Floor Statements

Mr. President, I have 8 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Committee on Finance

The Committee on Finance is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, August 22, 2018, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a business meeting and hearing on the following nominations: Michael Faulkender, of Maryland, to be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and Elizabeth Darling, of Texas, to be Commissioner on Children, Youth, and Families, Department of Health and Human Services.

Committee on Foreign Relations

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, August 22, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Foreign Relations

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, August 22, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Michael A. Hammer, of Maryland, to be Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, John Cotton Richmond, of Virginia, to be Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking, with the rank of Ambassador at Large, Stephanie Sanders Sullivan, of Maryland, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Ghana, Donald R. Tapia, of Arizona, to be Ambassador to Jamaica, David Hale, of New Jersey, to be an Under Secretary (Political Affairs), Dereck J. Hogan, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Moldova, Philip S. Kosnett, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Kosovo, and Judy Rising Reinke, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to Montenegro, all of the Department of State, and a routine list in the Foreign Service; to be immediately followed by a hearing to examine the nominations of Kevin K. Sullivan, of Ohio, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Nicaragua, Francisco Luis Palmieri, of Connecticut, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Honduras, and Karen L. Williams, of Missouri, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Suriname, all of the Department of State.

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, August 22, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: William Bryan, of Virginia, to be Under Secretary for Science and Technology, and Peter Gaynor, of Rhode Island, to be Deputy Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency, both of the Department of Homeland Security.

Committee on Indian Affairs

The Committee on Indian Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 27, 2018, at 2:15 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on the Judiciary

The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, August 22, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Jonathan A. Kobes, of South Dakota, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit, Kenneth D. Bell, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of North Carolina, Carl J. Nichols, to be United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, and Martha Maria Pacold, Mary M. Rowland, and Steven C. Seeger, each to be a United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois.

Committee on Rules and Administration

The Committee on Rules and Administration is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, August 22, 2018, at 10:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining

The Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, August 22, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Mr. President, I would like to agree with my colleague from South Dakota, who has talked about the importance of the tax relief and regulatory reform and what that has meant for our economy. We are growing at rates that some have said were impossible. People said: Well, you just have to get used to the new normal. We are going to have the economy grow at 1 or 2 percent. It was 4.1 percent last quarter, and it looks as though we are going to continue to see strong growth. That is because of policies that were enacted here, and I think they are making a difference.

I am going to talk about something today that actually is making it more difficult to find the workers to be able to get that economy moving forward the way all of us would like to see because as we have lower unemployment, as we have a growing workforce, we are seeing a number of Americans who are out of the workforce altogether.

There is some new data from the Department of Labor and from the Brookings Institution, some studies that have shown that between the opioid epidemic--which is heroin, prescription drugs, now this new fentanyl--and other issues, there are people who are not showing up even to apply for jobs. They are not even showing up in the unemployment figures, and they are at historically high levels--8\1/2\ million men between the ages of 25 and 55, so able-bodied men between 25 and 55. This recent study from both the Department of Labor and from the Brookings Institution shows that almost one-half of those men acknowledge taking pain medication on a daily basis. In one of the studies, when pushed, two-thirds of those men said that they were taking prescription drug medication on a daily basis. Think about that. This is shocking: 8\1/2\ million men out of work between the ages of 25 and 55--about one-half of them are saying that they are taking pain medication on a daily basis; two-thirds are taking prescription drugs. That is not overreported. In my view, that is underreported because there are legal issues involved with the opioid epidemic. Also, there is a stigma attached to the addiction.

So in order to fully take advantage of this growing economy--and my colleague is absolutely right about that--we have to deal with this opioid epidemic.

I will tell you something that is even more tragic is that the Centers for Disease Control just came out with a new report last week talking about what is happening around the country, and it was another year of tragic results for American families, for communities represented by Members all across the country here in the U.S. Senate.

This was the Centers for Disease Control. The new report shows that last year--they just got the final numbers for it--the number of people who overdosed and died from the opioid crisis that we have was greater than the year before, not just at record levels but at levels that really create this epidemic level. Seventy-two thousand Americans died of overdoses last year.

This is the map that shows where it is, and it is all over our country. There were a couple of States that made some progress. Those are the States in purple here. But in all of these other States, you actually see an increase--overall a 9-percent increase in overdose deaths in our country from 2016 to 2017. The problem is not getting better; it is getting worse.

My own State of Ohio increased 9.5 percent from 2016 to 2017. Sadly, that puts Ohio third in the country for total drug overdoses and fourth nationally for the number of overdose deaths per capita, per 100,000 residents.

Seventy-two thousand Americans dying of overdoses--that is more than the deadliest year for car accidents or gun deaths ever. Now, 72,000 Americans died last year by overdose. That is more than the total number of American casualties in the Vietnam war. Remember that this is just 1 year--just last year. Overdoses are now the top cause of accidental death in the United States and the No. 1 cause of all deaths for all Americans under the age of 50.

The most recent CDC report illustrates something a lot of us already knew. This is a national crisis, and it is gripping every single State represented in this Chamber. By the way, this is despite a lot of good work that has been done by this body, by the House, and by the administration.

Over the last couple of years, Congress has taken on this issue. We passed legislation that is helping. One of the pieces of legislation is called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, or CARA legislation, which I coauthored with a colleague on the other side, Sheldon Whitehouse. The other one is called the Cures Act, which is funding going directly to the States. By the way, Ohio just got another $26 million this year from the Cures Act, and we are putting it to work. In the appropriations bill that is before this body now in the Labor-HHS bill, we again provide funding for the CARA legislation, which does funding directly to groups that are doing a good job on prevention, education, treatment and recovery. It also helps our firefighters and other first responders with the miracle drug Narcan that they need to reverse the effects of an overdose. It is all good, and it is working.

I was recently back home and had a chance to visit, as I do regularly, some of the institutions and some of the entities that are using this funding. Just to give an example, I went to a town called Whitehall, outside of Columbus, OH. We had a roundtable at a fire station, and I got to see what is going on. They are taking this grant money and training their EMS personnel--the firefighters and paramedics--to be able to handle people coming in who are addicted and get them into treatment. This firehouse has opened up its doors, no questions asked. If you come in there, they will get you treatment.

While I was there, coincidentally, a young man showed up. He had been through treatment three times, and it hadn't worked for him. He said he was ready--ready to go. He was shaking and he was nervous, but I watched the firefighter deal with him. They spoke to him, and I spoke to him.

I saw him get into the ambulance and go to another entity that is called the Addiction Stabilization Center in downtown Columbus, which is also doing innovative work and is also funded by these programs, in this case with the Cures Act funding. It is an old hospital they converted into a 50-bed treatment center with an emergency center.

So people can come in from the street, and they have a place to go into treatment immediately. It takes away the excuse. They have about an 80-percent rate of people getting into treatment. That is incredibly high.

One of the big problems with the current crisis is that people who are addicted and who overdose and are saved by this miracle drug Narcan, which reverses the effects of the overdose, typically then go right back into the same environment. How do you get them

into treatment? How do you get them back on track? How do you keep them in treatment? How do you ensure that treatment is successful? That is what the CARA and Cures legislation is helping to do.

I will say that despite the positive stories back home, despite the additional effort we have put in, still there is this data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that last year was worse than the year before. Why is that so despite the efforts in Congress and at every level of government?

In all of our communities something is being done. People are starting to step forward. The private sector is starting to get more engaged. That is all good.

I think the primary reason for this is because of the rise of a particular drug--the new scourge. It is the synthetic form of opioids. Just as we were making progress in reducing some of these overdoses and deaths and dealing with the terrible consequences of the opioid epidemic, what happened? We saw a steep increase in a new drug coming into the market. It is more deadly--50 times more deadly than heroin-- and it is relatively inexpensive. That is a fatal combination for thousands of our constituents who are dying every year now from the fastest growing and deadliest drug in this epidemic--fentanyl.

This breaks down the types of drugs and the type of drug and the increase or decrease. The one trend that stands out, as you see here, is the growth in synthetic opioids.

In fact, with regard to other drugs, including heroin, you can see a slight decrease--basically, a flattening. For other opioids, there is an increase and, then, a slight flattening. With regard to synthetic opioids, there is a steep increase, and there is a steep increase recently.

Last year there were 30,000 overdose deaths from synthetic drugs like fentanyl. That is up from approximately 20,000 overdose deaths from fentanyl the year earlier. So there are 10,000 more deaths from fentanyl between 2016 and 2017.

To give you an idea of how rapidly this drug is infiltrating our country, in 2013 there were about 3,000 fentanyl overdose deaths nationally. This means that from 2013 to 2017, there has been an 850- percent increase in overdose deaths due to fentanyl.

Last year, fentanyl was involved in more than 60 percent of the 48,600 overdose deaths that the CDC says were from opioids. In my State of Ohio, we think that is consistent. We think it is over 60 percent, or closer to two-thirds.

Looking at the new data coming in this year from Ohio from the various health departments around the State and from our coroners, it looks like it is an even higher percentage in 2018.

When I am home I hear about this a lot. People come up to me and tell me stories that will break your heart about family members. I have had two tele-townhall meetings in the last month, and both of these involved thousands of Ohioans. People aren't selected for anything other than that they get a phone call and they are asked if they want to talk to their Senator. We pick up the phone and we have 15,000 to 20,000 people on the call, and in both of these last two tele-townhall meetings, somebody called in with a very similar story--a tragic story about the pain and suffering they experienced from a loved one passing away from a fentanyl overdose.

Pauline from Zanesville called in, and she told me her brother had recently passed away. She wondered what we were doing about it. Sam from Shelby County called at the next townhall meeting and told me that his son had tragically overdosed from fentanyl and died. By the way, in both of those cases, they didn't mention that up front. They called and had a discussion with me about some policy issues, and it just kind of came out. Their voices cracked. You could tell when they are overcome with emotion at the end of our conversation. They said: Well, my son-- in this guy's case--just died from an overdose of fentanyl.

By the way, in both cases, the brother and the son did not know they had taken fentanyl. They didn't know they had used fentanyl. In one case, with regard to the brother, he thought it was only cocaine that he was using. Instead, it was laced with fentanyl. In the other case, it was heroin, and the person had shot up heroin before and been successful in not dying of an overdose, at least, but in this case fentanyl was laced in the heroin.

Now I tell you this because this new deadly drug is not just about pure fentanyl. It is about evil dealers and drug traffickers actually mixing the fentanyl with other drugs as well. When the coroners' reports come in, often they are finding out it is fentanyl, not the drug the person thought he or she was taking. I had first responders telling me that somebody wakes up and says: Thank you for saving my life on this Narcan. I am OK now.

Unfortunately, that is not what you hope would happen. You hope they will say: I want to go into treatment.

But they wake up, after having been saved by Narcan, and they say: I don't know why I overdosed, because I wasn't taking a strong drug.

They are told: Well, this tested for fentanyl.

They say: Well, I wasn't taking fentanyl.

That is because now any street drug--any street drug--that is taken has the risk of containing fentanyl, which can be deadly.

I hope people who are listening today tell everyone they can think of--at work, in their family, people in the community--just to be sure that this message is getting out. This is a new and deadly threat out on our streets, and it can be in any drug.

We want to turn the tide in this drug epidemic that is depriving the people I represent and the people represented by this Chamber of their God-given purpose in life, whatever it is. It certainly isn't to overdose and die from opioids. We have to confront much more aggressively this rise of fentanyl. This is the reality. None of us wish it were, but it is.

Shockingly, when you do research on this, you will find out that these synthetic drugs come into our country from other countries directly through the U.S. mail system. That is what law enforcement folks have told us--shocking. It is not mostly coming from any place except foreign countries sending it through the U.S. mail system. That is where the majority of this is coming from.

We looked into this issue on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. I chair that subcommittee. We spent 18 months studying this. We found out how easy it was to purchase fentanyl online and have it shipped to the United States of America. We learned through this 18- month undercover investigation that these drugs can be found through a simple Google search and that overseas sellers essentially guaranteed delivery if the fentanyl was sent through a Federal agency--the U.S. Postal Service.

We found out from talking to law enforcement and our own research that this drug is primarily coming from China--one country--where there are scientists and chemical companies that are putting together this deadly mixture and are sending it to our shores.

Why do the traffickers prefer the U.S. Postal Service? Because it has lower screening standards than the other private carriers. International packages that enter the United States are subject to screening. Every private entity--such as FedEx, UPS, DHL, or others-- has to provide law enforcement with advanced electronic data as to where the package is from, what is in the package, and where it is going. With that data, they can use big data from around the country and around the world, including from intelligence sources, and they can help to identify suspicious packages. Otherwise it is like finding a needle in a haystack.

The post office, by the way, brings about 900 million packages a year into the country. It is like finding a needle in a haystack, unless you have that information in advance and electronically. It allows Customs and Border Protection, which are doing the best job they can, to identify those suspicious packages, to stop them in transit, to keep these synthetic drugs out of our communities, and to stop the poison.

I have seen them in action. I have visited the Customs and Border Protection port of entry and have seen how they can get packages. They have to take these packages into a sealed room that has adequate ventilation, and they have to wear protective gear to be

able to even open these packages because this stuff is so deadly.

I have been to Columbus, OH, and I have seen there, in one of these distribution centers for one of the private carriers--not Customs and Border Protection--people putting their lives on the line for us and finding deadly packages and taking them offline to avoid this poison coming into our community. Law enforcement, as you can imagine, is desperate to stop these deadly drugs from reaching our shores in the first place. That is the best way to stop it. They need this critical information in advance to be able to do that.

Why doesn't the post office do it? Because we haven't required them to. By law, after 9/11, we have required all private carriers to provide this information. Frankly, we were more focused on explosives than we were on contraband such as drugs. But we didn't require the U.S. Postal Service. Instead, we said: Study this issue and get back to us.

That was 16 years ago. For the last several years, some of us have been pushing the U.S. Postal Service hard on this, and unfortunately, some still continue to oppose this effort to provide 100 percent electronic data.

Because of congressional pressure, they have recently been getting more data on some of these packages. Based on testimony before our subcommittee, last year the Postal Service received electronic data in advance on about 36 percent of the packages that came in, meaning that the United States received more than 318 million international packages with no or little screening.

Even when the post office conducted these pilot programs to screen for the drugs to get to the 36 percent number, 80 percent of the time they presented the packages to Customs and Border Protection and 20 percent of the time they did not present the package. So only 30 percent of the time was screening being provided, and still in 20 percent of those cases, they didn't present the packages to Customs and Border Protection. Instead, they went into circulation in our community.

We have a simple solution: 100 percent screening. This is a deadly epidemic.

