Floor Statements

Mr. President, I join with Senator Murray in recognizing Dr. Marcia Crosse. In recognition of her achievements, she has been honored within GAO through meritorious and distinguished service awards for her technical excellence and dedication to client service, as well as across government as a 2014 finalist for a Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal for Citizen Services. Both within GAO and in Congress, Dr. Crosse is recognized as a consummate professional and an independent and creative thinker who understands the issues, gets to the bottom of problems, and communicates those issues clearly to Members of Congress, our staff, and to the agencies she works with. Thanks to the dedication and expertise of Dr. Crosse, not only are vital parts of our government working better, but Americans are better off as well.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived.

Mr. President, Boy Scouts shouldn't get a merit badge for telling the truth, and U.S. Senators shouldn't get an award for passing appropriations bills. That is what we are expected to do. That is what we are here for. That is our most basic responsibility. But I think it is worth noticing, especially since the distinguished vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee is still on the floor, that this is the largest number of appropriations bills passed before August since the year 2000. We have already done that with seven bills, and if we are successful this week, as I expect we will be, in passing the third package of appropriations bills, we will have passed in the Senate annual appropriations bills that account for nearly 90 percent of the discretionary Federal Government spending. That is the part of the government spending that is not automatic--we call that the mandatory spending. It is the part of the government spending that is under control.

For the last 10 years, this basically 30 percent of the Federal budget that we call discretionary spending that we appropriate every year--that has been going up at about the rate of inflation, and over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it will go up at just a little more than the rate of inflation. So this money we are spending on behalf of our taxpayers, we are spending in a budgeted, responsible way, and we are spending it on time--if we continue the progress we are making--which makes it easier for our military, our National Laboratories, and our agencies to plan and spend money more wisely.

Nothing is more wasteful--almost nothing is more wasteful--than the failure of the U.S. Congress to appropriate or decide the amount of money that is to be spent every year before the year begins. Too often over the last several years, it has been the middle of the year before agency managers knew what they could spend that year, and that is a wasteful practice. In a military sense, our leaders in the Department of Defense tell us it is a dangerous practice in terms of what we can count on for our national security.

I would like to pause for just a moment and reflect on what the Appropriations Committee is doing, what the U.S. Senate is doing and doing properly--not because we deserve an award or a merit badge for doing our most basic responsibility but because it is worth noting when we do it because it hasn't been done for so long.

The following are the seven appropriations bills that have already passed the Senate. One is the Energy and Water Development legislation. I am chairman of that committee and of the conference that is working on that. I am working with Chairman Mike Simpson in the House, Senator Feinstein, and Representative Kaptur. We are working together. We hope to have that bill--which has already passed the Senate and has already passed the House--we hope to come together and have a conference immediately after Labor Day so we can complete the bill and send it to the President for his signature. That is one of the appropriations bills. Others are Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies--we passed that one; the Legislative Branch--we passed that one; and Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, and that passed.

In past years, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies has been very difficult to pass. There are some controversial issues there, but Senator Shelby and Senator Leahy have led us, along with Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell, to say: We are not going to try to solve every controversial issue that we can think of on the appropriations bills, because we have learned in the past that practice will sink them. So we have tabled a few bills--a few amendments that have come before us because they would have kept the appropriations bills from proceeding. We can deal with those more controversial ideas and amendments at another time.

Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies has been passed. Financial Services and General Government has also been passed.

So there are seven. That is the largest number of appropriations bills the Senate has passed before August since the year 2000--18 years ago. This week, we are debating the third package of appropriations bills, which includes Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies and the Defense appropriations bill. That means that if we are successful in completing our work this week on those two, we will have considered all nine of those appropriations bills under what we call in the Senate the regular order. That means we have an opportunity to offer other amendments when they come to the floor, we debate them, we vote on those amendments, we pass the bills, and then we go to conference with the House. In other words, not just the 31 members of the Appropriations Committee get to work on this; all Members of the Senate get to have their say.

This week, we have already voted on some amendments, and we may get to consider more. After we finish these two bills--as I said earlier, hopefully tomorrow--the Senate will have passed the annual appropriations bills that account for nearly 90 percent of the discretionary Federal Government spending.

Senator Shelby, the chairman, and the vice chairman, Senator Leahy, as well as the majority leader, Senator McConnell, and Senator Schumer, all deserve credit and our thanks for creating the environment that makes this possible. I appreciate their commitment. I want to especially commend Senator Blunt, Senator Murray, Senator Shelby, and Senator Durbin for their work on the bills that are before us this week.

A few weeks ago, one of my friends in Nashville, one of the major contributors to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, came up to me. He said: It is a real shame that you guys in Congress aren't funding biomedical research.

So I said to my friend: Well, let me tell you what has happened the last 3 or 4 years, and see if you still believe that. The U.S. Senate is on track for the fourth straight year to provide record funding for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health in a regular appropriations bill.

This year's bill includes $39.1 billion for the National Institutes of Health--a $2 billion increase over last year.

Over the last 3 years, Congress has increased NIH funding by about $7 billion. First, Congress increased National Institutes of Health funding by $2 billion in 2015. Then, in 2016, we increased it another $2 billion. Then, in 2017, Congress increased funding at the NIH by $3 billion, including $500 million to work on a non-addictive pain killer, which, in my view, is the Holy Grail of the fight against the opioid crisis--finding some form of painkiller that is not addictive for the 100 million Americans who hurt and the 25 million who have chronic pain.

This year's increased funding for biomedical research will mean more medical miracles--new treatments and cures. The reason Congress has given this such a priority was very well described by Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health. He calls it the ``National Institutes of Hope.''

When he testified before our Appropriations Committee, he talked about what we might expect to see during the next 10 years if we properly fund the National Institutes of Health. Some of those predictions by Dr. Collins were these: Being able to identify Alzheimer's disease before symptoms appear; the possibility that we could rebuild a patient's heart with the patient's own cells--in other words, put

the transplant surgeons out of business; the creation of a safe and effective artificial pancreas, making life easier and healthier for the millions of Americans with diabetes; development of new vaccines, Dr. Collins said, including for Zika, for HIV/AIDS, and a universal flu vaccine; development of a new, non-addictive painkiller, which I mentioned; significant progress on the Precision Medicine Initiative, which President Obama championed, which aim to map the genomes of 1 million volunteers so that we can better tailor treatments to patients; and new treatment for cancer patients. Those are just some of the new treatments, cures, and miracles we might expect, Dr. Collins said, in the next 10 years.

This bill we are talking about also provides $3.7 billion to help those on the frontlines of the opioid crisis and help bring an end to opioid abuse. Senator Murray and I, as well as about 60 Members of this body, have put together a comprehensive opioids authorization bill, which we hope to be able to present to the full Senate at the end of next week, or shortly after Labor Day, that can be put together with the House to address this crisis. But this is the money for the opioids initiative; it is in this bill: $1.5 billion for State Opioid Response Grants, state grants originally authorized by the 21st Century Cures Act; $500 million to develop non-addictive painkillers; funding for more substance abuse and mental health treatment services at Community Health Centers.

The other funding bill included in this minibus appropriations bill is the Defense Appropriations bill. The Senator from Illinois is on the floor. He is the ranking Democrat on that committee. He has also been one of the foremost leaders of the effort to increase the biomedical research I just mentioned.

Chairman Shelby and Senator Durbin worked together to produce a bill that provides a total of $675 billion to make sure our troops have the resources they need to maintain our national defense. The funding included in this bill will provide the largest pay increase since 2010 for the men and women serving in the military, including those who serve at Fort Campbell in Tennessee and Kentucky.

Also, $2.8 billion is provided for basic research at the Department of Defense. This is the largest Defense Department research and development budget in history.

It is hard to think of a major technological development since World War II in this country that wasn't supported in some way by federally sponsored research. Funding basic research at the Department of Defense will give the United States an advantage over our adversaries and allow us to maintain the strongest military in the world.

I have suggested to President Trump that he make science and research a part of his ``America First'' agenda. We need to do that. Since 2007, over the last 10 years, China has increased its spending on basic science by a factor of four and may surpass the United States in total spending on research and development this year, according to Norm Augustine, who, during the George W. Bush administration, chaired the bipartisan committee that wrote a report called ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm,'' which made recommendations to the Congress on how to retain America's competitive advantage.

Our country needs to continue to be first in the world in basic research. The President has already signed into law two consecutive appropriations bills that provide record funding for science, technology, energy, and biomedical research, and the two appropriations bills we are debating this week will provide even more funding for basic research.

