Floor Statements

Let me begin by thanking Ranking Member Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Chairman Inhofe of Oklahoma, as well as my other colleagues on the committee and my staff, who have worked tirelessly on this to include key elements of my proposal that are important to our military, as well as to our Nation.

This NDAA includes comprehensive reforms to the Military Housing Privatization Initiative. It changes military housing in ways that are long overdue and will prioritize families, ensure long-term quality assurance, and enhance accountability.

In the hearings held by the Armed Services Committee with military families who have experienced adverse health effects and financial burden from residing in hazardous housing, one point was absolutely clear: Our Nation is failing military families who live in this military housing. The conditions, widespread and prevalent, are entirely unacceptable. I was heartbroken to hear much of this testimony from military families who already sacrifice so much and who have struggled to secure safe and livable conditions.

I visited some of the homes at the New London base, and I was struck by the mold, the repairs that were needed, the defects in appliances, and the complaints about lack of proper air-conditioning and heating. We owe our military families much better, and we owe law enforcement the support they need to crack down on fraudulent private contractors.

I am also proud that the NDAA includes my provision to prohibit the Trump administration from modifying military installations to detain migrant children who have been forcibly separated from their parents. The separation policies of this administration have been absolutely abhorrent and antithetical to our values and ideals. They have been shameful and disgraceful.

We have seen the photos, and those pictures are worth a thousand of my words today, but the misuse of military resources, as I have repeatedly emphasized, to implement this administration's radical immigration enforcement agenda--this provision is a small but necessary step toward protecting migrant families from the cruelties of this family separation policy. It is only the beginning. We need to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security reimburses the Defense Department when military resources are used for support at the border. This kind of measure will hopefully prevent DHS from using the Pentagon as a piggy bank--a financial resource for cruel and inhumane policies.

We need to ensure that the President is stopped from abusing his Executive authority by deploying troops to assist in deportation.

We also considered floor amendments to the NDAA. I want to highlight an amendment that I offered to improve equity in the post-9/11 GI bill benefit. Last July, the Pentagon issued a new policy on servicemembers' ability to transfer unused education benefits to their family members. These new policies prevent servicemembers with more than 16 years of military service from transferring education benefits at the time that military servicemembers opt to transfer rather than when they become eligible. The Pentagon argues that these changes were made to ensure that the Department keeps a key retention tool--all while breaking our promise to military families by moving the goalpost of transfer eligibility and exacerbating inequities in transferring educational benefits. Most notably, disqualifying servicemembers with more than 16 years of military services counterintuitively penalizes the men and women who have served this country in uniform for the longest time.

My amendment would make the post-9/11 GI bill an earned benefit rather than a retention tool and ensure that all servicemembers who have completed 10 years of service in the armed services and Armed Forces are eligible to transfer their benefits to dependents at any time, both while serving on Active Duty and as a veteran.

Despite the passage of the NDAA and the need for this amendment continuing, I will continue to champion equitable education benefits for our military families.

This year's NDAA makes important, unprecedented investments in the submarines, helicopters, and aircraft built in Connecticut. They are not only manufactured in my State--employing thousands of skilled workers vital to our defense industrial base--but they are also critical to our national security. They keep our country safe, and they make sure our Nation and our military have a fair fight. They play a vital role in our defense industry thanks to the unparalleled skills and unstinting dedication of our manufacturing workforce. Because of that workforce, we are able to build the best submarines and the best F-35 engines and other aircraft engines and helicopters in the world-- not only through that skilled workforce and those major contractors but the workers at suppliers and contractors, who are equally vital.

Last year, we built two submarines. This year, there will be two more, with procurement for another major part of a submarine. As we begin accelerating production of those Virginia-class submarines, the New London Sub Base must have the capacity to support increased submarine output. That is why I fought for $72.3 million to replace Pier 32 at Sub Base New London, ensuring a modern landing to accommodate multiple Virginia-class submarines.

I was proud to lead the fight for increased investment in those Virginia-class submarines. That included $4.7 billion for those two submarines and nearly $4.3 billion in that advance procurement for a third Virginia-class submarine.

The NDAA also includes $2.3 billion--which is $140 million above the President's request--for the Columbia-class program.

I was proud, as well, to champion over $10 billion for 94 F-35s, which are important to all of our military services. That is an additional 16 above the President's request.

In helicopter production, we will keep faith with the warfighters and with our defense industrial base at Sikorsky.

Today's effort is a tribute to the leadership and the bipartisan efforts in

this Congress. I thank and applaud my colleagues for coming together on behalf of our Nation's defense, which is especially important in a time of disillusionment and seeming dysfunction for the American people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my defense fellow, Joshua Culver, be granted floor privileges for the length of the current debate on the NDAA.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1247; that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, the reason for this request for unanimous consent is very simply that this legislation is based on a straightforward, commonly accepted idea: If you see something, say something.

The Duty to Report Act, this measure, would require campaigns, candidates, and family members to immediately report to the FBI and the Federal Election Commission any offers of illegal foreign assistance. It is simply a duty to report illegality. It codifies into law what is already a moral duty, a patriotic duty, and a matter of basic common sense.

It is already illegal to accept foreign assistance during a campaign. It is already illegal to solicit foreign assistance during a campaign. All this bill does is to require campaigns and individuals to report those illegal foreign assistance offers or solicitations directly to the FBI.

I never thought--and few would have guessed--that there is a need for this kind of legislative mandate to do what is a patriotic and a moral duty. With the 2020 election on the horizon, we need to do everything we can to safeguard the integrity of our election.

The President has made remarks that are truly historically astonishing. He made those remarks just recently, which highlighted his own moral and patriotic depravity. He was asked whether he would accept help in 2020 from foreign governments or foreign nationals, and he simply said: ``I'd take it.''

That is very much reminiscent of what his son said when he was offered assistance from Russian agents with dirt on Hillary Clinton. He said, ``I love it.'' That kind of receptivity to illegality is not only un-American, it ought to be explicitly illegal, and all of us in this Chamber would reject it, I am sure. In fact, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were severely critical of President Trump's remarks.

His remarks are also reminiscent of what his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, said in a television interview--that he didn't know whether he would contact the FBI in that same kind of situation, again, that Donald junior encountered with offers of assistance from Russian agents. He didn't know whether he would. It is a hypothetical.

Well, we really know what both the President and Jared Kushner, as well as his son Donald junior think about this issue. According to the Mueller report, when a Kremlin-linked individual, Dimitri Simes, offered to provide Kushner with damaging information on Hillary Clinton, he took the meeting. That is not the only example. When George Papadopoulos, the Trump foreign policy campaign staffer, convicted on a Federal charge of lying to the FBI, was told by a Maltese professor that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails and were willing to provide them to the Trump campaign, what did he do? Rather than go to the FBI, he eagerly alerted others on the campaign.

