Floor Statements

Mr. President, first, I say thanks to my colleague from Delaware for the touching tribute to Chris and his service in the U.S. Navy.

I am here to talk about our economy, what is going on out there, and how we can do a better job of bringing people off the sidelines and into work. They are needed.

Right now we have an incredibly strong economy. We just learned in the first quarter of this year that the economy grew by 3.2 percent. That is strong and way above expectations. In fact, when you look at the expectations that were set by the Congressional Budget Office, which is a nonpartisan group that analyzes what is going to happen in the economy going forward, prior to the tax bill being signed into law--that is, the tax reform and tax cuts from the end of 2017--they said this first quarter growth would be 1.6 percent. It is interesting. It was exactly twice the economic growth than was projected before the tax bill.

By the way, before the tax bill, they also made a projection on jobs. Over the last year, we have produced just about exactly twice as many jobs--a little more than that--than was projected. The tax cuts and the tax reform have worked, along with regulatory relief, to give this economy a shot in the arm. That is so important.

I will say that when you look at what happened in the first quarter of this year, the 3.2 percent is great, but it would have been even better had we not shut down the government. I say that because we have some new numbers from the Congressional Budget Office that say that the level of GDP this first quarter would have been 0.2 percent more if we had not had the government shutdown late last year, which was the longest government shutdown in the history of our country. So it would have been 3.6 percent instead of 3.2 percent. Wow, that would be terrific. I guess I bring that up only because I think it is time for us, again, to prepare for the potential of our having another impasse year at the end of this fiscal year on September 30. I hope we will avoid going into another government shutdown. It just doesn't make sense. It is shooting ourselves in the foot.

There is legislation called the End Government Shutdowns Act. Almost all of my colleagues on this side of the aisle have now sponsored that legislation. It just avoids our going into a shutdown but still allows us to continue to move forward on our spending and, over time, reduce that spending until we get our act together and do the appropriations bills here. Again, there is good news in terms of job growth in the first quarter.

The other thing I think is really important and may be the most important statistic of all is the fact that wages are going up for the first time in a decade. Really, in Ohio, for a decade and a half, we have had flat wages--higher expenses but flat wages. It is really frustrating to the families who are working hard and doing everything right but can't get ahead. Over the last year now, we have seen wage increases. A 3.4-percent wage increase is the strongest we have seen since the great recession. I love the fact that this wage growth is happening not just among higher paid individuals but, actually, primarily among what is called nonsupervisory employees. That is how the Department of Labor terms it. These are blue-collar jobs. These are middle-class jobs. These are jobs of people who, again, have had a tough time making ends meet. I know in my State most people work paycheck to paycheck, and it is great to have that higher wage come in.

We passed tax reform because we believed it is the right thing to do for our economy, for employers, for investment, and we have seen that positive impact. I have had over two dozen townhall meetings and roundtable discussions in my State, talking to employers, usually smaller businesses, about what happened to them with regard to tax reform. Every single one of them said the same thing: We have reinvested in the business. We have invested in technology, in new equipment, and we have invested in our people. In some cases, that means better benefits. In two cases, small businesses acknowledged to me that they weren't providing healthcare before the tax cuts, and now they are because of the savings from the tax cut. They have also invested in people's 401(k)s and other benefits. That is what is happening out there in terms of the business side of the tax reform and tax cuts.

In addition to that, there are also a lot of Americans who now have more of their hard-earned money coming home. Their paychecks are better because of the middle-class tax cuts that are in the legislation. For Ohio, this amounted to $2,000 per year, on average, for a median-income family. I know there has been a lot of discussion by others saying: Well, really, these tax cuts didn't happen. Yes, they did. They did. That is a fact. Most people I represent have seen a tax cut, and a lot of those individuals saw their overall tax liability go down--not just that the monthly checks were better, but on April 15 they had better news. Let me give you some facts about that.

According to H&R Block, which is probably the firm that handles more middle-class tax returns than any other firm in the country, the average Ohioan saw a 23.3-percent decrease in their overall tax bill in 2018. This is from H&R Block. They also said that there is a 2.3- percent increase in the average refund in Ohio. I know there has been a lot of discussion about this back and forth, and early on people were concerned about their refunds. These are the numbers. These are the facts from H&R Block. Overall, about 90 percent of middle-class Americans received a tax cut in 2018, which means more money in their pockets to pay down student debt, to save for retirement, to take a long-awaited family vacation, and to be able to, again, achieve whatever their dream is in life.

The economy is growing, creating jobs, and wages are rising. That is all

good news. But with more jobs there is a problem that has developed, and that is a lack of workers. I can't go anywhere in Ohio--and I just had a bunch of meetings in Ohio, talking about this--where people don't tell me: We don't have enough qualified workers to fill the jobs that we have. Some people call it the skills gap, and that is true in Ohio. We have a mismatch between the skills that are out there--the skills that people who are looking for jobs have--and the jobs that are available. If you go on the OhioMeansJobs website right now, you will see about 145,000 jobs being offered. When you look at them, these are good jobs. A lot of them, though, require a certain level of skill. Some are information technology jobs, coding jobs. Some are skilled manufacturing jobs, like machining or welding. Some of the jobs are in bioscience, healthcare jobs, technicians. The problem is we don't have the people who have the skills to fill those jobs. That is a shame for those individuals who aren't achieving their hopes in life because they aren't getting those good jobs and certainly for our economy, which would be even stronger if we had more people to fill those jobs.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the Department of Labor, 7.3 million U.S. jobs are currently vacant, again, largely because of the shortage of qualified workers. The National Skills Coalition estimates that nearly half of all job openings between now and 2022 will be what they call middle-skill jobs. This means jobs that require education beyond high school, like a certificate program, but not a 4-year degree. The supply of skilled workers in this category-- students pursuing post high school certifications--still falls way short of what the industry demand is.

This is why career and technical education is important. CTE is part of the answer to this. If you are in high school and looking for an opportunity, check out your career and technical academy. In many high schools, it is combined in one CTE program. It is a great opportunity. It will give you the knowledge and training necessary to succeed in your career.

I am the cofounder and the cochair of what is called the Senate CTE Caucus. We have been working to raise awareness of this issue, so many of my colleagues have now joined this caucus because they go home and see the same thing. How do we connect our hard-working Ohioans to good- paying jobs, and how do we strengthen these CTE programs to make them more affordable and more accessible?

One answer is legislation recently reintroduced by Senator Tim Kaine and me. It is called the JOBS Act. It is really very simple. It says we should be allowed to use Pell grants not just to pay for college but to pay for shorter term certificate programs. These have to be qualified programs, programs that provide real credentials to people. Right now, with the Pell grant, if it is a program of less than 15 weeks, you can't use it. So low-income students all over the country are told: You can go to college. That is great. We are going to encourage you to do that, incentivize you to do that, but you can't get this short-term training program that can get you the job right away.

In Ohio, if those students graduate--and most don't--their average debt is $27,000 compared, again, to the opportunity to go through the short-term training program, get the job, and begin to make money to buy the car, to be able to buy a small home or at least to rent an apartment and not be in your parents' basement, and to be able to move ahead with your life and your family. So career and technical education is a great opportunity, and the JOBS Act would make it much more likely that people would take that opportunity.

By the way, the community colleges around the country love the JOBS Act. I believe it is their top priority this year. Why? Because so many of them are now offering these certificate-based programs because they are responding to the needs of the community and what the businesses are telling them they need.

