Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the upcoming adjournment of the Senate, the President of the Senate, the President pro tempore, and the majority and minority leaders be authorized to make appointments to commissions, committees, boards, conferences, or interparliamentary conferences authorized by law, by concurrent action of the two Houses, or by order of the Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn, to then convene for pro forma sessions only, with no business being conducted, on the following dates and times, and that following each pro forma session, the Senate adjourn until the next pro forma session: Friday, February 16 at 12 noon; Tuesday, February 20 at 5 p.m.; Friday, February 23 at 2 p.m. I further ask that when the Senate adjourns on Friday, February 23, it next convene at 3 p.m., Monday, February 26, and that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; further, that following the closing of morning business, Senator Peters be recognized to deliver Washington's Farewell Address; further, that following the address, the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Branch nomination; finally, that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, the cloture vote on the Branch nomination occur at 5:30 p.m., Monday, February 26.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Utah for his leadership. He is not only the senior Republican Senator and former chair of the Judiciary Committee, which will hear this legislation, and chairman of the Finance Committee, he is a songwriter himself. He is not

just a songwriter; he has a platinum record, he has a gold record, and he has another one that might become gold. So he knows what he is talking about.

I think, for all of us in the Senate, when Orrin Hatch says that in his 40 years or so here--more than any other Republican Senator--this is the capstone of his career in his work on copyright and it is personally important to him, that means something to the rest of us here. I think that means--among all of the other issues here--we are going to pay more attention to this, and we are going to work hard to pass it. I hope it also means something to those outside this Chamber-- the songwriters themselves, the digital music companies, the music publishers, the broadcasters. This is something we intend to do. We intend to make this a law because it is right thing to do, because the songwriters aren't being treated fairly, and because it is important to Senator Hatch, whom we respect.

When Senator Hatch stands up on the floor and says: I have been working since 1977 on copyright issues--and we know how many important issues he has dealt with--and he says this is a capstone of all those issues, we should pay attention to that, and we should deal with it. I think we will be able to deal with it because we start off with very strong bipartisan support.

This afternoon, Senator Hatch and I will file the Music Modernization Act. We will begin with eight Members of the Senate, including Senator Hatch, as the lead sponsor; I will be there, in addition to Senator Whitehouse, a Senator from Rhode Island, a Democrat; Senator Corker, a Senator from Tennessee; and Senator Dick Durbin, the Senator from Illinois.

Dick Durbin is in Nashville nearly as much as Orrin Hatch is in Nashville. He is not a songwriter, but he loves country music, and he loves songwriting and music, and he is the No. 2 Senator in the Senate, the Democratic whip. To begin to have that sort of cosponsorship, in addition to Senator Isakson, Senator Coons of Delaware, and our newest Senator, Mr. Jones of Alabama--those are the eight of us in the Senate who are starting this bill. We hope others on both sides of the aisle will see the wisdom of it.

Italy has its art, Egypt has its pyramids, Napa Valley has its wine, and Nashville has its songwriters. Songwriters are the lifeblood of Music City. The mayor of Nashville was in my office today and we talked about that. We have thousands of songwriters in Nashville. We have a lot in Memphis too. We have many in Bristol and Knoxville in East Tennessee, where country music really started. They are waiters, they are bus drivers, they are teachers. They have other jobs as they build their songwriting careers. Their paychecks ought to be based on the fair market value of the work they create. Songwriters are paid when their songs are played. We want to make sure that their hits that are heard around the world are felt in their pocketbook.

The arrival of the internet has transformed the music industry, but it has also meant that many songwriters simply aren't paid their royalties when their songs are played online. This is the first problem--the arrival of the internet.

The second problem is, when the songwriters are paid, they are not paid a fair market value for their work. Senator Hatch, as I have mentioned, has long been an advocate for musicians. He understands this.

We have worked together for over a year with Representative Doug Collins in the House of Representatives on the Music Modernization Act, which eight of us will introduce this afternoon. It is bipartisan. It represents the first major consensus legislation that has the support of songwriters, music publishers, digital music companies, and the record labels. Senator Hatch and I are going to continue to work together to make sure it has the support of broadcasters as well.

More importantly, the legislation will have a real impact on songwriters in Tennessee and elsewhere. First, it creates a simple licensing system for direct music services, like Pandora and Amazon to reflect a changing music industry. Second, it will make it easier for the songwriters to be paid when their music is played or someone buys a song that they wrote. Third, it will allow them to be paid for the fair market value of their work.

Now, to give you an idea of what this really means, let me tell you a story about songwriting. I do not have the experience that the Senator from Utah has. He has written more than a hundred songs over the years and cowritten some of them with a number of Nashville songwriters, as a matter of fact, and he even has a song that is a platinum record. But a few years ago, I was in East Tennessee, in my hometown of Maryville. I walked out of the pharmacy, and I saw an older couple sitting in a pickup truck, and I asked them how they were doing. The woman said of her and her husband: ``We're just falling apart together.''

Well, that weekend my son Drew was having a songwriters' retreat at our home in East Tennessee. He is in the music business. So I told one of them, Lee Brice, about what the woman said to me: ``falling apart together.'' Lee Brice said: I think I can do something with that. So he, Billy Montana, and Jon Stone, the songwriters, wrote a song called ``Falling Apart Together.'' Lee Brice put that on one of his albums, and I got one fourth of the song rights. That is the way it works in Nashville. If you contribute anything, including just the song name to a song, you get a part of the royalty. Well, Lee Brice is a pretty well-known singer, as well as a songwriter, and he put the song on his album. You would think the royalty would add up to a lot of money, but in 2016, on my Senate financial disclosure, I reported receiving $101.75 in royalties from my one-fourth of the song ``Falling Apart Together.'' If you are a songwriter living in Nashville, Memphis, Los Angeles, New York, or anywhere--or Provo or Salt Lake City--you can't make a living on $101.75.

The other problem facing songwriters is that music is increasingly played online. Companies like Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, and Apple offer listeners virtually unlimited access to digital music libraries that they can play using the internet whenever they want. According to Nielsen, there are nearly 86 million paying subscribers to these types of digital music streaming services--86 million paying subscribers. In 2016, these subscribers listened to more than 252 billion music streams, including repeated songs. So in 2016, for the first time in history, streaming music services--songs played online--generated more than half the music industry's revenues. Digital music services such as Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music generated the majority, or 51.4 percent, of the music industry's revenues.

So we know that the internet has changed our world. It has changed politics. It has changed newspapers. It has changed retail. We have seen the effect of it. It has changed the music industry too. One half of the music industry's revenues come from online songs that are played and, as Senator Hatch has said, our laws have not kept up with that and, as a result, our songwriters--the creators who have a right under our Constitution to be paid for their work a fair market value--aren't being paid. In many cases, when they are paid, they are not being paid a fair market value. Sales of compact discs fell below $100 million in 2016, a 17-percent decline from 2015. This means that it is getting much more difficult for songwriters to make a living and Congress can't change the fact that the internet and other new technologies have changed the music industry, but we do have a responsibility to update our laws to keep up with what has happened.

So how did we get in this mess, and what laws are we talking about updating? In 1909, more than a century ago, Congress gave copyright owners of musical works the exclusive right to make, reproduce, and distribute their own musical work. At the time, the works were primarily piano rolls. So we are talking about laws that were created for player pianos. Congress sets a royalty to be paid to the owners of those piano rolls at $0.02 per copy. The Copyright Royalty Board, a three-judge panel at the Library of Congress, still sets those royalty rates today. The current rate is 9.1 cents, and it is based on a below- market standard.