Just last week, Hope Hicks, Trump's Communications Director for a while, was interviewed by the House Judiciary Committee. She said that she ``knew that the President's statement was troubling''--in her words, ``knew that the President's statement was troubling'' and ``understood the President to be serious'' when he made those remarks.

The President's remarks should alarm every American and everyone in the law enforcement community. Our legislative efforts stem from this basic principle. The American people--not Russia, not China, and no one else--should decide who the leaders of our country are and the direction our democracy should go.

Eighty percent of the American people across the political spectrum-- or more--support this legislation--Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. All we are doing is asking that Mitch McConnell avoid blocking this important legislation and allow a vote on the Senate floor. This bill has 19 cosponsors in the Senate, including Senators Whitehouse, Booker, Harris, Warren, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Sanders, Heinrich, Udall, Markey, Leahy, Murray, Casey, Smith, Cardin, Murphy, Wyden, Merkley, and Hirono. It has been introduced in the House by Congressman Eric Swalwell, and it now has 30 cosponsors there, including the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler.

I invite my Republican colleagues to support me in passing this legislation. Republicans ought to stand up for the rule of law. They ought to speak out

for our national security. They should refuse to tolerate these kinds of words and behavior from an American Commander in Chief

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased and honored to be on the floor with my colleague, the Senator from the great State of Rhode Island. We share a border, and we share many common views, one of them being a commitment to our environment. Senator Whitehouse has been a historic champion of action against environmental degradation, as well as climate change--global warming--which brings us to the floor today.

We are here to call attention and call for action in connection with the effects of climate change on the waters off our State and the east coast of our Nation.

There is a palpable, historic consequence to the warming of those waters, among others, to drive fish populations northward in search of cooler waters. The Northeast has already experienced some of the highest levels of ocean warming and sea level rise in the United States. They are only projected to exacerbate and exceed the present levels.

There are storms our States--Rhode Island and Connecticut, and others up and down the East Coast and all around the country--have experienced. Those new superstorms are becoming the new normal in our Nation, the most recent being the unprecedented hurricane and then Superstorm Sandy.

Connecticut and Rhode Island are poised to lose land to sea level rise. Scientists predict an almost 2-foot increase in the level of Long Island Sound by 2050. My colleague Senator Whitehouse has been here more times than I can count--I think more than 200 times--to call our attention to the effects and the causes of this historic and catastrophic trend of climate change in our Nation and on our planet.

What brings us here today is the very discrete and disastrous consequence of those waters warming and changing fish populations that are available to a group of our citizens and residents who have been an economic mainstay and backbone for our States. They are the fishermen who carry on a great profession and way of life, despite an outdated and Byzantine quota system that has failed to adapt to those movements of fish stock, like black sea bass, summer flounder, and scup from their waters northward and then new fish populations from the Mid- Atlantic States to our waters.

These fish quotas fail to take account of changing fish populations. The fish are smart biologically. They know when the waters are warming. They seek cooler waters further north, but the quotas fail to keep track. So the fish that are caught by our fishermen are not the same kinds as they caught before, and they are not the same kinds that are contemplated by the present quotas. They are catching fish they are required to throw back even after they are dead. So this quota system is failing at every level. It is failing environmentally if the goal is to enhance and save fish populations; it is failing economically because it is driving these fishermen out of their way of life; and it is failing in public policy by failing to provide a rational and informed way to set those quotas.

There is a solution because this whole system is governed by the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which, by the way, is under the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, where I sit. There have been proposals to reform and change it. The current Byzantine system of quota setting is really a relic of a long-gone era, and it should be reformed. Right now, immediately, the Secretary of Commerce can intervene. The statute says the law governing the management of fisheries requires that the Department of Commerce must ensure fishery management plans adhere to several national standards, including the use of the ``best scientific information available to decide catch limits.'' It also says that any management plan ``shall not discriminate'' between residents of different States and must allow quotas that are ``fair and equitable.'' This system is failing those standards.

I agree with fishermen of Connecticut and, I believe, of Rhode Island who are saying this current system is nonsensical. It is outdated. It is irrational, and it is worthless. It fails to give them fairness and justice. It is time for action.

The Commerce Department should use its power--extraordinary as it is--to impose emergency regulations and create a more equitable system.

As Bobby Guzzo, a fisherman from Stonington told Greenwire recently:

Things have changed--the fish have moved north, but the

quotas have not changed to

keep up with it. The science has to be better. They've got to

get more of a handle on it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Greenwire article be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, after that eloquence, I hesitate to even add anything, but the urgency of his plea and the need to hear the voices of these fishermen brings to mind this photograph, which was taken from the Greenwire article. In fact, it is of a boat in Stonington Harbor during a visit by President Trump in 2017 to the Coast Guard Academy in New London. The banner on this boat reads: ``Please help us.''

We need help for the fishermen of our Nation, whether they be in Louisiana or Rhode Island or Connecticut, because of this completely obsolete, obscenely outdated system that is depriving them of decent livelihoods, depriving our Nation of sufficient fish nutrition, and depriving our Nation and our world of an end to climate change.

I would ask my colleague from Rhode Island very briefly, does he believe that the administration is heeding that message, not only behalf of the fishermen of Stonington in Connecticut--please help us-- but on behalf of the planet to please help us stop global warming and climate change? Is this administration acting sufficiently?

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island and I look forward to coming back to the floor with him and expanding on this colloquy in the future. I will be a proud partner of his in advocating for the measures, and I join him in praising our fishing community because they have stood strong in the face of adversity.

Mr. President, 6 years have passed since 20 beautiful children and 6 wonderful educators were killed in a massacre that gripped the Nation's attention in Newtown, CT. That tragedy, for any of us who lived through it, remains as real and vivid and grief-stricken today as it was then. We have lived with the memories and with the families and with countless others who found their lives changed-- literally, transformed--in ways they never imagined.

In the day or so after that shooting--it may have been the following day--I was at one of the numerous calling hours I attended, and I spoke with one of the moms of those children. I said to her: When you are ready, we should talk about what can be done about gun violence in America.

She looked at me, through her tears, and she said: I am ready now.

Many of the families of Sandy Hook were ready then. Our Nation was ready then. Yet the U.S. Congress proved disastrously and tragically unready--in fact, failing in its responsibility to react not only with prayers and thoughts, as it did, but also with action to honor those wonderful children and educators with action, to honor them before others would die in the same way, the result of massacres that are preventable.

The Senate came close to acting. More than 50 votes were there for a background check bill, which had bipartisan support, but not the 60 votes that were necessary. From this Gallery vividly came the shout: Shame on you.

It was well justified.

