Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the commitment letter for the Animal Generic Drug User Fee Agreements of 2018.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in a moment, I will specifically address the comments the Senator from Washington made. First, I would like to acknowledge that she and other Members of the Senate worked with us to make sure this legislation could become law by August 1, and I thank her for that. Sometimes the House accepts a Senate bill, as it did with the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act that the President signed today, and sometimes the Senate accepts a House bill, as I will move that we do today. One reason we are able to do that is because our committees work closely with the House to try to take as many of their good ideas as we can so we can pass each other's bill, if that became necessary. The second reason that happens is because Senator Murray characteristically works with me to solve problems like she is doing today, and I am grateful to her for doing that. We don't agree on everything, but we agree on a lot. I noticed in our committee hearing the other day that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, of which I am chairman and she is the ranking Democrat, has approved 50 bills this Congress. Eighteen of them have been signed by the President. Some more will be signed by the President. We are working hard on opioids legislation, which is of great interest to almost every Member of this body. Our committee has unanimously reported that to the floor, and we are working with other committees. We have been working with the House on that. We are working on getting generic drugs to market more easily, something that has needed to be done for 20 years. We have reported that out to the Senate. Pandemic legislation--dealing with epidemics and being prepared for them--is ready for the Senate to act on. This is characteristic of the work Senator Murray and her staff do. As she mentioned, this bill is the last of the so-called user fee agreements. We passed four last August that dealt with about $9 billion in industry user fees to fund the Food and Drug Administration. This is another bill to do that. These bills are complicated and difficult and involve lots of discussions. In the end, they often pass by agreement, as this one will today, I believe, but that is because of the amount of work our staff and Senator Murray's staff and the House of Representatives have done. I thank them for that. The FDA user fee bills provide about half the funding the Food and Drug Administration uses every year to keep the drugs we buy at our pharmacies and get at the doctor's office safe. We take it for granted, but it is the gold standard, and we work very hard to try to make sure we don't infringe on that gold standard of safety and efficacy. The House of Representatives has passed, by unanimous consent, the bill we referred to, the Animal Drug and Generic Animal Drug User Fee Amendments, which reauthorizes user fee programs that allow the animal drug industry and the Food and Drug Administration to continue to expedite the review of safe and effective treatments for animals. These updated agreements have been carefully worked out between the Food and Drug Administration and the animal drug industry, with input from farmers and ranchers, food and feed producers, veterinarians, and other stakeholders. If Congress doesn't do its job, as the Senator from Washington said, to reauthorize these critical programs before August 1, the Food and Drug Administration will be forced to send layoff notices to 115 employees. By our action today, we will be able to avoid that. The review of over 2,000 animal drug applications and investigational submissions currently pending before the Food and Drug Administration will be significantly delayed if we don't act, and we intend to act. This means it will take longer for new animal drugs and treatments to be available to farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, and families, but, fortunately, because of the cooperation today, that will not happen. The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, our committee, approved the Senate version of this bill on February 28 of this year by a bipartisan vote of 22 to 1. The bill passed the House in almost identical form that was approved by the HELP Committee in February, but the House bill, as Senator Murray said, expands conditional approval to encourage innovation and competition. Conditional approval allows a drug to go to market once it meets the Food and Drug Administration safety standards, and then the drug company has up to 5 years to prove the drug is effective. Based on bipartisan feedback about conditional approval, the House of Representatives agreed to make three changes in its bill: No. 1, a 10- year sunset for conditional approval; No. 2, clarify the conditional approval does not require an additional fee to be paid to the Food and Drug Administration; and, No. 3, a Government Accountability Office report on conditional approval. Senator Murray and I agree that we need to clarify what it means for a drug to be ``difficult to study.'' I have talked to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration about these concerns, and he agrees. Dr. Gottlieb has agreed to quickly issue guidance and develop regulations that provide clarity on what ``difficult to study'' means and that do not change the gold standard of the Food and Drug Administration's drug approval process. Also, conditional approval is not available for antimicrobial drugs. The language in the bill is clear, and Dr. Gottlieb understands that conditional approval is not available for antimicrobial drugs. Congress will also conduct oversight to make sure conditional approval is achieving the goal of helping more pets and keeping our food supply safe. This bipartisan legislation will help keep animals healthy, prevent disease outbreaks, and protect our food supply. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5554.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I know of no further debate on the bill.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on Monday of last week, the Senate passed H.R. 2353, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, with a Senate amendment. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives followed suit. This measure reauthorizes the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, which was last reauthorized in 2006. President Trump signed this important bill into law today at a ceremony at the White House that I was fortunate enough to have been invited to attend. The bill modernizes our career and technical education programs in our Nation's high schools, and community colleges, technical colleges, and other institutions of higher education to provide the skills needed to support State and local employer's workforce needs. The bill is also designed to align with other Federal education and workforce laws. While we are currently experiencing the best economy in 18 years, there are still 6.6 million unfilled jobs, many of these jobs offer high wages, but require workers to have specific or a high-level set of skills. In order to have a productive workforce and sustain a strong economy, we need to ensure today's workers and future workers have an opportunity to learn these needed skills. Our bill is an important step in helping States and local communities do that. First, as States are designing their State career and technical education--CTE--plans, they will need to consult with a variety of education and workforce stakeholders. This means, for the first time, employers and business leaders will work with the State on designing education programs that focus on preparing students for in-demand and emerging jobs. Second, local school districts are required to conduct an evaluation of their current programs and how those programs align with in-demand industry sectors or occupations. In order to accomplish this, school districts will work with local community and business leaders to determine what those sectors and occupations are, if they are not fully aware of them already. The bill also makes a significant change to the way funds flow to States. Current law sends funds to States based on the population in the State but dictates States cannot receive less than what they received in 1998. Our bill updates this formula as populations have dramatically shifted with some States seeing significant growth over the past 20 years. Another area that was improved was better aligning with other workforce initiatives. This bill would align CTE program plans with State Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act plans so that States that want to submit a combined plan may do so. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act is a Federal workforce development law that provides training to adults already in or seeking employment. In their CTE plans, States must determine levels of performance for several indicators of performance, which are outlined in the bill. The indicators at the secondary level include graduation rate, achievement of academic standards as defined in the Every Student Succeeds Act, ensuring academic rigor in programs, and accounting for students who enter postsecondary education, the military, national service, or are employed, to name a few. There are additional and similar indicators for postsecondary education. The State determined levels of performance for these indicators must be expressed as a percentage of students and demonstrate that the State is striving to improve year after year. States must determine the level for each indicator for the group of all CTE concentrators, which are the group of students at the secondary level taking at least two courses in a single program or program of study, or at the postsecondary level, students taking at least 12 credits in a single program or program of study, and for each subgroup defined in the Every Student Succeeds Act and for each special population defined in this bill. However, States are only held accountable for the group of all CTE concentrators. One of the important changes in the law is that the Secretary will no longer negotiate the levels of performance with the States. Going forward, States will determine their levels and submit them to the Secretary, who will approve them if they meet the conditions highlighted earlier. This is a point worth saying again: The bill heading to the President's desk eliminates any involvement by the Secretary in determining levels of performance with the States. However, a State is required to meet certain conditions in order to have their plan approved by the Secretary. Specifically, the Secretary must ensure that plan includes levels of performance and that those levels of performance have been made public for comment. In the submitted plan, the State must include the comments along with their response to those