Floor Statements

Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to remember a remarkable Vermonter, Tim O'Connor, who passed away last week.

For those of us who knew him, Tim was unforgettable. He had a terrific sense of humor, especially when it involved the Irish. Marcelle and I have been friends with Tim and his wife, Martha, since I was a young lawyer starting my practice. We fondly remember meals at their home and how they cared for us and our children as I was first running for Senate.

Tim loved Vermont and was committed to making a difference, both in Brattleboro and statewide. He set an example for the importance of public service, serving in positions as humble as town moderator, to those as important as speaker of the Vermont State House. He served as a Democrat in the Vermont House of Representatives from 1969 to 1981. Throughout his career, Tim embodied bipartisanship above all else, reaching across the aisle to put Vermonters first. In what surely sounds like a fairytale in this hyperpartisan era, when Tim served as speaker of the house, Republicans controlled the chamber.

The only thing that Tim loved more than our State was his family. Marcelle and I have them in our hearts, and our prayers go out to Martha, Kerry, Kate, and Kevin. I called Martha to tell her how I will miss him, but that I will look, every day, at the walking stick Tim brought me from Ireland.

I ask unanimous consent that Bob Audette's article in the Brattleboro Reformer be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I see the distinguished Senator from Alaska on the floor. I will not be long, as I noted to him. I am speaking in my capacity as the Democratic manager of the legislation before us.

I think--like most of us and most people in the country--we are frustrated by what is happening, because I have only heard one person say they want a government shutdown, and he got exactly what he wanted. It was President Trump who said the country could ``use a good shutdown.'' President Trump said a shutdown would be ``good'' for him politically. It was President Trump who tweeted yesterday that the shutdown was a ``nice present'' to himself.

Well, the United States of America is not designed to give presents to the President. We expect Presidents to do what is best for the country, not for themselves.

The best for the country would be not to have a shutdown. People are suffering under the Trump shutdown. For him to call it a ``nice present'' to himself escapes reality.

In fact, as he rubbed shoulders with the superwealthy at his father's fundraiser last night, the President's son said a shutdown is ``a good thing for us politically.'' It is hard to make up this kind of detachment from our country.

I want to make one thing very clear to President Trump, there is no such thing as a good government shutdown. It is not a good thing that today medical research is ground to a halt. It is not a good thing that families in Vermont or New Hampshire who are trying to help their loved ones overcome opioid addiction cannot access the resources they need. It is not a good thing that readiness training exercises for our military were canceled this weekend.

The President apparently is thinking of himself and playing the politics of fear and obstruction. In fact, he was actually prepared for it. One would think he was hoping for it. Yesterday morning, the first day of the Trump shutdown, the President's campaign posted a video that was nothing short of racist fearmongering. Propaganda meant to scare the American people has no place in our democracy.

Instead of playing the politics of fear, the President should be leading and working with us to reach a bipartisan deal and a path forward. That could be done if the President really wanted to lead instead of talking about what is a good political present for himself. I think he knows this.

In 2013, when talking about the government shutdown at that time, he said the President has ``got to get everybody in the room and he's got to lead,'' but so far the President and Republican leadership continue to lock Democrats out of the negotiations. When they do that, they exclude the voices of half the American people.

This morning, the President even said the Senate should change its rules to permanently exclude the input of the minority party. Well, I have been here many times in the majority and many times in the minority. I can't think of Republicans or Democrats who want to take that chance because someday the shoe is always on the other foot.

That is why I was so proud to be asked by Senator Bob Dole--one of the great leaders of this Senate, a Republican leader--to speak on his behalf at the Gold Medal presentation this past week. He knew both sides have to work together.

I have long said the Senate can be the conscience of the Nation. It can be the conscience of the Nation precisely because it forces bipartisan compromise. It forces the inclusion of views from across the political spectrum, because its Members--and I include the Republican leader, the majority leader today--have a deep respect for this institution. They are not going to take a sledgehammer to the Senate.

It is the majority's responsibility to produce a bill to send to the President. They didn't get 60 votes because they had not negotiated with Democrats. Republican leadership presented the Senate with a bill that was produced behind closed doors, with no involvement from the Democrats, and, I suspect, no involvement from many of their own party. They allowed no amendments. That is a recipe for failure, and that failure and the President's inability to keep his word put us here.

The Republican Party controls the House, the Senate, and the White House, and it is their job to govern and to lead. It is their job to reach out to us and come up with a compromise. In my 43 years here, I have been in so many of these compromises with people across the political spectrum, where no one gets everything they want, but the country was far better off.

The President promised to treat DACA recipients with ``great heart.'' Instead, he is holding our Nation's Dreamers hostage to a rightwing, anti-

immigration agenda. He rejected a bipartisan deal--actually, the bipartisan DACA deal with Senators Graham and Durbin and others from both parties--specifically drafted to meet what the President said were his demands.

In the wake of his heartless decision to end DACA, nearly 122 Dreamers lose status every day--122 yesterday, 122 today, 122 more tomorrow. The Trump administration has acknowledged to Congress that implementing any Dream legislation will take up to 6 months, during which tens of thousands more Dreamers could lose their status, like the young who is excelling in medical school. In an interview, he said he worries about a knock on the door, and he may have to leave. The irony is, there are a whole lot of other countries that would like to have him, even though he is in an area where we have a shortage of doctors.

We know on March 5, hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients will lose their status because of President Trump's actions. Republicans argue there is no urgency to provide protections to Dreamers. It couldn't be further from the truth. Since President Trump decided to revoke their protective status, these hundreds of thousands of Dreamers have had to live with fear and anxiety every day. No urgency? I tell you right now, if this were part of my family, I would feel the urgency, not every hour but every minute, every second.

We are here because we had 113 days to do this. The can got kicked down the road on the basic responsibility of Congress to fund the Federal Government. Republican leadership failed to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program and failed to advance legislation to protect the Dreamers.

For 113 days, Democrats supported three continuing resolutions. I voted for a critical one of those, but we had the promise from the Republicans that they needed a little more time to reach a bipartisan deal. The time they said they needed is long gone. We voted for a continuing resolution in September to provide for time. We voted for a second continuing resolution in early December to provide more time. We voted for a third continuing resolution in late December to keep the talks going. How will it be different if we vote for another 4 weeks?

