Floor Statements

Mr. President, we come to the end of what I think has been a very productive conference.

I am not happy, as most of us aren't, with an ending that doesn't allow us to get all of the principal work of the Congress done, which is to decide how we are going to fund the government, how we are going to spend money. We did--this year for the first time in a long time-- get 75 percent of that job done before the beginning of the fiscal year. There is nowhere else in America where that would be a bragging point, but we hadn't done that in 20 years, and so it is a pretty significant accomplishment.

What we need to figure out is what we did and how we can replicate that in

the future. We have to get to this work. We have to have the kind of floor debates we had this year. We don't need to let it drag into the end of the year as too many of the bills did this time.

The worst possible thing to do, in my view, in terms of funding the government, is to shut down the government. The next worst possible thing to do is a long-term CR, where you just say: We couldn't decide how to spend the money this year, so we are going to spend it like we spent it last year.

The next option is the one we are following, which appears to be a short-term CR to, unfortunately, come back and begin next year's work with the obligation to finish this year's work. That is clearly a mistake, and it is a mistake that ends a Congress that otherwise was pretty successful.

All kinds of regulatory reform occurred. Some of it the Congress was involved in. For the first time in the history of the Congressional Review Act, the Congress--15 times--sent to the President a regulation that the Congress was not going to approve, and, 15 times, the President agreed with that decision. That happened exactly one other time in the 25-year history of the Congressional Review Act. There was one time before this Congress when it had happened 15 times.

The regulatory situation of the country is much better. The first major rewrite in the tax bill in 31 years has clearly had and is having an impact on our economy. The numbers in my State of Missouri are as good as they have been in a long time. I think our unemployment number is at its lowest in 18 years. The national unemployment number is at its lowest in almost 15 years. Missouri's number, at 3.2 percent, is even lower than that. There are things like the long-term extension for the FAA, or the Federal Aviation Administration, and the farm bill. There are a lot of things that we should be talking about.

I want to talk, for just a few minutes, about the things that have happened for Missouri this year here in the Senate. We have made significant progress in addressing some of the most important issues facing both the State and the Nation.

Just this month, we had a land transfer for the National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency. It started out as an ocean mapping agency in St. Louis, MO, decades ago, and then it became a full partner in our overhead architecture that tries to figure out what is going on in the world at any given moment on any given day--things like mapping out what we know about the outside of the place where Osama bin Laden was hiding and where he was eventually found, guessing from watching traffic going in and out of there, what might be on the other side of the door when you go in. That is just one of the things that happens at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency every day.

That one and others happened at Next NGA West, the St. Louis facility. There was big competition on what we should do about that. The decision was made to put that $1.3 billion new facility in the city of St. Louis, right next to one of the great Federal disasters of all time.

The Pruitt-Igoe housing complex--not well thought out--had to be imploded within a short time of people's moving in there. Within a decade or so, it was known to be a disaster. Not too long after that, it just imploded. That is sort of, again, the implosion of so much of that part of a city that, at one time, was the fourth biggest city in the country in terms of population. It is not there any longer. There are things like the GEOINT workforce--the national geospatial location being there--that will make a difference.

Certainly, there is aviation, and we make lots of military aircraft in our State. The bill that we funded that we worried so much about in recent years really brought it back to where we have the multiyear funding of things like the Super Hornet, the Hornet, and the Growler. It just so totally disrupts the efforts of our enemies to figure out what that formation of planes is all about. It is an important part of flying, whether they come off of the deck of a ship or off of a runway or anything else. Boeing won the opportunity to make the Air Force's T- X trainer, and it is beginning the process right now. The nonmanned tanker is important. Just a few years ago, keeping those lines open in a way that we were concerned about wouldn't have happened.

I had the chance this weekend to be a part of the launching of the future Freedom Class ship USS St. Louis. The Navy asked for 32 of those ships, and this Congress gave them 35. Now, if you are listening out there and you are a taxpayer and are thinking about this, well, why would the Congress give them 35 when they asked for 32? We look not just to the immediate need of that line but at the long-term and unfunded need. It hasn't been that long since the Navy would have asked for 32 ships but might have gotten 18 or 16. We are in a place in which, once again, we are looking at our defense obligations. We also had the biggest pay increase for men and women in uniform in over a decade. All of those things matter.

Senator McCaskill and I worked on one piece of legislation to allow the historic Delta Queen, which will be based at Kimmswick, MO, which is just south of St. Louis on the Mississippi River, to get back in operation again. It is a 1920s riverboat on which, not too many years ago, President Carter took his summer vacation with the other passengers.

The Gateway Arch was reopened. Officially, 60 years after the arch was built, it was time to restore it. It was also time to connect the arch in better and different ways to the city of St. Louis--to the historic courthouse where the Dred Scott decision was started. That is where the local Federal court case was that wound up in a Supreme Court disaster. In the hearts and minds of the people, they are looking back at how wrong-headed that particular court was, but that old courthouse is still there. It is now connected to the arch, as it was not before, and to downtown.

I talked yesterday to the designated person who runs the Park Service. I said that we wanted the second century of the Park Service to be a public-private partnership. There is no greater example of that than the reopening and the restoring of the arch and in the connecting of it to downtown. There has been 300-and-some million dollars spent. Almost all of that money was either privately or locally raised with a tax on the city of St. Louis. I think about $20 million of that 300- plus million-dollar project was Federal highway money.

The message there is that if you are going to expect a different source of money, you also have to expect a different kind of partnership. I think one of the things the Park Service learned with that big project was if the second century of the system were going to be different, it can't be just like the first century. You get your money from somewhere else, and then do whatever you want to do. What happens is you get your money from somewhere else and you have to create a sense that you really have partners in that.

In St. Louis, during World War II and after, a lot of the work on atomic weapons was done. In September, Congresswoman Wagner and I were able to join a signing ceremony on a record of decision of what to do with some of that military waste--that radioactive waste that had been left from the years before and after the end of World War II. It had been discarded by the Federal Government in ways that were not well thought out, in the West Lake Landfill.

Families there have been tireless advocates in demanding that things be done for the health and safety of their children and their community. They waited for 27 years for some real criticism out there by Scott Pruitt, who was the EPA Director. When we first talked to him about this, he said that you can't be on the priority list for almost 30 years if it is really a priority list. With his and Administrator Wheeler's leadership, somehow we came to a conclusion there that has generally been met positively by people who have worked so hard to get that Federal decision--there is a public-private partnership--and the private companies they worked with to do something with this material-- to now do the right thing with the material, which means moving it out of our State.

