Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to place a maile lei on the lectern during my remarks.

Madam President, I rise today in remembrance of Senator Daniel Kahikina Akaka. Senator Akaka, who served in the Senate for 23 years and sat at this desk, passed away on Friday morning, with his wife of nearly 70 years, Millie, and his extended family at his side.

Since his passing, people across Hawaii have shared their memories of and tributes to Senator Akaka. Each of their stories has a common thread--Senator Akaka's dedication to living with ``aloha.'' Senator Akaka embodied the ``aloha'' spirit. From meeting nearly every Hawaii family who came to his office for a Capitol tour to serving as a tireless advocate for veterans, the Native Hawaiian community, and Hawaii families, Senator Akaka's care, empathy, and compassion were evident to everyone who knew him.

When I was elected to the Senate, I requested Senator Akaka's desk to be my desk. I did this because it represented continuity as Senator Akaka's successor, and the desk is a symbol to me of his years of service and the ``aloha'' he had for this body and the people of Hawaii.

The last time I saw Senator Akaka was at last year's American Logistics Association Hawaii conference. This gathering brings together Hawaii businesses from across the State to market their products for sale to military commissaries. Over 20 years ago, Senator Akaka worked with small businesses and the military commissary network to create this conference because he understood how much receiving a commissary contract would mean to Hawaii's businesses, especially Hawaii's small businesses.

The conference started with one small table with a few products and grew to an entire ballroom full of local products and entrepreneurs. Last year, the conference was named for Senator Akaka.

That is who Senator Akaka was. He brought people together to solve problems and create opportunities. His legislative style wasn't flashy or over the top. He put his head down and got to work, and he built relationships with colleagues to get things done.

Senator Akaka's work on behalf of our Nation's veterans also reflected his persistent, effective style. After serving in World War II, Senator Akaka went to college under the GI bill and became an educator. As chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, he was a strong advocate for expanding the GI bill for a new generation of veterans. He authored the post-9/11 GI bill, which was signed into law in 2011.

Senator Akaka also championed the cause of the Filipino veterans of World War II in Congress. These veterans fought for the United States but were denied the benefits and citizenship they were promised. Senator Akaka introduced legislation that would restore these veterans' benefits and, with his leadership, this bill passed the Senate.

Later he and Senator Inouye successfully included language in the 2009 stimulus bill that provided onetime payments for these Filipino veterans through the newly created Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation Fund.

Senator Akaka also introduced bipartisan legislation to allow these veterans to reunite with their children and families in the United States. While this bill did not pass, President Obama established through executive order the Filipino World War II Veterans Parole Program in 2016 to allow the children of these veterans to reunite with their parents in the United States. Some of these veterans have been waiting for decades to reunite with their children.

Although Senator Akaka had retired, his insistence on bipartisanship helped to build broad support for President Obama's decision to issue this Executive order.

Senator Akaka was also instrumental in building support to award the Filipino Veterans of World War II the Congressional Gold Medal that passed in 2016, after years of continued effort.

Senator Akaka was also a champion for America's Native people and served as chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. As the first Native Hawaiian to serve in the U.S. Senate, Senator Akaka fought to expand funding for Native Hawaiian healthcare, education, and housing programs.

In 1993, President Clinton signed into law Senator Akaka's apology resolution, which acknowledged the Federal Government's role in the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893. The resolution's unanimous passage marked the 100th anniversary of the overthrow and was a watershed moment for Native Hawaiians. It served as the first official admission by the United States of the role it played in the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Senator Akaka later worked on the Hawaiian Home Lands Recovery Act. This law required the United States to make the Hawaiian homelands whole by ensuring a repayment of lost use of lands originally set aside by Congress but which were nevertheless transferred to or otherwise acquired by the Federal Government.

The apology resolution and the Lands Recovery Act provided the foundation for Senator Akaka's namesake legislation--the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, often referred to as the Akaka bill, to establish a process to secure Federal recognition for Native Hawaiians to achieve parity with the Alaska Natives and American Indians.

When I served in the House of Representatives, I introduced the House companion to the Akaka bill and testified about the importance of passing this legislation in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. Senator Akaka reintroduced the Akaka bill for more than 10 years, but it did not pass before he retired.

A former longtime Akaka staff member reflected on the Senator's commitment to the Native Hawaiian community. She said:

Senator Akaka worked tirelessly to address the longstanding

issues resulting from the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

He felt strongly that there needed to be a process to bring

all parties to the table because without such a process these

issues remained festering sources of emotional pain that

would stand in the way of Hawaii being able to move forward

as a state and for Native Hawaiians to move forward as

indigenous peoples.

Building on his work, in 2016, the Department of the Interior adopted rules creating a process that could reestablish a government-to- government relationship between the United States and Native Hawaiians. While the Native Hawaiian community has differences on the issue of Federal recognition, everyone can agree that Senator Akaka pushed for the passage of the Akaka bill because he wanted equity and justice for Native Hawaiian people.

Senator Akaka's advocacy for our country's Native people could best be summarized in his own words during his farewell address to the Senate, where he said:

The United States is a great country. One of the things

that makes us so great is that though we have made mistakes,

we change, we correct them, we right past wrongs. It is our

responsibility as a nation to do right by America's native

people, those who exercised sovereignty on lands that later

became part of the United States. While we can never change

the past, we have the power to change the future.

Many people also may not know that Senator Akaka was just as committed to protecting Hawaii's land and water resources as he was to improving the lives of Hawaii's people. In 1992, Senator Akaka successfully passed his Tropical Forest Recovery Act into law, which served as a basis for Federal conservation efforts that protect Hawaii's plants and forests.

As with so many of his initiatives, the Senator was much ahead of his time. This act provided a vision and blueprint for tomorrow's conservation ethic, one that stressed the integration of ecology, livelihoods, and culture; in short, an ethic that emphasized sacred relationship between people and place, community and sustainably managed resources.

Senator Akaka also leaves behind a demonstrated commitment to bipartisanship. He was widely known for his faithful attendance at the Senate Prayer Breakfast every week. Colleagues who attend that breakfast regularly asked me about how he and Millie were doing.

During his farewell speech, Senator Akaka said:

In Congress and in our nation, we are truly all together,

in the same canoe. If we paddle together in unison, we can

travel great distances. If the two sides of the canoe paddle

in opposite directions, we will only go in circles.

Senator Akaka is deeply missed by all the people in Hawaii, and I dare say he will be deeply missed by his colleagues in both the U.S. House and the Senate. The maile lei is here to signify his devotion and commitment to the people of Hawaii.

I yield the floor to my colleague Senator Brian Schatz.

Mr. President, when we discuss climate change, we often speak about the future--a future in which rising temperatures and seas displace millions from their homes around the globe, devastate agriculture, and damage critical infrastructure. This future is not far off.

Climate change will impact every State in our country and every country in the world. In island and coastal communities like Hawaii, the impact will be particularly severe.

Climate scientists across the world agree that without decisive action, seas will likely rise by at least 3.2 feet by the end of the century. To put this in context, a child born today will likely experience these effects in their lifetime.

I will focus my remarks today on the foreseeable impact on Hawaii.

The State of Hawaii investigated and issued a chilling report about what a 3.2-foot sea level rise would mean for our State. The report concluded that 3.2 feet of sea level rise would inundate more than 25,000 acres of land across Hawaii. Over 6,500 hotels, malls, small businesses, apartments, and homes would be compromised or destroyed, and 20,000 residents would be displaced in the process.

The economic cost of this damage--$19 billion. If anything, this is a conservative estimate of the total economic cost of climate change in Hawaii. The State report, for example, doesn't estimate the total cost of damage to Hawaii's critical infrastructure.

Climate change and sea level rise would damage sewer lines in urban Honolulu and other low-lying areas across the State. These phenomena would also lead to chronic flooding across 38 miles of major roads, such as the Kuhio Highway on Kauai, Kamehameha Highway on Oahu, and Honoapiilani Highway on Maui.

The State's report certainly outlines the serious challenges that climate change will pose for the future, but we are already living with its effects.

Each summer and winter, the specific placement of the sun and moon combined with the rotation of the Earth produce extraordinarily high tides. We call them king tides. Most years, scientists can predict when these tides will happen and how bad they will be. Last year's king tides, however, were the worst on record. Scientists believe that these historic king tides provide a glimpse of the increasing severity and frequency of the coastal flooding driven by climate change. Hawaii also experienced an exceptionally rare king tide on New Year's Day, and a larger than normal north swell caused major coastal erosion on Oahu's north shore.

Coastal erosion is a critical issue for Hawaii, where our beaches draw millions of visitors from around the world every year. According to research from the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program, 70 percent of the beaches in Hawaii are eroding, and 13 miles of public beach have eroded completely. In other words, they are gone.