I urge my colleagues to support these bills because passing these bills means more biomedical research at National Institutes of Health for treatments and cures; more Federal help for States and communities struggling to combat the opioid crisis; the largest Department of Defense research budget in history; and pay raises for the men and women who serve in our military.

Let me say again what I said a little earlier. This funding that we are talking about--this record funding for science, technology, basic research, supercomputing in another bill, the need for our national defense--all of this is within the part of the Federal budget that is under control. Over the last 10 years, this discretionary part of the budget--roughly one-third or a little less than one-third of the budget--has grown at about the rate of inflation, and over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it is expected to grow at just a little more than the rate of inflation.

So this is not the Federal spending that is causing the big Federal deficit. This is spending for national defense, national parks, the National Institutes of Health, and national laboratories. This is the core of what we need to do in the United States of America.

We need resolve and courage in a bipartisan way, and the President needs to join us, in dealing with the part of the budget that is running up a big deficit; that is, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other entitlements. Nobody wants to touch that. That is a separate question. But it is important for people to know that there is no need to beat your chest and pat yourself on the back when you cut funding for the military, when you cut funding for the National Institutes of Health, when you make our national laboratories work less, or when the National Parks can't maintain themselves.

We go the opposite direction here: record funding for national laboratories; we are considering more maintenance for National Parks; record funding for supercomputing; record funding for biomedical research, all within the budget limits, all within our priorities. That is what we need to do.

As I said when I started, Senators don't deserve a merit badge for passing appropriations bills any more than Boy Scouts deserve a merit badge for telling the truth. That is what we are supposed to do. But when we do it and do it properly, as we are doing this year, it deserves to be noticed.

I congratulate Senator Durbin, Senator Leahy, Senator McConnell, and Senator Shelby for their roles and their leadership in this.

I thank the President.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if I may, I thank the Senator for his remarks and his leadership on this amendment. I think it is important to be clear about this. Of course, the Senator has a right to object to the amendment, I suppose, but sooner or later this amendment, or something like it, is going to become law. I support the amendment. President Trump supports the amendment.

Senator Durbin has worked with Republicans and Democrats, over the last 3 or 4 weeks, to think of different appropriate ways to require television advertising to state what the price of a drug is. There would be different ways to do it. I asked him to take a few weeks to help us talk that out. He did that. I think he has come to a conclusion that deserves support. I support the bill.

I am chairman of the authorizing committee, the Health Committee, in the Senate. This is going to happen one way or the other. I suggest we try to find a way to go ahead and do it now because if the President supports it and you have bipartisan support in the Health Committee and bipartisan support in the Labor and Health Appropriations Subcommittee, it is going to become law. It makes good sense.

The cost of healthcare is a major issue we need to address, and we can't do it all at once. Prescription drugs are a part of it. Prescription drugs are 10 percent of the cost of healthcare. They are 17 percent--we have had testimony before our committee--if you include the drugs that are administered in hospitals. There are other factors as well.

Complexity is a big factor. Administrative burden is a big factor. Electronic healthcare records and their inadequate operation and lack of inoperability are big factors. Overutilization is a big factor.

Through the Chair, I wish to say to the Senator of Illinois, we have had excellent witnesses through our committee from the Institute of Medicine--some of the most distinguished witnesses we could have in the country--who tell us that as much as 30 percent to 50 percent of all that the United States spends on healthcare is unnecessary, wasted.

We spend 17 or 18 percent of our entire gross domestic product on healthcare. We are the richest country in the world. We produce about 24 percent of all money in the world, and we spend 18 percent of that on healthcare, much more than similar countries do, and our own experts tell us much of it is unnecessary.

We can't deal with it all at once, but one way to deal with it is competition and transparency and letting patients know the cost of what they are buying, whether it is doctors' services or it is a prescription drug.

I believe Senator Durbin and Senator Grassley are correct. The President believes they are correct. The Secretary of Health and Human Services supports their bill, and we should pass

it. Consumers should know, when they see a television ad about a prescription drug, what the cost of that drug is.

My hope for the Senator from Illinois is that he is ultimately successful with his proposal, and if he is not, I hope he counts me as an ally in an effort to continue to see that it gets done.

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

Madam President, the Senate has developed a bad habit. That bad habit is treating Presidential nominees as innocent until nominated. I hope to see better behavior during the next few weeks as the Senate begins hearings on President Trump's nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to be a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Instead of treating Judge Kavanaugh as someone recently released from San Quentin prison, I hope we treat him with dignity and respect so Americans can better understand his temperament, his intelligence, and his character. That is what we should want to know about a Presidential nominee for the Supreme Court.

The current rudeness is a recent phenomenon. Historically, Senators have recognized that bipartisan approval of qualified nominees helps improve the esteem of the Court. It confirms its impartiality. It strengthens it as an institution. For example, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia was confirmed unanimously by this body even though he was perhaps the most conservative Justice on the Court. On the other hand, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed with only three votes against her even though she may arguably be the most liberal Justice on the Court. Both were obviously well qualified, of good character, high intelligence, and good demeanor, and therefore the Senate--unanimously in one case and with only three ``no'' votes in the other case-- confirmed the President's nominees.

More recently, half the Democratic Senators voted to confirm President Bush's nominee Chief Justice John Roberts. In 2014, I voted to confirm President Obama's nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, not because I agreed with her but because I thought she was obviously well qualified for the position.

Some Senators insist that Judge Kavanaugh should tell them how he might decide a case. That reminds me of a story from Senator Howard Baker, the former majority leader of the U.S. Senate, who was a practicing lawyer in the mountains. He said he was once before a mountain judge who told the lawyers right before the case: ``Boys, just give me a little bit on the law. I had a telephone call last night, and I pretty well know the facts.'' Judges aren't supposed to decide a case in advance. That is why we have judges--to create an impartial judicial system.

Justice Ginsburg said during her confirmation that she would give ``no hints, no forecasts, no previews'' of what her legal views might be if she were to be confirmed. This rule is now known as the Ginsburg rule. Justices are supposed to follow the law and decide cases when the cases are presented, not before Justices are confirmed or while they are being confirmed.

Of course, a Justice's opinions and decisions can be surprising. That has been true throughout the history of the Supreme Court. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was often surprised by Justice Felix Frankfurter. Justice Scalia once ruled that a government ban on flag-burning violated the First Amendment. Scalia also said that ``the judge who always likes the results he reaches is a bad judge.''

In 2006, I voted for Judge Kavanaugh when he was President George W. Bush's nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Last month, I attended President Trump's nomination of Judge Kavanaugh at the White House. It is said that you only get one chance to make a first impression, and Judge Kavanaugh certainly took advantage of his one opportunity that night.

I was again impressed with Judge Kavanaugh when I visited with him in my office a few weeks ago. We discussed federalism, how to strengthen the Supreme Court as an institution, and other matters. Never once did I ask him how he might vote on a particular case.

I will not announce how I will vote on his nomination until the hearings are complete. Some Democratic Senators have already announced their opposition to Judge Kavanaugh. I wonder, why have a hearing? Why ask for more records to examine if you have already decided how you are going to vote?

During my 8 years as Governor of Tennessee, I appointed probably 50 judges. In doing so, I looked for the same qualities I will look for in considering the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh: intelligence, character, temperament, respect for the law, and respect for those who come before the Court. I did not ask one applicant to be a Tennessee judge, of that entire 50, how he or she might rule on abortion or immigration or taxation. And political party membership was far down my list of considerations when I had the job, as the chief executive of a State, of appointing judges.

I hope the Senate will return to the practice of inquiring diligently about the qualifications of a nominee, about intelligence, about character, about temperament, and get away from this bad habit of treating Presidential nominees for the Supreme Court as if they had just been released from San Quentin and as if they were innocent until nominated.

I thank the President.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the commitment letter for the Animal Generic Drug User Fee Agreements of 2018.

Mr. President, in a moment, I will specifically address the comments the Senator from Washington made. First, I would like to acknowledge that she and other Members of the Senate worked with us to make sure this legislation could become law by August 1, and I thank her for that.

Sometimes the House accepts a Senate bill, as it did with the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act that the President signed today, and sometimes the Senate accepts a House bill, as I will move that we do today. One reason we are able to do that is because our committees work closely with the House to try to take as many of their good ideas as we can so we can pass each other's bill, if that became necessary. The second reason that happens is because Senator Murray characteristically works with me to solve problems like she is doing today, and I am grateful to her for doing that. We don't agree on everything, but we agree on a lot.

I noticed in our committee hearing the other day that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, of which I am chairman and she is the ranking Democrat, has approved 50 bills this Congress. Eighteen of them have been signed by the President. Some more will be signed by the President.

