Floor Statements

Madam President, the Senate is just hours away from voting on whether to confirm David Bernhardt to head the Interior Department. He would replace Ryan Zinke, who was forced from office in the eye of an ethical hurricane. I am here tonight to put the Senate on notice that I believe, if David Bernhardt is confirmed as Interior Secretary, another ethical storm will be on us in the very near future. The Zinke ethics hurricane was bad enough. America should not be harmed again if it is followed by a Bernhardt ethical typhoon.

I believe the Bernhardt nomination ought to be stopped in its tracks right here, right now. At a minimum, the Senate ought to put on hold this whole matter until we can gather more information so an informed decision can be based on all the facts.

At this moment, with the debate hurtling possibly toward an end, there are four pending requests by a dozen Senators, including myself, for inspector general investigations of the issues involving Mr. Bernhardt. In the other body, there are a host of requests for investigations as well. There has been a lot of speculation about how all of these issues have been aired.

This is old news, say some. The fact is, that is not right. This doesn't go back months. My concerns aren't information that has been sitting out in public view for years. The prospect of an investigation is developing in real time right now. I am going to run through some of the basic facts before getting into deeper details.

First, according to the Office of Government Ethics, Mr. Bernhardt has 27 different former clients who are posing a potential of unlimited numbers of conflicts of interests--oil clients, coal clients, water clients, major ag and resources clients. All of them have business before the Department that the Interior Secretary is supposed to be running for the benefit of the public, not for special interests.

My sense is, with all of these conflicts, Mr. Bernhardt would have basically two choices; one, he could comply with the ethics pledge and pretty much recuse himself from everything. Lord knows what he would be doing all day because he would have to recuse himself; or two, he would basically do business and just violate the ethical principles.

Lately, he seems to have been on what seems like a victory parade on Capitol Hill, touting what he says is a record of being a champion of ethics, but if you take a look at that record and take a look at what was said during his confirmation hearing, as my son William Peter Wyden, age 11--pictures available on my iPhone after my presentation-- would say, that Bernhardt statement was one big whopper.

Mr. Bernhardt served as Deputy Secretary to Ryan Zinke. All through this parade of environmental horrors that were visited upon us, Mr. Bernhardt was the key man in that office. There is not one shred of evidence that Mr. Bernhardt objected to Ryan Zinke's corruption. There is no evidence of it. Just think about it. He is always described as the guy who made the Interior Department run and that he was the key to all of these pieces. Ryan Zinke is out there with flagrant conflicts of interest and the like. Yet there is no evidence that Mr. Bernhardt--the self-styled expert on ethics--ever objected to anything.

Second, not even 2 weeks ago, Mr. Bernhardt came before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee for his nomination. He admitted that he had a role in blocking a landmark scientific report on toxic pesticides--the kind of report that career, nonpartisan scientists and staff spend years developing in close consultation with Department lawyers. Mr. Bernhardt's excuse for blocking the report was that it needed to be ``read by the lawyers,'' and he gave the impression to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the country--people were following it on C-SPAN--he gave the impression, when he said it needed to be read by the lawyers, as though that was not already the routine. His claim doesn't pass the smell test. I believe he lied to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Third, let's talk about his lobbying. Mr. Bernhardt deregistered as a lobbyist to join the Trump transition team before the President's inauguration. There is evidence he kept right on lobbying, nonetheless, in violation of the law. There is a whole lot of talk about mislabeled invoices and simple errors that attempted to explain it all the way. The fact is, there were multiple cases in which Mr. Bernhardt was engaged in activities that made him the de facto lobbyist, carrying on with the same job he had been doing all along.

So you have a pattern of unethical behavior right in front of our eyes. He said he had to do this lawyering. There hadn't been any lawyering. Then we go back and look at the rules, and they say that in these situations, there is lawyering all the way through the process. That is why I am very troubled about his trustworthiness.

After Ryan Zinke's departure, every Senator ought to be interested in restoring integrity and honor to the Interior Department. Yet the Trump administration has double downed on its commitment to graft by nominating David Bernhardt for this job. As I mentioned, there are pending requests for inspector general investigations. I have also called for an investigation by the U.S. attorney. Neither of those has had adequate time to respond, but the majority leader has rushed this nomination to the floor.

To indicate how fast the nomination is moving, the President obviously nominated Mr. Bernhardt to lead the Interior Department less than a month ago. Less than 2 weeks ago, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held the confirmation hearing on his nomination. Exactly a week later, the committee voted to approve it. One week after that, the Senate may choose to vote on his final confirmation. I just think it is a grave mistake to be moving forward with so many serious unanswered questions, and let me go through the history about why.

The Interior Department is still reeling from Ryan Zinke and what I call this self-generated ethical hurricane. In addition to overseeing the largest rollback of Federal land protections in American history, Ryan Zinke triggered so many Federal inquiries and investigations before he resigned in

shame that you can't even easily track them. By most public reporting, he triggered at least 17 different Federal inquiries before he officially left office at the start of the year: the inappropriate censorship of scientific reports, the wasting of tens of thousands--if not hundreds of thousands--of dollars on office doors and chartered flights, and of cutting potentially illegal land deals with oil industry executives. His rap sheet basically goes on and on. It is as long as the Columbia River. In his brief tenure, Ryan Zinke demonstrated that he was better at corrupt self-dealing than he was at protecting our treasured public lands.

I mentioned David Bernhardt was Mr. Zinke's Deputy, and he was the Solicitor for the Interior Department during the Bush administration. He knows a lot about how the Department works.

I want to say this to my colleagues: If this is a guy who is hands on and if he really understands the Department of the Interior, I think you have to wonder why Mr. Bernhardt never seems to have objected to any of Mr. Zinke's corrupt activities.

The Interior Department, unfortunately, isn't new to scandal, and I am going to take a brief moment to look back at one particular scandal that relates to these matters--Julie MacDonald, a notoriously corrupt Interior official during the George W. Bush administration who was forced to resign.

In December of 2006, after an anonymous complaint sparked an investigation, the inspector general released a report showing that Ms. MacDonald had given internal Department documents to industry lobbyists and that she had run roughshod over career Department staff who tried to stand in her way.

I had serious concerns about the report and what was happening at the Department. So, literally, more than a decade ago, I placed a hold on a nominee to the Interior Department, pending some accountability for these flagrant abuses by Ms. MacDonald. The next day, which was months after the original report became public, she finally resigned. Later that year, I requested an expanded probe into Interior decisions related to the Endangered Species Act that Ms. MacDonald had been involved in.

There was evidence of her meddling having directly affected species in the Pacific Northwest. The Interior's inspector general released a report. According to the New York Times, it found ``Ms. MacDonald's zeal to advance her agenda has caused considerable harm to the integrity of the Endangered Species Act program and to the morale and reputation of the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as potential harm to individual species.''

I bring this up because here is where David Bernhardt figures into the story.

A few weeks ago, I was surprised that Mr. Bernhardt requested to meet with me in my office. I said I would be glad to do it. When nominees come by, I usually just start with the questions: Why should I vote for you? Why should I be supportive? It is kind of an easy way for the nominee to get into it. That is why I do it.

What Mr. Bernhardt said was that he was a big ethics champion.

He said: Hey, do you remember Julie MacDonald? I am captain ethics. I advised Julie MacDonald to clean up her act.

I didn't ask Mr. Bernhardt about Julie MacDonald. He brought it up.

I have met with a lot of nominees, and I have heard a lot of reasons as to why they deserve my vote, but this meeting was certainly a head- scratcher. A nominee who had been present for Ryan Zinke's reign of corruption and conflict and who had seemed not to do anything about it had shown up, at his request, to tout his own ethics.

A few hours after the meeting in my office with Mr. Bernhardt, I decided I would look at his record for myself. Interior Department documents that had been obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request showed he had recently blocked the release of a Fish and Wildlife report about the effects of dangerous, toxic pesticides.

Career staff at the Fish and Wildlife Service, an Interior Department Agency, were on the brink of completing a comprehensive report on the impact of three pesticides on, potentially, hundreds of endangered species. This was a report by career staff. It was not put together by people who were political appointees. It defined pesticides that were so dangerous and so toxic that they jeopardized the continued existence of more than 1,000 species. This report, had it been made public, would have had profound consequences for pesticide manufacturers in the businesses that had used them.

The dedicated team of career staff at the Fish and Wildlife Service that had worked so long on this in order to make sure they really dug into the science--and they took years to be fastidious about it--wanted to make it public. The team was working rapidly to submit its findings to the Environmental Protection Agency for its review.

The documents show that before this landmark report could make it into public view, Mr. Bernhardt came along and pushed himself into the middle of the process. The documents show his emails on the pesticide report. He demanded briefings from these career scientists. They show meetings with White House officials and others about the specific section of the law that governs the role of Fish and Wildlife in these types of assessments. There is even included an email in which Mr. Bernhardt edited the letter that Interior officials used to block the release of the pesticide report. There were digital fingerprints everywhere.

