Floor Statements

Mr. President, I have spoken before about Suvash Darnal, an extraordinary Nepalese Dalit activist who was tragically killed in a traffic accident in Virginia on August 15, 2011.

Mr. Darnal was only 31 years old when he died, but he had already made more of his life than many people who live to be twice or three times his age. He grew up impoverished, with nothing to look forward to. In large measure because of the adversity he experienced and his inherent thirst for knowledge, he became a passionate advocate for his people at home and around the world. As I have said before, his integrity, his humility, his vision, and his dedication live on as an inspiring example of why caste discrimination has no place in the 21st century, in Nepal or anywhere else.

From 2008 to 2009, Mr. Darnal was a fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy. Carl Gershman, President of NED, was among Mr. Darnal's admirers and has helped to convey the lessons of Mr. Darnal's life to a wider audience.

I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Gershman's account of recent events in Kathmandu in remembrance of Suvash Darnal be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, in the last few months, the Senate has achieved record progress in going through our appropriations bills. As we return from the Labor Day weekend, the Senate has already passed 9 of the 12 Appropriations bills by overwhelming bipartisan margins. The Appropriations Committee has reported the remaining three bills, again, with bipartisan support. The end of the fiscal year is only a few short weeks away, but looking at the record pace of our work here in the Senate, there is no reason we can't conference all of these bills with the House and send all nine to the President's desk before October 1.

It would be quite an accomplishment. It would show the American people that when it matters, Congress can come together and do the job we were sent here to do. That includes passing responsible, thoughtful, and well-considered appropriations bills on time and on budget.

When I became vice chairman of Appropriations, with Senator Shelby as chairman of Appropriations, we pledged to each other and the Senate that we would move these bills in a way they had not been moved in years and that we would do it in a bipartisan way.

It is important that we conference all of the bills we have passed in the Senate so far and then send them to the President's desk. We cannot just pick and choose and say: We will do this one based on political expediency but not this one. That would put us right back in the trap in which we had been in past years. We have to show the American people that the Senate actually knows how to do its work. The hard work has been done. We know the issues we need to resolve, so now we ought to take these bills across the finish line.

It may sound archaic, but let me talk about minibus No. 1, which contains the Energy and Water Development appropriations bill, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies appropriations bill, and the Legislative Branch appropriations bill. It provides much needed resources for the support and care of our Nation's veterans and their family members, and it makes critical investments in our country's water infrastructure and energy programs. Yesterday, we held a public conference with the House of Representatives on the first minibus, and I am pleased to report that we have made some significant progress.

One of the reasons we are successful in moving bills in the Senate is that we advance appropriations bills that are free of poison pill policy riders from either the left or the right. In fact, my experience and the experience of many others tell us that is the only path to success in the Senate, where we rightfully need 60 votes to advance legislation, and it is the only path to success for conferencing the three minibus bills. I challenge the House Republicans to come to terms with that reality. No one should mistake--and I want to emphasize this--Democratic cooperation in the Senate for a sign that we will support a conference report that contains poison pills. We will not.

Minibus No. 2 contains four appropriations bills--the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies appropriations bill; the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill; the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill; and the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. The House plans to appoint conferees to this minibus later this afternoon, and I encourage the Senate to follow soon thereafter. Let me take these one by one.

The Agriculture appropriations bill is a win for farmers, families, and rural communities. Every State in this Nation has rural communities--the Presiding Officer does; I do; every State does--and farm economies that benefit from these important programs. From clean water programs to investments in rural broadband and from rural housing assistance to agricultural research, this bill touches millions of Americans all across the country. In the wake of the uncertainty and chaos that has been caused by trade wars and unnecessary tariffs, our farmers and rural communities deserve better than inaction on appropriations. Both the House and the Senate have passed their versions of the bill. So let's just get to work and send the conference bill to the President.

The same goes for the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill, which makes critical infrastructure investments across the Nation, and we desperately need them. Improving the Nation's infrastructure was one of President Trump's key campaign promises, but instead of proposing realistic solutions, he has criticized the very budget deal that has made increases in infrastructure possible. Instead of improving our infrastructure, he has proposed cutting--not increasing--funding in his budget for infrastructure programs. Here we have an opportunity to invest in our country and to start addressing our crumbling bridges and roads. We cannot and should not kick the can down the road. There is not a single Senator here who cannot point to the needs of the bridges and roads in his or her State.

Then we have the Interior bill that makes critical investments in programs that help to ensure we have clean water to drink and clean air to breathe and that funds our national parks and other public lands. The Financial Services bill funds regulatory agencies that U.S. citizens rely on to protect them from unfair, unsafe, or fraudulent business practices, like the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

Congress now stands poised to deliver to the American people, but we have to get moving. Leaving these important agencies to limp along in a continuing resolution is unwise and unnecessary. We have laid the groundwork to finish these bills. Now we just need the will to do it.

This brings me to minibus No. 3, which contains the Defense appropriations bill and the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill. It funds our national security and many of our domestic priorities, and it demonstrates the importance of the bipartisan budget agreement that was reached earlier this year. In this combination of bills, we see the priorities that are outlined in that agreement made into real policy to improve the lives of the American people. It is not empty rhetoric but real policy, and that is why so many Republicans and so many Democrats voted for it.

As a result of the bipartisan budget deal, the Senate's Defense appropriations bill provides the men and women of our Armed Forces with the resources they need to carry out their missions effectively and safely. This is a goal that Republicans and Democrats share as Americans, and I know that in working with our House counterparts, we can produce a good bill for our troops and our Nation.

Then there is the Senate's Labor, HHS, and Education appropriations bill. I think of the way Senator Patty Murray has worked so hard with Republicans and Democrats--with all of us--to put together a bill that reflects the interests of all of the country.

Look at the investments in healthcare and education. It increases funding for the National Institutes of Health by $5 billion over fiscal year 2017. The NIH, the National Institutes of Health, is one of the treasures of America. It backs our commitment to increase access to higher education by increasing college affordability spending by $2.3 billion over fiscal year 2017. My family came to Vermont in the mid- 1800s. I was the first Leahy to get a college degree--my sister, the second. Then, when our children came along and our grandchildren, we never doubted it; of course, they would go to college. Yet that is not the same for an awful lot of people in this country, so we need this bill. It also increases access to childcare by $3.2 billion over fiscal year 2017, and it invests nearly $3 billion to combat the opioid crisis that has plagued communities across this country.

