Floor Statements

Madam President, I have come to the floor of the Senate today to talk about the opioid crisis, to talk about what is happening out there in our communities and how some of our Federal legislation is working, and to talk about some good news, which is that there is some improvement in terms of the overdose deaths we have seen in this country, but also a warning that although we are finally making progress on the opioid crisis, we are also seeing other drugs, such as pure crystal meth, coming from Mexico and other drugs beginning to take hold in our communities.

So let me start, if I could, by talking a little about what the opioid crisis has been and what we are doing to address it.

You recall that the last data we had, which is for 2017--over 70,000 Americans lost their lives to overdoses. The No. 1 drug, the No. 1 killer, has been fentanyl, which is a synthetic opioid that, about 4 or 5 years ago, hit our communities hard. Year after year, for 7 or 8 years now, we have seen increases every single year in the number of people who die from overdoses, which is one way to measure it. Another way to measure it is just the number of people addicted. That is a harder figure to find, but that has also increased year to year.

It is devastating communities. The No. 1 cause of death in my home State of Ohio is opioid overdoses. Among Americans under 50, it is now the No. 1 cause of death in America.

It also has had many impacts on our health system and on our criminal justice system. Go to the emergency rooms. Look at our jails that are filled with people whose crimes somehow relate to opioids. Often, these are property crimes--people doing something to get the money to pay for their drugs.

Look at the impact it has had on our families. The foster care system is overwhelmed. I was with some juvenile court judges today from Ohio who were telling me that they can't find sponsors, that they can't find foster parents because the system is overrun with kids whose parents are addicted to opioids, and they cannot go home, but they need a loving family.

It has impacted our economy because so many people are now out of work altogether, aren't even looking for work, and don't even show up in the unemployment numbers. If you look at the labor force participation rate being so low--in other words, the number of people working--the unemployment rate today would not be 4 percent; it would be more like 8 percent if you just went back to a normal level. And a lot of that, based on studies done by the Department of Labor and Brookings and others, shows that the opioid crisis is driving that.

It has impacted us in so many ways.

Here is the exciting news: After 7 or 8 years of increases every year in the number of people whose hopes are lost,

whose lives are lost, we are seeing--at the end of 2017 and into 2018, the initial numbers we have--some improvement. It starts from an unacceptably high number, so this is not something we should start congratulating ourselves about, but it is much better, finally, to see this trend start to reverse.

Preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and their National Center for Health Statistics points to a promising, although very modest, downturn. They measure drug overdose deaths in 12-month periods, ending in any given month. The last data we have regarding predicted deaths was between September 2017 and March 2018, and during that time period, we saw the number of deaths fall from about 73,000 Americans to 71,000 Americans.

So there is still a crisis that we face as a country, but it shows that in many States, including Ohio, we are beginning to see a little progress. Again, this follows a time period where we saw a big increase due to this fentanyl--the synthetic drug that is 50 times more powerful than heroin--causing so many of those overdoses.

In fact, in my view, we were beginning to make progress through some Federal, State, and local policies and also the innovative work of the nonprofits that were working in our communities. We had begun to see progress on treatment and prevention and recovery and providing more Narcan, and then this influx of fentanyl hit us and overwhelmed the system. Now we are beginning to see--even with the fentanyl still out there--that we are beginning to make progress.

In Ohio--fentanyl hit our State particularly hard. We had a record 4,800 overdose deaths in 2017, which was a 20-percent jump over 2016's toll. So it has been tough for 8 years in a row.

What I can report today is that now we are seeing a little progress. We saw a 21-percent drop in overdose deaths in the first half of 2018. Again, we have not yet gotten all the numbers for 2018. When we have all those, I will come back to the floor and talk about them. But for the first half of 2018, we are getting the numbers in now at about a 20-percent drop.

That was the biggest drop in the Nation, by the way, during the period from July 2017 through June 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control. So that is good, because Ohio has been in the middle of this. Other than West Virginia, we probably have had the highest number of overdose deaths on average in the last several years.

Separately, preliminary data from the Ohio Department of Health shows a 34-percent decrease in overdose deaths from January to June 2018. Again, those first 6 months, we saw a little decrease, finally--34 percent. That is progress--again, from a high starting point, but I believe we are headed in the right direction.

Some people have asked me ``Are we ever going to see the end of this crisis?'' and I have always said yes. There is a light at the end of the tunnel because we know what we need to do.

We need to have better education and prevention programs to keep people from falling into addiction in the first place. We need to stop the overprescribing from our doctors so that people aren't inadvertently, because of an accident or an injury, taking prescription pain pills and then becoming addicted and then moving to heroin and fentanyl and so on and often to overdoses.

We need to do much more in terms of treatment and getting people into longer term recovery because we know initial treatment is important. In fact, essential to getting people through the process of coming out of their addiction is that they have to go through a painful process and then go into a treatment program. We have also found that longer term recovery programs are key to people's success--getting back on their feet, getting back to their families, and getting back to work.

One of the reasons we have made progress is because, as I said earlier, at every level of government, there has been movement, and there has been progress made. Here in Washington, in the Congress, we have done things that are historic. As an example, never before have we funded recovery--until just a few years ago. We have never had this much focus on providing the funds for Narcan to be used to help our first responders and others use this miracle drug to reverse the effects of an overdose. We have never spent so much money on prevention and education. And, of course, we have never spent so much money on treatment.

Several years ago, some of us came together, knowing this crisis was building, and said: How do we create legislation here in Washington that can make a difference? Some said it is not really a Federal role. My view was that the Federal Government has a big role here because it is a national emergency, a national crisis, but we ought to take the best information from around the country, find out what the best practices are, and then help the States by providing funding to leverage additional funding at the local level, the State level. That was called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. We spent 3 or 4 years putting it together. We had five conferences here in Washington. Senator Whitehouse on the other side of the aisle and I are the coauthors of that legislation.

The first year, we got some money from Congress--$181 million--to support these treatment programs, education programs, treatment and recovery programs together, Narcan for our first responders--181 million bucks. The next fiscal year, we got $267 million to fund these same programs. The next year, 2018, we got $608 million. In 2019, this year, we got $647 million. So we have increased the funding and increased the commitment. Why? Because it is working. Because we can all go home now and look at our States and see where some of this funding is going and show that through innovation, through doing things differently, we are beginning to make a difference.

Let me give the best example, perhaps, that I see around the country; that is, instead of saving someone's life with Narcan and having that person overdose sometimes again and again--first responders will tell you that they find it frustrating to save the same people again and again and not find any route to success. You want to get these people into treatment. So what we have funded through CARA--the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act--are these rapid-response teams. So when somebody overdoses from fentanyl, they don't just go back home or go back to the old community or the old gang. Instead, somebody visits--a law enforcement officer, a social worker, a treatment provider. They knock on the door and say: We want to get you into treatment. We want to help you. We are here to help. We are not here to arrest you; we are here to help you.

The success rate is phenomenal--maybe greater than you would think-- because a lot of these people, particularly right after overdosing and having Narcan applied, saw their lives flash before their eyes, and they are looking for some help. Probably 8 out of 10 people are not getting into treatment, so they are looking for an avenue to treatment.

In some places in Ohio, there has been as much as an 80-percent success rate in getting those people who were virtually a zero-percent success rate before into treatment programs. Again, they have to be the right programs, and there has to be that longer term recovery in order to ensure success, but programs like those are beginning to turn the tide.

Over the past several months, I have been around the State of Ohio-- as I have done the last several years--and I met with local leaders to find out what is really going on and how the money is being spent.

A couple of weeks ago, I met local leaders and participants in the Pathways Achieving Recovery by Choice program. That is a voluntary recovery program for incarcerated women with substance abuse disorders and many with co-occurring mental health issues as well. These are women behind bars who volunteer to go into this program. All of them are numerous repeat offenders. In other words, these are women whose chances of being back in the system after they get out is extremely high. The program director said it is virtually 100 percent because they have been arrested numerous times, and they keep coming back again and again into the system.

This program that I got to see received a grant from the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of $881,000 so that this program could last not just

1 year but several years. They put it in place. They are providing treatment and recovery services for these women and teaching them not just about how to avoid going back to the old neighborhood and getting back in trouble again but also how to establish their lives in a productive way--going back to work, getting back with their families.

It was great to hear from Dr. Patrice Palmer, who runs the program, and also Franklin County Commissioner Marilyn Brown, Sheriff Dallas Baldwin, and others about how this is helping residents get what they need--the treatment and recovery services they need, the housing they need--but most importantly, get them to rebuild their lives and not come back into the system. I mentioned earlier that the recidivism rate is virtually 100 percent for this group. In other words, 100 percent of them are going to come back into prison based on the record. This program has got that down to 20 percent. In other words, 80 percent of these women have gotten out, gotten into the programs they need, gotten back on their feet, gotten a job, and found an apartment. Eighty percent of them are back in our communities as productive citizens. That, to me, is what this is all about.

I spoke to a number of the participants in the program, and they were optimistic because it is a very upbeat program. I was asked to give a quote, and I gave a Winston Churchill quote about how when you fall down, the most important thing is getting back up. That is more important than success without having failures. I talked about the fact that I have been to a lot of these programs around the State, and I have seen where people find--for the first time in their lives, in many cases--the kind of meaning in their lives and the kind of hope for the future that let them get back on track.

I talked to Nina Davidson. She is a repeat offender. Nina said what all the women said. She said: I don't want to go back to jail. She doesn't want to keep living that life. She has been in and out of jail many times. Pathways has helped her change her thinking, and that is what it is all about--changing the thinking and therefore changing lives and saving lives.

Earlier this year, I met with law enforcement, local officials, and members of the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition to find out how they are using these Federal funds.

Again, I am here talking to my colleagues, Republican and Democrat alike, saying that we need more money, and they want to know where it is going. Is it working?

Well, I just talked about one that is working in Columbus. It is also working in Hamilton County, which is the Cincinnati Federal area. They have received Federal funding through the CARA legislation and also the 21st Century Cures law--again, something this Congress passed on a bipartisan basis.

The county has received a $500,000 CARA grant for an innovative program to help those with substance abuse and mental health disorders get help instead of going through the criminal justice system. They also got $50,000 for a prevention grant for a group called PreventionFirst!, which is a group I founded more than 20 years ago, about 25 years ago in Cincinnati. It is still there helping to prevent drug abuse. They are doing a good job. They have also received money through the 21st Century Cures Act. In fact, in the last 2 years, Ohio has received 26 million bucks a year from the Cures legislation that goes straight to the State, and the State decides how it is given out to good groups and organizations around the State.

The Cures funding and the CARA funding, as I see it, is working. It is expanding Medicaid-assisted treatment. It is helping first responders--these are our EMS, our firefighters--who are out there trying to save lives. They need the training on Narcan. They need the funding.

It has also helped with regard to closing the gap for those who are seeking treatment. I mentioned earlier the gap between Narcan being applied and somebody getting into treatment. There is also a gap, unfortunately, between people in treatment and getting into longer term recovery. Often, there is a waiting period there, and people fall back into their addiction. These gaps can be closed, and when they are and when it is a comprehensive, seamless program, the results are amazing.

During our meeting in Hamilton County, Newtown, OH, Police Chief Tom Synan told me that fentanyl continues to be the deadliest drug in greater Cincinnati. He wants us to implement quickly two pieces of legislation. One is called the STOP Act, which this Congress passed to keep fentanyl from flowing freely into our communities.

In August 2016, we had 174 overdoses in 6 days--174 in 6 days. It was what they called a bad batch. It was fentanyl being mixed with heroin. That drew national attention to the crisis. That is when we started working on this STOP Act, which is to say, let's stop this stuff from coming in through the U.S. mail system, which is where most of it comes, and from China, which is where most of it comes. We passed that legislation, and it is helping because it requires the U.S. Postal Service to actually screen through these packages to get the information to know what is a suspect package to help Customs and Border Protection pull these packages off and begin to pull some of these drugs out of our communities, which, at a minimum, increases the cost of this drug on the street, which is important.

We also have the other legislation. I see that my colleague Sherrod Brown is on the floor today. The INTERDICT Act helps because it gives those same people more funding for the screening they need once they have identified a package that is suspect. That combination is making a difference right now. President Trump signed that law in October of last year after about 2 years of hard work and investigation by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. It is making a difference, but, as Police Chief Tom Synan said, we have to implement it and implement it quickly.

I spoke today to the Secretary of Homeland Security. She talked about the INTERDICT Act. She wants to push those quickly, and we need to, because those will continue to make a difference. But they are starting to work, and that is part of the reason we are seeing some progress.

I recently toured the jail in Butler County, OH, to see firsthand how they are using their Federal funding. They got about $800,000 in a CARA grant. I met with Scott Rasmus, the executive director of the Butler County Mental Health and Addiction Recovery Services Board, Sheriff Jones, and other community leaders about how they are using this funding to close the gaps that often occur with treatment. Again, they are doing what I talked about earlier, with these rapid response teams that ensure, that, yes, they are saving people's lives with Narcan, but then getting them into a treatment program that works for them.

In January I was in Portsmouth, OH, one of the hardest hit areas of our State. Portsmouth, OH, has been the subject of a lot of attention by the media--a lot of attention because they were hit so hard by the heroin crisis that followed the prescription drug crisis.

I met there with law enforcement and local officials from Adams County, Lawrence County, and Scioto County. They have received $525,000 in grants from the Cures Act, and they are using it to help to address every aspect of addiction, including the gaps in treatment I talked about. They funded a reentry project, the Hughes Re-Entry Center, which provides longer term assistance through outpatient services, assisted housing, and working with the Community Justice Center to close the gaps occurring when people get out of prison and getting them into programs that will help them to avoid getting right back into prison again.

Lastly, I want to highlight a recent visit I made to the Oasis House. Oasis is a safe house in Dayton, OH. It provides a supportive environment and recovery services to women who were trafficked or abused, and it helps them get back on their feet through counseling, drug treatment, or other social services. I was there last month and had the opportunity to visit with the women. It is a Christian, nonprofit organization--a faith-based group--that runs these safe houses. Most of these women are victims of human trafficking. These women are often homeless. Every single one of them I talked to was also an addict or a recovering

addict. They have been through a lot--a lot of trauma--and they need the help, but the good news is they are getting the help, and there is hope.

At my visit to the safe house, I met these incredibly courageous women who have taken these steps voluntarily to get their lives back together, using faith and using, in some cases, treatment programs. The funding they are getting is coming through the Montgomery County ADAMHS Board, the alcohol and drug board, and that funding comes from the CARA legislation and the Cures legislation. Again, seeing in action what is actually happening on the ground gives me hope that we are beginning to make progress.

I met with the safe house ``Mom.'' She is the resident mother, as she calls herself, of this house. She is there to take care of concerns that women have. She is a recovering addict herself. She is a domestic violence survivor. Oasis House saved her life, and now she is giving back by helping current Oasis clients to be able to help save their lives. I want to congratulate Cheryl Oliver, their executive director, for all of the great work they are doing. The bravery of these young women was inspiring and, again, it is great to see firsthand how this is making a difference in their lives.

We have recently seen this issue of trafficking arise in connection with a sex trafficking ring in Florida. We are told that illicit spas-- like those in Florida that you have probably heard about in the media in the last week or so--can sometimes be hubs of human trafficking, where women, often imported from foreign countries, are brought in to America. They are often induced through fraud, fear, or some other type of coercion to perform sex acts for money, and that is what investigators believe happened here. They believe that the women in these spas were from foreign countries, and that they were induced into this through coercion. There is more information coming out. They don't have all of the details yet. The investigation continues, but they suspect the managers at these day spas were trafficking these women, and, therefore, they arrested the owners at several of these day spas. It is another disturbing reminder that human trafficking continues to exist right here in this country in this century, and we must stay vigilant in our efforts to combat this horrific crime.

In my last 8 years here in the Senate, it has been one of our top priorities to pass legislation to combat human trafficking. We have passed bills into law to get better data on sex trafficking here in the United States, to ensure that victims are treated as victims and not as criminals, to increase Federal penalties on johns, and to enact a zero- tolerance policy on human trafficking and government contracts.

I am proud to say that, with Senator Blumenthal, we cofounded and cochaired the human trafficking caucus here. We started off with a couple Members, and now we have a couple dozen Members of this body who work day in and day out to say: How can we do more to help?

One thing we found through our research was that online sex trafficking is growing dramatically and is one reason you see the increase in sex trafficking here in this country and around the world.

After 18 months of investigation--particularly into backpage, which was the commercial site that had probably three-quarters of the trafficking on it--we passed a law called the SESTA legislation, which ensures that these websites that knowingly engage, facilitate, or promote trafficking are held accountable for what happens on their platforms. It is about time. We should have done it a long time ago.

Having passed that legislation, backpage is now shut down, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported to us that probably about two-thirds of these online websites that sell women and children online have now been discontinued. Again, we haven't solved the problem. It is still very much out there. Other websites will crop up on the dark web as well, but we have made progress by focusing on the issue in a bipartisan way. Numerous websites have been shut down, as we have been told by the experts. I will quote the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: ``Since the enactment of SESTA and the government's seizure of Backpage, there has been a major disruption in the online marketplace.''

As we talked earlier--whether it is the SESTA legislation that is now working, whether it is the CARA legislation and the Cures legislation on the opioid crisis--that we are making a difference. The funding that has been provided by this body and by the House--after careful research to figure out what works and what doesn't work and sending it to evidence-based programs--is working. We cannot take our eye off the ball. We cannot stop now. If we do, we will just see this problem crop up in different ways.

I mentioned that as we are making progress on opioids, law enforcement and those who are in the trenches--treatment providers--are talking about the fact that other drugs are beginning to rise, particularly crystal meth. So we can't stop. We have to continue.

These programs are making a difference, helping people to get their lives back on track and helping to save their lives. The Federal Government continues to have a role here to be better partners in this effort with States, local governments, and nonprofits that are out there doing their best and, ultimately, with our families. That is what this is all about, giving people hope and saving lives.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, in the context of the ongoing negotiations with North Korea, there has been a lot of discussion today in the media about Otto Warmbier.

