Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the following nominations: Calendar Nos. 182, 184, and 186.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on the nominations with no intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; that no further motions be in order; and that any statement relating to the nominations be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn, to then 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 until the next pro forma session: Monday, April 15 at 3 p.m.; Thursday, April 18, at 11:45 a.m.; Monday, April 22, at 9 a.m.; Thursday, April 25 at 4:30 p.m.

I further ask that when the Senate adjourns on Thursday, April 25, it next convene at 3 p.m., Monday, April 29, and 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 proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the William Cooper nomination; finally, notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, the cloture motions filed during today's session ripen at 5:30 on Monday, April 29.

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

Madam President, I understand there is a bill at the desk due a second reading.

In order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to further proceedings.

Madam President, the Senate continues to build on last week's progress in restoring our normal tradition regarding lower level nominations. We are moving several well-qualified nominees more promptly through floor consideration. We are clearing the considerable backlog of those who had been mired for months in our Democratic colleagues' across-the-board obstruction campaign.

Make no mistake, there is still a very long way to go. There are still too many vacancies on the President's team. There are still too many would-be public servants waiting for partisan barriers to fall. But this body should be proud of the progress we are already making and the healthier precedent we are setting for the future.

Yesterday the Senate voted to confirm both Daniel Domenico, the President's choice to serve as U.S. District Judge for the District of Colorado, and Patrick Wyrick to be a district judge in the Western District of Oklahoma.

Today we will turn our attention to Cheryl Stanton's nomination to lead the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division. It has been 1 year, 7 months, and 5 days since Ms. Stanton's nomination arrived in the Senate. In that time the nomination has been favorably reported by the HELP Committee not once, not twice, but three

times--three times through committee for this graduate of Williams College and the University of Chicago Law School and two times sent back to the President for the former executive director of the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce. Well, hopefully the third time will be the charm, and we can finally do the prudent thing on the Senate floor. I hope each of my colleagues will join me in support of the Stanton nomination later this week.

Later this week, as I noted yesterday, we will finish with the nomination of David Bernhardt to join President Trump's Cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. Speaking of procedures coming in threes, this would be the third time Mr. Bernhardt will have been confirmed by the Senate. He served previously as the Department's Solicitor and as its Deputy Secretary. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, his ``proven leadership'' in these roles ``has helped restore the multiple use of America's public lands.''

They are not alone. Over his tenure, Mr. Bernhardt developed a reputation among sportsmen, conservation groups, and western Native American Tribes as a strong leader and partner in their efforts. So once again, I hope each of my colleagues will join me in voting to confirm David Bernhardt later this week.

Madam President, on a completely different matter, for some time now, my colleagues and I have been speaking out about the Democrats' parade of fantastical new proposals--plans to spend unprecedented sums of Americans' money in order to seize unprecedented control over Americans' lives.

Just a few weeks ago, the Senate voted on the so-called Green New Deal. It was Washington Democrats' plan to power down the U.S. economy and have the Federal Government intrude on basically every economic transaction and personal life choice in radically unprecedented ways. The specifics of the proposal, limited as they were, painted enough of a picture for outside experts to roughly estimate the price tag at as much as $93 trillion, which is more money than the Federal Government has spent in its entire history, in exchange for the systematic dismantling of American prosperity.

It advocated for the abolition of the most affordable and plentiful domestic energy resources available to American families and a hog-tied American economy that our competitors would leave in the dust.

So it should come as no surprise that for the sequel we see and hear that Senate Democrats may soon officially introduce their proposed Washington, DC, takeover of health insurance--the plan I call ``Medicare for None.''

It is a fitting name for a proposal that would gut the Medicare Program as American seniors know it, reuse the label on a new, government-run, one-size-fits-all arrangement, and remove 180 million Americans from the private insurance they have chosen in order to funnel them into a system without choice.

What is especially ironic is that my Democratic colleagues are choosing to agitate for this pivot toward socialism during this particularly important economic period--at this particular moment, with more job openings than Americans looking for work for the first time since recordkeeping started, when we have seen unemployment reach a 49- year low and wages growing faster than they have in a decade. It is the kind of economy where a single mom in Mississippi says: ``It's amazing that I'm getting paid almost $20 an hour to learn how to weld.''

It is the kind of economy where garage door installers in Nevada say they are literally afraid to let potential new hires walk out the door because American workers are in such high demand.

Let's remember that this transformation is being helped along by Senate Republican ideas and policies that are the polar opposite-- totally opposite--of what our Democratic friends are now calling for.

Here is how Republican pro-growth and pro-opportunity policies helped us get where we are: by encouraging job creators to invest here at home instead of penalizing success; by recognizing that working families know best how to spend their paychecks, not Washington; and by creating conditions for an economic surge that touches every corner of our country.

Now all of America is reaping the benefits. This isn't like the last administration, where 75 percent of new jobs and 90 percent of the population growth flowed into the very largest metropolitan areas. This time it is an all-American comeback, and all kinds of communities are benefiting from more jobs, more opportunities, and more growth in pay.

Monday is tax day. It is not exactly a time many of us look forward to, but this year marks the first time Americans are filing under the new Republican tax reform law that has helped them keep more of their paychecks and has helped to create the outstanding economy we see today. Democrats may be working overtime to bring this bright chapter to an end, but over here, on this side of the aisle, we will keep making sure that this is still just the beginning of these brighter days for the American people.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that with respect to the Brady nomination, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived.

Madam President, on a completely different matter, we are continuing to watch as our friends across the aisle take big steps in their party's continued march toward the far, far left. As I

understand, they will soon introduce the Senate version of the radical healthcare proposal that I have come to call Medicare for None.