During last year's king tides, Sea Grant mobilized citizen scientists to document their impact on the State. From Sea Grant's research we learned that record-high water levels caused localized flooding and erosion across every island in the State. Waikiki Beach was particularly impacted last year when the king tides overwashed the shoreline during peak tourist season. Climate change will make events like this more frequent and severe, adversely impacting our environment and our economy.

Waikiki Beach on Oahu alone generates $2.2 billion for Hawaii's economy every year, and it could be completely submerged by the end of the century. There is a clear urgency to act, and we need our President and the Federal Government to acknowledge the threat and to lead.

We need more funding for programs like Sea Grant that help State and local governments develop plans and policies to help our beaches, our coasts, and our economy adapt to climate change. But at a time when we should be increasing funding for Sea Grant colleges, the Trump administration is zeroing out this funding. We were able to protect funding for Sea Grant last year, and I will continue to fight during this year's budget and appropriations cycle to make sure it receives the money it needs to do its important work.

We also need our Federal agencies to invest in research that will help us better understand climate change's long-term impact on our States and communities. But Donald Trump has appointed--and his Republican allies in the Senate have confirmed--regressive, dangerous, and extreme nominees who are undermining critical climate change research.

Last May, the Department of Interior under the leadership of Ryan Zinke, put out a news release about a report on climate change-related sea level rise, coauthored by two Hawaii scientists without ever mentioning in their release the words ``climate change.''

Earlier today, I asked Secretary Zinke at a hearing to comment on this incident and to clarify whether it is the Department's policy to censor announcements about climate change research produced by his Department. Secretary Zinke acknowledged that the content of the press release is his prerogative but that he would not censor the contents of documents and reports themselves. However, by not referencing the term ``climate change'' in a press release on a report about how climate change drives sea level rise, he is toeing the President's line that climate change is a hoax. The problem is that press releases from agencies like the Interior Department serve as indicators of the Federal Government's priorities. By eliminating references to climate change in these releases, the Department is sending a clear signal that climate change is not a priority.

In the absence of Federal action, States like Hawaii are stepping up and taking the lead. Hawaii was the first State in the country to enact legislation to implement the Paris climate agreement after President Trump announced that he would withdraw the United States from this agreement without much reason.

Standing up to the challenge of climate change also means developing our renewable resources of energy and moving away from dependence on fossil fuels. Hawaii has set the forward-thinking goal of generating 100-percent renewable electricity by 2045. Through decisive action, Hawaii is already generating 27-percent renewable electricity while cutting oil imports by 41 percent since 2006. As the most oil-dependent State in the country, this is significant progress.

Over 97 percent of climate scientists agree that the climate is changing due to human activity, and the vast majority of the American public also acknowledges this. Our Nation's military recognizes the threat that climate change poses to our national security and the urgent need to confront it.

Mr. President, I agree with my colleague from Rhode Island that it is time to wake up.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, it is time for the Senate to do its job as a separate branch of government.

This week, we can come together on a bipartisan basis to resolve the crisis Donald Trump created when he canceled DACA. We can provide hundreds of thousands of young people in our country their shot at pursuing the American dream without fear of deportation. Right now, these young people who were brought to this country as children are terrified they will be separated from their families and the lives they have built here, in the only country they know and love.

I have met and spoken with so many Dreamers in the Halls of Congress these past months. Their focus, determination, and commitment in this fight continues to be extraordinary and inspiring. Each Dreamer has a different story to tell, but they all share a profoundly simple aspiration--to live, work, and study in the only country they have ever called home.

When you sit and listen to their stories, it is not difficult to understand why between 80 and 90 percent of Americans support protecting these Dreamers--people like Karen, Maleni, and Beatrice, who can attend the University of Hawaii because of DACA; people like Victor, from Houston, who aspires to become a counselor for LGBTQ youth like him; and people like Getsi, from Oregon, who works three jobs so she can pursue her dream of becoming a nurse practitioner to care for our seniors. These inspiring young people don't need to hear any more promises. They need Members of Congress to put their votes where their mouths have been and do the right thing.

Like many of my colleagues, I strongly support passing a clean Dream Act--legislation that already has bipartisan support--but it is critical that we get to the 60 votes we need to pass a bill. I am open to discussing different provisions, including some funding for border security to help us get there. We can and should have a debate on comprehensive immigration reform but only after we pass legislation this week to protect the Dreamers. We cannot and should not use this debate to provide cover for efforts to dismantle the family-based immigration system or to make massive cuts to legal immigration.

The President and a number of colleagues have made it clear they would like to eliminate family-based immigration in favor of a system that is designed only to recruit immigrants with advanced degrees and specialized skills. It is important for the United States to recruit highly skilled immigrants, and we have a number of immigration programs that are designed specifically for this purpose, but when you restrict immigration only to people with highly specialized skills or advanced degrees, you lose out on a lot of human potential that has historically contributed so much to our country. We don't have to look far back into history to prove why this statement is true.

Over the past week, the Olympics has captured the excitement and imagination of people across the country--in fact, the world. Many of the people we have been cheering for are either the children of immigrants or are immigrants themselves.

Over the weekend, we saw Mirai Nagasu, whose parents emigrated from Japan, become the first American woman to land a triple axel in the Olympics during her appearance in the team figure skating competition. Yesterday, we saw Maame Biney, who immigrated to the United States from Ghana, take to the ice to compete in the short track speed skating.

Two nights ago, I watched Chloe Kim throw down a near perfect score in the women's snowboard halfpipe to win the Olympic Gold Medal. After completing her history-making run, the cameras panned to her father Jong Jin Kim, who proudly waved his ``Go Chloe'' sign in the audience.

Jong arrived in California in 1982 with $800 in his pocket. He worked for years at minimum wage jobs to save for college. While studying at El Camino College, he worked as a heavy machinery operator at night. Jong encouraged Chloe to begin snowboarding when she was 4. They would jump off the lifts together, but because he didn't know how to snowboard, they would tumble to the ground. Jong bought Chloe her first snowboard on eBay for $25. When Chloe was 8, Jong quit his job as an engineer to support her snowboarding career. He would often wake up at 2 a.m. in the morning to drive Chloe over 300 miles to her practices.

After watching his daughter win the Olympic Gold, Jong said in Korean, ``When I came to the United States, this was my American hope. Now, this is my American dream.''

In reflecting on her father's sacrifice, Chloe said, ``My dad has definitely sacrificed a lot for me, and I don't know if I could do it if I was in his shoes, leaving your life behind and chasing your dream because your kid is passionate about this sport. I think today I did it for my family, and I am so grateful to them.''

Chloe's story of winning the Olympic Gold is extraordinary, but her father's story speaks to a deep and abiding foundation of America and to my personal experience as an immigrant.

My mom also came to this country--poor and without skills to escape an abusive marriage--to give her three children, of which I am one, a chance at a better life. Like Jong and Chloe, one generation after my mom came to this country, I am standing on the floor of the U.S. Senate, fighting for humane immigration policies.

These stories speak to the broader immigrant experience in our country. We work hard and embrace the opportunities this country provides, and we often see the result of this hard work within a single generation.

I would ask my colleagues: Do you think the United States would be better off if we prevented immigrants like Jong and me from coming to this country? Targeting immigrants for discriminatory and harsh treatment is denying our country's history. With the exception of our original peoples, everyone came to our country from somewhere else. We are fighting to preserve

the spirit of our country--that shining city on a hill.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to denounce--this is a strong word but an appropriate word--the Republican effort to undermine America's faith in important institutions--all to protect Donald Trump from the Russia investigation.

This effort is self-evident to any neutral observer watching ``Fox and Friends,'' reading the ``Drudge Report,'' or following the President on Twitter, and it has profound consequences for our country.

Defending our critical institutions, such as the FBI and an independent Department of Justice, should not be a partisan issue, and those who care about these institutions have to speak up. This, of course, includes Members of Congress.

Many congressional Republicans, however, appear determined to transform legitimate congressional oversight into an arm of the President's defense. For example, the Teapot Dome hearings uncovered government corruption for personal gain. The Kefauver committee uncovered organized crime and corruption nationwide. The Watergate committee uncovered Nixon's conspiracy. The Church committee led to landmark reforms of the intelligence community, some of the very reforms that are currently being warped for Trump's benefit. These were bipartisan, fact-based, public inquiries into issues of national consequence.

The investigation into Russia's acknowledged interference in our election should be no different. Unfortunately, many of the Republicans in Congress investigating the Trump-Russia matter appear more concerned about protecting the President than getting at the truth. This is particularly so in the House of Representatives, where almost nothing happens on the Intelligence Committee without the assent of the White House. But it is also true in the Senate, where even the Judiciary Committee has been stymied in its efforts to get to the truth.