Otto Warmbier was a young man from my hometown of Cincinnati, OH. This is an emotional issue for me because, through the process of trying to bring Otto home, I got to know his family very well.

He was a young man with a lot of promise, 22 years old, and a college student at the University of Virginia. He had gone as a tourist to North Korea. He was pulled out of the line at the airport.

Here he was, a kindhearted college kid, found himself a prisoner in North Korea. He was there for about 18 months. His detainment and his sentence were appalling; unacceptable by any standards. At some point soon after being sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, from what we know, Otto suffered a severe brain injury. What happened? We may never know the details, but we do know one thing, and that is he was severely mistreated.

Who did the North Korean Government tell about the fact that he had this brain damage? No one. Unbelievably, for the next 15 months of his life, they kept this a secret. They denied him access to the best medical care he deserved, which of course we would have provided.

I was in communication with the North Korean Government during this time through their offices at the United Nations in New York. They didn't even tell us about the terrible mistreatment he had suffered and the condition he was in. They refused repeated requests for consular access that normally would have been provided to someone who has been detained, regardless of their health situation. This included denying requests, of course, from me, from others in this body and other bodies of Congress but also from the Obama administration, the Trump administration, the Red Cross, also from the Government of Sweden, which typically acts for us in North Korea as a consular service. I say that because while I support engagement with North Korea--in fact, in my experience with Otto Warmbier, it makes me even more convinced we need to have communication because we had no good lines of communication.

I support the ongoing talks with North Korea, specifically about denuclearization. I want to make clear that we can never forget about Otto. His treatment at the hands of his captors was unforgivable, and it tells us a lot about the nature of the regime. We can't be naive about what they did to Otto, about the brutal nature of the regime that would do this to an American citizen.

Of course, it is not just about Otto or other visitors. It is about how the people of North Korea are treated, many of whom also have had their human rights violated. No one should have to go through what the Warmbier family has gone through. They have been incredibly strong, by the way, through this whole ordeal. I watched them channel their grief into something constructive, exposing some of the human rights abuses in North Korea, as an example.

Throughout this ordeal, I have stood with Fred and Cindy and their entire family. I will continue to, but I also want to say today, as we discuss these broader issues with North Korea, let's keep Otto Warmbier at the front of our minds. Let's be sure he is high on our agenda and in our consciousness as we deal with North Korea and, again, understanding, because of our experience with Otto, the brutal nature of this regime.

Mr. President, I had planned to come to the floor this evening to talk about our national parks and to talk about the lands bill that just passed, but I also want to talk for a moment, if I could, about the legislation we just voted on on this floor. It had to do with border security, and it had to do with six other appropriations bills that include many of our Departments and Agencies. It also had to do with keeping the government from shutting down. If this legislation is now passed by the House tonight, which is expected, and is signed into law by the President, which is expected, we will avoid a government shutdown, which is really important. We don't need to go there again.

I also want to talk, for a second, about the package itself and the most controversial part of it, which has to do with the border. I voted yes this evening, and I did so because the legislation we just signed takes really important steps towards strengthening our southern border. Frankly, I am not hearing much about that on either side of the aisle.

First, let me just say that President Trump had a proposal on the border. His was a comprehensive proposal--yes--of more barriers and fencing but also of more cameras, more remote sensing, more screening at ports of entry, more judges, more Border Patrol, and so on.

That legislation that he asked us to take up included $22.8 billion-- a lot of money, right?

Now, some will say: But Congress didn't follow what President Trump wanted to do because they gave him less money.

The border security funding in this package is actually about $300 million less than the President asked for. It is $22.5 billion.

But Congress decided--and I think Congress is right about this--that our southern border is in need of help right now. Some call it a crisis. Some just say it is a big problem. I don't care what you call it. We need more help on the border. We need more barriers, but we also need more cameras, more remote sensing, and more ways to stop the drugs from coming in, most of which come through the ports of entry. Yes, we need more people to be able to respond. Yes, we need more judges to be able to handle this backlog of immigration cases that has built up. Yes, we need more humanitarian assistance.

By the way, the Trump administration and the Democrats from Congress supported both of those things. The place where there was a difference was the amount of funding to put into the barriers. They gave him less money than he asked for for new barriers and new fencing.

The agreement includes nearly $1.4 billion for that--for the new barriers and new fencing. By the way, it might also surprise you to learn that that is the most money Congress has ever appropriated for fencing and new barriers in any fiscal year.

Let me repeat that. This is the most money Congress has ever voted for to provide more barriers along the border. And these are new barriers.

Now, again, if you listen to folks--sometimes on both sides of the aisle--on this issue, you might not hear that, but this is the most ever in any one fiscal year. By the way, we are already 4\1/2\ months into this fiscal year.

I am glad we provided the funding because I think it is needed. I believe we do have a crisis on the border. I believe it has to do with illegal immigration, but also it has to do with drugs that are devastating my home State of Ohio.

Crystal meth is on the rise--pure crystal meth from Mexico, almost all of it. Ninety percent of the heroin coming into my State comes across that southern border.

We now have fentanyl coming in from across the border in addition to coming straight from China. We now have, of course, cocaine coming across the southern border. We have serious drug problems that need to be addressed.

I have done a lot of work on the issue of human trafficking, and I can just tell you that what we have learned, sadly, is that the amount of trafficking going on along the southern border increases as you have more and more people who are trafficking human beings for work--illegal immigration, which I think is mostly for people coming here to find a better life for work, but they are bringing with them a lot of people who are trafficking women and children.

So the trafficking issue is real. That is what the experts tell us, and that is another reason for us to have a more secure southern border. So I am glad that we are providing the funding.

With regard to the new barriers, what the President had asked for is that his funding go to fund the top priorities of the Border Patrol. Customs and Border Protection has a border security improvement plan. You can check it out online. The border security improvement plan has a number of priorities. The President wanted to fund those priorities. This proposal that we voted on tonight does fund about 55 miles of new barriers--not just fixing up old barriers, but new barriers--which comprise the top two priorities of that border security plan.

Would the President like to do more in terms of barriers? Yes, he would, and he is talking about ways to do that.

But my point tonight is very simple. If you really care about the southern border, then, this was the right vote to take because, with regard to barriers, this is the most Congress has ever provided for new barriers, new fencing.

I hope this will work to help stop this flow of drugs into our country, to help control the illegal immigration that is happening, to help stop the trafficking of women and children that goes on along the border, but it is going to require more work. We all know that. This is a start, and my hope is that by passing this legislation we can help to start those even more serious efforts to deal with our broader issues here, including our broader immigration issues that have to be dealt with.

So I am hopeful that the House will pass it. I am hopeful that the President will sign it. I think he will. He says he will.

I am also glad that we are not going into a shutdown. Shutdowns make no sense. We have legislation, as some of you know, to try to stop government shutdowns from happening in the future. Why? Because they are bad for taxpayers, who end up paying more, not less, often because workers who are furloughed actually get paid even when they are not working, but also because of the inefficiencies of government during a shutdown. Taxpayer services are reduced--everything from meat inspection to the security lines, to the IRS information line to figure out how to file your doggone taxes. I mean, all of that gets affected.

So shutdowns don't make sense. It really doesn't make sense for the men and women who work for the Federal Government and for their families. During this last shutdown of 35 days, workers who were told they were essential, therefore, had to report for work, and they were not getting paid. So, again, those who weren't working got paid after the fact, and those who were working were not getting paid during the shutdown. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

By the way, missing two pay periods is a big deal for a lot of the government workers I know because they live paycheck to paycheck. They had rent payments. They had house payments, in some cases. They had car payments. They had real issues getting through this. Let's not put them through it again. It is not their fault. They shouldn't be pawns in this.

So my hope is that we can pass the ``end government shutdown'' legislation. It has 33 cosponsors now, which is a lot for around here, and it gets you started. A third of the Senate has said: Yes, let's stop these things. That is a big deal. My hope is that on both sides of the aisle our leadership agrees to take this to the floor. Let's have a vote on it. Let's decide whether people think shutdowns are a good idea or not. I think they are a bad idea.

By the way, it is the fifth Congress in which I have introduced this legislation, and I must say that we have never had this many cosponsors. So I do think more and more people are realizing that this is just not the way we

ought to operate. It is no way to run a railroad or a government.

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

Mr. President, today, I want to talk about the U.S. trade policy. This is something that affects every one of us. It affects all the families I represent, it affects our economy in a big way, and it affects our relations with other countries in significant ways.

Right now, we are fortunate to have a strong economy. When you look at the numbers, it is very encouraging. The tax reforms that were put in place at the end of 2017 and the pro-growth regulatory relief that has been put in place are actually doing exactly what many of us thought they would do.

When you look at the growth projections before the tax bill and the growth projections now, you will see that we have had a dramatic increase. If you look at the job projections, there is a dramatic increase in jobs. There were almost 2 million more jobs projected after the tax reform bill was passed. Why? It is because the tax reform bill was pro-growth and pro-jobs. It helps middle-class families, but it also helps small businesses, like the ones I visit all across my State of Ohio. They all have told me: You know, this is a nice shot in the arm for us. It gave us the ability to invest more in our equipment, in our people, and in our retirement savings.

Tomorrow, I will see it again. We will have a roundtable discussion at an Ohio manufacturer. This company makes tooling that is used in the aviation industry. They have already told me that they like the tax bill. I am going to ask them tomorrow what I ask all of these companies. I have visited with well over a dozen--several dozen--Ohio small businesses since the tax reform bill was passed. Specifically, I will ask them tomorrow: What happened to your bottom line, and what are you doing with the extra tax savings you are getting? What I think I will hear is what I have heard in other places, which is, We are investing more in people, and we are investing more in equipment. That is great.

The latest jobs report reflects all of this. When you look at the jobs report from last Friday--it was for the January time period--it showed an impressive 300,000 new jobs. That is way beyond expectations--302,000 new jobs in January. It also showed wages going up, which I think is even more impressive. In Ohio, wages have been pretty flat. In fact, for the last decade and a half, on average, wages have not gone above inflation. So when people say they are feeling the squeeze, they are. Expenses are up. Healthcare costs are up. Other expenses are up. Yet wages have been flat. I think that is one reason people feel that despite working hard and doing everything they were asked to do, they were not able to get ahead. Now they can feel they are getting ahead a little bit. If you look at the numbers from Friday, they indicate a 3.2-percent growth in wages for supervisory jobs, and for nonsupervisory jobs--you might think of those as more blue-collar jobs--there was a 3.4-percent increase in wages. That is just what we want. We want to see those wages starting to go up. This is above inflation.

By the way, the wage growth over the past 12 months is the highest it has been since before the great recession a decade ago. Finally, we are sort of climbing out of this great recession, and we are seeing the kinds of numbers we all hoped for.

This is all good news. Again, a lot of it is due to the fact that in this body and in the House, we passed legislation that helped to stimulate more economic growth, more jobs, and higher wages.

What I am concerned about is that we not do something now to jeopardize that economic growth. This is where trade policy is a risk. Some would say it is already putting a damper on what would otherwise be even greater growth. But what I am more concerned about than anything is the possibility that, as a country, we start to put more and more tariffs in place without showing that the imports coming in from other countries are being traded unfairly. That is what our trade laws basically say. They say: OK, if another country doesn't deal with us fairly, we get to level the playing field. So if they are sending their products to us and they are not fair, meaning that they are subsidized by the government, which happens a lot in nonmarket economies particularly--think of China--or they are sold at below their cost, which is called dumping--if they are dumping their products on us, that is not fair, is it? We have trade laws to deal with that.

I believe in trade, but I also believe strongly in trade enforcement. My legislation with Senator Brown called the Level the Playing Field Act has helped us win these trade cases when these countries are dumping. As an example, there is a 269-percent tariff--that is a high tariff--on some products from China, such as rolled steel products. Why? Because we showed that they were, in fact, not following the rules by subsidizing and dumping. We should do that.

There are also parts of our trade law that say: OK, on a temporary basis--temporary relief--we should be able to respond when another country sends a surge of imports into our country and there is material damage to a U.S. industry. So if there is a surge of imports and a U.S. company is materially damaged, we have a way to respond to that too. It is not permanent relief, but it says: Wait a minute. Let's let these companies get back on their feet and let these workers keep their jobs while we deal with the surge of imports and figure this out. That is kind of how our trade policy works, consistent with the international rules. If there is some unfairness, then we are able to respond.

Right now, we are doing this with China. The 301 law is being used to say to China: We are going to increase tariffs on your products because you are not trading fairly with us. You are using nontariff barriers. You are not treating our intellectual property properly. You are forcing our businesses--to be able to work in China, many of them have to have joint ventures or special licenses. That is not fair. We want to level that playing field. That is the purpose of those tariffs.

I think most people get that and understand it and support it. Even those who believe in more of a pure free-trade mentality know that we shouldn't allow cheating and that we should help to level the playing field. The problem is that over the last couple of years, we have started to use a part of our trade law that really is an exception to all of that. That is called the national security exception, which is also called section 232.

Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 has been in place now for 57 years. It has been used only half a dozen times in 57 years. Why? Because it is kind of a dangerous tool.

When you think about it, as Americans, all we have to say is, this is a national security issue, and therefore we are going to put tariffs on your product. You don't have to prove anything, as I talked about earlier. You don't have to prove that an industry has been damaged. You certainly don't have to prove that the other country is sending product that is dumped--sold at below its cost--or that is subsidized. You don't have to show a surge of imports. All you have to do is say ``This is a national security issue for us'' and put your tariffs in place. When you do that, guess what other countries do to you. They put their own tariffs in place because they are looking at this and thinking: Oh my gosh, so the United States is just putting these tariffs in place without demonstrating that this is a trade-enforcement measure because of unfairness or damage to their industries.

Frankly, many of these countries are happy to put more protectionist tariffs in place. It kind of works for them, too, because in many countries, that sort of approach is a more populous approach, in places such as Europe or the Middle East or Asia or Africa. They say: OK. We are going to put tariffs in place.

That is often applauded, but who gets hurt? The consumers in both countries get hurt. Think of that. Everybody has higher costs, higher taxes, higher tariffs on both sides, and eventually you end up building up tariffs to the point that it can be really dangerous for the economy.

That is my concern with section 232, the national security exception to our trade laws. Do I think it is a tool we

ought to have in the toolbox? Absolutely. I think that if there is a true national security concern, we ought to have section 232 there to ensure that we can respond.

As an example, if we are at a time of war and we need to be able to produce tanks in this country and we don't have any steel production here, in my view, it would be appropriate for us to put some tariffs in place and to help a domestic industry be able to provide that steel. Frankly, that is another avenue that other countries would take with us if they had a true national security concern. So there is a sort of level playing field there. That is permitted under the World Trade Organization rules, and other countries would do it as well, but, in my view, the way we have used it in the last couple of years is a little different.

Again, I think trade enforcement is very important. I am a hawk on going after countries that are not treating us fairly. I think with regard to China and its overcapacity of steel, it is a huge issue. That is one reason we have these huge tariffs in place on Chinese steel. Then they transship it through other countries, and we have to be much tougher on that. We have legislation called the ENFORCE Act. Senator Wyden was here on the floor a moment ago. He and I have worked on that together. That is important. Frankly, in my view, we need to do more to enforce that to keep China from going around to a third country and then sending it to the United States, if it is steel that is dumped or subsidized. But to say that with regard to countries that are our allies and countries that we trade with every day, we are going to use this national security exception, the 232, I have to tell you, I think that causes real problems, and we have seen it. Other countries have done what? They have increased their tariffs on us.

Think of Canada. When you put tariffs on Canada saying it is a national security concern--even though, by the way, with regard to steel, a product we sell more to Canada than they send to us. We send more steel to them from the United States than they do to us, and yet we are saying: It is a national security concern with your steel from Canada so we are going to slap on a tariff, say, 25 percent. What does Canada do? They turn around and put tariffs on our products.

We have gotten hit on that in Ohio because Canada is our No. 1 trading partner. We send more stuff to Canada than any other country-- much more. Our farmers in Ohio, our manufacturers in Ohio are nervous because they are seeing tariffs going up on their products going to Canada because Canada is retaliating because they don't see this as a fair thing we are doing. They don't think it is a national security threat.

Section 232 was designed, I think properly, to deal with real national security threats. I think it ought to be preserved for that. I think it ought to be used for that. I think we ought to aggressively go after countries that are trading unfairly, and when there is a surge and when there is a proven material damage to a U.S. industry, we ought to respond, but I think we have to be careful as to how we do it. I think we are otherwise inviting this escalation of tariffs on both sides, which is exactly what is happening.

I am pleased to say that yesterday a group of us introduced legislation to try to get back to the original purpose of section 232. It is called the Trade Security Act. I introduced it last year. We reintroduced it again yesterday. I introduced it along with my colleagues Doug Jones, Joni Ernst, Dianne Feinstein, Lamar Alexander, Deb Fischer, Todd Young, Kyrsten Sinema, and Roger Wicker--not a group of Members you would see on every piece of legislation; some on the left, some on the right, some Republican, some Democratic--but a group who all agree, in this case, it is best for us to have some constraints on 232 to take it back to its original purpose, which is really for national security.

With regard to steel and aluminum and the 232 tariffs that were put in place back in 2017--you may know this, but when the administration was asked to opine on it, the Department of Defense said it is not a national security threat. That is now public. The memo from the Department of Defense said: We have enough steel production in this country to take care of our military needs. It is not a national security issue for us.

The Department of Commerce had a different view. Their view was that this is, broadly speaking, a national security threat so we should put these tariffs in place--again, without having to show injury or damage or without having to show unfairness.

Our legislation is a response to that. It doesn't affect what has happened in the past; it is prospective. What it does say is, going forward, we ought to have to prove it is a national security threat.

By the way, one reason this legislation is timely is, the administration has said they are now interested in putting additional 232 tariffs in place, potentially--and I say potentially because I hope they will not--not on steel and aluminum only but also on automobiles and auto parts.

