has tripled in the last 25 years, Customs and Border Protection has struggled to keep up with the staffing needs. The infrastructure is old and is being exploited, too, particularly by drug traffickers, who move their high- value cargo through the ports of entry.

Texans who live and work in those regions know they can't afford the cartels' continued exploitation of our flawed system. So we need to look at how we can address the thousands of migrants who look to cross our borders and the cartels who exploit our laws while we still protect legitimate trade and travel. Any solution we find must try to strike a balance between compassion for the migrants and respect for the rule of law and fundamental fairness to those who are doing it the right way.

I have taken, of course, numerous trips to the border to meet with the Border Patrol, and I have heard from many of them on this issue. When migrant caravans cross our borders, Customs and Border Protection not only has to deal with this massive humanitarian crisis, but it has to ensure that the cartels can't take advantage of opportunities that have been opened up by the fact that the Border Patrol is now consumed with trying to process children and families through the ports of entry in accordance with U.S. law. The cartels know that and take every advantage by moving their drugs through the ports of entry or between the ports of entry because they know the Border Patrol is otherwise occupied with paperwork and other distractions.

We need to work more closely with our allies in Mexico and Central America to keep commerce alive, which, as I said, is the lifeblood of the economy. By helping in Central America, we can begin to address the root problems that have forced many to flee.

At the same time, we need to secure our borders and protect our free trade.

As I said, if our ports of entry are clogged with thousands of migrants, legitimate trade comes to a standstill. That not only hurts our economy, particularly in border communities along the U.S.-Texas border, but also our southern neighbor's, Mexico.

The fact of the matter is the United States cannot alone bear the burden of this mass migration. We need our partners in Central America and Mexico to work with us to find solutions for these migrants, which is another reason I was encouraged by the article I mentioned in the Washington Post, which talked about the ``Remain in Mexico'' program as one way to begin to address some piece of this migrant crisis.

My friend Henry Cuellar, a Member of the House of Representatives, who represents border communities in South Texas, likes to say that we should focus on pushing back our borders. I think that is right. Border security ends at our border, but it starts in Central America and Mexico.

This week, the incoming President of Mexico, Lopez Obrador, will be sworn in. I hope to be at that inauguration on Saturday, December 1, in Mexico City. Soon-to-be-President Obrador said he is committed to dealing with the violence in Mexico that has been brought about by the cartels and gangs. I know the United States also shares a commitment to working with this new government in helping to reduce that violence.

Our two governments should continue to work closely together because our interests are aligned. Both of our countries want security, and we want the prosperity that comes from legitimate trade. Both of our countries want to see a decrease in the cartel and gang violence. Our relationship is an important one, and it must continue to be nurtured and to evolve because the gangs and the cartels surely will continue to adapt.

By partnering with governments in Central America and Mexico, we can help those countries in bolstering their economies, providing security for their people, and restoring the relationship between their communities and law enforcement to one that will be built on trust so that their people will feel safe again in their homes.

I stand ready to work with others on this issue, but neither I nor my Republican colleagues can do it alone. This will take a full bipartisan effort, and it is going to take a more serious approach than I have seen in some press accounts in which people want to focus, as with a soda straw, on one narrow aspect of the problem when it is much more complex and much more dangerous than that. So I would invite all of our colleagues to join us in enforcing our laws and securing our borders and protecting our economy by securing free and fair trade.

Those who say that by enforcing our laws one is somehow anti- immigrant are engaged in a slanderous lie. It is simply not true. Immigrants who come to the United States legally, who have waited patiently in line, deserve the respect and deserve the reward of their complying with the laws on the books. Somebody who jumps to the head of the line and violates our laws, who has no respect for the safety and security of our border communities, and who wants to facilitate the business model that the cartels have, by moving poisonous drugs or migrants for employment or by trafficking children and women for sex, has no regard for our border communities, for the rule of law, or for those migrants who come to the United States legally and appropriately.

This is not a onetime crisis. You can't be against human trafficking but for allowing migrants to be used as human commodities and to freely enter our country illegally. It is the same people who are bringing them into the country. You can't be against the opioid and drug addiction crisis but for allowing the cartels to exploit our borders by exporting their poison. You can't sit back and say you want to help migrants who flee their countries but not engage in bipartisan solutions. You simply can't have it both ways.

I hope we will take another look at this humanitarian crisis, as the mayor of Tijuana is calling it and as President Obama called it a few years ago when we saw this flood of unaccompanied minors coming across our borders from Central America, and deal with it with the seriousness and the gravity that it deserves. I look forward to working with my colleagues both in the House and the Senate, as well as with the administration and our partners in Central America and Mexico, to find solutions that address the migrant crisis without abandoning the rule of law or opening our borders or encouraging others to ignore our immigration laws.

I yield the floor.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mrs. Hyde-Smith).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mrs. Hyde-Smith).

Mr. President, Members of Congress are making their way back to the Nation's Capital after celebrating Thanksgiving with folks at home, with their friends and their families. To me, this holiday offered a little bit of respite and time for reflection--a time to pause with our families and to think about what we have to be grateful for.

