Floor Statements

On February 19, 2021, under the authority of the order of the Senate of February 13, 2021, the following concurrent resolutions and Senate resolutions were read, and referred (or acted upon), as indicated:

Mr. President, I have been advised that inclusion of this amendment in the budget resolution would be corrosive to the privileged status of the resolution.

Since this amendment contains material inappropriate for inclusion in a budget resolution, its adoption could jeopardize the privilege of this resolution, which would completely halt our efforts to provide urgent, critical pandemic relief.

Additionally, this amendment is not germane to the budget resolution, as required by law. Accordingly, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 305(b)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. President, I have been advised that inclusion of this amendment in the budget resolution would be corrosive to the privileged status of the resolution. Since this amendment contains material inappropriate for inclusion in a budget resolution, its adoption could jeopardize the privilege of this resolution, which would completely halt, again, efforts to provide this essential, critical pandemic relief.

Additionally, this amendment is not germane to the budget resolution as required by law. Accordingly, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 305(b)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. President, this amendment would cut $20 billion from Finance to fund homeland security matters--probably a fence. I strongly oppose it. This amendment would cut funds for unemployment insurance, payments for families, for things like a border wall that have taken our immigration policy backward, not forward.

Colleagues, I would urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. President, this now will put the Senate on record as to what the Senate thinks about the 2017 Trump tax law--the $2 trillion bill that overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the wealthy. It opened new special interest loopholes, and it increased incentives to ship American jobs overseas.

The Senate needs to fix our broken Tax Code, starting with the proposition that everybody, including those at the top, pay their fair share. Locking in the Trump tax handouts to those at the top would take America in the wrong direction. This is not the vehicle to debate these tax changes. I strongly urge a ``no'' vote.

Vote on Amendment No. 55

Mr. President and colleagues, I strongly urge opposition to this amendment. It simply makes no sense to take any tool--any tool--off the table in the existential fight against climate change.

Obstructing the fight against climate change costs money due to cleanups from bigger storms, fires, and floods, and it costs America jobs.

Move over, this is a budget focused on COVID recovery. This is a separate issue, colleagues, and it deserves its own debate. I would urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment. This is an amendment, once again, that tries to stack the deck in terms of healthcare choices, and, in this case, the proponents want to make health savings accounts the driving force of the American healthcare system. I think that is a mistake.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

Vote on Amendment No. 253

Mr. President, today I am introducing the River Democracy Act of 2021, to add 4,702 miles of rivers and streams in Oregon to the national Wild and Scenic Rivers system to protect the recreational opportunities, clean drinking water, fish, and wildlife

habitat that they provide from harmful activities.

Oregon's 110,994 miles of rivers and streams are an invaluable part of Oregon's livability and an irreplaceable resource that must remain intact for future generations. Currently, Oregon has only protected 2% (2,173 miles) of rivers and streams under the national Wild and Scenic Rivers system--including gems like the Rogue and Deschutes Rivers and many other iconic salmon and steelhead streams.

Our rivers and streams are Oregon's lifeblood--they provide clean drinking water to millions of Oregonians, sustain our thriving outdoor recreation economy, nurture the salmon and steelhead that fuel our important commercial and recreational fishing industries, and help maintain the quality of life that brings new investments, businesses, and jobs to our state. Oregon's outdoor recreation industry is an economic engine in Oregon. According to the Outdoor Recreation Industry, it supports 224,000 jobs and generates $15.6 billion in economic activity. Healthy rivers are the foundation for Oregon's outdoor recreation economy.

With the climate crisis worsening, access to clean and safe drinking water has perhaps never been more important. America's Wild and Scenic Rivers Act aims to protect and preserve the character of our nation's most important rivers while balancing recreation, multiple use, habitat, and conservation. It encourages public participation in developing goals for river protection, and helps safeguard important waterways as a legacy for future generations.

While I am proud that Oregon has 2,173 miles of protected Wild and Scenic Rivers, it is still a small fraction of Oregon's total river mileage.

On October 2, 2019, I began a public process to solicit recommendations from Oregonians on rivers and streams that deserve protection under the national Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. I held several open-to-all public meetings specifically to hear from Oregonians and gather feedback. The topic has also come up at most townhalls I've since held. Since then, nearly 2,500 Oregonians submitted over 15,000 nominations.

I called on Oregonians to help me develop new legislation to protect Oregon's rivers and they, clearly and loudly, responded. Whether they were a whitewater rafter, a brewer, an elementary school science student, an angler or simply an Oregonian who believes strongly in protecting rivers or streams that provide safe drinking water to their community, they had the chance to speak up for their favorite rivers and highlight the outstanding values that make each river worthy of protection.

Today, I am continuing the effort to protect rivers and streams, drinking water, recreation opportunities, and fish and wildlife habitat. The River Democracy Act represents the best of the Oregon Way--when every Oregonian had the chance to nominate their favorite river or stream worthy of protection under America's Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Ultimately, this is the starting point for future conversations about river conservation in Oregon.

Based on the suggestions of Oregonians, the River Democracy Act would add 4,702 miles of rivers and streams in Oregon to the national Wild and Scenic Rivers system with the goals of creating a flexible land management tool that expands recreation access, protects drinking water, reduces wildfire threats, maintains cultural and historic land management practices, and sustains endangered fish and wildlife species.

The bill requires federal land managers to assess wildfire risks in Wild and Scenic River corridors, implement a plan to reduce wildfire risks to homes and businesses near Wild and Scenic Rivers, assist local governments to mitigate wildfire risks, and restore water quality should a fire strike near a Wild and Scenic River.

The River Democracy Act encourages Federal land managers to develop river management plans in collaboration with Native American tribes, and ensures Tribes have a say in how rivers are managed.

The bill ensures that only Federal lands are affected by Wild and Scenic designations, while protecting private property rights, water rights, and existing permits and rights of way on Federal lands.

It is important to note that each river segment in this bill was selected for specific outstanding remarkable values. A chart that shows the specific outstanding remarkable values for each one can be found at https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ORVs%20chart%202-2-2l.pdf.