In southeast Missouri, there was a port authority, an inland port authority. An almost $20 million bridge grant was announced the other day that will allow that inland port, with two new

rail lines, to become much more multimobile than it had been before.

What is going to happen to rural food demand? It is critically important. No country in the world is better suited than we are to meet the doubling of world food demand between now and 2050. In the doubling of the biggest area of commerce in the world, our inland ports in that discussion become particularly important.

Both the Congress and, in this case, the Missouri General Assembly are paying attention to the inland port structure like they have not before. The biggest single piece of contiguous agricultural ground in the world is the Mississippi River Valley. Unlike the others in the world that may be almost as big, it has its own built-in transportation network. The Missouri, the Ohio, the Arkansas, and the Illinois are rivers that flow into the Mississippi River and create that network that now links through the Panama Canal easily. You can go to Asia. You don't go through the Panama Canal. You easily get to the east coast of our country or you get to Europe and Africa. It is a great opportunity for us, and that kind of investment makes that opportunity more likely to pay the kind of dividends we would hope it would pay.

In September of this year, Congress passed and the President signed the Energy and Water appropriations bill, which included $25 million for the Delta Regional Authority, which is an authority designed to benefit a part of our country in which the early focus on labor intensive occupations, particularly farming, has given way to looking at that part of our economy without thinking about what has happened to rural communities and the rural workforce as that has moved on. Broadband is part of that, and I think we are going to see that continue to be a big part of what goes on in the future.

We have the small ports and the Mississippi River and tributaries project. We have the Ste. Genevieve National Historic Park, and the President signed that bill in March. Ste. Genevieve has French architecture that goes back to the late 1700s and to the very early 1800s. It is unique in the kind of architecture that is preserved there. Some of the oldest buildings, certainly, in the middle of the country and, in some cases, west of the Mississippi are there, and we are moving forward. I hope, even this week, to do a couple of additional things that will make that historic park work and be open to people from all over the world. The French Ambassador wants to go there in the near future and see what we are doing, as an example, to maintain those buildings that are reflective of a different part of our heritage than we have in most of the country.

Research institutions, like the University of Missouri, the USDA ag research facility in Columbia, and other places across our State, have benefited from additional research money.

In East Locust Creek, in August of 2018, it was announced that the final investment would be made for an East Locust Creek Reservoir in North Central Missouri. Water is a bigger and bigger challenge as we look toward the future, and thinking now about how we are going to have the kinds of water opportunities we need for drinking water or agriculture water and other water is very important.

In Sedalia, MO, a project to help--Congresswoman Hartzler and I worked on a project to help make the industrial park work better. Nucor just announced this year a significant and brandnew steel facility in that part of our State.

In Kansas City, the Buck O'Neil Bridge, across the Missouri River, is something that has needed to be done for a long time. The community had come up with 90 percent of the money needed, a bridge grant that Secretary Chao called me about, that the community had applied for, gets that last $25 million of that 200-and-some million-dollar project.

There has been a long fight at Whiteman Air Force Base in Warrensburg to maintain the A-10s and then do what we could to get the replacement wing there. That is important, as were the things that happened in Saint Joseph with the lift capacity, the ability with those C-130s, where 19 different countries come to that facility and train to figure out how to get the kind of support we need for military all over the world, including our NATO allies.

Senator Boozman and I, from the days we were in the House together, formed an I-49 caucus. Another announcement just in the last month will allow the last few miles of I-49 to be completed in our State. I was there about 8 years ago when Highway 71 in Missouri became I-49, and in most of our State now it is I-49, and it will be I-49 in all of our State.

So what has happened there and what has happened with opioid grant funding and with our mental health leadership in our State have resulted in significant legislative achievements this year.

The HIRE Vets Act is legislation that provides not only for hiring vets, but it also establishes recognition. Everybody says they hire vets. This is following up on legislation that was passed here in the Senate and in the House and signed into law in May of 2017. The Labor Department came up with that new standard of acknowledging who hires vets and who is better at hiring vets than anybody else. The first five Missouri employers were recognized this year with dozens of employers all over the country, in a tiered situation. It is sort of like the LEED standard for energy efficiency; we now have a standard for hiring vets.

As with the FAA reauthorization bill I mentioned earlier, our efforts to move toward more rural broadband have moved significantly this year, but, still, that is one of the things we need to be looking at next year.

I would argue that this is certainly one of the most effective right- of-center Congresses in a long time. I think it has been an effective Congress. We looked at the issues facing the country, and we have done the best we can, in a long- and short-range way, to deal with those issues. It is something we ought to be talking to people we work for about, trying to use that as a standard. We were good this year; let's figure out how to be even better next year.

I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator from Vermont.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3749, introduced earlier today by Senator Klobuchar and myself.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered and laid upon the table.

Madam President, while our colleagues show their affection for Senator McCaskill, let me talk a little bit about my relationship with her and her service to our State. She chose not to do that, but she has served Missourians at every level of government--as a county legislator, as a State legislator, as an extraordinary prosecutor, and as the State auditor, when her particular talent to find out exactly what was going wrong and point it out was maybe at its best use, and 12 years in the U.S. Senate.

I know that not too long ago Claire and Joe took their family on a vacation to a ranch in the West. I was thinking about that, and thinking about her reminded me of a story I had heard about a wrangler at one of those ranches, who was just perfect on a horse. Somebody who was visiting asked: How do you get that good riding a horse?

He said: Well, first of all, you get on the horse and you put your boot in the stirrup. You put your heel right up against the back of the stirrup. You sit easily in the saddle, and you ride for about 30 years. You ride for about 30 years.

If you had paid any attention to either the last Senate campaign in Missouri or the one I was involved in before that, you heard a lot about 30 years. In the case of Senator McCaskill and me, we have our own 30 years. About that long ago, she was starting her second term in the Missouri legislature--smart, well-prepared, all she always is. I was the first Republican elected secretary of state in 52 years and only a couple years older than her. In fact, we never had much of a fight about who was going to be called a senior Senator because neither wanted to be the particular senior anything at this point, but we began to work together.

Claire was smart, she was quick, she was funny, she was insightful, and she was always well-prepared. She was also, by the way, on the Appropriations Committee that I had to report to. The questions were always tough and usually I could answer them. Even then, I often wondered how somebody as smart and well-prepared as Claire could so often wind up on the wrong side of the issue of the day based on my view of the issue of the day. We still have that--the 8 years we were here together.

Let me tell you, on anything that involved Missouri, I think you would have a hard time finding an exception where we didn't get to the same place, where we didn't get there quickly, and where we didn't do everything we both could do to figure out how to reach a conclusion.