We are working hard on opioids legislation, which is of great interest to almost every Member of this body. Our committee has unanimously reported that to the floor, and we are working with other committees. We have been working with the House on that. We are working on getting generic drugs to market more easily, something that has needed to be done for 20 years. We have reported that out to the Senate. Pandemic legislation--dealing with epidemics and being prepared for them--is ready for the Senate to act on.

This is characteristic of the work Senator Murray and her staff do. As she mentioned, this bill is the last of the so-called user fee agreements. We passed four last August that dealt with about $9 billion in industry user fees to fund the Food and Drug Administration. This is another bill to do that. These bills are complicated and difficult and involve lots of discussions. In the end, they often pass by agreement, as this one will today, I believe, but that is because of the amount of work our staff and Senator Murray's staff and the House of Representatives have done. I thank them for that.

The FDA user fee bills provide about half the funding the Food and Drug Administration uses every year to keep the drugs we buy at our pharmacies and get at the doctor's office safe. We take it for granted, but it is the gold standard, and we work very hard to try to make sure we don't infringe on that gold standard of safety and efficacy.

The House of Representatives has passed, by unanimous consent, the bill we referred to, the Animal Drug and Generic Animal Drug User Fee Amendments, which reauthorizes user fee programs that allow the animal drug industry and the Food and Drug Administration to continue to expedite the review of safe and effective treatments for animals. These updated agreements have been carefully worked out between the Food and Drug Administration and the animal drug industry, with input from farmers and ranchers, food and feed producers, veterinarians, and other stakeholders.

If Congress doesn't do its job, as the Senator from Washington said, to reauthorize these critical programs before August 1, the Food and Drug Administration will be forced to send layoff notices to 115 employees. By our action today, we will be able to avoid that.

The review of over 2,000 animal drug applications and investigational submissions currently pending before the Food and Drug Administration will be significantly delayed if we don't act, and we intend to act. This means it

will take longer for new animal drugs and treatments to be available to farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, and families, but, fortunately, because of the cooperation today, that will not happen.

The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, our committee, approved the Senate version of this bill on February 28 of this year by a bipartisan vote of 22 to 1. The bill passed the House in almost identical form that was approved by the HELP Committee in February, but the House bill, as Senator Murray said, expands conditional approval to encourage innovation and competition.

Conditional approval allows a drug to go to market once it meets the Food and Drug Administration safety standards, and then the drug company has up to 5 years to prove the drug is effective. Based on bipartisan feedback about conditional approval, the House of Representatives agreed to make three changes in its bill: No. 1, a 10- year sunset for conditional approval; No. 2, clarify the conditional approval does not require an additional fee to be paid to the Food and Drug Administration; and, No. 3, a Government Accountability Office report on conditional approval.

Senator Murray and I agree that we need to clarify what it means for a drug to be ``difficult to study.'' I have talked to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration about these concerns, and he agrees. Dr. Gottlieb has agreed to quickly issue guidance and develop regulations that provide clarity on what ``difficult to study'' means and that do not change the gold standard of the Food and Drug Administration's drug approval process.

Also, conditional approval is not available for antimicrobial drugs. The language in the bill is clear, and Dr. Gottlieb understands that conditional approval is not available for antimicrobial drugs.

Congress will also conduct oversight to make sure conditional approval is achieving the goal of helping more pets and keeping our food supply safe. This bipartisan legislation will help keep animals healthy, prevent disease outbreaks, and protect our food supply.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5554.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

I know of no further debate on the bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on Monday of last week, the Senate passed H.R. 2353, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, with a Senate amendment. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives followed suit. This measure reauthorizes the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, which was last reauthorized in 2006.

President Trump signed this important bill into law today at a ceremony at the White House that I was fortunate enough to have been invited to attend.

The bill modernizes our career and technical education programs in our Nation's high schools, and community colleges, technical colleges, and other institutions of higher education to provide the skills needed to support State and local employer's workforce needs. The bill is also designed to align with other Federal education and workforce laws.

While we are currently experiencing the best economy in 18 years, there are still 6.6 million unfilled jobs, many of these jobs offer high wages, but require workers to have specific or a high-level set of skills. In order to have a productive workforce and sustain a strong economy, we need to ensure today's workers and future workers have an opportunity to learn these needed skills.

Our bill is an important step in helping States and local communities do that.

First, as States are designing their State career and technical education--CTE--plans, they will need to consult with a variety of education and workforce stakeholders. This means, for the first time, employers and business leaders will work with the State on designing education programs that focus on preparing students for in-demand and emerging jobs.

Second, local school districts are required to conduct an evaluation of their current programs and how those programs align with in-demand industry sectors or occupations. In order to accomplish this, school districts will work with local community and business leaders to determine what those sectors and occupations are, if they are not fully aware of them already. The bill also makes a significant change to the way funds flow to States. Current law sends funds to States based on the population in the State but dictates States cannot receive less than what they received in 1998. Our bill updates this formula as populations have dramatically shifted with some States seeing significant growth over the past 20 years.

Another area that was improved was better aligning with other workforce initiatives. This bill would align CTE program plans with State Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act plans so that States that want to submit a combined plan may do so. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act is a Federal workforce development law that provides training to adults already in or seeking employment.

In their CTE plans, States must determine levels of performance for several indicators of performance, which are outlined in the bill. The indicators at the secondary level include graduation rate, achievement of academic standards as defined in the Every Student Succeeds Act, ensuring academic rigor in programs, and accounting for students who enter postsecondary education, the military, national service, or are employed, to name a few. There are additional and similar indicators for postsecondary education.

The State determined levels of performance for these indicators must be expressed as a percentage of students and demonstrate that the State is striving to improve year after year. States must determine the level for each indicator for the group of all CTE concentrators, which are the group of students at the secondary level taking

at least two courses in a single program or program of study, or at the postsecondary level, students taking at least 12 credits in a single program or program of study, and for each subgroup defined in the Every Student Succeeds Act and for each special population defined in this bill.

However, States are only held accountable for the group of all CTE concentrators. One of the important changes in the law is that the Secretary will no longer negotiate the levels of performance with the States. Going forward, States will determine their levels and submit them to the Secretary, who will approve them if they meet the conditions highlighted earlier. This is a point worth saying again: The bill heading to the President's desk eliminates any involvement by the Secretary in determining levels of performance with the States.

However, a State is required to meet certain conditions in order to have their plan approved by the Secretary. Specifically, the Secretary must ensure that plan includes levels of performance and that those levels of performance have been made public for comment. In the submitted plan, the State must include the comments along with their response to those comments. Further, the State must develop their plan in consultation with various stakeholders and provide descriptions of their goals and programs, how those meet employment and workforce needs, and what they will do to close and eliminate performance gaps in areas where gaps exist for subgroups and special populations.

If a State has met the requirements in developing their plan, then the Secretary must approve the plan and may not alter or change the elements of that plan.

The bill allows but does not require a State to revise the levels of performance after 2 years. If a State elects to revise their levels, the new level must not be below the average of the actual performance of the previous 2 years. States may revise their levels downward when taking advantage of this option, so long as it meets the requirements of the law. Further, there has been some concerns raised that a State would be required to go through an entire State plan process in order to make revisions. The language in the bill is clear that a State making revisions to their levels of performance need only seek public comment on those targets and does not need to go through the more extensive consultation process or an additional public comment period. When submitting the revised levels to the Secretary, they must include the public comments and the State response.

Heading into this reauthorization, a major concern of current law was that there was too much burden on local schools that deterred many from pursuing Federal funds. They cited the burdensome local plan, the multitude of requirements and reporting burden. This bill addresses all of those items and reduces burden for local governments.

First, this reauthorization focuses reporting and accountability on just CTE concentrators, reducing the number of students States must collect data on to only those truly enrolled in a CTE program. Second, the number of requirements of what must be included in the local application is reduced from 12 to 9. Third, the required use of funds at the local level drops from nine to six.

One last item that I would like to address about the bill is its accountability provisions. The bill maintains the current law structure of accountability which requires that, if a State does not meet 90 percent of their State-determined level of performance for any of the indicators, then the State must submit an improvement plan indicating how it plans to improve.

If a State has not achieved 90 percent of their level of performance after 2 years following the implementation of their improvement plan, the Secretary is granted the discretion to withhold funds from that State.

There are a number of education and business groups supporting this bill, which include National Governor's Association, National School Boards Association, Rebuilding America's Middle Class, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, Jobs for the Future, Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Coalition, Education Trust, Boeing, and IBM.

Chairwoman Foxx and Ranking Member Scott, along with Representative Thompson and Representative Krishnamoorthi, deserve a good deal of thanks for their work in the House on passing the Perkins CTE Act.