There is a lot of nervousness about that. I talked earlier about our strong economy and working with the administration what we have been able to do on regulatory relief and on tax cuts and tax reforms. That is all good. I would tell you, the trade policy issues on 232 are making a lot of people nervous. There is a lot of uncertainty about what might happen, particularly with regard to autos and auto parts now.

In just a few weeks, the Commerce Department is required to release its report on 232. They will make a recommendation to the President on whether to proceed with 232. A lot of people, including a lot of folks in the U.S. auto industry and suppliers, are very concerned that the Commerce Department might find that auto imports threaten our Nation's security, and they will recommend the President take action. In my view, again, this would be a misuse of our trade tools. This is supposed to be for national security concerns. I don't think minivans from Canada pose a national security threat to the United States of America. I do know it poses a threat to the workers I represent. It is going to be bad for the auto industry and bad for its workers. By the way, all three of the Big Three U.S. auto manufacturers are against extending 232 to automobiles, and that is why they are supportive of our legislation.

I want to see more cars made in Ohio. I am OK if they are made in other States, too, but I want to see them made in America. I don't want to see more cars being made offshore. That is what I am concerned is going to happen if those tariffs go into place. Why? Because it is going to be a lot more expensive to make a car here. These cars are global cars now. The supply chains are all over the place. They end up being made in our States--including in Ohio, where we have a strong auto industry, and we love that, and strong suppliers--but they bring parts in from around the world.

The analysis I have seen shows that if we put 232 on automobiles, it would increase the cost of making a car in the United States by about $2,000--$2,000 a car. For imported vehicles, the cost would likely increase to about $6,000 a car.

Think for a moment about the impact on the families we talked about earlier who are finally seeing their wages begin to creep up. Working families who have played by the rules, have done everything right, are finally seeing this economy be strong enough that there is wage growth happening above inflation, and now they are told: Guess what. You want a new car? It is $2,000 more for your new car. That means that car payment is going to be a lot more. That means, frankly, I think a lot of people will delay buying a car. That is not good for the auto industry. I think it is something we should try to avoid.

Second, compounding these costs is the fact that, guess who is going to be in the crosshairs of retaliation if this happens: the auto industry.

Guess what our No. 1 export is from the United States of America in value, the No. 1 export of any product: cars and auto parts. Automobiles and auto parts are our No. 1 export. It is very likely, if we put in these tariffs on a national security basis, not because of unfairness, not because it is a surge, not because of the domestic industry being materially damaged--which is part of the international rules that people understand--but if we do it because of our national security exception, it is very likely, and I think it is

sure, that we are going to see retaliation, tariffs going up on their side, which again is going to hurt our country because one of every five cars and light trucks built in America is built for export, and we export a lot of auto parts, the No. 1 export. I am worried it is going to put a target on the autoworkers in Ohio and elsewhere if we move forward with this.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates that section 232 auto tariffs would put 195,000 American jobs at risk. They also say, when retaliation is included, that jumps to potentially 624,000 American jobs on the chopping block. That is the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Check out their data on the website and see what you think. It is a big risk. That is the point.

These auto tariffs don't work; they don't work for farmers; they don't work for workers in other industries; they don't work, in my view, for our autoworkers because of this big risk we are talking about. About 25 percent of our State's factory workers are export workers in Ohio. Exports are really important to us. We want more exports. We want people to knock down their barriers to let us send more of our great ``Made in Ohio'' and ``Made in America'' products to them.

About one of every three acres planted in Ohio is planted for export: soybeans, corn, wheat. We want more markets because we want higher prices. Prices are low right now, partly because other countries are retaliating against us on agriculture. We want to open more of those markets to create more jobs and higher prices for our farmers.

Trade jobs, by the way, are good jobs too. These export jobs pay well--on average, 16 percent higher than other jobs. So it is not only more jobs, it is better jobs.

Instead of inviting retaliation and closing off international markets, we want policies that are going to open more markets. Cracking down on unfair trade--yes, absolutely. Cheating should never be acceptable. A level playing field is important, and there is not reciprocity now. We are a more open and free market than most other countries. So, yes, but let's do it based on the rules, based on fairness, and based on the kind of policies that aren't going to invite retaliation.

It is not only that national security is something we ought to use judiciously. When minivans from an ally like Canada are considered a national security threat, something is wrong, but it is also that this could be much broader than just autos.

After the Finance Committee's hearing on section 232 last summer, I asked the Commerce Department a question for the record about whether they believed there was an industry--any industry--in America that could not meet the national security criteria in section 232. Their response indicated they believe potentially every industry in America could meet that criteria. So it could move from autos to other industries, as far as they are concerned, even when, again, there is no sense that industry is under pressure, is materially injured, or where there is unfairness in the trade.

I think that is a huge departure from what this Congress meant 57 years ago when they wrote section 232. It was meant to be for national security. Let's keep it to that. Let's use our other trade laws appropriately and aggressively for other instances.

During the debate over section 232, Representative Cooper from Tennessee, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee--the committee in the House that deals with trade--underscored the importance of the statute as a national security tool. He said:

The [purpose of the] national security exception is to

protect and preserve the national security. That is its sole

purpose. It is not intended to serve as a device to afford

protection to those industries who might claim it.

Don't take the chairman's word for it. I refer you to the Cabinet Task Force on Oil Import Controls report. In 1970, President Richard Nixon directed Secretary of Labor George Shultz--a friend of mine who was later Secretary of State--to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the national security implications of oil imports, and it remains today the best historical resources we have on the proper meaning of section 232. The report states:

No determination under section 232 or its predecessors have

ever been made on the ground of economic impact alone. And in

a generally healthy economy it cannot be presumed that

unrestricted trade in any one sector would by itself impair

the national security.

That was George Shultz. As I see it, with our economic growth and job creation right now, a trade deficit alone in automobile parts would appear insufficient to trigger restrictions based on national security.

With this history in mind, it is worth noting that the 232 statute has been used, again, very infrequently since 1962. We can find only a half dozen cases when it has been used. There have been 26 investigations. Only six times did the President take action. By the way, before this administration took action in 2017, the last one was 33 years ago in 1986. Again, one reason it has hardly ever been used is because it is viewed as an exception to our trade laws. You don't have to show injury to a domestic industry. You don't have to show a surge or unfair trade in any way. You don't have to show that there is something under the international rules that gives you the ability to impose those tariffs that then don't result in retaliation from others.

I remember, after President George W. Bush was elected, there was concern about doing something to help our steel industry at the time. We needed help in the steel industry, and section 232 was looked at. They investigated it at the President's request. In that case, the Commerce Department came back and said it is not a national security issue. So the President used another part of the trade law, an appropriate part, where he had to make some of these showings about material damage to the industry, which is section 201 in the trade laws.

Section 232 has been narrowly defined until now. I think we need to get back to that proper definition. That is exactly why we need this legislation. Misusing section 232 and the national security rationale not only leads to other countries increasing tariffs, but it also, in my view, risks us losing the tool altogether. I think we ought to keep the tool. I think it is an important tool to have as part of our response if there is a true national security--but if you misuse it, I believe what is going to happen is that the World Trade Organization is going to find that we no longer have this ability.

Why do I say that? Because there are already cases in the WTO, the World Trade Organization, against the United States. These cases are saying that 232 has been improperly used. They are saying because they filed these cases against us, they would like to have a decision by the WTO. I think we run a greater risk of losing this tool if the administration moves forward with autos and auto parts, and I think that is a real problem. The WTO could say that the United States can no longer use this national security tool. I would rather use it properly and be able to keep the tool.

Yesterday, when we introduced this legislation. We addressed the misuse of this tool. We said we wanted to preserve it for national security threats. I want to thank, in particular, Chairman Chuck Grassley of the Finance Committee for his very positive comments that he has consistently made about the Trade Security Act, last year and again this year.

This week, he talked about how he would like to work with us to get this proposal done. What does the proposal do?

First, it ensures that the proper experts of the government determine at the outset whether it is a national security threat or not. I mentioned that right now it is housed in the Commerce Department. It should be in the Department of Defense. They are the experts who determine the national security basis for import restrictions. Under our legislation, if the Department of Defense does determine through their research that there is a national security threat, then, it goes to the Commerce Department. The Commerce Department is in charge of the remedy, which is appropriate. By the way, with regard to steel, we know that the Department of Defense said that this is not a national security issue. At the end, of course, the President still makes the decision. But it is a two-step process to get there, which I think is very important.

Second, the bill gives Congress a voice in this. It allows Congress the opportunity to disapprove of a section 232 action by passing a joint resolution. Currently, Congress can disapprove of 232 actions through a joint resolution, but only with regard to oil, because when this was last used back during the oil embargoes, Congress reacted by saying: Well, with regard to oil, you have to have our approval after the fact.

I will tell you that our bill is not the only legislation on this topic. Other legislative approaches go further, and I think they effectively take away the national security tool by saying that instead of a motion of disapproval after the fact, there has to be a motion of approval from Congress to move forward.

I believe that under the Constitution, the congressional article I responsibilities--including commerce between the nations--require us to have a voice in this, but I also believe the administration needs to have the ability to react quickly to a true national security threat and not have to go through Congress, which sometimes, as you may have heard, takes some time. We tend to get tied up in knots up here quite a lot.

I like our approach better. I think it is about protecting auto States and export States from the consequences of misusing 232 in the future, but it does it in the appropriate way. This is about stopping retaliation against our farmers and our workers. It is not retroactive, but it is prospective, saying: Let's get the broadest consensus possible among industry, among Members of Congress, and within the Finance Committee to get something done here that takes us back to the original intent of section 232. Again, when properly used, it can be an important part of our trade enforcement arsenal for real national security concerns. We want to keep it for that. It should not be used inappropriately as it has been, in my view, without showing the national security threat. My hope is that this legislation now can move quickly through the Finance Committee and the Ways and Means Committee so that we can put in place something that makes sense to refocus on the original intent.

Ultimately, I believe the economic and legal case for 232 tariffs on automobiles going forward cannot be made. I believe that is why we need reform.

Let's restore this important tool to Congress's original intentions. Let's be sure section 232 is used appropriately and selectively for genuine national reasons.

The strength of our economy, as I said earlier, comes from the right policies, but, ultimately, it comes from hard-working and innovative Americans in the shops and the plants--as I will see tomorrow in the Ohio plants I mentioned earlier--and the farms around our States that send products all around the globe. We want more of that. They deserve a level playing field. We should give them the chance to compete.

Let's be sure that our trade policy doesn't result in escalating tariffs that hurt those very workers, those very farmers, and families. Let's find the right balance, including restoring important national security tools by not misusing it. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting the Trade Security Act to help do just that.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor the life and legacy of the late Bishop Paul Alexander Bowers. Known as the Preaching Machine, Bishop Bowers pastored the congregation at Greater Emanuel Apostolic Temple in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH, for over 40 years.

Bishop Bowers attended his first Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc., Convention in Cleveland in 1947, where he slept on the floor of the church due to the lack of delegate housing. He was ordained in 1950 and began preaching in Cincinnati in 1957. Bishop Bowers was elected to general secretary from 1968, elevated to bishop in 1976, and elected and served as presiding bishop of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World from 1992 until 1998.

Bishop Bowers' ministry reached communities across Ohio and the United States. His devotion to the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc., and Greater Emanuel Apostolic Temple in Cincinnati changed countless lives as he used the gospel to help people fulfill their God- given potential and better serve their communities.

I would like to recognize former presiding Bishop Paul Alexander Bowers' many accomplishments and his decades of service to Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc. I would like to offer my condolences on his passing to his family, his friends, and his church, and I hope his legacy continues in the thousands of lives he has touched.

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

Mr. President, as most people are painfully aware, we just went through a 35-day government shutdown. It didn't work for anybody. I am here today to talk about a very simple way to keep these shutdowns from happening in the future. I am also here to talk a little bit about how it fits into the broader discussion we are having.

What I am not suggesting is that we somehow leave the border security issue aside. It is a very important issue. We have to address it. The President has presented a reasonable plan. His plan is, actually, to rely on the experts to determine what kind of barriers ought to be along the border. His funding of $5.7 billion that he talks about for these barriers is to fund exactly the top 10 priorities of what the experts are saying, which are within the Customs and Border Protection's ``Border Security Improvement Plan.''

Along with many other things, I think that makes sense. A structure alone--a barrier alone--is not enough. You have to have cameras. You have to have ways to see who is coming, and you have to have ways to respond to it. You have to have more Border Patrol, and you have to have more technology. He also has more drones in his proposal. He has screening at the ports of entry to be able to stop some of these drugs from coming into our communities--the cocaine, the crystal meth, and the heroin, most of which are coming from Mexico.

I think it is a good plan. I think we should provide him help on this plan. We have a true crisis at the border, no matter how you measure it--whether it is in terms of the drugs, whether it is in terms of people coming over, or whether it is in terms of the human trafficking that is occurring, according to the experts. Let's do it the right way. Let's do it through experts. Let's not do it because the politicians say it is the right thing to do; let's do it because the experts on the border say it is the right thing to do. Let's put the right kind of barriers in the right kind of place. That is what I see in the President's plan.

He is also talking about working with Democrats on some immigration priorities they have had over the years. For the last 10 years, there have been Democrats who have talked about these young people who came here as children through no fault of their own. The President has said he would like to give them more certainty as part of this plan. Let's take him up on that. Why would we miss this opportunity? It is a good idea. It is the right thing from a policy perspective. By providing that kind of help to those DACA recipients--those young people who are now working, who are in school, and who are in our military--I think we can actually also get some Democrats to be helpful, to provide more border security at the same time we are helping those who are here and who are deserving of that help.

The President has also proposed to help people who come from 10 different countries around the world stay here with some certainty for another few years. These are people who are in the so-called TPS program, the temporary protected status program, people from 10 countries where there is war, famine, and natural disasters, and you don't want to send those people back. They are working on that and working on getting them work authorizations. That is what this is about. A lot of employers here are eager for them to stay so they can continue to work for some period of time. So there would be some

security for those individuals, tens of thousands of whom live in States where there are two Democratic Senators, States such as Maryland and Virginia. Those Senators have been stalwarts and advocates for making sure there is more certainty for these individuals. It seems to me we have a good combination here. Let's get it done.

The conferees are talking right now, but in the meantime, let's not go back to a government shutdown. That is not going to help us get to a solution. In fact, I would argue that is not only not leverage on behalf of the President or any of us, it actually works the other way because when the government shuts down, everybody loses.

I am hearing from Senators on both sides of the aisle who say they are fed up with these shutdowns. There is now a building bipartisan consensus that we need to end government shutdowns. I am encouraged because I am also hearing from people around the country about this. There is a bipartisan consensus among individuals about it.

There is an interesting poll out today that will give you a sense of this. People were given three options. They were asked: What if these talks break down? Which one of these three things should we do: shut down the government again; turn to a national emergency, as the President has been talking about, as a possible option; or not do either of those first two but, rather, do the default, which is to have a continuing resolution and let the spending from last year continue? Guess what. Only 9 percent of those polled wanted another government shutdown. Ninety-one percent said: No, let's not go back there. I call that a consensus. I think it is time for us to take action here in the Congress to say: Let's stop this.

By the way, people feel this way because they get it. They know that these shutdowns are a hardship for Federal employees who are furloughed or who are forced to go to work without being paid. They are a hardship for small businesses that can't get government work paid for--work they have done. They are a hardship for taxpayers who want good taxpayer services, such as having the national parks open or having food inspections or having the IRS hotline open, which we as taxpayers pay for.

Of course, I heard from a lot of constituents in Ohio during the last 35 days.

I heard from a TSA officer in Cincinnati who, like most people I represent, lives paycheck to paycheck. He told me he could not sleep at night. Why? Because he had never missed a mortgage payment, and he had to miss one because he lost two paychecks.

I heard about a butcher shop in Cleveland, OH. I actually went to visit it. It is a new butcher shop that just opened. It has an interesting mission. It is a deli and a butcher shop in a low-income neighborhood. They want to provide fresh, relatively inexpensive but quality and healthy food for this neighborhood. It is needed. It is one of these areas where you hear there is a food desert. In some areas, particularly in inner cities, sometimes there is just not good, healthy food anywhere. Well, this little butcher shop was excited about offering it, but guess what. Because of the shutdown, they couldn't get the required Federal permission to accept food stamps. So they had their opening, and everything was great, but they couldn't complete their mission. Their mission was to help these people have better food.

I heard from others as well. I heard from our Federal prosecutors in Ohio. I do a lot of work in trying to push back against the opioid issue, the heroin and the fentanyl, and the fact that we have these drug rings in Ohio and elsewhere that are causing so much harm. These prosecutors said they couldn't pursue these cases. One said: We can't pay informants during the shutdown. Think about that. We are slowing down our prosecution of human trafficking, opioids, rape, and so many horrible issues we want to address. We can't do it during a shutdown as effectively because the funds aren't there to pursue these investigations.

I heard from Ohio craft beer breweries. These are small businesses in Ohio. I am told there have been about 65 new ones in the last couple of years in Ohio. It is a big deal. It is probably in your State too. These are great businesses. They have not been able to expand over the last several weeks during this 35-day shutdown or to introduce new products, which is absolutely essential to their revenue stream. They come out every season with a new product in order to continue to get folks to drink these craft beers, but they need a permit from the Federal Government to do that, so they couldn't introduce their new products.

By the way, I talked to one of them today. We have been trying to help them, and they told me they still can't get the necessary Federal permits and licenses to do this. Why? Because the Federal Government office is so backed up because of the shutdown. So here we are almost a week after the shutdown, but we are really still shut down for the purposes of these small businesses.

I have heard from the young men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard. In Ohio, we have Lake Erie, we have Coast Guard stations, and we have a lot of great patriots who have been struggling financially as they worked for no pay. By the way, they were determined to do their duty, and I applaud their patriotism.

I applaud the patriotism of all of the Federal workers who showed up without getting paid and did their duty and were proud to do their duty. A lot of these folks missed two paychecks, but they didn't miss a beat, and we appreciate them.

In addition to the impact this shutdown has had on those Federal employees and their families, it has also had a real impact on our economy. We should pay attention to that.