This year, I am particularly thankful for the organizations I met with when I was home in Texas that donated a lot of their most valuable resource--their time. Thousands took time out of their family celebrations to provide meals and assistance to those less fortunate. I had the opportunity to join the ranks of some of my other volunteers, like Mayor Steve Adler of Austin, with whom I served meals at the H-E-B Feast of Sharing in Austin. I also donned an apron and gloves to help prepare turkey for the annual Raul Jimenez Thanksgiving Dinner in San Antonio, where more than 50 companies and 4,000 volunteers partnered to cook and serve meals. In 1979, Raul Jimenez, who is famous in San Antonio for his contributions there and has now left us, started this dinner with the goal of feeding 100 of San Antonio's elderly families and those less fortunate. Thirty-nine years later, his daughter and grandson, Raul Jimenez III, carry on this tradition and serve meals to feed 25,000 hungry San Antonians.

During the holiday season, we all have a chance to express our gratitude by extending a helping hand, providing a meal, or maybe simply offering words of encouragement. I was grateful I was able to join with some of the remarkable and selfless volunteers doing just that when I was back home. I want to make sure we bring that same attitude back to Congress, where I have the privilege of representing 28 million of my fellow Texans--not only the attitude of gratitude for the great privilege of living in a country such as ours but also feeling the weight of responsibility to actually produce results for them.

My discussions with my constituents when I was back home ran the gamut of possible topics, but what I keep hearing is that they feel as if they are doing much better economically. They see an economy that has been invigorated, and, yes, they have a little bit

more money in their pockets to spend on holiday gifts.

When I enter the beltway in Washington, I don't read a whole lot about how well people are doing, the confidence and enthusiasm they have in their station in life and their prospects for the future. Mainly what we see on cable TV and on social media is how Congress is fraught with divisiveness and burdened by partisan politics that paralyzes us from getting anything done. We see this narrative splashed across headlines and picked apart on cable news shows.

When I go back home, I find that most of my constituents aren't particularly concerned with who is up and who is down in the purely partisan politics they see going on in the Nation's Capital. They are concerned about making their lives and their families' lives better, putting food on the table, and enjoying the fruits of their labor. They want to see their elected officials likewise doing the same and solving the real issues that affect their lives.

I think it is important to reflect on what this Senate and this Congress have been able to do over the last 2 years under this new administration. I think our record is pretty clear, and, of course, Americans responded by giving us an even greater majority--the Republican leadership in the Senate--next Congress.

In the last 2 years, we promoted policies to foster economic growth and job creation and opportunities for all Americans regardless of their station in life. By doing that, we made historic gains, and I want to mention a few of those now.

Let's start with the Tax Code--the first time in 31 years the Tax Code has been tackled and reformed. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered tax rates across the board for every tax bracket, doubled the child tax credit, and helped American businesses become more competitive in the global economy.

The savings created by these reforms have been real for Americans across the country. They mean an extra tank of gas each month, more food on the table, or a month's worth of rent. For parents, they mean that textbooks for their kids and school supplies are well within financial reach and saving a little bit more for that college education is now possible.

Robert from Wylie, TX, wrote me recently to say that he and his daughter have been ``pleasantly surprised'' by the increases in their paychecks. Robert said that he ``appreciate[s] the effort put forth by the current administration and look[s] forward to more being done to help the average American worker.''

American workers are the ones who have been left behind in the past and told to expect the new normal of stagnant economic growth and slow wage growth, but they are exactly the ones who are being helped the most now by these changes in tax and regulatory policies. It started with the tax reform legislation, and I think the regulatory reforms we have been able to enact have made a big difference as well.

The Texas Workforce Commission announced recently that our State hit record-low unemployment in October, while the Department of Commerce announced that the State's economy grew 6 percent in the second quarter. That is a red-hot, growing economy. These were monumental leaps forward that were felt in all corners of our State.

Confidence in the economy across the country is at its highest level since 2004; small business owners'--the primary engine of job creation in our country--confidence is at record-high levels; and optimism among U.S. manufacturers has soared to an alltime high. Is this a coincidence? I don't think so. Is this a result of policies produced years ago during a previous administration, as some people would claim? I don't think so. But we have done some important things on a bipartisan basis, together, such as removing some of the burdensome Dodd-Frank banking regulations so that we can expand access to capital, which means more loan money available for small businesses and families and particularly for farmers and the farming community.

We took important steps to reduce the regulatory burdens on all employers and job-seekers alike by giving States the tools to remove barriers to certain professions through occupational licensing reform. Some of the occupational licensing requirements in our States are basically nothing but incumbent protection, trying to freeze out people who wanted to learn a new skill, only to learn that it was uneconomical to do so or that the licensure requirement made that burden too high.

We also worked to help provide for our veterans--a noble undertaking in and of itself--and those who make the transition from military life to civilian life. One bill we passed, called the Jobs for Our Heroes Act, makes it easier for veterans to get commercial driver's licenses, and the American Law Enforcement Heroes Act makes sure veterans get hired by local law enforcement agencies when they come out of the military with the very skills that are needed by our police agencies that are working to keep our communities safe.

In each of these cases, we tried to listen to what my constituents and our constituents were telling us so we could implement targeted changes meant to improve the lives of the people we are honored to represent.

