Floor Statements

Mr. President, Our Nation's public health system needs high quality, timely, and accurate data to protect the public from health threats like opioid overdoses, influenza, measles, and more. Effective prevention and response to health threats requires coordinated efforts between health care providers and public health officials across all levels of government.

Unfortunately, the public health data systems we rely on for our health and safety are antiquated and fragmented. Systems lack the interoperability needed to facilitate timely, secure information exchange. Too often, public health departments are forced to rely on systems with manual processes that are time consuming and error prone, such as paper records, faxes, and phone calls. Only two jurisdictions have begun the process to receive electronic case reports directly from health records, and only for a small number of diseases. Our public health data infrastructure lacks the automation, security, interoperability, and skilled workforce we need to confront the public health threats of today and tomorrow.

Today, I am pleased to introduce with my colleagues, Senator Isakson and Senator King, the Saving Lives Through Better Data Act to assist in building the 21st Century public health data infrastructure our Nation needs. The Saving Lives Through Better Data Act awards grants to State, local, Tribal, and territorial public health departments to improve data collection and analysis, simplify provider reporting, enhance interoperability, promote electronic case reporting, and support earlier disease detection and response. Grant recipients must support interoperability standards endorsed by the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology or those adopted by the HHS Secretary.

The Saving Lives Through Better Data Act also requires the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct activities to improve its public health data systems. The CDC must also develop and utilize public-private partnerships to support State, local, Tribal, and territorial public health departments in modernizing and expanding electronic case reporting and public health data systems. The legislation calls for reporting on barriers public health authorities may face in implementing electronic case reporting or interoperable public health data systems as well as an assessment of the potential public health impact of making such improvements. We make the necessary investment to improve our public health infrastructure by authorizing $100 million per year for each of fiscal years 2020-2024.

The Saving Lives Through Better Data Act will strengthen our public health data systems so we can be well-equipped to identify and respond to public health threats, which will save lives.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Jobs and Childcare for Military Families Act, with my colleagues Senators Boozman and Tester. Enacting this bill would improve financial stability for Gold Star families across the Nation.

The families of America's servicemembers make sacrifices that often go unrecognized. Among them is packing up and moving frequently, with military spouses regularly having to quit stable employment to move to a new area and start over. This is compounded by the complex system of State licensing and certification requirements, which can limit these spouses' from taking jobs that utilize their expertise and experience. Because of this, military spouses have unemployment rates substantially higher than the national average, and are often underemployed when they do have jobs. Adding to the financial struggle that frequent periods of unemployment and underemployment cause, the rising cost of childcare puts a substantial burden on many military families.

The Jobs and Childcare for Military Families Act would help these families

in two ways. First, the bill makes military spouses an eligible population for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit. This tax credit has been proven effective in improving the employment prospects for other groups, and extending it to military spouses would help them find employment easier after moving to new areas. Second, the bill instructs the administration to implement dependent care flexible spending accounts for all servicemembers. These accounts would allow military families to contribute pre-tax dollars to accounts that they can then use to pay for childcare services, helping ease the financial burden of childcare.

I hope my colleagues will support this bill to help families who have made the greatest sacrifice for our Nation.

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

Mr. President, I rise to talk about a sad tragedy that occurred in Virginia on May 31--the shooting deaths of 12 individuals in Virginia Beach.

It was a Friday. I was in Virginia Beach that day having meetings in the community on the boardwalk at a hotel with the Old Dominion Bar Association. It was a meeting about sea level rise with interested constituents.

I had just left Virginia Beach to drive back to my home, and after I left, within a couple of hours, I got word about a shooting at the Virginia Beach City Hall.

This is a city hall I know well. I was the mayor of Richmond and used to work closely with the mayor of Virginia Beach at that time. I also tried cases in the courthouse right there near Virginia Beach City Hall when I served as a private attorney in private practice.

I rise to talk about these 12 victims but also talk about my hope that the Virginia Beach shooting will lead us to stop being bystanders and take meaningful action to reduce gun violence.

If I could say a few words about each of the 12 individuals who were killed at Virginia Beach: Laquita Brown was a 4-year employee of the department of public works. She was known for her love of travel, her friends, and her ability to light up a room with her presence.

Ryan Keith Cox was a 12-year employee of the city. He had worked with the department of public utilities, was known for his kindness and beautiful singing voice. He became known just in the hours after the shooting as somebody who ran into danger looking for more people to save after ensuring his workers were sheltered in a barricaded room. He saved many lives on that horrible day and was killed himself doing so.

Tara Gallagher was a 6-year employee at the city of Virginia Beach. She worked as an engineer to provide clean drinking water to people. She was murdered in the shooting.

Mary Louise Gayle had worked for 24 years for the city in public works. She was known as a cheerful coworker and devoted mother and grandmother.

Alexander Mikhail Gusev was a 9-year employee of the city, emigrated from Belarus to Virginia Beach to find a better life. He was known as a generous and devoted coworker, friend, uncle, and brother. He was murdered that day.

Joshua Hardy worked for the city for 4 years in the department of public utilities. He was known for his kindhearted nature, love for family and faith.

Michelle ``Missy'' Langer worked for the city for 12 years and was known for her beaming smile and passion for the Pittsburgh Steelers. We have a lot of Steelers fans in Virginia. She had plans to retire soon. She was murdered that day.

Rick Nettleton was a 28-year employee of the city. He was a selfless leader in regional utility system planning and a veteran of the 130th Engineer Brigade of the Army.

Kate Nixon was a 10-year employee of the city who was known for her intellect. She was a loving wife and mother of three.

Chris Kelly Rapp had just been there 11 months as a city employee. He was known for his kindness and passion for playing the bagpipes. I met a couple at the memorial whose wedding he had graced with his bagpipe playing. He was devoted to his wife.

Bert Snelling was one of the 12 who was not a city employee. He was a contractor. He had come to the municipal center to get a permit that day, like so many people who walk into the building permits office to get a permit. I learned a lot about Bert because he was a contractor who had done the carpentry renovations on the mayor's home. The mayor talked about befriending this wonderful contractor in the community.

Then, finally, there was Bobby Williams. Bobby had worked for the city for 41 years in the department of public utilities. During the course of his time with Virginia Beach, he was awarded with eight service awards in recognition of his devoted work for the city, and he was planning on retiring later this year.

These were 12 beautiful people--12 lives lost--who had track records of accomplishment and more to give. They were new employees, 41-year employees, single, married with children, grandchildren. All just wanted to serve their colleagues. That is why they were there. They wanted to serve their fellow citizens of Virginia Beach.

I want to commend the response of city employees. Some of them alerted coworkers and pulled them into the shelter, saving unknowable numbers of lives.

I want to commend Virginia Beach officers. They responded within minutes of the first shootings. They heroically risked their lives, all four of them. Although they had all trained, including a training session the day before, most had not trained together. Imagine that you get this call and the four of you are going into a building where there is a shooting underway. You haven't trained together, but you are trying to put your training to use. They did remarkable work.

One of the officers was shot while confronting the gunman. He survived because he was wearing a bulletproof vest that was likely funded by a bulletproof vest program through which the Senate and the House have, for years, enabled local jurisdictions to have bulletproof vests.

The gunman, who was killed in the firefight, was carrying high- caliber handguns with high-capacity ammunition magazines. By some reports, the magazines allowed the gun to fire up to 30 rounds in automatic succession. And he was carrying suppressors that suppressed the noise of these weapons, which made it more difficult for the responding officers to determine where the shooting was happening.

I want to commend the emergency personnel for treating the wounded and also those who have responded to the mental health needs of the families of the wounded and killed, of other city employees, of friends of the city employees, and of the entire community that was brutalized by this. These deaths have robbed Virginia Beach of some wonderful neighbors who served their communities in many ways.

I went to a memorial service a week after the shooting, last Thursday, June 6. I went to the memorial and saw the mountains of flowers that had been left by crosses with each of the names of the 12 on them. While I was there, I visited with everyday people who were coming by to pay respects. They wanted to tell me how proud they were of their city, the city employees, the bravery and heroism, and people pulling together. I met a couple for whom one of the guys had played bagpipes at their wedding. I met the mother of one of the victims and family members of others.