Shame on the U.S. Senate for failing to act 6 years ago. Shame on the Congress for being complicit in the continuing massacres that have been added since Sandy Hook: Oak Creek, Blacksburg, Charleston, Chattanooga, Lafayette, Parkland, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs. That is just a partial list, not to mention the 90 deaths every day, often occurring singularly or in twos or threes or by suicide or by accident, as claimed the life of Ethan Song in Guilford, CT, when he was playing with a friend and a gun killed him--a loss that Kristin and Michael Song have made positive by their advocacy of commonsense measures to require safe storage of weapons.

The voices and faces of Sandy Hook have continued to inspire and move us. As of Parkland and all of the other tragedies that have occurred, they have rallied and written, emailed and called, organized and mobilized, and they have created a movement. It is a movement that is turning around this country, and it already has the effect of breaking the vice-like grip of the NRA on Congress. It is moving us forward. It has spawned groups at the grassroots, like Newtown Action Alliance and Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action, CT Against Gun Violence, Brady, and many others, including Sandy Hook Promise, whose dinner we will attend tonight, their annual gathering.

We have come to the floor of the Senate now to demand action that honors those victims and prevents more victims, more survivors, more grieving families. I am here with my colleague Senator Chris Murphy, who has been an unstinting advocate, a champion, a partner in this effort. We are here to demand that this body act on a measure that was passed more than 100 days ago by the House, which would require a universal background check.

The fact that the House passed that measure is itself evidence of a change that is moving this country. The change in leadership in the House is the result of the election of new Members in the House of Representatives as a result of the gun violence prevention movement that politically is acquiring an undeniable and indisputable force. Gun violence prevention was on the ballot in the last election, and gun violence prevention won. It won in the new Members of Congress who have championed that universal background check measure and closing the Charleston loophole, and they have successfully passed it there. They are making a critical difference, and they are coming here. Their election is the result of that grassroots political movement that is changing the narrative, and for the first time, it puts us nearer--in fact, nearer than ever before, that I can remember--to commonsense measures that will stop gun violence.

I have been involved in this effort since my earliest days as attorney general in the early 1990s, when Connecticut passed a ban on assault weapons. I not only advocated for it but then defended it in court against many of the arguments that continue to be made today, even though they have been rejected by the courts and the American people.

States have moved forward, as Connecticut has done, to adopt these commonsense measures: universal background checks; a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; most recently, a safe storage bill, Ethan's Law in Connecticut; a ban on bump stocks and 3D weapons; and, of course, measures that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. But the laws of a State like Connecticut--those strong laws-- are no stronger or more effective than the laws of the weakest States because guns come across our borders. We are at the mercy of States with little or no protection for their people. The solution is a national one. It must apply across the country to make our Nation safer and to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

As near as we are and as much as has been accomplished, the work to be done is right here in this body, on this floor, and it must be done now. That is why we are here. That is why I have advocated for other measures. I have introduced Ethan's Law to provide for safe storage. It has been supported here. A number of you have met with Kristin and Michael Song, and they will be visiting again. I have introduced an emergency risk protection order bill that would enable courts and law enforcement to take guns out of the hands of dangerous people as a result of a warrant and due process; an incentive program at the national level that makes States more aware and more inclined to adopt them, which should be bipartisan; a law that repeals PLCAA, the protection of lawful commerce in arms. This was adopted with the promise that no one would be deprived of a right of action, no one would be barred from the courthouse, but in fact PLCAA has prevented victims from seeking justice. It has stopped their day in court, and it should be repealed.

Those measures should be moved forward, and I am hopeful they will with bipartisan support. There is no question today about the need for a universal background check bill that Senator Murphy and I and others who will speak today have advocated and now offers an opportunity for bicameral approval.

This movement has indisputable force. It has a dynamism and drive that will only increase regardless of what happens today. We are not giving up; we are not going away; and history will judge harshly a majority leader and a majority that fails to give us a vote. It will judge harshly opponents of these commonsense measures, and the voters will judge harshly because gun violence prevention will be on the ballot again. We will make sure of it. The American people will have an opportunity to vote again for candidates who support commonsense, sensible measures to make America safer, to keep guns out of the hands of truly dangerous people. The grip of the NRA is breaking. The gun lobby is crumbling from within and losing its traction in the field.

We are on the right side of history, and I hope my colleagues will see it that way, too, and will give us a vote. Let us vote on universal background checks, the bill that has come to us from the House of Representatives. Let's do it today.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, sometime tomorrow, this body will consider a number of nominations for final confirmation, among them the nomination of Matthew Kacsmaryk to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

A Federal district judge serves a particular area of the country, but in fact, the whole country has a stake in this nomination because a judge helps to define and refine and apply the law of the United States, setting precedent that applies to the entire country. It isn't just the Northern District of Texas that has a stake in this nomination; it is the entire country. So this alarming and appalling nomination should be of particular interest to my colleagues.

It is the result of a process that, very unfortunately, has been demeaned and degraded. It is a shadow of what it once was. In the scrutiny that is given and the time that is devoted, this process is failing to assure the independence of the judiciary. Now is the time when that independence must be assured because, from this time forward, these judges will be lifetime appointees and will have no accountability to this body or to any other elected official.

In previous years, under other Republican administrations, there was an adequate time to debate; there were full and fair hearings; and nominees answered questions about their views on issues that were relevant to their service. That process has been severely undercut-- indeed, decimated now. What we have before us, again and again and again, are nominees who fail to meet the basic test of intellect and integrity and responsibility.

I look at all of the records of nominees before us and ask them questions to determine what their basic values are--whether they think particular Supreme Court precedents were correctly decided, like Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade--because it is a view into their basic commitments to constitutional principles that are deeply and ideally settled. Matthew Kacsmaryk fails that test.

If there is a principle enshrined in our Constitution that matters more than any other, it is the idea that everyone is equal before the law. No one is above the law. No one is less entitled to rights than anyone else. Everyone is equal regardless of race, gender, ethnicity and regardless of who you are, how much you own, or where you were born. Mr. Kacsmaryk seems to lack respect for this basic principle. In fact, his career is defined by active opposition to the treatment of minority groups.

In 2016, he submitted an amicus brief that supported a Virginia school board's policy that a student must use the restroom that corresponds to the student's biological gender.

Also, in 2016, he sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and argued that the Department of Health and Human Services should not require hospitals to conduct sex reassignment surgeries for transgender individuals. He wrote in that letter that transgender people suffer from a ``psychological condition, in need of care'' and are ``not in a category of person in need of special legal protection.'' He went so far as to say the experiences of transgender people are ``irrational'' and ``delusional.''

In light of these and other statements, I have received numerous letters from the parents of transgender people. They have written in fear and alarm that someone with such offensive, extreme, medically inaccurate views could be promoted to a lifetime position within the Federal judiciary--a position that will give him power over the lives of exactly these individuals who seek equality under the law.

Seventeen of our House colleagues--some of them parents and grandparents of transgender people--have written to us and expressed their concern that someone with such hostile views toward LGBTQ Americans could possibly be confirmed as a judge.