It is going to be different in every community, by the way, and that is good. There is no ``one size fits all.'' In some communities in Ohio, because we are a big manufacturing State, it is welding, and it is machining. In other places around the country, it might be something else. It might be for the fishing industry, the oil and gas industry, or bioscience. All across Ohio I have seen how these programs are working and could work even better if we had the JOBS Act.

Last week I toured Venture Products. It is a family-owned company that designs and makes tractors. They make an incredible product called the Ventrac. They have a really impressive facility, and it was great to see them and their success. The company has benefited from tax reform and has made additional investments in its business and its workers with their tax savings, just like all of these companies that I have gone to visit all over our State.

After the tour of the company, we had a roundtable discussion. It was with educators--people from the local community college and career and technical education folks who came in--also business people and people from the area who were involved in economic development because they are very concerned that without the workforce they can't expand the businesses in this community in Ohio. We talked about the need to strengthen CTE programs, and we talked about the JOBS Act. All of them agreed that this would be really helpful and helpful right now.

I also had a visit at the Central Ohio Technical College. The investiture ceremony took place last Thursday, and I had the chance to meet the new president, Dr. John Berry. There are a lot of exciting things happening at this career and technical college.

They work pretty closely with Ohio State, which is terrific. So you have Ohio State, a 4-year college, and a great series of graduate programs, working directly with these community colleges that focus on skills training. They are expanding their programming, which will help to meet the needs of today's workforce. The JOBS Act, according to them, will greatly benefit the students who are using these shorter term programs to put them on a path to a good-paying job.

In Walnut Creek, OH, I spoke at the Eastern Ohio Development Alliance's annual meeting in Hockley County. This meeting represented counties from all over eastern and southeastern Ohio. We talked about a lot of things, including the shortage of skilled workers, because it comes up again and again. In this case, Ohio has this wonderful opportunity with the Marcellus and the Utica Shale finds to develop our natural gas and our wet gas and our oil industry, but they need workers. We don't want to have workers coming in from out of State, frankly. We want to develop our own Ohio workforce, and we can only do that with skills training because a lot of these jobs require skills that are not available in Ohio today.

In Columbus, last week I spoke at a reentry conference. This is an annual conference talking about how to get people going from prison into our communities with the job skills they need and the mental health and drug treatment they need to be successful. Again, it all came down to this issue of workforce training being so important, both because it helps people to get a job and not go back into the prison system and also because getting a job is an essential part of so many successful recovery programs for people who have drug and alcohol addiction and want to be able to participate in our economy. This gives them meaning and purpose in life and helps with their recovery.

I was in Knox County at a roundtable discussion. Again, in this case, it was with first responders, local elected officials, and the leadership of their mental health and recovery organization there. Their board there is focused on dealing with the crystal meth problem. It has almost pushed the opioid problem to the second most troubling drug problem in the community. They still have overdoses from opioids. They are still concerned about that. Crystal meth has now come in with a vengeance--pure crystal meth from Mexico. Their big issue is how to get people in recovery and successful recovery. Again, the issue of job training came up. How do you give people the skills they need to get a job, and how do you incorporate job skills in a recovery program, again, so people have a reason to turn their life around to get

back with their family. That purpose and meaning come from a job, so often.

So it was an opportunity to talk about the need for us to develop the workforce to meet the needs of our communities and the opportunity to talk about the need for the JOBS Act. I am really pleased that the JOBS Act is in the President's budget this year. I thank President Trump and his administration for including that. It makes all the sense in the world. The higher education bill will be reauthorized this year, we all hope. That is certainly the plan. If that happens, it is the perfect place for having the JOBS Act included.

Senator Kaine of Virginia and I are the coauthors of this legislation. We are hopeful that our colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join us in this legislation and help us to get it in the Higher Education Act. I know that it is a priority of many members of that committee, and Chairman Alexander, in particular, has a passion for ensuring that we have the training we need out there to get people the jobs to let them achieve their dreams in life.

Passing the JOBS Act will give us an opportunity to help so many Americans have better opportunities, and, just as importantly, it would enable us to help our economy right now because the biggest concern I hear is no longer the taxes. People love the tax cuts and tax reform, and they love the regulatory relief, but they are looking for skilled workers. This is an opportunity. Let's seize it. Let's keep growing our economy and help Americans fulfill their God-given potential.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am here on the floor to talk about an American hero.

General Douglas MacArthur once said, ``Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.'' Those words--duty, honor, country--are exemplified through the life and legacy of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Cole.

Lt. Col. Cole, who went by Dick, was born and raised in my grandfather's hometown, Dayton, OH. He graduated from Steele High School and completed 2 years of college at Ohio University before enlisting in the Aviation Cadet Program of the U.S. Army Air Corps in November 1940. He commissioned as a second lieutenant in July 1941 and received his pilot wings at Randolph Field in Texas. From there, he joined the ranks of the 34th Bombardment Squadron of the 17th Bombardment Group.

Soon after, Lt. Col. Cole became one of the 80 volunteers who signed up for the Doolittle Mission, which was to become the first offensive strike on mainland Japan during World War II. In a turn of fate, a Japanese vessel spotted the USS Hornet, forcing the mission to commence a day early. Therefore, what was originally planned

as a 400-mile trip to mainland Japan turned into a 645-mile journey to the target, putting the pilots in grave danger because the planes did not have enough fuel to reach their destination.

Lt. Col. Cole served valiantly as Lt. Col. James Doolittle's co- pilot, and together, they led the squadron of 16 Army Air Force bombers from the Hornet to Tokyo. The squadron succeeded in bombing their target, but as predicted, his plane ran low on fuel and they were forced to bail out over China. His parachute worked, and he landed in a tree, where he spent the night and climbed down in the morning. He ultimately found some Chinese students who took him to Doolittle. After the raid, Cole went to India, helped establish the dangerous Hump flying route and flew more than 100 missions carrying cargo, earning three Distinguished Flying Crosses. The Doolittle Raiders received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2015 and donated it to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Ohio.

The raid provided a psychological lift back home and marked a turning point in the Pacific theater of the war. He was humble about his role in this mission and chalked it up to duty. In 2016, when remembering the raid, he said: ``We were the only B-25 crew operating for months. We were going on that mission whether we wanted to or not. That straightens out that fairy tale.'' He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism for this mission.

Cole remained in China to continue flying bombing and transport missions through the end of the war. He is the only American serviceman of the 16 million who served in World War II to have flown in three elite groups: the Doolittle Raiders, the Himalayan Hump Route pilots, and the 1st Air Commandos.

After retiring from a distinguished 26-year long career in the U.S. Air Force, he spent much of his time as an ambassador for the Air Force and Doolittle Raiders. He traveled the country to keep the history and legacy of the Doolittle Raiders alive and honor those who served beside him.

On April 9, Lt. Col. Cole passed away at the age of 103 years old. What an incredible life. He captured the hearts of everyone who met him, and he will forever be remembered as a hero who faithfully executed his duty for our Country.

Godspeed, Lt. Col. Dick Cole.

Madam President, I am on the Senate floor to talk about the importance of trade and specifically our country's economic relationship with China.

As a trade lawyer, as a former U.S. Trade Representative, as a member of the Finance Committee now that handles trade issues, I have been involved in these issues over the years.

