Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, most Americans don't wake up every day thinking about the arcane rules of the Senate. They might think the debate we are having today is just another example of a legislative body they see as out of touch on the issues they care about most, issues on which a large majority of Americans agree action should be taken.

For example, the Republican Senate hasn't done anything about the epidemic of gun violence. The Republican Senate hasn't taken action to expand access to affordable, quality, universal healthcare. Instead, Republicans have tried to take healthcare away from millions of people. The Republican Senate hasn't passed comprehensive immigration reform, let alone offered the blameless Dreamers a path to citizenship and a life in the only country they know. The Republican Senate hasn't taken decisive action to combat climate change. The Republican Senate hasn't taken steps to empower our middle class. Instead, it passed a huge tax cut for the wealthiest Americans and corporations.

We should be having a real debate about all the issues I just mentioned. Instead, Republican leadership is proposing a resolution to, among other things, change Senate rules to reduce the number of hours of postcloture debate time from 30 hours to 2 hours for district court nominees.

Let me just mention, by the way, that there is a world of difference in requiring 51 votes to put people on the district and circuit courts versus what the Senate majority leader did in changing the vote requirements for people on the U.S. Supreme Court, changing that to a bare majority--a huge difference in putting in a 9-member Supreme Court with a bare majority of votes versus some 800 circuit and district court judges. If we can't see that difference, I have no words for that. We should see that difference.

Getting back to what is before us today, the significant rule change will help Donald Trump and his Republican enablers in the Senate to more swiftly pack our district courts with ideologically driven judges--judges who will make biased rulings in line with their personal ideological beliefs and not based on the law or the Constitution.

Our district court judges, appointed by Democratic and Republican Presidents alike, have been at the frontline of resisting Donald Trump's abuses of power. They have, for example, ordered the government to reunite parents with the children ripped from their arms at the border. They have rejected attempts to deny Federal funds to cities refusing to be drawn into the Trump administration's war on immigrants. They stopped Executive orders aimed at kneecapping public sector unions. They blocked the implementation of an ugly ban on transgender Americans serving in our military. They stopped the Commerce Department from putting a citizenship question in the census. They ruled that public officials cannot block citizens from their Twitter feeds. They stopped the government from banning Muslims from entering the United States. They stopped a decision that would have allowed States to require Medicaid recipients to work in order to receive benefits.

These exercises of judicial independence by our district judges are precisely why Donald Trump and his congressional enablers want to make it

easier to pack our courts with nominees handpicked by the far-right Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation. These organizations have spent decades and millions of dollars opposing universal healthcare, strengthening corporate interests, and undermining voting. They have also spent decades and millions putting their kinds of judges on the courts, with their lifetime positions.

If we aren't able to take as much time to examine their records and publicize their lack of fitness, Trump's nominees will soon occupy more and more of the lifetime appointments on the bench. Once they do, they will not only be more inclined to side with his extreme view of Executive power, they will also start ruling in cases consistent with the ideologies they bring to their jobs--for example, that abortion should be illegal; that Americans don't have a right to healthcare; that voter suppression is OK; that families with same-sex parents should be discriminated against; that transgender teenagers should be forced to be someone they are not; that Presidents can ban people from our country based on their faith; that one person's religious beliefs can trample the civil rights of everyone else. Trump's nominees have extensive records of their positions on these kinds of issues.

It used to be that appointees to the Federal district courts generally did not generate a lot of controversy. They were typically experienced trial lawyers or prosecutors with solid reputations in their hometowns, but they weren't typically activists or ideologues. There was a time when they were mostly White and mostly male, but starting in the Carter administration and building steam through the Clinton and Obama administrations, district court nominees presented to the Senate were increasingly diverse, with an emphasis on qualifications, not ideology. But Donald Trump's judicial nominees are, once again, mostly White and mostly male. They are now much more ideological and agenda-driven. He has also nominated a disproportionate number of lawyers who do what is called impact litigation, where they pursue cases to make political points and undo legislative decisions.

Some examples of Trump's dangerous circuit court nominees include Patrick Wyrick, who was solicitor general of Oklahoma and who, together with his close ally, then-Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, tried to dismantle Obama-era protections of clean air, clean water, and public land.

He was counsel of record on an amicus brief in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, challenging the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive coverage requirement.

He also submitted a brief in Humble v. Planned Parenthood of Arizona, challenging medication-induced abortion procedures commonly used by Planned Parenthood.

As deputy general counsel for the First Liberty Institute, Matthew Kacsmaryk filed briefs opposing same-sex marriage, supported a Virginia school board's anti-transgender bathroom policy, and opposed the right of all women to have their healthcare coverage include contraceptives.

Michael Truncale, another example, was a former congressional candidate and an ideological activist against voting rights, abortion, and immigration, who gave public speeches using the widely debunked myth of in-person voter fraud to justify Texas's draconian voter ID laws.

Another example is Wendy Vitter, who promoted fraudulent claims about abortion, birth control, and women's health at an appearance she initially failed to disclose to the committee. These fraudulent claims included the position that there is a connection between using birth control and getting cancer. She has been a public advocate for extreme restrictions on reproductive rights.

As deputy solicitor general in the Office of the Texas Attorney General, J. Campbell Barker represented Texas and Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt, urging the Supreme Court to uphold Texas's restrictive anti-abortion statute. The Supreme Court declined to do that, thankfully. He also supported Donald Trump's Muslim ban, advocated for the invalidation of DACA and DAPA, supported restrictive voter ID laws, opposed the right of all women to have their healthcare coverage include contraceptives, and I could go on and on.

These nominees have deeply held personal, ideological views who want to be judges for life to make these views into law.

During their confirmation hearings, these nominees told us, to a person, he or she would ``follow the law'' and ``follow precedent,'' but do they really expect us to believe they can set aside their careers of ideological activism? I don't think so. They were nominated precisely because they are advocates for an ideologically conservative agenda--just the kind of nominees who would get the stamp of approval from the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation. That is why my Republican colleagues support them, and that is why they want to pass this resolution--to pack the courts with these types of judges even faster.

Many Americans are awakening to the fact that court-packing is a clear and present danger to a woman's right to choose, voting rights, healthcare access, environmental protections, civil rights, and individual rights. Not content with the court-packing damage they have already done, Republicans are using this resolution for court-packing to happen even faster.

I cannot support this resolution.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to denounce the majority leader's sham debate on the Green New Deal.

Let's be clear. The majority leader did not call up this resolution for a vote because he thinks climate change is an urgent threat to our country. In fact, he has opposed nearly every congressional effort to combat the climate crisis.

The Republican Party's political and financial ties to the fossil fuel industry are well known. This latest effort to attack Senators demanding action on climate change with cries of socialism is reminiscent of the Red Scare, in my view.

Give me a break. The Green New Deal is an aspirational plan to combat climate change, create high-paying jobs, and develop a more sustainable

economy that allows communities, families, and individuals to thrive. This isn't radical. This isn't socialism. This is basic common sense. The truly radical position is the majority leader's insistence that we stick our heads in the sand, follow the lead of corporate-backed interests funding Republican campaigns, and do nothing to tackle climate change.

The status quo might benefit the majority leader, the Republican Party, and their allies in the fossil fuel industry, but it is deeply dangerous for our country. Climate change is already impacting our lives and damaging our economy.

Annual weather-related natural disasters have more than tripled worldwide since the 1960s, when scientists at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the big island of Hawaii first confirmed that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were steadily rising due to the burning of fossil fuels. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, the United States has sustained 139 weather and climate disasters--beginning with Hurricane Katrina in 2005--where damages exceeded $1 billion. The total cost of these 139 disasters? Nearly $1.1 trillion.

Last year, in 2018, the United States experienced the fourth highest number of weather disasters in our history at the tremendous costs of 247 lives lost and $91 billion in damages. In Hawaii last year, we registered recordbreaking flooding on Kauai and Oahu that resulted in more than $125 million in damages. That storm generated the largest 24- hour rainfall accumulation in American history at nearly 50 inches on Kauai's North Shore in a very short period of rainfall time.

Residents of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands also felt the devastating impact of Typhoon Yutu--the worst storm to hit any part of the United States since 1935. It certainly isn't a coincidence that 2018 was also the fourth hottest year on record, surpassed only by 2016, 2015, and 2017.

We have already seen the devastating cost of climate-driven disasters in the first 3 months of 2019. Eleven days ago, Tropical Cyclone Idai devastated Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, killing hundreds of people. It is already being called one of the worst weather-related disasters ever in the southern hemisphere.

Closer to home, the Missouri River has already set record levels of flooding in Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota. Under current estimates, this historic flooding in the Midwest will cost at least $3 billion in damages to roads, farms, homes, and businesses. According to Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler, climate change is exacerbating the flooding. He said: ``You can think of climate change as steroids for these rain events.''

More is on the way. According to the spring weather outlook NOAA released last Thursday, more than 200 million Americans are at risk for some kind of flooding, with 13 million of them at risk of major inundation.

Given the increasing intensity and frequency of severe weather events, many more States and communities will need disaster relief, something we are about to vote on later this week. Disaster relief is something we cannot, and should not, play politics with. Every community impacted by natural disasters should receive assistance in the upcoming supplemental appropriations bill, including Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and other territories.

While these extreme weather events will continue to impact local communities and the American economy, climate change also threatens our national security. Like a large majority of the American people, senior national security and Department of Defense officials understand we can't just follow the majority leader's example and stick our heads in the sand to avoid the painful truth of climate change.

