Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I hope that one day soon it will not be necessary to come to the floor of this Senate and shine a spotlight on how the Trump administration is making it harder and harder for women in America to get the healthcare they need and deserve. It seems like not a week goes by without the Trump administration full-on attacking women's healthcare. It is the agenda of what I call healthcare discrimination, and it is out in full force.

The latest news came out officially less than 24 hours ago. The Trump administration has put itself right in the middle of women and their doctors, denying access to critical information that millions of women rely on from physicians and nurses--the very providers they trust and depend on. What this means is that across this country you can say good-bye to the guarantee that women are getting the whole story about their health and the options they have for their care. For millions of women, the healthcare they need is going to have to get a Trump stamp of approval, and that Trump stamp of approval is going to be the requirement to get the care they need.

I just want to say to my colleagues here in the Senate that I think this alone makes a mockery of all the talk I remember hearing from Republican colleagues in this body who said there is going to be patient-centered care in

America. The developments in the last 24 hours basically say that with respect to healthcare, it is not going to be patient-centered care, but it is going to be politics-centered care.

Now, that patient-centered care concept was one of the most common talking points I remember hearing again and again. We heard it in the Finance Committee, where I have the honor to be the ranking Democrat. We heard it again and again: We are going to have patient-centered care. It was part of the crusade to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The whole point of that patient-centered care slogan was to say that the government shouldn't come between patients and their doctors and that it wasn't going to be about politics; it was going to be about patients--making sure that politics and the government didn't come between patients and their doctors.

So here we are now, a few months later, and the Trump administration has just decided point-blank that it will decide what is best for women in Oregon and across the country. They basically said that they ought to be able to gag doctors and deny women the right to hear about healthcare options that, fortunately, are perfectly legal in America today.

The fact is, this new decree--this dictate--from the Trump administration comes with a battery of new restrictions on healthcare clinics that millions of women depend on every single day. We all know what it is about. It is an attack on Planned Parenthood. It is an attack on vital sources of care for women.

As I have said on this floor--I have gone through it again and again--the vast amount of work done by Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with abortion. It is all about vital preventive services for women, which, by the way, are especially important in rural areas.

I am sure we are going to be talking about women's healthcare tomorrow in the Senate Finance Committee, where we will be having a hearing specifically on rural healthcare. There is bipartisan interest in that topic, but I want colleagues to know, it is pretty hard to promote all of the opportunities for sound healthcare and bipartisanship when you have a decision from the Trump administration that has the potential to hit women's healthcare in rural communities like a wrecking ball.

In States like Oregon, thousands of women live in communities where there is not a clinic or a doctor's office every few miles. If the Trump administration finds a backdoor way to shutter the few options these women have today, they may not have anywhere else to turn to get the essentials of healthcare. Women could lose the right to see the doctor of their choosing.

I will just say it point-blank: If somebody wants to take away the right of women in America to see the doctors and the providers of their choice, they are going to have to run over me. I will tell you, I think women are going to win that fight.

To have women lose access to lifesaving services like cancer screenings, routine physicals, birth control, prenatal care, and so much more--that ought to be off the table for politics. It shouldn't be about Democrats and Republicans; it should be about commonsense approaches to ensure that women have all of the options for the healthcare they want and deserve.

Taking healthcare choices away from women is fundamentally wrong. Depriving women of essential healthcare information that they have every right to hear about is fundamentally wrong. The Trump administration putting itself between women and their doctors is fundamentally wrong.

The decision that came down last night, which we learned about last night, is a reckless one. It is a harmful one. We ought to make no mistake about it, it is going to make healthcare worse for women across the country.

I have now had to say it too many times to count: It is long past time for these attacks on women's healthcare to end. I hope it will not be necessary to come to this floor again.

The Trump administration will see how flawed the decision--the dictate--that came down last night is and will retract it. But until they do, I will come to this floor and make the case for ensuring that women are empowered in our country to be able to see the healthcare providers of their choice, to have the opportunity to access the vast array of services that are largely preventive from sea to shining sea.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, on May 10, I announced my intention to object to a unanimous consent request for the Senate to take up the nomination of Christopher C. Krebs who has been nominated by President Trump to serve as Under secretary of the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security, DHS. I did so because DHS had yet to clear for public release important information about vulnerabilities in U.S. telephone networks that are being exploited, potentially by foreign governments, to target Americans.

Last week, I discussed with Mr. Krebs our shared interest in protecting Americans from sophisticated cyber security threats, particularly those that exploit flaws in U.S. communications networks. I am pleased to say that DHS subsequently provided me with a letter that included much of the information that I had previously requested. I intend to make this letter public in the coming days and believe that it will further much needed debate about the security of U.S. telephone networks and the Federal Communications Commission's lax approach to regulating the privacy and cyber security practices of wireless carriers.

In light of this action, I will no longer object to any unanimous consent request for the Senate to take up Mr. Kreb's nomination.

Mr. President, we in Congress are tasked in the Constitution with promoting science and the useful arts through giving authors and inventors the exclusive right to their writings and discoveries for a limited time. The first copyright act provided that the ``limited time'' would be a term of protection of 14 years, renewable once. Since that time, the copyright term has exploded to 95, or 120 years, or 70 years after the death of the artist, depending on the circumstance. I have serious concerns that these lengthy terms tip the balance toward limiting rather than promoting creativity and innovation. Unfortunately, a bill--the CLASSICS Act--currently under consideration in the Judiciary Committee blows past current U.S. copyright term to provide a windfall to a select few.

The CLASSICS Act (Compensating Legacy Artists for their Songs, Service, and Important Contributions to Society Act) would give up to 144 of exclusive copyright protection for digital transmissions of pre- 1972 sound recordings. Not only that, but it would create a hodge-podge of State and Federal rights, basically cherry-picking the most valuable right under the Federal regime and leaving the rest to be governed by States. This means that if a library wants to make a copy of a recording, and then digitally transmit that copy, it would have to navigate two different regimes--creating more uncertainty, not less.

That is why, today, I am introducing the ACCESS to Recordings Act. It would give artists the full suite of Federal rights, as well as the uniformity and certainty that goes with the Federal copyright system. Along with that comes the exceptions and limitations, including those that enable archivists to preserve recordings, many of which are starting to degrade in their original physical medium and urgently need to be digitally preserved. In addition, it provides the same term available to post-72 recordings--95 years from publication. Let's be clear that is a significant term of protection. A song recorded in 1960 will enjoy protection until 2055--37 years from now.