We have all the pieces to reach a bipartisan path forward. All we have to do is say yes. Let's do our job. We want to raise budget caps set in place by the Budget Control Act. We want to stop the devastating consequences of sequestration on both defense and nondefense legislation. We want to take care of the bipartisan Children's Health Insurance Program. We want to extend community health centers, and we actually have a bipartisan agreement to protect the Dreamers. Let's not kick the can down the road.

If we pass another continuing resolution without a bipartisan agreement, we only drive further into the fiscal year without doing our jobs, and the American public, Republicans and Democrats alike, will know that.

Even if we did reach an agreement at the end of the next continuing resolution, we would still need another month to write the appropriations bills, which could bring us halfway into the fiscal year. As vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, we are ready to start moving on those bills the second we have an agreement because we can't govern by continuing resolution. Our military cannot function under a continuing resolution and under the burden of sequestration.

We Democrats have been ready, willing, and asking to negotiate bipartisan deals since June. We need to reach a deal on a long-term path forward. We need to have the courage to reach that deal now.

I see my friend from Alaska on the floor

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate what the Senator from Illinois, my dear friend, just said. It is interesting when we deal with substance and not sound bites.

I used to worry when I was first here and I would hear some of my very senior colleagues--they were all senior to me; I was the most junior Member of the Senate--talk about when this, that, and the other thing happened. I came here with President Ford was the President. I served with President Carter, President Reagan, President George H.W. Bush, President Clinton, President George W. Bush, President Obama, and now, of course, President Trump.

Every one of these Presidents were different, but when we got in times like this, they believed in substance and not sound bites. Every one of them would reach a point where Republicans and Democrats could sit down and reach an agreement knowing, whether it was a Republican President or Democratic President, they would keep their word and the Members would keep theirs.

I was honored to be asked to speak at the Gold Medal presentation to Senator Bob Dole the other day. Senator Dole was a Republican leader and the Republican majority leader, one of the finest Senators I ever served with--this, from a liberal Democrat from New England--because he always kept his word, because he always brought both Republicans and Democrats together, because he knew we would keep our word.

Frankly, as I spoke those words at his Gold Medal presentation, I thought: Can't we go back to those days? Can't we have a time when our leaders come together and the Members across the aisle come together and then vote? The Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, said: Let's have votes.

Yes, we passed most of the appropriations bills out of committee in the past year, but we want time to bring them up on the floor. There will be amendments I will not like, there will be amendments I will like, but we will get to vote on them. Vote yes or vote no. That is what we should do.

Months ago, when President Donald Trump called for a government shutdown, I thought, when I first heard that, it couldn't be. Then I saw what he said: ``Our country needs a good shutdown.'' Well, through his leadership and chaos and inability to govern or keep his word, he got exactly what he wanted.

I would tell him, after 43 years' experience in this body, there is no such thing as a good shutdown. It hurts our Nation, it hurts our reputation around the world, it hurts our military, it hurts our civilian population, it hurts our businesspeople, it hurts our educators, and it hurts those who are seeking cures for every kind of disease there is.

Now, I know it is the majority--and the majority is, of course, the Republicans who control the White House, the House, and the Senate. It is their responsibility to produce a bill to send to the President. If they can't get 60 votes because they refuse to negotiate with Democrats, well, that is their responsibility. All they needed was nine

Democrats. They couldn't get it done. In fact, they lost four of their own Members. They could not get it done because Republicans shut Democrats out of their closed-door meetings. They disenfranchised more than half the American people. They only appealed for our support after they had written a bill without our input. Let me tell you, after my years of experience under Democratic and Republican leadership and Democratic and Republican Presidents, that is not the way to do it.

On the first day of this Trump shutdown, the anniversary of his inauguration, we are 112 days into the fiscal year. For 112 days, the leadership has told us they just need more time to negotiate a bipartisan deal. I have yet to see the negotiations. I have yet to see the deal.

They spent that time pursuing a hyper-partisan agenda over the last year. They stripped healthcare from millions of Americans. They rolled back commonsense regulations. They passed a tax bill for big corporations and the superwealthy on the backs of middle-class working people. This was not time spent negotiating in good faith on the budget, or the Children's Health Insurance Program, or for veterans, or for community health centers, or for Dreamers or for a comprehensive disaster relief package to address the disasters that have gone across our country in the past year.

Now, last night they said let's have another month to negotiate. Come on, we are 112 days into the fiscal year, and now they want another month into the fiscal year--another month of not addressing the consequences of sequestration by reaching a bipartisan deal to increase the spending on our military and invest in our communities. Another month where we fail to adequately take care of our veterans.

Our military leaders agree, we cannot govern by a continuing resolution. The military cannot function under sequestration, and I agree with them because we need a budget deal.

I admire Defense Secretary General Mattis. He said, ``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.''

Last night, I could not, in good conscience, support another continuing resolution without even the promise of a bipartisan deal.

Democrats have been ready and willing and asking to negotiate since June, just as we did in April, to get the budget passed. In July, I offered a path forward that would have raised the budget cap set in place by the Budget Control Act. My plan would have increased spending for our military by $54 billion and increased investments in our domestic priorities by $54 billion. Parity has always been the path forward. It allows us to both strengthen our military but also invest in our infrastructure, improve our education, combat the opioid epidemic, and address the needs of our veterans. These are bipartisan priorities.

I know from my friends in both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, we share--we share--these goals. But now, for 112 days, the Republican leadership has kicked the can down the road and cast aside the basic responsibility of Congress to fund the government.

They gave us this government shutdown. They followed what Donald Trump said in asking for a good shutdown, even though anybody who has had any experience in government knows there is no such thing, as the President has said, as ``a good government shutdown.'' This was done under the careening leadership and chaos of the President.

He said he was for extending CHIP in the House bill, and then he was against it. He said he would sign any bipartisan deal we brought to his desk to protect the Dreamers and increase border security. Then, through a bipartisan deal, Republicans and Democrats came and did exactly what he asked for, and he scoffed at it. Now, that is not steady-as-he-goes leadership.

If we can't take the word of the President, when we know he is only one tweet away from changing his mind, why should we trust him when he says he will take care of our veterans or get serious about the opioid epidemic? Why would we take his word when he says he wants to protect the Dreamers?

After promising to treat DACA recipients with great heart, President Trump and the Republicans instead held our Nation's Dreamers hostage. They caved to the xenophobic voices within their party. President Trump rejected a bipartisan deal--the only bipartisan DACA deal--which Senators Graham, Durbin, and others specifically crafted to meet his demand.

