Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy), is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Carper), the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Jones), the Senator from Vermont (Mr.

Leahy), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, yesterday, a fire ravaged several homes in Little Village, Chicago. It was the deadliest fire the city has experienced in a decade. Today, we mourn the tragic loss of eight lives taken by this disaster.

In the early hours of the morning, the Chicago Fire Department received a call that a fire had started on the porch of a home where children had been having a sleepover. The fire eventually took the lives of eight precious children, ranging in age from 3 months to 16 years old, and critically injured two others before spreading to several other homes.

My deepest sympathies are with the loved ones of those who were taken far too soon, and my prayers for recovery are with the two teenagers in critical care. Please know I am grieving with the families of Little Village as they work to remember those lost and rebuild their community.

I want to thank the Chicago Fire Department and emergency workers for their quick responses and dedication to saving lives and putting a stop to the deadly fire, as well as workers from the Red Cross and local organizations, who immediately came to the scene to provide support to residents.

I know the people of Little Village will come together to support one another, and they will be stronger for it.

I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

Madam President, I thank my colleague from West Virginia and support his amendment. It is a good amendment for West Virginia and a good one for America, and I look forward to voting for it.

I ask unanimous consent at this point to enter a colloquy with my friend, the senior Senator from Iowa.

Madam President, have you heard of a drug pricing proposal that is supported by both Democratic and Republican Senators, the American Association of Retired Persons, the American Medical Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, America's health insurance plans, 76 percent of the American people, President Donald Trump, and the Department of Health and Human Services? What kind of idea can this be that has that kind of support, bipartisan support in Congress, as well as in the White House?

Well, Senator Grassley and I have a simple amendment to the spending bill that is before us which provides $1 million--small change by any Federal standard--for the Health and Human Services Department to issue rules regarding pricetags on direct-to-consumer ads for prescription drugs.

While this underlying bill includes many important provisions that I support, it doesn't do anything to tackle prescription drug costs. And we know, American families know across the board, that it is time for us to act.

If I ask you whether you have seen any commercials for prescription drugs on television and you answer no, then I know one thing for sure: You don't own a television, because they broadcast an average of nine drug ads that each of us see every single day--nine a day. You know what I am talking about. It is the ads with those unpronounceable names of drugs and then that long, mumbling ``Don't take it if you are allergic to it; this may kill you''--all the warnings they give you at the end of the ad, over and over and over again.

The pharmaceutical industry spends $6 billion a year so that we get a steady diet of these drug ads.

How many countries in the world have television advertising for prescription drugs? Two--the United States of America and New Zealand.

Each year, $6 billion is being spent for one purpose: so that finally, after watching an ad for the 45th time, you can spell ``XARELTO'' and walk into the doctor's office and ask if you can have XARELTO blood thinner rather than Warfarin or some other version. The difference, of course, is that the XARELTO prescription drug costs $560 a month, and it may not be any better for you than the generic version that is a lot cheaper.

Do you know what the No. 1 drug is that is advertised on television and sold in the United States of America? When I tell you, you will nod yes.

Here it is: HUMIRA--HUMIRA. It was designed to help people with rheumatoid arthritis, and that is a terrible disease, and the people needed a helping hand. Then they discovered it had a positive impact on psoriasis. Well, psoriasis can be a terrible thing to suffer from, but there are a lot of us who just have a little red patch on our elbow who technically have psoriasis.

What I showed you here you don't see on television, incidentally. How much does HUMIRA cost? It costs $5,500 a month--a month. Do you wonder why the cost of healthcare is spiraling out of control--$5,500 a month? Sadly, many of these high-priced prescription drugs are being prescribed by doctors when it is not necessary, and that drives up the cost of healthcare. It is why a major health insurance company in my State has told me they spend more money each year on high-cost prescription drugs than they spend on inpatient hospital care. Think about that--more money. It is going through the roof, and there is nothing to contain it.

So the Senator from Iowa, with his Midwestern commonsense approach to legislation, has joined with the Senator from Illinois, who hopes to aspire to the same goal, to come up with a basic idea: If you are going to run a drug ad, put the price of the product on the ad. We will then know what it really costs, and we will also know when they start raising it again and again and again.

Well, the pharmaceutical industry hates this bill and this amendment like the devil hates holy water. They don't want to tell you what it is going to cost. They want you to go into the doctor's office and say: I just have to have Humira. I have this little patch on my elbow, and I absolutely have to have it.

Too many doctors write the prescriptions. So what Senator Grassley and I are trying to do is to give the American people more information about drugs and, particularly, their costs. We are trying to make sure that information gives transparency to the transaction, and we are trying our very best to give the American consumers a break and perhaps to start to slow down the cost of prescription drugs.

This is a simple amendment--$1 million to the Department of HHS to issue rules requiring pricetags on ads. One Senator opposes this--one. We are trying our best to convince him not to oppose us. We think it is a good idea to move forward on this.

I yield the floor to my friend, my colleague, and cosponsor to this measure, Senator Chuck Grassley.

