Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I am proud to stand today and support Scott Pruitt, President Trump's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

I can think of no one who is better suited or more fully qualified to lead this Agency and to advance within it the reforms it so desperately needs. I look forward to voting to confirm Mr. Pruitt as EPA Administrator, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.

In many ways, the EPA epitomizes the broken status quo in Washington--a status quo that is increasingly and rightfully viewed with suspicion and a certain amount of contempt by the American people. That broken and discredited status quo has been described in various ways: out of touch, arbitrary, inflexible, unreasonable, heavyhanded, unaccountable. These words could apply to any number of institutions or offices here in Washington, DC, but they are the hallmarks of the rule- writing departments that make up our Federal bureaucracy.

Technically, these bureaucratic agencies are creatures of the executive branch--creatures that exist to assist the President in fulfilling his constitutional duty to take care that the laws, written by the legislative branch, are to be faithfully executed. But over the past several decades, they have been recast as the Federal Government's center of gravity, both writing and enforcing and, in many cases, even interpreting, the vast majority of laws governing America's society and America's economy.

Elevating the unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy to the driver's seat of the Federal Government--to the driver's seat, specifically, of Federal policymaking--is mostly the work of Members of Congress, of both Chambers and of both political parties, who understand that the best way to avoid being blamed by voters for unpopular laws is not to make them--at least not to make them completely--but rather to empower unelected bureaucrats to make the laws for them. But the regulatory agencies themselves sometimes deserve some of the blame as well.

Congress is guilty of writing laws that are couched in vague terms, centered around gauzy goals, instead of strictly defined as understandable rules. But Federal regulators are guilty of interpreting--and repeatedly reinterpreting--those laws in order to accommodate their ever-expanding conception of their own power, of their own authority to work their own will on the American people.

For instance, in the years since Congress passed the Clean Air Act amendments in 1977, Federal bureaucrats have used the law to enact more than 13,500 pages of regulations, which works out to roughly 30 pages of regulations for every 1 page of underlying legislative text.

The fundamental problem with this expansion and centralization of regulatory authority is the tendency of

Washington, DC, bureaucrats to be ignorant of--and often very indifferent to--the interests of the people who live in the various communities who are affected by the rules they make and the rules they also enforce.

This isn't a knock on the individual men and women who work within the Federal bureaucracy, most of whom are well-educated, well- intentioned, and highly specialized. But there is no doubt that a regulator in Washington, DC, knows a whole lot less about a melon farm in Emery County, UT, and cares a lot less about the fate of the people who work at that melon farm in Emery County, UT, than what the regulators say in Salt Lake City.

The Environmental Protection Agency, in particular, is notorious for its top-down, Washington-knows-best approach to regulation, which often runs roughshod over the immense diversity of local circumstances in our large country.

Too often, the EPA treats States and State regulators not as partners but as adversaries. It treats the States themselves not as laboratories of republican democracy but, rather, as lab rats to be tested upon for their own amusement and for the exertion of their own political power.

Scott Pruitt understands this well because he has seen it firsthand as attorney general of Oklahoma. Mr. Pruitt has spent many years being ignored and pushed around by Washington, an experience that has taught him the need for the EPA to work with and not condescend to the States.

In his Senate confirmation hearing, Mr. Pruitt explained why improving the relationship between the EPA and State-level regulators is the best way to protect our environment and uphold the separation of powers that is the cornerstone of our constitutional system. He said: ``Cooperative Federalism is at the heart of many of the environmental statutes that involve the Environmental Protection Agency.''

The reason for that is that it is the States that many times have the resources, the expertise, and an understanding of the unique challenges of protecting our environment and improving our water and our air. We need a true partnership between the EPA in performing its roll, along with the States in performing theirs. If we have that partnership, as opposed to punishment, as opposed to the uncertainty and duress that we currently see in the marketplace, I think we will have better air and better water quality as a result.

For many Americans--and certainly for many of my fellow Utahns--the EPA is pejorative. It is synonymous with an out-of-touch and out-of- control government.

This is a shame. Americans want--and Americans certainly deserve-- clean air and clean water. The EPA has the potential to help them achieve these goals, but only if the EPA itself returns to its core mission and works well, works wisely to accomplish that mission, and works within our constitutional system.

That is why I am so pleased that Scott Pruitt is on his way to lead the EPA. The Agency exists to protect the American people, not advance the narrow agenda of some special interests while punishing others.

I am confident that Mr. Pruitt is the right man for the job and that he will remain independent while correcting the troubling course that the EPA has taken in recent decades.

I thank the Chair.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions to be the next Attorney General of the United States.

I enthusiastically support this nomination, because I know Senator Sessions to be an independent-minded man of great integrity. He is someone who understands and respects the rule of law. He values it deeply, in fact. He is someone who understands the difference between making law and enforcing the law. He understands the difference between setting policy and enforcing laws that contain policy, and he is someone who understands that, as a lawyer, the very best way to serve your client often involves offering honest, independent advice--honest independent advice of the sort that might not always occur to the client on the client's part.

I have listened to the remarks of some of my colleagues, and I have to state that I have served with Senator Sessions for the last 6 years, ever since I first became a Member of this body, and I don't recognize the caricature that has been painted of him over the last 24 hours. So I want to address head-on several of my colleagues' expressed concerns about his nomination.

Some of my colleagues have expressed and relied upon what really amount to policy concerns--policy disagreements between themselves and Senator Sessions--as a reason to oppose his nomination.

As I explained it in our Judiciary Committee markup last week, I have disagreed with Senator Sessions not just 1 or 2 times but on many, many occasions and not just on a few isolated issues that are only tangentially related to something important to me but on circumstances and issues that are very important to me and that are at the center of my legislative agenda. We have disagreed, for example, about sentencing reform. We have disagreed about immigration reform, and several important national security issues implicating constitutional law, and constitutional policy. All of these issues are very important to both of us--to me and to Senator Sessions. They can be emotional issues, and they happen to be issues on which Senator Sessions and I disagree, not just a little bit, but we happen to disagree taking almost diametrically opposed positions in many of these areas.

Notwithstanding these disagreements--disagreements that I have seen in every one of the 6 years I have served in this body so far--I have never seen Senator Sessions raise his voice in anger against a colleague. To be sure, Senator Sessions makes his arguments vigorously, passionately, and forcefully, and yet he does so in a way that ensures that he will always treat his colleagues, even though he disagrees with them, with dignity and respect. You may not persuade him that your position is right and his is wrong, but he always gives you the opportunity to make your case. I think Members of this body know that. Those Members of this body who have actually taken the time to get to know Senator Sessions and actually have the opportunity to work with him, even the opportunity to disagree with him know that. Senator Sessions interacts with his colleagues in a way that demonstrates a degree of respect for differences of opinion that are seldom seen here. In fact, I can't think of a colleague who better exemplifies the principles of collegiality to which we aspire in this body than does Senator Sessions.

Perhaps even more importantly, Senator Sessions obviously understands the difference between lawmaking on the one hand and law enforcement on the other hand. This is plain from testimony he provided before the Judiciary Committee.

As just one example, he told us:

To go from the Legislative branch to the Executive branch

is a transfer not only of position, but of the way you

approach issues. I would be in an executive function and

enforcement function of the law this great legislative body

might pass.''