I have to say that I looked at this, and I said: This sure sounds like Julie MacDonald all over again. The guy who said: ``Hey, I was the one who pushed Julie MacDonald to clean up her act,'' looked like he was meddling with the science just the way Julie MacDonald was. Ms. MacDonald was found by the inspector general to have meddled with the scientific conclusions, and now there is David Bernhardt, who has been alleged to have manipulated the process and blocked the release of an Endangered Species Act report.

So Mr. Bernhardt came to say that his ethics were unimpeachable and that he was above reproach. Yet I will tell you, for my colleagues who are thinking about this, if you read the documents I read from the Freedom of Information Act, they make him sound like another Julie MacDonald. I worked through all of these documents, and they left me with the impression that Mr. Bernhardt had lied to me about his ethics during our one-on-one meeting as well. It left me wondering why he would go out of his way to talk up his ethics when he must have known the truth was going to come out eventually.

During his confirmation hearing, he claimed he would strive to bring a culture of ethical compliance. He said he hoped to overhaul the ethics of the Ryan Zinke period and the Julie MacDonald experience. Senators called his qualifications unparalleled and claimed that the allegations of ethical misconduct against him were false. I respect those colleagues who have their opinions. I have my own, and my opinions are going to be based on the documents.

The document I entered into the record at his confirmation hearing showed that the pesticide industry repeatedly asked political appointees at the Interior Department and at the Environmental Protection Agency to intervene in the scientific analysis. It showed that Mr. Bernhardt eventually did so.

According to documents that had been made public by the Freedom of Information Act, a pesticide industry attorney wrote to then-Secretary Zinke and then-Administrator Scott Pruitt on April 13 of 2017. The pesticide industry was asking for changes to the Endangered Species Act. The industry followed it up very shortly with a request to meet with the Environmental Protection Agency's staff. At that time, a pesticide industry executive called an attorney of the Interior Department for a meeting as well. Another official from a pesticide trade association reached out to the same Interior Department attorney to discuss the Endangered Species Act.

Other supporting documentation consisted of an email that was dated October 5, 2017, from Mr. Bernhardt to Gary Frazer, the Fish and Wildlife Service's Assistant Director, who handles these endangered species. He ``was the top official overseeing the assessment of the impact,'' according to the press, while looking at the implications of these pesticides. In this email, Mr. Bernhardt asked Mr. Frazer for a briefing the following week. Additional documents

show that Mr. Bernhardt held a series of meetings with Mr. Frazer over the next 3 weeks.

On October 30, according to the calendar released by the Freedom of Information Act, Mr. Bernhardt met with White House officials to discuss Endangered Species Act provisions. It is called section 7. That is the section that pertains to the role that the Fish and Wildlife plays in ensuring other Agencies aren't jeopardizing species.

An email from November of 2017 shows Mr. Bernhardt edited the draft of a letter from career Fish and Wildlife Service staff to the EPA. It announced the Interior Department wouldn't be delivering the Fish and Wildlife's assessment to the Agency as planned. This, colleagues, is where Mr. Bernhardt put the brakes on this important Fish and Wildlife report about the pesticides.

According to a New York Times report, the pesticide analysis was blocked in conjunction with a ``radical shift'' in how the Fish and Wildlife analyzes the effects of these pesticides. The change greatly increased the burden of proof the Agency is required to meet to demonstrate pesticide effects on species. According to that article in the Times, it would likely result in fewer new restrictions on pesticide use. CropLife and RISE--two trade associations that represent the pesticide companies--were very much in favor of this. They were praising it.

Based on the documents, at the hearing, I asked Mr. Bernhardt why he would come to my office and sell me on ethics when the reports and the documents I just read showed otherwise. He had no response.

At the hearing, I asked Mr. Bernhardt specifically why he would come to the office and make these claims. He had no response at the hearing but took a long sip of water as though he had meant to go on awhile. Mr. Bernhardt made the claim that career Fish and Wildlife staff ``clearly'' didn't complete any legal review on the pesticide report, which is why he stepped in.

During the hearing and while under oath, I believe Mr. Bernhardt confirmed allegations that he interfered with the release of an Endangered Species Act report. He didn't, however, acknowledge that his involvement was inappropriate political meddling.

Following the hearing and with serious questions remaining about whether he had lied under oath to the committee, I wrote the Interior Department's inspector general for her help in getting to the bottom of the matter. Here are the facts I included:

On March 28, 2019, Mr. Bernhardt appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for his confirmation hearing to become Secretary of the Department of the Interior. I questioned him about these documents and his role in blocking the Fish and Wildlife's analyses. He confirmed to me that he had reviewed the analyses. He claimed he believed the analyses had not been subject to legal review and made the determination to delay the report.

Second, Mr. Bernhardt's response:

You're dealing with some of the most difficult

consultations on the planet, and when I read the document, my

reaction to it was this is really an interesting draft. But

it clearly didn't have any legal review, and in our world you

can't ignore the law and come up with a scheme.

He continued:

And so what we decided is that the approach needed to be

readdressed.

Mr. Bernhardt's answer is totally off base with respect to the way legal analyses work.

Under standard procedure, there would be legal analysis through the development of this kind of fish and wildlife report. It would involve lawyers at Fish and Wildlife, Interior Department, or both.

So I am especially troubled by what appears to be a political appointee meddling in the scientific process with respect to a report that revealed the extraordinary danger of toxic pesticides.

I am the senior member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, a former chairman of the committee. I cannot recall ever having this kind of exchange with a nominee.

That is why I had to request that the Office of Inspector General investigate the following: What role did Mr. Bernhardt and other political appointees at the Interior Department play in delaying or obstructing the Fish and Wildlife Service pesticide report? What role did he play in changing Fish and Wildlife policy with regard to this key section in the Endangered Species Act? What role did other political appointees--Agriculture Senior Advisor, former CropLife lobbyist, Ms. Adcock--play in the Interior Department and Fish and Wildlife Service's decision making? Whether, as Mr. Bernhardt alleged to me under oath on March 28, 2019, the Fish and Wildlife draft analysis ``clearly didn't have any legal review'' and whether, as Mr. Bernhardt alleged to me, career lawyers at the Interior Department agreed with his analysis--these are all questions that haven't been answered.

I would just say to the Senate, if you need more evidence that there are too many questions to allow this nomination to move forward, the story just gets more complicated.

After Mr. Bernhardt demonstrated that he simply was going to dance around the truth, the Senate has to question his basic understanding of the law.

So on Monday, I asked the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to thoroughly investigate potential civil and criminal violations of the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 by Mr. Bernhardt, as well as his former lobbying firm.

By the way, again, a newspaper reports--this time the Washington Post--that Mr. Bernhardt's ex-firm has quadrupled its business, earning nearly $5 million to lobby the Interior Department since he has taken his most recent spin through the Interior Department revolving door.

So here is what I said to the U.S. attorney: Lobbying Disclosure Act filings show Mr. Bernhardt registered to lobby for his law firm on behalf of the Westlands Water District on March 30, 2011. Westlands is the largest agricultural water district in the United States, in central California. Public reporting indicates Mr. Bernhardt ran his former lobby firm's natural resources department.

That lobby firm filed its 2016 fourth quarter report on November 18, 2016--1 week after the 2016 Presidential election--terminating Mr. Bernhardt's lobbying status as of that day.

Public reporting at the time indicates Mr. Bernhardt ``delisted himself as a lobbyist in November after Trump won the election to avoid running afoul of the new President's ban on lobbyists joining his administration.''

Public reporting and documents obtained via public records show that Mr. Bernhardt maintained his relationship with Westlands after his lobbyist deregistration on November 18, 2016. Furthermore, he may have repeatedly engaged in activity that would require him to continue registering as a Federal lobbyist. So he claimed he was no longer a lobbyist, but it sure looks as though he went right on lobbying.

The Lobbying Disclosure Act is pretty clear. I will read from public guidance provided by the U.S. House of Representatives. A lobbyist can terminate their registration ``only when the individual's lobbying activities on behalf of that client did not constitute at the end of the quarter . . . 20 percent of the time that such employee is engaged in total activities for that client; or that individual doesn't reasonably expect to make further lobbying contacts.''

What does the law mean by ``lobbying contacts?'' That is pretty clear too. The same guidance says it is ``any oral, written, or electronic communication to a covered Federal official that is made on behalf of a client'' with regard to Federal legislation, rulemaking, executive orders and the like. ``Covered Federal officials'' include all Members of Congress and their staff.

The evidence I included in my request to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia included several emails showing Mr. Bernhardt may have engaged in repeated, regulated lobbying contacts with covered Federal legislative branch officials.

The first time, according to the information that is already public, appears to be on November 22, 2016, just a few days after he deregistered as a lobbyist. Mr. Bernhardt agreed to join a conference call with Westlands and the offices of Representative Devin Nunes and former Representative Valadao to discuss upcoming legislation.