As we speak, 122 Dreamers lose their status every day; that is, yesterday on Friday; that is, today on Saturday; and that is tomorrow on Sunday. We know, on March 5, hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients will begin to lose their status due to President Trump's actions.

Republicans now argue there is no urgency to provide protection for Dreamers. I wish you would sit with one of these families and listen to them. They are people who are pursuing great educations. They are pillars of our communities and taxpayers. Ask them if there is any urgency, when you have a medical student about to graduate from medical school and he worries that he will hear [knocking] at the door.

Well, in light of the decision to end DACA, 122 Dreamers lose their status every day, and the administration has acknowledged to Congress that implementing any Dream legislation would take up to 6 months, during which tens of thousands more could lose their status. No urgency? If that were my family, I would feel the urgency every minute of the day and night.

Since President Trump decided to revoke the protected status, hundreds of thousands of Dreamers have had to live with fear and anxiety every day their status has not been resolved. Imagine how they feel when they see the President's views seem to change constantly, almost daily. Talk about causing whiplash.

Dreamers have no reason to believe President Trump would not prioritize them for deportation. The fact is, the administration has asked the Supreme Court to immediately nullify a district court decision--immediately nullify it--to protect DACA recipients, and they seem to have no sense of enforcement priorities. They detained a 10- year-old Texas girl with cerebral palsy. They deported a Michigan father, with no criminal record, who came to this country as a child 30 years ago, paid his taxes and obeyed the law.

Even the majority leader, to his credit, is uncertain of what the President wants for Dreamers, or for any path forward for that matter. The majority leader, the Republican leader, said earlier this week, ``As soon as we figure out what he is for, then I would be convinced that we were not just spinning our wheels.'' I have never heard a comment like that in 43 years in the Senate.

We are spinning our wheels with a Trump shutdown. We are spinning our wheels because the leadership waited for guidance from the President, unfortunately, instead of doing their jobs working with us, sending a bipartisan deal to his desk.

We are spinning our wheels because President Trump--I will give him at least credit for this--is very straightforward. He repeatedly called for a government shutdown. He is probably the only person in the government ever who has been foolish enough to do that, but he got exactly what he wanted, a government shutdown.

So, today, medical research has ground to a halt. Today, in Vermont and across the Nation, hundreds of thousands of Federal workers are furloughed through no fault of their own. In Vermont and across the Nation, every additional hour of a Trump shutdown deals another blow to the men and women trying to recover from opioid addiction. Every hour, the burden of the Trump shutdown should weigh heavier on the President's shoulders because there is only one person in this country who wanted this shutdown; that is, President Trump.

The Trump shutdown is not and was not necessary. We have always had the pieces. Everybody--Republicans and Democrats--want to raise the budget caps set in place by the Budget Control Act. We want to stop the devastating consequence of sequestration. We want to take care of the bipartisan Children's Health Insurance Program. We have a bipartisan agreement to protect the Dreamers.

We have all the pieces. Let's put them together. Let's show the honesty and the courage to do our jobs.

I see other Senators on the floor wishing to speak.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, to paraphrase a Republican President I enjoyed knowing, here we go again.

In 1995 Republicans shut down our government. They wanted to recklessly cut education programs and environmental programs, and they even wanted to raise Medicare premiums on millions of senior citizens, and they were willing to shut down the government to do it.

Of course, more recently in 2013, Republicans once again sought to strip the healthcare of millions of Americans. They wanted to shut down the government in a failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Actually, that is an effort they continued this summer instead of negotiating a bipartisan budget deal that could have averted the situation we find ourselves in today.

In 2015 Republicans continued their attack on healthcare by bringing us to the brink of yet another government shutdown in an attempt to defund Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is the source of healthcare to millions of Americans in rural America. Millions of American women, men, and young people--certainly, tens of thousands of Vermonters in my little State--trust and depend on Planned Parenthood for their basic healthcare needs, including annual health exams, cervical and breast cancer screening, and HIV screenings--terrible that they might provide that care to Americans.

They tried to shut down the government because of it. It was also in 2015 that the Republicans began their attack on Dreamers. They attempted to shut down the entire Department of Homeland Security, which protects our skies, our borders, and everything else, and they were risking our national security because they wanted to block DACA, the Dreamers bill.

If these were just talking points and political ploys, it would be one thing, but they have real consequences.

The 2013 Republican shutdown dealt a devastating blow to economic growth amounting to $1.5 billion per day. For a State the size of Vermont, $1.5 billion is a lot of money. It was an estimated $1.5 billion for each of the days of the shutdown, and there were 16 of those days. That is economic growth we lost that we never get back. Hundreds of thousands of Federal workers were furloughed through no fault of their own for a combined total of 6.6 million days. Lifesaving research on cancer, on diabetes, on heart conditions ground to a halt. The doors and fences of our iconic national parks and monuments that Americans have always relied on to go and see were shuttered.

Now, in 2018, President Trump wants to shut down the government over a cynical and misbegotten ``big, beautiful wall.'' And he wants that ``big, beautiful wall''--whatever it might be--to be paid for by U.S. taxpayers, not Mexico. He is using the Dreamers as negotiable commodities, as though they are some kind of money, instead of people, to meet his unreasonable demands to spend $18 billion on last century's technology. President Trump is making these demands after he promised taxpayers it wouldn't cost us a cent because Mexico would pay for it. Well, if he really believes that, open a bank account, and let Mexico send the money. When they send the money, we will build the wall. I mean, be serious. He said they will build it. Now he wants the American taxpayers--who are strapped on so many things--to build last century's technology. Let Mexico send us the money. When they do, we will build it. If he is telling the truth, they will send it. If he is not telling the truth, of course, they will not.

But he is also just continuing the Republican tradition of being the ``shutdown party.'' We have some very responsible Republicans and Democrats in the House and the Senate. I have not heard a single one of them say we need a good government shutdown. I take it back. One Republican has: Donald Trump. Donald Trump has said that our country needs ``a good shutdown.'' That is the only person, Republican or Democrat, I have heard say that they want a shutdown.

