Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, the Senate will be voting soon on a bill to reauthorize the FISA Amendments Act. Most Americans likely do not recognize the name of the bill, but they probably know what this bill addresses--our government's surveillance of communications.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I have learned a great deal about our post-9/11 surveillance laws and how they have been implemented, and I have determined that there are reforms that need to be made to the FISA Amendments Act--specifically section 702--before we renew this law.

The single biggest flaw in section 702 is how it has been interpreted. The language of the law--the collection of foreign intelligence of U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States--anticipates that incidental or accidental collection of Americans' emails or even phone calls could occur, but under the FISA Amendments Act as written, there is nothing to prohibit the intelligence community from searching through a pile of communications collected under this statute to deliberately search for the phone calls or the emails of specific Americans. This is not what Congress intended when the law was written, and now we are being asked to vote on this law at the last minute with not a single amendment allowed.

Many of us have called this the backdoor search loophole since it allows the government to search for Americans' communications without a warrant--let me repeat that--without a warrant. The USA Rights Act, of which I am a cosponsor, includes a fix to this loophole. It also includes other key reforms to the statute that I support. But that commonsense bill is not the one on the floor today. The bill before us today would actually take us backward. It doesn't require a warrant to search for Americans' communications. It makes it quite easy to resume the ``about'' collections on Americans--a practice that the government has literally abandoned. It grants new authorities to allow section 702 data to be used in domestic criminal prosecutions of American citizens.

I strongly believe that the Federal Government needs a way to monitor foreign communications to ensure that we remain a step ahead of the terrorists and those who would threaten our national security. The FISA Amendments Act has been beneficial to the protection of our national security. I don't question the value of the foreign intelligence that this law provides. I have seen it with my own eyes. But I also strongly believe that we need to balance the civil liberties embodied in our Constitution with our national security imperatives. It is the responsibility of Congress to find that balance. The bill that is before us today could come closer to that standard if we improve it through the adoption of amendments that I and my colleagues would offer if we had the opportunity. But this bill is being fast-tracked, and we are left with only the choice of an up-or-down vote.

The American people deserve better than the legislation before us today. The American people deserve better than warrantless wiretapping.

I urge my colleagues to consider the gravity of the issues at hand and to oppose reauthorization until we can have a real opportunity for debate and reform.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, I rise today to stand up for the hundreds of thousands of young immigrants known as Dreamers, whose lives President Trump has thrown into terrifying uncertainty.

Immigrant communities have long helped write the economic, social, and cultural story of my home State of New Mexico and, for that matter, the entire Nation. That is certainly true for Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children and are vital members of communities across New Mexico.

Over the years, I have had the privilege of meeting many of New Mexico's estimated 7,000 Dreamers. I have met with students who grew up here and are now striving to become doctors, scientists, teachers, and even serve in our military. These young people are our children's classmates. They are our next-door neighbors. They are our colleagues. They are family members, and many are truly rising stars. In fact, I would argue that these Dreamers are the future of a great America.

Every day these young people add to the strength of our economy, to the vitality of our country. More than 97 percent of DACA recipients are in school or in the workforce.

The DACA Program allowed them to work legally, to get driver's licenses, to go to college, to serve in our military and give back to their communities. DACA helped almost 70 percent of recipients secure a job with better pay, and better pay leads to real investments in our communities and our economy.

After their DACA applications were approved, nearly two-thirds of recipients reported buying their first car, and almost one in six reported buying a new home. DACA recipients also paid billions of dollars in Federal, State, and local taxes. Why on Earth would

we kick out these contributors to our economy and our country?

The economic impact of removing nearly 700,000 workers from the U.S. workforce would be staggering. It would cost our economy nearly half a trillion dollars in GDP loss over the next decade. But passing the Dream Act could add an estimated $281 billion to the U.S. economy over the next 10 years. That, to me, sounds like putting America first.

I stand with these Dreamers, and I always have. One of my first actions when I was in the House of Representatives was to sign on as an original cosponsor of the Dream Act, which would create a pathway to legal status and citizenship for Dreamers who pursue higher education or serve our Nation in uniform. This commonsense, compassionate, and responsible policy is long overdue for a generation of young Americans.

Since President Trump made the heartless decision to end DACA, I have held his administration accountable for their mishandling of renewal applications for DACA recipients. My office has assisted Dreamers in New Mexico through the DACA renewal process and is actively participating in meetings with communities and local advocacy groups throughout the State.

I introduced legislation to safeguard Dreamers' private information, such as addresses and telephone numbers, so the Trump administration can't use those to target them or their families for deportation.

When my office learned that the Department of Homeland Security had arbitrarily rejected hundreds of renewal applications that arrived late because they were delayed by the Postal Service, I pressed the administration to take immediate action to reverse its decision. I am pleased to say that Dreamers whose applications were rejected due to Postal Service delays were allowed to resubmit their renewals for DACA. In fact, just last week, the first two DACA recipients in New Mexico, who brought this to my attention with the help of Catholic Charities, were told that they could move forward with their DACA renewal applications.

President Trump's decision means that until Congress passes the Dream Act, these young members of our communities still face deep uncertainty about whether they will be able to stay in school, keep working and contributing to our economy, and remain in the Nation that they call home.

Congress must pass the Dream Act now. Threatening to deport these young people who grew up in America and want to contribute to their Nation will not fix our broken immigration system. Making the American people foot the bill to build an unnecessary and wasteful border wall-- which families in New Mexico's border communities have told me they do not want nor do they need--will not fix our broken immigration system.

President Trump and congressional Republicans wasted an entire year trying to take away American's healthcare and then rushing through tax breaks for the superwealthy in the final weeks of the year. By squandering an entire year, they pushed Dreamers aside and put their lives in jeopardy.