When they saw elected officials there, they wanted to talk about their pride in their city, but they also wanted to share with us as elected officials that we need to do something. It was a reminder that no place is safe and no place is immune to the epidemic of gun violence. Again and again, what people said to me is ``I couldn't have imagined that this would have happened here.'' But we have said that about schools; we have said that about night clubs; we have said that about concerts; we have said that about colleges; we have said that about communities all over this country--churches, synagogues, Sikh temples: ``I couldn't have imagined that this would happen here.''

We can't forget that sometimes instances like this, in which there is mass violence, get headlines. We had a 9-year-old girl in Richmond who was killed at a neighborhood park by a gunshot a couple of weeks back. We had a shooting in Chesapeake, VA, near in time to the massacre of these 12, where many were injured--a mass shooting that affected a backyard barbecue. Many of those people were injured and were taken to the hospital.

I have had painful experience with this. I was the Governor of Virginia during what, at the time, was the worst shooting in the history of the United States--the massacre at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. It was the worst day of my life. It is always going to be the worst day of my life, responding and immediately going to a campus and dealing with 32 families who had lost their kids, their spouses-- students, grad students, professors, trying to deal with them in their grief, trying to provide answers, and trying to come up with solutions.

I was the mayor of Richmond at a time when our city had the second highest homicide rate in the United States.

Both of those experiences have given me a lot of scar tissue, so much so that when I hear of an instance like this in Virginia--just as other Virginians have the same feeling--you have both the fresh emotions of horror and sadness, and you feel like a bandaid has been torn off because you are reliving experiences that we have had to go through too many times.

Yet the one thing I have learned--and I have learned a lot, but the one thing I have learned is that we don't have to stand by and say that nothing can be done. I have learned that the pain is real, but there are solutions. In the midst of a horrible crime epidemic in Richmond, we took meaningful steps that brought the homicide rate down by 60 percent and reduced violent crime dramatically. You can take action. If you can take action that will keep people safer, then you have an obligation to take action.

In the aftermath of the shooting at Virginia Tech--where a deranged individual got the weapons of destruction that killed 32 people and wounded another couple dozen--we learned he got his weapons because of a glitch in the background check system. I was able to fix part of it with an executive order. There was more I wanted to do to make background checks universal and to make sure guns would not go into the hands of individuals deemed too dangerous to have them by Federal laws that have been on the books for decades, but some of what I wanted to do legislatively I couldn't get my legislature to do. At least we learned that if you have a better background check system, more people will be safer. If we banned high-capacity magazines, more people would be safer.

We have learned that there are steps you can take to keep people safer, and if you can take those steps, yet you choose not to, you are a bystander to this horrible violence.

On Monday morning, just yesterday, I met with community leaders in Charlottesville to discuss gun violence. Charlottesville is a community that has been deeply affected by violence in the last couple of years because of the riot led by White supremacists and Neo-Nazis, which caused the deaths of three people in August 2017. They understand violence. They understand the pain of it. They understand missing people who are contributing members of the community. They wanted to talk about what we needed to do. They were frustrated. They were frustrated by a General Assembly of Virginia and a Congress of the United States being bystanders and not being willing to take actions we need to take.

One teacher in our meeting told a very vivid story about how she has had to rearrange her classroom. She keeps a filing cabinet next to the front door. The door opens from the hall into her classroom. She has positioned a full filing cabinet next to the door, and she has figured out how to race to that cabinet and tip it over to block the door from being opened. Imagine that you go to school to be a teacher. You are trained in pedagogy. You are trained in how to motivate youngsters of all kinds. They don't teach you how to stop an active shooter, but we have to start teaching all our teachers how to do it. This teacher talked about it. The teacher talked about the drills they have to have in the first week of school every year. She has to take her class of elementary students into a bathroom, which is their designated hiding spot. She is taught to stand in front of the door of the bathroom and block it from being opened, so if there were a shooting going on and there were shots being fired through the door, she would be the one who would be injured or killed rather than her students. Imagine expecting that of our elementary school students in the United States circa 2019.

We have a sickness when we expect elementary school teachers to have to herd their kids into bathrooms. Imagine what the little second and third graders think when going into these drills. Even if they never have an active shooting incident, imagine what impression the drills make on their minds. We have a sickness.

The Virginians I talked to yesterday said: Look, we have to do something about it. Virginians are asking our General Assembly and our Congress to take action.

I am encouraged that the Governor of Virginia has undertaken a fairly unusual step. He has called the General Assembly back into session. The session is over in Virginia. He has called them back for a session on July 9 to consider gun safety measures that he is going to put on the table. Everybody can be held accountable. They can vote yes or no and propose amendments. Nobody will be able to hide. People have to be held accountable as to whether they are willing to take steps to keep people safe.

No single fix will prevent all gun violence. Each incident is different. Each person, each perpetrator, each victim is different. There is not one thing we are going to be able to do that is going to end gun violence or violence generally. That is not in our capacity to do.

I will tell you something. If there were a bridge collapse on an interstate in my State, we would be there immediately, trying to figure out how to fix the highways of our State. If there were an epidemic, we would be immediately figuring out how to come up with a vaccine.

When we have this repetitive catastrophe of gun deaths in this country, then we also have to be challenged to act. I applaud my Governor for recognizing that and pulling my legislature back on July 9. I wish them the best.

I hope we will do something here. We haven't had a meaningful debate about gun violence and gun safety regulations and laws on the floor of this body since April of 2013. I remember it well. I had just come to the Senate. It was almost precisely on the sixth anniversary of the shooting of Virginia Tech. We had a debate on the floor of the Senate about universal background checks, which 90 percent of Americans support. We had that debate in April of 2013. It was in the aftermath of the shooting at Sandy Hook. Little kids were massacred in their elementary school by these high-capacity weapons, and we had that debate.

The families of many of the victims of Sandy Hook were sitting in the Gallery surrounding us. Some were sitting next to family members for Virginia Tech or other shootings who had come to provide them support. There is a beautiful phrase in the letter of Paul to the Hebrews that talks about being surrounded by a ``great cloud of witnesses.'' That day, we had an opportunity to act to keep Americans safer, and we were surrounded by a ``great cloud of witnesses'' who were sitting in the Gallery, just hoping that we might act to reduce the likelihood of crimes of this kind happening in the future, and we fell a few votes short. What a horrible day.

You don't want to fall short on something that is important, and you especially don't want to fall short when people whose lives have been irradicably torn up by violence are sitting around, hoping that you will do the right thing. Yet we fell a few votes short.

We have an opportunity now. We can return--it is interesting, isn't it? I am thinking of the pages who have been here most recently. We haven't had that discussion for the last 6 years. There have been a lot of shootings in the last 6 years. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the shooting at the Pulse nightclub where 49 people were killed. We had the shooting at the Pulse nightclub that killed 49 people. More than 50 people were gunned down in a concert in Las Vegas. There were shootings at synagogues in California and Pittsburgh, shootings in Christian churches in Charleston--gun crime after gun crime in neighborhoods, suicides facilitated by guns, children finding loaded guns that were unlocked and killing themselves or killing or wounding others. There has been tragedy

after tragedy after tragedy. Yet there has not been a debate on the floor of the Senate since April of 2013.

I think it is time to have a debate. Guess what. We have an opportunity. There are two bills that have been passed by the House, by strong margins, that are now pending before this body. I ask that the Senate leadership allow us to have debates and votes on these bills.

One is a bill that would require background checks on all firearm sales in the country. There is a bipartisan consensus that certain people should not have weapons--felons, folks adjudicated mentally ill and dangerous, folks who are subjected to domestic violence protective orders. Yet the only way we can enforce those laws is by having a working background check system to make sure that before a weapon gets put into somebody's hand, we ensure that he is not prohibited from having a weapon.

One of the House bills would make the national background check system universal. We should take that bill up and debate it and vote on it on the floor of the greatest deliberative body in the world, the U.S. Senate.