Certainly, it is not from a lack of trying. Democrats serving on relevant committees have demonstrated determination in fulfilling our constitutional oversight obligations, but this is nearly impossible without cooperation from the Republican majority. Without cooperation from Republicans, letters requesting information are not bipartisan, and interviews of key witnesses are delayed or are canceled, just to give two examples.

Conducting oversight behind closed doors and out of the public view lacks transparency, of course, and creates a situation ripe for exploitation. It allows Republicans to weaponize incomplete or inaccurate information for the President's benefit.

We have seen the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, use this tactic last week, in spite of concerns raised by the FBI and the Department of Justice. Congressman Nunes, determined to support the President's paranoid conclusion that the entire national security apparatus is out to get him, created a memo that misconstrued critical intelligence to engineer an outcome that pleased the White House. Armed with a misleading and inaccurate memo, Congressman Nunes and Republicans across the country, with the assistance of Russia bots on social media, launched a concerted attack on the FBI, the intelligence community, and the Justice Department. Why? To prove a conspiracy against the President that does not exist.

Nunes and other Republicans knew the facts did not support their conspiracy theory, but the incitement continued anyway, even singling out for attack the President's own handpicked Director of the FBI after his agency opposed releasing the memo. By the time the committee released it and the public learned just how false and misleading it was, Congressman Nunes and his memo had already sowed the seeds of doubt about the FBI and its investigation.

The President rewarded Congressman Nunes yesterday by tweeting:

Devin Nunes, a man of tremendous courage and grit, may

someday be recognized as a Great American Hero for what he

has exposed and what he has had to endure!

I think history will conclude otherwise.

Just as the President has praised the Nunes attacks on the FBI and the Justice Department, he has certainly been doing his part to undermine these institutions. He has done his part by demeaning and humiliating the very people he appointed to run these institutions. We can all recall the very personal attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the Oval Office, demands for personal loyalty from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and assertions that the FBI was ``in tatters'' under the leadership of his handpicked Director, Christopher Wray. We can all appreciate the irony of Donald Trump's personal attacks against Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whom the President interviewed and seriously considered for a return to his old job as Director of the FBI.

The self-serving and personal attacks against people who refuse to do his bidding reflect the narcissism of a man who has little regard for his responsibilities as President. Sadly, for President Trump, it is all about him every time, all the time.

By attacking the Justice Department and the FBI, the President is attempting to discredit the Russia investigation and protect himself and his family. His words and actions are intended to undermine public confidence in the

FBI and the Justice Department for his benefit in the here and now. He does not seem to care about the long-term consequences of eroding public confidence in two critical institutions charged with keeping us safe and protecting our rights.

Through all the obfuscation and negative personal attacks, a clear pattern has emerged. The President and his Republican allies will do whatever they can to discredit the Mueller Russia investigation without regard or respect for the collateral damage caused. Then they will turn to FOX News and other outlets to get their message or propaganda out to their base and dismiss the mainstream media as fake news. Sadly, for our country, it is a strategy that can win and that can work.

According to a new poll from Reuters, 73 percent of Republicans believe that the Justice Department and the FBI are trying to undermine the President. This state of affairs may serve the President's short- term interests, but it will have real and lasting negative consequences for our country in the years and decades to come.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I would like to thank my friend Senator Murray for organizing this block of time for us--you have just heard from Senator Warren--and for all the work Senator Murray has done to fight for women all across the country.

Today's debate is the latest battle in the continuing assault on a women's constitutionally protected right to an abortion. As decided by the Supreme Court in Roe and reaffirmed in Casey, the right to an abortion is rooted fundamentally in a women's right to privacy, but the Supreme Court's recognition of this constitutionally protected right has not prevented continuous efforts to limit that right.

I ask my Republican colleagues who are on a mission to limit a woman's constitutional right to choose: What is more private than a person's right to her own body--not just to control her body but to literally own her body? What could be more private than that? That is what is at stake as we debate the bill before us today.

My home State of Hawaii was the first State in the country to legalize abortion, and it continues to be at the forefront of protecting, expanding, and preserving this constitutional right. But for every law we fought to pass, we have had to fight just as hard to beat back a wide range of anti-choice legislation.

Republican-controlled State legislatures have enacted hundreds of limitations on choice. These efforts have not abated in the States or even in Congress. Courts have deemed many of these laws unconstitutional. That is why Donald Trump and the entire conservative movement have prioritized selecting, appointing, and confirming judges who are ideologically sympathetic to their views on choice.

The Trump administration is also eroding this right through Executive action. In one prominent example last year, a senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services went to court to impose his own ideological views to prevent a young woman in his care from obtaining an abortion after forcing her to undergo anti-abortion counseling. Fortunately, the DC Circuit Court stopped this official from forcing this young woman to be pregnant against her will.

The Republican Congress is complicit as well. Over the past 7 years of Republican control, the House and Senate voted to defund Planned Parenthood more than 20 times.

I understand that this is an emotionally charged issue and that each of us has strongly held and sincere positions, but it really shouldn't be too much to ask for my colleagues to stay out of my private life and the private lives of women all across the country. That is called respecting each other's views. Why should we institutionally force other people who do not share your views to basically have to live with your version of the choices that we all ought to be able to make in our lives?

The bill we are debating today would jeopardize the health and safety of women by establishing a nationwide ban on abortion care after 20 weeks. This bill is arbitrary, and it is not meaningfully different from the Arizona law deemed unconstitutional by the Ninth Circuit in 2014, a case that the Supreme Court let stand.

This bill fails to account for the reasons why a woman might seek an abortion after 20 weeks, and it restricts the ability of women to make the best decisions for themselves and their families.

This bill includes no exception allowing for abortion in the case where the pregnancy is a risk to the woman's health. Instead, a doctor would only be able to provide care after establishing that a woman would die--would die--or suffer life-threatening injuries without an abortion. How cruel can this bill be that the only exception is when a woman is about to die before she can get the care she needs?

To make matters worse, this bill places additional burdens on women who survive the horrors of sexual assault. Under this bill, a sexual assault survivor must provide written proof she had obtained counseling or medical treatment to receive an abortion. However, a woman's own OB/ GYN could not provide this counseling if he or she provides abortion services or, even worse, has a practice that provides them.

Adult women who are able to qualify under these outrageous conditions would still have to wait 48 hours before they could receive abortion care.

If the survivor is a minor, the law establishes an additional burden to prove she reported the crime to the authorities. According to the Department of Justice, only 35 percent of women who are raped and sexually assaulted report the crime to the police.

Victims of incest who are over 18 would also not be specifically permitted an exception under this bill.

This legislation would even threaten doctors with fines and/or imprisonment for providing abortion services to women who do not meet the bill's narrow exceptions after 20 weeks.

But the outrage doesn't end there. This bill does not contain an exception for cases where a woman's fetus is not developing properly and has no chance at living after birth. Many of the women in these circumstances desperately wanted the pregnancies they are choosing to terminate.

Last year, I read a moving account from Meredith Isaksen, an English instructor at Berkeley City College, who shared her personal and heartbreaking story in an essay in the New York Times.

I ask unanimous consent that a copy of her essay be printed in the Record.

Meredith was 21 weeks pregnant when she learned that her second baby boy was missing half of his heart. It had stopped growing properly at around 5 weeks, but it wasn't detectable until her 20-week anatomy scan. Meredith's decision to terminate her pregnancy was an agonizing one, but as she weighed her options, she reflected on the meaning of compassion, and she said:

For us, the decision was about compassion for our unborn

baby, who would face overwhelming and horribly painful

obstacles. Compassion for our 2-year-old son, who would

contend with hours upon hours in a hospital, missing out on

invaluable time spent with his parents, and the death of a

very real sibling. It was about compassion for our marriage.

Perhaps most important, it was about our belief that

parenthood sometimes means we sacrifice our own dreams so our

children don't have to suffer.

Meredith asserted--and I agree--that our government has no place in the anguish that accompanied her decision to have an abortion.

Meredith closed her essay with a very poignant reflection on her own experience 2 years later. She wrote:

Saying goodbye to our boy was the single most difficult and

profound experience of my life, and the truth is, it has come

to define me. Today I am a better mother because of him. I am

a better wife, daughter and friend. He made me more

compassionate and more patient. He taught me to love with

reckless abandon, despite the knowledge that I could lose it

all.

Meredith and her husband named him Lev, the Hebrew word for ``heart.''

Meredith was fortunate in that she lived in a State that permitted abortions past 20 weeks. Thirteen States have established a 20-week abortion ban, and the women living in those States have suffered as a result. Think about all the Merediths in those 13 States and many others.