Oregonians know their rivers provide more than just electricity. They are the spawning grounds for some of the nation's richest runs of salmon and steelhead. They provide extraordinary trout fishing and unparalleled recreation. They are the source of safe, clean and delicious drinking water. Oregon's rivers are, most of all, an important part of our very special quality of life that needs to be preserved for future generations of Oregonians.

Mr. President, we have already begun to hear a little revisionist history with respect to this crucial issue. There was exactly one amendment on the CARES Act, and that amendment, supported by almost every Senator on the other side of the aisle, basically would have blown up the law that I put special focus on because it was deemed the only way to get expanded unemployment benefits out to folks in a timely way.

We were told that there was all this bipartisanship. Yet on the crucial issue, that wasn't the case because that benefit, in particular, is what helped scores and scores of communities all across the country stay afloat because that money was spent locally. It was spent on rent. It was spent on groceries. And most of all, it was weekly. Yet there was exactly one amendment on the original legislation, and that one amendment was to blow up the only way to get checks out to folks relatively quickly--point No. 1.

Point No. 2, these were not folks who didn't want to work. They were told by their government--told by their government--that they really needed to be at home to deal with the virus. These folks want to work; there is no question about it.

We are going to talk about this, I imagine, in this debate, but study after study has shown that the expanded unemployment during this period was not a disincentive to work. There is just no evidence of that. In fact, when we look at crucial periods of time when people might have stayed home, they were rushing to get back to work.

We are going to discuss this, and I am going to start the debate now on where we are at this moment because I think this discussion comes down to a simple proposition; that is, whether millions of workers and their families should have to spend years and years living in the wreckage of the COVID economy. The jobs recovery for millions is going in reverse.

Millions of Americans have lost jobs through no fault of their own. Maybe they were working at the airport. Maybe they were tending bar. Maybe they were teaching our kids when the worst pandemic--the worst pandemic in a century--swept the United States. They didn't do anything wrong.

The question now is whether the U.S. Senate is going to step in with big policies to actually be of help to them or whether it is going to quit on those workers when they need a modest amount of assistance until everybody gets vaccinated.

President Biden has a strong, focused plan that is going to meet the moment, get relief to workers in the middle class, and kick-start the jobs recovery. The plan that was brought forward yesterday by 10 Republican Senators doesn't come close to meeting that bar.

The debate isn't a whole lot more complicated than that. I am glad that there is some agreement on both sides for funding vaccines. Yet the economic divide in this debate is very clear.

Here are the key facts as we start this discussion. The independent experts at the Congressional Budget Office released a new report yesterday that shows how long-lasting this jobs crisis is really going to be. According to the Budget Office, it could be more than 5 years before the unemployment rate even begins to approach where it was a year ago.

Millions of workers could stay stuck on an economic tightrope, worried about eviction, worried about going hungry, wages to flatline for the better part of the decade.

Americans know what happens when Congress takes its foot off the gas, slows down the recovery, because that is what happened a little bit over a decade ago--12 years exactly. The great recession hit, but in early 2009, the Senate decided, we are going to go small. I was around. Everybody was told: You know, not so bad if you go small because the Senate will get a second bite at the apple. Nobody ever got a second bite at the apple, and workers suffered and suffered some more. In my home State, it took 7\1/2\ years in Oregon for the unemployment rate to fall back to where it was before the recession.

Recent history tells us you have to go big. We are hearing from economic experts telling the Senate to go big. Treasury Secretary Yellen, fresh off her unanimous, 26-to-0 vote in the Finance Committee, and Fed Chair Powell are saying: Go small and you make a big mistake.

That is why the outline that a group of my Republican colleagues brought forward this week just does not get the job done. It is the same playbook as 2009, and it leaves too many workers on the economic tightrope for years to come.

The budget resolution before the Senate has some big solutions on the economy and for our workers. Right off the top, it makes investments in vaccines and care that is needed to end the pandemic as quickly as possible. This is the No. 1 way to get the lives of Americans back to normal. It is not going to happen overnight.

In the meantime, our economy needs another rescue package. That is what the resolution, the budget resolution, essentially sets up. It is hard to figure, when you are at home, all of the legalese and lingo, but now we are really dealing with the lives and the well-being of the American people, and this is what starts us in the right direction.

Here are three examples of why this resolution is so important.

First, it sends big financial support to jobless Americans. There is not going to be a full jobs recovery as long as it is unsafe to go to restaurants indoors or go to conventions or pack fans in the basketball arenas. Those workers need help.

As I mentioned when we heard a little revisionist history on the expanded unemployment earlier, as the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, I negotiated the $600-per-week boost and expansion of unemployment insurance last year in the CARES Act. It was an economic lifesaver for workers who used that money to pay rent, to buy groceries, and to cover the cost of medicine. I still have those workers come up to me and say: Ron, I heard about what was going on in the Senate. You all gave me the money to pay for my car insurance, because if I didn't have that car insurance, life in our family would just fall apart.

So contrary to what we heard earlier--and during the course of this debate, I am going to put several studies into the Record. There has never been hard evidence that enhanced, expanded unemployment benefits in any way held back the recovery. In fact, when enhanced unemployment benefits expired last summer, the job recovery actually slowed down.

In December, our colleagues on the other side extended unemployment insurance just to mid-March, and they cut the additional benefit in half. I believe that was also a big mistake. Between the worst economy since World War II and the pandemic entering its second year in America, you couldn't find a worse time for Senators to start nickel- and-diming workers--hard-hit workers--out of the relief they so desperately need.

As I noted, there was just one vote, only one vote in the original CARES package, and that vote was led by my colleagues who would have blown up the only way to get benefits in a relatively quick way out to millions of workers.

In my hometown, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,750. Traditional unemployment insurance benefits don't come anywhere near paying that rent. If you are a single parent trying to raise one or two kids, even with the expanded benefit, you are barely making ends meet. If you are a two-income household, it can also be a big struggle. Nobody is going out buying boats with their unemployment insurance benefits. They are spending it at corner stores, local markets, going to the pharmacy, paying for medicine for kids who aren't feeling well.

