Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Franken) is necessarily absent.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, as you know, and many do, 16 years ago I introduced a bill called the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act was written to cover young people, brought to the United States by their parents, who have grown up in this country but do not have legal status. They are undocumented. Some of them don't learn that until they are in high school or later. They think they are Americans. They have gone to school with a lot of American kids. They pledge allegiance to the flag. They sing our national anthem. They truly believed they were Americans and didn't learn until later in life that they had overstayed their visas. Their parents had overstayed their visas, is probably a better description, and that has affected their legal situation.

So I introduced this bill--a simple bill--that reads, if you have children in America who are caught up in that circumstance, we will give them a chance to get legal. They didn't make the decision to come here in the first place, but they ought to have a chance to become legal in America and become citizens. That is what the DREAM Act said, and we set up certain standards.

How do you become legal in America?

First, if you have a serious criminal record, goodbye. We don't want you. We don't need you. Second, if you are not going to finish school and are going to drop out, sorry, there is no future for you in this country--or a limited future. Third, would you consider serving in our U.S. military as a way of proving that you want to be a part of America's future? We set that up with the DREAM Act.

Time passed, and we didn't pass the bill. One of my colleagues in the Senate went on to be elected President of the United States, Barack Obama.

I reached out to him and asked: Mr. President, can you figure out a way to protect these young people who are subject to deportation through no fault of their own? He did. He came up with an Executive order called the DACA Program.

Under the DACA Program, young people, like those I described, came forward. They paid a $500 filing fee, then went through a criminal background check to make sure they had no problems, and they submitted their information. Each of them was given a 2-year renewable protection plan so they could live in America, not be deported, and be able to legally work.

What happened to those people? There were 780,000 of them who showed up, paid the fee, and got the protection under the DACA Program.

Then came a Presidential campaign--the last one--in which Donald Trump, as candidate for President, said: I am going to get rid of this DACA Program. I think it is wrong. It never should have been done by Executive order.

He said that and then was elected and set out to do it. Last September 5, he did just that. It was announced by the Attorney General of the United States. They said that by March 5 of 2018, the program would end.

What it means is, today and every day, more and more of these protected young people fall out of protection--about 120 a day. There are 10,000 of them who were protected by DACA who can now be deported, and the number will continue to grow until March 5, when the President said the program should end--when 1,000 young people a day in America will lose DACA protection, be subject to deportation, and will not be able to legally work.

When he eliminated the DACA Program on September 5, President Trump said to us: I challenge Congress. Do what you are supposed to do. Pass a law to take care of this.

I accepted that challenge, and I joined with Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican of South Carolina. We introduced the Dream Act. We are ready to pass the Dream Act. I think there are the votes on the floor to pass the Dream Act.

Some of my Republican friends have said to me: We support it, but we want a show of good faith on your part that you will strengthen our border operations to reduce others from coming into this country.

I said: Sign me up. As a Democrat, I will join with you as a Republican to fund things that are sensible, realistic, and effective to take our tax dollars and make our borders safer. I accept that.

Now we are in a position in which the President's challenge has really come to the spot where we have to do something. We are going to leave here by December 22 to go home and enjoy the holidays. If we do not fix this problem before we leave, imagine what that will mean to these 780,000 young people. They don't know what their futures are going to hold.

Who are they?

There are 20,000 of them who teach in grade schools and middle schools and high schools across the United States--20,000 of these DACA-protected young people. When they lose their right to legally work in America, they are finished as teachers--finished, out the door. These are 20,000 teachers who could be lost.

In addition, there are students who are in a pretty tricky situation. About 30 of them go to the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago. They won the competition to be accepted at that medical school because Loyola, unlike other medical schools, said they will open competition to DACA-eligible people. Some of them are the most brilliant kids in America who never dreamed that, in being undocumented, they could make it to medical school. They have. They are doing well.

There is a problem. You cannot finish medical school and move on to where you want to be unless you complete a residency after medical school. The residency is actually a job--a job involving a lot of hours in hospitals learning to be a doctor. All doctors go through it, and these medical students would go through it as well except, if they lose DACA protection, they cannot legally work; therefore, they cannot even apply to be residents and complete their medical educations. Our failure to act, our delay in acting, jeopardizes their medical educations.

Do we have a surplus of doctors in the United States? No. The AMA tells us just the opposite. Across Illinois, I can point to communities downstate and to neighborhoods in the Chicago area that are desperately in need of doctors. Can we waste a medical student at Loyola's medical school because the Senate is just too darned busy to take it up?

Does it look to the Presiding Officer like the Senate is too busy to take up an issue like this? The fact is, we have done precious little this year, and we have plenty of time. It is also a reality that a lot of people are watching carefully to see if we do our job.

A long time ago, I started coming to the floor of the Senate, telling the story of these Dreamers--the stories of these people who are protected by DACA. I can give the greatest speech in the world, and people will yawn, but when I tell them the stories of these lives and these people, it changes the conversation. They come to understand who they are and why this is critically important. Today is kind of a milestone. This is the 100th story I have told on the floor of the U.S. Senate. They are all in the Congressional Record for those who want to take a look at them.

It is the story of another one of these Dreamers. His story is particularly compelling. This is his photo.

His name is Kyungmin Cho. Kyungmin Cho was 7 years old when his family brought him from Seoul, South Korea, to the United States. He grew up in New Jersey.

From a young age, he was quite a good student and active in his community. In high school, he took multiple advanced placement courses. He was Vice President of the National Honor Society and president of his class. Here is a picture of him at his high school graduation. In high school, Kyungmin was a member of the Math and Science Academy and a member of the varsity track and field team. He was a volunteer at his church, and he taught summer school. At the same time, he was working over 40 hours a week.

You see, these kids, these young people--Dreamers--don't get Federal Government loans or Pell Grants so they have to work extra time to get the money to go to school. He worked 40 hours a week in a restaurant to help support his family and pay for his education. Now he is a student at Temple University's Fox School of Business and Management. He is studying accounting in the Honors Program. He continues to work two restaurant jobs a week for nearly 40 hours to help his

family, but, last year, something else happened that was significant in his life.

Kyungmin Cho, an undocumented student in America, was allowed to enlist in the U.S. Army. The program he enlisted in is called The Military Accessions Vital to National Interest Program. It is known by the acronym MAVNI. This program allows immigrants like Kyungmin, with special skills ``vital to the national interest,'' to enlist in our Armed Forces. More than 900 DACA recipients with these skills, just like Kyungmin, have joined the military. They took the oath. They said they were willing to die for this country and serve in our military.

Some Trump administration officials have claimed that DACA recipients are taking jobs away from Americans, but Kyungmin and hundreds of others have vital skills that our military just couldn't find in other places.

Kyungmin, with many other Dreamers, is now waiting to ship out to basic training. He continues his undergraduate studies and works full time as he waits for a chance to serve the United States of America. He is willing to risk his life for a country that doesn't recognize him as a legal resident.