Another problem, as Senator Hatch mentioned, is that ASCAP and BMI, the two largest performance rights organizations, are subject to a 76- year-

old consent decree with the Department of Justice--that means an agreement agreed upon in 1940 or so--and ever since then, it has been governing these performance rights rates. These consent decrees never contemplated the internet, and today they are harming national songwriters. The biggest problem with these outdated consent decrees is that songwriters don't get paid the fair market value for their work.

Songwriters negotiate with radio stations for the right to play their music in exchange for ``reasonable'' performance royalty. If songwriters and the radio stations can't agree on the reasonable royalty, the songwriters have to go to a Federal rate court, which means their case is heard by district judges in the Southern District of New York. Under current law, the judge is not allowed to consider what the song's performer earns when he sets a reasonable royalty. The Music Modernization Act changes that by allowing ASCAP and BMI to present new evidence about the fair market value of the songwriter's work, like what a performer might earn, to a Federal rate court judge when there is a dispute about royalty rates.

The legislation also allows more Federal district judges to hear these types of cases. The music industry has changed dramatically in the past 109 years. It is time to update our music licensing laws to ensure that songwriters can continue to make a living.

Now, what the Music Modernization Act does to solve the problem is this. It creates a new simplified licensing entity to make it easier for the digital music companies--this is Spotify, Pandora--to obtain a license to play songs and ensure songwriters are paid when their music is played. Instead of Spotify and Pandora tracking down each songwriter or a songwriter's publisher to get permission to play his song, they will be able to submit one license and start playing a song right away. Transitioning to a blanket license for reproductions was recommended by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. In a February 2015 report on music licensing reforms, the Copyright Office recommended this blanket licensing approach that is included in the Music Modernization Act. The Copyright Office report concluded that ``song- by-song licensing is widely perceived as a daunting requirement for new services and as an administrative drag on the licensing system as a whole.'' The move to a blanket system would allow marketplace entrants to launch their services--and begin paying royalties--more quickly.

Another important point is that the new licensing entity will not be a new government agency, and the digital music companies will pay to set it up and keep it running, not songwriters. The new entity will be governed by songwriters and music publishers, giving songwriters a say in how their work is used for the first time. The new entity helps songwriters because it will collect royalties each time a song is played, look for the songwriter, and hold on to the royalties for 3 years until they can be found. This helps songwriters because it ensures they are paid royalties for their work, whether they have a publisher or not. This helps digital music companies because it makes sure songwriters are paid and that means fewer lawsuits.

The legislation also improves transparency by creating a publicly accessible database for all music works, and it requires digital music companies to pay songwriters their royalties every month. Songwriters will receive usage reports on music that is played to make sure the money is all there. The new database is important because maybe a young aspiring songwriter co-wrote a song under an alias or moved or simply can't be located. The legislation allows songwriters to audit the licensing entity once a year, if the songwriter chooses.

Finally, the legislation requires the Copyright Royalty Board at the Library of Congress to use a fair market standard of what a ``willing buyer'' would pay a ``willing seller'' when the Board sets royalty rates. This helps songwriters receive a fair market royalty when their song is played online.

The Music Modernization Act, as Senator Hatch said, has broad support--unprecedented support. It is a consensus piece of legislation. It is supported by the National Music Publishers Association; the Digital Media Association; the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP; Broadcast Music, Inc. or BMA; the National Songwriters Association International; and the Songwriters of North America. On January 8, these groups joined the Recording Industry Association of America, the Recording Academy, and more than a dozen music industry groups in endorsing the Music Modernization Act. It will help thousands of songwriters in Nashville, across Tennessee, and across this country.

Songwriters, music publishers, and digital music companies have reached a consensus. Now it is up to Congress to provide a result. That is why I am working in such a bipartisan way and am so glad to be working with such imminent leaders as Senator Hatch, Senator Durbin, and others to pass the Music Modernization Act and give Tennessee and our Nation's songwriters the fair pay they have earned.

I want to thank Senator Hatch's staff, as well as my own staff, once again, because they have been working on this issue for some time. Senator Hatch was the original cosponsor of legislation in the 114th Congress, titled the Songwriter Equity Act. I am proud to work with him.

I want to thank Representative Doug Collins and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who are the sponsors of the bill in the House of Representatives. They are leading the effort to get the bill through the House Judiciary Committee so it can be considered by the full House.

Finally, I wish to thank Bart Herbison, with the National Songwriters Association; David Israelite, with the National Music Publishers Association; Beth Matthews, with ASCAP; Mike O'Neil, with BMI; and Greg Barnes and Chris Harrison, with the Digital Media Association. These individuals have all worked together and negotiated for months to try to produce consensus legislation to help songwriters and modernize the music licensing laws.

So let me end where I began. This is a bill to help songwriters. This is a bill to modernize a copyright system. This is a bill to help our laws keep up with the digital age, the internet world. This is a bill that has consensus among digital companies and songwriters and publishers for the first time. This is a bill to honor Orrin Hatch, who has served in this body since 1977, who is a songwriter himself, and who has been our leader on modernizing copyright laws from the very beginning. I intend to work as hard as I can in a bipartisan way, both in the Senate and the House, to pass this bill for the good of our country and as a capstone of the career of our senior Senator, Mr. Hatch.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Utah for his leadership. He is not only the senior Republican Senator and former chair of the Judiciary Committee, which will hear this legislation, and chairman of the Finance Committee, he is a songwriter himself. He is not

just a songwriter; he has a platinum record, he has a gold record, and he has another one that might become gold. So he knows what he is talking about.

I think, for all of us in the Senate, when Orrin Hatch says that in his 40 years or so here--more than any other Republican Senator--this is the capstone of his career in his work on copyright and it is personally important to him, that means something to the rest of us here. I think that means--among all of the other issues here--we are going to pay more attention to this, and we are going to work hard to pass it. I hope it also means something to those outside this Chamber-- the songwriters themselves, the digital music companies, the music publishers, the broadcasters. This is something we intend to do. We intend to make this a law because it is right thing to do, because the songwriters aren't being treated fairly, and because it is important to Senator Hatch, whom we respect.

When Senator Hatch stands up on the floor and says: I have been working since 1977 on copyright issues--and we know how many important issues he has dealt with--and he says this is a capstone of all those issues, we should pay attention to that, and we should deal with it. I think we will be able to deal with it because we start off with very strong bipartisan support.

This afternoon, Senator Hatch and I will file the Music Modernization Act. We will begin with eight Members of the Senate, including Senator Hatch, as the lead sponsor; I will be there, in addition to Senator Whitehouse, a Senator from Rhode Island, a Democrat; Senator Corker, a Senator from Tennessee; and Senator Dick Durbin, the Senator from Illinois.

Dick Durbin is in Nashville nearly as much as Orrin Hatch is in Nashville. He is not a songwriter, but he loves country music, and he loves songwriting and music, and he is the No. 2 Senator in the Senate, the Democratic whip. To begin to have that sort of cosponsorship, in addition to Senator Isakson, Senator Coons of Delaware, and our newest Senator, Mr. Jones of Alabama--those are the eight of us in the Senate who are starting this bill. We hope others on both sides of the aisle will see the wisdom of it.