His commitment to the rule of law and even application of the law is also plain from his public record, from his record serving in other positions. His record, for example, as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, and his record as attorney general for the State of Alabama.

To put the matter quite plainly, a great number of Senators have served in the Cabinet over the years. The standard has never been that a Senator is somehow unfit for the executive branch--for a Cabinet position in the executive branch--if he or she has disagreed with you on important issues. If that were the standard, no Senator would ever be confirmed because we debate important public policy issues

every single day, and it is never the case that we will find any among us, even colleagues, with whom we agree most of the time who are going to agree with us 100 percent of the time. So I urge my colleagues to put aside any policy differences they might have with Senator Sessions when considering his nomination and when deciding how they are going to vote in response to his nomination, because those simply are not relevant to his job and, at a minimum, ought not to be disqualifying factors relevant to his job.

As to independence, some of my colleagues doubt that Senator Sessions will be an independent voice at the Department of Justice. Respectfully, I can say with full confidence that anyone who actually knows Senator Sessions knows that he is fiercely independent-minded. He never shies away from expressing his closely held, sincerely developed views on any issue, even when political pressure might suggest a different course of action be in order. It is clear that Sessions will apply his independent-mindedness to his job after he is confirmed as Attorney General of the United States.

During his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, he repeatedly outlined the importance of having an independent Attorney General, and he explained how he would fulfill this obligation, how he would become precisely such an Attorney General, one who would exercise a degree of independence and not simply be a rubber stamp.

For example, he told us that every Attorney General ``understands, I think, that if a President wants to accomplish a goal that he or she believes in deeply, you should help them do it in a lawful way but make clear and object if it is an unlawful action.'' He described that role--being able to tell the President ``no,'' that is--as ``the ultimate loyalty to him.''

He testified: ``I hope that President Trump has confidence in me so that if I give him advice that something can be done or cannot be done, that he would respect that.''

Sessions also explained that if the Attorney General were asked ``to do something plainly unlawful, he cannot participate in that. He or she would have to resign ultimately before agreeing to execute a policy that the Attorney General believed would be unlawful or unconstitutional.'' Senator Sessions made this point repeatedly. He made it with great emphasis and in such a way that it is unmistakably clear to me that this is the Attorney General he would aspire to be and that he would in fact become after being confirmed.

Now, some may argue that you cannot necessarily trust his testimony because no Attorney General nominee would declare an intention to be a rubberstamp to the nominated President. Others may argue that Senator Sessions was too involved in the Trump campaign to be impartial. This is one of those points that you either believe or don't believe. You can't reason your way to an answer. You have to know the person.

So I urge my colleagues to reflect on their experiences with Senator Sessions. If I know one thing about him, he is not a ``yes'' man. If I know one thing about him, it is that of all the people with whom I have served in the Senate, he is one of the very last who I would ever expect in any context to sell out his sincerely held views on the basis of political expediency. Instead, Senator Sessions takes his professional responsibility very seriously.

When he was a lawyer, he took seriously his obligations to his client and the law. As a Senator, he has taken seriously his obligations to the people of the State of Alabama. I know he will do the same thing at the U.S. Department of Justice.

He told us that ``the Attorney General ultimately owes his loyalty to the integrity of the American people and to the fidelity of the Constitution, and the legislative laws of the country.'' This demonstrates that Senator Sessions understands, as any good lawyer does, that every lawyer has a client, and you understand how best to represent that client and that client's interest. You have to understand the nature of the attorney-client relationship. You have to know who the client is, you have to know how to interact with that client, and you have to be willing to push back on that client, even when--especially when--it is difficult, because that is the job of the lawyer. The obligations incumbent upon the lawyer provides that the lawyer sometimes has to push back on the client.

At the end of the day, it seems to me that some of my colleagues perhaps just want an Attorney General who will be openly, affirmatively, presumptively, perennially hostile to the President's agenda. Now, that has never been the standard, and it is not a workable way of arranging the executive branch of the U.S. Government. The President should be allowed to assemble his or her team so long as the President picks people who are qualified, people who are willing and able to fulfill their constitutional responsibility, and people who do not have anything disqualifying in their backgrounds that would suggest that they cannot be trusted with this type of very substantial responsibility. Senator Sessions plainly satisfies these criteria.

So I support Senator Sessions' nomination. I do so wholeheartedly. I do so, I would add, with a somewhat heavy heart, knowing that as we take this step and confirm Senator Sessions as the next Attorney General of the United States, we will be losing a colleague--not just any colleague but a colleague that has been a dear friend to me, who has been a kind mentor and a good example to me at every stage of my service in the Senate. He has done this not only when we have agreed, but he has done this especially when we have disagreed. That is what I love so much about Senator Sessions--that he has taught me much about how to get along with and respect people who sometimes reach different conclusions than I reach on my own.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I have four requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

committee on commerce, science, and transportation

The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to hold a meeting during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, at 10 a.m. in room SDG-50. The Committee will hold a hearing on ``A Look Ahead: Inspector General Recommendations for Improving Federal Agencies.''

committee on environment and public works

The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, at 10 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight: Modernizing our Nation's Infrastructure.''

committee on indian affairs

The Committee on Indian Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building at 2:30 p.m. to conduct an oversight hearing on ``Emergency Management in Indian Country: Improving FEMA's Federal-Tribal Relationship with Indian Tribes.''

subcommittee on readiness and management support

The Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the nomination of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to be an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Confirmation of anyone appointed to the Federal judiciary is a big deal. Confirmation of someone appointed to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States is an exceptionally weighty matter. I therefore approach this with the seriousness it deserves. I approach this as one who has argued in front of Judge Gorsuch. I found as a lawyer that he is an exceptional judge, an unusual judge--a judge who comes to argument with an unusual degree of preparation, having read all the briefs and apparently all of the cases and all of the statutes cited in the briefs.

There are some judges who at oral argument are constantly asking questions, but they are not necessarily questions that need to be asked. Perhaps some judges want to hear the sound of their own voices. That is, of course, something that would never happen here, in the U.S. Senate, but it happens sometimes with other people. There are other judges who might be quiet throughout an argument. Then there is a unique category of judge, a judge who doesn't necessarily speak constantly but a judge who listens attentively and then pounces at the moment when he or she sees the pivotal moment in the case arising.

The late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., used to say there was a point of contact in every case. When asked, he pointed out that the point of contact in any case is the place where the boy got his finger caught in the machinery. I learned that quote when I was in law school. I have never entirely understood what it means, but it reminds me of the fact that in every case, there is a pivotal fact and a pivotal aspect of the law which, when properly understood, can help lead the court to a proper disposition of the legal question at hand.

Judge Gorsuch is one of those rare judges who is able to seize upon the point of contact in any case. He does so with seeming effortlessness. Yet I know he does it in a way that requires a lot of effort because these things don't just come naturally. They come only as a result of faithful study of the law, of faithful attention to detail in every case, reading every brief in every case.

Judge Gorsuch does this in part because he was well trained. When we look at his background, we can see that excellence has always been something we have been able to see from him. He graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and received a doctorate in jurisprudence from Oxford. He clerked for three brilliant and very well-respected jurists: Judge David Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and Justice Byron White, as well as Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. We could not ask for a better legal education or a stronger record of accomplishment from a young lawyer.