In fact, all week I was thinking, is there any way I can get to St. Louis to where the property transfer will be made for the new NGA, the National Geospatial West facility--$1.3 billion facility--right where Pruitt-Igoe used to be, something new that will be the center of activity and something that was built at the site of a really bad government decision. We worked very hard to get that done. I was thinking, I am going to do that, until I found out it wasn't going to be next Tuesday; it was going to be today when Senator McCaskill was going to give this speech, and I knew I needed to be here and wanted to be here for that.

I also say that our staff--and her Washington staff is here--our staff in Washington, our staff in Missouri, to the best of my knowledge, have always worked closely on everything. They would even be at meetings where one of them would be explaining why I voted the way I did and the other would be explaining why Claire voted the way she did, and they would often ride together. That was the way we worked together on citizen concerns, on Missouri concerns. That happened here as well.

Claire talked about her family. Joe Shepard, a great friend of mine for--frankly, Joe was helping me before he started helping Claire, but she pretty well totally converted him to her side

of the aisle, but we are still good friends.

I have gotten to know Claire's sisters and appreciate her sisters. They are the best. They are always there for her. Occasionally, they will look just enough like Claire that they could ride in her car in a parade and she could be in a parade somewhere else. Claire's mom: The last person in the car is a Republican--I can absolutely hear Claire's mom saying that. In fact, after I was elected to the Senate, I was in the Senate and happened to see Joe and Claire's mom and went over to say hi. Claire's mom said: Well, I would like to say it is nice to see you here, but based on everything I said in the campaign, I would be two-faced.

That was Betty McCaskill, and I liked her for it. I was at Betty McCaskill's memorial service during Claire's campaign that year for her second election to the Senate. She was at my dad's memorial service during my election campaign to the Senate this time. As Claire and Joe were leaving, Claire said to me: What a perfect service for Leroy Blunt. Nobody in this body could say that like Claire could say it because she knew my dad. When family got up, we talked about my dad, but Claire knew that was not just a passing comment; it was knowing who we were and knowing who she is and what she knew about that.

Of all the times we voted differently, we have a relationship without pretense, as much as you can possibly have between two Members of the Senate from the same State. The best part of the last 8 years--we have been friendly for 30 years, but in the last 8 years, we really have become good friends. Old friends are hard to make. It takes a long time, say 30 years, to really make old friends.

I look forward to our time together after you leave here. I have benefited from our time together while you were here. Our State has benefited from your service in incredible ways at all levels. Even on the days we didn't disagree, I never doubted your sense that you were doing the right thing. It is an honor to be your friend, and it is an honor to have worked for you. Thanks for all you have done for the State of Missouri.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

I further ask that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each; further, that at 2:15 the Senate vote on the Kobes nomination as under the previous order; finally, if the nomination is confirmed, that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, I know that we have a number of things scheduled here, including some farewell speeches from some of our colleagues. I was scheduled to speak, and I do want to speak, and I will try not to take too much advantage of the time.

I wanted to speak today and this week about the importance of treating mental health and the importance of

the role that law enforcement plays in the way we treat mental health in this country. For too long, law enforcement and emergency room personnel have been, in effect, the de facto mental health delivery system for the country.

The National Institutes of Health says that one in five Americans has a mental health or behavioral health issue and that one in nine adult Americans has a behavioral health issue that impacts how they live every single day.

Two Congresses ago, in the 113th Congress, Senator Stabenow and I worked to pass legislation--the Excellence in Mental Health Act. What that did was to create eight State demonstration projects that would last for 2 years each to see what would happen if we treated mental health like all other health concerns--something that everybody knows I believe we should have been doing and something that in eight States we are doing.

The good news was that 24 States applied, a number that exceeded every discussion that anybody had about how many States would step forward and say: We would like to be the States that try to do this first. Twenty-four States applied. I was certainly proud that Missouri was one of the eight States chosen to be in the demonstration project.

We are about halfway through the 2-year project, and in our State and in the seven other States, people have access to mental health services they didn't have before. Most Missourians are within a relatively short drive of a facility that will treat their mental health problem like it was any other health problem, and as we begin to do that, I think we are going to see the kind of impact on law enforcement and the kind of help that law enforcement needs as well.

Just a couple of years ago, I rode with both the crisis intervention teams in Kansas City and in my hometown in Springfield. In Springfield what I saw there were officers dealing with a 24/7 linkup to the Burrell mental health clinic, the local and regional mental health provider.

Sixteen officers, at that time, had, in effect, iPads that linked them up to a mental health professional. It didn't take too long--and I think this would be indicative of what most law enforcement officials see almost every day--before we came on someone huddled in the alcove of a building that was vacant who clearly had a behavioral health problem. It wasn't at that point a drug problem or an alcohol problem. They were where they were because they had a mental health problem.

The officer was able to Skype back immediately with a mental health professional. What I was really most interested in is that even with a well-trained officer who knew exactly what they were doing and how to do it--even with that officer there--as that officer linked the person up with someone--in effect, a telemedicine linkup with a mental health professional--you could tell that that person was more comfortable talking to the iPad and communicating that way than he was with the officer that was right there with him, and it wasn't because the officer was in any way intimidating or unprofessional. It was just because of what it was--a linkup with someone at another site, but someone who clearly was well prepared to deal with those kinds of issues.

So we are going to see that this benefitted the kinds of things that the mental health community can do to provide more resources to the law enforcement community. The Excellence in Mental Health Act is providing a service and, I think, producing real results.

I would also say, as I conclude my remarks on this topic, that what we hope to see is a significant number of people. Remember, I said NIH said that one out of five adult Americans has a behavioral health issue. What happens when you deal with that behavioral health issue in terms of how you deal with all of the other health issues that that individual or that community will be dealing with? What happens if somebody is feeling better about themselves--taking their medicine, eating better, sleeping better, showing up for the doctor's appointments, showing up for the dialysis appointment, doing what they ought to be doing?

I believe what we are going to find and what has been found in earlier big county studies of this kind is that actually doing the right thing winds up saving money, not costing money. But also doing the right thing for police officers, for people in emergency rooms and providing the kinds of connections and alternatives needed make a big difference.

For all of the healthcare providers and the law enforcement individuals involved, I am grateful for what they do, and I think we are seeing some real results from the bill that this body passed, President Obama signed into law, and is producing great results.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am here to talk for a few minutes about Major House and the work he has done in our office. We have benefited for the last several years from a military detailee being on the Intelligence Committee and on the Defense Appropriations Committee and having significant military installations in our State, as many of us do, but we certainly have those in Missouri. It has been valuable having MAJ Aaron House with them.