comments. Further, the State must develop their plan in consultation with various stakeholders and provide descriptions of their goals and programs, how those meet employment and workforce needs, and what they will do to close and eliminate performance gaps in areas where gaps exist for subgroups and special populations. If a State has met the requirements in developing their plan, then the Secretary must approve the plan and may not alter or change the elements of that plan. The bill allows but does not require a State to revise the levels of performance after 2 years. If a State elects to revise their levels, the new level must not be below the average of the actual performance of the previous 2 years. States may revise their levels downward when taking advantage of this option, so long as it meets the requirements of the law. Further, there has been some concerns raised that a State would be required to go through an entire State plan process in order to make revisions. The language in the bill is clear that a State making revisions to their levels of performance need only seek public comment on those targets and does not need to go through the more extensive consultation process or an additional public comment period. When submitting the revised levels to the Secretary, they must include the public comments and the State response. Heading into this reauthorization, a major concern of current law was that there was too much burden on local schools that deterred many from pursuing Federal funds. They cited the burdensome local plan, the multitude of requirements and reporting burden. This bill addresses all of those items and reduces burden for local governments. First, this reauthorization focuses reporting and accountability on just CTE concentrators, reducing the number of students States must collect data on to only those truly enrolled in a CTE program. Second, the number of requirements of what must be included in the local application is reduced from 12 to 9. Third, the required use of funds at the local level drops from nine to six. One last item that I would like to address about the bill is its accountability provisions. The bill maintains the current law structure of accountability which requires that, if a State does not meet 90 percent of their State-determined level of performance for any of the indicators, then the State must submit an improvement plan indicating how it plans to improve. If a State has not achieved 90 percent of their level of performance after 2 years following the implementation of their improvement plan, the Secretary is granted the discretion to withhold funds from that State. There are a number of education and business groups supporting this bill, which include National Governor's Association, National School Boards Association, Rebuilding America's Middle Class, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, Jobs for the Future, Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Coalition, Education Trust, Boeing, and IBM. Chairwoman Foxx and Ranking Member Scott, along with Representative Thompson and Representative Krishnamoorthi, deserve a good deal of thanks for their work in the House on passing the Perkins CTE Act. I also want to thank Senator Enzi and Senator Casey for their work in the Senate on this bill. They have worked hard to reach a bipartisan result and should receive the recognition they deserve for it. I would also like to thank Ivanka Trump for her leadership in helping create an environment where we could get a result. Her interest in helping train the next generation of our country's workers and making the reauthorization of this bill one of her priorities helped keep Congress focused on passing this bill. I was pleased that she attended our committee markup of the bill and thank her for her hard work. I also want to thank the ranking member of the committee, Senator Murray. This bill is another in a long list of accomplishments this committee has achieved. Finally, I would like to thank the following staff: from the Congressional Research Service, Boris Granovskiy, Becky Skinner, and Adam Stoll; from the Office of Legislative Counsel, Kristin Romero, Margaret Bomba, and Amy Gaynor; from Senator Casey's office, Julia Sferlazzo and Rachel McKinnon; from Senator Enzi's office, Tara Shaw, Garnett Decosimo, and Steve Townsend; from Senator Murray's office, Evan Schatz, Kara Marchione, Amanda Beaumont, and Katherine McClelland; and my staff, David Cleary, Bob Moran, Jake Baker, Richard Pettey, Bobby McMillin, and Lindsey Seidman. I am pleased that President Trump signed this bill into law today to help States and local communities meet the needs of the current and future workforce.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the commitment letter for the Animal Drug User Fee Agreements of 2018.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank Mr. Blunt, the Senator from Missouri, for his leadership on these commonsense provisions that would help literally hundreds of thousands of restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, pizza stores, and other food retailers as they work to comply with the Food and Drug Administration's menu labeling rule. I am very disappointed that some Democrats have blocked Senator Blunt's commonsense legislation. He has worked hard on it and has taken a piece of legislation that had bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. He has worked with Senator King of Maine in a bipartisan way. Nevertheless, there have still been objections. When Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, they included a provision that mandated nutrition labeling in restaurants and food retailers that have over 20 stores nationwide. The proposed rule was published in December 2014, and the final menu labeling rule went into effect on May 7, 2018. The final rule required restaurants nationwide to display calories on menus and menu boards and have additional nutrition information available upon request. Senators Blunt and King and I support consumers having access to nutrition information to make healthier, more informed dietary choices for themselves and their families. While I commend the FDA for addressing concerns raised during the process in the final rule, a few significant problems remain unaddressed, including the following: employees being subject to criminal penalties for inconsistencies in calorie information; a clear amount of time for restaurants to correct violations before enforcement; restaurants being subject to frivolous civil lawsuits for minor violations; and flexibility for restaurants where a majority of orders are placed online. To address those concerns, Senators Blunt and King, here in the Senate, and a bipartisan group in the House, as Senator Blunt has outlined, introduced the bipartisan Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act. The idea was to make the menu labeling rule more workable for restaurants and to make access to information on nutrition easier for customers. The act, led by Representatives Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Loretta Sanchez, passed the House twice--both times with strong bipartisan votes and most recently in February with a vote of 266 to 157, with 152 Republicans and 32 Democrats in support. However, after Senate Democrats raised concerns that the House bill would further delay the implementation of the rule, Senator Blunt and I worked out a targeted solution to help give restaurants the flexibility and certainty they would need to comply with the rule without delaying its implementation or enforcement. Our substitute provisions include the following: No. 1, they clarify legal liability. For example, if I am a 21-year-old manager at the Chick-fil-A in Chattanooga, I would be pretty hesitant to sign a statement, as is currently required by the rule, that could subject me to criminal and financial penalties if one of my employees were to put extra slices of cheese on a sandwich. Today, the rule requires a restaurant manager to certify that the restaurant makes menu items a certain way to meet the posted nutritional values. Our amendment changes that. It no longer puts an individual employee on the hook for a meal item that doesn't match its posted calorie count. Our amendment maintains the requirement for restaurant headquarters to certify that the nutrient analysis of menu items is complete and accurate. It is nearly impossible for menu items to be prepared in precisely the same way every time, and individuals should not be at risk of criminal and financial penalties based on small differences in how menu items are prepared. No. 2, they establish a clear timeline for corrective actions. If the FDA finds a violation of a sign being out of place or discrepancies in the calorie content, it is reasonable for a store to have a clear timeframe to fully correct the violation without being subject to penalties. This provision would clarify that restaurants have 30 days to correct violations, and if, after 30 days it is not resolved, the FDA could move ahead with enforcement action. No. 3, they protect restaurants from frivolous lawsuits for minor violations. This provision clarifies, let's say, if a consumer determines that a chicken sandwich labeled as having 500 calories actually has 550 calories, the Federal, State, or local enforcement authorities could take action, but prevents the consumer from suing the restaurant for damages. This protects restaurants from facing frivolous lawsuits or class action lawsuits that result in years of litigation and settlements on minor discrepancies that rarely benefit the consumers. No. 4, they allow access to nutrition information online. If you are ordering a pizza for your family, there is a good chance that you are placing that order online or on a mobile app and that it is being delivered to your home. Restaurants with over 75 percent of orders placed online should not have to invest in maintaining and updating in-store menu boards only a small portion of customers will ever use. To summarize, the intent of the FDA menu labeling rule was about increasing consumer access to nutrition information, not about finding minor problems to trigger fines and penalties on local businesses. These provisions are based on bipartisan legislation introduced in both Chambers, passed twice in the House of Representatives, to accommodate the diverse business models in the food industry and provide certainty to restaurants and their employees. These four provisions in the Blunt-King legislation were carefully negotiated to address concerns of Democratic Members, to ensure Americans will soon be able to access nutrition information, and will not delay or stop FDA's ability to implement or enforce the menu labeling requirements. I am disappointed some of our Democratic colleagues rejected these commonsense provisions that would have helped restaurants provide calorie counts for Americans and that would have made it easier for those Americans to obtain that information. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alabama for his leadership and his remarks. The President of the United States has got the world's attention with his tariffs. He met today with the President of the European Commission, but what should get more attention than the tariffs is President Trump's solution for the tariffs: zero tariffs, zero barriers--which, as the President said at the G7 summit in June, is the way it should be. He said that again last night and again today. After his meeting with the President of the European Commission in the Oval Office, President Trump said: ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies, the United States would be extremely pleased.'' Well, so would I, Mr. President, but that is not what is happening. Piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight is a trade war and will hurt American workers. But the basis of the President's long-term solution is ``reciprocity,'' a word he has also used many times, which means, when it comes to trade, other countries should do for the United States what the United States does for them. Taking steps in the direction of reciprocity, rather than a trade war, would be much better for the American worker. Today I have come to the floor with Senator Jones to introduce legislation that would delay the administration's proposed 25 percent tariff on automobiles and auto parts imported from other countries into the United States until the President has the benefit of a second opinion from the International Trade Commission about the effects those tariffs would have on the more than 7 million Americans who work in the auto industry. After the President and the Congress have received the International Trade Commission's study and the President has this second opinion, he may still continue with the section 232 investigation if he chooses to do so. I have no doubt that there is a trade problem, and some countries are taking advantage of us. I also have no doubt that shooting yourself in both feet at once is not the right solution to our problem, which is what would happen if we continue these tariffs for a long time. That is not the best way to solve the problem. These tariffs are dangerous. These tariffs are going to cost us jobs. These tariffs are going to lower our family incomes. These tariffs are going to undo much of the good the President and the Congress have done during the last year and a half to create this booming economy, which is booming like none of us have seen for a long, long time. We don't want to interrupt that. A better strategy is the one that the President himself has suggested and that I believe would be much more effective: Insist on reciprocity. Say to other countries: Do for our country what we do for you--just as the President said at the G7 summit: ``no tariffs, no barriers is the way it should be.'' And just as he said today to the President of the European Commission. May I suggest a first step in that direction? It might be to agree on the same tariffs on light trucks and cars that are traded between the United States and the European Union. Currently, the European Union levies a 10-percent tariff on light trucks that come from the United States, and the United States levies a 25-percent tariff on trucks imported from the European Union. Similarly, the European Union levies a 10-percent tariff on cars imported from this country. The United States levies a 2.5 percent tariff on cars that come to us from Europe. A first step for the solution would be to make these tariffs the same. Now, my late friend Alex Haley once told me that if I begin a speech by saying ``instead of making a speech, let me tell you a story,'' someone might actually listen to what I have to say. So let me tell you a story about how tariffs affect Tennessee. This is a story about a Canadian company, Onward Manufacturing Company, which 8 years ago had a choice between locating its new plant either in the United States or in China. The company chose Dickson, TN, where today about 300 Tennesseans have good-paying jobs making Broil King gas grills, which the company then exports to Canada and Europe. The company decided on Tennessee instead of China because NAFTA--the North American Free Trade Agreement--made it possible to buy materials and parts to manufacture their grills in the United States and Canada without paying tariffs. That is the advantage of zero tariffs. Broil King buys the steel and aluminum the company uses to make grills from U.S. producers. But in 2016, our country imposed tariffs on steel from China that is used to manufacture grills. That increased the cost of imported steel, and that had the effect of increasing the price of steel made in the United States. Then, on March 23 of this year, our country imposed another 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, after the Commerce Department's section 232 investigation concluded that those imports were a threat to national security. This also had the effect of raising the price of steel and aluminum that Broil King used to make gas grills in Dickson, TN. Prices for U.S.-produced steel that Broil King buys are up by 40 percent since January, according to the trade publication Steel Benchmark. This is called shooting yourself in one foot. Now, here goes the other foot. Europe and Canada then responded to the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum by imposing tariffs on U.S. products sold in Europe and Canada, including gas grills. Broil King exports about 60 percent of the grills the company makes in Tennessee to Canada and Europe. Remember, they located their plant here so they could do that. The company told me last week that they are losing money on every grill they sell in Europe because of the combination of steel and aluminum tariffs and the response by Europe and Canada. Broil King is also hurt by the March 2018 announcement that tariffs would be imposed on $50 billion by the United States on Chinese goods because the company buys some parts from China that it uses to make gas grills in Tennessee. Now, here is what is causing the owners of Broil King to wonder why they ever decided to locate a plant in Dickson, TN, instead of China. The new U.S. tariffs do not apply to barbecue gas grills made in China that are already assembled, which means that every one of Broil King's competitors in China can import their grills into the United States without any tariff on it. So here is the bottom line. These new tariffs make it difficult to make a profit on gas grills made in Dickson, TN, and leave the U.S. market wide open for gas grills made in China. That is what happened to one small company that employs 300 Tennesseans and buys its steel and aluminum from U.S. suppliers when we begin piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight. That is what happens with a trade war. That is why I like what the President said this morning to the President of the European Commission. ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies,'' the President said, ``the United States would be extremely pleased.'' So would workers in Tennessee. That would be better for the 300 workers in Dickson, TN. Here is another story. It is about Electrolux. I visited Springfield, TN, outside Nashville, a few weeks ago. The mayor and the chamber of commerce officials rushed up to me. The new tariffs on steel had been announced, and the largest employer in Springfield--Electrolux, which makes home supplies--had cancelled a $250 million expansion. Electrolux buys all of its steel from U.S. suppliers, but, of course, when you raise the price on imported steel, the price of U.S. steel also goes up, and Electrolux concluded that it could not be competitive in the U.S. market and with exports at the higher price. Of course, it sounds good to say that putting a 10-percent tariff on Chinese-made goods is good for us, but Electrolux also buys some components made in China. Last week, the company said the latest U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made goods would cost the company $10 million during the second half of this year if the proposed 10 percent tariffs go into effect after a comment period ending in late August. That is Electrolux in Springfield, TN. Now, if we were moving toward a policy of reciprocity--do for us what we do for you--there would be zero tariffs, and the people of Springfield would have a $250 million expansion and the jobs that come with it instead of a 25-percent tax on the U.S. steel that Electrolux buys. Then there are the stories about the effects of steel and aluminum tariffs on tire companies. We have three big tire companies in Tennessee. Bridgestone is one of them, with 1,700 employees. I will talk about it for just a moment. Bridgestone tires all have steel cords to make them stronger. None of that steel is produced in the United States. All of it is imported. Now all of it has a 25-percent tax. Who pays that? The American consumer. The same must be true for every tire-making company. Here is one more story. You have probably heard of Bush Brothers' beans. They can one-third of all the beans in the United States. Their plant is in Chestnut Hill, in the mountains of East Tennessee, near where I live. The cans are made of tin-plated steel that is mostly imported. There is not enough produced in the United States. Bush Brothers & Company estimates that the new tariff on steel will reduce its revenues and raise prices by as much as 8 percent. Even the workers in Chestnut Hill who can one-third of all of the beans in the United States would benefit from a zero tariff policy such as the one the President talked about today, instead of a trade war that piles tariffs on top of tariffs. We have many more stories. We have over 900 auto parts suppliers in Tennessee. They are in 88 of our 95 counties. Almost all of them use steel and aluminum. When the prices go up, revenues and profits go down. That has an effect on 136,000 Tennesseans. Those are the people who work in our automotive industry. That is one-third of our entire manufacturing workforce. Tariffs are taxes, pure and simple--taxes we pay. Existing tariffs on steel and aluminum are bad enough, but nothing could do more damage to Tennessee's auto industry than the proposed tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts. Those, combined with already imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, will cost us jobs and lower our family incomes. I respectfully said to President Trump both publicly and privately that he and the Republican Congress have accomplished an enormous amount in 18 months. I am very proud of that. This booming economy is something that benefits so many Americans. But I am afraid that if we do not move quickly toward the President's announced long-term goal of no tariffs and that if we continue to pile tariffs on top of tariffs, we will take this economy in exactly the opposite direction and undo much of the good the Republican