Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to talk about the accomplishments the Senate was able to achieve yesterday with the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act. In doing that, I want to highlight a couple of items as a member of the Armed Services Committee that I worked on that I am very proud of but that I think also demonstrate the our ability to work in a bipartisan fashion because the three items I will mention were heavily bipartisan. They also give some illustration of the breadth of the defense authorization act--this act which we pass every year that is hundreds of billions of dollars to support the American military and contains so many different kinds of provisions to try to help defend the Nation and protect those who serve it.

What I would love to do, after I say a word about our chair, Senator McCain, is talk about military families, talk about shipbuilding, and talk about smart power.

Let me first just give a shout-out to Senator McCain. He was sorely missed as our chairman during the month of May when we were in crunch time in the committee around this bill. It was bittersweet to see its passage yesterday without having him in the Chamber to lead the discussion and be here at passage. Yet I give great credit to Senator Inhofe, who stepped into the chair's shoes for purposes of the markup and the floor action; to Senator Reed, the ranking member on the committee; and to Senator McCain's staff, who peppered us with advice from the boss when calling in from Arizona during the whole process. We missed him, but he was definitely there, and we were encouraged to do our best work as we thought about him during the process.

With regard to military families, when I was elected to the Senate in 2013, we had a scandal in the country. I viewed it as a scandal. The unemployment rate for veterans was dramatically higher than the national average, especially for Iraq- and Afghan-era war veterans who were enlisted. They would serve the country and be deployed, often repeatedly. They would come back home and not be able to find jobs.

I worked together with colleagues on the Armed Services Committee and with many great employers in the private and public sectors and am proud to tell you that from 2013 to today, the veterans' unemployment rate has gone down dramatically. It is now less than the national average. When we focused on it, we tackled the problem, and we made progress.

Yet, in recent years, as I have been traveling around Virginia, a new problem has emerged, and that is the unemployment rate for military spouses. It is even hard to know the number. Do you know why? It is that when we do the monthly studies, the Department of Labor asks a person: Are you a veteran? Yet it doesn't ask if one is a military spouse. So, to get at the number, when you hear story after story after story, you have to take some fairly broad surveys. Blue Star families will take these surveys every year.

What we find is, the unemployment rate for military spouses is anywhere from three to five times the national average. One can immediately grasp why--moving to a new place in the middle of the year, having to get adjusted, maybe having to find a place for school. If you are moving and you have a job that has some kind of a license or credential--it could be as a cosmetologist, as a real estate agent, as an attorney, as a teacher--sometimes the credential doesn't automatically transfer. Sometimes it will only transfer if you pay a big fee, money which you may not have.

As I have traveled around Virginia--a military State--and as I have talked to my own son, who is in the Marine Corps and who has a wife who is a military spouse, and have heard about their challenges, I have suddenly realized we need to do something about unemployment among military spouses. It is fair for these spouses who sacrifice--and they have so much to offer--but it is also the case that if you do not try to help support military families, then members of the military will leave. Our brass will always tell us it is the individual's decision to join, but it is usually the family's decision to stay. Unless we can support military spouses, people who might want to make careers out of the military service leave prematurely. So we are destined to and really need to do this.

This year, I introduced two bills--the Military Spouse Employment Act and the Jobs and Childcare for Military Families Act--after hearing from spouses in Virginia and elsewhere. I acknowledge Senators Perdue, Murray, Boozman, Tester, Rounds, Gillibrand, Cardin, and Warren--a very bipartisan group of Senators who worked with me on these two bills. I am proud to say the overwhelming number of provisions of both of these bills is part of the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed last night. After we introduced the bills in the Senate, companion bills were introduced in the House that made it into the House's version as well. As we conference, we ought to be able to take a big step forward for military spouses.

The bills do a number of things that are all responsive to the concerns raised by military spouses.

They make it easier to get more childcare workers on or near bases so people can find childcare if they work.

They make it easier for Federal agencies to hire military spouses. Sometimes the best jobs are on or around military bases or are at other Federal agencies. The preferential or expedited hiring preferences for military spouses is part of this.

We allow military spouses to take advantage of something called the career advancement account, which would enable a military spouse to take a course. What if you are done with your coursework and what you really need are the dollars to get a license or to transfer your credential? The career advancement account should be able to be used for that.

The bill allows military spouses to go to transition classes with their servicemember spouses before they transition out. The transition from Active to veteran status is a family thing, and spouses have every need to participate in transition planning as the servicemembers do.

Finally, to help in that transition process, the bill will allow military spouses to take advantage of counseling and career coaching for up to a year after the servicemembers leave Active-Duty service.

Again, this is bipartisan--supported in both Houses by Members of both parties--and it will be part of the NDAA. God willing, we will conference, and it will go to the President's desk. My goal is that we start to make the same progress in bringing down the unemployment rate for military spouses as we were able to do with respect to veterans.

The second is shipbuilding. Virginia is a shipbuilding State. If anybody ever tells me American manufacturing is dead, I say: Come with me to the Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Newport News, VA, and I will show you American workers manufacturing the most complicated items on planet Earth--nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines.

The shipbuilding budget deal that is in the works now is strong. Last year, in the NDAA, we made a commitment to go from a 270-ship Navy to 355 ships. This would be a multiple-decades-long commitment. We did that last year. This year, together with the budget deal, we are making that strong budgetary investment in growing our shipbuilding capacity. We owe it to our shipbuilders, and we owe it to our military to stay on this path and give them some certainty so we can have these important assets with which to protect the Nation.

Two Fridays ago, I held a symposium at Hampton Roads--the future of a 355-ship Navy--that focused on workforce needs. Some of the shipbuilders that will build these ships are in prekindergarten right now. We need to have an education system that teaches them about the opportunities that will position them for success in technical fields and that encourages and incentivizes them to do it.

The shipbuilding and ship repair provisions of the NDAA are the best in any of the years I have been on the Armed

Services Committee in the Senate, and that is good news for the defense of the Nation and good news for shipbuilding communities, like Hampton Roads or Bath, ME, or Portsmouth or the gulf or Puget Sound or Hawaii. These shipbuilding and ship repair communities will benefit.