I thank my colleague from Iowa. Patience certainly is an important part of this job, but the American people are impatient. They want to know why they elected us to office and we don't solve problems. This is a problem that Senator Grassley and I want to start solving: informing consumers about the actual costs of prescription drugs--what a radical idea.

The first time you realize what a drug costs is when you stand in front of the cash register with your mouth wide open saying: You have to be kidding me. Instead, people ought to know going into this conversation what these drugs cost. That is not an unreasonable request. We do it for cars, for gas, for so many things. Why don't we do it for this?

The American people want to get it. We want to get it. I hope we can convince one Senator who is holding us up to give us a chance to inform the American people on a bipartisan basis of something that will help, in a small way, perhaps, but it will help to bring the costs of healthcare down in this country.

I thank the Senator from Iowa.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Kaine, Senator Wicker and Senator Warner for raising this issue. Plans for procurement of Ford- class carriers will be debated in the upcoming conference on the defense appropriations bill. I look forward to the Department of Defense and the Navy providing more information on the proposal, and I will keep Senator Kaine's comments in mind as the discussion continues.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, at the outset, the issue of abortion is a divisive issue in America. Many people have different and strongly held beliefs on this particular issue.

We have a law on the books now--and have for decades--that no Federal funds may be spent for the performance of abortion procedures, including at Planned Parenthood. Yet Planned Parenthood does much more than that. Planned Parenthood provides healthcare for millions of women across the United States, and Planned Parenthood provides family planning so that these women can avoid unplanned pregnancies, which, sadly, in many cases, lead to abortion. Regardless of your position on abortion, the position of Planned Parenthood is to counsel families so they can control the number of children they have and avoid unplanned pregnancies and the likelihood of abortion procedures to follow.

It is for this reason that I have consistently voted against Senator Paul when he has stood here to defund Planned Parenthood, and I will today. Yet I am about to make a modification request in the hopes that we can have the vote that he just asked for, the vote on Planned Parenthood, as long as we can also have a Democratic vote--one of each--on an amendment that is being offered by Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, which basically states that we in the U.S. Senate will join in an effort to preserve those portions of the Affordable Care Act that protect families who have members with preexisting conditions. That is basically it.

Time and again, we have heard Republicans say they don't want there to be discrimination against families because there is a child who is a cancer survivor or because there is a spouse who has diabetes. They do not want them discriminated against and to be charged more for health insurance. That is all Senator Manchin is asking for.

So we will have a vote on the Paul amendment on Planned Parenthood and on the Manchin amendment, which goes to the heart of the Affordable Care Act's preexisting condition protection. Those two amendments can bring us to a close on this debate. I think that is a fair, bipartisan conclusion. I agree with what Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has said in that this is the right way to end this debate--with a Republican amendment and a Democratic amendment.

I move to modify Senator Paul's request. I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up en bloc and reported by number: Paul No. 3967 and Manchin No. 3865. I further ask consent that at 4 p.m., the Senate vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed and that there be no second-degree amendments in order to the amendments prior to the votes and that each amendment be subject to a 60-vote affirmative threshold for adoption. I further ask consent that following the disposition of the Paul amendment, the managers' package, which is at the desk, be agreed to--a bipartisan package--and that all postcloture time be yielded back.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I would like some explanation as to where we are on the floor at this moment.

I object.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, we have agreed that the Republican Senator from Kentucky is to offer an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood. I will be opposing that, but I believe he is entitled to a vote. On the Democratic side, we are asking to have an amendment, in a bipartisan nature, so that the Democratic amendment can be offered, which may be opposed by both of the Republican Senators. With that, there would be a real debate in the Senate, which we rarely have.

Because Senator Paul and I agree that there should be both amendments--the Democratic and Republican amendments--and that we should move forward to close down debate on the overall bill, I will object until we get Senator Cornyn's agreement.

I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz), are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, this year marks an important milestone for a true treasure in Illinois. The Lincoln Park Zoo, located in the heart of Chicago, is celebrating its 150th anniversary.

From its inauspicious beginnings with the gift of two pairs of swans from Central Park in New York City, the Lincoln Park Zoo has grown to be a destination for Chicago residents and visitors alike. The zoo is visited by 3.7 million people annually.

Visitors to the zoo appreciate its central location; it is close to cultural and shopping attractions in Chicago. But what everyone loves about the zoo is that there is no admission fee in order to enjoy the zoo's exhibits. That is right; admission to the Lincoln Park Zoo is free. In 1878, 20 years after those swans arrived from Central Park, it was resolved that the Zoo would always be free and open to the public. Today, Lincoln Park Zoo remains the Nation's only privately managed, free-admission zoo in the country.

When people visit the zoo, they not only experience the seals, gorillas, polar bears, giraffes, the big cats at the Kovler Lion House, and a pygmy hippopotamus, they also are introduced to farm animals, equipment, and practices that reflect the importance of agriculture to my home State. For many urban children, the zoo allows an introduction to nature and agriculture in a way they may not otherwise experience.