After his clerkship, Judge Gorsuch entered into private practice, where he was a trial attorney for 10 years. In 2005, he joined the U.S. Department of Justice as Principal Deputy Attorney General, and he became a judge on the Tenth Circuit in 2006, where he has served for the last decade.

Judge Gorsuch has what I would consider--and I think what most would acknowledge--is the correct approach to the law. He is a judge's judge, both literally and figuratively--literally, because he sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He literally judges the rulings of other judges. It is his job to decide whether other judges have done the right thing. And he is a judge's judge figuratively in the sense that he has the characteristics that all judges aspire to--or at least should. He decides cases based on what the law says and not on the basis of what a particular judge might wish the law said.

I particularly enjoyed last night listening to Judge Gorsuch speak at the White House, his reference to what he considers an important, telltale sign of a good judge or a bad judge. He said: ``A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge, stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.'' So a bad judge is one who necessarily likes all the results he reaches, and it naturally follows that a good judge will, from time to time, necessarily disagree with some of the judge's own rulings. In other words, the outcome of the case doesn't necessarily match up with the outcome the good judge would prefer--or the judge, an all-powerful ruler who had the power not only to interpret the law but also make it, establishing rules, embodying policies that would govern in all cases.

This is the essence of the conservative legal movement--the judicial conservative movement, we might say--in which Justice Scalia was so influential, which is why it is so fitting that Judge Gorsuch has been named to replace Justice Scalia.

Judges do not have a roving commission specifically to address all of the evils that plague society. They don't have a roving commission to decide big policy questions of the sort we debate in this Chamber every day. The judge's role, rather, is to apply the facts to the case at hand, and, in the case of the Supreme Court, to provide guidance to lower courts so they can resolve difficult and consequential questions of law. Judge Gorsuch understands the difference between being a judge and being a legislator, and that is very much reflected in his work on the bench.

When I had the privilege of practicing law and appearing in front of Judge Gorsuch, I was able to be the beneficiary of his skill as a judge and of his commitment to the rule of law. Over the last few days, I have had the privilege of reading many of his opinions. I spent hours upon hours poring through his opinions. Knowing that he might well be named to the Supreme Court, knowing he was one of the potential nominees made me want to learn more about him than I already knew. I have to say, every single opinion I read, without exception, was impeccable to an unusual degree. They are methodical. They are careful. They are studious. They reflect a degree of academic and professional craftsmanship rarely seen. He treats the parties appearing before him with dignity and respect. He takes their arguments seriously, and he respectfully explains their arguments as he addresses them.

I know from my time in the practice of law that no one likes to lose a case, but I doubt any litigant has read a Judge Gorsuch opinion and felt like he failed to understand their position or that he failed to take their views seriously with the credibility and dignity they deserve. This is a crucial yet, sadly, often underrated factor when reviewing the work of any judge.

Most of all, his opinions are just brilliant. They are digestible to lawyers

and nonlawyers alike. This is crucial because the judiciary belongs to everyone in this country, not just to attorneys. Judge Gorsuch's opinions are memorably written without being snarky, and he scatters his opinions with literary and philosophical references to highlight the legal points he is making while also just making the opinion much more interesting. As someone who has read more than my fair share of judicial opinions, I can tell you that Judge Gorsuch's opinions are among the very best I have ever read. I don't just mean a few of them, I mean every single one of them that I have read, which is a lot of them. They are very, very good. In fact, they are Supreme Court caliber.

Judge Gorsuch has written hundreds of opinions, but there are two recently decided cases I wish to highlight.

He is a critic of an obscure but very significant legal rule known as the Chevron doctrine. When the Supreme Court decided the Chevron case back in 1984, the Justices may not have thought they were deciding a big case. They might not have realized the extent to which the decision in Chevron v. NRDC--the extent to which that case would have such a profound impact on the Federal judiciary and on the state of the law in the United States of America, but Chevron is in fact one of the most important Supreme Court cases that most of us have never heard of. It says that the courts must defer to an agency interpretation of a statute if the statute is ambiguous.

The problem with Chevron, as Judge Gorsuch has pointed out, is that it tends to divest the courts of their obligation to ``say what the law is,'' as Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Marbury v. Madison. It has led to a system in which executive agencies not only make and enforce the law but also interpret the law, arrogating to themselves, in effect, some aspects of the powers allocated to all three branches of the Federal Government. This is a violation of the doctrine of separation of powers, one of the most important protections in the Constitution, one of the two fundamental structural protections in the Constitution, as important as any other provision in our founding document.

Worse, doctrines that have developed in response to Chevron allow agencies to stake out a legal position, lose in court, and stake out a new legal position that reaches the same outcome. As Judge Gorsuch points out, that creates fair notice and equal protection problems.

Now, there are two additional points to make about Chevron. First, in the coming days, we will undoubtedly hear some of my colleagues complain that getting rid of Chevron will somehow make the air less clean, our food less safe, our financial system more unstable, and cause a whole lot of other problems, but as Judge Gorsuch has written, ``We managed to live with the administrative state before Chevron. We could do it again. Put simply, it seems to me that in a world without Chevron, very little would change--except perhaps the most important things.''

Second, it is important to note here that the Chevron doctrine is not a particularly ideological one.

Indeed, in the 1980s, Chevron primarily assisted the Reagan administration's deregulation efforts, and junking the doctrine today would constrain the Trump administration's use of regulations. So eliminating the doctrine would affect equally Republican and Democratic policy goals. In any event, I am sure, based on his background and on his record, Judge Gorsuch's critique of the doctrine is not about politics; it is about first principles. At the end of the day, Chevron is neither Republican nor Democratic; it is neither liberal nor conservative. It is simply wrong.

In another notable case, Judge Gorsuch was the lone dissenter in a case in which an 11-year-old student was arrested for generating fake burps in class. As heinous a crime as some might perceive this to be, it is not ordinarily the kind of thing that results in calling the police. Judge Gorsuch would have concluded that clearly established law prevented the arrest and that the child's parents should prevail in a lawsuit against the school officials who decided to call the police in response to this childish act in class. This is not uncommon for Judge Gorsuch, who has voted not to provide qualified immunity in several cases and has voted in many cases for the underdog, for someone who might otherwise not have had a chance in court but for the willingness of one very brave and astute and diligent judge to study the law and the facts of that case aggressively so as to make sure that justice was accorded to the parties.

There are other important areas of the law where Judge Gorsuch has made an important contribution during his time on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. I will be talking about some of those at length in the days and weeks to come. He has been a staunch advocate for the First Amendment. He has read criminal statutes to constrain the government's power, where appropriate, and has voted in several cases to withhold qualified immunity. All of these are important, and I look forward to discussing them with my colleagues.

Before I close, I want to talk a bit about the confirmation process. In 2006, Judge Gorsuch's nomination to the Tenth Circuit was so uncontroversial that it lasted 26 minutes--just 26 minutes, less time than a ``Brady Bunch'' episode. He was confirmed on a voice vote. Among other notable Members of the Senate the day that Judge Gorsuch was confirmed were Minority Leader Schumer, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee Feinstein, Senator Durbin, and Senator Leahy.

