Floor Statements

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 Tuesday, May 8, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a closed 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 Tuesday, May 8, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing.

Special Committee on Aging

The Special Committee on Aging is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 8, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Insulin Access and Affordability: The Rising Cost of Treatment.''

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 8, 2018, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a closed hearing.

Subcommittee on Aviation, Operations, Safety, and Security

The Subcommittee on Aviation, Operations, Safety, and Security of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 8, 2018, at 10:15 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Keeping Pace with Innovation-- Updating on the Safe Integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems into Airspace.''

Madam President, as a fellow Commodore, I would like to congratulate the Vanderbilt University women's bowling team on winning the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA, championship, the second national championship for the women's bowling program and the fourth national championship in Commodore athletic history.

John Williamson, the head coach of this program for 14 years, has done an excellent job of training and guiding these exceptional student-athletes. He has worked hard to build this program from its inception in 2004 into one that annually contends for championships.

Vanderbilt is a very special university, one that produces student- athletes of exceptional character and integrity. These are student- athletes that have pride in themselves and their school, in both academics and athletics. In fact, Kristin Quah of the bowling team earned the NCAA's Elite 90 Award for having the highest grade point average at the championships, a 3.953, while double majoring in biomedical and electrical engineering. Seven members of the team were recently named to the spring sports All SEC Academic Honor Roll.

I am filled with pride for my alma mater, and I wish the bowling team and all of Vanderbilt University the best.

This achievement would not have been possible without the hard work, talent, and teamwork of the following outstanding student-athletes: Kelsey Abrahamsen, Maria Bulanova, Samantha Gainor, Bryanna Leyen, Jordan Newham, Ariana Perez, Lauren Potechin, Kristin Quah, Emily Rigney, Katie Stark, and Adel Wahner.

These student-athletes were coached and mentored by a dedicated team of coaches and athletic department staff, including: head coach John Williamson; assistant coach and former All-American Josie Earnest Barnes; associate athletic director and sport administrator Kevin Colon; strength and conditioning coach Darren Edgington; facility manager Kenny Moore; academic counselor Candice Johnson; athletic trainer Alda Burston; and volunteer sports information director Rod Williamson.

I would also like to acknowledge chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos; vice chancellor and athletics director David Williams II; deputy athletics director Candice Storey Lee; and senior associate athletics directors Lori Alexander; and Martin Salamone for their vision and leadership.

Anchor Down, Commodores. We are proud of you.

Mr. President, today I would like to express my support for S. 140, an act to amend the White Mountain Apache Tribe Water Rights Quantification Act of 2010 to clarify the use of amounts in the WMAT Settlement Fund.

The Senate initially passed this legislation on May 8, 2017, by unanimous consent. The House of Representatives passed this legislation on January 10, 2018, with an amendment. That amendment adds an important provision safeguarding the sovereignty of Native American tribes.

This new provision was the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act, introduced by Senator Moran. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs voted to favorably report the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act by voice vote, with only three committee members requesting to be recorded as voting against the bill, on February 17, 2017.

Private sector labor relations in the United States are regulated by the National Labor Relations Act, NLRA. Created in 1935, the National Labor Relations Board, NLRB, administers the NLRA. The five members of the NLRB have 5-year, staggered terms. I am pleased the Senate recently confirmed Mr. John Ring, a well-qualified nominee, to a position on the

Mr. President, later this afternoon, the Senate will finally vote to confirm Carlos Muniz--a well-qualified nominee--to be general counsel at the U.S. Department of Education.

I came to the floor last week to ask for this vote because I believe Mr. Muniz has been subject to unreasonable delays. For example, Mr. Muniz was nominated by the President on June 6th of last year--316 days ago. He has been pending on the floor since we reported him out of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on October 18, 2017-- 182 days ago. In other words, he has been waiting for 6 months, following his approval by the relevant committee, for the Senate to consider this nomination. So it is time to confirm him. It is time to give Secretary DeVos an attorney and a general counsel.

Mr. Muniz has extensive experience as an attorney and in government. From January 2014 to February 2018, he was a partner at the law firm of McGuireWoods in Florida.

Prior to that, from January 2011 to 2014, he was Deputy Attorney General for the State of Florida and Chief of Staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi. There, he managed a 400-lawyer agency and oversaw all functions, including litigation, policy development, legislative affairs, and communications. He was also General Counsel for Florida's Department of Financial Services and Deputy General Counsel for Governor Jeb Bush.

Mr. Muniz graduated from the University of Virginia with high honors. He earned his law degree from Yale, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school, he served as a law clerk to two Federal judges, one on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the other for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In other words, he is exactly the kind of person that we hope would serve in public life.

I am delighted that he chose to accept the President's nomination and that we will have a chance this afternoon to confirm him.

As general counsel, he will have the important job of providing legal assistance to the Secretary concerning the programs and policies of the Department and making sure that these policies follow the law, which given his background, he has the experience to do.

He testified in his confirmation hearing that he is committed to advising the Secretary to follow the law as Congress wrote it.

I am glad we are having this vote today. I support his nomination. I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for his courtesy in allowing me to speak before him.

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

Mr. President, yesterday, our country lost a bright, caring, independent lady, and my wife, Honey, and I lost a good friend. Barbara Bush set a wonderful example as mom, wife, First Lady, and advocate for adult literacy. We express to the Bush family our sympathy and great respect for the life of Barbara Bush.

Jon Meacham wrote the biography of George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush's husband, to great acclaim. He had access to the diaries of President Bush and Barbara Bush that was almost unparalleled in any Presidential biographer's experience. So it was a plain and unvarnished biography that told us a lot about those two individuals. I thought a better name for Jon Meacham's book--it was named ``Destiny and Power,'' and it must have been properly named because it sold a lot--would be ``The Last Gentleman.'' If I were to make a really accurate suggestion about the title for the book, I would call it ``The Last Gentleman and His Lady'' or maybe ``The Last Gentleman and His Very Independent Lady'' because Barbara Bush was a very independent lady.

I remember it was 1991. It was a sunny day, and we were walking on the south lawn of the White House. I was the Education Secretary, and I was walking with the President and Mrs. Bush to the announcement of his GI Bill for Kids, which was a school choice program for low-income children. As we walked along, Barbara Bush turned to President Bush and said, ``George, you've got on the wrong pants.'' He had a suit coat on from one suit, and he had pants on from another suit. So she said to the President ``You go on back in and change clothes, and Lamar and I will wait here for you,'' which we did and he did.

On another occasion, President Bush invited my wife and me to join Barbara and the President at Ford's theater. Of course, the President traveled with great security in a big car. As the protocol goes, he got out first, and as she was about to get out, she said, ``I'll get the door, George.''

On still another occasion, I was sitting next to Barbara and George Bush, and the President was called on to make some remarks. He leaned over to his wife and said, ``Barbara, what should I talk about?'' And she whispered very loudly, ``About five minutes, George.''

Barbara Bush was quite a woman. She said what she thought. When the second one of her sons decided to run for President, she was reported to have said, ``We've had enough Bushes.''

When I ran for President in 1999 against her other son, I made what I thought--certainly by today's standards--some very mild comments disagreeing about something, and I heard

from Barbara Bush about what I had said about her son, George W. Bush.

Not many of us think how difficult it must be to be the spouse of a President of the United States with all that one goes through, but think how much harder it must also be to be the mother of a President of the United States and the mother of another distinguished son who was Governor of a large State and who ran for President of the United States. Barbara Bush was the anchor of her family, and a very successful and remarkable family it was.

I was Education Secretary for President Bush in 1991 when the National Literacy Act was enacted. Let's use Barbara's own words to define the event. She wrote in her memoir, ``I must say I got more credit than I deserve.''

I don't agree with that, but she continued:

I heard that George was going to give the pen to me, but

before he could, Senator Simon spoke up and said, ``That pen

ought to go to Barbara.'' I donated it to the George Bush

Presidential Library Center. In the end, however it's not

pens and pictures that count; it's the National Literacy Act

that really counts. It was the first piece of legislation--

and to date, the only one--ever enacted specifically for

literacy with the goal of ensuring that every American adult

acquires the basic literacy skills necessary to achieve the

greatest possible satisfaction professionally and personally.