Most importantly, I am from Ohio, which is a huge trade State. We are concerned about trade because we have a lot of manufacturing and a lot of agriculture, where jobs depend on trade back and forth. In fact, in Ohio, about 25 percent of our manufacturing workers make products that get exported, and one out of every three acres planted by Ohio farmers is now being exported.

These are good jobs. These are jobs that pay, on average, about 16 percent more than other jobs and have better benefits. We want more of them.

With only 5 percent of the world's population and about 25 percent of the world's economy, America wants access to the 95 percent of the consumers living outside of our borders. It is always in our interest to open up overseas markets for our workers, our farmers, and our service providers.

While promoting exports, we also have to be sure we protect American jobs from unfair trade, from imports that would unfairly undercut our farmers and our workers, our service providers. Simply put, we want a level playing field, where there is fair and reciprocal treatment. If it is fair, if we have a level playing field, I believe American workers and businesses can compete and win.

The sweet spot for America is this balanced approach: opening up new markets for U.S. products, while being tougher on trade enforcement so American workers have the opportunity to compete.

In that context, I want to talk a little about the inequities in our relationship with China. We don't have a level playing field with China, and it is one of the most important policy issues that faces our country today.

It is certainly really important to Ohio. Ohio sells a lot of products--auto parts, aerospace parts, and other things--to China. We also sell a lot of oilseeds and grains, particularly soybeans--about $700 million worth every year. China is actually our third biggest trading partner in Ohio after Canada and Mexico.

Yet, despite these exports, we have a trade deficit with China because they send a lot more to us than we send to them, and it is not always fair trade.

As an example, Ohio has been ground zero for steel imports coming in because of government-directed overcapacity in China. Our steel mills have been hit hard because, to put it bluntly, China has not been playing by the rules.

In 2000, China produced about 15 percent of the world's steel. Today, thanks to massive subsidies and other forms of state intervention, they now produce about 50 percent. So, again, about 19 years ago, they produced 15 percent of the world's steel; now they produce 50 percent of the world's steel, and they do it, again, through the government subsidizing them.

They often sell that steel at below its cost. They don't need it in China so they are trying to push it out to other countries. They transship it to try to avoid our anti-dumping duties or our countervailing duties, which were put in place because China wasn't playing by the rules. So we find out they are selling below their cost, which is dumping, or we find out they are subsidizing, we win a trade case, but then China sends that product to a third country that then sends it to us, therefore, evading the tariffs we put in place to deal with the unfairness.

It hits our plants hard in Ohio, but it also reduces the cost of steel around the world.

When it comes to our bilateral economic relationship, there is little or no transparency from China when it comes to their regulations, their approvals for inbound foreign direct investment into China, and the required notification of subsidies that is required by the World Trade Organization.

This lack of transparency, of course, frustrates American businesses, and it violates China's international obligations.

China also exhibits a lack of reciprocity. Its market is substantially more closed to American companies than our market is to their companies. We have Chinese companies in Ohio. They don't have to be in a joint venture with a 51-percent Ohio partner, American partner; they can own the whole thing. They don't have to go through this process of approvals that American companies have to go through, where often their intellectual property is taken.

China, as we all know, has relatively higher tariffs than the United States--on average, about a 10-percent tariff in China versus our 3.4 percent tariff, but that is not the biggest problem.

The biggest problem is a host of what are called nontariff barriers. Some keep out our ``Made in America'' products and others coerce the production of those products to be in China. So if you want to sell in China, you have to produce in China, and that is in order to transfer this valuable intellectual property from U.S. companies to Chinese companies.

Investment is not reciprocal either. According to the U.S. Trade Representative in its section 301 report on China, in 2016, the OECD-- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development--ranked China the fourth most restrictive investment climate in the world, despite their being the second largest economy in the world.

So of all the countries in the world, OECD ranked them the fourth most restrictive in terms of accepting foreign investment.

Based on this report, China's investment climate, then, is nearly four times more restrictive than that of the United States.

So the confluence of these two factors--the lack of transparency and reciprocity--stem from China's Communist Party-led nonmarket economy. While China made an effort after joining the World Trade Organization to become more market oriented, in recent years, they have actually moved away from more market-based reforms and instead doubled down on the kind of mercantilism you would expect in the last century but revamped for the 21st century.

In doing so, China has placed enormous strain on the world's trading system and, in turn, has undermined American jobs, American workers, and America's overall competitiveness.

When I served as U.S. Trade Representative, I said that the United States-China trade relationship lacked equity, durability, and balance. Sadly, that is still the case today. We didn't have a level playing field then.

Since that time, the conduct has even worsened. China has invested large sums of money in industrial capacity, subsidizing production that impacted industries in places like the United States but also Japan, the European Union, and many developing countries.

China has embarked on a so-called indigenous innovation campaign backed by hundreds of billions of dollars and the full weight of its nontransparent regulatory apparatus. This intent of the indigenous innovation campaign seems to be directed primarily at us but also other countries around the world that are innovating.

The United States has been the leader in many innovative technologies, and now China is attempting to be the leader. Think of artificial intelligence or 5G.

China's embrace of techno-nationalism has undercut critical commitments it has made to open up its markets, protect intellectual property rights, adhere to internationally recognized labor rights, and meet its WTO commitments on unfair trade practices, such as illegal subsidies.

Without changes to these practices, as long as the inequities and imbalances persist, the durability of our economic relationship remains in question.

I understand China is not going to become a free market economy anytime soon, and while I hope we can have a more market-oriented economy someday and we can move toward that in China, as they were moving that way after joining the WTO, I think it is vital that we at least demand a level playing field in the meantime.

That is why I have supported the Trump administration's efforts to demand structural changes as part of its ongoing negotiations with Beijing. This takes the form of a few different things. One is addressing our huge trade deficit--that is part of the negotiations--so China would buy more soybeans and might buy more LNG, liquefied natural gas. That is all good, but this agreement must also deal with these other issues, like forced technology transfers and dealing with nonmarket practices, like state-owned enterprises and other subsidies.

Addressing the first issue by selling additional soybeans and liquefied natural gas to China is a positive step forward, but a short- term reduction of our trade deficit, which is out of balance, isn't enough. We have to seek progress on these sustainable structural changes so we can count on a fair trading relationship between two now mature trading partners.

Ambassador Lighthizer, who is the current U.S. Trade Representative, is a tough negotiator. I feel confident that he understands this, and he is going to ensure that we not only improve the imbalance in our trade deficit but also--if we get these structural changes we need-- bring home a strong and sustainable agreement.

That leads me to my next point. Any agreement must not just address these important structural problems, but it also has to be enforceable. Without enforceability, it is going to be impossible to make any real, meaningful progress in our economic relationship based on the past. We also have to do more than merely enforce by negotiation. I support consultations and consistent engagement; that is also good. But there also has to be some enforcement mechanisms with some consequences.

While I look forward to seeing the agreement that we come up with China--and I hope it happens soon--I would like to offer a few suggestions related to enforceability.

First, I favor reviving a China-specific safeguard to provide both due process and an effective response to surges with Chinese imports that injure U.S. domestic industry, such as the high-tech products or those derived from nonmarket practices we talked about earlier.

One model to consider is section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974. Now expired, section 421 was a China-specific safeguard that was created, pursuant to China's WTO Accession Protocol, to guard against increased imports from China--surges--with less demanding requirements than that afforded market economies. I think it would be good to get back to that.