The second and third times are covered in a complaint filed with the

Mr. President, 30 years ago today, the Whistleblower Protection Act was signed into law. To call it a triumph doesn't do justice to the sheer number of years and people it took on both sides of the aisle to overcome numerous obstacles and enact Federal protections for Federal Government employees who step forward and do what we all should do: expose wrongdoings in order to hold government officials and agencies accountable.

Congressional efforts to protect whistleblowers date back to at least 1912 with the enactment of the Lloyd-La Follette Act. This act guaranteed the right of Federal employees to communicate with Members of Congress without the oversight of their employer and prohibited compensation to managers who retaliated against employees attempting to disclose whistleblower matters.

However, empowering Federal employees to speak up and speak the truth was and continues to be an ongoing struggle, one that has often pitted Congress against the executive branch. When President George H.W. Bush signed the Whistleblower Protection Act into law that April morning in 1989, it came after his predecessor President Ronald Reagan had vetoed a similar bill despite the fact that it had been unanimously adopted by both the Senate and the House.

The Whistleblower Protection Act, itself, was first introduced by Representative Pat Schroeder of Colorado as an amendment to the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and then as a stand-alone bill in 1982. The principal purpose of the bill was to block retaliation against employees who came forward, a never-ending problem. The bill would have allowed ``a person claiming to be aggrieved by a prohibited personnel practice to: (1) bring a civil action in a U.S. district court against the employee or agency involved (respondent); or (2) seek corrective action through the (Merit Systems Protection) Board.''

While that particular bill ultimately died after receiving unfavorable comments from the U.S. Government Accountability Office-- GAO--and the Merit Systems Protection Board, which adjudicates whistleblower complaints, its failure didn't deter our colleagues.

By the time 1989 rolled around, Members of both the House and the Senate, including Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, who spearheaded efforts in the Senate, had worked together for years to find a compromise and pass legislation that protected those employees whose disclosures revealed waste, fraud, or abuse. Between May of 1982 and September of 1989, 28 bills and resolutions with whistleblower protections built into them were introduced, many of them with dozens and dozens of cosponsors.

Since the passage of the Whistleblower Protection Act 30 years ago, Congress has continued to improve protections for whistleblowers, notably with the passage of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998; the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012; the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017; and more recently the Dr. Chris Kirkpatrick Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017.

Unfortunately, despite all of these efforts, becoming a whistleblower is still a perilous path. In its latest budget justification, the Office of Special Counsel, the agency that investigates retaliation against Federal whistleblowers, reported that, in fiscal year 2018, that agency received over 4,100 complaints of retaliation, otherwise known as prohibited personnel practices. This, according to OSC, is a new agency record. That is not a record that anyone should be proud of.

As much as today is a celebration of the Whistleblower Protection Act and the work of the many people it took to make those protections law, it is a greater celebration of the courage whistleblowers embody when they step forward to shine a light on waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the government. Their bravery and sacrifice is invaluable, and for that, we thank them. Unfortunately, coming forward to do what is right still requires too much of both.

Consequently, Congress still has more work to do to protect whistleblowers, and I call on my colleagues to remember the value of citizens being able to blow the whistle. As Representative Schroeder said early on in her efforts to help whistleblowers: ``If we in Congress are going to act as effective checks on excesses in the executive branch, we have to hear about such matters.''

Mr. President, today I, along with my colleague Senator Booker of New Jersey, are introducing the Algorithmic Accountability Act. This bill is a critical first step to address the use of biased or discriminatory algorithmic decisions impacting American consumers. It is a bicameral effort, led in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, vice chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Today's biggest companies are increasingly using algorithms to make decisions about consumers. The use by companies of algorithms can often benefit consumers, and these technologies have been critical in the creation of thousands of American companies. Alongside this beneficial proliferation, algorithms have become entrenched in the most life- changing of decisions. Algorithms can now determine whether Americans are hired for a dream job, are approved for a home mortgage, or even sent to jail.

But, as history has shown, a win for the corporation is not always a win for the consumer. And, in this case, when consumers lose, all too often they are a woman or an American of color. Though an innovation critical for future growth, algorithms can be as discriminatory as the humans they have begun to replace.

The issue is a simple one: While algorithms come to conclusions based on calculations, these calculations are created by humans or use data collected and supplied by humans. And, unfortunately, we humans can be biased, whether we know it or not, or we can created algorithms that, in time, create biases of their own.

Thanks to a flood of news reports and investigations detailing algorithms-gone-wrong, these issues are coming to light. Yet, American companies and the U.S. government are doing far too little to assess whether their own algorithms depend on biased assumptions, have created biases assumptions, and have the effect of increasing discrimination in the U.S.

Senator Booker and I intend to change that by ensuring that today's racial, social, and gender biases do not become entrenched in the automation of tomorrow.

Our bill has four main components.

First, it authorizes the Federal Trade Commission to create regulations requiring companies under its jurisdiction to conduct impact assessments of highly sensitive algorithms. This requirement would apply not only to new algorithmic systems, but also those that are both new and already in existence.

Second, it requires companies to assess their use of algorithms-- including any relevant training data--for impacts on accuracy, fairness, bias, discrimination, privacy, and security.

Third, it requires companies to evaluate how their information systems protect the privacy and security of consumers' personal information.

And, finally, it requires companies to correct any issues they discover during the impact assessments.

This legislation is in no way intended to hinder the adoption by American companies of advanced technologies like algorithms. Automated decision systems are out there, and they are being adopted into commercial decision-making processes.

What we are seeking to do with this bill is to ensure that companies take a hard look at their own technologies to ensure that they address any unintended side effects.

Mr. President, it is time for Congress to get involved by requiring companies to address biases and unintended discriminatory effects in their automated decision systems.

I thank my colleague Senator Booker for his efforts on this bill, and I hope the Senate will promptly consider and pass this critical legislation.

Mr. President, today I, along with my colleague Senator Booker of New Jersey, are introducing the Algorithmic Accountability Act. This bill is a critical first step to address the use of biased or discriminatory algorithmic decisions impacting American consumers. It is a bicameral effort, led in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, vice chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Today's biggest companies are increasingly using algorithms to make decisions about consumers. The use by companies of algorithms can often benefit consumers, and these technologies have been critical in the creation of thousands of American companies. Alongside this beneficial proliferation, algorithms have become entrenched in the most life- changing of decisions. Algorithms can now determine whether Americans are hired for a dream job, are approved for a home mortgage, or even sent to jail.

But, as history has shown, a win for the corporation is not always a win for the consumer. And, in this case, when consumers lose, all too often they are a woman or an American of color. Though an innovation critical for future growth, algorithms can be as discriminatory as the humans they have begun to replace.

The issue is a simple one: While algorithms come to conclusions based on calculations, these calculations are created by humans or use data collected and supplied by humans. And, unfortunately, we humans can be biased, whether we know it or not, or we can created algorithms that, in time, create biases of their own.

Thanks to a flood of news reports and investigations detailing algorithms-gone-wrong, these issues are coming to light. Yet, American companies and the U.S. government are doing far too little to assess whether their own algorithms depend on biased assumptions, have created biases assumptions, and have the effect of increasing discrimination in the U.S.

Senator Booker and I intend to change that by ensuring that today's racial, social, and gender biases do not become entrenched in the automation of tomorrow.

Our bill has four main components.

First, it authorizes the Federal Trade Commission to create regulations requiring companies under its jurisdiction to conduct impact assessments of highly sensitive algorithms. This requirement would apply not only to new algorithmic systems, but also those that are both new and already in existence.

Second, it requires companies to assess their use of algorithms-- including any relevant training data--for impacts on accuracy, fairness, bias, discrimination, privacy, and security.

Third, it requires companies to evaluate how their information systems protect the privacy and security of consumers' personal information.

And, finally, it requires companies to correct any issues they discover during the impact assessments.

This legislation is in no way intended to hinder the adoption by American companies of advanced technologies like algorithms. Automated decision systems are out there, and they are being adopted into commercial decision-making processes.

What we are seeking to do with this bill is to ensure that companies take a hard look at their own technologies to ensure that they address any unintended side effects.

Mr. President, it is time for Congress to get involved by requiring companies to address biases and unintended discriminatory effects in their automated decision systems.

I thank my colleague Senator Booker for his efforts on this bill, and I hope the Senate will promptly consider and pass this critical legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following individuals be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress: Elliot Eichen, Marisa Morin, Pamela Reed, Katherine Rudell, Jackson Shawn-Hays, Sarah Harvey, Stephanie Bell, Sarah Christ, Roberta Daghir, Mattie Wheeler, Alec Camhi, Ebony Smith, Kristen Lunde, Briana Hauss, and Rachel Swindle.

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

Mr. President, I am going to use my time on the Senate floor to address two related subjects.

The Republican leader is reportedly on the verge of going nuclear to speed through the confirmation of more far-right nominees. He says Democrats are guilty of extreme, unprecedented obstruction, and he claims that his hand has been forced and that is why he is required to change the Senate rules. In the real world, I want to make clear that I believe the facts tell a different story, and I am going to lay out briefly why I think this is the wrong way to go.