I wonder if that is what he has asked his own party to angle for--a manufactured crisis to distract from the fact that they are not doing their job. I can say, as the vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I know the Democrats have been ready and willing to negotiate a spending agreement since last June. Instead of working toward that goal, congressional Republican leadership has spent the last year overturning consumer protections. They stripped healthcare from millions of Americans. They passed a massive tax cut for big corporations and wealthy Americans, paid for by middle-class Americans and future generations because it adds trillions to the deficit. But during that time, they continued to kick the can down the road.

They have failed to do their jobs to pass sensible spending bills to keep our government open. They have cast aside Congress's fundamental responsibilities in pursuit of a hyperpartisan agenda. As a result, we haven't reached a bipartisan budget deal that would allow us to strengthen our military--something both Republicans and Democrats want. We haven't reached a bipartisan budget deal to allow us to invest in our communities--something I believe both Republicans and Democrats want.

We all agree that the consequences of sequestration have been devastating. We have to lift the spending caps set into law by the Budget Control Act. Every Republican and Democrat I talked with has said they do, but we have to invest equally in our military and our communities because our national security is intrinsically linked to the investments we make in our communities. We are the greatest country in the world exactly because we make a commitment to invest in education and infrastructure. If we back off of that commitment, we are no longer great. We aim to provide the necessary resources to combat the opioid epidemic, and we strive to ensure that no child goes to school hungry, but if we don't have defense and nondefense parity in spending, we can't achieve these goals.

We have not passed a comprehensive disaster relief package that takes into consideration the unique needs of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. These are American citizens. They have been living without power and without access to clean drinking water, and communities, devastated by natural disasters for months, are without adequate help from their own country--the U.S. Government--and people are dying.

The Dreamers, who are American citizens in every way but on paper, have been thrown into crisis, a crisis of President Trump's own making, a crisis that threatens to tear them from the only lives they have ever known. Remember, the President is solely responsible--not Members here on this floor--for creating this untenable situation faced by the Dreamers. The President, all by himself--actually he is a party of one--rescinded the DACA policy.

Now we have a path forward, put together by Republicans and Democrats, which meets the requirements the President laid out himself. But instead he continues to favor governing by chaos. He continues to move the goal posts. He continues to push the agreement further out of reach. He continues to say that our country needs a good shutdown. So much for the ``Art of the Deal.'' I would never hire someone to make a deal like that.

The latest effort to kick the can down the road, which Republicans passed out of the House this evening, does not address any of these issues. Its attempt to address the needs of the Children's Health Insurance Program is public relations, but it is inadequate, and based on the President's own twitter feed--which I get dizzy trying to follow--goes in and out of favor with the President hourly. Why does the bill extend CHIP for 6 years when extending this bipartisan program for 10 years would actually save the taxpayers $6 billion? Why are community health centers--which millions of Americans and CHIP recipients depend upon for their primary care--not extended? Why don't we protect Americans and our taxpayers? Most importantly, why was this program allowed to expire and to be used as a negotiating part in the first place?

Republican leadership, led by the President, has brought us to the brink of a government shutdown. I have been here a long time. I have looked at a lot of good legislation and bad legislation. I do not want to say the most terrible thing possible about the House bill because I know the respect we show back and forth. But the House bill is a joke and does not have my support. It leaves too much in doubt. What it attempts to address is woefully inadequate.

The majority now wants bipartisan support. Why not do as we always used to and work with Democrats, instead of appealing for our support only after they have written a mishmash, laughable bill crafted behind closed doors?

I have been here over 40 years. I understand reality. Republicans control the House; Republicans control the Senate; Republicans control the Presidency. If Republicans want the government to stay open, it will stay open. If Republicans want the government to shut down, it will shut it down. I wish they would stop kicking the can down the road and start negotiating in good faith, as so many Senators in both parties have been willing to.

It is time to stop kicking the can down the road and time to start negotiating in good faith. Keep our government open, and show respect to those who live here in this country who consider themselves Americans.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I find myself in strong agreement with the comments of the senior Senator from New York State.

He talked about 702. Let me refer to that a bit. Section 702 is in S. 139, the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017. We are going to vote very soon on whether to cut off debate and block any amendments on a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation that fails to reform one of our most important surveillance tools.

Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act was intended to provide for vast and powerful surveillance of foreigners overseas who might do harm to us, and it does, but the fact that it is an effective surveillance tool used against foreigners abroad is not the concern you will hear about today.

Today, you are going to hear concern that Section 702 has also become an unexpected and powerful domestic surveillance tool--not one directed at those abroad who might do us harm, but potentially directed at every single American in this room and throughout this country, allowing the government to search for Americans' emails and other substantive communications without a warrant--the so-called backdoor loophole.

If we put through here legislation saying- this legislation will allow our government to search all our emails without a warrant, Republicans and Democrats will be jumping up saying: Wait a minute. That violates the Fourth Amendment.

Well, the legislation we are voting on today--authored by the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes--contains what his supporters portray as a fig leaf of reform, but, in fact, the legislation makes a bad problem even worse.

I will oppose cutting off debate on this bill, and I strongly urge my fellow Senators to do the same--not to kill the bill but to afford us, on such a critical surveillance tool, the opportunity to debate the constitutional implications and offer amendments to improve the bill and to protect Americans in every single State in this country. The Majority Leader has provided no such opportunity. He doesn't want us to offer any amendments--even amendments we know could pass with a bipartisan majority.

Senator Lee and I are filing several amendments to improve this bill, including our USA Liberty Act. That is a Senate companion to a bill that was reported out of the House Judiciary Committee in a strong and very bipartisan vote. Our amendment offers a sensible compromise. It would protect national security--something we all want to do--but it also protects American civil liberties, which I would hope we also want to do.

I strongly support a warrant requirement based on Senator Feinstein's amendment in the Senate Intelligence Committee that would close the backdoor loophole. These amendments, and others offered by Senators Paul and Wyden and others, deserve a vote. And that is what I am asking for today. Senator Lee and Senator Paul have spoken so strongly on the problems in this. They ought to be heard. They ought to have a chance to offer amendments.

Instead, the only bill we are voting on today is the House bill, which fails to comply with the fundamental constitutional imperative. I think we can do better in the Senate than to accept a flawed House bill. Do not be deceived by the sham warrant contained in the Nunes bill. Again, that is why we should have a Senate bill that speaks to those things we know as Senators and not the flawed warrant in the Nunes bill.