He wrote me a letter, which reads:

DACA means everything to me. It gives me the opportunity to

work and support myself. . . . It is with great pride that I

call myself American even though my status says otherwise.

I recently visited the Phoenix Military Academy, one of the six military academies that is part of the Chicago Public School System. I am proud to say Chicago Public Schools hosts the largest Junior ROTC Program in America, with 10,000 cadets. You ought to see them marching at the Memorial Day Parade--just wave after wave of these uniformed, young high school students. It turns out that many of these cadets are Dreamers who want to do just what Kyungmin has done--volunteer to enlist in the U.S. military.

How can you question this man's commitment to America if he is willing to die for this country? How many kids in high school would step up with that kind of courage? He has demonstrated, and others have, too, that they can give a lot to our country.

Without DACA, if it ends March 5, it is over for Kyungmin and 900 others who have volunteered to serve our Nation. They are finished. They cannot continue their service to America, even though the skills they bring are necessarily vital to our national interests. For the thousands of Junior ROTC cadets in Chicago who drill every day and take this seriously, it is over for them too. There is no avenue left for them to step forward and serve our Nation.

Would America be better if we deported Kyungmin back to South Korea-- a country he may not even remember? Will we be a stronger country if we lose this kind of courage and this kind of commitment of a young man who is willing to risk his life for a country that does not legally recognize him as part of its population?

In a few weeks, we are going to get to go home for the holidays. I am looking forward to it. I really am. It is a big holiday for my family, and I am sure it is for many others. Can we really go home and enjoy our families, knowing we have not answered the most basic question that the President said to us on September 5, when he asked: Can Congress act? Can you pass a law? Can you solve a problem? That is what it comes down to when it is DACA and the Dreamers.

When I introduced the Dream Act with Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican of South Carolina, he said: The moment of reckoning is coming.

He is right. Lindsey is right. It is a moment of reckoning for this young man. More importantly, it is a moment of reckoning for this Senate as to whether we are serious about why we were elected. If we cannot solve this basic problem in a matter of days and weeks, shame on us. We are not overworked, for goodness' sake. We are just not inspired to do it at this point, and we need to be inspired to do it.

We shouldn't do to this young man and to the thousands of others who count on us the unacceptable and walk away from our responsibility. Now is the time, before the end of this year, to let this young man know, when he is called to serve our country--and to proudly do so--that we have done everything we can to clear his path.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Franken) is necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, 16 years ago I introduced the DREAM Act. The idea behind the legislation was that if you were brought here to America as a child by your parents, you are undocumented, you grew up in this country, you don't have a serious criminal record, and you have completed school, you deserve a chance to earn your way into legal status into America. You had nothing to say about the decision of your family to come here. You have grown up in this country. If you want to be a part of our future, you should be given a chance. It was a pretty basic idea. It has been debated for a long time.

President Barack Obama stepped up and said: Since we haven't passed that law, I will create something called DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

Under that Executive order, the people I just described can be protected

from being deported for 2 years at a time. They have to go through a criminal background check, they have to pay a $500 fee, and they get the temporary ability to live in the United States without fear of being deported and to work in this country.

Well, 780,000 young people came forward and signed up and went on with their lives--going to school, getting jobs, becoming part of America. DACA-eligible people joined our military. They weren't American citizens, but 900 of them joined our military, willing to sacrifice their lives in defense of a country which doesn't legally recognize them as lawful immigrants. Some 20,000 of them became teachers in schools all across the United States. Most of them are students, who are working because they can't qualify for Federal assistance to go to school, and there are some amazing stories.

So there they were kind of in limbo--half here, half not here-- uncertain about their future, but with the protection of that Executive order. President Trump came in and said: It is over. As of September 5, he ended this DACA protection--saying, prospectively, that the final day for it is March 5, 2018--for 780,000 people. The President then said to Congress: Now, do something. Pass a law. Take care of these people.

Well, 3 months have passed and we have done nothing--nothing. In fact, we have done little or nothing on the floor of the Senate for the last several months. We haven't done this, and it is still unresolved as to whether or not they are going to have a chance to be a part of America's future or for young people like them to have a similar chance--unresolved.

We have to do something about that and we have to do it soon because every day 120 of these young people lose their protection under DACA. That is almost 1,000 a week. So far, 10,000 of them have fallen out of protection under DACA.

What does it mean under practical terms? First, it is the fear of being deported. You are no longer protected. You are undocumented in America. You can be deported: A knock on the door, and you are gone.

Do these young people know that? Of course they do. I see them every weekend. I sit down with them. They are emotionally distraught over the possibility of their lives ending as they know it--being deported to countries they have never been to before, facing languages they don't know.

Think about that possibility. You are 18 or 19 years old, and now you are being deported back to Bolivia, where you have never been. You may not speak Spanish very well, but now you are going to be tossed back into Bolivia where you came from.

So now the question is this: What will we do about this? Will Congress act or wait?

Some voices on the floor of the Senate have said: Well, let's try to get around to this next year. Well, you certainly can't look at the floor of the Senate today, or virtually any day, and say we are so swamped with work we just can't take this up. Of course we can, and we should.

I want to salute my Republican colleagues, a number of whom have stepped up and said: Let's sit down and work this out once and for all. These young people deserve a chance. Let's give them that chance. Their stories are nothing short of inspiring.

This is Yuriana Aguilar. Yuriana Aguilar was 5 years old when her family brought her here from Mexico. She grew up near Fresno, CA, where she was quite a good student. She was in the top 1 percent of her high school class and graduated as valedictorian. She was involved in a lot of activities, was a member of the high school Junior ROTC Program, volunteered at retirement homes, and, with a group called Tree Fresno, planted trees in her community.

She first learned about her immigration status when she was a senior in high school. She thought she was OK. She learned she was wrong. She tried to apply for financial aid, and they said: You are not documented. You are not legally in America. She came here at the age of 5, and she learned about it much later in life.

She didn't give up. She just said: This can't be the end of my story. She was accepted at the University of California, Merced. She majored in biological science, made the dean's list every semester, and was on the chancellor's honor list.

She conducted research in marine biology, as well as in atherosclerosis. Excuse me, Yuriana, if I messed that up; I am a liberal arts lawyer. It looks like that. It is the question of the buildup of fat, cholesterol, and other substances in arteries. She continued her community service, volunteered for the Boys and Girls Club, for a local hospital, and with the church's Sunday school program.

After she graduated, she couldn't pursue her dream of becoming a scientist because she was undocumented, but she didn't give up. She said: This can't be it. So she volunteered at a research lab, where she wasn't going to get paid but where she was able to continue studying and learning.

Then, President Obama created DACA, the Executive order I referred to, in 2012. Because of that, she was allowed to apply to the University of California, Merced, for the Ph.D. program in quantitative and systems biology. Her research focused on sudden cardiac death, the leading cause of natural death in the United States.

Last year, Yuriana became the first undocumented person at the University of California, Merced, to receive a Ph.D. Listen to what the dean of the School of Natural Sciences said:

Yuriana's work is stunning, and it will have significant

impact on our knowledge of the workings of the heart at the

cellular level. The potential benefit of her research in

cardiac care is enormous.