In 2017, for example, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee: ``Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating.'' He also stated that ``climate change is a challenge that requires a broader, whole-of-government response.''

In February, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats issued a new worldwide threat assessment that concluded that climate hazards like extreme weather, wildfires, droughts, and acidifying oceans are ``threatening infrastructure, health, and water and food security'' around the world. This means there will be more threats to our national security in an increasingly unstable world environment.

Faced with a global problem that threatens our national security, President Trump, with the support of Republicans in Congress, announced he would withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord. He has, in effect, abdicated America's global leadership role in the climate crisis, alienated our allies, and created new opportunities for near-peer competitors like China. At the same time as the United States embraced climate denial on the international stage under Donald Trump, China has stepped up to fill the diplomatic void.

After the latest round of international climate talks in November, Canada's Minister of Environment, Catherine McKenna said:

When the U.S. stepped back, China decided to step up. The

role China plays around the negotiating table can't be

underestimated.

In addition to its diplomatic efforts, China has made significant policy changes to reduce its coal use from its 2013 peak and to scale up low carbon alternatives. China is now the world's leading producer, exporter, and installer of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and electric vehicles.

China isn't the only country on the global stage acknowledging the reality of climate change and taking steps to combat it. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, has said: ``Climate action is a matter of both ecological necessity and economic rationality.''

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said:

The effects of climate change are everywhere, and they are

a constant reminder of the need to act now. While climate

change is the biggest challenge of this generation, it also

provides the opportunity to do better while growing the

economy.

Under the previous 2 years of their unified control of the White House and Congress, Republicans have repeatedly blocked any efforts to combat climate change. With Democrats now in control in the House, I am looking forward to working with like-minded colleagues to demonstrate there are those of us ready and willing to act.

Today, I am joining Representative Barbara Lee of California to introduce the Women and Climate Change Act of 2019. This bill recognizes that while the negative impacts of climate change often impact women the most, they too often don't have a seat at the table when it comes to developing policy.

Our bill creates a Federal interagency working group that will collect data and develop policies and strategies to address the effects of climate change on women both at home and abroad. We need to empower women to tackle climate change. They need seats at the table.

So long as Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress obstruct meaningful debate and action, States and local communities are taking their own decisive steps to combat climate change.

Almost every State in the country has begun to experience the impact of climate change. But as an island State, Hawaii is poised to experience some of the harshest consequences of climate change. Rising sea levels, combined with increased storm runoff, will increase coastal flooding and erosion, damaging sensitive ecosystems, infrastructure, and agriculture.

According to research from the University of Hawaii Sea Grant Program, 70 percent of beaches in Hawaii are eroding and 13 miles of public beaches that once were present no longer exist. Waikiki Beach alone generates $2.2 billion of Hawaii's economy every year and could be completely submerged by the end of the century. A warming ocean will increase bleaching and disease outbreaks on coral reefs, which currently support $360 million in economic activity each year.

For Hawaii, a sea level rise of 3.2 feet--which could happen as early as 2060--will result in $20 billion in damage, the chronic flooding of 38 miles of major roads, 25,000 acres of land, 6,500 structures rendered unusable or lost, and 20,000 residents displaced.

The prospect of such widespread climate change-driven devastation has spurred the State of Hawaii to action.

We have made a commitment to become carbon-neutral and generate 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy sources by 2045, and we became the first State to separately ratify the Paris climate agreement. Eighteen States and Puerto Rico have since followed suit.

In addition to efforts at the State level, local communities, families, and landowners are taking their own steps to cope with the threat of climate change and adapt as necessary. Last week, I met with National Park Service officials, members of the Ala Kahakai Trail Association, local government representatives, nongovernment organizations, and community partners, including Native Hawaiian lineal descendants, to learn what they are doing to lead community-based approaches to trail management and how the issue of climate change is threatening national treasures on our coasts in Hawaii.

During my visit, members of the Kailapa Community Association created a plan to cope with decreased rainfall, coastal erosion, and other impacts on the ahupua'a--or division of land--that they have lived on for more than 12 generations. Families and communities in Hawaii who understand the threat of climate change are demanding that we take divisive action to combat it.

Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress should muster the political courage to do the same, but that is not happening anytime soon--quite the contrary. Instead, as with so many ideas they oppose, Republicans have resorted to mocking and distorting what the Green New Deal does. They are doing it by their tried-and-true method--by scaring people.

Donald Trump and the majority leader have invested a lot of time in attempting to justify their claim that the Green New Deal is going to ban air travel. What?

Let me conclude by saying that the Green New Deal is aspirational. To say that it is going to result in forcing everyone to stop eating meat--it is like, what the heck? What these so-called facts opponents and the climate change deniers are saying about the Green New Deal is laughable, coming from the very people who deny the scientific fact of climate change.

I could go on, but obviously my time is up. I will have more to say as we continue this so-called sham debate. But let's not continue to stick our heads in the sand.

I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a letter written by an 11-year-old girl in Hawaii who spoke at a climate change rally in Hawaii. She was so articulate. She said: You know, this is like experiencing world war III for the young people.

They demand that the adults in the Senate to do something about it and address climate change in an appropriate way.

Thank you.

On Sunday, I received a letter from Mesina--an 11-year-old girl--who spoke at a March 15th climate action protest in Hawaii, and she wrote:

``I hope that all of our eyes are open now. Floods are

demolishing people's homes, forest fires are killing people

and singeing acres of land. Sea creatures are dying. Oceans

are rising. How can we deny climate change and the science

that supports its human cause?''

``We are experiencing World War III, except in this war, we

are all on the same side. We can all agree on clean air,

clean water, and a clean earth. As a child that is going to

inherit our Earth, I beg you please do everything in your

power to protect my generation's future and the generations

to follow.''

Mesina is asking us to step up. It's past time to take urgent action to combat climate change.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to denounce the majority leader's sham debate on the Green New Deal.

Let's be clear. The majority leader did not call up this resolution for a vote because he thinks climate change is an urgent threat to our country. In fact, he has opposed nearly every congressional effort to combat the climate crisis.

The Republican Party's political and financial ties to the fossil fuel industry are well known. This latest effort to attack Senators demanding action on climate change with cries of socialism is reminiscent of the Red Scare, in my view.

Give me a break. The Green New Deal is an aspirational plan to combat climate change, create high-paying jobs, and develop a more sustainable

economy that allows communities, families, and individuals to thrive. This isn't radical. This isn't socialism. This is basic common sense. The truly radical position is the majority leader's insistence that we stick our heads in the sand, follow the lead of corporate-backed interests funding Republican campaigns, and do nothing to tackle climate change.

The status quo might benefit the majority leader, the Republican Party, and their allies in the fossil fuel industry, but it is deeply dangerous for our country. Climate change is already impacting our lives and damaging our economy.

Annual weather-related natural disasters have more than tripled worldwide since the 1960s, when scientists at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the big island of Hawaii first confirmed that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were steadily rising due to the burning of fossil fuels. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, the United States has sustained 139 weather and climate disasters--beginning with Hurricane Katrina in 2005--where damages exceeded $1 billion. The total cost of these 139 disasters? Nearly $1.1 trillion.

Last year, in 2018, the United States experienced the fourth highest number of weather disasters in our history at the tremendous costs of 247 lives lost and $91 billion in damages. In Hawaii last year, we registered recordbreaking flooding on Kauai and Oahu that resulted in more than $125 million in damages. That storm generated the largest 24- hour rainfall accumulation in American history at nearly 50 inches on Kauai's North Shore in a very short period of rainfall time.

Residents of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands also felt the devastating impact of Typhoon Yutu--the worst storm to hit any part of the United States since 1935. It certainly isn't a coincidence that 2018 was also the fourth hottest year on record, surpassed only by 2016, 2015, and 2017.

We have already seen the devastating cost of climate-driven disasters in the first 3 months of 2019. Eleven days ago, Tropical Cyclone Idai devastated Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, killing hundreds of people. It is already being called one of the worst weather-related disasters ever in the southern hemisphere.

Closer to home, the Missouri River has already set record levels of flooding in Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota. Under current estimates, this historic flooding in the Midwest will cost at least $3 billion in damages to roads, farms, homes, and businesses. According to Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler, climate change is exacerbating the flooding. He said: ``You can think of climate change as steroids for these rain events.''

More is on the way. According to the spring weather outlook NOAA released last Thursday, more than 200 million Americans are at risk for some kind of flooding, with 13 million of them at risk of major inundation.

Given the increasing intensity and frequency of severe weather events, many more States and communities will need disaster relief, something we are about to vote on later this week. Disaster relief is something we cannot, and should not, play politics with. Every community impacted by natural disasters should receive assistance in the upcoming supplemental appropriations bill, including Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and other territories.

While these extreme weather events will continue to impact local communities and the American economy, climate change also threatens our national security. Like a large majority of the American people, senior national security and Department of Defense officials understand we can't just follow the majority leader's example and stick our heads in the sand to avoid the painful truth of climate change.

In 2017, for example, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee: ``Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating.'' He also stated that ``climate change is a challenge that requires a broader, whole-of-government response.''

In February, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats issued a new worldwide threat assessment that concluded that climate hazards like extreme weather, wildfires, droughts, and acidifying oceans are ``threatening infrastructure, health, and water and food security'' around the world. This means there will be more threats to our national security in an increasingly unstable world environment.