Can you imagine tens of thousands of people dying from something that comes in from overseas through our own U.S. Postal Service and we are not stepping up to say: Whoa, let's do everything we can to screen these packages. The best monitoring devices, the best information--that is what we are asking for.

The legislation we have is called the STOP Act. It is a bipartisan bill that I authored with my colleague Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota. It closes the loophole from the U.S. Postal Service that drug traffickers are using and exploiting to ship these deadly drugs into our communities. By holding the Postal Service to the same standard as private carriers and requiring them to provide that advance electronic data for all international packages entering the United States of America, we can keep the fentanyl out of our communities.

By the way, talk to your letter carrier about this issue. They will tell you they want to stop this. They don't want to be carrying this poison. The person who walks door-to-door in your community or delivers mail to your post office does not want to have fentanyl in their package. First, it is dangerous for them, but more important to them is that they know what it is doing to our communities. They don't want to be any part of it.

The STOP Act passed the House of Representatives earlier this summer, and more than one-third of the Senators in this Chamber are now cosponsors of this legislation. In my view, it is long past time for the Senate to pass this legislation so that it can become law and begin to make a real difference in our communities.

I would like to thank President Trump for his leadership on this issue. Some of you may have seen yesterday that he sent out a statement--a tweet--supporting moving ahead with the STOP Act because of the scourge of this fentanyl coming into our neighborhoods, coming into our communities, our homes. He recognized the importance of this issue, by the way, and talked about it during the 2016 campaign and has talked about it a lot since then. He appointed an opioid commission to look into this issue. That commission endorsed the STOP Act specifically. I want to thank Governor Christie for working with us on that. That was the final report in November of last year, and still we have not passed it.

On Monday, when President Trump called on the Senate to pass this legislation without delay, I noticed there was more interest and reporters talking about this issue in the halls. I am glad about that. The President is waiting, pen in hand. He is ready to sign the STOP Act. Let's not make him wait any longer.

Last year, an average of 81 Americans died every single day from synthetic opioids. From what I can tell back home, this year is no better and may, in fact, be worse. We can't wait around for this problem to get worse. We can't do nothing. We have to do something. The legislation we passed here to help with prevention, treatment, and recovery is good. It is beginning to work. But we also need to reduce the supply and at least increase the cost of this deadly drug, which is 50 times more powerful than heroin. We need to pass the STOP Act. We need to pass it now so we can make a meaningful difference in combating fentanyl, the new scourge of this opioid epidemic.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I want to talk today about the opioid epidemic that has gripped my State of Ohio and so many other States represented by Members of the Chamber. This is now the No. 1 killer in Ohio. It has surpassed car accidents. It is the No. 1 cause of death for Americans under the age of 50. Unfortunately, although some are saying we have turned the corner, we haven't turned the corner in a lot of parts of my State. In fact, there are areas of my State where there have been more overdose deaths this year than there were last year. As tragic as last year was--and there was a big increase from the year before--I do believe that in this Chamber, we have made progress in passing legislation, which is beginning to make a difference. I will talk a little bit about that today. I also believe we have much more to do.

In the last couple of years, Congress has gotten busy on this issue. In 2016, we passed legislation called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. It was the culmination of 4 years' worth of work-- conferences here in Washington; bringing together some of the best minds from around the country; looking at some of the best practices to say ``How do you actually focus on this issue of the opioid epidemic in a comprehensive way?'' because we know that is what has to be done. It was about evidence-based prevention, strategies, evidence-based treatment, and longer term recovery. It was actually the first time Congress had ever passed legislation dealing with longer term recovery, and that is because we heard so much testimony--I, back home in Ohio, and Members from around the country but also here in Washington--from experts about the fact that when you go into treatment, particularly for this opioid epidemic, the chances of success are increased dramatically if you have longer term recovery. Think of sober housing opportunities, for instance, after somebody comes out of treatment, to help get them on the right track.

That bipartisan legislation I introduced with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is now working back home. It is now going out to programs that are evidence-based, proven programs, to try to give them a little boost, working with local government, State government, nonprofits, and others, leveraging some of the Federal money so that it ends up making a bigger difference in trying to turn the tide on this epidemic.

Maybe most important, this legislation, which is called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, CARA--maybe the most important thing about CARA is that it recognizes addiction as a disease. In some respect, it was the first time we had done that as a Congress as well. Recognizing it as a disease changes the way you view treatment because it is something that is not a moral failing. In fact, it is often caused by an accident or an injury--somebody getting a prescription pill that changes something in their brain, and they become addicted.

The point is, in order to solve it, in order to address it, treatment is the avenue that is going to be more successful. I think treating it like a disease is one of the essential aspects of it. Also, pulling away the stigma, getting some of the stigma out of the way, enables more people to come forward to get treatment for their family members, to seek treatment for a loved one, and enables doctors and others in the medical profession to treat people in a way that helps get them on the right path to recovery.

That legislation passed. In fact, earlier this year, in the bipartisan budget agreement, there was additional funding put aside for CARA and for other opioid programs, including one I will talk about in second, and that was very important. That 2-year funding bill provided $6 billion over 2 years. That is unprecedented. We have never done anything like that around here.

Are we making progress? Yes. Are we there yet? No. In my view, the

Mr. President, today I want to talk about an issue that has gotten a lot of attention recently, and that is our U.S. trade policy. It is an important topic that affects every one of us. It affects our economy, it affects jobs, and it certainly affects our foreign policy.

I have followed it pretty closely over the years. I was a trade lawyer when I first started practicing law. I was U.S. Trade Representative, or USTR, under the George W. Bush administration, and now I am a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over these trade issues.

Most importantly, of course, I am a Senator from Ohio, which is a State that has a big manufacturing sector, a big agriculture sector, and a State where a lot of jobs depend on having a good trade policy. In fact, in Ohio, about 25 percent of our State's factory workers are export workers. In other words, they make products that get exported. Today in Ohio, about one of every three acres that are planted gets exported--soybeans, corn, and wheat. These are good jobs too. Trade jobs, on average, pay about 16 percent more than other jobs and provide better benefits. So it is very important to our economy in Ohio to have these export jobs.

In America, we are about 5 percent of the world's population. Yet we have about 25 percent of the world's economy. So it is very important for us to have access to the 95 percent of consumers who live outside of our borders. We want to sell them more. We want to open up markets for our farmers, our workers, and our service providers.

While promoting exports, we also need to ensure that we protect American jobs from unfair trade, from imports that would unfairly undercut our farmers, our workers, and our service providers. Simply put, what we want is a level playing field where it is fair and where we have reciprocal treatment between countries.

If we have a level playing field, by the way, I believe American workers will be just fine. Our workers and businesses can compete and can win if we have a truly level playing field.

We want a balanced approach. We want to open up new markets for U.S. products, while being tougher on trade enforcement, so we can compete.

With my colleagues over the past couple of years, I coauthored a number of laws in this area. One is actually called the Level the Playing Field Act. It does just that. The other is called the ENFORCE Act. These are bipartisan laws that are helping to crack down on unfair trade that hurts U.S. jobs.

The Level the Playing Field Act helps on the front-end by making it easier for workers and businesses to win cases when foreign companies send us products that are unfairly traded because they are sold below their cost or dumped or because they are subsidized illegally. This makes it easier to put anti-dumping or countervailing duties, also known as tariffs, on those unfairly traded products. That is a good idea. By the way, it is sanctioned by the international trade enforcer called the World Trade Organization. This law has worked over the last couple of years to raise tariffs on those unfair imports.

The second law, which is called the ENFORCE Act, helps on the back- end by ensuring that once workers win trade enforcement cases, the new duties on foreign imports are actually enforced. It is designed to keep countries from circumventing new tariffs by selling the product to a third country, a third party that then sells it to the United States to get around our tariffs. We don't want people to evade our tariffs, and that is the purpose of the ENFORCE Act. It needs a little work, honestly, on its implementation. We need to strengthen it.

Together, the Level the Playing Field Act and the ENFORCE Act are working.

Since I came to the Senate in 2011, I have been involved in nearly 40 trade cases where American workers and producers were seeking relief from unfair foreign competition. I am proud to have received the American Iron and Steel Institute's Congressional Steel Champion Award in 2015 for my ongoing work to allow steelworkers to compete on a level playing field.

In 2016, the Level the Playing Field Act was used to secure three big wins against China and several more against other countries in the sector of steel, particularly rolled steel--hot-rolled steel, cold- rolled steel, and corrosion-resistant steel. This is the kind of steel that is used to make cars and trucks and other things. Those products from China--rolled steel--now face tariffs of up to 265 percent thanks to our legislation and thanks to bringing these cases and winning them.

This is how trade enforcement should work. It shouldn't just be about saying that we are going to raise tariffs just because we can because then other countries will do the same thing to us--raising tariffs, which are like taxes, and risking a trade war with escalating tariffs that would make everyone worse off. Enforcement actions should be focused on those countries that are engaging in unfair trade practices and violating our trade laws or the commitments that are required under the World Trade Organization.

We want a level playing field and reciprocity so we can open up more markets for our workers, and we want other countries to send us products that are fairly traded. It is pretty simple.

We need to be careful about taking action that increases barriers to trade. If we impose higher tariffs without justification, we invite retaliation and higher tariffs on our exports. My concern is that we are beginning to do just that, and it threatens the impressive economic gains we have seen this year.

Since the tax cuts and tax reform were enacted and since important new

regulatory relief has been implemented by the Trump administration, we have seen the economy grow. After a couple of decades of stagnant growth and flat wages, our economy is actually increasing, wages are starting to increase, and American workers and businesses are benefiting.

Just last week, the Commerce Department released the economic numbers for the past 3 months, and our economy grew by 4.1 percent in the second quarter of this year. Pro-growth Federal policies have resulted in this kind of a strong and growing economy that is creating more jobs and higher wages. We want to continue building on that momentum that we already started this year with these good fiscal policies.

I am concerned that some of our decisions on trade policy provide a real headwind to that growing economy. That is why, when I see the Commerce Department putting tariffs on automobiles and auto parts, I become concerned. According to one estimate, a 25-percent tariff on autos and auto parts could cost 624,000 American jobs.

Right now, the administration is doing a lot on the trade front. They have a lot of balls in the air. As far as our trade policy is concerned, I think it is causing a lot of uncertainty out there in the economy.

First, the administration is still renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, with Mexico and Canada, which are, by the way, our biggest trading partners in Ohio--Canada is No. 1, and Mexico is No. 2.

I support updating NAFTA. I think that is a good idea. I support what USTR Robert Lighthizer is trying to do. But after 15 months of talks and uncertainty, I am concerned. We need to see some light at the end of the tunnel. I hope we will soon, particularly as it relates to Mexico.

Second, the United States is raising tariffs on Chinese imports using section 301 of our trade law after conducting a thorough investigation demonstrating the number of anti-competitive ways--from administrative approval processes, to joint venture requirements, to outright cyber theft--that China uses to effectively steal American intellectual property.

Third, the administration is using a national security waiver to our trade rules--called section 232--to raise tariffs as a matter of national security on steel and aluminum imports from all but four countries. That means those tariffs are being imposed on a number of our strong allies. Because of that and the retaliation it has invited, this section 232 has been the focus of a lot of attention recently.

I agree with President Trump that we need to crack down on countries that cheat on trade--like China--and we need to make sure we do it in a smart and targeted way. China does steal our intellectual property, and they have been doing that for years. China tilts the playing field against American firms, innovators, and workers and gets the technology they need to leapfrog the competition. I support action against this kind of unfair Chinese trade and investment practice, and I was glad to hear that serious talks with China might start soon.

As we go into these talks, we need to be clear about our objectives and clear about what we are looking for as Americans. Is it just trying to address the trade deficit and have them try to buy more of our exports, like soybeans or LNG--liquefied natural gas--or is it asking China to make some changes structurally so that we can have a more fair trading relationship as two mature trading partners? We also need to be sure, as we make clear our objectives, that we don't continue to raise tariffs without having these negotiations and direct talks.

My biggest concern is the administration's broad use of a powerful national security tool known as section 232. Section 232 comes from a trade act that was passed back in 1962 that was intended to be used purely for national security purposes. Thus, it has been invoked only rarely, only a few times, the last being in 1986, 32 years ago. Section 232 is really an exception to our trade laws because you neither have to show injury to a domestic industry nor any surge or unfair trade with regard to the targeted imports, as you would under these other trade laws. In other words, under the other laws, you have to show that there is material injury to a domestic company or that there is a surge coming in of imports or often that there actually is unfair trade, like the dumping we talked about earlier--selling below cost or subsidizing illegally. You don't have to show that under section 232.

One reason it has hardly ever been used is precisely because it doesn't require any negative impact or unfair influence or unfair trade. This means that when we use this tool, if it is not used for national security reasons, other countries are likely to respond in kind, simply putting tariffs on our exports for no reason. That is exactly what is happening.

Using section 232, we put a 25-percent tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports from nearly every country in the world across the board, most of which are our allies. The only exemptions are Argentina, Brazil, Australia, and South Korea. We negotiated quotas with them. For all the other countries in the world, we have these tariffs in place, including our close ally Canada, for example. They are a stalwart ally. They have had troops in Iraq with us. They had troops in Afghanistan with us. They are a good neighbor. They are Ohio's biggest trading partner and No. 1 export destination for the workers and farmers I represent. As a country, we actually send more steel to them than they send to us. Remember, this is about steel and aluminum national security tariffs. We actually export more steel to them than they send to us, but they are targeted by this section 232 as a national security threat for steel.

They have responded, as you would expect, with tariffs of their own on our exports--all kinds of exports across the board. According to one publication, Business Insider, Ohio is their No. 1 targeted State. That is the State I represent. They slapped tariffs on Ohio workers and farmers of more than $1.7 billion.

Now let's back up for a second and talk about steel and aluminum. Is there an issue with unfair imports? Yes, there is, I think, particularly with regard to steel. We have a global glut of steel, and China is the reason.

About 15 years ago, China had about 15 percent of the global production of steel. Today, they have about 50 percent of the global production of steel, and they don't need it, so they are subsidizing it, and they are sending it out below its cost, which, again, is called dumping. That is why we have been using our other trade laws to go after these unfair exports, and we need to do more of that to stop the transshipments, where they send the product to another country and then process it and then send it to us.

For certain countries and certain products, I believe there is a national security issue with steel. An example of that is electrical steel--something that is critical to our electric grid. Electrical steel is something we absolutely need. Yet there is only one U.S. manufacturer left of electrical steel. Imports have increased in the last year alone by about 100 percent. This is an example of how I believe section 232 could be used in a very targeted way that relates directly to our national security.

Again, we have other trade enforcement tools at our disposal, including the Level the Playing Field Act we talked about and the ENFORCE Act. We went after countries that subsidize or dump their products. These are more precise tools to hold our trading partners accountable that should be strengthened and used before section 232, where appropriate.