I also want to thank Senator Enzi and Senator Casey for their work in the Senate on this bill. They have worked hard to reach a bipartisan result and should receive the recognition they deserve for it.

I would also like to thank Ivanka Trump for her leadership in helping create an environment where we could get a result. Her interest in helping train the next generation of our country's workers and making the reauthorization of this bill one of her priorities helped keep Congress focused on passing this bill. I was pleased that she attended our committee markup of the bill and thank her for her hard work.

I also want to thank the ranking member of the committee, Senator Murray. This bill is another in a long list of accomplishments this committee has achieved.

Finally, I would like to thank the following staff: from the Congressional Research Service, Boris Granovskiy, Becky Skinner, and Adam Stoll; from the Office of Legislative Counsel, Kristin Romero, Margaret Bomba, and Amy Gaynor; from Senator Casey's office, Julia Sferlazzo and Rachel McKinnon; from Senator Enzi's office, Tara Shaw, Garnett Decosimo, and Steve Townsend; from Senator Murray's office, Evan Schatz, Kara Marchione, Amanda Beaumont, and Katherine McClelland; and my staff, David Cleary, Bob Moran, Jake Baker, Richard Pettey, Bobby McMillin, and Lindsey Seidman.

I am pleased that President Trump signed this bill into law today to help States and local communities meet the needs of the current and future workforce.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the commitment letter

for the Animal Drug User Fee Agreements of 2018.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank Mr. Blunt, the Senator from Missouri, for his leadership on these commonsense provisions that would help literally hundreds of thousands of restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, pizza stores, and other food retailers as they work to comply with the Food and Drug Administration's menu labeling rule.

I am very disappointed that some Democrats have blocked Senator Blunt's commonsense legislation. He has worked hard on it and has taken a piece of legislation that had bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. He has worked with Senator King of Maine in a bipartisan way. Nevertheless, there have still been objections.

When Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, they included a provision that mandated nutrition labeling in restaurants and food retailers that have over 20 stores nationwide. The proposed rule was published in December 2014, and the final menu labeling rule went into effect on May 7, 2018. The final rule required restaurants nationwide to display calories on menus and menu boards and have additional nutrition information available upon request. Senators Blunt and King and I support consumers having access to nutrition information to make healthier, more informed dietary choices for themselves and their families.

While I commend the FDA for addressing concerns raised during the process in the final rule, a few significant problems remain unaddressed, including the following: employees being subject to criminal penalties for inconsistencies in calorie information; a clear amount of time for restaurants to correct violations before enforcement; restaurants being subject to frivolous civil lawsuits for minor violations; and flexibility for restaurants where a majority of orders are placed online.

To address those concerns, Senators Blunt and King, here in the Senate, and a bipartisan group in the House, as Senator Blunt has outlined, introduced the bipartisan Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act. The idea was to make the menu labeling rule more workable for restaurants and to make access to information on nutrition easier for customers.

The act, led by Representatives Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Loretta Sanchez, passed the House twice--both times with strong bipartisan votes and most recently in February with a vote of 266 to 157, with 152 Republicans and 32 Democrats in support.

However, after Senate Democrats raised concerns that the House bill would further delay the implementation of the rule, Senator Blunt and I worked out a targeted solution to help give restaurants the flexibility and certainty they would need to comply with the rule without delaying its implementation or enforcement.

Our substitute provisions include the following:

No. 1, they clarify legal liability.

For example, if I am a 21-year-old manager at the Chick-fil-A in Chattanooga, I would be pretty hesitant to sign a statement, as is currently required by the rule, that could subject me to criminal and financial penalties if one of my employees were to put extra slices of cheese on a sandwich. Today, the rule requires a restaurant manager to certify that the restaurant makes menu items a certain way to meet the posted nutritional values.

Our amendment changes that. It no longer puts an individual employee on the hook for a meal item that doesn't match its posted calorie count. Our amendment maintains the requirement for restaurant headquarters to certify

that the nutrient analysis of menu items is complete and accurate.

It is nearly impossible for menu items to be prepared in precisely the same way every time, and individuals should not be at risk of criminal and financial penalties based on small differences in how menu items are prepared.

No. 2, they establish a clear timeline for corrective actions.

If the FDA finds a violation of a sign being out of place or discrepancies in the calorie content, it is reasonable for a store to have a clear timeframe to fully correct the violation without being subject to penalties. This provision would clarify that restaurants have 30 days to correct violations, and if, after 30 days it is not resolved, the FDA could move ahead with enforcement action.

No. 3, they protect restaurants from frivolous lawsuits for minor violations.

This provision clarifies, let's say, if a consumer determines that a chicken sandwich labeled as having 500 calories actually has 550 calories, the Federal, State, or local enforcement authorities could take action, but prevents the consumer from suing the restaurant for damages. This protects restaurants from facing frivolous lawsuits or class action lawsuits that result in years of litigation and settlements on minor discrepancies that rarely benefit the consumers.

No. 4, they allow access to nutrition information online.

If you are ordering a pizza for your family, there is a good chance that you are placing that order online or on a mobile app and that it is being delivered to your home. Restaurants with over 75 percent of orders placed online should not have to invest in maintaining and updating in-store menu boards only a small portion of customers will ever use.

To summarize, the intent of the FDA menu labeling rule was about increasing consumer access to nutrition information, not about finding minor problems to trigger fines and penalties on local businesses.

These provisions are based on bipartisan legislation introduced in both Chambers, passed twice in the House of Representatives, to accommodate the diverse business models in the food industry and provide certainty to restaurants and their employees.

These four provisions in the Blunt-King legislation were carefully negotiated to address concerns of Democratic Members, to ensure Americans will soon be able to access nutrition information, and will not delay or stop FDA's ability to implement or enforce the menu labeling requirements.

I am disappointed some of our Democratic colleagues rejected these commonsense provisions that would have helped restaurants provide calorie counts for Americans and that would have made it easier for those Americans to obtain that information.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alabama for his leadership and his remarks.

The President of the United States has got the world's attention with his tariffs. He met today with the President of the European Commission, but what should get more attention than

the tariffs is President Trump's solution for the tariffs: zero tariffs, zero barriers--which, as the President said at the G7 summit in June, is the way it should be. He said that again last night and again today. After his meeting with the President of the European Commission in the Oval Office, President Trump said: ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies, the United States would be extremely pleased.''

Well, so would I, Mr. President, but that is not what is happening. Piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight is a trade war and will hurt American workers.

But the basis of the President's long-term solution is ``reciprocity,'' a word he has also used many times, which means, when it comes to trade, other countries should do for the United States what the United States does for them. Taking steps in the direction of reciprocity, rather than a trade war, would be much better for the American worker.

Today I have come to the floor with Senator Jones to introduce legislation that would delay the administration's proposed 25 percent tariff on automobiles and auto parts imported from other countries into the United States until the President has the benefit of a second opinion from the International Trade Commission about the effects those tariffs would have on the more than 7 million Americans who work in the auto industry.

After the President and the Congress have received the International Trade Commission's study and the President has this second opinion, he may still continue with the section 232 investigation if he chooses to do so.

I have no doubt that there is a trade problem, and some countries are taking advantage of us. I also have no doubt that shooting yourself in both feet at once is not the right solution to our problem, which is what would happen if we continue these tariffs for a long time. That is not the best way to solve the problem.

These tariffs are dangerous. These tariffs are going to cost us jobs. These tariffs are going to lower our family incomes. These tariffs are going to undo much of the good the President and the Congress have done during the last year and a half to create this booming economy, which is booming like none of us have seen for a long, long time. We don't want to interrupt that.

A better strategy is the one that the President himself has suggested and that I believe would be much more effective: Insist on reciprocity. Say to other countries: Do for our country what we do for you--just as the President said at the G7 summit: ``no tariffs, no barriers is the way it should be.'' And just as he said today to the President of the European Commission.

May I suggest a first step in that direction? It might be to agree on the same tariffs on light trucks and cars that are traded between the United States and the European Union. Currently, the European Union levies a 10-percent tariff on light trucks that come from the United States, and the United States levies a 25-percent tariff on trucks imported from the European Union. Similarly, the European Union levies a 10-percent tariff on cars imported from this country. The United States levies a 2.5 percent tariff on cars that come to us from Europe. A first step for the solution would be to make these tariffs the same.

Now, my late friend Alex Haley once told me that if I begin a speech by saying ``instead of making a speech, let me tell you a story,'' someone might actually listen to what I have to say. So let me tell you a story about how tariffs affect Tennessee.