Major House has been a great resource on a number of important national security issues in our office. The knowledge and experience he has gained as a U.S. Army Reserve officer have helped inform our discussions on defense issues critical to Missouri and critical to the country.

Aaron was born in Plattsburgh, NY, on the shores of Lake Champlain. He joined the Army in 2001. He first served as an enlisted soldier for 3 years and then as a commissioned officer after that. He has served in both the Engineer Corps and the Finance Corps. He deployed to Iraq, where he conducted rapid crater repair, route clearance, and construction operations. His most recent assignment before joining our office was with the joint staff working as an analyst for the Office of the Comptroller in Defense.

He is extremely well educated and holds a bachelor of science in manufacturing management from Clarkson University in New York, a master of science in human relations and business from Amberton University in Texas, and he has both a master of business administration and a master of public administration from Syracuse University in New York.

He comes with all of that background. Combining that with his background in finance, he has been critically important to us as we move through a number of important projects this year. He has been able to devote a lot of time to gathering and analyzing data on historical military construction projects as we move forward on those projects.

He has provided knowledgeable recommendations on a host of foreign policy issues as well. He was very involved in the last year in Colombia, where Senator Cardin and I cochaired an effort with the Atlantic Council to look at moving Peace Colombia to Plan Colombia and then looking at that again now that the Colombian Government has changed. We have looked at some things that involved Australia and China and Russia, just to name a few of the areas where Major House has been helpful in our office.

On veterans issues, he has been helpful as we try to connect veterans with the resources they need and the benefits they have every right to have, but they sometimes have a hard time accessing those benefits.

Having him in the office has been an asset. It has been a pleasure for me and our entire staff. I certainly wish him all the best in the next chapter of his military career.

He and his wife Mindy have three daughters. They have a newborn son. So even in that year he was with us, they added a fourth child at their house. His family and friends who support him and the sacrifices he and his family--his immediate family--make to serve are deeply appreciated by us. He has been a real benefit to the country. He has been a particular benefit to the Missourians whom I get to work for. I am grateful to have had him this year and will again say that this is a program that really is beneficial to the Senate.

I hear from our past detailees over the years that it was an incredible opportunity for them to understand how the Congress works from the perspective of each of our offices and makes a valuable addition to what they take to their next assignment and every future assignment.

I think the Chief of Staff for the President spent some substantial time in this building representing the Army and said he was the most knowledgeable guy in the Army when it came to talking about issues that he learned right here and how to work with and provide information and advice to Congress.

We are glad Major House has been with us, appreciative of the program, look forward to welcoming our next detailee soon, and wish Major House and his family great success as they move forward.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have 2 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

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

Committee on Agriculture

The Committee on Agriculture is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 05, 2018, at 4 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Rules and Administration

The Committee on Rules and Administration is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 05, 2018, at 4 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Robert Ivanauskas, a Federal Energy Regulatory Committee detailee with the Senate Energy Committee, be granted privileges of the floor until and through December 21, 2018.

Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that my military fellow, our military detailee, MAJ Aaron House be given floor privileges during the duration of my remarks.

Mr. President, I am honored to join my colleagues here to talk about President Bush. The outpouring of appreciation from the country has been significant.

His son, the 43rd President, said that it takes a long time for the determinations of history to come in. I think the 41st President had almost 25 years for people to begin to put his Presidency in the right kind of historical reference, the right context of looking back and seeing not only what happened then but what has happened since then because of what happened then. I am pleased that he and Barbara were able to live long enough after that significant Presidency to see what happened.

Certainly in Missouri, we claim part of the Bush family. His mother grew up in Missouri. The Walkers were from Missouri. He treated Missouri like it was one of the States that he was connected to by relationship. His grandfather and later his Uncle Herbert and the rest of the family would go in the summer to Walker's Point, named after that Missouri part of his family, just like the Walker Cup is named after that part of his family.

The impact of his mother is pretty great. I heard the President talking the other day, in an interview with Jenna Bush, about whom he would look for when he got to Heaven. That was a couple of years ago, I think. He said: Well, if Barbara has gone there first, I think the right answer would be that I am going to look for her first. But then he said: I think my mom and my dad, and he said their daughter Robin, whom they lost when she was 3 years old.

So his mother was an important part of his life. You could tell that when talking to him or to his children, when they remembered their grandmother, and you could see a lot of what she taught him in him, including that competitive nature. They don't name sporting cups after your family unless your family begins in competition. There was that competitive nature, but that was also based on never bragging about yourself. To be a real competitor like the President was and not brag about yourself is not always an easy thing, but, certainly, maybe to his political detriment, it was part of his upbringing.

Another part of his upbringing included, in many ways, the best values of that World War II generation: Stand up straight, take responsibility, share credit, and take blame. Those were all part of who George Herbert Walker Bush had become--that idea that you should do what you are supposed to do and that idea of the importance of service to others. If you are going to be part of the team, if you are President Bush--I heard Jon Meacham, his biographer, say that he tried to kind of get into the depth of that: What about this commitment to service, and aren't there lots of ways to do that, and can't you have service without recognition? But President Bush, understanding the conflict, actually, in what he believed and the profession he had pursued said: Well, there is nothing wrong if you are going to be on the team to want to be captain of the team, whether it is captain of the Yale baseball team, which he was, or the President of the United States.

The Yale baseball team leads me to another thing that the Presiding Officer and I know when we think about him; that is, the willingness as a young man to serve--and to serve immediately. In fact, at 17, still in high school, after Pearl Harbor, he talked about going to Canada to join the Canadian Air Corps because you could do that at 17, but in our country you couldn't join the Air Corps until 18. There was no Air Force yet. It was the Army Air Corps or the Navy Air Corps. He was persuaded by, I assume, his mom and dad, and others, by saying: Well, let's finish high school first, and then when you are 18, you can join the U.S. Air Corps. He did that, I believe, on his 18th birthday, or really close to his 18th birthday, to become then the youngest aviator in the war at the time when he got his flying credentials and serving in that way. That was part of that generation.

Then, the war was over, and he and Barbara get married right before the war ended. Then he goes to college. That young man with a wife and a baby goes to college and becomes the captain of the baseball team. He was a man with really always great athletic ability and great grace in so many ways. He had grace under pressure and grace with others, but grace in sports, as well, and the ability to do that.

