Floor Statements

Mr. President, today it is my high honor to pay tribute to a genuine Kentucky hero. As a member of the greatest generation, Alvin H. Perry of Wilmore, KY, personifies the greatest values of our Nation. In the Second World War, he fought with the Allied forces of freedom to defeat one of the greatest evils the world has ever known. In doing so, Alvin earned the lasting admiration of his countrymen and the gratitude of the free world.

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-day, the largest amphibious invasion in world history, the French Republic will express its thanks and respect to Alvin in a special way. At a ceremony in Wilmore, the Consul General of France responsible for Kentucky Guillaume Lacroix will present Alvin, now 95, with his nation's highest distinction: the Legion of Honor Medal.

The American and French people share a unique bond of friendship. As our consequential ally during the War of Independence, our two countries stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the pursuit of liberty and equality. Years later, millions of American soldiers would fight in France to defend those same principles. More than 100,000 of them would make the ultimate sacrifice there, and tens of thousands of our heroic fallen rest in French soil forevermore.

There is perhaps no better display of this brotherhood among nations than the events during Operation Overlord. On the beaches of Normandy and across the French countryside, American forces once more came to the defense of our friends and our shared ideals. It was during the Battle of Normandy that PFC Alvin Perry and his 331st Infantry Regiment, 83rd Infantry Division, took their first steps onto the European continent fighting for the liberation of France.

During the battle, Alvin was wounded, struck with a bullet in his shoulder. He was unable to receive proper medical attention and, along with other members of his unit, was later captured by the enemy. Alvin spent the following 10 months as a prisoner of war near Munich, where he endured brutal conditions and forced labor in a Nazi camp. He struggled each day, relying upon aid parcels for survival. But through all his hardships, Alvin never faltered or resigned to defeat. At long last, it was the sight of an Allied tank that finally meant liberation for this brave soldier. It also marked the end of his wartime service. Like his father and brother who also served in uniform, Alvin bravely defended our democracy and our American way of life.

When Alvin returned home to Kentucky, he was adorned with the Prisoner of War Medal, the Purple Heart Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal for his intrepid service in France. Now, after more than seven decades, Alvin will add another well- deserved decoration.

Originally founded by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, the National Order of the Legion of Honor is bestowed only on those who render the highest levels of service to the French Republic and her people. Receiving the honor, Alvin joins a distinguished membership that includes Secretary of State Colin Powell, General George C. Patton, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Our Nation's veterans deserve our utmost respect and gratitude, and I am grateful for the chance to honor this particular hero. So, it is my sincere privilege to congratulate Alvin for receiving this impressive distinction. Through his service and sacrifice, he has made us all quite proud. I ask my Senate colleagues to join me, the people of Kentucky, and the French Republic in thanking Alvin Perry for his service to the cause of human freedom.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration and the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 213.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following Senate Resolutions, which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 222, S. Res. 223, S. Res. 224, S. Res. 225, and S. Res. 226.

I know of no further debate on the resolutions.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the preambles be agreed to and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

The preambles were agreed to.

(The resolutions, with their preambles, are printed in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Energy and Natural Resources Committee be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Con. Res. 3.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be discharged from further consideration of S. 886 and the bill be referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1693, introduced earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

I know of no further debate on the bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Now, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn to convene for pro forma sessions only, with no business being conducted on the following dates and times and that following each pro forma session, the Senate adjourn for the next pro forma session: Friday, May 24 at 9:45 a.m.; Tuesday, May 28 at 11:30 a.m.; Friday, May 31 at 10:30 a.m. I further ask unanimous consent that when the Senate adjourns on Friday May 31, it next convene at 3 p.m., Monday, June 3; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 78, S. 1332; finally, that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, the cloture motions filed during today's session ripen at 5:30 p.m., Monday, June 3.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Madam President, on Monday, I introduced legislation to raise the national minimum age for purchasing tobacco products from 18 to 21. I walked through the long history of our Nation's complicated relationship with this major cash crop. I laid out the challenges facing tobacco farmers in Kentucky and in other States and the new opportunities some of them are actually turning to. I explained why, as we see signs of a new public health crisis of nicotine addiction in the younger generation, now is the time to take decisive new action.

Together with Senator Tim Kaine, who represents another State with a very long history of tobacco production, I was proud to introduce the bill that builds on the existing structure that is already in place and simply raises the minimum age to 21. Rather than reinvent the wheel here in Washington, it would set one national standard for enforcing new age-21 restrictions. It is a bill designed with States in mind, and it would allow States to take measures even more restrictive than Federal law if they choose.

Senator Kaine and I have been grateful to see--already, even in just the past few days--substantial support and recognition from public health advocates that our approach is the right way to address this pressing issue.