Already, prominent liberal lawyers are praising his nomination. Neal Katyal, who served as Acting Solicitor General under President Obama, has a New York Times op-ed in which he urges liberals to support Judge Gorsuch. Katyal writes:

I, for one, wish it were a Democrat choosing the next

justice. But since that is not to be, one basic criterion

should be paramount: Is the nominee someone who will stand up

for the rule of law and say no to a president or Congress

that strays beyond the Constitution and laws? I have no doubt

that if confirmed, Judge Gorsuch would help restore

confidence in the rule of law. His years on the bench reveal

a commitment to judicial independence--a record that should

give the American people confidence that he will not

compromise principle to favor the president who appointed

him.

Judge Gorsuch is exactly the type of judge who should be confirmed, who should be allowed to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. This vacancy was a central issue in the 2016 election. The people have now spoken, and I plan to honor the results of this election by working as hard as I can to see Judge Neil Gorsuch confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

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

Madam President, I rise today to give voice to some of my fellow Utahns, including a few of my fellow Utahns who are suffering because of the health care law passed by this body nearly 7 years ago. These are not stories from wealthy Utahns who have simply had to pay higher taxes, nor are these stories from low-income Utahns who already have insurance through Medicaid.

These are letters are from the too often invisible victims of ObamaCare--those middle-class families who used to be able to afford health care when they needed it but are now forced to pay for it and to pay for what amounts to, in some cases, one of their largest payments or even their largest payment they make each month for a so-called insurance plan that never seems to pay out because of high deductibles.

Jenica from Davis County, UT, writes as follows:

I am an ordinary mother raising my kids and striving to

live within my means. For the first time, my family is facing

a year with no health insurance. Our gross income falls a few

hundred dollars per month too high for us to receive help

through CHIP or UPP programs, but we cannot afford to

purchase health insurance through my husband's work or

through the Marketplace. After this year's premium increases,

the most inexpensive plan offered to us on the Marketplace is

a full quarter of our gross income per month (before taxes),

and if we put that into our budget we will not be able to

save any money to pay deductibles as healthcare needs arise.

We face the same problem with my husband's work insurance;

it would be even more expensive, and we cannot wisely budget

a quarter or more of our income toward health insurance

premiums.

I know this problem is not limited to my family, and I want

you to be aware of those of us who are falling in the gap

this year. We earn barely too much to receive any assistance,

but not enough to actually pay for insurance premiums. It

seems the wisest course for us is to withdraw from insurance

and save our money to pay for medical expenses in cash, as

well as saving to pay the fine on our taxes next year.

It is a decision I do not make lightly, as I know that the

insurance companies need more people, not less, to

participate to make the system work. However, my family

cannot afford to participate this year.

I know you will represent us well and take our needs into

consideration as you work with the other members of Congress

to make our country's healthcare system work for all of us.

Thank you for serving our state and our country. May God

bless you in your efforts.

May God bless you, Jenica. May God bless you for having the courage to write these things down and to share them with your fellow Utahns and your fellow Americans.

I promised Jenica that I will do everything I can, everything within my power, to make sure that you and families like yours are not forgotten when we repeal this law and replace it.

Trevor from St. George, UT, had a similar story. He writes:

I recently got a new job and I'm trying to get healthcare.

None of the 3 plans my employer offers are affordable to me,

even though the government claims they are. Even if I were to

buy the cheapest plan, I would never be able to use it

because of the high deductibles.

I do not qualify for Medicaid, and earn $1,000 per year too

much to qualify for subsidies.

In a nutshell, I can't afford to buy insurance from

anywhere, and by not buying it, I can't afford the penalty

levied by the federal government. What is someone in my

position supposed to do?

The ACA is not helping the very people it was designed to

help and is in fact throwing a terrible burden upon me and my

family. We need a new healthcare system. This one is not

working. Please share my story so that others will be aware

that people in my position (and there are many of us) are

struggling.

I will share your story, Trevor, and soon we will be one step closer to a new type of system, a system that will put patients and doctors back in charge of health care decisions rather than having those decisions made by government bureaucrats in Washington.

The last letter I would like to share today comes from Washington County, UT. Ron from Washington County writes as follows:

Today I received a letter from my health insurance carrier

indicating that the premium for me and my two kids--yes, only

three people--is increasing from $1,020 per month to $1,706

per month, an increase of slightly over $8,200 per year. My

annual income for 2017 will not be increasing, let alone to

cover eight grand.

Later this afternoon, I am contacting my travel agency (a

local small business) and asking Judy to cease her research

into my family vacation for the summer of 2017. Why would I

cancel my vacation and also take away revenue from a local

small business? The answer is ``67.26%.'' That is the

percentage increase for my health care insurance.

I need you to see that this is real. It greatly and

negatively impacts my family and it subsequently impacts

local businesses as more of my money is drained from the

economy. I make roughly $60,000 per year. My medical premium

is now one third of my gross income! Plus, I still have to

pay out deductibles and copays.

Even the bronze programs, which are worthless, are designed

to bankrupt a family and end up costing more in the long-run,

have exceeded the cost of the mortgage I took out on my St.

George home in 2014. More than my mortgage! Repeat more than

my mortgage. That should send shivers down anyone's spine.

One of the most important aspects of America's middle class

is the ability for a family to purchase a home. Now that

insurance premiums have exceeded the mortgage payment of a

median priced home in the US, I suspect that the dream is now

slipping out of the hands of many Americans.

Ron, you are absolutely right. Thanks to ObamaCare, the American dream is now slipping out of reach for far too many families throughout the State of Utah and throughout the entire country. These are not just the stories of a few isolated Utahns. These are not just stories from a few statistical outliers. There are fewer affordable options for Utahns throughout the State.

In 20 out of Utah's 29 counties, Utahns can only choose a health plan from one insurance company. They have just one company to choose from, and the options available are not always as robust as they should be. Within those options that they have, the costs have risen far too much each year. For 2017 plans, insurance rates across Utah increased at least 30 percent, on average. This is after multiple years of substantial premium increases in the other years leading up to this.

Fortunately, help is on the way. Thanks to President-Elect Donald Trump's victory this November--and thanks to the outcome of House and Senate races throughout the country--we now have the opportunity to uproot this ill-conceived health care law, root and branch.

The old system, to be clear, is far from perfect. After we repeal ObamaCare, we still have much work to do unbundling health care from employer-provided health insurance so doctors, nurses, patients, and innovators can do the work of bringing down prices and increasing quality. That is what happens when we allow the free market to operate. We get competition. When people compete, two things happen that are important for consumers: Prices go down and quality goes up.

That is what the American people have come to expect and basically every other sector of our economy. Sadly, we have seen the opposite become true with respect to our health care system under ObamaCare because we have restricted free market forces, and we have impeded competition. As a result, prices have gone up and quality, in some cases, has gone tragically down.

Step one involves repealing this health care law. Trevor, Jenica, and Ron, I want you to know that I hear you. I hear you and I hear all Utahns who have contacted me to share their experiences with this health care law. My colleagues in the Senate have heard you too. We will repeal this health care law and we will bring reform and competition to our Nation's currently broken health care system.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, on January 20 of this year, change is coming to the White House. But until that day, it appears that President Obama will desperately cling to the status quo and continue to do what he has done on far too many occasions: abuse his Executive powers to put in place unpopular policies without the cooperation of Congress and then pretend as if everyone somehow supports him.