Our colleagues in the House are concerned about the decisions we are making here because they respect these individuals.

Kacsmaryk has also repeatedly made public his opposition to marriage equality and the equal treatment of same-sex couples.

He submitted an amicus brief in Obergefell v. Hodges, urging the Supreme Court to not extend the right of

marriage to same-sex couples. He, thankfully, did not prevail in that view because the Court upheld the rights of same-sex couples to be married, and he continued his opposition to marriage equality by representing the owners of an Oregon bakery who refused to bake a cake for same-sex couples.

He testified in favor of legislation the Texas Observer described as a ``license to discriminate'' adoption bill that would permit adoption agencies to refuse to place children with same-sex couples.

Many in Congress, including myself, worked to pass the Equality Act, which would reflect the core of the Supreme Court's ruling by adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the Federal code's list of protected classes.

He has referred to this effort as a weaponization of Obergefell that seeks the public affirmation of the ``erotic desires of liberated adults.''

Even as I recite these quotes, I can hardly believe that at this moment in our history, at this time of awareness among informed and tolerant people who believe in inclusiveness and equal justice under the law, that someone nominated to this position of paramount responsibility would have these views and articulate them in this way.

If the Equality Act were to become law and face a challenge in Judge Kacsmaryk's court, could litigants feel comfortable or confident that they would receive a fair hearing? Is there any gay, lesbian, transgender, or nonbinary person who would feel their case would receive a nonbiased treatment in his court?

I have such deep doubts, as should my colleagues, that I cannot vote for him. I will oppose his nomination, and I hope my colleagues will join me in voting no on Matthew Kacsmaryk.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am very proud to be in this Chamber. I am always enormously grateful to be in this body, but especially so at the beginning of this Memorial Day weekend, when we celebrate the patriotism and dedication of our brave men and women in uniform-- patriots who serve our country in so many different ways, as teachers and firefighters and police--and the values that bring us together always as Americans. What we share is a dedication to the rule of law, basic rights, which are the reason that our forbearers and this generation have fought in parts of the world whose names we can barely pronounce.

We celebrate those values and the rule of law in our Constitution on this day, as we do every day this weekend, as every weekend, because they guarantee the rights that enable us to march in parades when we wish, gather with our families, worship, and speak as we please.

They guarantee also the rights to privacy that are at the core of our Constitution--the right to be let alone from governmental interference; the rights that literally ignited the passion and fight for freedom in this country; the right of people to control their destinies, their futures, their bodies.

Those rights are imperiled today as never before. We are in a dark and dangerous time in this country with the passage of laws in Alabama and Missouri, Kentucky and Ohio, and in other States around the country, where the rights of women are under assault.

But let me say to the men of America, those rights are as important to you, and that assault on rights is as critical to you as they are to the women of America. Women's healthcare is under attack. Women's reproductive rights are under assault, and that means that all rights and all healthcare are gravely threatened. All of our rights are under attack. That is the reason today I am introducing the Women's Health Protection Act with my great colleague and friend Senator Baldwin of Wisconsin and, in the House of Representatives, Chu, Frankel, and Fudge, who led this effort there. We have actually reintroduced it. It has been a longstanding effort of mine and theirs, and my own commitment to this cause dates from my law clerkship to Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court, the year after he wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade.

I am proud to be a man standing for women's healthcare because women's healthcare rights are human rights, and the men of America need to hear loud and clear that their stake in this fight is as big as anyone's, because this fight and this debate and this war on women's healthcare endanger and imperil all of our rights in America.

The Women's Health Protection Act protects a woman's constitutional right to access an abortion. It is a right that is absolutely central to her economic well-being, her mental and physical health, and her freedom--no matter where she lives, no matter what her ZIP code is, no matter what her income, race, or religion is. And it is true of men, as well, that regardless of where we live or who we think we are, those rights are critical to our lives too.

The Women's Health Protection Act is designed to protect the healthcare providers--some of the real heroes of women's healthcare, who are delivering the best care they can, the care their patients want and need--from absurd and medically unnecessary requirements. These so- called protections for women that States have enacted relating to the width of hallways in clinics or admitting privileges or waiting periods are a pretext. They are a disguise, a ruse to restrict women's rights to healthcare.

Under the Women's Health Protection Act, no State--none--can restrict women's healthcare by judging the width of hallways or doctors' privileges or any of those supposed protections, which are really pretexts. And those pushing unconstitutional restrictions will no longer be able to disguise their morally repugnant efforts as protecting women's healthcare, when, really, they want to take it away.

The attack on women's rights that we saw last week in Alabama was only the most extreme and restrictive of a line of actions--demagogic and draconian actions--in our State legislatures around the country. But they have created fear, and they have created disparate effect, so that women are apprehensive and anxious. And they should be.

They are angry, and that is absolutely right. We all should be angry. We all have a responsibility to stand up and fight back, because these laws cannot stand in our country.

We will fight them in the courts. We will fight them in the statehouses, and we will fight them here in the Senate and in the House, as we are doing with the Women's Health Protection Act.

These radical and unconstitutional extreme measures, which simply tell a woman when she can become pregnant, involve the Government controlling her body, which is against the fundamental guarantee of our Constitution in the right to be let alone from unwarranted and illegal Government interference.

We have had enough of the dangerous and deadly attacks on women. We have had it with the meddling politicians who are getting between women and their own personal healthcare decisions, interfering with women's rights to consult their doctors, their families, their counselors, and their faith leaders. We have had it with contemptible assaults on women's freedom and futures.

When I worked for Justice Harry Blackmun, I remember we thought at the time: All done. All settled. No more issues with a woman's right to reproductive rights.

Roe v. Wade was the decisive opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court, the law of the land, then and thereafter.

Here we are, decades later, still fighting this needless and senseless battle for a woman's right to privacy and freedom, because there are groups and individuals in this country who want to defy the U.S. Constitution. Roe v. Wade was correctly decided. The U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed it in its progeny.

Nominees to the courts coming before the Judiciary Committee have refused to answer my question about whether it was correctly decided, but the fact of the matter is, it was, it will be, and it will remain. But the courage and strength of women still to assert their rights, of providers who give them the care they need, of clinic access escorts who every day put their well-being on the line, of the groups like the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood, which advocate tirelessly, and of the heroes who keep up the fight and the flame should inspire us in this Chamber to say: Enough is enough. Let's pass the Women's Health Protection Act so

women no longer fear that their rights will be imperiled regardless of where they live and where they come from.

We will not be silent. We will not stop fighting. We will not give up, and we are not going away.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Thank you, Madam President. I will be speaking in just a moment, but I understand the minority leader, Senator Schumer, is on his way to speak before me, so he should be here within moments.