President and the Republican Congress have already done. What would take us in the right direction is the goal of reciprocity that the President talked about today. That is why, in the meantime, until we shift gears into this long-term goal of no tariffs, no subsidies, no barriers, and take steps toward it, Senator Jones and I have developed this bill to make sure the President has all the facts before he makes a decision on the proposed 25-percent tariff on imported cars and parts. It simply requires the Commerce Department's investigation to be delayed while we get more facts about the impact of these tariffs on the automotive industry. The President is right to focus on China. China steals our intellectual property, and it imposes other trade barriers. But tariffs on steel and aluminum and uncertainty surrounding the negotiation of NAFTA threaten to destroy many more U.S. jobs than they might save. We should remember the lessons of history. Presidents have tried this before. When I first came to the Senate, President George W. Bush imposed steel tariffs. Within a year, he dropped the idea because the tariffs destroyed more jobs in the automotive industry than existed in the steel industry at that time, according to the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition. Let's look at today. Last year, the U.S. steel industry employed about 139,000 Americans, according to the Congressional Research Service. About 162,000 worked in the aluminum industry. That is around 300,000 Americans who work in the steel and aluminum industry. To put this in perspective, the automotive industry employs 20 times that many Americans--more than 7 million, according to the Auto Alliance, and 136,000 of those, as I have said, are Tennesseans. There are only eight aluminum smelting plants operating in the United States that employ Americans. They employ about 4,000. Seven of those are actually producing. One is curtailed. Alcoa, which produces about half the aluminum produced in the United States, doesn't even want the tariffs. It makes me wonder, who does want the tariffs on aluminum? The main reason those smelting plants--one of which is in my hometown and my father worked at for 40 years--have closed has nothing to do with trade. It is because aluminum plants need a lot of cheap electricity to run through the bauxite ore to make aluminum ingots, and they can't buy electricity that cheap in the United States. The 10- percent tariff already imposed on aluminum is not nearly enough to offset the cost of electricity. The reason I have been so outspoken about this is that no state is more likely to be more damaged by tariffs on aluminum and steel and on automobiles and auto parts than Tennessee. In many ways, over the last 40 years, we have become the Nation's No. 1 auto State, with our more than 136,000 Tennesseans working in the automotive industry. There are three big assembly plants--General Motors, Volkswagen, and Nissan--and over 900 auto suppliers in 88 of our 95 counties. As Senator Jones said, 35 years ago, we were the third poorest state and textile plants were moving overseas. Things looked bleak for us. In came the auto industry with better paying jobs, and our family incomes have been going up ever since in almost every county. I don't want to see that hurt. Tennesseans who work in the auto industry would benefit, as they have under NAFTA, from zero tariffs instead of a trade war that piles tariffs on top of tariffs. In conclusion, the President has gotten the world's attention with his tariffs. As a tactic, perhaps he is wise to do that. He had the President of the European Commission in his office today, but what should get more attention and what I hope gets more attention also from the President is the solution he talked about again today. ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies,'' the President said, ``the United States would be extremely pleased.'' That is the way it should be. Let's move toward that goal as rapidly as we can. Piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight is a trade war. It hurts American workers. The basis of the President's solution is reciprocity--a word he has used many times--which means when it comes to trade, other countries should do for the United States what we do for them. Taking steps in that direction would be the right way to go. In the meantime, the bill Senator Jones and I have introduced will make certain that President Trump has before him all the facts--in effect, a second opinion--before he makes a decision regarding the proposed 25-percent tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alabama for his leadership and his remarks. The President of the United States has got the world's attention with his tariffs. He met today with the President of the European Commission, but what should get more attention than the tariffs is President Trump's solution for the tariffs: zero tariffs, zero barriers--which, as the President said at the G7 summit in June, is the way it should be. He said that again last night and again today. After his meeting with the President of the European Commission in the Oval Office, President Trump said: ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies, the United States would be extremely pleased.'' Well, so would I, Mr. President, but that is not what is happening. Piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight is a trade war and will hurt American workers. But the basis of the President's long-term solution is ``reciprocity,'' a word he has also used many times, which means, when it comes to trade, other countries should do for the United States what the United States does for them. Taking steps in the direction of reciprocity, rather than a trade war, would be much better for the American worker. Today I have come to the floor with Senator Jones to introduce legislation that would delay the administration's proposed 25 percent tariff on automobiles and auto parts imported from other countries into the United States until the President has the benefit of a second opinion from the International Trade Commission about the effects those tariffs would have on the more than 7 million Americans who work in the auto industry. After the President and the Congress have received the International Trade Commission's study and the President has this second opinion, he may still continue with the section 232 investigation if he chooses to do so. I have no doubt that there is a trade problem, and some countries are taking advantage of us. I also have no doubt that shooting yourself in both feet at once is not the right solution to our problem, which is what would happen if we continue these tariffs for a long time. That is not the best way to solve the problem. These tariffs are dangerous. These tariffs are going to cost us jobs. These tariffs are going to lower our family incomes. These tariffs are going to undo much of the good the President and the Congress have done during the last year and a half to create this booming economy, which is booming like none of us have seen for a long, long time. We don't want to interrupt that. A better strategy is the one that the President himself has suggested and that I believe would be much more effective: Insist on reciprocity. Say to other countries: Do for our country what we do for you--just as the President said at the G7 summit: ``no tariffs, no barriers is the way it should be.'' And just as he said today to the President of the European Commission. May I suggest a first step in that direction? It might be to agree on the same tariffs on light trucks and cars that are traded between the United States and the European Union. Currently, the European Union levies a 10-percent tariff on light trucks that come from the United States, and the United States levies a 25-percent tariff on trucks imported from the European Union. Similarly, the European Union levies a 10-percent tariff on cars imported from this country. The United States levies a 2.5 percent tariff on cars that come to us from Europe. A first step for the solution would be to make these tariffs the same. Now, my late friend Alex Haley once told me that if I begin a speech by saying ``instead of making a speech, let me tell you a story,'' someone might actually listen to what I have to say. So let me tell you a story about how tariffs affect Tennessee. This is a story about a Canadian company, Onward Manufacturing Company, which 8 years ago had a choice between locating its new plant either in the United States or in China. The company chose Dickson, TN, where today about 300 Tennesseans have good-paying jobs making Broil King gas grills, which the company then exports to Canada and Europe. The company decided on Tennessee instead of China because NAFTA--the North American Free Trade Agreement--made it possible to buy materials and parts to manufacture their grills in the United States and Canada without paying tariffs. That is the advantage of zero tariffs. Broil King buys the steel and aluminum the company uses to make grills from U.S. producers. But in 2016, our country imposed tariffs on steel from China that is used to manufacture grills. That increased the cost of imported steel, and that had the effect of increasing the price of steel made in the United States. Then, on March 23 of this year, our country imposed another 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, after the Commerce Department's section 232 investigation concluded that those imports were a threat to national security. This also had the effect of raising the price of steel and aluminum that Broil King used to make gas grills in Dickson, TN. Prices for U.S.-produced steel that Broil King buys are up by 40 percent since January, according to the trade publication Steel Benchmark. This is called shooting yourself in one foot. Now, here goes the other foot. Europe and Canada then responded to the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum by imposing tariffs on U.S. products sold in Europe and Canada, including gas grills. Broil King exports about 60 percent of the grills the company makes in Tennessee to Canada and Europe. Remember, they located their plant here so they could do that. The company told me last week that they are losing money on every grill they sell in Europe because of the combination of steel and aluminum tariffs and the response by Europe and Canada. Broil King is also hurt by the March 2018 announcement that tariffs would be imposed on $50 billion by the United States on Chinese goods because the company buys some parts from China that it uses to make gas grills in Tennessee. Now, here is what is causing the owners of Broil King to wonder why they ever decided to locate a plant in Dickson, TN, instead of China. The new U.S. tariffs do not apply to barbecue gas grills made in China that are already assembled, which means that every one of Broil King's competitors in China can import their grills into the United States without any tariff on it. So here is the bottom line. These new tariffs make it difficult to make a profit on gas grills made in Dickson, TN, and leave the U.S. market wide open for gas grills made in China. That is what happened to one small company that employs 300 Tennesseans and buys its steel and aluminum from U.S. suppliers when we begin piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight. That is what happens with a trade war. That is why I like what the President said this morning to the President of the European Commission. ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies,'' the President said, ``the United States would be extremely pleased.'' So would workers in Tennessee. That would be better for the 300 workers in Dickson, TN. Here is another story. It is about Electrolux. I visited Springfield, TN, outside Nashville, a few weeks ago. The mayor and the chamber of commerce officials rushed up to me. The new tariffs on steel had been announced, and the largest employer in Springfield--Electrolux, which makes home supplies--had cancelled a $250 million expansion. Electrolux buys all of its steel from U.S. suppliers, but, of course, when you raise the price on imported steel, the price of U.S. steel also goes up, and Electrolux concluded that it could not be competitive in the U.S. market and with exports at the higher price. Of course, it sounds good to say that putting a 10-percent tariff on Chinese-made goods is good for us, but Electrolux also buys some components made in China. Last week, the company said the latest U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made goods would cost the company $10 million during the second half of this year if the proposed 10 percent tariffs go into effect after a comment period ending in late August. That is Electrolux in Springfield, TN. Now, if we were moving toward a policy of reciprocity--do for us what we do for you--there would be zero tariffs, and the people of Springfield would have a $250 million expansion and the jobs that come with it instead of a 25-percent tax on the U.S. steel that Electrolux buys. Then there are the stories about the effects of steel and aluminum tariffs on tire companies. We have three big tire companies in Tennessee. Bridgestone is one of them, with 1,700 employees. I will talk about it for just a moment. Bridgestone tires all have steel cords to make them stronger. None of that steel is produced in the United States. All of it is imported. Now all of it has a 25-percent tax. Who pays that? The American consumer. The same must be true for every tire-making company. Here is one more story. You have probably heard of Bush Brothers' beans. They can one-third of all the beans in the United States. Their plant is in Chestnut Hill, in the mountains of East Tennessee, near where I live. The cans are made of tin-plated steel that is mostly imported. There is not enough produced in the United States. Bush Brothers & Company estimates that the new tariff on steel will reduce its revenues and raise prices by as much as 8 percent. Even the workers in Chestnut Hill who can one-third of all of the beans in the United States would benefit from a zero tariff policy such as the one the President talked about today, instead of a trade war that piles tariffs on top of tariffs. We have many more stories. We have over 900 auto parts suppliers in Tennessee. They are in 88 of our 95 counties. Almost all of them use steel and aluminum. When the prices go up, revenues and profits go down. That has an effect on 136,000 Tennesseans. Those are the people who work in our automotive industry. That is one-third of our entire manufacturing workforce. Tariffs are taxes, pure and simple--taxes we pay. Existing tariffs on steel and aluminum are bad enough, but nothing could do more damage to Tennessee's auto industry than the proposed tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts. Those, combined with already imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, will cost us jobs and lower our family incomes. I respectfully said to President Trump both publicly and privately that he and the Republican Congress have accomplished an enormous amount in 18 months. I am very proud of that. This booming economy is something that benefits so many Americans. But I am afraid that if we do not move quickly toward the President's announced long-term goal of no tariffs and that if we continue to pile tariffs on top of tariffs, we will take this economy in exactly the opposite direction and undo much of the good the Republican President and the Republican Congress have already done. What would take us in the right direction is the goal of reciprocity that the President talked about today. That is why, in the meantime, until we shift gears into this long-term goal of no tariffs, no subsidies, no barriers, and take steps toward it, Senator Jones and I have developed this bill to make sure the President has all the facts before he makes a decision on the proposed 25-percent tariff on imported cars and parts. It simply requires the Commerce Department's investigation to be delayed while we get more facts about the impact of these tariffs on the automotive industry. The President is right to focus on China. China steals our intellectual property, and it imposes other trade barriers. But tariffs on steel and aluminum and uncertainty surrounding the negotiation of NAFTA threaten to destroy many more U.S. jobs than they might save. We should remember the lessons of history. Presidents have tried this before. When I first came to the Senate, President George W. Bush imposed steel tariffs. Within a year, he dropped the idea because the tariffs destroyed more jobs in the automotive industry than existed in the steel industry at that time, according to the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition. Let's look at today. Last year, the U.S. steel industry employed about 139,000 Americans, according to the Congressional Research Service. About 162,000 worked in the aluminum industry. That is around 300,000 Americans who work in the steel and aluminum industry. To put this in perspective, the automotive industry employs 20 times that many Americans--more than 7 million, according to the Auto Alliance, and 136,000 of those, as I have said, are Tennesseans. There are only eight aluminum smelting plants operating in the United States that employ Americans. They employ about 4,000. Seven of those are actually producing. One is curtailed. Alcoa, which produces about half the aluminum produced in the United States, doesn't even want the tariffs. It makes me wonder, who does want the tariffs on aluminum? The main reason those smelting plants--one of which is in my hometown and my father worked at for 40 years--have closed has nothing to do with trade. It is because aluminum plants need a lot of cheap electricity to run through the bauxite ore to make aluminum ingots, and they can't buy electricity that cheap in the United States. The 10- percent tariff already imposed on aluminum is not nearly enough to offset the cost of electricity. The reason I have been so outspoken about this is that no state is more likely to be more damaged by tariffs on aluminum and steel and on automobiles and auto parts than Tennessee. In many ways, over the last 40 years, we have become the Nation's No. 1 auto State, with our more than 136,000 Tennesseans working in the automotive industry. There are three big assembly plants--General Motors, Volkswagen, and Nissan--and over 900 auto suppliers in 88 of our 95 counties. As Senator Jones said, 35 years ago, we were the third poorest state and textile plants were moving overseas. Things looked bleak for us. In came the auto industry with better paying jobs, and our family incomes have been going up ever since in almost every county. I don't want to see that hurt. Tennesseans who work in the auto industry would benefit, as they have under NAFTA, from zero tariffs instead of a trade war that piles tariffs on top of tariffs. In conclusion, the President has gotten the world's attention with his tariffs. As a tactic, perhaps he is wise to do that. He had the President of the European Commission in his office today, but what should get more attention and what I hope gets more attention also from the President is the solution he talked about again today. ``If we could have no tariffs and no barriers and no subsidies,'' the President said, ``the United States would be extremely pleased.'' That is the way it should be. Let's move toward that goal as rapidly as we can. Piling tariffs on top of tariffs with no end in sight is a trade war. It hurts American workers. The basis of the President's solution is reciprocity--a word he has used many times--which means when it comes to trade, other countries should do for the United States what we do for them. Taking steps in that direction would be the right way to go. In the meantime, the bill Senator Jones and I have introduced will make certain that President Trump has before him all the facts--in effect, a second opinion--before he makes a decision regarding the proposed 25-percent tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Alabama for his remarks. I come to the floor to discuss bipartisan legislation that he and I, as he said, plan to introduce as soon as next week to encourage the Trump administration to reconsider the dangerous steps it is taking to impose tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts. I use the word ``dangerous'' because nothing has done more during the last 40 years to raise family incomes in Tennessee than the arrival of the auto industry, and nothing could do more damage to those family incomes than the proposed tariffs on imported automobiles and automotive parts, combined with the tariffs on imported steel and aluminum that the administration has already imposed. We have heard the Senator from Alabama talk about his State. In my view, Tennessee is more likely to be hurt than any other State by these tariffs. Let me tell a short story to explain why I would make such a dramatic statement. Forty years ago, I walked 1,000 miles across Tennessee in my campaign for Governor. In Rutherford County, outside Nashville, I spent the night with the Knight family. Mrs. Knight told me that her twin boys were bright but that she was sad because, as she put it, there are no jobs around here. She said: They are smart boys, and they will never get a job here, and I will never see my grandchildren. Forty years ago, there were no auto jobs in Tennessee. We were the third poorest State. Our family incomes were the third lowest. Our low- paying textile jobs were fleeing outside of our country. Unemployment and inflation were high, and prospects were bleak. Then in 1980--just 2 years after that walk, when I was the Governor of Tennessee--Nissan from Japan arrived and came to Rutherford. Then General Motors, with Saturn, came to Spring Hill. Then Volkswagen came to Chattanooga. All had large manufacturing