Its exemptions are so large as to render it meaningless. The bill would require a warrant only during the final stage of a criminal investigation and only when the government believes national security or risk to life or bodily harm are not implicated at some undefined point in time. In all other cases, and at previous points in an investigation, the government can search for an American's information in the Section 702 database just as frequently and casually as we might look up football scores on Google.

Yet, even if it is completely ineffectual, the Nunes bill has a warrant requirement. That means the sponsors of this flawed legislation acknowledge that some sort of warrant is required to protect Americans' privacy. They recognize that a search through a vast database of Americans' communications can trigger Fourth Amendment protections, at least when it is convenient to the government.

The problem is, the Constitution doesn't say: We protect Americans' rights only if it is convenient to the government. The reason they wrote the Constitution is to make sure every one of us has protections against the government.

When a Fourth Amendment interest is implicated, the government can easily obtain a warrant. They are going to come search your home. They are going to come search your files. They are going to come and search your papers. They should have to have a warrant. The Fourth Amendment either applies or it does not. If it does not, then let's have a constitutional amendment and do away with it. Nobody here would vote for that.

Even the sponsors of the Nunes bill now agree the Fourth Amendment applies. The only question is whether we have a real warrant requirement or a warrant in name only. Simply calling something a warrant doesn't make it that.

I firmly believe a real warrant requirement doesn't have to put our national security at risk. The reform proposals I support contain well- tried exemptions for exigent circumstances to allow for emergencies. For these reasons and others, I strongly support a warrant requirement to close the backdoor loophole. I think my fellow Senators, Republicans and Democrats, ought to be allowed to at least have a vote on it. If they don't, I would urge my colleagues of the Senate to vote no on invoking cloture on the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act.

Section 702 authorities can be temporarily extended as they were in December. In fact, the FISA Court's statutorily authorized certifications that permit 702 surveillance don't expire until the end of April. There is no emergency now. We still have the time and the ability to get this right.

Let's protect the Constitution. Let's protect Americans. The Majority Leader should do his part and allow members of both sides of the aisle who care deeply about this issue to offer amendments before any long- term authorization. I agree Section 702 is an important tool, but this issue is too important to rush through without adequate debate. I firmly believe we can both protect our national security and the civil liberties of law-abiding Americans. This bill clearly falls short, and I will be voting no.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, just last week we began the second session of the 115th Congress. We are now safely into 2018, and we should be talking about what we can accomplish for the American people in the new year. We simply face a long list of unfinished business from 2017--last year--and, unfortunately, we have a very short window in which to get it done.

We are 4 months into fiscal year 2018, and we still don't have a budget deal. I am vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee. We should have had this done long before now. Our agencies are operating under last year's funding levels. They have little flexibility to handle the problems they face today.

We still haven't reauthorized the Children's Health Insurance Program, what we call CHIP, so that puts the healthcare of 9 million children at risk. These are American children.

Nearly 800,000 Dreamers live under uncertainty and fear of deportation, living in the country they have known most of their lives. I don't know how anybody, Republican or Democrat, could call this acceptable.

Now, I know the Republicans control the House, they control the Senate, and they control the White House. They are in charge. They have to show responsibility and show leadership on these issues, but instead of addressing these issues, last year the Republican leadership spent time rolling back sensible regulations designed to protect the American consumer, designed to protect our environment, and designed to protect people from harassment in the workplace. They rolled those all back, and then they passed a massive tax cut for big corporations and the wealthiest of Americans.

We Democrats have been calling for bipartisan budget talks since June--7 months ago. We have passed three continuing resolutions since September of last year to give us more time to strike a deal on the budget and Dreamers and CHIP and disaster funding. These are just to name a few, but they are enormously important to the people who are experiencing the disasters or who have children who need healthcare or who are Dreamers. Yet, on the 102nd day of the fiscal year, there are only 9 days until the next fiscal cliff, and we don't have a budget deal.

President Trump said months ago that the country could use a good government shutdown. I don't agree with

him, but I am beginning to think that is exactly what his party is angling for--a manufactured crisis to distract from the fact that they are not doing their job.

The Washington Post seemed to confirm this last December, when it reported the President privately told people that a government shutdown would be good for him politically. In all of my years in the Senate--I have been here under Republican and Democratic Presidents alike--I have never heard such damaging rhetoric come from the President of the United States.

Nobody wants a government shutdown--nobody. It is devastating to people not only throughout the government but to people throughout the whole country. However, that seems to be what they are vying for.

For months, I have been calling for a bipartisan budget deal that is based on parity--equal increases for defense and nondefense programs-- that would provide relief from sequestration. I agree with the Republicans and Democrats who say military readiness has suffered under sequestration but so has our Nation's economy, so has our educational system, so has our infrastructure, and so has our care for our veterans.

If we want to combat the problems caused by sequestration, we have to raise the caps on both sides of the ledger. Fixing one side of the equation will not address the needs of our Nation and, even worse, will actually shortchange our military.

If we don't invest in our economy, if we don't invest in the education of our youth, the military will not have expert, qualified soldiers, the men and women on whom they rely. If we don't invest in our diplomacy, our Nation and the world become less safe. If we don't improve our cyber security defenses and our physical infrastructure, we become soft targets for those who would do us harm, both in this country and outside this country. If we don't care for our veterans, we are not going to have young men and women who are willing to serve.

This week, the majority leader came to the floor making the case for increased defense spending. He asked us to listen to our nonpartisan military leaders about what they think is needed to keep this country safe. I couldn't agree more.

To that end, I have two letters signed by a combined 560 retired admirals, generals, and other former military members. I ask unanimous consent to have these letters printed in the Record following my remarks.

I have no idea what these admirals', generals', and others' political parties are, but they make the case that we have to increase our investment in domestic priorities--including education and childcare, as well as diplomacy--if we are going to keep our country safe and support our military. Secretary of Defense Mattis said even more bluntly: If we do not fully fund the State Department, we should be prepared to buy more ammunition for our military.

The wisdom of our military leaders notwithstanding, Republicans appear to be dug in. They claim equal increases for both defense and nondefense programs would add too much to our deficit and burden our children. It is one over the other. It is hard to have somebody say that with a straight face in the wake of the President signing a tax bill to add $1.5 trillion to our Nation's debt and to benefit primarily large corporations and the wealthiest Americans. You can't make the argument that we can't afford to take care of our domestic needs. It is simply not credible.