When you look at the numbers, you see that the Republican leader's argument is a fantasy. Let's look at judges, and let's compare the Trump administration to the Obama administration. The Obama administration started with 53 judicial vacancies; the Trump administration started with 112. That increase didn't occur because a whole lot of judges somehow magically qualified for Social Security and quit sometime in 2016; it was because Republicans blocked nominees for years at a time, and they kept those seats open. Senate Republicans even blocked their own judicial selections during the previous administration. Put your arms

around that. Senate Republicans even blocked their own. Only 22 judicial nominees were confirmed in the final 2 years of the Obama administration--the fewest in a Congress since Harry Truman was President.

In 2015 and 2016, the Judiciary Committee considered only five circuit court nominees. It considered that many in December of 2017 alone. There were nearly twice as many circuit judges confirmed in the first 2 years of the Trump administration as there were in President Obama's entire first term. Nominees are moving nearly twice as quickly under this President.

Republicans even blew up a century-old bipartisan practice of seeking input from Senators on judicial nominees from their home States. It is based on what has come to be known as the blue slip to consent to a hearing and a markup of a nomination. It is a tradition, by the way, Republicans fought to protect when a Democrat was President and they were in the minority. Under this President, they threw the blue-slip tradition out the window.

Republicans are also moving nominees in huge batches and at paces that prevent serious debate on their qualifications. A few months ago, the Judiciary Committee held a markup and voted out 46 nominees, including 44 judicial nominees. That had never been done before. It is a head-scratcher how that can meet any reasonable definition of ``advice and consent.''

The way my colleagues on the other side talk about the issue, you would think Democrats delayed every nomination for as long as possible. That just doesn't remotely resemble the truth.

Setting judges aside, what about the executive branch? The President and his advisers will tell you right out in the open that they don't want to nominate anybody. They have chosen to leave those positions vacant. That certainly doesn't meet a textbook definition of ``Democratic obstructionism.'' I am the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. Our committee has zero nominees ready for a committee vote. It is not because anybody is blocking them; it is because the Trump administration seems uninterested in putting nominees forward. Our committee, on a bipartisan basis, has done its job.

So, colleagues, you can't look at the record of nominees over the last 2 years, particularly on judges, and conclude that the Democrats have broken the Senate. It is just not true. I believe a number of my colleagues on the other side know it. When they want to go nuclear and change the rules, we get a parade of horror stories about how Democrats are obstructionists. It is a totally different story when they prefer to tout their record on nominations.

Let's hear from Republicans, from the President on down.

Here is the President tweeting in late 2017: ``Judges at a record clip. Our courts are rapidly changing.''

The President at a rally last year: ``We have the best judges. We put on a tremendous amount of great Federal district court judges. We'll be setting records. We are setting records. Appeals court judges. A Supreme Court judge--fantastic.''

The Vice President, March 2018: ``The President . . . set a record for the most court of appeal judges confirmed in the first year of an administration in American history.''

Leader McConnell said it all, speaking about the confirmed judges. He said ``including a record number of circuit court judges for a President's first year.''

More recently, Leader McConnell said: ``We confirmed every circuit judge. We've now done 29 circuit judges. That's a record for this quick in any administration in history.''

After November's elections, when Democrats won control of the House, Leader McConnell said: ``I think we'll have probably more time for nominations in the next Congress than we've had in this one, because the areas of legislative agreement will be more limited between a Democratic House and a Republican Senate. . . . I don't think we'll have any trouble finding time to do nominations.'' That is Leader McConnell. ``I don't think we'll have any trouble finding time to do nominations.''

Leader McConnell said: ``We intend to keep confirming as many as we possibly can for as long as we're in a position to do so.''

My colleagues on the other side can't have it both ways, constantly talking about Democratic obstructionism and then, in effect, making all these statements about how they are setting records for getting people through. You can't have it both ways.

I am going to close on this. I am not going to apologize for opposing nominees who are unqualified, corrupt, or simply outside of the mainstream.

I opposed the nomination of Ryan Bounds to the Ninth Circuit because he concealed hateful writings to a bipartisan committee--since I became the State's senior Democrat, and now as the senior Senator, I have continued this committee. We have had a bipartisan selection committee that vets candidates. We had it when my former colleague, Senator Smith, who I know is a friend of the Presiding Officer's, was here. We always worked in a bipartisan way to address these issues. This was a nominee who concealed hateful writings from the bipartisan selection committee that vetted his candidacy, and he was forced to withdraw.

I opposed Neomi Rao because she also had put extreme views in writing, and those views closely mirrored the work she had done as a Trump appointee attacking protections for women's health, for sexual assault victims on campus, and for vulnerable communities across the country.

I opposed the nomination of Thomas Farr because he ruthlessly attacked the voting rights of people of color.

I opposed the nomination of Tom Price to lead the Department of Health and Human Services because I thought he was just about as corrupt as they came and seemed to be laser-focused on taking away people's healthcare.

I opposed the nomination of Steven Mnuchin to be Treasury Secretary because I believed a history of profiting off of the suffering of millions of Americans ought to be disqualifying for that job.

Now, what has been the record? Multiple members of the Trump Cabinet have resigned under an ethical cloud. The rule change for which the Republican leader is pushing will cause the rushing through of even more unqualified and corrupt nominees at the sub-Cabinet level.

The bottom line is that all of the doomsday talk about the Democratic obstruction that is forcing the Republican leader's hand is simply out of touch with the facts. The Trump administration will find more support among the Democrats when it picks better nominees. It is a quaint idea--pick better nominees, and then you will get support. Instead, the nuclear option Leader McConnell is set to trigger this week is a strategy that will take us in the opposite direction. It is going to make it easier to rush unqualified and extreme nominees through the Senate before anybody notices.

I oppose this change. I urge more of my colleagues on the other side to do the same.

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

Reserving the right to object.

Madam President, I would like to raise a few key points on this whole matter.

First, this is a question of international trade, which is a subject that has been handled by the Senate Finance Committee for literally decades. The full committee has not been consulted on this resolution. It is less than a week old, which, in my view, has not given Senators an adequate amount of time to consider it. Suffice it to say, the prospect of reshaping the American economy with sweeping trade deals is not something that ought to just rocket past the committee of jurisdiction.

Second, with respect to the substance of the request, I simply do not believe it is the role of the United States to give aid and comfort to the UK's nationalist right while it inflicts irreparable harm on the UK's own economy and citizens.

Third, thinking kind of objectively about the future, I don't believe anybody can pretend to know what the UK and its relationship with Europe is going to look like even in the near future. The Senate simply cannot make promises about trade talks months or years down the line when the May government doesn't even know what is coming down the pike in a matter of days.

Finally, there are serious issues that need consideration with respect to our trade relationship with the UK and Europe. That cannot happen if the debates play out in a slapdash process here on the floor of this Senate.

For example, European governments are in the process of implementing a new copyright regime that provides an easy way to chill free speech online with bogus copyright claims. A number of European governments, including the UK's, have proposed new digital services taxes. Let me repeat that. A number of these governments have proposed new digital services taxes. What they are attempting to do is loot American technology companies with discriminatory taxes--slapping what is essentially an extra tariff on American firms.

The UK would need to commit to abandoning these unfair policies, which, in my view, are serious barriers to trade, as a precondition of negotiations in the future. Otherwise, if the Senate were to, in effect, make promises on trade in the dark, we would risk surrendering our negotiating positions on these key issues which I have outlined without getting anything in return.

For the life of me, I just can't see the case for undermining our American businesses and American jobs for the benefit of the UK's nationalist right as they steer their own economy and international stature off a cliff.

For those reasons, Madam President, I object.

Mr. President, today I, along with my colleague Senator Cotton from Arkansas, am introducing the Senate Cybersecurity Protection Act to defend the integrity of American democracy by providing cybersecurity protection for the personal accounts and electronic devices of Senators and and key members of their staff.

In 2016, hackers working for the Russian government broke into a range of targets, including the network of the Democratic National Committee and the email account of Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign manager, John Podesta. These widely publicized breaches are only the tip of the iceberg. These hacks are widely known today because the emails stolen from these accounts were subsequently weaponized and used as part of a campaign to influence the outcome of several elections--most publicly, the presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but also U.S. House of Representatives races in Illinois, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Senator Lindsey Graham also reported that his campaign's email was successfully compromised.

While the Russian hacks in 2016 were a watershed moment, these are merely the most visible and disruptive examples of foreign intelligence services

using offensive cyber capabilities to target those involved in our political process. Senior officials from the 2008 Obama and McCain presidential campaigns have publicly confirmed that both organizations were compromised by hackers. In 2017, the media reported that then- White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's personal cell phone had been compromised, possibly for as long as ten months before the malware was discovered. And in 2018, media reports revealed that the personal email accounts of senior congressional staffers had been targeted by the notorious Russian hacking group ``Fancy-Bear.'' These and other events clearly demonstrate the unique threats faced by Senators and their staff. Unfortunately, as I revealed in a letter to Senate leadership last year, the Sergeant At Arms (SAA), which is responsible for the Senate's cybersecurity, informed me that it currently lacks the authority to use official Senate resources to protect the personal devices and accounts of Senators and key Senate staff, even when those staff are being targeted by foreign governments.