I hope that someday, in the not too distant future, my colleagues and I can sit down and talk about real copyright reform, but in the meantime, we shouldn't be expanding term and making it more difficult for users of the copyright system--including both artists and the public--to navigate their rights and obligations. What I suggest instead is a straight-forward application of the Federal rules that apply to post-1972 recordings to those created before that time. We must remember that copyright is for the public interest, not just for the enrichment of large corporations. That is why I am introducing the ACCESS to Recordings Act.

Mr. President, we in Congress are tasked in the Constitution with promoting science and the useful arts through giving authors and inventors the exclusive right to their writings and discoveries for a limited time. The first copyright act provided that the ``limited time'' would be a term of protection of 14 years, renewable once. Since that time, the copyright term has exploded to 95, or 120 years, or 70 years after the death of the artist, depending on the circumstance. I have serious concerns that these lengthy terms tip the balance toward limiting rather than promoting creativity and innovation. Unfortunately, a bill--the CLASSICS Act--currently under consideration in the Judiciary Committee blows past current U.S. copyright term to provide a windfall to a select few.

The CLASSICS Act (Compensating Legacy Artists for their Songs, Service, and Important Contributions to Society Act) would give up to 144 of exclusive copyright protection for digital transmissions of pre- 1972 sound recordings. Not only that, but it would create a hodge-podge of State and Federal rights, basically cherry-picking the most valuable right under the Federal regime and leaving the rest to be governed by States. This means that if a library wants to make a copy of a recording, and then digitally transmit that copy, it would have to navigate two different regimes--creating more uncertainty, not less.

That is why, today, I am introducing the ACCESS to Recordings Act. It would give artists the full suite of Federal rights, as well as the uniformity and certainty that goes with the Federal copyright system. Along with that comes the exceptions and limitations, including those that enable archivists to preserve recordings, many of which are starting to degrade in their original physical medium and urgently need to be digitally preserved. In addition, it provides the same term available to post-72 recordings--95 years from publication. Let's be clear that is a significant term of protection. A song recorded in 1960 will enjoy protection until 2055--37 years from now.

I hope that someday, in the not too distant future, my colleagues and I can sit down and talk about real copyright reform, but in the meantime, we shouldn't be expanding term and making it more difficult for users of the copyright system--including both artists and the public--to navigate their rights and obligations. What I suggest instead is a straight-forward application of the Federal rules that apply to post-1972 recordings to those created before that time. We must remember that copyright is for the public interest, not just for the enrichment of large corporations. That is why I am introducing the ACCESS to Recordings Act.

Madam President, with Memorial Day coming up this weekend, I want to offer a few thoughts on this package of legislative reforms for the Department of Veterans Affairs, known as the VA MISSION Act of 2018, being considered by the U.S. Senate.

I want to start by commending Senator Jon Tester of Montana, the senior Democrat on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, for negotiating based on what I call principled bipartisanship: taking ideas from both parties without sacrificing core values.

Montanans have every reason to be proud of Senator Tester for spending months at the negotiating table with Chairman Isakson, the House of Representatives, and the White House.

Make no mistake, the bill before the Senate will make some important reforms to the way the VA does business.

It will consolidate the VA's multiple community care programs, including the Veterans Choice program, into one permanent framework to allow veterans to seek care in their communities. Streamlining these programs was something sought by the Obama administration as well and will help make it easier for veterans to understand their options and access the care they need.

It will also expand a VA program that provides benefits to in-home caregivers, an effort I have supported for years. The program is currently open to veterans wounded after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The VA MISSION Act will open the program to veterans from all eras.

It will provide more incentives and inducements to help attract medical providers to the VA and keep them there. In particular, the bill will provide more recruitment, retention, and relocation bonuses, it will raise the cap on student loan reimbursement, and it will establish a new loan repayment program for specialties where the VA is experiencing a shortage.

As important as these provisions are, I want to express my reservations about the VA MISSION Act as well.

I voted for the Choice Act in 2014 because I said it was unacceptable for veterans in Oregon and across the country to be waiting months or driving long hours for a VA appointment. I will be the first to say the same thing today, but I fear this bill will give broad authority to VA leadership to send more veterans out of the VA system.

Given the relentless push by special interest groups to send an ever greater number of veterans into the private sector, I am concerned about the Trump administration giving into those folks and turning the VA over to ideologues or privatization partisans.

I am also disappointed to see the asset review provisions included in this bill. If the VA has unnecessary infrastructure, it should be able to make the case to Congress to close or consolidate those facilities just like any other agency without being required to set up a whole new bureaucracy.

Taken together, these provisions strike me as essentially asking Senators to put more trust in VA leadership and Donald J. Trump, the same Donald Trump who publicly attacked the parents of a Muslim soldier killed in action and the same Donald Trump who nominated his wholly unqualified personal physician to run the VA. Unfortunately, this administration has already proven it can't be trusted to take care of our veterans.

I had hoped Senators would be given an opportunity to debate this bill and offer amendments that might have addressed the bill's shortcomings. The Senate majority has prevented that from happening.

So the choice before me and every other Senator this week is to oppose this bill and the good it will do or to support it with significant reservations.

After hearing from many Oregonians and from the 38 veterans and military service organizations and seven former VA Secretaries who support this bill, I have chosen the second option and will support the bill despite my concerns.

Mark my words: The ultimate success or failure of this bill will depend on whether Donald Trump and his team at the VA choose to work with Congress and put our veterans first or whether they sell out to the privatization partisans.

I hope my fears about this bill prove to be unwarranted, but as the saying goes, hope is not a strategy, After Donald Trump signs this bill into law, I will redouble my efforts to work with Senator Tester and others to support and sustain a robust VA worthy of the millions of veterans it serves.

If the Trump administration implements any of these provisions in a way that threatens to privatize or undermine the VA as a healthcare system, I will pull out all the stops and fight it like hell.

Mr. President, it is with sadness and reflection that I take a moment today to remember the shooting at Thurston High School in Springfield, OR, 20 years ago.

At the time, we thought of Thurston as a tragic anomaly and not as the forerunner of the horrific epidemic of gun violence in our schools we are living today. This plague rips away the lives of children and teachers, forever wounding the body and spirit of entire communities which never truly heal.

Twenty years have passed since a 15-year-old Thurston student went to his school, after killing his parents in their home, and opened fire on his classmates, but the rollcall of mass shootings and gun violence continues to grow. In my own home State of Oregon, in the past 20 years, we endured Thurston, Reynolds High School, Clackamas Town Center, and Umpqua Community College, among other acts of gun violence. Every time, we say this will be the last, and every time, it is not.

Even one, the shooting at Thurston, is too long a list, in my book; yet, tragically this epidemic of gun violence struck yet another community just last week in Santa Fe, Texas.