Recently, I heard from Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, an OB/GYN who has practiced medicine in Texas, which has a 20-week abortion ban, and in Hawaii, a State that has strong protections for women seeking to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion. Her experience clarifies why it is so urgent that we defeat this bill.

Dr. Moayedi shared a story of a young woman in her town who sought medical treatment at a medical provider after her water broke at 22 weeks. This was in Texas. Although she desperately wanted her pregnancy, her fetus was not viable outside the womb. Because of the Texas law, this patient's doctors were unable to counsel her on all medically appropriate options, such as immediate delivery. As she became increasingly ill, the patient requested an abortion to prevent her condition from getting worse. The doctors on her case refused. After spending 2 weeks in a hospital intensive care unit, this woman was transferred to Dr. Moayedi's care, where she ultimately had to have both her hands and feet amputated due to severe infection. She also lost her baby.

Dr. Moayedi recently moved from Texas to Hawaii, where she now provides lifesaving abortion care to women at all stages of pregnancy.

Recently, Dr. Moayedi had a patient with a desired pregnancy who was flown in from a neighbor island for management of her pre-viable labor. Despite the expert, specialist care she received, the patient's water broke at 22 weeks. At that point, there was nothing Dr. Moayedi could do to prevent labor. Because abortion is legal after 20 weeks in Hawaii, Dr. Moayedi was able to provide lifesaving abortion care for her patient and prevent her from developing a massive infection.

Dr. Moayedi put it plainly in her note: ``Restrictions on abortion care endanger the lives of my patients.''

``Restrictions on abortion care endanger the lives of my patients.'' And that is exactly what this bill will do. It will endanger the lives of millions of women in this country who do not--who do not--make the decision to have an abortion after 20 weeks lightly. As my colleague from Massachusetts said, most abortions take place before 20 weeks.

We are passing a cruel, unconscionable, and indeed unconstitutional law. Why are we doing that? Why these continuing attacks on a woman's health, her economic well-being, and her ability to control her own body?

I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this unconscionable bill.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, when Donald Trump was a private citizen during the last government shutdown, he said:

Problems start from the top, and they have to get solved

from the top, and the President's the leader, and he's got to

get everybody in a room, and he's got to lead.

That is what Donald Trump said when he was Citizen Trump. He is now the President. Now that he is the President, he has those shoes to wear. He refuses to step into them and step up. The only person who actually said that maybe we need a good shutdown is President Trump. Although I have to say that, recently, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney also said it was ``cool'' to shut down the government--unbelievable. It is definitely not cool. This attitude may explain why the President keeps shooting down bipartisan efforts to prevent a shutdown.

Republicans control the House and the Senate. I don't know why we have to keep reminding Republicans that they control the House and the Senate. There is no reason for the majority leader and the Speaker to enable this Trump shutdown to continue. There is no reason to wait on the President to tell them to do whatever or to tell them what he believes, because Donald Trump is a changeling. He is incapable of being consistent. I witnessed this 2 weeks ago when I went to the White House with a bipartisan group of Members of Congress to find a path forward to protect the Dreamers. During the meeting, in front of all of us and on national TV for over 50 minutes, Donald Trump promised to sign whatever bipartisan compromise that Congress came up with. He said he would take the heat. We had barely driven back to the Capitol before he went back on that promise. This pattern repeated on Friday, when the Democratic leader discussed a broad, bipartisan compromise with the President to keep the government open, and after appearing to agree on a framework, the President, shortly thereafter, said no.

Once again, this is Donald Trump's shutdown. It is important to understand who is responsible for this shutdown. He himself said it is the President who is supposed to be bringing everybody together. But, frankly, it is more important to end the shutdown. It is time for Congress to lead.

Congress is a separate branch of government, and we should start acting like it. We can come to a broad, bipartisan agreement on nearly every part of a deal to end this shutdown. We can reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides health insurance to 9 million children all across the country. We can fund community health centers, which provide healthcare for hundreds of millions of people in our communities. We can protect the Dreamers. We can fully

fund the Department of Defense and provide funding parity for critical domestic programs. Congress shouldn't wait around for the President to make up his mind. Let's do our jobs.

I support passing a very short-term funding bill, somewhere in between 1 and 3 days, which we have proposed, to sustain the urgency in getting this done in as short a time as possible. So a multiweek extension of government funding that allows the President, the majority leader, and the Speaker to kick the can down the road and pit one group against another is not the way to go.

The Republicans continue to pit the Children's Health Insurance Program against Dreamers, and they pit funding for troops against Dreamers, pitting one group after another on and on. Are the Republicans saying that we can only take care of one group or the other? Do we cut off the right arm or the left arm? We have seen this ``pitting one group against another'' strategy at work all week.

Authorization for the Children's Health Insurance Program expired on September 30, months ago, but the majority leader waited until now to put it up for a vote because he hoped to use it as leverage to divide Democrats and leave Dreamers out in the cold, pitting one group against another. Just as a reminder, guess who spent months and months trying to take away healthcare from millions of Americans and more months to provide the richest 1 percent of people and corporations in our country with huge tax cuts, all behind closed doors? The Republicans--that is who. We could have and should have funded the Children's Health Insurance Program months ago. We could have come to a compromise on Dreamers months ago.

The majority leader has come to the floor repeatedly to argue that there is no urgency to protect the Dreamers or the DACA participants, that we have months to find a solution. Doesn't he know that more than 16,000 people have lost their DACA protections since Donald Trump cruelly and cynically ended the program in September, and every single day, 122 DACA recipients lose their status. These young lives are on hold. They are scared, and they are afraid of being kicked out of the only country they know and love, and that is the United States of America.

Over the past few days, we have heard the President and the majority leader continuously disrespecting these inspiring young people by referring to them as illegals. That is how you take away an individual's humanity, by categorizing them as one group or another--as illegals. I have met many of these DACA recipients. They are not illegals. They are legally protected under the DACA Program to be in the United States. They want to make a contribution to the only country they know, America.

It is Dreamers like Leonardo, from Oregon, who came to my office in late December, shared his immigrant story and why he is fighting to be able to stay in the United States. Leonardo came to our country with his siblings and his mom, who was fleeing an abusive marriage. Growing up, Leonardo hardly saw his mom, who took public transportation to work the night shift and slept most of the day. He told me that, as he has gotten older and as he has had to work so hard to make ends meet, he truly appreciates the sacrifices his mom made to ensure that he had food and clothes. Like many young high school students, Leonardo dreamed of going to college. Because he was ineligible for financial aid as an undocumented student, he saw athletics as a path to pursue his dreams. Leonardo got a scholarship offer from a small school, but at precisely the moment he thought his dreams came true, he learned the school was unable to fulfill its promise because Leonardo was undocumented. Put yourself in his shoes. His heart was broken. Leonardo's life changed when he was able to sign up for DACA. He enrolled in community college to study chemistry and hopes to become a pharmacist one day. Leonardo told me that DACA didn't just allow him to access a better quality of life. He said it changed how he values himself as an individual and as a person, that he was more than his status--that he was a human being, not an illegal. When I asked him why he came all this way to share his story, he said:

What we're doing here really encompasses what it means to

be an American. The idea that we have to fight for justice.

That we have to fight for dignity. That equality surpasses

any status. That our humanity surpasses any status.

Thank you, Leonardo. I agree.

This is a pivotal moment for Congress. Are we going to continue to bend to the whims of a unpredictable, mercurial, and unreliable President, or will we come together on a bipartisan basis, behave like the separate branch of government that we are, and reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program, fund community health centers, protect Dreamers, and provide parity for defense and domestic programs in a long-term budget deal?

I respect my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. What I don't respect is holding up this process, knowing full well that we can come up with a bipartisan way in 3 or 2 days, or even 1 day to end this shutdown.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Republicans control every level of the Federal Government. They hold majorities in the House and the Senate. They have the Presidency. Yet the very people--the Republicans--who set the agenda in Washington and have majorities in both the House and the Senate are desperately trying to convince the American people that a government shutdown should be blamed on anyone else but them. Give me a break.

Nobody wants a shutdown except, maybe, the President, who seems to relish a government shutdown as a way of ``shaking things up,'' regardless of who gets hurt. Members of Congress should know better, and Republicans should get down to business and negotiate with Democrats in good faith.

Republicans in the House and Senate have brought us to the brink of a shutdown because they are terrified of the ideological extremists in their own party who reject even the most reasonable bipartisan compromises. They are terrified of a mercurial President, who changes his mind on a whim, who explodes at even the most minor slights, and who has repeatedly said that maybe we need a good government shutdown so he can get his vanity wall. Donald Trump and the Republicans will be held responsible for any government shutdown. They have created this situation, and the American people will hold them accountable.