She is now a postdoctoral fellow and instructor at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, a city I am honored to represent. I was just with her last week. This is a picture of her in her lab.

She continues her research on heart health, thanks to DACA, but it is coming to an end. President Trump has ended the program that allows her to stay and study in the United States of America.

She is not going to give up, she says. She wants to bring her medical knowledge and expertise back to the Central Valley in California, where she grew up. During her childhood, she saw how people's financial situations often determined their healthcare. She wants to establish a research-based hospital to make sure that the same top quality healthcare is available even for lower income families.

She sent me a letter. She told me about the day that DACA was announced. She was in a research lab doing what she loves to do. She had a human heart in her hand that was beating with an artificial valve outside the body, and when she saw the news, she cried. She said: ``I'm finally out of the shadows.''

So can she wait? Should she leave? Those are the basic questions we face. Should we do something now? Should we roll up our sleeves, Democrats and Republicans, and solve this problem? Should there be any doubt that we want Yuriana to stay in the United States and continue this amazing research?

Of course, we do. Here we are, trying to attract foreigners to come study in the United States on the mere chance that they will turn out to be as productive as this young lady with her Ph.D. is going to be. She made it through American schools. She beat the odds when it came to college and graduate degrees, without her having the help of government loans. She is a pretty determined young woman. Her determination is not only going to mean that she has an opportunity for a great life; it is an opportunity to make the lives of so many of us better.

This is a simple issue of justice and fairness. That is what is at the heart of it. People come to the floor and want to make this about so many other issues in the immigration system. Can I tell you this? Our immigration system is a mess. It is broken down. It has so many problems. I know. I sat for 6 months and drew up a comprehensive immigration bill with my fellow Republican and Democratic colleagues. We passed it in the Senate, and the House wouldn't even consider it. Our immigration system is broken.

Please do not put on Yuriana's shoulders the responsibility of fixing every part of our immigration system. Give her the chance that she needs to make America a better nation. Give her the justice that she deserves through her hard work and determination. That is what this comes down to. If we make

the Dream Act the law of the land, young people like Yuriana can prove that they can work their way into legal status, work their way into citizenship, and become valuable parts of America's future.

Please, to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, let's roll up our sleeves and do what we were sent to do--solve problems, pass laws, and make sure that we set the stage for America to be a better nation in years to come.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Franken) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Franken) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Franken) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Franken) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business.

Mr. President, we are facing a deadline of March 5, 2018. It was a deadline created by President Trump on September 5. That was the day he announced, through the Attorney General, that he was ending the DACA Program.

The DACA Program was created by President Obama to give young people who were brought to this country as infants and toddlers and young children and who grew up in America and are currently undocumented a chance to earn their way to legalization and citizenship. That was the original Dream Act. When President Obama passed his Executive order, he protected them from deportation until Congress responded with a law. I asked for that designation and was thankful President Obama did it.

As a result of his Executive order, 780,000 young people came forward, paid a filing fee of over $500, went through an extensive criminal background check, and were cleared to be given temporary protection from deportation and temporary opportunities to work in America, renewable every 2 years.

President Trump came into office and ended it. He challenged Congress and said: Now pass a law to take care of this issue. It is a legitimate challenge for the President to issue. I wish he had done it differently, but it is certainly worthy of him to call on us to do our job.

Well, here we are 3 months after that challenge from President Trump and what has the Republican majority done in the Senate or the House to respond to that challenge? Absolutely nothing--nothing, not one thing-- to provide these 780,000, as well as others who are eligible for this protection, an opportunity under law, not one thing.

Is it because we have been overwhelmed with business? Well, I defy those who have followed the business of the U.S. Senate over the course of the last year to say that. It is seldom that we have ever come to the floor and debated anything of substance. Most of the time we are an empty Chamber lurching from one cloture vote to another cloture vote, to a motion to proceed to this nomination and that nomination. The exceptions, of course, were on healthcare and the Trump tax reform bill, and those were done by reconciliation; in other words, strictly partisan efforts.

So we have not done much this year. We certainly haven't done much since September 5 of this year, and now what we hear from the other side of the aisle, from the senior Senator from Texas is, What is the hurry? We have plenty of time here. We will take care of these young people perhaps in January, perhaps in February. The deadline is March 5.

It is pretty easy for any Member of the U.S. Senate to say: What is the hurry, let's go slow, until they sit down and talk to the young people who are affected. I have done that many times, and I did it over this weekend.

I went to Benito Juarez High School in the city of Chicago. A group of about 20 young people came forward, all of them protected by DACA. These young people started telling their stories of being brought to the United States at the age of 1 or 2, watching as some of their relatives have been deported, trying to grow up in America, uncertain of their future--really uncertain today as to what they are going to be doing--and many of them are extraordinarily talented young people. It is not uncommon for them to break down in tears as they tell their story.

One was a 24-year-old graduate of college who received no Federal assistance because she is one of the Dreamers and undocumented. She finished college. She is now teaching in the Chicago Public School System. If she loses DACA protection, she loses her job as a teacher. There are tens of thousands just like her across America.

The senior Senator from Texas asks: What is the hurry? Why do we need to address this issue?

I wish that Senator could have been there and watched her and spoken to

her, as I did, and realized she is living in fear, in terror; that her life as she knows it could end tomorrow--and it could--because of the decision by President Trump to end this protection.

All we have asked for--and many of us on a bipartisan basis--is to call up the Dream Act for a vote in the U.S. Senate, to give these young people a chance of the protection of law so they can continue in this country.

Some Republicans have said we need to sit down and talk about border security. I said I would be happy to do that. When I was part of the Gang of 8, we came up with comprehensive immigration reform, and we had an extensive border security plan. Some of the Republican Senators who offered it told me later: We went overboard and you accepted it. We did. We are serious about border security. That is not an issue, but for the senior Senator from Texas, that is not good enough.

I handed him a sheet of paper last week, and I have a copy of it right here, showing him the proposals we are making on border security. I pointed out to him that 12 of the proposals I handed to him were proposals from his own bill for border security. We are serious about this. This is a genuine effort to give border security provisions the enactment of law along with the Dream Act.

So what we hear is that the senior Senator from Texas came to the floor and said: Well, they are just not negotiating in good faith. Well, I have handed him this provision, this proposal. It was a good- faith gesture and a good-faith effort to move us forward, and the only response we had yesterday from the senior Senator from Texas is: What is the hurry? Why should we get it done this year? Why don't we wait until next year?

Well, next year, as we know, means waiting 2 months when it comes to this issue, and that, to me, is the real fear I have--that we will put this off. The uncertainty, the worry, the stress for these young people will continue while we do nothing--nothing.

We don't enact laws here. We do nothing. We give speeches to an empty Chamber and say: Gosh, I wish we had a little more time here to really do some substantive work. We have all the time we need.