The second bill that is pending here also deals with the background check system and deals with the quirk that has been known as the Charleston loophole. Just like with the Virginia Tech shooter, he got his weapons but shouldn't have been able to have gotten them because of his mental health adjudication. He got them because of there being a weakness in the background check system. In Charleston, another weakness showed itself. The individual who got the weapons and perpetrated that horrible atrocity in the church was not able to get a weapon, but there was a problem with the background check system. Current Federal law says, if you try to buy a weapon and then the background check is run on you and the check isn't done in 3 weeks, they have to put the weapon in your hand even though the check isn't done, even though you are prohibited from having a weapon. If they can't do it in 3 weeks, you get the weapon even though it is illegal for you to have the weapon. What kind of sense does that make? That is known as the Charleston loophole.

The House has passed a bill that would end that, that would say that you don't get the weapon until it has been confirmed that you are legally able to have that weapon. That bill is in the Senate right now, and we should be able to take it up.

I hope we will take up Federal legislation that I have filed with others to restrict high-capacity magazines to 10 rounds. I have introduced these bills in the past. So often, the police stop a lethal shooting, not at the start but when somebody is changing out a magazine. That gives some precious seconds to trained law enforcement officers to stop a crime before it gets worse. In the Parkland shooting in Florida last year, police stopped the shooter because, as he was changing out the weapon, putting in the next magazine--he was not a trained marksman--he jammed the gun. That was what enabled the police to stop him or the carnage there would have been worse.

I would like to ban high-capacity magazines and limit them to 10. We should be able to do this because we already do it. In Virginia, as in virtually every State, we have a magazine limit. We put a limit on the number of rounds you can put in a magazine if you are hunting a bird or, in many States, if you are hunting a deer. Why do we have limitations on magazines that are used by hunters? Because it wouldn't be fair to the animal. It would not be fair to an animal to allow somebody with a high-capacity magazine to hunt it.

Are our sensibilities about animals so different than they are about humans? Do we want to protect animals more than we want to protect humans? If we accept bans and limitations on magazines that are used in hunting, why wouldn't we embrace a well-crafted limitation on high- capacity magazines that go into weapons that aren't for hunting animals but that are designed to kill or to wound people?

I think Congress can encourage State, local, and Tribal governments to adopt extreme risk protection orders that would remove firearms from the hands of individuals who exhibit signs of mental health crises-- weapons that can be returned to them once the signs of crises are over. I also hope we will consider legislation--Senator Klobuchar of Minnesota has promoted this for years--to prevent domestic abusers from keeping guns.

The bottom line is this. After each tragedy, we have an opportunity to learn and improve. There are Americans, even those who support guns in my State and even NRA members, who strongly support many of the commonsense measures that I have mentioned. The question is, Are we just going to keep offering platitudes or are we going to act to actually protect our communities?

Finally, after a high-profile shooting, it is common for us to offer thoughts and prayers to the victims. Some people get mad about that. I don't. That is really important. We should be offering thoughts and prayers to victims. It is an instinctive and common response that is a good response, and we should do it.

We also ask questions about perpetrators. What was the motive? Why did the person do this? We have a lot of unanswered questions about the city employee who shot 12 people in Virginia Beach--answers that we don't know and, in some instances, may never know. We don't yet have a good explanation for the motivation, for example, of the shooter who killed more than 50 people in Las Vegas.

Yet, while thoughts and prayers for victims are appropriate and questions about perpetrators are appropriate, I think what the rest of us ought to do is look in the mirror and ask some questions about ourselves. It is hard for evil to exist in the world sometimes if there aren't bystanders. For most of the evil that exists in the world, there are bystanders who could stop it. Sadly, in recent years, the Congress of the United States and my State legislature have been bystanders.

There are questions that we have to ask ourselves as we have bills pending in the Senate that could be considered right now after the latest one of these tragedies. Are we going to continue to be bystanders? Will we respond to these tragedies with more than just thoughts and prayers when there are steps to be taken that we know will keep people safer? Will we have a meaningful debate and, hopefully, find a path forward with regard to them or will we continue the kind of gag rule that we will not take these matters up and not talk about them?

Those are the questions that are on the floor for the body, and I hope that the Senate will show courage and leadership in addressing these matters.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I rise to speak about the recent uptick in State efforts to criminalize abortion. These proposals, which have been passed in eight States just this year and that have been proposed in many others, impose harsh criminal penalties on women who have abortions or on doctors who terminate pregnancies.

The laws deny women the freedom to make their own healthcare choices. Therefore, they clearly violate the constitutional protections established in Roe v. Wade and subsequent cases. In fact, many of the proponents of these laws openly advertise them as being part of a strategy to get the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and to return to the days when States used the criminal law to punish women and doctors for contraception and abortion.

Abortion is a contentious issue. People feel so strongly about it. I understand that. I feel strongly about it, too. It can sometimes appear that there is little common ground between people who call themselves pro-choice and people who call themselves pro-life, but there is common ground among so many of us. For example, Americans with many different views on abortion overwhelmingly believe that Roe v. Wade should remain the law of the land. More than 70 percent of Americans support the decision and believe it shouldn't be overturned.

People understand that, whatever they think about abortion for themselves and their own families, they do not believe the State should make the decision for every woman. Women should be able to make their own decisions about pregnancy, contraception, and abortion without State interference, and appropriate regulation of abortion, just as of other medical procedures, especially late in a pregnancy when a fetus could survive independently, is allowable as long as the life and health of the mother receive careful protection.

In addition to the support for Roe v. Wade, there is also common ground based on data about strategies that work, and I want to offer a common-ground perspective on this issue. There is a way to dramatically reduce abortion in this country that both pro-life and pro-choice should embrace. It is a strategy of compassion. Let me start with a noteworthy fact that is almost never mentioned.

During the last 25 years, which is the time I have been in elected office, the abortion rate in this country has been cut in half. This is remarkable. You never hear this discussed. By 2015, during the Obama administration, the abortion rate in the United States was at its lowest level since Roe v. Wade became law. In fact, if you were to just measure it by the data, you could argue that the Obama administration's years were the most pro-life period since Roe v. Wade.

Why has this happened?

While there are a number of reasons, the most important one is this: The rate of unplanned pregnancies is decreasing. Teen pregnancies are decreasing. If the number of unplanned pregnancies goes down, the abortion rate goes down. There is a direct connection between unplanned pregnancies and the abortion rate.

So here is the strategy that should unite everyone: Reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies. Could anyone be against that? Reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies.

The good news is that we know how to do it. When women have better access to affordable healthcare, including better access to contraception and better access to comprehensive sex education, the number of unplanned pregnancies goes down, and the number of abortions drops. We know that more women have access to healthcare and contraception today than in the past. The passage of the Affordable Care Act and the 36 States that have expanded Medicaid have provided millions of women with healthcare, so many of whom didn't have it before, including preventive care and contraception access.

Comprehensive sex education for young people also equips them with information that is necessary to avoid unplanned pregnancies. Some young people decide to delay becoming sexually active, and that is great. Some make better choices about contraception to avoid pregnancy, and that is helpful. So education is a key factor as well. Whatever we call ourselves--pro-choice, pro-life, or anything--if we want to keep reducing unplanned pregnancies and, thereby, reducing the abortion rate, guess what. We know just how to do it: Make sure kids get comprehensive sex education so they can make more responsible choices, and keep working to expand healthcare, including access to contraception for women. This is the compassionate way to bring down the abortion rate. It supports women, trusts their decisions, and succeeds in reducing unplanned pregnancies.

Yet here is something that puzzles me. The GOP legislators all across this country have generally opposed, quite bitterly, those proven strategies, and so have many in the pro-life community. The GOP has fought the Affordable Care Act every step of the way, and it now stands squarely behind the effort to repeal the act entirely and

strip healthcare away from millions of women.

The GOP fights against contraception access. Many in the GOP fight against comprehensive sex education. Instead, they push abstinence-only sex education curricula that doesn't work. If the GOP succeeds in killing the ACA and in reducing contraception access, the number of unplanned pregnancies will increase, and the abortion rate will increase. How is that pro-life?

The GOP is now embracing a different strategy--making women and doctors criminals. This is the key unifying cruelty to these recent State laws. GOP-controlled States are racing to see who can have the cruelest criminal laws--a complete ban on abortion at 8 weeks of pregnancy. No, how about a complete ban on abortion at 6 weeks of pregnancy?

