Floor Statements

Mr. President, I believe climate change is real. I believe that human emissions of greenhouse gases are a major cause of climate change, and I believe the Democratic plan for climate change, which the Senator from Texas just spoke about--the Green New Deal--is so far out in left field that not many are going to take it seriously.

So as one Republican, I am here today to propose this response to climate change, which is that the United States should launch a New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy, a 5-year project with 10 grand challenges that will use American research and technology to put our country and our world firmly on the path for cleaner, cheaper energy.

Meeting these grand challenges would create breakthroughs in advanced nuclear reactors, natural gas, carbon recapture, better batteries, greener buildings, electric vehicles, cheaper solar power, and fusion. To provide the tools to create these breakthroughs, the Federal Government should double its funding for energy research and keep the United States No. 1 in advanced computing. This strategy takes advantage of the United States' secret weapon--our extraordinary capacity for basic research and especially in our 17 National Laboratories. It will strengthen our economy. It will raise family incomes.

This strategy also recognizes that when it comes to climate change, China, India, and other developing countries are the problem. American innovation is the answer. According to the Global Carbon Project, over the last 13 years the United States has reduced production of greenhouse gases more than any other major country. Let me say that again. According to the Global Carbon Project, over the last 13 years the United States has reduced production of greenhouse gases more than any other major country. But over the last 5 years, China and its carbon emissions have risen. The U.S. reduction is largely thanks to conservation and switching from coal to natural gas in the production of electricity.

This is the way a California physicist explains it: Our mothers told us as children to clean our plates because children in India were starving. Now, cleaning our plates was a good thing for us to do, but it didn't do much for starving children in India. In the same way, reducing carbon emissions in the United States is a good thing to do, but it doesn't do much to address climate change because most of the increase in greenhouse gases is in developing countries. If we want to do something about climate change, we should use American research and technology to provide the rest of the world with tools to create low- cost energy that emits fewer greenhouse gases.

The purpose of the original Manhattan Project during World War II was to find a way to split the atom and build a bomb before Germany could. The New York Times described this as the ``most concentrated intellectual effort in history.'' Instead of ending a war, the goal of the New Manhattan Project will be to minimize the disruption on our lives and our economies caused by climate change, to clean the air, and to raise family incomes, both in our country and in the rest of the world, by creating large amounts of reliable, clean, inexpensive energy.

Can a New Manhattan Project accomplish such bold breakthroughs in just 5 years? Well, take a look at the last 5 years. Carbon emissions from energy consumption are down by 230 million metric tons. The number of electric vehicles has doubled and so has the median driving range per charge. The utility scale cost of solar power has been nearly cut in half. The number of homes has risen by 4 percent, but household energy usage has decreased by 10 percent. We lost and then we reclaimed the No. 1 spot in supercomputing. The cost of natural gas has been cut in half, and the percent of electricity provided by natural gas has increased from 27 percent to 35 percent. And that is all in the last 5 years.

I will not spend time in these remarks debunking the Green New Deal because so many others have so effectively already done that. Basically, the Green New Deal is an assault on cars, cows, and combustion. With nuclear power available, its strategy for fighting climate change with windmills makes as much sense as going to war in sailboats. As a bonus, and as the Senator from Texas outlined, it throws in free college, a guaranteed job with a government-set wage, and it would take away private health insurance on the job from 170 million Americans, and no one has any earthly idea what it will cost taxpayers.

You don't have to believe that humans cause climate change to believe in the New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy, and you don't have to be a Republican. Hopefully, the New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy can become a bipartisan proposal. Many of its 10 grand challenges have been proposed by the National Institute of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences. At different times, Barack Obama, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, and Howard Dean have all called for a Manhattan Project for new energy sources.

These are the 10 grand challenges:

First is advanced nuclear. Ninety-eight nuclear reactors produce 60 percent of all carbon-free electricity in the United States. There has never been a death as a result of an accident at one of these reactors. The problem is that in competition with natural gas and coal, these reactors cost too much to build and some of them cost too much to operate. According to the Energy Information Administration, 11 reactors may shut down over the next 5 years. Building the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia--the only two new reactors being built in the United States--could cost as much as $27.5 billion. Building two natural gas plants to

create the same amount of electricity would cost less than $2 billion. We need to stop talking about advanced reactors and actually build something. Within the next 5 years, we need to build one or more advanced reactors to demonstrate the capabilities they may bring--lower costs, increased safety, and less nuclear waste.

Natural gas. During the 1980s, American enterprise and technology created a new, cheaper way to produce natural gas in the United States. This helped our country lead the world in reducing carbon emissions because natural gas has about half the carbon emissions as a typical coal plant. Continuing to develop new combustion technologies will make natural gas-fired electric generation more efficient and further reduce carbon emissions.

Next is carbon capture. This is really the holy grail of clean energy. Coal is cheap. There is a lot of it. Already we know how to capture sulfur, nitrogen, and mercury from coal plants to clean the air. We have seen that happen in Tennessee. If we can figure out a way also to capture carbon at a cheaper cost and find large-scale uses for its byproduct--for example, CO2 to ethanol--coal could be used everywhere in the world. The Natural Resources Defense Council has argued that after conservation, coal with carbon capture is the best option for clean energy.

Next is better batteries. The all-electric Nissan Leaf that I bought in 2011 had a hard time getting me from the Capitol to Dulles airport and back. Its range was about 70 miles. Today, the Nissan Leaf can travel 226 miles on one charge. A Tesla Model S can travel 335 miles on one charge. The price of lithium-ion batteries should fall another 45 percent during the next 5 years. Better batteries can also one day allow utilities and their customers to store large amounts of electricity during nonpeak hours.

Greener buildings. Despite considerable recent progress, this is still the real low-hanging fruit. Residential and commercial buildings still consume 39 percent of U.S. energy.

The next grand challenge is electric vehicles. Ten years ago there were no mass-produced electric cars on United States highways. Today there are 1 million, and you read in the paper almost every day about a major automaker making a large investment to make millions more.

Cheaper solar. Solar power has grown by 1,500 percent since 2011, but it still accounts for only about 2 percent of U.S. electricity. The new goal for the Department of Energy's SunShot Initiative is to lower the cost of solar another 50 percent to 3 cents per kilowatt hour for utility scale solar.

Then there is fusion. This is the ultimate green energy dream--to make electricity on Earth the way the Sun makes it. Instead of splitting elements, combine them and make clean, almost limitless energy without waste. This is still a dream, but there can be meaningful progress in the next 5 years.

Advanced computing. China, Japan, the United States, and the European Union--all want to be first in advanced computing. The stakes are high because the winner has an advantage in such things as advanced manufacturing, simulating advanced reactors and weapons before they are built, finding terrorists, saving billions of Medicaid waste, and simulating the electric grid in a natural disaster.

The United States regained the No. 1 spot last year in advanced computing, thanks to sustained funding by Congress during both the Obama and Trump administrations, and we need to keep that position.

The final grand challenge is to double energy research funding. Advanced computing is the first tool the New Manhattan Project needs to meet its grand challenges. The second tool is money. It would take $6 billion annually to double funding for the Department of Energy's Office of Science and its 17 National Laboratories, which is where most of our Nation's basic energy research is done. By comparison, many estimate the cost of the Green New Deal in the trillions.

