Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, here we are, with our colleagues on their way home, and I thought it would be helpful to take a minute and give an assessment of where the TrumpCare debate is at this point because we have seen the two major committees in the House act. Some $300 billion was slashed from safety net health programs, while insurance company executives making over $500,000 annually were given a juicy tax break as a bonus.

To put this into perspective, this tax break that the insurance companies' CEOs seem to have after two committees in the other body have acted on TrumpCare--the amount of the bonuses for the insurance company executives would be enough to cover the TrumpCare-created shortfall in Oregon's community-based services for the elderly and the disabled two or three times over.

What we are talking about is how hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks are going to the fortunate few and special interests, while some of the money is coming from stealing a chunk of those dollars from the Medicare trust fund. And this is very much intertwined with the nominee's work because she would be overseeing Medicare payments to rural hospitals in places like Louisiana and Oregon.

What I am going to turn to now is what TrumpCare, based on these two committees, means for rural areas. And, of course, it repeals the Medicaid expansion. It caps the Medicaid Program. In my own view, and I know the Senator from Louisiana knows a lot about healthcare, in rural communities--and most of our towns are under 10,000 in population. I am from southeast Portland. I love southeast Portland. The only regret is I didn't get to play for the Portland Trail Blazers. Most of the communities in our State are under 10,000 in population. As the Senator from Louisiana knows, we are talking about critical access facilities. We are talking about sole community hospitals. We are talking about the facilities that deal with acute care.

During the last major break over the President's holiday, I started what is going to be a yearlong effort for me, and I called it the rural healthcare listening tour. It is eye-popping to have those rural healthcare providers who in my State have worked so hard to find ways to get beyond turf and battles, to work together--the hospitals, the doctors, the community health centers, and the like. They have built an extraordinary effort that helps to wring more value out of scarce dollars. Their programs are based on quality, not on volume.

By the way, they are a huge source of economic growth and jobs for our rural communities. I spent the President's Day recess, and the next major recess as well getting out and listening to them. The verdict from Oregon's healthcare providers, who have worked very hard at being innovative, trying to make better use of what are called nontraditional services, said these kinds of cuts are not an option if you want to meet the needs of so many who have signed up as a result of the Medicaid expansion.

TrumpCare ends the Medicaid expansion, rolling back Federal matching funds in 2020. The rural hospitals in my State are frequently the only healthcare provider available for hundreds of miles. The Medicaid expansion helped these hospitals keep their doors open.

I don't think it is hard to calculate why the hospitals are speaking out against the flood approach of TrumpCare. They have a lot of facilities in rural areas that are already on tight margins. If these communities lose the ability to cover needy people, some of the essential hospitals--and I just described three types of them--are going to have to close, and the reality is going to be that patients aren't going to have any doctor anywhere nearby.

Understand, if the majority insists on ramrodding TrumpCare through-- and at this point we have, I believe--staff just told me that there aren't any budget estimates. As of now, the Congressional Budget Office is tasked with providing accurate assessments of the budget implications. There are not any budget implications.

So here is the latest. It comes from media that I think is not considered by many Trump supporters to be a purveyor of fake news. This comes from FOX News. They said: Unknown in the new healthcare plan, unknown in TrumpCare--the cost. How many lose or gain insurance?

I am very pleased that my colleague from New Hampshire has come to join me because some of this, I would say to my friend from New Hampshire, leaves you incredulous because this comes from FOX News. FOX News is hardly a source for what many Trump supporters would consider fake news. FOX News is asking the question because they are saying it is unknown. It is unknown in the new healthcare plan, Senator Shaheen, according to FOX News. The cost is unknown, and how many lose or gain insurance is unknown.

I would say to my colleagues, because my friend from Louisiana has joined the Finance Committee, and I remember welcoming him and Senator McCaskill, our new members. My colleague from Louisiana is a physician and is very knowledgeable about these issues. I don't know how you have a real healthcare debate in America--and I have been working on this since I was director of the Gray Panthers at home back in the days when I had a full head of hair and rugged good looks. When we would start a debate, nobody would consider starting it without having an idea of costs or how many lose or gain insurance. How much more basic, I say to Senator Shaheen, does it get than that? Are these ``gotcha'' questions? Are these alternative facts? Are these people who are hostile to conservatives? I think not. FOX News--unknown in the new healthcare plan.

I have been outlining what this means in terms of the transfer of wealth from working families in New Hampshire and Oregon to the most fortunate in our country--people who make $250,000 or more. They are actually going to be the only people in America who get their Medicare tax cut. So you have this enormous transfer of wealth, what I call the reverse Robin Hood: taking from the working people and giving to the fortunate few.

After two committees have now acted in the other body--two committees have acted--FOX News says the big questions are outstanding. The Senator from New Hampshire knows a lot about rural healthcare. I was just outlining to my colleagues what this means for critical access hospitals, sole community hospitals, acute care facilities. These are the centerpieces of many rural communities, the essence of rural life. You can't have rural life without rural healthcare.

Here we are on Thursday afternoon--with many of our colleagues out there tackling jet exhaust fumes heading home--and the big questions, according to FOX News, are outstanding.

I am very pleased the Senator is here. As usual, she is very prompt and appreciated.

I look forward to her remarks.

My colleague is making a very important point. I think we all know the Senate budget process is a lot of complicated lingo. People in the coffee shops in New Hampshire and Oregon don't follow all the fine points of reconciliation.

As the Senator has just said, what they are using is a process that is known as reconciliation. That is the most partisan process you can come up with. There is no more partisan kind of process, and we were talking about the tally. As of this afternoon, two committees in the House have acted.

The Senator from New Hampshire just mentioned, I think, there were 11 Republican amendments in just one of the committees.

As of this afternoon at 4, after hours and hours of debate, I am of the impression that not a single significant Democratic amendment has been adopted--so the Senator's point of highlighting the difference in the process, where we had all of the hearings and all of the opportunities that you have to have to get a good, bipartisan bill.

As my colleague knows, I don't take a backseat to anybody in terms of bipartisan approaches in healthcare. I have worked with Republicans-- Chairman Hatch, chronic care. Senator Bennet and I worked on a bill with eight Democrats and eight Republicans. I appreciate your making this point.

As of this afternoon, as far as I can tell, no Democratic amendment has been adopted. You highlighted 11 Republican amendments getting adopted in just one committee. As we indicated, FOX News--not exactly hostile to some of the ideas being advanced by the majority--has certainly called them out on this.

Mr. President, before my colleague from New Hampshire leaves, does she have a quick minute for a question?

I thank her for her presentation. It was factual and very specific, and I think it really highlighted so many of the concerns that we have at this point.

I want to see if I could get this straight on the opioid issue. Here you all are in New Hampshire, right in the center of the Presidential campaign. All of the candidates are coming through, and they are practically trying to outdo each other in terms of their pledges to deal with this wrecking ball that is the opioid addiction that has swept through New Hampshire

and, of course, my own home State as well.

I remember then-Candidate Trump being particularly strong and assertive about how he was going to fight opioids.

I think what my colleague said--and I am curious, so I am going to ask a couple of questions because I don't think folks even in my home State are aware of some of these things. So I am going to ask my colleague about it.