Second, strong trade laws have been successful in addressing some of the externalities caused by China's nonmarket practices. We have to continue to enforce those laws. Consider the 266-percent tariff that is currently in place with regard to imports of cold-rolled steel from China. That was because we brought a trade case, and we won the trade case using internationally accepted criteria as to what constitutes dumping and subsidies. Nonmarket economy methodologies give our trade remedy tools extra heft when deployed against these unfair imports from countries like China, which lack the market-driven system found everywhere else in the world.

China knows the effectiveness of our trade laws, especially the nonmarket economy methodologies we use to get that 266-percent tariff in place, and has therefore challenged the use of these methodologies. China has challenged this at the World Trade Organization. I hope that as part of any commitments made pursuant to the current talks, China will drop its challenge to the use of nonmarket methodologies until such time as China has actually become a market economy under established and accepted statutory criteria set out in U.S. law.

Third, increased transparency requirements can help make enforcement more effective. As long as key elements of the ways that China intervenes in the economy--such as the provision of illegal subsidies; currency manipulation, for that matter; the participation in the market in state-owned enterprises; and the application of laws--remain without transparency, it is going to be difficult to effectively monitor compliance with commitments that are made. We have to know. We have the right to know. I thus urge the administration to secure enforceable transparency commitments to ensure we have enough visibility on China's nonmarket practices to make enforcement as effective as possible.

I hope the administration takes some of these enforcement suggestions into account.

Today, pursuant to our section 301 investigation, the United States has levied tariffs of 25 percent on $50 billion and 10 percent on $200 billion of exports from China to the United States. These tariffs are in place now, and they are affecting a lot of our companies here in the United States because China has,

in turn, retaliated against us, putting tariffs ranging from 5 to 25 percent on $100 billion of U.S. exports to China. So there has been an escalation of tariffs as we have been in these negotiations.

There has been discussion about the United States keeping our 25 percent and 10 percent tariffs in place as a backstop even after an agreement is reached. I think that is unlikely because I think it is a recipe for no agreement or an inadequate agreement.

Instead, I believe it is important for both countries to reduce or eliminate altogether the new tariffs under 301 and the retaliatory tariffs when the agreement is reached. Of course, the United States would be able to quickly reimpose tariffs if China doesn't live up to the commitments it makes, and that would be appropriate. But I think we ought to make a commitment now to China that we are willing to get rid of these tariffs, or substantially all of them, if a good agreement is reached.

Over the next few weeks, I hope the President remains focused on reaching this agreement that addresses the structural inequities in our trade relationship. Buying more soybeans is important, but this is a chance to resolve deeper issues, especially when there is such compelling evidence of commitments not met in the past and continued inequities in the U.S.-China trade relationship.

As part of reaching an enforceable structural agreement, I urge the administration to give China certainty about what we actually want and exactly what we want. From what I have heard, I believe giving Beijing the security of an unwavering negotiating position will help unlock China's last best offer. My sense is that is not yet on the table because perhaps they think we have shifted in terms of our objectives and priorities. The agreement would then allow the United States to take a step forward toward a more balanced, equitable, and durable U.S.-China relationship.

Again, I commend the administration and President Trump and Ambassador Lighthizer for engaging in these negotiations. I think we are headed in the right direction, but let's bring it to a close.

I want to note that the current negotiations are only part of what must be a holistic and long-term strategy toward China. A good agreement and strong enforcement is essential, but to keep the United States competitive over the long term, we have to invest more here at home.

As an example, if you are going to be in a sports competition, it helps to go to the gym once in a while. Until recently, we hadn't been hitting the gym too much.

Tax reform and lifting burdensome regulations recently have given our economy a shot in the arm. It is really important because it has created jobs and increased wages, but it has also made our country more competitive, particularly by investing in technology and investing in new equipment.

Unfortunately, we still have some challenges we need to address to be truly competitive. We have a workforce that too often lacks the skills necessary for the 21st century. We have an opioid epidemic that is undermining our economy as well as our communities. We have a crumbling infrastructure that is holding back economic growth.

Instead of people being awed at how quickly China can build a bridge, I want people to be awed at how effectively and how fast we can build a bridge here in this country. To do that, we need to build on the permitting reforms we have enacted in the last few years to make it easier to start and quicker to finish projects that keep our economy moving and growing. Reinvesting in America with world-class career and technical education, infrastructure investment, pro-growth and pro- innovation economic policies, as we started with tax reform and regulatory relief--these are the things that would send signals to China and to the rest of the world that we are a vibrant nation, we are in the game, we are focused on the future, we are constantly innovating, and we are not a nation in decline.

I believe the best days of our country can be before us. We need to show the world that America remains, in fact, the world's preeminent power because of our free markets, because of our innovations, and because of our work ethic. If we do that, we will be able to compete with China. If we don't, even without these trade negotiations, it will be difficult.

By the way, unlike some, I don't propose to compete with China by adopting policies and processes that mimic their system. As an example, nationalizing our 5G deployment or adopting 5-year industrial plans, as China does, is not the path to success. It gives in to the critiques that we make of Beijing. Instead, we need to double down on the American way: big ideas and bold visions grounded in principles unique to our origins. After all, we believe in freedom and free markets because they work.

With regard to China, we should want to have a successful and mutually beneficial relationship on trade and other issues. China and the United States must be strategic competitors going forward, not enemies.

I commend the Trump administration for entering into these difficult and very important negotiations with China, and I encourage the administration to stay strong in the pursuit of long-term, meaningful structural changes in that relationship. I want our country to do the hard work here at home, to ensure that American competitiveness is second to none. That combination--a successful resolution of longstanding issues with China and staying on the cutting edge here at home--will ensure the continued prosperity and global leadership of the United States of America.

Thank you.

I yield back my time.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, the postcloture time on the Stanton nomination expire at 11:45 a.m. on Wednesday, April 10; further, that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action. Additionally, I ask that following the disposition of the Stanton nomination, the Senate vote on the confirmation of the Abizaid nomination as under the previous order and that, if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; finally, that the mandatory quorum call with respect to the Brady nomination be waived.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 151, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that S. 846, the Transit Infrastructure Vehicle Security Act, be discharged from the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the bill be referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

Madam President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Madam President, I now ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the Calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:45 a.m. on Wednesday, April 10; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Stanton nomination.

Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, to mark the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise founded the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 1889, and this year, its members are celebrating the 130th anniversary of its establishment at their annual convention in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise is widely acknowledged as one of the fathers of American Reform Judaism. We would like to recognize the bicentennial anniversary of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise's birth, as well as his extraordinary professional achievements, which have had an indelible effect on the religious life of the American nation.

He created three major American institutions, all still vibrant today: the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, now the Union for Reform Judaism, in 1873; the Hebrew Union College, HUC, in 1875; and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, CCAR, in 1889. As founding president and faculty member of HUC for 25 years, Wise shaped and established Jewish seminary education in America. As CCAR president, he guided a fledgling American rabbinate to take its place within the broader American clergy as equal partners. Celebrating the 130th anniversary of its founding in 2019, the CCAR is today the world's oldest and largest rabbinical association.

In 1854, Wise founded and edited a weekly newspaper, the Israelite-- later, The American Israelite--in Cincinnati. The following year, Wise founded and edited a German language newspaper, ``Die Deborah.'' Wise was also a scholar and educator. He authored over a dozen volumes, both fiction and nonfiction, many of which dealt with intergroup relations and the place of the Jew within American society.