Now, when you are the captain of the Yale baseball team, you can talk a lot about the team instead of yourself. When you decide to enter politics, there is an almost total contradiction between pursuing political office and not talking about yourself. It just doesn't quite work that way. You have to be willing to do that. We could always see in President Bush that reluctance to cross the line his mother had taught him and talk about himself and talk about his accomplishments. Even at his best, he was held back, in many ways, by that reluctance-- what he would see as bragging on himself.

His public service was significant and broad-based. I believe you could make the case that perhaps no one had ever been better prepared to be President than George Herbert Walker Bush, but in that effort to become President, you have to run first. I remember in 1980 hearing Barbara Bush talking about this. I remember this because it was so unusual. I don't remember anybody else saying anything like this when they decided to run for President in 1980. When he ran for President, I heard Barbara Bush say this when asked: This guy has run for Congress once; it is the only elected office he has ever had, the House of Representatives and reelected. And she said: Yes, but George has a big family and thousands of friends.

Now we see, at the end of his life, how that network of friends continued to be an important part of who he was, but I don't recall a single other person ever successfully running for President on the basis that he had a big family and lots of friends. But that was his unique way to associate with people, which included the thousands of letters he wrote. As the Vice President said yesterday, he wrote to friends over the years, and as it turned out, in retirement. He wrote letters to almost anybody who would write him. He would respond as, again, his mother probably taught him to do: If somebody takes the time to write you, you take the time to write them back. He was a man of appreciation and thank-you notes and sympathy notes. So that network of friends and family eventually became very important.

Now, where I live in Missouri, we were the ultimate bellwether State for about 100 years. My friend from Ohio would come close to being able to take that crown for a while. Ohio has usually been a winner in Presidential elections. But for 100 years, from 1904 to 2004, we voted for the winner every time but one. So that last part of that--that last 20 years of that time period--very much is the time period where President Bush 41 and Bush 43, for that matter, were part of national politics.

Missouri would have been a significant place for him anyway. His brother lived there--his younger brother Bucky, who passed away in the last few years--and Ambassador Burt Walker was there. So there are lots of interrelated and connected family members.

So we saw Candidate Bush and then Vice President Bush and then President Bush in our State a lot. I was the elected secretary of State when he was Vice President, and I was the secretary of State when he was President. So I had the chance to benefit from knowing him.

I had a chance to go to Walker's Point a few times and to go to church with the Bushes. If you were with the Bushes on a Sunday, either you were

going to be left by yourself or you were going to go to church, because that was as much a part of who President Bush was as anything else-- maybe a bigger part than anything else.

He said that in his faith--the Episcopal faith. Maybe he wasn't about sharing publicly his faith, but he was absolutely committed to his faith. In fact, he raised the money to build a chapel at Camp David during his Presidency. There had not been a chapel there before. A number of Presidents, starting with Franklin Roosevelt, had used Camp David, but it was President Bush who decided: Well, church services on Sunday in the cafeteria could be in a better place; let's do what we can.

So he raised the money privately to build the chapel that is there today.

The Missouri connection goes a little bit further. Not only did Missouri vote for President Bush in 1988--and if my story is going to have any truth to it, I would have to point out that Missouri voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, because we were still voting for the winner by pretty much the margin of whatever the national average was in the last 50 years of that 100-year saga.

After Desert Storm, President Bush looked around to find a place to do the first Fourth of July parade, and he came to Marshfield, MO, in the county where I was born--Webster County. I was going to be grand marshal of the parade that year, as I recall, but when it became apparent that the President wanted to come to be in that parade, I was more than willing to concede that he should be the grand marshal of that parade, and I walked not too far behind him.

Then, in 1992, after the convention--I believe it was the first kickoff--the first campaign kickoff was at Branson, MO, and I had the chance to be there with him. We went to a country music show at the Moe Bandy Theater. Loretta Lynn was sitting with the President and Mrs. Bush, and their good friend from Texas, Moe Bandy, was performing. That was a part of America and a part of our music that the President loved. I think the kickoff rally itself was outside in the parking lot, at Silver Dollar City, and the Herschend family was there. JoDee Herschend just this week died, as well, after a long fight with cancer.

All of those connections go back to the big family and thousands of friends. There was nowhere in that matrix that I just talked about where President Bush didn't leave with more friends than he had when he came--friends whom many times he figured out how to develop a lifelong connection to.

All of us could use more of that skill. There is social media and the quick response, but the letter writing and the phone calling and the thinking about when you need to reach out to people in a way they can transparently feel it continues to be important. The other things are not unimportant, either, but his connectedness took a little more effort than some of ours do.

Let me just say, in terms of preparation and how it paid off, he was CIA Director, a Member of Congress, one of the very first Envoys to China, before we had official relationships, Envoy to the United Nations, Vice President of the United States, and his making connections and contacts and friendships.

There was Desert Storm. Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, and the President says: ``This will not stand.'' He assembled what may have been the greatest coalition of nations at any time. The nations that weren't willing to fight were often willing to help others to pay for the fight. I don't know if anybody else could have put that coalition together the way President Bush did, but he put that coalition together with maximum force and to guarantee minimum loss and suddenly freed Kuwait and showed that the United States was still going to stand up for people who couldn't stand up for themselves.

Then, there was the collapse of the Soviet Union. We have just enough time now to look back. I have heard many others over the last few days talk about how that could have gone so badly wrong for all of the other countries that were trying to emerge from the domination of Russia and the Soviet Union. But George Herbert Walker Bush was on the phone, reaching out, talking to leaders, saying the things that actually had just been predicted by the West Germans themselves to be impossible-- that, somehow, East Germany could become part of West Germany. That is exactly what happened. The President encouraged, stood beside, and went out of the way to be sure that Helmut Kohl, the leader of West Germany, had the kind of support that he and his government needed. He reached out to bring this country, which had been isolated for 40 years, back as part of their country and into the country. So all of these East European countries that were emerging from Soviet domination had a chance to move from domination to democracy. That would not have happened the way it happened if somebody less prepared and less capable had been there. Character paid off then, and character is being recognized today for the value it has. As thousands have walked by the casket in the Rotunda of the Capitol of the United States of America, millions of others have thought about what a life of character means, about what the willingness to take responsibility means, and about how important it is to share credit, to take blame, to be prepared, and to believe there is great value and virtue in serving others. That is what George Herbert Walker Bush did.

As we think back at the impact he and Mrs. Bush and their family have had on the country, there is a great lesson to be learned. I hope we are all taking time to learn it.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I have two topics. I want to talk in a moment or two about National Adoption Month, but before I do that, I want to talk just a minute about Russia's continued outrageous behavior in Ukraine and the most recent incident where Russia has manufactured another crisis in order to take advantage of whatever situation they think the moment is ripe for. Clearly this has been allowed to go on for too long.