Italy has its art, Egypt has its pyramids, Napa Valley has its wine, and Nashville has its songwriters. Songwriters are the lifeblood of Music City. The mayor of Nashville was in my office today and we talked about that. We have thousands of songwriters in Nashville. We have a lot in Memphis too. We have many in Bristol and Knoxville in East Tennessee, where country music really started. They are waiters, they are bus drivers, they are teachers. They have other jobs as they build their songwriting careers. Their paychecks ought to be based on the fair market value of the work they create. Songwriters are paid when their songs are played. We want to make sure that their hits that are heard around the world are felt in their pocketbook.

The arrival of the internet has transformed the music industry, but it has also meant that many songwriters simply aren't paid their royalties when their songs are played online. This is the first problem--the arrival of the internet.

The second problem is, when the songwriters are paid, they are not paid a fair market value for their work. Senator Hatch, as I have mentioned, has long been an advocate for musicians. He understands this.

We have worked together for over a year with Representative Doug Collins in the House of Representatives on the Music Modernization Act, which eight of us will introduce this afternoon. It is bipartisan. It represents the first major consensus legislation that has the support of songwriters, music publishers, digital music companies, and the record labels. Senator Hatch and I are going to continue to work together to make sure it has the support of broadcasters as well.

More importantly, the legislation will have a real impact on songwriters in Tennessee and elsewhere. First, it creates a simple licensing system for direct music services, like Pandora and Amazon to reflect a changing music industry. Second, it will make it easier for the songwriters to be paid when their music is played or someone buys a song that they wrote. Third, it will allow them to be paid for the fair market value of their work.

Now, to give you an idea of what this really means, let me tell you a story about songwriting. I do not have the experience that the Senator from Utah has. He has written more than a hundred songs over the years and cowritten some of them with a number of Nashville songwriters, as a matter of fact, and he even has a song that is a platinum record. But a few years ago, I was in East Tennessee, in my hometown of Maryville. I walked out of the pharmacy, and I saw an older couple sitting in a pickup truck, and I asked them how they were doing. The woman said of her and her husband: ``We're just falling apart together.''

Well, that weekend my son Drew was having a songwriters' retreat at our home in East Tennessee. He is in the music business. So I told one of them, Lee Brice, about what the woman said to me: ``falling apart together.'' Lee Brice said: I think I can do something with that. So he, Billy Montana, and Jon Stone, the songwriters, wrote a song called ``Falling Apart Together.'' Lee Brice put that on one of his albums, and I got one fourth of the song rights. That is the way it works in Nashville. If you contribute anything, including just the song name to a song, you get a part of the royalty. Well, Lee Brice is a pretty well-known singer, as well as a songwriter, and he put the song on his album. You would think the royalty would add up to a lot of money, but in 2016, on my Senate financial disclosure, I reported receiving $101.75 in royalties from my one-fourth of the song ``Falling Apart Together.'' If you are a songwriter living in Nashville, Memphis, Los Angeles, New York, or anywhere--or Provo or Salt Lake City--you can't make a living on $101.75.

The other problem facing songwriters is that music is increasingly played online. Companies like Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, and Apple offer listeners virtually unlimited access to digital music libraries that they can play using the internet whenever they want. According to Nielsen, there are nearly 86 million paying subscribers to these types of digital music streaming services--86 million paying subscribers. In 2016, these subscribers listened to more than 252 billion music streams, including repeated songs. So in 2016, for the first time in history, streaming music services--songs played online--generated more than half the music industry's revenues. Digital music services such as Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music generated the majority, or 51.4 percent, of the music industry's revenues.

So we know that the internet has changed our world. It has changed politics. It has changed newspapers. It has changed retail. We have seen the effect of it. It has changed the music industry too. One half of the music industry's revenues come from online songs that are played and, as Senator Hatch has said, our laws have not kept up with that and, as a result, our songwriters--the creators who have a right under our Constitution to be paid for their work a fair market value--aren't being paid. In many cases, when they are paid, they are not being paid a fair market value. Sales of compact discs fell below $100 million in 2016, a 17-percent decline from 2015. This means that it is getting much more difficult for songwriters to make a living and Congress can't change the fact that the internet and other new technologies have changed the music industry, but we do have a responsibility to update our laws to keep up with what has happened.

So how did we get in this mess, and what laws are we talking about updating? In 1909, more than a century ago, Congress gave copyright owners of musical works the exclusive right to make, reproduce, and distribute their own musical work. At the time, the works were primarily piano rolls. So we are talking about laws that were created for player pianos. Congress sets a royalty to be paid to the owners of those piano rolls at $0.02 per copy. The Copyright Royalty Board, a three-judge panel at the Library of Congress, still sets those royalty rates today. The current rate is 9.1 cents, and it is based on a below- market standard.

Another problem, as Senator Hatch mentioned, is that ASCAP and BMI, the two largest performance rights organizations, are subject to a 76- year-

old consent decree with the Department of Justice--that means an agreement agreed upon in 1940 or so--and ever since then, it has been governing these performance rights rates. These consent decrees never contemplated the internet, and today they are harming national songwriters. The biggest problem with these outdated consent decrees is that songwriters don't get paid the fair market value for their work.

Songwriters negotiate with radio stations for the right to play their music in exchange for ``reasonable'' performance royalty. If songwriters and the radio stations can't agree on the reasonable royalty, the songwriters have to go to a Federal rate court, which means their case is heard by district judges in the Southern District of New York. Under current law, the judge is not allowed to consider what the song's performer earns when he sets a reasonable royalty. The Music Modernization Act changes that by allowing ASCAP and BMI to present new evidence about the fair market value of the songwriter's work, like what a performer might earn, to a Federal rate court judge when there is a dispute about royalty rates.

The legislation also allows more Federal district judges to hear these types of cases. The music industry has changed dramatically in the past 109 years. It is time to update our music licensing laws to ensure that songwriters can continue to make a living.

Now, what the Music Modernization Act does to solve the problem is this. It creates a new simplified licensing entity to make it easier for the digital music companies--this is Spotify, Pandora--to obtain a license to play songs and ensure songwriters are paid when their music is played. Instead of Spotify and Pandora tracking down each songwriter or a songwriter's publisher to get permission to play his song, they will be able to submit one license and start playing a song right away. Transitioning to a blanket license for reproductions was recommended by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. In a February 2015 report on music licensing reforms, the Copyright Office recommended this blanket licensing approach that is included in the Music Modernization Act. The Copyright Office report concluded that ``song- by-song licensing is widely perceived as a daunting requirement for new services and as an administrative drag on the licensing system as a whole.'' The move to a blanket system would allow marketplace entrants to launch their services--and begin paying royalties--more quickly.

Another important point is that the new licensing entity will not be a new government agency, and the digital music companies will pay to set it up and keep it running, not songwriters. The new entity will be governed by songwriters and music publishers, giving songwriters a say in how their work is used for the first time. The new entity helps songwriters because it will collect royalties each time a song is played, look for the songwriter, and hold on to the royalties for 3 years until they can be found. This helps songwriters because it ensures they are paid royalties for their work, whether they have a publisher or not. This helps digital music companies because it makes sure songwriters are paid and that means fewer lawsuits.