Generations of Chicagoans have fond memories of spending summer days at Lincoln Park Zoo with their families. Many can tell you that it is worth braving the blustery Chicago weather for a visit to Lincoln Park Zoo during Zoo Lights, their annual winter celebration.

I have always considered Lincoln Park Zoo to be a hallmark of a Chicago childhood. It is a place I wanted to share with my twin grandchildren, now age 7, when they come to visit. Hopping on the 151 CTA bus and wandering the zoo grounds in summer and winter has always been a great adventure for my family.

I want to join the community in celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Lincoln Park Zoo. The staff and volunteers of the zoo should be proud of their efforts to preserve and foster this Chicago treasure, ensuring future generations have the opportunity to create memories as I have done with my family.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Tennessee for his kind words and thank him for his leadership on so many issues. He is chairman of the health and education authorizing committee, and we also serve together on Appropriations Committee. It has been a real pleasure to work with him over the years on so many issues but particularly on the issue of medical research.

It would surprise a lot of people--maybe even disappoint them--to know how bipartisan we are when it comes to this issue. I can say, on behalf of Senator Murray on our side of the aisle and Senator Blunt on the other side of the aisle, that he and I have created a little team, a little cabal, that watches the authorization and appropriations bills.

This will be the fourth consecutive year that we have had 5 percent real growth at the National Institutes of Health. As Dr. Collins--one of the great living Americans--has told us, this is going to reap dividends, as the Senator described earlier in his speech, in terms of breakthroughs when it comes to dealing with suffering and disease and early death that we can do something about in our lifetimes.

I don't quarrel with the Senator's conclusion in his speech that we are talking about the direct appropriations bills here, the direct spending of the government, and we are keeping that at a slow rate of increase.

On the mandatory side of the programs where we see dramatic increase, part of it has to do with the cost of healthcare in America. That cost continues to go up. One of the drivers of the cost of healthcare, according to insurance companies and others, are the costs of prescription drugs. They are going up dramatically.

We had a hearing yesterday, and a young mother came to tell us the story of losing her son who, I think, was about 23 years of age. No, I know exactly; I remember now. He was 26 years of age. He no longer qualified to be on the family health insurance. He was diabetic, and he went to buy his insulin at the drugstore and was told it would cost him $1,300. He wasn't going to get paid for 4 days, so he put it off. During that period of time, he died from complications of diabetes.

The cost of insulin at $1,300 is incredible to me. This is a drug that has been available for decades, and that it would go up in cost so dramatically that he would be unable to afford it and lose his life is scandalous in this country.

I know the Senator senses this, as well, and believes, as I do, that we want pharmaceutical companies to be profitable, we want them to do research, and we want them to invest in new drugs. But we cannot step back and ignore when their pricing is out of control, and in many instances that is the case.

I have said before on the floor--I have asked the people who gathered here to follow our speeches: How many of you have never seen an ad on television for a drug? If you held up your hand, I know one thing for sure: You don't own a television because the average American sees nine drug ads a day--a day.

Why do pharmaceutical companies buy nine drug ads a day for every American to consume at $6 billion a year? So that, eventually, we will become so familiar with the names of their drugs that we will ask our doctors to prescribe them, and doctors do prescribe them when the patients ask. Sometimes the patient may not need that drug. The patient may be able to deal with a generic drug that is much cheaper, but the pharmaceutical companies want us to reach the point at which we know these drugs by name and ask for them, and the doctors prescribe them.

The most heavily prescribed drug in America today--here is a name you are familiar with: HUMIRA. Of course, if you turn on the television, you see HUMIRA, which was originally designed to deal with rheumatoid arthritis and is now being advertised as a cure for psoriasis. What they don't tell you is the information we put at the bottom of this display: HUMIRA costs $5,500 a month. Did you know that? You would never know it, listening to their ads because they don't disclose it.

I have an amendment here that is bipartisan, which Senator Chuck Grassley and I have offered, to say that on all the drug ads, they have to put the price of the drug. It is pretty simple, right? If you knew HUMIRA cost $5,500 a month, you might not even consider it for that little red patch of psoriasis on your elbow. If you knew that some of these drugs they are talking about, like XARELTO--it took about 10 times for me to figure out how to pronounce it and spell it, but they keep coming at you. It is a blood thinner, and it costs $500 or $600 a month. All of these disclosures made to consumers would give them more information to make a decision and perhaps think twice before they ask for a very expensive prescription drug.

So I have this bipartisan amendment pending on this bill, which would say to the Trump administration and the Department of Health and Human Services: Develop the rules for putting prices of these drugs on the ads. The Trump administration supports it. How about that? Republican Senator Grassley, Democratic Senator Durbin, and the Trump administration support it. It sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn't it? It sounds like just the kind of thing that would pass in the ordinary course of business in the Senate. But, unfortunately, it ran into a problem. The problem? Pharma. The pharmaceutical companies don't want to tell us how much these drugs cost, so they are trying to stop this amendment.