The budget resolution before the Senate calls for a 6-month extension with an extra boost of $400 per week. It is a proposal that I support. In later packages, I want colleagues to know, I am going to keep pushing for the full $600. And I believe that Congress ought to tie the extension of unemployment benefits to economic conditions in our communities, to economic conditions on the ground. It is just common sense.

Unemployment insurance works best when it covers all workers, when it pays an adequate benefit, and when Members of the U.S. Senate can't politicalize it by setting arbitrary dates and setting up cliffs when people are going to get cut off of those benefits.

Second, the budget resolution helps bring back jobs. The RESTAURANTS Act is a vital jobs program. It will save a lot of jobs in one of the industries hardest hit by the pandemic, and it is particularly important because a lot of restaurants weren't able to take advantage of the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program.

Another key jobs proposal that is part of this resolution is help for States and localities. I want to make something clear for the record about State and local funding because this has been attacked by our colleagues on the other side since last March. I would bet my last dollar that somebody will come down to the Senate floor this week and rail about the so-called blue State bailout and say it is all waste. That is nonsense.

State and local funding is first and foremost about jobs that are a lifeline. It is about firefighters. It is about road crews. It is about sanitation workers. It is about public health employees. It is about teachers. It has nothing to do with red States or blue States; it is about saving people's jobs in communities across the country, and those are jobs where they are out saving people's lives. Nearly 1.5 million of these essential workers have already lost their jobs since the pandemic began, and unless Congress provides funding to States and localities, even more will be laid off this year.

Third, the budget resolution is going to put money into the pockets of working families and the middle class. The fact is, tens of millions of American families are literally one financial setback away from devastation. That should have been clear before the pandemic. There is certainly no denying it today

Increasing relief checks to $2,000 is going to help, especially because so many workers have lost hours or taken lower paying jobs than they had a year ago. But the budget resolution also includes fresh ideas from President Biden and colleagues on this side to increase family incomes--first and foremost, expanding the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. In my view, this is long overdue.

People always ask, well, what is it really going to do? What is it going to do that is meaningful to our country? What we are told is that effort is going to cut child poverty in half. Just try to put your arms around that.

When you go home to talk to folks and they ask, hey, what is going on there, you can say, I am part of an effort--a sensible effort which for many years had some real Republican support--I am supportive of an effort to cut child poverty in half, give millions and millions of families a chance to get ahead. It sure sounds to me that a policy like that is a no-brainer.

I am going to close by briefly addressing arguments I have heard coming from the other side.

First, I heard a number of Members say that the price tag is too high. Well, I will tell you, if you voted for Donald Trump's deficit- financed handouts to multinational corporations and billionaires, you cannot credibly argue that the relief for workers is fiscally reckless. And the fact is, the deficit isn't going to get better until unemployment comes down and the economy gets back to strong and consistent growth.

Second, I have heard some Senators suggest that the budget resolution is bad for unity. My answer to that is, the only place where big, bold economic relief is a divisive proposition is within the four walls of the U.S. Senate. We have seen the polls--overwhelming support for these key positions, the key

policies that are part of this budget resolution. I would submit to my colleagues, the only place where there is really a strong division on the value of this budget resolution is within the four walls of the Senate.

The last point is a little bit personal. The President of the Senate and I have known each other a lot of years. We worked very closely in the other body and here. I, over time, have gotten a fair amount of flak for sometimes being too bipartisan, doing too much to try to bring both sides together. I always will say--always--it is better if you can find common ground.

But calls for unity aren't supposed to be a political baseball bat where you club somebody. They are supposed to be real. They are supposed to be about finding common ground, not about stalling for the sole purpose of stalling.

What you see in this budget resolution is exactly the kind of plan that Americans voted for and the overwhelming majority of Americans support. That is why I am strongly behind this resolution.

As a senior member of our party on the Finance Committee, I am looking forward to a lot of debate on this issue. That is why I felt it was important to step in when we heard some revisionist history from the other side that there hadn't been any partisanship. There sure was on that very first vote on the CARES Act.

This is an important debate. What is really most important is that while we continue to listen to our colleagues on the other side, while we continue to reach out, which I am committed to do, the U.S. Senate get this job done because there is too much economic hurt in America to do otherwise.

We have another unemployment cliff coming in just a few weeks. Technically, the date is March 14. That is when the next round of unemployment expires. I really think we have to get this done by the beginning of March. There is no time to waste.

I urge my colleagues to support the resolution, as I will.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, it is a pleasure tonight to be making the case for Janet Yellen, former Chair of the Federal Reserve, to be the next Secretary of the Treasury. It is an awfully easy case to make.

Chair Janet Yellen deserves to be in the Senate confirmation hall of fame. She has already been confirmed four times for key economic positions. Tonight, the Senate can deliver an especially important economic judgment: Confirm Janet Yellen a fifth time and know that she will work with every single one of us to get our workers, our small businesses, and all Americans, from sea to shining sea, back on solid economic footing.

Tonight, I am going to spend just a few minutes discussing several important matters we learned from Chair Yellen's confirmation hearing. First, Chair Yellen is an exceptional economist who has a rare gift. She can take complicated economic theories and put them into understandable language, all while showing a real heart for the millions of Americans who are hurting through no fault of their own.

I asked Chair Yellen at her confirmation hearing: What will give Americans the most bang for the economic recovery buck? And Chair Yellen simply walked through the priorities, particularly going to bat for our small businesses. I come from a State where we have only a handful of big businesses. We are an overwhelmingly small business State. At her confirmation hearing, she spoke clearly about those small business needs, and she talked about the concerns she has for innovative and important approaches to expanding unemployment benefits to make sure that we are meeting the needs of our people. She also focused on reducing hunger and approaches that will help stretch anti- hunger dollars

Second, Chair Yellen knows that it would be a big mistake for the Congress to go small on economic relief. She is acutely aware of what happened in 2009, when the government took its foot off the economic gas pedal too

soon, and recovery was compromised as a result. She also understands that emergency economic relief, like unemployment compensation, needs to last as long as the emergency. It cannot be tied to arbitrary expiration dates, where potential political agendas come before human needs. There is a reason why the Finance Committee approved her nomination unanimously on Friday morning. I touched on some of those factors, and I am going to amplify a little bit.