The House did not follow the Senate's bipartisan efforts. The House produced a partisan Labor-HHS bill that shortchanged programs for working Americans and was loaded with poison pill riders that could never pass in this body--from attacks on the Affordable Care Act to restrictions on family planning.

My staff and Senator Shelby's staff--several of us--have been working days and weeks and weekends, and we will continue to do that in order to work out these differences. The differences are challenging but are not insurmountable. The reason we have to have a compromise is we have to get 60 votes in the Senate, and with this hodgepodge of poison pills that the House has passed there are not 60 votes.

I have said many times that if we are to have a strong national defense, we need to have a strong economy, an educated and healthy citizenry, and an able workforce. The programs that are funded in the Labor, HHS, and Education appropriations bill are critical to doing that. The deep ties that run between defense and nondefense priorities make it fitting that we have packaged these two bills together, but they have to stay together if we are going to get them across the finish line by October 1. If they are decoupled, it will destroy the bipartisan process we have worked so hard to establish, and it will not go through. It is possible that the CR will be included in this bill, so it is essential that it be bipartisan and free of any controversial matter.

Again, the reason we have been so successful in this Senate in moving appropriations bills is that we have worked together. Chairman Shelby as chairman and I as vice chairman have worked together. Republicans and Democrats alike who are on the Appropriations Committee have worked together. We have cooperated with each other. We have met over and over again. Each side has shown restraint in pursuing issues we have felt strongly about because to have done so would have imperiled the whole process. There are certain things that I would have liked in this bill, and there are certain things my Republican counterparts might have liked in the bill, but we all know that the bill would not have gone anywhere if we had done that. Instead, we have come together on those things that can pass. Both sides have had to trust the other, as we have done, so we could reach agreement to move these bills forward.

Let's finish what we have started in the way we started it--through bipartisanship and cooperation. That means the Defense and Labor-HHS bills must remain together in one package. We cannot drop one and finish the other. That is a nonstarter. Everybody knows that. It also means the Senate must stand together if the House insists on producing partisan conference reports that contain poison pill riders. They cannot pass. Finally, it means we have to remain committed to finishing all three packages of bills and sending them to the President.

If House Republicans decide to delay minibus No. 2 until after the election and drop the Labor, HHS, and Education bill from minibus No. 3, it will mean the $18 billion increase for Defense that is assumed in the bipartisan budget agreement will be enacted while the $18 billion increase of nondefense programs could be left in the dust--a clear violation of the bipartisan budget agreement that was based on parity between defense and nondefense programs agreed to by both Republicans and Democrats. I predict it could not pass.

Funding the government is one of our most basic constitutional responsibilities. Americans expect us to work together, as the U.S. Senate did, and across the aisle to reach agreement on these bills. The programs funded in these bills make a real difference in people's lives, and they should not be held up due to partisan differences. Let's do what we were sent here to do and pass these bills before the start of the new fiscal year. We can do it, and we have shown how to do it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the decision, announced last Friday, by Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales to not renew the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, CICIG, after its current term expires next September, was a profound mistake.

That mistake was further compounded on Tuesday when the government announced that the CICIG Commissioner, Ivan Velasquez, a respected Colombian jurist, had been summarily declared a ``national security threat'' and barred from reentering the country. That is the kind of fear-provoking mischaracterization one might expect from an authoritarian government that will use any outlandish justification to silence its critics but not from a democracy.

I urge President Morales to reconsider and to reverse these actions for the benefit of the Guatemalan people, in the interests of justice and on behalf of Guatemala's relations with the United States and its international reputation. There may still be time to turn this political and judicial crisis into a positive outcome for the country.

At the time of his public announcement to not renew CICIG, President Morales was joined on the podium by dozens of uniformed military and police officers. At the same time, military vehicles carrying officers armed with heavy weapons--vehicles provided by the United States for legitimate law enforcement purposes--lined the street in front of CICIG's office. They also drove past the Constitutional Court and the U.S. Embassy. It was an intimidating display reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s, and the intended message was clear: The commanders of Guatemala's security forces--which in recent years have been reliable partners with the United States--have sided with those in power to shut down the only credible mechanism for combating the corruption and impunity that plague that country.

Not yet determined is the fate of CICIG's 45 or so international lawyers and investigators, whose work permits have expired. If Commissioner Velasquez is not allowed to return and CICIG's other employees are forced to leave the country, CICIG will, for all practical purposes, cease to exist.

President Morales's decision to do away with CICIG in a manner that the U.N. Secretary General says ``does not appear to be consistent with the Agreement on the establishment of CICIG'' was reportedly precipitated by a decision of the Supreme Court, days earlier, to refer to Congress a petition by the Attorney General and CICIG to lift President Morales's immunity for violating campaign financing laws. It appears that President Morales is more

concerned with his own legal vulnerability and that of his supporters than upholding the institutions of justice.

It is also increasingly apparent that this attack on CICIG is only part of a broader attempt that has been gaining steam over the better part of a year to destroy the independence of the constitutional court, weaken civil society, intimidate human rights defenders and journalists, and undermine the rule of law. It is an existential confrontation between the forces of corruption and impunity and Guatemala's fledgling judicial institutions.

Ever since CICIG was established 11 years ago to help combat the pervasive corruption, infiltration by organized crime, and near total impunity in Guatemala, the State Department and the U.S. Embassy have consistently supported CICIG, as have Republicans and Democrats in Congress. We are all familiar with the historical links between organized crime, drug traffickers, Guatemala's security forces, and public officials. It has been widely recognized by the Guatemalan people that, because of CICIG and Guatemala's Public Ministry, working together, the cause of justice--including convictions of corrupt senior government officials--has been significantly enhanced. Without CICIG, these achievements would not have been possible.

On Saturday, September 1, Secretary Pompeo responded to President Morales's announcement with a bizarre tweet that did not even mention CICIG. Instead, the Secretary expressed appreciation for Guatemala's ``efforts in counternarcotics and security.'' That is a bit like being told that the courthouse is on fire and responding that the stock market is up. The State Department should condemn what is occurring in Guatemala, reaffirm its support for CICIG and Commissioner Velasquez, and make clear that corrupt Guatemalan officials will be sanctioned under U.S. law. Otherwise, it will share complicity in the unraveling of years of U.S. investment in CICIG and in judicial and law enforcement reform in Guatemala.