They are trying to stop this amendment. They have one Senator who has created many obstacles for me to bring this to the floor. We have had everybody on Earth calling him, and we are not getting anywhere. It seems that pharma is not ready for putting the cost of the drug on their ad.

It means that when it comes down to it, not only will the American Medical Association, which supports our amendment, the American Association of Retired People, which supports our amendment, and the 76 percent of Americans--despite all of the support--we are going to have a tough time passing it. Pharma is hard to beat. Pharma is hard to beat.

When we talk about the increasing cost of Medicare and the cost of healthcare across America, Blue Cross Blue Shield tells me it is the driver of the increase in healthcare costs, prescription drugs.

Blue Cross Blue Shield in Illinois told me they spend more money on prescription drugs each year than they spend on inpatient hospital care. Think about that--more money than inpatient hospital care.

If we are going to do something about it, we ought to do the basics. The basics would be disclosing to the American people how much these drugs cost. You haven't heard the last of it when it comes to this amendment.

If Pharma is successful in stopping us from offering this amendment, and even getting a vote on it, I will be back. I am going to continue to return because I think it is important that consumers across America get full disclosure of information on these drug ads.

Incidentally, you know how many countries in the world advertise drugs like the United States? Only one other country, New Zealand. New Zealand and the United States are the only two, and pharma spends $6 billion a year.

When it comes to dealing with increasing costs of Medicare, this is one of the things we can do. We also want to say Medicare can bargain, just as the Veterans' Administration does, to get a good deal on drug pricing. Right now, they can't, but if they could bring down the cost of drugs under Medicare, it would help us maintain the solvency of that critically important lifesaving program.

I see the Senator from Tennessee is on his feet.

Mr. President, let me thank my colleague from Tennessee. I value his friendship and professional support on this idea. This is basic that Americans know what the cost of the prescription drugs will be. Do you know when you discover it? When you go to the cash register, that is when you discover it.

Shouldn't we know in advance? Shouldn't we know so that if Humira, which is now at $5,500 per month, goes up to $6,000--and I understand it just did--we are aware of that fact? If we can't use transparency in competition, what are the alternatives--a government mandate? There are alternatives to that, which I think we have come up with.

Let's let the American consumer know what they are facing when it comes to these drugs, and let's use this Congress, as we are elected to use it, to reflect the will of the people, who are fed up with the spiraling cost of prescription drugs.

I thank the Senator from Tennessee for joining me on the floor.

I yield.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, pending before the U.S. Senate today are two of the biggest appropriations bills we will consider this year. As Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, mentioned, they are the eighth and ninth bills we will pass.

One of those bills I have had a direct interest in as the ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. We are about to break a record. This spending bill for the Department of Defense is one of the largest increases we have seen in any given year. This bill is $607 billion for day-to-day operations of the Department of Defense and another $68 billion for something known as Overseas Contingency Operations, which is just another category of spending. This one bill-- one bill of the Department of Defense--comprises 49 percent of all of discretionary spending of the Government of the United States of America. Almost half of our discretionary budget is going to be spent in this bill. Accompanying it is the bill on health and education, which is the second largest appropriations bill we consider. So between the two of these bills, we are talking about a massive government expenditure.

Let's reflect on that expenditure for a moment.

There is no replacement for a strong national defense, but we should ask ourselves why. Why does it cost the American taxpayer so much to defend America?

The last budget deal, under which we are working here, provided a near-record increase for the Department of Defense. Going back almost 50 years, you can only find two or three other increases comparable. We are talking about a massive expenditure and a substantial, historic increase in the Department of Defense.

Why? Because we face enemies in this world. I am not naive about that. I believe it. When it comes to superpowers threatening us, at the top of the list is Russia, and second on the list is China.

How much do they spend, when it comes to the defense budgets of those two countries--our two hard targets, the most threatening nations when it comes to the United States? That is where you have to step back and shake your head and say that can't be true. But it is true.

The Russian defense budget from 2017 to 2018 is $78 billion. Remember my earlier figures? We are going to be spending $700 billion, and their annual budget is $78 billion.

How can there be such a disparity? Some people have argued that it is because of the accounting methods. It is the fact that Russian soldiers are paid dirt wages and ours, thank goodness, are paid just compensation and are given benefits. I accept all of that, but it still doesn't explain an almost 10-to-1 ratio of spending in the United States against spending in Russia.

What about China? There is another nation that we are worried about in terms of our national defense. China is believed to spend about $175 billion a year, about one-fourth of our total defense spending.

Here is Russia spending about 10 percent of our defense spending, and we are concerned about the threat they pose to the United States and our allies. Here is China spending one-fourth of what we do, and we worry about their expanded roles in places like the Pacific.

What is baffling about that comparison is that we spend so much more than our major adversaries in the world. Yet many experts testify over and over before congressional committees that we are falling behind in the development of key technologies--technologies like satellites, artificial intelligence, hypersonic missiles, and quantum computing.

It doesn't stand to reason that the United States of America, with all of its strength and all of its innovation and all of its ingenuity, is being challenged in the world by countries that are spending a fraction of what we spend.

