Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the President's nomination of Ajit Pai to head the Federal Communications Commission.

My view is that, Mr. Pai will do an enormous amount of damage to one of the foundational principles of the internet--net neutrality. I am going to outline why that would be a horrendous mistake for our country.

After we came to use the internet and see what an extraordinary asset it would be to our country, really beginning in the late 1990s, and early 2000s, we laid out what I still consider to be the legal foundation for the internet.

On a bipartisan basis, there was a big effort in the Senate and the House to really lay out what were the foundational principles of the net, and there were a variety of them. We wanted to make sure that folks were not hit with multiple and discriminatory taxes, and that they were not taxed on access to the internet. We wrote the digital signatures act, which is of enormous benefit to people, for example, in the Presiding Officer's home State of Nevada, where they are making business transactions. We made a judgment, which some have said has led to $1 trillion worth of private wealth for our economy, whereby we said that we were not going to expose the small entrepreneur--the person who is getting started in the garage--to needless litigation.

One of those core principles was net neutrality, which, in my view, for the reasons that I am going to describe this morning, I think Mr. Pai would work long and hard to try to undermine.

Because so much of the telecommunications debate sounds like a lot of complicated lingo, I want to try to describe in something resembling English what ``net neutrality'' is. Essentially, ``net neutrality'' means that after you have paid your internet access fee, you get to go where you want, when you want, and how you want. In a sentence, that is what net neutrality is all about, and it is a bedrock principle for internet users in the Presiding Officer's home State of Nevada and in Oregon and all across the country.

It locks in equal treatment to accessing the internet.

We are not going to have some kind of information aristocracy in our society whereby the affluent have access to some kind of technological treasure trove, and folks who do not have much are kind of stuck with what almost resembles dial-up. That is not what we want for communications policy in America. We want to give everybody a chance to get ahead so that the kids in rural Oregon and rural Nevada have the same kind of opportunities as youngsters in Beverly Hills or the Gold Coast of Chicago or Palm Beach. We want to make sure everybody has a chance to get ahead.

Mr. Pai says that he is for real net neutrality, and we have tried to pin him down on a whole host of policies that really get him to commit to the essence of it, but he mostly says a version of what the big cable companies say. The big cable companies have

come to say: We like net neutrality. We are not going to block anything. We are for the consumer; we are for the little guy. We just do not want a whole lot of government.

They say that what they really would like is voluntary net neutrality.

Let me tell my colleagues something. There is about as much likelihood that the big cable companies will voluntarily subscribe to net neutrality as there is the prospect that William Peter Wyden--one of my 9-year-old twins, the boy--will voluntarily limit himself to one dessert. It is just not going to happen. It is just not going to work. Mr. Pai is on the side of the big cable companies. He has a long history of putting those companies before the consumers--the big corporate players over the small businesses--and pay to play over a free and open internet.

I introduced the first strong net neutrality bill here in the Senate in 2006. We all know that back then we were just starting the debate about technology policy. The Senate was getting ribbed pretty seriously by the late night talk show hosts who said that the internet was a series of tubes. So, as I have indicated, what we have tried to do is to make sure that if you pay your internet access fee, you get to go where you want, when you want, and how you want.

Net neutrality has been the law of the land, and our economy has grown around this leading principle with respect to equal access to information and customers. Mr. Pai has said that he wants to take a ``weed whacker'' to the strong, enforceable net neutrality rules. Right away, with his quotes that are on the record, he is talking about blowing up this notion of a level playing field, which is so crucial to innovation and free speech online and that allows the startups to get out of the garage to become the next YouTube and Google and EBay.

I want to emphasize that point.

People talk a lot about technology policy.

To my colleagues, this tech policy debate is about the little guy who wants to be able to get his business out of the garage so that he can become the next big guy. Net neutrality gives us the opportunity to create opportunities for that small entrepreneur, the person who is a small entrepreneur with big dreams.

Net neutrality prevents your internet service provider from favoring one type of content over another. As an example, suppose your internet provider has a financial stake in a third-party content site. It could ensure that content goes to your home faster and clearer than to the homes of its competitors if you did not have real net neutrality-- enforceable, real net neutrality, not something like Mr. Pai wants, which is, oh, we will kind of pay lipservice to net neutrality but not make it enforceable.

For example, you could have AT&T deciding to provide free data for customers streaming HBO, which would cause more folks to subscribe to that service over its competitors and starve other creators of the subscribers necessary to create new and innovative content. That is the kind of thing that happens if we do not have real net neutrality.

It even holds true for telehealth providers. Telehealth depends on reliable, fast, and low-cost internet coverage to transmit critical health information, especially in rural and remote areas--for example, the remote monitoring of blood glucose levels in diabetes patients. Net neutrality prevents the internet service providers from viewing this lifesaving service as a cash cow, thus charging rural hospitals and community health centers a premium fee to deliver critical and timely healthcare services.

Not long ago, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a strong legal framework that would make sure that the Federal Communications Commission had the tools to protect the open internet, and the reality was that, then, the Federal Communications Commission and a gentleman named Mr. Tom Wheeler, who had a background in the industry, used their experience in how companies operated and how they treated consumers to make sure that we had constructive, real, and concrete consumer protections.

The reason I feel so strongly about Mr. Pai's nomination is that Mr. Pai made it clear with his comments about taking a weed whacker to anything enforceable. He is going to roll back the rules, and then he is going to claim to be fixing a problem that doesn't exist.

The reality is that we have strong net neutrality protections in place right now. If you vote for Mr. Pai, make no mistake about it, you are voting to roll back consumer protection. You are voting to take a big step backward for the internet. You are going to hurt the people-- the small business people, the startups--who are dreaming in their garage of the chance to be big and who are going to have a lot more problems if there is a telecommunications policy that doesn't give them a fair shake.

As I indicated, this notion of a voluntary solution to net neutrality is absurd. I talked about it in the context of my own son. It would be hilarious if I even suggested to my son that I am going to let him, William, voluntarily limit himself to one dessert. He would smile and wait until I got out of the room, and he would dig in for some more. That is going to be the same thing if we embark on a net neutrality policy that says: Let's just trust the big cable companies; the cable companies, in their heart of hearts, are all about the little guy. They are just going to voluntarily go along with net neutrality because they are just that kind of good folks who want to make sure that the little guy gets ahead. The fact is, Chairman Pai's track record demonstrates that he is not in the consumers' corner.

Last year the Federal Communications Commission acted on the responsibility given to it by the Congress to protect browsing history, favored applications, and even the location of broadband users from the ISP. During that vote, Mr. Pai voted no. He was, again, with cable companies' profits over the American consumers' privacy.

During the August recess, Mr. Pai began an attempt to really backdoor a proposal that would lower the acceptable standard speed of internet access in rural areas. That is just wrong. Rural areas are already facing huge broadband challenges. Last Saturday night, I was in Oak Ridge, OR, which has a population of a little over 3,000. Earlier that day, I had been to La Pine, OR, in Central Oregon. Right on the top of their agenda is trying to find ways to expand opportunities for better communications in rural areas and more opportunities for broadband.

So in the August recess, when communities like Oak Ridge and La Pine want more opportunities in rural communities, we had the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission trying to sneak through a proposal that would lower the acceptable standard speed of internet access to rural America and hurt rural America. Make no mistake about it. That would hurt rural America--the Oak Ridges and La Pines. It is just wrong. The Congress mandated that the FCC expand access to high- speed internet to every American, and Mr. Pai basically said: No, slower internet speed is good enough.