While Ukraine is not a member of NATO, I think NATO countries-- including ours--have a great interest in what is happening in Ukraine with Putin's continued aggressive behavior. We had a joint session--the only joint session where the President of Ukraine has spoken--a few years ago. He made the point that they appreciated the humanitarian help, but I thought the most telling moment in that speech was when he said: We appreciate the humanitarian help, we appreciate the blankets, but you can't fight the Russians with blankets.

That was the time under the Obama administration when we were not giving Ukraine either the defensive or offensive capacity they needed. President Trump has made a different decision, which I support, in helping the Ukrainians defend themselves.

I also support whatever we can do at this moment to let it be known to Putin that we are supportive of Ukraine's efforts to have an independent, democratic government, that we will continue to be supportive of that and we will continue to be helpful in that effort, and President Putin had better be careful that he doesn't take one step too far. In fact, he has already taken steps further than should have been allowed. Those steps--the seizure of Crimea, the invasion of eastern Ukraine by people who were clearly Russian soldiers in plain green uniforms--should not have been allowed. The President has to deal with that, but we need to deal with that in a way that gives Ukraine all the help they need in dealing with that themselves.

Whether the President should make that point by not meeting with Putin or whether he should make that point by meeting with Putin and clearly expressing not only our concern but our absolute rejection of the efforts the Russian Government has made toward Ukraine in an aggressive way, I don't know. I do know that it is time for us to be very clear about how we feel about that and emphasize our continued commitment to the NATO countries along the Russian border, that we absolutely will respond if there is any aggression toward those NATO countries. Frankly, we should be aggressive in our efforts to help Ukraine defend itself.

Madam President, I think by any standard, as we conclude this Congress, the House and Senate, working together, have put more legislation on the President's desk that has long-term impact than at any time in a long time, whether it was the opioid legislation or healthcare research funding.

I want to talk a little bit today about the Federal Aviation Administration extension that, just last week, the Senate passed and the President signed. I believe the 5-year reauthorization is the longest reauthorization since the 1980s. So the traveling public, the FAA itself, the Department of Transportation, and the airline carriers of both people and freight have an understanding of what the next 5 years should look like.

One of the things that will happen during the time that begins right now--the Senate and the House listened and the President listened to the traveling public about their concerns about what happens on airplanes and in airports. This is a bill that I worked on in the Aviation Subcommittee, along with Senator Cantwell, Senator Thune, and Senator Nelson. We worked for almost 2 years to get this bill to where it was when the President signed it, to address the safety, security, and comfort of the traveling public.

In the wake of consumer complaints about the shrinking seat size on airplanes, the law directs the FAA to set minimum legroom standards and width and length requirements for airline seat size to ensure passenger comfort and safety. I think all of us have had some experience with seeing seats get smaller all the time. Like every other Member of the Senate, when I am flying back and forth every week, usually in one of those coach seats, somebody says: I thought you came back and forth on a private plane. Actually, only a few Members--maybe less than a handful--are able to do that. Most of us fly just like everybody else does, with no particular benefit. But you can sense those seats getting a little smaller and the legroom getting a little tighter. We have given new responsibility for the FAA to set standards, so the traveling public knows somebody is paying attention to them and how long they are going to be in that seat and what it is going to be like when they are there.

We also have a provision that you can't take somebody off an airplane once they have been allowed to board because you somehow oversold. If somebody is on that plane, they can't be taken off that plane unless they agree to be taken off that plane or the passenger acts in a way that the safety and security and the health of other passengers could be a problem. So there is no more involuntarily bumping of passengers who are on a plane.

The law prohibits placing live animals in overhead compartments. More and more people seem to travel with pets, and people have had bad experiences with that in the last few years. So overhead storage is not appropriate storage any longer for your pet if you are traveling with a pet.

It also sets minimum standards for service animals that are allowed on flights. We all see that more all the time, too--a pet not in a cage but important to the individual who has a service animal. Many veterans now have a service animal. There are now standards on what that animal can be and how it has to behave on a plane.

It bans in-flight cell calls. If you have ever sat by somebody before the plane takes off and learned way more about them than you want to know, you can imagine what it would be like if you had to learn way more about them based on every call they could make all the time you were flying. So that is not going to happen. The next time you are on the ground and somebody continues to talk until they are told they can't do that any longer, just be grateful that can't continue once the plane gets in the air for the whole time of the flight, which would technically have been allowed with Wi-Fi or whatever allowed that phone to be connected. That is not going to be the case now.

Airline fees have changed. I don't like airline fees. Most people don't like airline fees. But if you pay a fee and you don't get the service--if you pay for a seat assignment that doesn't work out to be the kind of seat you paid for or early boarding, and that didn't happen or baggage that somehow wasn't handled the way your special fee was charged--the airlines now have to keep track of that and get you that money back as soon as they reasonably can or face a penalty.

The law requires air carriers to submit to the Department of Transportation a one-page summary of passengers' rights, including compensation for flight delays, cancellations, and mishandled bags. Every airline has to have that available for you to look at.

By the way, the Department of Transportation is going to have a Consumer Aviation Advocate. There will now be somebody at the Department of Transportation--it will be their job, their only job, to respond to you; they and their team will respond to you if you have had a problem on an airline and want to see what can be done about it.

Provisions are included to address disability issues on planes, whether restrooms are accessible, whether anything happens that would harm a disabled passenger or damage their wheelchair or the other aids they have.

We have a 3-year reauthorization of the Transportation Security Administration. There are some real needs there in both TSA Precheck and TSA generally that are met with this. One of those needs is more access to dogs. We all see dogs in airports, but every study since 9/ 11--and there have been a lot of them--indicates that nothing is more effective than a dog for finding most of the things you are looking for. Some of us have gone through security lines lately where the line moves pretty fast, but a dog checks everybody in that line. We will see what happens there, but dogs generally are doing the kinds of things that need to be done.

So whether it is the FAA Reauthorization Act or America's Water Infrastructure Act, which we passed yesterday--I think the vote on that was 99 to 1, but that doesn't mean it was easy to get it to the floor, and it doesn't mean it normally gets done by a Congress. But that has happened as well.

The insurance policies that Democrats voted to take away yesterday have been mentioned here this morning. Those short-term health policies were available until the very last days of the Obama administration. I don't know the reason the administration had to suddenly decide that it didn't want that ability that several hundred thousand--maybe a couple of million--people had to get short-term coverage at a rate they could afford. For people in a job transition or something else, those were available that entire time.