The legislation also improves transparency by creating a publicly accessible database for all music works, and it requires digital music companies to pay songwriters their royalties every month. Songwriters will receive usage reports on music that is played to make sure the money is all there. The new database is important because maybe a young aspiring songwriter co-wrote a song under an alias or moved or simply can't be located. The legislation allows songwriters to audit the licensing entity once a year, if the songwriter chooses.

Finally, the legislation requires the Copyright Royalty Board at the Library of Congress to use a fair market standard of what a ``willing buyer'' would pay a ``willing seller'' when the Board sets royalty rates. This helps songwriters receive a fair market royalty when their song is played online.

The Music Modernization Act, as Senator Hatch said, has broad support--unprecedented support. It is a consensus piece of legislation. It is supported by the National Music Publishers Association; the Digital Media Association; the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP; Broadcast Music, Inc. or BMA; the National Songwriters Association International; and the Songwriters of North America. On January 8, these groups joined the Recording Industry Association of America, the Recording Academy, and more than a dozen music industry groups in endorsing the Music Modernization Act. It will help thousands of songwriters in Nashville, across Tennessee, and across this country.

Songwriters, music publishers, and digital music companies have reached a consensus. Now it is up to Congress to provide a result. That is why I am working in such a bipartisan way and am so glad to be working with such imminent leaders as Senator Hatch, Senator Durbin, and others to pass the Music Modernization Act and give Tennessee and our Nation's songwriters the fair pay they have earned.

I want to thank Senator Hatch's staff, as well as my own staff, once again, because they have been working on this issue for some time. Senator Hatch was the original cosponsor of legislation in the 114th Congress, titled the Songwriter Equity Act. I am proud to work with him.

I want to thank Representative Doug Collins and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who are the sponsors of the bill in the House of Representatives. They are leading the effort to get the bill through the House Judiciary Committee so it can be considered by the full House.

Finally, I wish to thank Bart Herbison, with the National Songwriters Association; David Israelite, with the National Music Publishers Association; Beth Matthews, with ASCAP; Mike O'Neil, with BMI; and Greg Barnes and Chris Harrison, with the Digital Media Association. These individuals have all worked together and negotiated for months to try to produce consensus legislation to help songwriters and modernize the music licensing laws.

So let me end where I began. This is a bill to help songwriters. This is a bill to modernize a copyright system. This is a bill to help our laws keep up with the digital age, the internet world. This is a bill that has consensus among digital companies and songwriters and publishers for the first time. This is a bill to honor Orrin Hatch, who has served in this body since 1977, who is a songwriter himself, and who has been our leader on modernizing copyright laws from the very beginning. I intend to work as hard as I can in a bipartisan way, both in the Senate and the House, to pass this bill for the good of our country and as a capstone of the career of our senior Senator, Mr. Hatch.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Democratic leader and the Democratic assistant leader know my great respect for them. In fact, I spent a great deal of time with the Democratic leader in 2013, reopening the government after the Republicans shut it down. I would like to say three things about where we are today.

First, in my view, shutting down the Government of the United States of America should never, ever be a bargaining chip for any issue, period. Shutting down the Government of the United States of America should never, ever be used as a bargaining chip for any issue, period. It should be to governing as chemical warfare is to real warfare. It should be banned. It should be unthinkable. We should not even allow anybody on either side of the aisle to seriously consider it. Yet we are in the middle of it.

I was sent here from Tennessee not to shut the government down but to make it work for taxpayers. I have worked hard to do that. I continue to do that, and I think my friends on the other side of the aisle know that I know how to work in the Senate. If you want a result, that means 60 votes.

I respect the fact that the minority has prerogatives. I don't think the Senate is a place where a bulldozer runs over the minority. So we work together, and we get important results that are lasting on issues like fixing No Child Left Behind and on 21st Century Cures.

Senator Murray of Washington State and I are working on the first modifications to the Affordable Care Act to lower health insurance premiums. We haven't had any of those in 7 years. We can do that, and when we do it, it works. But we should never, ever say: If you don't do what I want, we are going to shut the government down because we can.

We did that on the Republican side in 2013. We shouldn't have done it, but we did it. Barack Obama was the President of the United States then. What he did say? He said: I will not negotiate with the Republicans, who have shut the government down over the Affordable Care Act, while the government is shut down. So we went on day after day after day, and the government shut down.

In my part of East Tennessee, where the Presiding Officer has visited, it happened to be right in the middle of the fall tourist season. So the little businesses that make their living off tourists coming to the Great Smoky Mountains to see the colors--they lost a lot of their livelihood. Military people weren't paid. The taxpayers lost hundreds of millions of dollars because we Republicans shut the government down in 2013.

President Obama said: I will not negotiate with anybody over any issue when they use as a bargaining chip shutting the government down. He stuck to his guns, and we capitulated in 2 weeks. We got the blame for it, and we deserved it. We deserved it.

We were not sent here to shut the government down. We were sent here to make the government work for taxpayers.

Now, who is shutting the government down? It is obvious who is shutting the government down. The Republican House passed a continuing resolution to keep the government open.

Last night, 50 Senators, including almost all Republicans and 5 Democrats, voted to keep the government open. The President has said he would sign the continuing resolution to keep the government open. The Democrats are closing down the government because they want a result on an important issue, and they want it now--their way.

I respect the issue. It is an issue I am trying to solve, too, but we should not be shutting the government down to resolve the issue of these children who were brought here years ago. I am going to talk more about that.

We know who is shutting the government down. The Republicans are voting to keep it open, and the Democrats are voting to shut it. Nobody should be shutting down the government.

Second, there is a lot of talk about what the President does and what the House does. One of the things I have learned about Washington is that we have three branches of government for a reason, and we have two independent Houses for a reason.

The assistant Democratic leader and the Presiding Officer both served in the House of Representatives. I didn't have that privilege. Sometimes we have Senators who want to run over to the House and get them to do things our way. I have found that doesn't work very well. We have a lot to say over here, and usually the best thing for us to do is to do what the Senate can do and say ``Here it is''--say that to the President, and say that to the House. Often, when we do that, then they agree with us or modify it, and we get a result.

So it is a pretty poor excuse to sit here and say: We can't deal with President Trump. We don't have to deal with President Trump. We are the U.S. Senate. We can make our own decisions about DACA. We can make our own decisions about health insurance.

We need his signature to make it a law, but maybe it is a lot easier if we pass what we can pass and say: Here, Mr. President. Here is a solution to an important issue. You can be Nixon to China on the immigration issue. You have said you want to do that; do it. But first, here is the specific solution we have.

As far as the House of Representatives, we can't say to Speaker Ryan: Now, Mr. Speaker, before we do anything in the Senate, we want you to write the bill and approve it and send us this, that, or the other. We can have a discussion with him, but that is not how the system works. We should do what the Senate can do, and we should do it with respect for the House. We should show them what we are doing; we should talk to them about it. There is nothing wrong with that. We should consult with the President of the United States. We want his signature, and we want the House's approval, but the main thing for us to do is to do what we can do.

How does that happen? Under the current circumstances, I think there is one obvious way to do that, and I suggested it earlier to the majority leader, Senator McConnell. He didn't do that a couple of weeks ago, but I suggested: Look, we have a tough issue here, DACA. We have a lot of Republicans who would like to get a result. We want the result by March 5 because that is when time runs out for these people who have been living in the United States who were brought here illegally as children through no fault of their own.