This is a story about a Canadian company, Onward Manufacturing Company, which 8 years ago had a choice between locating its new plant either in the United States or in China. The company chose Dickson, TN, where today about 300 Tennesseans have good-paying jobs making Broil King gas grills, which the company then exports to Canada and Europe.

The company decided on Tennessee instead of China because NAFTA--the North American Free Trade Agreement--made it possible to buy materials and parts to manufacture their grills in the United States and Canada without paying tariffs. That is the advantage of zero tariffs.

Broil King buys the steel and aluminum the company uses to make grills from U.S. producers. But in 2016, our country imposed tariffs on steel from China that is used to manufacture grills. That increased the cost of imported steel, and that had the effect of increasing the price of steel made in the United States.

Then, on March 23 of this year, our country imposed another 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, after the Commerce Department's section 232 investigation concluded that those imports were a threat to national security. This also had the effect of raising the price of steel and aluminum that Broil King used to make gas grills in Dickson, TN. Prices for U.S.-produced steel that Broil King buys are up by 40 percent since January, according to the trade publication Steel Benchmark.

This is called shooting yourself in one foot. Now, here goes the other foot.

Europe and Canada then responded to the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum by imposing tariffs on U.S. products sold in Europe and Canada, including gas grills.

Broil King exports about 60 percent of the grills the company makes in Tennessee to Canada and Europe. Remember, they located their plant here so they could do that.

The company told me last week that they are losing money on every grill they sell in Europe because of the combination of steel and aluminum tariffs and the response by Europe and Canada.

Broil King is also hurt by the March 2018 announcement that tariffs would be imposed on $50 billion by the United States on Chinese goods because the company buys some parts from China that it uses to make gas grills in Tennessee.

Now, here is what is causing the owners of Broil King to wonder why they ever decided to locate a plant in Dickson, TN, instead of China. The new U.S. tariffs do not apply to barbecue gas grills made in China that are already assembled, which means that every one of Broil King's competitors in China can import their grills into the United States without any tariff on it.

So here is the bottom line. These new tariffs make it difficult to make a profit on gas grills made in Dickson, TN, and leave the U.S. market wide open for gas grills made in China.

That is what happened to one small company that employs 300 Tennesseans and buys its steel and aluminum from U.S. suppliers when we begin piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight. That is what happens with a trade war.

That is why I like what the President said this morning to the President of the European Commission. ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies,'' the President said, ``the United States would be extremely pleased.'' So would workers in Tennessee. That would be better for the 300 workers in Dickson, TN.

Here is another story. It is about Electrolux. I visited Springfield, TN, outside Nashville, a few weeks ago. The mayor and the chamber of commerce officials rushed up to me. The new tariffs on steel had been announced, and the largest employer in Springfield--Electrolux, which makes home supplies--had cancelled a $250 million expansion. Electrolux buys all of its steel from U.S. suppliers, but, of course, when you raise the price on imported steel, the price of U.S. steel also goes up, and Electrolux concluded that it could not be competitive in the U.S. market and with exports at the higher price.

Of course, it sounds good to say that putting a 10-percent tariff on Chinese-made goods is good for us, but Electrolux also buys some components made in China. Last week, the company said the latest U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made goods would cost the company $10 million during the second half of this year if the proposed 10 percent tariffs go into effect after a comment period ending in late August. That is Electrolux in Springfield, TN.

Now, if we were moving toward a policy of reciprocity--do for us what we do for you--there would be zero tariffs, and the people of Springfield would have a $250 million expansion and the jobs that come with it instead of a 25-percent tax on the U.S. steel that Electrolux buys.

Then there are the stories about the effects of steel and aluminum tariffs on

tire companies. We have three big tire companies in Tennessee. Bridgestone is one of them, with 1,700 employees. I will talk about it for just a moment.

Bridgestone tires all have steel cords to make them stronger. None of that steel is produced in the United States. All of it is imported. Now all of it has a 25-percent tax. Who pays that? The American consumer. The same must be true for every tire-making company.

Here is one more story. You have probably heard of Bush Brothers' beans. They can one-third of all the beans in the United States. Their plant is in Chestnut Hill, in the mountains of East Tennessee, near where I live.

The cans are made of tin-plated steel that is mostly imported. There is not enough produced in the United States. Bush Brothers & Company estimates that the new tariff on steel will reduce its revenues and raise prices by as much as 8 percent.

Even the workers in Chestnut Hill who can one-third of all of the beans in the United States would benefit from a zero tariff policy such as the one the President talked about today, instead of a trade war that piles tariffs on top of tariffs.

We have many more stories. We have over 900 auto parts suppliers in Tennessee. They are in 88 of our 95 counties. Almost all of them use steel and aluminum. When the prices go up, revenues and profits go down. That has an effect on 136,000 Tennesseans. Those are the people who work in our automotive industry. That is one-third of our entire manufacturing workforce.

Tariffs are taxes, pure and simple--taxes we pay. Existing tariffs on steel and aluminum are bad enough, but nothing could do more damage to Tennessee's auto industry than the proposed tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts. Those, combined with already imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, will cost us jobs and lower our family incomes.

I respectfully said to President Trump both publicly and privately that he and the Republican Congress have accomplished an enormous amount in 18 months. I am very proud of that. This booming economy is something that benefits so many Americans. But I am afraid that if we do not move quickly toward the President's announced long-term goal of no tariffs and that if we continue to pile tariffs on top of tariffs, we will take this economy in exactly the opposite direction and undo much of the good the Republican President and the Republican Congress have already done.

What would take us in the right direction is the goal of reciprocity that the President talked about today. That is why, in the meantime, until we shift gears into this long-term goal of no tariffs, no subsidies, no barriers, and take steps toward it, Senator Jones and I have developed this bill to make sure the President has all the facts before he makes a decision on the proposed 25-percent tariff on imported cars and parts. It simply requires the Commerce Department's investigation to be delayed while we get more facts about the impact of these tariffs on the automotive industry.

The President is right to focus on China. China steals our intellectual property, and it imposes other trade barriers. But tariffs on steel and aluminum and uncertainty surrounding the negotiation of NAFTA threaten to destroy many more U.S. jobs than they might save.

We should remember the lessons of history. Presidents have tried this before.

When I first came to the Senate, President George W. Bush imposed steel tariffs. Within a year, he dropped the idea because the tariffs destroyed more jobs in the automotive industry than existed in the steel industry at that time, according to the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition.

Let's look at today. Last year, the U.S. steel industry employed about 139,000 Americans, according to the Congressional Research Service. About 162,000 worked in the aluminum industry. That is around 300,000 Americans who work in the steel and aluminum industry. To put this in perspective, the automotive industry employs 20 times that many Americans--more than 7 million, according to the Auto Alliance, and 136,000 of those, as I have said, are Tennesseans.

There are only eight aluminum smelting plants operating in the United States that employ Americans. They employ about 4,000. Seven of those are actually producing. One is curtailed. Alcoa, which produces about half the aluminum produced in the United States, doesn't even want the tariffs. It makes me wonder, who does want the tariffs on aluminum?

The main reason those smelting plants--one of which is in my hometown and my father worked at for 40 years--have closed has nothing to do with trade. It is because aluminum plants need a lot of cheap electricity to run through the bauxite ore to make aluminum ingots, and they can't buy electricity that cheap in the United States. The 10- percent tariff already imposed on aluminum is not nearly enough to offset the cost of electricity.

The reason I have been so outspoken about this is that no state is more likely to be more damaged by tariffs on aluminum and steel and on automobiles and auto parts than Tennessee. In many ways, over the last 40 years, we have become the Nation's No. 1 auto State, with our more than 136,000 Tennesseans working in the automotive industry. There are three big assembly plants--General Motors, Volkswagen, and Nissan--and over 900 auto suppliers in 88 of our 95 counties. As Senator Jones said, 35 years ago, we were the third poorest state and textile plants were moving overseas. Things looked bleak for us. In came the auto industry with better paying jobs, and our family incomes have been going up ever since in almost every county. I don't want to see that hurt. Tennesseans who work in the auto industry would benefit, as they have under NAFTA, from zero tariffs instead of a trade war that piles tariffs on top of tariffs.

In conclusion, the President has gotten the world's attention with his tariffs. As a tactic, perhaps he is wise to do that. He had the President of the European Commission in his office today, but what should get more attention and what I hope gets more attention also from the President is the solution he talked about again today. ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies,'' the President said, ``the United States would be extremely pleased.'' That is the way it should be. Let's move toward that goal as rapidly as we can. Piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight is a trade war. It hurts American workers.

The basis of the President's solution is reciprocity--a word he has used many times--which means when it comes to trade, other countries should do for the United States what we do for them. Taking steps in that direction would be the right way to go.