I voted to fund the government through the holidays in hopes that Congress could finally reach an agreement to pass the Dream Act. We also urgently need to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program, fix wildfire disaster funding, provide disaster relief for Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from Hurricane Maria. Taking care of these long-neglected and bipartisan priorities is the bare minimum of governance. Republican leaders in Congress need to take this opportunity seriously, especially if they expect our support.

I will be fighting every step of the way to pass the Dream Act, and I encourage all of my colleagues to do the same.

Since President Trump shamefully pulled the rug out from under Dreamers when he hastily ended the DACA Program, I have spent time meeting with Dreamers in New Mexico, as well as here in Washington. You cannot hear their stories without realizing how morally bankrupt the administration's current policy is. It is impossible for me to convey the desperation and the fear they are feeling every day that passes without our passing the Dream Act.

Now is the time to give these young Americans a permanent place in this great Nation. Enough is enough. Their patience has worn thin with the President and congressional Republicans using them as political bargaining chips. It is immoral to play politics with the lives of these young Americans.

I will say it again. Congress absolutely must pass the Dream Act, and we have an opportunity to do it now.

We should not stop once we pass the Dream Act. Leaders in Congress have waited far too long to finally address our Nation's overall broken immigration system. I still continue to believe that our Nation urgently needs Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which includes a visa program that meets the needs of our economy. It is a tough but fair path to earn citizenship for the estimated 11 million people in our country who are undocumented and a plan that ensures community safety and security at our borders.

When I think about immigration, I always wonder how different my own life would be if America had turned my father away when he immigrated here as a young boy. Our Nation's enduring spirit has been built by the hard work and the dreams of so many striving young immigrants like my father in the 1930s and like so many Dreamers today. No Member of Congress should be able to rest until Dreamers are able to rest easy, knowing they will be able to stay and to contribute to literally the only Nation they have ever called home.

Thank you.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, it is an honor to recognize Dr. Charles McMillan for his leadership and service at Los Alamos National Laboratory as he plans his retirement at the end of this year.

For 6 years, Dr. McMillan has served as director of Los Alamos, which employs some of the best and brightest minds in the Nation and is indispensable to our Nation's security and scientific and technology innovation.

It has been a pleasure to work with Dr. McMillan to support LANL's national security missions and position the lab so it will continue to play vital role in nuclear security, cutting-edge research, and scientific advances in the decades ahead.

Under Dr. McMillan's leadership, LANL has undertaken critical work to modernize our nuclear weapons complex through the Stockpile Stewardship Program.

The multidisciplinary science and engineering at LANL has also produced new materials and technologies with applications such as earth system modeling, supercomputing analysis, exploration of Mars, and improved responses to global health crises.

I have especially appreciated Dr. McMillan's commitment to working with the lab's surrounding communities in northern New Mexico.

The incredible success of Los Alamos depends on building trusting relationships with local communities.

I have been proud to work with Dr. McMillan to bring together LANL leadership, regional colleges, universities, and public schools to train more New Mexicans to become part of LANL's future workforce.

I am grateful for the steps Dr. McMillan has taken to engage with the regional coalition of LANL communities on important issues such as contracting with local small businesses and cleaning up legacy waste.

I commend Dr. McMillan for his incredible record of service to our Nation addressing some of our most complex issues and challenges.

It has been an honor for me to know Charlie, and I wish him the best in all of his future endeavors.

Mr. President, I want to start by thanking my Republican colleague from Maine, Senator Susan Collins, for her work on this legislation. In addition to her excellent work on the Intelligence Committee, her experience in homeland security and critical infrastructure was absolutely critical to the drafting of this legislation.

As current members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, we are continuing to work on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. Yesterday, our committee held an important open hearing where we had representatives from companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter. We know that Russian Government- linked actors purchased online advertisements last year in order to influence voters and, frankly, in order to divide Americans. Additionally, Russia used bots and trolls to spread misinformation and division organically through social media networks.

While the President has labeled reports of these ads as a ``hoax,'' now that Facebook has actually released many of those ads and acknowledged their extensive reach last year, I hope we can all agree that this is a problem which we must solve before future election cycles.

I have called on the Federal Election Commission to consider new guidance on how online advertisement platforms can better prevent foreign nationals from illicitly spending in future U.S. elections. I certainly support legislation to require the same transparency for online political ads that we currently enjoy for television or print or radio ads. These are simple, straightforward steps we can and must take to protect the sanctity of our democracy.

We also know, based on intelligence assessments, that as part of Russia's larger hostile effort to interfere in last year's election, Russian actors targeted State election voting centers and State-level voting registration databases--the very heart of the infrastructure we all rely on for free and fair elections. In my view, these intrusions demonstrate a troubling vulnerability to potential future cyber attacks and manipulations by foreign hackers of our elections and our democratic process.

Our democracy fundamentally hinges on protecting the rights of Americans to be able to fairly choose their own leaders. That is why I am proud to be partnering with Senator Collins in introducing the bipartisan Securing America's Voting Equipment Act, or the SAVE Act, to provide increased security for American election systems. I am proud to join Senator Collins on the floor today to demonstrate our commitment to being able to move forward in a bipartisan and pragmatic way to find solutions to protect the integrity of that voting process.

Our bipartisan legislation would permanently designate State-run election systems as ``critical infrastructure,'' and it would require the Department of Homeland Security to create a Federal grant program to help States upgrade the physical, electronic, and even the administrative components of their voting systems and develop those best practices that Senator Collins mentioned in her speech earlier.