As I indicated, just this last weekend, on Saturday night, we had a townhall in Oregon. I am telling you what these small communities are telling me about their current frustrations with slow and unsatisfactory internet speeds. Mr. Pai is giving a big gift to the powerful interests, and their internet speeds are going to get slower rather than what rural America wants, which is faster internet so that they have more opportunities to participate in the global economy and more opportunities to help their kids with their homework. Congress and the Federal Communications Commission ought to be working for all to have access to high-speed internet and not telling folks in rural America that what they have is just good enough.

Mr. Pai has repeatedly failed on another matter, and that is to act even in the face of clear danger to the security of America's mobile phones. Despite years of warnings about well-known weaknesses in mobile phone networks that allow hackers and spies to track Americans' phones, intercept calls and messages, and hack the phones themselves, Mr. Pai has taken a hands-off attitude. His Federal Communications Commission says it is not going to force wireless carriers to fix the weaknesses, and--what a surprise--his traditional answer is that ``voluntary measures are going to do enough.'' I disagree because they haven't worked.

We always talk about the role of government. I think this is an area that really lends itself to thoughtful discussion because, obviously, we don't want government if you can figure out a way to solve a problem without it. The voluntary measures have not worked here on these basic security issues I have described. The self-regulation approach has failed. The Federal Communications Commission has to force the carriers to secure their networks and protect America's critical communications infrastructure. The failure to act on this security issue means that the American people are going to be less safe.

I close by saying that my view is that net neutrality has sparked the flames of innovation and commerce on the internet. Net neutrality has been one of the foundational principles that we started working on in the late 1990s and in the early part of this century. It was up there in terms of importance, like trying to prevent multiple and discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce, particularly taxing internet access, and the digital signatures law, making sure that you couldn't hold somebody personally liable if they were to invest in a website or a blog. These were foundational principles that have been of enormous benefit to our country, and net neutrality was one of those. I guess it would be the fourth in the list of foundational principles that we talked about and have been talking about for well over a decade.

We should be building on net neutrality, not walking it back. I believe that what Mr. Pai is talking about is a significant retreat from the freedom and openness that the internet is all about.

I urge my colleagues to vote against the confirmation of Mr. Pai. Vote in favor of a truly open internet.

I yield the floor, as I note the Democratic leader is here to speak.

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

Mr. President, I am going to take some time this afternoon to respond to the remarks of the President's top economic adviser, Mr. Gary Cohn, with respect to this administration's approach to taxes.

Let me be clear right at the outset. The President and his parade of millionaires are executing a middle-class con job. I am going to be very specific in saying why I reached that judgment with respect to what they are saying about taxes.

The President said: ``I don't benefit. Very, very strongly I think there's very little benefit for people of wealth.'' Those are the President's exact words. ``It's not good for me, believe me,'' the President said in his speech unveiling the tax reform blueprint on Wednesday.

Unless the President paid zero tax, the President is going to benefit enormously from his tax plan. His family would save billions if the estate tax is eliminated, as he has proposed. His more than 500 passthroughs will be able to take advantage of the new Grand Canyon- sized passthrough loophole that his plan proposes. Based on his 2005 tax return--that is the only one available--the President would save millions each year if the alternative minimum tax is eliminated.

Today, the President's top adviser, Gary Cohn, said: ``We've also said that wealthy Americans are not getting a tax cut.'' They expect you to believe them and not your lying eyes.

I want to take a few minutes and describe exactly what the well-to-do are getting in this bill.

The plan outlined by the Trump administration would cost upwards of $5 trillion, and it is overwhelmingly skewed toward the wealthy and the biggest corporations. It lowers the corporate rate from 35 to 20, and much of that goes to wealthy shareholders.

The new passthrough, which would give this big gift to high-flyers, hedge funds, basically would let them start calling ordinary income business income, so it could be taxed at a much lower rate, and they would in the process harm Social Security and Medicare because they aren't paying those payroll taxes.

I mentioned the estate tax. This is for just a few thousand people. The exemption for a couple is already $11 million. This break would cost the American people between $250 to $270 billion. That is an awful lot of money to parcel out to a few thousand families.

They would lower the individual top rate from 39.6 to 35 percent. Let's make no mistake about it--the President of the United States and his top economic adviser have said they are not going to give tax cuts to the wealthy. That is not what they said yesterday. They said that the top rate was going to go down from 39.6 to 35 percent. And to add insult to injury, for those at the bottom of the economic system who pay 10 percent now, theirs would go up to 12 percent. So this is just making a mockery out of the President's pledge that this was going to be about working families and not about the wealthy. The fact is, with respect to the middle class, the Trump team is running a sleight-of- hand shell game. What they give with one hand, they just take away with the other.

They touted yesterday that they were going to be helping middle-class folks by doubling the standard deduction. First of all, that is walking back the bipartisan proposal we had here in the Senate--written by myself and my colleague Dan Coats, now a member of the Trump administration--that would triple the standard deduction.

What is particularly outrageous is that the Trump people aren't leveling with those middle-class families. Basically, they are saying: Oh, you are really going to do well. You are going to double the standard deduction. What they don't tell them is that they are going to eliminate the personal exemption that large middle-class families rely on. In effect, those large middle-class families--I think a lot of working-class families who may have supported the President--are going to see a tax increase under the President's tax outline that we heard about yesterday, even with this larger standard deduction.

The President's team also took a big pass on the opportunity to expand the child tax credit to make sure more working families would benefit from it. There are no specifics about the child tax credit in this plan.

The Treasury Secretary went on FOX News and said that the tax plan is going to cut the deficit by a trillion dollars. Mr. Mnuchin is doubling down on the failed experiment--the idea that the tax cuts, in effect, pay for themselves through economic growth. History shows that just is not true.

The tax cuts don't pay for themselves. The 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts were billed as tax relief for the middle class to spark economic growth. Instead, the benefits skewed to those at the very top, and they added trillions of dollars to America's debt. Middle-class wages fell. Unemployment increased. This is a pattern that working families, middle-class families, cannot afford to have repeated.

Now the Secretary of Treasury's claim is: Well, the Trump tax cuts will not just pay for themselves; they are going to bring in an additional $1 trillion in revenue atop their own cost. William Peter Wyden, age 9, my son, would say: That is just a bunch of whoppers. It couldn't be further from the truth.

As even Republican-appointed Budget Office Director Keith Hall has said and made clear, the tax cuts do not pay for themselves: ``No, the evidence is that tax cuts do not pay for themselves.'' Those are the words of the Budget Director appointed by the Republicans.

That Budget Director, Mr. Keith Hall, went on to say that the models they are doing--the macroeconomic effects, the fancy kind of economic lingo for the big picture in the long term--show it.

The other comment that was noteworthy from Mr. Gary Cohn is that the President remains committed to ending the carried interest deduction. Despite his campaign promise that won him bouquets from political commentators and typical middle-class voters, once again, the President's plan doesn't close the carried interest loophole. This is the second big occasion on which the President has failed to follow through on his campaign promise.

A few months ago, in the spring, they had a one-page outline. They said that was where they were going on taxes. They said that one-page outline was shorter than a typical Fred Meyer receipt. Fred Meyer is kind of an iconic store in our State. They had one page then and didn't do anything about following through on the President's promise to get rid of the carried interest loophole.

Yesterday--again, we didn't get a bill, but at least when you kind of eliminate all the white space, they put out close to five pages. Once again, they didn't close the carried interest loophole.

In fact, the plan gives such massive tax cuts to those at the top, investment managers will not be the only

people who can get away with paying less than their fair share. Many of the megawealthy are going to be able to do so. It is all going to be legal under the President's plan.