Budget negotiations are not the only place where Republicans haven't engaged in a productive way. President Trump's decision to end the DACA Program has put nearly 800,000 Dreamers in this country in an untenable position. The decision was as cruel as it was senseless. It may make a tweet that people look at, but if you are one of those Dreamers and you are on your way to school and are expecting a scholarship to college and you don't know if you are going to be in this country tomorrow, that is not a tweet.

The President should have worked with Congress. He should have found a permanent legislative solution while keeping DACA protections in place. I believe he terminated the program under false pretenses, yielding to xenophobic voices in his administration, and last night a Federal judge issued an order that said just that: Terminating DACA was not required under the law--far from it. But a court order that only temporarily halts the administration from dismantling DACA provides little comfort to Dreamers. They live each and every day uncertain of the future and with fear of deportation.

Now, I have heard Members of the Senate trying to decide at what time we are going to finish voting for the week. Their big fear is this: Are we going to make our flight home?

Dreamers have to worry if their flight is going to be out of this country and back to a country they don't even know. They worry if they will have to leave the country they know and love.

Dreamers are Americans in every way, except on paper. They were brought here as children, through no fault of their own. They are law- abiding members of our community. They attend school. They serve as doctors and teachers. They defend our homeland as brave men and women in uniform.

This is a crisis of the President's own making. Now, Congress needs to pick up the pieces. I hope, after the meeting yesterday, we will be allowed to pick up the pieces. We have spent months trying to find a path forward, but you can't find one if the administration keeps moving the goalposts.

We need to address the fate of the Dreamers now. You can take a poll in this country. The American people want us to. Also, look at the broad bipartisan support on display yesterday at the White House. Republicans and Democrats want to fix the mess that the President created. A solution should be within our grasp.

The White House has made unreasonable demands, such as $18 billion of American tax dollars to build a wall on the southern border, in exchange for Dreamers. The $18 billion wall is last century's solution. It does nothing for this century.

If they really believe Mexico is going to pay for it, I have a solution. Open a bank account and, as Mexico sends us money, then use it to build a wall. Don't ask the American taxpayers, who are strapped at home, to pay for something the President says the Mexicans will pay for. Open an account, find out if they are telling the truth, let the money come into the account, and then build it.

But, worse, don't use the Dreamers as negotiable commodities. They are not commodities. They are human beings. They are people who deserve to have their dreams. Let's pass a bill--we could do it this week-- protecting Dreamers now. Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. This is their government.

We have a week and a half before the next continuing resolution expires. We have a lot to do. Let's get serious. Let's get to work. I am willing to work here every day, every night, right through the weekend. Let's get it done. We are not doing it for us. We are doing it for all the American people. Let's do it for all the American people-- not for special interests, not for one party. Let's do it for all the American people. It could be done, if we want to.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, my colleague from Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders, wrote what I feel was a terrific op-ed about why we should not and do not need to close down the government, why we can do our work and why we should, and that people rely on us, too.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the op-ed be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, according to Landmine Monitor, which is the world's best source of data on the production, use, export, stockpiling, and clearance of landmines, cluster munitions, and other unexploded ordnance, 2016 was a terrible year for casualties caused by mines and other UXO.

In 2016, the Monitor recorded 8,605 casualties, of which at least 2,089 people were fatalities. That is the highest number since 1999, and it includes the most casualties of children ever recorded. Civilians represented 78 percent of recorded casualties in 2016. There are still 61 countries that are known to be contaminated with landmines.

On the positive side, approximately 232,000 landmines were destroyed in 2016, and 66 square miles of land were cleared of mines and other UXO. International donors and UXO affected countries increased support in 2016 for UXO clearance programs by $40 million above the previous year to $564.5 million. The United States was, like previous years, by far the largest donor.

It is also encouraging that, since March 1, 1999, when the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines came into force, 163 countries have joined. That is an extraordinary achievement for a treaty that owes its existence to the vision and perseverance of hundreds of advocacy, human rights, arms control, humanitarian organizations, and journalists, around the world, and the leadership of former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy; yet despite this progress and substantial declining in the past few years, the number of innocent people maimed and killed by mines has steadily increased.

There are several explanations for this. Rebel groups like ISIS routinely use landmines and other improvised explosive devices. The wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen have been largely responsible. It may never be possible to completely eradicate the use of landmines by rebel groups, for the weapon is so cheap to manufacture while causing such harm.

But the major powers that have not joined the treaty--the United States, Russia, China, Pakistan, and India--also share the blame. Antipersonnel landmines, which are designed to be triggered indiscriminately by the victim, whether an unsuspecting farmer or an enemy or friendly combatant, have no place in the arsenals of modern militaries. It is hypocrisy to claim on the one hand, as our military does, that it uses every precaution to avoid harming civilians and prides itself on its precision weapons, and on the other hand to insist on the right to use a weapon that is the antithesis of precise and overwhelmingly harms civilians.

I have spoken more times than I can count about the scourge of antipersonnel landmines and the need for the United States to join the Mine Ban Treaty so we are no longer an excuse for other countries not to join. Our military has not used landmines for more than two decades. In fact, U.S. policy now strictly limits the use of antipersonnel mines to the Korean Peninsula, but we do not need them. What we need is the best protection for our troops to maneuver safely through minefields. We should have banned these indiscriminate weapons a long time ago, and we would have if landmines were blowing off the arms and legs of children in this Nation the way they are in others, but we have learned that the Pentagon is not in the habit of giving up weapons, even if they are weapons that deserve to be relegated to the dustbin of history. That decision will only be made by a President who is willing to do what is morally right.

Landmines have been aptly described as weapons of mass destruction in slow

motion. President Trump reacted with anger and disgust, as he should have, when Syria's President Assad used chlorine gas against his own people. He should react the same way toward antipersonnel landmines and set an example for the rest of the world.

I ask unanimous consent that a January 6, 2018, New York Times editorial on this subject be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I yield back the time on this side.

Mr. President, I will speak very briefly.

While I voted to keep the government going, this is not the way to govern. We should not be doing stopgap measures. We will be back here soon. We will have a relatively short time--a couple of weeks--to finally do our work, the work we should have done for the last 6 months. We will have to address sequestration on both sides of the ledger--on defense and nondefense--and raise the caps for both. We have to speak on one of the greatest issues in our country today, and that is the Dreamers, and we have to address that and have votes up or down on the Senate floor. I intend to vote to protect Dreamers. We have to vote on the Children's Health Insurance Program. There are so many others.