Perhaps the State Department is worried that, if President Morales is prosecuted and convicted of campaign financing violations and removed from office the way his predecessor was, U.S. security cooperation with Guatemala might suffer. What it really should be worried about is what will happen to the fight against corruption and organized crime if President Morales succeeds in dismantling CICIG. If the country loses its most effective anticorruption institution, the progress that has been made in recent years in strengthening the rule of law is likely to be reversed, allowing drug cartels and other criminal organizations to grow unchecked. This is particularly alarming with national elections in Guatemala scheduled for next year. The integrity of Guatemala's democratic process--not simply the survival of CICIG--is threatened by the corrupt influences of organized crime.

Like any institution, CICIG is not without imperfections. Several constructive reforms have been proposed, and I have encouraged CICIG, the United Nations, and the Guatemalan Government to find a way forward that strengthens oversight and transparency while preserving CICIG's mandate and protecting the Commissioner from political interference. While that process has been eclipsed by recent events, there is still time to resurrect it. The United Nations, the United States, other governments that have supported CICIG, and the Guatemalan Government should urgently resume discussions to achieve such a solution.

Ultimately, if other attempts fail, the future of CICIG, of its Commissioner and employees, and of the rule of law in Guatemala--not just under President Morales who has just over a year left to serve but also in the years ahead--will be in the hands of the Guatemalan people, the judiciary, and the Congress. As a former prosecutor and the senior member of our Judiciary Committee, I have long recognized that an independent judiciary is a cornerstone of democratic government. It is what gives practical meaning to the phrase ``rule of law,'' which is fundamental to strengthening democracy. To its credit, Guatemala's constitutional court has displayed that independence in the past. That independence is needed today.

As a result of President Morales's actions, security cooperation with Guatemala and loans from international financial institutions are now in jeopardy. That is not in the interests of Guatemala or the United States. Recognizing what is at stake and in support of the courageous Guatemalans who are defending the Constitution and the rule of law, I will not support the expenditure of U.S. funds for assistance for the Guatemalan Government under the Alliance for Prosperity, including for the military and police forces, until the fate of CICIG and Commissioner Velasquez is satisfactorily resolved.

Mr. President, as vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and I am sure I can also speak for the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, we appreciate this vote, so we can move forward.

We have spent the last week on the Senate floor. But, what many people have not seen are the hours and hours that Senators, both Republicans and Democrats, have spent working together to get where we are today. Many people have not seen the countless of hours more being done by our staffs. Sometimes at 1 in the morning, they are still negotiating parts of this bill.

We are just within an hour or so of doing something the Senate, as Senator McConnell pointed out, has not been able to do in years.

I think we will pass a good, responsible and within-the-budget piece of legislation. Both Republicans and Democrats had a voice in the process. We held numerous votes in the Senate Appropriations Committee, all of them overwhelmingly bipartisan, many of them unanimous--with the exception of one or two votes--to get to where we are today.

I see some of the chairs from our subcommittees who worked very hard to put together these bipartisan coalitions. I know a lot of people are anxious to get out of here, and soon they will be headed to the airport. Let's get this done. Let's show that the U.S. Senate is actually doing its work. Let's do what we were elected to do, what we know how to do, and what we can do.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we have no objection.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions, I move to waive all applicable sections of that Act and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of the pending amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, the reason I did that--and I rarely disagree with my good friend from Wyoming; we are, after all, the only two Irish Italians in this body. But people are hurting. It is hard enough going to college, and cutting the Pell grant awards just adds to it. The student debt today exceeds one-half trillion dollars, and that is because of the erosion of Federal support.

I am stating my point of order, standing with the middle class in this country, so their children and their families can be educated, and I am ready to vote.

Mr. President, the Senate, and Congress as a whole, best serves the American people when we reach real, bipartisan solutions. Today, the Senate will pass its third bipartisan appropriations package, completing Senate consideration of 9 of the 12 appropriations bills reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee and accounting for 87 percent of all discretionary spending.

We are proving that when we put partisan politics aside, we can do the work of the American people. This progress would not have been possible without my dear friend, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Richard Shelby. Senator Shelby and I made a commitment, along with Leader McConnell and Leader Schumer, to only move forward on appropriations bills that have bipartisan support, are at spending levels agreed to in the bipartisan budget deal, and that reject poison pill riders and controversial authorizing language. This allowed us to complete our bills committee and pass three appropriations packages on the Senate floor.

I am disappointed that House Republicans have thus far rejected this reasonable path in favor of partisan grandstanding by producing bills that have no chance of passing the Senate, but I remain hopeful that once they return from their 5-week recess, they will be ready to work with the Senate on real solutions for the American people and to pass these bills before the end of the fiscal year.

The Senate approach is what this bill represents: real, bipartisan solutions for the American people. We adopted 52 amendments in a bipartisan managers' package, allowing input on the floor from Members outside of the Appropriations Committee on matters that are important to them and to their constituents. We adhered to the bipartisan budget agreement and turned those priorities into policy solutions.

We make good on our promise to families to invest in access to higher education and child care. We make a second major investment in addressing the opioid crisis. Everyone in this Chamber has experienced the opioid crisis firsthand. Whether it is a friend, a family member or a loved one, no one has escaped the grips of this scourge, and we put the force of the United States Government behind the search for cures to diseases like Alzheimer's, cancer, and diabetes by increasing funding for the National Institutes of Health.

This bill invests in our military and their families, allowing the men and women in our Armed Forces to carry out their missions safely and effectively. By investing in both our immediate national security needs and our long-term domestic needs, like education and health care, this package recognizes the deep ties that run between defense and non- defense priorities.

Ask any military leader, and he will tell you an investment in education is an investment in national security.

By combining these bills in one package, we increase the certainty that they will be enacted into law, on time, avoiding the waste and inefficiency produced by long-term continuing resolutions. I urge our House counterparts to commit, as we have, to producing a conference report that contains both bills so we can move swiftly toward final passage and address the devastating consequences of sequestration on both sides of the ledger.

I remain hopeful that we can continue the bipartisan momentum we have built in the Senate into our conference negotiations with the House.