Finally, there is smart power. Sometimes the best power is not military power. Sometimes the best power is diplomacy or the USAID, the Agency for International Development. We have to use the right tool to accomplish the right objective. In both of the last two NDAAs, I offered amendments that allowed the Department of Defense to transfer its resources--if there is a checkoff by the Secretary of Defense--to other Federal agencies if they will do a better job with the task at hand. Let me give you an example.

Our military has done a great job in the battle against ISIS, in beating ISIS on the battlefield. Yet, once you have beaten ISIS on the battlefield, how do you stop it from coming back? How do you hold onto territory and not allow the reemergence of terrorist organizations? One way is by developing local economies and strengthening local institutions so the urge or the tendency for terrorist groups to move into a power vacuum is dampened. Sometimes the military is good at that, but the military would acknowledge that sometimes the best way to build institutions and stabilize communities is to grow their economies--that is what the U.S. Agency for International Development does--or to build civilian institutions. The State Department does that.

In this year's NDAA, as in last year's, in a pile of projects so we can assess how it works, we have given the Department of Defense the ability to provide support to these other agencies as they try to stabilize regions once conflict has been reduced. This is going to be of enormous importance for Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan. The nice thing about this is there was bipartisan support, and it was requested by the Department of Defense. You know your DOD leaders are on the ball when they are saying: Give us more ability to allow the State Department and USAID to do the things they are better at than we are.

Again, these are just three examples, and I could list 1,000 provisions that are in the National Defense Authorization Act that are novel and creative and that are completely bipartisan. At a time when so many things seem partisan, it is nice to know that when it comes to the defense of the Nation, Democrats and Republicans can work together after having been inspired by the hectoring phone calls from Senator McCain and his staff to produce something that is really positive for the country. I celebrate its passage in the Senate last night and look forward to working with my colleagues when the matter comes back to us following the conference with the House.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I would also like to rise to talk about this important issue of healthcare.

I have heard my colleagues, Senator Murphy, Senator Merkley, and Senator Wyden, and I know Senator Murray will speak in a minute. We are focusing on the great damage this administration is doing to the healthcare of Americans.

I thought maybe I could inject just a little bit of good news into this discussion. The good news I want to describe is positive advances that are still taking place because of the Affordable Care Act, despite the best efforts of the administration to kill the Affordable Care Act.

Because Senate colleagues joined together on the floor nearly a year ago to defeat efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, even as the sabotage has been going on, there has been an advance in my State that is very significant. Two weeks ago, my State legislature, after a 4- year debate, decided to become the 33rd State to accept Medicaid expansion.

Mr. President and my colleagues, if you want to know whether what you do in this Chamber matters, that vote in August of last year that preserved the Affordable Care Act enabled my State to embrace Medicaid expansion, and in one stroke of one vote, 400,000 Virginians have the ability now to have healthcare maybe for the first time in their lives. That is nearly 5 percent of our population.

These are working-age adults, most of them--many of them--working multiple jobs, but they have not been able to afford health insurance. But because this body saved the Affordable Care Act, we were able to, in the stroke of a vote, provide health insurance to 400,000 people-- people who now know they can be taken care of if they get injured or if they are in an accident. Even if they are completely healthy, they have peace of mind and don't go to bed at night with the anxiety of what is going to happen to my family if I am in an accident or what will happen to my wife if she gets ill.

The Affordable Care Act is not just holding in the face of this sabotage effort by the Trump administration; it is actually still advancing in places like Virginia. A number of other States have referenda on the ballot to do exactly what Virginia just did. We do not need to stand still; we need to defeat sabotage, and then we need to move ahead.

My colleagues have stressed the various ways in which the Trump administration has tried to undermine the healthcare of Americans, and I don't need to go over them at length: limiting enrollment periods, limiting marketing, eliminating the individual mandate, and injecting uncertainty over the payment of cost-sharing. All of those things are leading insurance companies to increase rates. When they announced rate increases in my State recently, some insurance companies want to increase rates by as much as 64 percent.

The good news is--at least if there is any good news--they are not being shy about explaining the reason. They are telling us exactly the reason they are increasing the rates. They are increasing rates because of specific, identified policies of this administration to punish Americans and raise their health insurance costs. That is what the insurance companies are stating.

As Senator Wyden mentioned, now Republicans are in court with the administration to try to defeat the protection the Affordable Care Act gave to people with preexisting conditions. These are not just a few people in my State or nationally; these are tens of millions of Americans, Virginians who have cancer, diabetes, or even lesser conditions that in the past--and potentially in a Trump administration future--could get kicked to the curb as a result.

I want to tell my colleagues one story about preexisting conditions because it is my family's story. Then I will conclude because I want my Senate colleague from Washington, who has been a leader on this effort, to offer her perspective.

When we think about preexisting conditions, there are all kinds of them, but some people don't know how broadly this definition has been used by insurance companies to basically deny anybody coverage if they can think of a single reason or a simple reason to do so.

I am not going to get into my own family's medical history, but I just want to tell you this. My wife and I have three children. There are five of us. I would submit that we have to be virtually the healthiest family in the United States because the only hospitalizations for the five of us in our lives, as a family of five, have been three childbirths, with my wife being in the hospital three times to deliver healthy children.

Right after the Affordable Care Act passed, when the ban on discriminating against someone with preexisting conditions was going into effect, for the first time, neither my wife nor I had a job with an employer that was offering a group plan so we needed to try to buy insurance on the individual market. My wife is a super diligent consumer and made numerous calls, and two insurance companies turned us down because of preexisting conditions. One was a preexisting condition of mine, though not serious enough ever to put me in a hospital, and one was because of a preexisting condition of one of my kids, also not sufficient to put that youngster in a hospital.

In both instances, the insurance company said: Well, we will write a policy for some of your family, but we will not write it for all of your family.

Safety tip: Do not tell my wife you will write an insurance policy but not for one of her three kids. That is not a good thing to do.

When my wife heard that, she said: I want to know whom I am speaking to because what you are suggesting to me is against the law.

No, it is not against the law. It is company policy. We can turn your child down, Ms. Holton. We can turn your child down.

No, you can't. Put a supervisor on the line.

The supervisor got on the line.

My wife said: This is now against the law. You cannot turn my child down because of a preexisting condition.