Faced with a global problem that threatens our national security, President Trump, with the support of Republicans in Congress, announced he would withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord. He has, in effect, abdicated America's global leadership role in the climate crisis, alienated our allies, and created new opportunities for near-peer competitors like China. At the same time as the United States embraced climate denial on the international stage under Donald Trump, China has stepped up to fill the diplomatic void.

After the latest round of international climate talks in November, Canada's Minister of Environment, Catherine McKenna said:

When the U.S. stepped back, China decided to step up. The

role China plays around the negotiating table can't be

underestimated.

In addition to its diplomatic efforts, China has made significant policy changes to reduce its coal use from its 2013 peak and to scale up low carbon alternatives. China is now the world's leading producer, exporter, and installer of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and electric vehicles.

China isn't the only country on the global stage acknowledging the reality of climate change and taking steps to combat it. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, has said: ``Climate action is a matter of both ecological necessity and economic rationality.''

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said:

The effects of climate change are everywhere, and they are

a constant reminder of the need to act now. While climate

change is the biggest challenge of this generation, it also

provides the opportunity to do better while growing the

economy.

Under the previous 2 years of their unified control of the White House and Congress, Republicans have repeatedly blocked any efforts to combat climate change. With Democrats now in control in the House, I am looking forward to working with like-minded colleagues to demonstrate there are those of us ready and willing to act.

Today, I am joining Representative Barbara Lee of California to introduce the Women and Climate Change Act of 2019. This bill recognizes that while the negative impacts of climate change often impact women the most, they too often don't have a seat at the table when it comes to developing policy.

Our bill creates a Federal interagency working group that will collect data and develop policies and strategies to address the effects of climate change on women both at home and abroad. We need to empower women to tackle climate change. They need seats at the table.

So long as Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress obstruct meaningful debate and action, States and local communities are taking their own decisive steps to combat climate change.

Almost every State in the country has begun to experience the impact of climate change. But as an island State, Hawaii is poised to experience some of the harshest consequences of climate change. Rising sea levels, combined with increased storm runoff, will increase coastal flooding and erosion, damaging sensitive ecosystems, infrastructure, and agriculture.

According to research from the University of Hawaii Sea Grant Program, 70 percent of beaches in Hawaii are eroding and 13 miles of public beaches that once were present no longer exist. Waikiki Beach alone generates $2.2 billion of Hawaii's economy every year and could be completely submerged by the end of the century. A warming ocean will increase bleaching and disease outbreaks on coral reefs, which currently support $360 million in economic activity each year.

For Hawaii, a sea level rise of 3.2 feet--which could happen as early as 2060--will result in $20 billion in damage, the chronic flooding of 38 miles of major roads, 25,000 acres of land, 6,500 structures rendered unusable or lost, and 20,000 residents displaced.

The prospect of such widespread climate change-driven devastation has spurred the State of Hawaii to action.

We have made a commitment to become carbon-neutral and generate 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy sources by 2045, and we became the first State to separately ratify the Paris climate agreement. Eighteen States and Puerto Rico have since followed suit.

In addition to efforts at the State level, local communities, families, and landowners are taking their own steps to cope with the threat of climate change and adapt as necessary. Last week, I met with National Park Service officials, members of the Ala Kahakai Trail Association, local government representatives, nongovernment organizations, and community partners, including Native Hawaiian lineal descendants, to learn what they are doing to lead community-based approaches to trail management and how the issue of climate change is threatening national treasures on our coasts in Hawaii.

During my visit, members of the Kailapa Community Association created a plan to cope with decreased rainfall, coastal erosion, and other impacts on the ahupua'a--or division of land--that they have lived on for more than 12 generations. Families and communities in Hawaii who understand the threat of climate change are demanding that we take divisive action to combat it.

Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress should muster the political courage to do the same, but that is not happening anytime soon--quite the contrary. Instead, as with so many ideas they oppose, Republicans have resorted to mocking and distorting what the Green New Deal does. They are doing it by their tried-and-true method--by scaring people.

Donald Trump and the majority leader have invested a lot of time in attempting to justify their claim that the Green New Deal is going to ban air travel. What?

Let me conclude by saying that the Green New Deal is aspirational. To say that it is going to result in forcing everyone to stop eating meat--it is like, what the heck? What these so-called facts opponents and the climate change deniers are saying about the Green New Deal is laughable, coming from the very people who deny the scientific fact of climate change.

I could go on, but obviously my time is up. I will have more to say as we continue this so-called sham debate. But let's not continue to stick our heads in the sand.

I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a letter written by an 11-year-old girl in Hawaii who spoke at a climate change rally in Hawaii. She was so articulate. She said: You know, this is like experiencing world war III for the young people.

They demand that the adults in the Senate to do something about it and address climate change in an appropriate way.

Thank you.

On Sunday, I received a letter from Mesina--an 11-year-old girl--who spoke at a March 15th climate action protest in Hawaii, and she wrote:

``I hope that all of our eyes are open now. Floods are

demolishing people's homes, forest fires are killing people

and singeing acres of land. Sea creatures are dying. Oceans

are rising. How can we deny climate change and the science

that supports its human cause?''

``We are experiencing World War III, except in this war, we

are all on the same side. We can all agree on clean air,

clean water, and a clean earth. As a child that is going to

inherit our Earth, I beg you please do everything in your

power to protect my generation's future and the generations

to follow.''

Mesina is asking us to step up. It's past time to take urgent action to combat climate change.

Mr. President, two weeks ago, the Senate broke a century of precedent and confirmed a judge, Eric Miller, to the Ninth Circuit over the objection of both home State Senators.

Last week, the majority leader filed cloture on two circuit court nominees, Paul Matey for the Third Circuit and Neomi Rao to replace Brett Kavanaugh in the DC Circuit.

Yesterday, Paul Matey became the second person in Senate history, after Eric Miller, to be confirmed without blue slips from both home State Senators. By eliminating the blue slip--a century-old policy that requires meaningful consultation between the President and home State Senators on judicial nominations--Senate Republicans have been able to speed through confirming partisan judges with strong ideological perspectives and agendas.

Donald Trump appointed 30 circuit court judges in his first 2 years in office. That is 17 percent of the Federal appellate bench. By contrast, President Obama appointed only 16 circuit court judges in his first 2 years in office, and President George Bush appointed 17.

Donald Trump and the majority leader, with the help of the chair of the Judiciary Committee, are breaking nearly every rule that stands in their way to stack, at breakneck speed, the Federal courts with deeply partisan and ideological judges.

And why are they doing this? They are packing the courts to achieve, through the courts, what they haven't been able to accomplish through legislation or executive action--undermining Roe v. Wade, dismantling the Affordable Care Act, eliminating protections for workers, women, minorities, LGBTQ individuals, immigrants, and the environment.

The courts, with non-Trump judges, have been the constitutional guardrails stopping the Trump administration's deeply questionable policies and decisions, such as separating immigrant children from their parents, summarily ending DACA protections, and asking whether census respondents are U.S. citizens. All of these administration decisions have been stopped, for now, by Federal judges.

Trump's judicial nominees have extensive records of advocating for rightwing, ideologically-driven causes. In fact, these records are the reasons they are being nominated in the first place.

The nominees tell us to ignore their records and trust them when they say they will follow precedent and rule impartially, but after they are confirmed as judges, they can ignore promises made under oath during their confirmation hearing because they can. Short of impeaching these judges, there is nothing we can do about it--great for them, not great for Americans.

By the way, the average Trump judge tends to be younger, less diverse, and less experienced. They will be making rules that affect our lives for decades.

This week we are considering yet another Trump nominee, Neomi Rao, who should make us seriously ask how far the majority leader is willing to go to let Donald Trump pack the courts with extreme nominees and undermine the independence and impartiality of the Federal judiciary.

Neomi Rao is a nominee who has not only expressed offensive and controversial views in her twenties, but she has also continued to make concerning statements as a law professor. Her recent actions as Donald Trump's Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OIRA, have shown that her controversial statements in her twenties cannot be ignored as merely youthful indiscretions.

At the hearing, I asked her why, as a law professor, she defended dwarf-tossing by arguing that a ban on dwarf-tossing ``coerces individuals'' to accept a societal view of dignity that negates the dignity of an individual's choice to be tossed.

Does she seriously believe that dwarfs who are tossed do not share a societal view of dignity that being tossed is an affront to human dignity?

Ms. Rao asserted that she was only talking about a particular case and not taking a position one way or another on these issues. It is hard to understand what distinction she is making, but describing a ban on dwarf-tossing as not coercion is bizarre, especially coming from someone who purports to worry about the dignitary harm caused by affirmative action or diversity in education programs.

When I asked her about the strong ideological perspectives reflected in her writings and public statements, she claimed that she ``come[s] here to this committee with no agenda and no ideology and [she] would strive, if [she] were confirmed, to follow the law in every case.''

Ms. Rao would have us ignore all of her controversial statements and positions and simply trust her blanket assertion that she has no agenda or ideology. In this, she is like the other Trump judicial nominees.

As a college student, Ms. Rao criticized environmental student groups for focusing on ``three major environmental boogymen, the greenhouse effect, the depleting ozone layer, and the dangers of acid rain . . . though all three theories have come under serious scientific attack.''

More than two decades later, Ms. Rao demonstrated the same disregard for environmental concerns as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OIRA. In this position she has consistently used her power and influence to strip away critical protections for clean air and clean water. For example, Ms. Rao supported efforts to replace the Clean Power Plan, which would have reduced greenhouse gas emissions with a rule that would actually increase air pollution and could lead to up to 1,400 additional premature deaths.