I want to thank Senators Blunt, Durbin, and Murray for their hard work on these bills and, of course, Senator Shelby.

I also want to thank the Majority staff, Shannon Hines, David Adkins, and Jonathan Graffeo, as well as the Defense and Labor-HHS subcommittee staffs, for their hard work and cooperation on this bill.

And I want to thank my staff for their long hours over the last few weeks, Charles Kieffer, Chanda Betourney, Jessica Berry, Erik Raven, and Alex Keenan and all of the Defense and Labor-HHS subcommittee staff.

This package, which represents 65 percent of all discretionary spending, will improve lives in every State, and I urge an aye vote.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of all Appropriations Committee staff, whose hard work made this bill happen, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I yield back my time.

Mr. President, last week, on August 16, more than 300 newspapers across the Nation published editorials giving voice and testament to the vital role of a free press in our American democracy. It is such a crucial requisite of democracy that this role--this right of a free people--is embedded in our Constitution.

The words, the actions, and the service of the free American press are a daily counterpoint to the vile charges by many that the press is ``the enemy of the people''--a smear that is commonly used by despots in societies that do not have the freedoms that our Constitution is intended to ensure and protect. It is all too clear today that each new generation must renew the Nation's dedication to our founding principles and ideals.

The Senate, on August 16, unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming the vital and indispensable role of the free press. I was proud to cosponsor that resolution. It is regrettable that such a resolution was even needed--or even timely.

I am proud that several news organizations in Vermont participated on August 16 in publishing editorials about the importance of a free press. I call to the Senate's attention one of these, written by Steven Pappas and published in the Times Argus of Barre, VT.

I ask unanimous consent that this editorial be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for his remarks. I do appreciate the encouragement he has given both Senator Shelby and me in getting the appropriations bills through. He has been here long enough. He knows this is the way the Senate should work. We have done it in a bipartisan way, and we are way ahead of where we have been at any time in the past 2 years.

I also want to applaud the senior Senator from Maine. She sits on the Appropriations Committee. We have served together there throughout our careers, and she is a valuable member of that committee. She is one who has helped put together, with her Democratic counterpart, good legislation that is included. In fact, there was nearly a unanimous vote in the Appropriations Committee. Most of this has been either unanimous or virtually unanimous. I say that because some have felt that, in the Senate lately, you could not get a majority vote even to say the Sun rises in the East. But here we have been doing majority votes on things that involve everywhere from Alaska to Vermont. I am pleased with it.

Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

Mr. President, I take the floor in my role as vice chairman of Appropriations in managing this bill, but I am going to digress, as others have, for a few minutes and speak about something else.

We are now less than 2 weeks away from Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. We are 2 weeks away, and according to the National Archives, the committee has received only 6 percent of his total White House records. This is virtually unprecedented--6 percent of his records and not a single one of the records we have received has been provided by the National Archives. That is because the Archives will not complete its review of the limited number of records requested by Chairman Grassley until October, which is a month after the majority leader intends to hold a final vote on Judge Kavanaugh.

Actually, to date, every single record that we have received from the Judiciary Committee has been hand selected by a political lawyer representing President George W. Bush. He is a partisan lawyer who reported directly to Judge Kavanaugh in the Bush White House, a lawyer who also represents White House Counsel Don McGahn, Steve Bannon, and Reince Priebus in the Russia investigation. I mention this because he has been very selective in the very few things we have been allowed to see.

I mention this because this is in stark contrast to past precedent. Let me talk about the vetting of Justice Kagan, who, like Judge Kavanaugh, had served in the White House prior to her nomination. I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee at that time. I worked hand in hand with then-Ranking Member Jeff Sessions to ensure that we received every document of interest to the committee. Certainly, on behalf of the Republicans, Senator Sessions demanded an awful lot of records, and I worked with him to get them. In fact, when we were 12 days away from Justice Kagan's hearing, we had already received a full 99 percent of her White House records--99 percent.

I mention that because now, at the same time with Judge Kavanaugh, we are at 6 percent. The Republicans have allowed 6 percent, and the Democrats allowed 99 percent. Does this make the confirmation hearing a partisan joke?

In fact, every single one of Justice Kagan's records was provided by the nonpartisan National Archives. The 6 percent of Judge Kavanaugh's records has been provided by a political, partisan, hyperconflicted attorney. I mean that just on the face of it, it does not pass the giggle test. The Democrats provided from the nonpartisan National Archives 99 percent of Justice Kagan's records. Here we are getting only 6 percent of Judge Kavanaugh's records, and they have been picked by a political, partisan attorney with hyperconflicts.

The superficial vetting of Judge Kavanaugh is all the more troubling because there are still serious concerns about the last time he testified before the Senate. During his 2006 nomination hearing for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Kavanaugh minimized his work on highly controversial issues in the Bush White House, including on detainee treatment and warrantless wiretapping. It is now clear that we will only know the full truth if we get his full record. With anything less, we will be, simply, rushing to a verdict before the trial.

Based on the very limited documents they have allowed us to see, there is an additional reason to be concerned. The committee has received new evidence that sheds light on whether Judge Kavanaugh was truthful while under oath in 2006. Unfortunately, I cannot even describe these documents because they have kept them in a classified or confidential forum, and the American people cannot see them. That is because nearly two-thirds of the documents the Judiciary Committee has received have been designated as ``committee confidential'' by Chairman Grassley, following the request of the partisan attorney on whom the Senate is relying to do the job of the nonpartisan National Archives. To date, that means that two percent of Judge Kavanaugh's White House records have been made available to the American people--2 percent-- compared to 99 percent for Justice Kagan, and they have selected what that 2 percent is. Golly, what is in the other 98 percent they don't want us to see?

I have served in this body for 44 years. I have been here for every Supreme Court nomination since John Paul Stevens. I have voted for a lot of Republicans and Democrats on the Supreme Court. For 20 years, I served as the chairman or as the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In those 44 years, I can tell you, frankly, that the vetting of Judge Kavanaugh has been the most incomplete, most partisan, and least transparent of any Supreme Court nominee I have ever seen of either a Democratic or a Republican President. It has not been even close. I have taken the experience I have had here with Democrats and Republicans as President. In 44 years, I have never seen such incomplete, partisan, or nontransparent vetting.