The SAVE Act would also require the Director of National Intelligence to sponsor security clearances to the officials responsible for the administration and certification of Federal elections in each State-- usually our secretaries of state. The Director of National Intelligence would then share all appropriate classified information with those State officials to help them protect their election systems from these kinds of security threats.

Finally, the SAVE Act would create a Federal competition that would award computer programmers who discover vulnerabilities in nonactive voting systems so that the equipment and the software vendors can work to fix those vulnerabilities.

The SAVE Act does not aim to tell States how to conduct their elections or what policies or procedures or equipment is best where they are; rather, this bill is designed to facilitate information sharing with States, to provide guidelines on how best to secure those systems, and to allow States to access funds to develop solutions and implement best practices in response to these threats.

I consulted closely with my own Secretary of State from New Mexico, Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, in drafting this legislation to ensure that it provides the security measures State election officials need to keep our voting systems secure. I commend Secretary Toulouse Oliver for her tremendous leadership in the effort to safeguard election infrastructure at the State level.

We are at a critical juncture in the Russia investigation in which the public is beginning to see the tactical evidence of how the Kremlin sought to influence our elections and divide our populous. Until we set up stronger protections of our election systems and take the necessary steps to prevent future foreign influence campaigns, our Nation's democratic institutions will remain vulnerable. But we have the tools to fix those vulnerabilities. I look forward to working with Senator Collins and all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ensure that we do that.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I was unavoidably absent due to a family issue for rollcall votes Nos. 250, 251, and 252. Had I been present, I would have voted yea on No. 250, cloture on Palk; yea on No. 251, confirmation on Palk; and yea on No. 252, cloture on McFadden.

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

Mr. President, I rise to oppose this deeply flawed budget that is terrible for America and particularly harmful to working families.

The Republican plan that we face today is a budget-busting first step toward issuing massive tax breaks to special interests and to wealthy individuals. This proposed budget fails to improve economic growth or to drive up wages. It should look awfully familiar to all of us because it is a retread of the failed trickle-down economics which exploded budget deficits in the 1980s and squandered the budget surplus we had briefly in the early 2000s. That trickle-down theory ruined our budget and failed to grow the economy then, and we cannot afford to relive those failed policies now.

Our Nation faces significant economic challenges today that need to be addressed directly. Wages have barely improved in the past 20 years; the costs of education, childcare, and other essential living expenses continue to climb.

Job creation is slowing. From February through September of this year, the economy added the lowest number of jobs in 7 years. Wages are also falling this year. Since the Trump administration took over, 39 States and the District of Columbia have seen workers' wages decline, after adjusting for inflation. Nearly 4 in 10 rural families don't have access to high-speed internet and the opportunities it affords.

We all know many of the communities we represent, in both rural and urban areas, still have not fully recovered from the great recession. Yet this budget only makes life harder for working families by cutting vital programs and critical services that invest directly in those communities. The Republican budget ignores our current reality and makes it tougher for American families to afford a college education or access quality healthcare coverage. As we saw through last week's executive actions, the Trump administration remains singularly focused on taking away healthcare from 20 million Americans and sabotaging the system for those left. This proposed budget would take us deeper down that destructive path.

The Republican 2018 budget cuts more than $5 trillion over the next decade in healthcare, education, transportation, medical research, and other critical investments. It slashes Medicaid by $1 trillion and Medicare by more than $470 billion. When they are done, these budget- busting tax giveaways will leave other Federal efforts with a gaping $660 billion hole, bringing our domestic Federal investments as a share of our Nation's GDP to the lowest levels since the Hoover administration.

If you are at home listening, all of that sounds pretty unbelievable. Washington Republicans wouldn't really jeopardize our Nation's healthcare, our educational system, our rural communities, and bust the budget all at the same time, right? Unfortunately, all of that is true when we look at the details of this failing budget. Again, this is all based on a brazen theory that led to the failed and harmful tax policies of the past.

The real question we should be asking now is, How do we improve our communities, grow our economy, and drive up wages for hard-working families? That is what I am focused on when I look at the budget.

Republicans believe step one should be to take funds out of Medicare, out of education, out of infrastructure, and pull healthcare away from the working poor. Then step two of their plan is to give all that money to wealthy political interests under the ruse that regular people, someday, will be better off because America's elite investing class will have done something spectacular with the money we just sucked out of our communities.

It is truly amazing that this idea continues to resurface because the promise of wild economic growth and trickle-down benefits has failed to materialize time and time again. What we have found is, working families, rural communities, and others who are robbed to finance this type of plan are the ones who suffer, all to put money into other people's pockets.

Who exactly loses in this budget? For starters, senior citizens, who will see Medicare cut $470 billion, to be exact. Let me say that again. This Republican budget cuts Medicare to the tune of nearly half a trillion dollars.

Children, working families, and people in need of opioid treatment will be pounded by Medicaid cuts of more than $1 trillion. Medicaid cuts will lead to millions losing their coverage. They will unravel the progress we have made fighting the opioid epidemic, jeopardize mental health coverage, and force many rural hospitals to close.

The hit will be especially hard in rural areas, where more than 12 percent of rural hospital revenue comes from Medicaid. In New Mexico, Medicaid actually accounts for more than 20 percent of hospital revenue in rural areas.

For seniors, the Medicare and Medicaid cuts together will have devastating consequences. Let's look at one example, Alzheimer's disease. Medicare and Medicaid together pay for nearly 70 percent of care for those 65 and older with Alzheimer's. These deep cuts will force families to make a terrible choice between working and caring for their family members. Already, 15 percent of caregivers to someone with Alzheimer's have left their jobs or retired early in the past year due to their caregiving responsibilities. Cutting Medicare and Medicaid, when Alzheimer's costs are getting higher and no cure is in sight, will saddle individuals and their families with massive costs and hardship.