But even more than that, the act seeks to strengthen our

nation by giving us more productive workers and informed

citizens.

In his biography of President George H.W. Bush, John Meacham wrote of a ``generational controversy,'' in his words, that Barbara Bush endured in May of 1990. She was invited to Wellesley College to speak at graduation and receive an honorary degree, but she was being criticized by Wellesley's young women, as President Bush put in his own diary-- these are President Bush's words--``because she hasn't made it on her own--she's where she is because she's her husband's wife. What's wrong with the fact that she's a good mother,'' President Bush wrote in his diary, ``a good wife, great volunteer, great leader for literacy and other fine causes? Nothing. But to listen to these elitist kids there is.''

Meacham writes:

Mrs. Bush invited [Mrs.] Gorbachev along with her to

Wellesley. There, [she] confronted the issues of work versus

family and the role of women head-on, delivering a well-

received commencement address.

She put the audience at ease early on by saying: One day, I am sure that someone in this audience will grow up to become a spouse of the President of the United States, and I wish him well.

Meacham continues:

``Maybe we should adjust faster, maybe we should adjust

slower,'' she told the graduates. ``But whatever the era,

whatever the times, one thing will never change: Fathers and

mothers, if you have children--they must come first. You must

read to your children, and you must hug your children, and

you must love your children. Your success as a family, our

success as a society depends not on what happens in the White

House, but on what happens inside your house.''

Barbara Bush said that to the Wellesley graduates in 1990.

The country is expressing to the Bush family, as I am trying to today, our great respect for Barbara Bush's life.

President Bush, George H.W. Bush, has sent a response to those of us who sent our condolences, and I would like to close with the President's own words about his wife Barbara. This is what George H.W. Bush said:

I always knew Barbara was the most beloved woman in the

world, and in fact I used to tease her that I had a complex

about that fact. But the truth is the outpouring of love and

friendship being directed at The Enforcer is lifting us all

up. We have faith she is in heaven, and we know life will go

on--as she would have it. So cross the Bushes off your worry

list.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today the Senate will vote on the confirmation of Patrick Pizzella to be the Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Labor, DOL. The Department of Labor is charged with enforcing laws to keep workers safe on the job, ensuring workers are paid the wages they are owed, helping to develop our workforce, and keeping critical data on our employment market.

Patrick Pizzella brings a wealth of relevant experience in both Democratic and Republican administrations. President Trump designated Mr. Pizzella as acting Chairman of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, FLRA, in January 2017, a position which he held through December 2017. President Obama appointed Mr. Pizzella to the FLRA in August 2013, after which he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by voice vote on October 16, 2013.

Mr. Pizzella served under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009, as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Administration and Management at the Department of Labor. Mr. Pizzella was nominated by President Bush in April 2001--approved in May without a hearing by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, HELP, under Senator Ted Kennedy--and confirmed by the full Senate 2 days later.

Mr. Pizzella also served at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the U.S. Small Business Administration, and the U.S. General Services Administration.

This day is long overdue. President Trump initially nominated Mr. Pizzella to be the Deputy Secretary of Labor on June 20, 2017. The Senate HELP Committee received Mr. Pizzella's HELP Committee application on June 29, 2017. On June 23, 2017, the committee received Mr. Pizzella's Office of Government Ethics, OGE, paperwork, including his public financial disclosure and ethics agreement. Based on these documents, OGE determined that Mr. Pizzella ``is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations governing conflicts of interest.'' Mr. Pizzella completed all paperwork in accordance with the HELP Committee's rules, practices, and procedures. The HELP Committee held Mr. Pizzella's hearing on July 13, 2017, and reported his nomination favorably on October 18, 2017.

Pursuant to Senate rules, Mr. Pizzella's nomination was returned to the President at the end of the first session of the 115th Congress. In fact, Mr. Pizzella was one of nearly 100 of President Trump's nominees who were returned to the President. It is unfortunate the Department of Labor has had to operate without its second most senior official for more than 9 months since Mr. Pizzella's initial nomination.

President Trump again nominated Mr. Pizzella to be the Deputy Secretary of Labor on January 8, 2018. The HELP Committee again favorably reported Mr. Pizzella's nomination on January 18, 2018.

The Department will greatly benefit from Mr. Pizzella's leadership and experience, and I look forward to supporting his confirmation.

Mr. President, today the Senate will vote on the confirmation of John Ring to be a member of the National Labor Relations Board, NLRB. I am glad that we are voting on this nomination because, once Mr. Ring is confirmed, we will once again have a full five-member National Labor Relations Board.

Created in 1935, the NLRB administers the National Labor Relations Act, which seeks to mitigate and eliminate labor-related impediments to the free flow of commerce. The 5 board members have 5-year, staggered terms, and the general counsel has a 4-year term.

The NLRB should be a neutral umpire in labor disputes. While Board partisanship did not start under President Obama, it became worse under him. An overly partisan Board creates instability in our Nation's workplaces and does not serve the intent of the law, which is to create stable labor relations and the free flow of commerce.

The NLRB under President Obama took two particularly harmful actions that are still in place today. First, the joint employer decision threatens the American dream for owners of the Nation's 780,000 franchise locations. Under that decision, companies could find it much more practical to own all their stores and restaurants and daycare centers themselves, rather than encourage more franchisee-owned small businesses.

Second is the ambush election rule, which can force a union election before employers and employees have a chance to figure out what is going on. The rule also forces employers to provide union organizers with a list of employees' work locations, shifts, job classifications, personal email addresses, and home and cellular telephone numbers. This information is highly personal, and employees may not want it shared, but workers do not have a choice. I am pleased the Board is accepting comments on whether this rule should be revised.

A fully staffed board is vital to both employees and employers, and I am not the only one who thinks that is important. At a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, HELP, hearing in September 2014, then-Chairman Harkin said, ``Keeping the NLRB fully staffed and able to do its work will send a strong message to the American people that yes, Washington can work, and our government can function.''

While attending the Catholic University Columbus School of Law in the evening, Mr. Ring worked for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. After law school, he joined the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he has worked since 1988. Mr. Ring flourished at the firm, where he worked his way up from summer associate to coleader of the firm's labor and management relations practice.

Mr. Ring was nominated to be a member of the NLRB on January 18, 2018. The HELP Committee held Mr. Ring's hearing on March 1, 2018, and he completed all paperwork in accordance with the committee's rules, practices, and procedures. We received Mr. Ring's HELP Committee paperwork and his Office of Government Ethics paperwork on January 24, 2018, 36 days before his hearing. Mr. Ring offered to meet with all HELP Committee members and met with five of them, including two Democrats. Following his hearing, Mr. Ring responded to 97 questions for the record, or 158, if you include subquestions. These responses were provided to Senators prior to the markup, and the HELP Committee favorably reported Mr. Ring's nomination on March 14, 2018.

I look forward to voting for John Ring, and I trust that he will serve with distinction.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic leader, the Senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of the following nomination: Executive Calendar No. 376. I ask consent that there then be 10 hours of debate, equally divided in the usual form; that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote on the nomination with no intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid

upon the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; that no further motions be in order; and that any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the Record.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I rise to say a word about my friend Thad Cochran, who is retiring from the U.S. Senate.

In 1968, I had the job of recruiting State chairman for Citizens for Nixon-Agnew. I was a very young, wet-behind-the-ears former legislative assistant to Senator Howard Baker. We were working in the Willard Hotel in the fall of 1968. The idea was to try to find outstanding citizens who weren't necessarily Republicans because in the southern part of our country, there weren't a lot of Republicans, especially in the State of Mississippi.

So I called around the State of Mississippi to find out who might be willing to head up this Nixon-Agnew campaign. Everybody I called said: Well, there are two young men here who are just the most outstanding young men, both are cheerleaders at Ole Miss, or had been, and both are going to grow up to be the Governor of Mississippi, which was, at that time, I guess, the nicest thing one could say about some aspiring young man because nobody thought the two U.S. Senators, Eastland and Stennis, would ever retire. So growing up to be the Governor of Mississippi was really a great compliment to a young man in Mississippi at the time. One of those young men was named Trent Lott, and one of those young men was named Thad Cochran.