I want Senators on both sides of the aisle to know--and I have talked to both Republicans and Democrats--Senator Cochran and I and others have tried to keep the appropriations process going. We will continue to do that. We will do that when we come back. There will not be another continuing resolution without a bipartisan budget agreement.

Mr. President, this is not how we should govern in the U.S. Senate. We have once again found ourselves on the edge of a manufactured, made- in-Washington crisis. Once again, we are forced into political games at the eleventh hour by the imminent threat of a Republican shutdown. This time that threat has fallen right before Christmas and the holidays.

There is no reason we should find ourselves in this situation. There has always been a proven path forward to avoid this crisis, and that path is to reach a bipartisan budget deal that is based on parity. Sequestration has had devastating consequences on our country that will impact a generation, and we must raise the budget caps on both sides of the ledger--defense and nondefense.

This is not an academic exercise. Our decisions are having real and devastating consequences. We are letting our infrastructure crumble. We are letting down our veterans. We are allowing our education programs to fall behind, and we are harming our military's readiness.

Regrettably, our Republican Colleagues took the path of delay, no compromise, government by crisis. Here we are, 3 months into the fiscal year without a budget. The continuing resolution that is before us provides a 1-month extension to fund the government, but we are no closer to a bipartisan budget deal. I intend to vote for this continuing resolution because a government shutdown helps no one, but I implore my fellow Senators to use the next month wisely. We owe it to the American people.

Those on the other side of the aisle need to come to the table to negotiate an agreement that will provide funding for healthcare to our veterans, build infrastructure for a growing economy, and make us more secure.

But this is not the only thing we must accomplish in the coming month. Our list of unfinished business is long. We also need to pass the Dream Act. President Trump's decision to end the DACA program was as cruel as it was senseless. Dreamers are American in every way except on paper, having been brought here as children through no fault of their own. By definition, Dreamers are law-abiding strivers, serving our communities as doctors and teachers and defending our homeland as brave men and women in uniform.

Instead of working with Congress to find a permanent legislative solution while keeping DACA protections in place, the President yielded to xenophobic nativists in his administration and terminated protections for our Nation's Dreamers.

I am greatly disappointed that Republicans would not consider including the Dream Act on this continuing resolution. We simply cannot fail to pass the Dream Act, and we must do so, and we must do so soon. The future of Dreamers--and I believe the fate of the American Dream itself--lies in our hands.

We also need a permanent reauthorization for the Children's Health Insurance Program. It has been 3 months since Congress let funds expire for the Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP, putting at risk the 9 million children nationwide who depend on the program for health insurance coverage.

Vermont's CHIP program, known as Dr. Dynasaur, covers over 5,000 children whose families are now worried whether their kids will be covered next year. Instead of moving forward with a bipartisan reauthorization for 5 years, as has been proposed in the Senate, this continuing resolution extends the program only temporarily.

What is worse, the majority is insisting on offsetting this extension by cutting funding for prevention and public health programs. This is robbing Peter to pay Paul. If we can pass a tax cut that benefits the wealthiest Americans and which will add, at a minimum, $1.5 trillion to our deficit, we should be able to reauthorize CHIP--for longer than 3 months--without undermining public health. We should not have to make this choice, but here we are, being forced to choose between a misguided short-term patch or a wholesale government shutdown.

Again, I call on our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to use the next month to negotiate solutions to these real problems. That includes having a debate about American's privacy rights. Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act was intended to be a powerful foreign intelligence surveillance tool, and it is, but it also sweeps up massive amounts of Americans' communications, which can then be accessed without a warrant. That has long been a concern of mine, and I have stated that we should reauthorize 702, but we should not do so at the expense of our own civil liberties.

A 1-month extension gives Congress an opportunity--and I believe, an obligation--to debate this program on the floor, just like we did in 2012. All Members deserve an opportunity to weigh in on this critical surveillance tool, and this short, clean reauthorization of Section 702 allows for just that.

To be clear, the Republicans are in charge of the House, the Senate, and the White House. It is clear that they bear the burden of bringing us to this crisis point, and they need to answer to the American people for the unfinished business before us. We should never have gotten to this point.

We can still reach a bipartisan budget deal. I remain ready to work with Chairman Cochran, the Appropriations Committee, and Members from both sides of the aisle to secure the funding agreements we need to complete our appropriations, keep the lights on, and resolve the other pressing matters before us.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to speak briefly about the unfolding political crisis, which is also a crisis for justice, in Peru.

Peru transitioned to democracy in 2000, after two decades of internal armed conflict and authoritarian rule. The country has made important strides in rebuilding its democratic institutions, consolidating the rule of law, and combating impunity, but today, efforts by a majority in the Peruvian Congress to arbitrarily remove judges from the country's highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal, and to oust the attorney general for courageously doing his job, threaten to undermine those gains and reverse Peru's democratic progress.

As a former prosecutor and the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am especially concerned about the attempt by the majority in

Peru's Congress to impeach Attorney General Pablo Sanchez in the midst of his office's investigation into allegations that the Presidential campaign of Keiko Fujimori received illegal contributions in 2011. The effort to remove Attorney General Sanchez strongly suggests a deliberate strategy to obstruct justice and to undermine the autonomy of the attorney general's office. This would represent a grave setback for hard-fought gains to reestablish an independent judiciary and the rule of law in Peru. It would have serious ramifications for U.S.- Peruvian relations.

Credible allegations of corruption must be thoroughly investigated, without prejudice to party or power, and with due process for the accused. I urge members of Peru's Congress to support those who are acting on behalf of the Peruvian people in the pursuit of truth and justice. Key to this is respect for the autonomy of the office of the attorney general and of the Constitutional Tribunal, institutions that are guarantors of human rights and the rule of law.

Mr. President, we are all too familiar with President Trump's ``fake news'' mantra, which he has repeatedly used to discredit unfavorable news reports and undermine the credibility of the media in our country.

This mantra and the accompanying threats to freedoms of speech and of the press have now spread far beyond our borders. Autocrats and dictators around the world are enthusiastically using the concept of fake news and the legitimacy granted to it by the President of the United States to further undermine and restrict press freedom and fact- based reporting on corruption, human rights, and other abuses in their own countries.