This is a bold agenda and, hopefully, a bipartisan agenda. It is an agenda that can, over the next 5 years, place Americans firmly on the path toward dealing with climate change and at the same time produce large amounts of reliable, clean energy that lifts family incomes in our country and around the world.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a 2012 op-ed in the New York Times, entitled ``The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic,'' authored by Richard Muller, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and, second, an address I made in Oak Ridge, TN, in 2008, which called for a New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy Independence, be printed in the Record following my remarks.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, along with my colleague, the ranking member on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Murray, I wish to pay tribute to Denise Lowery. Ms. Lowery is a nondesignated employee on the HELP Committee staff and is retiring at the end of this month after almost 16 years of distinguished service to the HELP Committee.

Ms. Lowery has served as editor for the committee since 2003, compiling and sending to print all our committee reports and materials for the Congressional Record.

Ms. Lowery is well regarded by all Members and staff of the committee, having proven her professionalism, courtesy, and substantial expertise over almost 16 years. Without the support of Ms. Lowery and the rest of the nondesignated staff, the committee could not accomplish the important work the American people expect us to get done on their behalf. I, the ranking member, and the rest of the committee's members want to recognize Ms. Lowery for that tremendous contribution to the Committee as she exits her time in the Senate.

I wish Ms. Lowery the best and hope retirement from the Senate will allow her time for hobbies such as working on home improvement projects and spending time with her friends and family.

I would like to yield now to my colleague, the ranking member, Senator Murray, for her remarks.

Madam President, Tennesseans have asked me: Is there really a crisis on the southern border? Do you support President Trump's border wall?

And my answer to both questions is yes, I do.

I have urged the President to build the 234 miles of border wall that he asked for in his January 6 letter to the Senate and to do that in the fastest possible way, with a minimum delay and legal challenge, by using the $5.7 billion already approved by Congress.

But the President's emergency declaration to take an additional $3.6 billion that Congress has appropriated for military hospitals, for barracks, and for schools--including one in Fort Campbell--is inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution that I took an oath to support and to defend.

Never before has a President asked for funding, the Congress has not provided it, and then the President has used the National Emergencies Act of 1976 to spend the money anyway. The problem with this is that after a Revolutionary War against a King, our Nation's Founders gave to Congress--a Congress elected by the people--the power to approve all spending so that the President would not have too much power. This check on the executive is a source of our freedom.

In addition, this declaration is a dangerous precedent. Already, Democrat Presidential candidates are saying they would declare emergencies to tear down the existing border wall, to take away guns, to stop oil exports, to shut down offshore drilling, and for other leftwing enterprises--all without the approval of Congress.

I believe the crisis on our southern border is real. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol arrested more than 66,000 illegal aliens in February of 2019--the highest total in a single month since March 2009. In the last 2 years alone, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have arrested 266,000 illegal aliens in the United States with criminal records. Each week, approximately 300 Americans die from heroin overdoses, of which nearly 90 percent come across the southern border.

During the last 25 years, Congress approved and President Obama, President Clinton, President George W. Bush, and President George H. W. Bush built 654 miles of barrier along the 1,954-mile southern border. In 2013, the comprehensive immigration bill that received 68 Senate votes, including mine, included $40 billion for border security, including physical barrier, and enforcement. Last year, I voted with nearly

every Democrat for a bill that included $25 billion for border security, including physical barrier.

So one might ask: Why is President Trump the only President not allowed to build more wall on the southern border?

But in this case, as the Wall Street Journal said on March 12, ``The President doesn't need to invoke a national emergency to build his wall along the southern border.'' He has the money immediately available in other accounts already approved by Congress. Any appreciation for our structure of government means that no President should be able to use the National Emergencies Act to spend money that Congress refuses to provide.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia, who is revered by constitutional conservatives, put it this way for us. Justice Scalia said:

``Every tin horn dictator in the world today, every

President for life has a Bill of Rights. That's not what

makes us free. What has made us free is our Constitution.

Think of the word ``constitution,'' it means structure.

That's why America's framers debated not the Bill of Rights,

but rather the structure of the federal government.''

Justice Scalia wrote:

The genius of the American constitutional system is the

dispersal of power. Once power is centralized in one person,

or one part of government, a Bill of Rights is just words on

paper.

That was Justice Scalia.

I fault Democrats for not supporting President Trump's reasonable request for more wall on the border after 25 years of approving physical barriers and border wall for four other Presidents. That is not an excuse to ignore the constitutional separation of powers, especially when the faster way to build the 234 more miles of border wall that the President has asked for is to use $5.7 billion already approved by Congress.

I ask unanimous consent that the editorial from the Wall Street Journal dated March 12, 2019, be printed in the Record.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, on Thursday, I suggested that President Trump has sufficient congressional authority to spend the $5.7 billion he asked for in his January 6 letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee chairman to build 234 miles of border wall without resort to a dangerous national emergency precedent that could upset the constitutional separation of powers that goes to the heart of our freedom.

I believe the President has clear authority to transfer up to $4 billion among accounts within the over $600 billion defense budget in order to counter drug activities and to block drug smuggling corridors across international borders.

On February 15, the President said that he plans to use $2.5 billion of this same transfer authority to build the 234 miles of wall along the southern border that he asked for in his January 6 letter. If he increases the transfer from $2.5 billion to $3.7 billion, along with the other existing funding authority that he has, he will have the full $5.7 billion that he said he needed.

William E. Nelson, of New York University School of Law--one of America's foremost scholars of legal history--wrote an excellent op-ed last week that explained why it is so important that the President and the Congress should not, in Professor Nelson's words, ``invert the entire constitutional order where Congress appropriates and the President spends.''

I ask unanimous consent that Professor Nelson's article be printed in the Record.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I honor Col. Ian Bryan of the Tennessee Air National Guard for his outstanding service to our country and congratulate him on his retirement from the U.S. Air Force. Colonel Bryan has worked closely with me, the Appropriations Committee, and across Capitol Hill to inform and advise Congress so that we may ensure a strong and ready National Guard. He has also helped the Pentagon work more productively with Congress, promoting a strong national defense.

Colonel Bryan has distinguished himself through his professional character and dedication to serving this Nation in the military for over 25 years. He has done so selflessly. He has quietly, but tenaciously advocated for the Chief of the National Guard Bureau's priorities to make the National Guard a ready, capable force for operations both in the homeland and overseas.

As the Chief of the programs division in the National Guard Bureau Office of Legislative Liaison from April 2017 to February 2019, Colonel Bryan performed his duties deftly. His strategic-level thinking and foresight contributed to the completion of numerous high-level engagements between the National Guard and Congress. He was vital in the establishment of the first ever National Guard liaison office in the Senate, greatly increasing the communication between the National Guard and Congress.

Colonel Bryan is a 1990 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, with masters from The Ohio State University, and a law degree from the University of Virginia. He has served as a KC-135 Pilot, professor at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, air team leader in the National Guard Bureau, Office of Legislative Liaison, and as a division chief at the Air National Guard Readiness Center.