I would commend to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, for goodness' sake, when 76 percent of the American people agree with the Dream Act, when 61 percent of Trump voters agree with the Dream Act, there is no excuse. We need to make it the law of the land.

Mr. President, it was 20 years ago when I was first elected to the Senate. I was asked to consider a bill called the Red Rocks Wilderness Act. I didn't know anything about it. It was a bill that had been offered by Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey. He was retiring. I was asked to consider sponsoring this wilderness proposal in the State of Utah. Of course, I said, I am from Illinois, not Utah, and I have never seen this. Well, they asked me to come out and take a look, and I did.

My wife and I went out to take a look at what was known as the Red Rocks Wilderness Area. It is in the southeastern corner of Utah. I had never been there, nor had I ever heard of it before I visited. What an eye-opener, to go there and see this magnificent vista, this incredible landscape that was being proposed for wilderness protection and status.

So over the years, I have reintroduced the bill, the conversation continued, and it wasn't until President Obama took a major share of this area, which is in San Juan County in the southeastern corner of Utah, and designated it in the name of the Bears Ears Monument that we finally achieved protection for this beautiful piece of real estate.

I have been there. It is breathtaking. There are incredible cultural sites there by Native Americans, and it is a great place to visit, to hike, and to enjoy a special piece of America. It is filled with magnificent red rock formations, deep, carved canyons, long mesas, and rock arches. Some of the photos just don't do it justice. We can take a look at some of these, and we can get an idea of the vastness of the area that is affected here.

Then you might take a look at some of the others and realize it includes a lot of cultural and prehistoric settings that were utilized by the Native American people when they called these caves their homes. It has special meaning to the Native American Tribes that are there. Many of them trace their origins to the very people who dwelled in these caves and the structures they built with the loose rocks that we can still see today.

We look at it and think, Well, if you didn't use this, if you didn't preserve it, if you didn't protect it, what would you do with it?

I have spoken with some of the Senators from Utah, and they have readily conceded there is no oil or gas there to be drilled. There may be some uranium processing but very little. I asked them: Why wouldn't you want this area protected? It doesn't have economic value other than the fact that people will come, tourists will come to Utah to see this beautiful place.

I was troubled when President Trump announced he was going to follow Secretary Zinke's recommendation and shrink the proposed Bears Ears Monument as well as another nearby called the Grand Staircase- Escalante. They would reduce the size of the Bears Ears Monument by 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante by 50 percent.

In April, President Trump issued an Executive order requiring the Department of the Interior to preview and review the previous national monument designations of President Obama. Although Bears Ears and Grand Staircase are the first two targets to be hit by President Trump, this attack on what is known as the Antiquities Act and our national monuments goes far beyond these two sites.

As part of the review, the President and Secretary of the Interior Zinke considered changing every national monument that had been created since 1996, which is more than 50 nationwide. These are areas that have been protected by Presidents of both political parties. It goes back, in fact, to a Republican President, Teddy Roosevelt, who realized it was worth fighting off some of the parochial and economic interests to preserve pieces of America for future generations.

The list that was subject to the Trump order spans the country. It includes the Cascade-Siskiyou in Oregon, Gold Butte in Nevada, Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine, Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks and Rio Grande in New Mexico, and several marine monuments.

The administration's decisions to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante goes against continued support for these sites. The Bears Ears Monument was the first monument to be proposed and advocated by the five sovereign Tribal nations: The Hopi, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute, Pueblo of Zuni, and Ute Indians.

The Tribes sought protection because of the important place Bears Ears has in their cultures. The artifacts within Bears Ears range from 700 to 12,000 years old, providing Tribes with an incredible insight into the sacred history of their ancestral homeland and bolstering their deep spiritual connection to the landscape itself. In total, 30 Native-American Tribes with ancestral, historical, and contemporary ties to the Bears Ears region supported the designation--30.

I might recall, for those who are not students of history--and I am learning--treatment of Native Americans in this region has again raised some serious questions about America's past. It wasn't until 1920 that Native Americans were recognized as citizens of the United States in many of these areas. It wasn't until 1957 that Native Americans were given the right to vote in the State of Utah even though Native Americans had served our country in World War II, such as the Code Talkers, who were honored by President Trump last week. It wasn't until the 1970s that the State of Utah built its first public school on a Tribal area reservation--and only did that after being ordered by the Federal court. The history of our relationship with these Native- American Tribes is one that raises questions about our respect for what they meant to the earliest founding of America and what they mean to us today.

Mr. President, I see the majority leader has taken the floor. I know that under the rules he has priority when it

comes to speaking. I wish to finish my remarks, but if I can have the permission of the Chair by unanimous consent and allow the majority leader to speak and then resume my statement after he is finished.

Mr. President, resuming my earlier remarks, the Native- American Tribes almost unanimously opposed the action that was announced yesterday by President Trump and Secretary Zinke to shrink the Bears Ears Monument. They have passed resolutions in support of that monument.

Navajo Nation's president said that the President's efforts to shrink the monument ``demonstrates their failure to listen to the concerns of our people who have lobbied and fought for over 80 years for this designation.'' Even worse, the Navajo Nation made several requests to meet with President Trump on the issue, to no avail. Those requests fell on deaf ears, and the administration never met with the leadership of the Navajo Nation or any of the other Tribes who worked to protect this area.

The administration took these actions under the guise of protecting this area for future generations. During President Trump's speech in Utah, he said:

I don't think it is controversial, actually. I think it's

so sensible.

From the folks he was speaking to, it must have seemed that his comment was correct, but the group the President was speaking to was a closed-door group of selected supporters of his administration who do not reflect the feelings of local residents when it comes to the future of this monument. It reflected the same closed-door process this administration had used to shrink these monuments.

The administration ignored that more than 2.8 million Americans weighed in when there was an open public comment period at the Department of the Interior. Ninety-eight percent of them asked the President to protect the monuments and to maintain their borders--98 percent. So to say that shrinking these monuments dramatically is not controversial is to ignore 2.8 million Americans and the Tribes with whom the President never took the time to meet.

With these reductions, it is clear that Secretary Zinke and President Trump are choosing politics over science and choosing economic and political local concerns over the reality of what this particular monument means to the future of America. They are ignoring Utah's State Historic Preservation Office and the Interior Department's own staff, both confirming that there are artifacts throughout Bears Ears that will now lose their protection because of the decision by President Trump yesterday. The administration's proposed cuts closely follow the desires of Utah politicians to shrink the monument.

I had the opportunity to meet with Secretary Zinke and some of my colleagues a few weeks ago to discuss this reduction in the size of the monuments. In that meeting, he assured me that any potential cuts to Bears Ears would continue to protect the actual site's antiquities, including archeological sites, but according to the internal documents from the Department of the Interior, there are more than 8,400 archeological sites in the monument, 70 percent of which are prehistoric. Even more interesting, according to the Department of the Interior staff, less than 10 percent of the monument has truly been surveyed. That means we have only scratched the surface of the antiquities that could be present there.