So the best way to do that--why don't we just vote on it? Why don't we take some time on the floor of the Senate, and rather than negotiating in the back rooms and saying we can't get the President, we can't get Paul Ryan, or we can't do this or that, why don't we just put up the Alexander bill or the Daines bill or the Durbin bill or the Schumer bill or the Graham bill, put it on the floor, let Senators amend it, and see if we can get 60 votes? If we can, then we can say to the President of the United States: Mr. President, we have solved the problem here; we would like your support. We can say to the House of Representatives: We would like you to support it, or if you have a better idea, let's see it, or let's put it in the bill we are going to send you.

In any event, we would be in much better shape than the Senate just talking; we would have actually done something. I think the majority leader could shorten the period of time for the resolution. I think that would be a good gesture of faith to the Democrats.

Second, we should say that if, during that time, a group of leaders, such as the whips on our side--and we could include the whips on the other side--if a group of Senators cannot come to an agreement on a bill, then we will do

what the Senate is supposed to do: We will put the bills on the floor, and we will vote on them. We will vote on them, and we will do it in the light of day. We will let people see who is for it and who is against it and whose amendments work and whose don't. Lots of times, we come to a better result that way.

That is my suggestion. We don't need to shout at each other. We don't need to go on forever. That is bad for the country. It is bad for the military. It is bad for us. It is bad for the government. It is unthinkable that we should be shutting down the Government of the United States of America. Let's open it back up. Let's shorten the period of time. Let's say that if we don't have the DACA decision worked out among the group of Senators who are talking today, then we put it on the floor and we stay here until we get it done.

Finally, we are on the verge of doing some very important things for the American people in the U.S. Senate, and I think almost everybody knows that. I noticed the temperature in here last night. Despite the fact that we were in this absurd situation of shutting down the government, people were very respectful of one another because they know that we are on the verge of passing a number of important issues that will help our country--No. 1, a 2-year budget agreement that will give the military the funding it needs. At the same time, it will give significantly more funding for biomedical research, for national parks, as well as national defense and national laboratories. We are close to that. I am not really involved in that very much, but everyone says we are close to a 2-year agreement on that. We can write our appropriations bills in 3 weeks. We can have that done by the end of February. That is the first thing.

The second thing is children's health insurance. If we don't do that in this bill, we should certainly do it. There is agreement on a 6-year extension of that, and all over the country, people want that to happen.

The third is what is often called Alexander-Murray-Collins-Nelson. We have been in a Hatfield and McCoy mud fight over health insurance for 7 years. We actually have some agreement on a way to bring down health insurance rates for self-employed people, such as farmers, small businessmen and women, and song writers. Senator Murray and I have worked on that. Senator Nelson and Senator Collins have worked on that. The President supports it. The House is interested in it. We haven't said that they have pledged allegiance to it before we pass it, but they do know what we are doing, we have consulted with them, and we are working it out here. So that is the third thing.

So we have the 2-year budget bill, we have children's health insurance, we have the Alexander-Murray-Collins-Nelson bill, which is aimed at lowering the insurance rates for self-employed people. That is three things.

We have disaster aid. After three big hurricanes that hit us, we can get an agreement on that in a matter of days.

Then we have what we call DACA, the children who were brought here through no fault of our own. That is the toughest issue, but a lot of work has been done. We have to be finished by March 5. My sense is that everybody on the Democratic side wants to get that done, and most of us on the Republican side want to get it done.

So let's get back to work. Let's don't be in a stalemate for a day or two or even an hour or two or a week or two when we could be taking five major, bipartisan steps that are good for the American people. The American people sent us here to make the government work for them, not to shut it down. That should be unthinkable. That should be like chemical warfare. We should never even consider that.

So I urge my friends on the other side, let Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer, who are veteran Senators--they respect this institution, they are friends with all of us, and they are able to make a decision--let them sit down and find an agreement to get this government back open. Let's go to work on the 2-year budget agreement, the children's health insurance program, the Alexander-Murray-Collins- Nelson bill to lower health insurance rates for Americans, the DACA bill, and disaster relief. Let's get that done in a very short period of time. That is my hope. That is the way I like to work in the Senate, and my view is, that is the way about 90 of the 100 Senators would like to see this resolved--sooner rather than later.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, along with Senator Feinstein, I would like to pay tribute to Lt. Gen. Frank G. Klotz, USAF, Retired, upon his retirement as the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Today we pay tribute to Lt. Gen. Frank G. Klotz, USAF, Retired for a distinguished career of nearly 45 years. His career began with his graduation in 1973 from the Air Force Academy and concludes when he steps down Friday after 4 years as Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration,

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Colorado for his remarks. He reminds me of something former Majority Leader Tom Daschle told us one morning at the Prayer Breakfast. He said that after World War II, Archibald MacLeish, who was the poet laureate of the United States, said of the veterans who came back from the war--when talking to Members of the Senate, he said: They gave us our country. Now it is up to us to see that we can do something with it.

I think we need to always remember that challenge and opportunity that we have.

The Jackson Magnolia

Mr. President, some disappointing news arrived last month. The White House announced that the Andrew Jackson magnolia is sick and dying and that part of it had to be removed. On December 27, the east leader, which is a top section of a tree, was removed. The other leader of the Jackson magnolia is still intact, but it is supported by a cabling system. The part that was removed will eventually be replaced with a seedling from the original tree.

When President Trump visited the Hermitage outside Nashville in March of last year and laid a wreath at Andrew Jackson's tomb, he likely walked past trees that were also seedlings from the Jackson magnolia.

The news of the Jackson magnolia has special significance for Tennesseans and for several Tennessee families, including our own.

Shortly after his arrival at the White House in 1829, Jackson, who was our seventh President, planted a magnolia seedling in honor of his wife Rachel, who had died only weeks earlier. During the Presidential campaign, Rachel had been so maligned about the legitimacy of her marriage to Jackson that she had said: ``I would rather be a doorkeeper in the House of God than live in that palace at Washington.''

The seedling that Jackson planted came from a magnolia at the Hermitage, the couple's home outside Nashville. Over the years, it grew into a magnificent, sprawling specimen, reaching the roof of the White House at the South Portico.

Take a look at the back of the twenty-dollar bill--the one in your billfold or wallet or purse, the one with President Jackson on the front, and you will see the Jackson magnolia, along with another magnolia planted later to supplement it.

The Washington Post detailed some of the tree's history when the news was announced. Here is what the Post said:

Long after Jackson left office, his magnolia remained.

Other trees were planted to supplement it, and the tree

became a fixture in White House events. Herbert Hoover

reportedly took breakfast and held Cabinet meetings at a

table beneath its sprawling branches. Franklin Delano

Roosevelt spoke with Winston Churchill in its shade. Richard

Nixon strode past it as he left the White House for the last

time after his resignation. In 1994, a Maryland man piloting

a stolen plane clipped the tree before suffering a deadly

crash against the White House wall.

Some said it might have saved President Bill Clinton's life.

No tree on the White House grounds can reveal so many

secrets of romance and history, longtime White House butler

Alonzo Fields once told the Associated Press.

The Jackson magnolia itself may be dying, but its children and grandchildren and even its great-grandchildren will live on.

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan presented a cutting of the Jackson magnolia to Howard H. Baker, Jr.--a former majority leader of this Senate--when Baker retired as Reagan's chief of staff. Baker planted that cutting at his home in Huntsville, TN.