The students, teachers, families, and communities devastated by the mass shootings at Thurston, Newtown, Parkland, Santa Fe, and all of those not listed here deserve and rightfully demand so much more than thoughts and prayers.

They demand action. Congress must push back against special interests that have blocked every reasonable effort to protect our children and communities from gun violence. Congress must finally honor the lives lost and those many lives that have been so irrevocably altered by passing common sense gun laws.

All of our students and teachers and all of their families and communities deserve to go about their regular daily lives free from the fear of gun violence. Sadly, today, that is not our reality.

When I see the students and young people who organized the March for Our Lives in our Nation's Capital, in Oregon, and across the country, I see the spirit of those Thurston youngsters violently stolen from their families and loved ones. Let's honor them with action to protect our future.

Mr. President, on February 2, Portland lost a dedicated man of faith, Rev. W.G. Hardy, Jr. As our community mourns the loss of this great spiritual leader, we also pause to celebrate all he did for our community.

During the 22 years that Pastor Hardy served as senior pastor of the Highland Christian Center in northeast Portland, he committed himself heart and soul to helping every person who walked through the doors of his church, as well as those who did not.

Preaching wasn't just a duty for Pastor Hardy; it was a calling that helped Portland be a better place to live. Many will remember Pastor Hardy inviting any and all to come to his church. Often you would see him on the weekends supporting the church's many activities and events. He spent endless hours advocating for those who are homeless, working with nonprofits and local governments to find solutions on mental illness, and developing programs to prevent young people from falling through the cracks.

Pastor Hardy was justifiably proud that Highland Christian Center hosted the annual ``Keep Alive the Dream'' events, which earned official designation from the National Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission. Over the years, I had the fortune of attending this unique program, recognized as the largest tribute to Dr. King in the State of Oregon.

As a third-generation preacher, Pastor Hardy understood and valued the power of faith. He was steadfast in his advocacy and had the ear and phone numbers of countless city, county, and State leaders. His passion and energy for this work showed in his powerful and poignant sermons. Every time I would see Pastor Hardy, whether after one of his many inspiring services or during a visit to Washington, DC, he always had a smile on his face and an important issue to discuss.

Through his beloved wife, Ali Hardy, his children, grandchildren, and a host of other loving relatives, Pastor Hardy's life and legacy will last forever throughout Portland. His good work will continue through the leaders he helped lift up and create. While this is a loss for many, the gains he made will be felt by many for years to come.

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

Mr. President, as the Senate moves to vote on the nomination to head the CIA, here is the bottom line. While the American people have been told that Gina Haspel likes Johnny Cash and talked to Mother Teresa, Ms. Haspel has been exercising the unprecedented power to personally censor any facts about her that might get in the way of her nomination.

When the Senate votes on a nomination when all the relevant information is, by design, kept secret, how is this any different than a coverup? I regret to have to say that the surrender of the Senate's responsibility to conduct real

oversight of this nominee means that Gina Haspel has been given a pass on all the most important and the most relevant issues.

I am going to start with three.

The first is this: What was her opinion about the CIA's torture program when it was happening?

The Washington Post newspaper reported that unnamed officials were pushing back against accusations that she has supported torture.

Now, Ms. Haspel said she learned about the program in 2002. I believe it is especially important to know what her views were later, between 2005 and 2007, when the CIA itself was winding the program down. At that time, did Ms. Haspel call for the program to be continued or expanded? I asked her that in an open intelligence meeting. She did not come close to answering that crucial question.

No. 2, what was her role in the destruction of the torture tapes? The nominee's story here is riddled with holes, and key facts have been covered up.

One matter that we know about is that her boss at the time, Mr. Jose Rodriguez, has publicly contradicted her account of the handling of the destruction of the torture tapes to a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

No. 3, how can the Senate possibly take seriously Ms. Haspel's confirmation conversion on torture that was submitted on the eve of a crucial vote?

There has been a lot of reporting in the press saying that she personally played a role in the CIA torture program. The American people deserve to know whether those reports are true. Every single material question to her about them has been met with stonewalling and evasion. Instead of real responses, Ms. Haspel offered possibly the latest confirmation conversion in history, 16 years after she first learned about the torture program and only just before a vote on her confirmation.

Over and over again, I and other Senators have insisted that Ms. Haspel declassify information about her background that would not in any way compromise the safety of the American people. This is information that is directly relevant to her nomination. In the language of the Intelligence Community--I have read it--the overwhelming bulk of this information can be declassified without compromising sources and methods. Yet every single time a Senator pushed for declassification, Gina Haspel said no. Despite our repeated requests, she decided she would not allow the American people to know who she is and what she has done.

This has been--and, again, it is painful to have to say this--a stark failure of Senate oversight, and it is about as flagrant an example as I have ever seen. The Senate should have stood up to this self-serving abuse of power, but it did not.

For me, it is democracy 101 that confirmations are not supposed to take place in secret. Nominees don't get to decide what is known about them. Yet this core principle--core principle of our democracy has just been chucked in the trash. Instead of standing up for the Constitution and for the American people, the Senate could be rewarding Gina Haspel and the CIA for this extraordinary and self-serving abuse of power.

With respect to other issues, it is important to note that the Agency--again, under the direction of Ms. Haspel--has also conducted an unprecedented influence campaign to promote her confirmation. This, too, is wrong. The CIA, like every government agency, works for the American people. It is not supposed to use its enormous power to serve the personal interests of whoever is running it. The classification rules are there for national security. They are not there for the political security of an individual. They are there to protect the dedicated women and men who undertake dangerous missions undercover. They are not there to shield a nominee for a Senate-confirmed job from scrutiny.

I and a number of my colleagues have looked at the classified information about Ms. Haspel and have concluded it can be released to the public without compromising sources and methods. We asked how she could justify keeping it secret. Her answer almost always is, that is how ``we always protect our officers.''

I want people to understand what is wrong with that statement. Of course, the CIA must protect undercover CIA officers. I don't take a backseat to anybody in this Chamber for protecting those people who are undercover. In fact, I wrote a law, along with Senator Bond, our former colleague, increasing the penalty for outing people who are undercover. Gina Haspel is not undercover. She is asking the U.S. Senate to be vested with a position that would make her one of the most public and visible intelligence leaders in the world.

This is not an undercover job. It is one of the most visible national security positions, not just in our country but in the world. It ought to be accompanied by accountability, and hiding behind the protections that are rightly given undercover officers to advance her career I find absurd.

I wish to also note that her classification decisions are in violation of Executive Order No. 13526. For decades, the intelligence community has been barred from keeping information classified to prevent embarrassment or conceal violations of law or administrative error. It is pretty clear those rules are not high up on Ms. Haspel's priority list.