Are folks in New Hampshire aware at this point--my colleague put up that Trump chart, showing how the people didn't know what was being cut and how much it was going to cost and all the rest. Are people in New Hampshire at this point aware of the fact that this is essentially after a campaign in their home State, which certainly put out a lot of TV commercials and campaign rhetoric in the fight on opioids?

I think my colleague said that when people unpack this, they are going to see that this is a major broken promise, that TrumpCare is a major broken promise on opioids because, in terms of the time sequence, they all had debates and commercials, then we finally got some money in order to have treatment.

And I think what my colleague said is that now, as a result of TrumpCare and the cap on Medicaid, there will not be the funds to get the treatment to people who are so needy. Is that what this is going to be about in New Hampshire?

I think my colleague's point is well taken.

As we have been saying, this is very much intertwined with the Seema Verma nomination because what we learned in the committee is, in Indiana, where she touts her pioneering work, if somebody had an inability to pay for a short period of time, they would be locked out of the program. So in terms of Medicaid, this is going to cause a real hardship.

I had already outlined that it is going to cause a hardship in another program that is important to New Hampshire, and that is Medicare, because we are implementing what is called the MACRA, the new reimbursement system for doctors. We asked her questions about rural care, and she didn't know the answer either.

I particularly wanted my colleague to walk us through this situation with respect to how New Hampshire residents are going to see TrumpCare as it relates to opioid addiction after they have all these grandiose promises and the many debates and commercials.

I thought I would ask if my colleague has time for one other question.

In New Hampshire, as in Oregon, we have a lot of seniors. It looks to me as if somebody who is, say, 58 years old or 62 years old is just going to get hammered by what we call the age tax because in these bills, which are now moving like a freight train with the House already moving in two committees, Republicans want to give insurance companies a green light to charge older people five times as much as they charge younger people. So I cited a number of my small, rural counties--Grant County, Union County, Lake County--and how a 60-year-old who makes $30,000 a year can see their insurance costs, because of the age tax, go up something like $8,000 a year.

I don't have the numbers as of now--Finance staff is still working on that for every single State--but obviously that tax sure looks like it is going to hit somebody in New Hampshire, an older person, people before they are eligible for Medicare, and particularly in that 55-to- 65 bracket. It looks like it is going to hit them very hard. How is that going to be received, because in my time in New Hampshire, we talked about it, and a lot of those people really are walking on economic tightropes. They are balancing their food bill against their fuel bill and their fuel bill against their rent bill. I know my colleague spends a lot of time trying to advocate for them, help them through small business approaches. How are they going to be able to absorb what is clearly going to be thousands of dollars in new out-of- pocket health costs?

I thank my colleague.

We have heard Republicans say repeatedly that anything they are going to do with Medicare is not going to hurt today's enrollees or people nearing retirement. The fact is, TrumpCare hurts both. It is going to shorten the life expectancy of the Medicare trust fund, and those older people--I will be curious, when my colleague returns--I will be very interested to hear what seniors in New Hampshire who are 56 to 68 and are walking on that economic tightrope are going to say.

I thank my colleague from New Hampshire for the excellent presentation.

I thank my colleague, and we are going to prosecute this cause together.

I see that the chairman of the Finance Committee has arrived. He graciously said I could take another 5 minutes or so of our time.

Before we wrap up this part of our presentation, I want to point out that we have outlined how people who are dealing with the consequences of opioid addiction would be hurt by TrumpCare. We have outlined how seniors who are not yet eligible for Medicare are going to be hurt and how seniors who are now on Medicare are going to certainly be hurt by reducing access to nursing home benefits. Now I would like to wrap up by going to the other end of the age spectrum and talk for a moment about children.

Nearly half of Medicaid recipients are kids, and the program of the Republicans--now that we have two committees in effect out of chute with their proposals--restructures the program in the most arbitrary way, using these caps, shifting costs to States. And the reality is that Medicaid is a major source of help for children. There is early and periodic screening, diagnosis, and treatment benefits. But with reduced funding, the States are going to be forced to make difficult decisions about which benefits they can keep providing. States are going to be forced to reduce payments to providers, particularly for kids, providers such as pediatric specialists, and limit access to lifesaving specialty care.

My own sense is that this is shortsighted at best, and it is like throwing the evidence about children and their health needs in the trash can. Children receiving Medicaid benefits are more likely to perform better in school, miss fewer days of school, and pursue higher education.

Before I yield the floor to my good friend and colleague Chairman Hatch, I want to come back to what disturbs me the most about all of this. All of these dramatic changes to Medicare and Medicaid that strip seniors and some of our most vulnerable citizens are being made at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars to these programs while, in effect, there is an enormous transfer of wealth given to the most fortunate in America in the two bills that were passed by the other body today in the committee. In effect, for example, people who make over $250,000 will not have to make the additional payments under the Medicare tax. If ever there were a group of people in America who doesn't need additional tax relief, it is those people.

As we wrap up this portion of the presentation, I want people to just think about looking at their paycheck. Every time you get a paycheck in America, there is a line for Medicare tax. Everybody pays it. It is particularly important right now because 10,000 people will be turning 65 every day for years and years to come.

What the tax provisions of this legislation mean--and they are part of hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts--for insurance executives making over $500,000 annually, there are yet additional juicy writeoffs, while seniors and those of modest means are going to bear the brunt of those reductions. Nothing illustrates it more than cutting the Medicare tax, colleagues.

I don't know how anyone can go home in any part of the country and say: You know, we are going to have to charge older people between 50 and 65 a lot more for their coverage, and by the way, insurance company executives making $500,000 a year are going to get more tax relief. I don't think it passes the smell test in America. It is reverse Robin Hood. There is no other way to describe it. It is transferring wealth from working families and those who are the most vulnerable. When working Americans see their paycheck and see the Medicare tax, I hope they remember that in this bill, the Medicare tax is reduced for only one group of people--people making more than $250,000 a year.

I want tax reform. The chairman of the Finance Committee knows that. I have introduced proposals to do that. But I don't know how we get tax reform when they are giving the relief to the people at the top of the economic ladder and it is coming out of the pockets of working people and working families. Everybody is going to be able to see it right on their paycheck, right there with the Medicare tax.

I think we will continue this debate, but on issue after issue, with the nominee on the floor, Ms. Verma, what she will do if confirmed is directly related to TrumpCare. For example, we told her in the committee that we wanted her to give one example--just one--of an idea to hold down pharmaceutical prices, which is something else that is important to older people.

TrumpCare, by the way, could have included proposals to try to help hold down the cost of medicine. Guess what, folks. On pharmaceutical prices, there is no there, there either. It doesn't do anything to help people.

This vote we will have on Tuesday is the first step in the discussion of how this particular nominee would handle the implementation of TrumpCare. Her job oversees Medicare payments to hospitals. It is really intertwined, this nomination and TrumpCare, and we couldn't get any responses to how she meets the needs of working families, as I just mentioned, with respect to pharmaceuticals, and we are pretty much in the dark with respect to how she would carry out her duties. As of now, we don't see how she is going to do much to try to eliminate some of the extraordinary harm that is going to be inflicted on the vulnerable and seniors on Medicare and Medicaid as a result of TrumpCare.

I reserve the remainder of my time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act. This bill is a necessary step to restoring public information on animal cruelty that was removed from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's, USDA, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, APHIS, website under the Trump administration.