Senators Cotton and I are not alone in recognizing the seriousness of this national security threat.

Last year, then-Director of the National Security Agency Admiral Michael Rogers acknowledged in a letter to me that personal devices and accounts of senior U.S. government officials ``remain prime targets for exploitation.'' Likewise, in written responses to post-hearing questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee last year, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats wrote that ``[t]he personal accounts and devices of government officials can contain information that is useful for our adversaries to target, either directly or indirectly, these officials and the organizations with which they are affiliated.'' The Appropriations Committee also noted last year in its report accompanying the 2019 Legislative Branch Appropriations bill that it ``continues to be concerned that Senators are being targeted for hacking and cyber attacks, especially via their personal devices and accounts.''

Currently, Senators and staffers are expected to protect their own devices and accounts from foreign government hackers. This is absurd. Senators and the vast majority of their staff are not cybersecurity experts, and certainly do not have the training our resources to defend themselves from sophisticated foreign intelligence agencies. Eric Rosenbach, who was formerly Chief of Staff to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, has endorsed the bill we are introducing today, observing that ``Senators and their staff should not be expected to go toe to toe with some of the most sophisticated adversaries in cyberspace; authorizing protection of personal accounts is a critical component of our cyber defense efforts.'' Likewise, Bruce Schreier, a noted cybersecurity expert has also endorsed the bill, stating that ``[i]t is ludicrous to expect individual senators and their staff to to defend themselves from spies and hackers. Hostile foreign intelligence services do not respect the arbitrary line between work and personal technology. As such, the U.S. government must extend its defensive cyber perimeter to include legislators' personal devices and accounts.''

Our bill would permit the SAA to provide voluntary, opt-in cybersecurity assistance to Senators and key Senate staff to secure their personal devices and accounts. Any Senate staffer would be eligible to receive assistance, provided that the Senator employing them determines that they are highly vulnerable to cyber attacks and information collection because of their position in the Senate.

There is precedent for extending cybersecurity protection to the personal devices of government officials. Section 1645 of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act permits the Secretary of Defense to provide personal device cybersecurity assistance to officials whom the secretary ``determines to be highly vulnerable to cyber attacks and hostile information collection activities because of the positions occupied by such personnel in the Department.'' The Senate Cybersecurity Protection Act is also similar to provisions included in the intelligence authorization bill approved by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2018, which would permit the Director of National Intelligence to protect the personal devices and accounts of high-risk staff in the intelligence community.

Passage of this common sense, bipartisan legislation would provide Senators and their staff with much-needed protection for their personal accounts and devices, and with them, the integrity of American democracy. I thank my colleague Senator Cotton for his efforts on this bill, and hope the Senate will promptly pass this vital legislation.

Mr. President, today I, along with my colleague Senator Cotton from Arkansas, am introducing the Senate Cybersecurity Protection Act to defend the integrity of American democracy by providing cybersecurity protection for the personal accounts and electronic devices of Senators and and key members of their staff.

In 2016, hackers working for the Russian government broke into a range of targets, including the network of the Democratic National Committee and the email account of Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign manager, John Podesta. These widely publicized breaches are only the tip of the iceberg. These hacks are widely known today because the emails stolen from these accounts were subsequently weaponized and used as part of a campaign to influence the outcome of several elections--most publicly, the presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but also U.S. House of Representatives races in Illinois, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Senator Lindsey Graham also reported that his campaign's email was successfully compromised.

While the Russian hacks in 2016 were a watershed moment, these are merely the most visible and disruptive examples of foreign intelligence services

using offensive cyber capabilities to target those involved in our political process. Senior officials from the 2008 Obama and McCain presidential campaigns have publicly confirmed that both organizations were compromised by hackers. In 2017, the media reported that then- White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's personal cell phone had been compromised, possibly for as long as ten months before the malware was discovered. And in 2018, media reports revealed that the personal email accounts of senior congressional staffers had been targeted by the notorious Russian hacking group ``Fancy-Bear.'' These and other events clearly demonstrate the unique threats faced by Senators and their staff. Unfortunately, as I revealed in a letter to Senate leadership last year, the Sergeant At Arms (SAA), which is responsible for the Senate's cybersecurity, informed me that it currently lacks the authority to use official Senate resources to protect the personal devices and accounts of Senators and key Senate staff, even when those staff are being targeted by foreign governments.

Senators Cotton and I are not alone in recognizing the seriousness of this national security threat.

Last year, then-Director of the National Security Agency Admiral Michael Rogers acknowledged in a letter to me that personal devices and accounts of senior U.S. government officials ``remain prime targets for exploitation.'' Likewise, in written responses to post-hearing questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee last year, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats wrote that ``[t]he personal accounts and devices of government officials can contain information that is useful for our adversaries to target, either directly or indirectly, these officials and the organizations with which they are affiliated.'' The Appropriations Committee also noted last year in its report accompanying the 2019 Legislative Branch Appropriations bill that it ``continues to be concerned that Senators are being targeted for hacking and cyber attacks, especially via their personal devices and accounts.''

Currently, Senators and staffers are expected to protect their own devices and accounts from foreign government hackers. This is absurd. Senators and the vast majority of their staff are not cybersecurity experts, and certainly do not have the training our resources to defend themselves from sophisticated foreign intelligence agencies. Eric Rosenbach, who was formerly Chief of Staff to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, has endorsed the bill we are introducing today, observing that ``Senators and their staff should not be expected to go toe to toe with some of the most sophisticated adversaries in cyberspace; authorizing protection of personal accounts is a critical component of our cyber defense efforts.'' Likewise, Bruce Schreier, a noted cybersecurity expert has also endorsed the bill, stating that ``[i]t is ludicrous to expect individual senators and their staff to to defend themselves from spies and hackers. Hostile foreign intelligence services do not respect the arbitrary line between work and personal technology. As such, the U.S. government must extend its defensive cyber perimeter to include legislators' personal devices and accounts.''

Our bill would permit the SAA to provide voluntary, opt-in cybersecurity assistance to Senators and key Senate staff to secure their personal devices and accounts. Any Senate staffer would be eligible to receive assistance, provided that the Senator employing them determines that they are highly vulnerable to cyber attacks and information collection because of their position in the Senate.

There is precedent for extending cybersecurity protection to the personal devices of government officials. Section 1645 of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act permits the Secretary of Defense to provide personal device cybersecurity assistance to officials whom the secretary ``determines to be highly vulnerable to cyber attacks and hostile information collection activities because of the positions occupied by such personnel in the Department.'' The Senate Cybersecurity Protection Act is also similar to provisions included in the intelligence authorization bill approved by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2018, which would permit the Director of National Intelligence to protect the personal devices and accounts of high-risk staff in the intelligence community.

Passage of this common sense, bipartisan legislation would provide Senators and their staff with much-needed protection for their personal accounts and devices, and with them, the integrity of American democracy. I thank my colleague Senator Cotton for his efforts on this bill, and hope the Senate will promptly pass this vital legislation.

Madam President, the Democrats on this side believe that climate change is a real and urgent problem. The Republican leader seems to believe it is not a problem at all.

The majority leader has scheduled votes today on a version of the Green New Deal. I was proud to be a cosponsor of that.

I want to make sure that nobody believes what is happening today on this floor is part of a serious debate. The fact is, it is a sham debate about the growing and urgent problem of climate change.

The Green New Deal is all about offering a mission statement--a statement of direction on the urgency of climate change. It is about recognizing the staggering threat and encouraging everybody to come forward to bring up good ways to tackle it. As the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, I will outline just one of them this afternoon. It is not a bill; it is a resolution. That is why it is a head- scratcher to hear all these far-fetched attacks on the Green New Deal in the media and here on this floor.

Let's be clear about what this resolution, the Green New Deal, says. Nobody is out there banning cheeseburgers. If you want to eat an ice cream sandwich and wash it down with a milkshake, nobody is going to be taking that milkshake out of your hands, either. I don't know what this anti-food legislation is that I keep hearing opponents talk about, but it certainly isn't the Green New Deal. I will tell you that my son, William Peter Wyden, age 11, is specifically going to make sure that his papa doesn't sign on to something like that. There is no building trains to Hawaii. Nobody is banning airplanes, and nobody is trying to take people's cars. The Green New Deal is about bringing good ideas to bear in the fight against climate change. That is what the American people are demanding action on.

I will tell you that this issue comes up at every townhall meeting I hold. Just over the last week, I was in rural counties where Donald Trump won by an enormous percentage, and people understood what climate change was all about because of the wildfires we had.