Her claim that she would simply follow precedent is also contradicted by her statements and positions relating to racial injustice. In her twenties, while discussing the Yale Women's Center and what she called ``cultural awareness groups,'' she argued that ``[m]yths of sexual and racial oppression propogate [sic] themselves, create hysteria and finally lead to the formation of some whining new group.''

I just wonder, what are these whining new groups that she refers to? Could it be women who want to support programs that support women?

In 2015, as a law professor, she disparagingly described the Supreme Court case that reaffirmed the Fair Housing Act's protections against disparate impact discrimination as a ``rul[ing] by talking points,'' not law.

In Texas Department of Housing v. Inclusive Communities Project, the Supreme Court recognized that the disparate impact doctrine is an important way ``to counteract unconscious prejudices and disguised animus'' based on a policy's discriminatory effects. Despite the Supreme Court precedent, when Ms. Rao became the OIRA Administrator, she began working to weaken rules protecting against disparate impact discrimination--upheld by the Supreme Court, by the way--particularly in the area of housing.

Her writings and actions related to sexual assault and rape are another reason we should be hesitant to believe her claim that she will merely follow the law free of her strongly held ideological views. In her twenties, Ms. Rao repeatedly wrote offensive statements about date rape and sexual assault that disparaged survivors. In writing about date rape, she argued that if a woman ``drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice.''

In criticizing the feminist movement, she asserted she was ``not arguing that date rape victims ask for it'' but then argued that ``when playing the modern dating game, women have to understand and accept the consequences of their sexuality.''

At her hearing and in a subsequent letter to this Committee, Ms. Rao tried to walk away from these offensive writings, stating that she ``regret[s]'' some of them and believes ``[v]ictims should not be blamed.'' But at the hearing she continued to insist that her prior controversial statements were ``only trying to make the commonsense observation about the relationship between drinking and becoming a victim.'' That is not how her statements came across.

She seems to acknowledge that by further claiming that if she were addressing campus sexual assault and rape now, she ``would have more empathy and perspective.'' That claim rings hollow, as she only recently oversaw the Trump administration's proposed title IX rule that would make it harder for college sexual assault survivors to come forward and obtain justice.

Among other things, the proposed rule would require schools to conduct a live hearing where the accused's representatives can cross- examine the survivor. It would also have the school use a higher burden of proof for sexual misconduct cases than for other misconduct cases.

I will close by noting that Ms. Rao previously criticized the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for judicial nominees. In writing about the Supreme Court confirmation process, she complained that nominees are ``coached to choose from certain stock answers,'' such as ``repeatedly alleg[ing] fidelity to the law.''

Back then she readily acknowledged that ``judges draw on a variety of tools in interpreting the law, and that these tools differ for judges based on their constitutional values.'' But now that she has been nominated to become a judge, she is the one giving the Judiciary Committee the formulaic ``stock answers'' that she criticized.

Before she became a judicial nominee, she indicated that nominees should not be confirmed ``based on incantations of the right formulas without an examination of their actual beliefs.'' We should hold her to her own words.

An examination of Ms. Rao's record and actual beliefs show that the controversial views she held in her twenties are not so different from her statements and actions as a legal professional. That is why I will be voting against Ms. Rao's nomination, and I strongly urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, the entire Senate Democratic caucus and I are introducing a resolution that simply asks the Department of Justice to do what it is supposed to do--defend the duly enacted laws of this country.

This resolution shouldn't be necessary, but last year, as 19 States joined Texas in challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, Attorney General Jeff Sessions refused to defend the ACA in court and, in fact, filed a brief arguing that several vital protections of the law should be ruled unconstitutional, including protections for Americans living with preexisting conditions.

In making his decision not to defend a duly enacted law, Jeff Sessions himself acknowledged that he was going against a ``longstanding tradition of defending the constitutionality of duly enacted statutes if reasonable arguments can be made in their defense.''

Guess what. There are many reasonable arguments for the ACA. Even conservative lawyers who previously argued against the ACA agree. One attorney filed an amicus brief in opposition to the Department of Justice's position calling it ``dangerous,'' ``beyond the pale,'' and ``effectively [usurping] legislative power.''

The Justice Department lawyer who authored the brief opposing the ACA, Chad Readler, was just rewarded with a confirmation to a lifetime position to the Sixth Circuit. In fact, Mr. Readler's circuit court nomination came on the exact same day that he filed the brief on behalf of the Department of Justice. Talk about yet another Trump nominee who auditioned for his position.

The Justice Department's actions were blatantly political and had a specific outcome in mind: accomplishing through the courts what Republicans have tried and failed to achieve through the legislative process; that is, repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Three career attorneys at the Department of Justice withdrew from the case in protest of their Department's failing to defend the ACA.

In December, a Federal court in Texas sided with the Trump administration, Texas, and 19 other States in declaring the entirety of the ACA unconstitutional. Of course, this will be appealed.

The Fifth Circuit--one of the most conservative appellate courts in the country--will hear the case next. The case is destined for consideration by the Supreme Court, wherein Trump-appointed Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will cast two deciding votes on whether to uphold the ACA or cast it aside. I shudder to think which way they are likely to go.

The outcome of this case will have a profound impact on virtually every American, especially the 133 million people living with preexisting conditions.

This is not a game. Lives are at stake. Without the ACA's protections, millions of Americans living with conditions as common as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, or cancer could be charged exorbitant premiums or denied insurance coverage altogether.

The stakes in this ongoing court battle are incredibly high. Our resolution simply asks the Department of Justice to do its job, defend the ACA as a duly enacted act of Congress, and stand up to protect Americans living with preexisting conditions.

Although many of my Republican colleagues profess to support protections for those with preexisting conditions, not a single one of them has signed on to support this resolution.

Under new leadership, the Department of Justice can do the right thing. During his confirmation hearing, newly confirmed Attorney General Bill Barr indicated he was open to reassessing DOJ's decision to oppose the ACA in court. We shall see.

With this resolution, my Democratic colleagues and I urge him to reexamine the Department's position, consider the monumental impact this case would have on millions of Americans, and stand up for the 133 million Americans living with a preexisting condition.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 94 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I often say that I like to see when people reveal themselves.

With this objection today, my colleague from Wyoming has sent a clear message to Americans living with preexisting conditions that the Republican Party doesn't care about them. I am disappointed with his objection, but I can't say that I am surprised. Today's

action is very consistent with the Republican Party's hostility to the ACA and their belief that healthcare is a privilege reserved only for those who can afford it.

To recap, Republicans voted dozens of times over the past 9 years to repeal the ACA in its entirety. The Senate came within one vote in July 2017 of repealing the law--one vote.

The majority leader and my Republican colleagues from South Carolina and Louisiana proposed--and came close to passing--a bill that would have gutted the ACA and cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid.

As part of their huge tax cut for the rich and corporations, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans eliminated the individual coverage requirement of ACA, driving up premiums across the country.

So the assault on healthcare continues. The American people are paying attention, and Republicans will be held accountable.

I yield the floor.

Madam President.

Reserving the right to object, this resolution is a cynical attempt to divide Democrats where no division exists. The Democratic Party is united behind the principle that healthcare should be affordable and accessible to all. As far as I am concerned, healthcare is a right, not a privilege reserved for those who can afford it.

Medicare for All is one way to get to universal healthcare that is affordable for everyone, but it is not the only way. While Democrats are working to build on the success of the Affordable Care Act to cover even more Americans, Senate Republicans have tried time and again to eliminate coverage for tens of millions of Americans. This is particularly evident in the President's budget--a budget that would make over $2 trillion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, programs that provide healthcare coverage to one out of every three people in our country.

I call on my Republican colleagues to join us to improve the ACA and expand coverage to more Americans rather than trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act time after time.

It is unfortunate that my colleagues would rather offer this distraction than acknowledge that millions of Americans rely on Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA for healthcare. In offering this resolution, Republicans continue to do nothing except propose cuts to all three critical programs.

I object.

Madam President.

Very briefly, I simply want to ask my Republican colleagues whether they believe that healthcare should be accessible and affordable for all. Apparently, they do not, because they have offered absolutely nothing to make sure healthcare is accessible and affordable for all.

In fact, in their continuing efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act and, in fact, eliminate the Affordable Care Act, they would rather have a healthcare system where millions of Americans are without healthcare at all.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I am glad to join Senator Stabenow, who was on the floor just now, to respond to the shameful lies and gross exaggerations that have been claimed by some on the other side of the aisle.

Earlier this week, we voted on legislation that some of my colleagues claimed was needed to outlaw infanticide--the killing of babies. How absurd. It is, and has always been, illegal to kill any human, including infants.

So what was in that legislation we voted on earlier this week? To honestly discuss the bill, we need to have a factually and medically accurate conversation about abortion.

A healthy fetus becomes potentially able to live outside the womb at about 24 weeks of pregnancy. Very few abortions occur after that--less than 1 percent--and generally are performed either because the fetus has a fatal condition or the pregnant woman's life or health is at severe risk. These are heartbreaking situations involving very wanted pregnancies--hardly the time for the heavy hand of government to reach into our wombs.

Under this bill, doctors will be required to resuscitate infants born with fatal conditions, even if the parents did not want these measures that could prolong their infant's suffering and instead wanted to spend the limited time they had with their baby comforting their child and holding them close.

How dare anyone pretend to know what care is best for these families instead of trusting them and their doctors to decide. How dare Congress interject itself into a decision we have no business deciding for others. Yet this is exactly what this bill would have done.