On February 3, 2017, APHIS removed information from its website related to oversight and enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act, AWA, and Horse Protection Act, HPA, including animal inspection and licensing reports for more than 9,000 licensed facilities that use animals--facilities like commercial dog breeding operators, animal research labs, roadside zoos, and horse show participants. Since 2009, APHIS has made this information public to increase transparency and hold violators of these animal cruelty laws accountable. This information is now hidden from the public and is only available through a Freedom of Information Act Request, which can take months and sometimes even years for an agency to respond.

The Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act restores transparency by requiring APHIS to once again make AWA and HPA inspection reports accessible to the public. In my view, transparency is key when it comes to giving animal lovers and consumers information about whether their pets or the products they buy are the result of heartbreaking beginnings. These inspection reports also help law enforcement officials track and understand trends in animal welfare violations.

Preventing animal cruelty starts with getting facts out to consumers. By shedding light on AWA and HPA violations, the Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act holds accountable puppy mill operators and other businesses that use animals for breeding, research, and testing.

To ensure that taxpayers are not paying for entities that violate animal welfare laws, the Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act also prohibits businesses that are found to be in violation of the AWA or HPA from collecting certain tax benefits.

Under current tax and accounting rules, companies can write off the value of breeding and working animals on their taxes using accelerated depreciation, as if those animals are machinery. They keep that preferential and valuable tax benefit, even if they violate animal cruelty laws. The Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act puts an end to this practice and holds companies accountable for breaking the law by prohibiting businesses found to have violated AWA or HPA from claiming accelerated depreciation for tax purposes for five years.

The Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act is a much needed step to restore transparency in animal cruelty and to hold companies accountable for violating the law.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing a bill honoring two Oregon legends--Frank and Jeanne Moore--who have spent their lives together on the North Umpqua River as fishers, stewards of the land, and hosts to visitors from across the world at the famous Steamboat Inn.

The North Umpqua River runs through the Umpqua National Forest in Southwest Oregon. The river is a destination for rafters and kayakers, and is home to some of the best steelhead runs in the world, making it a fly-fishing haven. Frank and Jeanne Moore founded the Steamboat Inn in 1957, and spent years introducing visitors to the beauty of the Umpqua National Forest and the North Umpqua River. Frank, a decorated WWII veteran and a recent inductee into the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, was the fishing guide for the Inn's visitors, and has now been fishing this river for 70 years. The Steamboat Inn's website paints a wonderful picture of how Frank and Jeanne welcomed visitors to the North Umpqua River:

``Each night, Jeanne Moore cooked evening meals for as many as sixty road construction crew members, who ate in shifts, before turning her attention to feeding her lodge guests. Frank pitched in, helped with the cooking, and also made a policy decision that would henceforth guide the Fisherman's Dinner: From then on, anglers could fish until the last light disappeared on the river. Dinner would be served one half hour after sunset!''

In the 1960's, the river and its tributaries experienced significant degradation, and Frank Moore has worked tirelessly ever since to rehabilitate the river and the steelhead populations. Frank served on the State of Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission and has received the National Wildlife Federation Conservationist of the Year award and the Wild Steelhead Coalition Conservation Award. He works with his neighbors and local organizations to monitor the river, and just about everyone he comes across on his drives along the river knows his name and knows his work. Frank and Jeanne have opened their door to visitors and have taken great care of this Oregon treasure.

The Frank and Jeanne Moore Wild Steelhead Special Management Area will stand as a tribute to the Moore's and their dedication to protecting this special place in Oregon and preserving the hard work they've put in to ensure that Oregonians and visitors alike will have a healthy river, full of steelhead, to visit for decades to come.

It is my honor to reintroduce this bill today with my colleague from Oregon, Senator Jeff Merkley, on behalf of these extraordinary Oregonians.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act. This bill is a necessary step to restoring public information on animal cruelty that was removed from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's, USDA, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, APHIS, website under the Trump administration.

On February 3, 2017, APHIS removed information from its website related to oversight and enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act, AWA, and Horse Protection Act, HPA, including animal inspection and licensing reports for more than 9,000 licensed facilities that use animals--facilities like commercial dog breeding operators, animal research labs, roadside zoos, and horse show participants. Since 2009, APHIS has made this information public to increase transparency and hold violators of these animal cruelty laws accountable. This information is now hidden from the public and is only available through a Freedom of Information Act Request, which can take months and sometimes even years for an agency to respond.

The Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act restores transparency by requiring APHIS to once again make AWA and HPA inspection reports accessible to the public. In my view, transparency is key when it comes to giving animal lovers and consumers information about whether their pets or the products they buy are the result of heartbreaking beginnings. These inspection reports also help law enforcement officials track and understand trends in animal welfare violations.

Preventing animal cruelty starts with getting facts out to consumers. By shedding light on AWA and HPA violations, the Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act holds accountable puppy mill operators and other businesses that use animals for breeding, research, and testing.

To ensure that taxpayers are not paying for entities that violate animal welfare laws, the Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act also prohibits businesses that are found to be in violation of the AWA or HPA from collecting certain tax benefits.

Under current tax and accounting rules, companies can write off the value of breeding and working animals on their taxes using accelerated depreciation, as if those animals are machinery. They keep that preferential and valuable tax benefit, even if they violate animal cruelty laws. The Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act puts an end to this practice and holds companies accountable for breaking the law by prohibiting businesses found to have violated AWA or HPA from claiming accelerated depreciation for tax purposes for five years.

The Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act is a much needed step to restore transparency in animal cruelty and to hold companies accountable for violating the law.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing a bill honoring two Oregon legends--Frank and Jeanne Moore--who have spent their lives together on the North Umpqua River as fishers, stewards of the land, and hosts to visitors from across the world at the famous Steamboat Inn.

The North Umpqua River runs through the Umpqua National Forest in Southwest Oregon. The river is a destination for rafters and kayakers, and is home to some of the best steelhead runs in the world, making it a fly-fishing haven. Frank and Jeanne Moore founded the Steamboat Inn in 1957, and spent years introducing visitors to the beauty of the Umpqua National Forest and the North Umpqua River. Frank, a decorated WWII veteran and a recent inductee into the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, was the fishing guide for the Inn's visitors, and has now been fishing this river for 70 years. The Steamboat Inn's website paints a wonderful picture of how Frank and Jeanne welcomed visitors to the North Umpqua River:

``Each night, Jeanne Moore cooked evening meals for as many as sixty road construction crew members, who ate in shifts, before turning her attention to feeding her lodge guests. Frank pitched in, helped with the cooking, and also made a policy decision that would henceforth guide the Fisherman's Dinner: From then on, anglers could fish until the last light disappeared on the river. Dinner would be served one half hour after sunset!''

In the 1960's, the river and its tributaries experienced significant degradation, and Frank Moore has worked tirelessly ever since to rehabilitate the river and the steelhead populations. Frank served on the State of Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission and has received the National Wildlife Federation Conservationist of the Year award and the Wild Steelhead Coalition Conservation Award. He works with his neighbors and local organizations to monitor the river, and just about everyone he comes across on his drives along the river knows his name and knows his work. Frank and Jeanne have opened their door to visitors and have taken great care of this Oregon treasure.

The Frank and Jeanne Moore Wild Steelhead Special Management Area will stand as a tribute to the Moore's and their dedication to protecting this special place in Oregon and preserving the hard work they've put in to ensure that Oregonians and visitors alike will have a healthy river, full of steelhead, to visit for decades to come.