What I am especially worried about--I am going to go into this--is that if you can violate the classification rules to get confirmed, the Senate says: Oh, no big deal, it is going to get done again and again.

Last time I looked, most Americans believed this country needs more accountability, more transparency, and less unnecessary secrecy.

Much of the attention on the nomination has been about the press reports of Ms. Haspel's role in the CIA torture program. Throughout the process, she has flatout refused to confirm or deny if she had any connection to it. How can this possibly be classified? Three years ago, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a 500-page executive summary of the torture report. The CIA released a long and detailed response. What the CIA did to all those detainees is now officially declassified. Former CIA officers have written whole books about it. How in the world can you say Ms. Haspel's reported involvement in the program is classified? You can do it because she says so, and she is the boss.

At one point, I asked Ms. Haspel whether opinions about the CIA torture program expressed by CIA officers were classified. I wasn't even asking then about anyone's involvement in the program, just what people might have thought about it. Ms. Haspel wouldn't answer that question either. She said that even the matter of whether those opinions are classified is itself classified--downright Orwellian, in my view.

In a democracy, there have to be some basic rules about what is and what isn't classified. We are seeing a replacement of those rules with essentially the whims of leaders who aren't accountable. Secret law-- the classification of legal interpretations rather than sources and methods--is a serious problem, including at Ms. Haspel's CIA. Information that doesn't need to be classified to protect national security is being covered up for political purposes.

Speaking of Orwell, the classification rules themselves are going to be classified. I have been concerned about this tendency for years. I want to emphasize, I have made this clear to political leaders of both political parties, and I continue to believe that. But if the CIA and Ms. Haspel can get away with all this, the worst is yet to come.

As I have been saying since she was nominated, I have a host of concerns about all of these issues. I hope Senators will exercise independent judgment. There is a classified Intelligence Committee minority memo about Ms. Haspel, and I hope every Senator will read it and ask themselves publicly, ``If the American people actually knew about all this, how would I vote?''

What I can say is, her classified comments about her background have been as troubling as her public testimony. What I can say is, when I did get unclassified responses to my questions, they certainly were not assuring. Public discussions about the CIA have generally been about overseas operations affecting foreigners. It has been decades since the public really focused on the danger that the CIA could violate the privacy of Americans, but the danger is there, and hard questions ought to be asked.

One example is section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, recently reauthorized by the Congress. The CIA has the authority, under that law, to identify foreign targets and then to search through the communications of those targets for particular Americans. The CIA can conduct these backdoor searches of Americans without a warrant. That creates a danger of reverse targeting, which is when the government, in this case the CIA, targets a foreigner to find out what an American is saying.

One way to help prevent reverse targeting is to recognize that when the government is conducting lots of backdoor searches on Americans and then sending around reports on those Americans, maybe it is the Americans whom the government is really interested in. By the way, the privacy board agrees with it, and so does the current Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

Given all that--the prospect of what it would mean for Americans--I asked Ms. Haspel about it. Again, what I got back were plenty of words but nothing that provided any assurance that the CIA has any system at all for guarding against reverse targeting of Americans under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Also, the Agency collects a lot of intelligence under an Executive Order known as 12333. I wanted to know if the Agency was conducting backdoor searches on Americans through that data. The current Director of the National Security Agency told me that when the NSA conducts searches of Americans, those searches have to be approved on a case-by- case basis, with probable cause, by the Attorney General. The NSA doesn't actually have to go to court, which is a concern. But those requirements create meaningful hurdles to abuse. I thought it was important to ask about the CIA: When can the CIA conduct backdoor searches of Americans?

The response I got from Ms. Haspel is that the searches are authorized if they are designed to get information related to the CIA's activities. That means there is no standard at all on backdoor searches of Americans.

I have mentioned these two unclassified examples because they show how vague the rules are and how easily the CIA could violate the privacy of Americans. That is why it is important to have leaders at the Agency who believe in the privacy of the American people and who are committed to protecting it, protecting Americans--protecting Americans even if sometimes a lawyer says something might be technically legal. I don't believe Gina Haspel will be that kind of leader.

Before I wrap up, there are a couple of other matters with respect to the torture program. I mentioned that since the torture program has been largely declassified, it can be discussed openly. Senator McCain, whom we admire so much, said last week that Ms. Haspel's refusal to acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying. I am going to talk a bit more about Senator McCain before I wrap up. I have always been a John McCain guy on a lot of issues. I came to the Senate and joined the Commerce Committee that he chaired, and I will talk a little about that, but he sure sums it up right on torture. He says: It is wrong. It harms America because of the statement it makes about American values around the world. Then he points out it is not effective.

Since the program has been largely declassified, it can be discussed openly. The CIA captured innocent people. It tortured dozens of detainees. It didn't just waterboard people. The CIA placed detainees in ice water. It kept them awake for a week. It stuffed detainees in small boxes. The list goes on and on. They were always worse than how they were described to Congress or the Department of Justice.

Through it all, it seemed that the CIA and the government had not really held anybody accountable. The CIA also provided numerous false claims to the Department of Justice, to Congress, and to everybody else about torture.

Now, I have never been a big believer in confirmation conversions. My general take is that nominees will say about anything to get confirmed, but Ms. Haspel's statement with respect to torture has to be the most delayed and the most grudging confirmation conversion in history. She said she learned about the torture program in 2002. It took 16 years before she was willing to say anything critical about it.

I mentioned asking her about her views when the program was winding down. That was not something that was a debatable proposition, as it was in public source materials. The CIA was winding down the program. It was capturing fewer people and no longer using the waterboarding.

So what were her views on the program? I asked her specifically because it was in public sources. When the Agency was winding down the program, was she for continuing it or even expanding it? I asked her twice--in the hearing and in a written question. Her quote was that she was ``committed.'' Figure out what that means. To me, that is about as clear an evasion of a very important issue as I can find.

Apropos of the present, usually nominees offer their confirmation conversions before the eve of the key vote. I had mentioned that this was awfully grudging. The Agency shouldn't have undertaken a torture program, she said, because it did damage our officers and our standing in the world.

That is true, but at no time did she ever express regret or anything that reflected that this was just plain wrong. She offered up the classic Washington, almost nonapology. She was not sorry for what the Agency did. She was just not happy with how it was perceived.

Worse still are some of the justifications for the torture program that she is still providing. For example, she is still arguing that the program produced valuable intelligence. She says it is unknowable whether the torture techniques produced valuable intelligence.

Yet it is knowable. The intelligence that the CIA attributed to torture came from other sources. When the committee looked at the CIA's own records, it found that key intelligence was provided by detainees before the CIA engaged in the torture. It is these kinds of documented facts that have made Ms. Haspel's statements so troubling.