The devastation this budget will create does not stop there. More than 8 million students will see their Pell grants cut by one-third. That is right. Republicans want to cut investments in education so they can give special interests a tax break. These are Americans who are striving for a college degree, who just want a fair shot at opportunity without being crushed by debt. Pell grants are the primary form of financial aid for so many students, giving them access to an education that might otherwise be out of reach.

This chart pretty much sums up what I have been saying about the priorities reflected in this budget: tax cuts over investments in things like Medicare, Medicaid, education. The picture is pretty clear. They are taking direct investments away from our people and our communities and instead giving those dollars away as part of a convoluted plan that leaves the wealthy better off.

What is more amazing about this plan is that Republicans have changed budget rules to allow them to add $1.5 trillion to the debt while doing it. For many years, the Conrad rule in the Senate specifically prohibited reconciliation legislation from increasing the deficit in the first 10 years. It was what reconciliation bills were designed to do--reduce the deficit. Then, Republicans repealed that rule in 2015 and

threw any illusion of fiscal responsibility out the window.

Remember when Republicans believed in fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets? Under President Trump, Republicans barely give these values lip service--and this year's budget goes even further than before to reject fiscal reason. It removes a Senate requirement for the CBO--the Congressional Budget Office--to issue a cost estimate a day ahead of votes on the Senate floor, the so-called 28-hour rule. Why? Because they want to hide how fiscally irresponsible these votes are from their constituents and the American people.

Finally, the Republican budget assumes far faster growth than the CBO could possibly justify under even the rosiest assumptions. This backward math says that their budget magically delivers $1.24 trillion in deficit reduction. According to the Tax Policy Center, the Republican tax plan will reduce revenues by $2.4 trillion over the first 10 years and another $3.2 trillion over the next 10 years. The actual cost far exceeds the Republican estimates.

Where do all the tax cuts go? Most of them go to wealthy folks who are doing just fine without them. We don't need to be doling out tax breaks to wealthy trust-funders when families in Las Cruces, Gallup, and Santa Rosa are struggling to make ends meet, don't have high-speed internet, and haven't gotten a raise in years, in some cases.

Under this Republican plan, the top 0.1 percent will receive a tax cut of more than $700,000 a year. It would take a typical household in my State nearly 15 years--15 years of work and earning--just to match the giveaway being provided to a single wealthy investor under this budget. That is not just wrong, it is downright sickening.

Part of this massive benefit to the rich comes from the creation of a special rate for passthrough income of 25 percent. This plan is designed to help large law firms and hedge funds that, in my mind, don't need a special tax break to further enrich themselves. Millions of working families will actually face higher taxes as a result. Under the Republican tax plan, nearly 8 million working households will actually see an average tax hike of $794. Now, $800 may not seem like a lot if you are working on Wall Street, but $800 is a lot for people working hard on relatively modest incomes in New Mexico.

Unfortunately, as I said earlier, we have seen this movie before. We don't need another bad sequel.

This Republican plan delivers higher deficits and fewer community investments. Tax cuts in 1981 and the early 2000s led to less revenue as a share of GDP and higher deficits. The national debt nearly tripled under President Reagan and nearly doubled under President George W. Bush.

We have also seen the dangers of reckless tax cuts for the wealthy at the State level. In Kansas, Republicans slashed individual rates by more than 20 percent and abolished taxes on passthrough income. Sound familiar? Since the tax cuts were enacted in 2012, the State's revenue plummeted, and Kansas has buckled under an economy that has trailed the United States in job, wage, and economic growth.

A recent study found that for tax cuts to pay for themselves, the economy would have to grow $5 to $6 for every single dollar of cuts. Yet the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found that tax cuts generate nowhere near that amount. According to them, each dollar of tax cuts would lead to only 4 cents to, at best, $1.25 in new economic activity.

The evidence is clear. Large tax cuts for special interests and for the rich simply don't pay for themselves. As we have seen, time and time again, trickle down only works in fake, so-called think tank models, not in real life.

Rather than rely on disproven theories, we should be investing in what we know actually works in increasing wages and accelerating economic growth. Expanding the earned-income tax credit, for example, has proven to be effective at increasing the living standards of working families. It effectively raises their wages. Let's strengthen and make fully refundable the child tax credit.

Instead of slashing infrastructure spending, as this budget does, we should be investing to prepare our Nation to compete. Investing in infrastructure is proven to create good-paying jobs and stimulate our overall economy. President Trump talked about infrastructure investment incessantly on the campaign trail. Where is that rhetoric today? Where is that commitment today? Sending kids to high-quality pre-K is shown to improve both theirs and, for that matter, their parents' economic outcomes.

We need to invest in clean energy because it is cheaper, because it is good for the economy, and because all of our future livelihoods depend on addressing climate change. The renewable energy sector is a place where jobs are growing rapidly in New Mexico--and not just in urban metro areas but especially in rural communities.

We need to invest in Federal research and development that has led to the internet, to the GPS, to the laser, and to lifesaving medical breakthroughs. We must ensure that startups can access the capital they need to launch and grow their businesses, whether they are in rural New Mexico or downtown Detroit. We need to close the digital divide so that every person in America, regardless of ZIP Code, has access to high- speed internet that connects people and communities to financial and educational opportunities.

Democrats have a plan to grow the economy, to increase wages, and to improve the lives of folks who work on Main Streets across this country. Our plan connects people with the opportunities that will exist tomorrow.