It is my honor to reintroduce this bill today with my colleague from Oregon, Senator Jeff Merkley, on behalf of these extraordinary Oregonians.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President. 6 years ago this month, more than 100,000 Bahrainis of all ages and backgrounds joined together to protest their government. Although these men and women took to the streets peacefully, they were met with violence as the regime unleashed its state security forces. Using threats and intimidation, tear gas, live ammunition, and even torture, the regime brutally repressed the peaceful demonstrations. Following widespread international condemnation, the regime agreed to create an independent body to look into the crackdown and propose reforms--the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry or BICI--and when the BICI came back with 26 recommendations, the KING promised to urgently implement them all.

Six years later, the regime has not upheld that commitment. When our own State Department last reported on each BICI recommendation, it could only identify a handful that had been fully implemented--a far cry from the regime's claim of full implementation. The chairman of the BICI admitted last year that most recommendations have not been fully implemented. NGOs following these issues have been even more critical, noting with alarm that the regime has actually reversed BICI recommendations. Earlier this year, for example, the regime restored the power to arrest and detain Bahrainis to Bahrain's National Security Agency--a power that had been stripped following the BICI report's recommendation in 2011.

That decision follows a year in which the regime has moved aggressively to close the space for peaceful opposition. Since last February, the regime disbanded the largest opposition party, al-Wifaq, doubled the prison sentence of the party's leader, Sheikh Ali Salman, and detained numerous human rights advocates like Nabeel Rajab simply for speaking out. Advocates told my staff recently that the regime's escalating violence over the past year reached levels unseen since the 2011 protests.

The United States should not hesitate to raise its voice when foreign governments clamp down on speech and expression. This is even truer when the government in question is a U.S. ally, as the Bahrain regime is. I was disappointed that more administration officials did not appear to share this view with respect to Bahrain Indeed the State Department chose to lift self-imposed holds on weapons sales to Bahrain in 2015, a decision that I and many in the advocacy community saw as rewarding bad behavior and incentivizing more of it. In fact, I introduced bipartisan legislation last Congress that would have reinstated the ban on certain weapons sales until the administration could certify that the regime had implemented all 26 BICI recommendations. Congress adjourned last December without passing our bill, but I intend to resume my efforts this Congress.

As I sometimes remind my colleagues here, my goal here is neither to insult nor to undermine a U.S. ally. My hope is that someday I will be able to stop reading these statements into the record every February because the Bahraini regime has stopped repressing its citizens and has instead entered into a real and inclusive dialogue with them. Unfortunately, this regime has shown itself so unwilling to pursue dialogue and reconciliation that I must continue my calls for accountability. For that reason, I speak out today, on the sixth anniversary of the peaceful uprising, to call again for reform in Bahrain and an end to further oppression.

Mr. President, today I, along with 13 of my Senate colleagues, am introducing the Presidential Trade Transparency Act of 2017. This bill establishes new reporting requirements directing the President to disclose foreign income, assets, and liabilities when initiating or continuing trade or investment negotiations with a foreign country, taking or refraining to take certain trade enforcement actions, or granting or modifying preferential tariff treatment under statutory trade preference programs. Each of these decisions may have significant commercial implications, both as to a foreign country's economy as a whole and with respect to particular investments within a foreign country. Given the complexity and lack of transparency with respect to the President's finances, additional country-specific reporting is necessary for Congress to properly exercise its oversight responsibilities and assess whether the authority it has granted to the President is the subject of undue influence due to a business relationship between the President and one or more foreign entities. Reporting of this information will also help address questions regarding improper influence by foreign entities when the President exercises trade authorities granted by Congress.

Americans have a right to know if the President is looking out for the good of the country or just his own bottom line when he negotiates a trade deal, decides whether or not to enforce our trade laws, or decides whether to cut tariffs on imports from a developing country. The President has business interests around the world, but he continues to keep the full nature of those ties secret.

Under the Constitution, Congress is responsible for regulating foreign commerce, including setting U.S. tariff rates applicable to imports from foreign countries. However, Congress has granted the President limited authority to modify U.S. tariffs in certain circumstances, including to enforce U.S. laws protecting U.S. industry from harmful trade or to address foreign trade barriers, to negotiate trade agreements that eliminate foreign barriers to U.S. exports, and to grant developing countries preferential access to the U.S. market.

In many instances, the President himself is granted this authority and does not exercise it through a Cabinet official. While Congress has granted such authority to the President, it retains the responsibility to ensure that the President uses the authority in a manner consistent with congressional objectives.

The bill directs the President to report to Congress information regarding foreign income, assets, and liabilities, consistent with the information required to be disclosed under the Ethics in Government Act, specifically as to any country that is the subject of a trade negotiation, trade enforcement action or inaction, or decision to grant or deny tariff preferences, and to describe in detail the nature of the connection between the income, asset, or liability and the foreign country. The bill specifies deadlines for disclosure of the information with respect to each action that generally track existing deadlines for Presidential reporting under U.S. law.

Failure to timely submit a report would render without legal effect a Presidential proclamation modifying U.S. tariffs with respect to the country and, with respect to a trade agreement, would disqualify the agreement from eligibility for expedited consideration under trade promotion authority.

Passage of this bill would close a key loophole in congressional oversight authorities over trade and shine much needed daylight on the financial relationship between the President and America's trading partners.

I thank my colleagues for their efforts on this bill, and I hope the Finance Committee will consider our proposal quickly.

Mr. President, today I, along with 13 of my Senate colleagues, am introducing the Presidential Trade Transparency Act of 2017. This bill establishes new reporting requirements directing the President to disclose foreign income, assets, and liabilities when initiating or continuing trade or investment negotiations with a foreign country, taking or refraining to take certain trade enforcement actions, or granting or modifying preferential tariff treatment under statutory trade preference programs. Each of these decisions may have significant commercial implications, both as to a foreign country's economy as a whole and with respect to particular investments within a foreign country. Given the complexity and lack of transparency with respect to the President's finances, additional country-specific reporting is necessary for Congress to properly exercise its oversight responsibilities and assess whether the authority it has granted to the President is the subject of undue influence due to a business relationship between the President and one or more foreign entities. Reporting of this information will also help address questions regarding improper influence by foreign entities when the President exercises trade authorities granted by Congress.

Americans have a right to know if the President is looking out for the good of the country or just his own bottom line when he negotiates a trade deal, decides whether or not to enforce our trade laws, or decides whether to cut tariffs on imports from a developing country. The President has business interests around the world, but he continues to keep the full nature of those ties secret.

Under the Constitution, Congress is responsible for regulating foreign commerce, including setting U.S. tariff rates applicable to imports from foreign countries. However, Congress has granted the President limited authority to modify U.S. tariffs in certain circumstances, including to enforce U.S. laws protecting U.S. industry from harmful trade or to address foreign trade barriers, to negotiate trade agreements that eliminate foreign barriers to U.S. exports, and to grant developing countries preferential access to the U.S. market.

In many instances, the President himself is granted this authority and does not exercise it through a Cabinet official. While Congress has granted such authority to the President, it retains the responsibility to ensure that the President uses the authority in a manner consistent with congressional objectives.