The most recent case in point involves President Obama's recent decision to designate as a new national monument some 1.35 million acres of public land in San Juan County, UT--the poorest county in the State of Utah, nearly the size of Delaware. This is a small county that is tucked into the southeast corner of our State. It includes--and the national monument is named after--the region's distinctive Bears Ears buttes, which mark the ancestral homeland and sacred site of many members of the Navajo and Ute Tribes who live in San Juan County, UT.

President Obama announced the Bears Ears National Monument on December 28, right between Christmas and New Year's Eve, as most Americans were busy enjoying the holiday season and when he was still enjoying time with his family in Hawaii. That same day, his administration released an explanatory document that was officially christened a ``Fact Sheet.'' It was christened that way by the White House officials who wrote it. But, in reality, it reads much more like an elaborate book of fiction.

Of all the falsehoods peddled in this bogus fact sheet, the most egregious--and, in many ways, the most insulting--is the claim that the residents in San Juan County, including local members of the Navajo Nation and members of the Ute Tribe, supported the President's decision to turn Bears Ears into a national monument.

The document says:

The creation of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah [.

. .] follow[s] years of robust public input from tribes,

local elected officials, and diverse stakeholders, and draws

from legislation introduced in Congress. In addition to

protecting more land and water than any administration in

history--

And here is the kicker--

President Obama has taken unprecedented steps to elevate

the voices of Native peoples in the management of our

national resources.

``Unprecedented steps to elevate the voices of Native peoples.'' Nothing could be further from the truth in this situation. Perhaps if we replace the word ``elevate'' with the word ``exploit,'' that sentence might apply to the situation in Bears Ears.

Now, there is no denying that many Native American people supported President Obama's designation of the Bears Ears National Monument. But the inconvenient truth too often ignored by the Obama administration and its supporters is that virtually all of this tribal support came from Native Americans residing outside of Utah, not inside Utah, and certainly not within San Juan County where this 1.35 million-acre designation occurred.

In fact, the most prominent Native American group that advocated for a national monument in Utah is actually an alliance called the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, which is made up of several tribes, and most of its members reside outside of the State of Utah.

Yet, national monument advocates routinely invoke the Inter-Tribal Coalition as the authoritative mouthpiece of all Native Americans in the Southwestern United States.

So how did a coalition of Native American tribes from Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico rise to such a position of prominence in a debate over a national monument in a remote corner of Utah? Well, part of the answer can be found in the cozy relationships between well- funded environmental advocacy groups, powerful outdoor retail companies, and tribal organizations.

Recent investigative reporting by the Deseret News shows how radical wealthy environmental organizations, supported by the outdoor recreational industry, channeled millions of dollars to the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition only after they realized that ``hitching [their] success'' to the Navajo Nation was the only way they could achieve their longstanding goal of creating a national monument in Southeastern Utah.

The ability of uber-rich environmentalists to essentially buy a national monument in Bears Ears explains why the people of San Juan County--including the Navajo residents, whose lives and livelihoods are intricately linked to the Bears Ears Utes--stand united in opposition to a monument designation.

For the people of the Navajo Nation who live in San Juan County, taking care of their ancestral land--protecting and preserving it for the next generation--isn't optional, it is a sacred duty. It is part of their faith. It is part of who they are.

The same is true in many respects in my own faith. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I share many of these views. My church teaches that the Earth is a divine creation that belongs to God. This means that human beings have a spiritual responsibility--an obligation to God--to be wise stewards over the Earth, to conserve it for our children and our grandchildren.

The Navajo people of San Juan County have always faithfully fulfilled their responsibility in the Bears Ears region, and so have the Utes who reside in the area. Caring for their homelands--and respecting it as their forefathers did--is the cultural lifeblood of the Native American people of Southeastern Utah. Take away their access to their land-- restrict their stewardship over the Earth's bounty for the sake of increasing the access of wealthy urbanites who use the outdoors for their own purposes--and it won't be long before their culture begins to fade away.

The people of San Juan County understand this. They have seen their worst nightmares become reality in other Utah counties as a result of Presidential national monument designations. That is why on December 29, the day after President Obama announced the Bears Ears monument, a crowd of Utahns assembled to hold a protest on the steps of the San Juan County Courthouse.

Braving the frigid weather of that day, they gathered together to demonstrate that they--the individuals and the families who will be most directly affected by a Bears Ears national monument--believe that the President has no business seizing vast stretches of land to be micromanaged and mismanaged by distant Federal land agencies.

But the protesters weren't just angry. They were resolute, confident about the future, and determined to keep fighting for their right to participate in the management of the land in their community--the land that most directly affects them.

Of course, environmentalists and national monument advocates want the people of San Juan County to believe that this fight is simply over, that they have lost, that there is nothing they can do about something that affects them in a very real, very personal, very intimate way. In their view, President Obama's proclamation of the Bears Ears National Monument is permanent. It is irreversible, as if it were carved into stone. As one White House official recently told the Washington Post: ``We do not see that the Trump administration has authority to undo this.''

But they say this only because they are not looking hard enough. The truth is what can be done through unilateral

Executive action can also be undone the same way. Such is the impermanence of Executive power in our constitutional republic, where major policy changes require broad consensus, forged through legislative compromise, to endure the test of time.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, two prominent constitutional scholars, Todd Gaziano and John Yoo, explain this point as it relates specifically to President Obama's use of the Antiquities Act to designate the Bears Ears National Monument. The Antiquities Act of 1906, as they explain, does not create an irreversible monument. When a President uses it, its use is not necessarily indelible.

Gaziano and Yoo write:

After studying the President's legal authority [under the

Antiquities Act], we conclude that he can rescind monument

designations [. . .] the law's text and original purposes

strongly support a president's ability to unilaterally

correct his predecessor's abuses.

In other words, starting on January 20, President-Elect Trump can use his Executive powers to rescind President Obama's designation of the Bears Ears National Monument. I have asked the future Trump administration to do precisely that.

I have also recently cosponsored Senator Murkowski's bill, the Improved National Monument Designation Process Act, which would require all future Presidents to obtain congressional and State approval prior to designating a national monument. I have done these things, and I will do more, because I believe the preponderance of evidence proves that President Obama abused his powers--the powers granted to him under the Antiquities Act--in designating the Bears Ears National Monument.

This isn't just my opinion. It is the opinion of most of my fellow Utahns, including those patriots who assembled on the county courthouse steps in the rural town of Monticello on December 29.

These are the people who were ignored by the Obama administration. These are the people who were cut out of the decisionmaking process that produced this particular national monument designation. These are the voices that were stifled by the wealthy, out-of-State, well- connected environmental groups that spent millions of dollars to lock up our land for their exclusive use.

So it is fitting to let one of them--one of the residents of San Juan County--have the last word today. I think Suzy Johnson put it best when she said:

Mr. Obama, you have failed the grassroots natives. A true

leader listens and finds common ground. The fight for our

land is not over. Your name will blow away in the wind.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I stand before this body this afternoon to encourage my colleagues--particularly my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--to take into account the need to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

The House of Representatives acted responsibly in passing legislation to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, and they did so acting more than 1 month in advance of the scheduled expiration of the existing funding stream for the Department of Homeland Security. This was a good move. It was likewise a good move of

the majority leader to bring up this bill for consideration nearly 1 month before the expiration of the existing funding. I applauded this effort and still do.