Madam President, I want to begin by thanking the minority leader for bringing this issue as straightforwardly and as clearly as he has. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I demand to know from the Acting Secretary of Defense and other relevant officials why we have deployed these American military assets, including an aircraft carrier group, a number of bombers and Patriot missile units to one of the most dangerous parts of the world, where they may unexpectedly provoke act of war.

We are on a dangerous path without a strategy. We are embarked on a course of potential war without informing the Congress or the American people. We have demanded repeatedly that we be briefed, and it must be in public.

This situation has reached a point of potential conflagration. The tinderbox of the Middle East is no place to operate on impulse or whim. That is the appearance this administration has created by lacking a clearly articulated strategy for the American people to know and assess. On the Armed Services Committee, we have asked repeatedly for this kind of information, and so far the administration has refused to provide it. So this kind of open hearing is necessary to be open information for the American people, and they deserve and need no less.

Prescription Drug Costs

Madam President, I turn now to a topic that is of great consequence to the American people for their health and their economic well-being.

As we all know and as the senior Senator from Minnesota, my great friend Amy Klobuchar, has very eloquently and powerfully described, the high cost of essential medicines in this country is a national disgrace. It is immoral. For the greatest country in the world to compel ordinary Americans to choose between covering the cost of their rent and putting food on the table or paying for their medicine needed to stay alive is absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable.

The only people who benefit under the current system are the high- paid executives, whose pay is increased even more by this unjust and intolerable system. It yields them greater profit without any greater help to the American people.

It has to stop, and the good news is, we have bipartisan agreement that it must stop. After years of disagreement, we are starting to see Republicans and Democrats coming together and confronting the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs. Drug companies' price-gouging, their manipulation of their monopolistic power to raise those prices and make the industry's practices noncompetitive and to exclude even new products from coming to market--all of these abuses have become so extreme and so outrageous that there is now bipartisan consensus that we need to stop it.

I am proud today to support the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act. It is a bipartisan piece of legislation, and it will finally put a stop to some of the most egregious monopolistic and predatory tactics within the drug industry. These tactics would make even the robber barons of the Gilded Age blush with guilt and embarrassment for the obvious anti-consumer effects that impact the average American.

These patent abuses go by colorful names like ``patent thicketing'' and ``product hopping,'' but these names obscure their very pernicious purpose. Patent thicketing and product hopping are only the tip of this monopolistic iceberg. While these terms may be unfamiliar to many Americans, almost everyone is familiar with the harmful effects these predatory practices produce.

The fault here is with the people who take advantage of shortages and market power. They exploit them in the same way that anti-trust abuses have been done over the decade, and they are the reason we have anti- trust laws. Now, to confront this even more egregious example of abuses of market power, we need these new laws.

According to one study in 2017, across the top 12 grossing drugs in America, drugs companies filed an average of 127 patent applications per drug. By creating a thicket, a genuine thicket of patents around their drugs, drug companies are able to double the number of years of market exclusivity that they have before a competitor can enter the market.

During this time, these drug companies are able to charge consumers extraordinarily high prices for drugs they desperately need. If you use HUMIRA or have rheumatoid arthritis, you should be deeply concerned about patent thicketing. According to one study, the manufacturer of HUMIRA has filed 247 patents so it can exclude competitors from the market. It keeps those competitive adversaries from producing drugs and can do so for a total of 39 years. During those 39 years, the cost of HUMIRA in the future--they will do it for 39 years--is just going to keep climbing. According to reports, between 2012 and 2015 alone, the average amount that Medicare and Medicaid spent on each patient using HUMIRA more than doubled--from $16,000 to $33,000. Things will only get worse in the years to come.

Rheumatoid arthritis patients are hardly the only ones who should be concerned about patent thicketing. A large number of patents have been filed

to protect the market exclusivity of drugs that treat conditions like cancer, stroke, blood clots, diabetes, multiple myeloma, and macular degeneration.

Patent thickets will keep competitors off the market. It will cost consumers thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars, each year. It isn't only the patients who use the drugs who suffer these effects; we all pay the cost of higher insurance when those insurers have to pay higher costs for drugs. It hits all of us, not just the patients who suffer from these medical conditions.

Unfortunately, this obviously anti-competitive practice is not the only way drug companies abuse the patent system to keep drug prices high. Just before the protections for their first drug expire, brand- name drug companies pull a bait-and-switch, pushing consumers onto a new, slightly different drug. That means any generic competition coming to market will struggle to penetrate the market, and consumers will be stuck with the brand-name drug for even longer, likely at a significantly higher cost. In this way, the brand-name company succeeds in gouging customers and keeping their profits growing. That is their objective--not better product, not better health, not better patient experiences, only higher profits.

One of the most famous examples of product hopping--the practice I have just described--concerns Namenda, a drug to treat Alzheimer's. This drug was produced by a company called Actavis. When Actavis originally released Namenda, it was usually taken by patients twice a day, but a number of years before Namenda's market exclusivity was going to expire, Actavis went to the FDA to approve a new version of Namenda, this one taken just once a day. A new drug? No. A different way of taking it? Maybe. To improve patient health? No. To increase profits? Yes.

Although the FDA had approved this drug in 2010, Actavis strategically waited 3 years to introduce this, with the apparent goal of extending its exclusivity in the U.S. market. Once the new drug was introduced, Actavis pushed all of its customers onto it, while pulling the old drug from the market. As a result, Actavis was able to continue charging monopoly prices on essentially the same drug long after Namenda's first patent was expected to expire.

We have reached the time to stop patent thicketing and product hopping once and for all. We have reached the time to bring sanity and fairness to the drug market so consumers can see lower prices.

I am proud to be joining with Senator Cornyn of Texas to introduce the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act. It will fight these abusive practices and give consumers some much needed relief from higher drug costs. I thank Senator Cornyn for his leadership. We joined in this partnership, and it has taken many months to draft and introduce this measure. I thank his staff, as well as my own, for all of their hard work on this bill reaching this bipartisan consensus.

This legislation will embolden and encourage our anti-trust forces to pursue pharma companies that are getting away with anti-competitive practices. It will also give clear guidance to our courts to allow them to quickly and easily distinguish between product hopping and patent thicketing from truly innovative, truly inventive conduct that benefits patients.

This legislation makes sure that any company caught redhanded engaging in these harmful practices will have to pay and be held accountable.

This legislation will also lower healthcare costs for millions of Americans by increasing competition in the market. If we pass this legislation, millions of Americans may no longer have to choose between food on the table, their rent payment, and the medicine they need and deserve. That is a choice no one should ever have to make in the greatest country in the history of the world.

We cannot allow drug companies to continue their monopolistic practices and predatory abuses that only increase the profit of those companies. We cannot allow those drug companies to reap massive personal benefits for their executives, while Americans are struggling to make ends meet. I urge the Senate to immediately take up this legislation to protect American patients today.