The Republican plan is very different. It is written by the lobbyists on K Street, with much of the benefit flowing to the investment bankers on Wall Street. Regrettably, Republicans are pursuing the same partisan process with the budget and with tax reform that failed when they tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The cost of Republican chaos and backward thinking is growing by the day, and this budget will continue that process. We need bipartisan, pragmatic solutions to the challenges that our country faces.

To all of my colleagues, we are asking simply to do what we know works. Let's work across the aisle through regular order to get things done for our constituents.

Mr. President, I yield back.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I am really proud to come to the floor today to join my fellow Senator from New Mexico, Tom Udall, to recognize the life and service of the longest serving Senator from our incredible State of New Mexico, Senator Pete Domenici.

Senator Domenici dedicated his entire life to the State and to the people he loved. He served our State in the Senate for 36 years. His decades of service to New Mexico left a lasting impact that will continue to be felt in every corner of our State for many years to come. Many in New Mexico called him Saint Pete because of how relentlessly he fought on the Appropriations and Budget Committees to secure resources for the people of New Mexico. We can still see the fruits of his labors at our State's National Labs, at our military installations, at our colleges and universities, and in water systems and community centers all over our State. That is because, while he worked on the forefront of major policy debates here in the Senate, Pete Domenici always put the interests of New Mexico above all else.

Like myself, Senator Domenici's first public service experience came on Albuquerque's City Council, then called the City Commission. And, at least in my experience, I know that working at that local level was an invaluable way to learn how to hear from diverse viewpoints and stakeholders and find ways to build consensus and get the results for your constituents that you hope to achieve. I have tried to bring that approach with me into the Senate, and I know that Senator Domenici was, in part, so successful because of the skills he learned there.

I am grateful for the example Senator Domenici set for all of us here in this body on how to advance important and complex policy goals in Washington with civility for our colleagues. Republicans and Democrats alike who worked with him on issues like the budget, energy, national defense, nuclear deterrence, and mental health parity still point to his dedication to bipartisan cooperation and compromise.

Although they didn't always see eye to eye, Senator Domenici, a Republican, and Senator Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat, who served New Mexico alongside him for the vast majority of his time in the Senate, always made a point of improving the lives of New Mexicans by working together. It set a great example for people like me to watch how the two of them worked together. Their spirit of cooperation across party lines is still present in our State's congressional delegation, and I believe Senator Domenici's focus on putting policy results above party politics still resonates today.

One of the greatest examples of this was Senator Domenici's work alongside two progressive Democratic lions of the Senate--Paul Wellstone and Ted Kennedy--to pass mental health parity legislation. Senators Domenici and Wellstone didn't agree on many issues, but they found they both had close, personal experience with and a passion for mental health parity. Both Senators had close family members who had experienced the great challenges of finding a way to pay for mental health treatment. Insurance companies were not required to cover mental health and addiction treatment in those days in the same way they covered treatment for so many other illnesses and diseases. Because of that, most insurance companies simply didn't cover these essential services at all.

Starting in the mid-1990s, Senators Domenici and Wellstone worked together with mental health advocates to advance legislation to finally change that.

After Senator Wellstone was killed in a tragic plane crash, Senator Domenici kept up the fight for 6 more years with a new partner in Senator Kennedy. The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act was finally passed in October of 2008, only a few months before Senator Domenici's retirement from the Senate.

That is the type of bipartisanship, legacy, and statesmanship on behalf of the American people that I hope we will all remember for a long, long time to come. We should all try better to keep that spirit alive in the Senate today.

I join all New Mexicans and all Americans in mourning the passing of Senator Pete Domenici. Our thoughts, our deepest condolences, and our prayers are with his wife Nancy and all of his family and loved ones at this time of great loss, for their family and for the State. I am certain that Senator Domenici's legacy will not be forgotten in New Mexico and will not be forgotten in the U.S. Senate.

Mr. President, after the rushed and secretive effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed earlier this year, I had hoped that we could finally turn the corner and move forward in a bipartisan fashion to find some real solutions to our Nation's remaining healthcare challenges.

I still believe that most of us here in the Senate--including Senators Alexander and Murray in the HELP Committee--are willing to work across party lines to find consensus on pragmatic improvements. That is why I was so appalled that President Trump and Republican leadership are reviving a last-ditch effort to pass a disastrous bill that would upend our healthcare system and take away insurance coverage from millions of Americans.

Worse yet and even harder to believe, the bill that Republican leadership is rushing to the floor for a vote this week potentially is actually worse than any previous versions of this legislation. The so- called Graham-Cassidy bill they are hoping to vote on would mean higher premiums for worse coverage and millions of Americans losing their health insurance. It will permanently gut Medicaid. Let me say that again. It will permanently gut Medicaid. And despite promises to the contrary that Republicans have long made, it would end key protections for people with preexisting conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease. In short, it would throw our entire

healthcare system into chaos. That is just awful policy any way you look at it.

How did we get here? For over 7 years, Republicans in Washington have cheered shortcomings in our healthcare system and blamed the Affordable Care Act for every single problem, under the premise that they would do better if we only put them in charge. The trouble has been that their opposition to the ACA has been more rooted in bumper sticker politics than it ever was about actual policy or plans to do better for the American people. The long-lasting effort on display throughout this year in the Senate is only further evidence that President Trump and Republicans in Congress don't have any real solutions to improve our Nation's healthcare system.

After months of negotiations behind closed doors, when Senate Republicans released their secret TrumpCare bill in July, its contents proved too harmful for passage, even in their own caucus. Now they are hoping for one more last-ditch vote before the end of September to pass something, anything to follow through on their reckless mission.

One consequence of this legislation that is so important to my home State of New Mexico is that if we pass this bill, it will spell the end to any progress we have made in fighting our Nation's opioid and heroin epidemic. It is nothing short of hypocrisy for President Trump to say they are taking this major public health crisis seriously when they are supporting this bill.

Ironically, the bill before us actually does less to combat opioids than the bill that was too draconian and damaging to pass last time. It is not just the behavioral health system and opioid treatment that will be upended if we dismantle the Medicaid Program; Medicaid pays for seniors in nursing homes, for school nurses who care for our kids, and for Americans with disabilities, and Medicaid has been a financial lifeline for hospitals and health clinics in rural communities across this Nation. I know this because I have heard it directly from our rural health providers in New Mexico. If we pass these drastic cuts to Medicaid, some of our rural health providers in New Mexico may very well have to close up shop.

This is not some partisan assessment; this is what will happen according to many experts and people in the healthcare field who have nothing political at stake in this debate. The Medicaid directors for all 50 States and the Republican and Democratic Governors alike have come out against this bill.

Look, I am not outraged about all of this because I am a Democrat or because of what I think of President Donald Trump; I am outraged about this bill because of what it will do to New Mexico families and to the communities I represent.

If we can halt this mad rush, we could all--Democrats and Republicans--get to work on the problems with healthcare that we all agree need attention. There is work to be done, no doubt about it. There is still time to do what is right for the American families who elected us to work together and make their lives better. The Graham- Cassidy bill simply does not do that. There is still time to change course--to go through regular order, to hold hearings--plural--and to build a consensus on fixes and improvements to the healthcare system. As Senator McCain told us all earlier this year, ``We've been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle.'' Well said.

There is a better way forward. I am confident that most of us would welcome a bipartisan, regular order approach. We need to remember that there are real people's lives that hang in the balance in this debate. I have heard so many New Mexicans talk about what health coverage means to them and their families. I don't know about you, but that is whose interests I am looking out for.

Real, bipartisan solutions to the challenges in our healthcare system are within reach if President Trump and the Republican leadership would just be willing to let us work together to find them.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. President, for over 7 years, Republicans in Washington have cheered shortcomings in our healthcare system and blamed the Affordable Care Act for every problem under the premise that they would do so much better if just put in charge.

Repealing the law made for great bumper stickers and great campaign promises, but the trouble is that their opposition to the ACA has always been more about politics than it ever was about actual policy or, for that matter, plans to do better for the American people.

The shockingly rushed and secretive effort on display this week in the Senate is only further evidence that President Trump and Republicans in Congress don't have any real solutions to improve our Nation's healthcare system. After months of negotiations behind closed doors, when Senate Republicans released their secret TrumpCare bill, its contents proved too harmful for passage, even among themselves. Stuck without a path forward, their latest idea is to pass a small backroom deal before sundown today--which no one has seen yet--and then go to conference with the tea party and the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives.

While we still don't know what we will be voting on, we know that the so-called skinny repeal bill would mean higher premiums and millions of Americans losing their healthcare coverage, not to mention deep cuts that would dismantle the Medicaid Program as it currently exists and throw millions of Americans off their healthcare coverage and put our entire healthcare system into chaos--all to give a massive tax break to the wealthiest among us. That is awful policy any way you look at it.

Since January, I have heard from literally thousands of New Mexicans who have told me how important their healthcare coverage is to them and their families. What answers do President Trump and Republicans in Congress have for the grandmother in Santa Fe who wonders where she will go when her nursing home closes because of Medicaid cuts or the woman in Albuquerque who wrote to me about how scared she is about losing access to mental healthcare for her depression and anxiety? What are they going to tell the single mother in Rio Rancho who relies on Medicaid to cover her children's medical costs or the young man in Espanola who needs treatment

to get clean from opioid addiction? These New Mexicans and millions of other Americans will be harmed if this bill becomes law.

I am not outraged about all of this because I am a Democrat or because of what I think of President Trump. I am outraged about this bill because of what it will do to my constituents in New Mexico. I will do everything I can to oppose this appalling legislation and this appalling process and fight to keep quality healthcare accessible and affordable for New Mexicans.

If we can halt this mad rush, we can all work--Republicans and Democrats--to get to the things that we agree need fixing in our system. There is much work to be done there, no doubt about it.

As Senator McCain told us all Tuesday: ``We have been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle.''

There is a better way forward. We can come together and work on the things that we know need to be fixed in the ACA. People's lives hang in the balance. There are real bipartisan solutions if we can get back to regular order.

I want to thank my colleague from New Mexico for his incredible leadership in this debate and say how hard we are going to work to make sure that we keep fighting for our constituents in New Mexico on this healthcare legislation.

Mr. President, I would ask if the Senator would yield.

Will the Senator from Wyoming yield for a question?

Madam President, I intend to offer the following motion to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I intend to offer the following motion to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I want to start by thanking my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Udall, for his advocacy on behalf of the pieces and parts of our healthcare system that are so important to the State of New Mexico. Things like rural hospitals, opioid treatment, Indian Country, he has been an incredible champion on those. That is part of the reason why both of us come to the floor today, given what is at stake.

Last month, President Trump and House Republicans rushed through a disastrous healthcare bill that would leave average New Mexico families paying thousands of dollars more for less healthcare coverage. It would destroy the Medicaid Program as it currently exists in our State and throw our entire healthcare system into chaos. Now Senate Republicans are drafting their own version of a similar healthcare bill in complete secret, behind closed doors, with absolutely no--none--bipartisan input.

This lack of transparency and departure from regular order is unacceptable and deeply irresponsible, especially when every single American family's healthcare coverage is at stake if this bill ever becomes law.

While we don't know for sure what the Senate Republicans' version of TrumpCare will look like, media reports say it is shaping up to look more and more like the train wreck of a bill that President Trump and House Republicans celebrated in the White House Rose Garden just a couple months ago, a bill President Trump reportedly said in another closed-door meeting with Republican Senators last week was, in his words, ``mean'' and cold-hearted.

The House-passed TrumpCare bill is devastating to low-income families, to seniors, to Americans living with preexisting conditions. This isn't so much a healthcare bill as it is a tax cut for the ultrarich masquerading as healthcare reform. You don't have to take my word for it. You can look at how the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office described its projected impacts of the House-passed TrumpCare bill.

According to the CBO's analysis, TrumpCare would strip 14 million of their health insurance next year and 23 million by 2026, all to give tax breaks to the wealthiest of Americans. That is reckless, and frankly it is inexcusable by any measure.

How would the bill do that? The House-passed bill, which again seems to be the baseline for the ongoing secret negotiations here in the Senate, would slash funding for the Medicaid Program by hundreds of billions of dollars and end the need-based tax credits for individual healthcare market plans under the ACA.

I have heard from so many New Mexicans who have told me how access to healthcare coverage has helped their families and, in some cases, even saved their lives.

I recently met with patients at the Ben Archer Health Center, a rural health clinic in Hatch, NM, and heard firsthand how important Medicaid coverage can be to families in Southern New Mexico. One of the New Mexicans I met there was Anna Marie, a Las Cruces native who worked for the Las Cruces public food service for 22 years.

Anna Marie's husband passed away in 2008, and when she found herself unable to keep working following a minor stroke, she could not afford healthcare coverage on her own. When she reached out to my office last year, she had bronchitis and walking pneumonia. My staff helped her enroll in Medicaid, and now she is able to get access to the care she needs.

I want to take a moment to explain why the Medicaid Program is so critical in my home State of New Mexico. As a Medicaid expansion State, New Mexico has seen dramatic gains over the last 5 years in coverage for the folks who need it the most. Stories like Anna Marie's illustrate just how important Medicaid can be for hard-working New Mexicans.

Medicaid currently provides affordable healthcare coverage to over 900,000 New Mexicans, including many schoolchildren, seniors in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, people with disabilities, and people who need treatment for mental health and addiction.

Just one example of the wide-ranging consequences of the Republican healthcare plan's drastic cuts to the Medicaid Program would be the end to any possible progress we have made so far in fighting the opioid and heroin epidemic. The opioid addiction epidemic has been deeply felt in communities across the State of New Mexico. For years, without adequate treatment resources, our State has suffered through some of the highest rates of opioid and heroin addiction in the Nation.

I would just note that today a story came out about how we hospitalized in the ER long-term care or hospital care 1.3 million Americans last year because of this epidemic. However, when provided with an opportunity to receive comprehensive treatment and rehabilitation, people who have suffered through the trials of opioid addiction can and do turn their lives around.

Evidence-based treatment works, but it is only possible when we devote real resources to pay for it. So much of that comes directly through the Medicaid Program. As we can see on this chart, Medicaid pays for 30 percent of opioid medication-assisted treatment in New Mexico--30 percent. It is the foundation to build on for opioid treatment.

In States like West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky, Medicaid pays for nearly half of opioid treatment payments. This came up just last Friday when the White House hosted its first meeting for President Trump's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. The President's top advisers probably didn't hear what they would have liked to from the advocates who have been on the front lines of fighting the growing opioid crisis.

For example, Dr. Joe Parks, the medical director for the National Council for Behavioral Health, told the President's Commission:

Medicaid is the largest national payer for addiction and

mental health treatment. Since the majority of increased

opiate deaths and suicide occur in young and middle-aged

adults, which is the Medicaid expansion population, the

Medicaid expansions must be maintained and completed.

It is nothing short of hypocrisy for the Trump White House to claim it is taking steps to address the opioid epidemic when it is helping Republicans in Congress push through legislation that would end the Medicaid Program as we know it. Slashing hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal funding from the Medicaid Program will ultimately pass all of those costs on to the States. Let me give a sense for just how big a burden that would be.

In New Mexico, it is estimated that our State government would have to either come up with a way to raise $11 billion of new taxes over the next decade or cut the equivalent amount of coverage for the hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans who rely on the program. That is a hit to the State budget of 1 billion-plus dollars a year. This would have an especially hard impact on our State's rural communities.

When you go to small towns in New Mexico, like Clayton, Raton, and Santa Rosa, as I did last fall on a rural healthcare listening tour, you see right away the vital role hospitals play in rural communities. In most cases, these hospitals are the only healthcare providers for many miles in any direction.

Hospitals are also often the major employer in these small towns. Rural healthcare providers face enormous challenges because it is financially difficult to provide care to populations that live over vast spaces and are, on average, older, less affluent, and more prone to chronic diseases than those in more urban and suburban communities.

Medicaid expansion and the need-based tax credits for individual healthcare market plans in the ACA have been critical financial lifelines for rural healthcare providers. Thanks to the coverage gains we have seen in New Mexico, instead of seeing uninsured patients coming to the emergency room during expensive medical emergencies, our rural healthcare providers are able to help New Mexicans live healthier lives with primary care and a preventive medicine approach.

When medical emergencies do arise, New Mexicans have coverage that helps rural healthcare providers cover those expenses. If President Trump and Republicans in the Senate pass their healthcare bill, all of that could go away, and some of our rural healthcare providers may very well have to close up shop.

Right now, more than one-third of rural hospitals are already at risk of closure. If you look at where the hospitals that have been forced to shut down in recent years are located, they are almost all in States that chose not to expand Medicaid. We should learn a lesson from that.

I know for a fact that if hospitals shut down, healthcare delivery in rural New Mexico would be decimated and economic impact would be severe in these small towns. It is estimated that when a single hospital closes in a small rural community, nearly 100 jobs are lost, taking more than $5 million directly out of the local economy.

A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute estimates that if Congress passes TrumpCare into law, New Mexico alone would see a loss of almost 50,000 jobs by the year 2022. Thanks in large part to the major coverage gains that we have seen under the ACA, the healthcare sector has been New Mexico's strongest area of job growth for the last 5 years. New Mexico added over 4,000 healthcare jobs in 2015 alone.

A couple of months ago, I met with students at Central New Mexico Community College, CNM, in Albuquerque, who were training for those healthcare jobs. These bright young people want to make careers out of making their communities healthier and safer. With this dangerous legislation moving through Washington, they are all worried about what it might mean for their future career plans.

Why would we want to rip the rug out from under them by wreaking havoc on the Nation's healthcare system? Again, you really have to ask yourself why Republicans are so intent on rushing through a massive piece of legislation before we can even understand its potential harmful consequences.

As I said earlier, I have heard from literally thousands of New Mexicans who have called in or written or come up to me on the street to oppose this legislation. Many of them have told me how it will directly impact their families. I could pick any one of these stories to demonstrate what is at stake in this debate, but I will leave you with just one.

Brittany, from Aztec, NM, wrote me about her two young children who were diagnosed with a rare form of food allergies that created absolutely unaffordable costs through her husband's employer-provided healthcare plan.

Brittany said that she and her husband were averaging three doctors' visits a week and were ``barely keeping [their] heads above water just from paying co-pays.''

After applying for Medicaid, she and her husband have full coverage for their children's medical costs. Brittany wrote to me and said:

For us Medicaid is literally lifesaving. Please do not take

away this program or any of the ACA! It may not be perfect

and could use some work, but taking it away altogether would

be catastrophic for so many people like my family.

That is what she wrote to me.

I want to urge President Trump and I certainly want to urge my Republican colleagues in the Senate to listen to that urgent message. It is time to turn the page on the disastrous policy path that is ``repeal and replace'' so we can finally get to work on actually fixing those things in the current healthcare system that we all agree need work.

Our common goal--regardless of whether we are Republicans or Democrats--that we should all be working toward is making quality healthcare more accessible, more affordable for all Americans.

I would welcome a good-faith effort to tackle that challenge because healthcare policies shouldn't be a political football. It should be about giving peace of mind to the millions of Americans like Anna Marie in Las Cruces, like Brittany in Aztec, who are only one diagnosis away from a crisis if we don't get this right.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, from the moment she arrived in Santa Fe in 1983, Quarrier ``Q'' Cook gave back. She gave her time to the Santa Fe Community Foundation as a board member. She gave her knack for fundraising to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival as cochair of several endowment campaigns and as board president from 2002 to 2005. She gave her energy and attention to many of New Mexico's social services organizations.

She gave whatever she could give to make New Mexico a better place.

Last year, Q Cook and her husband Phillip Cook received the Santa Fe Community Foundation's Philanthropic Leadership Award during the annual Pinon Awards Ceremony. In her acceptance speech, she remarked that in order to be part of a community, ``you have to help the community'' in small and large ways.

Q Cook's commitment to these values and her interest in helping others came from growing up in a family that always gave back and expected their children to do the same. She was born on April 7, 1935, in Wheeling, WV, to Thomas Moffat Block and Nancy Fulton and grew up seeing her parents' commitment to activism and public service. She attended Vassar College, earned a political science degree, and became involved in political activism herself.

She had three children: Thomas McKitrick Jones, Nancy Jones Carter, and Clare Fitz-Gerald Jones. She shared her love for the Southwest's culture with her daughter Clare, with whom she opened a southwestern home furnishings boutique in Washington, DC, called Santa Fe Style. As the buyer for the store, Q made sure that New Mexico had a presence in our Nation's Capital.

Back at home, she was known as a driving force who achieved whatever goal she set out to reach. She was someone any New Mexican would want on their side, someone who was generous, always willing to open her home, and give her time.

At the Pinon Awards, she said, ``We hope that a little bit of what we have done has made the world a better place for some people.''

Q Cook made the world a better place for lots of us, and New Mexico is indebted to her lifetime of service.

Mr. President, it is an honor to join the community of music lovers in New Mexico to recognize Mr. Russell Gordon in his final year of presenting the Los Alamos County Summer Concert Series.

For 28 years, the concert series has been a pillar of the community in northern New Mexico, bringing together families, neighbors, and friends with local, national, and internationally renowned musicians.

In 1988, Russell and his wife, Deborah, moved to White Rock, NM, where they started Gordon's CDs, Tapes and Records.

Local musicians remember playing on the sidewalk outside of his shop when Russell began the series in 1990. Today the series is a much larger affair with hundreds gathering around the historic Ashley Pond and other venues in Los Alamos on Friday evenings to begin their weekend with art, culture, and dance.

Russell Gordon's passion for music shines through the variety of genres featured, including Spanish, Native American, big band, bluegrass, classical, country music, folk, gospel, rock, jazz, and international acts. Russell has kept local New Mexican artists in his line-up over the years and helped grow and mentor the music scene throughout the State. He has inspired young musicians, expanded horizons, and has created countless memories for musicians and concert- goers in New Mexico.

As the ranking member on the Joint Economic Committee, I am proud to recognize the contributions of local small business owners like Russell and Deborah Gordon. We wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors and thank them for their contributions to the community.