It is a deep source of pride to us and so many Ohioans that the roots of Reform Judaism run through Cincinnati and endure there. We are so proud of Hebrew Union College and all who serve there and learn there now, and we know that all leads back to the man we honor today, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise.

Isaac Mayer Wise was an American icon. His writings have been studied by scholars of many disciplines and backgrounds and we are proud to recognize him today.

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

Madam President, I am on the floor today to talk about career and technical education and specifically legislation we have introduced that would provide a lot more training opportunities for people who need the in-demand jobs that are out there.

When people hear about career and technical education, sometimes they wonder what we are referring to. High school programs used to be called vocational education. Many in my generation might remember it as that. But it is not your father's Oldsmobile. It is not the old voc-ed programs you might remember. In fact, it is very impressive. If you go to these CTE schools today--and Ohio, luckily, has a lot of great career and technical academies and schools--you will see something amazing. You will see young people being trained for some of the most sophisticated jobs out there in bioscience and technology, welding, of course, and manufacturing--in Ohio, it is a big deal--and also CDLs for truckdrivers, commercial driver's licenses. You might see somebody there who is interested in going into firefighting or EMS. This morning, I had a chance to visit with a young man who is in a CTE program where he is going to be immediately hired by a fire department.

These are great opportunities for our young people. Right now, these CTE schools are incredibly important because the skills are needed, and the training is needed.

One of the challenges we have had, frankly, is that sometimes parents who are advising their kids are saying ``You need to go to a 4-year college or university like I did'' or maybe like their uncle or aunt did. Maybe that is the goal they have for their kids, and that is fine. For many young people, that is appropriate, but for others, what a great opportunity, to be able to get out of high school, get a job immediately--a good-paying job with good benefits--and then at some point, because often in these schools, including in Ohio, you get college credit while you are in high school, to go on to college later, and perhaps your employer will pay for that.

This morning, I was with a young woman named Jordan. She is at the Great Oaks career and technical center in Southwest Ohio. Jordan is becoming a welder, and, as I explained to Jordan, she is going to have amazing opportunities. She will have plenty of job opportunities because she is going to have a skill that is so badly needed in Ohio right now. Our manufacturing sector is desperate for welders, and they are willing to pay good money for welders. She can make 45,000, 50,000 bucks a year with good benefits at 18 years old as a welder instead of taking on student debt, which in Ohio is about $27,000 on average. Somebody graduating from community college or a 4-year college or university is taking on significant debt.

This is an opportunity for us to get more young people into career and technical education. We think we ought to do it. We have a good economy right now thanks to tax reform and regulatory relief. There is a lot of hiring going on, and wages are actually higher right now. In Ohio, we have a number of people who are looking for employees. The ``help wanted'' signs are out there.

We have about 148,000 jobs available in the State, if you look at OhioMeansJobs.com, which is the website that offers these positions. Now, there are about 250,000 Ohioans out of work. How does that make sense? Well, it makes sense because if you look at the jobs that are being offered, for many of the jobs, you have to have a skill. You have to be a coder or a machine operator or a welder, or you have to have some bioscience background to be a tech. So if we had the skills training, we would be able to fill these jobs, which is great for the companies and for the economy but also, again, a great opportunity for these young people.

In 2018, our economy added 223,000 jobs per month on average. That is about twice what the pre-tax reform baseline estimate was from the Congressional Budget Office of only 107,000 jobs per month. So we more than doubled it. We have also had strong wage growth over the last 12 months. In fact, wage growth in the last year was higher than at any time in the last decade.

In Ohio, frankly, for a decade and a half we have had flat wages. Finally, we are now seeing wages going up. Last month, the average was about 3.4 percent growth for private sector workers and, by the way, it is more for blue-collar workers than for white-collar workers, supervisory workers, which is all good news.

We have a lot of good things going on in terms of increasing jobs, increasing wages, increasing benefits. Much of that is due to tax reform. I have gone all around our State and talked to folks at roundtable discussions. I have been to over 25 businesses to talk specifically: What did you do with the tax savings? Every one of them has a great story, but with all these pro-growth policies kicking in, the thing I am hearing now is: Yes, the tax reform helped us. The regulatory relief is a good idea, but we need workers, we need people, and we need them to have the skills that go with the jobs we have. This mismatch between the skills that are out there and these jobs, that skills gap is the thing we need to close.

There are lots of ways to do that. The National Skills Coalition estimates that nearly half of all job openings between now and 2022 will be middle-skill jobs that require education beyond high school but not a 4-year degree. If you have a career in technical, with opportunities in high school, and then when you get out of high school, you have a certificate or you can get into a course where you can learn how to do one of these skills--although you are not getting an associate's degree or a bachelor's degree, you are getting a certificate, often a stackable certificate that can lead to a degree later--that is what is going to be needed.

In its most recent skills gap study, Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute highlighted the fact that there are so many jobs out there that need these skills. They estimate there are about 2.4 million positions likely to be unfilled between 2018 and 2028. The economic impact of not having these jobs filled is about a $2.5 trillion hit to our economy. This is why all of this is so important.

About 6 years ago, we started the Career and Technical Education Caucus in the Senate. At first, there were two of us, Senator Kaine from Virginia and myself. Now we have 27 Senators on the CTE Caucus. Why? Because Members are hearing back home about this,

which has been good to raise awareness for career and technical education. It has been helpful for us to put together some bipartisan legislation that helps to promote career and technical education.

Last year, in the Perkins bill, for instance, Senator Kaine and I got legislation in that helps to improve the quality of CT programs all around the country, ensuring again that college credit can be offered, helping to hold up programs to make sure young people and their parents know about this opportunity.

Just a couple weeks ago, Senator Kaine and I reintroduced legislation called Jumpstart Our Businesses by Supporting Students Act. The acronym is the JOBS Act. The JOBS Act is something we introduced in the last couple of Congresses, but I really feel its time has come. I feel it is an opportunity right now for us to move forward with the JOBS Act. One, we are hearing from all around the country the need for this, but, second, we have the likelihood of a higher education bill moving this year, which would be the perfect place to put the JOBS Act.

It is a commonsense solution to help solve the skills gap problem we are talking about. It says, with regard to Pell grants--which is for low-income students--instead of just making them available for community colleges or 4-year colleges or universities or for longer term courses, why not allow Pell grants to be used for shorter term training programs? That is what is needed right now.

I think this is a fairness issue. When I talk to students, as I did this morning here in Washington, as I do back in the State of Ohio, what they tell me is: Rob, I don't have the money to get a driver's license and go through that process, much less to get a certificate to become a welder or to become a coder or to become a tech in a hospital setting. The government will give me a Pell grant to go to a junior college or a community college or a university, but I can't get a Pell grant to help me get the training I need to actually get out there and get a job that I know is right there, ready, good pay, good benefits.

To me, that shows how our system is not working with regard to the modern economy and the needs we have right now, and it is not fair to those students. I think we ought to allow students to use Pell grants for shorter term training programs of less than 15 weeks. I also think it is a matter of efficiency of the Pell grant and the taxpayer.