Why are her equivocations about the effectiveness of torture so important? I think we all remember the campaign in the fall of 2016, when then-Candidate Trump said: ``Torture works.'' It seems to me that it is not in America's interest to have a CIA Director who responds with: Well, there are a lot of aspects to the issue, and I am not happy about how the Agency was perceived in terms of what it did.

With regard to John McCain, like a lot of Senators, I am thinking now about some of the big battles and tough fights that we had a chance to work on together. I became Oregon's first new Senator in almost 30 years. Oregon has always been about wood products, and it always will be. I said I would go to the Senate and fight like crazy to get more jobs to those rural areas and try to get Oregon and our country into some new fields.

It is not generally known, but in those days, John McCain had just become the chairman of the Commerce Committee.

I went to him, and I asked: Mr. Chairman, why don't you and Chairman Leahy, who has been a stalwart on these issues, lead an effort to try to write the rules of the road for the internet?

By and large, there were not any.

He kind of smiled at me--that quintessential John McCain smile--and basically said: Why don't you go out and figure out how to do it, and we will have a hell of a good time in making the case.

Under John McCain's leadership, what we did was to, in fact, write the rules of the road for 10,000 taxing jurisdictions in America. As a result of those early days, you can't discriminate against electronic commerce, which would have clobbered the internet with thousands of discriminatory decisions. There were digital signatures. We wrote the regulatory rules for social media that are often cited as creating $1 trillion worth of wealth in the private economy.

To a great extent, John McCain brought his typical passion to those new areas that he would be the first to say he didn't know everything about, but he said: Hey, look, we ought to do something that is in America's interest.

We didn't care about Democrats, and we didn't care about Republicans.

As Senators proceed to this vote in a half hour--a historic vote, in my opinion--I hope they will reflect on what John McCain has had to say about torture. He has said Ms. Haspel's refusal to acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying. John McCain has urged the Senate to reject her nomination.

John McCain has been a towering authority on this issue and has been a guiding light for the Senate on national security policy. I also just mentioned something I don't think anybody knew, which is about writing the rules of the road for the internet.

It is my hope that John McCain's powerful and unimpeachable views on the issue of torture and this nominee will continue to be heard today and well into the future. There is no greater voice on this subject than John McCain's.

I want him to know how grateful I am for his leadership on this and how, in the days ahead, I look forward to, hopefully, being able to tell my grandchildren what a man of stature and public service really brought to the Senate. I hope Senators will reflect on that before they vote.

Throughout this nomination process, there were not a whole lot of topics that were declassified. So I am just going to share a story about Ms. Haspel and the destruction of the videotapes.

There is important information in the report by U.S. Attorney John Durham that most Senators were not allowed to see. Like everything else about her career, the information that reflects poorly on Ms. Haspel gets covered up, but we did learn some things about Ms. Haspel and the destruction of the torture videotapes. For one, she wrote the cable that authorized the destruction. Second, she was an advocate for destroying the tapes and was involved in what former Acting Director Mike Morell called ``efforts to press for and facilitate a resolution of the matter.'' That is a lot more than drafting a cable.

Especially problematic for Ms. Haspel and her boss, Jose Rodriguez, is that there were reservations or there was even outright opposition from the White House, the head of national intelligence, the CIA, and the Congress to the destruction of the tapes. So Mr. Rodriguez decided to go it alone and sent the cable Ms. Haspel had drafted without telling the lawyers, the CIA Director, or anyone else.

Here is where Ms. Haspel's story about the destruction of the tapes really runs into trouble. Jose Rodriguez, her boss, gave an interview in which he told Ms. Haspel in advance that he was planning on sending the cable without seeking authorization. So I asked her about that story. She denied it. I don't know who is telling the truth. Yet here we are, voting on this nominee without our having this direct contradiction in any way resolved.

Then there is the question of what happened after the cable was sent but before the tapes were actually destroyed. Ms. Haspel has said that she was at her desk and could see her computer screen. So it was shortly after the cable was sent that she became aware of it. She said it was at that point that she walked over to discuss it with Mr. Rodriguez.

So what did she do? She knew that the destruction of evidence had been ordered over everyone's objections. Did she intervene to stop the destruction before it happened? Did she tell the lawyers in time for them to intervene? Did she tell the White House? Did she tell the head of national intelligence? Did she just let it happen?

These are central questions because they tell us what kind of leader Ms. Haspel is. In order to get confirmed, she has made all kinds of promises about standing up for what is right and rejecting inappropriate orders. But what did she do when she knew an order had been sent to destroy evidence over the objections of lawyers and everybody else? There is no record of her doing anything to stop it.

I offer this small window into her background because, I think, we all ought to be asking how might she react when confronted with an illegal, immoral, or inappropriate direction.

I mentioned what the President said earlier in the campaign--that he would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding. He has praised Ms. Haspel for being tough on terror. You don't have to be Picasso to connect the dots about what the dangers are here. Other than a few belated promises that were made to get confirmed, what evidence is there, actually, to suggest that Ms. Haspel would really push back?

I close, simply, with this. I have an enormous amount of respect for the good work being done by those at the CIA. The nature of the secret, risk-taking work that they do is an extraordinary service to the American people. My concern is that when something goes off the rails, it is going to be because of a variety of scenarios that will not have a lot to do with their good work. For example, it could be because there is a CIA Director who sees every lawyer's approval as a green light and every lawyer's warning as an annoyance. It could be because CIA leadership decides to hide from public scrutiny information that need not be classified.

My concerns about Ms. Haspel are not a matter of history. I have concerns about what she is saying today, both about her background and about current programs. I am concerned that after we have heard from John McCain and each of us has reflected, as I have briefly, on our extraordinary experiences with this unique public servant, we will still have to make a judgment here. I hope that colleagues, when they vote in a little bit, will recognize that there is much more that the full Senate and the American people have a right to know. I believe that if they did, they would join Senator McCain and me in opposing this nomination.

I regret to have to say, as I did in the beginning, that I believe the Senate has surrendered its responsibility to do real oversight here. This process has been a disservice to our constitutional duty. I believe the American people deserve to know more than that Gina Haspel likes Johnny Cash while she is simultaneously exercising the power to censor the facts about her background. I urge colleagues to reject this nomination.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, it is important for everybody to understand how things work today and what net neutrality is all about. What net neutrality is fundamentally about is that everybody gets a fair shake with respect to using the internet. After you pay your internet access fee, you get to go where you want, when you want, and how you want. There are no special deals. There are no priority lanes for those with deep pockets to get more content and get it faster than everybody else. That is not the way it works today. Everybody gets a fair shake on an open and free internet because of net neutrality.