The Congressional Budget Office just released a report on Monday estimating the economic impacts the shutdown had on our economy. Remember, this was just a partial shutdown. Most of the funding for defense, as an example, we had appropriated, but for 25 percent of it, we had not.

This is what happens: When paychecks don't flow into the economy, when furloughed Federal workers can't perform needed services and are paid after the fact anyway, and when there are sudden disruptions for Federal contractors and other businesses that rely on timely payment from these Agencies, it has a real impact, and taxpayers are worse off.

CBO estimated that the partial shutdown reduced GDP by $11 billion in the near term, $8 billion in the first quarter of this year, and $3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018. Fortunately, the Agency expects an offsetting increase in economic activity now that the government has reopened and Federal employees are receiving backpay, but over the long term, CBO estimates that $3 billion will never be recovered in our economy. So it has an economic impact on all of us, and that goes for jobs, wages, and economic growth.

Some of that economic impact, of course, also means less revenue. Is it significant in terms of the overall revenue for our government? Some would say no, but it is less tax revenue to the Federal Government.

The aviation industry was hit particularly hard by the shutdown. The FAA was subject to the shutdown, and many of my constituents expressed concerns about aviation safety. We heard about the long delays at some of the airports. That has an economic impact.

I will tell you that airlines, such as Delta Airlines and Southwest Airlines, reported that they lost tens of millions of dollars in revenue in January. So this is over and above the CBO estimate I was talking about. Delta lost about $25 million. Southwest lost between $10 and $15 million. These lost earnings have decreased Federal tax revenues, of course, to the government. CBO didn't put a price on that, but, in fact, it is even worse than CBO estimates because of the budgetary impacts that lead to some of these revenue impacts as well.

The bottom line is that the lower economic growth and the disruptions for Federal employees ultimately cost taxpayers more than if Congress had just passed these appropriations bills on time and we hadn't gotten into this shutdown.

It doesn't have to be this way. Again, that is why I am working to ensure we don't go there again. In every Congress for the last five Congresses since I was elected in 2010, I have introduced legislation called the End Government Shutdowns Act. I was involved with this when I was on the House side

under President Bush, and now I am involved with it here because I think these shutdowns make no sense. I have introduced it under Republican and Democratic Presidents. I have introduced it under Republican and Democratic control of the House and the Senate. So this is not a political issue to me; this is a good-government issue.

The bill is a very simple, commonsense step that would continue funding from the previous year for any appropriations bill that is not done, and when there is a continuing resolution, as there is now, whenever that continuing resolution expires, we would just continue the funding from the previous year. Some have called that an auto CR. Instead of shutting down, at least the government would continue to operate.

A CR is not the ultimate answer. What we really want to do is to get this place--Congress--to actually do its work and to pass the individual appropriations bills. That is how you reform government. That is how you ensure there is certainty and predictability, particularly at the Department of Defense, where they worry a lot about that.

My bill also says that after the first 120 days--4 months--there will be a 1-percent across-the-board reduction in spending to get people to the table so that appropriators who like to spend money actually have some incentive to not just continue the CR. I think that is important. We would then reduce it by 1 percent every 90 days thereafter if Congress doesn't get its act together and put these bills together.

I think this will help to not just stop shutdowns but also to keep us from having perpetual continuing resolutions. Only through passing these individual bills can we do our constitutional duty--and it is our duty.

By the way, some Democrats have said they are not wowed by the 1 percent across the board after 4 months. They have said that somehow Republicans would like that better than they would. I just don't agree with that. I will tell you, 53 percent of the spending in this category is defense spending. It is not security spending, which is more than that, but 53 percent of it--more than half--is defense spending. It is Republicans on this side of the aisle who talk about this every year, and we have accomplished increasing defense spending. We are not going to want to cut defense spending.

By the same token, some on the other side will feel strongly about their priorities, and some of us have other priorities as well. We all have priorities. This is not meant to be an uneven balance; it is meant to be fair--1 percent across the board for everything.

My hope is that we can pass this legislation. We now have 28 cosponsors in the Senate. More than half of the Republicans are on this bill. We have the opportunity to actually move this forward, I hope, in this current negotiation over the border I talked about and over the immigration policies I talked about. Let's do it.

On the other side of the Capitol, my friend Troy Balderson, a Republican Representative from Ohio, and a Democrat, Jeff Van Drew from New Jersey, have introduced this bill. They introduced it last week, so now we have a companion bill that is bipartisan in the House as well.

You have heard Speaker Pelosi say she is against shutdowns. You have heard Chuck Schumer, who is the leader over here for the Democrats, say he is against shutdowns. You have heard a lot of our leadership say they are against shutdowns. Well, this might be something we can actually get together on and do something about.

My hope is that we can move forward. We hope we can put a commonsense bill in place that doesn't allow us to fall back into another one of these painful government shutdowns. They are not good for anybody.

Let's forge a bipartisan agreement on this funding. We are not that far apart, as I said earlier. Let's be sure we have border security. Let's deal with some of these lingering immigration issues where the President has extended the olive branch. Let's do something good for the people we represent, but at the same time, let's find a will to include in this package legislation that ends these government shutdowns while what happened these last several weeks is still fresh in our minds. Having gone through this bitter experience of the longest shutdown in history, let's be sure we don't let people down. Instead, let's make sure we do not let this moment pass and indeed stop these government shutdowns once and for all.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Alaska for her leadership today; my colleague from Maine, who just spoke; my colleague from Maryland; and all of my colleagues on the floor.

By the way, there are several Republicans who came up to me over the last hour and asked: May I speak in this colloquy? We didn't have time for all of them, but that is a good sign. It shows that there are a lot of Members--16 here on the floor and many others--who believe it is time for us to figure this out.

No one likes a government shutdown. I have put out a bill five times now to the Congress to end government shutdowns. By the way, it is getting a few more cosponsors now, and it should because this situation doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense for the families who are affected, including those who are going to work without pay and are living paycheck to paycheck. This is true hardship. It doesn't make sense for the taxpayers, who never end up winning in these government shutdowns but whom we end up paying after the fact--often, for government services that were never provided--because that is how shutdowns work. Finally, it is bad for the economy. If we go another few weeks, there will be one point off our GDP, which will be a huge deal for wages and jobs and economic growth. So let's get this thing behind us.

There is a serious issue here, which is, How do we secure the border? Our southern border is a mess. I call it a ``crisis'' while others call it something else, but we have to address this. The President is right about that.

I am hopeful today, and I am hopeful for three reasons.

One is that we just went through a process whereby there was failure on both sides. As was expected, we had two proposals out there, but nobody expected they would pass. It was an opportunity, I guess, for voices to be heard, but no one expected them to pass. After this, the pieces are starting to be put back together by this group and others.

I just listened to my colleagues on the other side. I listened to what Senator King said. They want border security. They want to enhance what is going on at the border now. Senator King just talked about the need for more barriers. I mean, look, if you are serious about this, you have to acknowledge that twice as many people crossed in the last 2 months, which we have records for, than a year ago. There has been about a 50-percent increase in families crossing and about a 25-percent increase in kids crossing. There has been a 3,000-percent increase in the last 5 years in people coming forward and claiming asylum. This is a problem we have to address.

There is a huge problem with regard to drugs. I come from Ohio, where we are getting hit hard by the heroin and crystal meth that are coming across the border from Mexico. We are not stopping it--we are stopping very little of it--which is why Democrats and Republicans alike have said there should be more screening at our ports of entry. I agree.

So I appreciate what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said. I will let them speak for themselves in our going forward, but they want border security too. I am encouraged by the fact that they were talking about it today in terms of coming up with a solution here to enhance security.

Secondly, I like the fact that the President put out a proposal. I think he should have put out a proposal that was a compromise, and he did. He said: OK, we are not just going to have more border security; we are going to deal with about a million people who are in temporary protected status who have come from these 10 countries. We don't want to send them back because there is a war or there is strife or there is a natural disaster. There are about 400,000 people.

We are also going to take care of the people who have come here as children, through no fault of their own, who now find themselves in this uncertain status. These are the so-called DACA recipients. I think it is time for Congress to act on this.

Again, the President put forward a plan that said: OK, you guys help me on border security. I am also going to deal with these other issues that many Democrats have talked about for years.

That makes me hopeful in that finally we are talking about these issues.

I agree with what Lindsey Graham said in that we can do more on these two and that we can do more on some issues that the Democrats care about. I believe the administration is willing to do that, but, gosh, at least we are finally talking.

Finally, I am encouraged by the fact that we are not that far apart. Let me be specific. I think the administration and the Democrats have mischaracterized the President's plan as it relates to barriers on the southern border. It may surprise you to learn that in the President's proposal he has just given us, it is not 2,000 miles of the border. He is talking about his interest in 234 more miles. There will be no wall in the sense of a cement wall, a concrete wall. He has said there will be fences; there will be vehicle barriers, low barriers; and there will be pedestrian wire fences. Yet it won't be done by what the White House says is the right thing to do; it will be done by experts. The experts are in the ``Border Security Improvement Plan'' that we embraced in this Congress in the last appropriations bill for fiscal year 2018-- that we are working on now, which is what the CR is--and in the new one that was passed last summer. We said this plan is the right plan because it says what kinds of barriers are going to be where.

People ask, how did the President come up with $5.7 billion? Do you know how he came up with it? It was from wanting to fund the top 10 priorities of the ``Border Security Improvement Plan'' that was put out by the experts. That is what that is. We can disagree on whether that is too much money, too little money, or whatever, but it is only 234 miles out of 2,000 miles. Almost all of it is in Texas, in places where there are no fencing, as opposed to California or Arizona, where there is a lot of fencing, or even New Mexico. We can say: Well, maybe that is too much. Maybe we will go a little more slowly. But this is a plan about which we had all--Republicans and Democrats--with a huge vote out of the Appropriations Committee, said: This is a plan that we ought to follow.

I don't think we are that far apart. Frankly, I think both sides need to start characterizing the plan accurately and stop talking past each other. I think if we do that, with reasonable numbers on both sides of the aisle here, we can do something that makes sense, yes, to help secure our southern border, which everybody wants to do, and to do it in a smart way and not waste money.

Walls are not the only answer. Fences are not the only answer. You have to have more sensors and more cameras. You have to have more immigration judges, which Democrats want and so does the President in his proposal. You have to have more screening for these drugs coming in. You have to help in terms of the human trafficking. These are things that both parties want to do.

So I am optimistic, although frustrated--really frustrated--by this shutdown, but I am more optimistic today because I hear on the other side of the aisle a willingness to come forward. I sense with the new proposal that there is a willingness to reach out, and, folks, it is time.

Let's stop this shutdown. Shutdowns are stupid. Let's protect that southern border, and let's move forward on other priorities we have in this Congress.

Mr. President, I am here today to talk about the ongoing government shutdown and the need to provide more security on our southern border and to try to put a little perspective around it.

The President just issued his own proposal. It is a reasonable proposal, I think, and a constructive proposal to try to end this shutdown and reopen the government and strengthen the southern border. I am told we are going to vote on that plan tomorrow here in the Senate. It includes a lot of the ideas that I have been discussing with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, over the past few weeks. Some of these ideas are ones that Democrats support more, and some the Republicans support more. It is the basis for a compromise.

I am going to vote for the President's plan, and I am going to explain here in a minute why I would hope that colleagues on both sides of the aisle would support that plan tomorrow as a way to take a step forward and to take a step back from the partisanship and the division that is keeping our government shutdown.

My hope is that even if the proposal cannot pass with a 60-vote majority, which, unfortunately, seems likely right now, it will spark good-faith negotiations to enable us to quickly end the government shutdown and move forward.

Unfortunately, some of the partisanship and division I talked about has made that harder. It is interesting that even before the President made his announcement, but on the day he was making it, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said the proposal was a nonstarter before she knew what was in it. That is not serious. That is not the basis for a serious negotiation and certainly not responsible for us in the middle of a partial government shutdown.

I think there is in this body--and, I think, in the House, as well--a general consensus that we need to do more to protect the southern border. The Democratic leadership of the House and the Speaker of the House just presented a billion-dollar plan, for instance, for more border security.

I call it a crisis, but call it what you want. Here are the facts. During October and November of last year, the most recent months for which we have good information, Customs and Border Protection agents apprehended more than 100,000 people trying to enter our country illegally. That is nearly double the number of people who were apprehended a year ago in 2017. That is twice as many people.

The big increase, as you know, is with families and kids, unaccompanied children. According to the Department of Homeland Security, there has been a 50-percent increase in the number of families coming across the border illegally and a 25 percent increase in the number of children during fiscal year 2018. Along with that, there has been a 2,000-percent increase over the past 5 years in asylum claims. That increase has primarily come from three Central American countries: Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. While 9 out of 10 of these asylum claims are ultimately rejected by the immigration courts, the applicants have long since been released into the interior of the

United States. People don't stay in detention waiting for their hearing. They are released into our communities. I am told by Customs and Border Protection that they think about 90 percent of those families and children are never removed.

Is that a problem? I think everyone should agree that this is a problem. The system is breaking down.

In fiscal year 2018, Customs and Border Protection referred nearly 50,000 unaccompanied minors--all of whom came across our southern border to seek asylum--to the Department of Health and Human Services for care. I have done a lot of work on this issue in the Homeland Security subcommittee called the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

It is a tough situation. It is a tough situation to have these kids in any kind of detention for any kind of time. It is a tough situation for these children, many of whom have experienced trauma and violence on their journey north and need significant help.

Human trafficking remains a significant problem along the border. Law enforcement officials on both sides continue to arrest people for facilitating labor and sex trafficking of adults and children, women and children. Local law enforcement along the border have repeatedly voiced their concerns.

In addition to the individuals trafficked into the United States involuntarily, criminal smuggling networks mislead prospective migrants by assuring them a safe route into the United States. This happens all the time. According to a survey by Doctors Without Borders, over two- thirds of migrants report facing violence on the journey north, including theft, extortion, torture, and sexual assault. Almost one- third of women report being sexually abused while being taken on that journey north to enter the United States. This is something none of us should find acceptable.

Furthermore, as we know, the Drug Enforcement Agency has said: ``The southwest border remains the primary entry point for heroin into the United States.'' There is no disagreement about that. I am told that about 90 percent of the heroin that is flowing into our communities comes across the southern border and that fentanyl, which is this incredibly powerful synthetic opioid that is 50 times more powerful than heroin and comes primarily from China and primarily through the Postal Service, is actually increasingly going through Mexico too. Law enforcement tells me that it is being shipped from China to Mexico and is then being taken across the southern border. Seizures of fentanyl-- which, by the way, is the No. 1 cause of death in my home State of Ohio and in, probably, your States--increased by 135 percent in its coming across the southern border last year as compared to 2017. Again, most of it is coming from China, and most of it is coming through the mail system, but increasingly it is also coming across the border.

It gets worse. Over the past few weeks, I have been at three meetings with drug abuse task forces in Ohio and have talked about the crisis back home and how we should address it, and we are making some progress. That is the good news. Progress is also being made with regard to opioids. We are seeing fewer deaths by overdose, and we are seeing fewer addictions.

What we have done here in Congress is to put more money into prevention and treatment and longer term recovery, and our providing Narcan to our first responders and others is beginning to work.

Guess what I heard from all three of these task forces. It is that now, coming up--raising its ugly head--is pure crystal meth. Methamphetamines are taking the place of opioids in some of these communities. That is the new scourge. Guess where this crystal meth is coming from--Mexico. This is pure, powerful crystal meth. We have seen a 38-percent increase in methamphetamine trafficking across the border, again, just from 2017 to 2018.

I don't think there is any disagreement on either side of the aisle that we need a more secure southern border, not just because of people coming in illegally but because of the fact that there is trafficking, that there are drugs being transported across that border, and we all want to address it.

Senator Schumer, who just spoke, has talked a lot about the need for more screening at our ports of entry because most of these drugs come in by way of cars and trucks. He is right. By the way, that is in the President's proposal.

Because of all of those problems, the experts tell us we need to do some things. One thing they say they need are more physical barriers. This is from the experts. They also want more Border Patrol agents. They want more technology. They want more surveillance, more cameras. They want drones to be in some places that are out in the desert so they can see what is going on. They want more screening at the ports of entry. Again, the Democrats have supported it, and I have supported it. They are looking for anything they can do to try to stop the flow of drugs and to do it with technology, and that takes more money.

I believe the proposal the President outlined over the weekend hits all of those points. That is why I think it is responsible. He made clear that he is prepared to have these new barriers that he is proposing not be cement walls, which is what so many Democrats have opposed, but, rather, to be fences. In some places, they should be wire--pedestrian fences. In other places, they should be low vehicle barriers. In other places, they should be what the President has called steel barriers, the ones you see through. That is the kind of construction we are talking about here, not the cement wall that a lot of people think he is proposing. Frankly, that is what they have taken from what he has said and from what the Democrats have said. It is almost like we are talking past each other.

Second, specifically, his proposal stipulates that these barriers would be constructed in a way that would be consistent with the ``Border Security Improvement Plan.'' It is a plan that experts at the Customs and Border Protection Agency have proposed. These are the experts.

It is not 2,000 miles of the border that would have these fences and structures and barriers that we are talking about. In the President's proposal--and this is going to surprise you--it would be 234 miles of the border.

So, No. 1, they would not be the cement walls in the way that people are talking about. No. 2, it is going to be done in the way in which the experts recommend in terms of where they are going to be placed and what kinds of structures they will be. It will also be a total of 234 miles out of the 2,000-mile border.

The 234 miles are going to support the top 10 priorities of this plan that the Customs and Border Protection people have submitted, which is this ``Border Security Improvement Plan.'' It is going to be specifically what the experts say the top 10 priorities are. What are their top 10 priorities? I am told, for instance, it is a new fence in parts of Texas where there is no fencing in the urban areas. That is in the plan. The White House is not making these decisions, but the experts are through this border security plan.