What is the one question on which the Trump team doesn't bend the truth? Whether their plan will protect the middle class from a tax hike. On ABC, the Trump adviser, Mr. Cohn, said that he couldn't guarantee taxes will not go up for middle-class folks. On ABC, the Treasury Secretary said that he couldn't guarantee middle-class folks would not pay more under the tax plan.

What is really striking about this, and it is quite a contrast, is that what people at the very top are going to get is spelled out in detail--in detail. They are going to see the abolition of the estate tax, an incredible windfall to a few thousand families.

Middle-class folks--can't guarantee you will not pay more. Mr. Cohn said: We are aiming to help the middle class. But then he was asked: Would you commit to it? His answer: Well, I don't know. There might be somebody somewhere.

Then there are State and local taxes. He just wouldn't stand behind the middle class the way that this administration stands foursquare behind those at the top. It is why I have said that the President and his parade of millionaires are executing a middle-class con job, and we sure saw it today.

The President's ultrawealthy, out-of-touch advisers clearly fail to understand that the time is now to deliver tax relief to middle-class folks who need it most. It is time to go back to the drawing board and come up with a plan that doesn't threaten middle-class Americans, particularly those with larger families, and doesn't hit them with a tax increase they can't afford.

I want to close by way of saying that on our side, we have repeatedly said we share the view that the tax system is a dysfunctional, broken- down mess filled with loopholes. Then you have the inversion virus. Often my wife says: Why don't you stop there? Any more is going to frighten the children.

We share the view that the tax system is broken. I have been very proud over the years to join two senior Republicans, close allies--the majority leader, Mitch McConnell--in a tax reform proposal that is bipartisan that really puts the focus on the middle class and on red, white, and blue jobs.

Our proposal--the outline laid out by Democrats--was that there had to be fiscal responsibility, it had to focus on the middle class, and the tax relief couldn't go to the 1 percent. The bill I wrote that had Republican support, the outline led by the distinguished Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, doesn't even go as far as Ronald Reagan and the Democrats went in 1986.

President Reagan, whom no one would call a flaming liberal, entered into an agreement with Democrats in 1986 that said there would be equal treatment of income earned by a cop or a nurse with that earned by someone from a hedge fund or an investment shop.

In effect, Ronald Reagan said that a dollar is a dollar is a dollar. Everything ought to be treated fairly. That was important then, and it is even more important now because, in reality, there are two tax systems in America. There is one for the cop and the nurse. They have their taxes taken out every paycheck. That taxation is compulsory--no Cayman Island deal for them.

Then there is another tax system for the kind of people who benefit from what the President outlined yesterday. Those are the high-fliers. They get to pay what they want when they want to. I think it is very unfortunate that what the President has described is another gift to that group I just described, who pay what they want when they want to. To quote the President, it is really sad to hear that this administration and the President are pretending that they are doing something else and putting the focus on the middle class when what they really are doing is advancing the cause of the parade of millionaires, a number of whom are part of this administration.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I will be happy to.

Mr. President, often late at night when the Senate passes a piece of legislation by unanimous consent, people often don't get a chance to understand what it really means, and usually there is a sense of, well, this maybe won't be the most important thing coming down the road, and everybody just said OK, and so it passed the Senate.

Last night, the Senate took action on Medicare. At a time when 10,000 people will turn 65 every day for years and years to come, Medicare is something millions of older people rely on, and their kids and grandkids make plans to make sure their grandparents are taken care of, but also they want to know what their future is going to be all about.

What the Senate did last night--Democrats and Republicans coming together--is, in my view, transformational for seniors today and the beginning of an effort that is going to evolve in the days ahead for kids and their parents and their grandparents to, in effect, benefit from an updated Medicare guarantee that will stand the test of time for many years to come. The reason I say ``updated Medicare guarantee'' is that Medicare is not a voucher. It is not a piece of paper. It is not something you get and then, well, maybe it will do you some good, but if your healthcare costs go above your vouchers, you are going to get buried in costs. Medicare is a guarantee that vital services are going to be available to those over 65.

Last night, all Senators voted to send to the House of Representatives a bipartisan effort that was years in the making to update the Medicare guarantee to start focusing on chronic illnesses, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer's.

Mr. President, I am going to make this a little bit personal. I am so grateful to Chairman Hatch, Senator Isakson, Senator Warner--the bipartisan group in the Senate that has been working on this.

What I can tell the Senate tonight is that back when I was director of the Gray Panthers and ran the legal aid services for older people, Medicare was a very different program. Back in the 1970s when we were getting the Gray Panthers off the ground, it was a very different program than it is in 2017. Medicare really consisted of two parts. There was Part A. If a senior broke their ankle or needed surgery for a broken hip, they went to the hospital, and Medicare Part A would be there to cover a senior's surgery. If a senior had an awful bout of the flu, he or she visited the doctor and they used Part B. That is not Medicare in 2017. Medicare in 2017 is not primarily about treating the flu or a broken ankle. It is there for those conditions, and we are very glad that it is, but more than 90 percent of the Medicare dollars go to treat

older people with two or more chronic conditions. I will tell you, until the Senate Finance Committee, on a bipartisan basis, began to deal with this problem--and fortunately, we had a couple of colleagues in the House who picked up on it as well--my sense is that, basically, both political parties had missed it. They really missed the fact that most of the Medicare dollars--90 percent--go to seniors who have two or more of these chronic conditions. They might, for example, deal with diabetes and heart problems.

But today's seniors really face the kinds of conditions that didn't dominate the program back in the days when the Gray Panthers were getting off the ground. Today, seniors get their care in a variety of different ways. It is not just fee-for-service medicine. We have the Medicare Advantage Plan, Accountable Care Organizations, and other new systems under development.

So keeping up with those changes--updating the Medicare guarantee-- ought to be a real priority for policymakers. That is why the Finance Committee has put so much effort over several years to get the bill that passed late last night across the finish line. There are still more steps before the policies reach the President's desk with strong bipartisan backing of the entire Senate. I am confident the job will get done.

The CHRONIC Care Act means more care at home and less in institutions. It will expand the use of lifesaving technology. It places a stronger focus on primary care. It gives older people--however they get their Medicare--more tools and options to receive care specifically targeted to address chronic illnesses and to keep them healthy. These, in my view, are a whole set of building blocks that you have to set in place to update the Medicare guarantee. Still to come is ensuring that every older person with multiple chronic conditions has an advocate to help them navigate through the Byzantine healthcare system in America.

I just want to highlight that point. If you have two or more of these chronic conditions--I guess the physicians call them comorbidities--you can be drowning, especially if you are not part of a coordinated Medicare program or Medicare Advantage or something like that. You can just be drowning in forms and processes and procedures. Lots of times, over the years, I have gotten calls from a child who is a lawyer or an engineer and they said: Ron, help me out in trying to get through all of this maze of bureaucracy to try to get help for my parents. So I want it understood that what the Senate has done as of last night is an extraordinarily important beginning, but there is a lot more to do.

I want to wrap up my comments on this subject and, then, turn briefly to one other, by handing out some very appropriate thank-yous. I think the Finance Committee has handled this bill, in my view, as a model to work on a bipartisan basis. I want to thank Chairman Hatch. He and I put together the bipartisan chronic care working group two years ago, and Senators Warner and Isakson did a first-rate job of leading it.

There is an awful lot of sweat equity put in by staff. A lot of staff worked on these issues while they were dealing with weddings. We had three children born in the process, and there were job changes.

Big thanks go to Karen Fisher, Hannah Hawkins, Kelsey Avery, Leigh Stuckhardt, Liz Jurinka, Beth Vrabel, and Matt Kazan on our team.