For example, nobody deserves more credit than Chair Yellen for the longest economic expansion in American history. It lasted until the pandemic hit. As Federal Reserve Chair, she led an important change to the status quo in economic policy. Previously, there had been too great a focus on inflation and deficit. Chair Yellen said: Let's zero in more on unemployment, income, and inequality, and she believed that the economy could run a bit hotter. The record shows that the Yellen approach was right on. Unemployment went down, wages went up, and a lot of people were better off than they were before. That is exactly the kind of thinking America needs again because confronting the COVID economy is hammering working families, in particular. Again, another clear reason why Janet Yellen is the right pick to be the next Treasury Secretary.

The most recent economic data shows that 1.4 million people nationwide had filed new claims for unemployment benefits in the last full week of the previous administration. So it is not hard to figure out what that means. It is an economic catastrophe. It is more than twice the highest figure from any single week in the great recession. That means 1.4 million people--so, so many working families--are suddenly walking on an economic tightrope every single day, balancing the food cost against the fuel cost, the fuel cost against the rent bill, worried about finding a new job, getting a badly needed shift at work, falling behind on rent or the mortgage, feeding their kids, paying the electric bill, paying medical bills--worried that the economy is headed in reverse and worried about whether the Congress will be gridlocked.

The country lost 140,000 jobs last month. My home State lost more than 25,000, in part because the Senate, in something that just defied common sense, waited around for the recovery to peter out before passing any more relief. Thousands and thousands of neighborhood restaurants and bars and mom-and-pop businesses have been shuttered. Nearly 11 million workers are out of a job. Another 4 million Americans have fallen out of the labor force entirely since this time last year. Unless the Congress acts boldly and quickly with more relief, the damage from the COVID economic crash will long outlast the pandemic itself. That must not be allowed to happen.

The key, of course, is for the Senate to get down to work, and one of the best ways you can do it is to confirm someone who is eminently qualified, Chair Janet Yellen, to be Treasury Secretary.

As I touched on, we are looking at working with her on a host of key economic issues. As I have said as the new chair of the Finance Committee, my first priority will be to make sure that this Congress does not commit again the mistake of 2009.

In 2009, the sense was, well, maybe we are getting there on economic recovery. We will be able to come back later if maybe we didn't do enough. Well, we all know that a missed opportunity is a missed opportunity, and, in 2009, the Congress said, All right. We can take our foot off the gas now. It was too early, and there wasn't any next effort to make up for the damage. I am committed to making sure that doesn't happen again. Suffice it to say, it took 7\1/2\ years for the unemployment rate in Oregon to return to its prerecession levels.

This time around, the Congress has been warned. The warning I am giving about making sure that Congress doesn't take its foot off the economic relief pedal too soon is not the first warning. Chair Powell, for example, made it clear that the biggest danger lies in not doing enough.

Increasing relief checks to $2,000 is key. The Congress needs to increase and extend unemployment benefits for the entirety of the COVID crisis, and you do that by, in effect, tying the benefits to the real world, to economic conditions on the ground. That has been my proposal for some time. Other colleagues have long advanced similar ideas. It is not a revolutionary proposition to say that emergency relief should last as long as the emergency. Simply stated. And it should not be held hostage by the arbitrary political agendas of Members of Congress.

If you don't do it, dysfunction and gridlock in Congress creates still more havoc for people who have done nothing wrong and just need help. A decade ago, that help went away too quickly because benefits expired arbitrarily, and Congress did not keep up with extensions. The Congress needs to do better, and I believe that should include important upgrades as well to unemployment insurance, which was created in the last century. I don't think it is too much to say we at least bring this critical safety net program into the relevant century.

Now, sometimes these programs look a little rusty in the modern economy. Sometimes it is because of outright sabotage. But workers suffer, particularly Black and Hispanic workers. So there are steps that need to be taken, in addition to modernizing the benefits, increasing base benefits, bringing all workers into the system, and ensuring it can hold up in a crisis.

Finally, Chair Yellen had some important comments on fixing America's broken Tax Code. I will tell you, Madam President, I start with the proposition that a nurse who is treating COVID patients and paying taxes with every single paycheck should not find themselves in a disadvantaged position when compared to billionaires who, in effect, do no such thing and can postpone and postpone and postpone paying their taxes.

Now, there is a lot of work we need to do to repair the 2017 bill. The previous administration actually increased the incentives for corporations to ship jobs overseas. I want to fix that mistake. I want to work with Secretary Yellen on energy policy because so much of it deals with the Tax Code.

Suffice it to say, those are just some of the challenges Chair Yellen will face when, I believe, she is confirmed tonight as Treasury Secretary. She is supremely qualified--a member, in my view, of the Senate Confirmation hall of fame--and a proven economic policymaker.

Finally, I say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, it is long past time to have a woman lead the U.S. Treasury Department. Chair Yellen has my full support.

As colleagues come for this vote--and it is a significant economic policy vote, make no mistake about that--I would just ask my colleagues to reflect on the fact that Chair Yellen was approved by the Finance Committee 26 to nothing. Sometimes I say about this place--I have questions about whether you can get a simple decision like ordering a sandwich decided on a 26-to-nothing. She was approved unanimously because she gives public service a good name.

I urge my colleagues to support Janet Yellen for Secretary of the Treasury when we vote in just a few minutes.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have a request for one committee to meet during today's session of the Senate. It has the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

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

Committee on Foreign Relations

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Monday, January 25, 2021, at 6 p.m., to conduct a closed hearing.