Particularly around Thanksgiving but year-round, I am reminded of how grateful I am for the sacrifices made by those who have served our country in the past and those who presently wear the uniform of the U.S. military. Many times, they are the very ones who spend their holidays deployed overseas in places far away from their families.

I am proud of the historic effort we have made on a bipartisan basis to provide support to those who are currently serving our country and those who have previously served. That started with the Veterans' Administration, which was past due for reforms. This is an immense bureaucracy of more than I believe 330,000 employees. We needed to pull that agency into the 21st century to better serve the veterans under its charge.

I am sure GEN Omar Bradley, who led the VA after World War II, would not recognize the system in place today, what we have transformed the VA into, but he would have recognized it as it previously existed because it basically was the same system that had been in place since World War II. Now we have taken important steps, such as passing the historic VA MISSION Act, which modernized the veterans' appeals process and the electronic healthcare system. We reformed veterans' healthcare benefits and improved accountability within the VA, and we provided the largest funding increase in history for veterans' care and services.

When it comes to other institutions that help provide safety and security for the American people, we were able to provide for the men and women of the Coast Guard with bipartisan support. Our bill ensures that the Coast Guard can continue to protect our ports, stop illegal drugs from reaching our borders, and save lives.

Earlier this year, we made the greatest investment in our military in history with the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act for the 58th consecutive year. This was appropriately named for our friend and colleague Senator John McCain. The Defense bill supports our men and women in uniform by providing the tools and resources they need to keep our country safe and includes the largest boost to servicemembers' pay in 10 years.

It is especially noteworthy that this year will mark the first time in about a decade that the Defense Department will not operate under a temporary spending measure, known as a continuing resolution. That is important. Because of bipartisan support, we have funded roughly 75 percent of the government so far--we still have more to do--on time and through regular order. In fact, we passed the most on time appropriations bills in 22 years.

In addition to these historic strides, we also passed landmark legislation to combat the drug addiction crisis that has plagued every corner of the country. This bill is designed to help stem the tide of drugs flooding across our borders but also help those who are suffering from drug addiction get the recovery support they need. We also continued to support communities by passing first-of-its-kind legislation to make our schools safer and stop online sex trafficking.

I think each one of these successes is worthy of mention because the legislative record of this current Congress--this 115th Congress--is pretty remarkable, one of the most productive since

my time in the Senate. It has meant unprecedented victories for American workers and families and communities, as well as our servicemembers. We still have a mission, though--we need to finish out the 115th Congress as strong as we began it, and we only have a few weeks left to do that. That starts by continuing our historic pace of confirming the President's judicial nominees, which already total more than 80, with 2 Supreme Court Justices confirmed in the 115th Congress in the last 2 years.

In the coming weeks, we will continue our work on the farm bill to provide support for our Nation's ag community. In my home State, one out of seven working Texans gains their income from working in the agriculture sector. Everyone has heard the saying ``Thank a farmer three times a day.'' It is the farmers and ranchers in the Lone Star State whom I think of when I hear that. Texans know as well as anybody the unpredictability of Mother Nature, which can ruin a crop or an entire season in the blink of an eye. That is why passing a farm bill is important--to give our farmers and ranchers the predictability and the certainty they need and deserve insofar as we can since we can't control Mother Nature.

As you can see, we have our work cut out for us in these remaining weeks. I mentioned earlier that Americans chose to send Senate Republicans back to Washington with an even greater majority, but Americans also chose a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Leader McConnell recently called the Senate ``fertile soil for bipartisan work,'' and that is true. It is the way the Senate is constructed and built with our unique rules when it comes to considering and voting on legislation. We are ripe for the possibilities of solving some of the biggest legislative question marks facing our government and facing our Nation.

But now our friends in the House, with Democratic majorities, need to make a choice. They can either choose to make noise or they can choose to join us in making law and improving the lot of American citizens.

I am confident of what we will choose on this side of the aisle because we will do exactly as we have done over the last 2 years-- continue to make substantial progress for the American family.

But we will want to make sure that we extend a hand to our Democratic colleagues in the House, and they can make their decision, I hope, to join us in continuing to make progress on the part of the American people and not just create more chaos and confusion and accentuate the divisiveness that we know already plagues our political system and our country.

It is important that we in Congress demonstrate that we are up to the challenge and that we are worthy of the trust of the people we represent--the American people.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Mississippi (Mrs. Hyde-Smith), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).

Mr. President, I know looking back on the last 2 years since the 2016 election, time has flown, but it is important to reflect on what we have been able to accomplish, and, really, it is pretty remarkable. These are not just political accomplishments; these are things that have improved the lives of our constituents--the American people.

As time is running out on the 115th Congress leading up to the holidays, yesterday I spoke about some of our larger accomplishments. Today I want to highlight some of the other important accomplishments we have made. Because they weren't particularly controversial, you didn't see them reported in cable news or in the media or the subject of massive social media campaigns. In addition, there are the economic gains we have seen from passing historic tax reform to the regulatory rollback we have seen, which has unleashed the American economy. We have also passed important public safety legislation, like the opioid legislation, which is designed to help thousands of Americans suffering from drug addiction. It is important to remember the grim statistic that last year alone, 72,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, 50,000 died from opioid overdoses, which include prescription drugs, fentanyl and heroin, most of which come from Mexico. I will touch on that in a moment.