Chairman Hatch and his team really stepped up to work with us and all the Senators: Jay Khosla, Brett Baker, Jen Kuskowski, Katie Meyer- Simeon, and the chronic care lead, Erin Dempsey. Big thanks also go to Senators Warner and Isakson for lending us Marvin Figueroa and Jordan Bartolomeo.

I close this portion of my remarks by saying that I think what happened last night--while certainly not something everybody is talking about this evening--is something that is going to be extraordinarily important in the years ahead. It is an issue that I know the President of the Senate and I have talked about--this whole question of healthcare and Medicare and the like. This was an important step to take and an important step we can build on. I hope the other body in the House will take action quickly.

Mr. President, today I am introducing a set of three bills that will lower the cost of energy storage, increase flexibility in the power grid, and create a comprehensive set of grant programs to advance development of renewable energy technologies throughout the country.

Currently, many energy technologies--like energy storage--compete in unfair markets, making it hard for new innovations to measure up to more established technologies like those of the fossil fuel industry. Congress and the Department of Energy can work hand-in-hand with industry to level the playing field, using a fair, tech-neutral approach when updating the electricity system, to benefit the American consumer.

My Reducing the Cost of Energy Storage Act will provide funding to the Department of Energy to research and develop ways to lower the cost of energy storage technologies. Ultimately, this bill will make it possible for renewable energy to be used on a more reliable and affordable basis.

To protect the power supply from disruptions caused by natural disasters, which can wipe out power to millions of homes, my Flexible Grid Infrastructure Act will require the Department of Energy to find and develop ways to make the power grid more flexible and responsive to these challenges. The bill will also connect displaced workers to training programs that will allow them to transition to high-skill clean energy jobs. Finally, this bill will provide states and utilities with resources to upgrade the flexibility and reliability of the power grid.

In order to ensure private sector growth in distributed energy technologies, my Distributed Energy Demonstration Act will create competitive, cost-share grant programs for new small-scale, grid- connected projects such as rooftop solar panels, hot water heaters, electric vehicles and modernized utility pricing technologies.

Together, or apart, these bills will promote a more flexible electricity grid that can respond to power disruptions from natural disasters and ensure reliable, low-cost electricity for consumers now and in the future. They will also lower costs for energy storage technologies that make renewable energy more reliable and cost- effective, boost funding for cutting-edge research and reward state and private sector innovations, which will make renewable energy more reliable and affordable for U.S. energy consumers.

Mr. President, today I am introducing a set of three bills that will lower the cost of energy storage, increase flexibility in the power grid, and create a comprehensive set of grant programs to advance development of renewable energy technologies throughout the country.

Currently, many energy technologies--like energy storage--compete in unfair markets, making it hard for new innovations to measure up to more established technologies like those of the fossil fuel industry. Congress and the Department of Energy can work hand-in-hand with industry to level the playing field, using a fair, tech-neutral approach when updating the electricity system, to benefit the American consumer.

My Reducing the Cost of Energy Storage Act will provide funding to the Department of Energy to research and develop ways to lower the cost of energy storage technologies. Ultimately, this bill will make it possible for renewable energy to be used on a more reliable and affordable basis.

To protect the power supply from disruptions caused by natural disasters, which can wipe out power to millions of homes, my Flexible Grid Infrastructure Act will require the Department of Energy to find and develop ways to make the power grid more flexible and responsive to these challenges. The bill will also connect displaced workers to training programs that will allow them to transition to high-skill clean energy jobs. Finally, this bill will provide states and utilities with resources to upgrade the flexibility and reliability of the power grid.

In order to ensure private sector growth in distributed energy technologies, my Distributed Energy Demonstration Act will create competitive, cost-share grant programs for new small-scale, grid- connected projects such as rooftop solar panels, hot water heaters, electric vehicles and modernized utility pricing technologies.

Together, or apart, these bills will promote a more flexible electricity grid that can respond to power disruptions from natural disasters and ensure reliable, low-cost electricity for consumers now and in the future. They will also lower costs for energy storage technologies that make renewable energy more reliable and cost- effective, boost funding for cutting-edge research and reward state and private sector innovations, which will make renewable energy more reliable and affordable for U.S. energy consumers.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Scott Litzelman, a legislative fellow in my office, be given floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. President, today is a big day in the ongoing effort to update and strengthen Medicare's guarantee to seniors. Senate passage of the

Finance Committee's chronic care bill means seniors with multiple chronic illnesses will have their individual needs better met and get the type of care they need earlier.

It is my judgment that the Finance Committee has no job more significant than updating the Medicare guarantee, and that is exactly what today is all about. The CHRONIC Care Act begins a transformational change in the way Medicare works for seniors who suffer from chronic illnesses like cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease.

If you could bring the lawmakers responsible for the creation of Medicare into 2017, they would barely recognize the program they created more than half a century ago. Back then, if a senior needed surgery for a broken hip, he or she visited a hospital and used Medicare Part A. If a senior needed treatment for a nasty bout of the flu, he or she visited their doctor and used Part B.

Today, more than 90 percent of the Medicare dollar goes toward seniors who have two or more chronic conditions. Today's seniors get their care in a variety of ways. It is not just fee-for-service; there are Medicare Advantage, Accountable Care Organizations, and other new systems under development.

Keeping up with those changes--updating the Medicare guarantee--is a big policymaking challenge, and that is why the Finance Committee worked so hard, for so long, to get this bill across the finish line. There are still more steps before these policies reach the President's desk, but with strong bipartisan backing of the entire U.S. Senate, I am confident the job will get done.

The CHRONIC Care Act will mean more care at home and less in institutions. It will expand the use of lifesaving technology. It places a stronger focus on primary care. It gives seniors, however they get Medicare, more tools and options to receive care specifically targeted to address their chronic illnesses and keep them healthy. Those are all important steps forward in updating the Medicare guarantee. Still to come is ensuring that every senior with multiple chronic conditions has an advocate to help them navigate through the Byzantine healthcare system.

Finally just a few points about the bipartisan process leading to this bill's passage today. The Finance Committee, in my view, has handed the Congress a model for how to legislate on a bipartisan basis. I want to thank Chairman Hatch, with whom I formed a bipartisan chronic care working group almost exactly 2 years ago, and I want to thank Senators Warner and Isakson who generously took on the challenge of leading it.

Of course this bill wouldn't have materialized at all if not for the sweat equity put in by staff. Somewhere amid all the endless hours of work that went into writing this bill, they found time for multiple weddings, the birth of three children, and a handful of job changes. Thank you to Karen Fisher, Hannah Hawkins, Kelsey Avery, Leigh Stuckhardt, Liz Jurinka, Beth Vrabel, and Matt Kazan--our chronic care lead--all on my team. Chairman Hatch, I thank you for your commitment to keep working on this and to your staff, including Jay Khosla, Brett Baker, Jen Kuskowski, Katie Meyer-Simeon, and the chronic care lead, Erin Dempsey. Thank you also to Senators Warner and Isakson for lending us Marvin Figueroa and Jordan Bartolomeo.

Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes today to thank my friend Brunk Conley and to honor his long and distinguished career as he retires from the Oregon National Guard.

After more than 35 years of service to the Oregon Guard, the State of Oregon, and the United States--including his most recent position as the 10th Command Sergeant Major of the Army National Guard--he has certainly earned it.

Brunk, as we call him in Oregon, enlisted in December of 1981 and completed both airborne and ranger schools soon after his basic training. He demonstrated an early talent for leadership, and it wasn't long before he was being selected for command.