I encourage my colleagues to read stories from women who have been speaking up about their experiences with abortion later in pregnancy. These stories are usually found on the internet as well as in the national press, as more women feel under attack and are coming forward to tell their stories. Perhaps, in hearing from these women, my colleagues will realize what these women need is compassion, not condemnation.

Stories like that of Dana Weinstein, who bravely told her story to CNN. Years ago, Dana and her husband learned at 31 weeks that their daughter's brain had a severe defect. Doctors told the couple their daughter would not be able to suck or swallow and would most likely suffer from uncontrollable seizures upon birth. They heard what a resuscitation order would entail. They listened to what an existence, short-lived or otherwise, would look like. They were briefed on hospice care.

After the diagnosis, the kicks in Dana's belly, which had given her so much joy, became unbearable. She feared her daughter was seizing and may be suffering. Ultimately, Dana and her husband decided to get an abortion. For this baby they loved, it felt like--in their words--``a more peaceful path for her passing.''

These are the stories. Compassion and understanding are what is needed in these instances, but instead of compassion, what my colleagues have offered this week is inflammatory political rhetoric and shaming and intimidating women and their providers who care for them in an attempt to score partisan points.

President Trump--never missing an opportunity to score partisan points--weighed in on Twitter claiming that Senate Democrats ``don't mind executing babies after birth.''

Today former Governor Scott Walker said to a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference that ``people are taking already-born babies from the hospital and aborting them there''--a comment that doesn't even make sense.

Republican National Committee chair, Ronna McDaniel, chimed in at the same conference, calling the choice that women like Dana make murder. These charges are false, incendiary, and this sort of language is intended to incite the Republican Party's base. It emboldens violence against abortion providers--violence which nearly doubled from 33 reported death threats or threats of harm in 2016 to 62 in 2017, according to the National Abortion Federation.

The hard truth is, the Republican Party hurts women. One of the ways they are doing this is by working as hard as they can to set up barriers or to eliminate entirely safe and legal abortions wherever they can.

They demonize women who face the heartbreaking situation of needing an abortion later in pregnancy, oftentimes for medical reasons.

They want to cut off crucial healthcare dollars to providers who even discuss abortion with patients. This is a gag rule that this administration is seeking to impose.

They create loopholes to allow businesses to exclude coverage for contraception for workers, and to make sure that these and all of their other efforts stick, they pack the Federal courts with a line of aggressively anti-choice judges to uphold Federal Agency actions and State laws restricting abortion access.

Doing the bidding of these rightwing ideologue supporters like the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, Donald Trump has sent us judicial nominee after nominee with records of attacking a woman's right to choose as laid out in the Supreme Court's opinion in Roe v. Wade and restated in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

These nominees come before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which I serve, and parrot the line provided for them by the Trump administration. When asked if they will respect precedent and uphold Roe v. Wade, they say they will ``follow the law.'' Then, when they get confirmed, they are in a position, with their lifetime appointments, to do exactly the opposite.

The prime and most dangerous example of this kind of bait and switch is Brett Kavanaugh--a notoriously rightwing political lawyer appointed by George W. Bush to the second highest court in the United States--the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

Kavanaugh was not even on Donald Trump's original so-called short list of possible Supreme Court nominees--not the list released before the 2016 election and not the first list released thereafter. No, Kavanaugh only found a place on that list after he wrote a harsh dissent in a case involving a young refugee's right to an abortion.

A minor, then 17 years old, was being kept in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services because she had entered the United States without documentation. Where she was held in Texas, in order to access abortion services, a minor must have parental consent or receive permission from the judge. This is called a judicial bypass--to proceed without that parental consent.

In this case, called Garza v. Hargan, the young woman did go through the process of going to court and receiving a judicial bypass. She had people willing and able to transport her and to

pay for the health services she needed, but the radical Trump appointee in charge, well known for his anti-abortion views, decided it would be in her best interest to find adult sponsors for her first, presumably to help her make a decision, but the Texas court had already decided she could make her own decision, and she did.

She challenged the Trump appointee and his Agency, and ultimately a majority of the DC Circuit agreed with her that she had the legal right to an abortion and the Federal Government could not delay any further.

Brett Kavanaugh, sitting on that circuit, disagreed and wrote a dissent, which must have captured the attention of those in charge of Donald Trump's Supreme Court short list because not long after his name appeared on that list.

What did he write to earn his place on the list and eventually a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court? He wrote a dissenting opinion that falsely characterized the Garza case as one about parental consent, which we know was not so because a judicial bypass was already in place.

He wrote the dissent using the code words of the extreme anti-choice and anti-women wing of the Republican Party. He accused the majority on that court of creating ``a new right for unlawful immigrant minors in U.S. government detention to obtain immediate abortion on demand.'' He was wrong. There was no new right being created.

He falsely claimed that by permitting the abortion ``[t]he majority's decision represents a radical extension of the Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence.'' He was wrong again. The majority decision was correct under Roe v. Wade.

He wrote it was not an undue burden for this young woman to be prevented from getting an abortion until a sponsor family could be found for her. This was not even a legal argument, but he based his dissent on it. That is the dissent that moved Brett Kavanaugh to the head of the line on the short list for a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he sits.

So when he came to the Judiciary Committee for a hearing, some Senators--myself included--were rightly skeptical that he would respect precedent if confirmed. At his hearing, Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein asked Judge Kavanaugh about Roe v. Wade and its status as settled precedent. He testified that Roe was ``settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis.''

He further went on: ``Planned Parenthood v. Casey reaffirms Roe and did so by considering the stare decisis factors. So Casey now becomes a precedent on precedent.''

It sure sounds like someone who will apply the precedents of Roe and Casey and others who rely on them, doesn't it? That is not so.

The very first opportunity he got, Brett Kavanaugh, as Supreme Court Justice, voted against following precedent. Not 4 months after his confirmation, Justice Kavanaugh voted in the minority in a Supreme Court case called June Medical Services v. Gee to allow a restrictive, anti-abortion law in Louisiana to take effect.

This law would have so restricted access to abortion that only one provider would have been left in the entire State of Louisiana of 4.7 million people. Even Chief Justice Roberts voted with the majority to block the law. That is because it was clear from recent precedent in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt that such restrictions don't meet constitutional standards.

Justice Kavanaugh's cavalier attitude to the burden that he would put on a woman's ability to exercise their constitutional right is no surprise. His callous disregard for the way unwanted pregnancies can change the lives of women and children is not unexpected, and his willingness to hew to the party line of his supporters and ignore the assurances he gave the Senate is simply par for the course with Trump judicial nominees. This is what they do. It is an abuse of power, and women across the country are paying for it.

Why do my colleagues across the aisle use this Chamber, time and again, to bring forward political shams that shame and retraumatize women who face profoundly heartbreaking situations? The will of over half of this country is 67 percent of Americans support Roe v. Wade and access to safe and legal abortion. Sixty-seven percent of Americans support a woman's right to choose.

How is it that Republicans continue to bring forward bill after bill and amendment after amendment that goes against a constitutionally protected right of women--of women? This is why I say Republicans hurt women.

I am proud of the vote I cast in opposition to the sham bill we voted on this week. My vote was rooted in fact and understanding about what an abortion in later pregnancy actually means. It was rooted in the understanding that when faced with these difficult situations, these decisions are best left to a woman and her doctor. These decisions should not rest with the U.S. Senate.

My vote was cast with a clear understanding that if unchecked or unchallenged, this administration and this Senate will continue to assault a woman's right to choose and chip away at it bit by bit, where it will end up being a nullity, and that is what they want.

I will continue to stand in opposition to attacks that seek to limit the personal freedom of women across the country and what would be more of a personal freedom for a woman than to exercise control over her own body?

I yield the floor.

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 many ways, Andrew Wheeler is a perfect example of a Cabinet appointment in the Trump era--conflicted, unethical, and hostile to the mission of the Agency he was nominated to lead.

He shouldn't have been confirmed to this position as Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, and he certainly shouldn't be confirmed to lead the Agency on a permanent basis.

Prior to his service at EPA, Mr. Wheeler spent 8 years lobbying for many of the special interests that he is targeted or charged with regulating. For example, in his work for Murray Energy, whose president, Robert Murray, was among the largest donors to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, Mr. Wheeler worked to kill a rule that would have prevented coal companies from dumping mining waste into American streams and waterways.

As a lobbyist for Murray Energy, Mr. Wheeler also fought tooth and nail against President Obama's Clean Power Plan, a forward-looking initiative that would have substantially reduced carbon emissions from power generation.

Mr. Wheeler's client, Robert Murray, was present front and center as former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt signed an Executive order to begin the process of dismantling the Clean Power Plan. I don't think that was a coincidence.

After Mr. Wheeler's confirmation as the EPA's Deputy Administrator, he assured Bloomberg News in June 2018: ``If I lobbied on something, I don't think it's appropriate for me to participate [in policymaking].''

Of course, he was lobbying on a lot of things for years. In fact, Mr. Wheeler participated in meetings with three former clients with interests before the EPA. Holding these meetings with former clients is a clear conflict of interest and ethical lapse. Andrew Wheeler fits right in with Donald Trump's version of ``draining the swamp,'' which is more like ``come on in, the water's fine.''

We have already had one EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, resign in disgrace over ethical lapses and potentially illegal behavior in office. We don't need another.

Mr. Wheeler's work at the EPA is also consistent with the hostility of Trump Cabinet officials to the core mission of the Department or the Agency that they are appointed to lead.