The bill directs the President to report to Congress information regarding foreign income, assets, and liabilities, consistent with the information required to be disclosed under the Ethics in Government Act, specifically as to any country that is the subject of a trade negotiation, trade enforcement action or inaction, or decision to grant or deny tariff preferences, and to describe in detail the nature of the connection between the income, asset, or liability and the foreign country. The bill specifies deadlines for disclosure of the information with respect to each action that generally track existing deadlines for Presidential reporting under U.S. law.

Failure to timely submit a report would render without legal effect a Presidential proclamation modifying U.S. tariffs with respect to the country and, with respect to a trade agreement, would disqualify the agreement from eligibility for expedited consideration under trade promotion authority.

Passage of this bill would close a key loophole in congressional oversight authorities over trade and shine much needed daylight on the financial relationship between the President and America's trading partners.

I thank my colleagues for their efforts on this bill, and I hope the Finance Committee will consider our proposal quickly.

Madam President, last month I stood here to express my serious concerns about the nomination of Scott Pruitt to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

As the vote draws closer, I want to reiterate those concerns and give voice to the thousands of individuals and groups in Oregon who have sent letters and made calls and spoken up in my town hall meetings. Oregonians have expressed their fears that Pruitt will steer us into a ditch when it comes to protecting the environment and public health. I share their concerns, and I cannot support this nomination.

In my view, the importance of the EPA cannot be overstated. The EPA is

at the heart of maintaining clean air and clean water for every person in this country, but Mr. Pruitt has made a career of denying climate science, attempting to weaken or even get rid of worker protections, air quality standards for toxic air pollutants, and basic environmental standards. Those rollbacks would hurt us all.

One prime example of how the EPA has stepped in to protect Oregonians is during a recent air quality scare in Portland. In 2015, researchers with the U.S. Forest Service discovered that heavy metals including cadmium and arsenic had been emitted for decades into the air of Portland neighborhoods and schoolyards at dangerous levels.

I called on the EPA to take action, and within days they were on the ground in Portland, testing the air quality and helping our community wrap our heads around the public health risks. It wasn't long before they identified the root of the problem and corrected course.

I am not confident that a Pruitt EPA would have jumped to the aid of my community in a time when parents wondered if they had been poisoning their own children simply by feeding them vegetables grown in their backyards.

Mr. Pruitt's career is defined by repeated attempts to weaken or eliminate health-based environmental standards, weaken or eliminate limits on carbon emissions that would help address the challenge of climate change, weaken or eliminate air quality standards to fight the kinds of toxic air pollutants we saw in Portland. Those rollbacks hurt us all.

Mr. Pruitt has a history of attacking the very Agency he now wants to lead. As attorney general of Oklahoma, he has been involved in more than 20 lawsuits against the EPA, and he has failed to give Congress any kind of assurances that he would recuse himself from matters related to those lawsuits.

Mr. Pruitt has clear connections with big businesses who profit from polluting--oil and gas companies and coal-hungry electricity giants, among others. He has a history of siding with these special interests at the direct expense of the health of our families and communities.

According to news reports, as Oklahoma's Attorney General and head of the Republican Attorneys General Association, Pruitt helped raise millions from industries he is now expected to regulate.

More and more of this shadowy history is coming to light. Particularly after a judge has ordered him to release thousands of his emails as Oklahoma's Attorney General just days from now, the Senate should not hold a vote on a nominee when more information may come to light about an alarming association with the very industries he would be regulating as head of the EPA.

However, Mr. Pruitt has until next Tuesday to release those emails--4 days after Senate Republicans are forcing a confirmation vote. In the interest of transparency, the Senators should be able to read these emails before voting so we can make a fully informed decision.

By jamming this nomination through today, Senate Republican leadership is forcing the Senate to vote on a nominee without knowing the content of the full background of this nominee. In my view, that is legislative malpractice.

So I join my Democratic colleagues in asking that the vote on Mr. Pruitt's nomination to lead the EPA be delayed until those thousands of emails are released and Members of the Senate have the opportunity to review their contents.

The American people are demanding that Senate leadership delay Mr. Pruitt's confirmation until this important information is disclosed and questions about his possible conflicts of interest are answered.

On even the most basic level, Mr. Pruitt has a troubling history. He has denied the fundamental science that should be used to inform public policy.

Time and time again, Mr. Pruitt has argued against the reality of climate change, going so far as to dispute the EPA's rigorous science- based finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.

The EPA cannot be run by an individual with a career founded on alternative facts; yet that is much of what Scott Pruitt is promoting.

As I have said to Oregonians about this nomination and others, policymakers ought to come together and find the truth, not fall back on alternative facts.

Nearly 800 former employees of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expressed opposition to Pruitt this week in an open letter. These are 800 public servants who are dedicated to the Agency's core mission.

I think Oregonians and the American people need to hear what is in this letter. It states, in part:

Our environmental laws are based on a partnership that

requires EPA to set national standards attind gives states

latitude when implementing them so long as certain minimum

criteria are satisfied. This approach recognizes that

Americans have an equal right to clean air and water, no

matter where they live, and allows states to compete for

business without having to sacrifice public health or

environmental quality.

Our environmental laws include provisions directing EPA to

allow for a ``margin of safety'' when assessing risks, which

is intended to limit exposure to pollutants when it is

reasonable to expect they may harm the public health, even

when all the scientific evidence is not yet in. For example,

EPA's first Administrator, Bill Ruckelshaus, chose to limit

the amount of lead in gasoline before all doubt about its

harmfulness to public health was erased. His action spared

much of the harm that some countries still face as result of

the devastating effects of lead on human health. Similarly,

early action to reduce exposure to fine particle pollution

helped avoid thousands of premature deaths from heart and

lung disease. The magnitude and severity of those risks did

not become apparent until much later.

Mr Pruitt's record and public statements strongly suggest

that he does not share the vision or agree with the

underlying principles of our environmental statutes. Mr.

Pruitt has shown no interest in enforcing those laws, a

critically important function for EPA. While serving as

Oklahoma's top law enforcement officer, Mr. Pruitt issued

more than 50 press releases celebrating lawsuits to overturn

EPA standards to limit mercury emissions from power plants,

reduce smog levels in cities and regional haze in parks,

clean up the Chesapeake Bay and control greenhouse gas

emissions.

In contrast, none of Mr. Pruitt's many press releases refer

to any action he has taken to enforce environmental laws or

to actually reduce pollution. This track record likely

reflects his disturbing decision to close the environmental

enforcement unit in his office while establishing a new

litigation team to challenge EPA and other federal agencies.

These former EPA employees close the letter by stating:

The American people have been served by EPA Administrators,

Republicans and Democrats, who have embraced their

responsibility to protect public health and the environment.

Different administrators have come to different conclusions

about how best to apply the law in view of the science, and

many of their decisions have been challenged in court,

sometimes successfully, for either going too far or not far

enough. But in the large majority of cases it was evident to

us that they put the public's welfare ahead of private

interests. Scott Pruitt has not demonstrated this same

commitment.

I ask unanimous consent that the full letter be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Americans ought to have confidence that the head of the EPA recognizes what this job is all about--defending the health of our communities, not the profits of energy companies or any other special interest; yet Mr. Pruitt has given no such assurance. Like these former EPA employees, I would not have that confidence in a Pruitt EPA.