Yesterday, I met with Judge Kavanaugh--a very pleasant man. I had the opportunity to ask him about many issues, including about his work in the Bush White House. Following our meeting, I believe even more strongly that the documents he authored or contributed to during his 3 years as White House Staff Secretary should be released and made public now. What he wrote is far more important than what his personality might be. Let's find out what he wrote. That will tell us what kind of a Supreme Court Justice he would be apt to be.

A vigilant review of the Supreme Court nominee's full record isn't an optional matter. It shouldn't be dependent upon which party controls the White House or the Senate. Again, in 44 years, I have seen very vigilant reviews of Supreme Court nominees by both Republicans and Democrats. That is the way it should be, and I have agreed with that every single time. Yet never, never have I seen something like this. Never, never have I seen one's record hidden the way this one has been. It is undeniable that documents of clear public interest are being hidden from the American people--documents that will shed light on both his views and on his fitness to serve on our Nation's highest Court.

Wearing blinders in this moment is fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional obligation to provide advice and informed consent. The Senate is supposed to be the conscience of the Nation. It is a sad conscience.

The Federal judiciary stands alone. Unlike in any other branch of our government, the Justices, for good reason, never face the scrutiny of the electorate. Once a Supreme Court Justice is confirmed, he or she will serve for life. Barring impeachment, which has happened just once in our Nation's history, they essentially serve with no oversight.

The Senate has no second chance when it comes to vetting a nominee. We have to get this right. We can't have a vote now and 2 months from now get the records and say: Oh, golly gee, if we had known this, we would have voted differently.

We have to have all of the records now and then vote. There is time to do so. The Senate should not be focused on getting Judge Kavanaugh confirmed by October 1--some artificial deadline. Instead, the Senate should be focused

on doing its job. That requires allowing the National Archives to complete its review of Judge Kavanaugh's record as required by the Presidential Records Act.

At a time when the President is facing unprecedented legal jeopardy, it would be an extraordinary disservice to the American people to break all precedence and confirm his selection to the Supreme Court without there being an actual review.

Have the review. Then, every Senator--he or she--can make up his mind on how he is going to vote. Don't vote blindly without having all of the material. The fact that Judge Kavanaugh has a longer record than prior Supreme Court nominees--something the President was keenly aware of when he selected him--does not excuse the Senate from doing its job, because, if confirmed, he is going to shape the lives of all Americans for generations to come.

If, when the National Archives completes its review in October we learn that we did not get it right, it will fall squarely on the shoulders of this body. If the Senators rush this and find out later that there was material there they should have seen, they will have absolutely no excuse whatsoever because they will have concurred in the rushing. We should set this partisan vetting aside. We should work together, as we have in the past, to actually vet Judge Kavanaugh's record in a way that honors our constitutional obligation--the job the American people sent us here to do.

I feel honored to be here as a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont. I do strongly believe, as I did when I first came here, that this body can be the conscience of the Nation. We aren't following our conscience if we don't do the real work to find out what we are voting on. We have voted on a lot of things. Some have been routine. This is not. This is to vote for a person who will serve on the U.S. Supreme Court long after most of us will have left this body. We owe it to all Americans--I don't care what their politics are or where they are from--to get it right. That is what our oath calls for. That is why we are here.

I have voted more than all but three or four people in the history of this country. Every time I vote, I am hoping I am doing it right, and I try to do it in an informed way.

I know we are going to go back now to the appropriations bills, but here is a case in which I think we have done things right. Senator Shelby is the chairman, and I am the vice chairman. It is one of only three committees that has a vice chairman. We have worked very closely together, and we have done it in a way to get bills through in a bipartisan fashion. We actually work the way the Senate did when I first came here, which is the way the Senate has worked under great leaders on the Democratic side, like Mike Mansfield, or on the Republican side, like Howard Baker, and we have gotten things done.

I am proud of the Appropriations Committee, but I am concerned about the Judiciary Committee. I have had the privilege of serving on it for over 40 years and have had the privilege of being chairman and ranking member. Yet I have to say that it is not doing its job if it is not requiring all of the material to be here. On the Appropriations Committee, Senator Shelby and I work to make sure that everybody is heard and everybody has the material. We should be doing the same thing on the Judiciary Committee.

I see the chairman of the committee is on the floor, and I have spoken on the matter on which I wanted to speak.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, there have been a number of headline- grabbing days during the first 18 months of the Trump administration, and I think yesterday is going to rank among the

most extraordinary. But for this Senator from Vermont, it has been the most troubling.

The President of the United States was effectively identified by his long-time lawyer and confidant as an unindicted co-conspirator in their efforts to commit criminal campaign finance violations. If what they are saying is true, what his confidant is pleading guilty to is that then-Candidate Trump arranged payments to two women he had affairs with, in violation of Federal law, in order to keep those affairs hidden from the American people at a most critical time, days before the election.

Further, last night, the lawyer for Mr. Cohen claimed that his client also has information relevant to whether President Trump had advance knowledge--and even supported--the hacking of Democratic electronic files. We know that he gave a speech at one point saying that if Russia is listening, they should hack. That crime, which we know was committed at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin, serves as a basis for Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

Also yesterday, within minutes of Mr. Cohen's entering his guilty plea, a jury found the President's former campaign manager guilty of numerous tax and bank fraud charges. Paul Manafort will now face a separate trial concerning his work for a Putin-connected oligarch both in Ukraine and here at home. In this second trial, scheduled to begin next month, Mr. Manafort has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, failing to register as a foreign agent, and money laundering, among other charges.

The clouds of criminal conduct surrounding those close to the President are darkening. Directly or indirectly, his campaign manager, personal attorney, and multiple aides have now been swept up in the Special Counsel's investigation. This probe has resulted in numerous guilty pleas and 34 criminal indictments. And it is not complete.

I have watched, both as a Senator and as a former prosecutor, and it is so troubling. I know one thing; it is crucial that the special counsel be permitted to complete his investigation and to do so without the daily--often hourly--interference from the President. During my four decades in the Senate, I have never before seen an investigation led by career, apolitical law enforcement officials so personally and publicly maligned by a politician--let alone by the President of the United States. No one is above the law, and the President should stop acting as though he is.