The EPA is the primary Agency charged with safeguarding the environment and protecting public health from dangerous and toxic chemicals. At its core, the EPA is tasked with making sure we have safe air to breathe and clean water to drink.

Yet, during his time as Deputy Administrator, Mr. Wheeler has championed a deregulatory agenda that fundamentally undermines the EPA's core mission. Under Mr. Wheeler's leadership, the EPA has proposed undermining the legal authority of the mercury and air toxics standard to reduce emissions of mercury and other toxic air emissions from coal and oil burning powerplants.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, mercury exposure can damage the nervous, digestive, and immune systems and is a serious threat to child development. The EPA's current efforts to reverse these emission standards, in place since 2012, come after utilities across the country had already invested resources in reducing mercury emissions by 90 percent.

Under Mr. Wheeler's leadership, the Trump administration has also proposed a dramatic weakening of fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars. Their proposed rule would increase air pollution from vehicles and would result in Hawaii families ending up paying thousands more dollars for gasoline to fill less efficient cars. Through his opposition to the Clean Power Plan and his efforts to repeal it at the EPA, Mr. Wheeler serves as a primary architect of the Trump administration's assault on climate science and their refusal to act decisively against climate change. This assault can also be seen in a new proposed rule from the EPA that would exclude rigorous, peer- reviewed scientific studies under the guise of promoting scientific transparency.

At first glance, the rule sounds like something everyone should support, but like so many initiatives proposed by this administration, the rule's true intent is much more sinister.

Insisting that policymaking rely only on studies that make all of their data public would exclude studies that rely on confidential medical information that by law cannot be made public. Limiting the factual basis on which the EPA can make decisions in this manner would have a catastrophic impact on public health.

If this rule had been in effect in 1993, the ``Six Cities'' study by the Harvard

School of Public Health would never have transformed the way we regulate air pollution in this country. The study showed that Americans living in cities with more air pollution have shorter lifespans than Americans living in cities with less air pollution.

Using confidential medical information, the study conclusively demonstrated that fine particulate matter that is smaller than 2.5 microns is exceptionally deadly to human beings. These findings, which have been backed up in subsequent studies, provide the basis for cost- benefit analyses done by EPA for future rules regulating air pollution. Undermining this kind of evidence-based policymaking would give industry the green light to pollute with fewer consequences.

This proposed rule is consistent with an administration-wide effort to promote ignorance in the face of the real threat climate change poses to national security, public health, and public safety.

Climate change is an issue where ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is dangerous. The President's own top security officials agree. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, for example, issued a new worldwide threat that concluded that ``climate hazards'' like extreme weather, wildfires, droughts, and acidifying oceans are, ``threatening infrastructure, health and water and food security.''

In 2017, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee that ``climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating.'' He went on to say that ``climate change is a challenge that requires a broader whole-of- government government response.''

Instead of accepting the conclusions of his top national security officials, Donald Trump is following the recommendation of William Happer, a notorious climate denier and now a Senior Director on the NSC, to establish a new Presidential Committee on Climate Security.

Dr. Happer is particularly notorious for his assertion that ``the demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler. Carbon dioxide is actually a benefit to the world, and so are the Jews.

Anyone who makes this kind of outrageous analogy should not be entrusted to lead anything on climate security, in my view.

No one should doubt that the President and Dr. Happer have a preordained outcome in mind. They want to legitimize ignorance and denial of climate change and abandon tens of millions of Americans to the disastrous impacts of climate change in the coming decades.

I repeat, with climate change, ignorance is not bliss. It is dangerous. It is dangerous for a State like Hawaii that would be the hardest hit by the impact of climate change. With extreme weather, ocean acidification, coral bleaching, and rising seas, climate change poses an existential threat to our State. It is one of the reasons Hawaii has implemented some of the most ambitious and aggressive policies to combat climate change in the country.

Hawaii was the first State to separately ratify the Paris climate agreement and has set an ambitious goal of becoming carbon neutral and generating 100 percent of our power from renewable sources by 2045. Hawaii's ambitious effort to confront climate change and the success we have already seen in moving toward our goals demonstrate that we can embrace similarly ambitious policies at the national level.

It is one of the reasons I have signed on as a cosponsor of the Green New Deal--an aspirational effort to transform our economy to combat climate change.

In the weeks since the plan was introduced, we have endured all kinds of mocking outrage from people who would rather stick their heads in the sand as science and fact deniers. They paint the Green New Deal as something scary and dangerous for the country. What is really scary and dangerous are people like them who deny that climate change is real and refuse to do anything about it in their steadfast support and alliance with the fossil fuel industry. History will not be kind to them.

Rejecting the nomination of Andrew Wheeler to serve as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, we can take one step forward in the fight against dangerous ignorance.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to express my support for the Child Care for Working Families Act, which I was proud to introduce earlier this afternoon with Senators Murray, Casey, and 30 of our Senate colleagues.

We know that investments in early childhood programs are foundational for future academic and social success. Yet child care remains unaffordable for too many working families in the United States.

For parents worried about how to pay for basic living expenses like housing, food, education, and transportation, increasing child care costs can place a heavy burden on family budgets.

As a young immigrant from Japan who was raised by a single, working mother, I understand the difficult decisions families have to make every day to survive. I have experienced these challenges firsthand. Yet, all these years later, for many Hawaii families, child care costs exceed all other expenses besides housing.

On average, Hawaii parents can expect to pay $8,280 per year, or $690 per month, in child care expenses. These costs are 25 percent higher than they were just a decade ago, but wages have hardly kept pace. As a result, Hawaii families will dedicate around 11 percent of their family budget to child care--exceeding the government's standard for affordable care.

Unfortunately, even for families that can afford child care, finding that needed care may be difficult. This is because our early childhood educators and child care workers are overworked and underpaid. In addition, there is a severe need for more facilities to accommodate the families that need them. The need is great, and that is why the Child Care for Working Families Act is so important. This legislation will make sure working families have access to high-quality, affordable early childhood programs.

Specifically, the bill expands the existing Child Care and Development Block Grant program to guarantee that working and middle class families have access to affordable child care--ensuring that these families do not have to pay more than 7 percent of their income toward care, regardless of how many children they have.

The bill also expands Head Start to promote universal preschool for young children.

Additionally, the bill also addresses the need to support our early childhood workers by making sure teachers, care givers, and other workers responsible for our children are fairly-compensated and fully- supported with training and professional development opportunities.

These are the core provisions of the bill, which represents an essential investment in the stability and prosperity of working families in Hawaii and across our Nation. Every family deserves access to high-quality, affordable early childhood programs, and we will continue fighting to make child care more affordable for all children.

I thank my colleagues for their continued support in this effort, and urge support for this important legislation.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to express my support for the Child Care for Working Families Act, which I was proud to introduce earlier this afternoon with Senators Murray, Casey, and 30 of our Senate colleagues.

We know that investments in early childhood programs are foundational for future academic and social success. Yet child care remains unaffordable for too many working families in the United States.

For parents worried about how to pay for basic living expenses like housing, food, education, and transportation, increasing child care costs can place a heavy burden on family budgets.

As a young immigrant from Japan who was raised by a single, working mother, I understand the difficult decisions families have to make every day to survive. I have experienced these challenges firsthand. Yet, all these years later, for many Hawaii families, child care costs exceed all other expenses besides housing.

On average, Hawaii parents can expect to pay $8,280 per year, or $690 per month, in child care expenses. These costs are 25 percent higher than they were just a decade ago, but wages have hardly kept pace. As a result, Hawaii families will dedicate around 11 percent of their family budget to child care--exceeding the government's standard for affordable care.

Unfortunately, even for families that can afford child care, finding that needed care may be difficult. This is because our early childhood educators and child care workers are overworked and underpaid. In addition, there is a severe need for more facilities to accommodate the families that need them. The need is great, and that is why the Child Care for Working Families Act is so important. This legislation will make sure working families have access to high-quality, affordable early childhood programs.

Specifically, the bill expands the existing Child Care and Development Block Grant program to guarantee that working and middle class families have access to affordable child care--ensuring that these families do not have to pay more than 7 percent of their income toward care, regardless of how many children they have.

The bill also expands Head Start to promote universal preschool for young children.

Additionally, the bill also addresses the need to support our early childhood workers by making sure teachers, care givers, and other workers responsible for our children are fairly-compensated and fully- supported with training and professional development opportunities.

These are the core provisions of the bill, which represents an essential investment in the stability and prosperity of working families in Hawaii and across our Nation. Every family deserves access to high-quality, affordable early childhood programs, and we will continue fighting to make child care more affordable for all children.

I thank my colleagues for their continued support in this effort, and urge support for this important legislation.

Mr. President, I would like to first thank Senator Murray for her steadfast leadership in the fight to protect women's healthcare and for arranging this time for us to speak this afternoon.

The legislation we are debating today is just the latest salvo in the far-right wing assault on a woman's constitutionally protected right to an abortion.

With all due respect to my colleague from Nebraska who introduced this legislation, this bill is a solution in search of a problem. Contrary to what the proponents of this bill argue, it is and has always been a crime to harm or kill newborn babies. People guilty of this crime can already be charged and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Let's be clear. The Senate isn't debating this legislation today because there is an epidemic of infanticide in this country. There is not one. There isn't one. I can hardly say it because it is really not happening; therefore, this bill is a solution in search of a problem. Instead, we are indulging the majority's use of a false premise to inflame the public, shame women, and intimidate healthcare providers.