In Alabama, there is a ban from the second the pregnancy begins, from the second there is a fetus in utero, and there are no exceptions to someone who is the victim of rape or incest. Think about that. Alabama forces a 13-year-old who was raped or was the victim of incest to bear a criminal's child under pain of criminal prosecution and punishment-- imprisonment--for the doctor.

Wait. Let's get tougher still.

In Georgia, women who terminate pregnancies could receive life in prison under a bill that was recently signed by the Georgia Governor. There is some confusion here. Prosecutors argue about whether the technical language would subject a woman who has an abortion to a first-degree murder charge. The sponsor of the bill, now that it has been signed, is backpedaling, saying he only intended for women to be prosecuted under a separate criminal abortion statute that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. He apparently believes that subjecting women to 10-year prison sentences rather than to life sentences for murder is merciful and lenient. No woman exercising her constitutional right to make her own healthcare decisions should be threatened with a prison sentence of even 1 day.

The GOP could go further.

A Texas bill filed last month would have allowed the death penalty-- capital punishment--for a woman who seeks an abortion. The bill failed, but the bill wasn't a surprise from the party whose President admitted during his campaign that a woman who has an abortion must suffer a punishment.

So the GOP's strategy is for more criminal laws, more prosecutions, and more sentences--put more women in prison, and put more doctors in prison. We already have the highest incarceration in the world--five times higher than Canada's and 70 percent higher than Russia's. Guess what. So many of these GOP proposals would push us even further, and the next big group going behind bars could be women and doctors.

These criminal laws don't bring about a culture of life. These criminal laws don't bring about a culture of compassion. They succeed only in demonizing women, robbing them of their dignity, and intruding upon the most private aspects of their lives, and they demonize the doctors who care for these women.

Do Americans want a society that labels women's healthcare choices as criminal? No.

Is there any proof that criminal penalties for abortion will reduce unplanned pregnancies? No.

Is there any proof that criminal penalties for abortion will reduce the number of abortions? No.

That is what I mean about the choice we face as a society. We can pursue a path of compassion toward women and be secure in the knowledge that better health and contraception access and comprehensive sex education will reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions, or we can pursue the path of criminalizing women's decisions with there being no evidence that the strategy will have the effect of reducing unplanned pregnancies and abortions.

I have focused most of my attention on the issue of unplanned pregnancies. Of course, some planned pregnancies end in abortion, too. Most often, these pregnancies involve severe maternal or severe fetal health issues that are emotional and tragic for all involved. Certainly, compassion toward these families and not criminal prosecution is the right answer. This question--do we use a compassionate strategy to reduce unplanned pregnancies or do we criminalize women's decisions?--is the fundamental difference between the Nation's two political parties on this very important issue right now.

I am firmly in the camp of compassion. If we support women and trust women, we can keep making significant progress toward a goal we should all share: fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer abortions.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise, accompanied by an amazing public servant who is completing 29 years and 10 months of working in the U.S. Senate--Mary Naylor, my legislative director. She is angry with me right now for tricking her into this and walking into the Chamber and seeing my whole staff, but I wanted to just say a word to honor her.

When I came to the Senate--elected in 2012 and sworn in in January 2013--obviously, hiring a legislative director was a very, very important challenge that I was dealing with, and I had a number of people who wanted to do the job. There was a wonderful Senate staffer who was about to leave the Hill to see if there was life after the Senate. She wasn't sure whether there was but was really excited to see that. Yet, as tough a negotiator as she was, she let me persuade her to stay for one more term after she had wanted to leave to do other things. She did a remarkable job for me in my first term and has done a remarkable job now into my second term in the Senate. She has been my legislative director since my first day in the body, but as I pointed out, she is now nearly 30 years into serving this institution.

Let me tell you some things about Mary.

She is from Fargo, ND. She came to the Senate in 1989, which was right after she graduated with honors--Phi Beta Kappa--from Northwestern. She first became a legislative assistant for the late Senator Paul Simon in 1991. Then she eventually became the deputy chief of staff to Senator Kent Conrad of her home State. For most of her career in the Senate, she worked with Senator Conrad. When Senator Conrad became the Budget chairman in 2001, she became the Democratic staff director for the committee, and she remained in that position for 12 years until she became my legislative director in 2013.

Some highlights of her tenure with Budget include 10 budget resolutions, the Simpson-Bowles Commission, walking us back from a fiscal cliff in 2011, and a C-SPAN debut--oh, my gosh, a C-SPAN debut-- in March 2008 when she testified before the Budget Committee on the fiscal year 2009 budget.

Mary Naylor played a critical role in the Affordable Care Act. With members of the Budget Committee, she helped to iron out the fiscal details of such a monumental bill, and she captivated a lot of my staffers in the office with tales of the high stakes parliamentary maneuvering she undertook to make sure the reconciliation component of the ACA complied with the Byrd rule.

One of the things that Mary does in my office that my staff loves is the parliamentary minute. At the end of every week, after I have gone back to Richmond, she will do a parliamentary minute and put an interesting problem or challenge on the table from the past and walk my legislative staff through how we should deal with it.

In 2011, the ``Washingtonian'' named Mary one of the 100 most powerful women in DC, and the ``National Journal'' named her among the top 14 women on the Hill.

Mary has helped me out in so many ways. She has learned more about aircraft carrier refueling than she ever thought possible and has helped me overcome now two bouts of the decommissioning of aircraft.

All of my staff understands that Mary has really been kind of the brains of the operation. She is in a league of her own. Every single bill of mine that has passed has her fingerprints on it, and I guess I am getting up to--I don't know--over 40 or 50 bills. She comes up with the ideas. She makes my ideas a lot better. She builds supports for our proposals. She tells me when my ideas are bad, and she is almost always right--not always right. She is almost always right. She helps me on my committees and floor strategy. She recruits, trains, and advises all of the amazing policy staffers I have working with me and all who have worked with me over the years.

That is what Mary has done for me and for the people of Virginia for 6 years. That is what she has done for the Senate for the United States for now 30 years. She is a policy whiz. She is a dogged go-getter, and I emphasize ``dogged.'' That is a character reference if you know Mary's love of dogs. She is a walking parliamentary encyclopedia, and her dedication has helped me to achieve much more than I would have imagined as a Senator.

I recognize Mary to say, like so many in the offices in this building, her persistent service to Senator Conrad, to Senator Simon, to me, to the Budget Committee, to the Senate more broadly, and to the country have really made a difference in an awful lot of people's lives.

Anybody leaving, it is always bittersweet. I think that she is now going to find there is life after the Senate, and she has a cool next opportunity that she can pursue.

Whenever one of my staffers goes on to pursue a new cool opportunity, I am really happy for them, and yet it is hard to imagine what it will be like walking into the office every day and not having Mary there as the brains of the operation and a great right hand at getting good things done.

So with that, I know my whole staff is thinking the same thought right now. We want to just thank Mary Naylor for her great service and commend her.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Foster Care Tax Credit Act, with my colleague Senator Jones. Enacting this bill would go a long way towards helping families with the expenses that come with taking in and providing homes for foster children.

Currently, foster families are only eligible for the Child Tax Credit if the same child lives with them for at least six months. Many foster families take in children for shorter periods, and sometimes take in multiple different children throughout the year. Even if these placements add up to more than six months, these families are potentially not eligible for the tax credit. Further, state funding for foster care families often fails to cover the cost of meeting the child's basic needs.

The Foster Care Tax Credit Act would create a new refundable tax credit targeted at these families that take in foster children but are not eligible for the Child Tax Credit. The tax credit would help ease the financial strain that many of these families face. Further, the bill instructs the Secretary of Health and Human Services and Secretary of the Treasury to conduct outreach to state and tribal agencies to better educate foster families about provisions of the tax code that may benefit them.

I hope my colleagues will support this bill to provide assistance to families who have chosen to offer a loving home for children who need it most.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Foster Care Tax Credit Act, with my colleague Senator Jones. Enacting this bill would go a long way towards helping families with the expenses that come with taking in and providing homes for foster children.