The legislation that the President has proposed has some specific language in it saying that these barriers must be built in an operational, effective design that prioritizes agents' safety. That language, folks, was taken right out of the bipartisan fiscal 2018 appropriations bill that this Senate passed last year. This is consistent with votes we have taken in the past as to what kind of wall it will be and where it will be. That means the definition is one we have long voted for. As we speak, approximately 115 miles of border barrier is being built using this same definition because it was proposed and voted on by this Chamber last year, just a year ago, on a bipartisan basis.

The $5.7 billion proposal in funding for the construction of additional physical barriers along the southern border is consistent with what the experts say ought to be done.

Based on the Secure Fence Act back in 2006, which, again, was bipartisan, more than 500 miles of fencing have already been built in California, in Arizona, and in New Mexico by previous administrations, Republican and Democratic alike. Based on the data, on the actual facts, it is making a difference. The data from Customs and Border Protection show that in areas where this fencing has been built, apprehensions have decreased substantially. That probably doesn't surprise

you if you think about it. At a minimum, having these barriers slows people down and keeps vehicles from coming across that desert terrain, which gives the Border Patrol a chance to respond, along with there being the technology--the cameras, the sensors.

Again, another one of the misconceptions about this whole debate is that it is over the entire 2,000-mile border. It is not. It is over 234 miles. These barriers will be strategically deployed. They will be built where they are the most needed--in populated areas, where there are not already natural barriers to keep people from crossing. What his proposal does, as I look at it, is it fills a demonstrated infrastructure gap along the border but only where it is necessary.

As we talked about, our Border Patrol experts say Texas is their top priority. Why? It is because Texas is 1,200 miles of the 2,000-mile border and because there are only 100 miles of barrier in Texas currently. So there are over 500 miles of border that have barriers, and only 100 miles of that is in Texas, which has 1,200 miles of the border. It has most of the border.

The new fencing is particularly necessary in the most populated parts of the Rio Grande Valley. McAllen, TX, is one example of that. To me, that makes sense because that is where about 40 percent of the crossings occur and because they are asking for this fencing there. These are the experts.

In addition to there being more funding for more barriers, the President has requested more money with which to hire another 750 Border Patrol agents and 2,000 additional law enforcement professionals. Again, more people to be able to respond is something that on a bipartisan basis, I think we support here.

He is proposing $800 million for humanitarian needs, to fund and enhance medical support and transportation facilities for those who are detained at the border. This is consistent with what the Democrats have supported in order to deal with the humanitarian challenge. The Homeland Security appropriations bill already includes funding for these purposes, but the President requested additional funds to help with the influx we have talked about. So it is like a supplemental spending request. We have had more families and more unaccompanied children in particular, so it makes sense to have more humanitarian funds available to deal with that.

The President has also requested $563 million for 75 additional immigration judges and support staff so we can reduce the nearly 800,000 pending immigration cases that are backlogged. This backlog is part of our problem because people are typically in the communities, and many of them don't show up for their court cases. Reduce the backlog--that is the obvious answer here. By the way, this part of the President's proposal is identical to the proposal Speaker Pelosi made just a few days ago. It is identical--75 new judges and support staff.

Finally, the President has requested a total of $805 million for counternarcotics and weapons technology screening at the ports of entry. There is $675 million within that for reinvestment in drug and weapons detection and $130 million for K-9 units, training, personnel, and portable scanners. Again, this is one some of us feel very strongly about, including Senator Schumer and including a lot of us on this side of the aisle. It is one that was also proposed by Speaker Pelosi a few days ago--more money for screening at the ports of entry. Her proposal is almost identical to the President's, except, frankly, the President proposes a little more money for the same purposes.

It is like we are talking past each other. We know there is a need. We generally agree. There is a general consensus on the need for what has to be done along the border; yet we can't seem to find common ground. To try to get there, in addition to these funding requests--and I applaud him for this--the President outlined his support for dealing with other immigration reforms that both parties support, such as DACA.

I remember DACA as being these young people who came here as children through no fault of their own and that the question was, Do you continue the program that President Obama set in place or not? My view is to resolve this political football once and for all and provide certainty to these young people who came here through no fault of their own. Some of them are working, some of them are in school, and some are in the military. They are looking for some certainty.

In the way the legislation is drafted, it is for these young people who have taken the responsible course and have gone to school or who are working or who are in our military. This is a process whereby we can provide that certainty, and the President has proposed it. He has proposed for all of those children who have applied for and been accepted into this DACA Program 3 years of additional authorization to be here, which will be past this administration.

The President has also embraced an effort to look at this issue of temporary protected status, or TPS, which allows us to provide protection to individuals who come from particularly trouble-stricken countries, and there are now 10 countries on that list. The Secretary of Homeland Security has the authority to provide harbor to those individuals where there has been a natural disaster, where there is a war, or where there has been a lot of violence in those countries.

Some of those TPS visas are expiring. I believe the President has laid out something that many Democrats have called for that makes sense, in my view, which is to provide some more certainty for some of those individuals. Again, it is a 3-year authorization, which will go beyond the next election.

The President has also talked about changing the asylum process. He has picked up some ideas from that side of the aisle and this side of the aisle, including having people apply for asylum in their own countries.

This is an attempt to find that common ground. Yes, let's be sure we have a protected southern border, but let's also deal with what have been some political and, unfortunately, intractable problems. For all of these reasons, I think we need to come together and negotiate a solution. I think the President's proposal is a reasonable one. That is why I plan to support it.

I know my Democratic colleagues have other ideas as well. What I said to them this morning and last night and will say again this afternoon when we meet--Republicans and Democrats alike--is, let's talk. We are not that far apart. Let's close this gap. That is what I find to be the most frustrating part of this. Yes, we have had shutdowns in the past, but I don't think we have ever had a shutdown that is so easy to resolve. We are not that far apart. If we would stop talking past each other, including as to what kind of structures we are going to put along the border, as I talked about, I think we could get there.

In my view, shutdowns don't make sense. We are now in day 33 of this government shutdown. I am not a big fan. I have legislation I have now introduced five times in Congress to say let's end government shutdowns. The legislation would simply continue the spending from the previous year and reduce it by 1 percent after 120 days and another 1 percent after the next 90 days in order to incentivize Congress to get its act together and actually pass the appropriations bills.

At day 33, 800,000 workers have missed one paycheck, and another paycheck is coming up tomorrow.

I have heard from a lot of folks in my State of Ohio--TSA employees, of course, at the airports, many of whom I spoke to when I came to Washington yesterday morning. It is a tough situation for them. Some of them don't have the savings. They live paycheck to paycheck. They are getting by through a combination of things--family members helping them, talking to the banks about their car payments or their mortgage payments. It is putting a lot of stress on them. I applaud them for showing up to work, by the way.

Workers at NASA--NASA Glenn in Cleveland, OH--can't go to work, so our space program is being slowed down. That is a problem.

Across the board, I am hearing from people who are in law enforcement, our prosecutors, saying they can't pay informants to be able to go after drug dealers. I am hearing from our Coast Guard personnel on Lake Erie. Again, these are patriots. They are showing up for work. I applaud them for that. I thank them. We owe them an end to this shutdown and a resolution to this issue.

I also don't like shutdowns because, frankly, as bad as they are for families, they are also bad for taxpayers. As taxpayers, we always end up paying more in the end. In the end, we are paying people not to work because people who are furloughed are going to get their paychecks when this is over. That doesn't seem very good for taxpayers. The people who are actually showing up for work--we are not paying them now, but we will pay them later. It is inefficient. Services are being cut off. Yet, in the end, taxpayers are going to be paying for it. So it doesn't help taxpayers.

I also don't like it because it hurts our economy. People say: Well, not much. We are doing fine.

We are doing fine. Thanks to the tax cuts and tax reform and regulatory relief, the economy is doing better, but this is running the other way. This is providing negative momentum.

The Council of Economic Advisers at the White House told us this week that the shutdown is going to reduce quarterly economic growth by 0.13 percent for every week it lasts. In other words, every week the shutdown continues, it hurts our economy more. If this shutdown lasts another 4 weeks, that will be a full point off GDP. So in just another 23 days, it will be a full point off our GDP. That is a big deal. That hurts paychecks, it hurts jobs, and it hurts the economic growth that all of us are so happy to finally have--to see the fact that unemployment is low, to see the fact that there are more jobs out there than there are workers looking, and to see the fact that wages are finally starting to increase. Let's not go the other way.

We have the opportunity before us to solve this. It is not that hard. Let's stop talking past each other. Let's find that common ground.

The President is going to have to continue to negotiate, and he says that he will. The Speaker of the House is going to have to move. It is not responsible for her to say not a penny more for barriers along the border, which she traditionally supported, as have other Democrats.

Let's act in good faith. Let's move forward to a responsible resolution that will reopen the government but will also ensure that we have a secure southern border. That is what the American people want. That is what we should be providing in the Senate and in the House, working with the President. Let's come together, and let's get it done.

I yield back my time.

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

Madam President, I am here today to talk about the ongoing partial government shutdown, the crisis along the southern border, and how we can resolve this in a responsible way.

We are now on day 28 of the government shutdown, and I am more discouraged now than I have been during this entire impasse. We are better than this. We are stuck. Eight hundred thousand workers have missed a paycheck, and there is no end in sight. NASA workers in Cleveland, TSA employees at our airports across Ohio, Coast Guard officers on Lake Erie--they have all contacted me, as have others. But the harm being done to these families and these workers isn't the only thing that is happening with the shutdown.

I have been through five of these shutdowns since I worked in the White House for the first President Bush. I remember in 1990 when we had a weekend shutdown, and everybody thought that was dramatic. Here we are with the longest shutdown in our history. I don't like government shutdowns. I don't think they are good for taxpayers. Every shutdown, we always end up paying more as taxpayers. I don't think anybody likes them--at least not anybody outside the beltway. Some in both parties seem to like to use shutdowns, but they are not good for families who are affected, and they are not good for the economy. They cost the taxpayers more.

On the economy, we now have a report from the Council of Economic Advisers, who tell us this week that the shutdown is going to reduce quarterly economic growth by 0.13 percent for every week it lasts. In other words, every week the shutdown continues, the economy is hurt more. We have a great economy right now. Thanks to the tax cuts and the regulatory relief and other things this Congress has done, we have record levels of employment. More people are employed than ever in our history. We have historically low unemployment. We are bringing people out of the shadows, back into work, off the sidelines.

There is a lot of positive out there, but this is taking us the wrong way. It is partly the impact on Federal employees, because their purchasing power is less. We are told that of the $312 billion for fiscal year 2019 that hasn't been appropriated by this Congress--and that is what the shutdown is; about 25 percent of government is not being funded. That is hundreds of millions of dollars each workday that are not going out to Federal employees. So part of the economic impact is that people have less spending power, and part of it is that contractors and a lot of small businesses are not getting paid, so it has an impact on the economy in that way. Again, what happens in the end is that everybody gets paid back, but in the meantime, services are disrupted. It is a very inefficient way to run government, and taxpayers end up spending more, not less.

I am not big on shutdowns, having lived through five of them, but I have to say I have never been more frustrated than with this shutdown. I am frustrated for a very simple reason: The solution is right before us. The reason we are in this shutdown is that both sides are unwilling to sit down and talk. That makes this shutdown particularly stupid.

The issue before us is what to do with regard to border security where, in fact, there is a lot of agreement. Border security is one where we don't have these fundamental disagreements, as we might on, let's say, tax cuts or healthcare policy. This is about whether we should be securing our southern border. I think my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, when pressed, will say: Yes, of course we should.

If you look at the specifics, we are not that far apart. That is what is most frustrating to me about this one--that we can bring people together and achieve a result here. I am going to talk about what that might mean.

I have been working with some colleagues, including the Presiding Officer, on trying to figure out a way forward. We haven't been successful yet. There are plenty of folks who want to get to yes in this Chamber, and we have to figure out a way to provide a forum to do that, to make it happen.

I am not here today on the floor to assign blame, to point fingers. There are plenty of people doing that. That is easy to do because there is lots of blame to go all around. I am here to talk about how to find that common ground.

Of course, we have to do more to secure our southern border. I consider it a crisis. Some of my colleagues say it is not a crisis. Some say it is a crisis. Forget the words. We have a problem on the southern border.

Here is some of the data. During September and October of last year, Customs and Border Protection agents apprehended more than 100,000 people trying to enter the country illegally. This has nearly doubled the number from the same months in 2017. In the most recent data we have--October and November, just a couple of months ago--there is double the number of people apprehended between the ports of entry as we had the year before.

The big increase is families and kids. This is a very tough issue. According to the Department of Homeland Security, there has been a 50- percent increase in the number of families coming across the border illegally and a 25-percent increase in the number of unaccompanied children.

Along with that, there has been a 2,000-percent increase in asylum claims over the last 5 years--a 2,000 percent increase in asylum claims over the last 5 years.

The largest growth is coming, as we know, from three Central American countries: Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. While 9 out of 10 of these claims are ultimately rejected by the immigration courts, the applicants have long since been released into the interior of the United States. That is a problem. We should all be working on that.

How do we address this problem? There are some constructive ideas on both sides of the aisle on how to deal with that, but it is a real problem. In fiscal year 2018, Customs and Border Protection referred nearly 50,000 accompanied minors--almost all of whom came across the southern border to seek asylum--to the Department of Health and Human Services for care.

I have done a lot of work on this issue in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Homeland Security Committee and found out about some of the care these kids have gotten and some of the trauma these kids have gone through. HHS is currently housing more than 11,000 of these children. Many have experienced violence--as I say, serious trauma--on their journey to the United States and need significant help.

Furthermore, the Drug Enforcement Administration has reported that the southwest border ``remains the primary entry point for heroin into the United States.'' There is no disagreement about that. I am told that 90 percent of the heroin that we are experiencing in our communities here comes across the southern border.

Fentanyl comes primarily from China. We made some progress there because it comes primarily through the post office from China. We just passed legislation to deal with that. Fentanyl is the most powerful drug out there--50 times more powerful than heroin on average--causes most of the overdoses in my State of Ohio and around the country.

Guess what. More and more of that fentanyl is coming across the southern border. Last year, seizures of fentanyl--a synthetic heroin that is causing all these deaths and overdoses--increased by 135 percent last year compared to 2017.

Part of what is happening is that it comes from China to Mexico and from Mexico into the United States, we are told by law enforcement. Then, over the last year, we have seen the scientists in Mexico--evil scientists in Mexico--cook up in these ``super labs'' crystal meth-- methamphetamines, crystal meth, pure crystal meth--that is coming into our communities.

In the last couple of weeks, I have been at three meetings where I bring together the people on the drug abuse task forces of different parts of our State, and I have talked a lot about the opioid crisis, where I spent a lot of time and effort. What they tell me is that we are making progress on opioids, finally--thank God--for the first time in 7 years.

Guess what the new scourge is--crystal meth. It is more pure than ever, more powerful than ever.

So that is coming from where? It is coming from Mexico. It is a 135- percent increase, as we talked about, from fentanyl. We have also seen a 38-percent increase in methamphetamine trafficking across the southern border just from 2017 to 2018.

This drug issue is a big deal as well, and we need to do more. By the way, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle agree with that. They would like to see more funding immediately for better screening at ports of entry, as an example. Most of these drugs come in through cars and trucks that cross our border.

While we have been paying attention to this China issue with fentanyl, what is happening in our southern border continues with very little interdiction on our part.

I met with the Customs and Border Protection Commissioner last month in my office. I asked him: How many of these drugs are you intercepting?

He had to acknowledge: We don't know, of course, but very few.

They need better equipment. They need better technology. They need more people.

I don't think these numbers are sustainable--the number of families, the number of children coming in, the number of asylum claims, the number of drugs coming across our border--for our Border Patrol, for our judicial system, for our education and health systems, and for our communities.

Because of all these problems, we need a broad solution at the border. Experts tell us that our solutions should include more physical barriers, which the President talks about a lot, but, also, more Border Patrol agents, more technology, more surveillance, more drones, more cameras, more screening at our ports of entry, and more technology there to stop this illegal flow of drugs.

There was a time when all this wasn't all that controversial. In 2006, Congress enacted on a bipartisan basis legislation called the Secure Fence Act. You have probably heard about it. It authorized 700 miles of additional fencing or physical barriers along the border. Then-Senator Barack Obama voted for the Secure Fence Act. Then-Senator Hillary Clinton voted for the Secure Fence Act. Senator Chuck Schumer voted for this bill. It passed by 80 to 19, an overwhelming bipartisan approval.

As recently as 2013, all of the Senate Democrats and two Independents voted for a broader immigration reform plan that called for no fewer than 700 miles of border fencing. That measure ultimately failed in the House. Let me repeat that. Every single Democrat in the Senate voted for that bill. Who was the lead sponsor? Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader.

So asking for additional barriers and fencing along the border as part of a broader strategy to make it more secure shouldn't be that controversial. Is it the only answer? No, it is not.

Having said all of that, when you remove the partisan politics and political symbolism, I continue to believe that we are not that far apart. If you look at the January 6 letter the Trump administration sent to the Congress, saying, ``Please fund these priorities,'' you will see that the response to what is happening along our border that they are proposing is not that far from where we are in the Congress.

Yes, it asks for more barriers. I would think from hearing, frankly, from both sides--from the administration and from the Democrats in Congress--that it would be a wall across 2,000 miles of the border. It is not. That is not the proposal. The proposal is--and I am reading from it--234 miles of new barriers and fencing--not 2,000 miles but 234 miles of additional barriers of some kind.

As you know, the President has now made clear that he is prepared to construct these barriers not as a cement wall but as a fence, what he calls a steel barrier. The White House also made clear in their submission that these barriers would be constructed in a manner consistent with the existing language in the Senate committee-passed bipartisan Homeland Security appropriations bill. That means the definition of the border barrier that Republicans and Democrats have long voted for would be the definition used for the construction of these new barriers.

It is $5.7 billion in funding for the construction of additional physical barriers along the southern border, consistent with what the experts say we ought to use--both in terms of the type of barrier and where the barrier ought to be.