What value is it to the people of Utah, what value is it to San Juan County, UT, what value is it to the United States to allow spectators and tourists to roam over these areas without acknowledging their sacred status and historic importance? We only get one chance to preserve our history, and now the President is walking away from that chance for the largest part of the Bears Ears Monument. Taking away protections from these precious places is something that could lead to permanent damage.

During the time that I visited Bears Ears, I stopped near Fry Canyon for a little lunch. I hiked around and saw some amazing artifacts, which I showed in the earlier photograph. These amazing artifacts are outside the new boundaries President Trump decided to draw yesterday. These impressive artifacts are worth preserving, but

President Trump and Secretary Zinke don't agree. They have left Fry Canyon unprotected.

I went to some of the areas where, centuries ago, Native Americans drew artwork on the sides of these canyons, in the walls. It is still very visible, and it should be protected. Some of it has been desecrated and obliterated by graffiti. How can we possibly justify that? How can we say to future generations: We just didn't care enough to keep this intact so that you and your children and grandchildren could appreciate it.

I know there are many more areas like Fry Canyon throughout the original Bears Ears Monument that are no longer protected because President Trump and Secretary Zinke decided to draw new boundary lines.

While I was visiting in Moab, UT, in one of the tourist shops there, I heard a group of about 12 speaking on the other side of the shop, and I drew a little closer just to hear what they might be saying. They were speaking in French. They had traveled all the way from Europe to see this unique area, so critically important to them, so unimportant to this administration. These tourists' willingness to travel halfway around the world tells us that we have something special here. I really wish the President could have met with them and so many others who create a bustling tourist economy in this area, people who come halfway around the world to see it. They believe it is something worth seeing. We should believe it is something worth preserving.

The residents of Moab, just outside the monument, must recognize this. Once a mining town with a dubious future, Moab saw its economy decline as the industry left during the 1980s. But the town has experienced a new rebirth, an economic growth of tourism that now provides up to 40 percent of the jobs in the area.

Last year, National Geographic named Moab, UT, one of the best outdoor towns in the world. Ely, MN, is the other U.S. town to receive that honor. The people of Moab will tell you that the protection of public lands has been good for their economy, creating good-paying jobs, new hotels, and new opportunities, and that they support the Bears Ears Monument. But President Trump didn't pay attention to them, and neither did Secretary Zinke.

According to the Department of the Interior, the number of visitors to Utah increased 20 percent between 2011 and 2015 and is projected to continue increasing. But that didn't impress the Secretary of the Interior when it came to literally obliterating 80 percent of the original Bears Ears Monument that President Obama designated.

It was the University of Utah that found that tourists spent more than $8 billion in their State in 2015, resulting in more than $1 billion in State and local tax revenue and more than 142,000 jobs.

When the State is benefiting so much from tourism, why would they give away the protection of an area that attracts so many people and creates so many businesses and jobs in their own State? With public lands providing such a boon for tourism and economic growth, it is hard to believe that the Utah congressional delegation has ignored this and pushed so hard to destroy these monuments.

The dispute has roots in debate over federally controlled land and Utah's Enabling Act, which was signed more than 100 years ago. When it became a State, Utahns passed a bill to ``agree and declare that they forever disclaimed all right and title to the unappropriated public lands . . . and to all lands lying within said limits owned or held by any Indian or Indian tribes.'' This provision gave all lands not specifically claimed by the State of Utah to the Federal Government. Utah signed up for that. That is how they became a State.

As a result, Utah now has the second most Federal land of any State, with Federal lands making up about 65 percent of their State, including five national parks and eight national monuments. These lands are a source of pride and economic opportunity for so many people. Yet the politicians of Utah don't appreciate that.

Last year, 15 million people visited national parks and monuments in Utah, hiking, camping, and learning the traditions and history of the Native people in that State. Let me say that again. Fifteen million people from around the world visited public lands in Utah in 2016--an 82 percent increase in visitors over the past decade. This is not only the right thing to do; it is the economically sensible thing to do to protect these monuments and these areas. Despite this growth, there is a push by some of Utah's politicians to force the Federal Government to give up these lands and remove the protections for the cultural and archeological resources they contain.

When I met with Secretary Zinke to discuss his recommendations, he confirmed to me that this decision was not based on protecting some of the most extraordinary natural resources in our Nation but, rather, on protecting political alliances.

Every monument designation has had some opposition. Even Roosevelt faced opposition when he worked to protect many of America's iconic places, but despite the opposition, President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, protected the Grand Canyon--a controversial decision in his time--and other special places. Thank goodness he did. Thank goodness he had the vision to look forward to future generations instead of looking backward to political promises and political buddies.

Teddy Roosevelt is remembered for his conservation record, preserving many of the places that make America a great nation, but what this administration is doing is just the opposite of Teddy Roosevelt's courage and vision. Repealing protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante will not make America great again. It will give up America's greatness for selfish interest.

I urge President Trump and Secretary Zinke to reconsider their decision that rescinds our national monument protection. It will be challenged in court, and it may take a long time to resolve, but I hope ultimately the courts of this land stand up for the right of a President of either political party to make these designations, as they have so many times before. We owe it to America, but we owe it especially to the Native American Tribes and people who have forever called this land home to preserve the sites that are so sacred to them, and we owe it to those in the scientific community and to future generations.

I am hopeful that future generations will be able to visit Bears Ears--as my wife and I have--and learn about the people and culture that made America long before we arrived. It is worth the respect of this generation and future generations, and it is certainly worth it for us to step forward and to say with vision and with courage that we stand behind preserving these sites.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Delaware. He and I came to the House of Representatives together a few years back, and we have had the pleasure and honor of serving together in the Senate. When he is on my team, I feel much stronger because I know Tom Carper is a person of values, principles, and hard work, and he really takes this job seriously. His State is lucky to have him, and I am lucky to count him as a friend. I thank him for joining me on this important issue.

Sixteen years ago, I introduced a bill addressing young people brought to America by their parents who, frankly, were young, didn't really know much about the immigration experience, grew up in the United States thinking they were just like all the other kids in the classroom, and then realized one day they weren't.

You see, they are not legal. Their parents didn't do it properly, didn't file the right papers. I am not holding it against their parents. Let me add that quickly. Their parents were doing the very best for the family they could. They were taking risks that many of us would take any day for a son or daughter to have a chance to live a good life.

Here were these young people in the United States undocumented. What were they to do? They didn't know that old country where their parents came from. They may not even be able to speak the language of that country, and here they were in the United States. They thought things would work out, some way or another. Time passed, and it didn't.

We have a broken immigration system. We have a lot of gaps in the system, and they were caught up in one of

them. Sixteen years ago, I introduced a bill, and here is what it said. If you came to the United States as a child, if you grew up in this country, you didn't have any serious problems with the law, and you graduated from school, we were going to give you a chance, a chance to earn your way into legal status. You could do it by furthering your education, volunteering for the military. There were a lot of ways to do it. We said to these young people: This will be your chance.