I telephoned Thad Cochran, and I invited him to become chairman of the Citizens for Nixon-Agnew. He was a Democrat, but he agreed to do that. We met in October of that year in Indianapolis. The mayor of Indianapolis then was Richard Lugar, a young mayor at that time and later a Member of this body. That was the beginning of Thad Cochran's Republican Party activity.

He and that other young man--who were so promising--both ran for U.S. Congress in 1972, and to the surprise of a great many people, they were elected, the first Republicans since Reconstruction, I suppose, from Mississippi--Thad Cochran and Trent Lott.

In 1978, Thad Cochran did something nobody had done from his State since the Reconstruction; he became a Republican who was elected to the U.S. Senate, and he has been here ever since.

The reason he was able to be successful is not surprising. Thad was and is an engaging, pleasant person. His parents were educators. He learned to play the piano. He was a terrific baseball player--good enough to play professional baseball. He joined the Navy. He was, in every respect, an outstanding young man, just as he has been a distinguished public servant throughout his life.

He has been widely respected here by his colleagues, elected to be chairman of the Republican conference, and most recently he has been chairman of the Appropriations Committee, which is as important as any position in this body.

In an era where not everybody seems to think it is important to act like a gentleman, Thad Cochran is a gentleman, and we respect that and the example he has set.

So he has been a pioneer for the Republican Party, he has been a good example for young people, and for all of us, really, in terms of what we should expect and try to emulate in public life, and, to me, he has been a great friend.

So my wife Honey and I would like to say to him and to Kay, his wife, that we respect him, we look forward to the next chapter in his life, and we honor his service to this country.

Mr. President, the Senator from Maine will arrive in just a moment, and I ask unanimous consent for up to an hour for us and Senator Graham and Senator Rounds to address the Senate within that hour--the four of us, and others who wish--to speak on the health insurance issue within that hour.

Mr. President, I am here today to talk about the plumber making $60,000 whose health insurance is $20,000 and he pays for all of it and about the fact that the bill we are about to vote on today could have had in it bipartisan legislation--supported by the President of the United States, the majority leader, and the Speaker of the House--that would have reduced that plumber's health insurance bill from $12,000 to $8,000, according to the Oliver Wyman health consulting experts, who have evaluated the bipartisan legislation that we have proposed.

The only reason it doesn't have that in there is because Democrats have objected to putting on this bill we are voting on today the traditional Hyde amendment that governs how dollars are spent when an abortion is involved. The traditional Hyde amendment is a compromise that has been on every appropriations bill--and this is an appropriations bill--since 1976 and that Democrats have voted for hundreds of times and Republicans have voted for hundreds of times. On this very bill that we are voting on today, more than 100 times the Hyde language applies to other programs.

So Democrats are scrambling and embarrassed, coming up with excuse after excuse, trying to explain to the self-employed businessperson-- the farmer, the songwriter, the plumber--who might be making $60,000 or $70,000 and paying $20,000 for their insurance, and paying it all, with no government subsidy--why they are blocking a 40-percent reduction in their health insurance and why they will not apply the Hyde language to the health insurance rate reduction and they will apply it to 100 other programs. Not just in past voting but today, every single Democrat today who votes for the omnibus bill will be voting to apply the Hyde language restricting abortion to at least 100 other programs.

For example, how will they explain this to the plumber, the farmer, and the self-employed businesswoman: I will apply the Hyde language and restrict Federal funding for abortions to the National Institutes of Health but not to reduce your health insurance rates by 40 percent. I will apply the Hyde language to community health centers today, but I am going to block the bipartisan proposal to reduce your health insurance by 40 percent that is supported by the President, the majority leader, and the Speaker of the House. I will vote today to apply the Hyde language to the Federal Employment Health Benefits Program, which provides health insurance to 3 million or so employees, but I will not vote for a health insurance program to reduce your rates by 40 percent because I will not apply the Hyde language to it?

How are they going to explain today and next October, when the insurance rates are announced for 2019, 2020, and 2021, that they had an opportunity in March of this year to reduce rates in 2019, 2020, and 2021 by 40 percent and they refused to do it because they said: We will not apply the traditional Hyde language to health insurance, even though we are going to apply it to the Indian health programs, to the VA, to women's medical care, to global health programs, to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program--to 100 programs that Democrats will be voting on today to apply the Hyde language to. They will do that, but they are going to block bipartisan legislation--supported by the President, the majority leader, and the Speaker--that will reduce the health insurance rates of the plumber making $60,000 from $20,000 to $12,000?

I want to speak about that plumber. I want to speak ahead to October 1, when the rates for 2019 are announced. I want to talk about Marty, the farmer in Tennessee who I met at the Chick-fil-A, who came up to me and said: I was paying $300 a month for my health insurance, and over the last 5 years it has gone up to $1,300, and I can't afford it.

I said: I have a Christmas present for you. Then, I thought I had a Valentine card for it. Then, I thought I had an Easter present for it, because we got bipartisan legislation, supported by the President, the majority leader, and the Speaker. I said: We can put that in the omnibus bill, we can pass it by the end of March, and we can reduce your rates.

There are 9 million Americans who don't get insurance on the job. They don't get insurance from the government. They buy it themselves. They are hardworking Americans. They are the plumber, the farmer, the small businessperson. They are making $60,000, $70,000, $80,000, $90,000 a year. Their insurance bills are $15,000, $20,000, $25,000 a year. They are rapidly approaching a point, if they haven't already, that they have to go without insurance because they can't afford it, and we have a way to do something about that.

It is happening in my State of Tennessee. Rates went up another 57 percent last year for those people. That is thousands of dollars. Yet we could have today reduced their rates by thousands of dollars. Here is how:

We have developed two bipartisan bills, beginning in the fall. Our committee--the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--held four hearings. We had roundtables to which we invited all the Senators. Senator Murray, the ranking Democrat, and I presided over this.

We talked about all of the issues and tried to see what we could do, and we came up with what we call the Alexander-Murray bill. It had two parts to it. The first part was regulatory reform. We took something already in the Affordable Care Act--the 1332 innovation waivers--and we made it possible for States to streamline it and use it.

We also added a few other things. We changed the law so that Minnesota and New York could use the basic health plan and could tap into the subsidies in the way that those States wanted to do

it. That is $130 million a year in Minnesota and $1 billion in New York. Democrats are blocking that today--$130 million in Minnesota and $1 billion in New York, and Democrats are saying no to that today. Why? Because they will not apply the Hyde language to the health insurance rate decrease, even though they are going to vote to apply it to 100 other pieces of legislation in this very bill.

We did the regulatory reform, and then we did something many Republicans didn't want to do and the President didn't want to do to start with. We extended the cost-sharing subsidy payments for 3 more years. These are payments to reduce rates for low-income people on their copays and deductibles. We agreed to do that.

Then, Senator Collins and Senator Nelson, a Republican and a Democrat, came up with a plan--the House did, too, with Representative Costello--to add reinsurance. Reinsurance is something about which, in our hearings and in our meetings, virtually every Senator in both parties said: We really need to do that, because the reason the individual market is in such trouble is that it has so many of the sickest Americans in it and they are soaking up all the money.

The reinsurance program that we suggested and have in Senator Collins and Senator Nelson's bill--3 years, $10 billion a year--would give States funds as well as planning money to set up those invisible risk pools, those reinsurance programs, that were meant for the sickest Americans to have their needs taken care of, and you lower the rates for everybody else.

So we have regulatory reform, 3 years of cost-sharing subsidies, 3 years of reinsurance, $10 billion a year. The Congressional Budget Office says: If you score it based on real spending, it actually saves the government money by reducing the premiums that taxpayers have to pay for--a $1 billion advantage for New York for each of the next 3 years, $130 million for Minnesota for each of the next 3 years. We fix the problem in New Hampshire, to allow both Democratic Senators and the Republican Governor to say: Please do this; we want to be able to mix our ObamaCare and Medicaid savings.

We said: Yes, you can do that, and so can every State.

Within the Affordable Care Act, we did what Democrats have been saying to do ever since we couldn't repeal and replace it last August and said: We will work with you to fix it.