He deployed to Iraq with Oregon's 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team in 2003 as command sergeant major of the 162nd Infantry's 2nd Battalion and to Afghanistan in 2006, after being selected as command sergeant major of the 41st.

Between those overseas deployments, he served in New Orleans as part of the relief effort following Hurricane Katrina, helping to provide stability and support to Americans in desperate need of both.

Anybody who knows Brunk knows that he has been tireless in his pursuit of excellence and has served as an example to his colleagues in the Oregon Guard and elsewhere.

During his service in uniform, he earned a Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal, and Oregon Distinguished Service Medal.

Now I have always believed in the principle that friends don't filibuster friends, so I will not read the long list of Brunk's awards and commendations here, but let me tell you how pleased I was to learn in 2012 that Brunk had been promoted from command sergeant major of the Oregon National Guard to command sergeant major of the entire Army National Guard.

As the most senior enlisted member of the Army National Guard, Brunk made sure Army National Guard leaders took the needs of enlisted guardsmen into account and worked with his Active Duty counterparts to ensure policies made sense from a total Army perspective.

It was a pleasure and a privilege of mine to work with him here in Washington over these past few years, particularly on issues like tuition benefits, which he rightly championed.

Brunk's dedication to the troops under his command was legendary, and during his 2012 promotion ceremony, he said, ``I want it to be clear that in my mind there is nobody more important than the Citizen-Soldier [ . . . ] we live and breathe to support the Citizen-Soldier.''

Before I finish, I want to point out that Brunk sprung his retirement on everybody, announcing it on his Facebook account. In true Brunk fashion, he noted that nobody celebrated when he joined the Guard, and so he didn't see a need to celebrate anything now.

This is the only time I can remember disagreeing with Brunk's assessment, and so it is my distinct honor to add my name to the long list of those who want to celebrate his career.

I wish Brunk, his wife, Laura, and their five sons many happy years together, and I join the rest of Oregon in thanking him for his dedication to our National Guard, our State, and our Nation.

Mr. President, before the Senator leaves the floor, I just want to draw attention to the central point the Senator from Illinois has been making tonight. He has been focused on what our duties to the American people are all about, which is to make their lives better and particularly to improve the quality of their healthcare, which is a lifeline for millions of families.

Now, instead of looking at bipartisan approaches to make the lives of our people better--Chairman Hatch and I introduced the children's health bill today. Nine million youngsters with that program get better health. Instead of focusing on that, as my colleague from Illinois has said, we are going to be looking at a bill that will hurt our people, will give them worse healthcare, will go backward with respect to the march in our country to make sure we recognize that all our people--all our people--deserve quality and affordable healthcare.

I particularly appreciate my colleague pointing out the contrast between where we ought to go with a bipartisan proposal like the children's health plan and where we shouldn't go--which is the Graham- Cassidy-Heller proposal which is going to go backward with respect to the healthcare needs of our people.

The fact is, Graham-Cassidy-Heller has been exposed to sunlight for just a few days, but it is already clear this legislation is a bad deal for the American people.

Now, Senator Cassidy has introduced healthcare bills before. Earlier this year, he introduced a bill with our colleague from Maine, Senator Collins, as an alternative to what the Senate Republican leadership put on offer. Now, I had my concerns with that proposal, but the first thing I want the Senate to understand is this Cassidy bill, which we will soon be considering, is much worse. The reason I say that is, this bill lowers the bar for legislation which has been hastily written and ill-considered. I want to be clear. This Cassidy bill will flunk the Jimmy Kimmel test of not hurting kids in America with preexisting conditions.

To make matters worse, just this evening, I have been informed that the Senate Finance Committee will shortly announce a hearing for next Monday on the Graham-Cassidy-Heller proposal. Contrary to the norms of the Senate Finance Committee, I was not consulted in this matter as the ranking Democrat. I am all for debating major legislation, but talking about a piece of legislation which will not have the Congressional Budget Office--our independent arbiter of these matters--give us their thoughts on coverage or premium matters less than 48 hours before a vote is scheduled to happen is a sham process, which makes a mockery of the very eloquent words of our colleague from Arizona Senator McCain, who appealed for the regular way in which the Senate handles legislation.

This means Senators will not know how many millions of Americans are going to wake up not knowing if they have healthcare, how many seniors would get kicked out of a nursing home or see their core healthcare needs not met. How much will Americans' premiums go up? Senate Republicans have no answers on any of these matters.

What Graham-Cassidy-Heller does do is give a super block grant blank check to the States. They can do whatever they want--whatever they want--in terms of Americans' healthcare, and it guts the funding for those block grants over a very short period of time. This will mean a whale of a lot of pain for vulnerable people and an open door to some of the worst abuses of insurance companies, the abuses we thought we had gotten rid of. Democrats and Republicans thought we had gotten rid of them back when I introduced a bill with seven Democrats and seven Republicans. Now we are talking about bringing them back. This bill amounts to the largest healthcare devolution, moving power without any accountability at all to the States.

Now, if I might get into some of the specifics. This bill does especially serious damage to Medicaid. In fact, it really hollows out the Medicaid Program.

This year's debate over healthcare made one thing quite clear: Medicaid matters. It pays for the healthcare of our most vulnerable. It serves as a safety net for those who might not think they are ever going to need it. It covers nursing home care for older people who spend down hard-earned savings. It pays for critically needed addiction treatment services for those who struggle with opioids. We know that is what millions of Americans are facing now. It helps Americans with disabilities and kids with special needs

live a healthier, more productive life in their communities rather than in institutions.

That is just a little bit of the good Medicaid does for folks from Portland, OR, to Portland, ME. Under the Graham-Cassidy-Heller proposal, that is gone--simply gone. The plan ends expanded Medicaid coverage which 11 million Americans count on right now. It caps Medicaid and guts hundreds of billions of dollars in support from the Federal Government. In effect, it is like telling States, good luck, and telling them you can make the hard decisions about which Americans are going to get adequate healthcare and who are going to be those unfortunate souls who go without.

My view is, this is going to lead to destitution for older Americans who count on Medicaid for nursing home care. It also represents a massive transfer of dollars from States which expanded Medicaid to States which chose not to.

History tells us that the most vulnerable Americans without a voice or a powerful lobby are the ones who are going to be the worst off. Now, I have heard my colleagues--Senator Cassidy, in particular--claim that this bill is modeled on the Children's Health Insurance Program-- which is a block-granted program--and that means all supporters of CHIP should support Graham-Cassidy-Heller.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Children's Health Insurance Program has been an extraordinarily successful program for more than 20 years, now covering 9 million youngsters. Part of that success is due to its reliance on a strong Medicaid Program. If Medicaid and the rest of the healthcare system is block-granted and slashed by hundreds of billions of dollars, the pillars that support a successful Children's Health Insurance Program will crumble. They will lose their structural support. A vote in favor of Graham-Cassidy is a vote to demolish successful healthcare programs like the Children's Health Insurance Program and its promise of affordable healthcare for millions of kids and their families.

There is one more step that the Graham-Cassidy-Heller bill takes that is different from previous versions. Rather than reducing the tax credits that help Americans get help--similar to earlier Republican approaches--again, this bill just chucks them out, gets rid of them, gone. That means asking States to use their Federal health block grant for a whole host of competing healthcare priorities, in effect, pitting vulnerable Americans against each other and not having enough at the table to meet the critical needs of some of our most vulnerable people--people who, day in and day out, are walking on an economic tightrope, trying to balance their food costs against their medical costs and their medical costs against housing.