Currently, foster families are only eligible for the Child Tax Credit if the same child lives with them for at least six months. Many foster families take in children for shorter periods, and sometimes take in multiple different children throughout the year. Even if these placements add up to more than six months, these families are potentially not eligible for the tax credit. Further, state funding for foster care families often fails to cover the cost of meeting the child's basic needs.

The Foster Care Tax Credit Act would create a new refundable tax credit targeted at these families that take in foster children but are not eligible for the Child Tax Credit. The tax credit would help ease the financial strain that many of these families face. Further, the bill instructs the Secretary of Health and Human Services and Secretary of the Treasury to conduct outreach to state and tribal agencies to better educate foster families about provisions of the tax code that may benefit them.

I hope my colleagues will support this bill to provide assistance to families who have chosen to offer a loving home for children who need it most.

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

Mr. President, I rise to address the Chamber on an issue that is an issue of significant challenge and controversy now, and that is the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran. I want to make a couple of points, but let me summarize the points as I then address the current challenge.

First, I think it would be absolute lunacy for the United States to get involved in another war right now in the Middle East. I think it would be devastating if we were to be in a war with Iran. In particular, it would be not only devastating but also, in my view, unconstitutional for us to be in a war with Iran at a President's say- so if the President were unwilling to have Congress have the debate, pursuant to our article I war powers in this Chamber and in the Chambers of the House of Representatives.

If this body has a considered debate in view of the American public and determines that we need to be in a war with Iran--or anyone, for that matter--however I vote is irrelevant. The vote of the body would be the vote that would express a political consensus about what America should do. But if the Chamber is unwilling to have that debate or a vote or if the President is unwilling to come to Congress so that the debate can be had in front of the American public, that should tell us something. If we are not willing to have the vote or if the President doesn't want to bring it to Congress, that should suggest that maybe it is not a good idea.

That is the theme of what I want to talk about today. Why are we in a time of escalated tension between the United States and Iran? There are a number of reasons, but, bluntly, I believe the path to the current level of tension began when President Trump unilaterally walked out of a diplomatic deal.

I think our country should always prefer diplomacy to war. A President backing out of a diplomatic deal that our allies, our security officials, and the International Atomic Energy Agency said was working, in my view, was a horrible mistake.

There is a story I have told before in the Chamber, and it is a story I love. It is about one of my two favorite Presidents. One of my favorite Presidents is a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, and my other favorite President is Harry Truman. This is a Truman story.

After World War II, at one point, President Truman invited the press corps into his office, the Oval Office, and said: I have made an interesting decision today.

They wondered what the decision was. President Truman showed them that he had redesigned the seal of the Presidency of the United States.

The seal of the President was very similar to our Nation's seal of an eagle clutching the arrows of war in one claw and the olive branch of peace in the other claw. Prior to the Truman administration, the eagle's face had been turned toward the arrows of war. In the aftermath of World War II, when the United States was trying to exercise the role of not just military victor but now of a great peacemaker by forming the United Nations and other institutions to ensure that the carnage of World War II wouldn't be repeated, Harry Truman said: We should redesign the seal of the Presidency so that the United States is represented by an eagle whose face is looking toward the olive branches of peace.

We would always prefer peace. We would always prefer diplomacy. The arrows of war are still grasped in the eagle's claw. We are a nation of might, and we will use that might if we need it. But let no one in the world doubt what the preference of the United States is; that is, diplomacy and peace if that is possible and if that is honorable.

You can walk around the Senate Chamber, you can walk around the Capitol, and you can actually see both versions of the seal. You can still find some in the Capitol that were created before Harry Truman was President where you will still see the eagle's face directed toward the arrows. Many of them have been changed in subsequent years. It is interesting trivia--like a treasure hunt contest--for our pages and others. You can still find the old version.

I think we can all resonate with Harry Truman, a World War I vet and the guy who presided over the end of America's victory in World War II. He is somebody who certainly knew war and who certainly understood the role of American military strength in the world, but he said this Nation should be a nation always known as a nation willing to pursue and committed to pursuing diplomacy and peace first, with war as a last resort.

I believe firmly in that as my job description in the U.S. Senate. I am a member of the Armed Services Committee, and I am a member of the Foreign Relations Committee--war and diplomacy. I am a Senator from a very military State. I have a child in the U.S. military. I think my job in this body and my job as a member of those two committees is first to reduce the risk of unnecessary war.

A lot of wars are unnecessary. A lot of wars are created by provocations and miscommunications and then escalations based upon a misunderstanding of provocations and miscommunications. Then you find yourself in catastrophic wars that maybe nobody really designed them to be. That is how a lot of wars start. We should reduce the risk of unnecessary war. Diplomacy is how we do that. Then, obviously, we need to be patriotic and strong. We need to raise the likelihood of winning a war we need to be in.

We do not need to be in another war in the Middle East. We do not need to be in a war with Iran. The relationship between the United States and Iran was a very positive relationship for many, many years. It was also connected to a lot of controversy.

The United States, including the Central Intelligence Agency, backed a coup to depose a democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in the 1950s, and the subsequent leader, the Shah of Iran, was a close ally of the United States.

In 1979, the people of Iran rose up to depose the Shah of Iran. Not surprisingly, with the United States having supported the Shah and having supported the coup that led to the Shah, that put the U.S.-Iran relationship in a very different place. That tearing of the relationship was obviously dramatically enhanced when the Iranian regime, the revolutionary regime, took U.S. Embassy personnel hostage in 1979. So from 1979, for 35 or 40 years, the nations had no essential contact.

We provided massive support for the nation of Iraq in the late 1980s and the early 1990s as they engaged in a war with Iran. That is known by the Iranian people.

Yet, even with the challenges of our government, the relationship between the United States and the Iranian people has maintained. Iranians study in the United States. Over the years, more members of the Iranian Cabinet have had Ph.D.s from American universities than members of the American Cabinet. It is kind of quirky. One of the nations that we view as one of our key adversaries in the world--it has been very, very common for their governmental leaders, including their Foreign Minister, to have studied and gotten degrees in the United States.

But the relationship was characterized on both sides by a great deal of distrust, with a lot of legitimate reason for distrust. On the U.S. side, they say: You took our Embassy. You took our personnel hostage.

During the Iraq war, Iranian militia units were often providing materials and IEDs that were being used against American troops. Hundreds--thousands of American troops were killed or injured by materials that came from Iran. So we have deep distrust for Iran for very legitimate reasons.

On the Iranian side, they say: You deposed our Prime Minister in 1954. You propped up a dictator over us. You supported Iraq in a war that cost us hundreds of thousands of lives.

They have a deep distrust of the United States.

How do you work through distrust? In a personal relationship and in a relationship with a nation, you cannot solve distrust overnight. You never can. You have to work through it patiently and slowly.

When President Obama announced that he was opening up a discussion with Iran about a diplomatic deal to limit their nuclear weapons program, there was very little reason to suggest that a deal might be found. Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program. The U.S. Congress, in a bipartisan way--and I have been a supporter of these--had sanctioned Iran for its activities in trying to seek nuclear weapons-- activities that were not only dangerous in the region and the world but also would have violated a number of key U.N. provisions affecting Iran or generally applying to all nations.

In a powerful speech to the United Nations in 2011--in some ways, I think it is the best speech that has ever been given about the Iranian challenge. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel--it was a famous speech because he drew a picture of a bomb that looked like the Wile E. Coyote bomb in the Road Runner cartoons. That got the attention, but his words were really powerful. He thanked the General Assembly of the United Nations in the speech because the nations of the U.N. had joined together in a sanctions regime that was putting tough pressure on Iran. The Prime Minister thanked the General Assembly and said: Thank you for joining in these sanctions, but we have to be honest. The sanctions are hurting Iran's economy, but they are not slowing down Iran's nuclear program.

To some degree, if you use pressure of that kind, a nation or a person is likely to say: If you are pressuring, I have to stand up against you.

So the Iranian economy was suffering, but the nuclear program was actually accelerating. Iran was building a facility that enriched plutonium and was dramatically enriching plutonium at higher and higher levels that would be the equivalent of weapons-grade uranium. They were getting closer and closer to having nuclear weapons.