The part that needs fixing is the part causing the plumber who makes $60,000 to pay $20,000 for his health insurance, and we have a way to fix it--to reduce it by 40 percent, according to Oliver Wyman consulting; by 20 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Yet the Democrats are blocking it today because they will not apply the traditional Hyde language that they voted for every single year since 1976 in the omnibus bill and that they will be voting on today for 100-plus times.

How do you explain that to the plumber? How do you explain that to the farmer? How do you explain that to the 9 million Americans who see their health insurance rates going through the roof?

Let's not make any mistake about who is doing this. We are big boys and girls in the Senate. When we take a stand, we ought to admit it. What the Democrats are doing is they are blocking a 40-percent rate decrease for one single reason--one single reason. The President of the United States supports it, the Speaker supports it, the majority leader supports it, and we are ready to put it in the bill, and they say no.

Let's look down the road to October. All of the insurance companies will announce their rates for 2019, and we will be looking ahead to 2020 and 2021. Rates will be going up instead of going down. The farmer, the self-employed person, the songwriter are going to be saying: How am I going to be able to afford this?

Nothing is more important to Americans than healthcare. Nothing is more frightening to Americans than the prospect of not being able to afford to buy healthcare. That is what we are doing here.

I am disappointed by this. I have spent hundreds of hours on this since September. We had a piece of legislation introduced on this floor by 12 Republicans and 12 Democrats that the Democratic leader said every single Democrat would vote for and the national Democratic chairman said was great bipartisan legislation. That is two-thirds of our bill.

What is the other third? The other third is the Collins-Nelson bill, which adds $10 billion a year for reinsurance. The Governors like this. The State insurance commissioners like this. The plumber and the songwriter like it. Who doesn't like it? A few Democrats who are saying that the Hyde language, which says--let's be specific about what it says--you can't use Federal funds for elective abortions, but you may use any other funds. That is exactly the law that we have in our bill.

The Hyde language is in the bill we are going to be voting on later today. It was put there in 1976. It is adopted year after year. It is on page 1036, if anybody wants to look it up. Then, there is language in the bill that we are going to be voting on today restricting Federal employee health benefits with Hyde-like language, which is on page 588. You will be voting for it today. Then, there is the title X family planning legislation. That is in the bill you are going to be voting for, as well, today. That is Hyde language. Then, there is the Mexico City legislation. You are going to vote for that today.

But you are going to tell the farmer, the songwriter, and the employer that they are not allowed to have a 40-percent health insurance decrease. They are going to have to not be able to afford health insurance for their family. As to Federal funding for the DC government, you are going to vote for that today. Using funds for elective abortions is restricted in the bill that we are voting on today.

Senator Collins from Maine is here, and the Senator from South Carolina is here. They have worked hard on this. We are a group of Senators who I think are fairly, usually seen as trying to get results around here. We are greatly disappointed by this--not just for this institution but for the people we serve because the hard, simple fact is that we have legislation that could be in this bill that will reduce your health insurance rates by 40 percent starting in 2019 and continuing for the next 2 years, until it gets up to 40.

We have the support of the President. We have the support of the Speaker. We have the support of the majority leader. But the Democratic leader says: You can't have it in the bill. We are going to vote 100 times to apply the Hyde language to everything from the National Institutes of Health to community health centers, but we are not going to let you reduce healthcare rates.

That is why Democrats are scrambling, coming up with excuse after excuse. They are going to have to really come up with scrambling and excuse after excuse on October 1, when the rates are announced.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Maine for her lucid and heartfelt description of what is before us. She has been an exceptional leader, and she continues to be. She looks for ways to get results.

She sees people--the plumber I talked about making $60,000, the stylist, a farmer--the person who is working and paying all of his or her insurance with no subsidy help and who sees the real prospect coming that when the rates are announced October 1, they may not be able to afford any insurance, and they can see we have a solution for that.

Now, this isn't a Republican solution or a Democratic solution. This is a solution that began to be developed almost the day Republicans failed to repeal and replace ObamaCare. I walked across the aisle to see if we could do what the Democrats were asking. Let's fix what we have temporarily so nobody is hurt. As we have explained this afternoon, we did that.

We have a proposal that is the original Alexander-Murray proposal, developed in four hearings, in which more than half the Senate participated, which at one point the Democratic leader said every single Democrat would vote for. It takes an existing part of the Affordable Care Act and makes it work--that is the innovation waiver-- gives States more flexibility to create more choices and lower cost choices without changing the essential health benefits, without changing the guarantee for preexisting conditions. It is really a modest change, but it is a significant change. Then it has 3 years of cost-sharing subsidies--remember, the President said he did not want to pay those, but he supports this--and then 3 years of reinsurance so we can help the sickest people who are in the individual market, take them out, pay their needs, and reduce rates for everybody else. These are the best Republican and Democratic ideas that have been put together in a package and, as Senator Collins has said, virtually everyone who has looked at this--starting with the Oliver Wyman Health consultants who say it reduces rates up to 40 percent, the Congressional Budget Office says 20. That is thousands of dollars.

If you are paying $20,000 for your insurance, if we do nothing, you might be paying $24,000. If we do this, you might be paying $16,000. That is a lot of money. If we do this, you might be paying $12,000. That is thousands of dollars less. That is a big tax cut for you, and it is a big tax increase. Why are we not doing this?

Let's not kid ourselves. There is a lot of scrambling and embarrassed running around over on the other side of the aisle to come up with an excuse for this, but let's be honest about it. The Democrats are blocking this for one reason. They have convinced themselves they do not want to apply to the health insurance rate reduction in the omnibus bill the same law that applies to more than 100 other programs in this omnibus bill. So every single Democrat over here who says: I can't vote for a 40-percent rate reduction for you, Mr. Plumber or Ms. Hairstylist or Ms. Farmer. I can't do that because I can't put the Hyde amendment on it, but I am going to vote to put the Hyde amendment on the National Institutes of Health, I am going to vote to put the Hyde amendment on community health centers, I am going to vote today to put it on Federal employee health benefits and family planning grants under title X and 100 other programs Democrats are going to vote to put the Hyde language on--yet they say we can't put the same language on a 40-percent health insurance reduction that is composed of three sections of bipartisan legislation that the Democratic leader has said, at least on two-thirds of it, that every single Democrat supported. Now, what is that? What is that?

I mean, this should not be a partisan issue. I am not surprised there is

scrambling and embarrassment on the other side of the aisle. I don't know how they are going to explain this to the American people. I know a lot of people in Tennessee are desperately hoping we succeed. I hear it every time I go home.

Health insurance is the No. 1 concern of the people in my State, and the most frightening prospect is, if they can't pay their bills, then they can't buy insurance. They might get sick and have no way to take care of it.

Mr. President, I will ask consent to put into the Record a few items. The first is a list of 20 programs that are included in the omnibus bill we are likely to vote on today that have Hyde protection.

Now, remember what the Hyde protection is. It is a compromise that was created in 1976 that said Federal funds may not be used for elective abortions, but basically you may use any other funds, and you may create a contract or arrangement to do that. So that is what we do with Medicare. That is what we do with Medicaid. That is what we are voting today to do at the National Institutes of Health, in the community health centers, voting today for the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, for family planning grants, for the Indian health programs, for the VA women's health medical care, for global health programs, for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, and school-based health centers. We are voting to put the Hyde protection on area health education centers, on maternal and childcare block grants, on the National Health Service Corps, but we can't put Hyde protection on health insurance--a 40-percent rate reduction on health insurance, a bipartisan proposal that has the support of the President, the majority leader, and the Speaker. They are all willing to put it in this bill, but you say no. You say no, and there is no good reason for that. There is no good reason whatsoever.

We are going to vote to put the Hyde amendment on childcare community development block grants.

I ask unanimous consent that a list of 20 of those programs be printed in the Record, although, there are more than 100 we will be voting on today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent also to have printed in the Record a short summary of the three-part, bipartisan proposal that will produce the 40-percent rate decreases in the individual market, according to Oliver Wyman, and up to 20 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office, over the next 3 years.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Oliver Wyman analysis entitled ``A Proposal to Lower ACA Premiums by More than 40% and Cover 3.2 Million More'' Americans.