Democrats have been open and transparent about the things we are fighting for. We are fighting to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP, so 9 million kids across the country can continue to access the lifesaving healthcare they need. We are fighting to restore funding to community health centers that serve millions of underserved Americans in rural communities, whether they live in Kansas, Ohio, or any of the other States Trump won. We are fighting to protect the Dreamers who could be deported to countries they know little of because the President unnecessarily and cruelly ended the DACA Program. We are also fighting for parity in funding for defense and domestic spending in any budget deal.

These are not partisan Democratic priorities. If one were to put each of these priorities up for a vote, they would all pass with bipartisan support in the House and the Senate. In fact, we could have passed each of these bills a long time ago. Yet, instead of doing something that would actually help people, the Republicans spent months working as hard as they could behind closed doors to give the wealthiest 1 percent of the people in our country and corporations huge tax cuts. Now they are trying to convince the other 99 percent of the American public that this tax bill was a good deal for them, but that is another story and is another example of misplaced priorities.

In getting back to the matter at hand, which is the urgency of preventing a government shutdown, the House is trying to pass another short-term spending bill that only includes a reauthorization for children's health and not the other important priorities we need to support. The Republicans in Congress are trying to pit communities, children, families, and Dreamers against one another in an attempt to divide and conquer. They are hoping we will support yet another government funding bill that kicks the can down the road because they will have funded children's health, even as, in their bill, they abandon the Dreamers and the rural communities that depend on community health centers.

We cannot allow this cynical Republican ploy to succeed. We need to keep fighting for children's health, for community health centers, for Dreamers, and for parity. I will not vote for any government funding bill that does not include all four of these important and urgent priorities. We cannot leave anyone behind because it is clear Donald

Trump will not keep his promise to protect those we call the DACA kids.

I was at the White House last week when the President looked us in the eye and said on national TV that he would sign a bipartisan compromise on the Dreamers. He barely waited for us to leave the White House before reneging on that promise. Then we all know what happened last week during the meeting with Senators Durbin and Graham at the White House when he was presented with a bipartisan compromise.

We cannot let the President's irresponsible behavior stop us from fighting for Dreamers who deserve our support and protection, Dreamers like Getsi from Beaverton, OR, whom I met late last month when she traveled to Washington, DC, to fight for the passage of the Dream Act. Getsi's parents brought her to Oregon from Mexico when she was only 4 years old. The journey was long and hard, and Getsi's sister was left behind.

While growing up, Getsi's parents warned her not to talk about her immigration status because even mentioning it to the wrong person could result in their deportations. She lived in constant fear. While growing up, Getsi's parents always emphasized the importance of her obtaining a higher education, and while her mom and dad only completed the 5th and 12th grades, respectively, they instilled a love of learning in their daughter and a deep desire to go to college.

After working hard in high school, Getsi enrolled in Western Oregon University, where she is studying to become a gerontological nurse. Getsi works incredibly hard. She is taking 20 credits a semester. I remember, when I was in college, 15 credits was a lot. She is taking 20 credits a semester, is working full time at an assisted living facility, and has recently become a certified rock climbing instructor. Getsi is scheduled to graduate a year early, in May, from Western Oregon University. After graduation, she is planning to enroll in an accelerated nursing master's program so she can realize her dream of becoming a gerontological nurse practitioner.

When I asked what inspired her to pursue such a selfless career, Getsi talked about wanting to care for people like her grandmother back in Mexico and for her parents as they got older. Without the protections DACA provides, Getsi will lose her work authorization, and if she is not able to work, she will not be able to pay for school and will be unable to pursue her dreams.

When I asked her why she traveled for days to come to Washington to share this message with Congress, her response was very moving. She said:

I have so many dreams and aspirations, and I urge people

here to understand how much these Dreamers have to give to

the U.S. We were brought at such a young age, we don't know

anything about our homelands. I want to be able to stay in

the U.S., to stay with my friends and family--my nieces and

nephew--everyone who is looking up to me. I want to prove

that my parents' sacrifice meant something.

This is a pivotal moment for Congress. Are we going to do more than pay lip service to Dreamers like Getsi by doing our jobs to protect them and provide healthcare to millions of children and families across the country or are we going to bend to the whims of an unpredictable, mercurial, and unreliable President?

Rather than waiting for the President to make up his mind, I call on the majority leader to recognize that as a separate branch of government, Congress should be a check on the excesses of the executive branch. It is about time the majority leader and Republicans in Congress stepped up to do their jobs.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, when the Sun rose last Saturday in Hawaii, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. People on Kauai were getting ready to participate in the local march to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Families were sitting around the table eating breakfast. Others were sleeping in after a long week of work.

At 8:07, everything changed. Mobile phones throughout Hawaii received an emergency alert in all capital letters informing them of a ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii and that this was not a drill. The terror and panic were real, and people's reactions reflected that. Parents passed their children through manhole covers into the sewers, seeking safety for them. Separated family members took to the highways, driving as fast as 100 miles per hour to get home. Some had to decide whether to rush to be with their spouse or their children.

Then 38 minutes later, an emergency alert came through saying that there was no missile threat--false alarm. The relief was palpable. This relief gave way to real, visceral anger. Anger that there was a false alarm. Anger that it took 38 minutes to alert the public. Anger that we faced a missile threat at all.

This incident has undermined the public's faith in our State government's ability to provide timely and accurate information about a potential crisis. At a time when we face heightened tensions around the world--and particularly with regard to North Korea--it is crucial that the people of Hawaii have confidence in the government to provide accurate information. That is why I am calling for a thorough, transparent investigation into what occurred. We need a full accounting of the human and system failures that occurred, and we need to identify and put in place specific steps to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

What we do know is that the incident was a result of human error. An operator mistakenly triggered the alert. Although the error was discovered quickly, we need to better understand the circumstances that led up to the incident. We need to understand how the operator was trained. We need to identify and understand any other potential issues that resulted in this specific human error.

The State has appointed an investigator to get to the bottom of this, and the State legislature is scheduled to be briefed on preliminary findings this Friday. Once the circumstances that precipitated this error are identified, we, of course, need to correct them as quickly as possible.

Concurrently, we need to understand the system failures that resulted both in the false alert and in the 38-minute delay before the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, or Hawaii EMA, issued a correction. Why did Hawaii EMA officials believe they needed approval from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, to issue a correction? The Secretary of Homeland Security told me at a hearing yesterday that no such permission was necessary, pointing to a need for clarity regarding Agency responsibilities.

State governments oversee and operate local emergency management alert systems, but the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, and the Department of Homeland Security, through FEMA, have a role to play to make sure that these systems are operating properly.

During yesterday's hearing in the Judiciary Committee, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen committed to working with me to strengthen the Federal-State cooperation on emergency alerts, assess potential failures, and improve overall readiness in Hawaii and across our country.

The FCC is also conducting an investigation into what happened.

The entire Nation will benefit if these key Federal agencies work with States to close gaps in training and communication, institute best practices, and ensure that our States and local governments have the appropriate resources to prevent this kind of occurrence from happening again.

This false alert also clarified the importance of strong coordination between the State government and our military. Over the weekend, I also spoke with Admiral Harris of Pacific Command about ways to strengthen this coordination, particularly during a period of heightened tensions with North Korea. The fact that the people in Hawaii immediately assumed that the missile originated from North Korea speaks to the broad concern about the potential for conflict and the threat that North Korea poses to our State and the rest of the country.

We need to support and strengthen diplomatic efforts regarding North Korea because at a time, as I mentioned, of heightened tension between the United States and North Korea, the potential for miscalculations increases.

The President, rather than engaging in a tit-for-tat with Kim Jong Un, should be supporting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's efforts to engage in meaningful diplomacy and marshal the support of our allies to diffuse tensions with North Korea.

I spoke earlier with Secretary of Defense James Mattis to emphasize the urgency of resolving this situation peacefully, knowing that he had just

returned from a multinational meeting with a number of key allies, including Japan and South Korea. This meeting was to focus on North Korean provocations. This meeting was cosponsored by the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, in Vancouver. Secretary Mattis was at that meeting to provide a military perspective. In our conversation, he reiterated to me the importance of strong diplomatic efforts to resolve tensions with North Korea.

I call on the President to support these kinds of initiatives and to give Secretary Tillerson all the resources he needs to succeed in his diplomatic endeavors.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have been consistently voting against cloture motions to proceed to debate on judicial nominations, and I would like to take this opportunity to explain why. The Senate has a constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent on judicial nominees, and I take this obligation very seriously.

The American people depend on the Senate to fully consider and vet each judicial nominee because throughout the course of their lifetime appointment, judges will issue rulings and opinions that touch each of our lives. The process of nominating, considering, and confirming judges should be a deliberate one. Its purpose should not be to confirm as many judges as quickly as possible. Senators should be able to provide input on who should sit on the Federal bench; Senators should have an adequate opportunity to hear from third-party experts about the records and qualifications of each nominee; and Senators should have enough time to question and examine a nominee during a confirmation hearing.