I happily yield the floor to my colleague from Minnesota.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the town of Litchfield, CT, as it celebrates 300 years of local government.

Incorporated in 1719 by an act of the Colonial Assembly of Connecticut, Litchfield was first settled the following year and consisted of a mere home lots. Before long, the town grew thanks to a breadth of small industries, its significant position as part of two stagecoach lines, and its 1751 designation as the county seat.

A beautiful, welcoming place to live and flourish, Litchfield is located in the bucolic hills of western Connecticut and is home to a multitude of historic places of interest.

One of the most notable parts of the town are its historical houses. These remarkable structures are not only fascinating because of their fine, antique architecture and design, but also for their many famous residents. Some held temporary visitors, such as Sheldon's Tavern, where George Washington slept during the American Revolution. Others were the homes of important Connecticut luminaries including Revolutionary War patriot Ethan Allen, Governor and signer of the Declaration of Independence Oliver Wolcott, cofounder of the Litchfield China Trading Company Alexander Catlin, and Continental Army Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge.

Litchfield has a number of other wonderful historical attractions, including the Tapping Reeve Law School. Started in 1775, Tapping Reeve began with Aaron Burr as its first student. Throughout its 58 years as a functioning law school, it educated over 1,200 students from throughout the Nation. Tapping Reeve counts Connecticut Governor Samuel A. Foot, U.S. Senator John C. Calhoun, Connecticut Governor Roger Sherman Baldwin, and Levi Woodbury, the first U.S. Supreme Court justice to attend law school, among its alumni. Now the restored law school building and Tapping Reeve House are available for public tours, thanks to the Litchfield Historical Society.

The Connecticut General Assembly recognized Litchfield's rich past and important role throughout our State's history by designating the borough of Litchfield a historic district in 1959. Litchfield remains a constantly growing yet still peaceful part of our State, which is highly regarded by residents and visitors alike. I have greatly enjoyed visiting Litchfield on numerous occasions and appreciating its quintessential New England characteristics.

A town with a commendable dedication to its impressive past and a positive, thoughtful look toward the future, Litchfield is an extraordinary Connecticut town. I hope my colleagues will join me in congratulating Litchfield on three centuries of distinction, and I send my best wishes for the town's future success.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my legislative fellow, Adam Bradlow, be granted floor privileges until the end of July of 2019.

Madam President, later this week, Wendy Vitter will receive a vote on her nomination to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Once our votes are cast, she almost certainly will be confirmed by a slim margin on largely partisan lines, and she will join the Federal judiciary for a lifetime tenure. My hope is that my Republican colleagues will think again and that some of them will demonstrate some conscience and conviction based on principles that I think are more important than any single district court judge and indeed more important than any of us individually, because Ms. Vitter will never again face public accountability for her fitness, her moral character, and her fidelity to the bedrock norms of our time. She will be insulated from all political process.

That is what we afford our judiciary. It is the right thing to do. They ought to be, in effect, guardians of the Constitution with lifetime appointments that protect them from political vindictiveness or revenge. But that independence must be earned. It is earned by vetting through a public confirmation process. The Founders placed that responsibility in this body with us, and for nearly a century, these confirmation hearings have helped the American public judge our would- be judges and weed out our wildly radical or unfit nominees. The confirmation process is a vetting that includes a hearing and then a committee vote and then a vote here in the Senate.

On the most basic principles of the confirmation process, Ms. Vitter fails to pass muster. She failed to produce more than 100 speeches, interviews, and press articles to the Senate Judiciary Committee for review. She defiantly declined to answer my question on one of the baseline notions of constitutional liberty--the correctness of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I ask these questions to every nominee when they appear because I believe it is unquestionably an important reason for considering whether to vote for these nominees--their beliefs as to whether Brown v. Board of Education and other well-established precedents are indeed correctly decided.

This iconic ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court is special even among those well-established decisions. Anyone who fails to endorse such a sacrosanct decision is clearly out of the legal and societal mainstream and unworthy of confirmation.

When I asked Ms. Vitter if she thought Brown v. Board was correctly decided, here is how she responded:

I don't mean to be coy, but I think I can get into a

difficult, difficult area when I start commenting on Supreme

Court decisions which are correctly decided and which I may

disagree with. Again, my personal, political, or religious

views I would set aside. That is Supreme Court precedent.

I was stunned by her answer. I am still stunned to read it back. I am tempted to read it again out of disbelief. Brown is woven into the fabric of our Nation. How could anyone suggest disagreeing with Brown, as she did, and then say: Well, even though I disagree with Brown v. Board of Education, I would follow it. That answer says something very profound about the person giving it.

In 2019, the only reasonable answer to my question--``Do you think Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided?''--is a resounding yes. Brown is about more than just its historic ruling; a separate but equal school is inherently unequal and unconstitutional. A segregated school, even if it is called equal, is inherently unequal. That is Brown. It is about core values and principles deeply embedded in the constitutional consensus that binds and bonds our constitutional democracy. It is about more than just the words on paper; it is about our values and our principles, what holds us together as a nation.

When nominees like Ms. Vitter refuse to say that a seminal case like Brown was correctly decided and instead merely says that it is precedent, that it is a binding decision, what they are asserting essentially is that a case that is decided is only a decision, that it is only good law until it is reversed.

The reason for giving such an answer is that Ms. Vitter and the vast majority of President Trump's nominees do not really think that a lot of Supreme Court precedent is correct, and they would be perfectly happy for reversals.

We know that the President has a litmus test for his judicial nominees. He has told us repeatedly that he will appoint judges who will overturn another landmark Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade.

What is particularly striking and pernicious about Ms. Vitter's answer to my question on Brown is that her extreme views on Roe, abortion, and reproductive rights are already well known and authoritatively established.

In May 2013, at an anti-choice protest outside the future site of a Planned Parenthood clinic, Ms. Vitter said:

Planned Parenthood says they promote women's health. It is

the saddest of ironies that they kill over 150,000 females a

year. The first step in promoting women's health is to let

them live.

This is a radical view. It is wrong on the facts. It makes no secret of what Ms. Vitter thinks about the precedent of Roe, and it is worth noting that Ms. Vitter initially didn't even disclose this speech to the Senate.

In November of 2013, Ms. Vitter moderated a panel at the conference for Louisiana Right to Life titled ``Abortion Hurts Women's Health.'' Again, Ms. Vitter did not disclose this to the Senate. On the panel was a so-called ``expert'' who falsely claimed that contraception pills are linked to cancer, an absurd and very dangerous lie. Ms. Vitter advocated that viewers download this speaker's brochure and ask their doctors to display it saying: ``Each one of you can be a pro-life advocate.''