That would have posed an existential choice of war or accepting a nuclear Iran. Accepting a nuclear Iran would have also meant accepting an arms race with other nations in the Middle East--an arms race that we viewed as untenable. So the Obama administration said: We will talk. We will see if we can find a diplomatic deal. That doesn't mean that we approve of Iran or that we approve of Iran's behavior, but we believe it is in the interest of the region, our country, and the world if we could limit Iran's nuclear ambitions.

From 2013 until 2015--2 years of negotiation, in my view, produced a very solid agreement, a diplomatic agreement with an adversary. It didn't turn the adversary into an ally, just as our negotiations with the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s over nuclear treaties didn't turn an adversary into an ally, but it effectively controlled the Iranian nuclear weapons program. It limited the amount of enriched uranium. It limited the percentage of enrichment to far below weapons- grade. It shut off plutonium production in Iran. It especially allowed intrusive inspections into Iran so we could decide whether they were cheating--intrusive inspections that even gave us intel so that if they ever cheated, we would know where nuclear assets would be if we needed to take action to take them out of commission.

The deal that was struck by the Obama administration with Iran was a deal that basically had intensive requirements on both parties, the United States and Iran, for 8 years. In kind of a testing arrangement, every year they would say: Did you meet your obligation? I don't trust you for anything, but did you meet your obligation? And they would ask us the same question.

That is the way you work out of distrust. You can't work out of it immediately; you work out of it patiently--well, we don't like what you are doing, but you actually stuck with the agreement in year 1. Now let's see about year 2.

The idea was that by the eighth year, we could know enough to know whether the United States could back away from the sanctions regime, and we would know enough to know whether Iran would permanently embrace the intrusive inspection provisions of a nuclear nonproliferation treaty that the IAEA has developed for all nations--including an additional protocol developed after North Korea cheated--to make the inspections really intrusive so you could catch cheating if it happens.

That would be the first 8 years, and then there would be a continuation of additional requirements on Iran for

years 8 to 15 and then somewhat of a stepdown from years 15 to 25. But then, after year 25, what would remain would still be a permanent Iranian agreement to follow the inspection requirements of the IAEA, including the additional protocol and the commitment that was in the first sentence of the first paragraph of the first page of the agreement Iran committed to: We will never seek to purchase, acquire, or develop nuclear weapons, period. That was the first sentence. That was the first paragraph. That was the opening phrase of the agreement Iran reaffirmed, that its commitment would be to never seek to purchase or acquire nuclear weapons.

When President Trump came into office in January 2017, Iran was complying with the agreement. That was the position of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has a high record of getting these things right.

In 2002, the IAEA told us that Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons. We went to war to stop their nuclear weapons program, saying that the IAEA was wrong. The IAEA was right, and we blundered into an unnecessary war then, at massive cost to the United States in life and treasure and at massive cost to Iraq as well.

When President Trump came in, the IAEA said that Iran was complying with the deal. Our allies--Britain, France, and Germany, which helped us negotiate the deal--said that Iran was complying with the deal.

I am on the Foreign Relations Committee, and I visit with leaders of foreign countries. I visit with our allies in the Middle East. While the political leaders might say one thing, if you met with armed services members or intel members in Israel, Jordan, and other nations, they would say Iran is complying with the deal.

President Trump's own Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis--``Mad Dog'' Mattis; he is called Mad Dog because he was perceived to be a hawk on Iran--testified before the Armed Services Committee: Iran is complying with the deal. It is in the interest of the United States to stay in the deal.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joe Dunford--a marine general who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under President Obama and President Trump--testified to the Armed Services Committee: Iran is complying with the deal. It is in the interest of the United States to stay in the deal.

President Trump's first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said: Iran is complying with the deal. It is in our interest to stay in.

Dan Coats, the current Director of National Intelligence, said Iran is complying with the deal.

Our allies, the IAEA, and President Trump's own national security team said Iran is complying with the deal.

But a year ago, President Trump said: It is going to be the United States that will renege--not the adversary that will back out, not a bad nation that will turn away from a diplomatic deal; it will be the United States that will back away from a diplomatic deal that has effectively limited Iran's program.

I am not aware of an instance in the history of this country where it has been the United States that made a unilateral decision to break a diplomatic deal. Our allies begged us not to do this. The national security team recommended that the President not do this, but the President broke the diplomatic deal. And guess what. If you break a diplomatic deal, you raise the risk of unnecessary war.

I wrote a piece in the Atlantic in July of 2018 urging the President not to blunder us into a war. I cited this very fact. Once you have broken the deal, you raise the risk of war, and this President has in breaking the deal. Now we are at a point of escalation with Iran. They look at the United States' breaking the deal. They look at sanctions that the United States has imposed. They are preparing for potential invasion by the United States, and, yes, they are also pushing back. They are engaged in activities in the region, as they were before.

We will have a briefing tomorrow in the SCIF. We are going to hear about what Iran is doing. As we are getting that briefing, we need to ask: Well, what do they think the United States is doing? It wasn't Iran that broke the deal. It was the United States. It is not Iran that is imposing sanctions. It is the United States.

What we need now is cooler heads that will help us understand the American commitment to diplomacy. That word still needs to be put at the forefront. Sadly, the advisers--the trusted advisers, the advisers of great background and judgment who advised the President not to back out of the deal--have all been fired or forced to resign. Secretary Mattis, Secretary Tillerson, and General McMaster, the National Security Advisor, had the same position about the deal. Two of the key officials in the Trump administration--the second Secretary of State, Pompeo, and the third National Security Advisor, John Bolton, individuals whom I applaud for their public service record--have had a long track record of, before being in these positions, encouraging war with Iran and of encouraging regime change with Iran.

I was asked last week: Why are the tensions with Iran now so palpable? Why does it seem like we may be on the brink of war?

I said: There are two reasons. The first reason is that the President tore up a diplomatic deal that was working, and the second reason is that the President replaced sober-minded, careful national security professionals with people who have a long track record of publicly encouraging both regime change in Iran and military action against Iran. There should be no surprise that we are where we are right now.

What do we need to do? What do we need to do as a nation, but especially what do we need to do in this body?

As a nation, I think I know what the perspective of Virginians is, and I would be amazed if that perspective were so different than that of Americans. It would be very foolish to get into another war right now. There have been 18 years of war in the Middle East since 9/11. That war has multiplied into many different countries and against many different organizations. As for the idea of another war in the Middle East right now, when the President and his team suggested in the last 10 days that war plans have been drawn up directed by NSA Bolton--they have been drawn up to call potentially for the deployment of 125,000 American troops into the region--I know how that made Virginians feel. Virginia families who have had their loved ones deployed not once or twice but sometimes four or five or six times, when they hear the President's team talking about such a potential deployment, it is enormously frightening to them--enormously frightening to them. When Virginians who have kids or spouses in the military hear Members of Congress suggesting that a war against Iran would be easy, it is enormously frightening to them--enormously frightening to them.

So what do I hope will happen? I hope that knowing what the Nation would think about it, I hope that what will happen is that Congress will do what we are supposed to do as the article I branch. The Framers of the Constitution were so clear about this. The Constitution is filled with clear provisions: The President has to be 35 years old. And it has vague provisions: You can't have unreasonable searches and seizures. What does ``unreasonable'' mean?

But on the spectrum of clear to ambiguous provisions, the war making powers are pretty clear. It is Congress that declares war, not the President. It is Congress. A President can defend the Nation against imminent attack without asking Congress for permission. That is clear in the Constitution, but as for the initiation of war, it is not for a President to say it and start it. It is not for a President to, by a series of provocations, blunder us down the path where war becomes inevitable.

It is for Congress, having a debate in this Chamber and the House--a debate that can be witnessed by the American public, a debate that will educate the American public about what the stakes are, a debate that has to be finished with a vote where every Member of Congress has to go on the board with the courage of their convictions and the backbone to vote yes or no. That is what is supposed to precede going to war.

I hope, in this time of escalation, that what we might do as a Congress is, a, recommit to the virtues of diplomacy and vow again not to be the party that blows up diplomatic deals

and walks away when other nations are at the table wanting to pursue peaceful diplomacy. And, second, if we are to be in a war, I would hope that this body would jealously guard that prerogative and want to have that debate here on the floor.