Graham-Cassidy-Heller is a recipe for disaster. This proposal, again, opens loopholes for insurance companies that, as I described, we thought we had closed, thought we had finally closed the book on the days when healthcare wasn't just for the healthy and wealthy. That is what happened when we had discrimination against those with preexisting conditions. If you had a preexisting condition and you were wealthy-- just pay the bill. If you didn't have any preexisting conditions, there was nothing to worry about.

For the millions of people who finally got some peace of mind at night when we eliminated discrimination against those with preexisting conditions, this brings back that ugly prospect that a key consumer protection, the protection that bars discrimination against those who have preexisting conditions, is just tossed aside--just as what looks to be the setting aside of essential health benefits that all Americans are entitled to receive.

It was pretty obvious during the TrumpCare debate that unraveling the consumer protections that our people count on today leads to the entire system falling apart, and the vulnerable bear the brunt of the pain.

Many of our friends and neighbors have spent the year raising their voices and showing up to stop bad healthcare legislation. Thanks to their grassroots efforts, the partisan approach that I have described as being used here again has been stopped multiple times.

I wanted to come on the floor tonight to say to people in every community across our great country that, once again, we need people power. Once again, we need them to stand up and say that we don't want to turn back the clock on the healthcare needs of the most vulnerable, like seniors and the disabled and our kids. Once again, we hope they will speak out all across the country.

I am going to be having townhall meetings this upcoming weekend after the Jewish holiday. You can be sure that I am going to hear a lot from the people of Oregon about this. I am very hopeful that, once again, people power around America is going to come forward and say to those who are talking about supporting Graham-Cassidy-Heller that this is a mistake, that they don't want to turn back the clock with respect to healthcare; they want to move forward. Instead of turning back the clock, what they are looking for is leadership, for example, that will hold down their prescription drug costs.

I have introduced legislation to require these companies to publicly justify raising their prices. We have had Senators introduce a host of bills. That is what we ought to be doing--talking about how we are going to improve American healthcare.

My colleague from Illinois mentioned the Children's Health Insurance Program, which Chairman Hatch and I worked with our Finance colleagues to get introduced, and there is the Community Health Center Program. I could go on and on about opportunities for bipartisanship to take the country in the right direction rather than in the wrong direction. Instead, it doesn't look as though that is going to be on offer any time soon. What is going to be on offer is a proposal that turns back the clock, guts Medicaid, harms seniors, harms the vulnerable, and I think would be a major mistake.

My bottom line has long been that for changes to the healthcare system to be sustainable and lasting, they have to be bipartisan. That is why I mentioned an effort that I was involved in. Several of my colleagues who cosponsored the bill I am talking about have been supportive of that for quite some time.

We know Republicans and Democrats know how to write bipartisan legislation. But what the Graham-Cassidy-Heller bill seeks to do is just the opposite--to use the most deeply partisan process the Senate knows, called reconciliation. It basically says: Our way or the highway--not interested in trying to find common ground.

I will point out that didn't end too well earlier when we talked about healthcare. I came to the floor tonight to make the case that we cannot let partisan reconciliation tactics win on this key issue. We ought to be working together to improve healthcare on a bipartisan basis, in a way that helps people all across the country.

I have mentioned--this is particularly important to me--a number of bills that colleagues on both sides of the aisle have worked on that would help improve the lives of the American people. Graham-Cassidy- Heller does not meet that test. I hope my colleagues will reject it, and I hope that all across the country, from one corner of America to every other, people will step up and they will say, as I have said on this floor: The political change doesn't start in Washington, DC, and then trickle down; it is bottom up. It is bottom up, as people come forward and say ``That is not the way to go'' and say ``Here is the way that really would make sense and make our lives better.''

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am going to make remarks on two subjects and I believe I will go a bit longer than 10 minutes. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes as in morning business.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

I am going to talk first about the devastating fires that are pounding my State, and then I am going to talk about the new legislation introduced earlier today by our colleagues Senator Graham, Senator Cassidy, and Senator Heller.

With respect to the fires, I spent much of last weekend essentially going from one base camp to another, visiting six counties to get updates at fire camps and emergency operation centers. In these travels, I saw major fires burning in Oregon from our northern border with Washington State to our southern border with California. Two of these fires were so large that they covered more than one county. So I believed it was important to visit both their eastern and their western fronts. Doing so in each case took almost 2 hours of driving from just one side of the fire to the other.

Of the 1.5 million acres burning in the West last weekend, almost 500,000

were burning in my home State alone. Now, there are 17 fires burning in Oregon. Thousands of Oregonians have been evacuated this summer, and thousands more are facing the prospect of evacuation.

Thousands of firefighters from Oregon and all over this country have been putting themselves in harm's way to help Oregon battle these infernos. From the Columbia River Gorge on the Washington border to Oregon's southwest corner, hundreds of miles away on the California border, I felt it was an enormous honor just to be able to say thank you to the thousands of hard-working men and women who are battling these life-threatening blazes.

I met with emergency service responders on the Eagle Creek fire in the gorge. The Chetco Bar fire in Southwestern Oregon that stretches across Jackson and Josephine Counties, the Jones fire in Lane County, and the Miller Complex fire in Jackson County. In each of these settings, I met men and women who exemplify what I call the Oregon way. The Oregon way isn't written down anywhere. It isn't a law or a rule, it is an ethic. It is an ethic where Oregonians step up and make sure friends and neighbors aren't in jeopardy, and the Oregon way is all about Oregonians staying on the job until it is finished.

I was also very moved by the presence of those from all over the country who came to our State, sometimes from thousands of miles away, to help save Oregon treasures--people from California, Arizona, all the way from the east coast and many points in between who came to Oregon to help out. It was just stunning to meet folks from Florida who, while worrying about their friends and loved ones in the path of Hurricane Irma, were up and working on our natural disaster, which is wildfire.

To get this job done right for generations to come, you have to recognize the inescapable proposition that the fires are getting hotter, they are getting bigger, and they are getting much more dangerous to fight. In one example, I heard how the Eagle Creek fire raced 13 miles in 15 hours, and it burned with such ferocity, with high winds, that it jumped the Columbia River. It jumped the river to start a fire on the Washington side of the gorge. For those who might not be familiar with normal fire behavior, I want to just take a minute and say how serious that is. Usually a river, and certainly a river as large as the Columbia, acts as a natural fire break, but these fires we are seeing today are not normal fires. These are not your grandfather's fires. These are gargantuan, dangerous fires. I haven't seen anything like it, along with my friend who has been on the Natural Resources Committee for a long time. This year is on track to be the worst fire in history in terms of total acres burned.

The Washington Post newspaper on Friday reported that with the dozens of fires that have spread across the West, an area larger than the size of Maryland has been burned straight through.

The way the Federal Government has historically paid for fighting fires is just plain wrong, and it leads to a cycle that adds fuel to these exceptionally dangerous fires. I have been on this floor raising this issue. I served as the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee not too long ago. Our committee has heard in hearings again and again about the dangers fires pose to our community, but the system for funding fire prevention in a timely way before our country has to spend so much more money for putting the fires out hasn't been fixed. That system is still broken as we discuss it here today.

Last week, I came to the Senate floor and talked about this subject the same day Congress passed legislation to keep the government open for 3 more months and provide aid for the recovery efforts after Hurricane Harvey. Thankfully, that legislation also included funding to ensure the Forest Service can refill the funds the agency is being forced to borrow from fire prevention accounts to fight the fires now, but that funding, certainly necessary now, doesn't fix the long-term problem.

The Congress must make sure the Forest Service has the resources it needs to treat the forest before they burn, to help deal with this issue before the forest burns, because that will make them more flame resistant and stronger in terms of the capacity to deal particularly with the heat and lightning strikes and fuel buildup.