After serving in his latest role for the past 2 years, Colonel Bryan will retire at the end of the month. Ian, his supportive wife Emily, and their two children have sacrificed much as a family in service to our Nation. I join my colleagues today in congratulating Colonel Bryan on his well-earned retirement and in expressing our gratitude for his selfless service.

Mr. President, today I honor one of my constituents, CAPT Jon ``JR'' Rodgers of the U.S. Navy, who is retiring in June after three decades of dedicated service to our great Nation. JR has spent the last 2 years of his career serving the U.S. Congress as the Navy's Deputy Chief of Legislative Affairs. In this role, JR maintained oversight of the Navy team that provides Members and committees of Congress with information concerning the programs of the Department of the Navy.

JR's Tennessee roots run deep. The son of an air traffic control chief, he began life in Humbolt, TN, married his beautiful wife Sherry Masters from Celina, TN, and plans to return to our great State once his naval service has ended.

This patriot's naval career began by enlisting as a nuclear trained electronics technician until receiving an NROTC scholarship to Cornell University. He graduated with a bachelor's of science degree in agriculture engineering technologies and received his commission as a surface warfare officer in 1990. JR continued his education by attending the National Defense University, graduating with honors from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces with a masters of science degree in national resource strategy. He also attended the Naval War College in Newport, RI, with a masters of arts in national security strategy.

His sea duty assignments include tours on the USS England, CG 22, and the USS Bonhomme Richard, LHD 6, as a plank owner, where he received the Surface Navy Association's Arleigh Burke award for Operational Excellence. He also served as executive officer aboard the USS Cleveland, LPD 7, during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom as part of Amphibious Task Force West.

More recently, JR commanded the mighty USS Makin Island, LHD 8, the first Navy ship with hybrid electric propulsion, where he completed a successful deployment to 5th and 7th Fleet. He also commanded USS Ponce, AFSB 15, as the Navy's first dedicated afloat forward staging base permanently deployed to Fifth Fleet.

JR's overseas experience is just as impressive. He served as the U.S. European Command J3 chief of staff and branch head for the crisis action group during Operations Odyssey Dawn and Unified Protector. He commanded Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron Six, where he led over 600 Active and Reserve sailors on worldwide security missions that included the USNS Comfort Theater Security Cooperation missions throughout South America. He served as commander Task Unit Northern Arabian Gulf on the Iraq Al Basrah, ABOT, and Khor al-Amaya, KAAOT, oil terminals point defense mission, Panama and Suez Canal Embarked Security Team transits, and Operation Vigilant Mariner in Rota, Spain.

I want to thank JR for his almost 30 years of loyal service to this Nation. He has made a lasting and significant contribution to the U.S. Navy and our Nation. I wish him, his wife, and their daughter all the best as they begin this new chapter in their live.

Mr. President, in a few minutes, we will be voting on the President's nomination of John Ryder, of Memphis, to be a member of the Board of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

To those of us in the seven State region that the TVA serves, it is a very important institution. Its job is to provide large amounts of reliable, low-cost electricity, which is the basis for how we live and how we work. It has a lot to do with our ability to attract jobs. Its job is to provide that energy in a clean way so we can see our mountains and so we meet the emissions standards in our metropolitan areas that allow us to attract and grow more jobs.

The TVA is fulfilling its mission very well. It is heading toward a position in which it will be about 40-percent nuclear in its production of electricity, about 20 percent in natural gas, and about 20 percent in coal or a little less than that. It will have pollution control equipment on all of its coal plants. Most of the rest is hydroelectric power, and a little bit is renewable. In short, it has one of the cleanest portfolios in the country, and it is continuing to do that and is producing a lot of low-cost, reliable electricity.

We are very fortunate to be in a region in which, as we look down the road 5, 10, or 15 years, we will be able to say to people who are thinking of moving themselves to Tennessee or moving their businesses to Tennessee or growing them there that they will be able to get a lot of reliable, low-cost electricity--all that they need. In addition to that, they will be able to see the Smoky Mountains because the air is a lot cleaner now that they have such a clean portfolio.

So John Ryder's appointment is a very important appointment, and he is a well-qualified man for that position. He is one of Tennessee's best known lawyers and has been for a long time. Since the late 1980s, he has been listed as one of Tennessee's best lawyers. He is well respected by everyone who knows him.

Senator Corker and I recommended him to President Trump, and we know him well. Senator Blackburn, who is Senator Corker's successor, has a high regard for John Ryder. All of us appreciate his willingness to serve, and we look forward to the voice vote we are going to have in a few minutes that will place him on TVA's Board. The Board has just selected a new chief executive officer. TVA is the largest public utility in the United States, perhaps in the world. It is an important assignment, and it is one I am delighted to recommend him for.

There is one other thing, but I will not dwell on this because I spoke on this Monday night. Unfortunately, Mr. Ryder has been on the Senate's calendar for 9 months. He was nominated by President Trump a year ago. The problem has not been with Mr. Ryder because, as I said, President Trump nominated him after he was thoroughly vetted by the FBI. The Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee considered him, had a hearing, and reported him unanimously to the floor. Yet, for 9 months, he waited there.

One reason is, the Democrats have consistently obstructed the ability of Senator McConnell and the Republican majority to help President Trump form his government. The Democrats have required 128 times that Senator McConnell, the majority leader, file cloture motions to cut off debate to advance a nomination like Mr. Ryder's.

Now, this is not a Cabinet position. This is not a lifetime judge. This is the part-time Board of an important institution. He is one of 1,200 Presidential nominees that any President has who is subject to confirmation by advice and consent. It is the kind of nomination by which, if a committee unanimously reports it to the Senate, we will normally approve it by voice vote. Yet, on this vote, Senator McConnell was forced to file cloture a week ago. Then we had to wait an intervening day. Only then could we come to this vote.

This is not the way the Senate is supposed to work, and this obstruction has to stop. Senator Blunt and Senator Lankford have introduced a resolution, which has been reported to the Senate by the rules committee, that would cause us to adopt a rule very much like the one we adopted in 2013, when I worked with a large number of Democrats and Republicans for the sole purpose of making it easier for President Obama--and his successors--to promptly confirm the men and women whom he chose to form a government.

It received 78 votes. What we did at that time was simply say: You still keep the cloture motion, and you still wait an intervening day if you need it, but we reduce the postcloture time--not for Supreme Court Justices, not for circuit judges--simply for sub-Cabinet members and for district judges. We would reduce sub-Cabinet members to 8 hours and district judges to 2 hours.

On Monday night, I invited my Democratic friends to work with me in 2019 the way I worked with them in 2013. In a bipartisan way, let's make sure the Senate can do what it has historically done--to have promptly considered and voted up or down, with 51 votes, the nominees of any President of the United States for the 1,200 positions that form the government.

There have been some conversations. I hope Senator Blunt and Senator Lankford will continue to have those conversations with the Democratic Members, but there are nine Democratic Senators, by my count, who are seeking to be the next President of the United States. I hope they can look 20 months down the road and realize that

just one Republican Senator could do to them, if one of them were to become President, what the Democrats have done to President Trump. It would be very difficult for the next Democratic President, if there were to be one, to form a government. We don't want that to happen. That diminishes the advice and consent role of the Senate. It fills up the government with appointees who are acting and whom we don't know, and they are not really accountable to us. That is not the way this place is supposed to work.