Six years later, in 1994, Baker was lunching at his home with John Rice Irwin, founder of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, TN. Irwin noticed the tree, which by then had grown to a height of 18 feet. Baker told Norris the story of the Jackson magnolia and, with the help of the University of Tennessee College of Agriculture, arranged for two cuttings from Baker's magnolia to be rooted and sent to John Rice Irwin.

In 1995, Senator Baker presided at a formal ceremony at the Museum of Appalachia when those two cuttings--the grandchildren of the White House Jackson magnolia--were presented to the Museum of Appalachia. They are planted in front of the museum's Hall of Fame.

In 1996, John Rice Irwin gave a cutting from the Museum of Appalachia magnolia to my wife Honey and me. We planted this great-grandchild of the White House magnolia in front of our home outside Maryville, TN. Today, it is 80 feet tall.

In 1998, a tornado destroyed the original magnolia at the Hermitage, from which the White House Jackson magnolia had been taken. At the request of Hermitage officials, the Museum of Appalachia provided a cutting from the museum magnolia to replace the original tree. It was presented at a ceremony presided over by Lewis Donelson, III, the descendent of John Donelson, Rachel Jackson's father. Senator Baker and John Rice Irwin attended.

According to the Museum of Appalachia, five cuttings have been successfully propagated from the museum magnolia. In 2009, John Rice Irwin gave my wife and me a second cutting from

the museum magnolia, which is planted at our home in Blount County. We, in turn, have given cuttings to Graham and Cindy Hunter in Knoxville and to Denise and Steve Smith of Franklin. Their trees are growing tall in the Tennessee soil from which the Jackson magnolia came 180 years ago.

While we commemorate the long and prominent life of the Jackson magnolia, we can also look forward to long lives from its grandchildren and great-grandchildren now planted at the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, at a city park in Sevier County, and at the Hermitage and other homes in Tennessee.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the article from the Washington Post dated December 26, describing the history of the Jackson magnolia.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I thank the distinguished Presiding Officer, the Senator from North Carolina.

I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2 minutes on the nominees on whom we are about to vote.

Mr. President, on December 1, 2016, Judge Todd Campbell stepped down as a district court judge for the Middle District of Tennessee. On April 15, 2017, Judge Kevin Sharp stepped down, creating a second vacancy in the Middle District. Those two vacancies have resulted in increased caseloads for the only two remaining full- time Federal district court judges, Waverly Crenshaw and Aleta Trauger.

Things are almost as bad in Tennessee's Western District, where we have two vacancies. Fortunately, help is on the way. In July of last year, President Trump nominated Chip Campbell to serve in Tennessee's Middle District and Tommy Parker to serve in the Western District. I was pleased to see the President select such qualified individuals, and I thank him and his counsel, Don McGahn, for working with us throughout this process. I was equally pleased to see the Senate Judiciary Committee approve both nominations by voice vote last October. And it is easy to see why Tennesseans are excited about these nominees, too.

Chip Campbell is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Alabama School of Law. Before attending law school, Mr. Campbell

served as a naval flight officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He began his career in private practice with Maynard, Cooper & Gale in Birmingham, before moving and joining the Nashville firm of Riley, Warnock & Jacobson. Today he is a partner at Frost Brown Todd in Nashville, where he chairs the competition law section of the business litigation practice group.

Tommy Parker received his undergraduate degree from the University of South Carolina before going to law school at Vanderbilt. Upon graduation, he joined the Memphis law firm of Waring Cox. In 1995, Mr. Parker left his position with the firm to serve as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Tennessee. Today he is a partner at Baker Donelson in Memphis.

I want to note that President Trump has also made two other nominations to fill the remaining vacancies in the Middle District--Eli Richardson--and in the Western District--State Senator Mark Norris--and I encourage the Senate to act quickly on their nominations. But today's votes are a good start.

Chip Campbell and Tommy Parker will be assets to the Federal bench, and Tennessee is fortunate to have such well-qualified nominees. These are men of good character and good temperament, and today I encourage my colleagues to support their nominations.

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

Mr. President, let me tell you a story. Yesterday, I was in Nashville, and I went to Chick-fil-a on Charlotte Avenue about 2 p.m. in the afternoon, and I ordered six chicken nuggets, some mac and cheese, and some waffle fries. I was about to leave, and a lady walked up to me and said: Senator, thank you for what you are doing to help me with insurance.

I said: Well, what do you mean?

She said: My name is Marty Parish. I am a self-employed farmer, and the year before ObamaCare started, my monthly insurance premium was $300. Next year, it is $1,300, and that is very hard for me to afford.

I said: I guess you are one of those Americans who work hard and you don't get any government subsidy to help you pay for your health insurance.

She said: That is exactly right. I have to pay for the whole thing myself.

I said: Well, Marty Parish, I have a Christmas present for you. The Congress can pass, by the end of the month, legislation that would lower your premiums in the year 2019 by 18 percent. That is according to Avalere, one of the country's leading health consulting firms, which made the announcement yesterday.

So if your premiums are $1,300 a month, that is a couple of thousand dollars less that you will have to pay, and that is still way too high. If the Senate and the House agree on a tax bill that removes the individual mandate and the Congressional Budget Office is right, that will put some upward pressure on those same rates but only 10 percent. She was still going to get an 8-percent decrease in her rates in 2019, and that is about $1,000 in her pocket. Those are real dollars.

Marty Parish has seen, if she is like the average Tennessean, her premiums rise 176 percent over the last 5 years, and she has seen them go up an average this year of 58 percent more. So a very good Christmas present for Marty Parish and men and women like her across this country would be for this Congress, before the end of the month, to pass what we call the Alexander-Murray and the Collins-Nelson legislation, which will lower premiums by 18 percent. More than that, that Christmas present, which is all wrapped up in a nice package and sitting in the White House, waiting for anybody who wants to consider it--according to the Congressional Budget Office, it will not just reduce premiums, but it will reduce the amount of Federal tax dollars that go to pay for ObamaCare subsidies. If the premiums are lower, the subsidies are going to be lower. And if the premiums are lower and the subsidies are lower, then the Federal debt is going to be lower.

So here you have, for my friend whom I met yesterday at Chick-fil-a, an 18-percent, on average, reduction in her 2019 insurance premiums. Fewer of her tax dollars are going to pay for Affordable Care Act subsidies, and there will be less Federal debt for her and her family. Because the President has said that he will not put up with it and because Senator Murray, the Democrat who is ranking on the HELP Committee, and I agree on this, there will be no bailout of insurance companies in these proposals.

Who would support something like this? Well, President Trump supports it. He told us that last week. In fact, he asked for it. He called me specifically a few weeks ago and said: I don't want people hurt in the next 2 years while we are still debating what to do in the long term about health insurance. Why

don't you work with Senator Murray and see if you can put together a bill that keeps people from being hurt and that stabilizes the market so premiums don't go up so much?

I said: Mr. President, we are already working on that.

I have talked with him half a dozen times about that. I met with him at the White House, talked to him the other day, and he has said publicly and privately that he supports the Alexander-Murray legislation, and he supports the legislation supported by Senator Collins, a Republican, and Senator Nelson, a Democrat. So that is a pretty big one.

Senator McConnell, the Republican majority leader, supports it. He has said that publicly and privately. He supports both of them.