Already, our legislation has earned the support of leading voices like the American Cancer Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the American Osteopathic Association, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, the Kentucky Hospital and Medical Associations, and many others. Here are just a few things these supporters of our bill had to say:

One advocate called it a ``critical step forward that will profoundly improve the health of our children and future generations.''

Another stated our legislation ``will be instrumental in stemming the epidemic of vaping that is afflicting children as young as middle school.''

Yet another said our bill could potentially ``save hundreds of thousands of lives.''

This should be an area where we all lock arms to get results. I am proud this body will have a chance to take action and stem the tide of addiction among our Nation's youth. I am proud to be standing with Senator Kaine. I hope each of our colleagues will recognize the opportunity before us, avoid making this important issue any kind of partisan football, and join in supporting the Tobacco-Free Youth Act.

Madam President, since President Trump took office in 2017, the Senate has confirmed 41 well-qualified individuals to serve on our Nation's circuit courts. No. 41 was Daniel Collins of California, whom we confirmed yesterday to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. As I have noted already, Mr. Collins came before the Senate with every conceivable indicator of a brilliant legal mind and an impeccable professional record. I was proud that the full Senate followed up

the Judiciary Committee's favorable report with a majority vote here on the floor.

But our work this week is just beginning. Yesterday, the Senate also advanced four more nominees--these to serve on district courts across the country. Today, we will vote to confirm all four.

The first, Howard Nielson, has been nominated for the District of Utah. As I mentioned yesterday, Mr. Nielson has clerked for both the Fourth Circuit and the Supreme Court and has assembled an impressive record at the Department of Justice and in the private sector.

Next will come the nomination of Stephen Clark for the Eastern District of Missouri. Mr. Clark is an accomplished litigator with nearly three decades of experience in practice.

The third nominee is Carl Nichols, the President's choice to serve as district judge for the District of Columbia. You will start to detect a pattern because he, too, is a thoroughly impressive nominee--clerkships for the DC Circuit and for the Supreme Court for Justice Thomas, service at the Department of Justice, and recognized excellence in private practice.

Finally, we will vote on Kenneth Bell, nominated to serve in the Western District of North Carolina. Mr. Bell has under his belt nearly two decades of service in the Office of the U.S. Attorney-- distinguished by national honors for his accomplishments as a prosecutor--as well as extensive experience in the private sector.

So if I am sounding like a broken record, it is because the White House continues to submit one extremely well-qualified and highly impressive nominee after another to sit on the Federal bench. These are men and women who are bright, talented, well-regarded, and committed to applying what the text of our laws and our Constitution actually say.

Today, we can take four more steps in that positive direction. These nominees deserve big bipartisan votes, so I hope each of my colleagues will join me in voting to confirm each of them.

Madam President, now on one final matter, several of our Senate colleagues and their counterparts in the House are continuing to zero in on long-overdue legislation to deliver additional help to Americans all across the Nation who are struggling to rebuild from natural disasters. This ought to have been a fairly straightforward process. We shouldn't need to explain why the need for this relief is urgent, but just for good measure, let's remember the Americans who are counting on us.

In California, last year's string of wildfires included the deadliest and most destructive fire on record. It killed 85 people and burned more than 150,000 acres.

In the Midwest earlier this year, storm surges flooded whole swaths of States and racked up millions of dollars in damages. As one expert recently put it, ``We have points in Iowa and Illinois that have been in flood stage for over 30 days''--30 days--``which hasn't occurred since we started keeping records--and some of them go back 150 years.''

Across the Southeast and gulf coasts, recent hurricane seasons have left lasting scars. Hurricane Michael, which swept across Florida into South Georgia last October, has itself produced nearly 150,000 insurance claims in Florida alone.

In Alabama, more tornadoes have already been recorded in 2019 than in all of last year. One that touched down in Lee County on March 3 left 23 people dead.

Nearly 2 years after Hurricane Maria tore across Puerto Rico, too many storefronts are still shuttered, too many homes still lack roofs, and power remains too unreliable.

And the list goes on.

This is hardly the first time facts like these have been laid out here on the floor. In fact, this legislation has already taken far too long--far too long--to deliver. But now that we are in the home stretch, it is past time to put partisan politics aside, move past any tangential questions, and secure a final agreement that can become law; that is, something that can both pass the Democratic House and earn the President's signature soon. That is how to make a law in this situation.

The Senate will vote on disaster relief this week. The Members of this body will not return home for Memorial Day without taking further action to help these struggling communities, which, by the way, include a number of military installations that need assistance to recover and to rebuild.