At her confirmation hearing, a number of Senators asked Ms. Vitter whether she believed the claims made in the brochure. She refused to answer and insisted she had not studied the details of the brochure. How strange that she asked the audience of her panel discussion to have their doctors display it. At the same Louisiana Right to Life event, Ms. Vitter applauded Texas for the ``great strides in making it very difficult to get abortions in Texas.''

Ms. Vitter was applauding a law that requires physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and it required abortion clinics in the State to have facilities comparable to an ambulatory surgical center. The Supreme Court struck down the law as unconstitutional because it would have closed most clinics in Texas and placed an undue burden on Texas women to access safe, legal abortion services.

As a district court judge, Ms. Vitter undoubtedly would have upheld this unconstitutional restriction of a woman's right to choose. She celebrated a Louisiana law that forced women to look at an ultrasound before having an abortion. These kinds of requirements serve no medical purpose, which is why they have been struck down. They are only an obstruction to a woman's right over her own reproductive health, and they conflict with basic Supreme Court principles about the rights of privacy under the Constitution.

Federal judges are entrusted with this kind of lifetime appointment because they will be neutral arbiters. They will give everyone a fair, impartial hearing and rule on the facts and the law. That is the theory. Ms. Vitter, despite her best efforts to hide her

record, despite her continuing suggestion about different views and her refusal to answer questions on bedrock principles, has showed what her true beliefs are in her writings, her statements, and her activities. We know about Wendy Vitter, for sure. She will not be an unbiased umpire. When it comes to abortion and reproductive rights, we know that she is too ideological to simply call balls and strikes. That is why she was nominated, and that is why she was chosen. She passed that litmus test imposed by this administration and this President. She is part of those efforts to remake the Federal judiciary in the image of the far-right, extremist fringe.

I cannot support this nominee, and I urge my colleagues to oppose her. I will be voting against her on Thursday of this week when her confirmation vote is scheduled.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize two remarkable female leaders of the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot Tribes in honor of National Women's History Month. Both Tribes have reservations in the State of Connecticut and are an integral part of our community. The women I recognize today represent so many other Native American women who were strong in conviction, fearless in leadership, and dedicated to preserving their Tribal identity.

Dr. Gladys Iola Tantaquidgeon was a Mohegan Medicine Woman born in 1899. After learning tribal spirituality and herbalism from her ``grandmothers,'' Dr. Tantaquidgeon studied at the University of Pennsylvania, writing in the field of anthropology and working with noted anthropologist Frank Speck. She researched herbal medicine among related east coast Tribes in order to broaden her Mohegan pharmacopeia. For her impressive academic achievements, Dr. Tantaquidgeon received honorary doctorates from the University of Connecticut and Yale University. She was also inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame and received the National Organization for Women's Harriet Tubman Award, the Connecticut Education Association's Friend of Education Award, and numerous Native American honors.

Her contributions extended beyond academia. In 1931, she, her brother Harold and their father, John, founded the Tantaquidgeon Indian Museum in Uncasville, CT, using education to help remedy prejudice. Then in 1934, John Collier, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, recruited Dr. Tantaquidgeon to serve as a community worker on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. For 9 years, she served as a specialist for the newly formed Federal Indian Arts and Crafts Board to promote Indian art, encouraging the restoration of critically important ancient practices the Federal Government had prohibited at that time.

Dr. Tantaquidgeon used her strong sense of social justice to support women in difficult situations by working as the Niantic Women's Prison librarian in the 1940s. She continued her life of service to others when her personal records of correspondence about Mohegan births, graduations, marriages, and deaths played a pivotal role in gaining Federal Recognition for the Mohegans in 1994.

Throughout her amazing 106 years of life, she led the way for women, especially women of color, to seize new opportunities and for everyone to engage in a greater level of discussion and education about Native American history and culture. Her legacy will leave a positive academic and social impact for years to come.

The other exceptional woman I wish to remember today is Martha Ann ``Matt'' Langevin, a Mashantucket Pequot Indian. Born in 1901, she spent her entire life in Mashantucket and dedicated her years to researching traditional medicinal uses for indigenous plants and herbs.

Ms. Langevin strongly advocated for the preservation of the Mashantucket Pequot land, culture, and way of life. She stood at the forefront of efforts to defend the Tribe's lands whenever State or local government officials tried to take them away. Her readiness to protect her community demonstrates Ms. Langevin's indomitable determination.

She was also an incredibly thoughtful, loving friend to many. With three siblings and seven half-siblings, Ms. Langevin was considered a beloved aunt by her nieces and nephews, as well as by other Pequot children who stayed with her when their parents left to find work. She took excellent care of the children.

Much of Ms. Langevin's life focused on gardening, preserving food, and watching over her ancestral lands. One of her most important undertakings was her constant work to preserve Pequot traditions and land, a task she took up with great passion and conviction. An inductee into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame, Ms. Langevin will be remembered for her compassion and zeal for continuing traditions and looking after the people and the lands she loved.

I applaud both of these women's immense accomplishments, and I hope my

colleagues will join me in recognizing Dr. Tantaquidgeon and Ms. Langevin as we celebrate National Women's History Month.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize FuelCell Energy as it celebrates 50 years of dedication to the research and delivery of clean, affordable fuel cell solutions.

Founded in 1969 by Dr. Bernard Baker as the Energy Research Corporation, the company has grown exponentially over the past half century. Starting as a highly regarded research company focused on electrochemical battery and fuel cell technologies, FuelCell Energy is now a worldwide leader in its field.

The Danbury, CT, based company provides efficient commercial fuel cell solutions for the supply, recovery, and storage of energy. Fifty years of tireless commitment, diligent effort, and creative innovation has resulted in SureSource power plants located in three continents. These power plants have produced over 8.7 million megawatt-hours of ultraclean power.

FuelCell Energy invests its work in all steps of the process: recognizing a need, developing a solution, and then implementing a solution in an economic and sustainable manner. The breadth of their successes and the critical level of forward progress in the realm of clean energy are truly impressive. Thanks to their remarkable efforts, FuelCell Energy enables universities, commercial enterprises, government entities, and other industries the opportunity to make clean choices in a more affordable and accessible way than ever before.

As they mark this important anniversary, the company continues to look toward the future, searching for even more effective options that will benefit our planet and its people. Though there is still more progress to be made, FuelCell Energy stands at the forefront of past innovation and future possibility.

Devoted to creating energy solutions that will make it easier for more and more industries to use clean power, FuelCell Energy is a positive model for modernization and advancement in this vital field. I applaud the accomplishments of FuelCell Energy's visionary leaders and highly skilled and dedicated workers and hope my colleagues will join me in congratulating FuelCell Energy on 50 years of excellence.