That bill was introduced a long time ago, and it has never become the law. At one point when President Obama was in the Office of the Presidency, I wrote him a letter with 20 of my colleagues in the Senate and asked him to find a way, if he could, to protect these young people from being deported out of America, and he did. They called it DACA. The DACA Program said, if you are one of the people who, by definition under the DREAM Act, would be eligible, you can stay in the United States if you step up and pay about $500 in a filing fee, go through a serious criminal background check, and then we will give you a temporary 2-year protection from deportation--2 years that you can work legally in the United States and come back and see us if you want to renew it.

At the end of the day, about 800,000 young people in America did that. They paid their fee. They went through the background check, they submitted all their information to our government, and they were protected.

Just 3 months ago, President Donald Trump abolished DACA and said, as of March 5 next year, it is gone. What does that mean for these young people? It means that as of March 5 of next year, many of them will be subject to deportation and subject to losing the jobs they have or being unable to finish school because they can't work.

I have met a lot of those young people. I am sure Senator Hassan has met some. I know Senator Carper has. He just read one of their stories. They are heartbroken, and they are scared. They worry about what is going to happen to them and their families when March 5 rolls around.

For weeks, months since President Trump's announcement, I have come to the floor and asked: For goodness' sake, can't we agree--Democrats and Republicans--to fix this problem? President Trump challenged us: Do your job, Congress. Pass a law.

That is what we are supposed to do. Here we are, 3 months later, and it hasn't been done. What I hear from the other side of the aisle is, give us a little more time; we will try to get to it next year.

March 5, 2018, DACA is over and finished. Waiting several weeks is bad enough. Waiting several months is unacceptable. I will tell you why it is. We know this needs to be done now. Today, 34 Republicans in the House of Representatives sent a letter to the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, calling for Congress to pass legislation to protect Dreamers this year--34 Republicans. They said: ``It is imperative that Republicans and Democrats come together to solve this problem now and not wait until next year''--34 Republicans in the House. How many bipartisan things go on around here anymore? Not many. Here is one. I salute these Members of the House. I salute the four Republican Senators who joined me in cosponsoring the Dream Act. They, I think, have stuck their necks out, and I respect them so much for it. I will stand up for them because of it. I thank them for that. I know why they are doing it. They are not doing it for me. They shouldn't, and I am sure they are not. They are doing it for these young people. I will tell you without fail, when you meet them, they convert you in a minute.

For the last several years, I have come to the floor to tell their stories. I am told the one I am going to tell right now is the 99th time I have told a story like this. Each time I tell one of these stories, it makes the case for why we need to do something to help these young people and do it quickly.

Let me show you this wonderful young lady here. Her name is Blanca Morales. Blanca Morales was brought to the United States by her parents from Mexico when she was 5 years old. She grew up in Santa Ana, CA. Growing up, she took care of her two younger siblings while her parents worked in factories and in the agriculture fields of California.

She was quite a student. In high school, she was named one of the top 100 students in the county. She was active in community service, mentoring students who couldn't complete high school without help. She attended a community college, Santa Ana College. I might add, because she is undocumented, she didn't qualify for any Federal Government assistance. Going to college in that circumstance means working, scraping by, putting things off, sacrificing to get through. She did it. She majored in chemistry and biology. She was part of Phi Beta Kappa, an international honors society. She won first academic team in the All-USA Academic Competition. She was her class's valedictorian, with a perfect 4.0 GPA.

Blanca, after graduation, attended the University of California, Irvine. She majored in neurobiology. At UC Irvine, she graduated with honors magna cum laude. After obtaining this premed degree, she couldn't land a job in the medical field because she is undocumented in America.

Then, in 2012, everything changed. President Obama established the DACA Program I mentioned earlier, which allowed Blanca, for the first time in her life, to get a permit to legally work in America. Last year, Blanca Morales was accepted to the Harvard School of Medicine. She has remained involved in community service, mentoring students, teaching health classes at a community health center, and volunteering as a translator at clinics for Spanish-speaking patients.

Close to 70 Dreamers are enrolled in medical schools around the country just like she is. Without DACA, these Dreamers will never become doctors. Why? They are going to be deported back to their countries if they are not lucky. If they happen to be able to stay, they cannot legally work in America without DACA status. You cannot finish medical school and go on to a residency without a work permit, without being able to legally work in America. They cannot legally work without DACA protection, and President Trump has ended it.

Are we going to be a stronger nation if we deport her, tell her to leave, go back to Mexico, which she left when she was 5 years of age, give up on all the education she has put on the board--at the community college where she was leading her class, on to get her degrees, on to be accepted to Harvard Medical School. The answer is clear. America would be less if she left.

The Association of American Medical Colleges reports the Nation faces a doctor shortage, which is only going to get worse. Both the AMA and the Association of American Medical Colleges have warned that ending DACA will make this problem worse. They have urged Congress to do something.

Blanca wrote me a letter, and here is what she said.

It took me eight years from graduating from the university

to enter medical school. Without DACA or better yet, a formal

way to become a full member of society, I am left to live in

the shadows. I don't know if I will be able to finish my

medical training without a permanent solution to my

immigration status. Please help me keep my dream of becoming

a physician alive.

When my colleagues come to the floor and say we are just too busy here to take up this issue, I wish they would have a chance to meet this spectacular young woman. I wish they would consider what she is asking us to do. She is asking us to do our job. We are supposed to solve problems.

When you read the numbers, 70, 80 percent of Americans approve of the Dream Act, even an overwhelming majority of those who voted for President Trump believe these young people deserve a chance to be legal in America. Why can't we get our job done? We need to do it and do it now. We have 3 weeks before we are likely to end the session this year. I want to see us get this finished this year. I want to see a bipartisan agreement.

I came to the floor earlier and listened to the speeches of many of my colleagues--one from North Carolina and another from Oklahoma, one from the State of Texas and another from the State of Arkansas--and each one of them said there are lots of things we need to do to fix our immigration system. I couldn't agree more.

I was on the task force--the Gang of 8 they called it--that came up with a comprehensive immigration reform. It

took us months to do it, but we did it. We did everything we could think of within the four corners of immigration reform. We passed it on the floor of the Senate with a strong bipartisan rollcall, and the House of Representatives refused to even consider it. That doesn't mean the problems have gone away. They are still here. What I am saying to my colleagues is, don't try to fix every immigration problem you can think of on the backs of these Dreamers like Blanca Morales. I am willing to talk to you honestly, forthrightly about border security. Count me in. I voted for it as part of comprehensive immigration reform, but every notion, every idea, every theory you have about immigration shouldn't be placed on the shoulders and backs of these young people.

Let's fix this, and then let's go on to the next phase of dealing with immigration reform in its totality. That makes sense to me. I am ready to bargain, work, compromise in good faith with any Member on the Republican side and the Democratic side who wants to make sure a young woman like this deserves a fighting chance in America. I believe that. I think most Americans believe it too. Now let's roll up our sleeves and go to work. There are plenty of things we can do the remainder of this year that will make a big difference in her life and in the future of America.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Madam President, we had a press conference in Chicago this afternoon, and several young people were there. One is named Zarna Patel. Zarna is a student at the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine. She is from a family that came to the United States from India. They brought her here when she was 3 years old.