The conclusion is obvious. Our large increase of military spending calls for more accountability on how these funds are being spent. I voted for Secretary Mattis. I respect him very much, not only for his service to our country as a General in the U.S. Marine Corps but also as our Secretary of Defense. Thank goodness he is on the job. I have a lot of faith in him, and I believe he has a steady hand in an administration where there aren't too many steady hands.

In March, Secretary Mattis sent a memo to every member of the Department of Defense, and here was the title: ``Be Peerless Stewards of the Taxpayers' Dollars.'' I have had the opportunity on two or three occasions to have direct conversations with Secretary Mattis about my concern that we are dramatically increasing American spending over our adversaries and still we believe they have a competitive edge or a near-competitive edge in many critical areas. Secretary Mattis correctly assessed in this report that the Pentagon needs a culture of performance and accountability in order to increase the trust and confidence that not only Congress but especially the American taxpayer places in his team.

We also have a procurement system--a purchasing system--that sadly encourages poor behavior and poor results. I asked Dr. Michael Griffin, the top research and development official in the Department of Defense: Why do we spend so much more in the United States and continue to fall behind?

He said that many members of the Department of Defense are afraid to be the last to say yes to a program that may not succeed. Too many decisions are pushed up the bureaucratic ladder to higher levels, which strangles these programs in redtape and delays them even more. If something goes wrong, failures are the subject of heated congressional hearings. We have seen that over and over--from $20,000 toilet seats and similar scandals in the past.

I agree with Dr. Griffin's findings. The Department of Defense needs to do so much more to change the culture of accountability at that agency. We need to establish a new spirit of transparency. Right now, every weapon system--every single one of them--is sold to Congress with a rosy scenario: technological breakthroughs at a modest cost. There is no difference between the sales pitch on a program that is easy to develop and one that is a giant risk.

The Department of Defense needs to be more upfront and more candid with what can go wrong and what will happen if something does go wrong. Very often, the contentious hearings that Dr. Griffin spoke about are not the result of a failed test but a broken promise.

While the Pentagon has much work ahead of it to improve its accountability, the world does stand still. The Defense appropriations bill before the Senate makes major investments and innovation, and these are critical to our servicemembers, their families, and to the defense of our Nation. In this bill there is $95.1 billion in research and development spending. Remember, the total budget is almost $700 billion, and $95.1 billion goes for R&D. This is the highest level of R&D funding in programs in the history of the Department of Defense, even when adjusted for inflation, and I support it.

The increases provided by the committee will include major investments in areas that are challenging and promising at the same time: artificial intelligence, satellite technologies, and basic research. In addition, the bill provides $1.8 billion, just a small proportion of the total budget, and that money goes to medical research. That is a 5-percent increase over last year's spending. This DOD research is just a fraction of what is invested at the National Institutes of Health, which I will address in a moment, that resulted in breakthroughs ranging from breast cancer treatments to battlefield medical care.

Our soldiers, sailors, marines, members of the Coast Guard, and airmen are surviving in battle because of this research at the Department of Defense. It is money well spent.

With all of the valuable investments that are included in this bill, I want to especially thank Chairman Richard Shelby, of Alabama, for all of his work on this bill. It has been a real joy to work with him. We have disagreed on a few things--don't get me wrong--and I am sure we will continue to do so, but we have known one another for many years. We respect one another, and we are determined that this critical bill is going to be part of the success report that comes out of the Senate as we break for the Labor Day recess.

Chairman Shelby has been receptive to many suggestions and comments, and I have tried to do the same when he has made some ideas a part of his proposal in this bill. I want to commend him for all of his work to get the appropriations process on track, not just on this bill but on the others as well. We stand a real chance in the Senate of sending most appropriations bills to the President before the end of the fiscal year the last day of September--a feat that has not been accomplished for the defense budget in 10 years.

To Chairman Shelby's great credit, he understands that moving this Defense appropriations bill along also means moving other appropriations bills with it. While there may be tough votes coming up, we have come a long way to reestablish regular order in the last few months, and I am happy to be a part of this bipartisan solution. I hope the House will come back soon and join us in this effort. We would love to see them again.

Now, let me say a word about the other appropriations bill that is part of our package on the floor. This bill, the Labor-HHS-Education bill, includes funding for the National Institutes of Health. For the past 6 years, I have made this the focal point of my work here in the Senate. I don't take particular credit for the results, but I have done my darndest to encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make this a priority, and I am happy to report they have.

For the fourth year in a row, Congress is on track to provide the National Institutes of Health with funding increases of at least 5 percent in real growth--a $2 billion increase in this bill. In the fiscal year 2019 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill before the Senate, we will help to ensure that our Nation's best and brightest medical researchers have the funding they need to conduct research on the diseases and conditions that impact every single American.

NIH researchers are currently trying to develop cures for cancer, to figure out developments to delay or prevent the threat of Alzheimer's, and to help better those living with heart disease or diabetes.

Between 2010 and 2016, the Food and Drug Administration approved 210 new drugs in that 6-year period of time for treatments in the United States. Every single one of these new drugs was developed with funding by the National Institutes of Health.