Insisting on a deliberate and comprehensive process is not, as some of my Republican colleagues might argue, an effort to deny the President his prerogative to nominate judges to lifetime appointments to the Federal bench. Instead, this process is essential in determining whether each nominee is qualified for the job and can separate their personal ideology from the decisions he or she renders. For a lifetime appointment to the Federal bench, this shouldn't be too much to ask.

Over the past year, we have observed a number of concerning issues in the nomination and confirmation process for Federal judges that need to be corrected. The President has essentially outsourced the judicial selection process to two organizations with strong, ideologically driven agendas--the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation.

The Federalist Society, for example, describes itself as ``a group of libertarians and conservatives dedicated to reforming the legal order.'' This is a group that has supported legal efforts to undermine environmental protection, erode the constitutional right to choose, and blur the lines between church and State.

The Heritage Foundation describes its mission as one to ``promote conservative public policies.'' Over the past few years alone, this organization, this group, has fought to undermine the Affordable Care Act, oppose LGBTQ rights, and erode the ability of Federal agencies to issue lifesaving regulations. It is not unreasonable to assume that these organizations, through their close association with the White House, expect their ideologically driven agendas to be reflected in the nominees they recommend.

While I concur with Justice Rehnquist's assertion that no judge joins a court tabula rasa, or as a blank slate, we should have a baseline expectation that lifetime appointees should be able to render justice free from their own personal ideologies. At the same time as the Trump administration relies more heavily on the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation to select its judicial nominees, it is devaluing the work done by the American Bar Association. The ABA has reviewed and vetted judicial nominees in a nonpartisan manner for over 60 years. With the exception of George W. Bush and now Donald Trump, Presidents in both parties have consulted with the ABA prior to officially nominating to the bench.

President Obama, for example, provided a great demonstration for how this process should work. Working closely with the ABA, President Obama routinely submitted potential candidates for scrutiny prior to their formal nomination. After conducting their independent, nonpartisan reviews, the ABA issued ``not qualified'' ratings for 14 candidates who had been proposed by President Obama. President Obama followed the ABA's recommendation and did not formally nominate any candidates rated ``not qualified.''

Under President Trump, on the other hand, we no longer wait for the ABA to complete its assessment of nominees prior to a nomination hearing itself, much less before the nomination. We no longer have an opportunity to review the ABA's report and, in many cases, do not have the chance to question an ABA representative at a nomination hearing about its review of the nominee.

We have seen the serious consequences of this change in practice in two high-profile nominations this year.

Despite having never tried a case, President Trump nominated Brett Talley to serve the District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. Mr. Talley was nominated, given a hearing, and listed for a Judiciary Committee vote before the ABA could even finish its evaluation. Given his complete lack of qualifications for the job, it wasn't

surprising that the ABA unanimously rated him ``not qualified.'' Because he was rushed through the nomination process, we only learned later that Mr. Talley failed to disclose that his wife works in the White House Counsel's office. After two Republicans on the committee-- Senator Grassley and Senator Kennedy--expressed their opposition to Mr. Talley, he, fortunately, withdrew from consideration.

We were not so lucky with Steven Grasz, who was recently confirmed to the Eighth Circuit. Mr. Grasz was nominated and scheduled for a Judiciary Committee hearing before the ABA could complete its review. By the time the ABA finished its exhaustive evaluation, during which it found him to be not qualified, Mr. Grasz was scheduled to appear before the Judiciary Committee in less than 48 hours. This was not nearly enough time to adequately address and assess the ABA's conclusion that Mr. Grasz would not be able to serve as a judge without the undue influence of his personal beliefs.

Courts are supposed to protect the rights of minorities, and it is troubling to reflect on the ABA's conclusion that Mr. Grasz would be unable to divorce his positions on issues like reproductive and LGBTQ rights from the cases he will hear on the Eighth Circuit. Circuit court judges are only one step away from the U.S. Supreme Court and deserve to be scrutinized closely in the Judiciary Committee. Unfortunately, last year, the Judiciary Committee overrode the objections of the minority to hold four nomination hearings with more than one circuit judge nominee considered simultaneously.

To put this in some historical context, the Judiciary Committee held four such hearings in the entire 8 years Barack Obama was President, and it held each of these hearings with the consent of the Republican minority on the committee. During hearings on circuit and district court nominees, each committee member generally has only 5 minutes to question nominees--many of whom are highly controversial and deserve maximum scrutiny. Five minutes, which includes the time the nominee takes to respond, is not nearly enough time to engage in meaningful dialogue about a nominee's judicial philosophy or to examine controversial cases a nominee may have decided in the past.

The American people deserve much more as we consider lifetime appointments to the Federal bench. I am also concerned about the erosion of the blue-slip process, which has traditionally been a collaborative mechanism to enable Senators to confer with the White House on nominees from their States. Although there have been exceptions over the years, Presidents and Senate majorities of both parties have both respected the blue-slip process.

In 2009, the Democrats controlled the White House and had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Every Senate Republican signed a letter to President Obama urging him to respect the blue-slip process. I would like to read a passage from that letter for emphasis.

Regretfully, if we are not consulted on, and approve of, a

nominee from our states, the Republican Conference will be

unable to support moving forward on that nominee.

Despite press reports that the Chairman of the Judiciary

Committee now may be considering changing the Committee's

practice of observing senatorial courtesy, we, as a

Conference, expect it to be observed even-handedly and

regardless of party affiliation. And we will act to preserve

this principle and the rights of our colleagues if it is not.

Because of the profound impact that life-tenured federal

judges can have in our society, the founders made their

appointment a shared constitutional responsibility.

This is the Republican conference asking the Democratic majority, the Democratic President, and the chair of the Judiciary Committee to observe the blue-slip process.

President Obama, and the Democratic majority at that time, upheld the blue-slip process without exception. Last year, the Judiciary Committee held a nomination hearing for David Stras to serve on the Eighth Circuit despite his not receiving two positive blue-slips from his home State Senators. This is the first time since the early years of the George W. Bush administration that the Judiciary Committee has held a hearing for a nominee when a home State Senator has not returned a blue slip. If the Senate proceeds to vote on and confirm Mr. Stras, it will be the first time since 1989 and only the third time in the last 100 years that a judicial nominee will be confirmed without having two positive blue slips.

I, certainly, take the chairman at his word that this was a onetime exception to the blue-slip process, but I will hold him and the President to the same standard they demanded from President Obama in 2009.

I will continue to rigorously defend the Senate's constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent on lifetime appointees to the Federal bench. Until we return to a normal process through which we can provide this kind of advice and consent, I will continue to oppose invoking cloture on any judicial nominee, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in this position.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, every Member of this body is only a few generations removed from the immigrant experience. At some point in the recent past, each of our ancestors made the courageous decision to leave his home in search of a better life in America. Each of them took a risk. They didn't know what awaited them in this country, but they believed that through their own hard work and determination, they could succeed.

My mother took a huge risk when she brought my brothers and me to this country. Leaving her entire family behind, she packed our belongings into one suitcase, and we set sail for Hawaii. We grew up poor, but Mom worked so hard every day to build a life for us in this country. She worked minimum-wage jobs with no health insurance. We moved apartments and schools every few years. Eventually, we were able to bring my grandparents to Hawaii from Japan. So I understand as an immigrant how important family unification is to immigrant families.

I share my story not because I think it is particularly extraordinary but because it is a story that millions of families in our country share. The same hopes that drove my mom to risk everything to bring us to America are reflected in the stories of millions of immigrant families across the country, and they are reflected in the lives of Dreamers, whose futures are now at risk because of the President's decision to end the DACA Program.

More than 15,000 young people have already lost their protection from deportation as a result of the President's decision, and 122 more will lose DACA protection every single day. It was with this sense of urgency in mind that I joined a bipartisan group of my colleagues at the White House yesterday to find a path forward to protect the Dreamers. The President took great pains to appear reasonable and eager to make a deal, but we left yesterday's meeting without much clarity about where he stood.

Only a few days ago, the President threatened to hold Dreamers hostage until he got $18 billion to build the wall. I would call that his vanity project. In response to my question at yesterday's meeting, the President appeared to demonstrate some flexibility on this issue, but after the Freedom Caucus spent yesterday afternoon warning of a potential betrayal on so-called ``amnesty,'' the President reaffirmed in a tweet his hard-line position that funding for the wall must be part of any deal on Dreamers.

Between insisting on building an unnecessary wall, demonizing family reunification, and peddling misinformation about the diversity visa lottery, the President lost track of what is really at stake here--the inspiring young people whose lives he has left hanging in the balance.