When you strip away the ultraconservative rhetoric, you are left with a very simple argument from supporters of this legislation--that the moral judgment of rightwing politicians in Washington, DC, should supersede a medical professional's judgment and a woman's decision. Conservative politicians should not be telling doctors how they should care for their patients. Instead, women, in consultation with their families and doctors, are in the best position to determine their best course of care.

In talking to healthcare providers in Hawaii, I have heard how this legislation and other bills like it in States across the country could force them to provide care that is unnecessary or even harmful to patients. The Hawaii Section of the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists made this point persuasively in testimony recently submitted to our State legislature's house committee on health earlier this month. In opposing similar so-called born-alive abortion legislation heard in Hawaii's State Legislature--which didn't make it out of committee, by the way--the group of doctors wrote:

We are physicians who provide compassionate, evidence-based

care. By criminalizing healthcare providers, this law may

actually reduce the number of healthcare providers (not just

the surgeons, but anesthesiologists, nurses, midwives, office

staff) willing to provide this care. But again, that is the

actual intent of this bill. Reducing access to safe abortion

care would threaten the health of women in Hawaii.

We are the physicians who care for patients when they find

out their very wanted, very loved baby has severe fetal

anomalies. Families sometimes choose to end the pregnancy and

provide their baby with palliative care rather than subject

their baby to any suffering or futile efforts at

resuscitation. These families face very difficult decisions

about what their values are and what is best for their

family; decisions that none of us has a right to make for

them or judge them for. What they need in these moments is

compassion and medically accurate information from healthcare

providers free of judgment or politics.

I couldn't agree more, and that is why I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation.

In just a few minutes, I expect the Senate will defeat this bill because it will fail to win the required 60 votes. Nevertheless, the threat to women's reproductive rights is intensifying in States and courtrooms all across the country. Over the past few years, States have enacted hundreds--hundreds--of laws that harm women's health and violate their constitutional right to an abortion.

Mississippi enacted a prohibition on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Ohio have passed laws banning dilation and evacuation--D&E--an abortion procedure used usually during the second trimester.

Indiana enacted a bevy of new abortion restrictions, including a law requiring every woman seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound--talk about invasive--and mandated she wait 18 hours after the ultrasound to have an abortion.

Louisiana passed legislation requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. This law would result in only one abortion provider in a State of 4.7 million people.

Advocates have recognized the harm these laws would have on women and

have filed suits to block their implementation. Several lower courts have ruled these restrictions unconstitutional, and the cases are moving steadily through the courts of appeals en route to the Supreme Court.

The Fifth Circuit, for example, will hear an appeal of a lower court's decision to block Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban, as well as an appeal from Texas to allow its ban on D&E procedures to go into effect.

The Seventh Circuit upheld a lower court ruling striking down parts of Indiana's mandatory ultrasound and waiting period law. The Indiana attorney general has requested the Supreme Court to review this case.

The Supreme Court temporarily stopped Louisiana's so-called admitting privileges law from taking effect on a 5-to-4 vote. This is the law I talked about before. This law would result in one abortion provider in a State of 4.7 million people.

The Fifth Circuit will now hear an appeal on the merits of the law, which is virtually identical to a Texas law the Supreme Court struck down in 2016--that was only a few short years ago--in the landmark Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt decision.

The stakes in these court battles and the more than 20 other abortion-related cases making their way through the Federal court are incredibly high. Any one of them would provide the opening for the U.S. Supreme Court to finally fulfill the rightwing goal of overturning Roe v. Wade.

It is with this central goal in mind that Donald Trump, Majority Leader McConnell, and complicit Republicans of Congress have been working to pack our Federal courts with ideologically driven judges groomed and handpicked by ultraconservative organizations like the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation.

Donald Trump has already confirmed 85 judges, including 30 to circuit courts and 2 to the U.S. Supreme Court. These judges comprise one-tenth of the Federal judiciary, with many more to come.

In fact, a few weeks ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 42-- 42--judicial nominees out of committee in one markup. Those 42 comprise an additional 5 percent of the Federal judiciary.

Less than 2 weeks ago, Justice Kavanaugh issued a strong dissent in the earlier mentioned Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision to block Louisiana's anti-choice law from taking effect. Using tortured reasoning, Justice Kavanaugh essentially argued that the Supreme Court should disregard its own precedent from only 2 years ago--that is the Whole Women's case I referred to--to allow the Louisiana law to take effect. His dissent signaled his strong antipathy to a woman's right to choose, just as his dissent in Garza v. Hargan did when he was on the DC Circuit. His dissent as a Justice this time demonstrated the emptiness of his promises to uphold Supreme Court precedent during his confirmation hearing.

Justice Kavanaugh's promises then to follow precedent is like that of other Federalist Society-picked Trump nominees now packing our courts, offering little reassurance that nominees in fact will set aside their strongly held ideological views to be objective and fair as judges.

Another case likely to make its way through Federal courts in the months and years ahead is a challenge to the Trump administration's new gag rule. This rule prohibits doctors and other clinicians participating in title X family planning programs from referring patients for, or even speaking about, abortions, even if their patients request such information.

Nearly 20,000 Hawaii residents receive reproductive healthcare through title X. That is roughly the population of the city of Kapolei on Oahu. This attack on title X-funded agencies like Planned Parenthood is an end-run around Congress after Republicans have tried and failed dozens of times to end funding for Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood provides healthcare for millions--millions--of low-income women, men, and young people under title X. Why then do Republicans persist in trying to cut funding for Planned Parenthood?

The constitutional rights of millions of women across the country are under serious and sustained attack, but even in these not normal times, I do see some hope. As State after State passes laws to limit access for a woman's right to choose, communities like Hawaii's are coming together to protect such access.

Last week, I joined activists and staff from Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands as they opened their new medical center and administrative hub in downtown Honolulu. I was particularly energized to see how many young people, women and men, were there and engaged in the fight to protect our right to choice.

I have learned over the years that battles we fought so hard to win never stay won. It is up to all of us to stay engaged and keep fighting for our constitutionally protected rights.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, once again, I would like to respond to the Senator from Texas as he continues to hold the position that the Democrats on this side of the aisle simply oppose all of the President's nominees because they happen to be this lying President's nominees. That is not the case at all.

Donald Trump has consistently thought to nominate people to his Cabinet who he believes will do his bidding and protect his interests. Once confirmed, if these Cabinet Secretaries displease him, out they go--Jeff Sessions, Jim Mattis, Rex Tillerson.

The President believes William Barr will be an Attorney General who will protect him. Why does the President believe that? Because William Barr auditioned for this position. How? Mr. Barr wrote a highly unusual and factually unsupported, unsolicited 19-page memo to the Sessions Justice Department, arguing that Special Counsel Robert Mueller should not be permitted to interrogate the President about obstruction of justice. Nobody asked him to weigh in.

He admits he didn't have any facts or inside information, and, in fact, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein chose not to discuss the matter with him, but Mr. Barr felt compelled not only to put his views in writing and send them to the Department of Justice, but he also made sure the President's lawyers knew his views. His memo sent a clear message to this President that he would protect Donald Trump from the Mueller probe.

Once Donald Trump did nominate him for Attorney General, after having earlier offered him a job as his personal attorney--virtually the same job in Donald Trump's mind--Mr. Barr came to the Judiciary Committee and continued to signal his willingness to shield Trump from scrutiny.

First, he refused to commit to follow the advice of career ethics officials on the question of recusal from the Trump investigations. He didn't want to make the same mistake Jeff Sessions did and open himself up to Presidential humiliation, no matter what the ethics experts recommended.

Second, he refused to commit to make public Special Counsel Mueller's report. In both instances, he said he wanted to keep his options open, leave himself room to make his own decisions, and trust his ultimate judgment.

While these answers were reassuring to the President, they certainly were not to those of us who want an Attorney General independent of a President who does not believe the rule of law applies to him. When asked at his hearing, Mr. Barr should have affirmatively committed to allowing all active investigations to continue until the prosecutors say they are done. That includes the special counsel's investigation, as well as the probes being conducted by, again, at least three U.S. attorney's offices. Instead, he gave his usual equivocal response.

Of course, these are all active investigations having to do with Mr. Trump and his activities. Barr's position on these investigations is consistent with his views on the unitary Executive. He has long endorsed a view that the President is an all-powerful Executive, restrained by very little, least of all by Congress. This is a very dangerous view for the Attorney General to have, especially at a time when we have a President who attacks and undermines the rule of law.

Mr. Barr's views on the Trump investigations and the unitary Executive aren't the only reason he should not be confirmed as Attorney General. His agreement with this administration's immigration policy also, in my view, disqualifies him. There was no daylight between Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions on immigration. Mr. Barr has given every indication that he will follow the lead of Jeff Sessions and of Matthew Whitaker in aggressively implementing, basically, Stephen Miller's extreme immigration policies.

As George H.W. Bush's Attorney General, Barr played a key role in the Justice Department's policy in the early 1990s of detaining HIV- positive Haitian refugees at Guantanamo Bay. These refugees were held in prison-like living conditions and denied medical treatment until a Federal court ruled that their indefinite detention was illegal.

More recently, in November 2018, Mr. Barr cowrote an op-ed with the title ``We Salute Jeff Sessions,'' full of praise for Sessions' tenure at DOJ, including on immigration. Mr. Barr praised Sessions for ``attack[ing] the rampant illegality that riddled our immigration system, breaking the record for prosecution of illegal-entry cases,'' and increasing prosecution of ``immigrants who reentered the country illegally'' by 38 percent.