And now, with the release next Tuesday of thousands of his emails that may document an alarming association with the very industries he is supposed to regulate, it seems particularly premature, even irresponsible, to push for a vote on his confirmation today.

I share the concerns of the thousands of Oregonians and hundreds of current and former EPA employees who have expressed their opposition to Mr. Pruitt. I will vote against him today because I do not have confidence in a Pruitt EPA.

Mr. President, whenever the discussion in the Senate turns to gun violence, we often hear Senators say: We shouldn't be talking about guns; we ought to be talking about mental health. That is exactly what we are trying to make sure is the focus of this debate because this proposed rule is about mental health, and it is about background checks; it is not about taking away anyone's constitutional rights.

Here is how the proposal works. If there is an individual with a severe mental impairment--that means that another person, perhaps a family member--is in charge of their Social Security benefits, then the background check is to be informed by Social Security that the person with a severe mental impairment is ineligible to buy a gun.

Having listened to the debate yesterday, I think everybody is going to be a little confused about what happens then because the reality is that anyone who thinks they have been unfairly affected can appeal, and the likelihood is substantial that they are going to win. If the appeal goes the other way and the individual believes the decision is wrong, then that person can take the matter to court. It is not true to say this rule deprives any American of due process. It is a rule aimed directly at the two areas in this debate--mental health and background checks--where there is enormous support from the American people.

The reality is you can talk to people in virtually any community--you can go to a townhall meeting in any part of the United States--and you will hear enormous support for background checks. One recent poll found that 92 percent of gun owners supported expanded background checks. Ninety-two percent of gun owners supported background checks. So not only is the position I am articulating not extreme, opposing background checks is the position that, in fact, has become increasingly out of the mainstream.

As the courts continue to interpret the language of the Second Amendment, one matter has been clear: Background checks are a constitutional part of the exercise of those rights.

I have heard some saying that the rule can be improved, that it ought to be tailored. I am very open to having a debate around those kinds of questions. That is not going to be possible if this resolution passes. This will preempt debate. The resolution doesn't just scrap the rule, it blocks any further step on this issue for years. In my view, that would be the wrong way to go, even if you have suggestions for improving the rule.

So to wrap up the debate, I want colleagues to know that this rule, this proposal that has been described on the floor--this resolution-- ought to be opposed because for those who want improved mental health, for those who want background checks, for those who are just saying what we need to do in this area as it relates to gun violence--it is not about Democrats and it is not about Republicans; it is about common sense. The commonsense position today for background checks, a focus on mental health, and, most importantly, common sense is to oppose the resolution.

I yield the floor.

I yield back.

Mr. President, I think Senator Murray has said it very well, and I want to pick up on what I think is really at stake with this nomination. In effect, if confirmed, Congressman Mulvaney would be the numbers guy for the Trump team, the architect for the President's fiscal plan for the Nation's future.

I want to start by way of saying that, when you look at the President's promises that he made on the campaign trail to protect Medicare and Social Security from draconian cuts, Congressman Mulvaney's nomination and his record would be one of the biggest bait- and-switch schemes inflicted on America's seniors that I can imagine.

I am going to start by taking a minute to read some of what the President said on the campaign trail. He said:

Every Republican wants to do a big number on Social

Security. They want to do it on Medicare . . . and we can't

do that. It's not fair to the people.

The President said: ``It's my absolute intention to leave Social Security the way it is, not increase the age, but to leave it as-is.''

The President said:

You can't get rid of Medicare. Medicare's a program that

works . . . people love Medicare and it's unfair to them. I'm

going to fix it and make it better, but I'm not going to cut

it.

So those are just some of the promises that President Trump made with respect to Social Security and Medicare. There are quotes like that from rallies and campaign events and debates over a period of some months. I think it would be fair to say that, for a lot of seniors, when they heard that--when they heard these promises that these vital programs would be protected--that was a political litmus test for many American older people. So I describe this contrast between the promises of President Trump and Candidate Trump and Congressman Mulvaney as a bait and switch, but I think the Senate needs to know a little bit more detail with respect to specifics.

In 2011 Congressman Mulvaney said: ``We have to end Medicare as we know it.'' He added in another interview: ``Medicare as it exists today is finished.'' He proposed raising the Social Security age to 70. He called the program a Ponzi scheme. While he was a State lawmaker, he even voted to declare Social Security unconstitutional.

My sense is it will be a while before seniors get over the whiplash from the 180-degree turn the administration has pulled on Medicare and Social Security cuts.

Now, with respect to the days ahead, for me, a lot of this debate starts in my days when I was codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers. The seniors that I worked with knew what those programs meant. It was their grandparents who faced old age without Social Security. Those seniors with whom I worked during those Gray Panther days remember what happened before we had the safety net. Before there was Social Security and Medicare, you would have needy older people shunted off to poor farms and almshouses. Even if you had meager savings, you were on your own for income or you had to rely on family, and lots of family members were not exactly well off. If you came down with a serious illness, it really meant that you would be living in poverty and squalor. Social Security and Medicare changed those unacceptable terms of the social contract between this country and older people--and changed it for all time. Those programs were about saying that in America--for the older people who fought our wars, strengthened our communities day in and day out, made America a better place because they were always pitching in to help and be constructive--Medicare and Social Security meant that older people and seniors would not face a life of destitution.

That is why I believe every Member of this body--and I heard Senator Murray talk about this--ought to find what Congressman Mulvaney has said against Medicare--his anti-Medicare and anti-Social Security agenda--so troubling. I want to be very specific about the days ahead. Medicare, at its core, has always been a promise. It has been a promise of guaranteed benefits. It is not a voucher. It is not a slip of paper. It is a promise of guaranteed benefits. We made the judgment--I just went briefly through some of the history--because no one would ever know how healthy they would be when they reached age 65. We talked about it in the Budget Committee and in a number of meetings here in the Senate. I am definitely for updating the Medicare promise, updating the Medicare guarantee, and improving it, for example, to include chronic care services, cancer services, diabetes, services dealing with a whole host of chronic illnesses. That is going to consume much of the Medicare budget. We can have more home care and we can use telemedicine, and we can use nonphysician providers.

Senator Murray knows that in our part of the country we really have found a way to get people good quality care in an affordable way, but we are keeping the promise. We are keeping the promise of the Medicare guarantee.

Congressman Mulvaney would break the promise of Medicare. If confirmed, he would join his former House colleague who just became Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price, who said in really very blunt terms over the years that he wanted to privatize the program. He wanted to privatize and cut the program. He basically indicated with his legislation that he didn't really believe in Medicare, and he didn't believe in the guarantee of services that Medicare provided. If you look at Congressman Mulvaney's record, it certainly indicates he shares the views of our former House colleague who just became Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price.

With respect to Social Security, this year nearly 62 million Americans and their families count on receiving retirement, survivors, and disability benefits to stay afloat. This is a program that keeps tens of millions of seniors out of poverty. It is unquestionably one of the most popular programs in American history. It has changed the fabric of the country for the better.

Again, I think about the days when I worked with older people. We had millions of older people who month in and month out would just walk an economic tightrope. They would try to balance their food costs against their fuel costs and their fuel costs against their medical costs. Social Security and Medicare came along to make sure those older people wouldn't be pushed off that economic tightrope. So Social Security has changed the fabric of the country for the better without doubt, and yet Congressman Mulvaney proposes to raise the Social Security age to 70, which would be a 20 percent cut to benefits.