Let me lay out the steps the Congress needs to take in the coming days. First, Congress needs to lock in disaster funding to get the communities devastated by wildfires back on their feet. They are facing destroyed homes and businesses. Recreational areas that are the lifeblood of a lot of western communities have been destroyed. They lost timber revenue. The cleanup and restoration efforts are going to be tough and costly. So that is step 1 on this to-do list.

Step 2 is fixing the broken disaster fueling budget system known in the West as fire borrow. As the government spends more on fighting fires, it has stolen, in the past, funds that are supposed to go to fire prevention so the money isn't there to thin out the dead and dying material from our forests, and all it takes is one spark to start an inferno. The problem is only going to get bigger year after year as climate change roasts the landscapes across the West and wreaks havoc across the Nation. This has gone on for years. It is leading to bigger, more threatening fires, and it is critical that this Congress put a stop to it.

Other parts of our Nation faced horrible natural disasters over the last several weeks with hurricanes battering Texas, Florida, and much of the South. The way the government pays for firefighting right now would be like funding emergency hurricane response teams with the money that is supposed to pay for levies and sandbags for the next storm. The practice of fire borrowing that has plagued so many western communities just defies common sense.

Years ago, along with my colleague from Idaho, Senator Crapo, I introduced a fix to this problem with the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act. Senator Crapo and I feel like we have been at it longer than the Trojan War. We have been at this year after year, and now we have the support of 261 groups and experts, folks in the forestry industry, environmental folks, scientists. Senator Crapo, as chairman of the Banking Committee, has another bill that, in effect, builds on this work we have done for years. I support his sensible proposal as well.

The bottom line is, the West cannot wait any longer for Congress to send them help and repair for the long term, which is fixing this broken system that shortchanges prevention and adds fuel to the raging wildfires. There is bipartisan commitment to solving this crisis, and I know Senators across the West, where these fires are burning, have been going on exactly the same kind of tours I went on last weekend. I am sure they met, as I did, these incredibly dedicated, courageous firefighters who are just working themselves to exhaustion. I am sure they heard from many of the same types of operations teams about the fight they are facing.

Those men and women on the frontlines fighting fire are doing their part. It is time for the Congress to do ours. Let's make sure our communities have the funds they need to fight fires, put the fires out. Once and for all, let us end this bizarre, commonsense-defying budget process called fire borrowing that, in effect, has the Federal Government consistently shorting prevention and then having to spend more down the road when we have these enormous fires as a result of the fact that you haven't gone in there to clean out that dead material.

Mr. President, I would like to turn to healthcare. For me, healthcare has always been the most important issue. It goes back to my days when I was director of the Oregon Gray Panthers. I have always felt, as a general proposition, that it is extraordinarily important for us to pursue bipartisan approaches in this space. I have focused on that, and, frankly, I got a lot of welts on my back to show for it.

I was very proud last night to be able to work with Chairman Hatch, and we have, in effect, announced the beginning of an agreement to deal with the Children's Health Insurance Program, a bipartisan approach, and do it in a responsible way. Obviously, there are other steps to go, but I think it reflects, again, a big, important issue in

polarized political times--the Finance Committee trying to find common ground.

The reality is, the principles around which healthcare reform has traditionally been based are still pretty valid. I believe, as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, that healthcare is a basic human right. I also believe our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have valid points as well about having a role for the private sector in the delivery of healthcare. So I have long used those kind of bedrock principles to guide me with respect to healthcare, and that is why I wanted to come to the floor today to talk about what was just announced by Republican Senators--Republican Senators only--to make one last attempt to roll back Americans' healthcare before they lose the opportunity to take advantage of the special rules that would allow partisan-only approaches, and they expire at the end of the month.

As I said, my focus--as was the case last night with Chairman Hatch, and we are far from done here--was to find common ground with respect to a critical program for children.

Earlier today, our colleagues, Senators Graham, Cassidy, and Heller, introduced a partisan bill that, in my view, might be the most harmful version of TrumpCare yet, so I wanted to take a few minutes this evening to explain why this type of legislation is still a bad deal for American families.

This legislation that has been authored by the three Republican Senators gives a super block grant--a blank check--to the States so that they can do whatever they want to Americans' healthcare. Based on everything else I have seen this year, that is going to mean an awful lot of pain for vulnerable people and an open door to the worst abuses of insurance companies, which had been relegated to the history books when the Affordable Care Act was passed. My view is that this is probably the largest healthcare devolution in history, which is pretty much sending it to the States and saying: Have at it.

First of all, the bill ends Medicaid as Americans know it today. This year's debate over healthcare made one matter clear--that Medicaid matters. It pays for the healthcare of America's most vulnerable and serves as a safety net for the people who might not think they will need it. It covers nursing home care for older Americans who spend down their hard-earned savings. It pays for addiction treatment services for those who are struggling with opioids, as millions of Americans are today. It helps Americans with disabilities live healthy, productive lives in their communities rather than in institutions. That is just the tip of the iceberg of the good work Medicaid does for those from Portland, OR, to Portland, ME. Under the legislation that I am discussing--Graham-Cassidy-Heller--that is gone.

The plan ends the expanded Medicaid coverage that 11 million Americans count on today. It puts a cap on Medicaid and offers hundreds of billions less in support from the Federal Government. It is essentially telling States ``good luck'' and is asking them to make all of the hard decisions about which Americans will get adequate healthcare and which people will go without. History tells us that the most vulnerable Americans who are without a voice or a powerful lobby are inevitably going to be the ones worse off.

There is one more step that this bill takes that is different from previous versions of TrumpCare and similar proposals. Rather than reducing the tax credits that help Americans get help, which is similar to earlier Republican approaches, this bill just gets rid of them. It gets rid of them completely. That means asking States to use their Federal health block grants to cover Medicaid, nursing home care, care for those with disabilities, addiction treatment, tax credits for healthcare, and more--and all from the same pot of money. To me, that is a recipe for a healthcare disaster.

This proposal also opens up loopholes for the big insurance companies to undermine key consumer protections--those that bar discrimination against those who have preexisting conditions and set essential benefits that all Americans are entitled to receive.

I thought we were done with those days--the days when, in effect, healthcare worked for the healthy and the wealthy and when we had discrimination against those with preexisting conditions. Basically, unless you were healthy and did not have a preexisting condition or unless you were wealthy and could pay for your healthcare costs, you were really in deep trouble. As far as I can tell, this new proposal undermines those key consumer protections that bar discrimination against those who have preexisting conditions, and it takes us back.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for up to 10 more minutes.

Mr. President and colleagues, thank you for your courtesy.

During the TrumpCare debate, it was clear that unraveling the consumer protections that Americans count on today causes the whole system to come apart at the expense of those who need healthcare the most.

I have heard the authors of this bill argue that the States will be able to keep the Affordable Care Act or do it their own way, but this bill asks each State to do a whole lot more with a whole lot less. That does not sound like a prescription for State innovation; it sounds like more of the same failed, partisan approach that the public witnessed earlier this year.

I know a bit about State innovation and have enjoyed talking with the distinguished President of the Senate about it. I wrote the provision that is currently in law that says that States have a chance to do better, not worse. What the States have been most interested in up until now is something called reinsurance, and the States that have been making headway in terms of their getting the green light from the Federal Government have used the existing law that I wrote. Yet the idea of letting States do worse is a different story, and it sure looks to me as if we will be seeing benefits cut and insurance plans being worth little more than the paper on which they are written. On top of that, Americans in red States should not be subjected to worse healthcare than those in blue States simply on the basis of their ZIP Codes.