Misusing the 232 statute and its national security rationale not only leads to other countries increasing tariffs on all our exports to them, but it also risks the World Trade Organization stepping in and our actually losing what I think is an important national security tool. In other words, by misusing this, my fear is that we will be taken to the WTO by other countries. It has already happened. They have filed cases again us. The WTO could indeed rule--which they never have before--that we cannot use 232 in the way we have and take away that tool. That would be a big problem because I think it is a tool we should have in our toolbox.

I believe we run an even greater risk of losing this tool when the administration suggests that imports of cars

threaten our national security. That is the most recent case that is now working through the system. I want to see more cars made in America, but tariffs like the Commerce Department is suggesting would make it even more expensive to make a car here. We are told by the auto industry--and the big 3 automakers oppose this 232 on automobiles--we are told it would increase the cost of a car by about $2,000.

That is why I believe we have to reform the section 232 statute and ensure that any 232 actions are based on a legitimate national security justification and that Congress has a larger role to play in its oversight. A few hours ago, my colleagues, Senators Doug Jones and Joni Ernst, and I introduced bipartisan legislation that would help do just that. Our bipartisan bill, called the Trade Security Act, will reform section 232 to better align the statute with its original intent.

First, it ensures that proper experts in government determine at the outset whether there is a national security threat. Our bill requires the Department of Defense, not the Secretary of Commerce, to assess the potential threat posed by imports of certain products to justify the national security basis for new tariffs under section 232. If the Department of Defense says a threat is found, the Department of Defense would send its report to the President. The President would then direct the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with Congress, the Secretary of Defense, and USTR, to develop recommendations for how to respond to the threat. After receiving the remedy recommendations from the Secretary of Commerce, the President would then decide whether to take action.

So it creates a two-step process. The first step is determining whether there is a national security threat, done by the appropriate office and the appropriate experts in the Federal Government, and then the second step would be the Commerce Department coming up with the remedy, as opposed to now, where the Commerce Department makes that national security recommendation.

The bill will also expand the role of Congress by giving Congress the opportunity to disapprove of 232 action by passing a joint resolution. Currently, Congress can disapprove of section 232 actions through a joint resolution but only when it results in something covering oil or petroleum products. So it is interesting--under the current 232 statute, the disapproval process works but only as to oil or other petroleum products.

Our bill, the Trade Security Act, which we introduced today, would expand that process to include all products. By the way, the oil and petroleum production exception is a vestige from the last time section 232 was used, about 40 years ago, because it was used with regard to oil from Libya and from Iran.

Misusing our trade tools not only hurts our exporters, workers, and farmers, but also our consumers. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation to increase congressional oversight on one of our most important national security tools. When he signed the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 into law, which included section 232, President Kennedy said:

This act recognizes, fully and completely, that we cannot

protect our economy by stagnating behind tariff walls, but

that the best protection possible is a mutual lowering of

tariff barriers among friendly nations so that all may

benefit from a free flow of goods. Increased economic

activity resulting from increased trade will provide more job

opportunities for our workers.

So that was the context within which section 232 was passed--in other words, saying we don't want to put up more barriers. We want trade to be fair and reciprocal. Neither the President nor the Congress intended that section 232 would be used to put up more barriers. The Senate Finance Committee chairman in the Congress who passed this legislation said that in order for section 232 to apply, ``the products must be involved in our national security.''

Whether it is the President or whether it is the Congress, the intent was clearly to tie this closely to national security.

Let's restore this powerful and important tool to Congress' original intentions when it crafted the law and ensure that section 232 is used appropriately for national security purposes.

This legislation will help to guide our trade policy and ensure that we keep national security and trade issues separate. The strength of America's economy comes from hard-working and innovative Americans in our shops, plants, and farms across this country that send products around the globe. We want more of that. They deserve a level playing field and the chance to compete.

Let's be sure our trade policy gives them that and not escalating tariffs for their exports and higher costs for their families. Let's find that right balance, including restoring an important national security tool by not misusing it.

I urge my colleagues to join us in support of the Trade Security Act to help do just that.

I yield back my time.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, there are a few things I wish to talk about today, but I would like to start by recognizing the service and bravery of our Capitol Police officers.

This week is the 20th anniversary of a shooting which occurred in the U.S. Capitol that claimed the lives of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Jacob Chestnut and Detective John Gibson when a gunman forced his way into this Capitol Building. They laid down their lives in defense of others and made the ultimate sacrifice defending the U.S. Capitol, this pillar of American democracy.

At the time, then-President Clinton said: ``The shooting at the United States Capitol yesterday was a moment of savagery at the front door of American civilization.'' He was right.

I was working in the Capitol that day, 20 years ago. I remember where I was, as I am sure everybody does who was here. I remember hearing the gunshots. I was on the telephone from my office in the House of Representatives with a member of the leadership staff, and I heard the chaos through the phone lines for the first time.

We are forever grateful for the sacrifice of those two police officers and their families and for the continued service and commitment of the U.S. Capitol Police every single day in the Capitol. They are the ones who protect us every single day. This week, we are reminded to thank everyone who puts on a uniform and steps into harm's way to protect fellow Americans.

Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act

Mr. President, I also wish to discuss important legislation the Senate passed earlier this week and the House passed today to improve skills training in our country at a time when it is so badly needed.

I am the cofounder and cochair of the Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus. I have to tell you, I am excited about this bipartisan legislation. It reauthorizes what is called the Perkins Career and Technical Education, or CTE, Act. It is a Federal law designed to help Americans get the education, training, and skills they need to fill in-demand jobs. The President supports the legislation. I know he is excited about signing it into law and helping

those who need the skills to fill those jobs that are out there.

CTE--at one time called vocational education--is just a great opportunity for the students but also for our economy and for employers. The bill that passed includes what is called the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, legislation my colleague Senator Tim Kaine and I authored a few years ago to allow States and localities to use Perkins grant funding for a number of purposes.

No. 1, we allow them to use it for CTE-focused academies. We also encourage schools to incorporate key elements of high-quality CTE programs from around the country and promote partnerships between local businesses, regional industries, and other community stakeholders to create work-based learning opportunities for students, like apprenticeships and internships. We know they work. Getting that work experience really helps to be able to land a job, so we are excited about this legislation.

It also includes important accountability information for our most vulnerable students to track how well CTE programs are performing so we can ensure high-quality skills training.

When I travel around Ohio talking to employers of all sizes, they all stress one thing to me, which is, yes, the economy is doing better, tax reform has worked well for me, the regulatory relief is happening--that is great--but we are having trouble finding workers.

In Ohio today, on our website OhioMeansJobs, you will probably see 145,000 jobs being advertised, and yet we have 200,000 people out of work. A lot of that is the skills gap. I often hear the biggest challenge employers have is they can't find enough skilled workers for the positions they already have. We want to give these students the chance to acquire that training needed for today's jobs. Again, this legislation helps to ensure it regardless of someone's economic standing.

It provides a route to good-paying jobs and a successful career for students who might not have been interested in a typical formal STEM education or maybe they can't easily spend the time and money involved in going through a traditional college education.

It is not just about the students. It also helps those who are further on in life who are trying to rebuild or start a new career. This bill will also help those incumbent workers. Recently, I visited Flying HIGH, a welding school in Youngstown, OH. It is a very impressive program. It focuses on teaching people in recovery and people who have recently been released from prison to learn a skill--in this case, welding--which lets them transition back into the workplace. I am really impressed by it. Their placement rate is about 100 percent. They have taken people and helped provide them with the skills they need, and then, in turn, their lives have been turned around. This legislation will help enable places like this school to be more successful.

There are so many opportunities out there. Whether it is welding, whether it is coding, whether it is machining, whether it is healthcare skills, or whether it is in commercial driving, where we need drivers right away who have the CDL commercial license, we should encourage more of that.

I wish to thank my colleague and cochair of the Senate CTE Caucus, Tim Kaine, as well as Senator Lamar Alexander, who chairs the Senate HELP Committee that passed the bill this last month, Mike Enzi, and all my colleagues on the CTE Caucus, for their work on this issue over the years.

Once signed into law, this legislation will help students get the career and technical education they need, regardless of economic standing, and help them have the opportunity they need to be able to pursue whatever their American dream is

DATA Act Implementation

Mr. President, the last thing I want to talk about today is some bad news we received this week. This is about our Federal Government and the lack of information from Federal agencies as to how they are spending our hard-earned tax dollars.

As many people know, our Federal Government has grown a lot in the last half century or so. In 1961, President Kennedy entered office with 7 Cabinet positions and 451 career management positions. When President Trump took office, we had gone about seven times higher in terms of the number of people. The number of Cabinet posts have been doubled from 7 to 15.

The increased size of our Federal Government is intended, of course, to provide a better structure to carry out important duties the government has and help more Americans, but one result we have to be cautious of is the increase in Federal spending that comes with it. As the size of our government grows, transparency in how taxpayer money is spent becomes increasingly important.

Most of the increase in funding we have seen over the last 20 years, of course, is in programs that Congress does not appropriate every year. This includes important entitlement programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. We need to address this unsustainable growth in the so-called nondiscretionary spending. We need to save these entitlement programs for the current and future generations of Americans who rely on them, but we also need to ensure we rein in the waste, fraud, and abuse in our departments and agencies, the so-called discretionary spending that Congress spends every year on departments and programs. That is why this legislation is so important--to be able to require transparency and accountability with how Federal agencies spend their taxpayer dollars.

While the White House and Congress tracks spending through the budget and appropriations process, each Federal agency tracks its own spending internally. They have their own metrics and measurement systems. As you can imagine, it has made it hard to truly know where all of the funds are going to various departments and agencies because each has their own measurement. We recognized a need to address this.

In 2006, when I was Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act became law. I personally endorsed that legislation by then-Senator Tom Coburn--who some will remember was a key sponsor of that--when I was at OMB because I knew we needed it badly. We went about putting all grants and contracts online. That was a good thing. The goal of that law was to standardize the way Federal departments and agencies report their spending to have a more comprehensive and transparent account of where taxpayer dollars are going.

It also created a public website to be managed by OMB called USAspending.gov, where taxpayers and policymakers could go to get accurate, accessible information about what these funds are used for. Taxpayers should be able to see where their money goes, and Congress-- which is given the power of the purse in our Federal Government--needs to know what the funds it allocates are being used for to make informed decisions about spending.

In 2010, the GAO, Government Accountability Office, looked into how this program was working. What they found was the usefulness of the USAspending.gov website was impaired by the lack of guidance to agencies on how to report their spending. So, in 2014, my colleague Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and I authored what is called the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, the DATA Act. We followed what the GAO had said, and we wrote this legislation to fix the law.

The goal of the DATA Act was to create a more consistent spending system across government to improve the efficiency of USAspending.gov and make tracking Federal spending more transparent and accessible. That would ultimately provide the American public and policymakers, we thought, with accurate, consistent, and reliable data on governmentwide spending to eliminate unnecessary spending.

Being able to follow Federal dollars from appropriation to the resulting grant or contract that actually occurs is incredibly helpful in that effort. The DATA Act required Federal agencies to report spending in real time down to the location by congressional district by 2017.

Now it is time to take stock of how that program is working and to assess the transparency in our Federal spending. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, has taken this task on. Along

with the ranking member, Senator Tom Carper, we have looked into the implementation of the DATA Act and how accurately departments and agencies report spending data. What our bipartisan report found was troubling.

We reviewed inspectors general, or IG, reports of 25 Federal agencies, making up more than 80 percent of all Federal spending from the second quarter of 2017.

At least 55 percent of the spending data--equal to roughly $240 billion those agencies submitted to USAspending.gov--was found to be incomplete, inaccurate, or both. Notably, the IG's report on the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy determined that 100 percent of those Departments' spending data was not accurate.

According to the inspectors general, some agencies, such as the Department of Education and the Agency for National Development, did well. They reported accurate data.

Unbelievably, about 96 percent of the spending data the Treasury Department submitted for its own Department was not accurate. So the Treasury Department, which the DATA Act says is supposed to monitor other Departments' spending data for accuracy, overwhelmingly submitted inaccurate data itself--and we found that just last month, OMB and the Department of Treasury have updated agency guidance that appears to weaken some of these data standards, which could lead to less accurate and not standardized DATA Act submissions in the future.

So we should be doing more to ensure this law is properly implemented, to ensure accountability and accuracy in our finances.

We also found deficiencies with the USAspending.gov website itself. The DATA Act requires the website to be user-friendly and accurate. Our investigators found it to sometimes be neither.

It is important to remember that the DATA Act is still in its early stages. It was fully implemented just a little over 1 year ago. So it is not yet what we had hoped it would be when it became law in 2014, but it is not too late to improve it. We know it has to be done. Our PSI--Permanent Subcommittee Investigation--report includes recommendations to do just that.

First, OMB and the Treasury Department should continue to update the standards and guidelines for agencies to follow when making DATA Act submissions to improve accuracy and accountability of spending. It is really up to them to do it.

Second, OMB and the Treasury Department should establish clear definitions for agencies and IGs to follow when conducting reviews of DATA Act compliance to avoid any existing confusion and disparity, which we found is out there today.

Finally, the Treasury Department should improve the overall quality of USAspending.gov.

These are all reasonable steps, and they are going to help increase accountability within the Federal Government and provide greater transparency for taxpayers. As I mentioned, taxpayers deserve to be able to access accurate information on where their money is going, and lawmakers need to know how departments and agencies are actually spending their resources to be able to conduct proper oversight, plan future budgets, and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in our Federal spending.

On the floor today, we were discussing appropriations bills. We will pass another floor appropriations bill this week, I hope. That is good, but part of this process is that we have to be sure we are doing the oversight so that if we are passing spending bills--all 12 should be passed by this Congress--we know where the money is going so we can identify ways to improve the spending.

I recognize that a lot of hard work has gone into USAspending.gov to date, and I am grateful for all the support and investments that many outside groups--like the Data Coalition and the Project on Government Oversight--have put into making this project successful. I also appreciate those in the Federal Government who have taken this seriously and have worked hard on this.

Although the executive branch has only implemented the law selectively so far, it has already made our government more transparent. If we continue to do the necessary followup to this important law that passed 4 years ago, I am optimistic that it will spur action to make our government spending more accountable, more accurate, and more accessible. That is the goal.

Mr. President, I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I want to recognize my dear friends Ida and Irwin Haber for receiving the Jewish National Fund's Northern Ohio Tree of Life Award. This award is given in recognition of outstanding community involvement, professional leadership, and dedication to the cause of American-Israeli friendship with the devotion to peace and the security of human life. Ida and Irwin Haber are of the utmost quality and character for this honor. It is fitting that they receive this award jointly, as their personal and professional lives have been a team effort for the past 44 years and have been guided by their strong Jewish identity and heritage from the start.