plants. As the American automobile industry moved to the Southeastern United States, more than 900 auto part suppliers spread across 88 of Tennessee's 95 counties. Today, 136,000 Tennesseans--or one-third of our manufacturing workforce--work in those auto plants. Those auto jobs have become the main driver of family incomes, which have now risen to a little above the national average. Our economy is booming, and unemployment is at a record low. Today, Tennessee produces 6.7 percent of all of the cars and trucks produced in the United States. Tennessee exported more than $5.5 billion worth of automobiles and auto parts last year. Tennessee has been the top State in auto manufacturing strength for 5 out of the last 8 years, according to Business Facilities. Let me get back to my little story. Last year, one of those bright twins from Rutherford County--the Knight family--where I spent the night 40 years ago, Randy Knight, retired as the general manager of the Nissan plant, which is the largest and most efficient auto plant in North America. His brother works there, too, and so does one of those grandchildren whom the grandmother thought she would never see. You can see why Tennesseans become very worried when anything threatens the auto industry that has transformed our State. Here is why the proposed tariffs do that. As the Senator from Alabama said, tariffs are taxes. Tariffs are taxes on us, pure and simple. They make what we buy and sell more expensive. The laws of economics usually say that when you make what you buy and sell more expensive, you buy and sell less of it. If we sell fewer automobiles and automotive parts, there will be lower revenues, lower profits, fewer wage increases, and fewer jobs. Since almost every one of the 900 auto part suppliers use steel and aluminum, lower revenues and smaller profits mean fewer wage increases and fewer jobs for the 136,000 Tennesseans who work in the more than 900 auto plants in our State. More expensive cars means fewer people in the United States buy those cars and fewer people overseas buy those cars--the cars we make. Fewer people buying cars and trucks means that 136,000 Tennesseans in America's No. 1 auto State are going to have a lower standard of living than they otherwise would and lower family incomes. Why in the world would our government raise our taxes and destroy our jobs in this way? Well, the government's answer is that tariffs protect jobs in the steel and aluminum industry. It is true that some steel and aluminum jobs might be saved, but in 2003, when President George W. Bush proposed steel tariffs, there were about 10 times as many people working in the steel-using industries as there were in steel-producing industries. Let me say that again. There were more people working in the steel-using industry than there were in the steel-producing industry. President Bush dropped the idea after a year because the tariffs destroyed, as I said, more jobs in other industries, including the automotive industry, than they saved in the steel-producing industry. I know something about the aluminum industry. My dad worked most of his life at Alcoa's Tennessee aluminum smelting plant, which closed a few years ago because electricity was so much cheaper in other parts of the world. You use electricity--lots of it--to smelt aluminum. That is why those plants came to East Tennessee more than a century ago. But electric prices in the United States gradually rose over that century, and are still cheaper in other parts of the world. So today there are only eight smelting plants left in the United States. Seven of them are still in operation. Alcoa operates four and makes 46 percent--nearly half--of all of the aluminum produced in the United States. Alcoa opposes the aluminum tariffs because it also operates smelting plants in Canada and other countries that export aluminum to the United States. The bottom line is this: The largest U.S. producer of aluminum, Alcoa, doesn't want the aluminum tariffs. The thousands of auto plants and other plants that use aluminum don't want the aluminum tariffs. So who is asking for the aluminum tariffs? A second reason justifying tariffs is that other countries may have been unfair to the United States. There may be examples of that, but when did it become a good idea to solve your own problem by shooting yourself in both feet at once? It is hard to see how raising our taxes and destroying our jobs is a smart solution to unfair trade practices. Then there is the question of whether tariffs help autoworkers. Raising taxes and prices and selling fewer cars wouldn't seem to help the American autoworker. Will it cause foreign companies to build more cars in the United States? Well, that is already happening. The foreign manufacturers have been doing exactly what we asked them to do. They have moved here. They produce cars and trucks here. They export many of those cars and trucks and auto parts to other countries. Today, about half the cars being built in America are being built by the so-called foreign manufacturers. Nissan's plant in Rutherford County employs 8,000 Tennesseans and is the largest and most efficient auto plant in North America. I was with President Trump last year when he spoke in Michigan about all the autoworker jobs leaving the Midwest. Since 1994, 3.6 million of those jobs have left the Midwest, but they didn't go overseas; they moved to Tennessee and Alabama and other parts of the Southeastern United States, which gained 3.6 million auto jobs during the same period. Those new auto plants are in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Texas. Those are all States where the President is widely admired and States that he carried heavily in his election effort. Those plants moved primarily to the Southeast because our part of the country offered right-to-work laws and an environment that allowed companies to make quality cars at a lower cost and sell them competitively here in the United States and around the world. In fact, my own view is that the movement of the American auto industry to the Southeast saved the American auto industry because where it was 25, 30, or 40 years ago was stuck in the Midwest in an oligopoly where the United Automobile Workers and three big companies were producing big, expensive cars, and the little foreign cars were coming in and eating their lunch in the marketplace. So now we have strong and effective American auto plants in the Midwestern United States and in the Southeastern United States, and half of them are made by so-called foreign manufacturers. I agree with President Trump on many things--taxes, judges, regulations, the economy, Keystone Pipeline, and others. He has helped create today's booming economy and low unemployment. I give him credit for helping to do that, but these tariffs take us in exactly the opposite direction. These tariffs are dangerous. These tariffs are going to cost us jobs. These tariffs are going to lower our family incomes. These tariffs are going to undo much of the good the President and this Congress have done during the last year and a half to create this booming economy. I respectfully suggest that the President reconsider his trade policy, drop the tariffs as a tool for implementing his objectives, and find other, more effective means to persuade other countries to do for us what we do for them. I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today the Senate is finally voting to confirm James Blew, who has been nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education. He is well-qualified to lead that office. For 20 years, in various roles, he has advocated for improving educational opportunities by overseeing grants to low-income, high-risk schools. He has a M.B.A. from Yale University. He will be in charge of helping to manage the Department's budget and ensure that programs are working as intended. Mr. Blew's sin with some of my friends on the other side is that he is in favor of giving low-income children a choice of a better school and in favor of public charter schools, which gives teachers more freedom to teach and parents more freedom to choose the school for their child. No one should be surprised that a Republican president would nominate such an Assistant Secretary of Education. Every Republican president has nominated assistant secretaries of education and secretaries of education--I was one of them--who support giving low-income children more choices of good schools--the same choices that wealthier children have--such as public charter schools. As far as public charter schools go, every Democratic president since 1990, when the first charter schools were formed, has supported public charter schools. Mr. Blew did not deserve to be subjected to the unreasonable delay and obstruction that the Democrats have given to his nomination. He was nominated on September 28, 2017, 292 days ago. We held a hearing on November 15, 2017, 244 days ago. Going back to the Clinton administration, there had been no hearings for this position, but I held one anyway, as chairman of the committee, as a courtesy to Democrats. Then, Democrats forced Mr. Blew's nomination to be returned to the President at the end of the congressional session last year. Let's see how that compares to how President Obama's first Assistant Secretary for the same job was treated. Carmel Martin was nominated on March 18, 2009, and was confirmed by voice vote without a hearing on May 1, 2009, 44 days later. It is one thing to vote against a presidential nominee. That is appropriate. Any of us can do that. I think it is wrong to always vote against a presidential nominee just because you disagree with that nominee's point of view. Why would you not expect a Republican president to nominate an assistant secretary who favors giving poor children choices of good schools and supports public charter schools that were invented by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota and were supported by every Democratic president since 1990? So this unreasonable delay of a well-qualified Assistant Secretary is not good for the Senate, not good for the country, and not good for children who need that sort of leadership. I support and urge my colleagues to vote for Mr. Blew. I yield floor.