The Urban Institute says that 1.5 million people who otherwise would have no insurance will be able to have insurance under those short-term policies. The policies under the Affordable Care Act are still available; they are still subsidized; they still do everything that is the maximum of ObamaCare. If that is what you want to have, particularly if you are subsidized in that marketplace, that is probably where you should be. But a lot of people aren't, and a lot of people don't have immediate access, and a lot of people are in transition.

The Urban Institute is not normally seen as a conservative watchdog, but they said that 1.5 million people will have insurance with these policies, which will continue to be available for people who wouldn't have insurance if they hadn't have been. So you can say anything you want to say. You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts, and I think the facts on the vote we took this week on those short-term policies are pretty clear.

I yield the floor.

I yield to the Senator.

Mr. President, I want to talk a little bit about what my good friend from Delaware talked about with regard to our being judged by history. Some of what I want to talk about today is of the history of this system and of others who have served.

I have read several times in the last 30 days, particularly, that the Democrats feel they can do anything because of the way Merrick Garland was treated. I don't think there is any comparison between the way Merrick Garland was treated and the way Judge Kavanaugh has been treated. The only comparison I can think of is that they are both on the DC Court of Appeals and that they have both said very kind things about each other, but there is no comparison.

Merrick Garland was nominated in the last year of a Presidency. The last time someone was put on the Supreme Court who was nominated in the last year of a Presidency was in 1932. The last time that happened was in 1932. The last time someone went on the Supreme Court when the President was of one party and the Senate was of the other and when it was a Presidential election year was in 1888. There is no comparison.

In fact, Vice President Biden--then-Senator Biden--said on June 25 of 1992, in what turned out to be the last year of the Bush Presidency: If there is a vacancy, there will be no hearing until after the election.

There was not a vacancy, by the way. They were just putting that historical marker down that if there were a vacancy, there would not be a hearing until after the election. Of course, that meant there would not be a hearing that mattered. Unless the President were to be reelected and the majority in the Senate were to stay the same, there would be no reason to assume there would be a judge appointed by this President this year.

Senator Schumer said in July of 2007, in his not wanting to wait until election year but just wanting to put his position on the table even earlier in the last year of another Bush Presidency, that we should not confirm any Bush nominee--I think he meant--from that moment on. As a matter of fact, he did say we shouldn't confirm any Bush nominee from that moment on except in extraordinary circumstances. I am sure he didn't mean one vacancy on the Supreme Court would be an extraordinary circumstance but a circumstance that would be dealt with just like Judge Garland's was dealt with, and people were heard. Yet that is not what this is about, and it sets no precedent any more than Senator Biden or Senator Schumer set a precedent that should have been a surprise for anybody.

So what do we have with Judge Kavanaugh as we decide in the next few hours or in the next day or so whether he becomes Justice Kavanaugh?

This was the seventh background check of this judge by the FBI. There had never been a more extensive review of a Supreme Court nominee-- seven times in slightly more than a dozen years--in going through this background check.

More than 150 people had been interviewed.

He had 36 hours of testimony before the Senate, during which you and others on the Judiciary Committee could

have asked him anything you had wanted to ask.

He had 65 private meetings with Senators, during which they could have asked him everything they wanted to ask--including, by the way, the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, who had had this information available to talk about.

More than 500,000 pages of executive branch documents had been provided--more than for the last 4 nominees. Of all of his opinions as a judge and of all the cases he was part of, there were about 300 of those. By the way, that is the best way to look at what kind of judge he would be.

He was asked over 1,200 questions for the record. That is like, after you have asked all of the questions you could publicly think of, then one has about a week to answer any questions that have been submitted for the record. He had 1,200 questions submitted for the record that he had to answer in that short period of time.

There were three confidential calls with the committee.

Then, last Friday, our colleagues decided--and I think, as it turned out, maybe wisely so--to do one more final FBI review of whatever they might not have asked about in the other seven FBI interviews that had occurred over the years. The outside number was 1 week. A week ago, 1 week was what was going to be plenty of time. I think some Members in the minority at that time said: Well, maybe even 3 or 4 days. That is what it took with the Clarence Thomas hearing. By the way, that was before these issues became public, because it was turned over to the FBI like it should have been, and in 3 or 4 days, they had talked to everybody they could talk to. So, last week, 3 or 4 days might have been enough, but certainly a week would have been enough, according to the other side. Of course, that was never going to be the case. A week was never going to be enough.

By the way, in background checks, when you are asked to be part of that--if it is your background check--one of the questions you are asked is, are there any drinking problems? Are there any drug problems? He had been asked that over and over again. I think anybody who is interviewed is always asked, do you know of any problems like that?

Usually, a question is, Have you ever heard of anything that we would be interested in if we had heard about it?

Another question often is, Would you tell us three people whom we might not have talked to who might know something about Judge Kavanaugh that we should know?

Over a decade and a half, there have been 7 FBI interviews and 150 people interviewed, the behavioral question, the drinking question, the drug question, which hasn't come up as far as I know, but it is always asked. It has been asked over and over again.

Then you and I and Senator Inhofe went the other morning to hear a review of this last set of interviews, wherein people who possibly would have been able to corroborate something were interviewed and couldn't corroborate it. In many ways, the case got weaker as that moved forward, but we heard that.

Then I heard that afternoon that Senator Schumer said that this is full of hints of misconduct. So I went back this morning and looked through the six prior background checks, and I looked through this background check. As it turns out, I agree with Senator Grassley, who said there was no hint of misconduct.

If there had been a hint of misconduct in the previous five, he would have never been nominated. If there had been a hint of misconduct in the sixth one, he wouldn't have been nominated. It wouldn't have sustained itself. If you look at the pages that are new, there is none there now. So you can say anything you want to say. You can say it is not time enough. You can say, even though no witness ever saw any of these events, you just haven't talked to enough people yet, even though you have talked to everybody who has been mentioned, as far as I know, with any credible charges.

So here we are. Now it is temperament. I don't think there are many Senators who would not have had his same indignation in being accused of something that he, without equivocation, swore did not happen, not only in those instances but in any other instance.

It took 43 days for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be confirmed. We are at about 83 days, or something like that, now. I looked up a couple of articles just to refresh my memory. When she shows some fire--and she has plenty of it, and I admire that--the description of her is her ``well-known candor.'' That is how you describe it when Justice Ginsburg has her own opinion, like what she said about the Republican nominee last year: He is a faker. He has no consistency about him. He should withdraw. She said: I can't imagine what this place would be and can't imagine what the country would be with Donald Trump as our President.