Ida and Irwin met at a United Synagogue Youth event in high school and have been together ever since. It is their faith and commitment to the Jewish people that helped bring them together, and they remain active members of the Jewish community. Irwin serves as the Ohio chapter Chairman and National Board member of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, on the National Council of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and is a member of the Endowment Fund Committee of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland. Additionally, he and Ida serve in leadership roles for the University Hospitals Ahuja Medical Center.

Business has been a family venture for the Habers as well. In 1993, Irwin became the chairman and owner and Ida became vice president of the PDI Group. Their leadership and vision for this manufacturer of weapons platform support systems has built an internationally reputable business that provides equipment to U.S. Air Force and Navy and 45 air forces across the world. The PDI Group has been recognized by the U.S. Small Business Association and the Department of Commerce for its accomplishments and excellence.

Ida and Irwin Haber have led lives of faith and have served their customers and their community admirably. Perhaps their greatest achievement is their beautiful family. They have three adult children, Nathan, Ryan, and Rena, who work for the family business; two daughters-in-law, Yana and Shlomit; and three granddaughters, Arianna, Ava, and Noa.

On a personal level, Jane and I are grateful for Ida and Irwin's advice and friendship, for having us to their home for Shabbat dinner, and for numerous other good memories.

On behalf of the U.S. Senate, I congratulate Ida and Irwin Haber for being honored with the Jewish National Fund's Northern Ohio Tree of Life Award.

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

Mr. President, today I wish to report back to my colleagues here in the Senate and to the American people about the results of legislation which we passed here in the Senate and the House and which was signed into law by the President. We don't do that often enough, and we tend to pass legislation and don't do the oversight to figure out whether it is working.

In this case, this was legislation we passed back in April on a bipartisan basis called the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act. This legislation allows the victims of sex trafficking to get the justice they deserve by being able to sue websites that knowingly trafficked them online and have some accountability for these horrible crimes that are committed online. It also allows prosecutors at the State and local level to prosecute these cases.

We drafted the legislation because after looking at this for several years, we realized that there was a rise in trafficking of underage girls, women, and sometimes underage boys and that this was increasing primarily because of the dark side of the internet. We are hearing a lot about what is going on on the internet these days in terms of meddling in our elections and so on. With all the positives, there is also a darker side. We realized this was happening increasingly, and it was a ruthlessly, efficient way to sell people online.

We looked at it and found there was a Federal law put in place--with good intentions, I believe--a couple of decades ago to try to ensure freedom of the internet, which, of course, all of us support, but it provided an effective immunity to these websites even if they were knowingly selling people online. So we wrote legislation to get at that, spent about a year trying to get that through the process, and eventually got it to a vote and got it passed.

The law that provided the immunity was part of the Communications Decency Act. Again, it was meant to encourage freedom of the internet but was taken too far, particularly in how it was interpreted by the courts. The internet was something we had to address because without that, we would see this increase in drug trafficking and sex trafficking.

So what happened? After passing the law, there was a pretty dramatic change.

On Monday, I was in Cincinnati, OH, my hometown, at a place called the CHANGE Court. The CHANGE Court is a place where women who are trafficked and incarcerated for prostitution are able to go through a 2-year program to help them get clean and, if they are willing to go through this program, to walk away with a clean record, understanding that sex trafficking is not a crime and that they are in effect victims of trafficking.

It is very inspiring to go there. I talked to about a dozen women who are currently in the program and some women who had graduated from the program. The stories are unbelievable--women getting their lives back together; getting back to work and getting back to their families; in almost every case, getting back to their children--in almost every case, these are moms; having the self-respect and dignity that comes with work; getting back with their families; and getting their lives back on track. It is a much better alternative than the system of throwing people into jail who are, in effect, victims of trafficking and not

dealing with their issues, whether it is the trauma or the drug addiction. In almost every case, there was a drug addiction issue. Almost all of them were opiate addicts or recovering addicts. One was addicted to alcohol. This is common.

In talking to these women, almost every one of them said the same thing, which was that, yes, they had been trafficked online, and they were very interested in this legislation. They had been through it, and they wanted to save future women and girls from having to go down this dark path.

We passed the legislation and assessed the legislation meant to help on this issue, and I was able to tell these women at the CHANGE Court what the results were. They are pretty dramatic.

On Monday of this week, I also met with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or NCMEC. This is the leading anti- trafficking group in the country. They work day and night trying to stop online sex traffickers. They keep track of the statistics and data. They particularly focus on rescuing kids from being exploited.

According to NCMEC, the results from SESTA being signed into law has been swift and significant. NCMEC said:

Since the enactment of SESTA and the government's seizure

of Backpage, there has been a major disruption in the online

marketplace. The robust marketplace for sex trafficking,

including the sale of children for rape and sexual abuse,

that took a decade to build, fragmented over the course of

just a few days.

They also said:

Many sites or portions of sites where NCMEC knew children

previously have been sold for sex have voluntarily shut down.

Their bottom line:

This means it is much harder to purchase a child . . .

online.

This means it is much harder to purchase a child online. That is great news, and that is exactly what we intended this legislation to do--to save these kids, women, and sometimes boys from being subjected to this horrific crime.

Another analysis was shared with me recently, and you can find this online. This analysis found that since our legislation passed, online ads selling women and children have been reduced by between 60 and 80 percent, depending on the State. That is a dramatic change, having the effect of saving literally thousands of children.

I am hopeful we will continue to be vigilant about this issue because when you push something down in one place, it often pops up somewhere else. But we have done an effective job of dealing with a very real problem. Backpage.com, which we talked about, was the industry leader. They have now been shut down. The CEO of the company has pled guilty to numerous money laundering and trafficking-related charges.

Because prosecutors can now do their work and go after these online traffickers and because victims of this crime can finally have their day in court, websites that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking are being shut down and being held liable for their actions.

This never would have been possible without the work of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The staff and investigators spent 2 years working on this issue, investigating it. We had to come all the way to the floor of this Chamber in order to enforce our subpoenas to get the information that we were able to unveil, which no one else had been able to find, and that showed clearly that they knew what they remember doing. They knew they were selling underage kids online. I chair that subcommittee. It is bipartisan. I am very proud of those investigators. They do good work, and they deserve to be applauded, given the results we are now seeing.

It is not just Backpage; a lot of other, classified websites have also shut down their personal ads or sex-related operations.

We have made good progress on the issue of sex trafficking, but it is so related to the issue of opioid abuse. Specifically, as I said, these often go hand in hand. Often, traffickers find people who are addicted. They are vulnerable, they crave the drug, and the trafficker can provide it. But in my home State of Ohio, I have met with survivors, and many times we have found that they find vulnerable people who are not addicted but then make them addicted so they become dependent on the trafficker.

This is an issue that relates to so many things, doesn't it? It relates to our workplace because people who are addicted to opioids are not coming into the workforce. One reason we have such high levels of unemployment--people are outside the workforce altogether, not showing up on the unemployment numbers because they aren't even looking for work. The labor force participation rate, as economists call it, is so low right now largely, in my view, because of this opioid issue. Our courts are jammed, our jails are jammed, and our hospitals and emergency rooms are jammed. We have to do more to get at this issue for so many reasons.

The driving force in my home State of Ohio and around the country now is this synthetic form of heroin or opioids called fentanyl. It is 50 times more powerful than heroin. There are other drugs--carfentanil is an example--that are even more powerful. These synthetic forms of opioids are causing most of the deaths now in my State of Ohio and around the country.

The Centers for Disease Control, CDC, recently issued a report that showed this increase in overdose deaths involving fentanyl. The report analyzed overdose deaths in 10 States hit hardest by the epidemic, including Ohio. They found that fentanyl overdose deaths in those States nearly doubled from the last 6 months of 2016 to the first 6 months of 2017. Of course, 2017 is the last year for which they have good records. It is unbelievable.

This synthetic form of heroin is the new scourge of the opioid epidemic, and it is being spread into every other drug too. When I do roundtables back home, as I do regularly, I hear about it being spread into crystal meth, cocaine, and heroin, of course.

Twice in roundtable discussions I have had with community leaders, I have heard--once from a police chief and once from a sheriff--very similar stories about a young man who wakes up from an overdose after being saved through Narcan, which is a miracle drug that reverses the effects of an overdose. When the young man comes to, he says: I was just smoking pot. How did I overdose?

In both cases, based on the forensics and the information they were able to get from the labs, they found out that of course it wasn't just marijuana; it was marijuana laced with fentanyl. No street drug is safe. They can all kill you.

As I have met with these first responders, community leaders, and those in recovery across Ohio--I just did recently with a group called PreventionFIRST!--I have heard what is often brought up by those on the frontlines; that is, that we would be making so much more progress right now on this war against opioids--we have been successful here in this Congress in passing more money for prevention, treatment, and recovery, and those funds are starting to be used back home, and I see it; I see the results, and there are some really exciting things going on--but for the fentanyl. In other words, just as we were finally making progress on prescription drugs and, then, on heroin, now this fentanyl comes in and is creating even more problems. It is so inexpensive, and it is so pervasive.

Recently, in Ohio, there were two busts where they were able to apprehend people who were selling fentanyl and find this cache of fentanyl they had. In both cases, it was a massive amount combined. Just these two busts alone, there was enough fentanyl to kill half the people in my State of Ohio. That is how bad it is.

Just last week, there was an autopsy that revealed that the death of an Ohio police chief from Kirkersville, in the Columbus area, who was caused by fentanyl. The report said: ``acute intoxication by fentanyl.'' It was an accidental overdose.

I have told the story before of the police officer who brushed a couple of flakes off his shirt after a bust. He didn't know it was fentanyl. The flakes were the drug. It got into his skin through his fingers, and he dropped to the ground unconscious and had an overdose. It took several doses of Narcan to save his life.

Our first responders are in much more danger with fentanyl than they have ever been, even with heroin, prescription drugs, and other opioids. Addiction has taken too many lives in Ohio. Again, fentanyl is the deadliest drug in this epidemic.

There was a recent estimation by a group called the Ohio Alliance for Innovation in Population Health, which suggested that opioids are responsible for more than 500,000 years of life expectancy lost in Ohio between 2010 and 2016. Think about that: 500,000 years of lost life due to opioids in Ohio, just in the 6 years between 2010 and 2016.

Often, these are lives of young people who had great promise ahead of them and had become involved in this opioid epidemic, and the addiction takes over, and it is more important than anything. It is more important than their family, more important than their friends, more important than their jobs, more important than their faith, and more important than taking care of themselves. They end up, sadly, losing their lives and all that opportunity and all the purpose God had for them in their lives.

We need to turn the tide in this opioid epidemic. We can't do it, in my view, unless we get at this issue of fentanyl because that is the new scourge. We need to look at how it is coming, why it is coming, and why it is so cheap.

Here is what is very interesting, and it might be surprising to some people. It is not coming across the border from Mexico, or if it is, it is very little of it. That is where the heroin is coming from, 90 percent of it. It is more pure than ever, more dangerous than ever. The deadly fentanyl is mostly coming through the mail system. It is being mailed into the United States of America, mostly from overseas, mostly from China.

There are some evil scientists somewhere in China making this fentanyl and then shipping it into your community. It is the No. 1 killer right now. By the way, opioid overdose and death is the No. 1 cause of death in my home State of Ohio. Nationally, it is now the No. 1 cause of death of people under 50 years old. It surpassed car accidents. It is an epidemic. How could that be? What can we do about it?

There is something we can do about it. We have to be sure that the post office helps law enforcement to find these packages as they are coming in and get these packages out of circulation so they don't come into our communities and poison our families, our children, and our neighbors. We have legislation to do that. It is called the STOP Act.

One-third of the Members of this Senate have now cosponsored that legislation. We have now had it reported out of the Finance Committee of the Senate. We need to get it to the floor and get it to a vote. It is very simple. It is legislation that Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat of Minnesota, on that side of the aisle, and I have come up with that says the post office should have to do what any other carrier would have to do--FedEx, UPS, DHL. Under law, they have to tell law enforcement in advance what packages are coming in, where it is coming from, what is in it, and where it is going. You have to provide that electronically so you can use big data to sift through the millions of packages that come in and to be able to find ones that are suspect and then immediately use sophisticated equipment to scan and screen those and pull out of circulation the ones that have fentanyl in them.

I have been to these distribution centers for these private carrier companies. I have seen how they do it. I have seen the dangerous work the Customs and Border Protection men and women are doing, using a room that has significant ventilation. They have to have masks on and gloves. They have to be very careful about it. Thank God, they are there, because they are saving lives. If you send it through the mail system, that very rarely happens.

We did a yearlong study of this in our Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I talked about earlier. We found a number of things that were very troubling. One is just how easy it is to buy fentanyl online. The second is the fact that when these drugs come in through the post office, it is guaranteed delivery. The traffickers will say if you send it by FedEx or another private carrier--UPS, DHL, and others--it is not guaranteed. If you send it through the government agency, no problem. That is not the way it should be.

By the way, letter carriers--the mail carriers in my community and your community--want this fixed, too, because they care what comes into their communities. They care about the people whom they serve, and they want to be sure they are not delivering poison. They also are at risk, just like anybody else is who is anywhere in that train.

I talked about the law enforcement officers. Think about the other first responders who are using Narcan to revive people. They sometimes get exposed to it. We have too many stories of little kids dying from being accidentally exposed to fentanyl in a home where somebody is using it. It is dangerous stuff. We have to fix this.

The information as to where it is from, where it is going, and what is in it, when it is put into a digital format and can be analyzed quickly through incredible intelligence that our Customs and Border Protection people have, to be able to determine whether that package is suspect or not, will make a huge difference in taking this offline and keeping this poison from coming into our communities and ensuring that we can, in fact, begin to stop some of the poison but, at a minimum, it will raise the price by reducing the supply.

The post office, frankly, because of the pressure they have gotten from Congress on this over the last few years have begun to start to look at some of this. They have begun to provide some of the electronic data. Based on testimony they provided for our subcommittee just recently, they are now receiving data on about 36 percent of international packages they transport into the country. Unfortunately, of that 36 percent, just over one-third, about 80 percent of those packages, are presented to law enforcement, and 20 percent get lost and end up going into the system, into our communities, even though we know they are suspect.

It is very inefficient right now. It is not working well. Plus, some of the data is not decipherable. We have a long way to go. Even if all 36 percent were being delivered to law enforcement, that would mean that 318 million international packages each year were coming in without any screening--318 million packages.

The STOP Act is very simple. It holds the post office to the same standard as private carriers--100 percent screenings. It requires that by 2020 they get all this data on all the international packages entering the United States.