After some ``backing-and-forthing'' and the ruffling of pages, I guess, in an insert in the employee manual, the employee said: You are right. We can't turn you down. We apologize. That policy that we told you could be for four can now be for five.

If this can happened to a family like mine who had never even had a hospitalization for any illness or injury, other than delivering a child--this was happening over and over again--why would this administration want to return to those days? It is shocking and heartless, and we are going to do everything we can in the court and in Congress, as well as together in dialogue with the public, to make sure this important protection is not ripped out of the hands of American families.

Congress needs to act to stop the Trump administration sabotage, to preserve the Affordable Care Act. I hope we will take up the Murray- Alexander bill. It will stabilize the insurance market through provision of reinsurance, through guarantee of cost-sharing payments. There is no reason we can't take this up. Then we need to move ahead even further on proposals like the bill I have with Senator Bennet, the Medicare-X bill, to make sure every person in this country can buy a Medicare policy, a policy developed by Medicare on the individual insurance exchange, if they choose.

I am glad to be joined together with colleagues who are so passionate about protecting the healthcare of American families. Based on the results in Virginia, which avoided Medicare expansion for years only to finally wake up and realize we need to do it, I know we will prevail in this effort because it is what the American public wants us to do.

Mr. President, I would love to yield the floor to my colleague from Washington.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President. Maintaining a talented workforce is essential to cultivating a strong economy and positioning our Nation for success in today's increasingly competitive global marketplace. Opportunities for education, professional development, and the acquisition of skills immediately translatable in the workplace will help to ensure that our students and workers are equipped with the skills required to succeed in the 21st century. Career and technical education (CTE) programs play a vital role in increasing student engagement, continuing our nation's economic competitiveness, and building the skills of our country's workforce.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of student interest in career and technical education, but shortages in high-quality CTE teachers have made it difficult for school districts to meet this demand. While the Higher Education and Opportunity Act of 2008 provides grants for teacher residency partnership programs to colleges and universities who work with high-needs school districts to train prospective teachers, no CTE-focused partnerships exist.

That is why I am introducing with my colleagues, Senator Baldwin, Senator Portman and Senator Capito the Creating Quality Technical Educators Act, which would amend the Higher Education and Opportunity Act to create a CTE teacher-training grant partnership to equip aspiring CTE teachers with real-world experience and credible skills to apply in the classroom. This legislation would foster teacher training partnerships between high-needs secondary schools and post-secondary institutions to create a one-year residency initiative for teachers and includes teacher mentorship for a minimum of two years. This period of hands-on training and mentorship will only increase the ability of CTE teachers to benefit their students through classroom instruction and serve as a career model.

In addition to establishing CTE specific teacher-training grant partnerships, this bill takes a proactive approach to recruiting and training more high-quality CTE teachers. CTE teacher residencies would target teacher candidates from a variety of backgrounds including recent college graduates, veterans, mid-career professionals, and currently licensed teachers with a need for technical skills training who seek to transition into CTE fields.

As co-chair of the Senate CTE Caucus, I am proud to introduce this commonsense, bipartisan legislation to recruit and train talented teachers to meet the rising need for CTE. The Creating Quality Technical Educators Act is an important step towards ensuring access to high-quality CTE instruction, preparing teachers for success, and maintaining the skill set of our Nation's workforce.

Mr. President. Maintaining a talented workforce is essential to cultivating a strong economy and positioning our Nation for success in today's increasingly competitive global marketplace. Opportunities for education, professional development, and the acquisition of skills immediately translatable in the workplace will help to ensure that our students and workers are equipped with the skills required to succeed in the 21st century. Career and technical education (CTE) programs play a vital role in increasing student engagement, continuing our nation's economic competitiveness, and building the skills of our country's workforce.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of student interest in career and technical education, but shortages in high-quality CTE teachers have made it difficult for school districts to meet this demand. While the Higher Education and Opportunity Act of 2008 provides grants for teacher residency partnership programs to colleges and universities who work with high-needs school districts to train prospective teachers, no CTE-focused partnerships exist.

That is why I am introducing with my colleagues, Senator Baldwin, Senator Portman and Senator Capito the Creating Quality Technical Educators Act, which would amend the Higher Education and Opportunity Act to create a CTE teacher-training grant partnership to equip aspiring CTE teachers with real-world experience and credible skills to apply in the classroom. This legislation would foster teacher training partnerships between high-needs secondary schools and post-secondary institutions to create a one-year residency initiative for teachers and includes teacher mentorship for a minimum of two years. This period of hands-on training and mentorship will only increase the ability of CTE teachers to benefit their students through classroom instruction and serve as a career model.

In addition to establishing CTE specific teacher-training grant partnerships, this bill takes a proactive approach to recruiting and training more high-quality CTE teachers. CTE teacher residencies would target teacher candidates from a variety of backgrounds including recent college graduates, veterans, mid-career professionals, and currently licensed teachers with a need for technical skills training who seek to transition into CTE fields.

As co-chair of the Senate CTE Caucus, I am proud to introduce this commonsense, bipartisan legislation to recruit and train talented teachers to meet the rising need for CTE. The Creating Quality Technical Educators Act is an important step towards ensuring access to high-quality CTE instruction, preparing teachers for success, and maintaining the skill set of our Nation's workforce.

Mr. President. As the opioid epidemic continues to challenge the Nation, the statistics on this public health crisis show the toll it is taking on communities across the country. In Virginia in 2016, there were over 1,400 deaths from overdoses, a 38 percent increase over 2015. Eighty percent of these deaths involved opioid use. Opioid overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death in Virginia, surpassing car accidents and gun violence.

While we must focus on prevention and treatment to stem the tide of addiction and overdose deaths, it is also critical that our efforts include helping people recover from addiction and return to their families, the workforce, and their lives. That includes improved access and oversight Medication Assisted Treatment, wraparound services like peer recovery supports, and ensuring that ``recovery residences'' are safe.

After treatment, many people in the early recovery stages choose to enter recovery residences. These facilities give people a stable and sober environment as they transition back into society. While these residences are growing in number due to the epidemic, we are learning that these facilities often lack oversight or regulation. There have been deaths at recovery residences due to the lack of trained professionals and standards.