What Mr. Pai, the head of the Federal Communications Commission, and his allies want is something very different. Under their vision of how things would work online, there would be toll booths all over the internet, and those higher costs would, one way or another, come out of your pocket. That would work a hardship on millions of Americans, on millions literally but especially on small businesses, seniors, and students. Everybody would be affected by a new approach that would establish toll booths all over the internet.

My view is that there is no vote this body is going to take in 2018 that will have a more direct impact on the wallets of Americans than the one that is going to happen in a few hours. This is the last chance to protect the free and open internet that comes about with real net neutrality. The fact is, if we don't do it, the Trump Federal Communications Commission and Chairman Pai want to turn the lights out on the system I described today where, after you pay for your internet access, you go where you want, when you want, how you want. That is what we have today. Without what we are doing here, Chairman Pai at the Federal Communications Commission can change that and take money away from typical Americans to line the pockets of their friends at the big communications monopolies, Big Cable.

If Republicans in Congress allow this administration to get away with repealing net neutrality, Americans can certainly expect to be charged more for Netflix, for music services on Spotify, and for video game downloads--for example, on PlayStation.

This isn't some academic policy question that is going to show up years from now. Certainly, there are matters we talk about where that could be the case. This is where the Trump Federal Communications Commission could hand big cable companies more power and take more money out of the pockets of the American people next month.

I am very appreciative of my colleague Ed Markey for the extraordinary leadership role he has taken. He and I have enjoyed teaming up since the days when we began in public service. Senator Markey was then Congressman Markey, and he introduced the first net neutrality bill in the House. I had the honor of partnering with him when I introduced the first net neutrality bill in the Senate. Both of us said, literally, more than a decade ago, that we needed communications policies that were rooted in the principle of nondiscrimination--transparency, openness, and freedom for all online. Here we are, back in this fight once again, to pass the Markey resolution, which, in effect, will ensure that what my colleague has sponsored today and sought to do a decade ago, on which I partnered with him, will actually get done.

Everybody understands that you have to pay a fee to get access to the net. The question at the heart of this debate that you have to keep coming back to is this: Once you pay that fee, shouldn't everybody get a fair shake? Shouldn't we be able to say in America that once you pay that fee, you ought to be able to go where you want, when you want, and how you want? As the Trump FCC wants to do, should you be able to say that the big cable companies should be able to hot-wire the system--to rig the internet--for the benefit of those who can afford to pay more?

I would say, because I have been listening to my friend talk about this, that their vision is, really, something along the lines of an information aristocracy, whereby, if you have deep pockets, you are going to have access to a technology treasure trove, but the typical American, with his vision, is kind of on his way to digital serfdom. That is why it is so important to understand what Chairman Pai and the FCC are up to, which is special deals for special interests and more power--significantly more power--for those with deep pockets.

What the people who are opposed to real net neutrality have cooked up is a scheme called paid prioritization. I say to Senator Markey that I have called this effort that of erecting tollbooths online. What it means is that if you are among the fortunate few, you get faster download speeds and more content. If you are a big, established company, guess what. You can stifle the competition. You can squash the competition. Those opportunities aren't going to be available to an entrepreneur who is just starting out in his garage somewhere. For a family that is barely staying afloat, what it sounds like they are interested in is giving them second-rate internet service. I think Senator Markey and I remember that it was not that long ago when big chunks of America had dial-up, and people seemed to wait forever to get online.

Mr. Pai is going to tell you with a straight face that these big cable companies have the best of intentions and that they are sort of going to go along with all of this voluntarily because it is just the right thing to do. Yet my question is this: If the cable companies are just going to go along with net neutrality, why is Mr. Pai working so hard to get rid of it? It doesn't really stand up. I always say at home, because people ask what it means for us--and they have gotten to meet the charming William Peter Wyden, aged 10--that there is about as much chance that the cable companies will voluntarily go along with net neutrality as the likelihood that William Peter Wyden and his sister will voluntarily limit the number of their desserts. It is just not going to happen. In particular, if Mr. Pai says he believes in real net neutrality, the Markey resolution will give him a chance to actually show that. But we all know that he doesn't see it that way.

I just opened all townhall meetings in Oregon, most of them in rural communities, and I know the distinguished Presiding Officer of the Senate represents a lot of rural terrain. I am telling you that people in those rural areas understand what is at stake for rural America here. For rural America, without the Markey resolution, it will mean the net will move along at snail's pace. It will mean that rural businesses could have a harder time in getting off the ground and reaching customers. I talked to ranchers, for example, about just this issue. It will mean rural healthcare could miss out on technological marvels that could have the potential to save lives.

This is particularly important because Senator Markey and I have teamed up on a lot of the efforts to improve American healthcare. We have led the fight to show that we are updating the Medicare guarantee so that it will not be just an acute care program but will focus on chronic illnesses. Senator Markey and I have led the effort for more care at home and for greater access to telemedicine. All of those technological marvels really depend on rapid access to the net. If you are in rural America and you have had a stroke, rapid access to the net may be something that will saves lives and that will ensure those rural providers will be able to get connections to parts of the country that will have, for example, a neurologist available who will be able to help.

The Markey resolution and its passage should not be an issue seen along partisan lines. I don't see it as a political question. The bottom line of the debate is that if the resolution goes down, the stuff Americans do on the internet today is going to cost them a whole lot more tomorrow. It is not going to take place years from now and be some kind of an abstract question. It is going to be on Americans. Those extra costs will come out of their pockets, and it will cost them a lot more in a hurry.

I close by thanking my colleague from Massachusetts for all of his leadership. It has been my privilege to team up with him. I guess it becomes almost bicameral since the two of us started this in the House and the Senate.

I urge my colleagues to support the Markey resolution and do the right thing. Support the consumer and small businesses. Let's not hand more power and profit to the big cable companies at the expense of Americans, from sea to shining sea, who cannot afford more money to come out of their wallets and go to the big cable companies.

I see my friend on the floor.

I am happy to yield.

Mr. President, my colleague from Massachusetts is probably being too logical for a lot of this discussion, whereby the special interests continue to shroud their real agenda, which is what my friend from Massachusetts has described. Clearly, with this effort the big cable companies, with their hopes riding on Mr. Pai, would like to go back to yesteryear, when they could gouge the consumer, when they could stick it to the person of modest means.

I think my colleague has summed it up very well. If Mr. Pai and his allies were really going to present us with a real net neutrality plan, I know we would be interested in hearing about it, but they have never been interested in that. What they have been interested in is taking a whole lot of legalisms and murky language to try and fool the American consumer. The bottom line is Mr. Pai and his allies would like to set up these tollbooths across the country and start with a policy that, one way or another, is going to cost the typical consumer more.