It is a commonsense solution. It has already passed the House of Representatives recently with a broad bipartisan vote. Our committee has reported it out. We need to get it to the floor and get it voted on. If we do so, by the way, it will be signed because the administration has already issued a statement of administration policy on it, which supports the legislation. It was actually a recommendation of the President's commission on opioids. It is part of the solution.

Is it the whole solution? No, but it is a critical part to try to stop some of this new poison, fentanyl, from coming into our communities--the No. 1 killer--so that we can, through treatment and recovery and better prevention efforts and better other law enforcement efforts, truly begin to turn the tide on this opioid epidemic. It is critical that we do so for so many reasons we have talked about this afternoon.

My hope is that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will come together, at least on this issue, on the STOP Act, and say yes, we can do something to help those in our community who are suffering, those who are dying from overdoses, those families who are looking to us and saying: What can you do to help? I run into them all the time.

Today, I am heading back to Ohio, and I know this weekend I will be talking to people in Cleveland and Cincinnati, where I will be, and in Columbus, and they will be telling me about it.

This week, I was walking down the hall back to my office on Tuesday, and a young man came up to me and said: I want to talk to you about something.

I figured he was with the media and wanted to ask me a question. I asked him what he wanted.

He said: I want to tell you thank you.

He started to well up, and I knew what he was talking about. He was talking about a family member of his who had overdosed and died. He was talking about the fact that he appreciates that Congress is finally beginning to respond to this issue, as we have.

In the last year and after, we have passed legislation that is historic to deal with this issue, but there is still so much more to do. Let's make the next step getting the STOP Act enacted into law and, therefore, be able to save lives and help people to live their God- given purpose in life.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I am pleased to see President Trump's clarification today. The Russians did meddle in our election. That is the consensus not just of the intelligence community, but it is the consensus here among our own Intelligence Committees of the House and Senate, led by Republicans.

I will say that Congress has pushed pretty hard against some of the Russian activity, not just the meddling but the illegal annexation of Crimea and Russia's continued support of the Assad regime in Syria, which has caused so much pain and agony. We have passed historic sanctions around here on Russia. Should we have additional sanctions? I am certainly open to that, but it is not as if Congress has not acted.

We have also provided, for the first time ever, lethal weapons to the Ukrainians to be able to push back on the eastern border of Ukraine. I pleaded with the Obama administration to provide such weapons, and they never did, and this administration has done so despite protestations from Russia.

We just funded $350 million or so to protect our electoral security here in this country and to help our State boards of election to be able to push back against what I am concerned about, which would be interference in yet another election cycle in this country. I am glad that was a bipartisan effort to do so. We have also built up our military, including putting more resources into Central and Eastern Europe and more exercises there to push back, including up-armoring our armored vehicles there because of the threat we now believe is coming from Russia, not just on the eastern border of Ukraine but throughout eastern Central Europe.

This administration has actually expelled more Russian diplomats, I think, than any administration at once, at least. In reaction to the poisoning in the UK, we expelled more diplomats than any other country. We also shut down a Russian consulate, I believe, in the State of the colleague who just spoke, and these are all things that have happened.

The irony is, the actions speak pretty loudly, don't they? It is unfortunate that our words have not spoken as loudly recently.

Again, I appreciate the President's clarification today. I think we need to be honest. We need to be straightforward, and that would result in a better relationship with Russia.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a couple of topics. I first want to talk about Brett Kavanaugh.

Brett Kavanaugh is the President's nominee to be a new Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Yesterday, I had the chance to sit down with Judge Kavanaugh in my office and talk about his judicial philosophy, his view of the role of the courts, and how he would approach some of the tough issues the Court is likely to face. Frankly, I cannot think of anybody who is more qualified to serve as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. This guy's background is incredibly impressive, as is his record, which I will get to in a minute.

As important to me is Brett Kavanaugh the person. Let me speak briefly about Brett, because I have known him for over 15 years. I have gotten to know him and his wife. I worked with him in the George W. Bush White House. I also had the opportunity to work with his wife because she was the personal assistant to President George W. Bush. They are both wonderful people. They are a great family. Brett Kavanaugh is a person I have gotten to know, not so much as a legal scholar or a judge but as a friend, and I have watched him as a father and as a husband. He is a guy with great compassion, great humility, and a big heart.

In his remarks on Monday at the White House, he talked a little bit about his life outside of being a judge.

He talked about coaching his daughter's basketball team. Many of us who have been coaches for our high school kids and grade school kids probably were able to relate to that. I am glad my kids got old enough where they could get better coaching so they wouldn't have all the bad habits I probably taught them. The fact is, that is who he is. He loves his daughters. He coaches the team. He makes that a priority.

He talked about tutoring kids, underprivileged kids. That is something he does quietly on his own time and feels strongly about.

Finally, he talked a little about the fact that he prepares and serves meals to homeless people who are connected through his church. He talked about the priest whom he works with on that. I talked to the priest afterward, and the priest said: You know, in fact, we do this regularly. In fact, we are going to be serving a meal together on Wednesday. You never heard Brett Kavanaugh talk about that. In fact, in my meeting yesterday, Brett Kavanaugh did not mention that he was going straight from my meeting with him to serve meals to the homeless. I found out after the fact when someone brought to my attention that on Twitter, there was somebody who was there and had taken a photograph of him kind of in the background with a ball cap on. It is not something he brags about. It is not something he told me about. It is not something he does because it is the right thing to do for political purposes; he does it because it is the right thing to do as a Christian and as someone who cares about his community. That is the Brett Kavanaugh I know.

I hope that others will see these sides of Brett Kavanaugh as he goes through the confirmation process because I think that as people get to know him through that, they are going to be very impressed.

People are going to differ some on judicial philosophy. With regard to what kind of person you would want to see on the Supreme Court of the United States, to look at what will be difficult issues that will come before that Court, you want somebody who has a big heart, who has compassion, and who is humble and has the humility to be able to listen. Brett Kavanaugh is a good listener.

He has a very distinguished legal record. There are some great judges out there, but I don't think anybody has qualifications better than Brett Kavanaugh's. He is clearly qualified to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Oftentimes, people call the DC Circuit the second highest court in the land. That is the court on which he already sits. There, serving on the court, he has earned the respect of justices across the spectrum-- judges on the right, judges on the left. He has had a number of law clerks go through his process who end up clerking maybe for the Supreme Court or going into private practice or pro bono work or working with the government. Every one of them I have had the opportunity to know or talk to has glowing things to say about him--one who is my counsel in my own office. He has earned the respect of people whose lives he has touched, who have worked with him.

Brett Kavanaugh has a great legal education. He graduated from Yale Law School and clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy. That is the Justice whom he would replace should he be confirmed. Anthony Kennedy is viewed as a consensus builder. Brett Kavanaugh is a consensus builder.

In his more than 300 published opinions, Judge Kavanaugh has proved time and again that he is a judge who deserves that respect because he applies the law fairly and impartially. He is independent, impartial, and smart. He interprets the law and the Constitution rather than try to legislate from the bench, which is very important. I think sometimes we forget about the separation of powers. This is where people are accountable to the voters and where we legislate. The members of the Supreme Court and the lower courts, as well, are meant to interpret those laws and take our great Constitution and faithfully interpret that as well. I think that is a very important judicial philosophy and one that I think most people want. That is what they are looking for in a judge--one who fairly and impartially applies the law and protects the rights guaranteed by our Constitution, not one who advances personal public policy goals by legislating from the bench.

Judge Kavanaugh has embodied this philosophy for his entire career as a judge.

Professor Kavanaugh, as he is known at Harvard Law School, where he has taught for 10 years, is so committed to the Constitution that his students say he carries a copy of it in his pocket. They also commented that it is a very well-worn copy, because he pulls it out. They say it is almost falling apart from the use he makes of it.

It is the Constitution he is loyal to, not partisan politics. According to one student from Harvard Law School:

If you didn't know his background that [partisanship]

wouldn't come across. You wouldn't think, ``Oh this guy's a

Republican or this guy's a conservative.'' He wasn't in class

to lecture us on Judge Kavanaugh's policy preferences. He was

there to talk about the law. I don't see him as someone

motivated by outcomes but as someone motivated in finding out

what the law is and what the law says.

I think that is a big part of the reason why he is such a widely respected judge and why he is so widely cited by other courts, including the Supreme Court. They have endorsed his opinions more than a dozen times in the Supreme Court of the United States, including some of his dissents that have then become the law of the land. So they pick up his dissent at the DC Circuit and use that in the Supreme Court as the reasoning for a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. That is highly unusual. I think that speaks to his credibility, his legal competence, and also his hard work. He is a hard worker who focuses on ensuring that he is fully prepared.

He is also a dedicated public servant. He has chosen to spend 25 of his last 28 years serving the American people in various jobs.

For all these reasons, I think he is a great pick. I think he has the experience and qualifications. I think he is someone who understands the appropriate role of the judiciary and puts that understanding into practice on the bench. He has a record to look at. Just as important to me, though, is that he is a good person.

I am proud to support Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will keep an open mind and get to know Brett Kavanaugh, as I have gotten to know him and as I hope the American people will get to know him, before they make a judgment. My hope is that Brett Kavanaugh will become a Supreme Court Justice who will make us all proud.

Restore Our Parks Act

Mr. President, I also want to talk today about an important topic, which is our national parks. Our parks are an absolute treasure for our country. They are beautiful places, beautiful public lands. As important, they are part of our American culture and part of the history we have as a country, and it is important to preserve that legacy.

As an example, in Ohio, we have the Wright brothers' home and shop in Dayton, OH. It stands as an inspiration to anybody who dreams big dreams because that is what these two brothers did. You can see where these two Ohio brothers changed the world. Otherwise, frankly, they lived a pretty ordinary life. Preserving their home and that shop is very important to see that anybody can dream big and make a big difference. We have a responsibility to preserve that site and so many others that are important to our history for generations to come.

The National Park System includes more than 84 million acres of parks and historical sites that now attract more than 330 million visitors annually. It is an amazing system.

By the way, I was told yesterday that only one department or agency of the Federal Government has more assets than the national parks, and that is the Department of Defense, with all the military bases and all the physical assets they have. Otherwise, it is the parks. The parks have an enormous number of buildings and roads and bridges and water systems and visitors' centers and so on.

In my home State of Ohio alone, we have eight of those national parks, including Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which is the 13th most visited park in the United States of America. We are very proud of Cuyahoga Valley, whether it is for biking or hiking or fishing or kayaking. I am one of those 2.7 million visitors in Ohio's national parks every year. In fact, the weekend after this weekend, I will be at Cuyahoga Valley National Park with my wife, enjoying that beautiful park.

These parks are treasures, and they have so many wonderful facilities. The problem is that over time we have allowed a maintenance backlog to build up, meaning that so many of these buildings and so much of the infrastructure--the roads, bridges, and water systems I talked about--is deteriorating to the point that some of it is actually not being used. If you go to a national park, you may see that a trail is closed or a visitors' center can't be visited. You may see that some of the facilities that provide overnight lodging aren't available anymore. Why? It is because our parks, frankly, are kind of crumbling from within. They may look great on the outside, and they are beautiful, but there is now a $12 billion backlog of deferred maintenance at our parks. This has become a real problem.

By the way, that is equal to nearly four times the annual budget of the parks. They just don't have the resources to keep up with these deferred maintenance costs, which tend to be longer term costs, which tend to be more expensive and longer term. Frankly, they are not as interesting to fund. It is not as interesting for Congress to fund the fixing of the roof on a maintenance building at Yellowstone National Park as it is to set up a new nature program for visitors. So this has become a problem.

Think about your own home. If you allow deferred maintenance to build up--if you don't take care of the roof, for instance--what happens? You get a leak in your roof. Then you find out the drywall is ruined or the paint is ruined or the floor is ruined, and the costs mount. That is what is happening in our parks right now. When maintenance projects aren't completed on time, it is called getting delayed or getting deferred, and that is what we are focused on.

By the way, nearly two-thirds of that deferred maintenance is attributable to our national parks' aging infrastructure. This would be roads and bridges and buildings and so on.

The national parks just celebrated their 100th birthday in 2016, and a lot of us were very excited about that--100 years of these beautiful national treasures. Many of the facilities across the country, therefore, are very old. A lot are more than 80 years old, and some are almost 100 years old and are very badly in need of repair.

The visitation to our parks has increased in recent years, and this has added to this burden. So it is not only that there are deferred maintenance costs, where things are being put off, but with more and more visitors, there is more and more pressure on the parks. From 2006 until 2017--in those 10 years, in that period alone--annual visitation to our national parks increased by more than 58 million people. That is a good thing. To me, it is a good thing. More people are getting outdoors, particularly families who are taking their kids outdoors. More people are enjoying the parks and are learning more about nature and about our history, but it has put more and more pressure on the parks.

The challenges of keeping up with this aging infrastructure and the increased visitation have stretched the Park Service thin and have required it to focus on just the very immediate maintenance needs it has and to postpone, to delay, these projects that can't be completed on schedule.

We can't keep our parks in peak condition with bandaids. Some of this is going to require years of work and planning to go into that, which will require certainty and consistency about funding. When you do the annual appropriations process here, as you know, it is year to year. You do not know how much money you are going to get, and sometimes we cut back. They need to know there is going to be some funding there, some certainty, to be able to make some of these much needed repairs to our parks.

Unless we take action, of course, it is just going to get worse. We talked about that. When you don't deal with deferred maintenance, it tends to build up and become worse. We are told that the $12 billion backlog is increasing at a rate of about 3 percent per year. That is because, as the experts have told us, it is a compounding issue, meaning that maintenance projects that go

unaddressed often create these other problems. They create more repair costs. The spike in visitation to national parks over recent years has put more pressure on, and the longer we wait, the more expensive it gets.

For the taxpayers, it is better to move now to address these maintenance needs than to wait as they become more and more expensive. When roads, bridges, parking lots, and pathways decay, people are not able to visit those sites often. Some are even shut down.

I mentioned that there are 330 million people a year who visit our parks. There are also 330 million people, therefore, who are spending money around our parks. It is a huge economic driver. For those who are listening who come from States like mine, where we have big national parks like Cuyahoga Valley National Park, those communities really want to be sure that we continue to have vibrant parks and that people will continue to want to visit and can visit in order to get the broader economic benefit. This is important all over the country.