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

Madam President, there are many reasons to care about our Federal judiciary. It touches all of us in our everyday lives even though we often fail to appreciate its enormous impact. No court of appeals in the United States is more important than the DC Circuit, and so few of the nominees whom we will consider in this body will be more important than Neomi Rao to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

It has a unique jurisdiction that makes it the court to most frequently hear challenges to the Federal Government's public protections. It considers issues of national consequence, ranging from workers' rights, nondiscrimination policies, consumer protections, immigration policies, money in politics, reproductive rights, access to healthcare, environmental justice, antitrust cases, and regulatory action, like the possible grounding of an unsafe airplane by the FAA.

I have called on the FAA to ground the 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9. I have asked the airlines to do it voluntarily. If the FAA does the right thing, as it should, and orders these planes grounded, its decision may be challenged in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and the safety of our skies and our airline passengers will hang in the balance. This is just one example of how the DC Circuit can matter not only to the lives of people within a particular geographic area but to, literally, the entire United States.

When I ask nominees questions that are designed to elicit their views, their opinions, their past positions, and their present policies, I expect direct, candid answers, but I received just the opposite from Neomi Rao on some of the critical, bedrock issues that are important to all of us in this Chamber when judging a nominee.

I asked Neomi Rao whether she thought Brown v. Board of Education--a pillar of our jurisprudence--was correctly decided. She declined to answer. She said she felt it was inappropriate for a nominee to the court to be giving views on specific cases. I asked her for her views and her position on that case. She declined to give them. She also declined to give them on Roe v. Wade and on Griswold v. Connecticut.

One of my Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee also has reservations about Neomi Rao's opinions in some of these cases. He fears that Ms. Rao actually supports a woman's right to choose and supports the legal doctrine of substantive due process. Unlike me, he met Ms. Rao in private, and he got straightforward answers about her views on those cases and on the underlying legal theories. She passed his test, the President's litmus test, and the test of those outside groups--extreme rightwing, conservative groups--that have been given authority as a result of the President's outsourcing of these decisions to, in effect, decide on the nominees to our highest Court.

She passed the test established by the President--that he would appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

But as abhorrent and objectionable as I find many of her views and her failure to give straightforward answers, she has also written a number of very troubling articles and op-eds about her views on women's rights and women's healthcare. We have in this Chamber a term called ``confirmation conversion,'' and I thought Ms. Rao would completely disavow and abandon those pieces.

In an op-ed about date rape, she wrote: ``If [a woman] drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice.'' In another op-ed criticizing aspects of feminism, Rao wrote that women ``must be thoroughly educated about the consequences of their sexuality in order to prevent such problems'' as date rape. From early in her career, these writings indicate that she believes women bear a major part of responsibility for date rape.

These writings are from early in her career, and I thought she would completely break with them and reject them, but she failed to do so. Only after the hearing did she disavow them, without directly apologizing, and that kind of confirmation conversion is inherently unbelievable.

Undermining her credibility even more are the actions she took later in her career--after those writings and before she was nominated.

She serves as the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, also known as OIRA. Her job is to review all regulatory actions--all of them--proposed by the administration. In that capacity, Ms. Rao approved rescinding guidance provided to schools on how to address and prevent campus sexual assault. Under the new rules, sexual assault survivors would be required to undergo live cross-examination by their attacker's representative. In the course of an administrative proceeding, there would be cross-examination by the attacker's lawyer or other representative. Schools would be required to use a higher standard of proof for claims of sexual misconduct.

Under this administration's own analysis, these rules would have a profound, chilling effect on the number of campus sexual assault investigations that are conducted. That is the reason they are proposing the new rules--to discourage survivors from coming forward to seek justice.

It is not only Rao's early writings that stigmatize and blame women survivors of sexual assault; the recent policies she approved and authorized institutionalize these really regrettable and unacceptable views. Her deeply troubling positions on sexual assault and her victim- blaming rhetoric--which she tried to excuse initially as the reckless musings of a college student rather than breaking with them and rejecting them--place the

rights of women and others at risk. We should deny her confirmation.

Equally important, she has also used that position at OIRA to restrict reproductive rights.

Let's be clear. One of the important features of the Affordable Care Act is a requirement that health insurers cover contraceptives as an essential health benefit--no charge to consumers because it is an essential health benefit.

Last year, the Trump administration issued rules that would allow any and all private companies to deny contraception coverage if the CEO had a moral or religious objection. Two Federal courts found that the rules were illegal because they violate the due process clause--the legal process required by law to implement the new rules--and that objection was found to be an inadequate justification for, in effect, violating the rights of women who would seek that kind of care at no charge. As the head of OIRA, Neomi Rao not only approved of the substance of the new rules but was so committed to implementing them that she signed off on an illegal process to do so.

That is not all Neomi Rao has done to, in effect, discourage and deter reproductive health. The Department of Health and Human Services recently finalized a new title X regulation. Under this rule, ``Any organization that provides or refers patients for abortions is ineligible for title X funding to cover STD prevention, cancer screenings, and contraception.'' As with any rule, OIRA had to conduct a cost-benefit analysis in order to approve that rule, and I am deeply troubled by Rao's views and actions on reproductive rights that led her to approve that rule and encouraged and condoned the rule and its disastrous effects on women's rights and healthcare.

We are living in an era fraught with abuses of power, under a President who has shown nothing but disdain for the rule of law. In this dark and dangerous era, it is all the more important that we have someone willing to set limits on executive power to prevent an imperial Presidency.

In fact, Ms. Rao is a proponent of a fringe theory on executive power known as the unitary executive theory. She believes that the President, as the head of the executive branch, holds absolute control over executive power.

As recently as 2014, she outlined the implications of this theory in the Alabama Law Review. According to her, the President must be able to remove at his sole discretion all principal officers, including the heads of independent Agencies.

She has criticized the Supreme Court's decision in Morrison v. Olson, which upheld the independent counsel statute in effect at that time. In her view, the President must be able to fire at will anyone in the executive branch. In her view, that includes special prosecutors tasked with investigating wrongdoing by the President.

In 2016, she was interviewed on Hugh Hewitt's radio show. She was asked whether she believes the current special counsel regulations have similarly restrictive effect on executive power and whether the President can direct the actions of the Attorney General or Acting Attorney General. Her view? The Constitution vests all executive power in the President. He can direct his subordinates. He can fire the special counsel.

I hoped that during her confirmation proceedings, she would disavow those views. I asked her whether she thought the President could fire Robert Mueller, the current special counsel. She refused to answer my question.

That extreme view of Presidential power is deeply alarming when it is held by a member of one of the most important courts in the country, which may review decisions of that special counsel to subpoena the President or potentially indict the President or take other actions in the course of an investigation.

I am more than alarmed; I am strongly opposed to this nomination. I hope my colleagues will join me in voting no on final confirmation.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, would the Senator from Indiana yield for a question?

Mr. President, will the Senator from Indiana yield for a question?

Mr. President, does the Senator believe climate change is real, and will he stand with the scientific community, which believes unanimously or almost completely unanimously that climate change is real and that human activity caused it?