These are not your grandfather's wildfires; these are infernos. We have had them leap the Columbia River. They are more powerful. They are more dangerous. Fire season isn't for just a couple of months in the summer; it is almost year-round. In my home State, we have had to get used to what amounts to the idea of clean air refugees when fires burn near populated areas. This is where folks--particularly folks who are of modest income--have literally nowhere to go and can't go outside. Anybody who hasn't been to the Columbia River Gorge should know that when a fire leaps the Columbia River, you are talking about something very different. Rivers have historically blocked the spread of wildfires but not anymore. Last year, dozens of people were killed and more than 10,000 structures destroyed by the Camp Fire, the most destructive fire in California history. These infernos are happening across the West--Washington, Nevada, Colorado, Montana, and elsewhere.

Climate change isn't just about fires; it drives extreme temperatures in both directions. Extreme cold is a danger to millions of people during the winter. Warmer temperatures in spring and summer bring more rain and more floods to so much of the country. Elsewhere, especially in the West, the threat of drought looms continuously. The hurricanes battering the east coast and the Gulf of Mexico are intensifying. It seems as if every week, another group of prominent scientists warns about mass-extinction events, ecological failures, and runaway temperature increases.

There are great economic impacts as a result of all this. When Americans face a future of extreme temperatures, bigger storms, and hotter fires, it will mean that it will cost more money to rebuild the city that has been flooded by a hurricane or burned in an inferno. We are going to see increases in insurance premiums when weather-related damage becomes more common. If you really want to know how serious this problem is, look at these private insurance premiums. The market is telling us how serious this problem is. It requires more energy to heat and cool homes and workplaces in extreme temperatures.

I want to make one last point because I think there is a little bit of confusion about the direction the Senate ought to go.

I had mentioned that the Green New Deal is really a mission statement, a resolution, a sense of urgency that we ought to be all about. I want to contrast that with the original new deal, which was actual legislation, something like 15 bills--certainly, more than a dozen major ones. My sense is that this is what Congress is going to have to do in the years ahead with respect to climate. Let me give an example.

We have talked about the mission of the resolution, where we would like to go. Here is an example of what we ought to work together on with respect to legislation. As the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, I pointed out that there were more than 40 separate tax breaks for energy on the Federal tax books--40 separate tax breaks for energy. In fact, the Tax Code, as it relates to energy, is essentially anchored in dirty energy tax relics of yesteryear.

Given the fact that taxpayers now write out big annual checks to the dirtiest energy companies, what I have

proposed is that we replace that. You can't stand up to climate change as long as you are ladling out all of those tax subsidies to dirty energy. What I have proposed is to take those 40-plus energy tax breaks and just basically throw them in the trash can--in effect, throw them into the trash can that is right next to our desks. For those 40 energy tax breaks that are disproportionately for dirty energy, we would then substitute three new ones--one for clean energy, one for clean transportation fuel, and one for energy efficiency.

I would like to think that the Democrats and Republicans who are playing off this idea are going to be able to say: Hey, we can find common ground on this because for companies all across the country, when they buy new pieces of equipment for their companies, they will invariably make sure they will be cleaner and more energy efficient than what will have been on their factory floors. So they would qualify for two out of the three new energy incentives I am talking about. That is something we could have a real debate about. That is not a sham debate. That is a real debate.

Yesterday, Senator Alexander, our Republican colleague from the Presiding Officer's State, said he believed climate change was real. He said he believed it was caused by man, and he called for a new Manhattan Project for Clean Energy. I heard it. It sounded like he had plenty of ideas that could make for a real debate between Democrats and Republicans. Senator Alexander sits right over there, not far from our colleague from Iowa, Senator Ernst. He was talking about real ideas after acknowledging that climate change was a problem and that man contributed to it.

I hope some of my colleagues on the other side will follow Senator Alexander's lead. This is a debate the Senate ought to have. It ought to have a debate about what Senator Alexander was talking about. We ought to have a debate about throwing the 40 separate tax breaks for energy into the garbage and substituting for them three new ones that reflect our most current challenges. That is the way the Senate is supposed to function: You recognize a problem; you come forward with ideas in a serious debate; and you try to build common ground.

I see my colleague from Iowa is here. I am interested in working with her, and we have worked together on other issues. I am interested in working with all of my colleagues as I have with respect to this question of making the Tax Code neutral regarding energy sources. We are not doing that today. What we are doing is playing a political game.

I say to my colleagues that nobody ought to take part in this political game. You don't play political games when the consequences for the American people are so serious. Instead, you have a serious debate about what to do about the serious problem. That is not what is going on today.

I close by saying that years into the future, our children and our grandchildren are going to deal with the consequences of inaction, and they are going to look at something like this so-called debate--because I call it a sham debate--and they are going to be angry. The American people deserve a lot better than this kind of fake debate that is being held on the Senate floor right now.

I want to make it clear: As the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, I am very interested in working with my colleagues on real and bipartisan approaches to deal with this staggering challenge. That is not what we are having today, and our country is going to regret it.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I have come to the Senate floor this afternoon to talk about a young man named Enes Kanter, who plays basketball for my hometown Portland Trail Blazers.

I wish I could be here to run through Saturday's box score or preview tonight's match up against the Clippers, but, unfortunately, Mr. Kanter is facing dangers that are far more serious than the outcome of any basketball game. His family is now facing those dangers as well.

Mr. Kanter is from Turkey. His love of basketball brought him to the United States in 2009, and he was selected third overall in the 2011 NBA draft by the Utah Jazz. Enes is a bright, intelligent, and soft- spoken guy. He pays attention to what goes on back home in Turkey; he cares deeply about his country's future; and he rightfully believes that he ought to be able to express his opinion as he sees it on these important issues. For that, Turkey's President Erdogan has labeled Enes Kanter a terrorist.

President Erdogan and his cronies are too thin-skinned to tolerate Enes Kanter's eloquence and inspirational dissent off the court. Erdogan revoked Mr. Kanter's passport based on accusations that lacked any real proof. President Erdogan has demanded that INTERPOL issue a red notice on Mr. Kanter, which means he has to stay in the United States whenever his team travels outside the country. It has kept Mr. Kanter from going to London and going to Toronto.

As Mr. Kanter himself wrote in a recent Washington Post opinion article, ``I am definitely a target, and Erdogan wants me back in Turkey where he can silence me.''

Following strategies right out of ``The Dictator's Playbook,'' Erdogan has responded like a coward to Mr. Kanter's criticism and has tried to silence him by threatening his family--his family who still lives in Turkey.

Mr. Kanter recently told reporters that his father would be going on trial this week, in just a few days, in Turkey. The details of that trial are shrouded in the fog of secrecy--where authoritarians thrive. Yet Mr. Kanter's powerful words cut cleanly through that fog just a few days ago. When asked what his father was on trial for, Enes said for ``just being my dad.''

Enes is a young man who has already sacrificed so much. As a teenager, he moved thousands of miles away from home to pursue his dream of playing in the NBA. For the crime of just voicing his opinions on the future of Turkey--a nation that is supposedly an American ally-- Enes was labeled a terrorist. Years ago, he cut off contact with his family because he believed Erdogan would punish them for speaking with someone who was critical of Erdogan's government. Now, without being able to contact them, Enes has to live in constant fear of what is going to happen to his loved ones back home.

So, as I stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate, I want to make sure there isn't any confusion on two important topics.

First, Mr. Erdogan, the world is watching how you treat Enes Kanter's father this week and in the weeks ahead. Mr. Erdogan, the world is watching how you treat Mr. Kanter both when he is on American soil and when Enes travels abroad.

Second, the United States cannot and must not stand idly by while Enes and his family are subjected to this autocratic torment.

I have called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to raise Mr. Kanter's case with his counterparts, and I have asked our Secretary of State to state clearly that our country will actively resist these contrived red notices or extradition requests. The fact is, our State Department should be taking all of the necessary steps to ensure that Mr. Kanter can travel safely with the Trail Blazers or to advocate for the freedom of his people. Enes Kanter is a young man--an American resident--who is exercising the right to free speech that is enshrined in our Constitution. The United States must not stay silent in the face of such a blatant attack on free thought and expression.

In my view, this is not exactly an isolated issue. It is certainly not just a sports story. The situation ought to be examined in a broader context--a government that is taking a supposed NATO ally down an increasingly authoritarian road.

When the Saudis brazenly killed Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in a consulate in Turkey, Erdogan styled himself a fierce defender of journalists, but this is a classic situation of actions speaking louder than words, for Erdogan jails more journalists than do the Saudis. In fact, Erdogan jails more journalists than do the Russians, the Chinese, and more than any other authoritarian regime that is out there.

Erdogan does not only target journalists or independent media outlets, all of whom knowingly, bravely risk such oppressive actions when they just want to report the truth; Erdogan has thrown peaceful demonstrators into

jail as well. Just last Friday, he cracked down on people who were assembling peacefully in Istanbul for International Women's Day.