I look forward to my colleague's remarks.

Mr. President, my colleague has said it very well. It is what I saw last week in these nine townhall meetings, and almost all of them were in rural Oregon.

People joked and asked: Ron, why are you here? We have more cows than people.

I said: My hometown is Portland. I love Portland.

My only frustration, as my friend knows, is I didn't get to play for the Trail Blazers.

I am not a Senator from the State of Portland. I am a Senator who represents every nook and cranny of Oregon, however small. What I would say to my friend and, I hope, to my colleagues--because the Senate represents a lot of rural terrain--is what I heard in places like Burns and Prairie City last week. If they have to pay more for less content, which, I think, could easily happen under these trickle-down telecommunications policies of Mr. Pai's, then it is not just going to be Portland, OR, and Springfield, MA. It is going to be rural America-- literally, from sea to shining sea--that is going to wake up very soon and find its bills going into the stratosphere.

It has been a privilege to work with my colleague. This has been bipartisan--especially making sure the kinds of policies that can come about with real net neutrality and making sure rural communities get a fair shake complement other work we are doing that represents the future. My colleague and I have talked about the fact that in our efforts to update the Medicare guarantee, for years and years both political parties have missed what Medicare has become.

Back when I was director of the Gray Panthers--the senior citizens-- Medicare had two parts, Part A for hospitals and Part B for doctors. If you broke your ankle and went to the hospital, that was Part A of Medicare. That is not Medicare any longer. Today, Medicare is cancer, diabetes, heart disease, strokes, and chronic pulmonary disease--all of these chronic conditions. What my colleague has done--and I am so appreciative of the fact that we can work together on this. We said: Let's

update the Medicare guarantee. Medicare is not a voucher, a slip paper you give to people. It is a guarantee of basic services. So Senator Markey and I and others of both political parties have come along and said: Let's give people more care at home. Let's expand the role of telemedicine so that if you are in Burns or Prairie City, OR, or other small towns in America, you can have access to these technological marvels when you don't have a neurologist or a specialist.

Make no mistake about it, what Mr. Pai is looking at is a prescription for trouble for rural healthcare because they, like so many of the people they serve, are going to face the prospect of those toll booths, and they are going to pay more, in many cases, for less.

So I look forward to working with my colleague and listening to his remarks.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I must regretfully object to the Senate proceeding to the nomination of Christopher C. Krebs of Virginia to be Under Secretary of the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security, DHS.

Since November of 2017, I have urged the Department, and Mr. Krebs specifically, to be more open with the American people about the threat posed by foreign governments using cellular surveillance technology to target phones in the United States, including those used by senior government officials.

In a March 26, 2018, letter, Mr. Krebs revealed to me that DHS ``has observed anomalous activity in the National Capital Region (NCR) that appears to be consistent with International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) catchers.''

However, as I noted in an April 18, 2018, follow-up letter to Mr. Krebs, which was also signed by my colleagues Senator Paul, Senator Gardner, and Senator Markey, DHS has in recent months shared additional information about these and other incidents with Federal agencies. Specifically, an official from the DHS National Coordinating Center for Communications, NCC, gave a detailed presentation to an audience of Federal Government employees on February 6, 2018. That presentation included important information that I believe the American people have a right to know. My colleagues and I asked Mr. Krebs to remove the ``For Official Use Only,'' FOUO designation from the slides used at this presentation and make them available for public release.

I remain hopeful that this is an issue we can work through and resolve soon. However, until the FOUO designation is removed from those slides and they are made available for public release, I will object to the Senate proceeding with the Krebs nomination.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent at this point to speak for up to 5 minutes and to let my colleague from the Pacific Northwest, Senator Cantwell, follow me immediately thereafter.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Colleagues, this is the only resolution that provides a golden ticket to maintaining a free and open internet.

By way of a free and open internet--and I know a lot of folks are following this debate. I see folks in the Gallery. What a free and open internet is all about is, after you pay your internet access fee, you get to go where you want, when you want, and how you want. Everybody gets treated the same. A local florist selling roses out of their shop in Condon, OR, a kid in Roseburg who wants to learn about artificial intelligence, a mom in Pendleton who wants to find out about childcare--all of them get treated the same, and they get treated just like the big guys, the people with the deep pockets.

Now the head of the Federal Communications Commission, a gentleman named Mr. Pai, wants something very different. In effect, he wants to turn that on its head and start cutting deals for the people with the deep pockets. He would kind of like to have something called paid prioritization, which basically means that if you are one of the fortunate few, you can get faster speeds, more content, and you can get access to the kind of technological treasure trove that I have seen my colleague from the Pacific Northwest, Senator Cantwell, talk about. He has all kinds of schemes to essentially suggest that he really is helping the consumer when he is really working for the folks at the top.

One of my favorites, colleagues--and my friend from Massachusetts and I have discussed this--is that the head of the FCC from time to time discusses the idea that we would have voluntary net neutrality. It is hard to keep a straight face with this one, the idea that the big cable companies, the big communications monopolies, are going to do this voluntarily. I think that is about as likely as getting my 10-year-old son, William Peter Wyden, to limit the number of desserts he eats. It just isn't going to happen. It is not going to happen. I see some parents on the floor who can identify with that. So what we have to do is pass the Markey resolution and ensure that there is a real position at the Federal Communications Commission that has some teeth.

The fact is, since he came to town, since he came to this position, Mr. Pai has basically tried to water down this whole effort on net neutrality again and again--we don't need title II protection; we don't need any of the basics that have been part of this effort that we have made for well over a decade to ensure that net neutrality has real teeth.

My friend and colleague mentioned that he introduced the first one in the House. I introduced the first one in the Senate. The point is, we have been working on this for well over a decade in both Chambers.

One of the reasons we sought to take this action now is that not only is Mr. Pai moving ahead to offer this ominous, dangerous definition of ``net neutrality,'' but we believe there is going to be a grassroots juggernaut all across the country saying that now is the time to be in touch with your Members of Congress to let them know how strongly you feel about this.

I just attended nine townhall meetings in Oregon. Most of them were in rural areas. Net neutrality for rural communities, folks, is a prerequisite to making sure you are not a sacrifice zone. Without good communications, how do you maintain, for example, rural healthcare?

I am very pleased to be out here with my friends--Senator Cantwell, who knows so much about this issue; a former Governor, Senator Hassan, who is very knowledgeable on these issues. Those of us from small States, like Senator Hassan and me, know that this is really a lifeline. This is how you get access to the big financial markets. This is how you get access to the communication centers. This is how a kid in a small town in New Hampshire or a small town in Oregon gets a fair shake and has fair opportunity to get ahead,

just like a kid who lives in Beverly Hills.