Currently, no national standards or guidelines are in place to ensure that recovery homes are providing a safe environment. This situation leaves families and victims in the dark about whether the facility that is looking after their loved one is qualified. The bill I am introducing today would authorize the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to develop best practices for recovery living facilities. It would also authorize SAMHSA to provide technical assistance and support to States willing to adopt best practices. Additionally, the bill would require States that use SAMHSA grants for recovery residences to meet established best practices, direct SAMHSA to provide best practice information directly to patients and ensure that SAMHSA consults with other relevant Federal agencies on drafting guidelines.

I would like to thank Senator Warren and our other cosponsors for working on this legislation, and Congresswoman Chu for championing legislation on this topic in the House.

Mr. President. As the opioid epidemic continues to challenge the Nation, the statistics on this public health crisis show the toll it is taking on communities across the country. In Virginia in 2016, there were over 1,400 deaths from overdoses, a 38 percent increase over 2015. Eighty percent of these deaths involved opioid use. Opioid overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death in Virginia, surpassing car accidents and gun violence.

While we must focus on prevention and treatment to stem the tide of addiction and overdose deaths, it is also critical that our efforts include helping people recover from addiction and return to their families, the workforce, and their lives. That includes improved access and oversight Medication Assisted Treatment, wraparound services like peer recovery supports, and ensuring that ``recovery residences'' are safe.

After treatment, many people in the early recovery stages choose to enter recovery residences. These facilities give people a stable and sober environment as they transition back into society. While these residences are growing in number due to the epidemic, we are learning that these facilities often lack oversight or regulation. There have been deaths at recovery residences due to the lack of trained professionals and standards.

Currently, no national standards or guidelines are in place to ensure that recovery homes are providing a safe environment. This situation leaves families and victims in the dark about whether the facility that is looking after their loved one is qualified. The bill I am introducing today would authorize the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to develop best practices for recovery living facilities. It would also authorize SAMHSA to provide technical assistance and support to States willing to adopt best practices. Additionally, the bill would require States that use SAMHSA grants for recovery residences to meet established best practices, direct SAMHSA to provide best practice information directly to patients and ensure that SAMHSA consults with other relevant Federal agencies on drafting guidelines.

I would like to thank Senator Warren and our other cosponsors for working on this legislation, and Congresswoman Chu for championing legislation on this topic in the House.

Mr. President, the opioid and addiction epidemic continues to devastate communities across our country today. One of the greatest challenges for the 21 million Americans currently impacted by substance use disorder is to obtain and maintain employment while sustaining recovery. For the benefit of our Nation, we must work to implement interventions to improve employment rates among this chronically unemployed and underemployed population in treatment and recovery.

Research demonstrates that alignment of job training and treatment services improves employment attainment, employee earnings, and substance use disorder treatment outcomes, including lower rates of relapse. By holding a job, an individual establishes a legal source of income, structured use of time, and improved self-esteem, which in term may reduce substance use and boost our economy.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) is the major source of Federal support for workforce development. WIOA programs provide education and training services to prepare individuals for work and to help them improve their prospects in the labor market through job search assistance, career counseling, occupational skill training, classroom training, or on-the-job training; however, no dedicated funding currently exists to integrate workforce training into recovery and treatment services to enable individuals to secure and maintain stable employment. Participants enrolled in WIOA--beyond core service-- achieve an adult entered employment rate overall of 82%, which rises to 87% for on-the-job training and apprenticeship.

I am pleased to introduce today with my colleagues, Senator Young and Senator Jones, the Jobs Plus Recovery Act, which addresses barriers individuals in treatment face when seeking employment opportunities. The Jobs Plus Recovery Act amends WIOA to empower our primary workforce development driver to better support the needs of individuals with substance use disorders by including them in the definition of an individual with a barrier to employment. The bill also supports partnerships between substance use disorder treatment and recovery providers, education providers, and job services providers, such as the American Job Centers established in WIOA, to improve worker training, employment opportunity and retention for individuals in recovery.

Throughout my time as a public servant, I have remained committed to ensuring our Nation's workforce is as strong as possible. Virginia businesses continue to share their desperate need for more applicants with the necessary skills to thrive in their industries. I am proud to introduce this commonsense, bipartisan legislation to provide critical support services to equip workers with the training and supports necessary to gain and retain meaningful employment.

Mr. President, the opioid and addiction epidemic continues to devastate communities across our country today. One of the greatest challenges for the 21 million Americans currently impacted by substance use disorder is to obtain and maintain employment while sustaining recovery. For the benefit of our Nation, we must work to implement interventions to improve employment rates among this chronically unemployed and underemployed population in treatment and recovery.

Research demonstrates that alignment of job training and treatment services improves employment attainment, employee earnings, and substance use disorder treatment outcomes, including lower rates of relapse. By holding a job, an individual establishes a legal source of income, structured use of time, and improved self-esteem, which in term may reduce substance use and boost our economy.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) is the major source of Federal support for workforce development. WIOA programs provide education and training services to prepare individuals for work and to help them improve their prospects in the labor market through job search assistance, career counseling, occupational skill training, classroom training, or on-the-job training; however, no dedicated funding currently exists to integrate workforce training into recovery and treatment services to enable individuals to secure and maintain stable employment. Participants enrolled in WIOA--beyond core service-- achieve an adult entered employment rate overall of 82%, which rises to 87% for on-the-job training and apprenticeship.

I am pleased to introduce today with my colleagues, Senator Young and Senator Jones, the Jobs Plus Recovery Act, which addresses barriers individuals in treatment face when seeking employment opportunities. The Jobs Plus Recovery Act amends WIOA to empower our primary workforce development driver to better support the needs of individuals with substance use disorders by including them in the definition of an individual with a barrier to employment. The bill also supports partnerships between substance use disorder treatment and recovery providers, education providers, and job services providers, such as the American Job Centers established in WIOA, to improve worker training, employment opportunity and retention for individuals in recovery.