When she was growing up, she didn't realize that she was undocumented. She thought she was just like everybody else in her classroom, standing up, pledging allegiance to that flag, and singing the national anthem. It was the only national anthem she knew. But then came high school, and she came to realize that she was different. She wasn't documented. She wasn't ``legally in America.''

Well, she soldiered on with her life and did quite well. She graduated from college with a degree in science. She prayed and hoped the day would come when she could go to medical school. Loyola University in Chicago offered her--and others like her, who were protected by President Obama's Executive order known as DACA--an opportunity to apply for medical school. They didn't get quotas. It wasn't any kind of affirmative action program. It just said you can compete with all the other students. The word got out around America to those who were protected by President Obama's order that there was a medical school that would accept you if you were protected. The net result of that was over 30 were admitted. They are so extraordinary, some of the best. They were admitted to medical school, and she is one of them. It is a great story, really.

She is realizing her dream to become a doctor, but there is a problem. The problem is that on September 5, President Trump decided to abolish DACA, the program that protects Zarna Patel, and in abolishing it--announcing that he would on March 5 of next year--it meant that she would then lose the protection she had under the previous Executive order.

What difference does it make? Well, it means that she is then subject to deportation, but equally important in her life, she loses the right to legally work in America. You say that she is a student and maybe she doesn't need to work. Well, as a student, she doesn't qualify for any Federal assistance because she is undocumented, and as a student in a medical school, to further your education, you need a residency. We know a residency means an awful lot of hours of working in a hospital that is teaching you how to be a doctor and develop your specialty. So you can't have a residency if you can't legally work in America. That means that, after all of these years of work, it is over; she can't apply for a residency.

The senior Senator from Texas came to the floor and said: Let's not have a hurry-up approach to this issue. Let's slow it down a little bit. The President announced on September 5 that he was going to abolish protection for Zarna Patel and for 780,000 others just like her. Here we are, 3 months later, having done nothing.

Many of us feel a sense of urgency because these young people have their lives on hold. They are living with the anxiety and stress of not knowing whether they will be deported tomorrow or can work. It is a simple thing to many of us as we read about it. It is life and death in the future for these young people.

So when we say to the Senator from Texas that we need to get this done, it isn't like the Senate is overwhelmed with work. I didn't have to come down here and beg for an opportunity to speak on the floor. You can see it is empty, and it has been empty most of the year. We have done precious little this year. I can point to three or four things the Senate has accomplished. We had plenty of time to address this and still do, but it takes a will on the part of the majority to get this done.

I want to thank several Republican Senators who have stepped up to try to help me get this done, especially Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina and my cosponsor of the Dream Act, and other Senators who are sponsoring it and trying to move this forward. Senator Jeff Flake, last week, announced that his vote on the tax plan was contingent on a conversation he had with the White House about this issue of DACA and the Dream Act.

The senior Senator from Texas comes to the floor and says I haven't really reached out to him or spoken to him about this. He must have forgotten that I handed him this sheet of paper last week. This was our proposal on border security in the hopes that, by being serious about border security, we could get Republican Senators to join us when it came to protecting those who qualified for DACA in the Dream Act. I gave this to Senator Cornyn. He knows it. I like him. He is my friend. But we have to reach the point where we realize that there is a sense of urgency here. I hear the Senator from Texas say: Well, maybe next year we will get around to it. As of March 5, this program ends, and as of March 5, 1,000 young people will lose their protection every single day for 2 years.

What it means for Zarna Patel and others is the end of a dream, the end of an opportunity to pursue an education. She is not the only one. She is 1 of 30 or 32 at the Loyola Stritch School of Medicine. There are 900 of these young people who currently have volunteered to serve in the U.S. military under the MAVNI Program. If we don't renew this program, they are gone. Think of that. They are technically undocumented and illegal in this country. They volunteered to risk their lives for America in service to our country. Now the Senator from Texas says: Well, we are in no hurry to tell them whether they can continue to serve in our military.

As we look across America, we have 20,000 teachers. I met one of those last Friday in Chicago. She is 24 years old, teaching in an inner-city school, and protected by DACA. The minute DACA ends on March 5 of next year, she can no longer legally work in the Chicago Public Schools system. She is finished. Pack up, clean out your desk, and go home.

Is that what we want to see happen across America? We know what these young people are doing. They are going to school. They are working while going to school. They are teachers. They are nurses. They are involved as first responders and law enforcement. They are in medical school.

The Senator from Texas questions why I am in such a hurry to get this done? I am in a hurry to get this done, and he should join me in understanding that there is a sense of urgency here. There are a lot of rumors flying around here. I am not going to honor any of them as to what might occur, other than to say, when we get Senators who are willing to sit down and accept the principle of the Dream Act, that the principle is that those who were brought here as children, who have grown up in the United States, who have no serious criminal charges in their records, and who have completed school have a chance to become legal and become citizens--that is the fundamental of the Dream Act.

It is a bill I introduced 16 years ago. I am still trying to pass it. There are bills that are not identical but are very similar that accept that premise and have been offered twice by Republicans as well.

So if the Senator from Texas will start with the Dream Act, we can then engage in additional conversations about border security. He can take the draft I gave him last week, which includes, incidentally, 12 provisions from his own bill. The Senator from Texas had a bill drafted on border security. We read it. We picked up 12 of the major provisions and included them in our offer to try to get this done in an expedited way.

I will just tell you this. If any Senators want to come to the floor and say it is not that important, it isn't timely, we need not hurry about this, we can get around to it later, I would like them to come home with me. Maybe they should even go home to their own States and meet with these young people and realize that their lives are on hold because we have put this issue on hold.

For goodness' sake, let us face our responsibilities as Senators. Let's do what we are supposed to do--legislate solutions to problems. The President challenged us. He said: I am going to abolish this program; now Congress, you pass a law to create it. He challenged us. Let us accept the challenge and do it in a bipartisan professional way. That is all I have ever asked for and all I continue to ask for.

Yes, I want it done this calendar year. I don't want excuses about maybe next January or maybe next February, because we know that on March 5, when the deadline hits, it will be a disaster for 1,000 of these young people every single day. Yes, there is a sense of urgency. Yes, there is a need for us to work together. I am going to continue to meet with Republican Senators and Democrats to find a solution, to find a way through this, and to get it done this month in December. How can we, in good conscience, pass a spending bill giving authority and resources to this administration to go out and arrest and deport these young people and not address the underlying issue of their legality and their future in the United States? That, to me, is obvious.

I hope my colleagues, those of good will and good faith, will join me in making sure that we don't go home for the holidays until we get this job done.

I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Merkley), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, what happens when you decide to write a tax bill that changes the economy of the United States of America, you don't have adequate hearings to gauge what is going to happen, you don't bring in the experts to try to tell you what the impact will be on individual families and businesses, and you stick around until 5 o'clock on a Friday night and you hand out the work product for all of the Members of the Senate to take a look at before they vote on changes in the Tax Code that will affect the people they represent?