For example, in response to an Amnesty International report on thousands of military prison deaths in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad remarked, ``You can forge anything these days, we are living in a fake news era.'' Similarly, in response to news reports on persecution of the Rohingya ethnic minority group in Myanmar, an officer in Myanmar's Rakhine state security ministry stated, ``There is no such thing as Rohingya. It is fake news.''

The list goes on and includes comments from autocratic leaders in the Philippines, Venezuela, Russia, China, and Turkey, among others, who have used the fake news mantra to legitimize harassment, arrests, and prosecutions of journalists.

Last week, the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, released its annual census of imprisoned journalists worldwide, which has hit an historical high of 262. The total does not include the many more journalists who were imprisoned for a period of time during the year before being released prior to the December 1 census. A CPJ statement published with the report noted that: ``Far from isolating repressive countries for their authoritarian behavior, the United States, in particular, has cozied up to strongmen such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Chinese President Xi Jinping. At the same time, President Donald Trump's nationalistic rhetoric, fixation on Islamic extremism, and insistence on labeling critical media `fake news' serves to reinforce the framework of accusations and legal charges that allow such leaders to preside over the jailing of journalists.''

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution has inspired people around the world for over 200 years. It was reaffirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and versions of it have been included in the constitutions of many countries; yet while the United States has long been a global leader for freedom of expression, the White House is now actively working to undermine press freedom. President Trump's reckless rhetoric has not only harmed our credibility and our reputation, it has emboldened foreign dictators who fear nothing more than for their misdeeds to be exposed by the media. The consequence is journalists threatened and imprisoned, journalists assassinated with impunity, publishers who are intimidated, and the ultimate casualty is the truth.

Mr. President, 2018 marks the 100-year anniversary of the influenza pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million people, including 670,000 Americans. I suspect most people assume that, given the remarkable advances in modern medicine since 1918, nothing so disastrous could happen again, but in fact, it could, and next time, it could be even worse. The spread of infectious diseases and drug resistance, and the accompanying threats to global security, are on the rise, and the international community is woefully underprepared to fight back.

The several large-scale infectious disease outbreaks of the last two decades, including SARS, H1N1, and Ebola, have revealed the extent to which individual countries and the international community at large need to dramatically improve their preparedness to respond to such potentially catastrophic health crises.

The stark reality is that the threat is increasing. An ever-growing, increasingly mobile global population will provide the breeding ground for the emergence and contagion of existing and new infectious diseases.

The potential threats from infectious disease outbreaks include not only catastrophic loss of life, but severe economic harm and social and political instability. The 2014-15 Ebola outbreak, for example, which began with the death of a 2-year-old boy in a remote Guinean village, ultimately killed more than 11,000 people across six countries, left thousands of children orphaned, caused an estimated economic loss to those countries of nearly $3 billion, and resulted in many people losing confidence in their country's public health system.

It is important to note that Ebola, which is spread through direct contact and terrified millions of people including in this country, is hardly the most infectious known disease. Several other disease agents, such as measles and influenza, can be spread through the air and can develop into epidemics or pandemics much more rapidly.

That is one of the reasons why many global health experts fear that an infectious disease outbreak far worse than Ebola will occur sometime in the next 20 years and that the number of outbreaks will become more frequent.

Despite improvements in access to safe water and sanitation, vaccine development, and other public health advances to combat infectious diseases, an enormous amount of work remains.

One of the most important lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak is that time is of the essence. The lack of a rapid, coordinated global response resulted in many preventable deaths. Disease surveillance systems were poor or nonexistent in the severely impacted countries, there was a lack of trained personnel to rapidly deploy, and no effective public communication system was in place to inform and update local communities.

An additional problem was the inability to quickly mobilize resources. Countries and NGOs around the globe lacked a reserve of available funds. The Congress took a step toward addressing this issue in the fiscal year 2017 State and foreign operations appropriations bill, which included a $70 million emergency reserve fund to address infectious disease outbreaks around the globe. In the fiscal year 2018 Senate version of the State and foreign operations bill, Chairman Graham and I included $130 million for programs to prevent and respond to such emerging health threats.

However, as I have said before and I will say again, far more needs to be done to build the public health infrastructure to prevent and respond to disease pandemics. As the international community works to be more prepared for infectious disease outbreaks, the U.S. should continue to play a leading role in preparedness planning. Unfortunately, President Trump's fiscal year 2018 budget would cut funding for these very programs, including for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which played an indispensable role in responding to the Ebola and Zika outbreaks, as it has to many other international health crises.

It is time we invest and prepare for pandemics in a similar way as we invest and prepare for war, nuclear disasters, or other large-scale threats to global security. The potential consequences are no less serious. I urge

the White House to face up to this reality and dramatically increase funding for these programs at CDC, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other Federal agencies that play a role in global health security.

Mr. President, I want to take a moment to recognize the achievements and contributions of a renowned political scholar, remarkable educator, and a personal friend. This year, Garrison Nelson will conclude five decades of teaching at the University of Vermont, where he is recognized as a legend in the department of political science.

Garrison, the inaugural Elliott A. Brown Green and Gold Professor of Law, Politics, and Political Behavior, is known by some Members of this body, as well as legislators throughout the country who rely on him to offer political insight. Widely considered a leading expert on congressional history, Garrison has authored more than 150 articles and professional papers on national politics with a major focus on the U.S. Congress and elections in Vermont. His works have educated students worldwide and can be found in close to 500 libraries in the United States and 13 countries around the world.

An Irish native of Boston, Garrison has resided in the Green Mountain State for most of his adult life, adding much richness to the State's political landscape. I have known Garrison since he served as an aide in my office shortly after my first election to the Senate. Garrison is as revered as he is brilliant. His skill and affinity for the esoteric is evident in both his teaching style and his storytelling, perhaps most notably his magnum opus, ``John William McCormack: A Political Biography.'' Works like this one have made significant contributions to our Nation's historical library, offering profiles and untold stories of the political icons of our time. In today's political environment, such citations of success and failure can offer us precious insight into improving our own oath to serve.

As Garrison departs the Old Mill at the University of Vermont at the end of this year, he will leave a legacy that has reached more than 13,000 students. With them and many others, he has shared his appreciation of and reverence for the American political system and the need for participation to ensure the success of our democracy. I am grateful for his commitment to inspire the next generation of political leaders.

In recognition of Garrison's timeless contributions, I ask unanimous consent that an article by Terri Hallenback. appearing in Vermont's own Seven Days, about Garrison's achievements be printed in the Record.