Before the holidays, it was heartening to see so many Dreamers from all across the country taking direct action in the halls of Congress to fight for their futures. I spoke with a number of these young people, like Victor from Houston, who traveled for days to make his voice heard in Congress.

Victor's parents were seasonal farmworkers who traveled to the strawberry fields of Florida every year. They settled down in Houston and saved money for a car and an apartment. They sent for Victor and his sister when he was only 4 years old.

Victor spent most of his childhood not even knowing his immigration status. It wasn't until he came home one day with a permission slip to join his middle school class on a trip to Spain that his mom told him that he was undocumented. Learning what it meant to be undocumented-- that if he traveled to Spain he couldn't come home--was really hard for Victor, but he tried to put it from his mind.

As the years passed, it got harder for Victor to grapple with his status. He loved going to school, but he knew as an undocumented immigrant that his options after he graduated from high school were limited. He developed depression, and his grades suffered. But a few months after graduation, President Obama created the DACA Program, and Victor successfully applied for it.

Victor told me that even though he had DACA, he was still too afraid to talk about his status with anyone. During the 2016 election, this changed. He confronted his friends who voted for Donald Trump and shared what losing DACA would mean for him.

On September 5, Victor knew there would be an announcement about his future. He put his phone away and started cleaning his house to distract him from what was about to happen. Eventually he ran out of distractions and sat down to watch Attorney General Jeff Sessions' DACA announcement. Victor began to cry. In the days that followed, Victor started having panic attacks--sometimes as many as five to seven per day. He was afraid to get in the car because he didn't want to hurt anyone if he got a panic attack while driving. A few weeks later, Victor showed up for his first United We Dream event in Houston. There he met fellow Dreamers and allies committed to fighting for him. He told me that it was amazing to see so many people show up in support and solidarity.

Victor made himself a promise that once the Dream Act passes, he is going to go back to school to study psychology so that he can help LGBT youth like him. Before he left, Victor said something really insightful. He said that it is really important for people to come out of the shadows to tell their stories because once you tell your story, then they can no longer demonize you.

I couldn't agree more.

Fighting to protect Dreamers is about much more than the law. It is about compassion and basic human decency. Late last night, Dreamers won a temporary reprieve when a district court judge in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction to reinstate the DACA Program for existing enrollees. The judge said that ending DACA in the way the administration ended it was arbitrary and capricious. This was an important victory, for now. It is just a temporary injunction, a temporary reprieve. So I agree with my Democratic leader that we cannot allow this decision to make us think that we are out of the woods, not at all. It cannot dim our resolve to pass the Dream Act. The fight continues.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Durbin for organizing this time and for his leadership and advocacy on behalf of Dreamers across the country.

Passing the Dream Act is about more than the law. It is about compassion and basic human decency. There is nothing compassionate or decent about revoking the status that 800,000 young people, including 600 in Hawaii, depend on to live, work, and study in the only country they have ever known.

Relying on a promise from the Federal Government, these young men and women came out of the shadows, handed over personal information, and underwent extensive background investigations to earn their DACA status, but the President's actions have put them all at risk. Like so many people, I have been moved by stories of how DACA has transformed the lives of Dreamers across the country.

Earlier today, I spoke with two young Dreamers who flagged me down in the hallway as I was going from one hearing to another, and they asked to speak with me. One had traveled from Arizona and is only a high school student. He was all dressed up, and he had a bowtie on. The other who flagged me down in another part of the building lives in California and is originally from South Korea. Both asked me to continue to fight to pass the Dream Act before the end of this year.

To see these young people politely approaching Members of Congress like me--I don't think a lot of them even had appointments, but they had to study the faces of the Members of Congress so, as they saw us in the hallway, they could come up to us. So the fact that they politely asked to speak with me, even as they literally are fighting for their lives, speaks volumes. We should open our hearts to them and support their cause.

Like so many of my colleagues, I have met with Dreamers from my home State of Hawaii to hear about how DACA has changed and enriched

their lives. In October, I met with three young women studying at the University of Hawaii thanks to DACA.

Karen, Maleni, and Beatrice were, in many ways, like any other college student. They balance busy class schedules with part-time jobs and extracurricular activities. They have also lived in fear since the President and his Attorney General made the cruel and arbitrary decision to end DACA on September 5. Karen, Maleni, and Beatrice told me they hadn't received any notice about what would happen after the program ended on March 5, 2018, and depended on media updates that would literally determine their futures. They shared hopes and concerns most of us would take for granted.

When their newly issued driver's licenses expire, they may not be able to fly home to California to visit their families because they will no longer have valid IDs. After turning their information over to the Federal Government, they worry for their parents and families, many of whom are undocumented. When their work authorizations expire, they will have to drop out of college because they can't afford tuition.

Karen is pursuing her master's degree in conservation biology and environmental science and hopes to have a career in research. She said:

If I lose my DACA, that means I'd lose my work permit which

means I lose my graduate assistantship which means I can't

[graduate]. So thinking about those logistics is definitely

scary. Because I wouldn't be able to complete my education

unless I found another way to fund it.

[Dreamers] are working to improve our lives, and the lives

of our families, and hopefully, through our professions, your

life too. We're becoming doctors and lawyers and teachers and

any field you can imagine there's probably at least one of us

represented. So give us a chance.

Even with all they have been through, Karen, Maleni, and Beatrice told me they don't regret signing up for DACA because, although their futures are now in jeopardy, for a few years they were given a chance at their American dream.

Dreamers like Karen, Maleni, and Beatrice are not asking for much. They are just asking us, as Karen said, ``for a chance.'' They are asking us to keep the promise we made to them, and it is in our power to do that.

Around 10,000 Dreamers have already lost their DACA status since Attorney General Sessions announced the program's end. Every day Congress doesn't act, 122 Dreamers lose their DACA status. We are taking away these young people's chances of staying in school, pursuing meaningful careers, and even visiting their families at Christmas.

While the President once called Dreamers ``absolutely incredible kids'' and made promise after promise to protect them, he has gone back on his word time and again. We can't rely on his empty promises.

I ask my colleagues to put yourselves in the shoes of these Dreamers. What if your future in this country was uncertain after March 5? What if you were facing deportation to a country you don't even know so you have to start life all over again? What if your families lived in daily fear? If we can put ourselves in the shoes of Dreamers, what part of the Dreamers' uncertainty and living in fear can we not understand?

Is it because we are not them? Is it that we can only relate to someone's existence or experience only if we lived it ourselves? If that is the only way we can relate to people's problems--people who come to us for help--then we are in a very sorry state.

Most of us who serve in the Senate are only one or two generations removed from immigrant status or immigrant backgrounds. I, myself, am an immigrant. I was not born in this country. I came here with a single mother. I know what it is like to come to a new country where you don't speak the language and where you have to learn, where you have to adjust. All my mother asked for was a chance to attain the American dream.

It really bothers me that at the time when we were talking about passing comprehensive immigration reform, Member after Member came to the floor of the Senate and talked about their immigrant backgrounds. Yet too many of them were perfectly happy to shut the door on immigrants in this country--over 11 million undocumented persons--to shut the door in their faces; forgetting that most of us come from immigrant backgrounds; forgetting that this country, apart from the original people who were here, American Indians, we are all immigrants.

So let's put ourselves in the shoes of our Dreamers. Let's open our hearts to them. These are young people who just want to have a chance at the American dream that too many of us take for granted now. Let's not only be able to empathize with people whose experiences we have lived. Let's not be there, let's not go there.

I call on my colleagues to support the Dream Act now.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, the Republican tax plan we are debating today is a sham. It is a solution in search of a problem.

The President and his allies in Congress are bound and determined to give the richest people in our country and large corporations huge tax cuts that will magically trickle down to create a fantastic, incredible, wonderful economy. Why? Why do we even need this?

Corporations and the richest 1 percent of people in our country are doing just fine, thank you very much. They certainly don't need any more goodies. Over the past 10 years, corporate profits have grown exponentially. More wealth is concentrated in the hands of the top 1 percent than at any time since the Great Depression.

Groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claim this bill will spur new investment and help workers. What world are they living in?

Corporations have sheltered over $2.6 trillion offshore to avoid paying taxes. This is money they could already be using to create jobs, build factories, or raise employee wages. It is not happening, and it will not happen.

These people and corporations do not need more money and profits. On the other hand, middle-class families have been seeing stagnant wages for nearly 20 years. Healthcare continues to be a political football, with the President sabotaging the Affordable Care Act and congressional efforts to repeal the healthcare law. The cost of a college education is increasingly out of the reach of middle-class families.

The list goes on.