So I renew my invitation to my Democratic friends to work with me the way a number of us worked with them in 2011, in 2012, and in 2013. Let's change the rules in the right way. Let's basically adopt virtually the same rule we adopted in 2013 and allow this President and any President to get prompt consideration and up-or-down votes of their nominees.

I congratulate Mr. Ryder on his confirmation. I am grateful for his willingness to serve, and I am sorry he had to wait so long for the opportunity. The people of Tennessee and the seven State region will be much better off for his service within this important institution.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the confirmation of John Ryder, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority, occur at this time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, President Trump has been in Vietnam this week, meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un. I applaud the President for his efforts to improve the U.S. relationship with North Korea.

There is not a more difficult relationship anywhere in the world at this time than that relationship. But I am glad he chose not to seek a deal just for the sake of a deal.

As he returns from his summit with the North Korean leader and turns his attention back home, I want to make a respectful suggestion, and that is this: that President Trump ask his lawyers to take a second look at existing funding authorities that the President has to consider construction of the 234 miles of border wall that do not require a formal declaration of a national emergency.

I support what the President wants to do on border security, but I do not support the way he has been advised to do it. It is unnecessary and unwise to turn a border crisis into a constitutional crisis about separation of powers when the President already has congressional funding authority to build the 234 miles of border wall that he requested in his January 6 letter to the Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record following my remarks the text of the President's January 6 letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Mr. President, there has never been an instance in which a President of the United States has asked for funding, Congress has refused it, and the President has then used the National Emergency Act to justify spending the money anyway.

If President Trump can build a wall when Congress has refused to provide the funding, then the next President can declare a national emergency and tear the wall down or declare climate change an emergency and stop oil exports and offshore drilling. There is no limit to the imagination of what the next leftwing President could do to harm our country with this precedent.

After an American revolution against a King, our Founders chose not to create a Chief Executive who could tax the people and spend their money any way he chose. The Constitution gave that responsibility exclusively to a Congress elected by the people, and every one of us U.S. Senators has taken an oath to support that Constitution.

Separation of powers is a crucial constitutional imperative that goes to the very heart of our freedom.

I don't know how the late Justice Antonin Scalia would have decided a case on this matter, but I do know what he said about separation of powers, and this was what Justice Scalia said:

Every tin horn dictator in the world today . . . has a Bill

of Rights. That's not what makes us free. . . . What has made

us free is our Constitution. . . . The word ``constitution''

. . . means structure. That's why . . . the framers debated

not the Bill of Rights . . . but rather the structure of the

federal government. The genius of the American constitutional

system is the dispersal of power. Once power is centralized

in one person, or one part [of our government], a Bill of

Rights is just words on paper.

That was Justice Scalia.

The President can avoid this dangerous precedent completely. He can use the congressional funding authority he already has to build the 234 miles of wall that he asked Congress to approve in the January 6 letter that I submitted for the Record.

Here is how this would work. On January 6 of this year--last month-- in his letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the President requested $5.7 billion to build 234 miles of new physical barrier on the southern border.

Then, on February 14, a couple of weeks ago, Congress passed the Homeland Security appropriations bill, which provided $1.375 billion to build 55 miles that the President had asked for.

On February 15, the day he signed the Homeland Security appropriations bill, President Trump announced that he would use two additional sources of funds that had already been approved by Congress, which could be used to fund the border wall.

The first was $601 million from the Treasury Forfeiture Fund. The second was up to $2.5 billion from the Department of Defense accounts to support counterdrug activities and to block drug-smuggling corridors across international boundaries.

The President is authorized to do this because of a provision in law that allows him to transfer up to $4 billion among the accounts of the Department of Defense. That is $4 billion in a Department of Defense budget of about $600 billion.

These three sources of funding that I just mentioned add up to about $4.5 billion or $1.2 billion less than the $5.7 billion that the President requested in his January 6 letter.

So where does he get the rest of the money? He can get it by transferring $3.7 billion instead of $2.5 billion from the Department of Defense accounts to support counterdrug activities. Then the President would be able to build the 234 miles of wall he requested on January 6, and he would not need to declare a national emergency.

To be specific, this means the President would use $1.375 billion from the Homeland Security appropriations bill plus $601 million from the Treasury Forfeiture Fund plus $3.7 billion from the Department of Defense accounts to support counterdrug activities, which would add up to equal his full $5.7 billion request to build 234 miles of border wall.

If my analysis is incorrect, I hope that the President's lawyers will tell me.

Using funds already approved by Congress avoids the constitutional crisis of separation of powers. Using funds already approved by Congress avoids establishing a dangerous precedent, which could be misused by subsequent Presidents. Using funds already approved by Congress avoids taking money from military construction projects specifically approved by Congress for such activities as military

barracks and hospitals. And using funds already approved by Congress avoids months or years of litigation, which could make it unlikely that the full 234 miles are ever built.

It may be a couple of weeks before the Senate votes on a resolution regarding the national emergency declaration, so we don't know yet exactly what we will be voting on. There is time for the President's lawyers to take another look and determine whether we can both build the 234 miles of border wall that the President has asked for and avoid this dangerous precedent. Then the Senate could both support the President's border request and be faithful to our oath to support a Constitution that creates separation of powers as a crucial check on Executive power that goes to the very heart of our freedom.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this week, the Senate may see an extreme example of how the minority can abuse its rights in a way that provokes the majority into an excessive use of its power. I come to the floor to offer my Democratic colleagues a way to avoid both mistakes.

Here is the abuse of minority rights: More than a year ago, President Trump nominated John Ryder of Memphis to serve on the board of directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority based on the recommendation that Senator Bob Corker and I made. Finally, this week, the Senate is likely to vote on Mr. Ryder's nomination.

You might say: Well, there must really be something wrong with Mr. Ryder.

Well, if there is, then all the people who are supposed to find out what is wrong with Mr. Ryder have not found it out. Senator Corker and I know him very well as one of Tennessee's finest

attorneys. Senator Blackburn agrees. After a hearing at which Mr. Ryder answered questions, Republican and Democratic members of the Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously approved his nomination. No, there is no problem with Mr. Ryder.

You might say: This must be a position of overwhelming complexity and importance that requires a year for all of us to think about it.

TVA is the Nation's largest public utility, and it is important to the millions of us in the seven-State region for whom it provides electricity. But this is not a lifetime appointment. It is not a Cabinet position. It is not even a full-time position. This is one of nine part-time board positions whose nominees are usually approved in the Senate by a voice vote.

The problem is not with Mr. Ryder. It is not because of the unusual importance of the position. The problem is with the determination of the Democratic minority to make it nearly impossible for President Trump to fill the 1,200 Federal Government positions that require confirmation by the U.S. Senate as part of our constitutional duty to provide advice and consent.

This is where we are: Democrats have objected to the majority leader's request to vote on Mr. Ryder's nomination. As I mentioned, these are nominations normally approved by a voice vote. So in order to have a vote, the majority leader, Senator McConnell, has filed a cloture petition to cut off debate on Mr. Ryder's nomination.