Throughout my time as a public servant, I have remained committed to ensuring our Nation's workforce is as strong as possible. Virginia businesses continue to share their desperate need for more applicants with the necessary skills to thrive in their industries. I am proud to introduce this commonsense, bipartisan legislation to provide critical support services to equip workers with the training and supports necessary to gain and retain meaningful employment.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about gun ownership and gun safety in Virginia and in the United States. I speak as a gun owner, and I speak as a strong Second Amendment supporter. I want to do a couple of things in this speech, but one thing I want to do is put to rest the idea that gun owners, gun ownership, and the Second Amendment are incompatible with reasonable gun safety rules.

I accept the ruling, the holding, and the principle announced by the Supreme Court in the Heller decision that the Second Amendment conveys an individual right to bear arms and conveys that right to the American public. There was, and there remains, some controversy over the ruling. Some have argued that the text of the amendment discusses only the right to bear arms in the context of participating in a militia, which in 1787 was a necessary strategy for defending the Nation during a time when we had no standing Army. For years, many scholars and courts accepted that notion and argued that the Second Amendment was sort of different from the others in that way. In Heller, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment, like all the other amendments, conveys an individual right, and I accept and believe that interpretation.

But the Heller decision came with an important caveat. The Second Amendment is the only amendment that uses the phrase ``well regulated.'' The amendment may convey a personal

right to gun ownership, and it does, but it explicitly acknowledges that regulations are part of what may be necessary. Courts subsequent to Heller have frequently held that the particular regulations are well within the scope of the Second Amendment.

The NRA and other organizations often pretend that the phrase ``well regulated'' doesn't even appear in the amendment. Often, they will print a copy of the Second Amendment or the text, and they will have only the second clause, omitting the ``well regulated'' phrase. While that phrase, like the text of the amendment itself, is set in the context of a militia, it is clear from its usage that the Framers knew firearms were dangerous, though necessary, and there needed to be rules to ensure their safe use. In other words, the phrase ``well regulated'' in the text is not there to refer to the kind of uniform that a militia member would wear, whether they should have a beard or not. It is there to refer to the need for discipline and training to keep those people who bear arms behaving in a reasonable and safe manner.

Even if the phrase ``well regulated'' did not appear in the text of the Second Amendment--and that phrase ``well regulated'' appears in no other amendment, only the second--it would still be pretty clear that the Second Amendment right, just like other constitutional rights, is not absolute and free from any governmental rules. The Heller decision, authored by Justice Scalia, stated this very clearly: A ruling of individual ownership and use of firearms does not restrict the government from imposing reasonable rules on their use. Many subsequent cases have affirmed these reasonable rules over time.

The First Amendment, for example, guarantees the right to free speech and makes clear that no law infringing upon such a right is constitutional. But the Supreme Court has long held that government agencies can place reasonable limits on the time, place, and manner of speech, so long as the limits don't discriminate on the content of the idea that is expressed. An easy example is, a city can ban sound trucks with megaphones from driving through neighborhoods blaring ads in the middle of the night while people are sleeping. The right to free speech is subject to reasonable limitation.

Similarly, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, but States punish civil libel through their civil litigation and court processes. A newspaper trashing somebody through a knowingly false statement can be subjected to civil liability, and that paper can't claim the right to free press to shield it from accountability.

The Second Amendment, in this way, is similar to the First Amendment, and I could go through other examples. While the right to ownership, to bear and use arms--not just ownership but using arms--may not be infringed, reasonable rules regarding gun usage are explicitly contemplated by the amendment and constitutionally allowable.

It is important to recognize that we all tolerate reasonable limits on gun use. One common use of firearms in Virginia and Alaska--I know from my one visit to Alaska that this is the case--is hunting. In Virginia, the voters of our State, by referendum, amended our State constitution in 2000 to guarantee to all a right to hunt, fish, and gather game subject to rules prescribed by our general assembly. I was legal counsel for this effort, before I was in State office, arguing the validity of the amendment when a citizens group sued to try to keep it off the ballot. We prevailed in the litigation, and the amendment passed overwhelmingly, with more than 60 percent of the vote. That vote showed our population both embraced the right to hunt but also embraced the acceptance of the notion that this right should be subject to reasonable rules imposed by the legislature.

We have many State-imposed rules on hunting in Virginia, just as I am sure is the case in Alaska. The State determines the seasons in which hunting can occur--those seasons can differ depending on what you are hunting--where it can occur, the license you need, the training you must complete, which days of the week are open for hunting, what kinds of weapons can be used in hunting, and even the size of a magazine in any automatic or repeating weapon that can be used in hunting.

For example, in Virginia, by statute, you can hunt with a repeating shotgun, but the magazine can contain no more than three rounds. If the magazine on a weapon is larger than that--a larger magazine--you are required to have a plug or filler in the magazine that will reduce its capacity to no more than three total rounds, as measured either in the magazine or in the chamber itself.

The bottom line for these regulations, which are well accepted and understood in Virginia, is clear. Even the use of firearms for hunting, protected by the Virginia Constitution as well as by the Second Amendment, is subject to safety rules that society fully accepts. The clear constitutionality of gun safety rules and the public acceptance of these rules pose stark questions to Congress.

Why, in the face of escalating tragedy, are we so unwilling to adopt commonsense gun safety rules designed to reduce gun violence? Why does Congress shield gun manufacturers from liability with a Federal protection that we don't give to the manufacturers of other products? Why does Congress limit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using its resources to research gun violence? Why does Congress limit the ability of law enforcement to fully trace the use of guns that are used to commit crimes? Why does Congress prohibit weapon use and ownership by certain classes of dangerous individuals but resist a universal background check system that would be necessary to enforce that prohibition? Why won't Congress enact the same kinds of magazine limitations on weapons used to kill people that we embrace on weapons used to kill deer? Why won't Congress ban weapons of war--weapons of war that are used by trained officials, as was the case with the Presiding Officer in his military service or my son in military service, but why won't we ban those weapons of war from the streets of our country?

Self-defense, sport, hunting are all protected and encompassed within the broad protections of the Second Amendment. There is not, there has never been, and there never will be an effort to confiscate all weapons in the country because of their popular acceptance and because of the clear commands of the Constitution. But why can't we have reasonable safety rules?

America's children--so many of them appeared here yesterday, children from a middle school in Northern Virginia, some high schoolers from Thomas Jefferson High School; I visited with students from Florida-- posed some even starker questions to us.