I would also urge the Majority Leader to immediately bring the bipartisan legislation to protect the Special Counsel to the Floor. We passed this legislation out of the Senate Judiciary Committee with a bipartisan vote. Anyone who says that the President can be trusted not to undermine the Special Counsel has clearly not been paying attention. Think of all of the tweets he sent as the Manafort trial was going on. Do you think those weren't seen directly or indirectly by those involved in the trial? We know that the judge made clear his opposition to the prosecution, and the jury also had to listen to the President's tweets. Just think of what that does.

It is equally critical that the Senate reassert its oversight responsibility over the Executive Branch--something for which we have advocated. If these were normal times, the Senate Judiciary Committee would immediately pursue an investigation.

Indeed, the Judiciary Committee is uniquely situated to investigate the allegation raised by Mr. Cohen. The Committee has jurisdiction over our criminal laws, including our campaign finance laws. Mr. Cohen's lawyer has indicated that he is willing to testify before Congress without being granted immunity--pretty extraordinary.

It is difficult to reconcile the Judiciary Committee's inaction here with one of the most critical constitutional crises we have seen-- certainly since I have been in the Senate, and I have been here for 44 years.

It is difficult to reconcile the Judiciary Committee's inaction with its race to confirm President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court. In fact, the timeline the Republicans are pursuing to consider Judge Kavanaugh is so aggressive that it will sideline the nonpartisan review of the nominee's record performed by the National Archives. That has occurred for every Supreme Court nominee since Watergate, whether Republican or Democratic.

I mentioned earlier today that when I was chairman, Justice Kagan was up, and the Republicans asked for her records. We got 99 percent of them. I went to the Archives. I joined with the senior Republican, Jeff Sessions, on the Committee to request them. We got 99 percent of those records before the hearing. We have 6 percent of Judge Kavanaugh's records. And those were handpicked by a lawyer whose clients include, among others, Stephen Bannon and other very partisan clients.

The Russia investigation is the most pressing national security investigation of our time. Here we have a powerful country--Russia-- that is working against us. We know it. We can just pick up the paper. Without going to any of the classified hearings that most of us have been to, we can read what is in the paper about the hacking Russia has done and the billions of dollars it has cost people and the hacking that continues to this moment against the United States. This is the Russia that the President publicly called upon during a campaign rally to hack his opponent's computers. We know from what we have seen and what our intelligence community has told us that they did try to influence the last election, and we do know they intend to try to influence the elections this year, not only in our country but in other countries. This is a major problem, and it is being ignored.

I think history is going to judge all of us in the U.S. Senate very harshly if we collectively shrug our shoulders and disregard our constitutional responsibility to oversee the Executive Branch in this moment. We represent a coequal branch of government. It is time to act like it.

Mr. President, I was going to suggest the absence of a quorum, but I see one of my distinguished colleagues on the floor, so I will simply yield the floor.

Mr. President, when Justice Kagan was up for nomination, I was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I, along with then Ranking Member Jeff Sessions, sent a letter saying that we needed all of her White House records. We received 99 percent of those records.

Now for Judge Kavanaugh's nomination we are told, after being carefully selected, that we can only have 3 percent of his records. It is an interesting standard. Republicans want all of it when there is a Democratic President, for a woman who was nominated by a Democrat. Now, when the Republicans nominate this man, they say: We will selectively give you 3 percent. It is an interesting double standard. It makes me wonder what there is to hide in there. Why not take the time to see it all?

If I am going to vote on a lifetime appointment--I voted for a lot of Republican nominees for the Supreme Court and other courts--I want to see the whole record. I don't want, a month after I voted, more to come out in the record and to think: Whoops, who knew about that? We had this happen with one judge already after they were confirmed to a lifetime appointment. The final records came out, and we found out what they did with issues of torture and other things. It was bad.

Amendment No. 3993 to Amendment No. 3699

Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, earlier I talked about what has happened on the Manafort and Cohen matters yesterday. I understand the great amount of consternation there is at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Having been a prosecutor, I can understand why there is consternation.

I note for my colleagues that we passed in the Senate Judiciary Committee a bipartisan bill--Republican and Democrats voted for the bill--to protect the special prosecutor. There

are those of us who are old enough to remember when Richard Nixon fired the special prosecutor in the Watergate matter and the great constitutional problems that followed. It was something the country suffered over for years, and we want to make sure we don't have another firing like we did in the Watergate matter. So we wrote this bill. Again, Republicans and Democrats voted for it. It could be brought up anytime by the leadership, if they wished. I am hoping that it will be brought up. I am hoping we can bring it to the floor and we can have a vote. I know we had a good debate--again, Republicans and Democrats--in the Judiciary Committee, and I would like to see it voted on.

I notice we are at the hour of 3:30, and I know the Presiding Officer has a ruling to make, so I will withhold.

Mr. President, several of the warring parties in the South Sudanese civil war, including President Kiir and the leader of the main opposition party, Riek Machar, recently signed a power-sharing deal to ostensibly bring to an end a conflict that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and the largest refugee crisis in Africa. Today in South Sudan, there are nearly 200,000 people sheltering at UN peacekeeping bases, 4.5 million people have been forcibly displaced, and an estimated 7 million people are in need of humanitarian aid. Several ceasefires have been negotiated and broken by both sides since the conflict began in December 2013, and the United States has invested well over $3 billion in humanitarian aid to help the people of South Sudan who have been largely abandoned by their political leaders.

Unfortunately, the viability of the recent power-sharing deal and the prospects for a broader peace agreement remain in question. What we do know is that decades of corruption, marginalization, political manipulation, and human rights atrocities led to the most recent iteration of catastrophic violence in South Sudan, and it will take decades for the country to fully recover, but there is at least one action that President Kiir should take today that would have immediate benefits: the release of all political prisoners, journalists, academics, and others who have been detained as a result of peacefully exercising their right to free expression.

One such individual is Peter Biar Ajak. Mr. Ajak was resettled in Philadelphia in January 2001 as a teenage refugee of the Sudanese civil war and one of the 40,000 ``Lost Boys'' left homeless by that conflict. Remarkably, he went on to earn a master's degree from Harvard and is now a doctoral candidate at Cambridge. Mr. Ajak has been a courageous and vocal critic of the failed peace process in South Sudan, particularly the role of President Kiir and opposition leader Machar, who for years have put amassing wealth and power for themselves far above the welfare and rights of the South Sudanese people. It is this criticism that his supporters believe led to his arrest and imprisonment on July 28 by the South Sudan National Security Service,

Mr. President, on behalf of all Vermonters, I want to honor Clara Ayer of East Montpelier, VT, who will this month be inducted into the Vermont Agricultural Hall of Fame, in recognition of her status as an emerging leader in the Vermont agriculture community. Clara is a proud 2010 alumna of Cornell University with a degree dairy science who, after graduation, went to work for Yankee Farm Credit. She began working full time at Fairmount Farm, a third-generation dairy farm, alongside her brother Ricky in 2014. Clara is married to Dana Ayer, and the couple has a little boy, Carson. She is a well-respected advocate for agriculture, both in Montpelier and Washington, DC.