Mr. President, the Congressional Budget Office estimate looks at this proposal two different ways, but it says that if we base it on real spending--that is, as if Congress actually passed this bill--the Alexander-Murray-Collins-Nelson proposal that reduces insurance rates 40 percent saves the Federal taxpayer money. In other words, it doesn't cost anything.

As a U.S. Senator who came here to get results, who enjoys more than anything working across party lines to cause that to happen--because it takes 60 to get a result--who admires Senators like Senator Collins, who spends her time doing that, I am very disappointed, not just for me, not just for Senator Collins, who has spent hundreds of hours on this, not just for the Senate as an institution, but I think of people who come up to me like Marty at the Chick-fil-A, who said: I was paying $300 a month, and now I am paying $1,300 a month. I can't afford it; I am a farmer.

I said: I have a Christmas present for you. And then I thought, well, I have a Valentine's present for you, and then I thought maybe I could say I have an Easter present for you, and now I can say I can't do it because the Democratic Party voted to put the Hyde protection on more than 100 programs today--as it has done every year since 1976--but it refused to put the Hyde protection on a 40-percent rate decrease that was developed across party lines, in long hearings that were attended by more than half the Senators--all of them coming in and saying: Oh, this is a wonderful thing.

They came up to me and said: Chairman Alexander, this is so good. We wish the Senate would act like this more. We like the fact that you are having open hearings. Democrats are coming. You are letting us all come without being a member of the committee.

Why are we not doing more of this? This is why we don't do more of it. We come to a result. We come up to a partisan end that hurts people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Senator from Washington knows the deep respect I have for her, and we have worked together on some important legislation on our committee when we have had differences of opinion, including on the 21st Century Cures legislation and No Child Left Behind. Yet I have to say, with all due respect, the last 7 months of working with the Senator and the Democrats on trying to fix the Affordable Care Act, as they have asked us to do, has been the most frustrating time in my 16 years in the Senate.

For example, she made three points.

One is that the Democrats were unhappy that we had reduced taxes and repealed the individual mandate. We know they are unhappy about that, and we know it raised individual rates somewhat, maybe as much as 10 percent. OK. That was last year. So what are we supposed to do--not work to reduce rates? We continue to work to reduce rates.

According to the Oliver Wyman experts, the proposal Senator Collins and I have put on the floor, which is basically a combination of bipartisan proposals, would reduce rates by up to 40 percent, taking into account what we did in the tax bill. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, said it would reduce rates by up to 20 percent. That is the first point.

I understand the Democrats don't like to cut taxes, and they don't like to get rid of the individual mandate, which is a tax on a lot of poor people, but they have to get over that at some point. If you think it raised rates, let's cut rates. We have a proposal to cut rates on plumbers and songwriters who pay for their own insurance by 40 percent. So that is not a very good excuse for blocking this rate decrease.

The second thing is, the distinguished Senator from Washington said the Collins-Alexander proposal interferes with preexisting condition. It does not. Only someone who hasn't read the bill carefully could think about that for a moment. I mean, we deliberately made sure the proposal we would present would not disturb the essential health benefits, which most of us would like to do, and most of them would not. It does not change the preexisting condition requirement.

It does codify the proposals the President made on short-term insurance, at the suggestion of the Democrats, who were afraid the President might be able to do some things. What we were trying to do was limit what he could do, to say the States have the responsibility, and to make sure the consumers knew what they were buying. After all, the short-term plans, which the Democrats don't like, can only be done if States choose to do them. They were afraid the President might do them, so we made sure he could not. So that is not an issue.

The third thing is in terms of the Hyde amendment. Now, the Hyde amendment is a very simple amendment. Usually, when you oppose something, you just stand up and say: Look, this is the reason I am opposing it. You may disagree with me or you may not, but this is my reason.

This is the only reason the Democrats are blocking this 40-percent rate reduction. They have said so publicly and privately. That is it. That is the only reason. They don't like applying the Hyde amendment to health insurance in this bill. If they don't, fine. That is their prerogative. I respect that. I don't question their motive, and I don't question their right to do it. I would just like for them to stand up and say that is what they are doing. Then they can explain to the American people what sense that makes.

We have been working for 7 months to develop this proposal that includes two parts. One is fundamentally the Alexander-Murray proposal that Senator Schumer said every single Democrat would vote for, and the other part is 3 years of reinsurance at $10 billion a year. That is it. Those are bipartisan ideas. The only issue is, shall we also apply Hyde to it?

What we have planned to do for the last several months is to put it in this bill that we are voting on today, the omnibus bill, to which the Hyde language has applied since 1976. What that means is, the Hyde language is a compromise. It says you may not use Federal funds for elective abortion, but it makes clear that States, individuals, churches, and nonprofits may pay for elective abortions. That is the compromise. We counted them up. The Hyde language applies to more than 100 Federal programs that the Democrats will be voting on today.

The Democrats will be voting today on applying the Hyde language to the National Institutes of Health, but Senator Murray is saying they can't apply it to a 40-percent health insurance rate reduction. They will be voting to apply the Hyde language to community health centers, but she is saying, no, they can't apply it to a 40-percent health insurance rate reduction. They are going to be voting to apply it to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program--that is for all of us who get insurance, all the Federal employees--but that they can't apply it to a health insurance rate reduction. We are going to apply it to Federal family planning grants under title X, but for some reason, we can't apply the same law to a health insurance rate reduction. I can go down that list, as I did earlier, but I will not read the whole thing. There is the VA, global health programs, the Ryan White school-based health centers.

The Democrats have voted for Hyde protection hundreds of time. What the Democrats are arguing is, when they had 60 Senators here and President Obama and a Speaker of the House named Pelosi, they passed the Affordable Care Act, and they watered down Hyde for the purposes of the Affordable Care Act. They want that language. No Republican has ever voted for that language in the Senate. The Democrats have voted hundreds of time for Hyde.

How can we continue, how can we expect to make any progress in fixing the Affordable Care Act if the Democrats will not apply the Hyde language to any funding under it? I don't see any prospect for it.

I don't like the insinuation that I have walked away from anything. Most of the Republicans are usually willing to work with the Democrats, and I have spent hundreds of hours. I walked over to the Senator on the night we failed on repeal and replace and said: Let's do something. We had long discussions. We had hearings to which half the Senate came. Everybody was just cheering. It was like going to summer camp. Why don't we do more of this? So we did it, and we came up with something the Democratic leader said everybody could vote for over there. Then they got mad about the tax cut. OK. They can be mad but not forever, maybe.

So we came up with a cure for that. We got a 40-percent rate reduction despite what we did in the tax bill. All we want to do is to apply to this health program the same health program that every Democrat who votes for this bill

will be applying to every other health program today. If they will not do that, how can they stand up and say they expect to make progress on fixing the Affordable Care Act? I don't know any way to do it.

I am as willing as anybody to try to work things out here, but I am no magician. I greatly respect the Senator from Washington and enjoy working with her, but on this issue, I think we have reached an impasse. They have yet to give us any language at all that applies to the Hyde language. All of their suggestions are saying: We want to do what we did when we had 60 Senators, a President of the United States, and Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Well, they may want to, but that is the one time that ever happened, and here we are today--with no one objecting on the Democratic side.

I mean, should I offer an amendment to take the Hyde language out of applying to the National Institutes of Health? Why don't they offer to take it out of family planning grants under title X? That should be just as offensive as applying the Hyde language to health insurance.

I don't understand this. They have been scrambling around all day. The staff has been putting out memos. They are making up things. They are misleading, and they are misreading. They are making excuses. There is only one reason. They are blocking a 40-percent health insurance rate decrease for the plumber who is making $60,000 and paying $20,000 for his insurance. We could cut that $20,000 insurance to $12,000 over the next 3 years. That person is hurting, and the Democrats are blocking that. They will say: We will apply Hyde to everything else but not to the rate decrease for that plumber. I don't understand it, and I don't see any way to make any progress on it as long as they take that position.

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

Mr. President, I want to talk for a moment about something that is on the minds of anybody in this country who is making $60,000, $70,000, $80,000, $90,000 too much to have a subsidy to pay for your healthcare insurance and maybe are paying $15,000, $20,000, $25,000 of that salary for your insurance this year and who has heard from a lot of people that on October 1, the insurance companies are going to announce that your premium is going up. That is whom I would like to talk with today.