It gets worse--worse because Erdogan is brazen enough to push his assaults on democratic norms right here on American soil. Less than 2 years ago, Erdogan gave the go-ahead for his security detail to brutally attack nonviolent demonstrators right here in the Nation's Capital. That assault, to emphasize the point, took place on American soil--right here, just a short walk from the White House. Americans ought to be outraged over this sort of behavior, especially from a supposed friend and ally like Turkey.

It has not gone unnoticed that Erdogan recently doubled down on his decision to make a major military purchase from Vladimir Putin's Russia, and his use of fraudulent INTERPOL red notices is right out of Vladimir Putin's playbook.

It is past time for the State Department to stand up to this behavior. The State Department needs to call this behavior out. It is not a far-off threat to other people the Federal Government can conveniently ignore. Erdogan's abuses are happening right here in our country, on American soil. People like Enes Kanter are the victims.

As a younger man back in the day, I went to school on a basketball scholarship. I often tell people at my townhall meetings that I wanted to play in the NBA--a ridiculous idea because I was too small, but I made up for it by being quite slow. My abilities on the court were certainly light years removed from Enes Kanter's, but I can tell you, from playing in college, I certainly remember the value of a full-court press. I am firmly committed and will state once more that our State Department must put a full-court press on Turkey to treat Mr. Kanter-- and all of those who speak out against Erdogan's totalitarian regime-- with respect for their human rights and freedom of expression.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, just before they leave, I thank both Senator Whitehouse and Senator Van Hollen for conveying the urgency behind this climate change issue. Both of them have gone through the specifics of what this is all about. Suffice it to say, I share many of the concerns they have been discussing here this evening. I thank them.

Madam President, tonight, the Senate is debating another Trump judicial nominee who is attempting to run away from appalling statements they wrote in the not-so-distant past. This time, it is Neomi Rao, who is up for a lifetime appointment to the powerful DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

While studying at Yale, Ms. Rao wrote that sexual assault victims were partly to blame for having been assaulted.

She ridiculed feminism and women's rights activists. She attacked groups that promoted multiculturalism and minority rights. She belittled those who fought for LGBTQ rights. She wrote that warnings about what we now identify as climate change are, in effect, fake news. And that's not all.

After these writings came to light, she stuck to the same script as the other Trump nominees have done who found themselves in the same position.

They say: It is all way in the past. I have grown up. I no longer hold those views.

Except in Ms. Rao's case, she cannot plausibly claim the views she put into writing back then would have no bearing on how she would decide cases as a judge today. That is because you can see those extreme views reflected in the work she is doing right now as the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

This is an office that doesn't get a lot of time in the spotlight, but the individual in charge of that office has more power to shape Federal rules than almost anyone outside the Oval Office.

During Ms. Rao's time as the head of this program, she has taken a buzz saw to protections for women's health, for sexual assault victims on college campuses, for LGBTQ Americans, and for Black and Latino Americans.

Under her watch, the Trump administration has allowed polluting corporations to poison Americans' air and water, propped up dirty powerplants that belch carbon into the skies, and added to the extreme dangers of climate change.

During her nomination hearing, she called--and this was her description--some of what she wrote ``cringeworthy.'' She wrote a letter to the Judiciary Committee saying she was sorry, and that's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that she has helped turn those same extreme views--those same extreme views--into Federal policy under President Trump.

To help spell this out, as they say on so many television shows: Go to the tape.

In the long essay titled ``The Feminist Dilemma'' published in the mid-1990s, Ms. Rao laid out her views on a range of issues dealing with women's rights and sexual violence. At the time, our country was waking up to the fact that most sexual assaults are not random acts of violence committed in dark alleyways; they are committed by someone the victim knows.

The term ``date rape'' was relatively new to a lot of people. In this essay she wrote: ``Although I am certainly not arguing that date rape victims ask for it,'' she did exactly that--several times. She put the burden on women to prevent their assaults.

She also described ``The dangerous feminist idealism which teaches women that they are equal.'' That is an exact quote--``dangerous idealism which teaches women that they are equal.''

She went on, ``Women believe falsely that they should be able to go anywhere with anyone.'' That is a quote. ``Women believe falsely that they should be able to go anywhere with anyone.''

Now, as I noted already, Ms. Rao has tried to separate herself during her nomination from those thoughts--what she wrote as a younger person--but she continues to double down on these views and their influence in her current position.

A few years ago, there was an effort to strengthen Federal rules to reduce sexual assaults on campus and compel schools to do a better job of protecting women. With Ms. Rao's help, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump are now rolling those protections back.

Ms. Rao has also taken steps to roll back rules designed to fight wage discrimination and sexual harassment against women in the workplace. She worked to make it harder for women to get no-cost contraception under the Affordable Care Act.

Now I am going to turn to her views on the rights of other groups. LGBTQ Americans, Black, and Latino Americans are just several examples.

Here she has attacked so-called multiculturalists, writing: ``Underneath their touchy-feely talk of tolerance, they seek to undermine American culture.'' When you read that sentence, it seems like she believed the American culture in need of protecting is actually one of intolerance.

Now, she protested that ``homosexuals want to redefine marriage and parenthood,'' to which I say: Anyone like Rao, who defines marriage and parenthood by limiting the definition of love, is just wrong and, frankly, un-American.

She even blasted African-American and Latino fraternities and sororities, arguing they were the ones who didn't understand the true meaning of Dr. King's ``I Have a Dream'' speech.

In a book review, she praised an author for writing:

Perhaps it is time to stop thinking of blacks--and having

them think of themselves--as a category. Let them rise or

fall as individuals.

A nominee for the Federal bench ought to be able to recognize that the design of racism has been to have society and governments at all levels in this country discriminate against African Americans as a category and to prevent individuals and their families from rising from this hardship.

Again, Ms. Rao can try and try and try some more to distance herself from these writings, but she cannot distance herself from the work she does right now in her current job.

Civil rights activists scored a major victory in a recent Supreme Court case, Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project. The case dealt with what have come to be known as the ``disparate impact'' regulations. The Court held that housing policies that inadvertently discriminate against minorities violate the Fair Housing Act. That type of ``disparate impact'' regulation exists across Federal law. But right now, with Ms. Rao's help, Donald Trump is working to undo these protections. Here I quote from the Washington Post:

The Trump administration is considering a far-reaching

rollback of civil rights law that would dilute Federal rules

against discrimination in education, housing, and other

aspects of American life.

This article continues:

Past Republican administrations have done little to erode

the concept's application, partly out of concern that the

Supreme Court might disagree, or that such changes would be

unpopular and viewed as racist.

Apparently, that is not a big enough concern to stop Ms. Rao and the Trump administration.

Now, briefly, I would like to look at her writings on climate and environmental protection.

She mocked what she called the ``three major environmental bogeymen, the greenhouse effect, the depleting ozone layer, and the dangers of acid rain.''

In an extraordinary twist of logic, she suggested that people who warned about climate change were clinging to a ``dangerous orthodoxy''--her quote--``with no reference to the prevailing scientific doubts.''

Her work at the Trump administration shows no change in perspective.

Fuel economy standards that reduce carbon emissions and save drivers money at the pump have been axed by the Trump administration and Ms. Rao. The Clean Power Plan--gone under with the Trump administration and Neomi Rao. Rules cracking down on mercury pollution, which causes brain damage to kids, weakened by the Trump administration and Ms. Rao. Rules designed to protect workers from exposure to dangerous chemicals on the job--rolled back again by Ms. Rao and the Trump administration. The list can go on.

This nominee's record shows, in my view, that an apology is not enough--even a written one--because the shocking and offensive views she put into words in the past are reflected by her work in the present.

It is all right here in her CV as a Trump official. She is responsible for those policies that lead to more discrimination, that are taking rights and protections away from women, Black Americans, and Latino Americans.

She doesn't even have a long record of legal experience which she can fall back on and cite qualifications. Her qualifications seem to be her extreme views and membership in the far-right Federalist Society--a well-funded outside group that the Trump administration has empowered to fill the judiciary with extreme nominees from well outside the mainstream.

Actions Ms. Rao has been green-lighting have been challenged in court, and rulings against them have made clear that the Trump administration is willing to break the law to get their preferred ideological outcome.

For example, just last week, a Federal judge slammed Ms. Rao's actions to undo efforts to crack down on wage discrimination. The judge said Ms. Rao's decision was arbitrary, it was capricious, and unsupported by any analysis.

Perhaps that is why, during her nomination hearing, she refused to recuse herself from cases involving issues she worked on during the Trump administration.

So here is my bottom line. The Senate has seen this before--Trump nominees with extreme, offensive, and what are essentially incendiary writings from the past. In Ms. Rao's case, there are current examples of how she has not left those views in the past.

When it was Ryan Bounds nominated to the Ninth Circuit, this body-- the U.S. Senate--stood up and said no. Mr. Bounds' views were extreme. More importantly, he knew it, and he hid them.