In addition to her membership in several dairy-related organizations, Clara also promotes dairy to young people, through a ``Life on the Farm'' summer camp, through educational field trips by the local elementary school, and through the formation of a Dairy 4-H Club. As Clara has provided exceptional service to the Vermont dairy community, further described in her well-deserved nomination to the Vermont Agricultural Hall of Fame, I ask unanimous consent that the citation of her nomination be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, on behalf of all Vermonters, I would like to honor Bob Foster of Middlebury, VT, who this month will be inducted into the Vermont Agricultural Hall of Fame in recognition of more than 30 years of outstanding service to Vermont agriculture. For as long as I have served in this body and especially in my work on the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, I have often looked to Bob for input and advice. In addition being a partner in an iconic fifth-generation Vermont dairy, Bob's leadership in Vermont has been extraordinary. During his 37 years of service on the Agri-Mark Dairy Cooperative Board, the co-op has become a critical resource for many Vermont dairy farms and a mainstay of the Vermont economy. Bob is an innovator, taking risks and leading the way in Vermont for bio- digesters and sustainable value-added products and working nationally on renewable energy as an adviser to the 25X25 effort. The extent of his service on local, State, and national leadership teams is exceptional and is further described in his well-deserved nomination to the Vermont Agricultural Hall of Fame, I ask unanimous consent that the nomination be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, on behalf of all Vermonters, I want to honor Beth Kennett of Rochester, VT, who this month will be inducted into the Vermont Agricultural Hall of Fame in recognition of her multifaceted leadership of agriculture in the Green Mountain State. Beth, with her husband, Bob, and their family, have for many years run a multigenerational diversified dairy farm in the White River Valley. I have often looked to Beth for her advice and insights into Vermont agriculture. She has been a strong leader on many fronts, including serving on the USDA Farm Service Agency State Committee, as founding member of the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance, as founding member of the White River Partnership, and especially as a leader in agritourism in Vermont, nationally and internationally.

Beth's induction into the Vermont Agricultural Hall of Fame is well earned, and I ask unanimous consent that her nomination for this honor be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, it is my honor to recognize a true friend of Vermont, State Senator Dick Sears of Bennington, who has been named by FiscalNote as the sixth most productive State senator in the United States.

Senator Sears, who was first elected in 1992, and as cited by FiscalNote, has sponsored 314 bills and has a 60 percent bill passage success rate. This recognition of Senator Sears' effectiveness comes as no surprise in Vermont, where he is respected and is a fixture on the nightly news during the legislative session.

In the Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee, where Senator Sears serves as chair, he has acted courageously on issues including civil rights, marriage equality, human trafficking, and adoption. He himself highlights his work on corrections and criminal justice reform, as well as his successful involvement in the 2010 rewrite of sex offender laws, as major accomplishments; yet he also attributes his success in these important issue areas to teamwork.

In addition to chairing the judiciary committee, Senator Sears also serves on the appropriations committee, the joint fiscal committee, is vice chair of the joint legislative child protection oversight committee, is vice chair of the joint legislative justice committee, and is a member of the legislative committee on judicial rules and the legislative council committee.

Clearly, Senator Sears is a legislator who deserves recognition, yet doesn't seek recognition. In honor of Senator Sears' outstanding accomplishments, I ask that the article by Christie Wisniewski from the July 31 edition of the Bennington Banner, ``Sears ranked 6th in productivity for U.S. state senators,'' be printed into the Record.

Mr. President, on behalf of all Vermonters, I would like to honor Enid Wonnacott of Huntington, VT, who this month will be inducted into the Vermont Agricultural Hall of Fame in recognition of her more than 30 years of agricultural leadership in Vermont and the Nation. Enid became the executive director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, NOFA-VT, in 1987, the same year that I became chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. Enid has been a national leader in advancing the importance of organic agriculture. She provided important technical and advocacy support as I worked on the National Organic Standards Act as part of the 1990 farm bill--which has in turn resulted in making organic agriculture a $60 billion annual industry--with Vermont as a leader. Thirty years later, Enid continues to provide advice on organic agriculture and nutrition issues.

Enid Wonnacott's many accomplishments are presented in detail in her much deserved nomination to the Vermont Agricultural Hall of Fame.

I ask unanimous consent to have the nomination printed in the Record.

Mr. President, an unrelenting government crackdown on the women's rights movement is taking place in Saudi Arabia. This is the subject of a Senate resolution, of which I am an original cosponsor, introduced today by Senator Merkley.

It is widely known that Saudi Arabia has a long history of subjugating and discriminating against women and girls. Today, despite talk of reform, Saudi authorities continue to arbitrarily arrest and detail women's rights activists and supporters, including Samar Badawi, recipient of the 2012 International Women of Courage Award; Nassima al- Sadah, an Eastern Province activist, and Nouf Abdelaziz, an activist and writer, among others.

The latest crackdown, which began in May, has resulted in the arrest of more than a dozen women's rights activists, with many more also barred from traveling abroad.

Many people erroneously equate the recent lifting of the ban on female drivers in Saudi Arabia as indicative of increased government support for women's rights in the country. To the contrary, the government has arrested some of the same women activists who campaigned for the right to drive only a short time ago.

We and others often deplore the arbitrary arrests, denial of fundamental rights and liberties, and execution of prisoners in Iran for ``crimes'' that would be protected speech under international law; yet, we see similar abuses in Saudi Arabia and the systematic persecution of women by Saudi authorities without a commensurate level of international outcry.

Arbitrary arrests of peaceful activists, regardless of cause or country, is not acceptable. Freedom of speech and peaceful dissent are critical underpinnings of human rights activism around the globe and must be consistently defended. Women's rights are human rights.