I hope, as we move forward to conference with the House on this bill, that we can include at least a 5-percent funding increase for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as other agencies that allow America to literally lead the world in medical innovation.

This bill provides $3.7 billion for the prevention and treatment of the scourge of opioid addiction. It will help our Federal agencies to respond better to this ongoing public health challenge. It includes provisions I requested to help the CDC address the toll of violence in the city of Chicago and assist with the Legionnaires' disease outbreak in Quincy, IL. It rejects President Trump's efforts to slash the Federal-Work Study Program and includes an increase in the maximum Pell grant of $100. It includes $5 million for the Open Textbooks Pilot Program, helping college students across America with the exploding cost of higher education.

It is a good bill, and I want to commend Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the Democrat, and Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican, for crafting the bipartisan fiscal year 2019 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill. I do think we should be addressing the skyrocketing drug costs that every single

American is well aware of. It is something we all talk about, but the underlying bill doesn't address it. I filed a bipartisan amendment with my friend and colleague from Iowa, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, to improve price transparency and direct-to-consumer drug advertising.

If I ask you whether you have seen any ads for drugs on television and you answer no, then, I know automatically that you don't own a television because the average American sees a drug advertisement about nine times a day.

Why do the drug companies spend so much money advertising on television in the United States? Doesn't every other country do the same? No. It turns out that the United States and New Zealand are the only two countries that allow pharma, drug companies, to advertise their products on television directly to consumers.

Why would pharma spend $6 billion a year on advertising so many different ways for Americans to buy these drugs? Because it is profitable. Americans, finally, after the fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth time they have seen it can not only pronounce but even spell Xarelto. When they go to the doctor's office, they say: Doctor, maybe I need a little different blood thinner; maybe I need Xarelto.

Xarelto turns out to be the brand name of a very expensive prescription drug.

What about the drug Humira? How many ads have you seen for the drug Humira? You can't escape them. It is the most advertised treatment on television. Humira was designed to deal with rheumatoid arthritis, a very serious illness that many Americans face. Then, they found out that Humira might have some value when it comes to something called psoriasis. What is psoriasis? It is the red patch on my elbow.

They said: You know, you ought to consider Humira to deal with psoriasis.

Here is a Humira ad. Here is the one thing they don't disclose about Humira on the ad. It costs $5,500 a month. I would like to have perfect skin on my elbow--but at a cost of $5,500 per month? Would you think twice about asking for this drug from your doctor if you knew that it was going to cost this much? Of course you would.

Senator Grassley and I have a simple amendment. The drug companies that want to advertise on television ought to advertise the price of their product or treatment as well. Pharma hates this idea like the devil hates holy water. The notion of actually disclosing what these drugs cost would not only give you a jolt--as you hear $5,500 a month for Humira--but it would also dramatize the increases in drug costs that we see happening all of the time.

Senator Grassley and I have an amendment before this Senate that is going to call for the disclosure of drug pricing. Don't you think the American people deserve this information?

Guess what. Look at the passenger side behind the driver's seat in your car. Look at the window. There is a little disclosure about exactly what you should have to pay for that car. But when it comes to paying for prescription drugs, pharma doesn't want to tell you. They want you to finally face it at the cash register.

I think Americans have a right to know earlier and more about the cost of these prescription drugs. Seventy-six percent of the American people, incidentally, agree with that position.

This amendment is bipartisan and is supported, incidentally, by 76 percent of Americans, the American Association of Retired Persons, the American Medical Association, and--hold on to your hat--President Donald Trump supports this provision as well.

We have an amendment that is bipartisan and is supported by the administration, which should be included in this bill, which will move us toward price disclosure. I think it is overdue.

We also need to increase the funding for the Centers for Disease Control's work on congenital heart disease, the most common and deadliest category of birth defects.

I will be filing an amendment to increase the funding for this program from $4 million to $7 million--a modest amount in a bill of billions of dollars but one that would help 2.4 million Americans living with congenital heart disease.

Student Loan Debt

Madam President, I also plan to file 2 amendments to help some of the 44 million Americans who are struggling with student loan debt by bringing sanity to the way student loans are treated in bankruptcy.

Unlike most types of debt, student loans are extremely difficult-- almost impossible--to discharge in bankruptcy. Why? There are two reasons. A debtor has to meet a high bar of showing ``undue hardship'' in order to get student loans discharged, and the Department of Education pays private contracting firms to fight the students tooth and nail in court if they try to seek a discharge of their student debt because of undue hardship.

My amendments would bar the use of Federal funds to pay these contractors who contest undue hardship claims in bankruptcy court when the claims are brought by certain student debtors.

Listen to the categories of people we have included in this amendment, people I think would be deserving of discharge of their student debts in bankruptcy court: No. 1, veterans who have been deemed unemployable because of a service-connected disability; No. 2, family caregivers of veterans or of the elderly or disabled family members; No. 3, people receiving Social Security disability whose only income is Social Security payments; and No. 4, borrowers who have finished school but have spent at least 5 years at a low income of less than $24,000 a year.