These statements are deeply concerning because as Attorney General, Mr. Sessions implemented policies that are abhorrent and in direct opposition to American values.

Sessions instituted the zero-tolerance policy--a stain on our Nation that resulted in thousands of children being separated from their families, many of whom may never be reunited. This country, under Jeff Sessions, made instant orphans out of thousands of children. That is hardly a value that I think any of us can support.

At his hearing, Mr. Barr also embraced key aspects of the Trump- Miller immigration agenda, including endorsing Donald Trump's vanity wall; attacking cities that refused to undermine their own anti-crime efforts by cooperating with the Federal Government's draconian policies; agreeing with the Trump administration's atrocious treatment of legal asylum seekers; joining President Trump in criticizing judges for blocking the President's Muslim travel ban; and astoundingly, refusing to say whether birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution, telling me, when I asked him this, that he hadn't ``looked at that legally.'' What is there to look at?

The Fourteenth Amendment plainly states that all persons ``born or naturalized in the United States . . . are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.'' Nullifying birthright citizenship would violate the Constitution and impact millions, but it is certainly something the President wants done.

Mr. Barr's record and position on some of DOJ's other important responsibilities, such as enforcing civil rights laws, defending laws enacted by Congress, and protecting established constitutional rights, are unacceptable to me in the Nation's top law enforcement officer.

Some examples include: Mr. Barr's refusal to admit that voter fraud is incredibly rare and his focusing on so-called voter fraud problems rather than voter suppression problems. States are very busy continuing to pass laws that should be attacked as a silly veiled effort at voter suppression, but that is not where Mr. Barr is; his stand that LGBTQ people are not protected from employment discrimination under Federal civil rights laws, contrary to what the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and two Federal courts have held; his personal involvement in two challenges to major premises of the Affordable Care Act; his record of belief that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, including his statement that this landmark Supreme Court case guaranteeing a woman's right to choose, as he put it, was a ``secularist'' effort to ``eliminate laws that reflect traditional norms.'' At a time when the newest Trump-appointed Justices on the Supreme Court have demonstrated a hostility toward a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, such an anti-choice Attorney General is a danger to women.

In some of his academic writings, William Barr expressed his dismay at the moral decay of American society, but when I asked him at his hearing, he testified that he didn't have any problems with a President who lies every single day and has undermined so many of America's most important institutions such as the FBI, the Justice Department, and the intelligence community.

An Attorney General is a member of the President's Cabinet and is entitled to enforce the administration's policies, but in this instance, the policies this President pursues are often pushed beyond the constitutional breaking point and just as often are plain cruel; i.e., the separation of children from their parents at the border, making them instant orphans.

The Attorney General's independence is critical in normal times, but it is absolutely essential in these times that are anything but normal that his independence cannot be questioned. Sadly, I cannot say that.

I cannot support William Barr's nomination. I urge my colleagues to vote against his confirmation.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, as a fellow member of the Judiciary Committee, along with my colleague from Texas who just spoke, it is not our job as members of this committee to cast aspersions on the motives of those of us who ask probing questions of judicial nominees for lifetime positions. Many of these nominees have very strongly held and long-held views on a number of issues that may come before them as judges, and the probing questions we ask go to whether they can separate their ideological and personal views when they are confronted with issues they have taken public positions on and whether they can be fair and objective and follow the rule of law. Those are the kinds of probing questions we ask.

I hope that when my friend from Texas mentioned that some of us seem to--that many of us on this side of the aisle will not vote for any nominee from this President, I certainly hope he wasn't referring to me because I have, in fact, voted for a number of those nominees.

Mr. President, S. Res. 19 is unnecessary because no religious test is being applied to nominees for Federal office. If my colleague, the junior Senator from Nebraska, wants to embrace the alt- right's position by offering this resolution, that is his business.

Rather than passing a resolution to address a problem that doesn't exist, we should focus on something real, like ending this totally unnecessary, unjustified shutdown that is harming millions of Americans.

I ask unanimous consent for, statements supporting the separation of church and state from Catholics for Choice, People for the American Way, and several Hawaii residents.

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

Mr. President, this shutdown is not a negotiation situation. This is a hostage situation.

For the past 3 weeks, Donald Trump has held 800,000 Federal workers, tens of thousands of Federal contractors, and thousands of small businesses hostage to extort money for his vanity wall under the pretext of an emergency at our southern border. Today, hundreds of thousands of hard-working civil servants felt the pain of missing a paycheck because this amoral, hostage-taking President is continuing to throw a temper tantrum.

Most of us live in the real world, where paychecks are needed to keep a roof over our heads and food on our table. Growing up, my mother was the sole breadwinner for three of us kids. It would have been unthinkable, disastrous, for our family to miss even one paycheck from her low-wage job.

When the President says that he can relate to the hundreds of thousands of families going without a paycheck, who does he think he is kidding? Most people don't have daddies, as he did, to bail them out time and again by the millions.

Enough said about a President who does not feel your or anybody else's pain--we can't look to him for leadership, moral or otherwise.

One person who can enable the Congress to end the shutdown is Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. All he has to do is to bring up the bills that the House sent us last week--the same bills that passed the Senate and last Congress to keep government open.

No one needs to remind Senator McConnell that the Senate is part of a separate and coequal branch of government. The Senate can and should act without the President's consent--consent he is currently withholding unless he gets his vanity wall.

Instead of standing up to Donald Trump, Senator McConnell is missing in action, and through his silence and inaction, Senator McConnell has endorsed another of Donald Trump's lies--that there is a crisis at the border so severe that it justifies taking 800,000 people hostage as leverage for a $5.6 billion downpayment--only a downpayment--for his vanity wall.

Let me be clear. The only crisis is the one Donald Trump manufactured, and the only wall that is real is the one that is closing in on him.

The weekend before Donald Trump shut down the government, I joined several of my colleagues on a visit to Texas, where I saw the real crisis at the border--the humanitarian catastrophe created by Donald Trump's disastrous immigration policy.

At detention facilities in Dilley and Karnes--facilities that a top official from Immigration and Customs Enforcement Patrol, ICE, callously and dismissively described as ``summer camps''--I saw families locked away, some for months at a time, without proper access to legal, medical, or mental healthcare. Many of these families have access to legal services only out of the generosity, ingenuity, and hard work of volunteers and overstretched nonprofits.

I also visited the massive detention camp for unaccompanied children at Tornillo. Tornillo started as a temporary camp for several hundred kids in June of 2018 after the Trump administration systematically separated kids from their parents under its zero tolerance policy.

Tornillo has now ballooned to currently holding some 2,700 unaccompanied children, and I note that there are now an estimated 15,000 unaccompanied children in facilities throughout our country. Since June, the administration has already spent more than $144 million on the makeshift Tornillo detention camp, where food, water, and other basic items have to be trucked in regularly.

I was disturbed to find that thousands of kids are being held in these soft-sided tents in the middle of the desert, shut off from the outside world and the local community. In fact, when concerned members of the local community came by to drop off gifts and items to show these kids that there were people who cared, the detention camp turned the community people away. When I said ``Why would you do that?'' it was explained to me that there were not enough items brought to give to every child--a pretty sad reason, in my view.

Most troubling was that there was no good reason for the prolonged detention of children at this facility. We were told that between 800 and 1,300 kids at Tornillo already have sponsors, such as parents or relatives, lined up to

take them into homes. But the children continue to be detained because of the administration's policy of requiring all potential sponsors and all adults in the potential sponsor households to submit fingerprints, which would then be information shared with ICE, thus subjecting everyone to potential deportation. The chilling effect of this policy is obvious in the skyrocketing length of detention of these children as fingerprints are obtained and processed.

Now the negative consequences of this policy have become apparent even to this administration, which instituted the policy to begin with, so the administration is now easing up on the fingerprinting of everyone in the household, but the damage has already been done.

In 2016, the average length of stay for unaccompanied children in these facilities was 35 days. Today, the average has been reported to be at least 59 days and even up to 74 days. These are kids who need to recover from the trauma of coming to this country, not to be retraumatized with prolonged detention.

The detention of unaccompanied children and families for longer and longer periods is the real humanitarian crisis facing our country at the southern border, and this crisis will not be fixed by Trump's vanity wall.

As if holding 800,000 workers and their families hostage is not horrible enough, Donald Trump is now thinking of taking billions of dollars away from disaster victims to find a way to pay for his wall. This is callousness compounded.

Sometimes I find myself totally at a loss for words as the President keeps coming up with all of these ways to basically get himself out of a corner that he has gotten himself into.

I call on Senator McConnell to use the power he has to bring the House-passed bills to the floor--the bills that we in the Senate passed by voice vote last Congress to end this shutdown. Unnecessary pain grows by the day--800,000 workers go without pay; food safety is being compromised; our national parks go unopened or unprotected; air travel can turn into a nightmare as more and more of the TSA agents stay home. The list goes on as we wait for the President to come to his senses. We should live so long. Meanwhile, our country is waiting for Senator McConnell and our Republican colleagues to come to their senses.

So, Leader McConnell, everyone knows you have the power to act. Bring these bills to the Senate floor. We can end this shutdown now.

The Senate--if Senator McConnell will bring the bills to the floor-- will pass these bills because we already did so. End the unnecessary pain. We don't have the luxury of waiting around for the President to truly feel anybody's pain because he is incapable of feeling anybody's pain but his own.

We can end this shutdown now. We can take action on the floor of the Senate. We can do the responsible thing in response to the pain that I know we are hearing from all of our constituents all across the country.

What are we waiting for? End this shutdown now.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.