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, yesterday the Senate voted to confirm Scott Stump, who was nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary for Career, Technical, and Adult Education at the Department of Education. Mr. Stump will be in charge of matters related to career, technical, and adult education at the high school and postsecondary levels. Stump is well-qualified for this role. He spent nearly 14 years at the Colorado Community College System as assistant provost for career and technical education, where he was in charge of directing the system's career and technical education programs and guiding implementation of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. He is also a past president of the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, now called Advance CTE. He is supported by the Association for Career and Technical Education and Advance CTE. He was approved by the HELP Committee on June 26, 2018, by voice vote. Mr. Stump will be key in carrying out the Perkins Act reauthorization, which I expect Congress to complete its work on this year. The reauthorization, which aligns Federal dollars more closely with the needs of employers and employees and gives States more flexibility in spending Federal dollars, was passed out of the HELP Committee unanimously on June 26, 2018. The House of Representatives passed its reauthorization on June 22, 2017. I look forward to working with Mr. Stump as he takes on this role at the Department of Education, and I urge my colleagues to support him as well.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in the next few minutes, the Senate will be taking the next steps on an appropriations process that is being conducted the way an appropriations process is supposed to be conducted. Boy Scouts shouldn't get a merit badge for telling the truth, and Senators shouldn't get a pat on the back for conducting an appropriations process the way it is supposed to be conducted. It is worth noting that we are doing it, since it has been a long time since we have done it. The right way means we are moving ahead on three bills: Energy and Water, legislative affairs, and Military Construction. The right way means we have had hearings on all of these bills. We have consulted with Senators. I know that in our Energy and Water bill, Senator Feinstein and I heard from 83 different Senators and tried to respond to them in our bill. We marked up the bills unanimously in most cases. What was missing was allowing the other 70 Senators to participate on the floor. We did that this time; 40 amendments, 7 rollcall votes. We got off the floor without a cloture vote; that is, a motion to cut off debate. We are doing it the way it is supposed to be done. That was done by showing something that needs to be shown more in the Senate-- restraint. Restraint means that when you have a lot of freedom, it doesn't mean you exercise all of your freedoms all at once because nothing will happen. We avoided controversial riders. We even had 20 Republican Senators vote to table something we agree with, which is the waters of the United States provision, because we thought this was not the appropriate bill for it. Now we are moving to motions to instruct, which are nonbinding resolutions. It is important, though, because they give the Senate a chance to say what Senators want to say. That is why we are here. One of those issues has to do with tariffs. The administration has imposed tariffs on aluminum and steel, and now other products, provoking a response of tariffs on soybeans and other products grown and manufactured in our country. In general, these tariffs are a big mistake. Using national security as an excuse to impose them is an even bigger mistake. I have urged President Trump instead to focus on reciprocity; tell other countries to do for our country what we do for you. Imposing tariffs as a way of achieving that is like shooting ourselves in both feet as a way of solving our problem. Tariffs are taxes. They raise the price of what we buy and sell. Tariffs reduce revenues, profits, wages, and jobs. U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel hurt 136,000 Tennesseans who work in more than 900 auto plants in 88 of our 95 counties; that is, one- third of our manufacturing jobs. Retaliatory tariffs hurt Tennessee soybean farmers by lowering prices and making markets disappear. Our goal should be to persuade our trading partners to do for us what we do for them. Shooting ourselves in both feet at once is not a good way to do that. There are better ways to achieve the goal. This doesn't just hurt auto parts workers in Tennessee. I was in Springfield, TN, the other day. They had been excited about an expansion of an Electrolux plant, a $250 million expansion for that community. Electrolux canceled it when word of the steel tariffs came, even though Electrolux, which makes washing machines, buys all of their steel in the United States. Tariffs on imported steel raise the price of steel sold in United States. In Chestnut Hill, Bush Brothers cans about one-third of all beans canned in the United States. You wouldn't think that is such a big deal, but it involves a lot of people and a lot of beans. They say that 8\1/2\ percent of their revenues will go down as a result of the tin- plated steel that is used for their cans. Not enough is produced in the United States. Then, we have Bridgestone and Hankook. They make tires in Tennessee. They are big companies. They use steel wire in every tire, and none of it is produced in the United States. The price goes up. For 40 years, I worked to bring the auto industry to Tennessee. It has done more than anything that has happened to raise our standard of living, to raise families' incomes. Tariffs will lower our standard of living. They will hurt our State more than almost any other State. As respectfully and as effectively as I can, I have said to the President: Mr. President, we agree on taxes. We agree on regulations. We agree on judges. We are proud of having the best economy in 18 years, the lowest employment rate that anyone can remember. But these tariffs are a big mistake. They will take us in the wrong direction. I have not been successful in talking with the President about this, but I intend to keep trying. There are other, better ways to persuade our trading partners to do for us what we do for them instead of shooting ourselves in both feet at once, which is what we do when we impose these tariffs. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, U.S. Senators shouldn't get an award for restoring the appropriations process any more than Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts should get a merit badge for telling the truth because that is what we are supposed to do, but the fact is, last week and tonight we have taken an appropriations process, which has been incomplete and broken for the last several years, and we have done what we are supposed to do. Sometimes the U.S. Senate has been like joining the Grand Ole Opry and not being allowed to sing. Senator McConnell said before he became majority leader in 2015 that his goal was to follow the example of the Senate majority leader, Mike Mansfield, who was the leader when Mitch McConnell was a young legislative intern. Mitch McConnell said he wanted to open up the Senate, and for quite a while, that turned out to be the case. As Senator McConnell has said: In the last year of the Democratic majority in 2014, there were only 15 rollcall votes on amendments the entire year. In the first year of the Republican majority--that is 2015--there were over 200. One example from the committee of which I chair--the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee--was the bill fixing No Child Left Behind. Working with Senator Murray, on the floor we considered 81 amendments. We had rollcall votes on 24, and we adopted 11. We had voice votes to accept 28, and we agreed to 27 amendments by unanimous consent. That was the bill to fix No Child Left Behind. Another example is the Energy and Water appropriations bill we considered 2 years ago. Working with Senator Feinstein of California, the Senate voted on 21 amendments and adopted 14. This year, we have fallen back into our bad habits with few amendment votes, but over this past week, we took an important step toward restoring the practice of considering appropriations bills under regular order. Just on the Energy and Water appropriations bill--one of the three we will be voting on tonight--we have worked together in a fair and bipartisan manner to get a result. We held three hearings, a subcommittee markup, a full committee markup. Eighty-three Senators made suggestions during the committee process--almost all of which we tried to accommodate in one way or another. Then, in committee, seven amendments were included in the managers' package, plus we had two rollcall votes and adopted one amendment. Then, on the floor, the Energy and Water appropriations bill has been considered with Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies appropriations bill and the Legislative Branch appropriations bill. For this package of bills, we adopted 7 amendments by rollcall and another 34 by unanimous consent. That adds up to what one might call restoring the practice of regular order for appropriations from start to finish. The committee process has almost always been done. The part that has often been missing was the last part, the floor consideration. That is what is different about this year. I thank Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer--the two leaders-- working with Senator Shelby and Senator Leahy--the chairman and ranking member--for creating an environment in which we can get this done. It wouldn't have happened if they had not done that. I also thank Senator Boozman, Senator Daines, Senator Feinstein, Senator Murphy, as well as Senator Schatz. We all worked together last week and got a result. As I said at the beginning, Senators shouldn't get a pat on the back for doing what we are supposed to do any more than Boy Scouts should get a merit badge for telling the truth, but we have done what we are supposed to do. It is an encouraging sign, and I hope it sets a precedent. For several years now, bipartisan majorities in Congress have appropriated record levels of taxpayer dollars for government-sponsored research, science, and technology. This hasn't always been noticed. President Trump has signed two of these appropriation bills, and I want to suggest that the President include government-sponsored research, science, and technology as part of his ``America First'' agenda. A principal reason the United States produces 24 percent of all the money in the world for just 5 percent of the people is the extraordinary concentration of brain power in the United States, supported by Federal dollars through our National Institutes of Health, our National Laboratories, the National Science Foundation, and other agencies. Senator Gardner of Colorado dropped by my office the other day, and he said this: I was flying over the Middle East, and I looked down, and there were cars everywhere. I thought, well, Henry Ford invented the assembly line. Then it got to be dark, and there were lights everywhere, and I thought, well, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. We were flying at 30,000 feet, and I thought, well, the Wright brothers invented the airplane. They are all Americans. I got to thinking, of course, that is not all. We have invented the internet, polio vaccine, the personal computer, nuclear power. You could make a long list. It is hard to think of any major technological invention since World War II that didn't have some support