The cloture process takes at least 3 days. Here is how it works: The first day, you file cloture. That is what Senator McConnell did. The second day is a so-called intervening day when no action can be taken, so nothing is happening. On the third day, the Senate votes to invoke cloture, and then there is up to 30 more hours for postcloture debate before the Senate can finally vote on whether to confirm Mr. Ryder.

Unfortunately, Mr. Ryder is not the only victim of such obstructionism. During the last 2 years, Democrats have done what I just described 128 times. One hundred and twenty-eight times they have required the majority leader to consume up to 3 days to force a vote on a Presidential nominee. By comparison, requiring a cloture vote to advance a nomination happened 12 times during the first 2 years of President Obama's term, compared to President Trump's 128 times; 4 times during the first 2 years of George W. Bush's term, compared to President Trump's 128 times; 12 times during Bill Clinton's first 2 years, compared to President Trump's 128 times. Not once during George H. W. Bush's first 2 years in office was it necessary for the majority leader to file cloture to cut off debate to advance a Presidential nomination--not once--but it had to be done 128 times in the first 2 years of President Trump's time.

This unnecessary obstruction has to change. The result of this extraordinary delay in considering nominees creates a government filled with acting appointees who, never having gone through the Senate confirmation process, are less accountable to Congress and therefore less accountable to the American people. So at a time when many complain that the Executive has become too powerful, the Senate is deliberately making itself weaker by diminishing our constitutional duty to advise and consent to individuals nominated to fill important positions--perhaps the Senate's best known role.

This abuse of power by the minority is about to produce an excessive reaction by the majority--something that I think at least nine Democratic Senators who can see 2 years ahead would want to avoid. At least nine Democratic Senators hope to be the next President of the United States. Do they not know that some Republicans will do to the next Democratic President's nominees what Democrats have done to President Trump's nominees? Let me ask that again. Do the nine Democratic Senators who want to be the next President of the United States--that election is about 20 months away--not know that if they are elected, some Republicans will do to them what Democrats have done to President Trump's nominees?

The Senate is a body of precedent. What goes around comes around. All it takes will be one Republican Senator objecting to a unanimous consent request to make it difficult for the next Democratic President to form a government, and this will continue the diminishment of the U.S. Senate.

Can Republican Senators, by majority vote, change Senate rules to stop this obstruction? Yes, we can, and we will, if necessary. There are several ways to change the rules of the Senate. We can amend the standing rules of the Senate. We can adopt a standing order. We can pass a law. We can set a new precedent. We can change the rules by unanimous consent. All of these are rules of the Senate.

The written rules of the Senate say it requires 67 votes to amend a standing rule and 60 votes to amend a standing order. There is recent precedent to change the Senate rules by a majority vote.

In 2013, the Democratic leader, Harry Reid, used a procedural maneuver--let's call it the Harry Reid precedent--that allowed the Democratic Senate majority to overrule the Chair and say, in effect, that a written Senate rule does not mean what its words say.

Now, this is as if a referee in a football game were to say the following: The rule book says that a first down is 10 yards, but I am the referee, and I am ruling that a first down is 9 yards.

Well, that is what happened in 2013. So, in 2017, what goes around comes around. The Republican majority followed this Harry Reid precedent in order to make cloture on all nominations a majority vote, and now Republicans are on the verge again of following the Harry Reid precedent.

Should Republicans do this, change a rule by majority vote, even though our written rules say it should be done by 60 or 67 votes? The answer is, no, we shouldn't, not if we can avoid it.

As Senator Carl Levin said in 2013, when he opposed the Harry Reid precedent--Senator Levin is a Democrat, and he said: A Senate in which a majority can change its rule at any time is a Senate without any rules.

Thomas Jefferson, who wrote our first rules, said: It didn't make much difference what the rules are. It just matters that there are some rules.

So it is at least awkward for Members of the country's chief rule- writing body, the U.S. Senate, to expect Americans to follow the rules we write for them when we don't follow our own written rules.

I have heard many Democrats privately say to me, they express their regret that they ever established the Harry Reid precedent in 2013. They didn't look ahead and see that what goes around comes around and that this is a body of precedent.

So what would be the right thing for us to do--something that avoided both the minority's abuse of its rights and the majority's excessive response. We should do what the Senate did in 2011, in 2012, and in 2013, when Republicans and Democrats worked together to make it easier for President Obama and his successors to gain confirmation of Presidential nominees.

As a Republican Senator, I spent dozens of hours on this bipartisan project to make it easier for a Democratic President with a Democratic Senate majority to form a government. I thought that was the right thing to do, and we changed the rules in the right way.

The Senate passed standing orders with bipartisan support and a new law, the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act, which eliminated confirmation for several positions. That bipartisan working group of Senators accomplished a lot in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

We eliminated secret holds. After over 25 years of bipartisan effort, led by Senator Grassley and Senator Wyden, we eliminated delays caused by the reading of amendments. We eliminated Senate confirmation of 163 major positions.

Now, remember what we were doing was working in a bipartisan way to try to make it easier for President Obama and a Democratic majority in the Senate to confirm the 1,200 Presidential nominees that every President has to send over here for advice and consent. We did it for President Obama. We intended to do it for his successors as well.

We eliminated 3,163 minor career positions. We made 272 positions so- called privileged nominations, which means these nominations can move faster through the Senate. We sped up motions to proceed to legislation. We made it easier to go to conference. We

limited postcloture debate on sub-Cabinet positions to 8 hours and on Federal district judges to 2 hours for the 113th Congress. All of these changes took effect immediately over these 60 days.

Let me underscore what I am about to say. Republicans did not insist, in 2011, 2012, and 2013, when Barack Obama was President, that these new rules should be delayed until after the next Presidential election when there might be a Republican President. Republicans supported these changes for the benefit of this institution, even though they would immediately benefit a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate majority.

I propose that we do that again. I invite my Democratic colleagues to join me in demonstrating the same sort of bipartisan respect for the Senate as an institution that Senators Reid and McConnell--the two Senate leaders at that time--Senators Schumer, Barrasso, Levin, McCain, Kyl, Cardin, Collins, Lieberman, and I did in 2011, 2012, and 2013, when we worked to change the Senate rules the right way.

Now, 2 weeks ago, the Rules Committee gave us an opportunity to do things again in the right way by reporting to the Senate a resolution by Senator Lankford and Senator Blunt, the chairman of the Rules Committee. This resolution, which is similar to the standing order that 78 Senators voted for on January 14, 2013, would reduce postcloture debate time for nominations. Remember, that is after day one, the majority leader files cloture; day two, nothing happens; day three, we have a vote on cloture that is by 51 votes, and we would reduce the time for debate on day three. District judges would be debated for 2 hours, the same as the 2013 standing order that 78 Senators voted for. Other sub-Cabinet positions would be subject to 2 hours of postcloture debate as well.

The proposal offered by Senator Lankford and Senator Blunt would not reduce the postcloture debate time for Supreme Court Justices, for Cabinet members, for circuit court or certain Board nominations, like the National Labor Relations Board, but would divide the 30 hours of postcloture debate equally between Republicans and Democrats.