It is my sincere hope that we will be able to vote on a negotiated, bipartisan, bicameral solution. That is how we can get to an outcome. That is what affected Americans deserve.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 1370 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I further ask that the papers be held at the desk; that if the House passes a bill identical to the text of S. 1370 just passed by the Senate, the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; finally, that upon passage of the House bill, S. 1370 be indefinitely postponed.

Madam President, this week presents us with more opportunities to make progress on the backlog of qualified nominees who are still awaiting Senate confirmation.

We began yesterday by voting to advance an exceptionally well- qualified nominee to the Federal judiciary. Daniel P. Collins of California was chosen by President Trump to be U.S. circuit court judge for the Ninth Circuit, and the reasons why are abundantly clear.

Mr. Collins is a graduate of Harvard and of Stanford Law School. He has held clerkships on both the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Scalia. He served at the Department of Justice as Associate Deputy Attorney General and as Attorney-Advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel. He spent 4 years as an assistant U.S. attorney. He has complemented that experience with more than 20 years of well-regarded work in private practice.

Mr. Collins has developed a reputation for legal excellence. The American Bar Association rates him well qualified for this new post. Our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee reported him favorably here to the floor.

I hope my colleagues will join me as we vote later today to confirm this fine nominee.

Following the Collins nomination, we will consider four more nominations to district courts around our Nation: Howard Nielson of Utah, Stephen Clark of Missouri, Carl Nichols of the District of Columbia, and Kenneth Bell of North Carolina. Each has been tapped by the President to fill important vacancies. Collectively, they represent decades of experience in private practice and decades more in public service, and they come before us with the high esteem of their legal peers.

Take the case of Mr. Nielson, whose nomination we will consider first. Former circuit judge Mike Luttig, for whom he served as law clerk, said: ``Howard Nielson may well be the single most qualified person to serve on the federal bench that I have ever had the privilege to know.''

It would be hard to come up with a more unequivocal endorsement, so I hope each of my colleagues will join me in support of Mr. Nielson, along with each of the nominees who will follow him this week.

I have noticed that a few of my colleagues across the aisle have expressed some displeasure that the Senate has recently been spending some time on nominations. I would remind our friends on the other side that not so long ago, thoroughly qualified district judge nominees were the kinds of nominations that would sail through the Senate floor by voice vote and in big groups.

Since this particular President was inaugurated in 2017, this Democratic minority has largely taken a different view. They have chosen to deploy an unprecedented level of systematic, across-the-board delaying tactics. The effect has been the need for cloture votes and individual consideration for all kinds of uncontroversial nominations, where it hadn't been a tradition in the Senate in the past. So more than 2 years into this consideration, we are left with too many vacancies still unfulfilled and a backlog of qualified nominees who need considering.

Confirming unobjectionable individuals continues to take more of the Senate's time than it should, but this obstruction is not going to deter us. We will be here as long as it takes. We will keep confirming highly qualified nominees to the Federal bench. We will keep putting the President's team in place and giving Americans the government they actually voted for.

Madam President, on another matter, as I have discussed many times on the floor, powerful natural disasters have devastated communities across America. Many are still in need of aid as they struggle to rebuild.

My colleagues know all too well the destruction that was brought to States across the Southeast, the gulf coast, and Puerto Rico by a bad hurricane season: tens of billions of dollars in damage to buildings and infrastructure and thousands of people left without shelter or access to clean water and electricity.

We remember the record wildfires that swept across our western regions, the tornadoes that tore through the Deep South, and the rampant flooding that sunk entire communities across the Midwest and affected many of my fellow Kentuckians as well.

We have seen the pain caused by nature's worst. Now it is time for Congress to finally--finally--demonstrate our commitment to America's best. It is time to deliver supplemental resources for the rebuilding efforts that, in many cases, have been inching--just inching--along for months. It is well past time to show the relief workers, the volunteers, and the families still picking up the pieces that we have their backs.

In recent days, important progress has been made to deliver on this overdue commitment. Chairman Shelby, Ranking Member Leahy, our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, and their counterparts over in the House are continuing their hard work to reach a bipartisan solution that meets the most pressing needs of all of these affected communities. That includes promising steps toward bipartisan agreement to deliver critical resources to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis at our southern border. The status quo is completely-- completely--dysfunctional, so I am glad the agreement seems to be converging on more resources.

I expect to discuss our progress in greater detail as the week unfolds, but it is my sincere hope that in both parties and in both Chambers we will finally--finally--be able to reach a meaningful consensus that can become law and deliver on the priorities of communities that are in need all across our country.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following this vote, notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate recess until 3:45 p.m. and that at 3:45 p.m., the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Clark, Nichols, and Bell nominations; finally, that if cloture is invoked on the nominations, the confirmation votes on the Nielson, Clark, Nichols, and Bell nominations occur at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic leader, on Wednesday, May 22.