In my State of Ohio alone, where we don't have the big parks like Yellowstone or Yosemite but where we have some great parks, there is more than $100 million in overdue maintenance. For Cuyahoga Valley National Park, for example, there is more than $45 million of backlog, and completing these long-overdue projects will make a huge difference for a visitor's experience. The needed maintenance includes--at Cuyahoga Valley, as an example--$875,000 for badly needed renovations to the Boston Store Visitor Center. I have been there. I have seen it. It needs the help. That includes $274,000 in renovations for a shelter and $6 million in renovations for roads and parking lots to ensure people have parking. It includes water infrastructure improvements. Water infrastructure may not be the sexiest project to support, but it is a very important one. It is very important that we ensure that we have this infrastructure in place. It is the conservative thing to do.

Helping our Park Service has long been a priority of mine, as well as dealing with this backlog. About 12 years ago, when I served as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the George W. Bush administration, I launched in our budget something that President Bush and Mrs. Bush were strongly supportive of, which was the Centennial Initiative. Again, in thinking the centennial was coming up in 2016--10 years later--we wanted to put in place the idea of using public-private partnerships to fund the parks. We were successful in getting some of that started.

Frankly, Congress did not pass the legislation to do it, but I continued that effort when I came here as a U.S. Senator and as cochair of the Congressional Friends of the National Park Service for its centennial. I authored a bill that we set up in 2006 that finally created this endowment fund to be able to take public-private partnerships. Part of it is in the park. Part of it is with the National Park Foundation. That bill, called the National Park Service Centennial Act, was signed into law in the year of the National Park Service's centennial anniversary. The two funds together that were codified in that law have now provided more than $200 million to address the maintenance backlog.

By the way, more than $125 million of that has been from private dollars, non-Federal dollars. The idea was to provide the Federal match to encourage more people who love the parks to contribute. We did better than the legislation required, which was a one-to-one match-- $200 million total, $125 million of which came from non-Federal sources. That funding helps, and I am proud of that. Yet, frankly, as I mentioned earlier, a $12 billion maintenance backlog requires even more. As soon as we are able to do that, we need to do it because the costs are going up.

I recently authored legislation with three of my colleagues, Senators Mark Warner, Lamar Alexander, and Angus King--two Republicans, one Democrat, and one Independent. It is called Restore Our Parks Act. The bill now has eight additional cosponsors who are Democrats and Republicans, and I am hopeful that many more of my colleagues will join us. The legislation is the product of a bipartisan agreement on consensus legislation that combines two similar bills that were already introduced. One was with Senator Warner and me, and one was with Senator Alexander and Senator King.

The Restore Our Parks Act is a commonsense solution to this $12 billion in long-overdue projects, and it ensures that we can do the maintenance to keep the parks up to speed. It creates a legacy restoration fund that will get half of all of the annual energy revenues over the next 5 years, which are not otherwise allocated, to be used for priority deferred maintenance projects. This is funding-- these are royalties on offshore leases, let's say, and onshore energy projects. Some of this funding currently goes to land and water conservation funding, and it will continue to go there. These are funds that are otherwise unobligated. The bill caps deposits into the fund at $1.3 billion a year, which would provide a total of $6.5 billion for deferred maintenance projects in our parks over the next 5 years.

It is not the whole amount now, but it is historic. We have never had this much funding being put into the parks at this time. It will provide that certainty, to know it is going to be there year after year and for this purpose only. About two-thirds of those funds will go toward buildings, utilities, visitors' facilities, and about one-third will go toward transportation projects, like roads and pathways.

Through simply using funds that the government is already taking in from these on- and offshore energy development projects and not depositing them in the General Treasury, we can cut our national parks' long-overdue maintenance backlog in half. This is exciting because about half of these projects--about $6 billion of the $12 billion--are what the Park Service calls urgent projects, urgent priorities. So we will at least have the certainty of knowing that the funding will be there for these larger projects that need to get done. It is a certainty we will never find through the annual appropriations process. We will be able to get some of these bigger long-term maintenance projects done and restore the beauty of our parks where needed.

This legislation is broadly supported. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and the Trump administration support it. I thank Secretary Zinke personally because he has really committed himself to this issue. When he went through his nomination process, we talked about the maintenance issues at the parks. Like every good fiscal conservative, he said: This needs to be addressed and addressed now; otherwise, it is going to get worse and worse and worse. Instead of adding more to the parks, instead of giving the parks more responsibilities, let's be better stewards of what we have. And I agree with that philosophy. I commend him for that, and I commend him for his support and his help in ensuring that the administration supports it.

Mick Mulvaney, the OMB Director, has also been very helpful in ensuring that we can use this funding source and that they are supportive of it. We also have support from so many outside groups. I can't name them all, but I want to mention the National Parks Conservation Association. It has been terrific, as have the Pew Charitable Trusts and so many other groups. The Outdoor Industry Association and many more have endorsed it.

Just yesterday, we had a hearing on this legislation in the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks. It was chaired by Steve Daines from Montana, who is, by the way, one of the cosponsors of this legislation. Steve Daines is a guy with a personal passion for the parks in his having grown up in the shadow of Yellowstone National Park. We had experts and conservation groups at our hearing who all voiced their support for this legislation.

The director of the Pew Charitable Trusts said it well:

Supporting the bipartisan Restore Our Parks Act is a wise

investment for a National Park System that has overwhelming

support from the American public, that generates hundreds of

thousands of jobs and billions of dollars for the economy

each year, that provides access to world class recreation

opportunities, and that preserve our nation's history.

Well said.

Deb Yandala, who is the CEO of the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park and who is also the president of the national association of all of the friends' groups for the parks, said:

Supporters of our national parks across the country are

thrilled with this bill. Addressing deferred maintenance will

greatly improve the visitor experience and go a long way

toward protecting important historic and natural resources in

our parks.

This bill makes sense, and it will help make our national parks even better for the hundreds of millions of visitors every year who take in their beauty and their history. I urge the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to approve this bill quickly. I know that Senator Murkowski, as chair of that committee, is a strong supporter of our parks, and I know she will be supportive in our moving forward. It is the same with Maria Cantwell, the ranking member. Then I hope the full Senate will vote on this legislation soon--vote on it now--so that we can move forward quickly.

We want to make the second 100 years of our national parks as magnificent and successful as the first 100 years have been. This bill is necessary in our being able to do that. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to honor George C. Williams and the crew of the 42-299-28 B-17 Flying Fortress that was shot down over Normandy, France, during WWII 75 years ago on July 4, 1943.

George C. Williams, bombardier from Warren, Trumbull County, OH, was killed in action. While assisting the nose gunner, his chute accidentally opened inside the aircraft. Pilot Olof Ballinger offered up his own parachute, but George refused. It is believed that he attempted to fly the plane after all the crew had evacuated.

Pilot Olof Maximilian Ballinger, of Newton Falls, Trumbull County, OH, evaded capture and walked alone, with no compass, over the Pyrenees Mountains. He reached safety in Spain in November 1943 and returned to the U.S. He eventually moved to California.

Harry W. Basucher, Jr., of Cincinnati, OH, was killed in action inside the plane by enemy cannon fire.

Copilot John Marshall Carrah, from Chico, CA, evaded capture and escaped to Switzerland and then to Spain and returned to the U.S. in March 1944 and continued to assist in the war effort. He was a career U.S. Air Force officer retiring as a lieutenant colonel.

Byron J. Gronstall, from Van Nuys, CA, who evacuated the plane, was captured by a German patrol. He was a prisoner of war at Stalag 7A.

William C. Howell, from Goldsboro, NC, who evaded capture, was seriously wounded.

Francis E. Owens, of Pittsburgh, PA, evaded capture but died of exposure in the Pyrenees Mountains while trying to assist other crewmen through the dangerous passage. He was awarded the Soldier's Medal for bravely dragging wounded men out of harm's way.

John K. Lane, a radio operator from Deland, FL, was captured and was a prisoner of war at Stalag 7A and 17B. Francis E. Owens found John K. Lane unconscious and dragged him the length of the plane before attaching a parachute and pulling the ripcord while assisting him out of the aircraft.

Paul McConnell, the navigator from Montgomery, AL, evaded capture.

Albert Wackerman, from Salinas, CA, was killed in action by enemy fire aboard the B-17.

A documentary was created about these 10 brave American aviators and will be featured at an event in Warren, OH, on July 2, 2018, at the Samuel E. Lanza Veterans Resource Center.

The son of copilot John M. Carrah, who has done extensive research, heard first-person accounts from his father, and assisted in filming the documentary, will speak after the documentary viewing. This event is sponsored by the Tribune Chronicle with assistance from Warren city councilman John Brown.

The bravery of the crew of the 42-299-28 B-17 Flying Fortress was indicative of so many of their generation who risked life and limb to liberate Europe from an evil unlike anything our country and allies had ever faced.

We can never repay them for their service and sacrifice, but this United States Congress and our Nation are forever grateful for their actions and the actions of so many others like them.

Mr. President, today I want to talk about the tax reform legislation that this body passed at the end of last year. It turns out that this week is the 6-month anniversary of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the tax reform legislation. It is time for us to look at it and determine how it is working. It is particularly important because there are a number of provisions in the tax legislation that are not permanent. In other words, there is a sunset on some of the tax cuts. Some of these provisions expire as soon as the end of 2019, which is just the end of next year, so it is time to start thinking about how it works.

Second, we have Members on the other side of the aisle saying that we ought to get rid of this altogether. That would mean, of course, big tax increases for a lot of folks. But let's look at what the results are before we take those kinds of votes and make those kinds of decisions.

I would submit that in the 6 months since it has been put into place, it has worked incredibly well for the people I represent, for the workers and small businesses I represent, and for those who are concerned about getting wages back up, fighting poverty, and helping to grow the economy.

I know that in the debate we are having on the farm bill right now, there has been discussion about the food stamp program. One of the points that are being made is that food stamp spending is actually down right now. It has decreased in the last 6 months. Why? Because the economy is improving. That is a good thing.

Before tax reform, let's face it, our economy was incredibly weak. Wages were flat and had been flat for almost a decade. With the Congressional Budget Office estimating that this year's growth was going to be only 2 percent, we were looking at more weak economic performance. We were looking at another year where we were going to be performing way below our potential as an economy. So what happened? A couple months ago, when the Congressional Budget Office looked at what is happening with the economy, which they attributed to pro-growth policies, including tax reform, they said: You know what, the economy is not going to grow at 2 percent this year. Their projection for this year is now 3.3 percent growth. That is a huge difference. Going from 2 percent to 3.3 percent is going to make a world of difference to people in their lives, in our economy, in their ability to see higher wages and better jobs.

The economy is doing better. Six months into this new law, the economy is up and running and moving toward its full potential. In the most recent Congressional Budget Office estimate for this quarter, it looks as though we are going to see some significant growth. There is no estimate yet from the CBO, but it was stated that the Federal Reserve gave an estimate of 4.5 percent growth. I don't know if that will happen, but the consensus estimate from economists is that in the second quarter of this year, we are likely to see growth at over 4 percent. We will hear the final number from the Congressional Budget Office at the end of July, but, again, we are seeing more jobs, higher wages, better economic growth, and therefore more opportunity for all Americans. That is a good thing.

Why is tax reform helping to create this new opportunity for higher wages

and more growth? I am going to discuss three reasons why I believe this tax reform proposal has been helping to get the economy moving and why it is so important to keep these policies in place and to not risk higher taxes on individuals or lower economic growth if we were to move away from this legislation and not make it permanent.

No. 1, updating our international tax code has definitely encouraged companies to invest in America. We had a totally outdated international tax code. We had the highest tax rates among all the industrialized countries at the business level for international companies. We had a system that actually encouraged companies to keep their money overseas and therefore spend it overseas. So a company facing our old Tax Code would have had their board and stakeholders saying: Don't bring that money back because it is going to be taxed too high. Keep it overseas. That was crazy. It made no sense whatsoever.

Frankly, it took us too long to address that issue, but we finally did. Let me give an example. I am told that in the first quarter of this year, more than $300 billion was brought into this country, repatriated back to America from overseas. This is the profit U.S. companies made overseas, and $300 billion was brought back. Compare that to the first quarter of last year, when $38 billion was brought back. This is because of tax reform. This is good. This money is being brought back to invest in America, and it is the most money on record, by the way. So something is changing, and it is positive. The change to the international system is helping in a number of ways, including companies bringing the money back and investing it here.

Second, lowering the tax rate for small and large businesses has resulted in new investments in people, plant equipment, and technology. We have seen it in terms of higher bonuses, higher wages, and increased retirement contributions.

There are a lot of examples. We have seen it in terms of investing in new technology and new equipment, which, in the end, is probably as important as anything because--think about it--one thing the economists have said about our economy over the last decade is that we are not improving our productivity as we should. What they mean by that is that the productivity of each worker has been disappointing, and that leads to lower wages and not having higher economic performance. If you make a worker more productive by investing in the latest technology and new equipment, that helps everybody. It helps that worker have a higher salary, and it helps the economy.

That is actually happening out there. I have seen the results of it all over Ohio. I represent the State of Ohio, which has a lot of manufacturing and a lot of small businesses. I have gone around and talked with them. I visited 21 individual businesses and held about a dozen roundtable discussions with small and midsized businesses and one large business. We talked about this, and of the 21 businesses I visited, every single one of them is taking the tax savings and investing it in their people, their plant, and their equipment. Some are raising wages. Some are giving bonuses to their employees. Some are buying new equipment. Some are expanding their operations. Some of them are improving employee benefits.

There is a company that has three branches of an auto parts store that stopped offering healthcare about 5 years ago because of the cost of the Affordable Care Act. They couldn't afford healthcare. Their people had to go out on the individual market and get it through the Affordable Care Act. They are now offering healthcare again, and the employees are extremely happy. Their costs are down, and their deductibles are down. They did that all with tax savings.

Many companies have done a combination of these things. They are investing in their people. There is a small manufacturing company in Cincinnati, and shortly after the tax bill was signed into law, they said: We are going to give $1,000 bonuses to our people. And they did. They also invested in equipment.

A company I visited in Columbus, OH, invested in equipment. It is a steel processer. The equipment they used was from 1986. The equipment itself was 31 years old, which is exactly the age of our old Tax Code. Nineteen eighty six was when we last reformed the Tax Code. After we modernized the Tax Code--finally modernized an antiquated tax code that was 31 years old--they got rid of a 31-year-old piece of equipment and replaced it with a brandnew piece of equipment. I thought that was appropriate.

That is how these tax savings are being used. There are some groups in town that put up a website saying: These businesses have benefited from this and these employees. I can tell you that it is way understated. I can't find a business in Ohio that hasn't benefited from it.

Some are doing more than others, no question about it. Some of the big financial service companies are giving big wage increases. Other small businesses might be investing in a new piece of equipment, but there are so many businesses out there. They are not all putting out press releases or talking about it, but they are doing something. This is good.

This is why you see this economic growth coming up, finally, after so many years of flat wages and high expenses. You are seeing people begin to see a little improvement in their wages. That is really important.