The Lankford-Blunt proposal would put the Senate back where it has historically been on nominations. With rare exceptions, Senate nominations have always been decided by majority vote. Let me say that again. With rare exceptions, Senate nominations have always been decided by majority vote.

President Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was the only example of a Supreme Court nominee who was blocked by requiring more than 51 votes.

There has never been, in the history of the Senate, a Cabinet nominee who was blocked by requiring more than 51 votes. There has never been, in the history of the Senate, a Federal district judge whose nomination was blocked by requiring more than 51 votes.

Since 1949, Senate rules have allowed one Senator to insist on a cloture vote; that is, 60 votes, which requires more than a majority to end debate. Even though it was allowed, it just wasn't done. Even the vote on the acrimonious nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court was decided by a majority vote of 52 to 48. Not one Senator tried to block the nomination by requiring 60 votes on a cloture motion, even though one Senator could have done that.

Only when Democrats began, in 2003, to block President George W. Bush's nominees by insisting on a 60-vote cloture vote did that tradition change. Then, in 2017, using the Harry Reid precedent, Republicans restored the tradition of requiring a majority vote to approve all Presidential nominees, which, as I have said, has been the tradition throughout the history of the Senate.

Also, until recently, with rare exceptions, nominations have been considered promptly. After all, there are 1,200 of them, and the Senate has other things to do besides just being in the personnel business.

For example, last month, I was in Memphis for the investiture of Mark Norris, whose nomination languished for 10 months on the Senate calendar. The evening before, I had dinner with 94-year-old Harry W. Wellford. In November of 1970, Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee had recommended Harry Wellford to serve as a district court judge on the same court where Mark Norris now serves.

By December 11, 1970, 1 month later, President Nixon had nominated Harry Wellford, and the Senate had confirmed him. All this happened in 1 month. Not all nominations have moved that fast. In 1991, a Democratic Senator, using a secret hold, blocked President George H. W. Bush's nomination of me as U.S. Education Secretary. I waited on the calendar for 6 weeks. Those 6 weeks seemed like an awfully long time to me, and that was for a Cabinet position. It was not 10 months for a part-time position for the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Two weeks ago, I voted to report Senator Lankford and Senator Blunt's resolution to the full Senate, even though no Democrat voted for it. I will vote for it again on the floor, even if no Democrat will join us. I will also join my fellow Republicans, if we are forced to change the rules by majority vote. I do not like the Harry Reid precedent, but I like even less the debasement of the Senate's constitutional power to provide advice and consent to 1,200 Presidential nominees.

My preference is to adopt the Lankford-Blunt resolution, which is very similar to the 2013 resolution that 78 Senators voted for, and to do it in a bipartisan way, according to the written Senate rules as we did in 2013.

I believe most Democrats privately agree that the resolution offered by Senators Lankford and Blunt is reasonable, and they will be grateful that it is in place when there is a Democratic majority and one Republican Senator can block a Democratic President's nominees.

The only objection Democrats seem to have to the Lankford-Blunt resolution is that it would apply to President Trump. Their other major objection, which is truly puzzling, is that the proposed change is permanent, and the change we made in 2013 was temporary. Well, I wonder if Democrats would like it better if we made this change in the Senate temporary, only applying to the remainder of President Trump's term.

This is my invitation to my Democratic colleagues. Join me and Senators Lankford and Blunt in supporting their resolution, or modifying it if you believe there is a way to improve it, and working in a bipartisan way, exactly as we did in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

A year or so ago, one of the Supreme Court Justices was asked: How do you Justices get along so well when you have such different opinions? This Justice's reply was this: We try to remember that the institution is more important than any of our opinions.

We Senators would do well to emulate the Supreme Court Justices in respecting and strengthening this institution in which we are privileged to serve. One way to do that is to join together to restore the prompt consideration of any President's 1,200 nominees and do it in a bipartisan way that shows the American people our written rules mean what they say.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

There appears to be no one on the floor who wants to speak. I could go another 4 or 5 hours if the Senate would like to stay in session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Tuesday, February 26; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired and 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; that the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Miller nomination; further, that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings; finally, that all time during recess, adjournment, morning business, and leader remarks count postcloture on the Miller nomination.

Is there objection?

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

Thereupon, the Senate, at 7:46 p.m., adjourned until Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 10 a.m.

Madam President, a college graduate who pays more than $1,000 a month on student loans recently wrote the New York Times, ``I was told to chase down a bachelor's degree by any means necessary. But no one mentions just how expensive and soul-crushing the debt will be.''

The United States, our country, has most of the best colleges in the world, but we also have the most graduates paying off college debt. Roughly 40 million borrowers owe $1.5 trillion in collective student loan debt.

The questions I hear most often about college are, No. 1, can I afford it? No. 2, is it worth it? And No. 3, can you make applying for financial aid and repaying student loans simpler? And from administrators, as well, I hear: Can't you do something about the jungle of red tape that makes it so hard to apply for Federal financial aid, to pay back student loans and that wastes money on overhead that ought to be spent on students?

Today, I addressed a group at the American Enterprise Institute, and I made three proposals to help make the answer to all four of those questions a yes. I want to briefly discuss those proposals today and other work that is going on in the Senate Education Committee, which I chair, and on which Senator Murray is the senior Democrat from the State of Washington. I will discuss what we are doing to answer those questions. Then I will ask at the appropriate time to submit most of my remarks at the American Enterprise Institute into the Record.

My first proposal was to simplify the FAFSA.

I ask unanimous consent to use a piece of demonstrative evidence in my speech.

Thank you.

This is a FAFSA. You may say that nobody knows what that is. Well, 20 million American families know what this is because 20 million American families fill this out every single year.

If you want a Federal loan to help you go to college or if you want a Pell grant that you don't have to pay back--60 percent of the 20 million students who go to college receive a Federal loan or grant--to do that they first must fill out this Federal student aid application form.

In our first hearing on this subject in 2013--I can remember it as if it were yesterday--we had four excellent witnesses who came from different parts of the country, with different directions. They weren't all singing the same song. One of them was Kim Cook from the National College Access Network. She said that simplifying the FAFSA would encourage as many as 2 million more Americans to go to college and make it more affordable for them.

In our State of Tennessee, we became the first--thanks to the leadership of Governor Bill Haslam in our State legislature--to make 2 years of college tuition-free for high school graduates and now for adults as well. But in order to get the money from the State to make your tuition free, you first have to fill out this FAFSA. Those who help students file FAFSA at the community colleges and in the high schools tell me that it is the single biggest impediment for low-income Tennesseans to have a chance to go to college.

The President of Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis told me that he thinks he loses 1,500 students a semester because the families say to him: Well, we don't know how to fill this out. We are uncomfortable with the information. We have already given the same information to the Internal Revenue Service, so why should we give the same information to two governmental Agencies?

Here we have an opportunity in our State for every single student who wants to have 2 years tuition-free, and this form is the biggest impediment. From what I can remember of the testimony in 2013--and Senator Bennet of Colorado and I really came to the same conclusion-- all four witnesses said that these 108 questions are unnecessary. They also agreed that they could probably be reduced to two questions. Ms. Cook said that if that were done, as many as 2 million more students would apply for student aid.