Madam President, first, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Madam President, a few minutes ago, Chair Janet Yellen was approved by the Senate Finance Committee to be Secretary of the Treasury by an extraordinary 26-to-0 vote.

I have seen times around here in the Senate where you come away convinced you couldn't get 26 to 0 among Senators to buy a soda. I want to thank Senators Grassley and Crapo for working very closely with me and Senate Democrats to achieve this remarkable vote this morning.

The fact is, Janet Yellen has been confirmed by this body four times. She really belongs in the Senate confirmation hall of fame, and the reason that she has been confirmed all of these times is because of what we saw at her confirmation hearing on Tuesday. She did a superb job. After the hearing, she responded in a substantive way to hundreds of questions that came from colleagues and has made a real commitment to transparency.

Now, I know that Senators are working on a variety of issues now, but I would like to say that I think, given the urgency of the economic challenge our country faces, in a truly perilous economic time, I would very much like to work with all of my colleagues, particularly Senators Crapo and Grassley, to find a way to, today, bring up Chair Yellen for confirmation to be our Secretary of the Treasury.

I want to say I very much appreciate the conciliatory way this was discussed today, and I really hope the Senate can vote on her nomination today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss the nomination of Avril Danica Haines to be Director of National Intelligence. I think my colleagues know that in a few minutes, the Senate will be voting on her nomination for this key position.

I briefly intend to outline where I think things stand on several sensitive issues with the 18 agencies that make up the intelligence community.

The Biden administration and Ms. Haines have an opportunity and a duty to turn the page on the coverups and lawlessness of the outgoing administration. That is why I asked Ms. Haines at her confirmation hearing whether she would abide by a law that I authored requiring an unclassified report on who was responsible for the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Jamal Khashoggi was a U.S. resident who was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and brutally murdered. Despite press stories that the Saudi Arabian leader was responsible for the killing, the Trump administration stayed mum, just stonewalled. For a whole year, the Trump administration just ignored the law that I wrote. So I asked Ms. Haines at our hearing whether she would follow the law and provide that unclassified report on who was responsible for Jamal Khashoggi's murder. Ms. Haines' response was straightforward. She said she would provide the report and comply with the law.

That statement, frankly, as modest as it was, was a sea change, colleagues, from the obstructionism and stonewalling of the Trump administration. The Trump administration had basically taken the position on laws like this transparency measure that it was kind of optional for the executive branch to comply.

So Ms. Haines' direct commitment to making that key report on the role the Saudi leaders in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, in my view, was a real step forward for the rule of law, for accountability, and for human rights. And I will say as a journalist's kid that it was a real step forward for the freedom of the press everywhere.

The second subject I discussed with Ms. Haines was a particularly troubling aspect of the CIA's recent history. The CIA spied on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee when the staff was writing the torture report. As Deputy Director, Ms. Haines didn't hold anyone accountable. In my view, this abuse, this spying on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, basically, colleagues, turns the whole concept of oversight on its head. The U.S. Congress is supposed to do oversight on the executive branch and not visa-versa.

In response to my questions at the hearing, Ms. Haines admitted that the spying on the committee was wrong. She also agreed that she supported recommendations to expand accountability and would apply that expanded accountability to the intelligence community at large. And when she was asked about the CIA's baseless efforts to have committee staff prosecuted, she agreed that there ought to be guardrails against that happening again.

The third area I explored with the nominee was the need to rebuild trust in the intelligence community, which, in my view, requires a new focus on transparency and openness. For example, there ought to be transparency so that the American people know what kind of surveillance is being conducted on them. The President of the Senate knows about the important vote we had on that amendment that I offered, the bipartisan amendment with Senator Daines, because we ought to get transparency on whether the government is spying on the browsing history of the American people.

So this is really a critical and growing concern because we are all seeing data brokers and others selling people's data, and it is especially important that the American people are told if the government is using a legal loophole in the law in the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment So I asked Ms. Haines about circumstances in which the government, instead of getting an order, just goes out and purchases the private records of Americans from these sleazy and unregulated commercial data brokers who are simply above the law--literally above the law. I believe this practice is unacceptable, and soon I will be introducing legislation to make it clear that the Fourth Amendment is not for sale.

Now, for Congress to tackle the topic, it is vitally important that there be an informed public debate about what the government is collecting right now and what it believes is a legal basis for the collection. And I was encouraged by how Ms. Haines responded to that question I asked. She said it was critical that the American people have an understanding of when and under what authorities the government is buying their private data.

Now, Ms. Haines made a number of other commitments related to transparency issues, many of which relate to a problem that I have come to describe as ``secret law.''

To my colleagues--I see our new Members here--people think when a law is written, they go to a coffee shop in Atlanta or Athens or Tucson, and they read about a law, and they think that is what the public law says. But secret law is based on the proposition that after the public law is put in place, the government often reinterprets the public law in secret and keeps the new interpretation secret under the pretext that this secrecy is just so key to keeping Americans safe.

The reality is that the interpretation of public law ought to be transparent and public as well, and it comes down to a very straightforward principle. I am a strong opponent of secret law. I am a strong supporter of transparency. And I intend to remind Director Haines what she told me just a few days ago about transparency and to push hard for the public release of as much information as possible when Americans deserve to see it, and they can see it when it is consistent with the safety and well-being of their households and their loved ones.

I also intend to push the Director of National Intelligence to fix a broken declassification system. For years, a

flood of new, digitally classified information has overwhelmed the obsolete, paper-based declassification system. This system is so out of whack that in order to get a document declassified, government officials actually have to walk the document around Washington from agency to agency. I actually said at our open hearing that I wonder if it is getting to the point that to get a document declassified, someone who works for the government has to pack a lunch, put the document in a big black briefcase, and then make their way all over the Nation's Capital.

So I have introduced with Senator Moran bipartisan legislation to authorize the Director of National Intelligence to fix the problem. Ms. Haines has acknowledged the seriousness of the problem and the DNI's role in fixing it. It is my intent to make sure that this also is not allowed to just continue as business as usual.