Does Congress care more about its children or more about contributions from the NRA and gun manufacturers? Can adults act like adults and try to keep children safe? Those were the questions that I heard from the students on the Capitol steps yesterday.

I applaud the children of the country who are asking these questions. They stand together with an overwhelming majority of Americans who believes we can do better and we need to do better. I have seen the tragedy of gun violence, but I have also seen that we can do better and that part of that is having better rules on guns.

When I was elected to the city council in Richmond in 1994, we had the second highest homicide rate in the United States. That was the only top 10 list we were on. That is not the one you want to be on. I went to too many funerals and too many wakes and too many crime scenes, and I was in too many church basements with support groups of homicide victims' families, and I don't want to do those kinds of things again.

Yet, through the pain of that--multiple efforts by multiple people-- we helped reduce our violent crime rate risk. We dropped the homicide rate by 60 percent. We dropped the aggravated assault/violent crime rate by nearly the same number. We did a number of things, but one of the things we did was to recognize that we had a problem with guns. It was not just about people or just about mental health. Those were issues, sure, but we had a high gun carry rate in Richmond. The gun carry rate means: In 100 stops that the police would make, what percentage of the time were people carrying weapons? In Richmond, we just had an unusually high percentage compared to other cities for a variety of the reasons.

What we decided to do is, if we could bring down the gun carry rate, we may not make bad people good people, but we could avoid an argument's breaking bad and then turning into a homicide or an aggravated assault. We were able to do things that brought the gun carry rate down, that made people leave their guns at home, if they were leaving their homes, instead of putting them in their pockets. By doing that, we helped to bring down gun violence. We found that you could take concrete steps to make people safer.

I was the Governor at the time of what was the worst shooting in the history of the United States. The weird thing to say about my own State is that I wish it had always been the worst shooting--the tragedy at Virginia Tech in April of 2007, when 32 people were killed. It has now been eclipsed by shootings in Orlando and Las Vegas and Newtown. So many other tragedies have happened since then that even some of the particulars of the Virginia Tech shooting start to recede in memory as new tragedies happen.

It was painful. I interacted with the 32 families who had lost their kids and who had lost their parents who were professors, and I have continued to interact with them over the years and to learn what went wrong that day, and a lot of things went wrong. Vowing to the families that we would try to fix them has been a cause of my life for the last 11 years.

We also learned through the pain some things we could do to make our communities safer. In this particular case, there were problems with mental health, and there were problems with privacy rules, and there were problems with campus safety protocols. Yet a significant problem was that we had a flaw in the background record check system. A young individual who had been adjudicated mentally ill and dangerous and was prohibited from owning a weapon was able to slip through the cracks in the system to get a weapon that he shouldn't have had. So the lesson we learned is, with a better background check system, you reduce the risk of tragedy.

Whether it is a common street crime of the kind that occurs every day and may not get the attention on the weekly news or whether it is a mass shooting that gets the attention on the weekly news, I have had some scar tissue over this, but at least the scar tissue has taught me a few things. One of the things I have learned is you can take meaningful steps, and if you do so, you make communities safer. If you know that you can take steps to make people safer, then you must. You must.

I will conclude and just say this.

We need a debate on the floor of this Chamber about how to reduce gun violence and promote gun safety. We haven't had one since April of 2013. It has been 5 years, and the list of tragedies is getting longer and longer and longer. We shouldn't be afraid to entertain both Republican and Democratic proposals for reducing the scourge of gun violence. There will be different kinds of proposals, and that is as it should be.

It is just like the debate we had about Dreamers a few weeks ago. There were different proposals put on the table that were going in different directions. We know in this body that we need to get 60 votes to get anything passed, which means nothing will pass unless there is some bipartisan support. Yet we shouldn't be afraid of having that debate. We have been afraid to have the debate, but our children are afraid for their lives. If they are showing the courage to speak out for change, the least we can do is show that we are listening.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the tragedy in Parkland and the responsibilities of the Senate to try to make our communities safer. I am going to talk very personally about my own experience in confronting gun violence as a mayor of an urban area, Richmond, VA, and as the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

I will start by saying, I am a gun owner. I am a Second Amendment supporter. When I was an attorney in private practice, I was the lawyer who worked with an effort to amend the Virginia constitution to guarantee Virginians the right to hunt and fish. The Second Amendment and private gun ownership is an important part of our framework. I support it, but I obviously believe that we can do things consistent with the Constitution that will make our Nation safer, and I ask my colleagues to join in that effort.

When I was elected to the Richmond City Council in 1994, Richmond, at that time, was only on one top 10 list that I am aware of. It is not the one you want to be on. We had the second highest homicide rate in the United States. We were not a high-crime area generally, if you looked at all crime, but in homicides and aggravated assaults--assaults committed with weapons--we were unusually high. The weapons of choice in these homicides and aggravated assaults were guns.

I remember very early in my time at the city council getting called to a neighborhood, Gilpin Court, which is a public housing community in my city council district. There had been a gun crime that killed an entire family of five--adults and little children.

Over the course of my 8 years of working in local government, I went to too many crime scenes and funerals and wakes. In some ways, the things that were the most memorable were the meetings in church basements of the families of homicide victims. We embarked upon a set of strategies to make our communities safer. Amidst all the bloodshed and the tears, we actually found strategies--some dealing with reductions in guns, some dealing with law enforcement strategies, some dealing with police and community relations. We found strategies that, over the course of about 8 years, reduced the

homicide rate in Richmond by 60 percent and the aggravated assault rate by an equivalent number.

Out of the pain, what we learned is you can actually take concrete steps that will make your community safer and that will reduce gun violence. You will not eliminate it. That is beyond our power as humble people to do, but you can reduce it. If you know you can, then you must. You have a responsibility to do what you can.

I was elected Governor of Virginia in 2005, and I will never forget April 16, 2007. I had just embarked on a trade mission. I had landed in Japan with a delegation to recruit business to my State. I had gone to the hotel, and I got a call after midnight from my chief of staff, who said: There is a shooting under way at Virginia Tech.

I said: Book me on the next flight home. I have been here for just a few hours on what was going to be a 2-week trade mission, but let me fly back home.