There are members of this body that feel very differently about what I have just stated and the points that I have made, and we ought to have that debate here on the floor, not in dueling press conferences or dueling appearances on cable shows. We should be having that debate here on the floor.

So, as I conclude, I pray that the escalation of tensions that we have seen, the discussions of deploying 120,000 troops in the Middle East, may be abating a bit. I pray that we will ask tough questions. We have our briefing tomorrow at the all-Senate briefing on this important matter.

I hope that as we enter into a discussion, in the Armed Services Committee first and then on the floor of the body, about the National Defense Authorization Act, that this would be a perfect opportunity for us to kind of talk about the equities, the plusses and minuses, what is at stake, and what we might do.

I will also just say, as a last point, that we now know how to have that debate on the floor. If the President wants to start a war without us--and, make no mistake, none of the existing authorizations from 2001 or 2002 would authorize military action against Iran. Not a single person here voting to go to war against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack intended that to be used as an authorization to wage war against the nation of Iran. If the President decides to go to war against Iran without us, we now have a vehicle--a war powers resolution vehicle that we just recently used in connection with U.S. support for the Saudi ``misprosecution'' of the civil war in Yemen. We now have an opportunity to force a vote. If the President gets us into hostilities that are not authorized by Congress, we have the opportunity--and, I would say, the obligation--to file a resolution that must be brought to the floor of this body, that must be debated on, and it must be voted on. We should not be at war with Iran unless this body is willing to vote on it.

If the President decides that he wants to go to war with Iran and not come to Congress, what does it say about his judgment? His judgment is that he doesn't think Congress will support it. If he doesn't think Congress will support it, maybe it is because it is not a good idea.

So, as I conclude, I think these are very, very challenging times. There is not a power we should guard more jealously than the power to put the men and women of our armed services into harm's way. We should not let a President--Democrat or Republican--make that decision without us. We should not let a President--Democrat or Republican--use a series of provocations to blunder us into it. We should not casually let a President--Democrat or Republican--tear up diplomatic deals and have the United States be the party that is walking away from a table of dialogue where we might find a peaceful and diplomatic resolution to controversies.

In the days ahead, in the NDAA process, and then, God forbid, if the President were to initiate us into some kind of a military action, through a war powers resolution of the kind that we just voted on here on the Senate floor, we will have an opportunity as a body to deal with this, and I pray that we will deal with it with the seriousness that it deserves. There is nothing, nothing more serious than this.

Maybe just the last thing I will say is this. You know my background. I started in city council, and I cast thousands of votes, just as you have, as a city councilman and mayor, as Lieutenant Governor and Governor, and now as a Member of this body. I have cast all kinds of votes. A vote on war is the most significant vote you will ever cast. I cast two votes on the war resolutions in the Foreign Relations Committee, and it was interesting casting votes on those, even though they ended up not leading to votes on the floor. There is just a feeling about the gravity of that vote and the feeling in my stomach as I was trying to decide how to vote. Even when I decided how to vote and making my mouth say the word about how I wanted to vote, it was a vote unlike anything for those two, unlike any other vote that I have ever cast.

Part of that, no doubt, is the connection that Virginians feel so closely to the military. Part of it, no doubt, is having a child in the military and knowing what a vote like that might mean to marines like my oldest son.

This is a topic that has to be the most serious thing we do, and we can't outsource our moral responsibility about it to a President. In fact, we need to jealously guard that responsibility, and I hope we will.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise to support the words of my colleague, Leader McConnell, and to thank him for working on this important piece of legislation, the Tobacco-Free Youth Act. I will offer some thoughts about why I have been happy to work with Leader McConnell and with other Senators who share the goal of raising the national tobacco age to 21.

Like Senator McConnell, I come from a tobacco State. The Jamestown- based Virginia Company was chartered by King James, landing at Jamestown in 1607, and beginning the English colonization of the United States. They almost didn't make it. They could easily have failed like other English settlements in the Outer Banks of North Carolina or others, but two things saved them.

The first was the magnanimity of the Powhatan Indians, who, in those early years, when times were tough, helped them to survive and helped them to get over times of drought and hunger. The second thing was the discovery of, as Leader McConnell mentioned, the tobacco seeds in Virginia that, through the efforts of John Roth and others, became such a powerful driver of the Virginia agricultural economy. Had it not been for tobacco and had it not been for the Powhatan Indians, the Jamestown colony would likely have disappeared.

Tobacco has such a place in our history that in the ceiling of both of the legislative chambers in the Virginia Capitol, designed by Thomas Jefferson, the ceiling is circled by gold-embossed tobacco leaves. We restored the capitol in 2000 and restored the gold embossing because we understand that it was tobacco that helped create modern Virginia.

In the city of Richmond, where I live and where I served as mayor, one of the largest cigarette-producing manufacturers in the world is the Philip Morris plant in South Richmond, which over decades has been a fantastic employer of local Virginians and local residents.

As Governor, I was proud to work on tobacco initiatives because, as the leader indicated, as we become more aware of public health consequences, there has been more need to try to stem the challenges that these health consequences create.

When I was Governor, I worked in tandem with my Republican speaker of the house to ban smoking in restaurants and bars, which was a tough, tough sell at that time back in 2009, but we made it happen. Probably my happiest day as a Governor, vis-a-vis tobacco, was the day where I went to Chesterfield County in suburban Richmond, and, together with bipartisan legislators, we celebrated the results that had just come out that showed that for the first time in recorded history the youth smoking rate in Virginia was below the national average. Much like Kentucky, we have been above the national average because in a State where it is a product that you are proud of, everyone is encouraged to use it. But by about 2009, we were below the national average, and we felt very good about that.

I am here with Senator McConnell, partly because of our history, but really I am here, as he indicated, because of the current challenge. We are backsliding. We are backsliding. The recent increases in youth tobacco use demonstrate that we need to do more.

Current youth tobacco product use has increased dramatically from 2017 to 2018, completely erasing the decline in tobacco product use among youth that had been happening for many years. From the CDC, this increase is driven largely by e-cigarettes. More than 1 in 4 high schoolers in 2018 and 1 in 14 middle schoolers in 2018 had used a tobacco product in the last 30 days--a dramatic increase from 2017--and 1.5 million more young people used e-cigarettes in 2018 than in 2017.

E-cigarettes are the most commonly used product among the young, and they are frequently used in combination with other tobacco products. The recent increase in the use of tobacco products is heavily, heavily driven by the popularity of e-cigarettes, shaped like a flash drive, able to be shared with friends, and sold in kid-friendly flavors with a high nicotine content.

Disturbingly, it is not only e-cigarettes. The use of any tobacco product grew by more than 38 percent among high schoolers from 2017 to 2018, and in Virginia, where we had celebrated in our State that it was below the national average, we are seeing dramatic increases. And 16.3 percent of high school youth are reporting using any tobacco product, and 6.5 percent of those--one-third of those--smoke cigarettes.

According to the CDC, any use of tobacco products by the young is considered unsafe. The leader laid out how the use of these e- cigarettes alter the chemistry of the brain and actually make a young person more prone for the rest of their life to becoming addicted. And it is not just addiction. It is also learning, memory, attention, impulse control, and cognition. The use of tobacco also increases among the young the likelihood of developing mood disorders like anxiety and depression.

So there is a strong rationale for this bill, and I was honored when the majority leader asked about a month ago if I would work together with him on a bipartisan bill as two Senators from tobacco States, joining others to find a way to raise the age from 18 to 21.

Now, 95 percent of adult smokers begin smoking before the age of 21. The Institute of Medicine, now the National Academy of Medicine, did research recently showing that increasing the tobacco age to 21 will, over time, significantly reduce the number of young and young adult smoking, as well as smoking-caused deaths, and improve public health and save lives.

What does our bill do? Our bill raises the Federal minimum age to purchase any tobacco products from 18 to 21. We direct the FDA to update their current regulations and enforcement structure for the current 18 age minimum and apply to it to the new 21 age minimum. We encourage States to pass their own laws raising the age to 21 and require the States to enforce those laws and meet other requirements, as they currently do, pursuant to the Synar Amendment. Our legislation would apply to all populations and to all types of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes.