So I come back to the bottom line in terms of bipartisanship in healthcare. I think that the way one makes lasting change in the American healthcare system is to find common ground across the aisle. I talked about some of the key principles behind it. I mentioned the fact that Chairman Hatch and I came together last night on a general framework for the children's health insurance bill.

Now, I have been approached by colleagues about this legislation, so I can only assume that means it is going to be pushed forward through the deeply partisan process known as reconciliation. That did not end well previously, and I am sure going to fight with everything I have to block partisan reconciliation tactics in the days ahead.

I close by saying let's try to pick up on the kind of approach Chairman Hatch and I tried to pursue last night--with a bipartisan effort on CHIP. Let's try to find common ground. I think healthcare is a basic human right. I also think Republicans have valid points with respect to there being a significant role for the private sector. I am interested in approaches that give all Americans the ability to have affordable, good-quality healthcare, and I think that we get it best if we pursue bipartisan approaches. I believe many of my colleagues here in the Senate share these views, and I hope the Senate will not have yet another knockdown, drag-out battle over a partisan reconciliation bill that will harm the American people but will instead pick up on the kind of bipartisan principles I have discussed tonight.

I thank the Presiding Officer and Senator Hoeven for the courtesy of having the additional time.

I yield the floor.

(At the request of Mr. Cornyn, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. President, in a few minutes, I am going to start sprinting

to the airport to get home to listen to Oregonians who have been clobbered by several megafires unlike anything we have seen in my home State of Oregon. On top of that, in addition to the megafires, there are numerous other fires.

Just up the road from my hometown of Portland, the Eagle Creek fire has merged with the Indian Creek fire and spread over an area of more than 31,000 acres. What we have seen--again, just staggering in its implications--the fire jumped the Columbia River into Washington State. It is ravaging our iconic Columbia River Gorge. This is a treasure beloved by the millions of people who visit every year and the people of my home State.

Next to me is a shot of the fire which has been burning in the Columbia River Gorge now for days. Although it appears the first sparks of the Eagle Creek fire were ignited by a young man, it is clear the inferno was accelerated by the unusual heat in early September. Now the lives and the homes of Gorge residents are under threat, and a world- renowned treasure in my home State has been devastated.

Sadly, this wildfire devastation this month has rippled across Oregon. The Chetco Bar fire in Southwestern Oregon has consumed more than 167,000 acres--an area bigger than all of Portland. The Umpqua North fire east of Roseburg and the Milli fire in Central Oregon have torn through tens of thousands of acres each.

I could go on. The point is, my home State is getting pounded by these fires, and the West is getting pounded by these fires. The skies glow orange at night as the flames burn on. Families wake up to ash on their windshields. Schools are closed, and people have been warned to stay indoors because it is not safe to breathe the hazardous air.

On the Air Quality Index map from the Environmental Protection Agency--which I have here--you can see the effects of the nightmare which has settled in over most of Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and large parts of Montana. As I speak, there are a million and a half acres ablaze across Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah. One-third of these burning acres are in my home State alone. This year is virtually guaranteed to be the worst fire season in history in terms of the total area burnt.

I served as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee for a time, chaired the Forestry Subcommittee. I have sat in so many committee hearings and heard again and again about the dangers these fires pose to our States. The fact is, the fires are getting hotter, they have gotten bigger, they have gotten tougher to fight, and this is a years-long pattern in the West. It gets hot. It gets dry. There have been inadequate efforts to go in there and thin out the dead and dying material. Then we have a lightning strike in our part of the world, and then all of a sudden, we have an inferno on our hands.

This time, as I indicated, it seems as if some of the problem was due to that set of firecrackers, but this is a years-long pattern in the West. Frankly, the same warming trends that have worsened the fires seem to have added fuel to storms that developed in the Gulf of Mexico and over the Atlantic.

My seatmate, Senator Nelson, has been telling us about what his region is faced with. The victims of all these disasters and the communities that will continue to face these growing threats need the government to come up with smarter policies to try to prevent as much of this as possible. That is why I wanted to wrap up my remarks by way of talking about the bizarre way the Federal Government budgets for fighting fire.

In the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I have led a bipartisan effort for years now. Senator Mike Crapo, the senior Senator from Idaho, and I had 260 groups--forestry groups, scientists, environmentalists--join us in the effort. What has happened over the years is the Federal Government has shorted prevention, and then, because of the conditions being hot and dry and lightning strikes or what have you, we have a big fire, and then the Federal Government, to put the fire out, borrows from the prevention fund, and the problem gets worse. That is what we call fire-borrowing. The reason I call it bizarre is that the idea of ripping off prevention, which we need most, defies common sense.

We have a dangerous, worsening cycle known as fire-borrowing. Shoddy budgeting today leads to bigger fires tomorrow, and it needs to stop.

I remember not long ago--because this does so much damage to natural resources policy--the distinguished minority leader of the Senate, Senator Schumer, signed on to our bill. We all wondered, well, what is the situation in New York? It turned out they had a problem with a bug and a baseball bat, and the natural resource agencies had trouble dealing with that challenge because so much of the funds had been frittered away with this broken system of fighting fire.

That is why I have now called on the President to include a funding fix in any request for an upcoming disaster aid package. Several of my western colleagues and I--Senators from both sides of the aisle--are calling on Leaders McConnell and Schumer today to include a fix in any disaster aid package that comes before this body.

As I said, this battle has gone on for years. I think I mentioned to my friend from New Mexico that this issue with respect to fire- borrowing has been the longest running battle since the Trojan War. It has gone on and on and each year wastes more and more money on a broken system of funding the fight against wildfires.

Senator Crapo has been an instrumental partner in this effort. He also has a proposal that in effect builds on what we have been working on for years in the Banking Committee. I support that proposal as well.

I want it understood that there is a lot that has to be dealt with here in the Senate. There have been some horrible disasters--Houston and now the South, with what Senator Nelson is going to wrestle with this weekend. We have a lot to do. But when we are talking about western communities getting hit by a wrecking ball, which is exactly what these mega-fires do, I want it understood that we western Senators, Democrats and Republicans, are going to be teaming up to make sure, as we said in our letter today to Leaders McConnell and Schumer, that a fire fix that is based on common sense, sensible practices to try to prevent fires to the greatest extent possible, has to be a focus of priority business in the Senate. Too many western communities--the kind I am going to see this weekend--are faced with destroyed homes, businesses, lost recreation dollars, lost timber revenue, cleanup costs, and forest and range land restoration efforts.

The West cannot wait any longer for Congress to break this dangerous cycle that defies common sense, shortchanges wildfire prevention, and does it year after year. What western Senators are going to do is work together in a bipartisan way, which is what you have to do when your constituents are faced with these kinds of problems. I can tell you, in Oregon or Montana or Idaho, when you have one of these mega-fires, nobody is sitting around waiting to hear about just the Democratic approach or the Republican approach; they want to know what the Federal Government is going to do to help these hard-hit western communities.

It is absolutely essential that the Senate act soon. I have urged the President of the United States, who campaigned as a champion for these communities and the workers who live in them--I have said: Mr. President, do not ignore the West.

Democratic and Republican Senators, given all the promises that have been made over the years, are going to insist that with fires of this magnitude--we have seen plenty of fires in the past, but we haven't seen the kind of thing I have just described that isn't very far from my hometown and across the State--given the urgency of the situation, western Senators of both political parties are making it clear to Leaders McConnell and Schumer and the President of the United States that we need the Federal Government to act, and we need it to act now.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.