One of the reasons it was so important is it would help us avoid the cliff effect. What I mean by that is the dynamic that occurs every time we have a scheduled expiration of funding and the House and the Senate wait until the last minute, sometimes with only 1 or 2 days, sometimes with only 1 or 2 hours to spare before we act.

What this does is effectively shuts out the voices of most Members of the House and most Members of the Senate. It strips us of our right to offer improvements, amendments, to legislation before that legislation has a chance to become law.

Ultimately this enures to the advantage of just a few people, and it results in the effective disenfranchisement of so many people throughout America whose voices don't have an opportunity to be considered through their duly-elected Senators and Representatives.

That is why this time it was going to be different. That is why this time it was so great the House and the Senate acted early in bringing up this legislation.

Nevertheless, it has been 2 weeks since we brought up this bill, the bill passed by the House to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded. Two weeks, and we have cast vote after vote trying to get on the bill--just trying to consider the bill--and we have seen those efforts to get on the bill blocked by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

Earlier today I heard colleagues on the other side of the aisle trying to explain their reasons for continuing to block consideration of this bill. I heard arguments that suggested that although they want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, they don't want to consider this bill because, as some of them have put it, they don't like everything the House of Representatives put into the bill. They don't like the provisions in the bill restricting the administration's ability to use those funds to carry out--to implement--the President's Executive orders issued in November of this last year, Executive orders that would have the effect of granting amnesty to millions of people currently inside the United States illegally.

Look, people are entitled to their opinions about how best we should proceed, how best we should deal with those who are currently inside the country illegally. There are a lot of opinions about this, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But Americans are overwhelmingly united behind the uncontroversial proposition that when Congress has established a law in a particular area, as it has with our immigration code, in order for that law to be changed, it needs to be changed by congressional action. The House needs to pass it, the Senate needs to pass it, and the President needs to sign it into law.

As the President has acknowledged repeatedly, he lacks the authority to make those changes on his own. He lacks the authority to act unilaterally. He lacks the authority under our system to behave as if he were a government of one. Ours is not a government of one. In fact, our Founding Fathers, while they disagreed on a number of issues, they were united behind one core principle behind our 227-year-old governing document that has fostered the development of the greatest civilization the world has ever known. They were united behind the proposition that bad things happen when too much power gets consolidated into the hands of the few or, even worse, into the hands of one person.

That is why they put in place this system that would split the powers of government into three coequal branches, and within the legislative branch--which many of them tended to view as wielding potentially the most dangerous power--they split up that power into two bodies and then split up the power within each of those bodies so no one person and no one group of people could accumulate too much power.

They certainly never intended a system in which we would have a virtual monarch, albeit a monarch serving for a term of years who could by the stroke of a pen change the law according to his own will, change the law in order to suit his own political interests, change the law without going through Congress. Yet that is what has happened, which brings me back to arguments made today and over the last few days by my colleagues across the aisle. They say we are fine with funding the Department of Homeland Security, but we don't like all the provisions put in there by the House of Representatives. We don't like those provisions that would restrict the President's authority to spend money implementing the President's Executive amnesty program.

Again, Americans, regardless of how they feel about amnesty, as a matter of policy, are overwhelmingly of the opinion--and correctly so-- that this is a decision that needs to be made by Congress and not the President of the United States.

Secondly, this is the kind of issue we deal with, with some regularity, within Congress.

Within the system as it has evolved, within the system as dictated by operation of the rules of the House of Representatives, typically--and for more than a century exclusively--it has been the role of the House of Representatives to initiate appropriations bills when we are trying to fund a government program that starts in the House, and that has been the case for well over a century. So they have the prerogative of starting a bill to fund the government, and that is what they did.

When it comes over here, if you don't like it, that is fine. This is a great place to be if you don't like a bill as it starts out. The U.S. Senate has been called the world's greatest deliberative legislative body with good reason--because our rules, when properly followed, protect the right of every Member to make sure his or her views are adequately aired and protect and preserve the right of each and every Member to offer improvements to bills and offer amendments to make changes to legislation before it is put into law. Our rules are very clear on this.

It is unfortunate that in the last few years under the previous leadership those rights were trampled. Those rights were suppressed. We often didn't have those rights. We often had legislation that came up without a fair, open opportunity for each Member to offer amendments.

But we have moved on. We have a new majority leader, a majority leader who has, to his great credit, stood behind his commitment to protect the right of each Member to offer amendments to legislation. I thank him for that and encourage him to continue following this because it is good for this body. But because it is good for us and because our rules already provide for it and because we are following those rules now, as evidenced by the fact that we have now voted on more amendments on the floor in the form of a rollcall vote to pending legislation just in the last few weeks than we did in the entire last Congress, as evidenced by that, we don't need to fear the old order anymore. We don't need to fear the possibility of legislation coming into this body, and if we proceed to it, that that legislation will be without the opportunity to offer amendments.

So if Members don't like something in this bill, vote at least to proceed to it, vote at least to allow the debate to begin, but that, alas, is not what my colleagues across the aisle have chosen to do.

What they have chosen to do is to say: No. No, no, no. They are obstructing. They are obstructing the process as it was designed by the Constitution and as contemplated by the rules of the Senate and the rules of the House of Representatives.

They are saying, no, we will not consider this because we don't like some provisions of this bill. Yet they are also saying at the same time we want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded.

I agree with exactly half of that statement. I agree with them I think when they say they want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded. At least I will take that at face value. But if they truly do, then why on Earth would they not proceed to it? And if they don't like some of the other provisions, let them offer amendments. Let them change that.

At the end of the day, we have to come to terms with the fact that not all of us are going to like every part of every bill that comes over from the

House of Representatives. In fact, I dare say it hardly ever happens that any one Member of this body immediately, automatically feels great about every jot and title, about every section, every syllable, every paragraph of a bill that comes over from the House of Representatives.

That is exactly why we have the rules we do. That is exactly why parliamentary procedures, as they have evolved over the centuries, generally have as their central feature the protection of Members of any body such as this of the right to offer amendments, to offer helpful suggestions. But under our rules in the Senate, that cannot operate, it will not operate, it is not available, it doesn't exist unless we first vote to proceed to the bill.

So I invite my colleagues across the aisle--I challenge them--if they want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, vote to get on this bill. If they care about America's national security, there is a way to prove it. There is a way to prove they mean what they say when they say they want to keep it funded. Vote to get on this bill. It doesn't mean they have to agree with me, but it was not only acceptable but entirely appropriate and even necessary for the House to act to protect the constitutional order and to do so by restricting the President's ability to spend money to implement his Executive amnesty program.

People don't have to agree with me on that, but if Members want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, they can and they must and they will vote to proceed to this bill. Now we may disagree on what amendments you offer, but the Senate majority leader has repeated his offer, to make sure that we have an open amendment process, and we will.

In light of that, there is no excuse--there can be no excuse for my Democratic colleagues to continue to insist on the one hand that they care about our Nation's security and funding the Department of Homeland Security, while voting on the other hand against proceeding to this funding bill to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded. There is no excuse and there can be none.