Let's picture what this means, particularly for the millions of older people who might not have had a job where they could work on their laptop, and they had a physical job. They worked hours and hours on their feet day in and day out. Ask the single mom who spent decades working multiple jobs that way to put food on the table and send her kids to school what it is going to mean to cut their benefits that way--or the loggers or the dock workers, the miners, and all of those people who have worked hard and have been on their feet with physically grueling work. Ask them about raising the Social Security age this way. I think you are going to get a pretty good sense of how strongly Americans oppose this kind of Mulvaney approach.

So by way of summing up, I think it would be hard to find a more significant task for the Congress at this time than protecting Social Security and Medicare, advocating for the two as great achievements in the history of American policymaking. They are right at the center of our safety net.

Now you have to give Congressman Mulvaney credit for one thing. He has been blunt, he has been explicit, and he is not shy about essentially his vision of hollowing these programs out and dismantling them. When asked about whether he was going to stick to his proposal to cut the programs, he said:

I have to imagine that the President knew what he was

getting when he asked me to fill this role. I would like to

think it is why he hired me.

That is why I say--and Senator Murray touched on this--what kind of a bait-and-switch game are we talking about here? You have the President--Candidate Trump--saying: Nothing doing; nobody is going to mess with Social Security and Medicare--off limits. I want older people in America to know they are going to be safe if they elect me.

It was almost like a litmus test for America's older people. Then Congressman Mulvaney comes along and he basically calls the bluff on the whole thing. He describes the bait and switch in very blunt terms, where he says: ``I have to imagine the President knew what he was getting when he asked me to fill this role''--that the President knew what the Mulvaney record was all about, which was about ending Medicare as we know it.

So I will just close by way of saying that I see that a big part of my job, and what Oregonians sent me here to do, is to defend Medicare and Social Security for generations of Americans to come. That is why I am a no on the Mulvaney nomination. I urge my colleagues to oppose the nomination.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I, along with my colleagues Congressmen Chaffetz from Utah and Conyers from Michigan, am introducing the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act, a bill that protects Americans from seeing their phones and other devices turned into location trackers without so much as a warrant or a warning. While law enforcement agencies can and have obtained, and should obtain, probable cause search warrants from a neutral judge authorizing them to track the location of Americans, in many other cases, government agencies obtain sensitive location information without a warrant. My colleagues, Mr. Chaffetz and Conyers, and I intend to fix that.

This is a situation where government agencies' use of new technology has gotten ahead of the laws in ways that would surprise many Americans. Federal, State, and local agencies routinely track Americans' locations through a variety of methods, most of the time without people knowing they are being tracked. Some tracking demands go directly from the government to phone companies. In the first 6 months of 2016, law enforcement agencies submitted at least 86,000 demands to telephone companies for subscriber location data. Some of these demands were for the records of hundreds or even thousands of customers at a time.

Law enforcement agencies also regularly track cell phones with the use of a surveillance technology known as a cell site simulator or Stingray. A recent bipartisan report by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the House of Representatives found that the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have spent more than $95 million to buy over 430 Stingrays. Although Federal agencies now obtain warrants before using this technology, many State and local agencies do not.

There is currently no uniform legal standard that regulates how Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies are able to spy on the location of Americans. Instead, there exists a confusing patchwork of State laws, policies adopted by law enforcement agencies, and legal precedents set by Federal and State courts. As a result, Americans in one part of the country may enjoy less privacy, based on the policies adopted by their local police department, privacy laws passed by their State legislatures, or the willingness of their phone provider to push back in court, than Americans who happen to live in a privacy-superior jurisdiction. This patchwork quilt of rules and regulations has led to confusion among law enforcement, prosecutors, and service providers, who waste valuable time and resources litigating and appealing what should be clear-cut rules--clear-cut rules that start from the premise that privacy is an inviolable right, not a convenience granted by local law enforcement.

Under President Obama, there was a policy in place that required Federal law enforcement officers to get a probable cause warrant before tracking an American's location. Under the current administration, we do not yet know if this policy will remain, which makes this bill even more critical.

This bill has three main components.

First, it requires the government to show probable cause and get a warrant before acquiring the geolocational information of a U.S. person, while setting out clear exceptions such as emergency or national security situations or cases of theft or fraud. This probable cause requirement would apply to all law enforcement acquisitions of the geolocational information of individual Americans without their knowledge. This requirement will include indirect location information acquisition from commercial service providers and direct acquisitions using Stingrays and similar devices, including tracking devices covertly installed by the government. This bill would regulate both real-time tracking of a person's movements, as well as the acquisition of records of past movements.

Second, the bill creates criminal penalties for secretly using an electronic device to track a person's movements that parallel those for wiretapping. Currently, if a woman's ex-husband taps her phone, he is breaking the law. This legislation would treat hacking her cell phone to track her movements as a similar offense.

Finally, it prohibits commercial service providers from sharing customers' geolocation information with outside entities without customer consent.

Passage of this bill would provide much needed privacy protections to Americans and ensure that location data is adequately protected from warrantless surveillance by law enforcement agencies.

I thank my colleagues Chaffetz and Conyers for their efforts on this bill, and I hope the Judiciary Committee will consider our proposal quickly.

Mr. President, today I, along with my colleagues Congressmen Chaffetz from Utah and Conyers from Michigan, am introducing the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act, a bill that protects Americans from seeing their phones and other devices turned into location trackers without so much as a warrant or a warning. While law enforcement agencies can and have obtained, and should obtain, probable cause search warrants from a neutral judge authorizing them to track the location of Americans, in many other cases, government agencies obtain sensitive location information without a warrant. My colleagues, Mr. Chaffetz and Conyers, and I intend to fix that.

This is a situation where government agencies' use of new technology has gotten ahead of the laws in ways that would surprise many Americans. Federal, State, and local agencies routinely track Americans' locations through a variety of methods, most of the time without people knowing they are being tracked. Some tracking demands go directly from the government to phone companies. In the first 6 months of 2016, law enforcement agencies submitted at least 86,000 demands to telephone companies for subscriber location data. Some of these demands were for the records of hundreds or even thousands of customers at a time.

Law enforcement agencies also regularly track cell phones with the use of a surveillance technology known as a cell site simulator or Stingray. A recent bipartisan report by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the House of Representatives found that the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have spent more than $95 million to buy over 430 Stingrays. Although Federal agencies now obtain warrants before using this technology, many State and local agencies do not.

There is currently no uniform legal standard that regulates how Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies are able to spy on the location of Americans. Instead, there exists a confusing patchwork of State laws, policies adopted by law enforcement agencies, and legal precedents set by Federal and State courts. As a result, Americans in one part of the country may enjoy less privacy, based on the policies adopted by their local police department, privacy laws passed by their State legislatures, or the willingness of their phone provider to push back in court, than Americans who happen to live in a privacy-superior jurisdiction. This patchwork quilt of rules and regulations has led to confusion among law enforcement, prosecutors, and service providers, who waste valuable time and resources litigating and appealing what should be clear-cut rules--clear-cut rules that start from the premise that privacy is an inviolable right, not a convenience granted by local law enforcement.

Under President Obama, there was a policy in place that required Federal law enforcement officers to get a probable cause warrant before tracking an American's location. Under the current administration, we do not yet know if this policy will remain, which makes this bill even more critical.