I urge all Senators to stand up against attacks of fundamental rights and liberties, in all countries and for all people, including those fighting for the rights of women in Saudi Arabia.

Mr. President, I just wanted to applaud what the Senator from Missouri just said. He has had a lot of experience in the other body and here in the Senate. He and I have been here since a time when we actually voted on these bills and got them done.

I note that he has been a tremendous help in getting us this far. For Senator Murray, because of a very necessary absence, I will manage her part of this bill when it is up. She has worked very hard on it. As the Senator from Missouri just said, regarding the vote we had in the Appropriations Committee, keep in mind that appropriations goes across the political spectrum of both parties, and we reported this bill out of the committee with broad bipartisan support. I commend Senator Shelby too.

We are opposed to authorizing legislation on the right or the left, unless there is total agreement with everybody, because we want to get these bills done. We still have to go to conference with the House when they come back in a few weeks. We want to have a solid vote here.

So I thank the Senator from Missouri for the work he has done. We are getting somewhere, and as someone who has been here for a long time, I am rather happy to see that.

I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator for yielding.

Mr. President, I know that Senator Shelby has spoken before and is going to speak again. I also know we are coming up on the time for some votes. Let me speak in my capacity as vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Today, as you know, the Senate begins consideration of the Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies minibus appropriations bill. This will actually be the third appropriations package brought to the Senate floor this year. Once we complete action, the Senate will have passed 9 of the 12 committee- reported appropriations bills for the fiscal year 2019. It is certainly much faster than has been done in years.

I want to thank Chairman Shelby for his commitment to a bipartisan process. That and the fact we have been friends for decades have made this progress possible. I also want to thank Senators Blunt, Murray, and Durbin for their work on these bills--again, a bipartisan effort. I think the bipartisan progress is due to the Shelby-Leahy-McConnell- Schumer commitment to move forward on appropriations bills that have bipartisan support, are at spending levels agreed to in the bipartisan budget deal, and reject poison pill riders and controversial authorizing language. The two bills in this package meet this test.

The minibus before us represents 65 percent of all discretionary spending, but it also demonstrates the importance of the bipartisan budget agreement reached earlier this year. In this package, we see the priorities outlined in that agreement made into real policy to improve the lives of Americans.

It is no secret that the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the resulting sequestration cuts damaged our military readiness, resulting in canceled deployments and deferred maintenance.

It was in July of last year, I remind my fellow Senators, that Secretary Mattis testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee, and he said that ``for all the heartache caused by the loss of our troops during these wars, no enemy in the field has done more to harm the readiness of our military than sequestration.''

But damage to our military readiness was not the only consequence of the Budget Control Act. Sequestration has led to schools that fail to prepare students for a challenging world, a steep decline in Federal investment for job training and employment services, healthcare crises left unaddressed, and childcare services eroded.

In fact, when thinking of the defense budget, it was reported in 2017 that 7 out of 10 people--7 out of 10--ages 17 to 24 in America would not qualify for military service because of reasons related to their physical health or education. That means that 24 million out of 34 million young adults are ineligible due to obesity and other health problems or criminal backgrounds or lack of education.

Now, if you want to talk about national security, that strikes at it. This statistic should make it alarmingly clear that investments in our domestic priorities, such as healthcare and education, are also national security investments, and the military agrees with that. That is why we fought so hard for a budget deal to reverse the cuts on both defense and nondefense programs.

But now we have reached a bipartisan budget deal, and because of it, the defense appropriations bill before us gives the men and women of our Armed Services the resources they need to carry out the missions effectively and safely. That is a goal that both Republicans and Democrats have shared throughout this process.

The LHHS bill makes important new investments in healthcare and education. It increases funding for the National Institutes of Health by $5 billion over fiscal year 2017 so they can aggressively pursue cures for diseases like cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's. It backs our commitment to increase access to higher education by increasing college affordability spending by $2.3 billion over fiscal year 2017. By increasing access to childcare by $3.2 billion over fiscal year 2017, it supports working families and communities in every part of our country.

In doing this, we have rejected the President's shortsighted budget proposals, which would have cut important programs in the LHHS bill by $12.5 billion from fiscal year 2018 funding level.

Now, we take into consideration our immediate national security needs, but you can't just stop there, you have to think about the future of the country. The deep ties that run between defense and nondefense priorities make it fitting that we take up these two bills together, and I applaud the chairman for doing that. By combining these bills into one package, we increase the certainty that they will be enacted into law on time and will avoid the devastating effect of long- term continuing resolutions.

I urge our House counterparts, when they come back to Washington, to commit, as we have, to producing a conference report that contains both bills so that we can move swiftly toward final passage.

Finally, I wish to highlight the new funding in this bill that helps our country address the scourge of opioids.

Every Member in this Chamber has seen the toll this epidemic has taken on their States. In 2017, 72,000 people--a 10-percent increase over 2016--lost their lives to drug overdoses in the opioid epidemic. In that 1 year, more lives were lost than in the entirety of the Vietnam War. Just think of that: 72,000 people in the opioid scourge.

Now, I know Marcelle and I hear frequently from Vermonters recovering from opioid abuse, but we also hear in the grocery stores, at our church, or on the streets of Vermont from families talking about a member who did not recover and talking about their funeral.

Marcelle is a nurse, and I am a former prosecutor.

Some of these tales have brought us to tears because these are men and women with the same hopes and dreams shared by all Americans. That is why I say that mothers and fathers see us and say: We want to talk to you. They have tears streaming from their eyes. We know what we are going to hear--that they have lost children to this epidemic.

This has touched the lives of every American: Black, White, rich, poor, urban, and rural. It is an American problem. It affects all of us. This package represents a second installment in investing in serious solutions.

We invest $3 billion in new resources over fiscal year 2017 to address this crisis. This is on top of roughly $500 million in additional funding contained in other appropriations bills and similar funding levels in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus. But it is because of the bipartisan budget deal that these new investments will surpass $6 billion over 2 years.

Of course there is more we can do to help those Americans who are trying to pull themselves out of addiction and turn their lives around or to keep their children alive, but this is a good start. I think it is a start the American people can be proud of. It is not a Democratic plan, and it is not a Republican plan. It is an American plan, and that should unite us all.

Mr. President, I see my dear friend from Alabama, the distinguished chairman, on the floor, and I yield to him.