A little over a year ago, the gulf coast of Texas sustained a rain event the likes of which we hope we will never see again. This was called Hurricane Harvey, but instead of damaging winds, in addition, we had incredible amounts of rain, with catastrophic flooding that left Texans dealing with months-long recovery efforts that are still going on today.

I was proud to join with not only my Texas colleagues but also colleagues across the aisle in both Chambers to pass three separate disaster relief bills totaling $147 billion for Hurricane Harvey aid, as well as the other natural disasters affecting other parts of the country. About $30 billion of that, I think, is Texas-specific, more or less, in terms of the needs, in terms of the resources that were required not only to recover but also to help mitigate future threats. We know it does little good to fix the problem today if it is going to be repeated tomorrow, and we know Hurricane Harvey is not the last hurricane and the last rain event we are going to have. So we authorized a coastal study that will ultimately lead us to construction of a coastal spine that will help protect the important gulf coast region, where most of the refining capacity in the country is located-- and we know that is a national priority--as well as the flood mitigation projects I mentioned a moment ago, by authorizing and funding the Army Corps of Engineers.

We tried to listen--and I did in Texas--to what our constituents said they needed most, and we passed two other pieces of legislation particularly relating to the disaster.

First, we made houses of worship eligible for certain FEMA grants to help

them rebuild after disasters. The second was a tax relief provision similar to the one we passed after Hurricane Katrina, which gave Texans the ability to deduct their property damage costs and access retirement savings on an emergency basis without penalties. Providing that relief was a big help to my constituents.

Disasters tend to bring out the best in all of us because it causes us to do things we didn't know we could actually do. The Texas spirit was perhaps one of the things that was most reassuring following the disasters, and it never wavered.

We saw that spirit again rallied around a community after an unthinkable act of violence at Sutherland Springs, TX, that left 26 people dead and 20 more wounded. Because the U.S. Air Force had failed to upload a felony conviction for domestic violence into the FBI's criminal background check system, the shooter in that case was able to acquire multiple firearms by simply lying about his criminal background record. So we came together, in a bipartisan way, to pass a bill I introduced called the Fix NICS Act--NICS is the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, hence the name--that fixed or at least took great strides toward fixing our broken background check system to ensure that violent criminals can't easily acquire firearms when they are convicted and ineligible under existing law.

We saw that resiliency arise out of another tragedy at Santa Fe High School, where we passed the STOP School Violence Act. I am not suggesting that by passing legislation, we are going to magically wave our wand and stop acts of violence, but we can do things that provide planning, training, safety infrastructure, and law enforcement support for our schools to make them a less soft target.

In an open society, I doubt we will ever be able to stop all acts of violence, but I think these are intended and will have a constructive effect and actually save lives.

A third way we spoke on the issue of public safety in our communities was through another bill I introduced called the Project Safe Neighborhoods Act that was signed into law earlier this year. It passed the Senate unanimously. People think everything is divided here along political lines. Well, we actually pass legislation like this unanimously in the Senate. It authorized the Project Safe Neighborhoods Program at the Department of Justice, which aims to reduce violent crimes by pairing local, State, and Federal law enforcement officials with Federal prosecutors and using tough Federal laws to prosecute gun crimes. These partnerships are proven to reduce violent crimes and deserve our full support. We have also come together to provide help to victims of crime and for the vulnerable.

The President has signed into law three bills I introduced that built upon my work when I was attorney general of Texas. The first is called the SAFER Act, which is aimed at reducing the backlog of untested rape kits in forensic labs. The second is called the Justice Served Act, which assists law enforcement in prosecuting the most difficult cold cases using the seemingly magical power of DNA testing in forensic labs. The third is a bill I championed called the PROTECT Our Children Act, which reauthorizes important resources combating child exploitation online.

Perhaps the best news story of the last couple of years has been our economy, how it has come roaring back. We have tried to reduce the regulatory burden on employers and job seekers alike, including in the three bills the President has signed into law.

These were targeted bills not designed to change Western civilization but to address specific, real problems that will improve the lives of the people we work for. One of those is the New HOPE Act, which is an occupational licensing reform bill that gives States the tools to reduce barriers to certain professions. It makes no sense because of licensing requirements to basically bar people from doing things they can learn how to do without overly burdensome licensing and training requirements which essentially are designed to protect incumbents.

We have also passed the Jobs for Our Heroes Act, which makes it easier for our veterans to get commercial driver's licenses.

We passed the American Law Enforcement Heroes Act to make sure veterans can get hired by local law enforcement agencies when they come out of the military with the very skills that are needed by our local law enforcement. We know all of our police agencies are working hard to try to recruit good, qualified people to keep our communities safe. They struggle with that, and this will help make that better.

In each of these cases, we tried to listen to the needs of Texans and people across the country and to translate that into legislation that will improve their lives. They don't get top billing on the national news, but they deserve our support, as do the people whom I came in contact with in my State who have inspired these laws.