I flew back to what, at the time, was the worst shooting in the history of the United States. In April of 2007, 32 people were gunned down on the campus of Virginia Tech by a deranged youngster who had been adjudicated mentally ill and dangerous and was thus prohibited from having a weapon. But because of glitches and flaws in the background check system, he had been able to purchase multiple weapons, and he committed that horrible crime.

I empaneled a commission. I told them: Let the lawyers and lawsuits be damned. I want to know everything that went wrong, and I want to make public everything that went wrong and everything we can do to fix it. Over the course of a number of months, they produced a report with hundreds of recommendations.

The recommendations were about campus safety. The recommendations were about mental health, but there were also recommendations about fixes to our State and Federal gun laws to reduce the risk of this happening. I was able to make some changes on my own as an executive. I took other changes to my legislature that they rejected.

Again, out of the painful situation--and it is a funny thing to say about your own State, about my State of Virginia, about a place I love like Virginia Tech--I always hoped it would be the worst. I had always hoped that would have been the worst shooting in the history of the United States, but the Pulse nightclub shooting and the Las Vegas shooting now have claimed more victims. Other shootings, like those in Newtown and now Parkland--if the number of victims aren't the same, the tragedy is nevertheless of equal magnitude.

We learn through pain that you can make changes and improve. When I fixed a piece of the background check system flaw, it made us safer. It reduced the risk of gun violence and gun deaths.

My experience as mayor and Governor were painful, but I learned a lesson in both, which is you can take steps, including steps dealing with the rules about firearms that will make your communities safer. That is a powerful thing. You can take steps that will make communities safer.

I dealt with three lies--three falsehoods--over the course of these efforts as mayor and Governor, as I tried to help us take steps to make us safer.

The first lie was it is not about guns. It is about mental health; it is about other things. But that is just false. Equally false would be if we said that it is only about guns. That would be false as well. To say it is not about guns is a lie perpetrated by an organization headquartered in Virginia, the National Rifle Association. It turned out to be false.

The key to reducing the homicide rate in Virginia ultimately was that we embraced strategies to reduce the gun carry rate. That is a phrase that law enforcement professionals use for the percentage of time where people, in normal interactions with the police, are found to be carrying a weapon. In Virginia, the gun carry rate was unusually high, and that meant when something broke bad or there was an argument, there would often be an aggravated assault or homicide committed with a weapon. We undertook strategies that drove down the gun carry rate. That didn't make bad people good people, but it made it more likely that when things broke bad, there wouldn't be an aggravated assault or a homicide.

So it was about the guns. That is the first lie or falsehood that gets perpetrated: It is not about guns. It is not only about guns, but it is definitely about guns.

A second lie or falsehood perpetrated by the same organization is that they would always say: You can't improve. They would say: That will not solve every problem. You can't solve every bit of gun violence if you do this. They would say this over and over again with any shooting. They would point out the number of things that wouldn't have stopped it, as if not being able to eliminate gun violence means that you shouldn't do anything to try to reduce gun violence. That is just a lie or a falsehood. I have learned from my experiences that if you take steps, you can make communities safer.

The third lie or falsehood we had to confront repeatedly from the National Rifle Association was that gun safety rules violate the Second Amendment. That is just flatout wrong. In fact, the Second Amendment is the only amendment whose text even uses the word regulation. The need for a well-regulated militia gives individuals the right to bear arms.

What does the term ``well-regulated'' mean? It is not a reference to the length of somebody's beard or the kind of hat they should wear. There is an understanding that firearms are dangerous, and if individuals are to have the right to have them, there also must need to be some appropriate level of regulation. We are familiar with this in the rest of the Constitution.

I am passionate about the First Amendment. There should be freedom of the press, but you can't just libel or slander without consequence. The Framers, Madison and others, who put these amendments together, understood that the amendments to the Constitution included some limitations because we have to live together, not just as individuals who are free agents, but we have to live together in society.

Those three lies--it is not about guns; we can't do anything about it; and the gun rules violate the Second Amendment--are wrong.

I came to the Senate after the shooting in Sandy Hook. The first meaningful debate we had after I came here was whether we would do something to respond to this horrible carnage of kids in an elementary school.

The Presiding Officer was not in the Senate. I know you followed this as a citizen. I remember standing here in this Chamber in April 2013, casting a vote on a bill that I thought would have been a very good bill to do background record checks. We were surrounded in the Chamber by Sandy Hook families. Many of them were sitting next to Virginia Tech families who had come to be in solidarity with them. There was a feeling of despair, with them around, that was like the great cloud of witnesses referred to in the letter of Paul to the Hebrews. We fell short. They were praying for us to succeed, and we fell short. In the aftermath of that horrible tragedy, this body did precisely nothing.

Well, now we have experienced yet another horrible tragedy. There have been others since Sandy Hook, but it is my deep hope that after this horrible shooting in Parkland, something may be different in this body. The reason I think this one might be different is that these students are standing up and challenging us. The children of our Nation are asking adults to be adults. They are asking us to look in the mirror. They posed the question starkly: What is more important to you, your children or campaign contributions from an interest group?

I think the advocacy of the children of Parkland who suffer, not only their advocacy but the advocacy of students all over the United States--I have held meetings with Moms Demand Action in Richmond and Northern Virginia in the last couple of days, and many students were in these meetings. The advocacy of students and their challenge to us may show us a way.

I will conclude with a story that gives me hope and that suggests there may be some resonance to this moment. Sometimes there is a movement, but there isn't a moment. Sometimes the movement needs a moment to achieve a victory.

Fifty-five years ago, in the spring of 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King was trying to desegregate public accommodations in Birmingham, AL, with the

Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He had been going from community to community. In some places, they were able to desegregate public accommodations relatively easily. Other places were tough but none tougher than Birmingham. At drug stores and department stores, Dr. King and others would have adults go sit in--African Americans and their allies--and be arrested. Yet wave after wave of arrests notwithstanding, including the arrest of Dr. King, the city leaders would not back down. They would not shed the discrimination that violated the equality provisions of the Constitution.

As this was going on, children in the Birmingham schools started to come to Dr. King and say: We want to march too.

Dr. King and his lieutenants really struggled with this. They were parents. They didn't want their kids to be arrested. They didn't want their kids to face guard dogs attacking them. They didn't want their kids to face firehoses directed at them. They had a natural parental reaction: We are going to do this; we want to protect you.