Specifically, let me use the example of a woman named Marty in Tennessee. She came up to me before Christmas at the Chick-fil-A on Charlotte Road in Nashville, and she stopped me while I was getting my mac and cheese at Chick-fil-A, and she said: My name is Marty. I am a self-employed farmer. A few years ago, my health insurance was $300 a month, today it is $1,300 a month, and I cannot afford that.

Well, in Tennessee, prices for health insurance for people who work and don't get any subsidy to help them buy their insurance and don't get insurance on the job, they don't get it from Medicare or Medicaid, people who work, the self-employed farmer, the contractor, the plumber, the songwriter, somebody who might be making $60,000, say--they are like Marty. They are paying $20,000 for their health insurance, and they cannot afford that.

I told Marty: I think we have a Christmas present for you. I think Congress, when we pass the omnibus spending bill, is going to include in it a set of policies we have that is going to lower your rates when they are announced on October 1 of next year, which is 2018.

Well, unfortunately, we had a continuing resolution at the end of the year, and Marty didn't get her Christmas present. Then I thought she might get a Valentine's present, and we went by Valentine's Day and did another CR, a continuing resolution.

Now we have until the end of next week to fund the government for the year we are halfway through. I am on the floor today, and I can say to Marty and to every plumber, songwriter, self-employed person in this country, someone who might be between jobs, that if the Congress will act, we can lower their rates next year for up to as much as 40 percent--40 percent. That is according to Oliver Wyman, one of the leading healthcare consulting firms in this country, which announced on Monday that a set of policies which we call Alexander-Murray-Collins-Nelson, which President Trump supports, which Congressman Walden, who is the chairman of the House committee in this area, supports, which Senator McConnell supports, which I support--we have broad support for this. This policy we have been working on for months, according to Oliver Wyman, over the next 3 years, assuming States take full advantage of all the options we are giving them, could lower rates by 40 percent.

What does that mean? That means that if you are paying $20,000 for your health insurance--you are that $60,000-a-year plumber--that is 40 percent of $20,000, which, by my math, is $8,000. So that would cut your insurance to $12,000, and you get down toward something you might be able to afford. Can you imagine anything more frightening than approaching next year knowing that you might not be able to afford health insurance for your family? You are thinking: Well, look, I am doing everything I am supposed to. The government has not gotten me on any kind of subsidy to buy health insurance. I am out here working. I am paying my taxes. Maybe I got a little tax cut that the Republicans put through last year, but the thing that is really a problem for me is my health insurance. If I am making $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 a year, I cannot afford $15,000, $20,000, or $25,000 a year.

If you are a farmer in Iowa or a miner in Alaska or a songwriter in Nashville, you can't afford that, and you shouldn't have to, and you won't have to if Congress will act next week to accept the set of policies that I am about to briefly describe.

There are three things we propose to do. The most important is 3 years of reinsurance or the invisible risk pool. This is an idea that House Republicans have strongly supported and that Senator Collins and Senator Nelson have strongly supported here. It would allow more States to do what the State of Alaska has done. The Presiding Officer is from Alaska. Alaska took the very sickest people in Alaska and put them in one pool and called that the reinsurance pool and paid for their health insurance. When they did that, it so reduced the cost for everybody else that it lowered the rates for everybody else by 20 percent. What we are talking about is lowering the rate for everybody else by 40 percent if States take full advantage of what we are proposing next week. So reinsurance is the first thing--3 years of reinsurance at $10 billion a year.

The second thing is 3 years of cost-sharing subsidies. You have to stop and think about it a minute, but the cost-sharing subsidies pay for the reinsurance. Cost-sharing subsidies are payments that are made to insurance companies to pay for the copays and the deductibles for low-income people, and that allows the companies to reduce the premiums. When you reduce the premiums, you reduce the ObamaCare subsidies.

According to conversations we have had with the Congressional Budget Office, if we do 3 years of cost-sharing subsidies and 3 years of reinsurance at $10 billion, the cost-sharing subsidies more than pay for the reinsurance, if you base it on reality, which is, if Congress passes a law that costs $30 billion over 3 years for reinsurance and 3 years of cost-sharing subsidies, the cost-sharing subsidies pay for the reinsurance and leave $2 billion over to reduce the Federal debt.

The third part is a set of proposals that would give States more flexibility. This streamlines the section 1332 waiver in the Affordable Care Act. It makes some changes that permit the agency we call CMS to approve waivers from States, like the State of Alaska or Nebraska or Tennessee, which may say: We would like to spend our ObamaCare subsidy money in a different way, and we would like to add some of this reinsurance money to it. By doing that, that is how you achieve the 40- percent savings for the Nebraska self-employed farmer or the Nashville songwriter in their insurance policies.

So that is the set of proposals, plus within there is a provision for what we call a catastrophic policy, which is a policy that has somewhat higher deductibles but lower premiums, which people may choose to buy.

All of that policy has broad bipartisan support. I think the reinsurance provision--in the Republican discussions we have had in the Senate, almost everybody seems to agree that the only way we can have an individual market, which is the market for people who buy insurance on their own--people who don't get it from Medicare, people who don't get it from Medicaid, people who don't get it on the job--let's say you are between jobs or you are self-employed. You are the songwriter. You are the plumber. Those are the people whom we are focused on here. There are about 11 million in the United States, but there could be a lot more because all of us know what it is like to think, well, I might lose my job, or, I might change jobs, and what do I do for insurance in the interim? I have the so-called COBRA available, but it is very expensive. If I suddenly find I am losing my job or if I am changing jobs and I am worrying about insurance--that is the person we are talking about.

Where did these ideas come from? Did we just write them on the back of an envelope and give them to Congress? No. We went through a very serious process here in the Senate. Senator Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate HELP Committee--I am the

chairman--and I held four hearings last fall after Republicans failed to repeal and replace the ObamaCare law. We invited all Senators to participate. We had more than half the Senate come to our hearings and to our meetings with the witnesses. Out of that came the proposals to streamline the 1332 waiver--that is flexibility for States--and the need to pay for the cost-sharing subsidies temporarily, because people began to understand that they don't cost money, but they save taxpayer money because they reduce the need for Federal taxpayer subsidies. So that is where that came from.

The single most important idea that was not a part of the original Alexander-Murray proposal was reinsurance. In the House, they call it the invisible risk pool. Senators Collins and Nelson have championed it here. Representative Costello, Representative Meadows, and other people championed it over there. It was part of the Republican repeal-and- replace legislation in the House of Representatives. So the idea of 3 years of reinsurance really has come from both bodies and from both sides of the aisle. It is the most essential part of any long-term policy to create an individual market where people can buy insurance if they don't get it on the job or from the government.

This would give States half a billion dollars in the current year, 2018, to plan for their reinsurance pools. It would then create $10 billion over 3 years that States could use to help pay for their reinsurance pools, and they would use their 1332 streamlined waiver in the second and third year. So they could have a combination of State money, reinsurance Federal money, and ObamaCare subsidy money and hopefully, in that process, create their own way of helping to pay for the needs of the very sickest people in the State and, by taking them out of the insurance pool, lower the rates for everybody else over that 4-year period, according to the Oliver Wyman consulting firm, by as much as 40 percent.

The Congressional Budget Office has also reviewed the set of proposals I have just described. My staff has been working closely with them because we want to know what it costs if we are going to put it in the omnibus bill, and the preliminary feedback from the Congressional Budget Office is more conservative than the Oliver Wyman estimate. The Congressional Budget Office says that it would reduce premiums by an average of 10 percent in 2019 and 20 percent in 2020 and 2021 if States take full advantage of the 1332 waiver they have.

As you can imagine, State Governors and State insurance commissioners are delighted with this package. First, they like to see us do something in a bipartisan way to stabilize the health insurance market so people aren't scared to death that they may not be able to buy a policy next year, but second, they think it is sound policy. It is sound policy.

Much of this started when the President called me last August and said: Between now and the time we make a final decision on what to do about the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, I want to make sure that people aren't hurt. So he asked me if I would work with Senator Murray and see if we could come up with a bipartisan set of proposals that would stabilize the individual market. He called me several times about that, and we have worked together since then. That is when we came together with the original Alexander-Murray proposal.