Again, based on the 2006 law, more than 500 miles of fencing have already been built in California, in Arizona, and in New Mexico. Based on the data--the actual data--they are making a difference. If you talk to folks in

those communities and you talk to Customs and Border Protection, they like having those barriers. At a minimum, it slows people down, and it keeps vehicles from going across some of that desert landscape. This is part of a broader strategy that is primarily used now in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

The 2006 law resulted in 105 miles of fencing in California, 211 miles in Arizona, and 107 miles in the sector that spans both Arizona and California. This also includes 166 miles of fencing in a sector that spans New Mexico and Texas, though most of this is in New Mexico. In Texas, in total, there is less than 100 miles of fencing. This is where the priority is now for the Border Patrol, in Texas. Why? Because Texas has 1,200 miles of the 2,000-mile border. Yet they only have 100 miles of barriers.

The new fencing that the administration has requested, as we understand it, is particularly necessary in the most populated parts of the Rio Grande Valley on the Texas-Mexico border. By the way, that is where 40 percent of the crossings occur. You would think it makes sense to have more barriers there.

Again, it is not all about barriers. It has to be an all-of-the-above strategy. The $5.7 billion in barriers, which is about $4 billion more than the bipartisan Senate Homeland Security appropriations bill, is what they are proposing. It is about $4 billion more--$4.1 billion, I think, to be exact--than what is in the bill that has already been agreed to on a bipartisan basis.

In December, Democrats proposed $1.3 billion for the same purpose, which is actually a reduction in the amount they initially proposed in November, the month before, of $1.6 billion.

Folks, there is a way to find common ground here, especially if you include, with this 234 miles of additional barriers to be determined by the experts as to what kind of barrier and where it goes, other immigration policies that many on the other side of the aisle strongly support--and some of us do too--like dealing with DACA. This has been talked about, and it has become a political football. Let's resolve it.

These are young people who came here as children through no fault of their own. Their families brought them here as kids. They were minors. They are not responsible for breaking immigration laws.

Now they are young people. Some of them are working, some of them are in school, and some of them are in the military. They are looking for some certainty.

I think the Congress can provide that. As part of an overall package here, it makes sense to include something on DACA. A lot of Democrats who talked about this over the years strongly agree with that.

The President has also asked, in addition to looking at DACA, that in the context of overall immigration reform, we would look at this issue of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. This is something that many Democrats feel very strongly about. TPS allows the government to provide protection for individuals who come from particularly trouble- stricken countries. There are now 10 countries on that list. The Secretary of Homeland Security has the ability to provide harbor for those individuals from those 10 countries. Sometimes it is because of a natural disaster. Sometimes it is because of a war. Sometimes it is because of violence in those countries. They simply have to present themselves at ports of entry and begin the application process and go through a legal process to apply. Some of these temporary visas that these individuals under TPS currently have are expiring.

Again, there are a lot of Senators, particularly on the other side of the aisle, who feel strongly about this. Senator Kaine has been a champion for these individuals. There are tens of thousands of them in his State of Virginia. Senators would like to see immediate relief there. I think that could be part of a mix here.

The President has also requested $675 million to help stop drug smuggling at our ports of entry; $211 million to hire another 750 Border Patrol agents; $800 million for humanitarian needs to fund enhanced medical support, transportation, and temporary facilities for those who are detained at our border. The Homeland Security appropriations bill already includes funding for all of those purposes, but the President has requested additional funds to help deal with this influx we talked about--more families, more unaccompanied children, in particular. He has also requested $563 million for 75 additional immigration judges and support staff so that we can help reduce the case backlog of nearly 800,000 pending immigration cases.

Again, a lot of Democrats and Republicans, including me, have talked about the need for this. This backlog is part of our problem because people are typically in the communities, and many of them don't show up for their court cases. Part of the problem is the backlog, the amount of time it takes--months. That can be reduced.

Finally, the President has requested an additional $631 million for counternarcotics and weapons technology. Again, this is one I feel strongly about. I know a lot of my colleagues do. Senator Schumer has talked eloquently in the past about needing better screening at ports of entry to try to stop some of these drugs from coming in. I believe these are reasonable requests.

Where there is disagreement, let's have a debate over it, and let's come to a compromise. But we have to have a real adult conversation for that to occur.

The irony for me, for those of us who support a stronger presence on the southern border, is that this shutdown is hurting our efforts to secure the border and to make our immigration system work better.

First, U.S. Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers are continuing to work without pay. We want to increase the morale of those brave officers along the border. It is hard to increase morale when they are working without pay.

More than 40,000 immigration hearings have been canceled. Think about that. There are 40,000 immigration hearings that have already been canceled, contributing to this backlog that already totals 800,000 cases.

E-verify, the government system used to verify the immigration status of workers to determine whether they are illegal, to allow employers to reject people who are not legally in this country--that e-verify system is incredibly important because, ultimately, those jobs are the magnet. Right? That is what is pulling people across the border more than anything else. Now that system is shut down because the government is shut down--that part of government--meaning employers across the United States are unable to effectively know who is legal or not. That doesn't help us with regard to the border.

For all of these reasons, we need to come together and negotiate a solution. We are not that far apart.

Last week, out of frustration that no progress was being made, my colleague Jerry Moran of Kansas and I introduced legislation that would establish a $25 billion border trust fund over the next 5 years to enhance border security across the board--all the things we have talked about.

The legislation would also codify protections for the DACA population we talked about. Again, it is very important to so many in this Chamber, particularly on the other side of the aisle.

In my view, this is a fair and reasonable solution for all sides, and I believe we could get the necessary votes if it were brought to the floor.

Others have better ideas, I am sure. Let's hear them. Let's have a negotiation on all of these issues, but let's get to a resolution.

It has been reported in the media that I have been working with Senator Graham, Senator Collins, Senator Alexander, Senator Murkowski, Senator Gardner, along with Senator Coons, Senator Kaine, Senator Cardin, Senator Manchin, and others. This has been in the press. I am not reporting anything to you today that is not already known. It has been said that we are trying to figure out a way forward, and we are.

Democrats have insisted that there can't be a negotiation until the government shutdown has ended. So a bunch of us have said: Well, what if we do this? One, let's get a commitment from Democrats that they will seriously negotiate based on the President's request. I think it is a reasonable request.

Having received that commitment, then let's have a short-term cessation here of the shutdown--maybe for a few

weeks, maybe for a couple of weeks--to give us the space and the time to be able to work out an agreement.

There are a substantial number of Members from our side and the other side who have agreed to sign a letter along those lines. I am hopeful that can provide at least one opportunity to move forward. It is the only one I see right now.

If there is a better idea, I am eager to hear it, and I know my colleagues are too. More importantly, I know the people I represent are, both those who are directly impacted and those who are watching and saying: Why can't Washington get its act together? This makes no sense.

Yes, we should provide additional security for our southern border. Why can't we agree to that?

We are not that far apart.

Why can't we end the government shutdown in the process and allow the normal operations to go back into place so that families, government workers are not put in this position where, working paycheck to paycheck, they now don't have a paycheck and where taxpayers can get the services they have paid for and not end up paying more money after the fact, which is what typically happens in these shutdowns.

By the way, I do hope we can stop using government shutdowns altogether. I don't like them, as I said, and last week, I introduced legislation, along with eight of my Republican colleagues, that is called the End Government Shutdowns Act. It is pretty straightforward. I have introduced it every single Congress since I was elected in 2010.

What it says is, if you get to the end of the process and the appropriations bill is not funded by Congress--and our fiscal yearend is September 30, so we have been living since then on these continuing resolutions. But if you end up with not getting an appropriations bill done or if you get to the end of a continuing resolution and there is no resolution--you have this impasse--instead of having the government shut down, what you do is just continue the spending from the previous year. Then, after 120 days, you reduce it by 1 percent, and then, after another 90 days, you reduce it by another 1 percent.

Why? To give Congress the incentive to get their act together and to actually fund the government appropriately, to pass these appropriations bills, which should provide not just funding but reforms to government programs. That is the idea. We should every year be looking at all of the government and saying: What is working? What is not working? What are we going to fund more? What are we going to fund less? What are we going to eliminate? What are we going to create? Something new and good for our country and our constituents. So that is what we want to incentivize by the End Government Shutdowns Act.

I hope that Members on both sides of the aisle can support this and that, looking forward, we will not have government shutdowns. We wouldn't be in this mess today if that legislation were law.

The bottom line is, we have the opportunity before us to reach a fair agreement. Both sides are going to have to move some. The President is going to have to negotiate, and he says that he will.

The Speaker of the House is going to have to move some. According to news reports, Speaker Pelosi flat-out told the press she would not support $1 dollar for any new barriers, even if the government were reopened and everything that she asked for was granted. That is not serious. That is not the way to have a successful negotiation, especially when Democrats, as I laid out earlier, have long supported more barriers and fencing along the southern border.

So let's act in good faith. Let's move forward to a responsible resolution. That means, yes, we reopen government, but we also secure the southern border. We are not that far apart. We just need to have the will to get it done.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 11 a.m., Saturday, January 19; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. I ask that following leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1 with Senator Kaine or his designee controlling 2 hours and, upon the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate adjourn until 1 p.m. on Tuesday, January 22; further, that on Tuesday, January 22, following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; finally, that following leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to the engage in a colloquy with two of my colleagues.

Mr. President, I am here on the floor to talk about legislation that helps our national parks, which is something that everyone on this floor has been supportive of over the years.

I am here with a couple of my colleagues who have spent a lot of time and effort being focused on that issue. One is Senator Angus King, who is an Independent, although he organizes over there with the Democrats. He and his colleague, Senator Mark Warner--a Democrat from Virginia-- have been very involved in this issue and have introduced legislation to address the unmet needs in our parks, which is a critical issue right now.

There is a $12 billion deferred maintenance backlog for our national parks. Many of our roads and bridges and water systems and railroads in my home State--where we have a railroad running through a national park--are crumbling, and we need to address it. So we are going to hear a little from Senator King about that.

The other colleague I want to talk about is Senator Alexander. He has been a champion for the parks over the years. In fact, my recollection is that a few decades ago, President Ronald Reagan named him to a commission on the outdoors. It was probably when he was the Governor of Tennessee--one of the many jobs he has had, including being the Secretary of Education and the president of the University of Tennessee. Through all of his jobs and throughout his lifetime, he has been a huge supporter of the national parks and understands as well as anybody else--given that he is from Tennessee, where they have lots of unmet needs--the desperate need, right now, for us to figure out a way to address this maintenance backlog.

I mentioned $12 billion. That is a big price tag, and it is more than the funding that we give the parks every year could possibly accommodate. Again, it is about long-term capital costs. I think it was Senator Alexander and others who said it is almost like we have a debt unpaid, and that debt needs to be paid in order for us to continue to have our national parks be the shining example for our country and, really, for the rest of the world. There were 330 million visitors last year at our national parks. Think about that. Visitation is up; yet you have this crumbling infrastructure and huge issues that must be addressed.

We have come up with a creative way to deal with it by taking the revenue from the offshore and onshore Federal energy projects and saying, OK, if it is on Federal land, some of the royalties come to the Federal Government. Let's not take the money that is already going to the Land and Water Conservation Fund and other good purposes; let's take half of the part that has no other allocation currently and use it to address this issue. By doing so, we think we can address half of the backlog--about $6 billion over the next 5 years.

It so happens that the National Park Service has been asked to look at all of these projects and come up with which ones are of immediate concern, where there is a true crisis--when you have to address it now or the need is going to get much greater and when, by the way, the taxpayers' costs are going to increase dramatically because this is a compounding problem. If you don't fix the roof, then you end up having to repair and replace the entire building.

We believe there is a way to do this, a sensible way for us to use some of this funding. Guess what. So do a lot of other people all around the country. We have support from all kinds of groups that are supporting the parks around the country. There are conservation groups and groups that care a lot about what the experience is of the visitors at the parks.

We also have support from our colleagues in the House, as they have a companion bill that is bipartisan also. Republicans and Democrats alike are supporting it. It has gotten strong support in their committees over there, as this bill has gotten in our committee here. In fact, it got out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee with a big bipartisan vote.

Finally--and in some respects, maybe most importantly--as a former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the administration is supporting it. Sometimes the administration is careful about supporting proposals that have to do with this sort of spending--the mandatory spending, so-called--that comes from the revenues of these natural gas and oil resources that are on Federal lands, offshore and onshore.

So we have the Trump administration supporting it, and we have so many colleagues on both sides of the aisle supporting it, and we have so many outside groups supporting it. Why? It is just time to do it. It is a very sensible idea that will actually save taxpayer dollars over the long haul because, again, by fixing these crumbling projects and infrastructure, we will not have the huge additional costs that will be borne otherwise. Let's face it--these parks are our treasures and our legacy, and we need to protect them.

With that, I ask my colleague from Tennessee to say a few words and my colleague from Maine to say a few words in whatever order they would like to speak.

Let me finally say--and this is on a sad note--that on Monday, I learned that my colleague from Tennessee, who is about to speak, has decided that at age 78, it is time for him to enjoy a more peaceful and enjoyable lifestyle outside the Senate. He will not be running for reelection in 2 years. Yet 2 years is a long time, and we are going to get a lot done together. This bill is one of them.

I am going to miss him a lot. He is the best legislator, I believe, in the Senate. He knows how to get things done, and that is saying a lot, as there are a lot of great legislators here. He can bring together disparate parties, not just Democrats and Republicans but sometimes those within our own party. Of the personalities and so on that are not easy to deal with, he manages to smooth all of the feathers and get things done, and this park bill has been an example of that.

He has been a leader on this issue, and I have had a great experience in working with him already. Again, I hope, in working together, this will be one of the many legacy items about which he will get to talk to his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

With that, I turn it over to Senator King from Maine and then to Senator Alexander from Tennessee.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of both of my colleagues from Maine and Tennessee. They are both absolutely right. This legislation is ready to be passed. We have done the hard work and the research. We have looked at a number of creative ways to handle this backlog that everybody wants to get at.

Everybody agrees that our national parks are the jewels of our country, and we need to address them. Everybody knows that if you don't fix the roof and the building ends up falling down, you have to pay a lot more. So if this is to the point where this is a debt unpaid, it is also a debt that grows because it compounds over time. These are two former Governors who just spoke, and they did this in their own States, capital budgeting; in other words, not just looking at your annual expenses--in this case, park rangers and naturalists--but actually looking at how to take a building that is about to fall down and put an enormous amount of expense into that to ensure that you save money over time.

I will say that I have been all around my State. We don't have parks that are quite as big as Acadia or the Smokies, but we do have a lot of new parks in Ohio. One is Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which is actually number 13 in the country now in visitation, between Akron and Cleveland, OH. It is a fantastic opportunity for young people--school kids--to come every year. By the way, there is lots of volunteer work going on at all of these parts, including in Cuyahoga Valley. So we are not talking about displacing the volunteer work that is being done. It is very effective at building the trails and ensuring that young people can be involved in helping our parks if they have an opportunity to do so.

There are also a lot of friends groups out there. The friends group at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park happens to be headed by the national president of the Association of Friends Group. All of these parks have great groups of private citizens who give their money, private foundations who give their money for our national parks. That is all needed, but they cannot afford the $12 billion maintenance backlog that is the responsibility of the Federal Government.

So $47 million is an example of what is needed at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park to fix that railroad I talked about, to fix the bridge I saw that is about to fall down, to fix the roof at a visitors center that is about to fall down.

It is also $47 million, roughly, for a monument off Lake Erie, the Perry Monument. Some of you know the story about how there is a seawall there to protect the Perry Monument and the interpretive center there. That seawall is crumbling, and it is a huge expense to repair a sea wall, as a coastal Governor like Governor King will tell you. So that is a maintenance backlog issue that has to be addressed in this kind of a capital bill.

So I am very excited about the opportunity to get this done. I think Senator Alexander is right. It is going to be difficult to get it done this week because we are up against the end of the year and we have so many other priorities. On the other hand, this one has not just bipartisan support, but I would say nonpartisan support and bicameral support. It is one of those bills--I think Senator Alexander is exactly right--we ought to put it at the top of the agenda. It will be a great win.

I think the American people are looking for wins right now. I think they are wondering, how can a divided government work? Here is an example of how it can work. We have Republicans and Democrats alike saying that this is a problem--long in the making, by the way. It didn't just happen recently; it has been years and years of our delaying these expenditures, these capital improvements that are needed--and wouldn't it be great.

So we are going to hit the ground running. Come January, we will reintroduce our legislation. Senator Alexander, Senator King, Senator Warner, and I are going to be out there getting cosponsors from staff who happen to be listening. We want to talk to you and your Member because you ought to be on this bill if you are not one of the more than one-third of the Senate who are already a part of it.

I just can't thank my colleagues enough for showing up today to talk about this. I know Senator Warner is busy with other meetings right now, but speaking for him, I will just say that he came up with this very creative idea. I want to thank him for his hard work on this. I know that in his home State, with the Blue Ridge and other great national parks, he has the same sense of urgency that all of us have, which is that if we don't address this now, we are going to see the visitor experience be diminished, and we are going to see a lot of higher costs for taxpayers.

This is the time that we have the organizations behind us. Senator Alexander talked about 100 conservation organizations. I didn't know there were 100 conservation organizations, but they are all on board, and they understand that this is the opportunity to do something very significant.

I think Senator Alexander is right; probably in the 100-year history of our national parks, there has never been a single bill that could make such a big difference--maybe not since Teddy Roosevelt started acquiring the land to protect our national treasures.

So we need to get this done. I thank my colleagues and I welcome them to make any final comments.

Mr. President, I want to talk today about the criminal justice reform legislation before the Senate. This is legislation that deals with two huge issues in our criminal justice system. One is important to sentencing reform.

A lot of this is to level the playing field--for instance, between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, what kind of sentencing ought to be used, something that has been talked about for many years. There is, in our view--many of us--an injustice with the levels of sentencing. That is important.

Second, this legislation deals with an issue that many States are finally figuring out, which is that we need to do something to keep people who are leaving our jails and prisons from coming right back into the criminal justice system again.