Unfortunately, most people who take a Pell who go to a college don't graduate. There are lots of reasons for that. I think the main reason is because many of them have to drop out because they have to work, but, in the meantime, they don't have the degree. So they have the Pell, but they don't get the degree, not even a certificate; whereas, in these short-term training programs, a 15-week training program-- trust me, if somebody starts off in one of these training programs, it is much more likely they will end up getting the certificate. They can see just around the corner where the job is. In a sense, the certificate is the ticket to that job, and it is a shorter term prospect. I think it is a very efficient use of the Pell grant, and we should expand the Pell grant, not take it away from colleges and universities--not at all. Pell is an incredibly important program, but let's allow it to be used for short training programs.

I was at the CT Program in Akron, OH, recently. I also went to Stark State Community College. They have a new campus. We had a roundtable on workforce development. We had a lot of local businesses there talking about how great these programs have been for them. We had students there. The chamber of commerce was there. Mayor Dan Horrigan of Akron and Summit County executive Ilene Shapiro were there. I heard from students in high school and in community college who were already working for some of the local employers, businesses like the K Company, an HVAC company based in Akron. They work with Stark State; they work with local high schools; and they get young people on the right educational track to be able to work in the HVAC field where there are plenty of jobs right now. If you are an HVAC tech, you can get a job. It has been a great example of where they are helping the economy, they are helping a particular business, and they are really helping students to get a great job.

Stark State president Dr. Para Jones is very innovative, working with our high schools and working with the business community, trying to ensure we are all working together on this. Dr. Jones, the employers who were around the table, the educators who were around the table, and the students who were around that table--all of them--were really excited about the JOBS Act. They know it is going to work. They know this will help them deal with exactly the problems they are seeing in the local community.

Last week, I also toured a company in Hubbard, OH, Warren Fabricating and Machining. As always happens, I heard about the need for skilled workers. It is a great example of a company taking full advantage of the tax reform and tax cuts. They bought a beautiful, new machine that is incredibly important for their effectiveness as a company to be able to compete with China and others. They have also been able to raise people's salaries and increase the benefits with their tax savings, but their issue now is getting the workforce. They want to operate at full capacity, but they can't find the people. They have openings right now.

I also visited an advanced manufacturer called Rhinestahl Corporation in Mason, right outside of Cincinnati. They manufacture high-precision parts for the aerospace and defense industry. Other employers were there, as well as Butler Tech, which is a local CTE program which has done really incredible, innovative work.

There, I had the opportunity to meet with a lot of students. One of them was a high school student named Jake. He is a chemical operator at a nearby manufacturer called Pilot. He is a veteran who has completed his certificate training, and his employer is now paying for him to continue his education and get a degree while working for them. Connor was there, a high school student who is running machines and learning advanced manufacturing while working at a place called RB Tool. Torez is a 19-year-old who went to the program and is now in charge of calibration and making sure precision tools are up to speed at this company, Rhinestahl.

The teacher of all these students, a guy named Dave Fox, was there. He said his last class of 28 graduates had a combined total of more than 100 job offers. Think about this. These young people going through these certificate programs, 28 young people, had more than 100 job offers. These are good job offers. We are talking about $40,000, $50,000 a year, jobs that pay $18 to $20 an hour and good benefits, and a lot of employers will pay for them to continue their education, should they choose to do so.

Last week, President Trump came to the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, OH. This is an incredible manufacturing facility that does something unique in America, which is they build tanks. The kind of welding they have to be trained on is incredibly sophisticated and difficult to do. The kind of machine work they have to do is really difficult. Cutting the tanks' steel is an incredibly difficult task, plus some other alloys they use to protect our troops in the field. They need to hire about 400 additional workers in the next year or so, partly because, with the defense buildup, we are putting more money into the plant. I am very pleased to say President Trump in his budget put more funding into the Lima plant this year, but they need workers, and they need help training people. They need skilled welders, machinists, assembly workers, and various types of engineers.

These are good-paying jobs and great opportunities for young people. Whether they are coming up through the ranks in high school or whether they are midcareer changing jobs, it would be great for us to help them get the people they need, and the JOBS Act, they all say, would be exactly what they need to help to do that.

At a roundtable discussion at Staub Manufacturing in Dayton recently, the CEO of the company told me he believes welders coming out of high school will be better off financially than many attorneys or doctors.

I asked him what he meant by that. He pointed out that while an attorney

or another professional might make more coming right out of school, by the time they get out of school--law school, as an example--and get out of debt and start investing, the welder is well on his or her way to building a significant nest egg.

It is true. When you think about it, a welder makes, let's say, $50,000 a year starting at age 18. Let's say there is no student debt because, again, through the certificate program and through a Pell--if we get the JOBS Act passed, in particular--this person is able to do so without any student debt. Using an online calculator and assuming about 8 percent growth, if that individual sets aside 10 percent of his or her income toward retirement, from the age of 18 up to 67--and this assumes a person gets no raise at all, which of course is not going to happen. A person is going to have a higher salary over time as the person gets more seniority, but assuming no raise, $50,000 a year: $2.8 million in retirement savings at age 67. That is a nice nest egg to be able to live comfortably in retirement with peace of mind.

Compare that to an attorney, let's say, making $100,000 a year in a big law firm, starts investing at least at 30 years old, after they get through school and paying off their debt. It may be later, but let's say 30 to be conservative. If that person sets aside 10 percent of his or her income: $2.2 million by age 67. So even though the attorney had a higher salary and was investing twice as much each month, the welder making $50,000 a year is going to be better off.

Part of this is getting people into these jobs and getting them into jobs when they are young, where they can begin to make investments in their retirement but also make investments in a car, buy the house, start putting money aside for their kids' education, just to have the peace of mind that comes with knowing you are going to have this profession and this opportunity to get ahead early in life.

I am hoping we can get the JOBS Act passed. It would help provide so many people--particularly young people--these opportunities. If we can shift the paradigm, stop this notion of thinking that everybody who is going through high school needs to go to a 4-year college or university right away and instead think about, how do you ensure that this young person can have an opportunity to get ahead in life, learn a skill where there is an immediate need, and actually help our economy? Because our biggest challenge right now, as I see it--not just in the manufacturing sector, where it is particularly obvious, but across the board, in bioscience, certainly in moving, transportation, truckdriving, and other professions, the biggest challenge we have right now is workforce. This would do both.

The JOBS Act has been endorsed by the National Skills Coalition, the Association for Career and Technical Education, the Association of Community Colleges and Trustees--I know community colleges have put this highest on their list--and other groups.

I am also pleased to say, again, it is in the budget. President Trump puts together a budget every year. This year's budget actually has our JOBS Act included in it. It is one that is totally bipartisan.

Senator Kaine from Virginia and I have been the coauthors of this legislation over the years. We continue to work closely together on this. We have 10 cosponsors already, having just introduced this a couple weeks ago. It is a bipartisan group, mixed, Republicans and Democrats. We also have a lot of outside stakeholders supporting it, and, again, it is now in the President's budget.

The reason we are getting all this support is it works. It works. It will cover programs that, at a minimum, require 150 hours and 8 weeks to complete. There are some alternative programs that limit them by requiring them to be 320 hours. I will tell you our community colleges tell me none of their short-term training programs would qualify for that higher number of hours--programs like welding, precision machining, electrical trades. All those programs would fit into the JOBS Act but not into some of the alternatives that are being discussed.