This is what happens: 479 pages were handed to us. They tell us that some of this has been around for a while, and some of it is new. They don't tell us which part is new and which part is old. Lucky for us, on K Street--and there is nothing wrong with lobbyists--where the Federal lobbyists live, they are following this really closely, and they have given us basically a cheat sheet, a scorecard, so we can figure out, at least generally speaking, how many changes have been made in the 479 pages since the last time we saw this proposed bill.

I defy any Member of the Senate to stand here and take an oath that they have read this and understand what in the world it means to businesses, families, and individuals. If they want to take that oath, and maybe some will, then I refer them, ladies and gentlemen of the American jury, to exhibit A, page 257 out of the 479.

Why do I pick this page? Because they didn't have time to type it. They wrote it out in longhand. We are not even teaching cursive in a lot of schools anymore, but someone on the staff knew it enough to try. The problem is, they wrote it in cursive along the margin here. It is about subchapter

S corporations and how much tax they paid and what they don't pay. I defy anybody to read it because the problem was, when they copied it, they chopped off lines so there aren't full sentences here. They are like little phrases and words.

This is your Senate at work. This is what happens when you push through a bill late at night, desperate to pass it, without really stopping to ask yourself: Will this make us a stronger nation? Will this help legitimate businesses that want to expand and create jobs? Is this good for American families?

The Joint Committee on Taxation told us yesterday--that is our scorekeeper; they are the ones who we hired to be our scorekeeper; they are nonpartisan--what they learned about this bill before we got the new version, with the new amendments. Our friends on K Street were happy to tell us what the listings were. They told us that this starting bill will add $1 trillion to the national debt--so our kids and grandkids can pay it off--to pay for the tax cuts. They also told us that the predicted economic growth that is supposed to come out of these pages of 4, 5 percent a year is 0.8 percent. Is it not? Am I right?

They also told us that the biggest beneficiaries under this Tax Code--this Joint Committee on Taxation--happen to be the wealthiest people in America--surprise--and the biggest corporations. They told us that, at least in the second 10 years--maybe before-- regular middle-income families are going to pay higher taxes because of this. They let us know, and we knew already, what is going to happen to programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. You see, when you run up the national debt and you want to try to balance the books-- our Republican friends have been very open about this. They want to cut the benefits under Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to try to balance the books.

America, are you ready for this? Are you ready for senior citizens who are counting on that Social Security check to get a cut in benefits to pay for a tax cut, a tax giveaway to the wealthiest people in America? Are you ready to see Medicare cut--that is, reimbursement for seniors for medical expenses--in order to make sure that the biggest corporations in America get a tax break? Are you ready to see Medicaid, which has as its major expense taking care of seniors in nursing homes--benefits cut in order to give an incentive for businesses to move jobs overseas? That is what this is all about.

Here is the reality. As a percentage of gross domestic product, American corporations have never been more profitable--never. As a percentage of gross domestic product, American corporations have never paid less in Federal taxes.

What is the Republican response to that? Cut corporate taxes. Why? Shouldn't we be focused on doing what is necessary so that middle- income families have a fighting chance to pay their bills and put some money away for their kids and their future? Shouldn't we be working on helping small and medium-sized corporations instead of the big boys?

That is what I think we should focus on. I don't know for sure that this bill doesn't do that. In fact, nobody does. Nobody knows what is in here--479 pages. If they tell you they do, then ask them to explain page 257. Ask them to try to read this. I have tried. This is going to change the tax law of America in ways that we can't even explain. We have to get this done because the Senate has done little or nothing this year, and so they are desperate to get something done before the end of the year. Sadly, it is a tax bill that we have just been handed 1 hour and 50 minutes ago.

I yield the floor.

If the Senator from Oregon would yield for just a moment, I would like to ask consent that this infamous page 257 be made a part of the Record after my speech, but I am really sorry for the members of the staff who have to try to write this out--type it out.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.

I submitted page 257 of the amendment to be placed in the Record and you gave unanimous consent for that to happen. I have now been instructed that the personnel at the Senate cannot read this page the way it is currently written. Could I have this entered in the Record just as written with the handwritten notations on the side? Could I enter it as a graphic or artwork or something like that?

I ask the Presiding Officer, does that mean if the amendment has this page in it, that the amendment cannot be filed?

I would like to ask a further parliamentary inquiry. Why didn't they accept page 257 after I received consent to put it in the Record?

Parliamentary inquiry. This page, which is part of the tax bill,

257, as written, cannot be filed in the Senate because no one can read it; is that correct?

Parliamentary inquiry. Why can't this page be filed in that form?

Mr. President, I have the greatest respect for the Senate staff, and I am not trying to say anything negative about them. I was hoping that this could be entered into the Record, and I asked for unanimous consent to enter it, believing that the handwritten portion would show up in the Record. I have since been advised that there will have to be translators and interpreters who will have to decide exactly what this says before it is actually part of the Congressional Record. I think that I have made my point as to where we stand in preparation of tax reform for America.

Thank you.

I announce that the Senator from North Dakota (Ms. Heitkamp) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, today I wish to congratulate Ms. Dee Braden on her retirement from the Coles County Council on Aging, CCCoA, after more than 41 years of service.

One of Illinois' finest advocates for older residents, Dee started with CCCoA in 1976, as the RSVP volunteer recruiter and was quickly promoted to be its first executive director in 1978.

Under Dee's leadership, CCCoA flourished and received the 2008 Governor's Award for Unique Achievement for its vision, innovation, and collaborative public and private partnerships in Illinois.

To understand Dee's tireless commitment to Illinois' older population, one need only look at her long service record. Dee developed and orchestrated the first successful passage of a county- wide property tax referendum in Illinois to fund senior services and advocated for decades to enhance the quality of life of older adults in Coles County. For 10 years, she also fundraised for the LifeSpan Center, a 25,000-square-foot multipurpose intergenerational facility in Mattoon, IL. Dee devoted herself to bettering the quality of life for our older Illinoisans.

Dee's many years of leadership and contributions to the elderly made her the deserving recipient of several awards, including the Coles County Zonta Woman of the Year Award for Community Service, the Epsilon Sigma Alpha Diana Award for her service, and the Illinois Governor's Award for Unique Achievement after she developed a countywide Elder Abuse Task Force. This year, the East Central Illinois Area Agency on Aging awarded Dee the Dr. Arthur H. Larsen Leadership Award for her outstanding leadership in advancing programs, services, and opportunities for older persons in east central Illinois.

These are just a few of Dee's many accomplishment. A full rendering of her achievements would take much longer than these few moments. I will end by saying that I visited the CCCoA several times, and I can tell you firsthand that the work Dee has done in the community is nothing short of remarkable.

Dee's generous heart is as big as Illinois. I don't know a better volunteer who has given so much to helping people. I wish Dee a happy, relaxing retirement and the best of luck in her life's next chapter. She has certainly earned it.