We are going to be back on this floor frequently between now and next week when we will seek to advance the Markey resolution. I will close the way I began, colleagues. There is no path to a free and open internet without the Markey resolution. This is the golden ticket, this is the only ticket, and I hope folks all across the country will see how important this is and weigh in with their Senators in the days ahead.

Mr. President, thanks to my colleague for her courtesy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first of all, I want to thank the distinguished Senator from Vermont, who has been such a role model to me since I came to the Senate--we started working together on technology issues and worked together on so many matters dealing with appropriations and finance--for all his counsel, not just on this but over the years. I thank him for the courtesy of being allowed to go next.

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

Mr. President, it is hard to find the words that will truly reflect what an abomination the campaign finance system in America has become. The fact is, the only people who seem happy with the current state of campaign finance are billionaires who have phones full of contact information of the most powerful people in the land. Otherwise, if you are a typical American--putting in a hard day's work, supporting your family--you probably have the sense the campaign finance laws are rigged for the big and the powerful.

There was an era when running for office was as simple as putting your name out for the public, getting a few local civic groups in your corner, and bringing in a few modest donations to get your campaign off the ground. Certainly, it is not that way anymore. It has now been well chronicled how a wave of money--particularly from a few secretive powerful individuals like the Koch brothers--has flooded American politics in the last few decades. That has grown exponentially in the years since the Citizens United decision. The fact is, there has been a tidal wave of dark money buying influence across America's political system.

This isn't just about too many political ads on television and radio. Voters know that unless they unplug entirely and settle for a life out in the woods, they are going to see a lot of ads. Even beyond ads in the election season, there is this deluge of money buying the support of beltway think tanks, currying favor among lobbyists, funding so- called social welfare organizations that, frankly, aren't doing a whole lot of social welfare.

The bottom line is, for those like the Koch brothers, having deep pockets means you can buy the right to grab hold of the levers of power of the American Government. You can create a whole lot of noise that virtually drowns out the constituents back home.

I am heading home tomorrow. I have about nine townhall meetings scheduled in rural communities. They are always amazed that we are having those kinds of discussions--my colleague Senator Merkley does them as well--because it seems that in most of the country, everything that resembles the government we know so well, direct contact, open to all town meetings, is getting drowned out by a deluge of dollars that creates all of this noise--fake noise, to use the language of the times--that drives out real discussion about substantive issues.

I am going to talk about an example, one that has certainly generated some real concern over the last few months. If you want to see what is wrong with the election system, in my view, you don't have to look much further than some of the letters I have exchanged recently with the National Rifle Association. A few months ago, there were news reports of a potential financial relationship between a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin and the NRA. The big question was whether the Russian money had been funneled into the NRA to assist the Trump campaign and influence the outcome of the election. In my view, I would say that is a question that most right-minded Americans would like to have answered.

I am the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, where we have jurisdiction over the Federal Tax Code. That includes the rules that pertain to political groups and tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organizations like the ones that are maintained by the NRA. I began in a series of letters that were sent to the organization, sent to the NRA, to ask questions about their foreign funding. The series of shifting answers I got in return from the NRA was enough to give you whiplash. First, when we inquired--because we had seen all of these news reports--they said: ``Nothing to see here.''

Then, as we followed up and found that a little hard to square with these public news reports, they said: ``Well . . . we get foreign funding, but just from that ONE Russian, and that's it.''

Then, we heard another version of what was going on at the NRA. They said it was a couple of dozen Russians giving money to the NRA. We continued to follow up, and they told the press and they told me: Hey, we are done with the Congress. We are not interested in answering any more questions. We are busy. We have other things to do.

That pretty much sums up the problem we have heard described on the floor this week with the campaign finance system. The information Americans have access to in campaign finance reports is just the tip of the iceberg, just the beginning of unpacking this whole question of where the money comes from in our political system. Everything under the waterline is where it gets seedy, but powerful interests have managed to figure out how to keep their handiwork hidden. The powerful use shell companies to mask the identities of who is funding campaigns and so-called independent expenditures. Even simple questions asked of these powerful groups influencing campaigns--questions like, ``Do you get money from overseas,'' the Congress and the American people cannot get a straight answer.

There are Members who want to see real changes made to bring some sunlight into this system. They see how important this is, giving the onslaught of attacks on the campaign finance laws that are coming from the Supreme Court. These attacks are one major reason why I have cosponsored legislation to create a constitutional amendment allowing Congress and the States to regulate and restore faith in our campaign finance system.

With respect to this approach, I didn't arrive at this judgment casually. Constitutional amendments, in my view, ought to be reserved for those situations when the delicate balance set up by the Founding Fathers has been upset or, in this case, jurisprudence that governs the system has also changed. That is the situation and the challenge our country faces today.

I know several Members of this body have put policy ideas forward. Many of them, in my view, have real merit. Virtually all of them, in my view, would be an improvement on this rotten abomination of a campaign finance system that exists today. Virtually every day folks back home get inundated with the smarmy political ads sponsored by groups that have these names that are just nonsense--names like the ``American Association for American Values in America.'' There is one after another. I will hear about what citizens think about this during those nine townhall meetings that I am going to be having over the next few days at home. Citizens often say it is really good to have our elected officials do this. Sometimes they would kid me that we have more cows than we have voters.

Still, we are here to have this conversation because that is what I think the American political system ought to be about--direct communication, an ongoing discussion with voters, our actually being there, having the people we have the honor to represent be able to look us in the eye, to ask questions, and say: We want to hear your thoughts because we believe that is how we can hold you accountable. The flip side of that judgment is that they don't think they can do it with the campaign finance system I have described today.

All of this is fed by these reports about lawmakers who march up to Koch Industries in order to plead for support for one proposal or another. When people read these articles, they say that it sure feels like that is what the political system has become all about. It is why I have done even more open-to-all town meetings. It is one way that I can show, at least on our watch, that that is what we are doing to counter the fact that a handful of

the most powerful, like the Koch family, can generate a disproportionally loud voice in our system of government.

The fact is the campaign finance system is broken, and it is long past the time to have fixed it. I have appreciated my colleagues' coming to the floor this week to speak out on it.

I believe, as has been written, that this series of letters that I have exchanged with the NRA, just over the last few months, is a textbook case of how broken the campaign finance system is--what happens when powerful organizations and individuals like the Koch family can have a disproportionally large voice in the political system.

I think the Senate ought to get about the business of fixing this system and ending the current way in which political campaigns are financed, which, as I said when I began my remarks, is such an abomination that it doesn't pass the smell test.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.