Now, is that a temperament issue, or is that too political?

By the way, I am not offended by political. The Court never was either. John Marshall, one of the great Justices of the Court, was the Secretary of State for the person who appointed him. Earl Warren, who certainly set a standard for the Court, had never been in any public office except politically elected office before he became the Chief Justice. When he joined the Court in 1953, there were three former Senators sitting on the Court. There were two former Attorneys General sitting on the Court. Both had been appointed by the Presidents for whom they had been Attorneys General. Elena Kagan was the principal lawyer for President Obama. Yet, suddenly, political becomes a problem or temperament becomes a problem.

Thurgood Marshall said while he was on the Court--by the way, I admire him in so many ways. I admire Thurgood Marshall's work and what he did as a lawyer, and the decision that President Johnson made was clearly historic.

As a Justice, Thurgood Marshall said: I wouldn't do the job of dogcatcher for Ronald Reagan.

About President Bush, while he was still a Justice, Thurgood Marshall said: It is said, if you can't say something good about a dead person, don't say it. Well, I consider him dead.

Obviously, he considers him dead and takes the first injunction that he doesn't have anything to say, but there is nothing wrong with people on the Court having opinions.

In this case, we have a judge for whom you could look at 12 years of judging, and you could look at 300 opinions, and you could look at his law school classes he taught. There is plenty to look at. It all, I believe, leads to a couple of conclusions:

One, the way this nomination has been treated has been outrageous. I think my good friend who spoke before said he had never seen anything like it. Well, there has never been anything like this: Hold on to information that can't be corroborated. Only release it after it is clear that the judge has the votes to be confirmed and when you want to do, as the majority leader said, anything you can possibly do as the minority leader to slow down and stop this nomination.

We have plenty to look at here. We cannot set a standard of guilty until proven innocent because then anybody can make any charge at any time, particularly when there are many reasons to believe that there is nothing in 7 background checks, that there is nothing in 150 interviews, that there is nothing in a very visible public career to ever suggest that Judge Kavanaugh is anything different from what he said he was and those of us who will vote for him believe him to be.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my colleague just talked about standing up for the Senate, about standing up for the values that traditionally have been our values. One of those principal values has been ``innocent until proven guilty.'' What we have seen happen here in the last week is something that did not need to happen, certainly, in the way it has happened.

The hearing, the hours of questions, the picking apart of those answers at leisure--we have seen all of that. Do you know what would have happened if we had followed this process the right way? It is hard to do when a significant majority of the committee says that it is against the nominee before he has the hearing and when several Senators say they are against the nominee before he is even nominated, no matter who the nominee will be.

There would have been a normal background check that would have occurred if the information that had been available to the committee-- to the Democrats and their staffs--had been turned over at the time. How would they have handled that? How would those in the FBI have handled that on July 30 or August 30 or on any other date? They would have handled that by going and talking to the people involved. Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh would have been interviewed by the FBI. The people they would have mentioned with whom the FBI should also talk would have been interviewed by the FBI, and that would have been put in the file. The material could have been presented to the committee as it should have been.

In Judge Kavanaugh's private hearing, they were willing to talk about baseball tickets. They could have pursued this in the private hearing: Here is what is in this file. What do you have to say about that?

Dr. Ford, as she said she had wanted to be, would have been kept anonymous in that process. There would have been no reason--unless the committee would have decided to do what somebody on that committee did--to have used her name and for this to have become a major public confrontation. This could have been handled in another way. Her letter and her personal trauma could have been handled in a way that they were not. In fact, it couldn't have been handled more poorly or politically by some in the minority or by their staffs than it was.

Only after the original hearings had ended, only after it was obvious that Judge Kavanaugh--in my view, it was obvious--had the votes to be confirmed, then, suddenly, were these unverifiable charges made public by the Democrats on the committee and by their staffs.

I work hard in the Senate to find agreement with my colleagues of both parties. I have been the principal Republican cosponsor on legislation with all but four of the Democrats in the Senate. I do my best to find the areas we can agree on. In fact, with regard to this FAA bill today, Senator Cantwell and I chair that subcommittee, while Senator Thune and Senator Nelson chair the full committee. There is this and appropriations. There are a lot of things that have happened this year that haven't happened for a while, and it is because we have reached out to try to work together.

What we have with this nomination is a new principle. I find the ``guilty until proven innocent'' conduct by some of our colleagues to be totally unacceptable. It is not who we are. It cannot become the new standard. I heard somebody say at a meeting this week: Well, if these charges are out there, this person will always be impacted when there is a case before the Court that might possibly involve those charges. That cannot be how we pursue the future. We cannot pursue the future by thinking: If you are charged with something, you will be, from that point on, somehow unable to do the job that you are eminently qualified for.

We have a person here who has 300 court of appeals opinions on the most challenging court of appeals in the country--more than a dozen of those accepted almost word for word by the Supreme Court. There is plenty to determine judicial temperament. There is plenty to determine whether the judge can do what the judge is supposed to do.

Unless later today, somehow, we see something, which is highly unlikely based on all of the things that are already out there, I intend to vote for Judge Kavanaugh. I don't think he would have said he categorically and unequivocally didn't do this--or anything like it regarding the specific charge--if he had. It was not necessary. You wouldn't have to say that about conduct over three decades ago. You could say all kinds of other things, but here is a lawyer whose legal capacity has never been challenged. He would not have had to make that unequivocal statement if there had been any reason to be concerned about that statement.

He said he didn't do it. All who were mentioned and who were asked if they saw it happen say they didn't see it. I believe something traumatic did happen to Dr. Ford. I don't believe it involved Judge Kavanaugh. With the obvious, specific three-decades-later memory of the person involved--with that exception--you could actually believe that both of them are telling the truth.

I joined Judge Kavanaugh's daughter in praying for Dr. Ford and her family. I also think we should all pray for Judge Kavanaugh and his family.

This is an issue that has gotten totally out of hand. It is an issue that has gone well beyond the bounds of what we believe in our country. It is an issue that we can't let begin to determine the future way we do these things. You cannot have guilty until proven innocent. You cannot have innocent until nominated as the standard for the country. We cannot let this go forward that way.

Some relationships here--and they are important ones to me and others--are going to take a little while to restore, but we will have to restore them. There aren't enough of us to walk away from each other and say: We cannot possibly move forward in working with you. I intend to continue to work with my colleagues, but I also intend to continue to stand up for the fundamental values of fairness that this country has always held most dear. We need to do that this week with this nomination as well.