In the meantime, the bill Senator Jones and I have introduced will make certain that President Trump has before him all the facts--in effect, a second opinion--before he makes a decision regarding the proposed 25-percent tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alabama for his leadership and his remarks.

The President of the United States has got the world's attention with his tariffs. He met today with the President of the European Commission, but what should get more attention than

the tariffs is President Trump's solution for the tariffs: zero tariffs, zero barriers--which, as the President said at the G7 summit in June, is the way it should be. He said that again last night and again today. After his meeting with the President of the European Commission in the Oval Office, President Trump said: ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies, the United States would be extremely pleased.''

Well, so would I, Mr. President, but that is not what is happening. Piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight is a trade war and will hurt American workers.

But the basis of the President's long-term solution is ``reciprocity,'' a word he has also used many times, which means, when it comes to trade, other countries should do for the United States what the United States does for them. Taking steps in the direction of reciprocity, rather than a trade war, would be much better for the American worker.

Today I have come to the floor with Senator Jones to introduce legislation that would delay the administration's proposed 25 percent tariff on automobiles and auto parts imported from other countries into the United States until the President has the benefit of a second opinion from the International Trade Commission about the effects those tariffs would have on the more than 7 million Americans who work in the auto industry.

After the President and the Congress have received the International Trade Commission's study and the President has this second opinion, he may still continue with the section 232 investigation if he chooses to do so.

I have no doubt that there is a trade problem, and some countries are taking advantage of us. I also have no doubt that shooting yourself in both feet at once is not the right solution to our problem, which is what would happen if we continue these tariffs for a long time. That is not the best way to solve the problem.

These tariffs are dangerous. These tariffs are going to cost us jobs. These tariffs are going to lower our family incomes. These tariffs are going to undo much of the good the President and the Congress have done during the last year and a half to create this booming economy, which is booming like none of us have seen for a long, long time. We don't want to interrupt that.

A better strategy is the one that the President himself has suggested and that I believe would be much more effective: Insist on reciprocity. Say to other countries: Do for our country what we do for you--just as the President said at the G7 summit: ``no tariffs, no barriers is the way it should be.'' And just as he said today to the President of the European Commission.

May I suggest a first step in that direction? It might be to agree on the same tariffs on light trucks and cars that are traded between the United States and the European Union. Currently, the European Union levies a 10-percent tariff on light trucks that come from the United States, and the United States levies a 25-percent tariff on trucks imported from the European Union. Similarly, the European Union levies a 10-percent tariff on cars imported from this country. The United States levies a 2.5 percent tariff on cars that come to us from Europe. A first step for the solution would be to make these tariffs the same.

Now, my late friend Alex Haley once told me that if I begin a speech by saying ``instead of making a speech, let me tell you a story,'' someone might actually listen to what I have to say. So let me tell you a story about how tariffs affect Tennessee.

This is a story about a Canadian company, Onward Manufacturing Company, which 8 years ago had a choice between locating its new plant either in the United States or in China. The company chose Dickson, TN, where today about 300 Tennesseans have good-paying jobs making Broil King gas grills, which the company then exports to Canada and Europe.

The company decided on Tennessee instead of China because NAFTA--the North American Free Trade Agreement--made it possible to buy materials and parts to manufacture their grills in the United States and Canada without paying tariffs. That is the advantage of zero tariffs.

Broil King buys the steel and aluminum the company uses to make grills from U.S. producers. But in 2016, our country imposed tariffs on steel from China that is used to manufacture grills. That increased the cost of imported steel, and that had the effect of increasing the price of steel made in the United States.

Then, on March 23 of this year, our country imposed another 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, after the Commerce Department's section 232 investigation concluded that those imports were a threat to national security. This also had the effect of raising the price of steel and aluminum that Broil King used to make gas grills in Dickson, TN. Prices for U.S.-produced steel that Broil King buys are up by 40 percent since January, according to the trade publication Steel Benchmark.

This is called shooting yourself in one foot. Now, here goes the other foot.

Europe and Canada then responded to the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum by imposing tariffs on U.S. products sold in Europe and Canada, including gas grills.

Broil King exports about 60 percent of the grills the company makes in Tennessee to Canada and Europe. Remember, they located their plant here so they could do that.

The company told me last week that they are losing money on every grill they sell in Europe because of the combination of steel and aluminum tariffs and the response by Europe and Canada.

Broil King is also hurt by the March 2018 announcement that tariffs would be imposed on $50 billion by the United States on Chinese goods because the company buys some parts from China that it uses to make gas grills in Tennessee.

Now, here is what is causing the owners of Broil King to wonder why they ever decided to locate a plant in Dickson, TN, instead of China. The new U.S. tariffs do not apply to barbecue gas grills made in China that are already assembled, which means that every one of Broil King's competitors in China can import their grills into the United States without any tariff on it.

So here is the bottom line. These new tariffs make it difficult to make a profit on gas grills made in Dickson, TN, and leave the U.S. market wide open for gas grills made in China.

That is what happened to one small company that employs 300 Tennesseans and buys its steel and aluminum from U.S. suppliers when we begin piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight. That is what happens with a trade war.

That is why I like what the President said this morning to the President of the European Commission. ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies,'' the President said, ``the United States would be extremely pleased.'' So would workers in Tennessee. That would be better for the 300 workers in Dickson, TN.

Here is another story. It is about Electrolux. I visited Springfield, TN, outside Nashville, a few weeks ago. The mayor and the chamber of commerce officials rushed up to me. The new tariffs on steel had been announced, and the largest employer in Springfield--Electrolux, which makes home supplies--had cancelled a $250 million expansion. Electrolux buys all of its steel from U.S. suppliers, but, of course, when you raise the price on imported steel, the price of U.S. steel also goes up, and Electrolux concluded that it could not be competitive in the U.S. market and with exports at the higher price.

Of course, it sounds good to say that putting a 10-percent tariff on Chinese-made goods is good for us, but Electrolux also buys some components made in China. Last week, the company said the latest U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made goods would cost the company $10 million during the second half of this year if the proposed 10 percent tariffs go into effect after a comment period ending in late August. That is Electrolux in Springfield, TN.

Now, if we were moving toward a policy of reciprocity--do for us what we do for you--there would be zero tariffs, and the people of Springfield would have a $250 million expansion and the jobs that come with it instead of a 25-percent tax on the U.S. steel that Electrolux buys.

Then there are the stories about the effects of steel and aluminum tariffs on

tire companies. We have three big tire companies in Tennessee. Bridgestone is one of them, with 1,700 employees. I will talk about it for just a moment.

Bridgestone tires all have steel cords to make them stronger. None of that steel is produced in the United States. All of it is imported. Now all of it has a 25-percent tax. Who pays that? The American consumer. The same must be true for every tire-making company.

Here is one more story. You have probably heard of Bush Brothers' beans. They can one-third of all the beans in the United States. Their plant is in Chestnut Hill, in the mountains of East Tennessee, near where I live.

The cans are made of tin-plated steel that is mostly imported. There is not enough produced in the United States. Bush Brothers & Company estimates that the new tariff on steel will reduce its revenues and raise prices by as much as 8 percent.

Even the workers in Chestnut Hill who can one-third of all of the beans in the United States would benefit from a zero tariff policy such as the one the President talked about today, instead of a trade war that piles tariffs on top of tariffs.

We have many more stories. We have over 900 auto parts suppliers in Tennessee. They are in 88 of our 95 counties. Almost all of them use steel and aluminum. When the prices go up, revenues and profits go down. That has an effect on 136,000 Tennesseans. Those are the people who work in our automotive industry. That is one-third of our entire manufacturing workforce.

Tariffs are taxes, pure and simple--taxes we pay. Existing tariffs on steel and aluminum are bad enough, but nothing could do more damage to Tennessee's auto industry than the proposed tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts. Those, combined with already imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, will cost us jobs and lower our family incomes.

I respectfully said to President Trump both publicly and privately that he and the Republican Congress have accomplished an enormous amount in 18 months. I am very proud of that. This booming economy is something that benefits so many Americans. But I am afraid that if we do not move quickly toward the President's announced long-term goal of no tariffs and that if we continue to pile tariffs on top of tariffs, we will take this economy in exactly the opposite direction and undo much of the good the Republican President and the Republican Congress have already done.

What would take us in the right direction is the goal of reciprocity that the President talked about today. That is why, in the meantime, until we shift gears into this long-term goal of no tariffs, no subsidies, no barriers, and take steps toward it, Senator Jones and I have developed this bill to make sure the President has all the facts before he makes a decision on the proposed 25-percent tariff on imported cars and parts. It simply requires the Commerce Department's investigation to be delayed while we get more facts about the impact of these tariffs on the automotive industry.