As we close out the 115th Congress and move into a new Congress in January, these are the types of things we can continue to do together. Because of the midterm elections, our friends in the other body, the House of Representatives--now that Ms. Pelosi will presumably be the next Speaker--have an important decision to make: Do they want to make noise, do they want to harass the President or do they want to work with us to make laws that improve the quality of life for the people we represent? I hope they choose the latter, and, clearly, there is more we can and should do together to help the American people.

I know I am running out of time. I am going to come back a little later on to talk about the caravans that are coming up from Central America through Mexico and what we need to do together to address those.

At this time, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wanted to come back to the floor after speaking a little earlier this morning about the so-called caravan of migrants coming from Central America up through Mexico and who are now located in Tijuana, many of whom will be seeking asylum here in the United States. Coming from Texas with a 1,200-mile common border with Mexico, caravans are not unheard of; in fact, we have many caravans showing up on a daily basis at Border Patrol stations, including unaccompanied children and families.

What has happened is that the cartels--these transnational criminal organizations--have figured out, as part of their business model, that they can make money by shipping migrants up through Mexico into the United States or they can ship drugs from Mexico into the United States or traffic in children and women for sex slavery.

They have figured out that they can make money because of the gaps in our border security, because of the characteristics of our law that make it impossible for us to deter many of the immigrants coming from Central America.

I know that during the recent midterm elections, there was some thought that President Trump or others were just sort of making this issue up in order to energize voters leading up to the midterm elections. Well, I will not comment on the politics of this; I will just say that this is a phenomenon that has been occurring on a daily basis in the recent past. It is because of a glitch in our laws that our Democratic colleagues are well aware of, and that we have tried to fix, but they simply will not cooperate with us in order to fix it.

Basically, what we would do is treat somebody who enters the United States from noncontiguous countries the same way we would if they came into our country illegally from Mexico. That is the long and short of it. But they will not have any part of it because they feel as though this advantages them politically because by enforcing our laws, by securing our borders, they believe that somehow that could be portrayed as anti-immigrant, which is demonstrably false.

About 40 percent of my constituents in Texas are of Hispanic origin, many of whom live along that international border. They understand that the cartels that traffic in people and drugs and contraband are criminal organizations that threaten their security and safety. So I feel very strongly about this issue, and I think somebody needs to speak up and state the facts.

These caravans are bringing thousands of migrants coming from Central American countries, mostly women and children. But you can imagine, if one caravan of several thousand people is successful in breaching our border and entering the United States without regard to our immigration laws, what that will do to encourage further efforts. So this is not a one-off; this isn't just something that is going to happen one time. This will get worse and worse and worse. If you went down to some of these Central American countries and asked them who would like to immigrate to the United States, you are going to see not just hundreds and thousands, but hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of people who would like to come to the United States.

We have to have an orderly way to deal with immigration.

Somebody asked in this last midterm election: What is your position on immigration?

I said: It is really simple. Legal immigration is good; illegal immigration is bad.

So we know that this current caravan is not made up entirely of asylum seekers or people trying to flee poverty and violence in their home countries. It is made up of migrants from other parts of the world who travel to Central America so that they can take advantage of that porous border and the pathway to the United States. They come from countries all around the world, including special interest aliens from countries that, unfortunately, are plagued by terrorism. I am not saying we have a bunch of terrorists in this pack; I am just saying it is a vulnerability that could be exploited by anybody who wants to take advantage of these gaps in our law and our lack of security.

It also includes people who have been arrested in the United States and deported back to their home countries, who are reentering the United States in violation of our immigration laws. They have already committed criminal acts, and they are coming back in, disguised, among the larger caravan of Central American immigrants.

One thing the Border Patrol has also made clear is that because the Border Patrol has to deal with this mass of humanity coming up across the border while somehow treating them in a humane fashion, which we all would want them to do, the cartels realize the Border Patrol is all balled up trying to process this caravan of Central American immigrants, so that opens up avenues by which to import illegal drugs into the United States, another moneymaking proposition for the cartels. Ninety percent of the heroin--an opioid--90 percent of the heroin that comes into the United States comes from Mexico.

Somebody said to me recently: Well, the cartels are commodity agnostic. I thought that was a pretty good way of expressing it. In other words, they are into anything that will make them money. No matter how debased, no matter how cruel, no matter how inhumane, they are willing to do anything to make money.

By not dealing with this issue in a responsible fashion on a nonpartisan basis, we are making the cartels rich. More people have died in Mexico since 2007 than have died in the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq combined. Incoming President Lopez Obrador has said that he wants to deal with the violence in Mexico as part of his new administration. Frankly, I think we need to help him, but we need to recognize the reality. This is not benign activity; this isn't a mom- and-pop operation where people who want jobs are coming into the United States. This is a big business.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that two gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18 now rule over most of El Salvador, terrorizing that country's population. These gangs and the cartels that support them throughout Central America take advantage of a very simple economic principle: supply and demand. So as long as there is demand in the United States for heroin and other illegal drugs, as long as there is a demand for low-wage labor, these gangs will fill that supply. As long as there is a demand for sex slavery, these gangs and these cartels will meet that supply.

So this makes our relationship with our friends in Mexico very, very important. Our two governments need to work more closely together because U.S. and American interests are interrelated and aligned. This is not just an illegal immigration or drug smuggling problem; it is all of them combined. It is a question of whether the Government of Mexico can actually control or defeat the cartels that threaten the safety and stability of their people in that country and have this business model that I mentioned.