Some of the starkest differences between the actions of the outgoing administration and the positions taken by Ms. Haines here a couple days ago relate to the crucial area of whistleblowers.

The outgoing administration broke the law when it withheld from Congress the complaint of the Ukraine whistleblower, the whistleblower who identified abuses that resulted in the first impeachment of Donald Trump. This lawlessness undermined both the whistleblower system and the independence of the Intelligence Community Inspector General, who had determined that the complaint ought to be submitted to Congress. Ms. Haines has been clear--the law requires that when the inspector general determines that a whistleblower complaint is urgent, the Director of National Intelligence cannot keep it from the Congress.

She made other commitments to whistleblowers. There are whistleblower protection laws--including some that have been approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee--that need to be enacted. There are procedures already required by law that the outgoing administration just didn't issue. They just stonewalled.

After all the damage done by the Trump administration with respect to trampling on the public's right to know and transparency where the information can be made public to the American people without compromising sources and methods, I will state that the Biden administration has a lot of work to do to repair and improve whistleblower protections. They are going to have a lot on their plate. The country has massive cyber vulnerabilities that we saw just a couple of weeks ago. There is more to do in terms of preventing foreign interference in our elections. We have to ensure that other surveillance programs provide security without sacrificing our constitutional rights.

I am going to close by way of saying I don't assume that I will always agree with the incoming administration. That has been true for me with Democrats and Republicans on these issues. When we disagree, we will have a vigorous debate--as vigorous as when I disagreed with the Trump administration.

Ms. Haines as DNI and Ambassador Burns as CIA Director are beginning to shape up as a team that will be more open with the public, respect the law, and work with the Congress to repair the vast damage of the outgoing administration and respect what Ben Franklin talked about so many years ago. Liberty and security are not mutually exclusive. Smart policies get you both. Not-so-smart policies get you less of both. And that is our challenge.

So tonight, because of her answers to me at the open Intelligence hearing a couple of days ago, I want to say I am going to be supporting Ms. Haines' nomination to be Director of National Intelligence.

Mr. President, with just a few minutes to speak, I am going to get right to the point.

Gunfire in the halls here, IEDs on the Capitol grounds--I will say to my colleagues, with the domestic terrorists roaming the halls just a few hours ago, I have been stunned that this debate is actually going forward, and that is because, colleagues, this is a fake debate on electoral certifications; that is because it lends credibility to the bogus idea that the Congress can actually toss out the results of the election, and, as we saw today, it serves to fuel insurrection.

Contrary to what some of my ``aye'' voting colleagues believe by votes cast just a few minutes ago, this debate has never been about setting up some kind of routine election tribunal. This isn't about election security. If the Republic majority for the last 2 years had actually been interested in election security, they would not have worked relentlessly to block my legislation to secure our 2020 elections with hand-marked paper ballots and post-election security audits.

By the way, those are the kinds of approaches that are part of the Oregon system, where for 25 years we voted by mail. I am the Nation's first mail-in U.S. Senator. The second--and I see my colleagues from Maine and Alaska here because they are very fond of him, like I am-- Gordon Smith, a Republican, was the second mail-in U.S. Senator in our country. That is because we do the job right. It is efficient.

Our late-Republican secretary of state, Dennis Richardson, actually told President Trump there was no evidence of fraud.

So if Republicans had been interested over the last 2 years in actually working with me and colleagues on both sides of the aisle and secretaries of state, we could have had an approach that would have empowered the Oregon idea to go national. Instead, we are now debating tonight the idea of--a discussion grounded in total fiction, brewed in cauldrons of conspiracies online. These, colleagues, are fever dreams-- fever dreams laundered by people with election certificates and real power. And I will tell you, it has been painful to watch colleagues sidle up to some of those conspiracies that would inflict so much damage on the American experiment.

Colleagues, I am going to close with one last point. We saw today an effort by domestic terrorists to try to punch our democracy to the ground, to the ropes. I am going to close by simply saying something that hadn't been said tonight, and that is that Donald Trump can do enormous damage to our country in the next 2 weeks. In the next 2 weeks, colleagues, Donald Trump can do enormous damage to our wonderful country.

This afternoon--I don't know if my colleagues saw it--the National Association of Manufacturers--an organization with thousands of businesses, thousands of companies, and not exactly a leftwing outfit-- they called for moving forward with the 25th Amendment. That was all over the news already this afternoon, colleagues. The National Association of Manufacturers. That is what we are seeing in our country with respect to the fear of Americans, having watched what happened here.

I am just going to close by way of saying that I believe that for the next 2 weeks, we have an enormous responsibility to watchdog Donald Trump day in and day out, to do everything possible to prevent the kinds of abuses that we saw today, where an American lost her life, and we saw the fear among our citizens at what went on. Let's do everything we can as leaders, Democrats and Republicans, to make sure that in the next 2 weeks, Donald Trump's abuses are checked and we do everything we can to protect this wonderful Nation of ours.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I stand here this afternoon in a state of disbelief. Last Wednesday, my colleagues and I in the Congress were briefed on the state of election security in America.

I am prohibited from talking about the details of that classified briefing, but the message from my Republican colleagues after that elections security meeting was very clear: Nothing to see here. One Senator said it is clear the Federal Government is doing ``everything you can do.'' The top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee said: ``I wouldn't say we've got a need for more election security legislation.'' A Member of the House Republican leadership said: ``The agencies have the tools they need, and I am confident they are addressing the threats.''

It is case closed for those Republicans--mission accomplished. My Republican colleagues were just so satisfied that the foundation of our democracy is in good hands. Election security is not a problem for those colleagues I just quoted.

It was to my enormous shock this weekend when I picked up my phone, and I read the following headline: ``Old Software makes new electoral systems ripe for hacking.''

Over the weekend, I said: Gosh, that just can't possibly be right. After all, my Republican colleagues said after the classified briefing that election security issues were in good shape. I just kept reading, and as it turns out, according to an exhaustive analysis by the Associated Press, the vast majority of 10,000 election jurisdictions nationwide use election management systems that run on old software that is soon going to be out of date and ripe for exploitation by hackers.