We need the JOBS Act now, and we think there is a great vehicle for it--which is the Higher Education Act--this year. A big fan of career and technical education is the chairman of that committee, Senator Lamar Alexander. He understands the need for us to provide the kind of skills training needed to fill the jobs that are out there that companies are desperate to fill. He sees this in his own State of Tennessee, where he has a lot of manufacturing jobs, including auto manufacturers that are looking for more skilled workers every day.

As we work to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, my hope is colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join us in ensuring that the JOBS Act is included in that. Let's be sure that we deal with the fairness issue here and that we have a sense of understanding about our economy and what the needs are right now.

A lot of that need is in skills and the kind of skills that the JOBS Act would provide. It just makes too much sense.

If we make career and technical education a priority and if we enact the JOBS Act I discussed today, we are going to help tens of thousands of our young people be able to achieve their dreams, whatever they are, and to have better opportunities. Just as important, we are going to be able to help our economy--help to ensure that here in the United States we have a growing economy where we have better tax policy, better regulation policy, and also, for the workers, ensure that the companies don't pick up and move because they don't have the workforce. Companies tell me in Ohio: You know, Rob, we could do what we are doing here in other places, and not just Indiana, which is next to Ohio, but maybe India.

We don't want that. We want to have the workforce that is needed to be able to keep these good jobs and keep these companies here in this country, to ensure that we can keep moving in a positive direction, and, again, to ensure that Ohioans can develop the skills they need to grow in the career of their choice and to fulfill their potential in life.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the University of Cincinnati on their bicentennial celebration honoring 200 years of extraordinary research.

In January of 1819, two colleges were chartered by the state of Ohio: the Medical College of Ohio and Cincinnati College. Both are predecessors to today's University of Cincinnati. The opening enrollment of Cincinnati College was roughly 70 students. Today, the University of Cincinnati has an enrollment of nearly 46,000 students, making it one of the largest universities in the Nation. UC stands as a Carnegie Research 1 university, with a living alumni base of more than 300,000; a world-acclaimed campus and top programs in music, health, design, science, and more; plus a $4.2 billion economic impact in its tristate region of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.

Next week, UC will be celebrating its Bicentennial Research and Innovation Week. The week will be honoring UC's

past 200 years of extraordinary research by showcasing the impactful, imaginative, and innovative work researchers at UC are doing today. Examples of the research and innovation that will be highlighted during the week include demonstrations of connected autonomous vehicles, presentations on infrastructure to share data in smart secure cities, pitches by student-inventors and entrepreneurs, discussions on partnerships needed for the goal of ending the opioid epidemic, highlights from experts in bioinformatics, neuroscience, and engineering at the University of Cincinnati and its affiliated institutions and how they are pushing the boundaries of clinical and data sciences, and more.

UC is proud of the broad societal impacts the work of our researchers have had on Cincinnati, the region, and beyond. Congratulations to the University of Cincinnati for 200 years of research and innovation excellence.

Mr. President, I am here to talk about the vote that we will take later today on this floor regarding the President's national emergency declaration.

From the outset of this process, I have had two objectives. One is to support the President on the crisis at the border. I believe his plan to address that crisis is a good one, and we should support it. But, second is to do it in the right way, without setting a dangerous new precedent counter to a fundamental constitutional principle, without tying up the needed funds for the border in the courts, and without taking funds away from important military construction projects for our troops.

Unfortunately, despite a sincere effort by the administration as recently as this morning to try to work with me and other colleagues, including the Presiding Officer, we were not able to agree on a path forward that addresses those concerns that I just outlined.

I am going to lay out in a minute how I think we can better achieve the President's goals of strengthening our border security without invoking the national emergency and the funding he

seeks through that national emergency.

First, let me repeat what I have said on this floor many times and said consistently: I do believe we have a crisis at the border--a humanitarian crisis, a trafficking crisis, a drug crisis. According to Customs and Border Protection, in February--last month--76,000 illegal immigrants arrived at our southern border. That is an average of about 2,000 every day. Since October of last year, we have apprehended more than 268,000 people at the border. That is about a 100-percent increase over the same period last year. We have also seen a 300-percent increase in families arriving at the border compared to this time last year. By the way, the vast majority of those are from three countries in Central America.

This is a humanitarian crisis. The journey to the United States from these so-called Northern Triangle countries is incredibly dangerous, especially for women and for children. They face violence from gangs and traffickers and hunger and dehydration in the rough terrain. Many of them arrive at our border traumatized, hurt, sick, and often we don't have the resources to provide for those needs.

There is also a growing human trafficking crisis. Our lack of border security allows these smugglers--human smugglers--to move across the border unchecked. Increasingly, they are taking advantage of these flows of individuals to traffic women and children.

In particular, I will say the Border Patrol resources are spread thin trying to monitor these areas that do not have barriers.

Third, this is a drug crisis. The Drug Enforcement Agency has said that the southwest border ``remains the primary entry point for heroin into the United States.'' That is not a debatable point. I am told that with regard to Ohio, where we have been devastated by the opioid epidemic, over 90 percent of the heroin is coming across the southern border.

Fentanyl, the deadliest drug of all, which comes primarily from China and primarily through the U.S. mail system--50 times more powerful than heroin--is increasingly coming across the southern border too. Yesterday I learned from Customs and Border Protection that fentanyl seizures along the border between the ports of entry have increased by 400 percent between 2016 and 2018.

As we are finally beginning to make progress on the opioid crisis in my home State of Ohio and around the country, finally reducing the number of heroin and other opioid overdose deaths for the first time in 8 years, we are seeing a reduction in those deaths, but crystal meth and the devastation it causes is coming back--coming back with a vengeance. It is more pure than ever, more powerful than ever, and it is coming from Mexico.

Some of you may remember in your own communities the issue of crystal meth labs being in people's houses and the environmental damage it caused and the crystal meth being cooked. That is not happening much anymore. Why? Because the pure crystal meth from Mexico is so much more powerful and less expensive; it is cheap.

Law enforcement tells me that on the streets of Columbus, OH, pure crystal meth is now plentiful and less expensive than marijuana--and far more dangerous. Where is this coming from? It is coming from Mexico.

Even with limited resources, in fiscal year 2018, Customs and Border Protection seized almost a half million pounds of marijuana and 11,000 pounds of methamphetamine between ports of entry. At the ports of entry, they seized over 1,700 pounds of fentanyl--by the way, that is enough to kill about 3 billion people--1,700 pounds of fentanyl, three flecks of which can kill you, 56,000 pounds of meth, and nearly 52,000 pounds of cocaine.

Frankly, that is the tip of the iceberg. Most of it is getting through. They are checking only a small percentage of shipments, meaning the vast majority of drugs are coming across our borders undetected. We need to do more.

There is no question we need stronger border security. Again, I support the plan the President has outlined, including the $5.7 billion the President has requested for walls and other barriers.

That $5.7 billion number, by the way, wasn't just picked out of thin air. It funds the top 10 priorities of the Customs and Border Protection Border Security Improvement Plan. The experts have given us a plan, and the President's $5.7 billion simply funds what the experts have said.

This plan, by the way, the expert's border security plan, has been embraced by this Congress in the last two appropriations bills. They pointed to that plan and said: This is the path forward. These are the experts. It is not controversial.

By the way, the experts have recommended not that we build a wall from sea to shining sea--it has been mischaracterized as that--but 234 miles of barriers, walls, and other fencing at places where people cross the border most frequently, primarily in the State of Texas, primarily in the urban areas--places where it will make the most difference.