The President is right to focus on China. China steals our intellectual property, and it imposes other trade barriers. But tariffs on steel and aluminum and uncertainty surrounding the negotiation of NAFTA threaten to destroy many more U.S. jobs than they might save.

We should remember the lessons of history. Presidents have tried this before.

When I first came to the Senate, President George W. Bush imposed steel tariffs. Within a year, he dropped the idea because the tariffs destroyed more jobs in the automotive industry than existed in the steel industry at that time, according to the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition.

Let's look at today. Last year, the U.S. steel industry employed about 139,000 Americans, according to the Congressional Research Service. About 162,000 worked in the aluminum industry. That is around 300,000 Americans who work in the steel and aluminum industry. To put this in perspective, the automotive industry employs 20 times that many Americans--more than 7 million, according to the Auto Alliance, and 136,000 of those, as I have said, are Tennesseans.

There are only eight aluminum smelting plants operating in the United States that employ Americans. They employ about 4,000. Seven of those are actually producing. One is curtailed. Alcoa, which produces about half the aluminum produced in the United States, doesn't even want the tariffs. It makes me wonder, who does want the tariffs on aluminum?

The main reason those smelting plants--one of which is in my hometown and my father worked at for 40 years--have closed has nothing to do with trade. It is because aluminum plants need a lot of cheap electricity to run through the bauxite ore to make aluminum ingots, and they can't buy electricity that cheap in the United States. The 10- percent tariff already imposed on aluminum is not nearly enough to offset the cost of electricity.

The reason I have been so outspoken about this is that no state is more likely to be more damaged by tariffs on aluminum and steel and on automobiles and auto parts than Tennessee. In many ways, over the last 40 years, we have become the Nation's No. 1 auto State, with our more than 136,000 Tennesseans working in the automotive industry. There are three big assembly plants--General Motors, Volkswagen, and Nissan--and over 900 auto suppliers in 88 of our 95 counties. As Senator Jones said, 35 years ago, we were the third poorest state and textile plants were moving overseas. Things looked bleak for us. In came the auto industry with better paying jobs, and our family incomes have been going up ever since in almost every county. I don't want to see that hurt. Tennesseans who work in the auto industry would benefit, as they have under NAFTA, from zero tariffs instead of a trade war that piles tariffs on top of tariffs.

In conclusion, the President has gotten the world's attention with his tariffs. As a tactic, perhaps he is wise to do that. He had the President of the European Commission in his office today, but what should get more attention and what I hope gets more attention also from the President is the solution he talked about again today. ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies,'' the President said, ``the United States would be extremely pleased.'' That is the way it should be. Let's move toward that goal as rapidly as we can. Piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight is a trade war. It hurts American workers.

The basis of the President's solution is reciprocity--a word he has used many times--which means when it comes to trade, other countries should do for the United States what we do for them. Taking steps in that direction would be the right way to go.

In the meantime, the bill Senator Jones and I have introduced will make certain that President Trump has before him all the facts--in effect, a second opinion--before he makes a decision regarding the proposed 25-percent tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts.

Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Alabama for his remarks.

I come to the floor to discuss bipartisan legislation that he and I, as he said, plan to introduce as soon as next week to encourage the Trump administration to reconsider the dangerous steps it is taking to impose tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts.

I use the word ``dangerous'' because nothing has done more during the last 40 years to raise family incomes in Tennessee than the arrival of the auto industry, and nothing could do more damage to those family incomes than the proposed tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts, combined with the tariffs on imported steel and aluminum that the administration has already imposed.

We have heard the Senator from Alabama talk about his State. In my view, Tennessee is more likely to be hurt than any other State by these tariffs. Let me tell a short story to explain why I would make such a dramatic statement.

Forty years ago, I walked 1,000 miles across Tennessee in my campaign for Governor. In Rutherford County, outside Nashville, I spent the night with the Knight family. Mrs. Knight told me that her twin boys were bright but that she was sad because, as she put it, there are no jobs around here. She said: They are smart boys, and they will never get a job here, and I will never see my grandchildren.

Forty years ago, there were no auto jobs in Tennessee. We were the third poorest State. Our family incomes were the third lowest. Our low- paying textile jobs were fleeing outside of our country. Unemployment and inflation were high, and prospects were bleak. Then in 1980--just 2 years after that walk, when I was the Governor of Tennessee--Nissan from Japan arrived and came to Rutherford. Then General Motors, with Saturn, came to Spring Hill. Then Volkswagen came to Chattanooga. All had large manufacturing plants.

As the American automobile industry moved to the Southeastern United States, more than 900 auto part suppliers spread across 88 of Tennessee's 95 counties. Today, 136,000 Tennesseans--or one-third of our manufacturing workforce--work in those auto plants. Those auto jobs have become the main driver of family incomes, which have now risen to a little above the national average. Our economy is booming, and unemployment is at a record low.

Today, Tennessee produces 6.7 percent of all of the cars and trucks produced in the United States. Tennessee exported more than $5.5 billion worth of automobiles and auto parts last year. Tennessee has been the top State in auto manufacturing strength for 5 out of the last 8 years, according to Business Facilities.

Let me get back to my little story. Last year, one of those bright twins from Rutherford County--the Knight family--where I spent the night 40 years ago, Randy Knight, retired as the general manager of the Nissan plant, which is the largest and most efficient auto plant in North America. His brother works there, too, and so does one of those grandchildren whom the grandmother thought she would never see.

You can see why Tennesseans become very worried when anything threatens the auto industry that has transformed our State. Here is why the proposed tariffs do that.

As the Senator from Alabama said, tariffs are taxes. Tariffs are taxes on us, pure and simple. They make what we buy and sell more expensive. The laws of economics usually say that when you make what you buy and sell more expensive, you buy and sell less of it. If we sell fewer automobiles and automotive parts, there will be lower revenues, lower profits, fewer wage increases, and fewer jobs.

Since almost every one of the 900 auto part suppliers use steel and aluminum, lower revenues and smaller profits mean fewer wage increases and fewer jobs for the 136,000 Tennesseans who work in the more than 900 auto plants in our State. More expensive cars means fewer people in the United States buy those cars and fewer people overseas buy those cars--the cars we make. Fewer people buying cars and trucks means that 136,000 Tennesseans in America's No. 1 auto State are going to have a lower standard of living than they otherwise would and lower family incomes.

Why in the world would our government raise our taxes and destroy our jobs in this way? Well, the government's answer is that tariffs protect jobs in the steel and aluminum industry.

It is true that some steel and aluminum jobs might be saved, but in 2003, when President George W. Bush proposed steel tariffs, there were about 10 times as many people working in the steel-using industries as there were in steel-producing industries. Let me say that again. There were more people working in the steel-using industry than there were in the steel-producing industry.

President Bush dropped the idea after a year because the tariffs destroyed, as

I said, more jobs in other industries, including the automotive industry, than they saved in the steel-producing industry.

I know something about the aluminum industry. My dad worked most of his life at Alcoa's Tennessee aluminum smelting plant, which closed a few years ago because electricity was so much cheaper in other parts of the world. You use electricity--lots of it--to smelt aluminum. That is why those plants came to East Tennessee more than a century ago. But electric prices in the United States gradually rose over that century, and are still cheaper in other parts of the world. So today there are only eight smelting plants left in the United States. Seven of them are still in operation. Alcoa operates four and makes 46 percent--nearly half--of all of the aluminum produced in the United States. Alcoa opposes the aluminum tariffs because it also operates smelting plants in Canada and other countries that export aluminum to the United States.

The bottom line is this: The largest U.S. producer of aluminum, Alcoa, doesn't want the aluminum tariffs. The thousands of auto plants and other plants that use aluminum don't want the aluminum tariffs. So who is asking for the aluminum tariffs?

A second reason justifying tariffs is that other countries may have been unfair to the United States. There may be examples of that, but when did it become a good idea to solve your own problem by shooting yourself in both feet at once? It is hard to see how raising our taxes and destroying our jobs is a smart solution to unfair trade practices.

Then there is the question of whether tariffs help autoworkers. Raising taxes and prices and selling fewer cars wouldn't seem to help the American autoworker.

Will it cause foreign companies to build more cars in the United States? Well, that is already happening.

The foreign manufacturers have been doing exactly what we asked them to do. They have moved here. They produce cars and trucks here. They export many of those cars and trucks and auto parts to other countries. Today, about half the cars being built in America are being built by the so-called foreign manufacturers. Nissan's plant in Rutherford County employs 8,000 Tennesseans and is the largest and most efficient auto plant in North America.