from government-sponsored research. So I would like to tell President Trump and the Office of Management and Budget that science, research, innovation, and technology is what helped to make America first and that he include that in his America First agenda. The funding in this bill is a good first step toward doing that. It prioritizes Federal spending to keep America first in energy research, and it increases funding to build the fastest supercomputers in the world, and develop the next generation of supercomputers. Two weeks ago, Energy Secretary Rick Perry traveled to Oak Ridge, where he announced that the United States will regain the No. 1 position in supercomputing in the world. We compete for that every year with China and Japan. To stay ahead of China and Japan and other countries--those in Europe, for example--that are emphasizing science and technology and research costs money, but it is important to note that we have been able to do that with bipartisan majorities over the last several years--not by overspending. We did it by setting priorities. The record funding that is part of this bipartisan budget agreement is a part of the 30 percent of the spending in the Federal budget that has been going up at about the rate of inflation for the last 10 years, and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it will go up a little bit more than the rate of inflation for the next 10 years. So our record funding is achieved by setting priorities within budget limits. It is not the part of the Federal budget that is breaking the bank. That is the entitlement part, not the National Laboratories, not the national defense, not the National Institutes of Health, and not the national parks. They are within the part of the budget that is under control. Funding in this bill supports several important agencies, including the U.S. Department of Energy, the Corps of Engineers, the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Regional Commissions, including the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Delta Regional Authority. For the fourth consecutive year, as I was saying, we have included record funding levels in regular appropriations bills for the following activities: The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. This is the outfit that funds our 17 National Laboratories--our secret weapon. No other country in the world has National Laboratories like we do. The Office of Science is the Nation's largest supporter of research in the physical sciences. It is funded at $6.65 billion, a new record level of funding. The Office of Science provides funding for the laboratories, including the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Funding for the Office of Science would increase by 6 percent next year if this legislation becomes law. Or let's take supercomputing. I mentioned that Secretary Perry went to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory last week. This bill provides a total of $1.68 billion for high-performance computing, including $980 million within the Office of Science and $703 million within the National Nuclear Security Administration. This amount includes $677 million to deliver at least one exascale machine in 2021 to reassert U.S. leadership in this critical area. This funding has been provided, on a bipartisan basis, for 10 years. I remember Senator Bingaman of New Mexico encouraging me to go to Japan to see their supercomputer when Japan was No. 1 in the world. Because of that after 10 years of effort and support from Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump, when they signed the bill, America is now No. 1 in supercomputing. Or take an agency we call ARPA-E. It is funded at $375 million, record funding for a regular appropriations bill. ARPA-E, which is sort of a funny name, has a cousin with a funny name that is a little better known, named DARPA. DARPA is in the Department of Defense. Out of it has come wondrous new technologies from stealth to the internet, for example. So, 10 years ago, Congress decided to make an energy equivalent of DARPA, and we fund it every year to invest in high-impact energy technologies and quickly get these technologies out into the private sector. Another important part of this bill is the focus on efforts to clean up hazardous materials on Cold War-era sites. It provides $7.2 billion to support environmental cleanup, which is $581 million above the President's budget request. Still another important part of this bill is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which touches the lives of almost all Americans. Based upon the number of appropriations requests we get each year, the Corps of Engineers is the Federal Government's most popular agency. The Corps maintains our inland waterways. It deepens and keeps our ports open. It looks after many of our recreational waters and lands. It manages the river levels to prevent flooding. And its dams provide emission-free, renewable hydroelectric energy. I can recall when I was a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, after the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers flooded, a whole room full of Senators showed up to ask for more money for their States to deal with what was wrong and to make things right. There is a real interest in what the Corps does. The bill restores $2.142 billion that was cut by the President's budget request, bringing the Corps' budget up to $6.9 billion--a new record level of funding in a regular appropriations bill. For the fifth consecutive year, the bill makes full use of the Inland Waterways Trust Fund revenues for water infrastructure projects. What that means is we take the tax money we collect from people who use the locks, and we spend it all on what we are supposed to spend it for, which is making the locks better. The bill also provides funding that exceeds the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund spending targets established by the Water Resources Development Act in 2014. This is the fifth consecutive year that the bill has met or exceeded that target, which is necessary to adequately fund our Nation's harbors, including the ones in Mobile, in Savannah, in Long Beach, and many others across the country. There is $14.8 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, including $1.9 billion for six life extension programs, which fix or replace components of weapons systems to make sure they are safe and reliable. We fund the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which oversees our 99 nuclear reactors. Nuclear power provides 20 percent of our electricity and more than half of our carbon-free electricity. We include funding to ensure that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is prepared to review applications for new reactors, particularly small reactors, advanced reactors, and to extend the licenses of our existing reactors when it is safe to do so. The bill also provides $47 million for research and development for the Department of Energy to support existing reactors, $30 million for the Center for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, and $30 million for the transformational challenge reactor. The legislation also includes a pilot program that Senator Feinstein especially has pushed, and I have joined her, to consolidate nuclear waste and move it away from the sites where they now are. Funding is also there to take the first steps toward being able to store nuclear waste in private facilities. In conclusion, it is important that the American people know that the Republican majority in Congress has worked with Democrats to provide record levels of funding for science, research, and technology. We want to keep America first on both sides of the aisle, and this bipartisan support is not limited to the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee. It is true in our other subcommittees as well. The National Science Foundation has increased by $200 million this year and another $300 million for next year. It gives 11,000 grants to universities and institutions around the country. And, perhaps most important, in fiscal year 2018, for the third straight year, the subcommittee chaired by Senator Blunt and Senator Murray provided increased funding for the National Institutes of Health and biomedical research--$2 billion additional dollars in the first year, $2 billion the second year, and $2 billion the third year, which is in addition to the money--nearly $5 billion--in the 21st Century Cures Act that focuses on the Precision Medicine Initiative and the Cancer Moonshot, among other things. Senator Blunt says that over 3 years, that is a 23-percent increase. So I would say two things to those who haven't noticed this quiet development. No. 1: Congress is doing what it is supposed to do. We are not asking for an award any more than the Boy Scouts get a merit badge for telling the truth, but we are doing what we are supposed to do on appropriations from start to finish on these three bills. No. 2: We are funding science and research and technology at record levels--record levels. It is important to keep America competitive in the world. I thank our staffs who have worked together on this bill. On my staff are Tyler Owens, Adam DeMella, Meyer Seligman, Jen Armstrong, Molly Marsh, and Rachel Littleton. On Senator Feinstein's staff are Doug Clapp, Chris Hanson, and Samantha Nelson. I look forward to continuing with the regular order and going to conference with the House of Representatives. I urge my colleagues to vote in support of this legislation. I thank Senator Leahy and Senator Schatz, who are both on the floor, as well as Senator Schumer, Senator McConnell, and the other Senators who have spoken today for creating an environment that allows us to succeed. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to thank Senators on both sides of the aisle and staff members for working together to have a good process this week on our first appropriations bills. We have three of them that we made progress on. We had six recorded votes in the last couple of days. We have about 20 other amendments-- most of them bipartisan--which we believe we could adopt by a voice vote, but we have one or two recorded votes that we are going to need to take this afternoon unless we have agreements otherwise. Amendment No. 2983 to Amendment No. 2910 Mr. President, based on that, I ask unanimous consent to call up the Bennet-Gardner amendment No. 2983. I further ask consent that at 2 p.m., the Senate vote in relation to the Bennet amendment, and that no second-degree amendments be in order to the amendment prior to the vote.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. ALEXANDER. What that means in plain English is that we will have a vote at 2 p.m. If we secure agreement, we could quickly wrap up this afternoon. If we don't, we will have further votes this afternoon. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2 minutes to inform Senators where we are.