Then we had a big disagreement here within the Senate, and we had our tax bill wherein we repealed the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. Republicans thought that was a good idea. It made people buy insurance they didn't want, and it was a tax on low-income people, so we got rid of it. Democrats didn't like that at all.

It is true that taking the individual mandate out, even though States could add it back if they want to, does increase the cost of insurance in the individual market. Despite that, this set of policies that I have described--State flexibility, the 3 years of cost-sharing subsidies, and the 3 years of reinsurance/invisible risk pools--those three policies, according to Oliver Wyman consulting, which is one of the leading health consulting firms in America, could lower rates to 40 percent lower than they otherwise would be. According to the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency that looks at things for us, it will lower them 10 percent in 2019 and as much as 20 percent in the next 2 years after that. Even if it is only 20 and not 40, 20 percent of $20,000 is $4,000 for Marty, the self-employed farmer in Nashville who stopped me at Chick-fil-A and said her insurance had gone from $300 to $1,300, $1,400 a month.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the report of the Oliver Wyman consulting company that says that the combination of policies I just described--reinsurance, cost-sharing subsidies, and the section 1332 waiver, which is the State flexibility--that those three policies will reduce rates by up to 40 percent.

Finally, I would ask the question, What if we don't do this? I am generally a very optimistic person. I am results-oriented, and you don't get results if you don't work across party lines and if you don't think you are going to succeed. So I always think we will succeed. This has been more difficult to do than it should have been.

I would like to suggest to my colleagues and to the American people that we should focus on October 1 of this year because that is the date when insurance rates for next year, 2019, will be announced all across the country. Insurance companies are working with insurance commissioners in every State to try to figure out what is going to happen, what the rates will be. They will be announcing rates on October 1, which is about a month before the next election.

There a lot of people who are going to be looking at that because, in my State of Tennessee, rates were up 58 percent this year, and that is for the plumber who makes $60,000 a year; the songwriter; Marty, the farmer; and the people I have been describing. There was a 58-percent increase. So they are going to be looking on October 1 to see whether they can even afford any insurance in 2019.

If we do what we are proposing here in the Alexander-Murray-Collins- Nelson set of policies, which has broad bipartisan support in the House and the Senate and the support of the President, if we do that next week, Marty, the self-employed farmer in Tennessee, will be able to see on October 1 that her rates will go down and that, if Oliver Wyman is correct, instead of her rates going up 58 percent the way they did this year, they will go down 40 percent over the next 2 or 3 years. That means she could afford insurance.

If we don't do it, rates will go up, and the individual market will probably collapse. It was near collapse a year ago. By collapsing, I mean there will be counties where people can't buy insurance at all. There will be 11 million people who are between jobs, who are self- employed, or who are working who literally cannot afford insurance, and they are not going to be very happy campers. They are going to blame every one of us, and they should. They are going to blame the President, they are going to blame Republicans, they are going to blame Democrats, and they are going to blame insurance companies because we have an opportunity next week to solve that problem in a bipartisan way, developed through a bipartisan process, incorporating ideas that virtually everyone who looks at them says make very good policy sense.

We have a couple of things to work through on ancillary issues, but those shouldn't cloud the fact that we can reduce rates by up to 40 percent for the working Americans who can't afford insurance--the insurance companies will announce that on October 1--or we can do nothing, and we can let the markets falter.

There will be some counties where you can't buy insurance at all, some counties where you can't afford insurance at all, and we will have people look at us and say: My goodness, why did we send them up there to do nothing about that?

I am optimistic. I think we can do it. I appreciate the hard work on both sides of the aisle. In many respects, it has been a very difficult negotiation. I appreciate the President's consistency over the past couple of months in supporting this and the Vice President's work. Senator McConnell has been very supportive of this, which makes it very helpful in terms of getting it into the bipartisan agreement next week.

I look forward to being able to say to my songwriters, self-employed business men and women, plumbers, and Marty, the farmer, that if they are making $60,000 or $70,000 in Tennessee, we put in place something that will lower their rates by 40 percent over the next 3 years.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Thank you, Madam President.

(The remarks of Mr. Alexander pertaining to the introduction of S. 2509 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, probably every single one of us in the Senate would agree that it is hard to get here, it is hard to stay here, and it is wonderful to be able to accomplish something worthwhile while you are here. That is why I am here today--because I want to call attention to an announcement that was made this morning by a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators and the Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, which could take away

the $11.6 billion of national park maintenance backlog in the 417 national parks that we have. The proposal we made this morning could eliminate that backlog over the next 10 years.

I want to give Secretary Zinke and the President a lot of credit for this because they have agreed to do something that no other President and no other Secretary of the Interior have ever agreed to do, as far as I know, and that is to allow us to use revenues from energy development on Federal lands as mandatory spending to pay for the maintenance backlog in our National Park System.

Ken Burns called our national parks ``America's Best Idea.'' I would say that the best idea to support America's best idea is the proposal that Secretary Zinke has made to take care of the maintenance backlog in our national parks.

Half of that maintenance backlog is our roads. Of course, when we pay for the roads this way, that means all the money that is now being taken away from all the other purposes at our national parks--I am talking about the National Mall, where I get up in the morning and walk every day, or the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where I walk when I go home on the weekends--could be used for other purposes there, in all 417 of those parks.

If we don't do this, we will never catch up because this backlog-- this $11.6 billion backlog--is four times the annual appropriations for the National Park Service. Everyone who cares about our national parks--and that should be almost every American--should welcome this proposal.

As I said, our use of Federal dollars in this way is unprecedented, but the principle is not unprecedented. The principle is a very simple principle, and that is this: If we create an environmental burden, which energy exploration does, whether it is wind turbines or whether it is spreading solar panels all over hundreds and hundreds of acres or whether it is oil and gas exploration. If we create an environmental burden, we should create a corresponding environmental benefit. That principle is well established in our laws and has been supported by almost every major environmental and conservation group I know of.

Let's start with the 1962 Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission that Laurance Rockefeller chaired. That Commission, which took a look at America for the next generation to see what we should do to protect the outdoors so we could all enjoy it, recommended, and the Congress adopted, the idea of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. There was a Federal side and a State side. Over all of the years since 1964, $18 billion has been spent in the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That is the environmental benefit. Where did the money come from? It came from drilling on Federal offshore properties.

In 1986, I chaired President Reagan's Commission on Americans Outdoors. We reaffirmed our support for the idea that an environmental burden means we should have an environmental benefit. We urged Congress to make permanent the funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. So we reaffirmed that again for the next generation.

Then, in 2006, with the leadership of Senator Domenici, Senator Bingaman, and others--many of us worked on it--Congress decided we would take some of the revenues from new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and apply those to the State side of the Land and Water Conservation Fund--again, an environmental burden and a corresponding environmental benefit.

That is why this proposal is so exciting to me. That is why this proposal has such strong bipartisan support.

In the Senate, the supporters include Senator King of Maine, Senator Daines of Montana, and Senator Heinrich of New Mexico. It is a bipartisan group. Supporters also include Senator Capito and Senator Manchin, Senator Gardner and Senator Tillis; all of us support and are cosponsoring this legislation we are introducing today.

In the House of Representatives, we also have two cosponsors. Congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho, who is chairman of the House Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, and Congressman Kurt Schrader from Oregon is also a cosponsor in the House of Representatives.

So I believe this is an unprecedented day; for all of those who care about and love our national parks and who have struggled to imagine how we can deal with this $11.6 billion maintenance backlog--a backlog that is four times the annual appropriation--we can pay this all off with this proposal, which is supported by the President and his Office of Management and Budget, a bipartisan group of Senators, and a bipartisan group in the House.

I look forward to working with Senator Murkowski and Senator Cantwell in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Hopefully, it can be moved promptly through that committee. There are other important things we would like to do, but I can't think of anything much more important than our National Park System.

I mentioned a little earlier that we have 417 national parks in the country. I grew up camping and hiking in one of those, and I live within 2 miles of that park. It is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It has more visitors than any other national park--nearly twice as many as the closest one. Eleven million people a year come to the park.