But the children kept coming and saying: We want to march too.

Finally, they said: Isn't this about us? As much as it is about adults, isn't this about us, your children? And if it is about your children, why can't we march?

Dr. King, after a lot of prayer and discussion, finally said: It is about you.

Mr. President, you know this, and for our pages especially, it was those children advocating--and they marched, and they did have firehoses turned on them, and they did have guard dogs released on them. The photos of those children braving that ugly face of discrimination landed on the front pages of papers all over the United States and all over the world, and it was transformative of the civil rights movement.

Adults in the Untied States knew there was discrimination, but they had become complacent to it or indifferent to it or had even said: I think it is wrong, but it will probably never change. But their children demanded of them: Adults, just be adults. Adults, you say you care about children; prove to us you care about children. And when the adults of America were confronted with the example of their own young people, they had to shake themselves out of their complacency and indifference and shoulder the burden that adults must shoulder.

That is what these students at Parkland are saying to us now. That is what these students all over the country are saying to us now. They are saying: This is about our future. This is about your children. And they are asking us whether children matter more or political contributions matter more.

I urge my colleagues, finally, let's not produce another goose egg in this body. Let's not come together after a horrible tragedy--when there are meaningful steps, such as background record checks, that we can put on the table to make us safer--and fail them yet again.

I ask my colleagues and especially the majority leader to enable us to have this debate on the floor so that we can take meaningful steps of the kind that we know will make our communities safer.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President. We rightfully honor the sacrifice of veterans and servicemembers and as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am proud of the work we do to ensure that we have the best equipped and most successful fighting force in the world. Military families are critical to the success and readiness of our military, but are too often unrecognized for their support to our servicemembers and left without necessary programs and assistance to help them succeed. Military families frequently face financial insecurity due to spousal unemployment, which impacts the overall success of our military. Somewhere between 12% and 25% of military spouses are unemployed.

Today, I am pleased to introduce with my colleagues Senators Boozman and Tester the Jobs and Childcare for Military Families Act of 2018. This legislation encourages businesses to step up and play a bigger role in hiring military spouses who sacrifice so much by expanding the Work Opportunity Tax Credit to also include military spouses.

The bill also further addresses a real obstacle to professional success for many military families: access to quality, affordable childcare by establishing a flexible spending account for military families to use to reimburse themselves for out of pocket child care costs.

Addressing these issues will help military spouses advance in their careers despite frequent moves. Being a military family member will never be easy, but if we can do something to ease the burden in any way, we should. This legislation follows the introduction of another bipartisan bill earlier this month, the Military Spouse Employment Act of 2018, which provides direct employment opportunities and additional access to childcare, improves educational opportunities and extends transition and counseling services. I believe if we make it bipartisan priority to support military families, we will see an improvement in the readiness of our military and reap the economic benefits of supporting this underutilized and resilient workforce of military spouses. I hope to see many of the provisions of these two bills incorporated into this year's National Defense Authorization Act.

Mr. President. We rightfully honor the sacrifice of veterans and servicemembers and as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am proud of the work we do to ensure that we have the best equipped and most successful fighting force in the world. Military families are critical to the success and readiness of our military, but are too often unrecognized for their support to our servicemembers and left without necessary programs and assistance to help them succeed. Military families frequently face financial insecurity due to spousal unemployment, which impacts the overall success of our military. Somewhere between 12% and 25% of military spouses are unemployed.

Today, I am pleased to introduce with my colleagues Senators Boozman and Tester the Jobs and Childcare for Military Families Act of 2018. This legislation encourages businesses to step up and play a bigger role in hiring military spouses who sacrifice so much by expanding the Work Opportunity Tax Credit to also include military spouses.

The bill also further addresses a real obstacle to professional success for many military families: access to quality, affordable childcare by establishing a flexible spending account for military families to use to reimburse themselves for out of pocket child care costs.

Addressing these issues will help military spouses advance in their careers despite frequent moves. Being a military family member will never be easy, but if we can do something to ease the burden in any way, we should. This legislation follows the introduction of another bipartisan bill earlier this month, the Military Spouse Employment Act of 2018, which provides direct employment opportunities and additional access to childcare, improves educational opportunities and extends transition and counseling services. I believe if we make it bipartisan priority to support military families, we will see an improvement in the readiness of our military and reap the economic benefits of supporting this underutilized and resilient workforce of military spouses. I hope to see many of the provisions of these two bills incorporated into this year's National Defense Authorization Act.

Mr. President, our Nation's ongoing success and economic mobility depends on the skills and education of the American workforce and its preparedness to meet and adjust to the demands of today's economy. Career and technical education (CTE) programs are an essential component to each student's education, giving students the opportunity to gain knowledge, skills, and credentials needed to secure careers in growing, high-demand fields. Today, approximately 12 million students are enrolled in CTE across the country with CTE programs in thousands of CTE centers, comprehensive high schools, career academies, CTE high schools, and community colleges. Through applied learning, these students obtain technical and employability skills that parallel workforce demand.

According to the American Federation of Teachers, 94 percent of parents approve of expanding access to CTE and other programs that prepare students for jobs. CTE ensures that competitive and skilled workers are ready, willing, and capable of holding jobs in high-wage, high-skill, and in-demand career fields. Throughout Virginia, I've heard manufacturers express discontent with shortage of qualified skilled production employees--roles that require the instruction and training offered in CTE classrooms. It is vital that we heighten awareness of CTE's role in helping the United States to meet the very real and immediate challenges of economic development, student achievement, and global competitiveness.

This is why today, with my Senate CTE Caucus co-chairs Senator Portman, Senator Baldwin, and Senator Young and 41 colleagues in the Senate, I am proud to introduce a bipartisan resolution to designate February as Career and Technical Education (CTE) month. CTE Month offers an opportunity for students, parents, counselors, educators and school leaders to become more informed about the educational opportunities attainable in their communities, and acknowledge the importance of CTE in cultivating a skilled and well-educated workforce in our nation.

Through formal recognition of CTE Month through this resolution, it is our hope that we can foster greater support for the importance of improving access to high-quality CTE for millions of America's students and our country's continued economic competitiveness.