Those are four of the categories of people we think deserve a break when it comes to student loan debt. I hope my colleagues will join me in helping disabled veterans and their caregivers and the others included in this amendment.

A second amendment would focus exclusively on disabled veterans and family caregivers.

Finally, I will file two amendments to protect students from our Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Secretary DeVos is planning to repeal or rewrite Obama-era borrower defense and gainful employment rules that help students and taxpayers avoid being cheated by for- profit colleges and universities.

Do you want to know the story on for-profit colleges and universities? You need to know only two numbers: only 9 percent of all post-secondary students attend for-profit schools--University of Phoenix, DeVry, and similar schools; 9 percent of students go to that type of school, yet 33 percent of all student loan defaults are from students who attend these for-profit schools. Why--9 percent of the students, 33 percent of the student loan defaults? There are two reasons. No. 1 is they charge too darn much. They are dramatically more expensive than other alternative education at the higher education level. Secondly, their diplomas aren't worth the paper they are written on. These students learn after they graduate that they can't get a job to pay back their student loans.

So I think in this situation Secretary DeVos is doing exactly the wrong thing. She is not holding these schools accountable. She is making it tougher for the students who are lured into their traps to get relief. I am pleased that many of my colleagues have joined in this effort. The Secretary of Education should not roll back important protections for students and taxpayers, and the Secretary should not eliminate Federal student debt relief for borrowers defrauded by predatory for-profit schools like Corinthian and ITT Tech. It is my hope that these amendments will be included in the final bill.

Madam President, once again, the Senate is considering bipartisan appropriations bills. These bills may not include everything I want or everything other Members want. They are good compromises, which I plan to support.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz), and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz), and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I note my colleagues have come before me to discuss the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court after the retirement of Justice Kennedy.

I checked, just to make sure I understood the section of the Constitution. It is article II, relative to the President's powers, which talks about the power of the President to fill that vacancy on the Supreme Court, subject to the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. One hundred U.S. Senators ultimately have the last word on any nominee. I am fortunate to serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where we get the first chance to review any nominee and take a look at their background and vote as a committee before the matter is brought to the floor of the U.S. Senate.

I have listened to my colleagues who support Judge Kavanaugh ascending to the bench and to a lifetime appointment to the highest Court of the land. I am troubled by one particular aspect of this nomination. It is different than

any nomination to the Supreme Court in the history of the United States in this respect: This President made it clear that any person who wanted to be eligible for the U.S. Supreme Court needed to pass a clearance by two organizations. One is called the Federalist Society and the other is the Heritage Foundation. Both of these are conservative organizations which reviewed all of the potential Supreme Court nominees and produced a list of 20 or more men and women who would be eligible for the Supreme Court by their judgment.

Is their judgment important? I will point to one fact in history which illustrates. When Neil Gorsuch was considered by President Trump to serve on the Supreme Court and fill the vacancy of Antonin Scalia, he was not notified by the White House. The White House called the Federalist Society head, Leonard Leo, and asked him to call Mr. Gorsuch and tell him the good news. So to say that the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation played a critical role in the selection of a nominee is an understatement. If you don't clear their background test, their litmus test, you cannot be considered by the Trump administration for the Supreme Court.

That is offensive to me. We don't see any reference to the Federalist Society or the Heritage Foundation in the U.S. Constitution. There is a clear reference to a President elected by the people of the United States, but to give to any special interest group, right, left or center, that kind of authority is way beyond what our Founding Fathers imagined would be this process for selecting someone for the Supreme Court.

Then it gets even more complicated. Before we consider a nominee for the Supreme Court, we have to carefully review their records. It takes time. Literally, scores of lawyers sit down and go through the published opinions and speeches and other documents which evidence a person's background, and when it comes to Brett Kavanaugh, it is an extensive background. He has had a role at the highest levels of the Federal Government for years: Ken Starr's Office of Independent Counsel, the Bush v. Gore lawsuit that went down to the State of Florida and beyond.

The cases he was involved in as a member of the court are pretty obvious and published, but many of his other activities--particularly in the White House when he served as Staff Secretary to the President of the United States--were extensive. For a 3-year period of time, for 35 months, he was the gatekeeper in the White House as to the documentation the President would receive and read. It involved a pretty massive amount of time and documentation on all of the major issues facing the Presidency for almost 3 years. Should we take a look at it? Is it worth our investigation and inquiry into what Mr. Kavanaugh said and did during those years?

Well, there was a time here when Republicans thought it was not only important but essential when it came to a nominee named Elena Kagan. Elena Kagan had never served on the Federal judiciary. She was nominated by President Obama. At the time, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, insisted on the full documentation of her role in the White House, and the Democratic Senator, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, joined him in making that request. As a result, 170,000 pages of documents were produced because of the request made by Senator Sessions and Senator Leahy. It was a bipartisan request. It established a standard.

The same standard was applied for Democratic nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Documentation had to be presented to the committee and carefully reviewed before there was a vote on whether that person would serve in a lifetime appointment to the highest Court in the land.