So Senator Bennet and I went to work. We worked with counselors in high schools. We worked with college aid specialists. We worked in a bipartisan way, and we came to a conclusion that we could reduce the amount of questions from 108 to between 15 and 25.

Senator Bennet is now on the Finance Committee and not on our education committee, but he stays very involved. Soon Senator Bennet with Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, Senator Susan Collins, and I, are all going to introduce this legislation this year as one way of making college simpler and more affordable for students.

The second proposal that I hope to make and that I will talk about today is a new system of repaying loans. Today, there are nine different ways to repay student loans. Senators Burr and King, among others, have introduced legislation to make that simpler.

Well, my proposal is to scrap the current system that has been called by Dr. Susan Dynarski a ``rigid archaic payment system that unnecessarily plunges millions into financial distress'' and reduce it to two new options. The first new option would be based on a student's income. If you were to get a student loan under this option--which is the option I think most students will take--you would never be required to pay back more than 10 percent of your discretionary income. Your payments each month would be deducted from your paycheck, and you would continue to make those payments until your loan was paid off.

If you didn't make enough money to make your monthly payment, you would owe nothing, and if you would pay nothing, it would not reflect on your credit.

Let me give you one example of how this income-based repayment system would work. Let's take Joe, who earns a bachelor's degree in engineering. He has an average loan for college graduates, which is $28,500. That is the average loan for an American graduate with a 4- year degree. Joe makes about $60,000 in his new job as an engineer. That is what the Census Bureau says is the median starting salary for someone with an engineering degree.

Joe is unmarried and has no children. Here is the way the repayment plan works for him. We deduct a portion of Joe's income that is needed for necessities under a government formula; that is, about $18,700. What is left we call his discretionary income; that is, $41,265. So Joe will pay no more than 10 percent of that $41,000, which is $4,127 to be exact, or $343 a month. That is Joe's payment on a student loan. Under this proposal, if Joe, the engineer, never gets a raise, he will pay back his loan in 9 years.

There are other examples, which I will submit later for the Record, but here is one more example. For Maya, who earned a bachelor's degree in economics, the average salary for that degree is less, according to the Census Bureau--closer to $43,000. The same amount for living necessities and expenses is deducted. She will pay 10 percent of a lesser amount, which will be $202 a month, in her case. Now it takes a little longer to pay off her loan, but if she never gets a raise she will still be able to pay it off within 16 years.

What if you can't pay off your loan? What if you don't make enough money to pay toward your loan? What if you drop out, and you owe money? Well, if you don't earn anything, you don't pay anything. And if it isn't paid off at the end of 20 years, your loan is forgiven under current laws, and we don't propose to change that.

My new loan repayment system should make it possible for students to avoid nightmares about paying back their student loans. Since the money to repay the loan is deducted from the paycheck each month, it should make the taxpayer whole. Under my proposal I believe most students will choose the option I just described. But if they want to choose to pay their loan in 10-years--like a mortgage loan with a flat payment--they can still do that and they will pay their loan off a little faster. The money will be deducted from their paycheck too, and it will be paid off a little faster.

The third proposal is a new accountability system for colleges based upon whether borrowers are actually repaying their student loans. This should encourage lower tuition for some programs or even discourage schools from offering programs that are not worth it to students.

So all three of these proposals--simplifying the FAFSA application form from 108 questions down to 15 to 25, No. 1; No. 2, scrapping the current method of paying back student loans from this archaic system we have now and replacing it by giving the students the option of an income-based repayment program with monthly payments deducted from their paychecks that are never more than 10 percent of their discretionary income or keeping the 10-year mortgage style payment, if they prefer, with monthly payments deducted from their paychecks; and the third is a new accountability system based upon whether borrowers are actually repaying their loans.

Now before I submit the rest of my speech for the Record, let me just mention the activity in our Senate education committee.

During the last 4 years, we have held 27 hearings on the Higher Education Act, and there are a number of bipartisan proposals that have emerged from that.

I mentioned the proposal by Senators Jones and Bennet and Collins and I to simplify the FAFSA.

There is another proposal to simplify the FAFSA that Senator Murray and I passed in the Senate last year and that we plan to introduce this year. It allows a student, with one click, to answer 22 questions.

Senators Burr and King have proposed ways to simplify loan repayment.

Senators Murphy, Enzi, and Hassan are interested in expanding competency-based education programs. Professor Walter Russell Mead describes these programs as ``measuring whether a student is learning stuff instead of measuring how long he or she sits in their seat.'' In other words, if you show up and already know how to be a welder, you don't have to stay there just because of the Federal dollars it is giving out based on how long you sit in your seat.

Senators Grassley and Smith have a bill that would require institutions to tell you exactly whether the money you are being awarded when you are admitted is a loan you have to pay back or is a grant you don't have to pay back. Financial aid letters are confusing for many students. Senators Cassidy and Warren have legislation about data. Senators Grassley and Smith have other legislation to counsel students about how much money they should borrow. Senators Murphy and Warren want to expand Pell grants to prisoners, which I think is a good idea. Senators Young and Hassan are interested in experimental sites. Senator Kaine and I have discussed allowing students to use their Pell grants to pay for shorter programs.

In 2013, Senators Bennet, Burr, Mikulski, and I asked a distinguished group of college administrators to give us specific steps to simplify and to make more effective the thousands of pages of regulations that govern our 6,000 institutions. The result was the Kirwan-Zeppos report that gave us 59 grant recommendations to eliminate the jungle of red tape.

In conclusion, this year, I have met with Senator Murray several times and with most of the members of our committee. We want to work on a broad piece of legislation that would update the Higher Education Act. Our goal would be to have it ready for the committee this spring so the Senate can consider it this summer. That schedule should permit a conference with the House of Representatives that would produce a Christmas present for 20 million families by the end of the year.

Our Federal aid for students began with the GI bill for veterans in 1944, when only about 5 percent of students attended college and had bachelor's degrees. Today 35 percent of students have bachelor's degrees, and 60 percent of our country's 20 million college students receive Federal aid--$28 billion in grants and $90 billion in new loans.

It is time for us to update our Federal laws on higher education. My proposal is to simplify the FAFSA--to scrap the current system of repaying student loans with an income-based option, by which a student would never pay more than 10 percent of his discretionary income, and create a new accountability system that would apply to all colleges and all programs that would be based on whether students are actually repaying their loans, which would tend to discourage colleges from offering programs in which students couldn't earn enough to pay back their loans and could encourage lower tuition. All of those, along with the other proposals we have seen in our committee, should give the Senate plenty to work on.

First, simplifying the FAFSA.

The cumbersome FAFSA is one major impediment to low-income students who want to go to college.

They and their parents are intimidated by the complexity, are wary of the government form, and don't see

why they should have to give the Education Department information they have already given to the IRS.

The former president of Southwest Community College in Memphis told me he believes that he loses 1,500 students each semester because of the complexity of the FAFSA.