Rather than crafting a tax plan that would actually help middle-class families, Donald Trump and the Republican Party have decided to screw them over instead--all to give rich people and corporations huge tax cuts they do not need.

In Hawaii we have a word to describe what is happening here. The word is ``shibai'' or B.S.

We have had little time to debate the devastating impact of this massive bill, but even in the short amount of time we have had, it is clear how many of the major provisions in this bill would harm middle- class families. For example, this bill eliminates the individual mandate for healthcare, which is just another way to repeal the Affordable Care Act. How many bites out of this repeal apple are the Republicans going to take? Thirteen million people will lose their health insurance. Premiums for everyone else will increase significantly every year as a result of this yet another bite out of the ACA apple. Do they think these millions of people who will be hurt will not notice what is happening to them and their healthcare? I don't think so.

The devastating impact of this bill is not limited to the parts we have all heard about. The Republican tax scam has a number of obscure provisions that are already having or will cause real harm.

The House bill, for example, eliminates the ability of State and local governments to issue something called private activity bonds. This kind of bond is certainly not something you hear being discussed on ``Morning Joe'' or Wolf Blitzer, but they are critical to our communities. Through private activity bonds, the Federal Government allows State and local governments to issue tax-exempt bonds to finance certain kinds of projects that help our communities. State and local governments routinely issue these kinds of bonds to construct schools, hospitals, et cetera.

Although this bill hasn't even passed Congress yet, it is already having a devastating impact. Let me give a concrete example. Residents of West Maui have been waiting for a hospital for decades. Right now, on their side of the island, if there is a medical emergency, the only way an ambulance can get to West Maui to Maui Memorial--the island's only hospital--is on a two-lane highway. One lane winds around the side of a cliff, making it susceptible to falling rocks and flash floods. The other lane is being eaten away by coastal erosion. So on a normal day, when nothing goes wrong, it will take over an hour to reach Maui Memorial from West Maui, but if there is traffic or an accident on the highway, you can forget about it. For serious injuries, even an hour is too long to wait for lifesaving medical care.

Construction of the West Maui Medical Center is clearly important and needed. When the project is completed, West Maui will have, for the first time, a dedicated emergency room and will offer essential surgical and radiological services. It will save lives. Although initial work on this project has begun, construction has stalled. Why? Because the financing for the project is being held up out of fear that Republicans in Congress will eliminate the private activity bonds this project needs for completion.

Other hospitals in Hawaii have used these kinds of activity bonds. Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Hawaii that offers prenatal care and services for women has expanded their facilities and their ability to treat literally thousands of new people.

I have visited this hospital. I have heard from them. They cannot understand why Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress could, in good conscience, cut a program that saves lives, all to finance tax cuts--not needed--for the richest people and corporations in our country.

The theory, certainly not reality, is that these huge tax cuts will magically trickle down to create a fantastic, incredible, tremendous economy. The fact that this theory has been thoroughly discredited and in reality shown to be false is of little concern to them.

What exactly, then, is the problem this bill is supposed to address?

Over the past 10 years, corporate profits have grown exponentially. This bill eliminates the State and local tax deduction that thousands of taxpayers in Hawaii count on. These tax giveaways to the rich will force States to make huge and painful cuts to public education, essential social services, and infrastructure investment.

When the project is completed, West Maui will have a dedicated emergency room and will offer essential surgical and radiological services. It will save lives.

Brian Hoyle, the president of Newport Hospital Corporation, which is building the West Maui Hospital, said, ``We're waiting to see what Congress does. All of the health care community does not like this bill. It's a very bad bill for the state of Hawaii.''

Other hospitals across Hawaii have used private activity bonds to finance much-needed expansions of service.

With the help of private activity bonds, Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu recently finished construction on its Diamond Head Tower, which houses some of the hospital's most important neonatal functions.

Last year, I visited the new 40,000-square-foot Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, NICU. The NICU is five times larger than its former facility and can better serve the more than 1,000 of the most vulnerable babies born at the hospital every year.

In only a few days, Kapiolani will open its new emergency room, which is twice the size of its old one, to the nearly 125 patients who come through their doors every day.

I heard from Michael Robinson, Kapiolani's vice president of government relations and community affairs, on how private activity bonds could literally mean the difference between life and death for Hawaii residents.

He wrote to me, saying:

Private activity bonds were critical in the construction of

Kapiolani Medical Center's Diamond Head Tower, enabling us to

expand our bed capacity and meet the needs of the most

critically ill children and their families throughout Hawaii.

It's difficult to understand why Congress is considering

eliminating private activity bonds when this method of

financing has been essential in providing non-profit

hospitals the resources to provide care to the patients they

serve.

As Michael said, it is hard to understand how Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress could in good conscience cut a program that saves lives to finance tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

If this bill passes before the end of this calendar year, it could trigger $136 billion in mandatory cuts to essential programs, including $25 billion in cuts to Medicare. Senator Booker, Senator Murray, and I have submitted an amendment that would automatically undo the corporate tax cut if these cuts to Medicare happen.

If we are serious about a tax plan that will truly help middle-class families in a meaningful way, we need to kill this terrible bill and start over.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the judges Donald Trump appoints to lifetime positions on our Federal courts will be a lasting legacy, and he is determined to do whatever it takes to place as many nominees with an ideologically driven agenda on the bench as possible.

Today the Senate is debating whether to give Gregory Katsas a lifetime appointment to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Throughout his career, including as Deputy White House Counsel under Donald Trump and as a senior official in the Justice Department under George W. Bush, Mr. Katsas has demonstrated a profound conservative bias that is inappropriate for service on the country's second most important court.

As Deputy White House Counsel, Mr. Katsas has been deeply involved in crafting the legal justification for many of the Trump administration's most controversial policies. He also played a key role in deciding which court cases the administration would support or oppose and recommending candidates for various executive and judicial appointments.

The legal issues he has managed, the advice he has given, and the appointments he has recommended raise serious concerns about whether he should receive a lifetime appointment to the Federal bench.

In the early days of the administration, Mr. Katsas participated in crafting the legal justification for the President's Muslim ban, a policy at odds with the Constitution and our values as a nation. Mr. Katsas has also been involved in orchestrating the administration's opposition to LGBTQ rights in the courts. In particular, he openly admits his role in the Justice Department's decision to argue in a case before the Second Circuit that title VII in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. This position is inconsistent with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's 2015 guidance and with a recent en banc decision from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Katsas testified that he was involved in the administration's decision to file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Civil Rights Commission. He thus supports the position that a private business

should be able to refuse to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple.

By elevating a corporation's religious views over the rights of their customers, Mr. Katsas and the Trump administration argued that businesses should be able to say that their work is an expression of their religious beliefs. This would allow them to discriminate against certain customers and turn our system of antidiscrimination protections in public accommodations on its head. These actions and positions should disqualify Mr. Katsas from serving on the DC Circuit.

But there is more.

We can also trace his record of pushing a partisan, ideological agenda during his time in the Bush Justice Department. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Mr. Katsas argued that the military commissions the Bush administration established after 9/11 were legal and consistent with the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions. In Boumediene v. Bush, Mr. Katsas also argued that people deemed enemy combatants and detained at Guantanamo could not challenge their detention on habeas corpus grounds. The Supreme Court repudiated these arguments in their landmark decisions in both cases.

Mr. Katsas was also the public face of the Bush administration's opposition to the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, also known as the Akaka bill. As the Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General in the Bush administration, Mr. Katsas testified in Congress that the Akaka bill was unconstitutional. He went so far as to say that it would ``create a race-based government offensive to our Nation's commitment to equal justice and the elimination of racial distinctions in law.''

What was really offensive was that his testimony was legally wrong and insulting to a Native people, the Native Hawaiians. In rebuttal, a bipartisan trio of highly respected former DOJ officials said in written testimony that Mr. Katsas failed to provide a credible and coherent legal argument against the Akaka bill. They argued that his testimony presented ``a caricatured view of the text of [the bill] and the governing law, and should not be considered an authoritative guide for resolving legal disputes in this area.''

I agree. The Akaka bill did not confer status to a group of people based on race and ancestry. It did so by virtue of residency and sovereignty. With no grounding in fact or law, Mr. Katsas advocated treating Native Hawaiians differently from other indigenous people.

Mr. Katsas' position on Native Hawaiian rights is of particular concern at a time when the DC Circuit could hear legal challenges to the 2016 Interior Department rule through which the Native Hawaiian community could reestablish a government-to-government relationship with the Federal Government.

Mr. Katsas has a disturbing record of pushing a partisan conservative agenda not based on sound law that has no place in the DC Circuit. We cannot simply ignore his record and decouple his past actions from the person responsible for them. Mr. Katsas has clear policy preferences that are red flags as to how he will decide cases should he be confirmed to this lifetime position.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.