According to the Associated Press, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Arizona, and North Carolina, among others, are all at risk. Even the State of Georgia, which just passed legislation to buy new voting machines, is on track to buy equipment that suffers from this significant cyber security weakness. Worse, two of the three largest voting machine companies, ES&S and Hart, don't make election systems that are free from this vulnerability. Many election officials will be buying election systems that will be out of date the moment they start using it.

I am reading this story, and I am thinking to myself: Maybe--just maybe--this Trump administration hasn't solved the election security issue.

Now, colleagues, I am being a little bit disingenuous here. I have actually known about this problem for some time. In fact, I wrote to the Election Assistance Commission about it because, of course, our elections weren't secure last week, and they sure as heck aren't secure this week. Anybody who says otherwise is either selling you a voting machine or simply has a malicious intent toward our elections.

Russia attacked our democracy on every front in 2016, including voter registration databases and election software vendors. I am a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I can't talk about classified matters, but it is public record that there were attacks on our election infrastructure in 2018.

Our colleague Senator Rubio of Florida even said that hackers were ``in a position'' to alter voter rolls in 2016. In April, the FBI Director said that 2018 was, ``just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020.''

I will say, as I have been saying at home at townhall meetings across my home State, that in 2020 I believe the hostile foreign actors are going to make 2016 look like small potatoes, and I am not just talking about the Russians here.

What the Associated Press revealed this weekend should be chilling for anybody fighting to protect our elections from foreign interference, but it is certainly not the first indication Americans have gotten that our elections are vulnerable.

Last year, the journalist, Kim Zetter, and the New York Times reported that ES&S had installed remote access software and wireless modems in election equipment for years. I believe that is about the worst thing you can do in terms of election security in America, short of putting American ballot boxes on a Moscow street.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller revealed in his report that an election software vendor was actually hacked by Russia in the summer of 2016. The public still doesn't know enough about what happened there or what the government did to investigate. This is another area where I am seeking to excavate the facts. My colleagues, particularly my colleague from Minnesota, Senator Klobuchar, and my colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Reed, are doing the same.

VR Systems, the company Mr. Mueller was referring to, sold e- pollbooks to a county in North Carolina. I am talking now about the systems that workers used to check voters in at a precinct. It happened that several of the VR Systems e-pollbooks used by Durham County in North Carolina malfunctioned on election day in 2016. The problem was so bad that one precinct had to shut down completely for several hours.

Last month, I asked the FBI what happened; is anybody investigating? It sure looks like no Federal Agency has been out there looking at these malfunctioning e-pollbooks. It wasn't until last month that the Department of Homeland Security announced it would finally perform a forensic examination of the Durham County machines. That is not good enough. It is critical to secure our political parties, our campaigns, and the votes of Americans.

In 2015 and 2016, Russia hacked two Democratic campaign committees. Russian hackers also stole emails from John Podesta, Secretary Clinton's campaign manager. The Russian Government then leaked Democratic emails to influence the Presidential and, reportedly, House races in six States.

As I have emphasized at every part of my investigation, every part of my efforts, this is not a problem reserved for one political party. The National Republican Party committees have also all been hacked in the past, as well as the campaigns of Senator Graham and our late colleague John McCain.

Political campaigns don't have the expertise or resources to protect themselves from foreign government hackers. They ought to be in a position to get assistance, and if Congress doesn't act, they are going to get hacked again in 2020.

That is why I introduced legislation earlier this year, the Federal Campaign Cybersecurity Assistance Act, to secure campaigns and State parties. This would apply to both Democrats and Republicans. The bill turns the party committees, like the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee, into an ``IT department'' for their campaigns, State parties, and candidates. The parties will be able to give campaigns professionally managed, secured laptops, cell phones, and emails, which are much harder to hack. I think it is in the interest of our country, voters, Democrats, and Republicans to pass that bill.

I am going to close my remarks where I began, this extraordinary information that was compiled by the Associated Press that demonstrates that out-of-date software is going to be

used by election officials all over the country unless something is done about it. As a result, I have asked the Election Assistance Commission what they are going to do to stop the proliferation of out- of-date, insecure software.

A lot of people tell me, don't stay up waiting for much.

Earlier this year, I asked the Department of Homeland Security how many States used voting machines with old, insecure software on Election Day in November of 2018. They said they didn't know. I will say it again. The Agency in charge of protecting our election infrastructure against cyber threats has no idea how many vulnerable voting machines are out there right now. That is a big problem.

An even bigger problem is the inadequate laws. Right now, there are no mandatory Federal cyber security standards for elections. There is no law or regulation that says States can't use insecure machines. It is perfectly legal for the biggest voting machine company in America-- and these voting machine companies basically think they are above the law; they wouldn't even answer basic questions when I asked them--to sell a small county equipment that every cyber security expert in America knows is insecure. It is perfectly legal for a county clerk to put the outcome of a Presidential election at risk by buying insecure machines.

I will just say to my colleagues, I don't think this has anything to do with Democrats or Republicans. I believe it is an out-and-out scandal--an out-and-out scandal that does a disservice to our country and particularly the sacred right to make sure that all Americans can vote and have their vote counted.

Congress has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into election technology since 2016, but without required cyber security standards, a huge portion of that money is going to go towards voting machines and election systems that are not much better than the insecure systems they are replacing.

The Congress must do better. Voluntary standards or just saying to the local governments ``We are just going to let you do your own thing'' will not cut it on cyber security. It is up to the Congress to get serious, finally, about providing for the security of our elections.

I have been pushing hard for hand-marked paper ballots and risk- limiting audits as key defenses against the hackers. The hackers are, in effect, burglars out there knocking on windows just looking for an opportunity to exploit. We need a stronger defense against these hackers, and it is critical.