It is most unfortunate that we have gone now 2 weeks without being able to proceed to this bill--2 weeks in which we could have offered amendments, 2 weeks in which my Democratic colleagues may well have succeeded in getting rid of some or perhaps all of the provisions they don't like added by the House of Representatives. They may have ended up with a piece of legislation that is exactly what they would have written had they started it over here, but they didn't do that.

Meanwhile, they have the audacity to accuse Republicans of causing this problem. This is something I don't understand. There are those among them who insist that Republicans did this very thing in the last Congress. Well, there were times when Republicans voted in the last Congress not to proceed to something, but overwhelmingly--and if I recall correctly, perhaps entirely--when Republicans stopped their motion to proceed, when Republicans blocked cloture on a motion to proceed to the legislation, it was on the basis of a well-founded complaint that there would be no open amendment process. But there is no such argument to be made here. That argument has thankfully been taken off the table by our majority leader, who has thankfully opened up the Senate once again and made an amendment process possible.

Perhaps my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are still fearing the shadow cast by the previous leadership exercised in the previous Congress in the Senate that blocked out the amendment process, that made amendments impossible. If that is what they are afraid of, they have no need to fear. The Sun is now shining. The opportunity to offer up amendments and have those amendments considered has been restored to the Senate. There is no reason to be afraid. No reason to be afraid, of course, unless we somehow do the unthinkable--unless we continue to kick this can down the road farther and farther until we have no options left on the table.

We have just a few legislative days remaining between now and the time the existing funding for the Department of Homeland Security will expire. Our next vote has been scheduled on this, as I understand it, a week from Monday. I would implore each of my colleagues to reconsider their current strategy. Whether you like it or not, the way our system is set up is that the House of Representatives starts our spending bills. They have to pass spending bills first. If you don't like everything in the Homeland Security bill that the House passed--fine, vote to proceed to it and then change it. Change it back however you want. Propose amendments. I might not vote for all of them, I might not agree to all of them, but propose them. Have them aired out, have them considered by this body, by the American people, and let's have the debate, because our clock is ticking and our Nation's homeland security is too important for us to continue to put this off. But that is what we have been doing. That is what my colleagues who have been voting against cloture on the motion to proceed have been doing every time they voted no on this important issue.

The time has come for this body to accept the fact that a new day has dawned and we now have the ability once again to offer amendments, and because that opportunity now exists again, there is no reason to be afraid to move to legislation that has been passed by the House of Representatives to keep one of our government's important departments operating--no reason to fear whatsoever. In fact, if you are worried about what you should be fearful of, you should be fearful of not proceeding to this bill.

The next time we cast a vote on this, I encourage each of my colleagues to vote yes. Let's get on the bill and have an open, robust debate and whatever the outcome of that debate, we will get something passed. We will get it to the President, and we will make sure we keep this Department funded.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, Republicans in the Senate are ready to begin debating the bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. But in order to do that, we must first vote to proceed to the bill, and Democrats have blocked us from doing that. They have done that yet again today.

This is simply a procedural vote, but it is a very important procedural vote. It is a threshold vote, without which other votes cannot and will not occur.

Voting yes on a motion to proceed to this bill doesn't mean you support the bill. Regardless of which way you vote, it doesn't signal which way you lean on the underlying merits of this bill. It doesn't mean you support this or that amendment. It simply means you are willing to engage in an open, transparent, and public debate about the future of Homeland Security and about making sure the Department charged with this task is funded.

Why would our friends across the aisle be afraid of that? Some may argue that they voted against proceeding to this bill somehow because they support funding Homeland Security, but that is not true. This bill

funds Homeland Security. Why then are my friends on the other side of the aisle voting against proceeding to this bill?

Well, the difference that might be found is that many of them also support the President's incredibly unpopular and controversial action to grant amnesty to 5 million illegals who are here illegally inside the United States, individuals who will now be eligible for work permits and in some cases entitlement benefits. But the American people do not support that. They certainly do not support the action the President took and the way he did it. They oppose the way President Obama went around Congress. They oppose the fact that President Obama ignored the law. They oppose the damage this policy will do to American workers who are already struggling to find work and remain employed. They oppose the crisis this kind of action is creating and will continue to create at the border, as we saw last summer with so many children making that dangerous trip to get into the country and to do it the wrong way, to get here illegally.

Now that the American people have put Republicans in charge, in the majority, in the Senate, we are trying to keep our promise to them, to do what they sent us here to do, and to hold a vote on President Obama's action in this regard. But the Democrats seem to be reluctant to take that vote. They seem to not want to take it. Perhaps they are afraid of it; I do not know. Maybe that is why they refuse to even begin consideration of this bill, plain and simple. This effort to try to hide from the American people is embarrassing, and it is wrong.

My friends across the aisle may say that they have an alternative bill and that we should pass their alternative bill immediately. There are at least two problems with this approach.

First, that may have been the way the Senate functioned under the previous majority--writing bills in back rooms, waiting until the last minute to make bills public, then filling the tree, which means making it impossible for anyone to amend the bill once it gets to the floor, having virtually no debate, and then ramming the bill through without any input from the American people, without adequate debate here, without virtually any debate here. That is not the way the Senate is supposed to work. That is not the way the Senate does work and will continue to work under the Republican majority.

Second, traditionally appropriations bills do not start in the Senate. In fact, the House has not considered a Senate-originated appropriations bill for over 100 years--since at least 1901, the period for which these kinds of records are readily available. Unfortunately for them, the bill the Democrats want is not supported in the House. Why? Well, precisely because it is not supported by the American people.

It is time to stop delaying democracy. It is time to stop hiding from the American people. It is time to fund the Department of Homeland Security. It is time to have this debate and this discussion about the President's actions--actions that many people regard as unlawful, actions that people have different feelings about as far as the underlying policies but that the overwhelming majority of the American people look at and say: Look, even if I like the underlying policy here, I do not like the way the President did it.

If the President does not like the law, he needs to change the law. The way to change the law under our constitutional system is to go to Congress and to get something passed through Congress. Ours is not a government of one; ours is a government in which we have two entities within Congress that are charged with making the law. The President cannot act alone.

So my plea to my colleagues, particularly those across the aisle, is let's have a vote and then let's have a debate. When we have a vote and we have a debate, we will get to the point where we can fund the Department of Homeland Security and keep our Nation safe. We should not be keeping these important programs--we should not be holding them back simply out of a desire to protect the President and his actions that are outside the law.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the Land and Water Conservation Fund is used for a number of purposes, although the primary purpose involves the acquisition of new Federal land. Funding the acquisition of new Federal land at a time when Federal agencies can barely take care of the land they already have does raise some rather significant questions that need to be addressed.

The Department of Interior faces a combined maintenance backlog of over $20 billion--$13 billion in our National Park Service alone. We struggle with ways to fund the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program, the intent of which was to mitigate the burden of Federal land to local communities where there is an abundance of Federal land that can't be taxed.

Coming from a State that is dominated by Federal land ownership--two- thirds of the land in Utah is controlled by Federal agencies. Any new Federal land ownership must be examined with a healthy degree of skepticism. There are many issues that need to be considered and debated before we reauthorize any program that would potentially expand the Federal Government's land holdings.