Senator Schumer, who is the Democratic leader, said 2 or 3 weeks ago that every single Democrat in the Senate would vote for Alexander- Murray and that it had 60 votes, and Senator McConnell should put it on the floor as soon as possible. He thought it would pass with a lot of votes.

Well, the bill hasn't changed except in one way. It has gotten better from the point of view not just of Democrats but of Republicans.

The idea that Senator Collins and Senator Nelson have come up with is the idea of creating an invisible risk pool or a reinsurance fund. To allow States to do that would permit those States to do what Maine has done, what Alaska has done, and what Minnesota is trying to do, and it is this: Alaska created such a fund; they call it a reinsurance fund. Maine calls it an invisible risk pool. They put money into taking care of the very sick people in the individual market in Alaska, and once they did that, well, they were able to lower rates for everybody else by 20 percent. That is in addition to the 18 percent that Avalere talked about in our bill--in addition to that. Maine did a similar thing in a little different way in their State.

Who else likes this idea? Well, Republicans in the House of Representatives like it. They, of course, are a full partner in this exercise. They will have to consider it and decide whether they are for it, but I think it would be pretty easy for them to support Collins- Nelson because it was in the repeal-and-replace bill for the Affordable Care Act that the House passed and voted for. In fact, the so-called compromise by Representative Meadows and Representative McCarthy included an invisible risk pool of up to $15 billion to allow States-- this is pretty good Republican philosophy--to make their own decisions about doing this and decide, as Maine did, Alaska did, and as Minnesota is trying to do, to say that we are going to create this fund, and we are going to take care of the very sick people who use most of the money we spend on healthcare. When we do that, we lower the rates for everybody else. In the Alaska case, because it lowered the rates for everybody else, again, premiums went down, subsidies went down, and Alaska was able to pay for 85 percent of its reinsurance fund with Federal dollars without any new Federal dollars going to Alaska. That is what happens when you allow States to use their own good judgment, and that is why Senator Collins, a Republican, and Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat, have suggested it over here.

The other thing that the House of Representatives did in its Republican replace-and-replace bill was continue the cost-sharing payments for 2 years. Cost-sharing payments are payments that the Federal Government makes so that low-income Americans will not have to make them when they buy their insurance. It makes them to the insurance companies, but the benefit from the lower rates is supposed to go to the individual consumer or to the taxpayer.

The House of Representatives, in its repeal-and-replace bill, understood--just as the distinguished Presiding Officer Senator Cassidy, Senator Graham, and Senator Johnson understood--that if they are able to repeal and replace ObamaCare or make any significant major changes in it, it will take a couple of years to put it in place, and you don't want people to be hurt in the meantime. That is exactly what the President said to me when he called me a few weeks ago. He said: I don't want people hurt during this 2-year period.

So the House of Representatives put into their repeal-and-replace bill 2 years of cost-sharing payments, not to bail out insurance companies. It doesn't bail out insurance companies. The benefits go to individuals. They wanted to make sure that rates stayed down and people didn't get hurt.

The proposals we are talking about, the Christmas present I talked about to the young farmer in Tennessee--both have fundamentally been a part of the House repeal-and-replace bill. While I can't speak for the House of Representatives--what they do is their business--I believe as they study Alexander-Murray and Collins-Nelson, they will find that they like it because they have already voted for it once this year. The House of Representatives created the invisible risk pool. That was a real breakthrough in their ability to pass a bill. Then, second, they wanted to make sure that during this interim--the time we try to change the individual insurance market in this country--people aren't hurt.

So I have come to the floor today just to say that there is a lot going on today and next week. It involves defense spending. It involves the amount of money we can spend for the next year in our government. It involves a tax bill. The Senator from Georgia has just talked about it--a historic tax bill that I hope we can pass. But there is also an opportunity for every single one of us to give a Christmas present to the 9 million Americans who have been hammered by skyrocketing insurance premiums.

We don't need to debate whose fault that is. I don't need to say it is all the fault of the Affordable Care Act. Democrats don't need to say it is President Trump's sabotaging it. Let's forget that for a moment. Let's just say that the fact is, in Tennessee, premiums will go up in 2018 by 58 percent, and they are going to go up more the next year if we don't do something about it.

We have two bills here that will say to the self-employed farmer in Tennessee or Iowa or Louisiana or the songwriter or the small business woman: We hear you. We know you can't afford these rates. If you are paying $1,300 a month for two of you, that is way too high.

We can begin to take those rates down--according to Avalere, 18 percent in 2019. According to the Congressional Budget Office, if we don't take this action to pass the cost-sharing payments, rates will go up 25 percent. So if the present we have includes lower premiums, less debt, less money going to ObamaCare subsidies, and it doesn't bail out insurance companies, why should we not pass that? I think we will pass it.

I think it would be pretty hard to explain--I don't want to run into Marti Parish at Chick-fil-A in Nashville between Christmas and New Year's and say: I am sorry about that Christmas present. I could have lowered your rates 18 percent, and I could have done it in a way that didn't run up our Federal debt. I just couldn't get it done.

She would say to me: Wasn't the President for it?

I would say: Yes.

Hasn't the House already voted for that once?

I would say: Yes.

Didn't the Democratic leader say the Democrats were for it?

I would say: Yes.

She would say: Then why didn't it pass?

I would have a hard time coming up with an answer to that.

I hope that over the next few days, we are able to do what Democrats and Republicans have suggested and what 12 Democratic Senators and 12 Republican Senators have offered to this Senate in Alexander-Murray and what Senator Collins and Senator Nelson have offered in Collins-Nelson. Both ideas are very much like two provisions already voted on this year by the House of Representatives.

Let's realize that it is the Christmas season. A very nice Christmas present for 9 million hard-working Americans who don't get any government help to pay for their skyrocketing health insurance premiums would be to pass these bills into law so they can count on insurance premiums in 2019 that are, on average, 18 percent lower.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of my remarks at the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, the Senate has just invoked cloture on the nomination of David Zatezalo, of West Virginia, to be the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health. Mr. Zatezalo is uniquely qualified to lead the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration because he knows the industry inside out. He has spent his career in mining, starting as a miner. He is a member of a union. He worked his way up to general superintendent in Southern Ohio Coal and was a general manager at AEP.

The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee approved his nomination on October 18, and I am glad the Senate will have the opportunity to vote on his confirmation.

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

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, today we are voting on the nomination of Peter Robb for general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, NLRB.

As general counsel, Mr. Robb will have the important job of helping workers who feel their right to organize collectively has been violated or assisting employers when some of their employees want to form a union.

Mr. Robb will have an opportunity to help restore the Board to the role of a neutral umpire in labor disputes.

While partisanship at the Board did not start under the previous administration, it became far worse.

When the Board is too partisan, it creates instability in our Nation's workplaces and creates confusion for employers, employees, and unions.

For example, in 2015, at the previous general counsel's urging, an NLRB decision dramatically expanded ``joint employer'' liability, and this increased liability makes it much more likely a company will find it more practical to own and operate its stores, taking away the opportunity for a worker to own and run their own franchise.

This decision was the biggest attack on the opportunity for small business men and women to make their way into the middle class that anyone has seen in a long time, threatening to destroy the American Dream for owners of the Nation's 780,000 franchise locations.

Or consider the previous general counsel's aggressive application of the National Labor Relations Act to protect certain employees' belligerent, threatening, and discriminatory conduct.