As a father of a marine and as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I strongly feel that we should extend the same public health protections to members of the military as we do though their civilian counterparts. I look forward to working with the majority leader and so many others on both sides of the aisle to do a good thing for public health, to do a good thing for our young people, and raise the tobacco age to 21.

As the leader mentioned, there are other Senators--Senators Romney and Young, Senators Schatz and Durbin, and Senator Murray--who have invested their energies in this effort. We pledge to work together with all of them. We can come together to do this on behalf of our young people.

Mr. President, I rise to support the words of my colleague, Leader McConnell, and to thank him for working on this important piece of legislation, the Tobacco-Free Youth Act. I will offer some thoughts about why I have been happy to work with Leader McConnell and with other Senators who share the goal of raising the national tobacco age to 21.

Like Senator McConnell, I come from a tobacco State. The Jamestown- based Virginia Company was chartered by King James, landing at Jamestown in 1607, and beginning the English colonization of the United States. They almost didn't make it. They could easily have failed like other English settlements in the Outer Banks of North Carolina or others, but two things saved them.

The first was the magnanimity of the Powhatan Indians, who, in those early years, when times were tough, helped them to survive and helped them to get over times of drought and hunger. The second thing was the discovery of, as Leader McConnell mentioned, the tobacco seeds in Virginia that, through the efforts of John Roth and others, became such a powerful driver of the Virginia agricultural economy. Had it not been for tobacco and had it not been for the Powhatan Indians, the Jamestown colony would likely have disappeared.

Tobacco has such a place in our history that in the ceiling of both of the legislative chambers in the Virginia Capitol, designed by Thomas Jefferson, the ceiling is circled by gold-embossed tobacco leaves. We restored the capitol in 2000 and restored the gold embossing because we understand that it was tobacco that helped create modern Virginia.

In the city of Richmond, where I live and where I served as mayor, one of the largest cigarette-producing manufacturers in the world is the Philip Morris plant in South Richmond, which over decades has been a fantastic employer of local Virginians and local residents.

As Governor, I was proud to work on tobacco initiatives because, as the leader indicated, as we become more aware of public health consequences, there has been more need to try to stem the challenges that these health consequences create.

When I was Governor, I worked in tandem with my Republican speaker of the house to ban smoking in restaurants and bars, which was a tough, tough sell at that time back in 2009, but we made it happen. Probably my happiest day as a Governor, vis-a-vis tobacco, was the day where I went to Chesterfield County in suburban Richmond, and, together with bipartisan legislators, we celebrated the results that had just come out that showed that for the first time in recorded history the youth smoking rate in Virginia was below the national average. Much like Kentucky, we have been above the national average because in a State where it is a product that you are proud of, everyone is encouraged to use it. But by about 2009, we were below the national average, and we felt very good about that.

I am here with Senator McConnell, partly because of our history, but really I am here, as he indicated, because of the current challenge. We are backsliding. We are backsliding. The recent increases in youth tobacco use demonstrate that we need to do more.

Current youth tobacco product use has increased dramatically from 2017 to 2018, completely erasing the decline in tobacco product use among youth that had been happening for many years. From the CDC, this increase is driven largely by e-cigarettes. More than 1 in 4 high schoolers in 2018 and 1 in 14 middle schoolers in 2018 had used a tobacco product in the last 30 days--a dramatic increase from 2017--and 1.5 million more young people used e-cigarettes in 2018 than in 2017.

E-cigarettes are the most commonly used product among the young, and they are frequently used in combination with other tobacco products. The recent increase in the use of tobacco products is heavily, heavily driven by the popularity of e-cigarettes, shaped like a flash drive, able to be shared with friends, and sold in kid-friendly flavors with a high nicotine content.

Disturbingly, it is not only e-cigarettes. The use of any tobacco product grew by more than 38 percent among high schoolers from 2017 to 2018, and in Virginia, where we had celebrated in our State that it was below the national average, we are seeing dramatic increases. And 16.3 percent of high school youth are reporting using any tobacco product, and 6.5 percent of those--one-third of those--smoke cigarettes.

According to the CDC, any use of tobacco products by the young is considered unsafe. The leader laid out how the use of these e- cigarettes alter the chemistry of the brain and actually make a young person more prone for the rest of their life to becoming addicted. And it is not just addiction. It is also learning, memory, attention, impulse control, and cognition. The use of tobacco also increases among the young the likelihood of developing mood disorders like anxiety and depression.

So there is a strong rationale for this bill, and I was honored when the majority leader asked about a month ago if I would work together with him on a bipartisan bill as two Senators from tobacco States, joining others to find a way to raise the age from 18 to 21.

Now, 95 percent of adult smokers begin smoking before the age of 21. The Institute of Medicine, now the National Academy of Medicine, did research recently showing that increasing the tobacco age to 21 will, over time, significantly reduce the number of young and young adult smoking, as well as smoking-caused deaths, and improve public health and save lives.

What does our bill do? Our bill raises the Federal minimum age to purchase any tobacco products from 18 to 21. We direct the FDA to update their current regulations and enforcement structure for the current 18 age minimum and apply to it to the new 21 age minimum. We encourage States to pass their own laws raising the age to 21 and require the States to enforce those laws and meet other requirements, as they currently do, pursuant to the Synar Amendment. Our legislation would apply to all populations and to all types of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes.

As a father of a marine and as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I strongly feel that we should extend the same public health protections to members of the military as we do though their civilian counterparts. I look forward to working with the majority leader and so many others on both sides of the aisle to do a good thing for public health, to do a good thing for our young people, and raise the tobacco age to 21.

As the leader mentioned, there are other Senators--Senators Romney and Young, Senators Schatz and Durbin, and Senator Murray--who have invested their energies in this effort. We pledge to work together with all of them. We can come together to do this on behalf of our young people.

Mr. President. the U.S. infrastructure system is in critical need of an upgrade. The American Society of Civil Engineers recently graded the U.S. system a D+ given its capacity, condition, funding, future need, operation and maintenance, public safety, resilience and innovation. Any investment to improve our country's infrastructure system would create millions of new jobs, requiring millions of skilled workers to fill them.

A recent study by the Center of Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University estimated that a $1 trillion infrastructure investment would create 11 million new jobs. Nearly half of these would require training past the high school level. Even without a significant investment, though, infrastructure industries are already struggling to meet workforce demands. Workers in infrastructure industries are expected to retire at a 50% higher rate than the general workforce. To ensure infrastructure investments benefit businesses, workers and the economy, the U.S. must invest in the creation of a diverse pipeline of workers with skills necessary to access in-demand opportunities.

Industry and sector partnerships are a proven strategy for helping workers prepare for middle-skill jobs and helping businesses find skilled workers. Congress requires States and local areas to support the development of these partnerships under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), but no dedicated funding has been provided for these activities. According to a recent national poll, 77% of business leaders say it would help their business to create closer links between education providers and businesses to train people for the jobs for which businesses are hiring.

For workers, especially those underrepresented in infrastructure industries, support services like career counseling, child care, and transportation can often be the key to succeed in work-based learning programs. Providing these services may be outside the capacity of a business. Industry partnerships bring business together with community and human service organizations that can make these connections for workers and drastically improve their ability to succeed in training and meet business demand for skilled workers.

This is why I am pleased to introduce with my colleague, Senator Portman, the Building U.S. Infrastructure by Leveraging Demands for Skills Act or BUILDS Act. The BUILDS Act creates a grant program that would support industry and sector partnerships working with local businesses, industry associations and organizations, labor organizations, State and local workforce boards, economic development agencies and other partners engaged in their communities to encourage industry growth, competitiveness and collaboration to improve worker training, retention and advancement in targeted infrastructure clusters. Additionally, businesses and education providers would be connected to develop classroom curriculum to complement on-the-job learning and workers would receive support services such as mentoring and career counseling to ensure that they are successful from the pre- employment to placement in a full-time position.

Our Nation desperately needs improvements to critical infrastructure like our roads and bridges, however to do that work we must have a trained workforce that's ready to fill these good-paying jobs. Virginia businesses in the transportation, maritime, and information technology industries continue to tell me they have trouble finding job applicants with the necessary skills. This bill will help workers get the job training they need to be hired. I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle consider the BUILDS Act as a necessary component to any investment in our Nation's infrastructure.