Funding for these types of barriers has been included in the budget requests from previous administrations, of course. Previous administrations have built hundreds of miles of fencing--over 500 miles.

It has also been included in appropriations bills passed by Congress during the last two appropriation cycles by both Republicans and Democrats. Why is it that this administration can't build the barriers that other administrations have and that Congress in the past has supported?

Of course it is not just about more physical barriers, and the President's plan also recognizes that. It calls for more Border Patrol agents, more technology, more surveillance, more drones, more cameras, more screening at our ports of entry, more technology to stop this illegal flow of drugs. That is also a significant part of the plan.

But erecting more barriers and fencing in key areas along the border will help stem the tide. It will ease the burden on our Border Security personnel and allow them to focus their resources more effectively.

It is time to listen to the experts and give them what they need to carry out their important mission, but we have to do that in the right way.

As we all learned in high school, our government has a system of checks and balances. It gives some powers to the President; it gives some powers to Congress. Our Constitution explicitly gives the U.S. Congress what is called the power of the purse.

Congress, not the President, has the sole authority to determine how to spend taxpayer money, and that is appropriate. After all, we are here to represent the people. We are most accountable to the taxpayers. Once we appropriate the money for a specific purpose, then it is the President and the executive branch that are responsible for administering those programs.

We had our spending fight here in Congress. I thought we should give the President the full amount of money he requested for barriers, and I voted that way. At the end of the day, Congress decided to give him only some, not all, of the funds he requested.

Under current law and current congressional approval and authorities, without declaring a national emergency, President Trump can actually access additional funds that get him to the $5.7 billion he requested. As the Wall Street Journal said in a recent editorial opposing a national emergency, ``The President doesn't need to invoke a national emergency to build his wall along the southern border.''

Declaring a national emergency to access different funds sets a dangerous new precedent. The use of national emergency powers to circumvent Congress's explicit decision on funding is unprecedented. No President has ever used what is called the National Emergencies Act in this way. As a result, it opens the door for future Presidents to implement just about any policy they want and to take funding from other areas Congress has already decided on without Congress's approval.

Once a President declares an emergency, he or she has access to a lot of power. Some would say nearly unlimited power. A future President could seize industries or could control means of communication. Think of the internet. A future President may well say that climate change is a national emergency and use emergency authorities to implement the Green New Deal. By the way, according to a new study by Douglas Holtz- Eakin at the American Action Forum, the proposed policies in the Green New Deal would cost

between $51 trillion and $93 trillion over the next 10 years when added up together. Obviously, that is not sustainable. It is an astounding price tag. In fact, as Senator Alexander said on the floor earlier today, future Presidents could actually use this emergency authority to tear down the very wall we are now constructing, and some Democrats running for President have said that is what they intend to do. That is what they want to do.

The President is using the National Emergencies Act to take funds away from a particular area of spending. It is called military construction funds. Only twice before have Presidents declared a national emergency in order to transfer military construction funds away from congressionally designated projects into other priorities. In both of those situations, we were at war, and the Secretary of Defense transferred the funds to support the war effort, and Congress did not object. Although there is a crisis at our southern border, we are not in wartime, and there are funds available to address border security.

The President wants to do more to address the crisis at the border, and I do, too, and he can do more. The President has available to him enough funds, right now, to begin building all the barriers he has requested without resorting to national emergency funds. I support his using those funds to get to the full $5.7 billion he requested for barriers on the southern border.

Here is how we could access it without using the national emergency. First would be the $1.375 billion appropriated by this Congress for the barriers. By the way, that is the most that has ever been appropriated in a fiscal year, ever, for the purpose of barriers. Second, he can access, as he intends to do, $601 million from the Treasury Forfeiture Fund. He could do that without a national emergency. Third, he could access funding through the DOD counter-drug account. He has said that he would like to access about $2.5 billion from that account, but he could actually access, under our laws that we have passed here--and we have given him authority to access--up to $4 billion. This adds up, as we can see, to over $5.7 billion--almost $6 billion--which is at the President's disposal without moving to the national emergency that he has invoked. My hope is that the President will take this approach.

I think using those funds is a better way to accomplish our border security goals. Precisely because the President does not need to declare a national emergency, these funds are far more certain. The $3.6 billion the President takes from the military construction projects is uncertain because these funds are likely to be tied up in constitutional litigation for months, probably years. By the way, the President has rightly acknowledged that.

Under the National Emergencies Act, Congress has given the President flexibility to address significant threats to our Nation's well-being, and we want him to have that flexibility. It was critical for President Bush to act quickly and decisively in the days after the 9/11 attacks. But short of that type of situation, it is imperative for the President to honor Congress's constitutional role to make policy and appropriate money. A national emergency declaration is a tool to be used cautiously and sparingly. That is why I cosponsored legislation, authored by Senator Mike Lee, to amend the National Emergencies Act to ensure that Congress does have more control over these decisions in the future.

So in my view, the best resolution here is for the President to use that nearly $6 billion in funding that he has at his disposal to implement his plan, and, then, ask Congress for additional funding during the next appropriations cycle, which, by the way, begins on October 1 of this year.

This approach, again, has three distinct advantages. One, it would not set the dangerous precedent we discussed today. Second, the funds could actually get to the border because they will not be tied up in litigation. Third, it would fully protect important military construction projects in Ohio and around the country--including, by the way, funding for the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, or NASIC, at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; an automated, multipurpose machine gun range at Camp James A. Garfield; a fire station replacement at Mansfield Lahm Airport; a small arms range at Rickenbacker International Airport, and a main gate relocation project at Youngstown Air Reserve Station. All of those are things in the current fiscal year Military Construction appropriations bill that benefit Ohio. I am a strong supporter and advocate for Ohio's military facilities and our research institutions, and I will continue to work to ensure that our key military construction projects at these strategic facilities can continue to move forward.

I have worked on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. I have had the honor of being a Senator and a Congressman on this side, and I have worked for two White Houses. In fact, I was Associate Counsel to President Bush 41 in his White House Counsel's office. I know how hard it can be for the executive branch, the President, and Congress to find the balance that our Founders intended between the executive branch and the legislative branch, but our Founders drew a clear line on at least one thing: Congress, closest to the people, would have the power of the purse.

When President Obama bypassed Congress and took executive action to create new immigration policy back in 2012, I spoke out. I criticized him because of the constitutionality issue. I said I agreed with President Obama that our immigration system was--and, by the way, still is--broken. I agreed we needed to work together to fix it, but, I said that it doesn't mean that a President can ignore Congress, substitute his own judgment for the will of the people, and make up new laws on his own. That is what I said President Obama did. I believed it was wrong then.

I believe the President's use of the national emergency declaration to access already approved military construction project funding is wrong now. I support his goals. President Trump is right that we have a crisis, and I support his plans to secure the border, and he can fully fund it in a more reliable way. By the way, anyone who cares about getting that money to the border to build walls ought to want that certainty.

Each one of us in this body has sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. So today I will vote to support the disapproval resolution that is before us.

I know the President has the votes to pursue his approach. Even if the disapproval resolution passes, he can veto it, and his veto will be sustained. I know that, but I continue to hope that the President uses the funds he has available to him without creating a bad precedent, having some of the needed funds tied up in the courts, and taking money from important military projects.

President Trump is right about the crisis at the border, and the approach I outlined today would enable him to accomplish his policy objectives on the border and honor our Constitution.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.