One troubling decision involved an employer that fired a picketing employee who engaged in racist and offensive conduct on a picket line.

The Board found that the employee's remarks were ``racist, offensive and reprehensible,'' and violated the company's nondiscrimination policies and the union's conduct rules; yet the Board still ruled that the employer's discharge of the employee was unlawful.

This type of Board decision defies common sense and makes it more difficult for employers to maintain safe workplaces free of discrimination and harassment.

Mr. Robb is extremely qualified to be general counsel of the NLRB.

He currently works as the director of labor and employment at the law firm Downs Rachlin and Marin.

He served as chief counsel to NLRB Member Robert Hunter and was a regional field attorney for the NLRB in Baltimore.

Mr. Robb earned his B.A. in economics from Georgetown University and his J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law.

His experience and prudence will serve him well at the NLRB.

I urge my colleagues to join me in voting to confirm Peter Robb for general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board.

Mr. President, healthcare is on the minds of the American people. According to the Washington Post, in the elections in Virginia yesterday, it was by far the biggest issue in voters' minds. Maine expanded Medicaid.

In my home State of Tennessee, because of the Affordable Care Act's structure, premiums have gone up 176 percent over the last 4 years and another 58 percent, on average, for 2018 is predicted.

Tennesseans, like millions of Americans, are going through open enrollment and have sticker shock when they see the prices of the health insurance they might buy, and the 178 million people who are getting their insurance on the job--that is 60 percent of us--know they might lose their job, they might change their job, and they might be in the individual market themselves and might find themselves exposed to these skyrocketing premiums and the chaos that results from them.

This is especially difficult for Americans who have no government subsidy to help them buy insurance. In 2016, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, there were about 9 million of those Americans.

There are 350,000 people in Tennessee who buy insurance on the individual market. That means they don't get it on the job. They don't get it from the government. They go out and buy it themselves, and 150,000 of those pay the whole brunt. So if insurance costs go up 176 percent over 4 years, another 58 percent this year, that means the songwriter, the farmer, the self-employed person has a very difficult time buying insurance. It is a terrifying prospect. That is why healthcare is on the minds of the American people.

One would think the American people might turn around and look at Washington and ask: Why doesn't the President of the United States and why don't Members of Congress--Republicans as well as Democrats--get together and do something about the skyrocketing premiums?

Well, what would you think if I told you that last month the President of the United States, President Trump, called me and asked me to do just that?

He said: I don't want people to be hurt over the next couple of years while we are continuing to debate the long-term structure of healthcare on the individual market. So why don't you get with Senator Murray from Washington--she is the ranking Democrat on the Senate HELP Committee-- and why don't you try to work something out so people will not be hurt during these 2 years.

He said: I have to cut off the cost-sharing payments because the court has said they are not legal, but we can put them back. Go negotiate. See what you can do. Try to get some flexibility for the States.

Fortunately, Senator Murray and I were already working on that and to have the President's call was encouraging to me. He called me three more times over the next 2 weeks, and the long and short of it is we produced a result.

Here is what the result looks like--and I am going to talk about it from the point of view of why Republicans are supporting it. Senator Murray and Democratic Senators were here earlier saying why they were supporting it. Senator Rounds from South Dakota, a former Governor of that State, a man who understands insurance very well and helped develop this proposal--we are here today to say this happens to be one of those bills where there are

good reasons for Democrats to support it, there are good reasons for Republicans to support it, and the President has asked for it.

Here is what it does, from my point of view. The so-called Alexander- Murray legislation, which was recommended to the Senate by Senator Murray and me--there were 12 Republicans and 12 Democrats who were original cosponsors, including Senator Rounds and myself. That doesn't happen very often here. That is one-quarter of the Senate offering a bipartisan bill on a contentious subject to the Senate.

Here is what it does. One, it lowers premiums. In 2018, where the rates are already set, it requires the States to work with the insurance companies and give rebates for the high premiums that have already been set. In 2019, it will lower premiums. That is the first thing it does and the first reason why I and many Republicans support it.

Because the premiums are lower, it also means fewer tax dollars are going to pay for ObamaCare subsidies. That is another reason Republicans and conservatives like the idea of the Alexander-Murray bill.

Another reason we like it is, because there are lower subsidies, there is less Federal debt. The Congressional Budget Office has examined our bill and has said that it saves money over 10 years, nearly $4 billion.

There are other reasons we like it. It gives States flexibility in increasing the variety and choices of the insurance policies they can recommend. That is the biggest difference of opinion we have between that side of the aisle and this side of the aisle. They want Washington to write the rules; we want the States to write the rules.

We agreed to make some changes so that States can write more rules. For example, the Iowa Senators, Mr. Grassley and Mrs. Ernst, are cosponsors of the bill because the language in the Alexander-Murray amendment would permit the Federal Government to approve the Iowa waiver. Iowa has a way that it wants to use the Federal dollars to enroll more people and to give them lower costs. It would allow New Hampshire to use Medicaid savings to help pay for its Obama waiver. Both the Democratic Senators and the Republican Governor of New Hampshire have asked for that. It allows Minnesota to use a stream of Federal funding so that it can have its own waiver. It would allow Oklahoma, which has been waiting, to get its waiver approved.

What do we mean by ``waivers''? What this means is that States can look at the people in their State and make their own decisions or more of their own decisions about a variety of choices. Alaska did that earlier. They are the only State that has been able to use the section 1332 innovation waiver, as we call it, and they were able to create a special fund for very sick people and then to lower rates for everyone else by 20 percent and to do 85 percent of that with Federal dollars-- no new Federal dollars, 15 percent by the States.

The reasons Republicans like the Alexander-Murray bill, the reasons we have 12 of us on this side of the aisle cosponsoring it, along with 12 Democrats, are lower premiums, fewer tax dollars for ObamaCare subsidies, less Federal debt, more flexibility for States, a new so- called catastrophic insurance policy so you can buy a policy with a lower premium and a higher deductible so that a medical catastrophe doesn't turn into a financial catastrophe. Those are all reasons to support it.

Here is the long and short of it. The American people have healthcare on their minds. It is certainly true in Tennessee, where the rates are up 58 percent. It was certainly true in Virginia yesterday. It is certainly true in Maine. I see the Senator from Maine is here, and he has been an important part of this discussion.

The people of America say: Why don't the President, the Republicans, and the Democrats in both bodies get together and do something about it? I am happy to report we have. We have a bipartisan proposal. It doesn't solve every problem, but it limits the damage. It lowers premiums. It avoids chaos. It saves Federal tax dollars. It has the support of a significant number of Republicans and Democrats, and it is done at the request of the President.

I hope that when the President returns from Asia, he will go to his desk and find a nice package there with a bow on it, presented by Senator Murray and me, 24 of us in the U.S. Senate--Republicans and Democrats--which does exactly what the American people, I think, want us to do: Lower premiums, avoid chaos, work together, take a step in the right direction, and let's see if we can help the American people in that way.

I know the Senator from South Dakota is here, and I thank him for his leadership on this. He, along with the Senator from Maine who is here, Mr. King, spent a good deal of time working on this piece of legislation, which has a lot that Democrats like and a lot that Republicans like--so much so that we are able to recommend it in a bipartisan way. I know he may have things that he may want to say about the bill.

I yield the floor.