These numbers are just amazing. Ninety-five percent of those who are incarcerated will be released someday. We all know that. When people are released from prison or jail, over a 3-year period about two-thirds of them are rearrested. Some call it a revolving door. There is a fancier word for it. It is called recidivism, and it is a huge issue.

Think about it. If two-thirds of the people are back in the prison system or the criminal justice system, that means they have committed another crime. That means our communities are less safe. It also means that the taxpayer ends up picking up the tab--both the cost of prosecution again and, also, the cost of incarceration, which can go from $25,000 to $40,000 a year, depending on which system prisoners are in. It is a huge cost. Frankly, this is what has driven the push toward doing something about it in many of our States. State budgets have been overwhelmed with the cost of criminal justice.

We have committed ourselves here in Congress to deal with that, to try to reduce crimes, bring families back together, and help people be able to live out their purpose in life. God's purpose in life for all of us may be a little different, but it is certainly not to be someone in the revolving door of the criminal justice system.

One thing we have focused on is this: How do you give people the tools to be able to be more successful when they have left prison and reentered society? I have worked on this for the past 15 years. One thing we came up with was legislation called the Second Chance Act. The Second Chance Act was put into law about 11 years ago. It is an idea that George W. Bush talked about in his speech to a joint session of Congress about 14, 15 years ago. What he said was: Let's give people a second chance. We believe in redemption in this country. Many of us believe in it, as it is from its Biblical roots, but it is something that George W. Bush believed in.

He also said that it makes no sense because people are costing their communities more and more in crime, costing taxpayers more in prosecution and incarceration.

Let's do something about it. Let's not hold people back because of their mistakes in the past but, instead, give them the tools to be able to lead a better life, a more productive life.

The Second Chance Act has worked well over the years. It has provided this onramp to help ex-offenders reenter society appropriately. However, it needs to be reauthorized.

The criminal justice reform we have before us deals with this issue of rehabilitation and deals with this issue of giving people the tools to be able to succeed by job training, by mental health treatment, by drug treatment, and that is important. But once they get out of the system, that is where the Second Chance Act is so important.

The message is clear. It tells ex-offenders: If you want to turn your life around and become a productive member of society, we want to help you do that. Rather than incarcerating these repeat offenders, sometimes generation after generation, let's put our tax dollars to use in a more effective way to break this vicious cycle and turn these lives around.

Congress appropriated funding for the Second Chance Program this year at $85 million, up from $68 million in some years in the past. So we are actually putting more funding against it. But the program needs to be reauthorized to improve the program, to put more accountability measures into the program. That is what it does. Again, it is part of this broader criminal justice reform that we are voting on today.

I have spent a lot of time going around my State of Ohio, seeing how these Second Chance Act grants are working. One thing they have done in my State, and probably in your State, is create reentry coalitions. To get a coalition grant, it is easier to have a reentry coalition making application for it. You have these comprehensive coalitions--I had only a few in a few of our counties in Ohio; now we have them in over 60 of our counties. It is great. You have the business sector coming together--the private sector--along with the law enforcement folks, along with the treatment providers. I have seen it work all over our State. I have seen so many people who have successfully been able to make that transition from prison and a life of crime and this revolving door into a productive life.

I will tell you about one person who is always on my mind when I think about this. It is someone I met at something called Central Kitchen. Central Kitchen is a reentry program run by the Lutheran Ministry in Cleveland, OH.

Melvin is a gentleman I met there, and Melvin's story is classic. Melvin had been in and out of prison his whole life. For about a decade and a half, he was in prison, out of prison, in prison. He grew up in a rough neighborhood. He got involved in drugs and alcohol. He couldn't get out of the cycle. He couldn't get out of the revolving door. One day he heard about this program and said: I will check it out.

It is a faith-based program. They have been particularly effective, in my view. It is one that is supported by legislation like the Second Chance Act.

Sure enough, it has worked. Melvin learned how to cook. He worked at the Central Kitchen, and went on to work

full time at another restaurant. As he said: What better way to be rewarded and what better way to be forgiven?

He has started his own catering business now. He is no longer defined by his past. He is defined by his willingness to take advantage of the Second Chance Act. His eyes are now on the future.

By the way, there is one thing he told me that I will never forget: I finally got a place to live again. I got my apartment back. And most importantly to me, I got my child back.

After 15 years of being in and out of prison, paying some child support--sometimes not--he now has his little girl living with him. He is a role model for her.

I have seen these role models all over our State. I have seen them in factories. I have talked to supervisors in factories who tell me the ``second chance employees'' I just met with at a roundtable are the role models. They show up on time. They are grateful.

They realize they have been given a second chance, and they take it seriously. I support the underlying legislation of criminal justice reform law that we are now going to take up on the floor. I think it is the right thing to do for our country in so many respects. Our communities will be safer, our taxpayers will be able to spend their money more efficiently and effectively. For these individuals who are now given a chance, given the tools to be able to lift themselves up and lead productive lives, that is their purpose in life. God's purpose in life for them is being fulfilled by this legislation.

I am glad it is being reauthorized as part of this underlying legislation. I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation. I thank Senator Leahy, who is the coauthor of the Second Chance Act on the other side of the aisle, which has been bipartisan from the start. I thank the President and Jared Kushner for their support of this legislation.

I also thank those Members of the Senate who have been so involved in this, particularly my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Durbin, Senator Lee--I just talked to Senator Lee about this legislation a moment ago, and he has been tenacious--Senator Grassley, Senator Feinstein, Senator Graham, Senator Booker, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Cornyn, and others. This legislation will make a difference in my State of Ohio and around the country. I encourage my colleagues to support it.

I yield back.

Mr. President, among the colleagues of ours who is not going to be rejoining us in January is Dean Heller. Senator Heller hails from Nevada. He is a good friend. He is also a valued Member of this body, and we are going to miss him.

Dean is a classic servant leader who has dedicated himself to public service. He has served in all kinds of roles in his community, his State, his country, and he has always done it with class and humility.

He grew up in Carson City, NV, with his five brothers and sisters. He says he started working at his dad's auto shop in middle school. Do you know what? I think he brought some of the skills he learned in middle school on the shop floor to the U.S. Senate. Like every good mechanic, he is optimistic. Every mechanic thinks they can fix whatever problem you have. That is Dean Heller. He rolls up his sleeves, he gets to work, and he has the determination to make things better. That is as true as when he is working on a car as when he is working on legislative solutions in the U.S. Congress.

He has been devoted to helping his community for a long time. He served for two terms in the Nevada Assembly, representing Carson City, and then he served for three terms as Nevada secretary of state before being elected to represent the State's Second Congressional District in the House of Representatives, across the way there.

Later, he was appointed to the U.S. Senate, and then he won his election to the U.S. Senate in 2012. I have had the privilege of working with Dean Heller a lot on issues. We both serve on the Senate Finance Committee. We have jurisdiction over a lot of things, including tax reform.

During the tax reform process over the last year, we worked hard together, and I saw the hard work and determination he first developed working at his dad's auto body shop. I saw someone who was solutions- driven, someone who wanted to create a better future for the people he represents.

He was effective in a number of ways, with regard to helping others, helping with opportunity. One that he worked with the Presiding Officer on is doubling the child tax credit. It is a provision in the new tax law that puts more money back in the pockets of hard-working families in America.

He also served on the Senate Banking Committee, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and the Commerce Committee. He has been involved in a lot of the issues this body takes up. In fact, more than 100 of his bills have become law during his time in the U.S. Senate. That means he has reached across the aisle to help his fellow Nevadans.

His presence is going to be missed, but I know he will keep trying to make things better. I know he will stay busy back home, too, doing some of the things he loves: bailing hay on his ranch, repairing his stock cars--he grew up racing--horse packing, hunting, fishing, and spending time with his great family.

He and his wife, Lynne, have been married for more than 30 years, have four kids and three grandkids. I know he is looking forward to spending more time with them this holiday season. In fact, he told me for one of his holiday traditions he gets out his trombone, and his kids and their spouses all grab instruments and they play music. The Heller band performs some famous well-known Christmas holiday songs. I would love to see that. I am not sure I would like to hear it, but I would love to see it--Dean with his trombone.

Let me say, it has been an honor to serve with Dean Heller. He is a great guy. It is a privilege to work with him. I know he has a bright future outside of this place. I look forward to continuing to stay in touch. We will miss him. Knowing his work is not done, we hope to continue to work with him.

I yield back my time.

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

Mr. President, this evening, I want to talk a little about the nexus of high prescription drug costs and the opioid epidemic that has gripped my State and our country--the No. 1 public health crisis in America today. It is a story of greed, frankly, and it is a story of the need for some fixes here in Congress to keep it from happening again.

With regard to the opioid crisis, I think the degree that this is affecting our communities is well documented. Some 72,000 Americans died last year of overdoses from drugs. This is the high water mark for our country. It is a grim statistic. More than two-thirds of those overdose deaths involve what is called opioids. This would be heroin, prescription drugs, and pain killers, and also the new synthetic opioids--the fentanyl, which is responsible for most of those opioid deaths.

I think we have made good progress over the past couple of years here in Congress in passing new legislation to help to address this problem--new innovative ways to get people into treatment and longer term recovery, which

we know works well in some instances--and also to do a better job on prevention and education.

So I do think those numbers will begin to turn around, but they haven't yet. They haven't yet. We have much more work to do. The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which we passed, is starting to work. The Cures Act is starting to work. Most recently, the President signed legislation to try to reduce the cost of this synthetic opioid coming into our country, mostly from China, mostly through the U.S. mail system, based on research that we had done. That is called the STOP Act.

So, again, we are making some progress, but these overdose death rates are just unbelievably high, and it is a tragic situation, not just in my State, which is probably top three or four in the country, but throughout our Nation.

There is a miracle drug that can be used to reverse the effects of an overdose, and one reason we are beginning to see some progress in some regions of my State and around the country is that we are getting this drug out to more first responders and others who can, in effect, save people from an overdose. Then, of course, the trick is to get that person into treatment, and not to just have these overdoses continue to occur. That is where the more innovative programming is starting to make a difference. But I guess I could say that we have never in our history as a country had more of a need for this miracle drug to reduce the effects, to reverse the effect, of an overdose. It is called naloxone, and naloxone, again, is something that we are using more and more, and we are saving more and more lives.

I am going to talk this evening about a company that exploited the opioid epidemic by dramatically increasing the price of this naloxone drug by more than 600 percent just in the space of a few years.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair alongside Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, conducted a year-long investigation--a bipartisan investigation, a really nonpartisan investigation--into this naloxone issue. We were concerned about the rising cost in order to find out why it was happening.

We focused on a pharmaceutical company called Kaleo and their naloxone auto-injector, called Evzio. While naloxone is available in generic form, two branded products exist for take-home use by untrained individuals in the case of an overdose. One is Adapt's nasal spray, called Narcan. You may have heard of that. Narcan is something that many first responders use and know about.

But the other one is this Evzio drug which is, again, the other branded naloxone product.

Narcan is available at a cost of about 125 bucks for two doses--$125 for two doses.

Evzio, I thought, was an innovative product when it came out, and indeed, it has some innovative aspects to it. A unit includes two auto- injectors and a training device that provides verbal instructions to talk the user through using the product.

Before Kaleo took Evzio to the market, industry experts, who were impressed with the product, said they should probably charge between $250 and $300 for this product. Again, it is miracle drug to reverse the effects of an overdose. They told the company they could ``own the market'' at that price of $250 to $300 a unit.

Instead, the company decided on charging a higher price, taking it to the market in October of 2014. So about 4 years ago they took it to the market for a price of $575 per unit.

With sluggish sales--I think because the price was a little higher than, again, was advised--Kaleo could have lowered the price. Instead, the company went the other direction. It implemented a new distribution model proposed by an outside drug pricing consultant--who has installed similar distribution models at other pharmaceutical companies, by the way--and this involves dramatically raising the drug price.

Now, let me explain this. As part of the distribution model, Kaleo increased Evzio's price from $575 per unit in 2014--again, October 2014--to $3,750 in February of 2016, and then to its current price of $4,100 in January of 2017.

So they started off a little high, had sluggish sales, and instead of going lower, they went from 575 bucks to $4,100. That is a 600-percent increase over the space of about 2\1/2\ years--a 600-percent increase in this drug that is so needed right now in our communities.

Why did they do this? Well, according to company documents, the new distribution model for Evzio was designed to ``capitalize on the opportunity of opioid overdose at epidemic levels.''

So, in effect, from the company's own documents, they chose to capitalize or exploit the opportunity of the opioid epidemic--this tragic epidemic that is killing more Americans than any other thing right now in my home State of Ohio and the No. 1 cause of death of Americans under the age of 50 in the entire country--72,000 is the number from last year of overdose deaths.

So as part of this new model the company worked to ensure that doctors' offices signed the paperwork indicating that Evzio was medically necessary.

Why is that important?

Well, this ensured government programs like Medicare and Medicaid-- these are programs that, as you know, we already look at every year and think: Gosh, how do these costs keep going up? What do we do to maintain these important programs?

But they said they would increase the cost of this drug because they could get doctors to say that this was medically necessary, and that meant that these government programs--Medicare and Medicaid--would cover the cost regardless of what the cost was, even though it had increased 600 percent in 2\1/2\ years.

So that was the concept behind this new distribution model. It relied on a portion of the prescriptions being filled by patients with commercial health plans that covered Evzio at the much higher cost--and it worked.

For people whose plans didn't cover Evzio or who didn't have insurance, Kaleo gave the drug to the patient for free. In these instances, the company incurred the roughly $52 in cost of the goods. It was worth it because they could get these incredibly high prices from Medicare and Medicaid.

This distribution model worked, as I mentioned, when physicians deemed that Evzio was medically necessary. Then it would cover the cost--Medicare and Medicaid--all the way up to $4,100 a unit.

Under this new model, Evzio fill rates jumped from 39 percent to 81 percent. So it worked. They sold more product. They made a killing, but at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer and at the expense of all of us, really.

The majority of Kaleo's initial revenue was from Medicare and Medicaid, and the resulting cost to the taxpayer to date has been about $142 million, despite the fact that a much less costly alternative was readily available.

You will remember that for most of this time Narcan, this other product--not Evzio but Narcan--was available for $125 for two doses.

So instead of following recommendations by drug pricing experts to take the product to market at that lower price, the company decided to exploit this loophole in our health insurance market and charge this much higher price to the American taxpayer through Medicare and Medicaid.

Our report from the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was released on the same day that 60 Minutes aired a new story on Kaleo, its products, and why the price was so high. The findings of our report were used in that segment to highlight Kaleo's distribution model that transferred the cost of this drug, effectively, to American taxpayers. Now, you can see our report online at the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations' website. That PSI report and the 60 Minutes segment were both released on November 18.

Today, less than a month later, I am very pleased to tell you that Kaleo has publicly stated its plan to take steps toward now reducing the cost--the price--of its naloxone auto-injector from the current price of $4,100 per unit down to $178.

This is a very positive step forward, and I am hopeful that it will increase access to Naloxone--this critically important overdose reversal drug that has saved so many thousands of lives already. But I am also pleased that they made this change because it is going to save taxpayers a lot of money.

Make no mistake. I don't believe that this change would have occurred but

for our year-long investigation, the PSI report, and the 60 Minutes story shining a light on these incredibly high drug prices. Does anybody really believe that these prices would have been lowered if not for exposing it and the transparency that was then able to show what was happening?

So the bipartisan investigation has produced a good result, but we need to do a lot more.

The report includes recommendations to prevent similar situations moving forward. Among other things, the report recommends that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, or CMS, should review its policies governing physicians' use of medical necessity exceptions for Part D in Medicare to prevent companies from inappropriately influencing prescribing. That is the least they should do.

While there are legitimate uses of the exception sometimes, we need to be sure it is not exploited, as it was in this case.

Congress should also require CMS to improve transparency regarding the total amount spent for drugs purchased by government healthcare programs so we can identify these problems early on and stop them.

To combat the underlying factors affecting addiction, of course, Congress has to do more here. We should put in place a 3-day limit, in my view, on prescription pain medication for acute pain--not for chronic pain, not for cancer, but for acute pain. That would make a huge difference.

By the way, it is consistent with the Centers for Disease Control recommendations requiring all States to utilize prescription monitoring programs--another thing we should do--and we should allocate more funding for immediate overdose remedies and first responder training.

There is reason to be optimistic, as I said earlier, about the direction our country is now headed in overcoming the opioid epidemic. We have committed ourselves here at the Federal Government to do more and to be better partners with State government and local government and non-profits. That is good, and I am proud of the work this Congress has done.

But the tragedy of overwhelming opioid overdoses has also created this opportunity for companies like Kaleo to exploit or, as they said, capitalize on this public health crisis. That is wrong. It is shameful.

I am proud of the investigative work we have done. I will continue to work in a bipartisan manner to do what we can to reduce prescription drug prices and also protect taxpayer-funded programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Thank you.

Tribute to Bob Corker

Mr. President, today on the floor the Senate voted on legislation dealing with Saudi Arabia; two issues, the death of journalist Khashoggi and also the ongoing and tragic war in Yemen.

You may have seen on the floor somebody who helped to orchestrate this debate. I thought it was a healthy debate. I thought it was good. People offered amendments and had an opportunity to discuss their amendments and debate them in full.

I appreciate the fact that the Senate voted by an overwhelming margin and, in fact, by unanimous consent for a resolution that I think sends a very clear signal to Saudi Arabia and to other partners in the region and, frankly, to the Trump administration.

The person who was orchestrating this, you may have seen him down on the floor of the Senate, is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His name is Bob Corker.

Senator Corker is leaving after this week, assuming Congress is going to be out of session this week or next week. I think we will. He has chosen to retire, not to run for reelection. So come January, we will have another Senator from Tennessee who will be joining us, but Bob Corker is going back into the private sector.

So today I want to talk a little bit about Chairman Corker, the person you saw on the floor if you were watching earlier. He is a friend, but he is also a very valuable Member of the U.S. Senate.