A woman who has mentored with Tennessee's free tuition program, the Tennessee Promise program, said the complex form has a ``chilling effect''--intimidating parents who may themselves never have attended college and have no experience navigating the process.

And over and over families have asked me, ``I've already given most of this information to the federal government when I paid my taxes. Why do I have to do it again? Once is enough.''

To make matters worse, there is a verification process that stops the payments of Pell Grants while the family scrambles to resubmit its tax information again and the government checks to make sure that the information is correct.

I recently talked with another administrator from Southwest Community College who told me that over one third of the applicants who put down the school as an option on their FAFSA applications were selected for verification last fall.

At a school where over 60 percent of students receive a Pell Grant, this is a huge burden for the low-income students who we want to fill out the FAFSA the most.

This is happening across Tennessee--the President of East Tennessee State University told me one third of his students who receive federal financial aid were subjected to this verification procedure this year.

I have two proposals to simplify the FAFSA:

First, Senator Jones and I, along with Senators Bennet and Collins, are reintroducing legislation soon that would reduce the number of questions from 108 to 15-25 basic questions about students, their families, and their plans for college.

We would keep providing the information that States and institutions use to calculate additional aid to prevent students and families from having to complete additional paperwork down the line.

Senator Jones's and my legislation would allow students as young as middle school to easily learn about their likely Pell Grant awards with a phone app or a chart so they can begin to think about and plan for college.

The second way to simplify the FAFSA is legislation the Senate passed last year and that Senator Murray and I plan to reintroduce this year, which would allow families to answer up to 22 FAFSA questions with just one click.

It does this by ending the need for families to give the same information to two different federal departments--the Department of Education and the Internal Revenue Service.

It would also:

Simplify the burdensome application process for the 40 percent of applicants who do not file Federal income taxes but likely qualify for Pell Grants;

Dramatically decrease the number of students whose aid is tangled up when they are selected to be verified; and

Eliminate the $6 billion in mistakes that the Treasury Department estimates are made each year by awarding an applicant too much or too little aid.

My second proposal, to help make federal loans more affordable once students graduate, will simplify the nine different ways to repay loans into two options.

The current system is so complex that even college administrators struggle to navigate it.

At a roundtable at the University of Tennessee--Martin, a Tennessee college president, told me it took him months to figure out how to help his daughter pay off her Federal student loans in full even with the money in hand.

This proposal would streamline those nine plans into a new option that guarantees that borrowers would never have to pay more than 10 percent of their income that is not needed for necessities.

And if a borrower loses his job or does not make enough, he would not pay anything, and it would not hurt his credit score.

The monthly payment would be automatically withheld from borrowers' paychecks, just like Federal taxes.

I believe all students will want to take advantage of this simple and affordable new option, but if not, they will still be able to opt to pay on the existing 10-year loan repayment plan schedule, which, for many borrowers, will help them pay off their loans faster.

Just like the new repayment plan, borrowers who wish to pay their loans off faster would have their payments automatically deducted from their paychecks.

Let's talk about how the new income-based repayment plan would work:

Joe earned his bachelor's degree in engineering.

He has the average loan for college graduates of $28,500.

He makes $60,000--that is what the Census Bureau says is the median starting salary for someone with an engineering degree.

He is unmarried and has no children.

So that year, we deduct the portion of his income that is needed for necessities--that is $18,735--and what is left is what we call his discretionary income--$41,265.

He will pay ten percent of that $41,265 a year, which is $4,127--or $343 a month.

Under this proposal, even if he never gets a raise, Joe will pay back his loan in 9 years.

Now let's take Maya, who earned a bachelor's degree in economics.

She also has the average loan of $28,500.

Her starting salary is $43,000--the median starting salary for someone with a degree in economics, according to the Census Bureau.

She is also unmarried and has no children.

So, that year, we deduct the same thing for necessities--$18,735--and that leaves her discretionary income at $24,265.

Maya will pay 10 percent of that $24,265 a year, which is $2,427, or $202 a month.

Under this proposal, even if she never gets a raise, Maya will pay back her loan in 16 years.

Stephanie earned her associate's degree from a local community college.

She has $10,400 in student loan debt--the median amount a recent community college graduate would expect to have.

Her starting salary is $39,000--the median salary for a 25-29-year- old with an associate's degree.

She is unmarried and has one child.

So the portion of her income that is needed for necessities-- $25,365--is larger because it is supporting two people. That leaves her discretionary income at $13,635.

Stephanie will pay 10 percent of that $13,635 a year, which is $1,364, or $114 a month.

Under this proposal, Stephanie will pay back her loan in 10 years even if she never gets a raise.

Finally, let's look at someone who isn't able to repay his loan.

John went to community college for a year, took out $7,500 in student loans, but dropped out after his first year.

He makes $20,000 a year.

He is unmarried and has no children.

So we deduct the portion of his income that is needed for necessities--$18,735--and that leaves his discretionary income at $1,265.

John will pay 10 percent of that $1,265 a year, which is $127.

Under this proposal, assuming he never gets a raise, John will have not repaid his loan in 20 years.

In three out of these four examples, the borrowers were able to pay back their loans in 20 years.

And if these students have reasonable salary increases, they would pay off their loans even sooner.

But for those undergraduate students like John who never make enough to pay back their loans in 20 years, the amount that hasn't been paid after 20 years is forgiven under current law, and that seems like a policy we should keep.

Under this new repayment system, students will have manageable payments and most will completely pay off their loans, which is good for the students and is good for the taxpayers.

This new option should end the nightmare that many students have of never being able to afford their student loan payments.

My third proposal is a new accountability system for colleges to make sure the degrees they offer are worth students' time and money.

This new accountability system would measure whether students are actually paying off their loans.

The proposal would simplify and expand what the gainful employment rule--proposed in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Education--tried to accomplish.

What is different is it would apply to every program at every college--public, private, and for-profit--and the measure will be much simpler.

For some programs, this should provide colleges with an incentive to lower tuition and help their students finish their degrees and find jobs so they can repay their loans.

Title IX

There will be other good ideas, and some of them are difficult.

One of these is a rule about campus safety.

The U.S. Department of Education has proposed a rule addressing campus safety by clarifying what is required by title IX.

I'm glad to see the Department is going through the rulemaking process, which allowed the public to submit comments.

It is my belief that Congress can also address some of these issues, and I am committed to trying to do that.

Conclusion

We have a committee with many different voices and diverse views, but we have been successful in bringing legislation with broad bipartisan support, including with a divided government, including fixing Federal student loans, the law fixing No Child Left Behind, the 21st Century Cures Act, and legislation to combat the opioid crisis.

In my conversations with Democrat and Republican Senators, I have found a remarkable degree of bipartisan consensus about the directions we should take to make college affordable and make students' degrees worth their time and money.

Of course, there will be differences of opinion, and if there are, we will resolve them the traditional way: by voting.

And if we cannot agree on one thing, I would be willing to do, as our committee has in the past, which is to move forward on those important matters on which we can agree.

There has never been a time when more Americans have agreed that education and training beyond high school is essential to a good life and a higher income.

It is our responsibility to take whatever steps we can to help students afford college and make sure that the degrees they earn are worth the time and money they pay for them.

I yield the floor.