I was with President Trump last year when he spoke in Michigan about all the autoworker jobs leaving the Midwest. Since 1994, 3.6 million of those jobs have left the Midwest, but they didn't go overseas; they moved to Tennessee and Alabama and other parts of the Southeastern United States, which gained 3.6 million auto jobs during the same period. Those new auto plants are in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Texas. Those are all States where the President is widely admired and States that he carried heavily in his election effort.

Those plants moved primarily to the Southeast because our part of the country offered right-to-work laws and an environment that allowed companies to make quality cars at a lower cost and sell them competitively here in the United States and around the world. In fact, my own view is that the movement of the American auto industry to the Southeast saved the American auto industry because where it was 25, 30, or 40 years ago was stuck in the Midwest in an oligopoly where the United Automobile Workers and three big companies were producing big, expensive cars, and the little foreign cars were coming in and eating their lunch in the marketplace. So now we have strong and effective American auto plants in the Midwestern United States and in the Southeastern United States, and half of them are made by so-called foreign manufacturers.

I agree with President Trump on many things--taxes, judges, regulations, the economy, Keystone Pipeline, and others. He has helped create today's booming economy and low unemployment. I give him credit for helping to do that, but these tariffs take us in exactly the opposite direction.

These tariffs are dangerous. These tariffs are going to cost us jobs. These tariffs are going to lower our family incomes. These tariffs are going to undo much of the good the President and this Congress have done during the last year and a half to create this booming economy.

I respectfully suggest that the President reconsider his trade policy, drop the tariffs as a tool for implementing his objectives, and find other, more effective means to persuade other countries to do for us what we do for them.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, today the Senate is finally voting to confirm James Blew, who has been nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education. He is well-qualified to lead that office. For 20 years, in various roles, he has advocated for improving educational opportunities by overseeing grants to low-income, high-risk schools. He has a M.B.A. from Yale University. He will be in charge of helping to manage the Department's budget and ensure that programs are working as intended.

Mr. Blew's sin with some of my friends on the other side is that he is in favor of giving low-income children a choice of a better school and in favor of

public charter schools, which gives teachers more freedom to teach and parents more freedom to choose the school for their child.

No one should be surprised that a Republican president would nominate such an Assistant Secretary of Education. Every Republican president has nominated assistant secretaries of education and secretaries of education--I was one of them--who support giving low-income children more choices of good schools--the same choices that wealthier children have--such as public charter schools.

As far as public charter schools go, every Democratic president since 1990, when the first charter schools were formed, has supported public charter schools.

Mr. Blew did not deserve to be subjected to the unreasonable delay and obstruction that the Democrats have given to his nomination. He was nominated on September 28, 2017, 292 days ago. We held a hearing on November 15, 2017, 244 days ago.

Going back to the Clinton administration, there had been no hearings for this position, but I held one anyway, as chairman of the committee, as a courtesy to Democrats. Then, Democrats forced Mr. Blew's nomination to be returned to the President at the end of the congressional session last year.

Let's see how that compares to how President Obama's first Assistant Secretary for the same job was treated. Carmel Martin was nominated on March 18, 2009, and was confirmed by voice vote without a hearing on May 1, 2009, 44 days later.

It is one thing to vote against a presidential nominee. That is appropriate. Any of us can do that. I think it is wrong to always vote against a presidential nominee just because you disagree with that nominee's point of view. Why would you not expect a Republican president to nominate an assistant secretary who favors giving poor children choices of good schools and supports public charter schools that were invented by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota and were supported by every Democratic president since 1990? So this unreasonable delay of a well-qualified Assistant Secretary is not good for the Senate, not good for the country, and not good for children who need that sort of leadership.

I support and urge my colleagues to vote for Mr. Blew.

I yield floor.

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

Mr. President, yesterday the Senate voted to confirm Scott Stump, who was nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary for Career, Technical, and Adult Education at the Department of Education. Mr. Stump will be in charge of matters related to career, technical, and adult education at the high school and postsecondary levels.

Stump is well-qualified for this role. He spent nearly 14 years at the Colorado Community College System as assistant provost for career and technical education, where he was in charge of directing the system's career and technical education programs and guiding implementation of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. He is also a past president of the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, now called Advance CTE. He is supported by the Association for Career and Technical Education and Advance CTE. He was approved by the HELP Committee on June 26, 2018, by voice vote.

Mr. Stump will be key in carrying out the Perkins Act reauthorization, which I expect Congress to complete its work on this year. The reauthorization, which aligns Federal dollars more closely with the needs of employers and employees and gives States more flexibility in spending Federal dollars, was passed out of the HELP Committee unanimously on June 26, 2018. The House of Representatives passed its reauthorization on June 22, 2017.

I look forward to working with Mr. Stump as he takes on this role at the Department of Education, and I urge my colleagues to support him as well.

Mr. President, in the next few minutes, the Senate will be taking the next steps on an appropriations process that is being conducted the way an appropriations process is supposed to be conducted. Boy Scouts shouldn't get a merit badge for telling the truth, and Senators shouldn't get a pat on the back for conducting an appropriations process the way it is supposed to be conducted. It is worth noting that we are doing it, since it has been a long time since we have done it.

The right way means we are moving ahead on three bills: Energy and Water, legislative affairs, and Military Construction. The right way means we have had hearings on all of these bills. We have consulted with Senators. I know that in our Energy and Water bill, Senator Feinstein and I heard from 83 different Senators and tried to respond to them in our bill. We marked up the bills unanimously in most cases.

What was missing was allowing the other 70 Senators to participate on the floor. We did that this time; 40 amendments, 7 rollcall votes. We got off the floor without a cloture vote; that is, a motion to cut off debate. We are doing it the way it is supposed to be done. That was done by showing something that needs to be shown more in the Senate-- restraint. Restraint means that when you have a lot of freedom, it doesn't mean you exercise all of your freedoms all at once because nothing will happen.

We avoided controversial riders. We even had 20 Republican Senators vote to table something we agree with, which is the waters of the United States provision, because we thought this was not the appropriate bill for it.

Now we are moving to motions to instruct, which are nonbinding resolutions. It is important, though, because they give the Senate a chance to say what Senators want to say. That is why we are here.

One of those issues has to do with tariffs. The administration has imposed tariffs on aluminum and steel, and now other products, provoking a response of tariffs on soybeans and other products grown and manufactured in our country. In general, these tariffs are a big mistake. Using national security as an excuse to impose them is an even bigger mistake.

I have urged President Trump instead to focus on reciprocity; tell other countries to do for our country what we do for you.

Imposing tariffs as a way of achieving that is like shooting ourselves in both feet as a way of solving our problem. Tariffs are taxes. They raise the price of what we buy and sell. Tariffs reduce revenues, profits, wages, and jobs.

U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel hurt 136,000 Tennesseans who work in more than 900 auto plants in 88 of our 95 counties; that is, one- third of our manufacturing jobs. Retaliatory tariffs hurt Tennessee soybean farmers by lowering prices and making markets disappear.

Our goal should be to persuade our trading partners to do for us what we do for them. Shooting ourselves in both feet at once is not a good way to do that. There are better ways to achieve the goal.

This doesn't just hurt auto parts workers in Tennessee. I was in Springfield, TN, the other day. They had been excited about an expansion of an Electrolux plant, a $250 million expansion for that community. Electrolux canceled it when word of the steel tariffs came, even though Electrolux, which makes washing machines, buys all of their steel in the United States. Tariffs on imported steel raise the price of steel sold in United States.

In Chestnut Hill, Bush Brothers cans about one-third of all beans canned in the United States. You wouldn't think that is such a big deal, but it involves a lot of people and a lot of beans. They say that 8\1/2\ percent of their revenues will go down as a result of the tin- plated steel that is used for their cans. Not enough is produced in the United States.

Then, we have Bridgestone and Hankook. They make tires in Tennessee. They are big companies. They use steel wire in every tire, and none of it is produced in the United States. The price goes up.

For 40 years, I worked to bring the auto industry to Tennessee. It has done more than anything that has happened to raise our standard of living, to raise families' incomes. Tariffs will lower our standard of living. They will hurt our State more than almost any other State.

As respectfully and as effectively as I can, I have said to the President: Mr. President, we agree on taxes. We agree on regulations. We agree on judges. We are proud of having the best economy in 18 years, the lowest employment rate that anyone can remember. But these tariffs are a big mistake. They will take us in the wrong direction.

I have not been successful in talking with the President about this, but I intend to keep trying. There are other, better ways to persuade our trading partners to do for us what we do for them instead of shooting ourselves in both feet at once, which is what we do when we impose these tariffs.

I yield the floor.