First are the international parts. Second is what this is doing in terms of the business side and how that affects people. The third one is direct tax relief to individuals because that is part of this bill too. If you hear people talk about this bill--sometimes on the other side of the aisle--you would think that is not in there. It is very much in there.

People are able to keep more of their hard-earned money, and it goes directly to the middle-class constituents whom I represent. They are the ones who get the biggest bang for their buck because we doubled the standard deduction, taking it from $12,000 to $24,000 for a family because we doubled the child tax credit, including increasing the part that is refundable. Even if you don't have an income tax liability, you get it.

We also lowered tax rates for people. That combination means that people have seen their paychecks go up. About 90 percent of workers in America got a paycheck that had more money going into their bank account rather than to Uncle Sam because their withholding changed. You know this if you are listening today because you probably had this happen to you if you are one of the 90 percent, which you probably are. Uncle Sam is taking a little less withholding, and you are able to keep a little more.

As I said consistently during the debate on tax reform, and we went back and forth on this, I just said: Look, the proof is in the paycheck. We can argue this all day long. When people get their paycheck, it is either going to be better or not. For 90 percent of the people I represent, it is better. Of course, they are happy about that.

In addition to that, we also made the Tax Code more progressive. What does that mean? That means those at the top of the income ladder are actually paying a larger portion of the overall tax burden, not a smaller portion. Let me say that again. The Tax Code is more progressive. If you are at the top of the income ladder, you are now paying a larger portion of the overall tax burden. At the lower end, you are paying less in terms of the overall tax burden. The biggest percentage tax increase is for those making over $1 million a year, and the biggest tax decrease is for those making $30,000 a year or less. This is why the Joint Committee on Taxation, in response to questions I asked them directly, said that over 3 million Americans now have no tax liability at all in terms of income tax liability thanks to this tax reform effort because they are at the lower end of the economic scale. Before, they had a tax liability, but now they don't because of a lower rate doubling the standard deduction--doubling the tax credit.

Three million Americans don't have to worry about Uncle Sam because they don't have tax liability anymore under this bill. This has changed the way our tax bill works. The Joint Committee on Taxation can show you those numbers. All of this resulted in higher wages for the first time in about a decade. This was the strongest wage growth for nonsupervisory employees in 9 years. That is the latest data. You

can check it out at the Department of Labor.

It also resulted in a lot more optimism out there. If you look at the surveys on optimism--I saw there was one done by an NBC station recently saying this is the highest level of optimism they have seen.

There is optimism also in small businesses. The National Federation of Independent Business does surveys regularly. Their surveys are unprecedented because they are coming back saying that small businesses are ready to invest now and planning to invest.

In my home State of Ohio, we had the Ohio Chamber of Commerce do a survey recently. They found that 70 percent of the businesses already added new employees. We are now in the second quarter, and 75 percent are planning to add new employees. It is amazing. This is actually happening as we talk because we changed a tax system that was discouraging growth, discouraging investment, and making it harder for people to get ahead, harder to see wages go up to meet expenses.

There are good things going on. Since December, the number of long- term unemployed people has decreased by about 400,000 people. The unemployment rate has fallen from 4.9 percent to 4.3 percent in my home State of Ohio. Nationally, unemployment is now down to 3.8 percent, the lowest since 2000.

That is all good news. What do you hear now? I hear from businesses, not so much about the tax burden--and, frankly, not so much about the regulatory burden because Congress has also done some things to relieve the regulatory burden, particularly for small businesses--but I hear that finding qualified workers is their biggest challenge. I heard it last weekend, and I will hear it this coming weekend.

As a small business person myself, I sense it. It is a major hurdle right now. There is a shortage of workers. A big reason is what economists call the labor force participation rate. What does that mean? It just means the number of Americans who are unemployed and not looking for work at all is higher than it has been in the past. These are folks who are on the sidelines. They are not even reported in the unemployment numbers. It is so bad, our labor force participation rate was at its prerecession level of 66 percent of people working rather than the current 62.7 percent. If we just had a level of 66 percent working 10 years ago, our unemployment rate today would not be 3.8 percent. If you take into account those people, our unemployment rate would be about 8.6 percent. It is pretty disappointing.

That is one challenge we still have with this incredible tax relief and tax cut legislation, and increasing economic opportunities, growing jobs, and raising wages. We still have a lot of people who are on the sidelines and not in the workforce.

Among able-bodied men, by the way, between 25 and 55, 8.5 million of them are in this category. They are not even showing up in the unemployment numbers. That is wrong. You want them to have the dignity and self-respect that comes from work, and our economy needs these people to be able to work.

According to the Congressional Budget Office's 30-year projection they gave us yesterday, they think the labor force participation rate will get even worse. That is what they told us yesterday. It will be declining over the next 30 years to even below what it is now--below 60 percent. That can't happen. That is unacceptable.

The low labor force participation rate cannot be the new normal, and it can't get worse. We want people to get that dignity and self-respect that comes from work. We want them to enter into our economy.

As the economy is growing and businesses are expanding, there is no better time to reverse this trend, to bring people into the economy and bring them back to work.

I have dug into this issue, trying to figure out why this is. There are a number of reasons: dependency on government programs and being sure we don't have people go to work who then lose all their benefits right away--trying to deal with that cliff. Then there is the tax issue. When you go to work, you have higher taxes. We should do more to get people into work making more pay. We should have work requirements in some of these programs. That has been talked about a lot on the floor. We should deal with other issues, including the skills gap. We are doing it with career technical schools and other things.

Opioid Epidemic

Mr. President, I want to mention the single most important problem we face, and that is the opioid crisis. I say this because the opioid epidemic has hit our country and is, by the way, the No. 1 killer in my State of Ohio right now and in many States around the country. It is already having a devastating impact on everything--on crime, families, the ability for jails to work, our healthcare system to work--but it is also affecting employment in huge ways.

A recent report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that counties with higher levels of opioid prescriptions have lower workforce participation rates. It is no wonder. They surveyed the business community, and about half the organizations they contacted said the opioid epidemic has negatively impacted their businesses. People can't get through the drug tests. Also, people aren't applying for work.

Why do I say that? Well, the Department of Labor did a study earlier this year that showed 44 percent of these people outside the workforce altogether, who are off in the shadows or on the sidelines--44 percent of them had taken a drug, a pain medication the previous day. The Brookings Institute says the number is 47 percent. When further pushed, two-thirds said they were taking prescription pain medication. That is amazing. That 44 percent is likely underreported. There is a stigma attached to the opioid crisis. Second, there is a legal issue for a lot of people.

It is not like this is an overreported number. That is an amazing number that nearly half of the people who are outside the workforce are saying they are taking pain medication on a daily basis. The sad reality is, again, it is likely to be much higher than that.

We know what we have to do. We need to get people into treatment, support them, help them overcome their addiction, and get them back to work and leading productive lives. There are things Congress can and should do to take care of that.

I ask unanimous consent to continue to discuss solutions to the opioid epidemic after the majority leader has a chance to make his remarks.

Mr. President, we talked a little about the growing economy, and we talked about the fact that one of the weaknesses we have is, in spite of a growing economy and lower unemployment--all this good news coming with the tax cuts and tax reforms and investments--we have a problem, which is that many people are outside the workforce altogether.

Historically high levels of labor force participation are not being part of the workforce, but instead people are being sidelined. How do you get those people back to work? There are 8.5 million men between 25 and 55, as an example, who are not working. They are not showing up on the unemployment numbers because they are not looking for work.

There are a number of reasons for that. The one I think that is most significant today, that puts us at this high level of people outside the workforce, is the opioid epidemic. I am talking about the fact that we have data on this from the Federal Reserve. We have data on this from the Brookings Institute and data from the Department of Labor and the Trump administration showing this is a huge problem.

About half the people, for instance, outside the workforce altogether are taking pain medication on a regular basis. This opioid crisis is affecting us in every way. What is Congress doing about it?

We have made progress. In the last couple of years, we have made unprecedented progress to combat addiction with legislation like the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, a bipartisan bill I coauthored with my colleague Senator Whitehouse. We have the 20th Century Cures Act, which has been very important in getting funding out to the States to deal with this crisis. We just passed legislation that provides more funding for the kind of treatment and prevention in longer term recovery programs that are proven to work, that have evidence-based results behind them.

That is all very important. We need to continue to push back against this addiction by helping people get the care they need and the treatment they need to overcome their dependency.

By the way, I have been with three community roundtables in the last few weeks talking specifically about how this funding is being used. It is exciting because it is being used on innovative new ideas that will make a big difference going forward, in terms of getting people who are addicted and overdosing. We are getting them the Narcan they need to save their lives and then not allowing that gap to occur where they go back to that same environment but getting them into treatment. There are quick response teams--a combination of law enforcement, social workers, and treatment providers getting in immediately saying: OK. You overdosed. Your life was saved by this Narcan--this miracle drug that reverses the effect of the overdose. Now, instead of going back to your old community where, unfortunately, many of those people are overdosing again and again, let's get you into treatment.

One of these organizations that is funded by the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act is telling me they are getting an 80-percent success rate getting people into treatment. That is huge. It is still too low, but that is so much higher, unfortunately, than what is typical out there.

So we are beginning to make progress--closing some of the gaps, getting people into the treatment they need, and sending a stronger prevention message out there, keeping people out of the funnel of addiction in the first place. But, in the meantime, we have a huge problem, and it is not getting better in my home State. It is actually getting worse.

In most areas of the State, you will now see higher rates of addiction and more overdoses, and the increase is almost all due to one thing, and that is fentanyl. This is this synthetic form of opioid that is now coming in and kind of taking over, pushing out heroin, prescription drugs, and other drugs.

Fentanyl is incredibly powerful--50 times more powerful than heroin. It is incredibly inexpensive. We are told by the experts that most of it is coming from China--not over land from Mexico but from China-- through our U.S. mail system. It is unbelievable. It is a shock, but it is true. It is so potent that a few flakes of it can be deadly. It is totally unacceptable that in some laboratory in China, some evil scientist is making this poison and being allowed to ship it into our country.

It is now the No. 1 cause of death in my home State. Two-thirds of our overdose deaths last year, we believe, are going to be as a result of fentanyl, not heroin or prescription drugs. It is tragic and eye- opening that, when you look at what has happened, the Ohio Alliance for Innovation in Population Health has estimated that opioid overdoses were responsible for more than 500,000 years of life expectancy lost in Ohio between 2010 and 2016. It is an interesting way to look at it. It is tragic. More than 500,000 years of life expectancy were lost in Ohio between 2010 and the end of 2016.

Overdoses are now the top cause of deaths for all Americans over the age of 50. It is the top cause of death in my home State for everybody.

Increasingly, these drug overdoses are from fentanyl. In Ohio, two- thirds of overdose deaths last year were from fentanyl. That is up from about 58 percent in 2016. It is the deadliest, most difficult drug for us to deal with right now.

Two weeks ago, the police in Dayton, OH, seized about 20 pounds of fentanyl during a drug arrest. Last Friday, Federal agents in Columbus arrested 4 people and seized 22 pounds of fentanyl. Taken together, these two busts--20 pounds and 22 pounds of fentanyl--is enough fentanyl to kill 9.5 million people. Think about that. By the way, that is about 80 percent of the population in my State of Ohio, from just these two busts alone.

On Monday we had a tele-townhall here. We do these on a monthly basis. We asked a number of questions. One question I have started to ask in the last several years is this: Do you know anybody who has been directly affected by the opioid epidemic?

We had the highest percentage of response ever at our townhall meeting here on Monday. The tele-townhall response was that 67 percent of the people on the call said yes. Over two-thirds of the people on this call said that yes, they knew someone who has been directly affected by the opioid epidemic. That is the highest level we have had.

One woman I spoke to on the call, Pauline from Zanesville, OH, told me a tragic story that is, unfortunately, similar to other ones I hear as I travel across the State. It was about her brother. Her brother had died of an overdose. Her brother, according to her, did not use opioids, and yet he died of an opioid overdose. She said he did smoke marijuana, but she said somehow there was something put into the marijuana that he was smoking that caused him to overdose and die.

I hear this story a lot back home. I talked about the three roundtable discussions we had recently in Ohio. In two of those three roundtables, a police chief and a sheriff, respectively, told me about a young man who overdosed, who was saved by Narcan, and then woke up and said: I was just smoking dope. Well, they checked, and guess what it was? It was fentanyl that had been sprinkled into the marijuana.

I am sure it is the same situation with Pauline's brother. The fentanyl that she talked about was what killed him.

What is the lesson here? It is that every street drug--whether it is cocaine, whether it is heroin, whether it is crystal meth--all of them are now subject to having fentanyl included within them, including description

pills, because sometimes they are reformulated to make it look like prescription pills.

That fentanyl is the killer. It is not that those other drugs can't cause you to overdose and die also, but with regard to fentanyl, that is the deadliest and riskiest of all. Any of these street drugs can be deadly. We need to combat this drug influx of fentanyl, and Congress has had a breakthrough recently in a way to do that.

I mentioned that it primarily comes from China, and it primarily comes through our U.S. postal system. The STOP Act, which is bipartisan legislation that I authored with my colleague Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota--I see her colleague is on the floor now--will combat fentanyl at the source by closing a loophole that is currently in place in the Federal law.

After 9/11, we insisted that all of the private carriers--FedEx, UPS, DHL--had to give law enforcement information about every package that comes into America. This was after 9/11, remember. We asked the post office to study it, and we asked the Postmaster General to get together with the Homeland Security people and to come up with an answer. That was 16 years ago, and it hasn't happened.

Even though you send something by one of these private carriers, like FedEx, you have to provide this information up front: What is in the package? Where is it from? Where is it going?

Electronically, law enforcement takes that big data and decides what packages should be taken offline. They have been able to stop a lot of bad stuff, including fentanyl, from coming through. The post office doesn't require that because we haven't required it here in the Congress. It is time for us to do that.

I am pleased to tell you that after a few years of work, last week the House of Representatives passed the STOP Act by a vote of 353 to 52. The appropriate committee here in the Senate that has jurisdiction, the Finance Committee, also agreed to discharge the STOP Act recently. So now we can vote on it in the full Senate and get it to the President's desk to be signed into law.

As we developed the STOP Act, we conducted an 18-month investigation into this in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair. We revealed just how easy it was to purchase fentanyl online and have it shipped to the United States.

Based on our undercover investigation, these drugs could be found through a simple Google search. Overseas sellers accessed through an undercover investigator, essentially guaranteed delivery if fentanyl was sent through the U.S. Postal Service, not if it was sent through one of the private carriers.