It is only the latest installment in the steady drumbeat of calls for socialist central planning that we have been hearing from our Democratic colleagues as of late.

Earlier this year, we saw the Speaker of the House declare her top priority as the Democrat politician protection act, an effort to literally rewrite the rules of free speech in American elections and give political campaigns a big dose of taxpayer dollars, all so the outcome of the political process could be more to the Democrats' liking.

We have seen all but a tiny handful of our Democratic colleagues unable to reject an absurdly intrusive and mind-bogglingly expensive plan to forcibly remodel the U.S. economy and American families' lives until they are sufficiently ``green.''

Now, perhaps as soon as this week, the latest new scheme will make landfall in the Senate. I am sure it will grab a new round of headlines, but under the Cadillac hood, it will offer only the same old push mower engine, the same tired, debunked logic that Washington knows best and the American people can't be trusted to decide what is best for themselves and their families.

That tired, old engine cannot power the kind of healthcare that Americans deserve. The legislation my colleagues want to brand as Medicare for All hollows out the actual Medicare Program that our seniors rely on until the only thing left is the label. Then it takes that label and slaps it on a brandnew, untested, government-run plan that every single American would be forced into--forced into--whether they like it or not. In fact, competing private insurance policies, such as the ones that 180 million Americans currently use, would be banned outright--gone.

For the privilege of having their existing Medicare or existing employer-provided plans ripped away from them by the same old Washington experts who brought us ObamaCare with sky-high premiums and deductibles, out-of-pocket costs, and dysfunction--for that privilege the American people would have to pick up a historic $32 trillion tab. That is just the rough estimate for the first 10 years--$32 trillion over 10 years. That is more than the Federal Government has spent on everything--everything--over the past 8 years combined. It is so much that even senior Democrats aren't claiming to know how it will be paid for. That price is so steep that even left-leaning analysts are admitting that the tax burden is virtually certain to land on the shoulders of the middle class.

Here is the Washington Post, verbatim: ``Medicare-for-all in particular would require tax hikes on middle class families.''

To give you a sense of scale for this nightmare, one think tank has calculated that ``doubling all Federal individual and corporate income taxes''--doubling them--``would be insufficient to fully finance the plan.''

Doubling all of the corporate and individual income taxes would be insufficient to fully finance the plan. Doubling what Americans send to the IRS in income taxes would take away all of the competition and choice in the health insurance market. The failures and foibles of ObamaCare, as painful as they are for so many families, would likely be just the warmup act to this socialist bonanza.

Apparently this is what my Democratic colleagues believe will pass for a political winner. We are looking forward to that debate.

I will give them this: With Republicans standing for preserving what works and fixing what doesn't, for reducing tax rates instead of shooting them sky-high, and for strengthening the employer-sponsored and Medicare Advantage plans that American families actually rely on instead of snatching those plans away, my Democratic friends are certainly working hard to paint a contrast--and we welcome it.

Later today, the Senate will vote to advance the nomination of Daniel Domenico to serve as U.S. District Judge for the District of Colorado.

After we vote on his confirmation, we will do the same for Patrick Wyrick, nominated to a vacancy in the Western District of Oklahoma.

Mr. Wyrick is a two-time graduate of the University of Oklahoma and held a clerkship in the Eastern District of Oklahoma at the outset of his legal career. That career included time in private practice, as the State's Solicitor General and, most recently, as Associate Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

I am sorry to say that this week will mark 1 year since Mr. Wyrick's nomination was first received in the Senate. I hope each of my colleagues will join me in long-overdue support for its prompt consideration on the floor.

Over the course of the week, as I have outlined, we will consider four other well-qualified nominees who have been waiting on the Executive Calendar for far too long. We will build on the action taken last week to restore some reason and sanity to the nominations process, which has suffered in recent years under the burden of partisan obstruction.

Before the week is through, we will also turn to the nomination of David Bernhardt to lead the Department of the Interior. The Senate has confirmed Mr. Bernhardt twice before to serve that Department as Deputy Secretary and as Solicitor. When you hear the nominee and review his credentials, it is easy to see why. Mr. Bernhardt has significant private practice experience, as well as a past record of service at the Department.

Along the way he has earned the respect of those who rely on the public lands the Department of the Interior is charged to oversee, from Native American leaders to sportsmen's groups. He has been praised as a ``proven leader'' who ``act[s] with integrity'' and has ``the right approach and skill set.''

I hope each of my colleagues will join me in voting to confirm him later this week.

Madam President, on one final matter, even as the Senate grapples with these kinds of major disagreements, I want to highlight that there were still bipartisan accomplishments constantly coming out of this Chamber. They don't always make national front-page news, but they often represent hugely significant progress for the American people.

Just yesterday afternoon, the Senate passed legislation from Senator Martha McSally to formalize a landmark drought contingency plan for the Colorado River Basin. Our Senate colleagues from the West have been working with State and local leaders literally for years to develop this bipartisan, bicameral solution. Seven States, countless local and Tribal authorities, and both the United States and Mexico have skin in this game, so hammering out this coordinated plan was no small feat.

Now that this agreement will be codified in Federal law, tens of millions of Americans will be able to rest easier, knowing that their supply of drinking water and irrigation will be better protected from water shortages.

I want to congratulate all of our colleagues who worked hard to make this happen, particularly Senator McSally and Senator Gardner, who have been strong voices for this agreement and the people of Arizona and Colorado. I look forward to the President signing this into law in the very near future.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time on the Wyrick nomination expire at 5:30, Tuesday, April 9; further, that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action. I further ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call with respect to the Stanton nomination be waived; finally, that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, the cloture motion on the Abizaid nomination be withdrawn and the Senate vote on his confirmation at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic leader, on April 10, 2019.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.