So our partnership with Mexico--under the administration of President Lopez Obrador, who will be sworn in on December 1; I hope to be there at that inauguration--must continue to grow and evolve because the gangs, the cartels that hurt and kill people in Mexico and then threaten our security and safety here in the United States are going to also evolve and adapt to make sure they can maintain their dominance in the region. That is why programs like the Merida Initiative are vital to our collective success in combating this multiheaded monster.

It is clear we should take into account how to combat the flow of illicit drugs into the United States and how we can help restore the relationship--our relationship--with those communities and those countries and law enforcement personnel in Central America.

This crisis extends far beyond how to treat the flood of migrants that come across the border. This is not a political issue alone, as some would have it. People act as though the President dreamed this issue up in order to gain advantage or energize his base during the recently passed midterm elections.

In Texas, communities along our border rely heavily on legitimate trade and travel across our ports of entry. It is really important. That is why NAFTA and the renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement was so important, and it is important to the entire country because 14 million jobs depend on trade with Mexico and Canada. You can imagine, if our ports of entry are clogged with caravan after caravan of tens, hundreds, thousands--maybe hundreds of thousands--of migrants from Central America seeking asylum in the United States, we are not going to have much legitimate trade and commerce across those ports of entry, and it is going to harm not only my State, but the United States as a whole.

We can't forget that our border communities are critically important, and any solution we find must somehow balance our normal compassion for people who are vulnerable and people who are seeking a better life with the rule of law and our ability to protect our own sovereignty by securing our borders and controlling illegal immigration into the United States.

In the coming weeks, I hope we can work with the administration to determine a course of action that addresses the real needs of legitimate asylum seekers without rewarding illegal activity and making the drug cartels even richer than they are now and encouraging and condoning more and more violence, which harms people all across the region. We need to send a message that the United States alone cannot bear the burden of this mass migration, and we need to ensure that those who seek to enter the United States do so legally. We will work with our partners in Central America and Mexico to try to find solutions that will allow migrants to return safely to their home countries or find resettlement solutions in safe countries until the day I know they would hope for, when they could safely return home.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

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

Committee on Armed Services

The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2018, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: William Bookless, to be Principal Deputy Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration and Thomas McCaffery, to be Assistant secretary of Defense of Health Affairs.

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, November 15, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``The semiannual testimony of the Federal Reserve's Supervision and regulation of the financial system.''

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, November 15, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Environment and Public Works

The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining Funding needs for the wildlife Conservation, Recovery, and Management''.

Committee on Finance

The Committee on Finance is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Andrew M. Saul, of New York, to be Commissioner of Social Security for the term expiring January 19, 2019, and Gail S. Ennis, of Maryland, to be Inspector General, both of the Social Security Administration, and Gordon Hartogensis, of Connecticut, to be Director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Ronald D. Vitiello, of Illinois, to be an Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, and Richard S. Tischner, of Virginia, to be Director of the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia.

Committee on the Judiciary

The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a business meeting and hearing on the following nominations: Bridget S. Bade, of Arizona, and Eric D. Miller, of Washington, both to be a United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit, Eric E. Murphy, of Ohio, and Chad A. Readier, of Ohio, both to be a United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, Allison Jones Rushing, of North Carolina, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit, Rossie David Alston, Jr., to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, Thomas P. Barber, and Wendy Williams Berger, both to be a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida, Pamela A. Barker, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio, Karin J Immergut, to be United States District Judge for the District of Oregon, Corey Landon Maze, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, Sarah Daggett Morrison, to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, Rodney Smith, to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of Florida, T. Kent Wetherell II, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Florida, Richard A. Hertling, of Maryland, to be a Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims, and Kim Gaffney, to be United States Marshal for the Western District of Wisconsin, Bradley Jay LaRose, to be United States Marshal for the District of Vermont, and Douglas J. Strike, to be United States Marshal for the Northern District of Iowa, all of the Department of Justice.

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 15, 2018, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing closed briefing.

Mr. President, as I return to the Nation's Capital from home, back in Austin, TX, so we can finish our work out before the end of the year, I want to relay some of the wisdom that I heard from working families and Texans back home about their verdict on what we have done so far this year and actually even last year.

I stopped by a couple of food banks--one in North Texas and one in El Paso--ahead of this year's upcoming holiday season. This is when they have the greatest demand for food by people who need either to supplement their diets or who rely on food banks to provide them with their basic sustenance.

I also had a chance to visit with a Nobel Prize winner at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Dr. Jim Allison, to discuss his groundbreaking work in cancer treatment, much of which was funded by money we have appropriated to the National Institutes of Health, which, in turn, provides grants for basic science and other research that come up with lifesaving cures, such as Dr. Allison has come up with.

Then I met with the local leadership in the Corpus Christi area, down in the gulf coast, to discuss their Hurricane Harvey recovery process. It has been a little over a year since Hurricane Harvey hit. Of course, many of those communities and many families are continuing to recover from that devastation.