This bill has three main components.

First, it requires the government to show probable cause and get a warrant before acquiring the geolocational information of a U.S. person, while setting out clear exceptions such as emergency or national security situations or cases of theft or fraud. This probable cause requirement would apply to all law enforcement acquisitions of the geolocational information of individual Americans without their knowledge. This requirement will include indirect location information acquisition from commercial service providers and direct acquisitions using Stingrays and similar devices, including tracking devices covertly installed by the government. This bill would regulate both real-time tracking of a person's movements, as well as the acquisition of records of past movements.

Second, the bill creates criminal penalties for secretly using an electronic device to track a person's movements that parallel those for wiretapping. Currently, if a woman's ex-husband taps her phone, he is breaking the law. This legislation would treat hacking her cell phone to track her movements as a similar offense.

Finally, it prohibits commercial service providers from sharing customers' geolocation information with outside entities without customer consent.

Passage of this bill would provide much needed privacy protections to Americans and ensure that location data is adequately protected from warrantless surveillance by law enforcement agencies.

I thank my colleagues Chaffetz and Conyers for their efforts on this bill, and I hope the Judiciary Committee will consider our proposal quickly.

Mr. President, I listened carefully to my colleagues on the

other side, and I want to make sure people really understand what this debate is all about. This debate is about background checks. It is about mental health. It is not about taking away constitutional rights. I am struck--and I know the distinguished Presiding Officer has taken part in a lot of these debates as well--that whenever there is a discussion about guns in the U.S. Senate, Senators get up and say: We shouldn't be debating guns, we ought to be debating mental health. That is what we are talking about today--mental health and background checks.

The fact is, we can go into townhall meetings in any part of America and hear extraordinary support for the whole idea of background checks. Background checks are right at the heart of this morning's debate and supporting background checks is not some extreme far-out position to hold. In fact, opposing background checks is the view that is way out of the mainstream of American political thought.

A recent poll found that 92 percent of gun owners supported expanded background checks. Let me just repeat that 92 percent of gun owners in America support expanded background checks. As the courts continue to interpret the language of the Second Amendment, one matter has been made clear: background checks are a constitutional part of the exercise of those rights.

So what I am going to do is describe what this is all about, but I want to, as we get going, make sure people understand that fundamentally this is about background checks, and it is about mental health. It is not about taking away somebody's constitutional rights.

Here is how the proposal under discussion works. If there is an individual with a severe mental impairment that means that another person--perhaps a family member--is in charge of their Social Security benefits, then the background check is to be informed by Social Security that the person with a severe mental impairment is ineligible to buy a gun. The fact is, we can always talk about tailoring the rule in a slightly different way. It is critically important that individuals who wind up in the background check system are not treated unfairly, but the fact is, anyone who thinks they have been unfairly affected by this proposal can appeal, and they are most likely going to win, as long as they are not a danger to themselves or anyone else. If the Social Security Administration says no, that person has the power to take their case to court.

What we are talking about here is, in my view, not about Democrats or Republicans, liberals and conservatives; I think we are just talking about plain old, unvarnished common sense. We want to, all of us--all of us--stop shootings by those who are in danger of hurting themselves or other persons.

The rule came out last year, but it goes back to the shootings at Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook. What the previous administration sought to do was to find some commonsense gun safety steps that could be taken under laws on the books. I want to emphasize this as well because whenever we talk about guns, what Senators always say is: Let's use the laws on the books. Let's use the laws on the books. We don't need to chase new laws and the like.

So the administration sought to use the laws on the books--the previous administration--to prevent the horrendous acts of violence that have so scarred our country in recent years. I know the distinguished Presiding Officer knows something about that from his own State.

I hope my colleagues will oppose the resolution. I think we are all aware in the Senate that whenever you have an issue that even touches on guns, everybody goes into their corners. They go into their respective corners.

My own view is--and I represent a State with a great many gun owners. I have had more than 750 townhall meetings at home. A lot of them--a lot of them--involve debates about guns. Overwhelmingly, in a State like mine, where there are a lot of gun owners, gun owners support making sure there are background checks. They want to address this as a mental health issue. Gun owners overwhelmingly say they have just had it with Congress doing absolutely nothing when it comes to practical, commonsense gun measures like background checks. They look at what goes on in Washington, DC--and I have had so many gun owners--and this comes up not just at town meetings. We have an icon in our State, Fred Meyer, a store. I think I have had chicken in every Fred Meyer in the State of Oregon. People come up and talk about issues like this in a Fred Meyer, and they ask: Why in the world can't there be Democrats and Republicans who just come together and do something that helps make our country a little bit safer? That is what this is all about.

I am not here to say this measure is a panacea; that somehow this is a magical elixir that is going to reduce gun violence in America. That wouldn't be right and certainly not part of how I see these debates. I see this as addressing a commonsense, practical measure relating to background checks and mental health.

I listened to my colleague, my friend from the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley. If Members of the Senate feel so strongly that this particular rule needs addressing, then there ought to be a debate. The Senate, Democrats and Republicans, should get together and figure out how to improve the rule.

What is important is that is not going to be possible if this resolution passes. If this rule is struck down under the Congressional Review Act, it wouldn't just scrap this particular background check, it would salt the Earth. It would prevent this issue from being addressed for quite a number of years.

I am going to close by talking a bit personally for a minute about why I feel so strongly about this. My late brother Jeff, who passed at the age of 51, suffered from schizophrenia, a serious mental impairment. He started to withdraw in his teens. His condition got worse over the next few years. We were close. He was just a couple of years younger than I. I watched the continuing odyssey that Jeff went through of various mental health facilities, run-ins with the law on the streets.

I will say to the Presiding Officer that not a day went by in the Wyden household when we weren't worried that Jeff was going to hurt himself or somebody else. That was the reality for the Wyden family, and that is a fear that I know is felt in households all across the country, day in and day out.

My brother received benefits from public programs while he struggled with a mental impairment. My dad wrote a book about it because we were so hopeful at one time. He wrote a book called ``Conquering Schizophrenia.'' We thought there was a breakthrough drug known as olanzapine.

We always felt during those years that it would be a big mistake if Jeff Wyden could buy a gun. He would have been a danger to himself. He would have been a danger to others. I don't think Americans should have to carry that burden and experience that kind of worry that comes along with the danger we felt week after week for years in the Wyden household and that I know other families across the country feel as well.

(Mr. CRUZ assumed the Chair.)

The Presiding Officer wasn't in the Chair when this began, and I started off by way of saying that, to me, this is about background checks, it is about mental health; it is not about taking away people's constitutional rights, but I can understand why other people would have a difference of opinion. That is what the Senate is about. That is what the Senate is supposed to do--to debate these issues. So if somebody said: Well, there is a better way to do this, to improve it, count me in--count me in to talk with colleagues, the Presiding Officer, and others--but if you support this resolution today, you close off that door. You preempt that possibility because of the way the Congressional Review Act actually works.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this. This is what the Senate says it wants to do when we talk about guns. I wish I had a nickel, in fact, for every time the Senate talked about guns--I wish I had a nickel for each time a Senator got up and said: We shouldn't be working on guns. We ought to be working on mental health. That is what this is about, mental health and background checks.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the resolution.

I yield the floor.