In addition to the hand-marked paper ballots and the risk-limiting audits, it is critical for Congress to pass legislation giving the Federal Government the authority to require basic cyber security for election infrastructure. In my view, anything less is waiving a white flag to foreign hackers.

By blocking any and all election security legislation, I believe Donald Trump and the majority here in the Senate are in effect rolling out the red carpet for all of the hostile foreign actors I have mentioned here and saying: Look, there are holes in our cyber security. Come on in, and interfere in our democracy.

We are better than that. I am going to be working with Democrats and Republicans to ensure that--especially in light of the developments that were reported on just in the last 72 hours about the out-of-date software that we are seeing in our voting machines all across the country--I am going to work with Democrats and Republicans to put the security and the integrity of our votes--a process that is sacred in our country--first.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for 5 minutes, followed by Senator Cortez Masto for 5 minutes, prior to the series of votes we will have.

Madam President and colleagues, at Fourth of July picnics and parades, it is likely that complicated healthcare policy debates are not exactly a central topic of conservation. I am pretty sure that is the way the Trump administration wanted it to be.

Today, lawyers representing the Trump administration and a number of Republican Governors are attempting to have the Affordable Care Act ripped up and thrown out by a Federal court. They were unable to do that in the Congress, so now they have headed off to try to get it done in the courts. The case is happening in the Fifth Circuit in Louisiana. This is not some theoretical exercise; this is an immediate threat to the healthcare of millions and millions of Americans.

I want to be clear at the outset of these remarks what the bottom line is. The bottom line is that eliminating protections for preexisting conditions is now the official position of the Republican Party. That is the centerpiece of what this court case attacks--the ironclad, airtight guarantee at the heart of the Affordable Care Act that insurance companies cannot discriminate against those with a preexisting condition. The fact is, the Republican Party wants that eliminated.

This attack on Americans' healthcare goes way beyond preexisting conditions. What about prescription drug costs? Prescription drugs are outrageously expensive right now, and the problem is getting worse under the Trump administration. Prices are up more than 10 percent just in the past 6 months. Americans are forced to make life-threatening choices where they really have to balance their food bill against their medicine bill and medicine against other necessities, like shelter. In effect, Americans self-ration because their prescriptions just cost too much.

If this lawsuit succeeds, prescription drug costs are going to skyrocket even higher. If the Affordable Care Act is

thrown out, that will be the end of the requirement that health insurance companies have to cover prescription drugs. Patients will be forced into junk insurance plans that don't cover the care they actually need. Millions of people of limited means would be kicked off their Medicaid coverage. Millions of seniors would face higher drug costs.

The bottom line: If this case is successful, it will launch a forced march back to the days of yesteryear when healthcare was for the healthy and the wealthy. The reason I say that is that is the way it used to be. If you had a preexisting condition in the past, you were just out of luck unless you had an enormous amount of money. The only people who really could benefit were people who were healthy and people who were wealthy. The Affordable Care Act changed that. More than 100 million people got a lifeline protection against discrimination if they had a preexisting condition.

If the lawsuit succeeds, the biggest winners are going to be the largest of the insurance companies and the drug manufacturers. They would get the power they need to once again walk all over the American people.

Here is the kicker: There is no replacement plan if the Affordable Care Act is wiped out. The President keeps saying he has a big, beautiful healthcare plan, and we always get the sense--it reminds you of the movie house in the old days where it would say: Coming soon. Movie coming soon. But it never actually gets there. There is never a grand unveiling, and that is because there isn't a backup plan. This is just an ideological crusade to make winners out of the most powerful corporations and losers out of millions of working Americans.

Democrats in this Chamber have proposals ready to go to take a better path, a better approach, and to protect the healthcare of our people, blocking Trump's lawyers from using taxpayer dollars to destroy the Affordable Care Act, banning junk insurance, which isn't worth much more than the paper it is written on, and standing four-square behind protecting people with a preexisting condition.

That is what the Senate ought to be working on so the Trump administration can't bring on a healthcare nightmare for millions and millions of Americans.

One of our most valuable members of the Senate Finance Committee has joined us now, Senator Cortez Masto, and I am happy to yield to her to close our time before the vote.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Wildfire Smoke Relief Act of 2019 with the ultimate goal of providing Federal emergency assistance to at risk individuals in areas with unhealthy air quality caused by wildfire smoke. By actively preparing for the effects of wildfire smoke inhalation, this bill attempts to ensure the long term health and security of all of those affected by wildfires.

In 2018, over 2,000 fires burned nearly 900,000 acres in the State of Oregon. The result of these fires was weeks and weeks of wildfire smoke. In Southern Oregon alone, there were 39 days with unhealthy air quality directly caused by smoke from wildfires. People need proper air filtration equipment, and in extreme cases, to seek refuge in a smokeless area. Communities are being choked by wildfire smoke, and each year wildfires are becoming more destructive than the previous.

Vulnerable populations like children, the elderly, pregnant women, and low-income families are disproportionately affected by wildfire smoke. Additionally, those with chronic heart or lung conditions are at a similarly heightened risk. Symptoms from smoke inhalation can develop within a relatively short time of exposure, and according to research, is akin to smoking several packs of cigarettes per day. Symptoms vary and can include poor development of lungs in children, shortness of breath, coughing, chest pain, nausea, reduced lung capacity, bronchitis, headaches, and visual impairment.

The bill would authorize the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide assistance to at risk individuals by providing smoke inhalation prevention equipment and low-cost home improvements when air quality causes unhealthy air quality levels or three consecutive days. Smoke inhalation prevention equipment would include an air filter, a face mask or respirator, a portable air filtration unit, and other low cost equipment used to keep smoke out of a house.

In severe cases, the Wildfire Smoke Relief Act would authorize FEMA to provide transitional sheltering assistance for at risk individuals. In these extreme cases FEMA can arrange alternate, cost-efficient housing arranged for at-risk people to escape the smoke.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined by Senator Jeff Merkley in introducing the bill today and look forward to working with my colleagues toward enactment of the Wildfire Smoke Relief Act in the 116th Congress.