I also held a roundtable with local leaders and the drug-free communities councils to discuss how local, State, and Federal leaders can work together to fight the supply of illegal drugs coming into the country and to support those who are in recovery from addiction. It won't surprise you that people had a lot to say. Yet their stories remind me that while being back here in Washington--although Texas is a long way away, about 3 hours or so by jet--folks back home are paying attention to what we are doing here, and I know some of that gets lost in the back-and-forth of the political campaigns that have just passed.

There is one thing that we have done that I think has been well received, and that is, since the voters gave us a Republican in the White House and gave us Republican majorities in the House and the Senate, we have put our foot on the gas pedal and haven't let off since. We have delivered concrete results for the American people, and they have continued to see gains under this administration--promises made and promises kept.

I will start with the transformation of the Federal judiciary. One of the most important jobs the U.S. Senate has under the Constitution is to provide advice and consent on executive branch nominations--in this case, to our article III courts. A historic number of judges who will interpret the law as written have been confirmed under the administration. That number is 84, and it includes the most ever appellate judges--the midlevel Federal courts--to have ever been confirmed during a President's first 2 years in office. These are principled, experienced, highly skilled lawyers and judges who respect precedent and understand their critical but limited role under our system of government. Their job is to interpret the law; they shouldn't rewrite it. That is one of the principal battles we end up fighting when Supreme Court nominations come across the well of the Senate floor. There are those who think that judges should be able to impose their views on the American people even though they don't run for election and have lifetime tenures, but that is simply not our system. In my view, that is an impermissible role to be played by a judge.

When it comes to judges, perhaps our two greatest achievements have been Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both of whom were confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet, as I say, we have confirmed a total of 84 other Federal judges, including 3 on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from Texas. All of these nominees and now judges have brought great intellect, legal expertise, impartiality, and good will to bear as they make decisions with their very distinguished colleagues.

We saw the first major overhaul in the Tax Code in 31 years. It lowered rates for every tax bracket, doubled the child tax credit to help working families, and made our business tax scheme more competitive globally. All of this has allowed many of those employers to pass along benefits through bonuses and higher wages. We have also incentivized investment in economically distressed communities in every State through the Opportunity Zone Program.

Some like to shrug off the benefits of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act by calling the savings crumbs, which is what Ms. Pelosi has called them, but they are certainly not taking into account what I am hearing from my constituents back home in Texas. The effects of tax reform are real, and they are extremely significant to every American. All employers have been able to provide additional benefits--as I said, some in the form of bonuses or in increased pay. Those who have seen their pay remain the same have seen more take-home pay because their tax obligations have been reduced.

One of the taxpayers I heard from in Texas was a gentleman by the name of David Tong from Arlington, TX, which is halfway between Fort Worth and Dallas. Dave wrote to me to say that the company at which he is employed has increased the number of hours people are able to work. He said Christmas bonuses have been promised, too, and that the company has hired more people, has bought more new machinery based on the accelerated depreciation provided for under the bill, and has made long overdue repairs to their working place. Now, with the tax law changes in place, David says the guys down on the shop floor are taking home a little more in their paychecks each week. He said all of this adds up and makes a huge difference in the lives of the guys on the shop floor.

We have heard similar stories from around the country because more than 700 companies, including many that are based in Texas, have used the tax savings to benefit their employees and their customers. They have announced pay raises, as I said, and 401(k) match increases.

We have actually seen seniors and people on fixed incomes have a decrease in their utility bills, when their electricity is provided by investor-owned utilities, because of the reduction in taxes to be paid by those investor-owned utilities. So there are lower utility rates for seniors and those on fixed incomes.

These developments are part of the reason the economy is thriving. Since tax reform was signed into law, the economy has added more than 2 million jobs, and unemployment has been at its lowest rate since 1969. My State has a population that is roughly 38 to 40 percent Hispanic; yet Hispanic unemployment sits at the record low of 4.4 percent. That is a big deal to my constituents back home. Joblessness for African Americans has fallen to its lowest level ever--the lowest level ever-- under this administration.

Then, of course, with more demand--with more money in people's pockets, more money to spend--there is more demand for goods and services. So in October alone, the economy has added another 250,000 jobs, exceeding all expectations. As a matter of fact, the biggest concern I hear from employers now is that they are looking for qualified employees who are able to perform the jobs that are now available, and many of these are very well-paying jobs.

So people are back to work. They are earning more. They are investing, and the economy is moving at full throttle.

But it wasn't just the work of the tax bill. That was just part of it. Part of it has to do with the increased confidence and optimism that people feel about their future as a result of the improvement of their economic circumstances. We saw that with the passage of the bipartisan Dodd-Frank reform. We have also provided additional relief to our community banks and credit unions so they are able to spend less money on redtape and have more money invested

in their local communities and in their small businesses.

We also know that regulation is important, but overregulation is a job killer. We have rolled back overregulation that was stifling job creation, and we are creating an environment that fosters job growth. Our reforms have created a savings of at least $50 billion for small businesses and entrepreneurs. That is why the economy is on fire.

We have also done important things to help improve access to healthcare. We have repealed the Independent Payment Advisory Board provisions of ObamaCare and repealed the costly individual mandate, which essentially was a tax on poor people and middle-income people when they couldn't afford to buy the ObamaCare policies with all of the coverage that they didn't necessarily even want or need, but it added to the cost of the policy. When they couldn't afford the policy, they were taxed by their own government and punished through the individual mandate.