Many of my best memories are from that park. I remember, when I was 15 years old, my dad dropped me and a couple of other boys at the highest point of the park, Clingmans Dome, one day around Christmastime. There was 3 feet of snow. He said: I will pick you up in Gatlinburg. Well, he did, and that was about 8 or 9 hours later.

Later that same year in the summertime we were camping on Spence Field. That is at about 5,000 or 6,000 feet as well. We had taken blueberry pancake mix up there. We picked the blueberries. We had all of the materials for a good breakfast, but we made one mistake. We left the breakfast in our packs in the tent, and during the night a bear crawled in there with us, took it out, and we ended up on top of the trail shelter banging the pans together trying to run the bear off. That was the last time we left our breakfast materials nearby the sleeping area when we were camping in the park.

The park is a good place for lessons and learning and appreciating beauty. It is a good place for the rich. It is a good place for the poor. Parents bring their children out of a digital diet to feast on a world of natural splendor. We learn our history in a place where history comes alive; not just the history of the world but the history of East Tennessee, the history of Wyoming, the history of Maine, the history of Montana.

Let me give my colleagues a sense of just what this $11 billion backlog means. I have already said it is nearly four times what the National Park Service receives in annual appropriations. We can talk about the Smokies alone. Between Tennessee and North Carolina, there is about a $215 million backlog of projects; 75 percent of that is roads. We get nearly twice as many visitors as any other park. These visitors come to see our majestic views. They spend 400,000 nights camping in 9 frontcountry campgrounds and 100 backcountry camp sites.

In 2013, the park had to close Look Rock Campground and the picnic area due to funding shortfalls in replacing the water treatment facilities. In order to open this recreation area for visitors, the park needs $3 million to replace the water treatment facility, repair the road infrastructure, and replace aging picnic tables and campground pads. This proposal could do that.

The funding provided in the National Park Restoration Act, which is what we call our legislation, could help reopen this campground for the enjoyment of the over 11 million visitors to the Smokies.

The Smokies also supports a vast trail system, with almost 850 miles of maintained trails for hikers, backpackers, and visitors. The current deferred maintenance backlog for trails in the Smokies is $18.5 million. This proposal would take care of that.

In August 2017, I visited the Smokies with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and I saw firsthand with him the work that is needed on the trails. We hiked the Rainbow Falls Trail, where a 2-year project is underway to rehabilitate the trail.

Crews from Trails Forever, a partnership between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Friends of

the Smokies, and the American Conservation Experience are working to build a rock staircase along the trail to reduce erosion and improve visitor safety and enjoyment.

Crews use rigging systems to move large rocks, split them using drills and chisels, and then set them into place to provide long- lasting trail structures for those hoping to see the rainbow formed by mist from the 80-foot waterfall along the Rainbow Falls Trail.

Secretary Zinke and I worked to split and place one of those rock steps. It is not very easy to do. Volunteer crews will work to rehabilitate over 6 miles of that trail.

In addition to the crews, every Wednesday volunteers head up the trail to help restore it for future visitors. In 2017, volunteers donated 900 hours of work on that trail.

The Smokies is full of wonderful volunteers like those working on the Rainbow Falls Trail. Over 2,800 volunteers donated over 115,000 hours last year alone, but we must do more to get the funding to our parks to help address the maintenance needs and support the countless volunteers.

In the Smokies, 75 percent of that maintenance work is roads, which isn't surprising, since millions of visitors to the park each year experience it behind the wheel. The park maintains and operates nearly 400 miles of roads, including 6 tunnels and 146 bridges, which allow visitors to traverse the park's mountainous landscape.

The Smokies is working hard to address these maintenance needs, and later this year they will open 16 miles of the Foothills Parkway. We are all looking forward to that in East Tennessee. Driving the Foothills Parkway will give you a spectacular view of the highest mountains in the Eastern United States. Tennesseans are excited that these new 16 miles of the parkway will soon be open to the public. It is scheduled for this fall.

Due to funding shortfalls, building and repairing the 16-mile stretch of the Foothills Parkway took over 50 years and will be completed nearly 75 years after Congress first authorized the Foothills Parkway. Completing just 1.6 miles of the parkway took nearly 30 years.

In 1944, Congress authorized the Foothills Parkway but prohibited Federal funds from being used to purchase and acquire the land, so the State of Tennessee purchased the land and gave it to the Federal Government to create a scenic parkway to provide views of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

For 75 years, Tennesseans and visitors have been waiting to enjoy the majestic views of the Foothills Parkway because there hasn't been sufficient Federal funding to address the maintenance needs of our national parks. Other roadways in the Smokies, including Newfound Gap Road and Clingmans Dome Road, remain on this backlog list.

Clingmans Dome Road takes visitors to Clingmans Dome--the highest point in Tennessee and the third highest mountain east of the Mississippi. At 6,643 feet, Clingmans Dome offers panoramic views of the Smoky Mountains.

Additional funding is desperately needed for the Smokies and all of our National Parks to help repair and rebuild campgrounds, trails, and roads. Doing that will bring more visitors, more tourists, and more jobs to Tennessee and to national park communities throughout our country.

According to the Outdoor Industry Association, the outdoor recreation economy generates 7.6 million direct jobs and $887 billion in consumer spending. In Tennessee, the outdoor recreation economy generates 188,000 direct jobs and over $21 billion in consumer spending.

In 2016, the visitors to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park alone spent nearly $950 million in communities surrounding the park. The over 11 million visitors to the park supported nearly 15,000 jobs and $1.3 billion in economic output in these communities.

Restoring our parks not only helps to preserve our land for generations but helps to grow our economy.

Now, here is what our bill does. I see the Senator from North Carolina is coming to preside, and he is one of the principal cosponsors of the bill. The National Park Restoration Act will use revenues from energy production on Federal lands to help pay for the $11 billion maintenance backlog at our national parks. It will provide mandatory funding on top of annual appropriations for the National Park Service--for the priority-deferred maintenance needs that support critical infrastructure and visitor services at our parks.

The National Park Restoration Fund created by the legislation will receive 50 percent of revenues from energy production on Federal lands over the 2018 projections that are not already allocated to other purposes.

This legislation includes revenues from all sources of energy production on Federal land: oil, gas, coal, renewables, and alternative energy.

The legislation protects all existing obligations for revenues from energy production on Federal land, including payments to States, payments to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and payments to the Reclamation Fund.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the work that Senators Portman and Warner have done. They have introduced similar legislation. They have many of the same objectives. I know there are many other Senators who care deeply about this issue, other than the bipartisan group of us who introduced the legislation today. We can all work together in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee where this bill will be referred. We will put our heads together with Senator Murkowski and Senator Cantwell. We will come out with the best possible bill-- something that President Trump can continue to support and that the full Senate and then the House of Representatives can pass. Then, we can get on with it and begin to deal with the deferred maintenance backlog in our national parks.

Theodore Roosevelt once said that nothing short of defending this country in wartime ``compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.'' We must all work together to restore our national treasures so future generations have the same opportunity to enjoy them, as we have.

In conclusion, let me reiterate something personal about this. In 1985, the Secretary of the Interior called and asked me, when I was Governor of Tennessee, to chair the President's Commission on Americans Outdoors. I did that, along with Gil Grosvenor, the chairman of the National Geographic Society, and a variety of people. One of our major recommendations was to pick up the recommendation of the Rockefeller Commission from 1964, which said, if there is an environmental burden, there should be an environmental benefit. They are the ones who recommended, to begin with, that we take land from energy exploration and use it to pay for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

We reaffirmed that in 1986. We reaffirmed that principle in 2006 when we used revenues from drilling for the State side of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

So while this proposal is unprecedented in the sense that it is the first time that I know of that a President and his Office of Management and Budget have approved mandatory funding using revenues from energy production on Federal lands to deal with national park maintenance needs, the principle of matching an environmental burden with an environmental benefit is well established.

I am grateful to the President, and I am especially grateful to Secretary Zinke for his initiative. I look forward to working with a bipartisan group of Senators in the Energy Committee to develop a bill, pass it, and get started on the work of America's best idea for restoring America's best idea--our National Park System.