I certainly support opening our public lands for recreation, including for purposes related to hunting and fishing, and I believe that the Land and Water Conservation Fund could also be used to mitigate the negative impacts of Federal regulations on private property such as listings under the Endangered Species Act.

But reform isn't likely to happen. In fact, reform may well be impossible if we allow this bill to pass as is without going through the proper procedures. This bill should be subject to debate and amendment, first at the committee level and then on the floor of the Senate.

That is what needs to happen, and on that basis I object.

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

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act was first enacted in 1986. I would ask my colleagues, what were you doing in 1986? Mr. President, 1986 was a long time ago. In 1986 I was in the ninth grade. This was an age when not everyone had a personal computer. My family didn't have a computer. Most of the people I knew who had a computer had something like the Commodore VIC-20, which was a very small computer with very little processing power compared to what we have today. But this law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act--or ECPA, as it is sometimes known--was and still is an important law with an increasingly important objective; that is, to ensure that government agencies respect the Fourth Amendment in accessing an individual's electronic communications.

In the nearly three decades since ECPA became law, technology has advanced rapidly, dramatically, far beyond the capacity of this particular law, ECPA, to keep up. The prevalence of email and the low cost of electronic data storage have made what were once robust protections vastly insufficient to ensure that citizens' rights are protected with respect to their electronic communications, such as email.

There is no reason we should still be operating under a law written in the analog age when we are living in a digital world. This is a little bit like operating with a DOS-based operating system in the age of much more sophisticated software systems that help us interact relatively seamlessly with our computers. That is why Senator Leahy and I have come together to craft this truly bipartisan piece of legislation which would modernize ECPA and bring constitutional protections against worthless searches and seizures into harmony with the technological realities of the 21st century.

The Lee-Leahy ECPA Amendments Act of 2015 would prohibit electronic communications or remote computing service providers--such as Gmail or Facebook or Twitter, for example--from voluntarily disclosing the contents of customer emails or other communications. It eliminates the ambiguous and outdated 180-day rule that some government agencies believe grants them warrantless access to the content of older emails. That is any emails older than the very young age of 180 days old. Instead, all requests for the content of electronic communications would require a search warrant--a search warrant required by the Fourth Amendment, a search warrant based on probable cause--and law enforcement agencies would be required to notify within 10 days any persons whose email accounts were searched, subject to some logical and narrow exceptions, of course.

This legislation is also carefully crafted so that it would not impede the ability of law enforcement agencies to conduct legitimate investigative activities consistent with the Fourth Amendment.

I am pleased to say that our bill enjoys very broad support from the technology industry, from privacy advocates, constitutional scholars, and policy groups on both ends of the ideological spectrum in America.

The Lee-Leahy ECPA Amendments Act of 2015 is truly bipartisan in nature. The Senate bill, in addition to Senators Leahy and myself as the principal sponsors, also has six additional cosponsors. We have Republican Senators Cornyn, Moran, and Gardner and Democratic Senators Shaheen, Merkley, and Blumenthal. I hope and expect that we will have a lot of additional Senators of both political parties who will join us in this effort. The House version of this bill has 228 additional cosponsors--a very critical majority.

By working together as a Democrat from Vermont and a Republican from Utah, we hope all Senators will join with us to pass this meaningful, bipartisan legislation that would benefit all Americans. Congress should pass ECPA reform this year, and President Obama should sign these important privacy reforms into law.

I will end this discussion as I began. What were you doing in 1986? As it relates to your interaction with the digital world with computers, I would imagine that even though your life might be in many respects similar to what it was in 1986, it is very different in the way you interact with computers, with technology, with the online world, which basically no one was even aware of in 1986. Since 1986 the world has changed. We need to change the world to keep up with the times. We need to change the law to hold in place those protections that have been in our Constitution since 1791 to make sure the privacy rights of the American people are respected.

I encourage each of my colleagues to support this bill

Mr. President, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act was first enacted in 1986. I would ask my colleagues, what were you doing in 1986? Mr. President, 1986 was a long time ago. In 1986 I was in the ninth grade. This was an age when not everyone had a personal computer. My family didn't have a computer. Most of the people I knew who had a computer had something like the Commodore VIC-20, which was a very small computer with very little processing power compared to what we have today. But this law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act--or ECPA, as it is sometimes known--was and still is an important law with an increasingly important objective; that is, to ensure that government agencies respect the Fourth Amendment in accessing an individual's electronic communications.

In the nearly three decades since ECPA became law, technology has advanced rapidly, dramatically, far beyond the capacity of this particular law, ECPA, to keep up. The prevalence of email and the low cost of electronic data storage have made what were once robust protections vastly insufficient to ensure that citizens' rights are protected with respect to their electronic communications, such as email.

There is no reason we should still be operating under a law written in the analog age when we are living in a digital world. This is a little bit like operating with a DOS-based operating system in the age of much more sophisticated software systems that help us interact relatively seamlessly with our computers. That is why Senator Leahy and I have come together to craft this truly bipartisan piece of legislation which would modernize ECPA and bring constitutional protections against worthless searches and seizures into harmony with the technological realities of the 21st century.

The Lee-Leahy ECPA Amendments Act of 2015 would prohibit electronic communications or remote computing service providers--such as Gmail or Facebook or Twitter, for example--from voluntarily disclosing the contents of customer emails or other communications. It eliminates the ambiguous and outdated 180-day rule that some government agencies believe grants them warrantless access to the content of older emails. That is any emails older than the very young age of 180 days old. Instead, all requests for the content of electronic communications would require a search warrant--a search warrant required by the Fourth Amendment, a search warrant based on probable cause--and law enforcement agencies would be required to notify within 10 days any persons whose email accounts were searched, subject to some logical and narrow exceptions, of course.

This legislation is also carefully crafted so that it would not impede the ability of law enforcement agencies to conduct legitimate investigative activities consistent with the Fourth Amendment.

I am pleased to say that our bill enjoys very broad support from the technology industry, from privacy advocates, constitutional scholars, and policy groups on both ends of the ideological spectrum in America.

The Lee-Leahy ECPA Amendments Act of 2015 is truly bipartisan in nature. The Senate bill, in addition to Senators Leahy and myself as the principal sponsors, also has six additional cosponsors. We have Republican Senators Cornyn, Moran, and Gardner and Democratic Senators Shaheen, Merkley, and Blumenthal. I hope and expect that we will have a lot of additional Senators of both political parties who will join us in this effort. The House version of this bill has 228 additional cosponsors--a very critical majority.

By working together as a Democrat from Vermont and a Republican from Utah, we hope all Senators will join with us to pass this meaningful, bipartisan legislation that would benefit all Americans. Congress should pass ECPA reform this year, and President Obama should sign these important privacy reforms into law.

I will end this discussion as I began. What were you doing in 1986? As it relates to your interaction with the digital world with computers, I would imagine that even though your life might be in many respects similar to what it was in 1986, it is very different in the way you interact with computers, with technology, with the online world, which basically no one was even aware of in 1986. Since 1986 the world has changed. We need to change the world to keep up with the times. We need to change the law to hold in place those protections that have been in our Constitution since 1791 to make sure the privacy rights of the American people are respected.

I encourage each of my colleagues to support this bill