What we have done is to try to restore the authority and the power of citizens themselves to make healthcare decisions for themselves and their families that they want and that they can afford by starting to recreate an individual market. To me, that is the best way for us to offer choice and to keep prices down--to create an individual market, not for government to mandate a one-size-fits-all approach, which is what ObamaCare did. It forced many young people to pay a lot more for their insurance to subsidize others who were covered by ObamaCare.

We also addressed the public health challenges we face in this country in another significant way. The Nation's drug addiction epidemic killed roughly 72,000 Americans last year. Some 72,000 Americans lost their lives to drug overdoses. Nearly 50,000 of those were related to opioids, whether a prescription drug or heroin or fentanyl. It has left many families in disarray and overwhelmed medical professionals and emergency personnel in many communities.

Through the collaboration of about 70 bipartisan proposals--people say nothing bipartisan happens here, but thanks to 70 bipartisan proposals--that were included in this landmark opioids bill, we are not only addressing stemming the tide of drugs coming across our border but also supporting those who are trying to recover from a drug addiction.

Among other reforms, the law requires screening of packages being mailed from overseas for substances like fentanyl. It increases access to treatment for people with substance disorders. It expands research into nonaddictive painkillers, and it provides more money for enforcement and interdiction.

But healthy communities are also safe communities. In addition to the opioids bill, we took further steps to enhance the safety of our communities and to help victims. With three new laws, we aimed to reduce the backlog of untested rape kits in forensic labs so that perpetrators of sexual assault can be identified with near certainty and those wrongly charged can be exonerated.

We also have assisted our law enforcement in prosecuting cold cases and eradicating the scourge of online sex trafficking. We didn't stop there, though. We kept communities' needs in mind and turned toward fixing our Nation's outdated infrastructure.

In October, we passed a major water infrastructure bill that helps to keep our communities safe by providing dams and levees and addressing the need for drinking water--clean, safe drinking water--and addressing the underdevelopment of wastewater systems across the country.

But our work on infrastructure extended far beyond public water systems. It also included passing the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act, which modernizes airport infrastructure, increases safety, and boosts industry innovation.

We also helped to support our men and women in uniform, past and present. By passing a Defense authorization bill, we gave our troops the largest pay raise in nearly 10 years and began to restore military readiness in an increasingly dangerous world.

The National Defense Authorization Act, named after our former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, John McCain, ensures that our troops have the resources, the equipment, and the training they need to defend our country and keep Americans safe.

For our veterans, we passed the VA Mission Act--again, a bipartisan piece of legislation. Access to healthcare had become a nightmare for many who sacrificed so much for our country. We saw them being met with difficulty getting appointments because they were backlogged so much, or they had to drive great distances to get access to basic healthcare. So we passed the VA Mission Act with an eye toward providing more efficient access to care in local communities.

Beyond that, we did the basic work of funding the Federal Government on time and through regular order. We haven't finished that job yet. We have until December 7 to finish the job, and I hope we do. It is not a particularly flashy topic, but it is one of the most fundamental duties of the Congress.

So our record is clear, and the voters responded by rewarding the majority with an even greater Senate majority in the next Congress. But we need to finish out the rest of this year strong. We are adding to our list of accomplishments this week by passing a bipartisan bill to provide critical funding for the Coast Guard. Our Coast Guard is made up of men and women who risk their lives to save others and to protect our ports and to stop illegal drugs from reaching our country. This bill ensures that they can continue that work with the predictability they deserve.

Moving forward, we have a significant to-do list before we break for Christmas. We need to finalize the farm bill. We need to reauthorize a number of other bills, and despite the large number of nominations we were able to get done before we recessed, there is still a huge backlog of many executive branch nominations. For some reason, after the 2016 election, our Democratic colleagues decided they were going to obstruct or delay as many Trump nominations to executive agencies on the bench as they could. Unfortunately, they have been too successful in doing so, but I am confident that the Senate Majority Leader, Senator McConnell, will use the leverage of people wanting to get home at Christmastime and Thanksgiving to ensure that we get a maximum number of these noncontroversial nominees supported. These are people who will enjoy broad bipartisan support if we can just get our Democratic colleagues to quit the obstruction.

We have just a short time left to finish this Congress strong, but the past 2 years have been an unmitigated success for the country. We have delivered on promises we have made. We have put money back in the pockets of hard-working families. We enhanced community safety and fought for victims. We have modernized infrastructure and supported our men and women in uniform. I hope we can continue this momentum into the 116th Congress that begins in January.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have 4 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 Foreign Relations

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, November 14, 2018, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Patricia Mahoney, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Benin, Richard Carlton Paschall III, of North Carolina, to be Ambassador to the Republic of The Gambia, and Susan N. Stevenson, of Washington, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, all of the Department of State.

Committee on Indian Affairs

The Committee on Indian Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, November 14, 2018, at 3 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Indian Affairs

The Committee on Indian Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, November 14, 2018, at 3 p.m., to conduct a legislative hearing.

Subcommittee on Cybersecurity

The Subcommittee on Cybersecurity of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, November 14, 2018, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson).