Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I am proud that the Senate voted to reject an effort to overturn commonsense protections to reduce methane waste. It was 3 years ago that satellite images from NASA revealed that there is a giant cloud of methane--about the size of the State of Delaware--sitting over the Four Corners region in Northwestern New Mexico and Southwestern Colorado.

Although evidence had shown that there was methane air pollution in the Four Corners as early as 2003, the image of NASA data is truly striking. This is a warning of a potentially major threat to public health for communities in the region.

The San Juan Basin in the Four Corners region has long been a leading producer of oil and natural gas. With the natural gas boom of the mid- 2000s, production in the basin grew by leaps and bounds, and that created hundreds of new high-paying jobs and a major new domestic source of an important energy resource.

Unfortunately, amid all this growth, some producers developing natural gas on our public lands and on Tribal lands released harmful air pollution and wasted these publicly owned resources by allowing methane to leak into the air from faulty equipment and pipes, and even by burning off valuable natural gas in the process called flaring.

Following the discovery of the methane hotspot, researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory joined Caltech and University of Michigan scientists to conduct a detailed study into the cause of the methane cloud. Some producers claimed that the hotspot was caused primarily by natural seeps of gas from underground geologic formations and by gas venting out from an old coal mine in the region.

The NASA researchers, using instrumentation mounted on aircraft that flew close to the ground and throughout 1,200 square miles of airspace in the Four Corners region, identified leaks from natural gas wells as the major methane emitters contributing to the methane air pollution.

As greenhouse gas, methane has over 80 times the global warming potential as carbon dioxide over the short term. We have a moral obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to mitigate our contributions to climate change.

Even absent its consequences for climate change, methane leaks waste valuable energy resources, and they harm public health. When methane leaks from oil and gas wells, harmful carcinogens such as benzene leak into the air alongside it.

Because of the air pollution over the Four Corners region, the American Lung Association gave San Juan County in New Mexico an F rating for ozone pollution in 2016. That means children suffer more asthma attacks and seniors have more difficulty breathing.

I want it to be clear that this is not a case of pitting development of our energy resources against human health. We have a golden opportunity to apply innovative, existing technologies to this problem, grow our economy, and improve air quality for the people of the Four Corners region. That is because minimizing the amount of methane that leaks, vents, or flares out of the oil and gas wells isn't just good for air quality, it is good for business and the bottom line.

When oil and gas companies modernize their equipment to reduce leaks, they are able to capture more gas that they can sell, as well as increase worker safety at their wells. When we capture more gas, that also means we see more royalties and revenues for States, Tribes, and local communities. By updating oil and natural gas production equipment and infrastructure to reduce wasted natural gas, we create new jobs for energy workers and manufacturers.

When we reduce wasteful leaks, it means that instead of having a giant methane cloud over the northwest corner of New Mexico and over the Navajo Nation--a major public health hazard--we put our publicly owned natural gas resources to beneficial use. That is the definition of a win-win situation.

I say all this because that is exactly what the Bureau of Land Management's methane waste prevention rule is designed to do. These commonsense and cost-effective protections in the rule were put in place to reduce harmful methane and benzene pollution and to ensure that oil and gas operations are using technological advances that minimize emissions and maximize the amount of natural gas we produce.

Between 2009 and 2015, the BLM estimates that oil and gas producers on our public and Tribal lands vented, flared, and leaked 462 billion cubic feet of methane. They wasted enough natural gas to supply over 6 million American households for a year. Instead of heating our homes or fueling powerplants, powering buses, that gas was leaked into the atmosphere, wasting millions of dollars of this limited resource.

It is estimated that the oil and gas industry wastes about $100 million worth of natural gas every year. That also means $6 million each year of lost State revenue, revenue that pays for schools, roads, and emergency services in New Mexico. That is quite a figure.

A recent report found that New Mexico taxpayers have lost out on over $42 million of royalty revenues since the year 2009--$42,728,949 to be exact. The BLM's methane waste prevention rule will help put a stop to this wasted resource.

While developing the rule, the BLM held public meetings, it held Tribal consultations, and it factored in feedback from over 300,000 comments submitted during the public comment period. The agency also coordinated with States like Colorado, Wyoming, and North Dakota that have already created similar protections to reduce methane leaking and flaring at the State level.

The BLM rule will have minimal costs for oil and gas producers, and, in fact, leak detections and repairs required by the rule will help companies make more money selling the gas that they save. Meanwhile, this rule will grow our economy by investing in innovative companies that have developed the technologies to minimize leaks and protect our public health. This rule should not have been controversial.

The overwhelming majority of my constituents in New Mexico support reducing wasted natural gas. A recent poll by Colorado College conducted after the election found that 74 percent of New Mexicans support the BLM's methane waste reduction rule.

I am proud that enough Senators shared that view and voted to reject an attempt to repeal this commonsense protection of public health, air quality, and responsible development of our natural resources. There is nothing conservative about making it easier to waste a precious public energy source.

We should be focused on reducing waste, capturing critical royalties for New Mexico communities, and putting our natural gas resources to beneficial use. This repeal effort of the methane rule would have represented a major step backward.

Today's vote was a major victory for responsible development of our natural gas resources and our Nation's decades-long commitment to protect the air we breathe. On behalf of my constituents and theirs, I want to say a special thank-you to all 51 Senators who supported our efforts today. Thank you very much.

Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, it is an honor to recognize Jill Hruby and her team for their commitment to the success of Sandia National Laboratories and their commendable service to the Nation.

Since 2015, Ms. Hruby has been the president and director of Sandia National Laboratories and will be leaving the labs at the end of April.

It has been a pleasure working with her over the last 2 years.

With more than 12,000 employees, Sandia is our Nation's largest national laboratory with principal sites in Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA.

The lab employs some of the best and brightest minds in the country and is indispensable to our national security and to maintaining our Nation's science and engineering superiority.

Ms. Hruby joined Sandia in 1983 to work on research in nanoscience, hydrogen storage, mechanical component design, thermal analysis, and microfluidics.

She served for 27 years at Sandia's California location, managing projects responsible for weapon components, microtechnologies, and materials processing.

In 2010, she came to New Mexico to serve as the vice president of the Energy, Nonproliferation, and High-Consequence Security Division and as the leader of Sandia's International, Homeland, and Nuclear Security Program Management Unit.

In July 2015, Ms. Hruby became the first woman to direct a national security laboratory.

Ms. Hruby has authored numerous publications, holds three patents in microfabrication, and won an R&D 100 Award in solid-state radiation detection. In 2016, the Society of Women Engineers presented Ms. Hruby with the Suzanne Jenniches Upward Mobility Award in celebration of her rise to a leadership role and her dedication to creating a nurturing environment for women in the workplace.

She has said that she wants her work to matter to others and to have a purpose greater than herself.

I commend Jill Hruby for her incredible record of service to our Nation addressing some of our most complex issues and challenges, and I wish her the best in all of her future endeavors.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today, not as a member of any one committee or political party but as a gravely concerned American.

On a seemingly daily--or even hourly--basis, there is a new revelation about the Trump campaign's possible ties to or even coordination with Russia's interference in our Presidential election last year. With these constant reports coming out, it can be difficult to see through all the smoke in the air.

However, what is clear is that we must get to the bottom of what exactly happened. I know that the White House and some in Congress are furiously working to sweep this under the rug, but only the truth will serve as a public means to move past this crisis for our democracy.

That is why I come to the Senate floor today, to address this issue before my colleagues and to help the American people sort through the details of what we know to be the undisputed facts. We know without a doubt, based on the assessment of credible intelligence, that the Russian Government hacked into Presidential campaign infrastructure and sought not only to damage Hillary Clinton but to try to help elect Donald Trump.

Russian intelligence operatives hacked into the email servers of both of our two major political parties. They chose to selectively leak information that damaged one Presidential candidate and favored the other. This is not a partisan political assessment. This is the plain truth as proven by credible intelligence gathered by the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the military's Cyber Command. In addition, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies issued a statement expressing their unanimous assessment that Moscow had penetrated State election voting centers.

During an open hearing in the Senate Intelligence Committee in January of this year, FBI Director James Comey said: ``There were intrusions and attempted intrusions at the state level voter registration databases.'' Director Comey said that there was no evidence of activity on election day related to this voter registration data. However, this clearly demonstrates that this data may be vulnerable to future cyber attacks and manipulations by foreign hackers.

What happened in this last year's election is already disturbing enough. In testimony during the same Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said:

We have high confidence that President Putin ordered an

influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. Presidential

election. The goals of this campaign were to undermine public

faith in the U.S. Democratic process, denigrate Secretary

[Hillary] Clinton and harm her electability and potential

presidency.

He continued: ``Putin and the Russian government also developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.''

That shocking revelation at the very least begged for deeper investigation and accountability to protect our democratic institutions from foreign interference moving forward. After all, Russia did not do this to help the Republican Party. Russia did this to help Russia.

I don't want foreign powers putting their thumb on the scales for Democrats or Republicans in our elections. Our democracy hinges on our ability to protect the voices of Americans to choose our own leaders. Nothing could be more fundamental in democracy.

You can see similar ongoing Russian efforts to work seeking to influence and undermine democratic elections in France, Germany, and throughout the West, in addition to the former Soviet states, which is why we have to take this seriously and to see through the latest news cycle, political commentary, or tweet and remain focused on following the facts, wherever they may lead us.

Unfortunately, the facts suggest that we not only need to hold the Russians accountable but that we also have reason to look into possible ties between key members of the Trump campaign and their connections to the Russian actors who we know meddled in our election.

The obvious question Americans are demanding an answer to is this: Did the Trump campaign cooperate--or even coordinate--with the Russians in their effort to help Donald Trump? It is a logical question that has striking implications not only for the Trump administration but also for our democracy as a whole.

The President and his senior advisers--both on the campaign and now in the administration--have vehemently denied any Russian connections whatsoever. Back in November, Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokesman said: ``There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.''

A month ago, President Trump responded to a question in a press conference about whether anyone in his campaign had been in contact with Russia, saying:

Nobody that I know of . . . Russia is a ruse. I have

nothing to do with Russia.

I truly wish that that was what the facts had shown, but at nearly every turn, there is evidence--and, when forced, admission--that there were, in fact, communications and contact with the Russians that are not only unprecedented but truly hard to believe and to understand.

Contrary to denials, we know that senior leaders and surrogates in then-Candidate Donald Trump's campaign had contact with the Russian Government and actors behind the Russian cyber attacks and leaks.

One campaign adviser, Carter Page, traveled to Moscow in July of 2016 on a trip approved by the Trump campaign. During the trip, Page delivered a lecture that slammed U.S. policy toward Russia. Three days later, at the Republican National Convention, Trump campaign aides stepped in to oppose the inclusion of language in the RNC platform that called on the U.S. Government to send weapons to our ally Ukraine in response to Russian military aggression and the illegal invasion by Russia of Ukrainian Crimea.

Despite Trump campaign denials of involvement at the time, former campaign aides have since come forward to say that, yes, they were involved in defeating that language in the platform.

While this was going on, again, despite denials to the contrary, we know that senior Trump advisers met with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak on the sidelines of the Republican Convention.

We know that then-Senator Sessions, a senior campaign surrogate, also met with Kislyak in his personal Senate office later in September.

Again, this communication was uncovered despite Attorney General Sessions denying it had ever taken place.

During his Senate confirmation hearing in January, then-Senator Sessions said in response to a pointed question about how he would respond as Attorney General to any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian Government in the course of the campaign:

I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been

called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I

didn't have--did not have communications with the Russians.

Then the day after the Republican National Convention, WikiLeaks posted nearly 20,000 emails hacked and stolen by Russian intelligence from the DNC server.

After this, Donald Trump, during a press conference in late July, called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's private email, saying:

I will tell you this--Russia, if you're listening, I hope

you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I

think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.

Although Trump later claimed to be joking, we now have reason to believe that one of his friends and advisers, Roger Stone, was in contact with the Russian hackers behind the cyber attacks. Stone boasted in a speech in August 2016 that he had communicated with WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange and that more damaging documents would be forthcoming in what he called an ``October surprise.''

Stone also admitted to communicating via Twitter with the Russian hacker behind the breaches who went by the moniker ``Guccifer 2.0.'' Stone tweeted out predictions that Hillary Clinton senior campaign aide John Podesta's personal emails would soon be published, saying: ``Trust me, it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel.'' Stone also tweeted: ``I have total confidence that WikiLeaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon.''

Soon after this, WikiLeaks released its first batch of John Podesta's stolen emails and continued releasing more on a daily basis up until election day.

In the face of these facts, the Trump administration's story has evolved from rejecting Russian influence on the election entirely to denying any connection or communication with Russian actors, to asserting that this contact was, in fact, innocent or routine and that Americans should simply trust that there was nothing more going on. But to ask the public to trust you when you have falsely denied that the communication occurred in the first place is absurd on its face and, in fact, it is a plausible reason to suspect possible coordination.

After the election, we now know that President-Elect Trump's appointed National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, and Trump's senior aide and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had a secret meeting with Russian Ambassador Kislyak and that Flynn later conducted phone calls with Kislyak that included discussion of rolling back sanctions for Russia.

Flynn has since resigned as National Security Advisor after having lied about the content of his conversations with Kislyak.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from the investigation into the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia due to his undisclosed meetings with the same Russian Ambassador.

Last week, FBI Director James Comey confirmed to the public that the FBI is currently conducting a counterintelligence investigation into possible coordination between President Trump's campaign and the Kremlin.

I will repeat that because I fear that the public is becoming desensitized to the gravity of what we are learning about. The President's campaign officials are under investigation by the FBI for possible links with the Russian Government, including whether they coordinated with one another to impact our Presidential election.

We also saw reports last week that before his time on the Trump campaign, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort created and then sold the Russians what appears to effectively be a playbook on how to undermine Western democracy and to further the interests of the Russian Government, including here in the United States.

Manafort's reported recommendations to use political campaign tactics, establish front groups, and manipulate the press cycle are strikingly similar

to the actual tactics that we know the Russians employed to undermine the 2016 Presidential election.

The Trump administration's repeated attempts to now distance itself from its former campaign chairman, a man who played a central role in the Trump campaign, is indicative of its desperate attempts to cover up the facts.

The facts are there if we just look.

The Trump campaign denied having worked to scrub the RNC platform to be friendlier to Russia but then later had to admit to having done so.

Michael Flynn denied conversations with the Russian Ambassador and then had to resign when that turned out to be a lie.

Attorney General Sessions denied having conversations with the Russians but later recused himself from the investigation after having to admit that he secretly met on several occasions with the Russian Ambassador.

The Trump campaign and Trump's advisers denied any communications with the Russians, but it turns out they personally met with the Russian Ambassador at the RNC, communicated with Russian hackers, and appear to have had advanced notice about impending DNC and Clinton leaks.

All of this culminates with the news that the Trump campaign chairman sold the Russians a playbook on how to conduct a strikingly similar influence operation to undermine democracy and promote the Putin agenda throughout the West.

This is all a complicated web of connections that we need to piece together. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I am committed to finding the answers that the American people deserve and to working together with all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to put our Nation first and to make sure that we get to the bottom of this.

We need to do everything possible to get to the objective truth. That includes subpoenaing President Trump's tax returns and financial statements so that we can follow the money and determine who holds the debt behind the President's complex international business empire. That includes calling President Trump's associates, such as Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Roger Stone, Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions, and Michael Flynn to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

But with the incredible amount of information and intelligence that we need to look through, I believe we also should be open to an independent, nonpartisan commission designed solely to investigate what happened.

During the investigation of Watergate and the ensuing scandal, Congress conducted a thorough select oversight investigation at the same time that an independent special prosecutor was pursuing a case to uncover the truth. All of those avenues proved to be essential to discovering the crimes and coverup that were committed.

If we do not take this seriously, our fundamental democratic institutions are at risk. History will judge severely those of us in this body tasked with finding the whole truth and determining conclusively whether or not associates of the Trump campaign coordinated or cooperated with this effort to undermine our American democracy.

We cannot allow political pressure or unsubstantiated distractions to get in the way of simply following the facts.

I don't think it is hyperbolic to state that the fate of our democracy depends on our ability to thoroughly and carefully get to the truth here. Until we are able to find out the full extent of Russia's operations and ensure that we set up protections against similar actions going forward, our democratic institutions will remain vulnerable.

I want my constituents in New Mexico and all of the American people to know that I remain committed to seeing this important mission through and following the facts, wherever they may lead.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to oppose this effort by my good colleague from Alaska and by congressional Republicans to, in my view, turn back the clock 100 years on the management of our native wildlife on our national wildlife refuges in Alaska.

Since 2002, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has embraced what some have called a politically driven and even unscientific regime of intensive predator control. I think it is helpful to look at the views of a former Governor of Alaska, Tony Knowles, who recently commented in High Country News:

The most disappointing thing is that the balance of the

views on the Board of Game has disappeared. I tried to work

with a balanced board that reflected subsistence hunters,

sport hunters, guides and conservationists, but now the board

is made up of people who want to make hunting ungulates the

priority for wildlife management.

There's been a focused effort to dramatically reduce

populations of wolves, coyotes, and bears, and the methods

and means they've used are both unscientific and unethical.

That is not my quote, but that of former Governor Tony Knowles of Alaska.

In addition, in the past decade, the Alaska Board of Game and the department have turned their back, I think, on a long history of not only working together between Federal and State agencies but embracing ethics as central to wildlife management--not just to maintain the viability of that management but to maintain the support of the public for that management.

This relatively new approach that actively seeks to eschew the long history of embracing sporting ethics can best be summed up by a quote from Doug Vincent-Land, the former director of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Division of Wildlife Conservation. He said: ``The professionals at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game did not feel it was our role to judge the ethics of these practices.''

The result of this ethics-free approach is now glaringly obvious, when considering some of the methods of take that have been approved over time for native predators in Alaska. Shooting mother grizzlies with cubs, aerial gunning of wolves, killing wolf pups in their dens, using spotlights at bear dens, baiting of bears, and allowing the wanton waste of black bear meat are a few of the practices that Alaska's Board of Game has approved.

Aldo Leopold, the father of modern wildlife conservation, once said: ``Ethical behavior is doing the right thing

when no one else is watching--even when doing the wrong thing is legal.''

Now, I know it has become fashionable in some hunting circles recently to ignore the importance of ethics to our way of life. Yet, if our greatest leaders are any indication, that is, at best, a slippery slope to irrelevance.

This cartoon is a good reminder. It is from the early 20th century, at a time when President Teddy Roosevelt was invited down to Mississippi for a black bear hunt. When he wasn't successful, they tied a black bear to a tree. I think that cartoon from that period is a good reminder of how T.R. viewed the importance of sportsmanship and ethics in hunting as central to what maintains our credibility. Today, politicians jump at the chance to embrace his reputation, but too often they have not followed his example. So while shooting down grizzlies with cubs may be legal, I suspect the public will never view it as ethical. I have to wonder what good old T.R. would have to say about recent decisions to allow things like unlimited bag limits on black bear cubs or baiting of bears and shooting female grizzlies with cubs.

So why does all of this ethics stuff matter so much to hunters? Why does it matter to me? It matters because hunters like me are a small minority of the population in this country. We are less than 5 percent, by most counts, and we are able to carry on this great tradition because the vast majority--the nonhunting public, which is 95 percent of the population--sees us as effective and ethical stewards of our country's native wildlife. We have embraced the North American model of wildlife conservation that has literally brought elk, deer, wild turkey, and species we think of as common today--Canada geese, for example--back from the brink of extinction, and that public shares in that success when they enjoy wildlife. That is true, even if they never hunt, never pick up a fishing poll. We as hunters also have the trust and the respect of the public because we are willing to literally spend billions of dollars of our own money to protect, conserve, and manage those resources with the best available science.

The Alaska Game Board's decision to ignore the latest science on the importance of predators to healthy prey populations is indicative of a desire to effectively turn caribou and moose populations into livestock and to manage for maximum numbers and maximum tag revenue.

Now, ironically, that approach has certainly been ineffective at boosting and maintaining historically high caribou and moose numbers.

This is an example of a graph of moose population over time. We can see back in 2002, when these sorts of intensive take measures went into place: intensive predator control, preintensive management, and postintensive management. If you can discern a consistent correlation of an outcome of higher moose numbers there, you are doing better than

Mr. President, I will close on the issue of the CRA before us today.

This CRA will turn back the clock on the management of native wildlife on our Nation's wildlife refuges. Methods of take, like shooting mother grizzlies with cubs, aerial gunning of wolves, killing wolf pups in their dens--these are not 21st-century tools for wildlife management. They are relics of the 19th century, before we truly understood the importance of predators to healthy ecosystems and populations. These practices have no place on our Nation's Federal wildlife refuges.

This rule, frankly, doesn't stand up for subsistence hunters or hunters at all; it simply reinforces the politically driven and unscientific turn that the Alaska Board of Game has taken under Governors like Sarah Palin. This isn't about hunting; it is about dogma and dogma driving policy.

I urge all of my colleagues tonight to vote for fair chase hunting, to vote for native wildlife, and to vote for our national wildlife refuges. To do that, I ask you to vote against this measure.

Madam President, on August 5, 2015, 3 million gallons of acid mine drainage laden with heavy metals and other contaminants were released into Cement Creek by an Environmental Protection Agency contractor investigating contamination at the Gold King Mine in San Juan County, CO.

Contaminated water flowed down Cement Creek, down the Animas River, and into the San Juan River, resulting in water use restrictions and emergency responses in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, the Southern Ute Reservation, and the Navajo Nation. We need only look at the photos of the bright orange water streaming through these various drainages to see how terrible this spill was for the affected communities and for water users. The Gold King Mine spill placed a heavy burden on States, tribes, local governments, and communities, and the spill hurt businesses, farmers, and ranchers throughout the region.

Since the spill, I have visited impacted residents and communities and worked closely with local, State, and tribal leaders to make sure water is monitored for contaminants, and costs from the spill are repaid.

Last year, I was proud to help pass a measure in Congress which will ensure that State and local and tribal governments will be fully reimbursed for their emergency response costs and which establishes a long-term water quality monitoring program in cooperation with local stakeholders.

However, on January 13 of this year, the EPA and Department of Justice issued an outrageous decision that the EPA is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for damages to water users caused by this Gold King Mine spill. This decision represents a broken promise from the EPA that it would fully address this environmental disaster.

Now, while the agency has taken steps is to clean up the mine, no farmer in New Mexico or on the Navajo Nation has received a dime of compensation, and distrust of the government has understandably deepened across the Four Corners region.

During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works last month, President Trump's nominee to run the EPA, Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, said that he would review the Agency's decision not to make payments to claimants affected by this spill.

If he is confirmed as EPA Administrator, Mr. Pruitt must take immediate steps to restore trust among the people of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, the Southern Ute Tribe, and the Navajo Nation, who have already waited far too long for the EPA to keep its promise and compensate them for the harm that has been caused.

I will hold Mr. Pruitt accountable for cleaning up toxic, abandoned hard-rock mines in the West, such as Gold King, and I will hold him accountable for making sure the water that New Mexico communities and farmers rely on is safe.

We shouldn't wait for more disasters to strike. New Mexico communities deserve full and complete protection for their land, their water, and their livelihoods.

Unfortunately, I have real reason to doubt Mr. Pruitt will take this responsibility and core mission of the EPA seriously in his new role. As the attorney general of Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt has built a long track record that is antithetical to the EPA's core mission to keep our Nation's land, water, and air clean. Mr. Pruitt repeatedly fought against the EPA as it implemented measures to safeguard our clean air and clean water.

Rather than protecting the health of Oklahoma families, he has filed lawsuits against the EPA to stop rules that would have reduced smog and soot crossing State lines, protected against emissions of mercury, arsenic, acid gases, and other toxic pollutants from power plants, and improved air quality in national parks and wilderness areas.

Mr. Pruitt has shown little regard for the safety of our drinking water, filing a lawsuit to stop the EPA's clean water rule, which would protect the natural filtering system that supplies drinking water to one out of every three Americans.

Mr. Pruitt sent a letter to the EPA opposing even preliminary research into the impacts of hydraulic fracturing on our water resources. Mr. Pruitt has been a friend to polluters, helping them to use his office as a conduit for their special interests. He has sent letters on official letterhead to the EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Office of Management and Budget, and even to the President of the United States, copied and pasted nearly verbatim from language written by industry lobbyists.

Perhaps most damning of all, Mr. Pruitt has repeatedly denied the scientific consensus on the human influence on climate change, including in an op-ed recently published in May of last year. It takes a willful disregard for data-driven science to ignore the increase in extreme weather events that we are now seeing on a regular basis, thanks to climate change.

Just last Saturday in Mangum, OK, an all-time record of 99 degrees Fahrenheit was set on February 11. Imagine that; 99 degrees in the heart of winter. Folks, I wish I were making this up, but no snowball on the floor of the Senate can erase these facts.

It was Mr. Pruitt, the Attorney General of Oklahoma, who sued the EPA to prevent measures to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the very cause of climate change. Americans need a leader at the EPA who will take action on climate change, and we need someone who is guided in their decisions by the best available science.

I have heard from thousands of New Mexicans who have made a strong case that Mr. Pruitt is not the right person for this job. I will not vote to confirm Scott Pruitt. But I will say that if my colleagues move forward with this nomination, they can be sure that we will hold Mr. Pruitt accountable for decisions that hurt the health of New Mexico families. That includes making sure Mr. Pruitt rights the wrongs inflicted on communities in the Four Corners region by the Gold King Mine spill. It is going to take many years to clean up the legacy of 100 years of hard rock mining and the impacts on our watersheds in northwestern New Mexico and on the Navajo Nation.

In New Mexico, we have a saying: ``Water is life.'' The water we drink and the air we breathe are not negotiable.

My constituents in New Mexico cannot afford to see the EPA stop working to protect us from air pollution, to conserve our water resources, and to work to reverse the damaging effects of climate change.

Madam President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, it is an honor to join musicians and music lovers in recognizing Albuquerque's Pimentel family for their 65 years of building handcrafted instruments that are sought after by guitar players and collectors around the world.

Pimentel & Sons is a successful family-owned small business that was started from scratch and has been sustained with innovation, hard work, and a commitment to excellence.

As the ranking member on the Joint Economic Committee, I am proud to recognize successful entrepreneurs and small business owners like the Pimentels.

Lorenzo Pimentel learned the craft of building guitars as a teenager in Ciudad Juarez. After marrying his wife, Josefina, Lorenzo moved his family to Albuquerque after falling in love with the Sandia Mountains. Over his lifetime, Lorenzo Pimentel accumulated an incredible list of accolades for his guitars.

Four of Lorenzo's sons, Agustin, Ricardo, Roberto, and Victor, have continued their late father's work as master guitar makers in their own right. They have each played an integral role in shaping New Mexico's music scene for decades.

Pimentel & Sons has earned the Hispanic Heritage Month Distinguished Honor Award, the Governor's Award for Excellence and Achievement in the Arts, and an invitation to the Smithsonian Institute's Festival of American Folklife.

In 2009, Governor Bill Richardson signed a bill designating Pimentel's Sunrise model as the official State guitar of New Mexico.

Generations of musicians have played and appreciated the world- renowned Pimentel guitars that capture the spirit and culture of New Mexico.

Mr. President, I am deeply disappointed by the qualifications of President Trump's nominee to be the leader of our Department of Education. Betsy DeVos has clearly shown a disregard-- even a hostility--for the public school system. So I stand with the thousands of parents, teachers, and students of New Mexico in fighting to stop her confirmation.

Simply put, education is too important to New Mexico children and our State's economy to have a Secretary of Education not fully invested in the success of our public schools.

As someone who grew up going to public school, who is sending my own kids to public schools, I am deeply troubled by Betsy DeVos's record on privatization, which goes well beyond simply voicing support for vouchers and private school. Mrs. DeVos has been a key player in the well-moneyed effort to privatize and siphon funds away from public education, and she has time and again undermined the teachers we all rely upon.

It appears as though Betsy DeVos's most notable experience in education is spending her career and her fortune advocating for policies that divert public tax dollars away from public schools and into private schools. I cannot support a nominee who wants to weaken the kinds of public schools that so many New Mexicans rely on.

The privatization policies pushed by Mrs. DeVos would be especially damaging to rural New Mexico, where there are few options to begin with. It is not uncommon for students to travel more than an hour to get to and from school in those parts of the State. School administrators often wear multiple hats, sometimes running the after- school program or driving the local schoolbus. In rural areas in my home State, the public school is often the only choice, and there simply aren't enough students to support the kinds of for-profit private schools that Mrs. DeVos wants to replace them with.

Having a Secretary of Education who has spent her entire career pushing a privatization agenda is not reassuring to New Mexicans and is at odds with the needs of the students and families across my State.

Further, I do not believe that Mrs. DeVos understands the Federal Government's trust responsibility in serving Native American students. Given Mrs. DeVos's rushed nomination hearing in the HELP Committee, Senators were given very little opportunity to question her about her understanding of tribal issues and impact aid. So I am concerned that she will push her privatization agenda in these areas as well.

For example, the Zuni Public School District is a small rural district in Western New Mexico. Earlier this week, their school board sent me a letter asking that I oppose Mrs. DeVos's nomination. I want to take a moment and read a few passage from this letter:

The beauty of the United States public school system,

unlike many in the rest of the world, is that we take

everyone who walks through our doors and love every child who

sits in our desks, without question.

This Board therefore stands by all of our students, no

matter what color or ethnicity, regardless of their creed;

every child who identifies on the spectrum of L,G,B,T, or Q;

every child with either a physical or learning disability, or

both . . . every child who speaks a second language; every

immigrant child as well as every Native American child who

can trace their lineage in this land back thousands of years;

every child who sees their education as the bridge between

their most ardent dreams and their most hopeful futures.

These are powerful words that I fully support, and I thank the Zuni Public School District for speaking out on this matter. We should all be this concerned.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the entire letter from the Zuni Public School District be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

During her nomination hearing, Mrs. DeVos demonstrated over and over that she is unfamiliar with even basic education issues, and she failed to commit to uphold the responsibilities of the Secretary of Education to support public schools. Given that Mrs. DeVos has no relevant experience as a teacher or school administrator, we should be very concerned with entrusting her to enforce key protections under title IX, under IDEA, and under other civil rights laws. In particular, Mrs. DeVos's lack of commitment to the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education, combined with the fact that she and her family have donated enormous sums of money to organizations that are anti- LGBTQ, anti-women's rights, and anti-Muslim, is simply troubling.

The mission of the Office of Civil Rights is to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the Nation with vigorous enforcement of civil rights. During her nomination hearing, Mrs. DeVos would not commit to continuing the Office's policies that are making our college campuses safer by focusing on prevention and response to sexual assault. In fact, she has donated money to organizations that actually make it harder to prosecute sexual assault on our college campuses. As amazing as that sounds, it is true.

If my Republican colleagues rubberstamp this nominee, they will confirm a Secretary of Education who doesn't believe in public schools, who will unravel rural education, and who has even worked to make it harder to protect women against sexual assault on college campuses. I believe that we have a moral imperative to ensure that all students have equal protections while attending school. Mrs. DeVos will be a massive step in the wrong direction.

As the members of the Zuni Pueblo wrote to me in their letter, ``our children are our most sacred gifts.'' This is what we are voting on with this confirmation.

We need an Education Secretary who is committed to upholding these principles. We need an Education Secretary who is committed to ensuring that every student has access to quality education, regardless of their background or their ZIP code, regardless of their ethnicity or their religion, and regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.

In the last few weeks, my office has fielded thousands of calls and letters asking me to oppose this nomination. I have heard from more than 8,000 constituents on this one topic alone, many of whom called as parents, teachers, and some as students. That is more than any other Trump nominee whom we have considered to date. Never has an Education Secretary nomination received so much attention and opposition.

I stand with the thousands of parents, teachers, and students across the country, and in my home State of New Mexico, fighting to stop this nomination. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting no.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, in 1986, Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, wrote a letter urging Congress to block the nomination of Jeff Sessions for Federal judge. The Senate Judiciary Committee would ultimately reject that nomination.

Here we are three decades later. Senator Sessions, who cannot erase his troubling record on civil rights, is again undergoing a confirmation hearing as President Trump's nominee for Attorney General. I would like to read an excerpt from Mrs. King's letter, and I ask unanimous consent that the letter in its entirety be printed in the Record following my remarks.

Mrs. King wrote:

I write to express my sincere opposition to the

confirmation of Jefferson B. Sessions as a federal district

court judge for the Southern District of Alabama. My

professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and

lasting. Anyone who has used the power of his office as

United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free

exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to

our courts. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his

office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly

black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not

be rewarded with a federal judgeship.

I do sincerely urge you to oppose the confirmation of Mr.

Sessions.

When Senator Elizabeth Warren tried to read this exact same letter last night here on the Senate floor, Republicans voted to silence her, citing that she was in violation of Senate rules aimed at preventing Senators from impugning the motives of their colleagues.

The move by some of my colleagues to silence the words of Senator Warren and Mrs. King last night is troubling not only because this is a threat to our democratic values, but also, frankly, because it is hypocritical. During a scathing speech last year in this same Chamber, the Senator from Texas went so far as personally attacking the Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell and accusing him of lying. In May of last year, the Senator from Arkansas, also here on the Senate floor, delivered a speech directly criticizing former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, using the terms ``vulgar,'' ``incoherent,'' and ``cancerous'' to describe him.

He said on the Senate floor:

I am forced to listen to the bitter, vulgar incoherent

ramblings of the minority leader. Normally, like every other

American, I ignore them.

I bring this up because neither of these Senators were silenced. Neither were told to sit down and take their seat. Silencing Senator Warren for reading Mrs. King's letter under the guise of following Senate rules is hypocritical and rightfully leads some to question whether the majority leader may have a different standard of expected conduct for female Senators compared to their male counterparts.

I have already announced that I will vote against the nomination of Senator Sessions. After this episode last night, I believe now more than ever this position will require an unwavering commitment to protect American's constitutional rights, and to stand up against discrimination and hate.

Like the thousands of New Mexicans I have heard from, I lack that confidence in Senator Sessions. I urge the American people to read and share Coretta Scott King's letter and continue to make your own voices heard because we will not be silenced. We will persist.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, since President Trump was inaugurated, he has unveiled a series of damaging and truly un-American Executive orders--in particular, the Executive order banning refugees and individuals from Muslim-majority countries from entering our country.

For President Trump and his team, it is a projection of an inward- looking, isolationist vision for America. For many New Mexicans, myself included, it is also seen as an attempt to fundamentally change our American values. We are not a country that discriminates based on how you pray. We are not a nation that turns our back on the innocent victims of terrorism or the allies who have risked their own lives so that American soldiers might live.

President Trump's actions seek to turn us into the kind of authoritarian Nation that we have always stood against. He has promoted this dark vision instead of asserting America's longstanding role as a voice for democracy, for freedom, human rights, the environment, tolerance, and respect for women--values which extend far beyond our shores.

In essence, this selfish and bully-like mentality abandon the values that we hold dear and which have defined our great Nation as a global power.

It should come as no surprise that President Trump's nominees to be our Nation's top diplomats--Nikki Haley, Rex Tillerson--have no diplomatic experience. On Nikki Haley's first day on the job, President Trump announced that he would be cutting funding for the United Nations by 40 percent, and Ambassador Haley announced to the world that the United States is now ``taking names'' of those who disagree with us.

In an attempt to show strength, the Trump administration is actually creating weakness. By stepping away from multinational organizations that we helped establish--organizations like the U.N. and NATO--and by presenting a hostile attitude to other countries and allies, the United States is walking away from its role as the indispensable Nation.

This morning, former CIA Director and retired GEN David Petraeus warned that the global alliances of the United States are at risk, stating:

Americans should not take the current international order

for granted. It did not will itself into existence. We

created it.

Likewise, it is not naturally self-sustaining. We have

sustained it. If we stop doing so, it will fray and,

eventually, collapse.

Just as I am not confident in President Trump's nominee for Ambassador to the United Nations, I am equally concerned, if not more so, about his choice for Secretary of State. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, demonstrated that he is blatantly unaware of global affairs. He failed to recognize and condemn human rights violations around the world, including in Saudi Arabia and the Philippines, and declared dangerous policy positions without knowing what those policies would actually mean.

In his hearing, Mr. Tillerson repeatedly avoided answering the most rudimentary questions about foreign policy by stating things like ``I'd need more information on that issue.''

For as long as I can remember, throughout grade school and college, women in Saudi Arabia have lacked basic freedoms. Yet Mr. Tillerson either had no knowledge of women's issues in Saudi Arabia or fails to value the importance of that issue, which I believe to be an American value.

The United States faces an increasing number of global threats, including North Korea, Russia, China, Iran, and terrorist organizations across multiple continents. We face evolving threats from nonstate actors and terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Instability and civil war in the Middle East have led to the greatest global refugee crisis since World War II. Russia and China are acting aggressively to assert their influence and challenge and provoke American interests and allies. Global threats such as pandemic disease, nuclear proliferation, and climate change require international cooperation and responses.

The next Secretary of State will be diving headfirst into all of these incredibly daunting and gravely important foreign policy challenges. Mr. Tillerson's lack of foreign policy experience, combined with a President who promotes an isolationist world view, leaves me deeply concerned for the future of American foreign policy.

The world looks to America to uphold human rights, to promote democratic values, and to take the lead on many challenges we face as an international community. The American people look to the White House and to the State Department to represent our fundamental American values on that international stage. The American people expect their leaders to show that their only interest is in representing the public's best interest.

Americans have reason to doubt where Rex Tillerson's interests rest. His world view has been shaped through the lens of looking out for what is best for his company's profits, not what is best for the American people, not what is best to address complex international challenges. Just like negotiating a real estate deal does not prepare one to lead the Nation, negotiating oil deals does not prepare you to be a diplomat whose primary interest is in advocating for American values.

When Mr. Tillerson has worked with foreign governments to pursue lucrative oil deals and profits, he has been agnostic to human rights and to America's diplomatic and security interests as well. As Exxon's CEO during the Iraq war, Mr. Tillerson undermined the State Department's efforts to keep Iraq cohesive as a nation and instead served the interest of his company's financial gain, in direct conflict to the American interest.

Under Mr. Tillerson's guidance, ExxonMobil signed a deal directly with the Kurdish administration in the country's northern region, a move that fueled Kurdish secessionist ambitions and undercut the legitimacy of Iraq's central government. This deal was drawn despite the State Department's recommendation that they wait until national legislation was passed because a law governing nationwide oil investments was being reviewed by Parliament.

In Russia, Mr. Tillerson worked closely with Vladimir Putin's government to forge deals to drill for oil in the Arctic, the Black Sea, and Siberia. Mr. Tillerson developed such a cozy relationship with the Kremlin that in 2013 he was awarded the Order of Friendship by Vladimir Putin, the highest honor awarded to non-Russians.

After Russia unlawfully invaded the Ukraine and took Crimea, the United States and the European Union enacted sanctions against Russia that Mr. Tillerson would be partly responsible for overseeing as Secretary of State. Right now, when we are trying to hold Russia accountable for its illegal aggression in Eastern Europe, for its war crimes in Aleppo, and for its interference in our own Nation's election, how on Earth can we trust someone with such a cozy relationship with the Putin government to be our Secretary of State?

Mr. Tillerson's record also leads one to wonder how he will address the imperative to implement the Paris climate agreement, especially since President Trump is now exploring how to withdraw from it. At the height of the debate on climate change legislation in Congress, Mr. Tillerson spent tens of millions of dollars to kill a bill that would have reduced our carbon emissions sooner. It has also been reported that his scientists at Exxon have known about the relationship between carbon emissions and climate since the 1980s and that Exxon even made business decisions about what resources to develop and how based on that knowledge. Yet, under Mr. Tillerson's leadership, they chose to withhold those findings and fund

groups determined to sow confusion and doubt. How can we be confident that Mr. Tillerson will help America address the impacts of climate change and put America's security and values first as our top diplomat?

Those conflicts of interest are troubling enough, but the most troubling reason I cannot support Mr. Tillerson's nomination is this: In just the first week and a half of the Trump White House, we have seen numerous cases of Trump nominees saying one thing during their confirmation hearings before this body and then the administration turning around and doing something entirely different. After Secretary Mattis told us that he opposed the Muslim travel ban and Director Pompeo stated his opposition in hearings to torture, we saw this administration move forward with both.

I have seen nothing that shows me that Rex Tillerson will stand up to President Trump's dangerous vision for American foreign policy. What will he do to stand up for NATO? What indication do we have that he will call on the President to act in the interests of the American people and not the interests of President Trump's business holdings in numerous nations around the world?

The Secretary of State sits on the National Security Council. Will Mr. Tillerson stand up to Steve Bannon, President Trump's political strategist who has been outrageously placed on the National Security Council, while, I would add, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of National Intelligence were demoted? President Trump has shown that he trusts the former leader of the far-right Web site Breitbart News more than our leading generals and his appointed leader of the intelligence community. You can already see the influence of Mr. Bannon, who has made a career out of selling hateful and divisive propaganda aimed at women, Hispanics, African Americans, Jews, and other minorities in the actions President Trump has taken in his first days in office.

During his first week in office, President Trump floated the idea of bringing back the CIA's use of ``black site'' prisons and torture techniques, imposed a gag order on our Federal agencies, and renewed talk of a wall on our southern border.

All of this culminated with an Executive order blocking refugees from around the world from entering the United States. This is not greatness. In fact, this is un-American. I will not stand aside as the values that created the greatest Nation on Earth are trampled upon.

This dangerous Executive action has already had a clear human impact. In New Mexico, the Albuquerque Journal reports that our universities have issued an advisory to foreign students and faculty: ``Don't leave the country if you want to come back.'' Think about that.

My office has already heard from New Mexicans who fear for their safety and the safety of their families abroad as a direct result of this order. A man who moved to the United States as a refugee from Iraq and settled in my hometown told me that his wife and two kids went to Baghdad to attend his mother-in-law's funeral. They are currently in Iraq and scheduled to return in February. They are all green card holders. They are part of our community. President Trump's Executive order has left him and his family feeling in limbo. He said: ``I am afraid about our destiny as a family, I am afraid I will lose them.''

The heartbreaking human impact we have already seen is only part of why the Muslim travel ban was such an appalling action for the President to take.

George Washington once said: ``I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.'' It is very clear that President Trump is clearly no George Washington. This Executive order flies in the face of that sentiment and, I believe, the sentiment we share as Americans.

I joined my colleagues in sending a letter to President Trump about this order. I am particularly outraged about the absurd and careless nature of the order, which will have a profound effect on many Iraqi men and women who risked their lives and the lives of their families on behalf of our soldiers, on behalf of American soldiers.

Late last summer, I traveled to Iraq, to Kuwait, to the heart of Africa, and I met with top military officials to discuss operations against ISIL, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations. In order to find a lasting solution in that volatile region, we must take a smart approach that provides training, resources, and support to our regional allies, like the Iraqi security forces, rather than putting tens of thousands of U.S. troops on the frontlines there ourselves. Alienating our regional allies, alienating Muslims as a whole puts all of that at risk.

Former Cabinet Secretaries, senior government officials, diplomats, military servicemembers, and intelligence community professionals who have served in the Bush administration and the Obama administration together have expressed their deep concern this week with President Trump's Executive order. In a letter, they warned:

This Order not only jeopardizes tens of thousands of lives,

it has caused a crisis right here in America and will do

long-term damage to our national security.

In the middle of the night, just as we were beginning our

nation's commemoration of the Holocaust, dozens of refugees

onboard flights to the United States and thousands of

visitors were swept up in an Order of unprecedented scope,

apparently with little to no oversight or input from national

security professionals.

Also this week, the Iraqi Parliament, in direct response to President Trump's Muslim travel ban, voted to implement an identical visa ban on Americans.

How can we possibly think this is in our national security interests?

Rex Tillerson has not answered questions about President Trump's Muslim travel ban. Mr. Tillerson needs to tell us where he stands on this un-American policy. If we are going to move forward on his nomination, Mr. Tillerson needs to reassure the American people and he needs to reassure this body that he understands the repercussions of these kinds of appalling actions. He needs to show us that he will stand up for American values and against the President's dangerous impulses that will isolate our Nation, alienate our allies, and abdicate our role as leader of the free world. Mr. Tillerson has not shown any of that to me, to this body, or to the American public.

Thousands of New Mexicans have flooded my office with letters, emails, and phone calls urging me to oppose his nomination. I share New Mexicans' well-founded concerns about Mr. Tillerson's qualifications to lead the State Department and to stand up for our Nation's interests.

I will not support his nomination, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stop and think carefully about this vote we are about to take. Our Nation's future role in the world is at stake.

Mr. President, I was unable to cast my vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Rex W. Tillerson to be Secretary of State because I was addressing a joint session of the State legislature in New Mexico. If I had been present, I would have voted no.

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

Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Wyden for leading this important discussion. I joined the Senate Intelligence Committee 4 years ago, just a few short months before the public release of thousands of classified documents forced our country to have a debate over the scope and reach of America's surveillance programs, especially as they relate to American citizens.

That debate has formed the backdrop for national security policy decisions ever since, and I am very proud of the positive steps we have made toward reclaiming our civil liberties while still giving our intelligence and law enforcement communities the tools they need and deserve to anticipate threats, track down terrorists, and keep this Nation safe. It is because of Congressman Pompeo's opposition to those important reforms that I rise today to oppose his nomination to be the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Congressman Pompeo has a long legislative and rhetorical history on surveillance, on torture, and on other issues that I believe we simply cannot overlook in considering his nomination.

In our conversations, in answers to written questions, and during his confirmation hearing, Congressman Pompeo has often said the right thing or tried to give answers that on their face give the impression that he has changed his positions on these issues. But we need to carefully review the Congressman's votes and public statements to be sure that he understands the importance of protecting Americans' constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties and meeting the needs of our national security at the same time.

I was proud to help lead the effort to pass the USA FREEDOM Act in 2015 to finally end the government's overreach, their dragnet collection of law-abiding Americans' personal information, and provide the intelligence community with an updated legal framework that ensures they have the tools they need to focus on the records of actual terrorists, while at the same time protecting the privacy of innocent Americans.

Although the Congressman voted to support the USA FREEDOM Act in 2015, within a year, he had backtracked, writing a column for the National Review that stated:

Those who today suggest that the USA FREEDOM Act, which

gutted the National Security Agency's (NSA) metadata program,

enables the intelligence community to better prevent and

investigate threats against the U.S. are lying. I use that

word intentionally.

A few weeks later, Congressman Pompeo in the Wall Street Journal wrote: ``Congress should pass a law reestablishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information in a comprehensive, searchable database.''

I think I should read that one more time: ``Congress should pass a law reestablishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information in a comprehensive, searchable data base.''

Wow. I think we should unpack that sentence a little bit. First, when asked by Senator Wyden and me to clarify what metadata he believes should be collected, Congressman Pompeo made clear that he was referring to a rollback of the USA FREEDOM Act and a return to the warrantless and unnecessary collection of billions of communication records for millions of innocent Americans not suspected of any crime.

Shortly after Congressman Pompeo's Wall Street Journal column was published, the NSA's general counsel wrote in a column in Lawfare: ``Largely overlooked in the debate that has ensued . . . is the fact that under the new arrangement''--meaning the USA FREEDOM Act--``our national security professionals will have access to a greater volume of call records subject to query in a way that is consistent with our regard for civil liberties.''

But, really, it is the second part of Congressman Pompeo's position that gives me far more concern. What exactly does he mean by calling for the collection of ``publicly available financial and lifestyle information'' and placing it into a ``comprehensive, searchable data base''? When asked to clarify his proposal, Congressman Pompeo declined. However, I think it is clear from the context of both his columns and his public statements that he believes the U.S. Government ought to be collecting dramatically more private information from innocent Americans who are not under investigation for a crime.

Let me be clear. The Federal Government has no business collecting ``lifestyle information'' on its own citizens, and innocent Americans should expect that their private financial data is just that--private. This flies in the face of the Fourth Amendment.

On torture, Congressman Pompeo's record is also clear: He has supported it. Congressman Pompeo thinks it was a mistake to stop the enhanced interrogation program. He issued a very personal attack against then-Committee Chairman Feinstein when the committee released its report on the CIA detention and interrogation program. And while he acknowledges that CIA interrogation techniques are currently limited to those contained in the Army Field Manual, Congressman Pompeo said to our committee that he will ``consult with experts at the Agency and at other organizations in the U.S. government on whether the Army Field Manual uniform application is an impediment to gathering vital intelligence to protect the country or whether any rewrite of the Army Field Manual is needed.''

One could easily infer that the Congressman would ask the CIA officers who participated in the detention and interrogation program whether they believe the techniques contained in the Army Field Manual are sufficient. If he is told they are not, he has certainly left open the option of literally rewriting the Army Field Manual. This is problematic for a number of reasons and should be of deep concern to my colleagues.

Finally, the day before his nomination was announced, Congressman Pompeo tweeted that he was looking forward to ``rolling back'' the Iran nuclear agreement, which ended each and every pathway for Iran to develop a weaponized nuclear device, including a covert path. When I asked him about this in our hearing, Congressman Pompeo said: ``That communication was approved before I was aware that I was going to be the nominee to the Central Intelligence Agency.'' The Congressman went on to say that in his view, the Iran nuclear agreement was a ``mistake for American national security,'' but as CIA Director, he would ``work to make sure it is fully implemented and will endeavor to provide straight information'' about the progress being made in reducing Iran's nuclear capability. However, given his deep antipathy toward the Iran agreement, I have serious concerns about his ability to be objective about this issue, which is critical to the stability of the entire Middle East and to our efforts to ensure that Iran never develops a nuclear weapon.

Having said all of this, if the Congressman is confirmed, I hope he will fulfill one of the commitments he made to me: to improve the communications and relationship between the oversight committees in Congress and the Agency itself. It is my hope that a CIA Director coming from outside the Agency will give greater weight to informing the Intelligence Committee of the CIA's activities than his immediate predecessor has. Congressman Pompeo, if confirmed, will have an opportunity to recalibrate this relationship, and, if given the chance, I hope he seizes that opportunity.

Thank you. I yield the floor.

Madam Clerk, how am I recorded?

On behalf of all the children of New Mexico--

--who gained coverage from Medicaid expansion, I vote no.

Mr. President, I am here tonight to join my colleague the senior Senator from New Mexico and all my other colleagues on the Senate floor to stand up for hundreds of thousands of my constituents in New Mexico who will lose their health care coverage if Republicans repeal the Affordable Care Act and throw our Nation's health care system into chaos.

It is absolutely criminal for Republicans to strip millions of their health care without even a conceptual replacement plan in place. To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I want to make it clear that ``we will fix it later'' simply doesn't cut it.

They promised repeal and replace, and now they are giving us repeal and run, and that will cause chaos in our health care system. In my home State of New Mexico, according to the Urban Institute, an estimated 266,000 people will lose their health care coverage. This is not a change to their plan or a different premium. They will lose their coverage in its entirety. Thousands more of our State's 2 million residents will lose access to birth control and other preventive services and Medicare prescription drug coverage. Nearly everyone will be subjected to higher costs for lower quality insurance, especially those with preexisting conditions. Dismantling our health care system would also put at risk many of the gains we made in protecting the 860,000 New Mexicans who have preexisting conditions like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. These individuals will be forced to pay more for their health care coverage and possibly lose access altogether.

This is not a game; this is a matter of life and death. Without any plan in place, this repeal and run maneuver will cause health care costs for all Americans to skyrocket. Dismantling our health care system literally means taking hundreds of dollars each month away from hard-working families. In my book, that is highway robbery. How? It is simple. This reckless Republican repeal and run will strip away the tax credits that help many working Americans afford their premiums. More than 32,000 New Mexicans rely on those tax credits, which average about $200 a month--well over half of their monthly premium for health care coverage. Many of the sickest, oldest, and the poorest of our neighbors and family members will lose their health care coverage altogether.

Over 20,000 New Mexican seniors will be forced to pay $1,000 more per year for their prescription drugs. Fixed income seniors can't afford to pay more for prescription drugs.

Dismantling our health care system is particularly problematic in our Nation's rural areas, including much of the State of New Mexico. Last fall I went on a multiday rural health care listening tour across communities throughout Northeastern New Mexico. Rural hospitals like those in Raton, Clayton, and Santa Rosa are often the only health care providers for hundreds of miles in any direction. Under the Affordable Care Act, rural hospitals agree to exchange higher rates of insurance coverage for their patients for a reduction in reimbursement rates. In other words, they aren't being paid as much per patient as they once were, but the number of patients who come in without any insurance is dramatically lower. Now Republicans are going to take away coverage from a quarter million New Mexicans, but they aren't going to give rural hospitals their higher reimbursement premiums back. This repeal and run maneuver will cause many rural hospitals that already are operating on the margins to shut their doors or to simply turn away sick patients.

Nationwide, nearly 700 local hospitals in rural communities face the risk of imminent closure. Think about that. That is nearly one-third of the Nation's hospitals. Almost all of them would be forced to turn away patients if the Republicans move forward in dismantling our Nation's health care system. In New Mexico, that would mean forcing many of my constituents to drive for hours to access critical lifesaving care. It would also shake our State's economy to its core.

Health care jobs were one of the few economic bright spots in New Mexico over the past 6 years, particularly in rural communities, but this reckless plan--or I should say lack of one, to be accurate--throws our Nation's health care system into chaos and scars New Mexico's rural communities for years to come. A community whose hospital shuts down may never recover. That is what is at stake here. Denying a family health care, denying a whole community health care is reckless and immoral.

You might hear Republicans say they want to tear everything apart now, but we shouldn't worry because they will fix it later. Let me be clear: We have the capacity to fix and improve our current health care system in a bipartisan way without throwing it all into chaos, but Republicans have to make that choice before it is too late. I would welcome honest attempts to find ways to improve our Nation's health care laws, to make them work better for all Americans.

In the past, I have taken the lead on commonsense fixes to our Nation's health care policies. In 2010, in the House of Representatives, I led the fight to extend coverage to the children of military families covered by TRICARE up until the time they are 26 years old. After hearing from many small businesses in New Mexico, I fought to repeal unnecessary 1099 tax reporting requirements for small businesses. To this day, I continue to work with Republicans like Dean Heller of Nevada to eliminate the so-called Cadillac tax that would place an incredibly unfair tax burden on employer-provided health insurance that many working families rely on.

Republicans need to put partisan politics aside and remember why Congress passed the ACA in the first place: To expand access to quality health care for all Americans. Before we passed health care reform, New Mexico had the second highest rate of uninsured citizens in the entire Nation.

I have heard from a lot of New Mexicans who have told me how access to health care coverage has impacted their lives, even saved their lives. I would like to tell you just one story of one of those New Mexicans.

Karen from Santa Fe is a registered nurse, and she is a breast cancer survivor. As a nurse, Karen has seen how health care reform and the reduction of uninsured and uncompensated care has helped community hospitals better serve their patients. But the real impact of health care reform for Karen has been personal. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, Karen's insurance company dropped her coverage. When she had to pay out of pocket for her coverage, her costs doubled. As she went through several more recurrences of cancer, Karen went bankrupt. She lost her home.

In a letter to me, she said: ``Cancer is hard enough, but not to be able to afford my co-pays and appointments caused me so much stress it made me more vulnerable for complications.''

Today, Karen is able to afford health care coverage even with her preexisting condition. But Republicans are threatening to take that all away from her and from hundreds of millions of other Americans.

Karen went on to say in her letter:

No one should go without health care because of income.

Good health is not a privilege for a wealthy few, but a human

right.

It is hard to say it any better than that. No American has sent their elected representative to Washington to score political points and threaten the health and finances of hard-working Americans. Republicans need to realize that is exactly what they are doing. What they are doing means chaos. It means less health care. It is that simple.

I wish we could be here today talking about pragmatic policy solutions to reduce health care costs and improve how providers actually deliver that care. Instead, and unfortunately, we are here trying to stop Republicans from turning bumper sticker governance into a very real disaster for thousands of my constituents and millions of Americans. This reckless effort threatens the very lives and the livelihoods of the people of New Mexico.

I will not stand for that, and I know my constituents will not either.

Mr. President, for generations, Tony Reyna served his people in Taos Pueblo and northern New Mexico as a respected community leader and constant source of wisdom and kindness.

Last year, Mr. Reyna joined friends, family, and community members to celebrate his 100th birthday, which the New Mexico State Legislature officially proclaimed as Tony Reyna Day. After a full life of service and dedication to his community Mr. Reyna passed away last month surrounded by his family and loved ones.

Mr. Reyna was the last remaining survivor from Taos Pueblo of the Bataan death march. On April 9, 1942, Mr. Reyna and 1,800 other members of the New Mexico National Guard were among the more than 75,000 American and Filipino soldiers who were taken as prisoners of war by Japanese forces.

The Bataan death marchers were forced to endure 3 and a half years of brutal captivity. They were marched for days in the scorching heat through the Philippine jungles. Thousands died. Those who survived faced the hardships of a prisoner of war camp. Others were wounded or killed when unmarked enemy ships transporting prisoners of war to Japan were sunk by U.S. air and naval forces.

After returning to Taos after the war, Mr. Reyna opened Tony Reyna's Indian Shop in 1950, which has remained open to this day. He served two terms as governor of Taos Pueblo. He also served the Town of Taos as a police commissioner and as a museum board member. He was a lifetime member of the Taos Pueblo tribal council.

He leaves behind an enduring legacy thanks to his lifelong efforts to preserve the culture, resources, and traditions of Taos Pueblo. He played a vital role in the return of Blue Lake, the Pueblo's sacred headwaters in 1970. And

in 1992, when Mr. Reyna was serving his second term as governor, UNESCO designated Taos Pueblo as a World Heritage Site.

In 2015, at a Veterans Day ceremony at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, Mr. Reyna, then age 99, said, ``I served my country. I served my people. I'm still serving. I'm available anytime they ask me!''

The people of Taos Pueblo and all of us in New Mexico owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Mr. Reyna for his full lifetime of service.