The reason other people aren't on the floor talking about him right now is that he chose not to give a departure speech, which is unusual. Most Senators take to the floor and give a speech about their departure and their reflections on being here and what they might do in the future, and other Members come and talk about them. Bob Corker, in his typical style, being a guy who is here for all the right reasons and that is not him--it is about others for him--said: I don't think I am going to give a departure speech.

So I don't think I will have a chance to talk about him as I have with other colleagues in their presence because he is not going to give that speech, but I will say, he deserves to have others like me talk about his record because he has had so many accomplishments.

He has been a leading voice in this body on so many important initiatives and issues. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a global stage, of course, he has been active focusing on issues to improve the U.S. image around the world. Our diplomacy is something he believes in and has supported. He is concerned about the U.S. role in the world. He wants to be sure America continues to play a leading role on things like human rights, spreading democracy, and opening up channels of commerce.

He has also been very involved in budget issues, focusing on the debt, the deficit, and the problems we face in this country.

Finally, he has been active on other legislative matters. One that comes to mind is banking issues. He is on the Banking Committee and very involved in how to deal with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and, after the financial crisis, some of the issues that arose after the great recession. So he has been very active as a legislator.

He also brings an interesting perspective to this place because to this day, he will tell you he is a businessperson, not a politician. He came up as a developer, a builder. He didn't come up through politics. He did become the mayor of Chattanooga, and that is how he got involved in the political world, but he has this business approach to things around here which I think is refreshing.

He also has the work ethic that comes with somebody from the private sector, and that is relentless. I see it on display every day, but I think it has been part of Bob's personality since he was a kid.

He started his first job at age 13. That was picking up trash and bagging ice. He started his own construction company at age 25. By the way, that construction company later expanded to 18 States--17 States in addition to his home State of Tennessee.

He first entered public service, not in a glamorous job, but having been successful in the private sector, he wanted to give back, and he was offered an opportunity to help his State. He said he wanted to be the Finance and Administration department director of Tennessee. Sort of like the budget person, and he was very helpful to the Governor and to the State of Tennessee in that role and then became mayor of Chattanooga, his hometown.

In 2006, he ran for Federal office for the first time, and that was for the U.S. Senate. He quickly rose to prominence as someone who again had expertise on some of the issues. That was after the housing crisis, so he was focused on that issue--the housing market crash and someone who advocated for conservative principles like reining in Federal spending and reducing the U.S. deficit.

In 2012, he was reelected to the Senate handily and has been chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the past 4 years. I am a member of that committee, so I have had the opportunity to see his work up close and watched how he works patiently with Republicans and Democrats alike and focuses not just on sound bites and throwing out the rhetoric but on actually how do you get something done that helps our great country.

I can tell you with certainty that during Chairman Corker's tenure before the Foreign Relations Committee, our allies around the world have benefited and our adversaries have been held accountable. That is his approach--pretty simple.

He has played a key role in helping restore America's leadership role in the world, and I am pleased the work was accomplished, combating Russia's continued aggression in Eastern Europe and standing up for our friend and ally, Israel, and for what we did today, sending a clear message on values.

Just recently, legislation he championed was called the BUILD Act, and

it was signed into law with the President without a lot of fanfare, but it is going to make a big difference in terms of helping our country and helping not just our image around the world but ensuring we are helping to bring other countries out of poverty by using U.S. market forces that work. It helps bring U.S. private sector investment to low- income countries around the world to reduce poverty, to grow investment. This is important in any context but certainly today with one of our competitors, China, trying to do the same thing. They are using another tactic--not the private sector but the public sector. It is a perfect example of the kind of impact Bob Corker has had on this body.

He has built up international relationships and has bolstered our national security all at once. It was a pleasure working with him, and I wish him all the best.

He is a restless guy, so he is going to end up doing something else very creative with his life, I am sure, and I know he will enjoy spending more time with his wife, Elizabeth, of 30 years and their two daughters and grandchildren, but I am eager to see what Bob is going to do next. I know we will be hearing from him because his thirst for public service and helping others is just too great.

So to Bob Corker, congratulations on a career of public service, and I hope you enjoy the next exciting chapter of your life.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I want to talk about the loss of a great American. I want to talk about George H.W. Bush. On C-SPAN, I was watching the coverage of what is going on in the Rotunda now, and there are hundreds of people crowded around his casket, paying tribute to this great man. They have been there all day. They will be there all night. Friends of mine from Ohio are in town who never met him but knew of him and were inspired by him. We were all inspired by him.

George Bush did it all. He was a war hero--youngest naval pilot at age 18, shot down over the Pacific. He was the last President, by the way, to serve in combat. He was also a Member of the U.S. Congress and proud of that. Prior to that, he was a successful business leader in Texas. He was an ambassador to the United Nations. He was CIA Director. He was Envoy to China--the first one. He was Vice President of the United States, and he was President, of course, during one of the most momentous times in our Nation's history. What a life.

In his absence, our country is losing a lifelong patriot, a guiding voice, and the embodiment of the very best of America. For me, President Bush was also my mentor. I was very blessed early in my career to have been able to work for him. He brought me into his White House when I was a young man trying to figure out my way in life. I would not be in this crazy business of politics but for him--not just because he gave me opportunities to work for him but because he showed me you could do this work of public service and politics with honor and dignity and respect.

He showed that nice guys can finish first. He showed that his approach--kinder and gentler, as he would call it in 1988--was something that indeed you could achieve here, even in the Halls of Congress.

I have a special reason to be so grateful; also, so sad about his departure because I relied on him for advice and counsel. He rarely gave it proactively, but when asked, he always had the wisdom of years and the judgment that so many of us will miss so badly.

He took a chance on me as a young lawyer from Cincinnati, OH, to come into his White House as his Associate Counsel to the President. He then took a chance on me to join his legislative affairs team, to be Director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs.

To be frank, I was not particularly qualified for either job. I had only worked on the Hill briefly as an intern. I was not nearly as distinguished as the other members of the legal team who had been mostly Supreme Court clerks, but it made me work all the harder to try to earn his trust and his respect.

He didn't just give me a job. He taught me about being a leader, a public servant, being a better husband and father. He showed me what servant leadership meant, what it looked like in practice, and I try to work every day to live up to that example. He was one of the most decent and honorable people I have ever met--in politics or otherwise. He saw himself as a servant. That is what motivated him. He saw himself as a public servant when he signed up to become a young Navy pilot, flying dangerous bombing missions. That sense of service, duty, and patriotism was why, years later, after a successful business career, he decided to put it on the line, run for the U.S. Congress.

By the way, I have noticed this week there has been a lot of discussion about all of his successes, and there are so many. One thing people might forget is that he was also resilient. He had setbacks in his life--certainly the death of his beloved daughter Robin at a young age of 3--but he ran for the Senate twice in the State of Texas and lost. He didn't give up. He bounced back. He was resilient. He was tough.

When he was asked to serve as U.N. Ambassador, he took up that task because of his devotion to service. When he was asked to chair the Republican National Committee--during a particularly tough time for the Republican Party, not a task most people wanted to take--he took it on. When he was asked to become the first envoy to China--again, a big challenge--he knew it was the right thing to do for the country.

Of course, at the CIA, he stepped into a difficult situation. The morale was low, and he turned things around. When he was appointed as CIA Director in 1976, there had been a lot of hearings on Capitol Hill. They were called the Church hearings, named after Senator Church, and the CIA was under fire, big time. Morale was low. It was a difficult period. He stepped in precisely because of that.

During his tenure at the Central Intelligence Agency, he made the CIA stronger. He built a special bond with the employees. He put some reforms in place that were important. He was widely credited by everyone as having restored a sense of pride in that important Agency. I heard that repeatedly.

When I got elected to Congress in 1994, by the way, with the help of President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, both of whom came to speak and helped out on the campaign by lending their good names. Barbara Bush even did a radio ad for me that I think is probably the reason I won. She was probably the most popular person in America at the time. When I got elected, I looked at the CIA complex in Northern Virginia-- then called Langley, still in Langley, VA. It was not named after anyone. I heard so much from people at the Agency about their respect for him--career people, people who worked there for years. I proposed the idea of naming the CIA after him and proposed legislation to do that in 1999. Today, that headquarters has been renamed under that legislation the George Bush Center for Intelligence.

I remember being at the ceremony with him when the name was changed and just the love and respect he had from the people at that Agency. I remember him telling stories, including stories about why he took the job and how much he respected the people there and the work they did and how, in many respects, they were on the frontlines for all of us.

I remember stories being told about him, including one I will never forget, which is that Directors for years had gone into the CIA and then taken their own private elevator up to their office, which makes sense. It is a big job. George Bush wouldn't take that private elevator. He insisted on going on the employee elevator every morning. Why? As he said to me later: Because I wanted to hear what was going on, hear from the employees, hear from the officers.

I think it was more than that. I think it was because he wanted them to know he was part of the team. That was his approach to everything he did--vintage George Bush. He did it with grace and dignity, bringing people together, working in a bipartisan manner, and stood for what he thought was right but understood that other people had different points of view and respected that. He carved out an interesting role as Vice President of the United States--unprecedented in terms of his ability to work with the President, work with the Cabinet, work with foreign leaders.

Ronald Reagan was there, of course, during the time of intense international politics when the Cold War was coming to an end. As President Bush said during President Reagan's funeral, he learned more from Ronald Reagan than anyone he encountered in all of his years of public service--but he also served Ronald Reagan well.

As President then, George Bush was responsible for taking the end of the Cold War and being sure it worked well, not just for us but for so many millions of people around the world. He led our country through some great change there, not just the end of the Cold War but the Berlin Wall came down.

I was working for him at the time, and I remember the excitement about it and the sense that he should give a boastful speech and talk about how America had finally prevailed. He was hesitant to do that. He didn't want to spike the football in the end zone. Instead, what he wanted to do was ensure that transition was handled properly.

The reunification of Germany was a very controversial issue. He knew, ultimately, it would be in the interest of the world to reunify East and West Germany, but he did it carefully, diplomatically, with respect. He knew Mikhail Gorbachev was in a tough position, so he handled the fall of the wall and, more importantly, the transition in Eastern Europe and Central Europe, again, with diplomacy and with respect for Gorbachev and the people--the millions of people who were affected.

Of all the major events in which he played a role as Commander in Chief, I think that, in some respects, was the most important one. If you go to Eastern Europe or Western Europe today or Central Europe, all of them have a positive view of George Bush in the role he played and America played during that time period.

Maybe the most well-known role he played as Commander in Chief was Desert Storm. There, he showcased his abilities not just as a President but as a President who had served in combat himself. He understood the need to bring people together--in this case, other countries--to ensure a successful result. Think about this. Over 40 countries were involved in Desert Storm--and hundreds of thousands of troops--all to stop the aggression of Saddam Hussein in the Middle East. He knew Saddam Hussein had to be stopped. It was within his moral fiber that he couldn't sit back and watch one country move into a smaller country and take over-- in this case, the country of Kuwait. So he knew there had to be a decision by America to lead this incredible coalition of countries all around the Middle East and the world. He also knew that he had to get the American people behind him.

I remember that at that point I was Director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. Our job was to ensure that we could support the President up here on the Hill, and a lot of people were giving the President advice not to seek approval from Congress for that conflict. The fear was that Congress would say no. There was a lot of pushback, and the consensus was that it had to be done.

But George Bush believed it was important to involve Congress for two reasons. One, he believed in the institutions of our democracy. He believed Congress played an important role. Second, and maybe even more important to him as a World War II vet, he wanted to get the American people behind this. He didn't want to repeat what he viewed as some of the mistakes in previous conflicts--Vietnam, in particular--when the American people were not with our troops. So he wanted to go to Congress to seek approval, and it was a fight.

I was up here on this very floor of the Senate, trying to persuade people to do the right thing, to ensure that Saddam Hussein could be removed from Kuwait so people could have a chance in that country to find their own destiny. That vote was won by three votes--three votes. If three Members of the Senate had voted the other way, we would not have received that approval. It was close, but as I look back on it, I must say that George H.W. Bush did the right thing. Of course, we won the vote,

which makes that comment easier, but the point is that he insisted that we get the American people behind that conflict, and it ended up being not just a relatively popular military fight, which was successful, but one that the American people understood because of the debate that happened here on the floor of the Congress, in the House and Senate, of what the stakes were.

He never chose to do things just because they were easy. The easy thing would have been to go ahead without seeking approval from Congress. He made his decisions on what he thought was the right thing to do, and that was the kind of man he was.

There has been a lot of talk this week about his ``thousand points of light'' proposal. The Points of Light foundation continues today doing incredibly good work all around the country with people volunteering to help other citizens. He believed everybody had a responsibility and an opportunity to be a part of the change that moves our country forward to a better and brighter future, and that is what Points of Light is about. It resonated with so many Americans and continues to spur action and encourage cooperation where people give up their time and service. I do think it is just as important to have some bright guiding lights as it is to have the ``thousand points of light,'' and that is what he provided. He was the guiding light as an example for all the rest of us.

Throughout his incredible life he didn't just tell us what it meant to lead, to serve others, or to be guided by what was right. In fact, that was not his style. He was not the lecturer. He didn't consider himself a great philosopher. He led by example. He showed us. Again, I will be forever grateful for that.

He was also a person who put a lot of value on people and on relationships. He believed quite simply that building and strengthening relationships was incredibly important to building trust, which meant that people could come together to solve problems and which meant that you could achieve consensus, more importantly. He put that to work in the Congress. Being a liaison to Congress was relatively easy because he had so many friends. Even though he had only been here for a couple terms, he had so many friends--Republicans and Democrats. Relationship building was important to him.

It was also important for him to deepen the ties among nations to create a stronger, safer, and more prosperous world--whether it was Mikhail Gorbachev, whom I talked about earlier, who was his friend to the end, or whether it was Brian Mulroney, from Canada. I know that tomorrow there will be a number of heads of state who will be here for the funeral. This helped us as a country by having those relationships and building those relationships of trust to be able to build a safer and less volatile world.

He is known for writing these handwritten notes, and a lot of attention has been paid recently to the class and humility he displayed with the note he left for incoming President Bill Clinton on the day he assumed office, where he wished him well, but it goes beyond that.

He was personable and respected everywhere. A lot of his friends were Democrats. One example I thought was striking was a Congressman from Ohio. I am from Ohio, and I knew of this Congressman, who was a liberal guy. He was a Democrat named Lud Ashley, from Toledo. His relationship with Lud Ashley transcended politics. They were good friends.

I am told that just before his term as President ended, he and Barbara Bush invited two couples to the White House--Lud Ashley, the Democrat from Toledo, and his wife were at that dinner. It is just another example of George Bush's reaching out, being a people person first. That aspect earned him a lot of goodwill on Capitol Hill, across both parties.

I have been in the habit since the 1990s of going up to Maine, to Kennebunkport, in the summer to visit President Bush, sometimes with members of my family, sometimes alone, or sometimes with friends. It is always a great visit. It is always an opportunity to talk about people--again, focusing on people. His questions to me were sometimes about policy and what was going on, but often it was about this: What do you think of that Senator or that U.S. representative? What is he like? What is she like? Tell me about them.

Until the end he was curious. I was with him in September of this year for our last visit, and although he wasn't speaking as much, he was as curious as ever and asking questions and, of course, willing to give me a little advice, all of which I treasure. A few years ago, back in 2015, you may remember that President Bush had a health scare. He had fallen and broken a bone in his neck, and he was in tough shape. I was up there for a visit. I had made plans to visit him before his injury occurred, but once it happened I thought I had better do something different, a little special. So I got a baseball, and I wrote: George H.W. Bush, America's first baseman. I asked if a couple of my colleagues would be willing to sign it. Folks, when people found out this baseball was going to George H.W. Bush, everybody wanted to sign it.

I got a get-well card about this big--the biggest one I could find-- and asked a couple colleagues who would be willing to sign it. Folks, everybody wanted to sign it. By the end of the process we had about 95 signatures on that baseball and on that get-well card. Why? Because everybody wanted to be a part of sending this message to the beloved former President.

He loved it, when I handed him the baseball, and, of course, he was very curious to see who had signed it. One of his questions to me, which was typical George Bush, was this: Did so-and-so sign it?

The names he recited were some of the more partisan Democrats on the floor. One, as I recall, was whether Harry Reid had signed it, and, sure enough, he had, proudly. That made George Bush so happy. His eyes shown, and he smiled. He knew that those messages of encouragement to him were heartfelt--and they were.

Finally, it is impossible to talk about George H. W. Bush without talking about Barbara Pierce Bush. They were a partnership, and what an example for all of us. Seventy-three years together--they were a true team. They put family first, always. That has been a great lesson to my wife Jane and me and our family--to watch how they navigated this crazy political world we were in, and yet they kept their family strong and together to this day.

We saw the family yesterday. Every one of those children and grandchildren and now great-grandchildren were coming with love and respect for their grandparents and great grandparents.

That unconditional support and love that Barbara Bush and George had for one another formed a very equal relationship. Barbara Bush was feisty and opinionated, and George Bush respected that, and he respected and loved her. Those relationships in the family are what gave him so much strength, in my view. As much as anything, for him it was always about family as the foundation.

He was also a man of deep faith. He didn't wear it on his sleeve, but he believed that he was going to rejoin Barbara. To him that was a blessing. He also believed that he was going to see his daughter Robin, whom they lost way too soon. That was a blessing.

As we mourn the death of President George H.W. Bush, we can find comfort in knowing that he has been returned to those beloved family members.

Jane and I send our condolences to the entire Bush family and to his many, many close friends. At the close of this truly great American life and this guiding light, let us honor his legacy by following his example of patriotism, public service, and civility. Godspeed, George Bush.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate proceed to legislative session, and Senator Sanders, or his designee, be recognized to make a motion to discharge S.J. Res. 54; further, that there be time for debate of the motion until 4 p.m. and of that time, 10 minutes be under control of the chairman and 10 minutes for the ranking member, and the remaining time be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees; that at 4 p.m., the Senate vote in relation to the motion to discharge; that following disposition of the motion, the Senate resume executive session and the time spent in legislative session count postcloture on the Farr nomination.