Most of us assumed, at that point, that it was a settled practice in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee when it came to the documentary proof we would ask for when nominees came before us for the Supreme Court. We thought that, but we were wrong because when the Republicans took control, everything changed. It changed, of course, with Antonin Scalia's vacancy as a result of his untimely death--a vacancy President Obama sought to fill during his last year in office. He ended up nominating Merrick Garland, a DC Circuit Court judge of impeccable credentials to fill the vacancy. Many Republicans in the Senate refused to even meet with Merrick Garland, let alone consider him and vote on him. So, for a whole year, the vacancy continued at the Supreme Court while the Republicans broke Senate tradition and refused to consider President Obama's nominee.

Then came the election of Donald Trump, the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch, and the process went forward to fill the vacancy the Republicans had kept open for more than a year before Neil Gorsuch was finally voted on by the U.S. Senate.

So here came the second vacancy under the Trump administration--a vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Kennedy--and the question was obviously asked: What standard will you use for asking for the documentary evidence of the person's background in public service?

Many of us assumed it would have been the same standard that was pushed by Senator Sessions, a Republican of Alabama, and Senator Leahy, a Democrat of Vermont. We were wrong. Instead, what the Republicans said is, we are going to have a new rule when it comes to Republican nominees from the Trump administration in the case of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and that new rule said we will not ask for documentation for the 35 months when he served in the White House as the closest adviser to the President of the United States. I can tell you there were a myriad of issues that were considered by the President in that period of time, and Brett Kavanaugh, then assistant to the President, was involved in these decisions. We will not know what he said or did because the Republicans have refused to ask for the documentary evidence of his time there.

There is more to the story. The Republicans decided, for those documents they might consider asking for, they would have a final filter, and the final filter is a man named Burck, who has served as an attorney for not only President Bush but also in the past for Steve Bannon. Does the name ring a bell? Steve Bannon of Breitbart News. Burck has served as his counsel and was a deputy to Brett Kavanaugh in the White House.

Mr. Burck is literally going through Kavanaugh's documents from his time in the White House Counsel's Office to decide which ones will be given to the Senate Judiciary Committee to consider. So it means he is the filter of things he doesn't want us to see and he doesn't want the American people to see. This Republican advocate attorney is going to be a decisionmaker when it comes to whether we can see documents that were produced by Brett Kavanaugh when he served in the White House Counsel's Office.

It gets even worse. It turns out, those documents, which he preclears for us to read in the Senate Judiciary Committee, are subject to some sort of committee confidentiality. I have served on the Senate Judiciary Committee for a number of years, and I know there are documents which are considered somewhat committee confidential, but it is rare, and it is usually a case you wouldn't argue over; classified information, for example. In this case, these Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee will be the final, final filter as to whether the American people will know the background of Brett Kavanaugh.

Why is there so much secrecy here? Why wouldn't these documents be made public? Well, let's look back in time. When Elena Kagan was asked to produce her documents from the time when she served in the White House, she produced every one of them except those that were personal and private. On how many of those 170,000 pages did she assert executive privilege and say: I can't produce them? None. Every single document was turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Now, when it comes to Brett Kavanaugh, I can't tell you what is going on here. There is a concealment which is impossible to explain. What would we find in those documents that have been carefully screened by Mr. Burck and then again by the Senate Judiciary Committee Republican majority?

I am concerned about it because this is a lifetime appointment to the highest Court in the land. We know the

Court is carefully divided. It is legitimate for us to ask the questions about Judge Kavanaugh's background because of our constitutional responsibility to advise and consent, but we can't ask those questions if they don't produce the documents, and that is where we are today.

So my colleagues can come to the floor and talk about Judge Kavanaugh's record leading up to this nomination. They are limited in the information they have been given, and the limitations are unprecedented in the U.S. Senate.

The Republicans, when it comes to the Supreme Court, just rewrite the rules. Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee: Sorry. No thanks. We are not interested in interviewing him or even considering him for that appointment. When it came to this judge, Judge Kavanaugh, the ordinary production of documents, by a standard established by the Republicans and Senator Sessions, is being ignored now when it comes to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. We will be given limited information because of this process and have to do our best to carefully review this nominee before he is considered for this lifetime appointment to the highest Court in the land.

I yield floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from North Dakota (Ms. Heitkamp), the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Merkley), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for vote No. 183 on confirmation of the nomination of A. Marvin Quattlebaum, Jr., to be a U.S. circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit. Had I been present, I would have voted yea on confirmation of the nomination, as I did in the Judiciary Committee.

Further, I was necessarily absent for vote Nos. 184 and 185, relative to the nomination of Julius Ness Richardson to be a U.S. circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit. Had I been present, I would have voted yea on the motion to invoke cloture and yea on confirmation of the nomination, as I did in the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for vote No. 182 on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of A. Marvin Quattlebaum, Jr., to be a U.S. circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit. Had I been present, I would have voted aye on the motion to invoke cloture.