In my view, it is time to take a stand once more in the Senate, where Ms. Rao's views are on display for all to see. I am going to be a no on the nomination of Neomi Rao. I urge my colleagues to join me.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, today, the Senate considers the nomination of yet another unqualified, far-right nominee--Chad Readler, who is up for consideration for a seat on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Let me just say at the outset that any whiff of credibility this nominee might have had as a judicial nominee disappears the minute he puts his name on the Trump administration's absurd legal argument that protections for preexisting conditions are unconstitutional.

To get a sense of how ridiculous this argument is, you have to look at a bit of recent history.

In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate was a tax, that it was constitutional, and that the Affordable Care Act would stand. For millions of Americans, particularly the ones who wouldn't have to go to bed at night fearing that when they woke up, they could get discriminated against for a preexisting condition, just as in the old days--under the ACA, they wouldn't have to worry about that anymore--it was a joyful day when the court ruled that the Affordable Care Act would stand, but it was a tough day for the Republican strategists who had been so desperate to bring down the law at any cost.

Next, in the process of jamming the Trump tax law through Congress, in late 2017, many Republicans said: Let's bring out our old attacks on the Affordable Care Act. They passed an amendment that said there would be no penalty for those who failed to sign up for health insurance, even though everybody understands that those who have coverage often pick up the bills for those who don't.

Then, in 2018, Republican Governors and attorneys general in 20 States made what was really the silliest legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act yet, and that was in the case of Texas v. United States.

Here, they said they were going to stipulate that the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate only because it was a tax. Then they said: We establish that the Trump tax law dialed the penalty associated with violating the individual mandate down to zero. At least that had a kernel of accuracy.

Let me describe how they got into the backbreaking legal acrobatics next. They argued that because there is no penalty associated with violating the individual mandate, it is no longer a tax and somehow it has become unconstitutional. Finally, they argued that since the individual mandate is unconstitutional, the whole Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional and ought to be thrown out the window.

My own take is that if you were a first-year law student, you would get a failing grade for that kind of work on constitutional law, but let's stick to the history.

The Justice Department has an obligation to defend the laws of the United States. It is a quaint idea, but that is the role of the Justice Department--defending the laws of the United States in court.

The Trump administration, however, said: Who cares? It doesn't matter. And they sided with officials who shared their view.

In fact, the Trump Justice Department focused this attack specifically on the Affordable Care Act protections for preexisting conditions. It said that the mandate was inseverable from two key protections in the law, which therefore ought to be struck down: the rule that bars insurance companies from denying coverage due to preexisting conditions and the rule that bars insurance companies from jacking

up premiums based on preexisting conditions.

Here is a little bit of a recap. A group of officials on the far right, who were out of good cases to bring against the Affordable Care Act, said: Hey, let's try bringing a bad case. At the President's direction, the Trump Justice Department decided not to fight but, rather, to take part in this preposterous attack on the law of the land.

To the incredible distress of millions of Americans who walk an economic tightrope because they have a preexisting condition, somehow the Trump people got a Texas judge to rule in their favor. Fortunately, the ACA protections remained in place while the case worked its way through the courts.

There are colleagues here in the Senate, on the other side of the aisle, who have objected to what the Justice Department did. Our friend Senator Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee, who knows a little bit about healthcare, said: ``The Justice Department argument in the Texas case is as far-fetched as any I've ever heard.''

Senator Lamar Alexander is a Republican from Tennessee, chair of a key committee, and works with us on the Finance Committee. The Justice Department's argument, according to Senator Alexander, is just light years from a reasonable and rational position.

Then the Trump administration went ahead and threw out centuries of Justice Department tradition--honored by Republicans and Democrats--of defending laws as long as there is a nonfrivolous argument in their favor. They didn't decide to throw out that vital legal tradition in a case involving some obscure, out-of-date statute. In effect, they chose to debase the Justice Department and undermine the rule of law in order to attack protections for preexisting conditions.

Chad Readler is the Trump appointee who stepped up and said: Sure, you can put my name on that legal brief. So what Chad Readler was essentially saying is that it was just fine with him to go back to the days in America when healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy. That is really what you had if you allowed discrimination against those with preexisting conditions again. If you are healthy, there is nothing to worry about. If you are wealthy, you can write out a check and cover the payments for a preexisting condition and the health services you need.

Make no mistake about it--by putting his name on that legal brief, what Chad Readler was interested in doing was taking America back to yesteryear when the insurance companies could beat the stuffing out of somebody with a preexisting condition and find every manner of reason not to get them affordable care.

People were stuck in their jobs because of something called job lock, where they couldn't move to another company, even when they got a promotion, because they wouldn't be able to get coverage. That is what Chad Readler wanted to inflict on Americans.

The case he worked on was so obviously political and meritless that three career Justice Department attorneys withdrew from it. One senior official, an individual who had been praised for 20 years of extraordinary service, actually resigned. Mr. Readler said that was OK with him too.

He said: We will take America back to the days when healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy. I don't really much care that senior officials--nonpolitical officials in the Department--are leaving because this was such an extreme way to handle this case. Mr. Readler said that all of this was OK and that he would be the public face of attacking basic protections for 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions.

On the very same day, the President announced his nomination to sit on the powerful Sixth Circuit. That is a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench, an extraordinarily important position.

If there is somebody following the nomination at home, you just might ask yourself: Doesn't that sound look a quid pro quo?

I am the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, where we pay for much of American healthcare--Medicare, Medicaid, the children's health program, tax credits available under the Affordable Care Act, and we have the tax exclusions available to employers. On that committee, on which the Presiding Officer is a new member, you get a chance to review the credentials of lots of individuals who are involved in these decisions in which the Finance Committee is really faced with the question of how to make the best use of what is really $2 trillion, or thereabouts, of healthcare spending, and I will tell you, in this area, it is so important to protect people with preexisting conditions.

The Trump administration just seems to have, with one nominee after another, an inexhaustible supply of far-right pretenders--persons who claim they will be for protections for preexisting conditions, only to turn around quickly and fight to take them away. So it ought to be clear that this isn't a routine nomination. Chad Readler thinks insurance companies should be able to deny care with people with preexisting conditions.

Colleagues, if you vote for Chad Readler, you are casting a vote to endorse the position of turning back the clock and rolling back time to the days when insurance companies could discriminate against those with a preexisting condition.

If Mr. Readler's history began and ended with the legal brief attacking preexisting protections, in my view, that would be disqualifying, but there is more.

He signed the Trump Justice Department legal brief green-lighting discrimination against LGBTQ Americans in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. He defended the transgender military ban. He defended the Muslim ban. He defended family separation at the border.

I am just going to close by way of saying that I think this nomination is a byproduct of what happens when the Senate abandons a long-held practice of consulting with home State Senators on nominees.

Since the early 1900s, it has been a tradition for the Judiciary Committee to seek input from Senators on judicial nominees from their home States. Lower court nominees traditionally don't move forward until those home State Senators give the green light. They do so with what are called blue slips.

In this case, the nominee is from Ohio, and the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is in the process of blowing up that tradition and moving this nominee over Senator Brown's objection.

In 2009, when Republicans were in the minority, Mitch McConnell and all of his colleagues fought to protect the blue-slip tradition. They wrote everybody in sight to protect it--President Obama, Senator Leahy.

They wrote: ``We hope your administration will consult with us as it considers possible nominations to the Federal courts from our states.''

So they made it very clear a few years ago that they strongly supported this, but here they are blowing up a century-old tradition of bipartisanship on judicial nominees after defending it.

This issue came to a head last year, when the Senate took up the nomination of Ryan Bounds to the Ninth Circuit, despite objections from my Oregon colleague, Senator Merkley, and me.

We were able to block that nomination. It was the right thing to do. This was a nominee who we felt had not been straight with our judicial selection committee. As Oregon's senior Senator, I had been dealing with these nominees--Democrats and Republicans--for years, but our judicial selection commission had never felt so misled. Senator Merkley and I led the fight, and we were successful in defeating that nominee.

Now the White House still wants, apparently, this body to act as a rubberstamp and just approve one nominee after another without any questions.

I want my colleagues to understand that by moving this nomination forward, they are going to be responsible for creating a new reality-- in effect hot-wiring the process for considering judicial nominees in a way that will take us back again to a more partisan approach.

The bipartisan blue-slip process has worked for over a century. What is going on now would end it. This is a breach of bipartisan protocol that has further driven the judiciary to a partisan extreme.

Following these actions by the Trump administration and the majority, I seriously question, if you continue this, whether the current structure of the courts is going to survive.

Colleagues, Chad Readler does not deserve a lifetime appointment to the Sixth Circuit. The moment he put his name on the Trump administration's absurd legal attack on protections for preexisting conditions, he revealed that he was going to be partisan all the way and, on top of that, that he was going to exercise poor judgment. He has been a defender of discrimination in multiple forms. He has defended the indefensible abuse of vulnerable migrant families at our border. At this point, he cannot claim to be close to the standard of impartiality and evenhandedness that a Senator ought to expect from any judicial nominee.

I intend to vote against Chad Readler. I urge my colleagues to join me.

I yield the floor.