Traffickers prefer the Postal Service because it doesn't have the screening that you have through the private carriers. So we need to be sure that the requirement is met with the advanced electronic data that is on all of the packages coming in. It tells law enforcement that they need to be able to use big data to identify suspicious packages and to keep this poison from coming into our communities.

That law is something we can do right now. The post office would say: Well, we are beginning to provide that information. Unfortunately, based on their testimony before my subcommittee, even with the pressure from us over the last couple of years, only 36 percent of packages are getting screened, and 20 percent of those aren't presented to law enforcement, based on their testimony. Also, some of the information is not helpful because it is not legible.

We need better data. We need to get 100 percent of the packages subject to this data. We need to be sure we can do a better job of, one, stopping the poison from coming into our country, into our communities, into our homes, but also, at the very least, increasing the cost of this. By reducing the supply, we can increase the cost.

One of the reasons fentanyl is growing so much is because it is so incredibly powerful, but, also, it is so incredibly inexpensive.

Let's have a vote on the STOP Act in the Senate as soon as possible. I think we can do it next month. Let's get it to the President. Let's get it signed into law. There is an urgency here.

As I mentioned, in just 7 years, in my home State, Ohioans have lost an estimated half million years of life expectancy as a result of opioid overdoses.

The impact is far greater than that, though. There are families who are broken apart. Prisons are flooded. Businesses are deplete of workers because of this addiction. We talked about this earlier. There is a lack of workforce because of this addiction.

The STOP Act will allow our country to push back against this international influx of fentanyl and will help our economy continue this positive momentum we have been experiencing since tax reform became law. We can do so by combating this newest and deadliest scourge of the opioid epidemic.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield back my time.

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

Mr. President, today, I want to talk about an issue that has gotten a lot of attention in Washington and around the country over the past week or so, and that is the issue of children who cross our border, both those who cross the border illegally with their parents and those who come alone. Those who come alone are known as unaccompanied children, or UACs.

First, I want to reiterate something I have said a number of times over the past few weeks, and that is that I oppose the policy of separating children from their parents. I think it is counter to our American values. As we will talk about this afternoon, though, it is also inconsistent with the infrastructure we have in place to be able to deal with it.

I was pleased to see the administration agree that we should keep families apprehended at the border together, and I was pleased to see the Executive order the President issued to that effect yesterday.

I cosponsored legislation on this issue, which has now been cosponsored by 32 of my Senate colleagues, I am told. It has the support of almost one-third of this Chamber, which would, in effect, take the Executive order and put that into law but also make some other changes that are necessary to ensure that we can have a sustainable policy with regard to children coming across the border.

I believe we can have strong border security without separating families at the border. I believe we can enforce our Nation's laws, and we should, while remaining true to our values. Children should be kept in a safe, caring environment with their parents while immigration officials quickly assess each family's individual immigration case. That is the best solution.

Beyond the moral argument for holding this policy, by the way, the logistics of separating families is just not practical. Let me talk about what currently happens with unaccompanied children.

We talked earlier about two categories. One is children who come with their parents, which has been the issue we have been discussing the last week. But there is a bigger issue with regard to those children-- in the sense of the number of children who are in the system--and that is those children who come on their own.

As chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, or PSI, I have been investigating over the past couple of years the handling of UACs. Again, these are kids who come unaccompanied. I have done this, therefore, both during the Obama administration and during the Trump administration. From the work we have done over the past 2 years, I can tell you that the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security are not prepared to effectively deal with even more children, unaccompanied minors or those who come in with their parents.

There are two key issues that we need to address with unaccompanied children who enter the United States. First, we need to ensure that if our government takes charge of these children, they are not trafficked or abused. These are children. They need to be treated as such.

Second, we need to uphold our rule of law and make sure that our immigration system actually works. To do that, we need to make sure that these children appear for their immigration court proceedings. I am afraid we are failing on both counts now, and that is unacceptable.

Let me explain what I mean. I first got involved in this issue--very deeply involved--in 2015, a few years ago, when reports came out that there were eight unaccompanied minors from Guatemala who had come up to our southern border and crossed over. A ring of human traffickers lured them to the United States, by the way. The traffickers had gone to Guatemala, talked to these kids' parents, and told them they would provide these kids with an education in America. They actually got the mortgages for some of the homes as payment to pay for the trafficking and the smuggling debt. Also, the traffickers retained not just the mortgages for these homes but, when they got the kids in their control, they said they weren't going to let the kids go until these debts were totally paid off.

They weren't interested in giving them an education. It turns out they were just interested in trafficking these kids. Anyway, when the kids crossed the border, they were apprehended. Their status, as defined by Federal immigration law, was that of ``unaccompanied child,'' or UAC. They were considered UACs. This means the Department of Homeland Security was picking them up--Customs and Border Protection. Following protocol, they were then transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS.

One Federal Department picks them up. They take them to another Federal Department, called the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS, or Health and Human Services, is then supposed to keep these kids for a short period of time, until they can be placed with sponsors.

That is how the system works. The sponsors are then supposed to ensure that these kids stay safe and get them to their appropriate immigration legal proceeding. Unfortunately, based on our investigation, often that does not happen. It certainly didn't happen in this case. What happened in this case is that our investigation was able to reveal that these kids--who were brought in from Guatemala by these traffickers--were taken into custody, had gone to HHS for a short-term detention facility, and then they were sent to sponsors.

Guess who the sponsors were, who these kids were given to? The traffickers. They were given to traffickers, not to family members or friends or someone who could be trusted when you think of a surrogate family or a foster family. They were put in the custody of the human traffickers. They didn't vet these people. As a result, the traffickers took these kids north, took them to my State of Ohio, which is again how I got involved in this. They took them to an egg farm in Marion, OH, where these kids lived in squalor conditions. They were required to work 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week. Their paychecks were often confiscated by the traffickers. So they were basically getting room and board. The traffickers threatened these kids and their families with physical harm if the kids didn't perform these long hours and work under these terrible conditions.

Fortunately, this trafficking ring was discovered, these kids were rescued, and they have now been prosecuted. What our investigation found out, when we tried to figure out how this could possibly have happened, is that HHS didn't do the background checks on those sponsors. They also didn't respond to a bunch of red flags that should have alerted them to problems with these kids and with the sponsors. For example, HHS missed that a group of sponsors were collecting multiple kids. That should have been a red flag right there--not just one child but multiple children. They missed a major red flag when a social

worker working with HHS showed up to help one of these kids--or tried to--and the sponsor turned the social worker away. This is somebody on contract with HHS. That didn't raise a red flag.

We held a hearing in January 2016. At that hearing, HHS committed that they were going to do better. This is a Federal agency. To have this Federal agency give kids to traffickers and have this tragic situation unfold is unacceptable.

That was during the Obama administration, by the way. Remember, this is not a partisan issue. During previous administrations and during this administration, this system has not worked. After that hearing, HHS and DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, under which we have the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection, committed to clarifying their respective responsibilities for protecting these kids.

The one thing we found out is that nobody was accountable. So people were pointing fingers at each other, and the kids were falling between the cracks. HHS and DHS entered into a 3-page memorandum of agreement that said that the agencies recognize that they should ensure that these kids aren't abused or trafficked. The memorandum also said the agencies would enter into a joint concept of operations, spelling out their specific responsibilities within a year's time. That would be done by February of 2017.

That is, of course, what I was looking for and what our committee was looking for. How are you going to handle these kids? Who is responsible for them? What is the handoff? Who is accountable?

That was supposed to be due in February of 2017. Today is June 2018. That operations agreement between the agencies is still not completed. They missed their own deadline by about a year and a half. They have promised, by the way, based on a hearing we recently had with HHS, to complete this agreement and to get it to us--this joint concept of operations--by July 30. We are expecting it within 4 or 5 weeks. We are very much looking forward to that.

This was based on a hearing we had in April of this year. We called DHS and HHS back again to explain what is going on and why we hadn't seen an agreement, despite virtually every couple of weeks telling us: It is coming. It is coming.

We wanted to hear how they would work better together to ensure that these kids were placed in safe environments and be sure they were following up with these children to ensure that the kids actually went to their immigration court proceedings.

It is not just about ensuring that they are not abused and trafficked. Everyone, of course, agrees with that. Everyone should also agree that they ought to go to their court hearing and make sure the system works.

We made some progress since that 2016 hearing. For example, under the Trump administration, HHS started making telephone calls to follow up, which I think is a good idea. These were 30-day wellness check telephone calls after they placed an unaccompanied minor with a sponsor.

HHS testified at our April hearing that from October to December of last year, they had the data now on the calls they had made. These are the 30-day calls they were making after these kids go out with their sponsors. Those calls revealed that about 1,500 children were unaccounted for. In other words, they placed a call, talked to the sponsor, and said: How is this child doing?

The sponsor wasn't responsive. They either said: We don't know how the child is doing; or they couldn't find the sponsor, or they couldn't find the child.

In some cases, the child had actually run away.

There were 1,500 kids unaccounted for. It doesn't mean they are not with a family somewhere. It doesn't mean they are going to their court case, but they couldn't find these kids. That is unacceptable. They are now working on a bipartisan basis--Republicans and Democrats alike-- with new legislation that will be informed by this concept of operations, which we hope to have in the next several weeks. That will lay out how we ought to treat unaccompanied minors and hold someone accountable--particularly, HHS, who has children in their custody, and prior to that, DHS, or the Department of Homeland Security--to ensure that these sorts of instances will not happen again and make sure that we know where these kids are.

There are lots of experiences. Think about your home State and the foster care system, which is probably overburdened right now because of the opioid crisis, but you have a foster care system where foster parents are actually screened. Part of our legislation, by the way, is to tell the States where the kids are so the States can play a role in this as well.

What this all highlights is the fact that the Federal Government is not doing nearly enough to protect unaccompanied minors from trafficking and other forms of abuse and not doing enough to ensure that they get to their court date. Right?

We have a system, and we have these kids in the system. I don't care what your views are on immigration policy. It doesn't matter whether you believe that we should have a much more secure border and a wall or whether you believe that there ought to be more of an open border and a catch-and-release system. Nobody should want to have these kids treated like this. Everyone should want to ensure that these kids are cared for properly and get to their court date and ensure that we don't have the kinds of tragic instances we had in my home State of Ohio.

I also think it is important not to conflate these two issues together--the unaccompanied kids and the 1,500 who were unaccounted for and what has happened over the last several weeks at the border with separating families from children. We are talking about kids who come unaccompanied.

Unfortunately, a lot of people have conflated, too. There was a New York Times story about the fact that 1,500 kids have gone missing, and somehow that got conflated with a lot of folks online and some folks even in the Chamber, with this notion that this is about the separation policy and the zero tolerance policy. It is not. It is something different. What it says to me is, let's not add more children to a system that is not working.

In other words, as I said earlier, at the start, we don't have the infrastructure in place to deal with it. It is one reason I felt strongly that separating kids from their families was not only the wrong thing to do in terms of a moral policy but also in terms of our government's ability to handle it. Even if there were a situation in which it was important to get this kid away from a family because maybe there was a sign of abuse or maybe the kid was being trafficked, we have to have a better system in place to deal with these children who are unaccompanied or with others who end up in the system.

What had happened under the so-called zero tolerance policy over the last 6 weeks was that adults who had illegally crossed the border had been arrested and put in detention facilities. Under what is called the Flores settlement agreement, from a 1997 court decision, if the adults had been traveling with children, those children would have had to have been placed in what the court had said was the least restrictive setting possible, and it would not have allowed them to often stay with their moms or dads in detention.

That has been one of the arguments the Trump administration has been making with the zero tolerance policy and the parents' having gone into the criminal justice system. With their having gone into that kind of detention, the kids could not have gone with them because of this court decision.

It is an issue, there is no question about it. It is the primary reason, they are saying, they put about 2,000 children into the care of HHS and DHS and essentially turned them into unaccompanied minors. Again, they put them into a system that, in my view, isn't working. What we have seen over the past 2 years is that DHS and HHS have just not been adequately prepared to keep track of these kids and ensure that they are being placed in safe environments and getting to their court hearings.

As soon as I understood what was going on with separating families, I spoke out and said that this is bad, that we cannot allow this to happen for both reasons--it is not the moral thing to do, and we don't have the infrastructure.

On Tuesday, I sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and called on

him to stop this practice of separating kids from their families, to give it a pause, so that we can have the opportunity to look at this issue and develop the right legislation, which we have now introduced. This letter, by the way, was led by my colleague, Senator Orrin Hatch, and was signed by 11 of our colleagues.

Again, I commend the administration for the Executive order yesterday that keeps families together who have been apprehended at the border. That is a positive first step, but we have to go even further. Because of this Flores decision we talked about earlier, which is, again, a settlement agreement that was made back in 1997, Congress is going to have to step in as well. I think it is likely that the Executive order will be in litigation immediately because of the Flores decision.

The legislative solution that Congress enacts needs to address the Flores settlement agreement as it applies to children who arrive with their parents. In those cases, the settlement agreement currently requires that these children be separated from their families and be kept in the least restrictive setting possible instead of staying with their families if their families are in detention.

The legislation we introduced yesterday, called Keep Families Together and Enforce the Law Act, has almost a third of the Senate signing on. It will provide that long-term solution to keep families together and expedite these immigration cases.

Unlike other proposals which would, in my view, incentivize more illegal immigration by essentially codifying past practices by which people were apprehended but then released into the community, this legislation will actually solve the problem by keeping families together while ensuring the integrity of our immigration laws. Among other things, it will override the Flores settlement agreement to ensure that families will be kept together during their immigration enforcement proceedings. Importantly, to me, it will also expedite these proceedings. This is one of the problems that I have seen in the immigration system. We have so many cases--there is such a backlog and so much time required to get to a decision--that it creates a lot more problems in terms of, what do you do with folks who come across the border? This will expedite and prioritize these family cases.

It will also provide lots more immigration judges. To get a decision on these people, you need to have more immigration judges and a better process. More money, frankly, is going to be needed--increased resources--to be sure that infrastructure is in place to deal with this issue as quickly as possible and to get an appropriate decision as to whether the person stays or leaves.

I hope more of my colleagues will sign on to this legislation. I hope they will do it on a bipartisan basis. I think the Keep Families Together and Enforce the Law Act is the right position that finds that common ground between all of us here on the floor who believe we ought to uphold our immigration laws but also think that families need to stay together, that we need to have a compassionate approach to this.

There is a consensus now on not separating families--that is good-- but there is also a consensus that we need an immigration system that works. So let's come together in both Chambers. Let's do the hard work. Let's get this done. Of course, we need to do broader immigration reform, as well, but this issue is staring us in the face. Let's keep families together. Let's provide for an immigration system that works over the long term, that provides compassionate care for those kids, that is in line with our country's values and enforces the laws of our country.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.